This was a wonderful read :) I am a agnostic who wants to believe but can't quite convince herself, so I really appreciate your account of how you came to believe in God. One hang-up I have (which maybe comes from my childhood religious exposure) is that one essential property of God is worshipfulness, and this requires that God be responsive to my actions and potentially being a person. Neither of these follow from perfection, but if they are not essential to God, then I'm not sure I disagree with the argument.
Also, I'm really excited for your article on psychophysical harmony—I've brought the problem up to theists and atheists in the past and I haven't been able to get them puzzled, although I am very puzzled by it! I can't wait to read!
I suspect that if God is an unlimited mind, he would be a person. (Although, I am not sure this is logically required.) I'm not sure how arguments establish that God is a mind. I definitely see how arguments support God as something biased towards a harmonious world with life, and I see how someone could say this makes it more likely that God is a mind, but it's not clear this is the most probable explanation.
I think the thing which really gets me is that impassivity seems to limit God's worshipfulness. If God only has one unchanging intention that does not vary over time, say to create a world which ultimately shares in joy, then this does seem to undermine God's worshipfulness (and personhood.) In the same vein, it seems like persons should have free will in a compatibilist sense, where they are responsive to the absence or presence of reasons. But it is not obvious whether God satisfies this criteria.
Upon reflection, I also do not understand what an unlimited mind entails. It seems like it could be much more fundamental than a person, maybe like Averroes' intellect? I'm not sure whether this would be sufficient for personhood.
In general, I am confused about definitions of personhood and mind (and how this relates to unlimited or limited quantities) which makes me not feel totally compelled by current arguments to view God as a person. I'd appreciate any thoughts! :)
Well what else would God be? If God is a limitless mind, because minds are fundamental, he is something very simple, and that explains lots of things. Now, there might be other ways of formulating theism--maybe God is a perfect thing and that's his essential property--but that would still imply he's a mind.
I don't ahve strong views about whether God is impassible.
I'm not sure, although it doesn't seem impossible that God could be some kind of force.
I'm not sure I understand your second sentence, are you claiming minds are fundamental? If so, I don't think that I agree. Would you be willing to share your reasoning? If not, it seems like you are claiming that God is a limitless mind because mind is fundamental, but that does not seem to follow either.
I do not know why God being a perfect thing implies he is a mind, that is one of the reasons I am stuck. But I suspect that is because I don't understand perfection. Again, if you are willing to share any insight you have, I appreciate it!
Edit: I should also clarify that I am not trying to argue against your position, I think your argument is reasonable and with different priors I would be convinced by it.
I will say that if you believe God exists outside of time, it seems challenging to believe that God is both simple and passible. However, I'm guessing you are not very compelled by arguments for the simplicity of God.
So I just read the post, and I agree with all of it, but I do not agree that shows mind is fundamental, but rather that consciousness is fundamental. I think mind is distinct from consciousness.
It seems possible that mind operates separately from consciousness. This is how I interpret the possibility of epiphenomenal consciousness. Consciousness relates to the mind through psychophysical laws but the relationship is non-causal. The mind instead coordinates action and consciousness supervenes upon it.
Likewise, it seems possible that something could be conscious, but without agency, without belief. It seems like these three things are necessary for mind in addition to consciousness. I think this is relevant because I do not think God's worshipfulness is dependent on God's conscious experience, but instead on God's agency and sensitivity to reasons.
I suspect this explains much of the difference. I practically care about conscious experience because it informs how I want to be treated and how I want to treat others. But this is not the case with God. In fact, if God is constantly enjoying a perfectly enjoyable state and irresponsive to my actions, it is unclear why I should worship God.
I will also say that while God being mind when mind is fundamental is metaphysically simple, it isn't clearly theoretically simple. It seems to imply that mind can alter or create material reality. Now perhaps this is only a feature of unlimited mind, but I would want to know why. If it is not, then it seems like this requires a significant change in how most people understand reality. I'm not necessarily opposed to this, just curious to see how far you follow the logic.
Thanks for continuing to engage me despite my longer and longer responses. I really appreciate it!
Interesting to read your reasoning but I’m not convinced by the conclusion. Individual probabilistic guesses and philosophical reasoning can lead to belief, but they don’t constitute proof. The gap between ‘there are good theistic arguments’ and ‘a being of unlimited, transcendent goodness will spend eternity in paradise with us’ is too yawning to be persuasive. It seems you’re just leaning into a very vague notion of ‘god’ as an explanatory filler for a lot of things for which we just don’t yet have good explanations, then shoehorning in traditional theism. I’m more confident that non-god explanations are waiting for future minds to uncover and am not so impatient that I would fill in the gaps in our knowledge with an omnipotent, omniscient creator. It also seems like you’re reacting to a strident type of antitheism, not the atheism simply recognizes that theism raises more questions that it answers. Anyway, some good stuff to chew on and worth reading again, so thanks for posting.
