Be Afraid

[stonehart]

I agree Stoneheart. I simply see things in a different light. Let me show you what I mean............ If someone here engages in a discussion on a subject that assumes something as fact when there is reason to believe that what is being discussed leaves room for another view, even though in the course of your discussion your assumptions seem so sure that the whole thing is passed over as if unnoticed by anyone else....but to me it might be the white elephant in the room. Should I pretend that I didn't notice it and keep going to keep the peace or derail the discussion in order to dig a little deeper on the issue?........... did these people make a claim? Not really, they were simply carrying on a discussion about another topic.Who should be on the defensive here? Should the parties happily discussing another topic immediately pull out of their discussion to pacify me? of should I do the same if one of you suddenly decides that I said something totally off base ? Should we forget the original intention of the thread and simply derail threads and demand answers on totally unrelated subjects?

Ah no you missed the point of that post.

Carry on all .. I am just going to watch the rest of this thread..

Nice Posts RenaissanceLady and Ufology

 

[stonehart]

Yeah I know I was not going to post again but hey this was worth it just for people to ponder on the implications.

 

[Muadib]

Yeah I know I was not going to post again but hey this was worth it just for people to ponder on the implications.

Great video, the only problem is logic doesn't work with certain religious people who have abandoned the use of reason, they constantly seek to widen those ever shrinking gaps in our knowledge so they can shoehorn God in there as a de facto explanation for everything we don't understand, and some things we clearly do understand. Observe this thread and statements like "evolution is just a theory" or "do we really know how the sun works?" (rofl) perfect examples of the fundamentalist mindset at work, deny new knowledge, replace with "God did it" rinse and repeat until the end of time.

 

[RenaissanceLady]

Great video, the only problem is logic doesn't work with certain religious people who have abandoned the use of reason, they constantly seek to widen those ever shrinking gaps in our knowledge so they can shoehorn God in there as a de facto explanation for everything we don't understand, and some things we clearly do understand. Observe this thread and statements like "evolution is just a theory" or "do we really know how the sun works?" (rofl) perfect examples of the fundamentalist mindset at work, deny new knowledge, replace with "God did it" rinse and repeat until the end of time.

You're assuming they're even willing to read or watch anything that challenges their notions. I'm fairly confident there are a certain few on this thread who truly haven't read anything with which they do not already agree. Such is the "lies from the pit of hell" mentality. Specifically:

1. Lies have no value.
2. Anything which challenges their religious beliefs is therefore a lie - and an evil lie, at that.
3. Therefore, it is good and moral to avoid anything which is a worthless, evil lie.

It is perfectly healthy to become educated in the world's religions and even treat certain religious aspects as a personal philosophy - as long as it is understood these are just philosophies and not absolute, objective truths. From this, we can learn how different cultures formed their own religions and how those religions continue to shape different cultures, the arts, literature, etc. It is foolish, however, to blindly hand over all moral authority to any person or organization because that person or organization demands absolute faith (by definition without burden of proof). Doing such enslaves the mind. Unfortunately, there are those who desire nothing more than to be a slave. It shrugs off the mantle of personal responsibility.

 

[Randall]

Yeah I know I was not going to post again but hey this was worth it just for people to ponder on the implications.

Actually, that video has more than one problem. The first is that its assumptions about God are based purely on cherry picked examples around a particular concept of God. Also in the case of the Higgs Boson, it is at least making one leap of faith. The Higgs Boson has not been confirmed as it claims. Rather, although the experiments imply that it exists, there is no direct evidence, and there is another problem beyond that with the hypothesis itself that is seldom talked about, but seems more about the need to keep the existing mathematics stable and less about what the evidence is telling us, particularly the circumstance that the alleged particle in the ultra high energy impact almost instantly "decays" into ordinary particles. This means that under ordinary circumstances there is no Higgs Boson ( it cannot be a Higgs Boson and an electron at the same time ). This in turn implies that the ordinary stable material world around us contains no Higgs Bosons, yet it seems to have mass anyway. I have found no explanation for this contradiction ( not that there may not be one ... I just don't know what it is ).

