I have never understood why a number of internet theists will choose to ignore the probabilistic arguments for God. After all, they're arguing for a fairly controversial position, and one would think they would use any good argument they could to defend their belief. Then again, I get the feeling that a significant portion of these individuals are not great at philosophy in the first place and that many of them would be far less certain of their positions had they taken the time to engage with some good atheistic philosophy.
Nothing about external reality can be ever “proven”, because the existence of external reality cannot be proven. This is obvious and immediate.
We prove relations between mental objects. Every single proof always involve objects in our own mind. If you know something for sure, it is only about yourself. This is implicit in Aristotelian inversion of Plato idealism, more explicit in Occam and the nominalists, and finally proven explicitly by the empirists (while it is implicit in the dependence of Descartes on the ontological fallacy to transcend beyond its own self).
The arguments for theism often rest on bad premises as well. The idea that the ‘laws of the universe’ were ‘set’ to precise values that enable life to flourish assumes that a universe is created and such values are set. But we have no reason to think this must be the case. Arguments for often revolve on sketchy physics theories of multiple worlds that probably will not hold up to future scrutiny.
The fine tuning arguments presented again imply that the cosmological constants, human constructs for understanding physical phenomena rather than actual existing things, are ‘set’ when the universe is ‘created’. This is begging the question.
The variables for cosmological constants are constructed. The idea of them being variables modified is only in the human imagination. What we know for sure is that what exists, exists, not how or why it may have been created
Why do you find it fruitful to repeat the same point 3 times when I've pointed you to where I've addressed it at length. Do you have a response to the arguments I give?
The arguments in the link state that it is improbable to draw any other conclusion except that cosmological variables are fine tuned. I am restating that taking such constants as a measure of probability is assuming a lot in the premises to begin with. Unless I missed something in the article.
The people who believe this also usually believe that God gave them a special faculty of reason to detect God. Conditional on them believing this and not engaging with modern scientific study of the brain (as the typical philosopher fails to), then it's "rational" for them to believe this because they think they can't be mistaken about the existence of God. I think this is clearly wrong though, and you yourself have posited a special faculty of rationality, so boo you. Also, Scott's screed cuts across that one argument you shared where theists used bayesian inference to prove the resurrection of God with like 10^30:1 odds.
I have never understood why a number of internet theists will choose to ignore the probabilistic arguments for God. After all, they're arguing for a fairly controversial position, and one would think they would use any good argument they could to defend their belief. Then again, I get the feeling that a significant portion of these individuals are not great at philosophy in the first place and that many of them would be far less certain of their positions had they taken the time to engage with some good atheistic philosophy.
Nothing about external reality can be ever “proven”, because the existence of external reality cannot be proven. This is obvious and immediate.
We prove relations between mental objects. Every single proof always involve objects in our own mind. If you know something for sure, it is only about yourself. This is implicit in Aristotelian inversion of Plato idealism, more explicit in Occam and the nominalists, and finally proven explicitly by the empirists (while it is implicit in the dependence of Descartes on the ontological fallacy to transcend beyond its own self).
The arguments for theism often rest on bad premises as well. The idea that the ‘laws of the universe’ were ‘set’ to precise values that enable life to flourish assumes that a universe is created and such values are set. But we have no reason to think this must be the case. Arguments for often revolve on sketchy physics theories of multiple worlds that probably will not hold up to future scrutiny.
Nope, the argument doesn't assume that--see the section titled "Can’t do probabilistic reasoning about the constants." https://benthams.substack.com/p/the-fine-tuning-argument-simply-works
The fine tuning arguments presented again imply that the cosmological constants, human constructs for understanding physical phenomena rather than actual existing things, are ‘set’ when the universe is ‘created’. This is begging the question.
Did you read the section?
The variables for cosmological constants are constructed. The idea of them being variables modified is only in the human imagination. What we know for sure is that what exists, exists, not how or why it may have been created
Why do you find it fruitful to repeat the same point 3 times when I've pointed you to where I've addressed it at length. Do you have a response to the arguments I give?
The arguments in the link state that it is improbable to draw any other conclusion except that cosmological variables are fine tuned. I am restating that taking such constants as a measure of probability is assuming a lot in the premises to begin with. Unless I missed something in the article.
The people who believe this also usually believe that God gave them a special faculty of reason to detect God. Conditional on them believing this and not engaging with modern scientific study of the brain (as the typical philosopher fails to), then it's "rational" for them to believe this because they think they can't be mistaken about the existence of God. I think this is clearly wrong though, and you yourself have posited a special faculty of rationality, so boo you. Also, Scott's screed cuts across that one argument you shared where theists used bayesian inference to prove the resurrection of God with like 10^30:1 odds.
No, but deductive arguments against God establish certainty, as argued here: https://neonomos.substack.com/p/god-does-not-exist-or-else-he-is
The McGrews are spinning in their graves.
I'm just being silly, btw