newmania said:October 1, 2006 10:58 PM permalink
Mr. TARGET- How interesting . Perhaps you would ask you good friend god to explain some things that have been bothering me
1 If god is responsible for moral law he either picked it arbitrarily ( so murder might be good ) or it pre dated him , so he did nothing .Only if you can believe that murder could be good if god said so can you believe god is responsible for moral law . If he is not , then what is the point of him.( I read this in Bertrand Russell but he is quoting someone.. J S Mills I think ) 2The unmoved mover : A concept that predates knowledge of infinite sequences. 3 When the heliocentric Solar system replaced the Ptolemaic it was clear which was right because the former required vastly less assumptions to `justify` the same observations . Thus if we can explain everything we see without an outside force we must prefer this simpler explanation as requiring less to explain the same . An argument from `beauty ` if you like 4 As an explanation of complexity ( the implication of the watch is the watchmaker) the problem is only once removed . So the 18th century apologists did not see that requiring an explanation for complexity in the universe was no more or less logical than requiring an explanation of the complexity of God containing whithin him this possibility . In other words the problem is the same with or without ( see 3 above) 5`What is the meaning of life then?` a stumbling block for many that is really mostly a semantic error . Not all sequences of words that fit received grammar are meaningful . For example . ( outside poetry ) . What colour is prayer ? ..is meaningless as Colour is not a property of prayer . How drunk is a mountain and so on . Apply the word meaning to other objects . What is the meaning of a mountain .. gibberish , what is the meaning of a hammer ... almost works . In fact only `words`/ linguistic utterances have meaning as a property so `explained purpose` for which meaning is shorthand can be substituted. Try hammer again . What is the explained purpose of a hammer ? Aha it is to knock in nails . So a hammer has `meaning ` . On the other hand `What is the purpose of a mountain` , Is equivalent to asking what is the colour of prayer and `What is the meaning of life ?` may be such a meaningless sequence of words. The traditional concept of a false question is adequate to explain the supposed difficulty of the question . What is the meaning of life ?` Interestingly those sentences that are `meaningful` beginning . `What is the purpose of`` must always have a purpose imagined by a maker . So table . yes .. gun .. yes...green.... no...time .. no and so on . You will see that to ask the question `What is the meaning of life already contains the assumption of an outside purpose giver and a purpose . ( See para one) ` Don't go saying ah yes but for me `What is the meaning or prayer` is meaningful this isn't poetics its semantics . Imagine if you didn't know what a hammer was for . There is an answer /purpose` with or without your ignorance of it . That about wraps it up for god I think
TARGET DUDE I`m sorry if the crisis of faith my cleverness evokes causes you to give up your studies and take a menial job as a gardener, and obviosuly ignore me completetly if you want to live a lie ....( just kidding)
PaulD said:October 2, 2006 2:36 AM permalink
Newmania - if that's the alternative, I think I'll stick with God, thank you very much.
newmania said:October 2, 2006 4:02 AM permalink
Idlex- Would you call a family a Society. I would say a family was akin to a tribe ,a country, more because one feels unexamined loyalty or "love" for such things .Society , on the other hand is a post Marxist idea (isn't it ? )implying a set of responsibilities that spring from types of political theory.Steven -L Agree with you .Paul D- Don't be hasty. Newmania may not answer prayers but usually answers postings God- What do you think ?..and please be brief
idlex said:October 2, 2006 6:10 AM permalink
Idlex- Would you call a family a Society. I would say a family was akin to a tribe ,a country, more because one feels unexamined loyalty or "love" for such things
I have an almost entirely unexamined love towards my very real brother. He has helped me out about 2000 times in my life, and I don't think many brothers come much better.
Perhaps this was a mistake of mine. I have been making these sorts of mistakes ever since I was born.
Jack Target said:October 2, 2006 1:12 PM permalink
newmania:
We've had religious discussions on here before, and they tend to start dominating threads and annoying the other users! I'll post my reply here, Anyway, the reply -
1. Getting off to a very challenging start! That is quite a problem indeed. Obviously the moral law is a part of God's nature, and we are created from God. C S Lewis demonstrates to my satisfaction that we have an inborn moral law (I'll give you his reasoning too if you like). And since we are created from God, and including his moral law, we naturally think that that moral law is best of all. And in fact, if you believe in God, then it is the best of all (for this creation).
