Dualing Fallacies: God of Gaps vs .Fortress of Facts

im Skeptocal, "God of The Gaps" The Skeptic Zon, (Juky 2, 2016) blog,vURL http://theskepticzone.blogspot.com/ 

Once again skeptical is shooting his mouth off about things he doesn't quite get right, here we have a classic example of what I call the atheist fortress of facts, I have a two parter on it in the classics, bit it';s basically just the idea that science is a big pile of fact, atheism has a bigger pile than Christianity so it's more scientific.To see why the idea is antithetical to science see my classic posts Answering the atheist fortress of facts, part 1 and part 2/

The God of the Gaps" is a term that atheists often use to describe the nature of theistic belief in a world where science provides increasingly more natural explanations for things that were once explained by God.  

No it isn't. It's argument that turns upon a gap in knowledge.He makes it sound like any theistic knowledge is GOG, but in reality it is an argument that turns upon a gap in knowledge. But a barrier is not a gap. The classic example of a gap would be this argument: (1) we do not know what makes living beings live. (2) Science has no complete satisfying explanation for this, therefore,  it must be God that creates life. [1]

Here's an example of an argument not based upon a gap.This is an argument I invented, it's on my old site Doxa. It's one of my 42 argument for God on they God argument list.old site Doxa:

(1) there is not time or laws of physiocs at the singularity
(2) there is no change or becoming in a timeless void.
(3) the singularity emerges from a timeless void
(4) no physics exists to explain and by all that we know nothing should have come to be  (from 1,2).
(5) therefore, we are warranted in thinking the assumption that the universe requires a mind as creator to change the rules

There is a gap here but that is not what the argument turns upon ,it;s saying more than just we don't know how the universe produced big bang, it's saying there's a positive reason why it should not havehappened. That is not a gap. The atheists are assuming that belief is only an attempt to explain science. So they can't phantom the idea that there could be reasons for belief that have nothing to do with science, There are. Mystical experience is probably the major reason to believe and it has nothing to  do with science.

"Perhaps the most striking example," Skeptical goes on,"of natural explanations replacing theistic ones is the origin of animal species.  This was once though to be the work of a divine intelligent creator, but now science has eliminated the need for any "goddidit" explanations." 

That argument just assumes a belief motivated by fighting evolution, There is no reason why evolution and belief in God are competing. ,ai have no idea why atheists are so paranoid of appealing to God for an explanation, when that doesn't require denying any scientific facts at all. There are several gaps with barriers in them, I'll be getting to that in a bit. Now here is where he really appllies the fortress of facts:

As scientific knowledge expands into new areas, and more completely fills our understanding of the observable world, the holes or gaps in that knowledge continue to shrink, and along with that, the realm of supernatural explanations is rapidly vanishing too.  Theists cling to those ever-shrinking areas where scientific knowledge is still lacking to hang on to their persistent "goddidit" explanations.  Their God has been reduced to hiding in the dark shadows where empirical knowledge has yet to penetrate.  This God can't reveal itself to human observation, because whenever science examines empirical evidence, the superior explanation for what is observed always turns out to be naturalistic.

Here we see the fortress of facts concept at work. He doesn't get that science is about hypothesis testing he thinks it's about piles up facts. He thinks one with the most facts wins, Facts of religion are shrinking so religion is going down the tubes. Seldom does one see the misconception so l conically put. He's the poster boy for the fallacious fortress of facts. Lookimg at it from the other sides what they call god of the gaps is also the fortress of facts

"This is a matter of considerable embarrassment to theists."  No it's not. It ought to be embarrassing to him because it shows that he really doesn't understand science. Carl Popper said science is not about proving things it;s about disproving things this guy is talking about an actual pile of facts growing in the atheist column.[2]

 They are well aware that theistic explanations are losing ground to science, and they don't have any good response.  They turn to explanations that emphasize the hidden aspect of God's works.  Instead of claiming that God designed animal species and placed them on the earth as is, they now tout "theistic evolution", which claims that God is still running the show, but in a way that is completely unobservable.  Instead of claiming that God cast fire and brimstone at a sinful city, they say God caused a volcanic eruption by fully natural means under his control.  The problem with explanations like this is the simple fact that nature alone is sufficient to explain these things, and there is no evidence and no reason to add God into the mix. 

They are not losing ground because gthey don't compete fror anything.This assumes that theologians give a damn about science, they don't. Some of the great theologians have been accepted in scientific circles are major thinkers.Alfred North Whithead who wrote Principia with Bertrand Russell, and Charles Hartshorne, Both of them developed process theology, But they are not under the inclusion that its science, no one is and one cares. Another theologian who was a scientists for real was Tielhard De Chardin, he was a Paleontologist and was on the expedition to find Peking man.

