Review and Debnucking of Lawrence Krauss's A Unvierse From Nothing.

illustration of Higgs boson

The closest thing to a “smoking gun” for anti-God evidence is presented by Lawrence Krauss in his book A Universe from Nothing.[1] Krauss merely argues something that every Christian apologist on message boards has been dealing with since the late 90s, that is the notion that the idea that Quantum theory means that the universe popped into existence from nothing based upon the assumption that Quantum particles do the same. This is really nothing new. When I first became aware of message boards and of the strife between atheists and theists on message boards, they were arguing about this. Yet the book has be lauded by atheists like it’s their version of the advent of Christ. Almost as quickly as it manifest it was shot down again by a philosopher. I’ll come t that in a moment. Why Krauss’s book got the glamour and not some of the physicists a decade ago who were saying the same thing I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because they didn’t write whole books about it. In any case, Krauss argues that the eternal laws of Quantum mechanics produce particles out of nothing when the instability of vacuum states causes quantum fields to shift and produce different kinds of particles.[2] This seems like it’s blessed with the aura science and thus cannot be questioned, yet a philosopher dared to question. David Albert exposed the meaning of terms in this senero and exploded the whole project.

Albert first points out that tracing the universe back to some physical property or cause is not an explanation as to why there is something rather than nothing.

What if he were in a position to announce, for instance, that the truth of the quantum-mechanical laws can be traced back to the fact that the world has some other, deeper property X? Wouldn’t we still be in a position to ask why X rather than Y? And is there a last such question? Is there some point at which the possibility of asking any further such questions somehow definitively comes to an end? How would that work? What would that be like?[3]

Secondly, moving on form that difficulty, he points out that since the enlightenment science has always assumed that at the “bottom of everything” there is “some basic, elementary, eternally persisting, concrete, physical stuff.”[4] Newton had it that this “stuff” consisted of particles. At the end of the nineteenth century it was particles and electro-magnetic fields. “And what the fundamental laws of nature are about, and all the fundamental laws of nature are about, and all there is for the fundamental laws of nature to be about, insofar as physics has ever been able to imagine, is how that elementary stuff is arranged.”[5] The laws don’t tell us where the elementary “stuff” came from. The laws concerning quantum mechanics are not exception. The laws do not tell us where the fields came from. Moreover, every previous theory counted particles among concrete stuff and quantum theory does not. In quantum theory particles are understood as arrangements of fields. Some arrangement correspond to certain numbers and kinds of particles, come correspond to no particles.[6] This latter arrangement, Albert tells us, is what they call “vacuum states.” According to Albert, Krauss is arguing that the laws of relativistic quantum field theories “entail that vacuum states are unstable. And that, in a nutshell, is the account he proposes of why there should be something rather than nothing.”[7]

In other words because the state of no particles is “unstable” (it’s hard to keep nothing from becoming something) “nothing” blows up into something so to speak. There are problems with this account. First, we have just seen, it assume a whole set up of laws and fields with no real reason for them to be there (the fact that none of the theory explains a real “why” I’ll put off until latter). Secondly, the issue of what is meant by “nothing” is the crux of the matter. When physicists say “nothing,” they don’t mean real actual nothing as in a lack of anything at all. What they really mean is vacuum flux, that this pre existing framework of law and field and the arrangement there of the and the sporadic popping in and out of prior existing particles. As Albert says, “Relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical vacuum states — no less than giraffes or refrigerators or solar systems — are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff..”[8] This is most crucial because Albert is arguing that “nothing” in terms of no particles does not mean “nothing” in terms of now fields, or no laws. Thus “nothing” doesn’t mean “nothing,” it means something for which we still must account. That really blows the whole argument because it’s not a universe from nothing, it’s a universe form something else for which we must account, and can’t. So that means it’s just a rehash of status quo. The book originally was introduced with a media splash and created a sensation. Albert taking out the argument created anther sensation. Op ed writers and bloggers began crediting Albert with victory and a sense of hoopla began.

What would a universe from true actual nothing really prove? If it could be shown that the universe just started up, something form nothing (real actual nothing) there would be no way to really demonstrate that it’s not the Christian concept of creation ex nihilo. In fact that would actually fit the qualifications for the basic Christian doctrine of creation. There would be no way to prove it one way or the other because we could never go back to the other side of nothing and demonstrate that something isn’t causing this “something from nothing.” The impression is given the hype about Krauss’s book that there is some control that screens out metaphysical causes such as God. There in fact no such control. Now of course if this were the case we could not use that as an argument to demonstrate the existence of God. If we wanted to use that as a God argument we would have to push the logic of it on the grounds that something form total actual nothing is illogical and flies in the face of every single observation we can ever make about the real world. That would not demonstrate the reality of God. It might be a good conjecture but it would still only be a conjecture. At that rate it could go ether way. Yet it’s not disproof of God either. In fact, examining the arguments made by the three atheists expositors above, none of them actually says “here is proof there is no God.” Dawkins say “almost certainly” and Stenger says God is a failed hypothesis. Krauss imitates we don’t’ need him as an explanation. Something else is going on other than disproof.

What they are really getting at is not about proof or disproof but control of knowledge. They actually want to replace epistemology with ideology. They want to shut down forms of knowledge such as philosophy and phenomenology and replace them with the atheist fortress of facts idea. This is all really saying, all three books make the argument “we have the fortress of facts and theism has no facts.” Of course “facts” in this sense mean nothing more than the information that can be controlled by atheist expositors and that supports the atheist straw God concepts. It’s a switch from a global knowledge which includes philological thinking about science as a respectable partner in learning and centers everything on their realm of discourse. Thus Dawkins reduces God to the level of a biological organism, Stenger reduces belief to the level of a scientific hypothesis (even though belief is about something totally removed form the workings of the physical world), and Krauss asserts that knowledge of the physical world is the only knowledge worth knowing. All three are reducing theological ideas to a point where they take on physical attributes and become part of the scientific domain, thus they can be controlled by scientists.

What is even more blunt and telling is Krauss who gives away the whole store in an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times:

The illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science has to confront on a daily basis. Everywhere we look, it appears that the world was designed so that we could flourish.

The position of the Earth around the sun, the presence of organic materials and water and a warm climate — all make life on our planet possible. Yet, with perhaps 100 billion solar systems in our galaxy alone, with ubiquitous water, carbon and hydrogen, it isn't surprising that these conditions would arise somewhere. And as to the diversity of life on Earth — as Darwin described more than 150 years ago and experiments ever since have validated — natural selection in evolving life forms can establish both diversity and order without any governing plan.

As a cosmologist, a scientist who studies the origin and evolution of the universe, I am painfully aware that our illusions nonetheless reflect a deep human need to assume that the existence of the Earth, of life and of the universe and the laws that govern it require something more profound. For many, to live in a universe that may have no purpose, and no creator, is unthinkable.

But science has taught us to think the unthinkable. Because when nature is the guide — rather than a priori prejudices, hopes, fears or desires — we are forced out of our comfort zone. One by one, pillars of classical logic have fallen by the wayside as science progressed in the 20th century, from Einstein's realization that measurements of space and time were not absolute but observer-dependent, to quantum mechanics, which not only put fundamental limits on what we can empirically know but also demonstrated that elementary particles and the atoms they form are doing a million seemingly impossible things at once.[9]

Wait a minute, something’s wrong here. He’s taking a kind of thinking that is used as a tool to inform us about the workings of the physical world, and saying “because to use this tool we must assume the subject matter of the tool is all there is, that proves that’s all there is.” That proves nothing. Perhaps the subject matter of the tool is irrelevant to the consideration of concepts like “purpose” and “meaning” because these are not part of the domain in which that tool is meaningful. When the concept of the tool becomes the only form of knowledge then of course all other considerations must be put aside, by why should we allow that to happen? Actually science has not taught us “to think the unthinkable—that the universe has. No can it ever do so. To even ask the question is beyond the scope of science. To do science one must not assume purpose or meaning in the workings of the physical world, yet one need not always be doing science. This is truly what we call “ideology.” One idea fits all and all sense data must be herded into that rubric in order to be considered “valid.” It’s really ideological struggle between reductionism which seek to cut off all aspects of reality save those that can be controlled by reductionism, vs. the assumption that human aspirations are worth considering in some way other than reductionsitically. The driving force behind the fortress of facts is the assumption that only one kind of thinking can be pursued. This one idea of reductionism must control and filter all knowledge. This is nothing more than a totalitarian ideology.

