ask a question

recent responses

all topics

info

⚲

Religion

What exactly is evidence, and why do some maintain that we should not expect to find any evidence of God? What's the problem with rejecting the God idea based on lack of evidence? Sorry I can't be more specific.

Consider these (actual) evidential situations: I have no specific evidence that there is a Danish plumber who looks enough like me to fool my mother in a photograph. I have no specific evidence that there is a thirty-word English sentence that, when uttered, would cause an earthquake in Tonga. I have no specific evidence that anyone has ever said "kumquats are delicious". In each of these cases, not only do I not have specific evidence for the claim, but it's not even true that I likely would have such evidence were the claim true. Despite these parellels, there's a big difference among the cases: I feel quite comfortable in my firm belief that there is no such English sentence, while it seems to me that there may well be such a Danish plumber, and I am nearly certain that someone has said "kumquats are delicious" (this exhibits the problem with rejecting a claim simply because of lack of specific evidence). We would want a good philosophical account of evidence and...
Ethics
Freedom
Religion

My question is about the relationship between God, determinism and ethics. In my opinion if there is no God, then it looks like people do not have any non-physical "soul". I think most people would agree with this, partly because people usually reject God in favour of a naturalistic worldview in which the soul similarly has no place. But if people do not have any "soul" then that must mean that that people do not have free will, because they are entirely physical. But if people do not have free will then I don't understand how any ethics could exist, because ethics surely requires that people can choose. So, if this is correct, then if you want to argue for some kind of ethics, then you have to accept the existence of God. But there is clearly an endless amount of Philosophers who don't believe in God and do argue for some kind of ethics, such as David Hume or Bertrand Russell. But how can they do this? What I think you will say is that maybe ethics can exist even without free will. But surely this...

Most of your question is an excellent formulation of a major philosophical issue: whether minds, if they are merely parts of the general causal order, can possibly have the sort of authorship of their actions that would be required to hold them responsible---how can right and wrong get a foothold if we're just machines? Some say there's no problem here; others are more concerned. Rather than attempt a paltry paragraph on current views about this, let me point you to Timothy O'Connor's article in the Stanford Encyclopedia. One thing I will say, though, is that it is not clear that the worry would be lessened if it turned out that our minds were immaterial "souls". Souls would have to work somehow or other---a full ("God's-eye") understanding of their workings would presumably involve an inventory of the various states, structures, and processes that souls host, together with the "supernatural laws" that describe how these change over time. These laws might be deterministic or indeterministic,...
Religion

There's no rational argument to prove the existence of God. St. Thomas d'Aquinas' famous "God is that of which nothing greater can be thought" is, to my knowledge, the most rigorous attempt to apply reason to the subject of supernatural existence--but it achieves exactly the opposite of what it purports to achieve: it shows merely the limits of reason, rather than the existence of God. This said, and as a consequence, reason can't provide any arguments against the existence of God, either. For that which can't be proved, can't be disproved either. (And, in fact, can anyone think of any law of physics or rational argument which disproves the existence of something? Non-existence is "disproved" on mere empirical basis--and it is thus never certain). Therefore, the only rational (which does not mean necessarily: correct) position regarding God is agnosticism. Any thoughts? Thanks

It's not true that "what can't be proved can't be disproved either": it can't be proved that there is a largest prime number, but that can be disproved, at least according to the standards of proof that every mathematician accepts. I am inclined to agree with you that reason alone, without empirical evidence, can't settle whether there's a God. But since we in fact have lots of empirical information about the world, it doesn't follow that the only rational attitude for us is to suspend judgment. Reason alone can't settle whether there are socks in the drawer, but you can prove to me that there are no socks in the drawer by opening it and showing me the empty drawer. In normal circumstances, it would be unreasonable for me to regard the question whether there are socks there as still unresolved. Indeed, any reasonable person would now believe that there are no socks there and indeed would be certain that there are no socks there (using these terms in their ordinary senses). ...
Biology
Religion
Science

Is it more probable that a universe that looks designed is created by a designer than by random natural forces?

Here's something we might agree on, at least for the sake of argument: the chance that a (sufficiently powerful, etc.) designer would produce a "designy" universe is higher than the chance that a random selection of natural laws and initial conditions (i.e., "no designer") would do so: Prob( designy universe GIVEN designer) > Prob(designy universe GIVEN no designer) But you are wondering about a different comparison: Prob (designer GIVEN designy universe) ??? Prob(no designer GIVEN designy universe) But these latter probabilities seem much more problematic to estimate. Are we to imagine being "given" a universe "at random" with no information about it except that it is designy? But what does that even mean? How is this "random" selection made among all the possible designed and undesigned universes? Are we to assume that there is some objective fact, for instance, about what the odds are of a universe being designed rather than undesigned? This matters greatly, for if in general...
Religion

If one could prove that there can be no thought without an organic host (such as a human being) to process the thought, then would we not prove that God's awareness could not have preceded life on earth, and hence, that God could not exist?

I'll grant you that there could be no immaterial god with cognitive capacities if such capacities are possible only for "organic" creatures. But I very much doubt that the latter condition is true.
Religion

Are there any arguments for the existence of God which the panel would view as philosophically legitimate?

None. Besides Belgian ales, that is. I'm a plain old atheist: I don't find any of the arguments I've come across for the existence of something I'd be at all tempted to call "God" even slightly compelling, so I consider myself to have as little evidence for believing that there is such a thing as I have, alas, for believing that there's a number such that, if I think of it, my freshman papers will magically grade themselves. In both cases I not only do not believe that there is such a thing but also believe that there is not such a thing. Why I take that further step (in both cases) is harder to say. (It's not that I believe that if there were such a thing I'd likely have evidence of it. ) Anyway, I think that many arguments people have given for the existence of God are enormously philosophically respectable. Thinking about them has produced some really good philosophy. It's just that they're not sound. You might also mean, can we imagine being convinced...