It is indeed a good and wholesome thing to be confronted with exceptionally well-articulated views that are quite contrary to our own. No clue why people tend to favor bloggers they agree with
Regarding the "indifference" of the universe, Lewis discussed that very subject in his book "The Problem of Pain", in which he argued that the existence of a universe with agents within it requires that universe to be both separate from the agents themselves, and to follow rules that apply to everyone.
"If a “world” or material system had only a single inhabitant it might conform at every moment to his wishes. “Trees for his sake would crowd into a shade”. But if you were introduced into a world which thus varied at my every whim, you would be quite unable to act in it and would thus lose the exercise of your free will. Nor is it clear that you could make your presence known to me — all the matter by which you attempted to make signs to me being already in my control and therefore not capable of being manipulated by you.
"Again, if matter has a fixed nature and obeys constant laws, not all states of matter will be equally, agreeable to the wishes of a given soul, nor all equally beneficial for that particular aggregate of matter which he calls his body. If fire comforts that body at a certain distance, it will destroy it when the distance is reduced….
"Yet again, if the fixed nature of matter prevents it from being always, and in all its dispositions, equally agreeable even to a single soul, much less is it possible for the matter of the universe at any moment to be distributed so that it is equally convenient and pleasurable to each member of a society. If a man travelling in one direction is having a journey down hill, a man going in the opposite direction must be going up hill. if even a pebble lies where I want it to lie, it cannot, except by a coincidence, be where you want it to lie. and this is very far from being an evil: on the contrary, it furnishes occasion for all those acts of courtesy, respect, and unselfishness by which love and good humour and modesty express themselves. but it certainly leaves the way open to a great evil, that of competition and hostility. and if souls are free, they cannot be prevented from dealing with the problem by competition instead of by courtesy. and once they have advanced to actual hostility, they can then exploit the fixed nature of matter to hurt one another. The permanent nature of wood which enables us to use it as a beam also enables us to use it for hitting our neighbour on the head. The permanent nature of matter in general means that when human beings fight, the victory ordinarily goes to those who have superior weapons, skill, and numbers, even if their cause is unjust."
Interesting, though I don't think this can be the full story, because you it could be that there are default laws that apply unless we will them to be overridden. That way we're not in constant control of anything but we can control the stuff we want.
I'm currently an atheist, but I'm interested in this question (I suspect the New Atheists had an overly strong effect on me!). I think I agree that God offers a useful unifying explanation of a lot of phenomena, but I've never really felt that an explanation is needed of those things. I just don't see what's supposed to be confusing about them, and I'm not sure why some theory's being a good explanation of phenomena makes it more likely that the theory is correct. I'm sure I'm missing something important, and I'd appreciate it if you had any idea as to what, or any reading suggestions.
Thanks for the kind words! In short, I think the right way to think about these things is in terms of probabilities. If there's something, even if you don't find the thing puzzling, if one theory makes it likelier than another, it favors the first theory. If we see that there's writing on my desk, that's evidence someone came into my room, rather than a pen falling over and spilling randomly, because it's more likely that there'd be writing if someone came in than if they didn't.
So then the question is simply: if there's no God, would the things I point to be improbable. I obviously haven't time to survey them all, but I'll give two examples to illustrate the point. First, the mere existence of laws. Yeah, that seems improbable--it would be much simpler for there to be no laws at all, so the world lays dormant and still. Extra stuff tends to be improbable. Second, fine-tuning. That's even more improbable--the cosmological constant could take on so many values that it's unlikely it would take on a finely-tuned one.