Krauss really gets blunt about the ideological ramifications in interview. Ross Andersen publishes in the Atlantic an interview he had done with Krauss for another project. He entitles the article “Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete?”[10] Krauss had just come from Christopher Hitchen’s memoral service, and even he descriges as: “It was a remarkable event for a remarkable man, and I felt very fortunate to be there. I was invited to give the opening presentation in front of all of these literary figures and dignitaries of various sorts, and so I began the only way I think you can begin, and that's with music from Monty Python..”[11] Asked why the sudden public antagonism between physics and philosophy he answers:

Krauss: That's a good question. I expect it's because physics has encroached on philosophy. Philosophy used to be a field that had content, but then "natural philosophy" became physics, and physics has only continued to make inroads. Every time there's a leap in physics, it encroaches on these areas that philosophers have carefully sequestered away to themselves, and so then you have this natural resentment on the part of philosophers. This sense that somehow physicists, because they can't spell the word "philosophy," aren't justified in talking about these things, or haven't thought deeply about them---[12]

Philosophy can only have “content” in so far as it reflects the workings of the physical world? As though that’s all the content there is to have. That’s all there is to think about. Only science is about anything. But wait how is it that physics has encroached upon anything philosophy is about if philosophy a bunch of made up flights of fancy. Science was never about the meaning of life and philosophy was never about the workings of the physical world. It’s true that science used ot be called “natural philosophy” but hat was far from being the major section of philosophical thought. He seems embarrassed about not being in philosophy. He resents the idea that he can’t talk about the meaning of life. He can talk about the meaning of life he just can’t claim scientific authority to make pronouncements informing us all of the meaning of life, or lack thereof.

Here is his statement on the importance of philosophy:

Krauss: Well, yeah, I mean, look I was being provocative, as I tend to do every now and then in order to get people's attention. There are areas of philosophy that are important, but I think of them as being subsumed by other fields. In the case of descriptive philosophy you have literature or logic, which in my view is really mathematics. Formal logic is mathematics, and there are philosophers like Wittgenstein that are very mathematical, but what they're really doing is mathematics---it's not talking about things that have affected computer science, it's mathematical logic. And again, I think of the interesting work in philosophy as being subsumed by other disciplines like history, literature, and to some extent political science insofar as ethics can be said to fall under that heading. To me what philosophy does best is reflect on knowledge that's generated in other areas. [13]

He arbitrarily reduces logic to mathematics just because math is in the domain of science. We could just as easily relegate math to a subordination under philosophy on the grounds that math is based upon logic. Russell and Whitehead proved that logic is the basis of math, and since logic started as philosophy it would be more logical to put math under philosophy.[14] Besides formal logic is not mathematics. Moreover, major logicians such as Hartshorne and Plantinga who achieved authoritative status in the use of S5modal logic could, by Krausses logic, be seen as mathematicians and by extension of that association as physicists. Thus their takes on the modal argument for God must be scientific. Remarkably he actually attributes something to fields such as history and literature. He does that to parcel out philosophy. Of course this drive to end the very existence of philosophy is just a bid to take over knowledge so that one ideology prevails as the only way to think, it just happens to be the one in which Krauss is credentialed. He wants to pretend that philosophy is really just leeching off other disciplines when in reality he’s moving beyond the accepted domain of science to poach on the territory of theology, philosophy, ethics history and probably other disciplines (mathematics and logic). It’s also worth nothing that he missed the point on nothing in terms of the history of ideas. He claims it was the philosophers who re-write nothing and have constantly changed its definition when in reality it’s the philosophers who have continually defined nothing as nothing but science Newton scientists have been re-writing the meaning of the term to define it as “something.”15

A humorous exchange occurs when Andersen points out that philosophy offers a basis for computer science. Krauss says: “Well, you name me the philosophers that did key work for computer science; I think of John Von Neumann and other mathematicians, and---.” Andersen says: “But Bertrand Russell paved the way for Von Neumann..”

Karauss says: “But Bertrand Russell was a mathematician. I mean, he was a philosopher too and he was interested in the philosophical foundations of mathematics, but by the way, when he wrote about the philosophical foundations of mathematics, what did he do? He got it wrong.” So not only can we take him over as one of the science boys since he did math but (which would just as easily mean math is part of philosophy again) but he also got it wrong about math (yet that reflects on his philosophical side not on his math side, not real sure how that works since it would be the math side that got it wrong). Andersen remarks “Einstein got it wrong.” To which Krauss replies:

Krauss: Sure, but the difference is that scientists are really happy when they get it wrong, because it means that there's more to learn. And look, one can play semantic games, but I think that if you look at the people whose work really pushed the computer revolution from Turing to Von Neumann and, you're right, Bertrand Russell in some general way, I think you'll find it's the mathematicians who had the big impact. And logic can certainly be claimed to be a part of philosophy, but to me the content of logic is mathematical.[16]

Science guys are happen when they are proved wrong? I guess he must be ecstatic since Albert’s article? We’ll have to ask him how happy he’s been since his book was panned. It means there’s more to learn, such as the meaning of life and the value of philosophy. He admits logic is part of philosophy and Russell was into both it just eludes him that this also means philosophy is the foundation of computer science and math together that makes it the foundation of physics. Now that’s the “unthinkable” we should be taught to think. Maybe the fortress of facts is a house of cards and maybe there’s more than one form of knowledge in the universe? His answer is supercilious because a scientist being happy when he get’s it wrong doesn’t change the fact under discussion it doesn’t change the fact that scientist get it wrong just as philosophers sometimes do.

Kruass referred to Albert as “a moronic philosopher.” That doesn’t sound happy to me. Nor does it sound very acute. Albert is so moronic in fact he is not only a well thought of philosopher at Columbia he also holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics.[17] He might to reconsider his castigation of Albert when we take a deeper look at Karuss’s argumentation skills. He essentially gives away the store, and thinks he’s bested his opponents.

But I am certainly claiming a lot more than just that [something from nothing]. That it's possible to create particles from no particles is remarkable---that you can do that with impunity, without violating the conservation of energy and all that, is a remarkable thing. The fact that "nothing," namely empty space, is unstable is amazing. But I'll be the first to say that empty space as I'm describing it isn't necessarily nothing, although I will add that it was plenty good enough for Augustine and the people who wrote the Bible. For them an eternal empty void was the definition of nothing, and certainly I show that that kind of nothing ain't nothing anymore.[18]

That’s really the point Albert made and he says this as though he just doesn’t understand the opponent’s argument. He does bring up the issue of St. Augustine and creation ex-nihilo. He doesn’t seem to get that the issue cuts both ways. Yet the Christian is not something from nothing, it doesn’t post that the universe just popped into being from true absolute nothing without a cause and for no reason. He admits that his “nothing” is actually something, and something must be explained, something must have caused it. What could that something be but God? That would be the argument. He’s not answering it by throughing back the issues ex-nihilo misunderstood (minus God) then admitting that his own views leaves an origin form an unexplained “Something.” Andersen raises the prospect that he’s arguing physics with Saint Augustine (who presumably worked form Aristotelian physics thus making his view 2000 years out of date). Krauss states:

It might be more interesting than debating some of the moronic philosophers that have written about my book. Given what we know about quantum gravity, or what we presume about quantum gravity, we know you can create space from where there was no space. And so you've got a situation where there were no particles in space, but also there was no space. That's a lot closer to "nothing."