There is of course a question whether it is the best of all possible moral laws in an absolute sense - and yes God is bound by absolutes (the contradictions you raise in point 5. are examples - God could not create a red sound for example). Doctrine says that God is perfect, and if you decide to go long with that supposition, then is God the only type of perfect? For example, is a Trinitarian God better than a 2 or 4 person God. Or a God with only one person, etc. So a similar problem comes when querying the moral law. Is it better than one where murder is always ok? I don't know the answer, but if you accept a Christian theology, then you can say that it is the best moral law for us in this creation, hailing as it does from our creator, and thus in closest harmony with our surroundings.
2. I'm not familiar with this
3. In fact the heliocentric model is also wrong - any point can be taken as the centre of the universe if we like (including the planet earth, including jerusalem, or the vatican, or in fact anywhere whatsoever. The reason for this is that the universe is generally thought to be curved, and thus like a sphere has no centre on it's surface, and so a centre can be arbitrarily defined. Of course a sphere does have a centre, but it is unfathomable from the surface except by analogy - we don't know where the 'centre' of the universe is, or what it's nature is. Perhaps it's God? hehe.
Mathematicians and physicists of all stripes tend to use whatever is most helpful as a centre to describe motion - doing exactly as you say, making the equations simple. Thus they take the sun as the centre for solar system equations, the galaxy for galactic equations, and London for the M25. We do not describe the path of cars on the M25 in terms of their orbit around the Sun.
My point so far is that you can choose whatever centre you like to make the equations simplest. Now taking your point 4 into account, I shall try to hoist you with your own petard, and show that God is simplest.
Godel, a famous and competent mathematician, wrote a theory called "Godel's Incompleteness Theorem". It is a completely sound mathematical proof, and shows that no closed system of mathematical axioms can prove every other axiom in the system. You either have to refer outside the system, or take something as an assumption with no proof. People who seek to describe the universe in purely scientific terms (as I did back when I was a physicist and an atheist...) hit a stumbling block, because their own basis (mathematics) has proven that they will never succeed. As such, comprehensive descriptions of the universe will never be complete if they rely wholly on maths, as current science does. They instead get into an infinite sequence of ever expanding sets of laws, with no end. It is simpler to use God as the assumption, and base our ideas of the universe on him.
5. Are you serious? Are you actually asking me for the meaning of life? I can give you a few ideas, but no solid answers!
Mr. TARGET- How interesting . Perhaps you would ask you good friend god to explain some things that have been bothering me
1 If god is responsible for moral law he either picked it arbitrarily ( so murder might be good ) or it pre dated him , so he did nothing .Only if you can believe that murder could be good if god said so can you believe god is responsible for moral law . If he is not , then what is the point of him.( I read this in Bertrand Russell but he is quoting someone.. J S Mills I think ) 2The unmoved mover : A concept that predates knowledge of infinite sequences. 3 When the heliocentric Solar system replaced the Ptolemaic it was clear which was right because the former required vastly less assumptions to `justify` the same observations . Thus if we can explain everything we see without an outside force we must prefer this simpler explanation as requiring less to explain the same . An argument from `beauty ` if you like 4 As an explanation of complexity ( the implication of the watch is the watchmaker) the problem is only once removed . So the 18th century apologists did not see that requiring an explanation for complexity in the universe was no more or less logical than requiring an explanation of the complexity of God containing whithin him this possibility . In other words the problem is the same with or without ( see 3 above) 5`What is the meaning of life then?