C'mon, man, fight this thing, you're better than this! Theology was the business of the world's greatest thinkers a thousand years ago. The Church awarded these asshats (Duns Caps) with Sainthood if they gave "good" answers and sent them to the flames for "bad" ones. This "hot stakes" game with eggheads who didn't want to get fried created, straight out of thin air, a God so heavily armed with sophistry that he might as well be omnipotent. There's no shame in being seduced by this nonsense. But there comes a point where you gotta say No to these dirty old Saints with windowless vans and lollipops. Don't even talk to these guys. Just leave town for a bit and focus on another topic like UFOlogy. The bonus is, you learn a lot about psychology, and you start to see the "thin air" that makes up supernatural beliefs
Yes, yes, I've been told that the New Atheists have been soundly defeated. I have heard that the fancy Theist arguments for an unfalsifiable God that has no bearing on any aspects of our lives whatsoever have carried the day, and that New Atheism is now considered pathetically lowbrow. The Atheist position overall is now as untenable as Young Earth Creationism, and moving up the ladder to Oppy amounts to nothing more than changing seats on the Titanic. The intellectual environment is now such that only a desperate fool would dare question that this chaotic horrorshow of brute agony and violence is a transcendentally beautiful masterpiece directed by an utterly perfect, good, and true Deity. Sure, even though our infant science can account for all but the first 0.00...01s of the universe, it is absolutely ridiculous on its face to think it could ever account for *all* of it. This God of the Gaps shall forever be in the last place we look, and we must accept He is the only sane place to hang our hats. This, I understand. I only beg your mercy and patience for being a product of the 2002 bogus philosophical zeitgeist (and equally bogus 2008 film Zeitgeist) in which I was formed. Overcoming such an error takes time
I have a few problems with the evidence used in this article.
Modern science (evolutionary theory etc) perfectly explains morality in humans: we evolved to live in groups, where prosocial behavior is favored for survival. Plus, if God had made us have moral sense, that would mean he was a moral person, which contradicts the whole “babies with cancer” thing.
On the whole anthropic principle thing, any “life form” that evolves from a pre-existing physical system will be perfectly fit to life in that system. That doesn’t mean that it was designed for them. Who knows what we would look like if the weak force or whatever was 0.001% off, but if there was sentient life that emerged from that change, they would be making the same argument. And if sentient life didn’t emerge from that change, no one would be around to know. I.e, theists win 100% of the time.
I have qualms with the consciousness argument too but I don’t have enough knowledge on the subject to formulate a coherent argument lol.
First of all, I haven't made a moral argument but instead a moral knowledge argument. Now, as I argue in the linked post, the point isn't specific to morality but instead generalizes to lots of kinds of knowledge. Now, I think morality is objective and we have good grounds for believing that, for reasons explained here https://benthams.substack.com/p/book-review-ethical-intuitionism
As for fine-tuning, I address this in this article https://benthams.substack.com/p/the-fine-tuning-argument-simply-works (See the section titled "Couldn’t different kinds of life arise?"). In short, it flatly misstates the physics--it isn't just that different structures would form, but that if the cosmological constant were different by a bit, the universe would either immediately implode or involve particles that instantaneously shoot out into space, never interacting.
Quick reminder : If God exists (like you think it's likely) he is watching factory farming going on for 50+ years now and is just like "hmm not feeling like stopping this now, nop!". Or even better, he's been watching predation going on for millions of years now and is just like "hmm nah, don't really feel like stopping this for now, I mean I could but yeah not really down for this now, nop !".
(A perfect being would obviously not do that, so a perfect being doesn't exist)
This inference is as clear as the belief that 1 + 1 = 2. It certainly can't be overriden by some controversial philosophical arguments like fine tuning, PH, anthropic arg etc.
Not familiar enough apparently. The fact that a perfect being wouldn't let those things happen is as obvious, literally, as the fact that 1 + 1 = 2. So, I see it like this :
Either you accept some extremely controversial arguments like fine tuning or PH, or you accept that 1 +1 = 2. Which one should you accept ?
What's your opinion on non-truth-tracking explanations for why we favor simplicity? I have in mind pragmatic explanations, Kelly's minimization of mind changes, etc.
The idea would be that these explanations do tell us why we should trust induction, but the stories they give will rest on pragmatic grounds or efficiency grounds or etc.
How likely do you think it is that God is evil? If you believe that God having infinite benevolence is a simple hypothesis, you could argue that God having infinite malevolence is equally simple.
Not if Benthamite utilitarianism is the correct morality. Suffering wouldn't exist if there was nothing. Infinite malevolence would tend toward maximizing suffering.
Not necessarily. It might trend toward maximal chaos, in which whatever existence there is for whatever subsidiary creations there are happens to be bad. Sort of like AM in I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream.
You need to get more creative, Bentham. OK, Theism, but not necessarily of the historic type. For example, why is evil a problem? We do not have to go with the historic assumption of a loving god. It all might be an experiment and we are the mice in it.
Given that theism and simulation are basically the same thing, the most likely reason to set up a simulation is an experiment, not love.
Or it could be a videogame type simulation. Evil exists in GTA V, too. That is kind of its whole point. The universe could be alien kids playing GTA V. We are the NPCs, Hitler was controlled by a PC in a particularly foul mood.