But of course then people say that's not "nothing," because you can create something from it. They ask, justifiably, where the laws come from. And the last part of the book argues that we've been driven to this notion---a notion that I don't like---that the laws of physics themselves could be an environmental accident. On that theory, physics itself becomes an environmental science, and the laws of physics come into being when the universe comes into being. And to me that's the last nail in the coffin for "nothingness."[19]

He seems not to understand what these “moronic philosophers” are driving at. He keeps talking like he’s proved something if he shows that there is no “nothing” but in fact that’s the only way his argument would work. If no actual nothing then he has no argument at all. Then he’s just saying “the universe came from something that we can’t account for.” Implication: it might have needed God to create it. It only appears to be that God is unnecessary if things can spontaneously pop up out of true absolute nothing. Even that would not be proof since we can’t prove there really is no cause. Yet if we could prove that that would be the only real way to prove that God is not needed or not present. The real answer he has that might work is based upon pure speculation. He appeals to natural law and a supposition not in evidence that they are some kind of accident. This just puts the atheist back at square one saying “maybe there could be an alterative to God, maybe.”

---

[1] Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There is something Rather Than Nothing. New York, NY: Free press, a division of Simon and Schuster, 2012.

[2] Ibid 189.

[3] David Albert, “On the Origin of Everything ‘a Universe form Nothing’ by Lawrence Krauss,” New York Times Sunday Book Review (March 23, 2012). On line version URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html visited June 20, 2012. David Albert also has a Ph.D. in theoretical phsyics.

[14] ibid.

[5] ibid

[6] ibid

[7] ibid

[8] ibid

[9] Lawrence M. Krause, “A Universe Without Purpose.” Los Angeles Times, Opinion. (April 1, 2012). On line copy URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-krauss-cosmology-design-universe-20120401,0,4136597.story visited 7/2/12.

[10] Ross Andersen, “Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete?” The Atlantic (April 23, 2012). Pm et 396. Online URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/has-physics-made-philosophy-and-religion-obsolete/256203/ visited 7/2/12.

[11] Ibid.

[12] ibid.

[13] ibid.

[14] Principia (find)

[15] find

[16] Krauss in Andersen, ibid.

[17] Massimo Pigliucci, “Lawrence Krauss Another Physicist with an Anti-Philosophy Complex,” Rationally Speaking, blog. URL: http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2012/04/lawrence-krauss-another-physicist-with.html visited 7/4/12

Massimo Pigluicci is a philosopher at City University of New York..

[18] Krauss In Andersen, ibid.

[18] ibid

Atheist "Ridicule Artists" Slander Real Scholar

Fora about five years now I've been trying to these illiterate anti-intellectual atheists to notice the huge body of scientific empirical work on religious experience. The major figure in that field is Ralph Hood, professor of psychology at University of Tennessee in Chattanooga. Hood invented a research tool called "The M scale" (mysticism scale) that enables one to determine if a real mystical experience has been had or not. That's real important if you want to study religous experince beuase you have to know if you have the real deal or not.The illiterate mocking atheist trolls have been incensed about the concept of Hood all this time. They can't accept the fact that a "real scientist" wouldn't' be like Dawkins and make fun of religious people but would actually study them objectively.

Their logic is impeccable

atheism is againt realign

scinece is against religion (it's not)

so atheism is science.

so any "real scientist" will mock and ridicule religious people instead of study them.


post 18

[QUOTE=Marty Hamrick;3109634]Of course not, Meta, this isn't a library or a theology class. You need to be more concise.[/quote]

no you need to be more intelligent. if you deem to mock and ridicule other people's faith you have a responsibility to be through and to consider the answers carefully.you are damning other people.atheism is based on selfish monstrosities. so you are influencing others to go to hell and spend eternity without god just so you can ease your fear a bit for a while. that is mysteriously selfish you owe them the attention to truth and honesty that you are not willing to give.


[QUOTE]No one here is going to read and entire book and do a dissertation.[/QUOTE]

I read 200 studies. if you want to say blanket like you do "these are all bad,they a re horrible they suck they are not good" you certainly owe to it the people you are deceiving to learn the facts!

another troll helping the atheist brain wash people. this proves you are not serious.


what a silly fallacious excuse. It's too long. getting the answers is too much trouble.


post 20

Deist;3109945]If he had it, he'd give it. All this dancing and prancing around and feigned upset is to mask the fact that he has nothing. A childish third grade type M Scale, and "200" articles by obscure nobodies.

of course you want to say such things knowing absolutely nothing at all about it. you wont even read a single comment of anyone I quote saying it's good. you want to whine about how stupid but you have no way knowing anything about it when I put the evidence in front of your illiterate face you refuse to read and see that you are wrong.

MFFJM2;3110396]The "M-scale" is a joke. Asking these kinds of leading and ambiguous questions, failing to explain the terms involved, using only agree/disagree instead of a scale (always, usually, sometimes, seldom, never) will always provide a worthless set of data points. Any researcher worth his salt would instantly recognize this so called "test" as just a blatant attempt to provide emipirical evidence using confirmation bias.

"I have never had an experience in which I felt myself to be absorbed as one with all things."

If reading these questions didn't get you smiling, you lack a sense of humor or have been drinking the kool-aide.

those are feelings that mystics have. those are testaments mystics have made. so how can you know if had a mystical experience if you got ask "have you ever had this?" How desne can you possibility be?
Michael E. Neilsen
Georgia Southern University
Feb, 2000
Psychology of Religion in USA

"Ralph Hood (1998), a major figure in American psychology of religion, suggests six psychological schools of thought regarding religion. The psychoanalytical schools draw from the work of Freud, and attempt to reveal unconscious motives for religious belief."


Not only have I explained explained several times why that's wrong, but I show you a whole chapter on why it' that way you refuse to read it because you don't assures. it front of your face to know why you are wrong you refuse to even consider looking. that's a true know nothing. I put quotes form experts right on th board saying "the M scale is not a Joke its a really great thing" you don't even read them. That's just true troll behavior.


you are a know nothing you know you are a know nothing.\


They really out do themselves on this one. See them actually Slander Hood. this guy acutally attacks the way he dresses. Forget that he's recognized as the great scholar of his field. he dresses funny.


Originally Posted by Metacrock

you are just admitting that you are a troll. All you are saying is that you are not able to objectively evaluate the evidence. yu don't care about the studies. you just have it in for anyone religious.

until you make a real substantive post talking about the issue it will be apparent you are a troll I will not talk to you.

You are expecting your bigotry and hatred of religion to be taken as the valid position to start from. that's begging the question. you have not proved anything about religion you just demand that we all hate it with you.

until you make a reason argument I will not talk to trolls

From an article online by Andrea Perkins,

Originally Posted by Deist

I did my homework and found out that the country’s leading researcher and court appointed expert on serpent-handling sects lives in Chattanooga, where he teaches at the University of Tennessee. Dr. Ralph Hood is originally from California, though with his long white beard and predilection for denim, he says he always gets mistaken for a hillbilly.
"There is little or no difference between a fundamentalist in Bali and one in Tennessee," he said one morning from a green leather arm chair that looked like a toad stool that had sprouted up among the piles of books and papers in his cluttered office.

"One just happens to take up snakes?" I said.

"Serpents," he corrected. "They prefer the term serpents, because snakes are not poisonous. Serpents are."

When someone does dies of snake bite, it means that he or she must not have been "anointed" by the spirit to do so. Handlers don’t believe that you should just go around picking up poisonous snakes any old time. Only when the spirit "moves on you" should you express and rejoice in your faith in this way.

Hood likes to film serpent-handling meetings. He has amassed a sizable library of such tapes, including old super 8 footage of services in the fifties. Hood said the serpent handlers liked and trusted him because he didn’t patronize them, or treat them like precious oddities. For him, they were no stranger then anyone else who decides to take something literally. In fact, he seemed to admire their gumption.

