But Meyer is a scientist/philosopher and talk about intelligent design and the like is talk about science. — Constance

Ok. I name-checked a couple of ID proponents and Darwin skeptics to meet you halfway and show that I am more open-minded that you may think. But I can't go any farther than that. If the IDers are too scientific for your tastes, I can't respond at all. I'm personally spiritual but not religious, and I'm agnostic -- which I get you think is a weak position -- about the existence of a universal intelligence. Frankly I'd be happy to see some here on earth.

But then, no matter, for it is not science, the scientific method that is, that is in question, and that would be impossble (for to think at all is a performance of just this method), but what is being singled out for "observation". Writing up a proof for the existence of God based on observations of the complexity and functions of affairs in the natural world is not going to yield a proof of God, for ideas like designer and creator are non essential features, do not belong to the essence, if you will, of the idea of God.
One has to be clear at the outset what it is that one is trying to confirm, and it is certainly not God the creator. This is not what an proper analytic of God gives us. — Constance

My understanding is that one comes to God through faith. And I'm afraid I haven't got that when it comes to religion. But I agree with you that it's kind of self-defeating to try to come to God through reason. God must be experienced or taken on faith, as I understand it.

Take God like any other object for analysis and look to its parts. and here we find a vast body of historical, scriptural, mythical narratives. We also find metaphysics. The former are incidental, I would say simply. Maybe Jesus rose from the dead, maybe not, but who cares. — Constance

Some people care a lot. If you don't, then I don't understand where you're coming from. I may be misunderstanding you entirely.

Such things come to us so embedded in naivete, suspicious motives that we can put aside "scripture" altogether. But then what IS there in this idea of God that is grounded in the actualities we encounter in the world? This goes to the metaphysics. Specifically, metaethics. Why are born to suffer and die? Then, what IS suffering, and bliss and pleasure and pain and so on? There are no answers to these questions, yet they go to foundational issues of meaning, importance, value: the question about God is a metaethical question, and the grounding is direct, in the world, palpable; it's in the falling in love and listening to music, being speared in the kidney; in the pleasure/pain, joy/suffering dimension of our existence. — Constance

Yes ok. Not following your point though. I acknowledge the power of religious and spiritual belief in the history of humanity. That doesn't prove God exists, only that religious belief does. God is neither and answer nor not an answer to the question of suffering.

Agnosticism and atheism is a reticence to affirm an anthropomorphic deity, the latter being an outright denial, but I think such a position is vacuous simply because the reticence and denying is obvious, like denying the moon is really a goddess named Luna. — Constance

Ok. I said I'm agnostic, and you call that position vacuous. I don't understand your reasoning. How could I know or not know if God exists?

What one really is trying to affirm is an irreducible moral foundation to our world, that is, affirming a redemption and deliverance from suffering and a consummation of happiness. How is this affirmed? That takes more further discussion. — Constance

I'm agnostic on the entire matter. I don't understand why you find this position vacuous. Am I compelled to choose a side between the Pope and Richard Dawkins? The Pope seems like a nicer guy, I'll give him that.

Maybe there is something more fundamental than the RQF (if the theory is correct) I just see no reason for there to be, as it begs the same questions as the RQF. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Right. Which is to say, Krauss has no ultimate explanation.

More the fact that we are debating something so absurd i.e what substance (for lack of a better word) has existed forever, or came into existence out of literally nothing! I wouldn't be surprised if we are the caterpillars, searching for a truth we can never know. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I am not debating that at all. I'm debating Krauss's nonsensical claim that the RQF + the laws of physics are "nothing"; and your claim that Krauss's claim may be labelled an "ultimate explanation." I say no to both. I take no position on the nature of the world.

the discussion — spirit-salamander

The mistake is in thinking it's a discussion. It's not a discussion, it never was.

Some people care a lot. If you don't, then I don't understand where you're coming from. I may be misunderstanding you entirely. — fishfry

The question is what is real about religion, rather than what is just some cultural inheritance, constructed, invented, like Christmas or Hanukkah. What people care about is not the point because mostly you will find instantiations of something more basic. We have our institutions and we pretend they are real, but Genera Motors is not real, nor is the seat of the presidency. What I mean by real is primordial, originary: something there antecedent to these things that gave rise to their existence. We form governments to organize our social and economic affairs, you could say. But even here one can ask, What are economic affairs? and then more basic questions would follow. Relgion has this underpinning and if we are to answer the question about religious belief we first have to understand it at the level of basic questions.

Yes ok. Not following your point though. I acknowledge the power of religious and spiritual belief in the history of humanity. That doesn't prove God exists, only that religious belief does. God is neither and answer nor not an answer to the question of suffering. — fishfry

But when we say 'God' is this religious concept really just reducible to the metaphysical concept churches and their theologies invented? Omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence? The creator of all things, who conceives, designs, thinks, anticipates, intends, etc. just like we do? Or is that just a bunch of hooey? I think the latter. People pretty much put this all together as a kind of best guess, or a defense mechanism, or an attempt to hold power (as Foucault would have it). I dismiss this as just bad metaphysics and move on.
Suffering is at the foundation of the essence of religion; it is a foundational cause that figures into the human situation that compels us to behold the world and ask questions. We are thrown into this world to suffer. Why? Once we become a bit savvy about the matter, we allow our cultural heritage to be silent and allow the world to speak plainly, and the world tells us that the aesthetic, ethical dimension of our existence demands resolution and consummation. Of course, you can disagree with this, but it IS where meaningful talk about God begins.

Ok. I said I'm agnostic, and you call that position vacuous. I don't understand your reasoning. How could I know or not know if God exists? — fishfry

What does the question even mean if God has not been properly explored as a meaningful term? Are you agnostic about a historical contrivance?