Since you are a bare theist, I don't see how you can get to the surprising result of a personal, loving God. This has always seemed to me to be an act of faith, plausible and justifiable perhaps given that you know there is a God might as well do the human version of acting on it - personification of the moral lawgiver, the cosmic orderer, and mind-enlightener.
However, I recently heard an argument that might have moved me philosophically a bit on this one. If you accept that the first cause of the universe is the source of the moral law, and the moral law is a law of love and "human flourishing", then it is at least plausible that the Source shares in those qualities at least analogously. I'll admit some kind of plausibility, but I think the argument is too broad and can be applied to very strange things - like genetic drift.
"If the source of creatures, creates using genetic drift, then is it plausible to assume that God has the features of random exploration of possibility space."
So the personhood of a loving God seems to me best argued for by the study of the evolution of human culture, which has progressed to higher understanding and practice of moral law thanks to revealed religion. Though most of those alleged revealed religions and prophets must certainly be false.
The arguments that move me are mostly arguments for God defined as a perfect being. If God is perfect then he'd be loving and personal. So then it's just a matter of if he's personal. I think that the only way to make theism plausible is if you think all of God's properties flow from one essential property--the one I'm most attracted to is his being a limitless mind. If not, then you need to arbitrarily build in complicated psychophysical laws and powers, meaning it doesn't solve fine-tuning or psychophysical harmony and introduces massive complexity and lack of elegance. Plus, if he has some random desire, it's unlikely he'd want to create anthropic argument numbers of people.
Most all the evidence for God comes from things that are very valuable and very improbable, so those will favor a perfect being, especially when other kinds of beings just push the problem up a level! (I also think if you don't buy this then even a Christian shouldn't be confident in a good God--even if he raised Jesus from the dead, why think he's perfect).
Unrelated: how are you doing? Been a bit since the emergent ventures meeting! Fun meeting you!
I am well. Recently I have been wielding two books Heavenly Mathematics and The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy. Too many people think they should be allowed to dally with Dante and dance with Descartes when they can't even explain the intersection of the ecliptic and the equator!
I do wonder why perfection has to necessarily include love, or at least the love that we humans can make sense of. The very idea of perfection seems like a human pattern. A person, except bigger! perfectly bigger! the exact perfect size a person should be! whatever size that is! the love of a person, except not flawed like our love is! what is that lack of a flaw? picture a bad thing, this love doesn't have it! whatever that bad thing is! do we have a point of disagreement? well, both of those at the same time, with all the good things and no bad things! It seems wide of the point and certainly doesn't match my sense of the divine not being so much perfect and irresistible, but present and aware of creation. A creation with integrity might not be perfectible because maybe it stops working, and God is of course perfectly interested in creation working exactly the right amount.
Hmm, I'm a bit puzzled. Why prefer an atheistic universe? Wouldn't it be better if everyone, including victims of horrible crimes, will spend forever in paradise? (Sadly I've never had a religious experience, but I'd like to!)
l like the game concept. Another I find attractive is God and the universe (including us) creating a painting. However much black paint the universe and we throw around, God turns that into the shading of some beautiful garment or panorama. "God moves last."
I know you believe in the God of philosophers. Is prayer or worship profitable to one such as you? I would think so but am curious what you have to say about it.
I'm a classical theist Christian so trying to wrap my mind around what it would be like to just believe in bare classical theism. I feel like I'd still think "I should attempt to commune with God at all times" and "it is right to praise Him."
Non-militant agnostic here. I am curious as to why this amounts to evidence of something paradoxical across many dimensions (specific, general, abstract, concrete, etc) rather than evidence of undecideability, with your choice of belief fairly breaking the tiebreaker.
You are a very good introspective writer, maybe we are just quite similar but I have seldom found something more relatable to read than this. Well done :)
This was a wonderful read :) I am a agnostic who wants to believe but can't quite convince herself, so I really appreciate your account of how you came to believe in God. One hang-up I have (which maybe comes from my childhood religious exposure) is that one essential property of God is worshipfulness, and this requires that God be responsive to my actions and potentially being a person. Neither of these follow from perfection, but if they are not essential to God, then I'm not sure I disagree with the argument.
Also, I'm really excited for your article on psychophysical harmony—I've brought the problem up to theists and atheists in the past and I haven't been able to get them puzzled, although I am very puzzled by it! I can't wait to read!
Hmm, not quite sure if I get the problem. If God is an unlimited mind--his essential property--how would he not be a person?
