Food for Thought: A Discourse on Deities

[Joseph Sweeney]

@Aldin

Going to include a couple of quotes, but not too many.

Determinism:

They can also say there is something non-physical and non-measurable which allows for genuine choice to exist. In other words there is a "me" that is separate from the pure cause and effect of the physical. Call it quantum mechanics, multi-dimensionality, or whatever, this is basically a belief in something that does not fit with the things we "know" from science. It does, however, match with what we "feel". I have no issues with this stance. I simply note that if the atheist will allow for non-physical, non-measurable things to exist, then they have removed the burden of proof from me to demonstrate that very thing when I talk about God.

But I'm not doing that. Consciousness, like the beginning of the universe, is something I currently shrug my shoulders at. But even if atheists were coping out without way of evidence or reason, that doesn't justify you doing so as well. The atheist would still be wrong to not prove their claim, just as you would.

Belief and Choice:

Well see, I think on this matter you sometimes equivocate two separate definitions of the word belief, and that causes a bit of confusion. You often try and compare the belief in the existence of something, to the belief or trust that something will do something. For instance, one can believe in god, or one can believe that his car functions properly, I believe was the example you gave. The two are fundamentally different because we know the car exists and how it is supposed to function; at this point we just trust that it will do its job. On the subject of a deity, we don't know it exists.

Yes, I wanted you to interact with Santa Clause. But not in that manner. I want you to choose to believe in Santa Clause. Because if you can't, then clearly belief is a direct product of knowledge. If you can, then we can talk about belief being a choice.

Your example of a child doesn't seem to address the issue. Yes, some children are convinced by different amount of evidence, but that doesn't in anyway follow that belief is a choice. I don't see why it would imply that at all. The child is simply shaped by other knowledge and experiences or flaws in reasoning he or she possesses that lead that child to the illogical conclusion that Santa exist. The fact that reason eventually sways them shows that it is reason, not choice, that determine belief.

Let's try this. If belief was dictated by choice, and not by knowledge, then we'd have a vastly different world. The bank robber would choose to believe the police didn't exist, I would choose to believe that Karma exists, and everyone, no matter who they are, would choose to believe that Santa exist (who doesn't want presents? Coal included) But we don't see that in the world. Instead, for the most part, we see people directly swayed by their knowledge. Is their knowledge often incorrect? Is their reasoning flawed? For sure. But the reason people's beliefs tend to coincide with reality and experience is because beliefs are directly influenced by these things.

On the last point of determinism -- no. If belief is forced by knowledge we do not wind up at universal determinism. And for my argument to work, I do not need to embrace universal determinism. Is existential belief deterministic? Yes. Is choice in what game I play, what I eat, who I date, or where I go deterministic by way of the argument I am making? No. And there's no common link between existential belief and those other items to suggest that by making existential belief deterministic the others must also be. So when you ask, "What would not be deterministic in a world where we don't choose what we believe?" my answer is everything save belief.

Does Choice Invalidate My Argument

Honestly, your example is moot. Again. Because it's an inaccurate comparison. You are neither omnipotent, nor omniscient. Supposing I grant you benevolence towards your sister, you still lack the knowledge of what it takes to convince her, and you may even lack the power to do so.

Deities, Deities...

I don't see how your sister observing different evidence and making logical errors equates to choice. Her conclusion, while flying in the face of modern science, is one many people come to because they don't understand the evidence, or make some error while trying to reason through it. I've seen it in a number of anti-vac people, and I don't see any reason to accept that it is a choice. They seem wholly convinced by way of erred reason.

Once we start talking about the creator of the universe, we get to examine the available evidence and decide what to believe. The Christian God accounts for that evidence in a way which I find believable. Obviously the constructs of the eternal gunslingers and fsm do not - since both have no correlation to the evidence and are constructs designed to make light of the Christian God. We aren't doing a comparative religions study here, so I hope it will suffice to say that for me personally, after having examined many potential creators, I have found the Christian God to be the most compelling.

This stems from your earlier quote of, "I don't need to demonstrate my god is the only option, only that he is an option." And my contention here is that in order to show that reasonable disbelief in the existence of your god does not exist, you do need to demonstrate this point. Otherwise, many other feasible options exist, and your god is only a pick out of the hat.

Finally, as to the question of whether an atheistic beginning or a Christian one makes the most sense, I can only reply that the atheist response is some variation of "I don't know", while the rationale presented in the Bible is cogent. It doesn't make me right, but if I'm looking for an explanation, the place where I find the best one is in the Bible.

And Ra was an explanation for why the sun rose and set. So yeah, you have an explanation, but "I don't know" allows us to be a lot more inquisitive than "I have the answer because no one else has one."

So my issue at this point is that you keep hearkening to these examples that are not directly related the question at hand. When dealing with existential belief, I demonstrate that when we know something to exist, that existence cannot be denied. I've touched on this time and again with examples of trying to disbelieve in my girlfriend, or have you disbelieve in a relative. But the results are clear that when we know of something, we cannot choose to deny knowledge of it. We can lie to other people about it, but we cannot choose to not believe.

So barring all other examples about cars, anti-vaccination, or what have you, let's deal with the examples directly correlated with belief. Because the other examples aren't good examples as they fail to address the question of choosing to believe in someone's existence. My example does. How do you address or handle this? Are you able to choose to accept or deny your wife's existence?

The answer is no. You cannot choose that. By way of extrapolation then, it follows that one cannot choose to lack belief in something they know to exist. Ergo, the existential belief is not a choice, it is a product of knowledge, and the argument works fine.

Until this issue can be addressed, I don't think you have ground to stand on to deny the deterministic nature of existential belief.

And if you claim that it's different for god then it is for humans, that we can't have knowledge of god the way we have knowledge of other humans, then you effectively support my conclusion. Because you limit either god's omniscience or omnipotence.

~JS