From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org] Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 9:32 AM To: alt.atheism.moderated Subject: Re: The psychology of Atheism Jim Humphries wrote > > > 1. On Consistency > > > --------------------- > > > > > It is not inconsistent > > > > > with the known laws of nature to hold that it is possible > > > > > that there is life after death. > > > > > > > > I didn't say life after death > > > > is not "possible". I said it is "inconsistent with the > > > > known laws of nature". Do you dispute this? > > > > > > > Very informally an inconsistent set of propositions is a > > > set of propositions that cannot all be true together. > > > > I'm familiar with the logical sense of 'consistency'. Are > > you familiar with the empirical sense of 'consistency'? > > It means "being in agreement with; coherent". > > > [..] It certainly is not an accepted definition of > empirical consistency. It's "accepted" by Websters: "having agreement with [..] something else; accordant; compatible". Again: do you claim that life after death is in agreement with, or coheres with, or is indicated by, or is supported by, or is compatible with, or is empirically consistent with, the known laws of nature? > > [life after death is] > > at odds with what science tells us about the necessary > > and sufficient conditions for such mental activity. > > Do you dispute this? > > > Science doesn't say anything about whether there is life > after death- that is not a matter accessible to scientific > investigation. There are of course claims that can be made about life after death that are not empirically verifiable or falsifiable, and thus are not subject to scientific investigation. Such claims are by definition meaningless, and their existence does not change the fact that science tells us that the only mechanisms known to enable consciousness are not operant after death. > If you dispute this, please state the scientific > theory which shows that there is/is not life after death. The only mechanisms known to enable consciousness are not operant after death. > Of course some scientists may ( or may not) express > a preference for a naturalistic outlook - but they > are just expressing a personal metaphysics, not a finding > of science, or something dictated by science. I never said that naturalism is "a finding of science". I said that life after death is at odds with what science tells us are the necessary and sufficient conditions for life and consciousness. I challenge you to assert the negation of this statement. > > > 3. On Parsimony > > > ------------------ > > > > > And it is debateable whether psychological explanations > > > > > - where there are such-are more parsimonious. anyway. > > > > > > > > Unless you're willing to say that all such religious > > > > feelings are actual experiences of the divine, then you > > > > have to posit both divine *and* psychological > > > > explanations. I need only posit the latter. QED. > > > > > > > The most parsimonious explanation is > > > not necessarily the 'correct' one. > > > > I didn't say it was. I said that, ceteris paribus, the > > most parsimonious explanation must be provisionally > > considered true. > > > I have already adressed this: ceteris paribus conditions > do not obtain in the case of theism v naturalism [..] And I've already demolished that point elsewhere. What you here blatantly do NOT address is my point that Unless you're willing to say that all such religious feelings are actual experiences of the divine, then you have to posit both divine *and* psychological explanations. I need only posit the latter. Do you or do you not posit both divine *and* psychological explanations? > Ockham's razor does *not* say that the simpler/est > explanation will be true, or should be considered to be such. It should and is. I note below your failure to provide a single counter-example to this principle. > > > 4. On Religious Experiences > > > -------------------------------- > > > you are not proposing a single explanation but a whole set > > > of different psychological explanations. > > > > You are proposing the same set, plus your extra theological > > explanation. > > > Not at all- I am not suggesting that religious experiences > must invariably be explained in terms of , say, > mental illness. I didn't say you were. I simply challenged you to say which member of my set of psychological explanations is never operant. You have failed to identify a single one. Therefore, you are saying that the same set of explanations is operant (though of course not all apply to every instance), plus your extra theological explanation. > > I challenge you to quote this entire argument and then refute it: > > 1. You have not identified a religious experience or > > class thereof as being any less naturalistically explicable > > than the others. > > > Its quite redundant for you to suppose that if it is possible > to propose a naturalistic explanation, that that must > be preferred to the theistic account I do not suppose that. Some naturalistic explanations are quite obviously not to be preferred, for example the idea that every miracle is simply a vast array of naturally coincident quantum fluctuations. What I *do* suppose is that naturalistic explanations of the psychological variety that I've listed are indeed to be preferred over theistic accounts, because they are simpler. > there is no reason why a deity should not operate through > natural processes. And there is no reason not to dispense with belief in any such deity if it adds nothing to the existing naturalistic explanation. > But note that if you rule out > theism from the start you are simply begging the question! I do not rule theism out, and just gave an example of where theism would be a preferred explanation. I've previously given detailed hypothetical examples of phenomena that would be plausibly supernatural/divine. I note that you declined to try to refute my demonstration that: You have given us no reason not to think that all religious experiences are naturalistically explicable and equally so. > [..] I note that you deleted rather than answer this question: > I have theological reasons for doubting the veracity > of such reports [of ghosts] If you get to use your theology to discount ghost-reports, why don't we get to use our metaphysics (i.e. naturalism) to discount