The illogic of Atheism

As we've seen over the last few pages there is now, as there always has been, an argument for the sort of god that hides in the cracks in our current understanding of reality; thus anything inexplicable or beyond our monkey brain understanding = "god". Such an entity may exist, or we may be just like the children, waiting for the tooth to be exchanged for the dollar, who haven't totally worked it out yet.

I think it goes beyond a god of the gaps argument, though. I don't disagree that it's plausible that eventually a discovery could be made that alters the course of these discussions, one way or the other - but I think, just as you have said that "god did it" doesn't get us anywhere, saying "we will figure it out because there must be a non-'god'-like answer (for lack of a better term) isn't doing much either. In many instances that can be said to be something akin to a "scientism of the gaps". And, of course, in the middle is the possibility that it's something we just may not be able to discover. It's an awfully difficult task to try to figure out how and why the universe exists from inside the universe itself.

I also think, as stated previously, that philosophy has a role to play in this matter as well. The natural sciences are not the end-all-be-all of knowledge or consideration; and on top of that, I'm not sure that the god hiding in the cracks is the only sort of god that has been argued for. I think there is merit to arguments surrounding the explicability of the universe to begin with, for instance, as something that is taken for granted but is perhaps something to be thought about a bit harder.

In addition, I'm not sure that fine-tuning issues (which, I'm aware, range from the "woefully unaware of how probability works" to the sophisticated and informed [see Luke Barnes]) are god of the gaps issues. In fact, they seem to be the reason that people like Elon Musk (IIRC) and others (even Tyson, I think, with whom I disagree not only substantively but in method) have proposed simulation hypotheses as far as the universe's existence goes. I think those hypotheses are not very different from the very notion of god some seem reluctant to invoke, but that's a different conversation altogether.

In any event, I think it's a bit more complicated than just god of the gaps.

I think it goes beyond a god of the gaps argument, though. I don't disagree that it's plausible that eventually a discovery could be made that alters the course of these discussions, one way or the other - but I think, just as you have said that "god did it" doesn't get us anywhere, saying "we will figure it out because there must be a non-'god'-like answer (for lack of a better term) isn't doing much either. In many instances that can be said to be something akin to a "scientism of the gaps". And, of course, in the middle is the possibility that it's something we just may not be able to discover. It's an awfully difficult task to try to figure out how and why the universe exists from inside the universe itself.

I also think, as stated previously, that philosophy has a role to play in this matter as well. The natural sciences are not the end-all-be-all of knowledge or consideration; and on top of that, I'm not sure that the god hiding in the cracks is the only sort of god that has been argued for. I think there is merit to arguments surrounding the explicability of the universe to begin with, for instance, as something that is taken for granted but is perhaps something to be thought about a bit harder.

In addition, I'm not sure that fine-tuning issues (which, I'm aware, range from the "woefully unaware of how probability works" to the sophisticated and informed [see Luke Barnes]) are god of the gaps issues. In fact, they seem to be the reason that people like Elon Musk (IIRC) and others (even Tyson, I think, with whom I disagree not only substantively but in method) have proposed simulation hypotheses as far as the universe's existence goes. I think those hypotheses are not very different from the very notion of god some seem reluctant to invoke, but that's a different conversation altogether.

In any event, I think it's a bit more complicated than just god of the gaps.

Pretty balanced post Dante.  And, striking to me, is the allowance for both possible outcomes.  (God; no God)

This seems intellectually honest to me and what you will NEVER see from dogmatic atheists as we've seen in this thread.

Are you mocking skeptics' inability to understand?

More like a willful ignorance that mocks what could be understood by reading what I actually wrote in my post about proofs of God and their distance from what people assume what a God would be like.

I think it goes beyond a god of the gaps argument, though. I don't disagree that it's plausible that eventually a discovery could be made that alters the course of these discussions, one way or the other - but I think, just as you have said that "god did it" doesn't get us anywhere, saying "we will figure it out because there must be a non-'god'-like answer (for lack of a better term) isn't doing much either. In many instances that can be said to be something akin to a "scientism of the gaps". And, of course, in the middle is the possibility that it's something we just may not be able to discover. It's an awfully difficult task to try to figure out how and why the universe exists from inside the universe itself.

I also think, as stated previously, that philosophy has a role to play in this matter as well. The natural sciences are not the end-all-be-all of knowledge or consideration; and on top of that, I'm not sure that the god hiding in the cracks is the only sort of god that has been argued for. I think there is merit to arguments surrounding the explicability of the universe to begin with, for instance, as something that is taken for granted but is perhaps something to be thought about a bit harder.

In addition, I'm not sure that fine-tuning issues (which, I'm aware, range from the "woefully unaware of how probability works" to the sophisticated and informed [see Luke Barnes]) are god of the gaps issues. In fact, they seem to be the reason that people like Elon Musk (IIRC) and others (even Tyson, I think, with whom I disagree not only substantively but in method) have proposed simulation hypotheses as far as the universe's existence goes. I think those hypotheses are not very different from the very notion of god some seem reluctant to invoke, but that's a different conversation altogether.

In any event, I think it's a bit more complicated than just god of the gaps.