I suspect that if God is an unlimited mind, he would be a person. (Although, I am not sure this is logically required.) I'm not sure how arguments establish that God is a mind. I definitely see how arguments support God as something biased towards a harmonious world with life, and I see how someone could say this makes it more likely that God is a mind, but it's not clear this is the most probable explanation.
I think the thing which really gets me is that impassivity seems to limit God's worshipfulness. If God only has one unchanging intention that does not vary over time, say to create a world which ultimately shares in joy, then this does seem to undermine God's worshipfulness (and personhood.) In the same vein, it seems like persons should have free will in a compatibilist sense, where they are responsive to the absence or presence of reasons. But it is not obvious whether God satisfies this criteria.
Upon reflection, I also do not understand what an unlimited mind entails. It seems like it could be much more fundamental than a person, maybe like Averroes' intellect? I'm not sure whether this would be sufficient for personhood.
In general, I am confused about definitions of personhood and mind (and how this relates to unlimited or limited quantities) which makes me not feel totally compelled by current arguments to view God as a person. I'd appreciate any thoughts! :)
Well what else would God be? If God is a limitless mind, because minds are fundamental, he is something very simple, and that explains lots of things. Now, there might be other ways of formulating theism--maybe God is a perfect thing and that's his essential property--but that would still imply he's a mind.
I don't ahve strong views about whether God is impassible.
I'm not sure, although it doesn't seem impossible that God could be some kind of force.
I'm not sure I understand your second sentence, are you claiming minds are fundamental? If so, I don't think that I agree. Would you be willing to share your reasoning? If not, it seems like you are claiming that God is a limitless mind because mind is fundamental, but that does not seem to follow either.
I do not know why God being a perfect thing implies he is a mind, that is one of the reasons I am stuck. But I suspect that is because I don't understand perfection. Again, if you are willing to share any insight you have, I appreciate it!
Edit: I should also clarify that I am not trying to argue against your position, I think your argument is reasonable and with different priors I would be convinced by it.
I will say that if you believe God exists outside of time, it seems challenging to believe that God is both simple and passible. However, I'm guessing you are not very compelled by arguments for the simplicity of God.
https://benthams.substack.com/p/against-dogmatic-physicalism
It's better to be a mind and be in a perfectly enjoyable state than not to be.
So I just read the post, and I agree with all of it, but I do not agree that shows mind is fundamental, but rather that consciousness is fundamental. I think mind is distinct from consciousness.
It seems possible that mind operates separately from consciousness. This is how I interpret the possibility of epiphenomenal consciousness. Consciousness relates to the mind through psychophysical laws but the relationship is non-causal. The mind instead coordinates action and consciousness supervenes upon it.
Likewise, it seems possible that something could be conscious, but without agency, without belief. It seems like these three things are necessary for mind in addition to consciousness. I think this is relevant because I do not think God's worshipfulness is dependent on God's conscious experience, but instead on God's agency and sensitivity to reasons.
I suspect this explains much of the difference. I practically care about conscious experience because it informs how I want to be treated and how I want to treat others. But this is not the case with God. In fact, if God is constantly enjoying a perfectly enjoyable state and irresponsive to my actions, it is unclear why I should worship God.
I will also say that while God being mind when mind is fundamental is metaphysically simple, it isn't clearly theoretically simple. It seems to imply that mind can alter or create material reality. Now perhaps this is only a feature of unlimited mind, but I would want to know why. If it is not, then it seems like this requires a significant change in how most people understand reality. I'm not necessarily opposed to this, just curious to see how far you follow the logic.
Thanks for continuing to engage me despite my longer and longer responses. I really appreciate it!
Interesting to read your reasoning but I’m not convinced by the conclusion. Individual probabilistic guesses and philosophical reasoning can lead to belief, but they don’t constitute proof. The gap between ‘there are good theistic arguments’ and ‘a being of unlimited, transcendent goodness will spend eternity in paradise with us’ is too yawning to be persuasive. It seems you’re just leaning into a very vague notion of ‘god’ as an explanatory filler for a lot of things for which we just don’t yet have good explanations, then shoehorning in traditional theism. I’m more confident that non-god explanations are waiting for future minds to uncover and am not so impatient that I would fill in the gaps in our knowledge with an omnipotent, omniscient creator. It also seems like you’re reacting to a strident type of antitheism, not the atheism simply recognizes that theism raises more questions that it answers. Anyway, some good stuff to chew on and worth reading again, so thanks for posting.
I don't think they give proof in the sense of certainty, but in the sense of high confidence.
It is indeed a good and wholesome thing to be confronted with exceptionally well-articulated views that are quite contrary to our own. No clue why people tend to favor bloggers they agree with
Regarding the "indifference" of the universe, Lewis discussed that very subject in his book "The Problem of Pain", in which he argued that the existence of a universe with agents within it requires that universe to be both separate from the agents themselves, and to follow rules that apply to everyone.