"You’ve got to be awed by that kind of faith," he said. "That kind of commitment to faith. For them, there is only the supremacy of The Word. And The Word is law. These people would sacrifice their lives for the word of god. The thing that people don’t understand is that it is completely rational. These people are far from crazy. They operate by a kind of logic."

So what’s logical about picking up a copperhead and waving it around your head?

"What’s rational about communion?" asks Dr. Ralph Hood. "Why doesn’t it seem odd to us that people ingest the blood and body of Jesus Christ? Because it’s familiar. Strangeness comes from distance."

Meta, the above article is about your famous Ralph Hood. I think everyone here will agree that he is, in fact, a religious whacko with only half a brain. I care less about his alleged degree. He's a loon. You can call me a troll all you want to avoid seeing the truth, Meta. You need to trash this silly M Scale stuff. It isn't helping you at all.

The guy not only LOOKS like a hillbilly. He's dumber than one.

He's studying the people who handle snakes. He's not there to ridiculing them. I know this is a conceptual challenge to ability o understand, that study means objectively look at it not trying to make them feel bad about who they are.

part of his ridicule is based upon the fact that Hood's a good researcher and can be objective. that's what he's ridiculing him for.

He say "I did my homework." that's what the calls "homework" finding finding reasons to ridicule someone who is a giant in his field.


who else but a troll would consider "homework" to be gather material for mocking someone?


How utterly stupid is that? because Hood is not mocking snake handle he must be "a religious nutzo" (he called him before in the thread. the idea of objective study is totally foreign to him.

here's the article he linked to

city travel reporter. No ta schoolyard article at all. on web site about having fun in the bay area.

Stupid Atheist trick of the Week

arguing with Deist on CARM. the thread is an attempt (again) to mock and ridicule the subject matter of my arguments on religious experience. They are talking teh M scale by Ralph Hood which is a control for study of religious experience. A means of understanding if one has had real mystical experience or not.

There's really not much more to say. Taking anonymous loaded surveys that would be answered only by God believers, and then having a religious whacko interpret the answers and proclaim there is a God is hardly an unbiased study. I read up on this Hood guy, and see he's a religious nutzo. Everything he writes about revolves around religion. Just because he somehow got a PH D from Phoenix college or some other such "college" doesn't mean the guy has any credibility. What ELSE would a religios nut conclude frrom loaded surveys? That there is no God?

Originally Posted by Deist

There's really not much more to say.

not when you don't know what you are talking about.

you are not answering the quotes I put up. It hasn't occurred to you that the study in the Backup thread is corroboration of the M Scale.

Taking anonymous loaded surveys that would be answered only by God believers, and then having a religious whacko interpret the answers and proclaim there is a God is hardly an unbiased study.

In other words yu don't know what social scinece research is. it's alluded you that social science research involves hiding your purpose form the respondent so they don't answer the way you want. In other words you knowing about reserach!

I read up on this Hood guy, and see he's a religious nutzo.

No it doesn't. you is no source anywhere that say "Hood is religious nutzo." you are assuming because you don't' like his research, even though you don't sundress it.

you are assuming "He studies snake handlers so he must me one." that's proof you are a bigoted ignorant anti-intellectual pipsqueak who doesn't' undrestand social scineces.

My intro psychology professor was did a study on Transvestites but he not a transvestite do you understand?

Everything he writes about revolves around religion. Just because he somehow got a PH D from Phoenix college or some other such "college" doesn't mean the guy has any credibility. What ELSE would a religios nut conclude frrom loaded surveys? That there is no God?

that's is field Einstein. psychology of religion duh?

btw don't look now everything Dawkins rights is about religion does that mean he's a religious nutzo?

Review Victor Stenger's God The failed Hypotesis

In God The Failed Hypothesis, [1] Victor Stenger uses basically the same over all approach and the same objections disprove his argument, yet he makes more use of the fortress of facts concept. For him it’s not so much reduction of God to a big man in the sky as just the lack of hard tangible evidence of God’s DNA, smoking creation gun or other dead give-aways. His arguments are geared to a fundamentalist big man in the sky concept of God and he takes silence as proof, thus no evidence for God, in his mind, equals positive evidence of no God. He begins with a comparison of scientific method to what he takes to be “theological method.”[2] Of course his straw-man version of theological method has nothing to do with the way any modern theologian works. It’s clear from the outset that he is subjecting belief in God to scientific criteria but he’s expecting belief itself to transmute into a scientific hypothesis. After all if there’s only one form of knowledge, as the atheist ideology has it, then that’s what has to be done to have knowledge of something. What this tells us upfront is that we are dealing with the fortress of facts. We can’t allow religious people to have the belief they have. It has to be made over into the doppelganger of my scientific ideas, or it’s not worth considering. Of course that makes it into a straw-man argument because he’s doing nothing more than taking something beyond the domain of science and saying “hey look it’s not science.” He basically admits this when he says: “Objective evidence for an entity of Godlike attributes should be readily available. After all, God is supposed to play a deceive role in every happening in the world. Surely we should see some sign in objective observations made by our eyes…”[3] Should we? This is a theological question, not a question for science. Why should physicists decide what the parameters are for belief? Why should we expect God to be given in “objective” evidence when he’s not given in sense data? How can we expect that which is beyond our understanding, the basis of all that is, to be subject to empirical observations of beings in creation? What If God’s work consists primarily of holding the strong force together? How could we ever know that? We can’t know it by ordinary means, we might know it by intuitive or deductive or revelatory means. Why isn’t that extraordinary? When we do have objective evidence which we can see with our eyes and prove with medical science, such as the miracles at Lourdes, the atheists will merely evoke incredulity as though it’s a proof and refuse to believe the proof.[4]He clearly and unabashedly places God under the domain of science and makes a subject of scientific scrutiny. He proposes an approach that would cast belief in God as a scientific hypothesis. He proposes a “scientific God model.”[5]

Not content with just using scientific criteria he also evokes what is called ECREP (extraordinary claims requires extraordinary proof). Then he sets about listing conditions for extraordinary claims. One could easily argue that this is a false standard. In fact in my first book The Trace of God I do make this argument.[6] For the sake of argument I’ll accept it for now. These criteria include:

(1) Protocols of the study must be clear so that all possibilities of error can be evaluated…

(2) The hypothesis being tested must be established clearly and explicitly…

(3) People doing the study must have no pre judgment…

(4) The hypothesis being tested must contain seeds of its own destruction…

(5) Results must be independently replicated…[7]

No. 4 is vaguely reminiscent of Hegel or Marcuse, the thesis contains the seeds of its own negation.[8] What he’s really saying is it must be falsifiable. So he already has God starched out in the petri dish and is ready to dissect. He’s reduced God to the level of a scientific question. In evoking falsification, he’s saying under what conditions could this hypothesis be disproved? The unwary might think “it can’t be so it must be true.” No if it can’t be disproved under any conditions it can’t be proved either. The problem this only applies to empirical questions. The issue of falsification only applies to questions that are about things given in sense data.

God is not under the domain of science. The question of God is not a scientific one it’s an existential, ontological, or metaphysical question. The question of God is over and above anything about science, because science is about the empirical and God is not given in sense data. Indeed how could the basis of reality be subject to things in creation? Yet the reductionist tries to subject God to the mundane the material and it’s no wonder they don’t’ find anything. This is the ultimate bait and switch. This tendency to reduce God to the level of science is the result of the ideology that reduces all knowledge to scientific knowledge. Stenger knows that he’s coming up against the problem of overlapping magisteria (domains). He doesn’t like that God is off limits to science. He wants to subject the supernatural to the natural and assert its disproof, because he assumes that there’s one valid sort of knowledge; science. He argues with the national academy of sciences statement in chapter one about supernatural is beyond the study of science.