 

[Muadib]

Actually, that video has more than one problem. The first is that its assumptions about God are based purely on cherry picked examples around a particular concept of God. Also in the case of the Higgs Boson, it is at least making one leap of faith. The Higgs Boson has not been confirmed as it claims. Rather, although the experiments imply that it exists, there is no direct evidence, and there is another problem beyond that with the hypothesis itself that is seldom talked about, but seems more about the need to keep the existing mathematics stable and less about what the evidence is telling us, particularly the circumstance that the alleged particle in the ultra high energy impact almost instantly "decays" into ordinary particles. This means that under ordinary circumstances there is no Higgs Boson ( it cannot be a Higgs Boson and an electron at the same time ). This in turn implies that the ordinary stable material world around us contains no Higgs Bosons, yet it seems to have mass anyway. I have found no explanation for this contradiction ( not that there may not be one ... I just don't know what it is ).

The video was addressing, specifically, the "god of the gaps" argument, not to be nit-picky but this is one of my pet peeves, he's making a short video about a specific argument, he's not going to address every single argument either for or against the existence of god. It's plain to anyone who thinks about it that wasn't his intention, his intention was to deal specifically with one aspect of the overall argument, the "god of the gaps" philosophy.

The reason it's a pet peeve of mine when people do this is it's the same thing every single conspiracy theorist I've ever argued with does, you address and explain one set of their evidence and completely obliterate it, then they respond with, "well that doesn't explain: b,c,d,e and f" and of course it doesn't because it was only meant to explain "a" Just because it doesn't specifically deal with things that are outside the scope of its original intent doesn't mean it's any less correct.

 

[Randall]

The video was addressing, specifically, the "god of the gaps" argument ...

That's almost fair comment, but the whole purpose of the "God of the gaps" illustration is to erode the idea of God in general using these cherry picked examples, so it's not quite so neat and contained as the arguer would like it to be. But don't get me wrong either. It's not that there isn't a point to be made from the illustration either. If we are to limit our context to the types of God(s) in question, and the leaps of logic made in the examples, then the point is certainly valid.

 

[Muadib]

That's almost fair comment, but the whole purpose of the "God of the gaps" illustration is to erode the idea of God in general using these cherry picked examples, so it's not quite so neat and contained as the arguer would like it to be. But don't get me wrong either. It's not that there isn't a point to be made from the illustration either. If we are to limit our context to the types of God(s) in question, and the leaps of logic made in the examples, then the point is certainly valid.

I think the erosion of the idea of God comes from the faulty logic used in "god of the gaps" arguments in general. You have to remember that it was believers in god who originally came up with the argument, as the video illustrates, science just put a name to it. I'm curious why you think the examples were "cherry picked"? He dealt with the origin of the argument, provided examples of how the argument has evolved and provided examples of how it has manifested itself in today's debates on the existence or non existence of a deity. Is there a specific god of the gaps argument that you feel is valid and you feel he's dodging? If not, I don't understand where you're coming from with the cherry picking argument, it's a 10 minute Youtube video not a scientific dissertation.

I think he did a great job illustrating exactly why the god of the gaps concept fails on so many fronts, specifically because no matter how you look at it, it's an argument from ignorance and contains too many assumptions to be valid. It assumes that if you can't explain something now, you'll never be able to explain it (there is no new knowledge) and that the inability to explain something is somehow proof of the existence of a divine creator, which is patently ridiculous.

 

[Randall]

I think the erosion of the idea of God comes from the faulty logic used in "god of the gaps" arguments in general. You have to remember that it was believers in god who originally came up with the argument, as the video illustrates, science just put a name to it. I'm curious why you think the examples were "cherry picked" ...

It breaks down like this:

• Atheist 1: Let's try to show God doesn't exist.
• Atheist 2: OK How do we do that?
• Atheist 1: We find specific ( cherry picked ) examples where belief in God has failed and hold those up as evidence.