"If a “world” or material system had only a single inhabitant it might conform at every moment to his wishes. “Trees for his sake would crowd into a shade”. But if you were introduced into a world which thus varied at my every whim, you would be quite unable to act in it and would thus lose the exercise of your free will. Nor is it clear that you could make your presence known to me — all the matter by which you attempted to make signs to me being already in my control and therefore not capable of being manipulated by you.
"Again, if matter has a fixed nature and obeys constant laws, not all states of matter will be equally, agreeable to the wishes of a given soul, nor all equally beneficial for that particular aggregate of matter which he calls his body. If fire comforts that body at a certain distance, it will destroy it when the distance is reduced….
"Yet again, if the fixed nature of matter prevents it from being always, and in all its dispositions, equally agreeable even to a single soul, much less is it possible for the matter of the universe at any moment to be distributed so that it is equally convenient and pleasurable to each member of a society. If a man travelling in one direction is having a journey down hill, a man going in the opposite direction must be going up hill. if even a pebble lies where I want it to lie, it cannot, except by a coincidence, be where you want it to lie. and this is very far from being an evil: on the contrary, it furnishes occasion for all those acts of courtesy, respect, and unselfishness by which love and good humour and modesty express themselves. but it certainly leaves the way open to a great evil, that of competition and hostility. and if souls are free, they cannot be prevented from dealing with the problem by competition instead of by courtesy. and once they have advanced to actual hostility, they can then exploit the fixed nature of matter to hurt one another. The permanent nature of wood which enables us to use it as a beam also enables us to use it for hitting our neighbour on the head. The permanent nature of matter in general means that when human beings fight, the victory ordinarily goes to those who have superior weapons, skill, and numbers, even if their cause is unjust."
Interesting, though I don't think this can be the full story, because you it could be that there are default laws that apply unless we will them to be overridden. That way we're not in constant control of anything but we can control the stuff we want.
Hi - I love the blog!
I'm currently an atheist, but I'm interested in this question (I suspect the New Atheists had an overly strong effect on me!). I think I agree that God offers a useful unifying explanation of a lot of phenomena, but I've never really felt that an explanation is needed of those things. I just don't see what's supposed to be confusing about them, and I'm not sure why some theory's being a good explanation of phenomena makes it more likely that the theory is correct. I'm sure I'm missing something important, and I'd appreciate it if you had any idea as to what, or any reading suggestions.
Thanks for the kind words! In short, I think the right way to think about these things is in terms of probabilities. If there's something, even if you don't find the thing puzzling, if one theory makes it likelier than another, it favors the first theory. If we see that there's writing on my desk, that's evidence someone came into my room, rather than a pen falling over and spilling randomly, because it's more likely that there'd be writing if someone came in than if they didn't.
So then the question is simply: if there's no God, would the things I point to be improbable. I obviously haven't time to survey them all, but I'll give two examples to illustrate the point. First, the mere existence of laws. Yeah, that seems improbable--it would be much simpler for there to be no laws at all, so the world lays dormant and still. Extra stuff tends to be improbable. Second, fine-tuning. That's even more improbable--the cosmological constant could take on so many values that it's unlikely it would take on a finely-tuned one.
C'mon, man, fight this thing, you're better than this! Theology was the business of the world's greatest thinkers a thousand years ago. The Church awarded these asshats (Duns Caps) with Sainthood if they gave "good" answers and sent them to the flames for "bad" ones. This "hot stakes" game with eggheads who didn't want to get fried created, straight out of thin air, a God so heavily armed with sophistry that he might as well be omnipotent. There's no shame in being seduced by this nonsense. But there comes a point where you gotta say No to these dirty old Saints with windowless vans and lollipops. Don't even talk to these guys. Just leave town for a bit and focus on another topic like UFOlogy. The bonus is, you learn a lot about psychology, and you start to see the "thin air" that makes up supernatural beliefs
oh man you will not believe the stuff that has happened since 2002, the year you entered the time machine
Yes, yes, I've been told that the New Atheists have been soundly defeated. I have heard that the fancy Theist arguments for an unfalsifiable God that has no bearing on any aspects of our lives whatsoever have carried the day, and that New Atheism is now considered pathetically lowbrow. The Atheist position overall is now as untenable as Young Earth Creationism, and moving up the ladder to Oppy amounts to nothing more than changing seats on the Titanic. The intellectual environment is now such that only a desperate fool would dare question that this chaotic horrorshow of brute agony and violence is a transcendentally beautiful masterpiece directed by an utterly perfect, good, and true Deity. Sure, even though our infant science can account for all but the first 0.00...01s of the universe, it is absolutely ridiculous on its face to think it could ever account for *all* of it. This God of the Gaps shall forever be in the last place we look, and we must accept He is the only sane place to hang our hats. This, I understand. I only beg your mercy and patience for being a product of the 2002 bogus philosophical zeitgeist (and equally bogus 2008 film Zeitgeist) in which I was formed. Overcoming such an error takes time
I have a few problems with the evidence used in this article.