It isn't Scientism of the Gaps that I think is the issue, it's more faith in the Laws of Physics and other brute facts is the bedrock of the skeptical-materialist faith.

Everything has an explanation that must be sought until it becomes inconvenient - then we just have to accept there is no explanation beyond the brute facts that support the skeptic-materilalist positon**. Or, as Heisenberg put it:

“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you”

**As per Lewontin:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural.  We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.  It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.  Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.  [From a review of Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World in the New York Review of Books (January 9, 1997)]

Pretty balanced post Dante.  And, striking to me, is the allowance for both possible outcomes.  (God; no God)

This seems intellectually honest to me and what you will NEVER see from dogmatic atheists as we've seen in this thread.

...

As we've seen over the last few pages there is now, as there always has been, an argument for the sort of god that hides in the cracks in our current understanding of reality; thus anything inexplicable or beyond our monkey brain understanding = "god". Such an entity may exist, or we may be just like the children, waiting for the tooth to be exchanged for the dollar, who haven't totally worked it out yet.

As we've seen over the last few pages there is now, as there always has been, an argument for the sort of god that hides in the cracks in our current understanding of reality; thus anything inexplicable or beyond our monkey brain understanding = "god". Such an entity may exist, or we may be just like the children, waiting for the tooth to be exchanged for the dollar, who haven't totally worked it out yet.

Except that, according many philosophical doctrines, the god that you wish to deny doesn't hide at all. This is a god pretty well understood and universally conspicuous. It is the force-fitted materialist interpretation of reality that creates the blindness. 

It really is very simple in essence: there is nothing other than that which we call God. This is not a person so there is nobody to hide. If you look back through those last few pages you will see mention of Brahman. Take a quick look at the Wikipedia description and you might see what Valmar was saying.

Brahman as a metaphysical concept is the single binding unity behind diversity in all that exists in the universe.

Hinduism is not the only wisdom tradition that teaches such concepts. Buddhism and several others, including the so-called Perennial Philosophy incorporate similar teachings. Yet you arrogantly dismiss them all as mere mollification for childish incomprehension. Like so many fundamentalists, you don't question your own faith nor understand the arguments against it. Constantly repeating the tooth fairy line doesn't make it any more convincing.

It isn't Scientism of the Gaps that I think is the issue, it's more faith in the Laws of Physics and other brute facts is the bedrock of the skeptical-materialist faith.

Everything has an explanation that must be sought until it becomes inconvenient - then we just have to accept there is no explanation beyond the brute facts that support the skeptic-materilalist positon**. Or, as Heisenberg put it:

“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you”

**As per Lewontin:

You should be 100% certain that quote is from Heisenberg. 

 You have a mistaken understanding I think. They are not LAWS implying they are somehow writ in stone handed down from the physics priests, no they are discoveries made by men and women, they are descriptions of how nature works, nothing more, nothing less. Faith you say, it's nothing of the sort.

You should be 100% certain that quote is from Heisenberg. 

Faith you say. You have a mistaken understanding I think. They are not LAWS implying they are somehow writ in stone handed down from the physics priests, no they are discoveries made by men and women, they are descriptions of how nature works, nothing more, nothing less.

Are you saying it's not Heisenberg? I remember someone had it as their signature, and it seemed to check out. But really does it seem surprising, looking at what other physicists said who were around for some of the early forays into QM:

“I go to the Upanishad to ask questions"
 ---Bohr, referring to a religious Indian text

“This life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of this entire existence, but in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is that sacred, mystic formula which is yet really so simple and so clear; tat tvam asi, this is you. Or, again, in such words as “I am in the east and the west, I am above and below, I am this entire world.”
---Erwin Schrodinger

Today there is a wide measure of agreement, which on the physical side of science approaches almost to unanimity, that the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as a creator and governor of the realm of matter..
---Sir James Hopwood Jeans

Of course I could go on, but I'll finish with pointing out the preface Einstein wrote for Upton Sinclair's book about telepathy.

Re: laws as discoveries - I'd agree there are just regularities that still have no explanation save for being brute facts. Why do the regularities hold enough to be thought of as inviolate laws?

You should be 100% certain that quote is from Heisenberg. 

Interesting:

https://fauxtations.wordpress.com/2016/0...the-glass/

Except that, according many philosophical doctrines, the god that you wish to deny doesn't hide at all. This is a god pretty well understood and universally conspicuous. It is the force-fitted materialist interpretation of reality that creates the blindness. 

It really is very simple in essence: there is nothing other than that which we call God. This is not a person so there is nobody to hide. If you look back through those last few pages you will see mention of Brahman. Take a quick look at the Wikipedia description and you might see what Valmar was saying.


Hinduism is not the only wisdom tradition that teaches such concepts. Buddhism and several others, including the so-called Perennial Philosophy incorporate similar teachings. Yet you arrogantly dismiss them all as mere mollification for childish incomprehension. Like so many fundamentalists, you don't question your own faith nor understand the arguments against it. Constantly repeating the tooth fairy line doesn't make it any more convincing.

In practical terms, what then is the difference between "Brahman" and "nature"? 

The only "faith" I have is that I really can't know for sure. And I'm leery of anyone who says they do.