` a stumbling block for many that is really mostly a semantic error . Not all sequences of words that fit received grammar are meaningful . For example . ( outside poetry ) . What colour is prayer ? ..is meaningless as Colour is not a property of prayer . How drunk is a mountain and so on . Apply the word meaning to other objects . What is the meaning of a mountain .. gibberish , what is the meaning of a hammer ... almost works . In fact only `words`/ linguistic utterances have meaning as a property so `explained purpose` for which meaning is shorthand can be substituted. Try hammer again . What is the explained purpose of a hammer ? Aha it is to knock in nails . So a hammer has `meaning ` . On the other hand `What is the purpose of a mountain` , Is equivalent to asking what is the colour of prayer and `What is the meaning of life ?` may be such a meaningless sequence of words. The traditional concept of a false question is adequate to explain the supposed difficulty of the question . What is the meaning of life ?` Interestingly those sentences that are `meaningful` beginning . `What is the purpose of`` must always have a purpose imagined by a maker . So table . yes .. gun .. yes...green.... no...time .. no and so on . You will see that to ask the question `What is the meaning of life already contains the assumption of an outside purpose giver and a purpose . ( See para one) ` Don't go saying ah yes but for me `What is the meaning or prayer` is meaningful this isn't poetics its semantics . Imagine if you didn't know what a hammer was for . There is an answer /purpose` with or without your ignorance of it . That about wraps it up for god I think
TARGET DUDE I`m sorry if the crisis of faith my cleverness evokes causes you to give up your studies and take a menial job as a gardener, and obviosuly ignore me completetly if you want to live a lie ....( just kidding)
PaulD said:October 2, 2006 2:36 AM permalink
Newmania - if that's the alternative, I think I'll stick with God, thank you very much.
newmania said:October 2, 2006 4:02 AM permalink
Idlex- Would you call a family a Society. I would say a family was akin to a tribe ,a country, more because one feels unexamined loyalty or "love" for such things .Society , on the other hand is a post Marxist idea (isn't it ? )implying a set of responsibilities that spring from types of political theory.Steven -L Agree with you .Paul D- Don't be hasty. Newmania may not answer prayers but usually answers postings God- What do you think ?..and please be brief
idlex said:October 2, 2006 6:10 AM permalink
Idlex- Would you call a family a Society. I would say a family was akin to a tribe ,a country, more because one feels unexamined loyalty or "love" for such things
I have an almost entirely unexamined love towards my very real brother. He has helped me out about 2000 times in my life, and I don't think many brothers come much better.
Perhaps this was a mistake of mine. I have been making these sorts of mistakes ever since I was born.
Jack Target said:October 2, 2006 1:12 PM permalink
newmania:
We've had religious discussions on here before, and they tend to start dominating threads and annoying the other users! I'll post my reply here, Anyway, the reply -
1. Getting off to a very challenging start! That is quite a problem indeed. Obviously the moral law is a part of God's nature, and we are created from God. C S Lewis demonstrates to my satisfaction that we have an inborn moral law (I'll give you his reasoning too if you like). And since we are created from God, and including his moral law, we naturally think that that moral law is best of all. And in fact, if you believe in God, then it is the best of all (for this creation).
There is of course a question whether it is the best of all possible moral laws in an absolute sense - and yes God is bound by absolutes (the contradictions you raise in point 5. are examples - God could not create a red sound for example). Doctrine says that God is perfect, and if you decide to go long with that supposition, then is God the only type of perfect? For example, is a Trinitarian God better than a 2 or 4 person God. Or a God with only one person, etc. So a similar problem comes when querying the moral law. Is it better than one where murder is always ok? I don't know the answer, but if you accept a Christian theology, then you can say that it is the best moral law for us in this creation, hailing as it does from our creator, and thus in closest harmony with our surroundings.
2. I'm not familiar with this
3. In fact the heliocentric model is also wrong - any point can be taken as the centre of the universe if we like (including the planet earth, including jerusalem, or the vatican, or in fact anywhere whatsoever. The reason for this is that the universe is generally thought to be curved, and thus like a sphere has no centre on it's surface, and so a centre can be arbitrarily defined. Of course a sphere does have a centre, but it is unfathomable from the surface except by analogy - we don't know where the 'centre' of the universe is, or what it's nature is. Perhaps it's God? hehe.