Modern science (evolutionary theory etc) perfectly explains morality in humans: we evolved to live in groups, where prosocial behavior is favored for survival. Plus, if God had made us have moral sense, that would mean he was a moral person, which contradicts the whole “babies with cancer” thing.
On the whole anthropic principle thing, any “life form” that evolves from a pre-existing physical system will be perfectly fit to life in that system. That doesn’t mean that it was designed for them. Who knows what we would look like if the weak force or whatever was 0.001% off, but if there was sentient life that emerged from that change, they would be making the same argument. And if sentient life didn’t emerge from that change, no one would be around to know. I.e, theists win 100% of the time.
I have qualms with the consciousness argument too but I don’t have enough knowledge on the subject to formulate a coherent argument lol.
I think you're not quite getting the arguments.
First of all, I haven't made a moral argument but instead a moral knowledge argument. Now, as I argue in the linked post, the point isn't specific to morality but instead generalizes to lots of kinds of knowledge. Now, I think morality is objective and we have good grounds for believing that, for reasons explained here https://benthams.substack.com/p/book-review-ethical-intuitionism
As for fine-tuning, I address this in this article https://benthams.substack.com/p/the-fine-tuning-argument-simply-works (See the section titled "Couldn’t different kinds of life arise?"). In short, it flatly misstates the physics--it isn't just that different structures would form, but that if the cosmological constant were different by a bit, the universe would either immediately implode or involve particles that instantaneously shoot out into space, never interacting.
Quick reminder : If God exists (like you think it's likely) he is watching factory farming going on for 50+ years now and is just like "hmm not feeling like stopping this now, nop!". Or even better, he's been watching predation going on for millions of years now and is just like "hmm nah, don't really feel like stopping this for now, I mean I could but yeah not really down for this now, nop !".
(A perfect being would obviously not do that, so a perfect being doesn't exist)
This inference is as clear as the belief that 1 + 1 = 2. It certainly can't be overriden by some controversial philosophical arguments like fine tuning, PH, anthropic arg etc.
Get some perspective !
Yes, he is familiar with the Problem of Evil.
Not familiar enough apparently. The fact that a perfect being wouldn't let those things happen is as obvious, literally, as the fact that 1 + 1 = 2. So, I see it like this :
Either you accept some extremely controversial arguments like fine tuning or PH, or you accept that 1 +1 = 2. Which one should you accept ?
What's your opinion on non-truth-tracking explanations for why we favor simplicity? I have in mind pragmatic explanations, Kelly's minimization of mind changes, etc.
I think it's hard to see why on that picture we should trust induction given the infinite number of counter inductive worlds.
The idea would be that these explanations do tell us why we should trust induction, but the stories they give will rest on pragmatic grounds or efficiency grounds or etc.
I find that very implausible. Seems like any plausible view will hold that it's very very improbable that induction will break down in a second.
How likely do you think it is that God is evil? If you believe that God having infinite benevolence is a simple hypothesis, you could argue that God having infinite malevolence is equally simple.
Wouldn't infinite malevolence tend toward there being nothing at all?
Not if Benthamite utilitarianism is the correct morality. Suffering wouldn't exist if there was nothing. Infinite malevolence would tend toward maximizing suffering.
https://benthams.substack.com/p/the-evil-god-challenge?utm_source=publication-search
Does this world seem like one that maximizes suffering? It has far too much good in it for that.
Not necessarily. It might trend toward maximal chaos, in which whatever existence there is for whatever subsidiary creations there are happens to be bad. Sort of like AM in I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream.
You need to get more creative, Bentham. OK, Theism, but not necessarily of the historic type. For example, why is evil a problem? We do not have to go with the historic assumption of a loving god. It all might be an experiment and we are the mice in it.
Given that theism and simulation are basically the same thing, the most likely reason to set up a simulation is an experiment, not love.
Or it could be a videogame type simulation. Evil exists in GTA V, too. That is kind of its whole point. The universe could be alien kids playing GTA V. We are the NPCs, Hitler was controlled by a PC in a particularly foul mood.