Still, they are unwilling to relinquish their deeply-held belief that God is behind it all.  To the theist, everything in the observable world is evidence of God.  That's nice, but if we're talking about what theory provides the best explanation for the things we observe in our world, then invariably, the naturalistic explanation is superior.  Nature is simpler than nature plus God.  And nature without guidance answers more questions satisfactorily than nature with God's intelligent guidance.  Theists need to face up to the fact that the evidence does not point to any kind of supernatural influence in our world.

Of course that;s because it;s true and many of us have seen things that demonstrate the truth, /the problem is the atheist can't handle truth so they redefine the issue so they don't have to deal with it., One such means of doing that is the redefining of Supernatural so that it doesn't match the true idea, Thus they keep demanding something Christianity never calmed to give in the fist place.So I'll get into that in a minute too. There's still more of this business about the fortress of facts to deal with first,

"Theists have asked if there could be any observable evidence that would convince the naturalist that there must be some kind of supernatural influence at work.  The question has been answered many times.  For example, Jerry Coyne said this:"

There are so many phenomena that would raise the specter of God or other supernatural forces: faith healers could restore lost vision, the cancers of only good people could go into remission, the dead could return to life, we could find meaningful DNA sequences that could have been placed in our genome only by an intelligent agent, angels could appear in the sky. The fact that no such things have ever been scientifically documented gives us added confidence that we are right to stick with natural explanations for nature. And it explains why so many scientists, who have learned to disregard God as an explanation, have also discarded him as a possibility. -Coyne 

We have given evidence on all of that, there are faith healing that are documented scientifically. But that's not supernatural that;s part of the counterfeit notion they using as a red herring, There is an epistemological problem here that must be dealt with. If we assert that anything that happens has to be naturalistic then nothing could ever count against naturalism. Just that it happens can't be the evidence. They might try to ground it in rules s no rules. That;s just an extension of the happening issue if we say that happening means it's obeying preset natural laws. There's also a contradiction in the sense that modern science  no longer sees "a natural law" as real law. It seems to be a law-like regularity but they don;t see it as prescription but description, That is also inconsistent and opens up a can of worms since there;s no violating the law even though it';s not a law. What does it describe? it describes law-like regulatory.

The difference between theism and science is not one of observable rules vs  no rules. The only difference is that theism recognizes a distal cause while naturalism wants to pretend  there are only proximate causes. Nothing theistic says things happen without rules, There is no way to prove one way or the other that things happen because of some higher cause. There are only warrants for belief.  No proof either way. It's a total misconception to set up the distinction between naturalism = rules and supernatural = no rules. Supernatural is not anti-natural. It's not opposed to laws of nature. He keeps conflating the idea of the gap with the problems of no rules, First one and then the other is the motivation for supernatural. All the while it just never dawns on him to ask the believer what supernatural is rather than insisting they can ipose what we believe upon us.

That leaves us with the only remaining possibility that might make sense.  There must be some kind of supernatural influence going on.  And why should we think this is the case?  Because we have evidence.  We have an observable phenomenon that, as best we can tell after eliminating natural explanations, is supernatural.  Will scientists try to find a natural explanation for it?  You bet they will.  But if all such efforts fail, then the only recourse is to explain it as supernatural. The fact is that everything in our experience so far has been amenable to a naturalistic explanation.  

Of course ruling out the supernatural from ever having happened depends entirely upon how you define supernatural, He wants to make rules and what happened the distinguishing features and that;s begging the question. He is saying that we know its natural because it happens and we know that nothing  else happens. But if happening is really the issue then nothing else could happen but that it would be called natural, He's just begging the question. He wants to rule out a prirori anything that standse agakisnt his ideology.

"Everything does behave according to the regularities of nature, and there has never been a single verifiable exception to this.  That's precisely why naturalists believe that naturalism is true."  So it's obvious what I say is true, anything that happens has to be naturalistic because happening is what makes it naturalistic. Thus nothing could ever happen that's not naturalistic. What winds up happening is when people do describe the world working in ways that imply God and that disprove naturalism the naturalist just does the question begging move and the power of a thousand previous begged questions gives them the precipitant to overlook the process again.

 But theists insist that there are supernatural things, yet they can't show us any evidence of it.  We just need to see evidence for what we believe.  If a frustrated theist like Mikey tells us that our demand to see evidence is just god-of-the-gaps reasoning, he should be reminded that his God of the gaps is not based on any empirical evidence.  It is a God that hides in the shadows, refusing to be seen.  His accusation is nothing more than a child's retort: "I know you are but what am I?"  The gap is between his ears.

The naturalists have sewed the criteria, fraught with epistemological difficulties, they sweep the epistemology under the rug and use the difficulties to set up false criteria.That works to their advantage jn two ways They can (1) say "just show us the evidence" of course we can;t because they wean to evidence fro the wrong thing,m like the counterfeit supernatural. (2) It also means they reject the evidence we do have because they don;t accept the right thing. Example of that is the religious experience evidence which is some  of the best evidence there is.They don't even have a comept of why it's evidence because they are in totally the wrong ball park.