religious experiences? > > [4.5 The Shyness Argument] > > [------------------------] > [..] I see you deleted this challenge without response: do you dispute that the presumably recent vintage of this argument shows that theists have lost much of their confidence in their position since roughly a millenium ago? > very plainly the events decribed in NT show that > many people did *not* accept that Christ was God > ( many Roman's for example - and even apostles > expressed doubts). Which NT miracle witness ended up not accepting that Christ was God? > Hence there is no warrant > for saying that belief was imposed. Either first-hand witness of miracles is an "imposition" of belief, or it is a non-imposing level of evidence whose denial to the rest of us is immoral (given the punishment for non-belief). > Thuis your 'refutation' is disposed of. On the contrary, you did not even respond to the following: you must here admit that no philosophical "proof" of God's existence can be convincing, as such a proof would "compel belief". Can you elaborate on the difference between "guidance", "credible evidence", and "compelling evidence"? Do you simply define "genuine" as only those "efforts" that result in coversion to theism, or do you have a non-question-begging definition of it? > > > 5. On the Ontological Argument > > > ----------------------------------- > > maybe your design argument > > consists of your disposable Jun 23 remark about "dances, > > computer programs, paintings etc". The fact remains that when > > I ask you about design, you talk cosmology and ontology. > > Thus, your position in an argument about design reduces to > > cosmological and ontological arguments. > > > I think this is a rather sloppy use of language [..] I'll leave it up to our readers to decide for themselves whether my use of 'reduces' here has been "sloppy" or not. I note that you do not dispute my conclusion above. > I do not recall your presenting > any counter -argument against the version of > the design argument which I presented. Your Jun 23 remark warrants no counter-argument. Your cosmological argument from designed initial conditions I have rebutted elsewhere. > > I here repeat for a third time my invitation to talk design: > > Do you admit that, aside from the > > need for a first cause for the initial boundary > > conditions, all the apparent design > > in the universe can be explained without an intelligent > > designer? If not, please identify the relevant apparent > > design. > > > In fact if you look at the original argument, you > will see that I have answered this question > already. Then please cut and paste your "answer". My search of the thread only produced your Jun 23 remark about "dances, computer programs, paintings etc". Is this your "design argument"? > > > > > > > The argument aims to establish that a designer is the > > > > > > > best explanation for the apparent design of the universe, > > > > > > > it does not attempt to explain from whence came the designer. > > > > > > > That is a separate argument. > > > > > > > > > > > > No, it's clearly not. Part of being the "best explanation" > > > > > > for something is being the most parsimonious explanation. > > > > > > > Theism , I maintain has greater breadth of explanation > > > > In that case, supertheism has even *greater* breadth. Supertheism > > says that your god El/Yahweh was created by SuperGod. > > Whether we are justified in believing in SuperGod is a > > "separate argument", because -- umm -- I say so. > > > The creator-deity is partially and traditionally > defined as maximally perfect entity ( defined as a reality so > great that no actual or possible world contains anything > surpassing it)-so there could be no 'SuperGod'. If by "maximally perfect" you imply the property of self-causing, then we can say that the universe itself is as likely to be self-causing as is any god. (Ontological arguments to the contrary simply confuse the notions of logical and ontological necessity.) If not, then SuperGod is needed to explain El/Yahweh. > We could in any case shave away any additional 'SuperGods' > with Ockham's razor. Indeed, just as it shaves away the "creator-deity" in the first place. > It won't do BTW to say that Ockham's > razor is applicable to the positing of a God ( instead of > accepting naturalism) , since - for one thing- ceteris > paribus conditions do not obtain. Aside from unconvincing ontological considerations, how are the conditions any different between positing the unexplained explanandum of a "creator deity" and the unexplained explanandum of the universe itself? > > > It is quite incorrect to suppose that > > > we ought to suppose the most parsimonious explanation is the > > > correct one. There is no basis for such a supposition at all- > > > evidence, please, if you disagree. > > > > Observe that it is generally never the case > > > ??? generally never??? :You mean generally. No, I indeed mean "almost never". > > that of explanations > > with equal explanatory power, equal logical consistency, and > > equal consistency with other truths, the most parsimonious is > > NOT the one considered correct or true. Feel free to > > provide a counter-example. > > > As already explained > 1. Ceteris paribus conditions do not obtain in the present > context ( see above) Wrong (see above), but moreover quite irrelevant to the current discussion of your assertion "it is quite incorrect to suppose...". > 2. [..] *why* should the simpler > of two explanations be considered to be true? Because without this principle, we have no way to choose between the usually-accepted (i.e. simplest) explanation and any of the infinitely many arbitrarily-convoluted conspiracy theories that can be tailored to fit the evidence just as well. > There is no basis for a 'simplicity of nature' > thesis at all. The only "basis" for following the principle of economy of explanation is that it seems to work. It could of course stop working tomorrow, and the universe could suddenly stop following all of our known natural laws. But this possibility is no reason not to provisionally follow the principle. > You confuse a methodological > principle ( keep things simple) with an > ontological presupposition. It's silly to claim that economy of explanation is only an ontological principle and has nothing to do with epistemology. -- brian@holtz.org http://humanknowledge.net