The problem with the above is that such examples aren't evidence against the existence of God. They are only evidence that in those particular instances, the assumptions made linking unexplained phenomena to God were faulty. Although the video carefully avoids making a definitive statement that what they are doing is trying to disprove God through the use of the "God of the Gaps" examples, it is amply implied. Does that mean the examples have no value? Certainly not. Like you, I believe the main point is valid. These examples should provide us with reasons to be careful not to make more "God of the gaps" mistakes. It is only the underlying implied "therefore God doesn't exist" portion of the video that I see a problem with.

 

[Muadib]

It breaks down like this:

• Atheist 1: Let's try to show God doesn't exist.
• Atheist 2: OK How do we do that?
• Atheist 1: We find specific ( cherry picked ) examples where belief in God has failed and hold those up as evidence.

The problem with the above is that such examples aren't evidence against the existence of God. They are only evidence that in those particular instances, the assumptions made linking unexplained phenomena to God were faulty. Although the video carefully avoids making a definitive statement that what they are doing is trying to disprove God through the use of the "God of the Gaps" examples, it is amply implied. Does that mean the examples have no value? Certainly not. Like you, I believe the main point is valid. These examples should provide us with reasons to be careful not to make more "God of the gaps" mistakes. It is only the underlying implied "therefore God doesn't exist" portion of the video that I see a problem with.

Lol, I think you're reading into it a bit too much, but I see where you're coming from, even if I couldn't disagree with you more. As you said, they avoid making a definitive statement, and I think if that was actually what they wanted to do, they would have done it. They're simply pointing out why and how the god of the gaps arguments falls flat on its face.

You don't think it's reasonable to assume that the Christian god doesn't exist based on the fact that his existence as stated by Christianity is in and of itself highly illogical and contradictory in its very nature? I fail to see their examples as cherry picked when there really isn't any evidence to the contrary other than people's personal feelings, which I don't find conclusive, after all some people feel that they're reptilians from Planet X, it doesn't mean they actually are. That's not meant to be smart assy either, it's just the way I feel about it.

 

[RenaissanceLady]

There's a reason I love that man.

 

[Randall]

Lol, I think you're reading into it a bit too much, but I see where you're coming from, even if I couldn't disagree with you more. As you said, they avoid making a definitive statement, and I think if that was actually what they wanted to do, they would have done it. They're simply pointing out why and how the god of the gaps arguments falls flat on its face.

Because the video points out fallacies in other people's arguments ( e.g. argument from ignorance ), it's only fair that the video should be subject to equal scrutiny. So I wouldn't say I'm going "too far". Logically, to go too far I'd have to make my own video of equal or greater length that disputes every point made in it and then some.

I fail to see their examples as cherry picked when there really isn't any evidence to the contrary other than people's personal feelings, which I don't find conclusive, after all some people feel that they're reptilians from Planet X, it doesn't mean they actually are. That's not meant to be smart assy either, it's just the way I feel about it.

Evidence to the contrary isn't required to show that instances of cherry picking exist. However cherry picking doesn't necessarily weaken an argument either. After all, what should we be expected to do, pick random or bad examples to support our argument? Certainly that doesn't make any sense either. So in that context, your view on the examples is fair. I also agree with your "pet peeve" on the issue of the "God of the Gaps" to the extent that it isn't wise to jump to the conclusion that some supernatural explanation ( God or otherwise ) is responsible for unexplained phenomena.

You don't think it's reasonable to assume that the Christian god doesn't exist based on the fact that his existence as stated by Christianity is in and of itself highly illogical and contradictory in its very nature?

The issue above seems to step outside the bounds of the video, but I'll do what I can to answer. I don't think it's necessarily reasonable to assume anything about the reality of anything with any certainty. The only certainties we can justify are abstract logical ( e.g. mathematical ) constructs. Although I agree with you that, "Christianity is in and of itself highly illogical and contradictory in its very nature." there also seems to be nothing preventing the existence of such beings. For example I'm sure there are a number of men who would agree that they seem to be intimately involved with highly illogical beings of a seeming contradictory nature , and it's not even all that uncommon for men to deify them and perform any number of rituals to gain their favor ( especially if they've been caught doing something they shouldn't ).