There are many aspects of spiritual reality we could document but I;ll do three, These are aspects of relaity thayt not materiao or n]can loigcialy be understood as SN in tyhe true snese,

(1) the real version of the Christian SN

I have written an article about the false notion of SN and of course setting out the true notion, [3] SN is not a realm beyond the psychical but the power of God to lift us up to a higher level of human awareness and  spirituality. This plays out into basically mystical experience.[4] With the understanding of the proper idea of SN we can understand religious experience as the trace of God. Thus the transformation effects of become evidence of the true SN.[5]

(2) Lourdes's Miracles.

It's ironic that Coyne demanded faith healing because that is one of the best evidences, The Catholic church has drew up an excellent documentation machine for documenting miracles, They use major medical researchers from around EU and the use skeptics kin the committee they have strict rules, An article in an academic journal by a team of medical historians says that the healings at Lourdes check out as inexplicable by any natural means [6] That is not proof of healing but it's a good warrant for belief

3 Irreducible Nature of consciousness to Brain Function. 

Consciousnesses in and of itself is not SN bujt it is not physical it;s the realityu ofa realkm of existence that does not conform to the expected standards of atheist ideology because it'snot physical or material,l

But while it may be true that certain psychological processes are contingent on some neurophysiological activity, we cannot necessarily say that psychological processes reduce to ‘nothing but’ that activity. Why not? – Because much of the time we are not dealing with cause and effect, as many neuroscientists seem to think, but rather two different and non-equivalent kinds of description. One describes mechanism, the other contains meaning. Understanding the physical mechanisms of a clock, for example, tells us nothing about the culturally constructed meaning of time. In a similar vein, understanding the physiological mechanisms underlying the human blink, tells us nothing about the meaning inherent in a human wink (Gergen, 2010). Human meaning often transcends its underlying mechanisms. But how does it do this?[7]

The problem binding is a barrier that will not allow reduce ability Here we have a good example of something anesthetists have called god of the gaps but increaioty is not, There is an actual reason why mind is not reduce able to brain:

The essential concept common to all of them is  that  oscillatory electrical activity in widely distributed neural populations can be rapidly and reversibly synchronized in the gamma band of frequencies (roughly 30-70 Hz) thereby providing a possible mechanism for binding.” (von der Malsburg 1995). A great deal of sophisticated experimental and theoretical work over the past 20 years demonstrates that mechanisms do exist in the nervous system and they work in relation to the normal perceptual synthesis. Indeed Searl’s doctrine of biological naturalism has now crystallized neurophysiologically in the form of a family of global workspace theories, all of which make the central claim that conscious experience occurs specifically and only with large scale patters of gamma band oscillatory activity linking widely separated areas of the brain. [20]

Here are some lin ks to othier things I; e written arguing against Skpetical's statement about everything is explained by science

philosophy still owns science

Quantum particles do not prove something from  from nothing

can science really prove the basis of modern physics

science rejection of God is ideological

7 aspects of SN with empirical evidence

Sources

[1] im Skeptocal, "God of The Gaps" The Skeptic Zon, (Juky 2, 2016) blog,vURL http://theskepticzone.blogspot.com/

[2] Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London, New York:Routledge Classics, original English publication 1959 by Hutchison and co. by Routldege 1992. On line copy URL:http://www.cosmopolitanuniversity.ac/library/LogicofScientificDiscoveryPopper1959.pdf digital copy by Cosmo oedu visited 2/6/2012, p4

[3] Joseph Hinman, "True Christian concept of SN prt 1," The Religious A Priori blog 

http://religiousapriori.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-true-christian-concept-of-super.html  accessed 6/4/16


[4] Emil Durkheim quoted in Benson Saler, “Supernatural as a Western Category,” Ethos, Vol. 5, issue 1, first published online 28 Oct., 2009, 31-53 35. PDF URL:http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/eth.1977.5.1.02a00040/pdf (accessed 1/25/2016)

[5] Joseph Hinman, "Empirical Evidence of The Supernatural
http://religiousapriori.blogspot.com/2016/03/empiorical-evidence-of-supernatural.html

part 2 of "Empirical Evidence of SN"

[6] Bernard Francis et al, “The Lourdes Medical Cures Re-visited,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Bernard Francis is former professor Emeritus of medicine, Unversite Claude Bernard Lyon. Elisabeth Sternberg taught at National Institute of Mental Health and The National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. Elisabeth Fee was at National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.

[7] Brad Peters, Modern Psychologist, “the Mind Does not Reduce to the Brain.” On line resource, blog, 2/4/12

URL: http://modernpsychologist.ca/the-mind-does-not-reduce-to-the-brain/   visited 5/3/12

Brad Peters, M.Sc. Psychologist (Cand. Reg.) • Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

[8] C.Von der Malsburg, “Binding In Models of Perception and Brain Function.” Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 5, 520-526. also sited Crick 94; Dehaene and Naccache,  2001; Edelmon and Tononi, 2000; Engle, Fries and Singer 2001; W.J. Freeman 2000, and others.