Now I know how the evolutionists feel when they debate the creationists.
You are working with old (or scant) facts. There is now solid evidence that certain limbic system activity (such as that in epileptics) produces verifiable and repeatable perception of God, i.e., a metaphysical Being considered by its perceivers to be an ineffible and supreme Consciousness. I will provide the link one last time.
Note: I read the book on the recommendation of a very respected atheist who posts here regularly, Phil or pldennison. Please don’t allow prejudice against me, as a theist, to keep you from reading it.
The book is Phantoms in the Brain. In particular, there is a chapter pertinent to this discussion called “God and the Limbic System”. If you order it today, you can get it overnight.
Perhaps then our discussions can move on in the context of science that is not twenty years old.
Ramachandran’s work has demonstrated no such thing. Rather than rehash our entire past discusison of this allow me to simply note that there are multiple ways to interpret Ramachandran’s results and they do not all require the existence of a metaphysical Being.
To which Lib made the intentionally offensive (to a skeptic) reply:
Lib, I’ve seen you respond in kind to rude or offensive posters, but I fail to understand why you took this attitude with bantmof, who appears to have posted politely, if light-heartedly.
What a strange reply you gave him! Particularly when you offered Ramachandran’s observations in rebuttal to bantmof’s quite correct statement that “colors” have evidence to show their existence, while the idea of “God” does not.
Can you agree that the fact that certain brain activity associated with neural disorders causes some people to perceive a supreme consciousness is no more “solid evidence” for the existence of God than hypnagogic sleep paralysis is solid evidence for evil dwarves?
I have no opinion on that one either way, but I don’t think it has much to do with my point. Even if the perception of something is real, the thing being percieved may or may not be. Ramawhatzisname’s question talked about arguing whether things were real, which I took to mean objectively real, not just a creation of one’s mind.
I found your comment about arguing with creationists ironic, considering that I think I’m the one arguing on the side of evidence and rational analysis here. But anyway, I have to bow out of this discussion now for lack of time. It’s been fun. No ill will was intended, I hope you know.
I don’t expect to win you over, since you have made up your mind. However, if I had made a statement like, “one has evidence behind it, and one does not”, I would expect you might insist that I back it up.
Both “color” and “God” are perceived by the human brain. Color and frequency are not the same, as I explained in some detail. The same color can have many and various hues and intensities (all different frequencies).
Besides, that was not Ramachandran’s argument. His argument was that just because there are some beings who do not perceive color, you cannot say that color does not exist, just as you cannot say that God does not exist simply because there are some beings who do not perceive Him.
There has been no attempt to assail that argument, but only the straw man argument about frequencies. Ramachandran was talking about perception. The arguments made against him here do not deal with that.
Naturally, no one in the gang assailing me will point out the intentional disrespect and clownish ignorance in, not one, but repeated disparagements of one of the world’s most accomplished and respected neurologists — in a discussion about neurology, no less — with phrases like “Ramawhatzisname” and “someone called Ramachandran”.
Would a Creationist bolster his argument against evolution if he made references to “Darthingamajig” or “someone called Darwin”? No.
And before the gang of three accuses me of appeal to authority, I offered not his name, but his work for you to review. And until you review it, not from third party sources, but from his own hand, I suggest you stand on tenuous ground.
An appeal to authority, when the authority really is an authority in the appropriate subject (neurology in this case), is not a fallacy.
This is from one of your atheist web-sites:
[/quote]
Argumentum ad verecundiam
The Appeal to Authority uses admiration of a famous person to try and win support for an assertion. For example:
“Isaac Newton was a genius and he believed in God.”
This line of argument isn’t always completely bogus; for example, it may be relevant to refer to a widely-regarded authority in a particular field, if you’re discussing that subject. For example, we can distinguish quite clearly between:
“Hawking has concluded that black holes give off radiation”
and
“Penrose has concluded that it is impossible to build an intelligent computer”
Hawking is a physicist, and so we can reasonably expect his opinions on black hole radiation to be informed. Penrose is a mathematician, so it is questionable whether he is well-qualified to speak on the subject of machine intelligence.
Lib. You’re asking him to provide examples for the lack of evidence for someone else’s assertion?
You’re in the wrong argument. The neurology thread is over here. This thread questions the falsifiability of the concept of God. The consensus seems to be that “No, God is not falsifiable.”
In any case, we’re just pointing out that the argument that “just because there are some beings who do not perceive color, you cannot say that color does not exist, just as you cannot say that God does not exist simply because there are some beings who do not perceive Him” is pointless, because colors can be measured and proven whereas God cannot be. (Besides, who’s been trying to disprove the existence of God in this thread??)
Valid points, Xeno. There is some overlap here. But one more time I will say color most decidedly cannot be proven — only frequencies can be proven. Both the perception of color and the perception of God, however, have been shown to be equally demonstrable and repeatable — by those with the capacity to perceive them.
Well, I think its kinda like this: at one time, things like the sun rising in the morning and lightning were all attributed to supernatural causes like a goose laying a golden egg in the sky and Thor smashing his hammer about. As our knowledge of the world around us increased, we replaced our superstitions with scientific fact (i.e., we now have more rational explanations for sunrises and lightning). While we may never be able to disprove God 100%, I am sure our ever increasing knowledge of physics and science will continue to chip away at the notion of a God, and eventually mankind will abandon the idea all together, and find that it can get along quite well without it.
Time for that to cycle again, huh? Oh well, welcome, Maxwell Edison.