So the biggest problem is in keeping the idea of what constitutes a God in perspective. First what we're dealing with in virtually every instance is some being ( or alleged being ) with the title of God. To be perfectly clear, "God" isn't a name like Bob or Jane, it's a rank ( like King or Queen ) that designates some high standing within a hierarchical religious belief system. Therefore even if such beings exist, they are only granted Godhood by virtue of their deification ( the crowning devotion their followers ). Also the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that they ( the Gods ) aren't responsible for everything that their devotees claim. Therefore the dogma, the bibles, the scrolls, are at best a combination pseudohistory and mythology. So what this boils down to is that although these entities could exist, not everyone has sufficient reason to become a devotee and therefore while those entities might be gods to some people, they wouldn't be gods to everyone ( including me, and I suspect you as well ). In fact I would think they'd have some rather serious explaining to do, and that if those explanations made any sense at all, they would involve extensive corrections to the stories propagated by organized religion.

 

[Randall]

There's a reason I love that man.

I think "love" is going a bit overboard there. Neil D.T. is also famous for his mockumental diatribe on UFOs that consists more of perpetuating ignorance about the phenomenon and less about educating people. On other issues however, he does a great job of being an entertaining advocate of science.

 

[stonehart]

There's a reason I love that man.

And the reason I love him as well

Interesting argument on the God of the gaps video... Personally I saw it as addressing the argument as an overview, for sure you can read more into it but it was just I believe trying to put this information out there in a short video.

Either way the aforementioned personality hits the nail on the head when he says "ever decreasing pocket of scientific ignorance"

Anyway .. carry on and I will go back to lurking and throwing the odd hammer in the works

 

[Muadib]

Because the video points out fallacies in other people's arguments ( e.g. argument from ignorance ), it's only fair that the video should be subject to equal scrutiny. So I wouldn't say I'm going "too far". Logically, to go too far I'd have to make my own video of equal or greater length that disputes every point made in it and then some.

Evidence to the contrary isn't required to show that instances of cherry picking exist. However cherry picking doesn't necessarily weaken an argument either. After all, what should we be expected to do, pick random or bad examples to support our argument? Certainly that doesn't make any sense either. So in that context, your view on the examples is fair. I also agree with your "pet peeve" on the issue of the "God of the Gaps" to the extent that it isn't wise to jump to the conclusion that some supernatural explanation ( God or otherwise ) is responsible for unexplained phenomena.

The issue above seems to step outside the bounds of the video, but I'll do what I can to answer. I don't think it's necessarily reasonable to assume anything about the reality of anything with any certainty. The only certainties we can justify are abstract logical ( e.g. mathematical ) constructs. Although I agree with you that, "Christianity is in and of itself highly illogical and contradictory in its very nature." there also seems to be nothing preventing the existence of such beings. For example I'm sure there are a number of men who would agree that they seem to be intimately involved with highly illogical beings of a seeming contradictory nature , and it's not even all that uncommon for men to deify them and perform any number of rituals to gain their favor ( especially if they've been caught doing something they shouldn't ).

So the biggest problem is in keeping the idea of what constitutes a God in perspective. First what we're dealing with in virtually every instance is some being ( or alleged being ) with the title of God. To be perfectly clear, "God" isn't a name like Bob or Jane, it's a rank ( like King or Queen ) that designates some high standing within a hierarchical religious belief system. Therefore even if such beings exist, they are only granted Godhood by virtue of their deification ( the crowning devotion their followers ). Also the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that they ( the Gods ) aren't responsible for everything that their devotees claim. Therefore the dogma, the bibles, the scrolls, are at best a combination pseudohistory and mythology. What this boils down to is that although these entities could exist, even if they do, I have insufficient reason to become a devotee and therefore while they might be gods to other people, they wouldn't be for me ( and I suspect you as well ). In fact I would think they'd have some rather serious explaining to do, and that if those explanations made any sense at all, they would involve extensive corrections to the stories propagated by organized religion.

Just for clarity's sake, I don't think I accused you of going too far, just reading more into the video than I thought was there. Like I said I see how you got there, I just don't agree with your analysis of their intent. As for the rest of your post, you make some excellent points. Thanks for the response.