I'm agnostic on the entire matter. I don't understand why you find this position vacuous. Am I compelled to choose a side between the Pope and Richard Dawkins? The Pope seems like a nicer guy, I'll give him that. — fishfry

Richard Dawkins is a scientist. He is not concerned about philosophy, regardless of what he or others might say, for he does not deal in basic questions. Basic questions are those that are presupposed by science.

Maybe there is something more fundamental than the RQF (if the theory is correct) I just see no reason for there to be, as it begs the same questions as the RQF.
— Down The Rabbit Hole

Right. Which is to say, Krauss has no ultimate explanation. — fishfry

If we get rid of the "maybe". I would need evidence to do that.

I'm debating Krauss's nonsensical claim that the RQF + the laws of physics are "nothing" — fishfry

Not with me you're not:

I understand what you are saying about the abuse of the word "nothing". — Down The Rabbit Hole

I take no position on the nature of the world. — fishfry

You are making the active claim that the RQF is not the fundamental thing that gave rise to everything else.

The mistake is in thinking it's a discussion. It's not a discussion, it never was — baker

My mind is blown! :up:

If we get rid of the "maybe". I would need evidence to do that. — Down The Rabbit Hole

:clap: The way you say it is sometimes as important and at other times more important than what you say!

You are making the active claim that the RQF is not the fundamental thing that gave rise to everything else. — Down The Rabbit Hole

That's perfectly obvious, since it immediately suggests the question of how the RQF came to be. But we're flogging a deceased equine at this point.

As if anyone can really fathom the greatest possible being, even in the mind.

As if anyone can really fathom the greatest possible being, even in the mind. — matt

Interesting! I thought this would vitiate the ontological argument, weaken it to the point of being vacuous. The key word in the ontological argument that's problematic is "conceivable" as it appears in the premise, "god is that than which nothing greater is conceiveable."

However, we can easily skirt around that issue by reformulating the premise as "god as the greatest possible being." This might come off as a contradiction - after all it amounts to conceiving the inconceivable - but consider the statement more as a finger pointing to "the greatest possible being" rarther than a vessel holding "the greatest possible being."

My two cents

The question is what is real about religion, rather than what is just some cultural inheritance, constructed, invented, like Christmas or Hanukkah. — Constance

These are deep and interesting questions. Sadly I am not the one to discuss them with. My knowledge of religion and theology is very shallow. I mentioned Darwin skepticism and ID because that's all I know of the subject. But of course you're right, these are actually closer to science than theology. I can't really hold up my end of a discussion of theology except to acknowledge that religion has been and still is a powerful force in the world, whether or not it's literally true.

What people care about is not the point because mostly you will find instantiations of something more basic. We have our institutions and we pretend they are real, but Genera Motors is not real, nor is the seat of the presidency. — Constance

These kinds of things are real in the sense of Searle's Construction of Social Reality. Traffic lights are only a social convention, but you ignore them at the risk of your life. They're real by virtue not of physics, but of social agreement. But they're real nevertheless. But I do take your point that General Motors is not as real as a mountain.

What I mean by real is primordial, originary: something there antecedent to these things that gave rise to their existence. — Constance

I think Searle calls these "brute fact." Mountains, trees. But you're meaning what lies beneath those things. The ur-force. Turtles all the way down IMO. Something humans can never know.

We form governments to organize our social and economic affairs, you could say. But even here one can ask, What are economic affairs? and then more basic questions would follow. Relgion has this underpinning and if we are to answer the question about religious belief we first have to understand it at the level of basic questions. — Constance

But that's the thing. I recognize religion as a social reality. Is there anything to it deeper than that? I'm out of my depth at this point.

But when we say 'God' is this religious concept really just reducible to the metaphysical concept churches and their theologies invented? Omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence? The creator of all things, who conceives, designs, thinks, anticipates, intends, etc. just like we do? Or is that just a bunch of hooey? I think the latter. — Constance

Wait you're arguing religion is a bunch of hooey? I totally don't get your point. I'm not religious but even I acknowledge the tremendous power of religion through history.

People pretty much put this all together as a kind of best guess, or a defense mechanism, or an attempt to hold power (as Foucault would have it). — Constance

Now I'm really out of my depth. My knowledge of the postmodernists is less than nil.

I dismiss this as just bad metaphysics and move on. — Constance

Is there good metaphysics? How can we recognize it?

Suffering is at the foundation of the essence of religion; it is a foundational cause that figures into the human situation that compels us to behold the world and ask questions. We are thrown into this world to suffer. Why? Once we become a bit savvy about the matter, we allow our cultural heritage to be silent and allow the world to speak plainly, and the world tells us that the aesthetic, ethical dimension of our existence demands resolution and consummation. Of course, you can disagree with this, but it IS where meaningful talk about God begins. — Constance

You just said it's hooey. I'm totally confused. I don't agree or disagree with anything here. I'm totally unqualified to do anything but make the most shallow of comments in response to matters that you've clearly given thought to.

What does the question even mean if God has not been properly explored as a meaningful term? Are you agnostic about a historical contrivance? — Constance

Of course not. I recognize the importance of religion as a historical force. I'm agnostic about the existence of some kind of supreme universal intelligence that organizes or creates the world. You said you find that position incoherent. I don't agree. It's the only position that makes sense to me. Of course that doesn't prevent it from being incoherent.

Richard Dawkins is a scientist. He is not concerned about philosophy, regardless of what he or others might say, for he does not deal in basic questions. — Constance

I'm referring to Dawkins's role as a professional atheist.

Basic questions are those that are presupposed by science. — Constance

Not religion? I can't tell where you're coming from.