These scientists and science organizations that would limit science to the investigation of natural causes provide unwitting support for the assertion that science is dogmatically naturalistic…in many of the public discussions we hear today science is accused of dogmatically refusing to consider the possible role that other than natural processes may play in the universe…however, any type of dogmatism is the very antithesis of science.[9]

The problem is by limiting science they admit there maybe more and that they don’t posses the way to know things. In wanting to open everything up to science Stenger Is actually reducing everything to the natural level and implying that there be only one form of knowledge, which by default would have to be science. He’s really making a chatch 22 for religious thinkers, yet he also sows seeds of the negations of his own view. In trying to reduce everything to level of falsifiability he’s admitting that anything not reducible to that level is not under the domain of science. Of course he would probably assert that if it’s not testable by science it just can’t be. So the bait and switch in Stenger’s argument is clear. Reduce everything to the level of science, science doesn’t come up with evidence for God, then argue there must not be a God.

Stenger goes on to indulge in question begging by way of trying to justify stretching science over to fit the supernatural. He says that science can study the supernatural. Yet all he’s really saying is that there is no supernatural which will be proven if science attempts to stud it. All they could logically prove would be that they cant’ study the supernatural. Stenger of course will take the silence as proof because he predisposed to be incredulous about the supernatural. He never takes the dirth of data as an indication that it can’t be studied. It would have to be taken as proof that it’s not there and that’s what he wants.

The assertions that science does not study and that supernatural hypotheses are untestable are factually incorrect. Right under the noses of leaders of national science organizations who make these public statements, capable credentialed scientists are investigating the possibility of supernatural causes…reputable institutions such as the Mayo Clinic, Harvard University and Duke University are studying phenomena that, if verified, would provide would provide strong empirical support for the existence of some nonmaterial element in the universe. These experiments are designed to test the healing power of distant, blinded, intercessory prayer.[10]

It’s clear that Stenger’s purpose in bringing this up is to open up the supernatural to scientific critique so that absence of evidence can be constructed as the failure of empirical testing. The fact of question begging here should be obvious, he’s assuming that because some people study what he deems to be ‘supernatural’ therefore the whole of the supernatural (whatever that is) is opened up as a scientific question. Secondly, the studies he points to are about healing. Healing is only a small aspect of the spiritual and it’s debatable as to whether or not it’s supernatural at all. I would argue that modern concept of “supernatural” is misconstrued based upon concepts of the enlightenment. The term has come to mean anything not under the realm of science, anything form magic to a realm completely removed form the physical. I will deal with this at greater length latter.

Another problem with Stenger’s approach is that it’s a Grand Canyon leap in logic from healing (which is one manifestation if anything of the supernatural) to the conclusion that God’s very existence is a question for science. The question about the reality of God is much more basic and much harder to confront than the question of healing. Healing is an overlap, a point at which something spiritual touches the physical. Yet the reality of God is at the basis of all reality itself. Stenger is assuming that since the work is being done it must be possible to do it. That still doesn’t tell us anything. Suppose the study shows no significant findings proving any extra-naturalistic process. Does that really prove that there is no such process, or does it only mean that it’s out our epistemic reach? Stenger wants to beg the question and assert that because they did the work it be accurate and tell us all. Then he wants to extrapolate from that begged question to another: to extrapolate from the possibility of no demonstration of healing the assumption that there must not be a God.. Rather he wants to use this to establish the assumption that his cosmological opinions really prove something about God’s existence.

I will not belabor the points he makes about reasoning and logic in God arguments. He does deal with some of that on a certain level, in fact he spends a lot pages doing just that. I’m going pass over most of that because the real issue according his own exposition is what science itself has to offer in terms of the big disproof of God. Yet it is instructive to look one most unserious attempt:

(1) God is by definition a being that which no greater being can be thought

(2) Greatness includes the greatness of virtue

(3) God is a being then of which no being can be more virtuous.

(4) But virtue involves overcoming pain and danger.

(5) Indeed a being can only said to be properly virtuous if it can suffer pain or be destroyed

(6) A God that can suffer pain or is destructible is not one that which nothing greater than an be conceived.

(7) For you can think of a greater being one that is non suffering and indestructible

(8) Therefore, God does not exist.[11]

Notice that doesn’t provide any logical problem for the concept of God itself. It’s just one persons idea of God, not one any real theist believes in. Who says God is under the same constraints of virtue that humans are? The idea of virtue and suffering is not applicable to God. Can God even said to be virtuous? If virtue is something creatures of God develop thorugh obeidiecne to God then obviously God is beyond the aspect of virtue, that wouldn’t prevent God form being perfect morally; it would merely mean that virtue for humans an aspect of character we develop. God is source of moral perfection. Even if we assume the argument is right all it’s disproved in one argument, from perfection. It has not shown a logical contradiction in the idea of God per se.

Definition of VIRTUE

1

a : conformity to a standard of right : morality b : a particular moral excellence

2

plural : an order of angels — see celestial hierarchy

3

: a beneficial quality or power of a thing

4

: manly strength or courage : valor

5

: a commendable quality or trait : merit

6

: a capacity to act : potency

7

: chastity especially in a woman

— vir·tue·less adjective

— by virtue of or in virtue of [12]

None of these qualies would fit God except 1 or 3. Those don’t entail suffering. 4 entails courage that’s the virtue of valor but God is not said to have valor, he doesn’t need it. Of God is not going to have “a commendable trait” because that would degrade God, which all Stenger does. This just another example of demoting God ot the level of main and treating God like a human. Notice the one thing he does not do (he offers many many such misguided joke arguments, although he presents them seriously) he never deals with the tradition of theology or philosophy. He makes no effort to reflect what’s been said by the tradition. As though he thinks science is the only from of knowledge, therefore, scientists are the priesthood of knowledge. Therefore, philosopher’s ideas are not worth considering. This is the kind of vapid nonsense he churns out because he knows too much to consult the experts in a field of which he knows nothing.

He never does actually get around to a scientific smoking gun. He has no great insight or scientific facts that would actually disprove the experience of God. All he ever does is argue from silence by knocking down straw-man versions of arguments such as the fine tuning argument then assuming if these arguments are down there is no argument that proves God, thus absence of evidence is the same as disproof. All of these arguments turn on reducing God the proportions of humanity and then judging the Big man in the sky. He basically admits this modus operandi:

The scientific argument against the existence of God will be modified from the lack of evidence argument:

(1) Hypothesize a God who plays an important role in the universe.

(2) Assume that God has specific attributes that should provide objective evidence for his existence.

(3) Look for such evidence with an open mind

(4) If such evidence is found conclude that God may exist

(5) If such objective evidence is not found conclude that beyond a reasonable doubt that God with these properties does not exist.[13]

Most of the positive evidence he presents is just proof of evolution, which is only a problem for creationists, meaning only a problem for adherents to particular idea of God. Thus we see the atheist straw-God at work. The statement above not only conclusively proves that Stenger is reducing God to science, but that his arguments fail a prori. Premise one is granted, even if that role is merely creating the universe, or just savhing people. Number 2 is a straw-God claim. Why should there be objective evidence for God’s role? That would depend upon the nature of the role. What if the major evidence for God is subjective? That’s only a dirty word to atheists. There’s nothing particularly dirty about subjective proof and there’s nothing illogical about it. There’s no reason why the major evidence for God can’t be subjective. After all we are subjective creatures and every single thing we perceive comes to us form subjective experiences. There’s no logical reason why God is logically bound to produce objective evidence. Number 3 is a lost cause. Stenger has proved he do that because he wont even examine Lourdes miracles. Number 4 takes out Stenger’s thesis because we will present such evidence, the Lourdes miracle which he will not examine are such evidence. Number five takes out his thesis because strong enough evidence can be found to at least provide a reasonable doubt in favor of belief. In other words the strength of Stenger’s case doesn’t meet the stipulate of “beyond a reasonable doubt” even if you grant him his moves of the “scientific God hypothesis.” This will be seen in subsequent chapters.