 

[Randall]

Just for clarity's sake, I don't think I accused you of going too far, just reading more into the video than I thought was there, like I said I see how you got there, I just don't agree. As for the rest of your post, you make some excellent points. Thanks for the response.

Thanks, but not sure what you don't agree with exactly. We agree on the face value ( the surface content ). Are you saying you don't think that there is also an implied purpose behind the video that is connected to an atheist agenda?

 

[Muadib]

Thanks, but not sure what you don't agree with exactly. We agree on the face value ( the surface content ). Are you saying you don't think that there is an implied purpose behind the video that is connected to an atheist agenda?

Like I added to my post I think your analysis of their intent is off. The video (to me at least) just seems like it's intended to provide an overview of the argument and to point how and why the god of the gaps argument fails. I just fail to see any reason they would have for pulling their punches, if they wanted to go all the way and imply that the concept of god can be completely 100% written off because of the failure of one argument, I think they would have done so. So like I said in my other post, I can see how you got there, but I think it's more about what you perceive to be there than what is actually there.

 

[Randall]

Like I added to my post I think your analysis of their intent is off. The video (to me at least) just seems like it's intended to provide an overview of the argument and to point how and why the god of the gaps argument fails. I just fail to see any reason they would have for pulling their punches, if they wanted to go all the way and imply that the concept of god can be completely 100% written off because of the failure of one argument, I think they would have done so. So like I said in my other post, I can see how you got there, but I think it's more about what you perceive to be there than what is actually there.

I'll take that as a "yes" to my question and offer the following evidence that there is an implied ( actually a more than implied ) purpose behind the video that is connected to an atheist/agnostic agenda, or even more specifically that there is no God:

1. The title of the video is, "Evidence Agaist God - Part 2 God of the Gaps". As you can see, we agree that the topic under discussion is "God of the Gaps", but the overall context is "Evidence Against God". Clearly this overall context is intended to further the idea that there is no God, and is further supported by point 2. below:
2. This is only one of two videos in a series. In Part One, the video clearly states, "In this video series we will investigate the evidence which indicates God does not exist." and it goes on to conclude that there is ample evidence that God does not exist.

Not sure what other evidence you need. However I will grant that your own personal intent may not have been to promote the videos primary agenda, but rather to focus our attention here in the Paracast on one particular subset ( God of the Gaps - your pet peeve ).

 

[Muadib]

I'll take that as a "yes" to my question and offer the following evidence that there is an implied ( actually a more than implied ) purpose behind the video that is connected to an atheist/agnostic agenda, or even more specifically that there is no God:

1. The title of the video is, "Evidence Agaist God - Part 2 God of the Gaps". As you can see, we agree that the topic under discussion is "God of the Gaps", but the overall context is "Evidence Against God". Clearly this overall context is intended to further the idea that there is no God, and is further supported by point 2. below:
2. This is only one of two videos in a series. In Part One, the video clearly states, "In this video series we will investigate the evidence which indicates God does not exist." and it goes on to conclude that there is ample evidence that God does not exist.

Not sure what other evidence you need. However I will grant that your own personal intent may not have been to promote the videos primary agenda, but rather to focus our attention here in the Paracast on one particular subset ( God of the Gaps - your pet peeve ).

I didn't post the video so there was no intent on my part when it comes to that. I definitely agree with you now, given what was said in the first video. I think drawing a conclusion based on the title of the video can be dangerous, even though you were right in this case, don't judge a book by it's cover and all that jazz. Anyway that's enough for me for tonight, gotta hit the sack, I can still get a couple of hours of sleep before I have to be up, damn my insomnia.

 

[Randall]

I didn't post the video so there was no intent on my part when it comes to that. I definitely agree with you now, given what was said in the first video. I think drawing a conclusion based on the title of the video can be dangerous, even though you were right in this case, don't judge a book by it's cover and all that jazz.

My intent there was to acknowledge your point, and I'm really glad we ended up landing on the same ground. Good discussion !