Here’s the nutshell synopsis: You’re right that man has grown and is more enlightened now than he used to be. Included in that maturity is the apprehension of God, not as an epistemology to explain natural events, but as a metaphysical Being that renders them meaningful.
Replace superstitions with scientific fact? Do you mean the way Aristotle Was replaced by Newton who was replaced by Einstein who it now seems was wrong about the speed of light remaining constant?
(Yes, I’m being silly, no one has to try and argue this point with me.)
There’s a fundamental flaw in your argument. Your determining God’s existence, or non existence, based upon circular causality. Basically what you’re saying is that God’s existence is based upon the events people attribute to him.
Your argument requires that believers hold something like this to be true:
“Why does lighting occur?”
“Because God makes it happen.”
“How do we know God exists?”
“Because lighting occurs.”
You’re assuming that if we attribute the causality of events to phenomena other than God, then God will no longer have basis for existence.
The attributation of events to a god does not lead to an experience of such a being.
I should also note, that even if we have been advancing in our scientific knowledge (I’m not saying that we haven’t) we haven’t done a very good job of showing how true it’s conclusions are considering that the vast amount of people actually do believe in some sort of God, not to mention UFO’s, herbal remedies, new age tricks, and all sorts of other “superstitious” ideas.
Either science’s claims to the truth aren’t as convincing as they appear to be, or the scientific community hasn’t done a very good job of explaining science’s claims.
No one disagrees with your first sentence here, Lib. But color isn’t perceived the same way God is perceived. For color, perception is all there is—it doesn’t have an existence of its own. Unlike God, color exists entirely within the nervous systems of animals that can perceive it. To be consistent, your second sentence should read, “Both the perception of frequency and the perception of God, however, have been shown to be equally demonstrable and repeatable — by those with the capacity to perceive them.”
In a sense, color doesn’t exist at all. It is merely a convenient way for the CNS to organize the perception of frequency. If an asteroid pounded the earth tomorrow, wiping out all vertebrate life, color would cease to exist. But Ramachandran is surely not making a similar argument for God. bantmof was simply pointing out that we can verify the objective reality behind color (frequency), whereas we cannot verify the reality behind the perception of God. Naturally, that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist, just that the analogy is imperfect.
Hmmm…Dogmatic religion claims to have The Truth from revelation.
Science, as advocated by a particular group of atheists, claims to have discovered The Truth.
Those of us who find our religions consist in a quest for a better knowledge of God, and those for whom science is a method and not a belief system, see the Truth as the limit towards which we journey, coming closer as we learn more and never quite achieving our goal, which is asymptotic but approachable. By the eradication of superstition and the growth in knowledge, both are furthered.
Yes, Lib, you did. You said it in response to the following: The point is, he can verify that they are real (even without perceiving them), and also verify that my perception of them is based on an objectively real phenomenon.
To say now that your point was merely about perception is either a disingenuous rhetorical tactic or an admission that bantmof’s critique of the color analogy is apt.
I agree. I also do not believe anyone here has argued that God cannot exist because some people do not preceive him.
The point about frequencies is not a straw man. They deal with the question, “is the perception based upon a verifiable objective reality.” If that point is unimportant to your position, then simply saying so would remove the issue from contention.
If you meant to include me in this group, then I am obliged to say that I do not believe I have assailed you. I have disagreed with some of your reasoning.
Regardless of whether you meant to tar me with that brush, you might want to allow more than a few hours to elapse for chastising people for a lack of action. Especially when the hours are between 1 and 5 AM.
For the record, I agree with you that making fun of a man’s name is derisive and is out of place in a civilized debate.
Polycarp
This is almost accurate. It would be more accurate to say, “Some atheists claim science has discovered The Truth.”
And it would be even more accurate to say, “Some people, both theists and atheists, claim that science has discoverd The Truth.”
No. This is not correct. It would be correct to say: Both the perception “color” and the perception “God” have been shown to be equally demonstrable and repeatable — by those with the capacity to perceive them.
It is also correct to say: The perception of frequency has been shown to be demonstrable and repeatable — by those with the capacity to perceive frequencies.
Lib:
Nobody has been arguing aginst Ramachandran’s “point”. They have been arguing that his simile is not apt. They are correct.
It is apt toward the point that he was making; namely, that you cannot use his experiments as an argument to disprove the existence of God any more than you could use experiments with color blind animals to disprove the existence of color.
That was his point, and his metaphor was apt to it.
A metaphor is apt if the relationship between the elements is significantly similar for the context of the discussion. In this case, the fact that we have an objectively verifiable, manipulable and testable referent for the perception “color” while we do not have one for the perception “God” makes the metaphor faulty.
It does not, of course, make Ramachandran’s point invalid. He could have written: “You cannot use [my] experiments to disprove the existence of God any more than you can use experiments with cameras to disprove the existence of hallucinations.” That metaphor would have been flawed, too.
Replace superstitions with scientific fact? Do you mean the way Aristotle Was replaced by Newton who was replaced by Einstein who it now seems was wrong about the speed of light remaining constant?
(Yes, I’m being silly, no one has to try and argue this point with me.)
Sure, as you gain knowledge you have to realize that ideas you held previously were incorrect, and you must be willing to accept new facts (i.e., reject Newtonian physics in favor of relativity). The picture is always bigger than it appears to be, and if they prove Einstein wrong, cool. You have to accept the new truth and move on. But if mankind ever discovers the truth of the universe, somehow I doubt it will all boil down to an all-powerful being and angels and such. But who knows? If I saw some New Testament dragon and fire and locust shit going down, I’d definitely change my mind. But until then, that’s really just too far out to even consider.