He does actually try to show that cosmologically the universe looks like the kind of universe we would have without a God assuming naturalistic developments.[14] That’s misleading because he doesn’t deal the cosmological argument, or necessity and contingency. Of course he’s not dealing with the major modern issues in theology such as process theology. None of his arguments apply to modern liberal concepts of God. In fact they apply to orthodox concepts either. The whole new atheist movement is aimed at Christian fundamentalism.He's applying the standards of biology to the basis of all reality as though we have a lock on understanding all there, when in reality, we don't know beans about the whys and wherefores, or what's out there.

This is why religious experience and religious life have to be approached as an existential journy not as a scientific hypothesis.

---

[1] Victor J. Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis:How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007.

[2] Ibid. 22-23

[3] ibid 22

[4] Lourdes find

[5] Stenger, ibid, 41

[6] Trace of God chapter 2 find.

[7] Stenger, ibid, 24-25

[8] Herbert Macruse, Negations

[9] Stenger, ibid, 28

[10] ibid, 29

[11] ibid, 31

[12] Merrain-Webser’s on line dictionary. URL: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/virtue visited 6/26/12

[13] Stenger, ibid, 43

[14] ibid, 113

Dawkins Argument against the existence of God from God Delusion

Dawkins


Several atheist scientific types make the claim that science disproves God. Here I’ll look at three of the major writers who make such claims: Dawkins, Stenger, and Krauss. In dealing with this topic the first thing to keep in mind is that all three illustrate the use of reductionism and its ideological assumptions in their work. In fact their arguments are only possible given their reductionist assumptions because they are only dealing with a concept of God that reduced God to the level of a great biological organism in the sky. Of course they have to do this because if they did not they would have no business even thinking about God. They must assume God posses the qualities of such an organism for him to even be amiable to their domain. Science has no business discussing God since God is the basis of reality and not a thing in creation. God is not given in sense data, thus can’t be subject to scientific proof or disproof. In fact the arguments I will examine here really amount to a bait and switch. They claim to disprove something that can’t be dealt with as part of their domain. In trying to drag God down to the level of the scientific domain they are merely creating a straw man, or “straw God” argument.

Richard Dawkins made one of his major media splashes and scored a big hit for the cause by publishing The God Delusion.(1) The lynch pin of the book is the argument against the existence of God, which turns upon reversing the design argument. The role of science in this argument is really a deception because they actually have no data that demonstrates the lack of God. All he really does is present evidence for a materialist explanation (featuring evolution) then assumes that evolution rules out God by making him unnecessary. This is not actually a disproof and it depends upon Dawkin’s notion of “necessary.” What he means by God is not necessary for his purposes.

This assertion about God is shrouded in the mystique of science as the only knowledge. It becomes encoded in the fortress of facts mentality and then is looked upon as “official scientific proof,” by the faithful. Dawkins never actually says what concepts of God he’s dealing with, yet the only one he ever does deal with is a crass version of “Bible god’ that is sort of chick comic books special “big man in the sky.”(2) We have a major Hint in that he doesn’t deal with any other concept.

To be fair Dawkins does deal with poly theism. That creates the illusion that he’s dealing with other models of God, but he’s not because the polytheism with which he deals is based upon separate versions of the one comic book noting, the big man in the sky. Instead of one sky father we have several. It’s the same thing. From pages 29 to 37 the entire section designated “polytheism” he avoids mentioning anything about polytheistic views after the first program.(3) From 37 to 46 all he does is talk about what he doesn’t like about the God of the bible.(4) In fact he admits that he means to deal mostly with Christianity and tires to actually remove other religions such as Hinduism form the category of religions!

I shall have Christianity mostly in mind, but only because it is the version with which I happen to be most familiar. For my purposes the differences matter less than the similarities. And I shall not be concerned at all with other religions such as Buddhism or Confucianism. Indeed, there is something to be said for treating these not as {38} religions at all but as ethical systems or philosophies of life.(5)

I’m sure the followers of Hinduism would be shocked to learn they don’t believe in God. This is clearly a bait and switch. He’s replacing legitimate theological and philosophical concepts with a straw god argument that’s easy to beat. He knows he can’t disprove any actual theological notions so he has to reduce God belief to the big man in the sky so he can make it subject to his dictates as a purveyor of scientifically based ideology. That way he doesn’t have to take on the great thinkers of Christian theology. He can dismiss Aquinas and Whitehead and so on the basis that “these are just those liberal guys that one listens to.” In effect he’s making his own atheist straw man (straw God) argument. Straw man is when you make an argument that is a mock version of what your opponent says it is tailored to your own level of refutation so you can beat it easily, then you claim you beat the opponent’s argument. So the major and most sophisticated God concepts, the one’s that bring belief into the modern era, he just ignores. He makes a thing of beating up on pre scientific concepts of the big sky father which is an anthropomorphism that no educated theist in the modern world worries about. He doesn’t actually disprove it. He has no smoking gun, no God DNA to disprove, no black God finder box that shows there’s no God. All he really has is an argument that the antiquated sky father doesn’t fit with evolution. To him this is “disproof” of God.

The lynch pin of his argument is found in a chapter entitled “why there almost certainly is no God.”(6) As we have seen it really has nothing do with most concepts of God that educated thinkers in the modern world care about. It really should be called “why there almost certainly is no old man in the sky.” His arguments basically amounts to reversing the design argument by reducing God to the level of biological organism and then applying concepts of biology and probability to make it seem God would be more complex and that’s less probable.(7) He calls this argument the “ultimate Boeing 747 gambit.” (8) It’s based upon reversing the idea used to defend the conventional design argument that evolution is like expecting a 747 to assemble form hurricane in a junk yard.
It was actually atheist Scientist Fred Holye who made this analogy. Dawkins takes this to be the creationists favorite argument.

Some observed phenomenon — often a living creature or one of its more complex organs, but it could be anything from a molecule up to the universe itself — is correctly extolled as statistically improbable. Sometimes the language of information theory is used: the Darwinian is challenged to explain the source of all the information {114} in living matter, in the technical sense of information content as a measure of improbability or ‘surprise value’. Or the argument may invoke the economist's hackneyed motto: there's no such thing as a free lunch — and Darwinism is accused of trying to get something for nothing. In fact, as I shall show in this chapter, Darwinian natural selection is the only known solution to the otherwise unanswerable riddle of where the information comes from. It turns out to be the God Hypothesis that tries to get something for nothing. God tries to have his free lunch and be it too. However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. God is the Ultimate Boeing 747.(9)

The crux of the issue is this, most people think that coming about random chance is chance in the absence of design and that makes it less probable that it could happen (like the chances of junk blowing around to form 747. The fact is, according to Dawkins, Darwin’s concept of natural selection actually explains the changes better and provides the mechanism that replaces the need for a designer. Dawkins argues that before Darwin thinkers such as Hume understood that design is not eh only alternative to chance, they had no mechanism for the alternative and that’s what Darwin offered them, graded transitions through natural selection. That is it. No secret mathematical formula, no astronomical observations, no data form the dreaded black box, no peering into the microscope to see a label saying “nature by chance.” The whole argument is just that we don’t need big man in sky to explain word because we have random change, and that is made more rational and covers for seeming design features by natural selection.

Dawkins spends a lot of time dealing with the issue of complexity. Complexity is not only important in terms of design vs chance (the more complex the less chance of coming about randomly) the irreducible complexity concept seems to be one of the major things the ID people have going for them. The irreducible complexity is all or nothing. An eye badly formed wouldn’t make it. How could such a complex mechanism just spring up one day? It only works in its entirety so a gradual slow progression makes no evolution. They would not pass on the trait for a half formed eye because it’s not enabling survival. Dawkins answers this by discussion of Darwin’s concept of “decent with modifications.”(10) Dawkins points out that creationists love to site Darwins passage about the problems of the eye. The joke is on them since he was only using this as a rhetorical device to draw them in and “lower the boom” so to speak. His answer is basically that the assumption of all or nothing is fallacy. There is value to half an eye or half a wing. For example cataract patients may not be ale to see well but they could see well enough not to walk off the cliff. Half a wing will not enable the bird to fly south for the winter but it might lessen the fall from the nest.(11) He spends most of the chapter beating the ID movements dead horses and gloating about how much smarter he is than religious people. ”One of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding.” (12) This is coming form the guy who says “we don’t’ need to read theology because we know it’s stupid.” For the record, I am not an ID guy or a creations, I'm a Darwinian and what has been said in this paragraph is why. How that effects his theory of "religion breeds ignorance," the reader can decide.

