Would like a scientific/philosophical view on a discussion.

[RobRit]

Hi, would like a scientific/philosophical argument on a discussion I am having. Any help greatly appreciated. Cheers

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That's great you've managed to created more gaps for God to fill. The truth is that I'm not one the spoon fed by religion, I asked questions which makes more sense when intelligence is applied to bridge gaps than to assume the universe is based on chaos and disorder. God exists before time and makes His preexistence illogical for He's the source of all energy, time,space and matter. Tell me, are your thoughts products of randomness or consciousness? this consciousness is it a product of disorder? Because religion cannot base its argument on physical evidence doesn't make its claims invalid otherwise rather it superimposes science in its entirety. The problem is that nowadays people misuse religion for their selfish requests and make God distant them the non religious POV becomes warped about the truth throwing the baby out with the bath water, discrediting every ties to the Creator. We all know this but some people just choose apply the same principles of man to God. They think God is a finite entity that dwells in the Sky, that's limited because unfavourable things happen and fail to see they are part of a grand design.

All scientific facts still change to meet up with God's word. Today, the prophecies of the Bible are unravelling : internet, cashless transactions, space exploration, cloning and Modern Warfare are all documented. If we disregard the Bible as the truth because of the God you despise, then only those who pay attention will tap into the knowledge and be able to preemptively avert dangers by calling unto the Savior

Have ever wonder why there are miracles and faith healing that defy medical reports and diagnosis?

Have you asked what happens to consciousness when the body dies? The universe is vast and unexplored dimensions are merely touched and observed and man on his little blue rock doubt the existence of a Supreme Being ,the creator of the universe? Definitely science is taking the common sense out of people and philosophy is doing more harm of twisting faith with facts

One more thing, God is not "god of the gaps" as He's the source of all creation

“Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It’s like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can’t trust my own thinking, of course I can’t trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.” —C.S. Lewis

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That is what he said.. I have come across a site that completely obliterates this quote on a reddit forum:

C.S. Lewis' Argument Against Atheism is a Joke and Here's Why

My overall view on the topic is this, which is a point within itself:

It seems like he's not advancing his own position by trying to trash another. It's called the argument from ignorance. He's setting up a false dichotomy where either the current scientific theory explains everything, or else "whatever his explanation is" wins by default. Not the case at all. If he did manage to debunk current theory (not likely) then we would simply have no good explanation. We would then investigate to find a new one. We wouldn't fill the gap of knowledge with magical fairy tales. He's really just displaying his ignorance.

But saying that I would want to try and counter the argument with what was said above and more, be it actually answering the questions or something else that science has taught us.

But the rest of it I would appreciate any assistance. I am doing this more for myself than debating but would like to do both.

Thanks

[Prometheus]

 

"It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought...” —C.S. Lewis

 

Why is it that if you are no more than the atoms from which you are made you are merely something made from atoms, while if you are created by a god you are miraculously made by god?

 

Others, I'm sure, will give excellent scientific/logical dissections of the fallacies contained in the post, but i'd like to stick with the emotional fallacy as it is a common reason for believing in god, and theists often don't expect it to be argued (although it might be taken as an invitation for a flowery riposte).

 

Why is man so disappointed to find that he happens to be whatever the universe is doing at that particular time and place? I find it awe inspiring to realise i'm not something separate from the universe and created into it, but rather a manifestation of it. Consider how much more subtle and nuanced creation is, as gradually revealed by the scientific method, rather than the monarchical imaginings of priests and theists. Merely atoms that are arranged such that they may think? There is no merely about it - let us rejoice in it.

[Strange]

All scientific facts still change to meet up with God's word.

 

Without some evidence that God's word previously stated the "facts" uncovered by science this is just a baseless assertion.

 

Today, the prophecies of the Bible are unravelling : internet, cashless transactions, space exploration, cloning and Modern Warfare are all documented.

 

I don't remember any of those ebing documented in the Bible. (Admittedly, I only read it once, about 50 years ago. But I remember science fiction stories mentioning all these things. Not the Bible.)

 

If we disregard the Bible as the truth because of the God you despise, then only those who pay attention will tap into the knowledge and be able to preemptively avert dangers by calling unto the Savior

That isn't the reason for disregarding it. (I certainly don't despise his God.) The only reason for disregarding it as "truth" is that it is unsupported and parts of it are contradictory and/or wrong.

Have ever wonder why there are miracles and faith healing that defy medical reports and diagnosis?

 

I am not convinced there are. On the other hand, there are some cases of people "spontaneously" recovering from disorders that were thought to be permanent or fatal. The human body is an amazing thing.

Have you asked what happens to consciousness when the body dies?

 

Yes. But we have no answers to that. (But no compelling evidence that it doesn't just disappear.)

The universe is vast and unexplored dimensions are merely touched and observed and man on his little blue rock doubt the existence of a Supreme Being ,the creator of the universe?