Since you are a bare theist, I don't see how you can get to the surprising result of a personal, loving God. This has always seemed to me to be an act of faith, plausible and justifiable perhaps given that you know there is a God might as well do the human version of acting on it - personification of the moral lawgiver, the cosmic orderer, and mind-enlightener.
However, I recently heard an argument that might have moved me philosophically a bit on this one. If you accept that the first cause of the universe is the source of the moral law, and the moral law is a law of love and "human flourishing", then it is at least plausible that the Source shares in those qualities at least analogously. I'll admit some kind of plausibility, but I think the argument is too broad and can be applied to very strange things - like genetic drift.
"If the source of creatures, creates using genetic drift, then is it plausible to assume that God has the features of random exploration of possibility space."
So the personhood of a loving God seems to me best argued for by the study of the evolution of human culture, which has progressed to higher understanding and practice of moral law thanks to revealed religion. Though most of those alleged revealed religions and prophets must certainly be false.
Still it's not a very strong argument admittedly.
The arguments that move me are mostly arguments for God defined as a perfect being. If God is perfect then he'd be loving and personal. So then it's just a matter of if he's personal. I think that the only way to make theism plausible is if you think all of God's properties flow from one essential property--the one I'm most attracted to is his being a limitless mind. If not, then you need to arbitrarily build in complicated psychophysical laws and powers, meaning it doesn't solve fine-tuning or psychophysical harmony and introduces massive complexity and lack of elegance. Plus, if he has some random desire, it's unlikely he'd want to create anthropic argument numbers of people.
Most all the evidence for God comes from things that are very valuable and very improbable, so those will favor a perfect being, especially when other kinds of beings just push the problem up a level! (I also think if you don't buy this then even a Christian shouldn't be confident in a good God--even if he raised Jesus from the dead, why think he's perfect).
Unrelated: how are you doing? Been a bit since the emergent ventures meeting! Fun meeting you!
I am well. Recently I have been wielding two books Heavenly Mathematics and The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy. Too many people think they should be allowed to dally with Dante and dance with Descartes when they can't even explain the intersection of the ecliptic and the equator!
I do wonder why perfection has to necessarily include love, or at least the love that we humans can make sense of. The very idea of perfection seems like a human pattern. A person, except bigger! perfectly bigger! the exact perfect size a person should be! whatever size that is! the love of a person, except not flawed like our love is! what is that lack of a flaw? picture a bad thing, this love doesn't have it! whatever that bad thing is! do we have a point of disagreement? well, both of those at the same time, with all the good things and no bad things! It seems wide of the point and certainly doesn't match my sense of the divine not being so much perfect and irresistible, but present and aware of creation. A creation with integrity might not be perfectible because maybe it stops working, and God is of course perfectly interested in creation working exactly the right amount.
I love it. For my part, I have had lots of first-personal religious experiences, but at this point I think oof well I maybe prefer an atheistic universe? Not that God can for my convenience disappear, but it would make my suffering easier, I think. Now it's just perplexing. I agree with you that the problem of evil can be boiled down to a problem of the universe being indifferent (cue Lovecraft, who understood this well, https://helendecruz.substack.com/p/reading-lovecrafts-horror-in-times?fbclid=IwY2xjawFha0BleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHWFKSIw-tNvUBoOiDx1SPulnHfi07wJ8WRvk6EnaI__XoOSebWCCQAZGRg_aem__lbQvxLhERlk4gXiGthz_g).
Hmm, I'm a bit puzzled. Why prefer an atheistic universe? Wouldn't it be better if everyone, including victims of horrible crimes, will spend forever in paradise? (Sadly I've never had a religious experience, but I'd like to!)
l like the game concept. Another I find attractive is God and the universe (including us) creating a painting. However much black paint the universe and we throw around, God turns that into the shading of some beautiful garment or panorama. "God moves last."
I know you believe in the God of philosophers. Is prayer or worship profitable to one such as you? I would think so but am curious what you have to say about it.
I'm a classical theist Christian so trying to wrap my mind around what it would be like to just believe in bare classical theism. I feel like I'd still think "I should attempt to commune with God at all times" and "it is right to praise Him."
Yeah I think so.
Non-militant agnostic here. I am curious as to why this amounts to evidence of something paradoxical across many dimensions (specific, general, abstract, concrete, etc) rather than evidence of undecideability, with your choice of belief fairly breaking the tiebreaker.
You are a very good introspective writer, maybe we are just quite similar but I have seldom found something more relatable to read than this. Well done :)