He’s so carried away with admiration for his superiority he can’t resist going after Dietrich Bonhoeffer (major theologian of 20th century) as an example of one who teaches us to be content with no understanding and who worships the gaps. He asserts that Bonhoeffer loved the gaps but laments their closing.” What worries thoughtful theologians such as Bonhoeffer is that gaps shrink as science advances, and God is threatened with eventually having nothing to do and nowhere to hide.” (13) Unfortunately, despite his great superiority Dawkins just doesn’t read far enough in Bonhoeffer to see that what he’s really saying is that this is an warning to Christians not to make God of the gaps arguments. He’s merely telling them what any good logician would tell them, if you base your view of God on the gaps, they are likely to be filled. That means we should base our knowledge of God upon what can be deduced logically rather than upon gaps in science. Which is exactly what Dawkins would support were it not advice about making good God arguments. So the uber mensch just forgets to follow his own advice and not be content to not understand. Had he known this he might have read more Bonhoeffer. Uber Menschen are like that. While we are on the subject of Bonehoeffer there’s no reason to think that he is a favorite of creationist or that he was one himself. The existence of God was a done deal for Bonehoeffer. Like most liberals he didn’t care much about arguments on that score because he didn’t have any trouble believing and he didn’t see belief as necessitated upon proving something.

From pages 125 to 143 Dawkins is trashing creationists. He gives it to Behe and others. Its’ not until 142 or so in the chapter entitled, “The Anthropic Principle Cosmological Version,” that he settles down to business and makes the 747 argument in full. I skip over the content of this merely because it’s important to my views. I am not a creationist, I have no problem with Dawrin per se, I’ve already indicated the major thrust of my position that he’s just running a straw God argument; he can disprove all old men in the sky he cares to that doesn’t effect the Christian God. Dawkins discusses the anthropic fine turning argument. Of course he asserts that there is a multiverse and we just happen to live in one of the space/times that worked out for life. Because there are a whole bunch of choices, maybe infinitely, there are opportunities for the problems and dead end universe to be played out but we just happen to get in the one of the ones that works. The problem with this is it’s just another version of assuming the reason to believe in God is about explaining things. We don’t need God as an explanation so there must not be a God. That’s not proof of anything accept that maybe there’s another reason to believe besides explaining the physical universe.

At this point (146-147) he introduces the concept of probability based upon complexity. That’s really curx of the whole argument. His whole book really rests on this point. This in itself is the reason he says “there almost certainly Is not God.

It is tempting to think (and many have succumbed) that to postulate a plethora of universes is a profligate luxury which should not be allowed. If we are going to permit the extravagance of a multiverse, so the argument runs, we might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and allow a God. Aren't they both equally unparsimonious ad hoc hypotheses, and equally unsatisfactory? People who think that have not had their consciousness raised by natural selection. The key difference between the genuinely {147} extravagant God hypothesis and the apparently extravagant multiverse hypothesis is one of statistical improbability. The multiverse, for all that it is extravagant, is simple. God, or any intelligent, decision-taking, calculating agent, would have to be highly improbable in the very same statistical sense as the entities he is supposed to explain. The multiverse may seem extravagant in sheer number of universes. But if each one of those universes is simple in us fundamental laws, we are still not postulating anything highly improbable. The very opposite has to be said of any kind of intelligence. (14)

Of course we must observe once again, he’s dealing with the big man in the sky. He sees God as thinking. Why would God need to think? He sees God as “an agent” who is calculating. God knows all, why would he need to ratiocinate? God could be considered an agent in some senses but why in the sense of pondering and considering? Dawkins needs him to do this so his argument can work. The argument being that God has to be more complex than the universe in order to create it. If he’s more complex then he’s more improbable. There are several things wrong with this idea.

I have already dismissed all such suggestions as raising bigger problems than they solve. But what attempts have theists made to reply? How do they cope with the argument that any God capable of designing a universe, carefully and foresightfully tuned to lead to our evolution, must be a supremely complex and improbable entity who needs an even bigger explanation than the one he is supposed to provide?(15)

He takes on Richard Swinburne and his attempt at answering the problem. Swinburne essentially sees the world of atomic and subatomic particles as chaotic and complex and brings God in as a stabilizing force because God is simple compared the structure of this tiny world. Dawkins sees this as absurd. Form him the world of atomic and subatomic forces is beautifully simple. It’s just one idea that no matter the fact that there are many of the same kind of tiny thing. That is simple. “But how can Swinburne possibly maintain that this hypothesis of God simultaneously keeping a gazillion fingers on wayward electrons is a simple hypothesis?”(16) Swinburne is arguing that God is only a single substance (no parts) Dawkins sees this as a trick. He argues hat Swinburne is asserting this “without justification.” Of course that’s mere ignorance. There is a long tradition in thinking that spirit is one substance not made up of parts or of tiny particles. In trying to carry off this argument Dawkins really tips his hand. He quotes the following passage from Swinburne:

Theism claims that every other object which exists is caused to exist and kept in existence by just one substance, God. And it claims that every property which every substance has is due to God causing or permitting it to exist. It is a hallmark of a simple explanation to postulate few causes. There could in this respect be no simpler explanation than one which postulated only one cause. Theism is simpler than polytheism. And theism postulates for its one cause, a person [with] infinite power (God can do anything logically possible), infinite knowledge (God knows everything logically possible to know), and infinite freedom.(17)

This quotation gives the idea that God is simple as an explanation not as a “force” or “entity.” Theism posits one cause to which all phenomena can be taken back, causes everything. Now Dawkins is going to trade on the distinction between the simplicity of explanation and simplicity, for want of a better term, “nature.” He observes that Swinburne says God can’t do logically impossible things. Dawkins finds nothing more to interject in response to this point than incredulity. God’s power, aside form logically necessity/impossibly is endless and Dawkins to resents it. AT this point he evokes the concept of God’s complexity of nature than answer the idea above about simplicity as exploitation. So he’s actually talking at cross purposes. He says a God who could keep up with the individual status of every particle would have to be immensely complex. That is in terms of his own nature not the place occupies logically an expiation which is not in the sense above. They talk at cross purposes. Swinburne says God is simple as an explanation, Dawkins says God is complex as an "entity."

Dawkins also bring in Keith Ward, Dividity professor at Oxford. Again the same thing. Ward is talking about God as hypothesis being elegant:

As a matter of fact, the theist would claim that God is a very elegant, economical and fruitful explanation for the {150} existence of the universe. It is economical because it attributes the existence and nature of absolutely everything in the universe to just one being, an ultimate cause which assigns a reason for the existence of everything, including itself. It is elegant because from one key idea — the idea of the most perfect possible being — the whole nature of God and the existence of the universe can be intelligibly explicated.(18)

Yet Dawkins is talking about how complex God would be as an “entity” as though he has to have lots of parts. Dawkins seems to know something is wrong by tries to cover by making out as though it’s Ward’s fault: “Like Swinburne, Ward mistakes what it means to explain something, and he also seems not to understand what it means to say of something that it is simple. I am not clear whether Ward really thinks God is simple, or whether the above passage represented a temporary ‘for the sake of argument’ exercise..” He’s saying Ward doesn’t know what simple means when in fact he doesn’t get that he’s making a parsimony claim. He’s saying all the different problems aspects of origin are summed up in this one answer, the use of the term “elegant” is a dead giveaway that it’s parsimony. By the same Token Swinburne is making the same sort of patrimony claim. Dawkins’s answer doesn’t even apply to make it seem that it’s their fault something is wrong, he as makes as they don’t get his argument right when in fact they wrote first he’s bring them to make a straw man argument. Like most straw man arguments he has to stretch to get it to fit.