Mathematicians and physicists of all stripes tend to use whatever is most helpful as a centre to describe motion - doing exactly as you say, making the equations simple. Thus they take the sun as the centre for solar system equations, the galaxy for galactic equations, and London for the M25. We do not describe the path of cars on the M25 in terms of their orbit around the Sun.
My point so far is that you can choose whatever centre you like to make the equations simplest. Now taking your point 4 into account, I shall try to hoist you with your own petard, and show that God is simplest.
Godel, a famous and competent mathematician, wrote a theory called "Godel's Incompleteness Theorem". It is a completely sound mathematical proof, and shows that no closed system of mathematical axioms can prove every other axiom in the system. You either have to refer outside the system, or take something as an assumption with no proof. People who seek to describe the universe in purely scientific terms (as I did back when I was a physicist and an atheist...) hit a stumbling block, because their own basis (mathematics) has proven that they will never succeed. As such, comprehensive descriptions of the universe will never be complete if they rely wholly on maths, as current science does. They instead get into an infinite sequence of ever expanding sets of laws, with no end. It is simpler to use God as the assumption, and base our ideas of the universe on him.
5. Are you serious? Are you actually asking me for the meaning of life? I can give you a few ideas, but no solid answers!
posted by Philipa at 8:57 AM
1 Comments:
Newmania's reply:
Mon, 2 Oct 2006 14:43:37 +0100
1). I believe I am familiar with CS Lewis who was after all a Mediaeval Literary Prof and has never been taken seriously as a philosopher outside Christian circles . I enjoy his books myself. Partly for his endearing
unreasonable ness. The Discarded Image is a favourite of his "serious" work. But the Christian stuff good fun
I find it somewhat difficult to follow you. I believe you are trying to blur the distinction between god man and moral law and thereby conclude that there is no question to ask. This suggestion contains its own conclusion
I think you are also allowing that moral law may be an absolute and God cannot make good into bad . In that case he has no role I can see unless you create one for him as per para one
I may very well have missed some thing here but it should concern you that my question is easily understood and your answer is not. I think you must make yourself clearer or risk the accusation that you are hiding in obscurity.
2). The un moved mover was a traditional proof the existence of god along the lines that an outside force must have kicked it all off .It sounds silly now .
3). I understand that the Sun is not unmoving if that's what you thought I meant. I was showing that the Heliocentric system's relative rightness as a way of understanding the solar system was clear from the few
assumptions and adhoc pleadings required to justify the same observations , compared to the previous model . Proving the non existence of anything is not possible you can only show that as an idea it is one that would be unappealing in another context because it is unnecessarily complex this put the onus on god to prove he is there which he does not . Adding a force outside all we know when it is not required would be rejected on this basis alone all things being equal .
4). Godel eh ? .- I strongly suspect there is large element here of saying well he must be there because a very clever person once said so . I have no doubt I could locate clever people who disagree if I accepted the
ground which I don't. I see no problem with infinite sequences and find it vastly preferable to the alternative if this is what you required. In any case you have ignored my problem with all reasoning using the supposed inexplicability of the universe without reference out side itself..
The thing outside must contain within it the possibility of the universe so you then have to explain the existence of it ( god ) . As this is the same problem you were dealing with a second ago with the universe itself this additional stage is pointless complexity . ( See 3 above) .
5). You find this question a strange one, but isn't it what people often go to religion for. I was pointing out that to ask what the meaning of life was contains its own answer. Only things that have been given a purpose can have an explained purpose like a hammer which had a human designer. If the Universe can be said to have a purpose then there must be a purpose giver. If not ..not. So the fact the question can be asked does not of itself mean there is any answer. It is not evidence one way or another. The difficulty of answering is often used as evidence for god, obviously not by you .
I`m not sure that any of this really gets us very far . I try to show god is surplus to requirements and unappealing logically and but no more. You could say the same thing of ,loyalty and love if you looked on us from above and tried to explain the `machine's workings ` . It isn't a machine but would, work just as well if it was.
So I am not antagonistic to religion, in fact I am increasingly better disposed to it .
I could under no circumstances be a Christian though which is not to my taste at all ,Judaism appeals more.
Post a Comment
<< Home