 

The grammar of that seems to have gone awry somewhere. But I can be awewd by the scale of the universe whether I believe in a god or not.

Definitely science is taking the common sense out of people

 

Yep. One of the purposes of the scientific method is to eliminate biases such as "common sense" because they are often wrong. Or, at least, there is no way of knowing whether they are right or not without further evidence.

One more thing, God is not "god of the gaps" as He's the source of all creation

 

That is fine if you want to believe that. But I don't think you can assert it as a fact, without some evidence.

 

“Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It’s like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can’t trust my own thinking, of course I can’t trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.” —C.S. Lewis

 

A classic example of the fallacy of begging the question.

[Phi for All]

I don't remember any of those ebing documented in the Bible. (Admittedly, I only read it once, about 50 years ago. But I remember science fiction stories mentioning all these things. Not the Bible.)

 

Revelations pattern recognition. A lot like the Nostradamus quatrains, people have been seeing patterns in the Book of Revelations for centuries. People see the word "count", and think calculate, then compute, then suddenly the Bible is predicting computers because someone "counted" something.

[overtone]

Taking this paragraph one phrase at a time, numbered at the end from the last number or summary, as an exercise:

 

" Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind ¹. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking^2,3. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought ^4,5. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true?⁶ It’s like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London⁷. But if I can’t trust my own thinking, of course I can’t trust the arguments leading to Atheism⁸, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else⁹. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought¹⁰: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God¹¹.”

 

1) It's "were", not "was", normally. It's subjunctive, normally, and Lewis chose deliberately. This is not a trivial comment: Lewis was a Oxford scholar, literate in Greek and Latin, a poet and literary critic,

and he most definitely knew what the subjunctive tense was in English. That marks his purposeful deception throughout - if not of us, then of himself: he's not actually entertaining the possibility, not setting it beside an equivalently uncertain alternative. Also, the slide from "intelligence" to "creative mind" begs serious questions of establishment, guidance, and control, vs spontaneous and presumably then unrestricted invention. That is a great narrowing of the thesis, here, and it's critical to Lewis's later reasoning. So he's avoiding major issues, right off.

2) This is invalid. There could as easily have been an intelligence engaged in designing Lewis's brain long after the Creation, as one being involved in the Creation itself - the notion that an intelligence cannot emerge later, from the universe rather than before it, is exactly what Lewis is arguing. He is assuming the consequent.

 

Lewis is then going to reason from his brain's being designed to the existence of a designer of everything else from the beginning: bad logic from the start, going to get worse.

3) It doesn't work overall, either. An assumed designer of the Creation does not establish a designer of Lewis's mind, because Lewis's mind was not present at the creation. It came along later.

4) He overlooks the key fact of levels of organization, there - no structure of the universe exists between atoms and thought, in this description. This leads him directly to the description of thought as a "sensation", which misleads him to describe it as a byproduct of atom arrangements - something outside of, and not involved in, the arranging of atoms.

5) which leads to him to describe the arranging of the atoms as for "physical or chemical reasons", something he might have been more wary of if he had recognized the complexity of the structuring factors - and should have been, because it led to a bizarrely false analogy in 7. Meanwhile:

6) He can't "trust" his thinking to be true (in the Oxford logician's sense, remember) under any circumstances for many reasons, but the notion that the physical and chemical reasons - guided as they are by the inescapable properties of the universe - are less reliable than the whims of some assumed designer, is an especially odd one. And when he explains, it gets odder:

7) apparently he conceives of the atoms of his brain as a liquid that, bereft of the guidance of an external designer, would slosh randomly. This is a far more intimate and actively interfering deity than he started with, and it is made necessary by his overlooking the structuring of the universe between atoms and thoughts - he has overlooked his brain, as well as his mind.

8) including this one, so he can come to no conclusion whatsoever.

9) Another conclusion, impossible to reach under his own assumptions etc. He is dodging the actual logical conclusion of his bogus argument, which is that an argument that led him to the rejection of atheism has also led to the rejection of thought itself, and the invalidation of the argument made. Paradox, it's called: a form of reductio ad absurdum, which is supposed to lead to rejection of one or more of the premises.

10) Unpacking that, we have this: Unless he believes a single Deity created the universe, then created his brain, and then continued to mind the atoms in his brain to keep them from sloshing randomly like milk, he cannot rely on his thoughts being other than noise and illusion. Personally, if I believed that some outside entity with its own motives was creating every thought in my head, I would rely on them less rather than more, but that's a judgment call. Maybe it's a comfort to him.

11) This is a bit irritating, because it's an endemic strain of thought shot through all of Christendom (and Islam): thinking itself is dangerous, bad, and liable to corrupt a person. He's not saying he can't physically use thought to disbelieve in God, he's saying that any thinking that leads to doubt of God is flawed thinking - and it's a very short step from that to discouraging thought altogether, in any actual community with an actual specific God involved.

Edited April 13, 2016 by overtone