Dawkins entire argument turns upon the reduction of God from the level of ground of being or something beyond or understanding, some basis of reality, that of a giant biological organism. Dawkins straw God doesn’t know, he has to monitor and keep track, he has to be complex enough to keep track of all the sub atomic particles and so on. As the ground of being God would be intimately connected to everything, Dawkins’s straw God would have to keep watch on each and ever particle. Dawkins actually does make this point (see fn on his answer to Ward). Since God is not a big man in the sky or a big biological organism what would be the consequences of his being complex? The reason complexity comes into it is because Dawkins wants that to be the guide to probability. Now to measure the probably of something it must be quantifiable and it must be observable. Thus to even consider God as a subject of the concept of probability he has to be observable. So that sort of skews the whole business right there. Moreover, how can one fix a “probability” for the basis of reality? That’s like trying to time a speedometer with the speedometer itself. Or trying to weigh a scale with the scale being weighed. The whole issue is, like the consciousness issue, more reductionism bait and switch.

If God was complex I don’t see how it could be reasoned as less probable by the standards of ordinary probably nor would it be a problem for God. Surely an infinite God could handle the demands of complexity since it would not be the sort of complexity we know in the physical world. God is not made up of parts. It’s not as though God is a Rube Goldberg machine. God’s complexity would surely be of a totally different ilk than anything of which we know. What would it mean to say God is complex? If God is not made of atoms and has no moving parts, not produced by a brain then what exactly is complex? If it’s his understanding that’s complex I don’t see how that would render him less probable since it’s the complexity of parts that determines probability. The basis of knowledge would not be proportional to any biological brain chemistry or anything of that nature in thinking of God. The whole argument is just a trick of reductionism. It’s a straw God argument that might work on the comic book God of fundamentalism who is a big man in the sky but it doesn’t work on more sophisticated concepts such as process theology or Tillich’s notion of God as being itself. If we think of God as a universal mind, the super-essential Godhead of Dionysus the Areiopagite, the whole concept of complexity as we understand it in relation to the physical is just a passing fancy I mind we can’t understand.




Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. Boston, New York: The Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. All quotes from this source will be from online copy of the text URL: http://macroevolution.narod.ru/delusion/delusion.htm all page numbers apply to free ebook.
find chick
(1) Dawkins, ibid, 29-37.
(2) Ibid, 37-46
(3) ibid, 37
(4) ibid, 113
(5) ibid
(6) ibid.
(7) ibid. 114
(8) ibid. 115-122
(9) ibid. 123-124.
(10) ibid 125 “the worship of gaps”
(11) ibid.
(12) ibid, 146-147
(13) ibid 147
(14) ibid
(15) Swinburne quoted by Dawkins, ibid 148-149
(16) Ward, quoted by Dawkins ibid 149-150
(17) ibid 150
(18) Ward quoted by Dawkins 149

Reactions to ruling on Obama care

see my report on people's reactions on my political blog Need more Shovels

are health care costs rising due to "Obama care?" Is the bill a big disaster?

The Atheist Party Line: It's Organization and Movement

It's so amusing! I tell atheists "you are in a movement." They react like I've said "you are child molesters." O we are not either no no no not a movement O ononononn! never!

they steadfast everyone every single time recite that party line, it's just the absence of a belief. It doesn't dawn on them:

(1) you are angry because I say it's a movement.

the anger is palpable. Why should it make them angry that I say they have a movement? I say I have a movement. I've been in movements all my life. i was in the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement (2 different wars--two different movements) and many others. I don't care. it doesn't make me angry to say I am in a movement. i don't even are if they say Christianity is a movement. I as in a movement and it had an ideology (communism) I was a commie!

I know what movements look like. I know what ideology looks like. I have trained all my life to spot this. I've been in movements, been a communist, (the paradigm of all movements and father of all ideologies) and I'm a historian of ideas. I was also an atheist. I know a movement when I see one. I also know that' it's not normal for people to become angry when you say they are in a movement. Why would they ? Atheists react as though I've said they are drugs addicts or soemthing.


(2) they all give the same answer

they all answer in exactly the same way. they never very there's no individuality. Its' always "the absence of any god or gods." There's never any individualist variation as though they have all read the same thing and all been told to say this phrase. I know they have probalby been told to say the phrase, but somehow in the way they process the information when they convence themselves to follow this movement they just learn it by wrote like the phrase really matters.

I am still looking fo all this individuality they claim to have. I can't find it. I see them saying the same things and marching in lock step. last week I had a hesitation where atheists would not admit that appeal to popularity was wrong. some of them even warned to say it wasn't wrong unless was in favor of Christianity. One of them argued form popularity saying that I could not right becuase I'm a member of a tiny minority (the minority being people with my exact outlook thus confessing the idea of group membership with the opinion one holds).



Isn't a dead give away, think about it. They actually believe that if you hold single idea differently from the group you are in a different group. Then on what basis can they claim that atheist are all different and that they have individualist opinions? As if that isn't frighting enough, they would not bring themselves to denounce argument from popularity, but then actually tried to say that I had argued that! They tried to attribute their comrade's statement to me! Now is that for confused?

I've demonstrate that its' a movement and only an idiot could fail to see it. I've shown that they have a concerted effort for court cases involving 30 major law suits (which would cost millions, who is paying for it)? They have a vast propaganda machine. They work on the destruction of Christian academic credibility at the expense of academic learning. They have a vast propaganda organziation in the form of several publications, think tanks and a scam pretending to be a convocations of schoalrs who are actually just Jesus mythers with no real academic standing.


Freedom From Religion Foundation:

• Won the first federal lawsuit challenging direct funding by the government of a faith-based agency
• Overturned a state Good Friday holiday
• Won a lawsuit barring direct taxpayer subsidy of religious schools
• Removed Ten Commandments monuments from public lands
• Ended bible instruction in public schools after 51 year practice
• Halted prayer at public institutions
• Stopped direct subsidy to religious schools
• Ended commencement prayers at a Top Ten University after 122 years of practice
• Ended distribution of Gideon bibles in public schools.
• Brought nearly 30 First Amendment lawsuits since 1977, and keeps several Establishment law challenges in the courts at all times.

<http://www.ffrf.org/legal> (18 Feb. 2007).

Approach Used to Spread Agenda

• Files lawsuits!
• Publishes Freethought Today
• Sponsors annual high school and college atheist based essay competitions with cash awards
• Conducts, annual national conventions, honoring the "Freethinker of the Year" for state/church activism, a "Freethought Heroine" and student activists
• Bestows "The Emperor Has No Clothes" Award to public figures for their criticism of religion
• Promotes freedom from religion with educational products, bumperstickers, music CDs, winter solstice greeting cards and literature
• Publishes useful atheist books
• Provides speakers for events and debates
• Established a freethought book collection at the University of Wisconsin Memorial Library as well as a 2,000-volume office collection

OTHER SUCCESSES

- University Graduation Invocations Ended at Top Ten University
- Prayers Stopped at Public Institutions
- Public Sponsorship of Nativity Pageant Halted
- Crosses Downed from Public Land
- Abuse by Preacher Exposed
- City Sponsorship of Knights of Columbus Signs Ended
- Ethics Probe Called for Preaching Governor
- Proselytizing Crossing Guard Fired
- Post Office/Catholic Entanglement Ended
- De Facto Sports Chaplaincy Stopped
- School Boy Scout Subsidy Stopped
- Bible Proclamation Rescinded
- Illegal Public Help Halted for "Our Lady of the Rockies"
- Creationism Removed from City Zoo
- Discount for Catholics Ended
- Red Rocks Easter Service Subsidy Ended
- Nativity Scene Moved Off Government Land
- Ten Commandments Monuments Moved from Public Property
- Religion Removed at Playground

Who has time to work on this? All of these struggle take big money and big legal talent. These are not things pulled off by a diverse group who share nothing more than the lack of a belief. This is clearly a vast political organization it has to be.