the statement contradicts itself. if he knew nothing he wouldnt know it, or say it — MikeListeral

Yeah, maybe it's not literal. Like it has a "higher meaning" you believe yourself so familiar with;

What did you have in mind? — Kenosha Kid

In terms of religion, whether or not a supernatural being created and maintains the universe and has a purpose for doing so, what characteristics this being has (if it exists), and what the relationship is between people and this being.

In my view, which is roughly Kantian, the origin and the ultimate aim of the universe are unknowable (a mystery), and any theories about them are unfalsifiable. Though I believe this to be the case for metaphysical claims in general, in which (proper) religious claims are a subset. Religion has gotten the well-deserved thrashing it has in part because it has made claims about things that it should not be in the business of making claims about, things that science deals with quite effectively on its own.

SO your argument for religious belief is that it gives you friends and happiness. — Banno

no

my argument was it gives social and emotional benefits

which is a hell of a lot better then scotch

regarding this silly campaign to demonstrate the "magical" nature of science. — Cheshire

science is based in magical thinking

invisible things moving and creating things out of nothing

etc...

I feel the only way to escape this paradox is to say that we are designed by some higher truth in the universe. — Franz Liszt

But that could just as easily be delusional.

I think you're caught up in a semantic jumble. People love to throw around "science" and "logic" and "atheism," but first we should ask some questions about those words -- like, "What do they mean?"

What am I not believing in as an "atheist"? God? What's God? A sky-father humanoid? A "higher truth"? Love? Nature?

What is science? Seems to me it's a human activity, involving faculties of thought and creativity -- similar to philosophy, in fact.

And on and on. I don't think it does much good invoking something like a "higher truth," because that's just as meaningless as "God" or "being" or "force" or anything else you like -- it becomes an x, and can be defined almost any way we want. I don't see this adding anything to the world.

Yeah, maybe it's not literal. — Cheshire

ya, dont take yourself too literally

It isn't a compelling idea if you don't think it means your super fantastic as a result. It just looks silly.

It just looks silly. — Cheshire

yes, science looks silly when you examine it further

you see its massive fundamental limitations

Are you quoting me out of context to annoy me? Kind of lame. I was trying to help out, later.

my argument was it gives social and emotional benefits — MikeListeral

Friends and happiness.

Doesn't make it true.

I was trying to help out, — Cheshire

stop being so helpful

be more selfish

In terms of religion, whether or not a supernatural being created and maintains the universe and has a purpose for doing so, what characteristics this being has (if it exists), and what the relationship is between people and this being. — darthbarracuda

Yeah sure, celestial teapots and whatnot. Not falsifiable and, as such, as equally likely as an infinity of unfalsifiable ideas thought of and not thought of. Each so should be weighted accordingly :wink:

In my view, which is roughly Kantian, the origin and the ultimate aim of the universe are unknowable (a mystery), and any theories about them are unfalsifiable — darthbarracuda

I've been wondering a lot about this. While we've learned a lot about the early picoseconds of the universe, the hypothesised singularity seems to be an epistemological limit. Everything in the observable universe is our epistemological remit, and whatever caused the universe lies outside that.

However it's possible we will yet discover that the universe does encode information about its origin in some way, or even (and this is a little out there but is published science) that we might observe other origins within the visible universe. There might be stricter limits on the number of possible causes for universes than we know (in much the same way we eliminate eternal inflation theories for example). So I'm more open-minded on this, but lean a little towards your conclusion. How it ends... until we have ways to observe the future as we do the past (inconceivable, but so was quantum mechanics for millennia), we might have to let that one go. But this still strikes me as the same kind of thinking as God-of-the-gaps, or more God-of-the-edges. It's based on our ignorance of what is yet to be discovered and the hope that it will never be so.

I think the measurement problem was considered a metaphysical issue but now is looking like a physical one with all these Wigner's friend experiments. The trend goes that that which is the realm of metaphysics (including theology) shrinks with time. I would be less confident in thinking of this as some kind of refinement toward a true meta-physical realm that will shrink no further.

Yeah sure, celestial teapots and whatnot. Not falsifiable and, as such, as equally likely as an infinity of unfalsifiable ideas thought of and not thought of. Each so should be weighted accordingly :wink: — Kenosha Kid

I'm not sure if I agree with your comparison of the issue with teapots. There can be good reasons to believe something even if this belief is not falsifiable, no?

I would not say that the reasons for believing that there is a teapot in space have the same degree of plausibility as the reasons for believing that God exists. Especially because any serious form of theism does not define God as a "thing", but more like the grounds of every-"thing".

But this still strikes me as the same kind of thinking as God-of-the-gaps, or more God-of-the-edges. It's based on our ignorance of what is yet to be discovered and the hope that it will never be so. — Kenosha Kid

Indeed yes I would agree that it can often seem like a God-of-the-edges sort of thing...science has displaced God in explaining natural phenomenon that one can wonder, is the last refuge of the theist in the origin of the universe?, and is that just eventually going to be taken over by science, just as everything else has?

I think this is an understandable position to hold if you only really interact with theists who think that God is a "thing" and regularly invoke the God-card to explain fuzzy things we don't fully understand, like consciousness or morality or really anything else in the natural world that ought to be studied by science. Of course there's not a magic man in the sky. I am in full agreement with you that God should not be used as a placeholder for things that can be assumed to have a naturalistic explanation.

But the point I am making is that I don't think the origin of the universe is something that can be assumed to have a naturalistic explanation. The question, as I see it, is whether the universe has existed forever, or if it has a beginning. The dogmatists can argue one way or the other, but I see no reason to believe that we have any way of determining this. I do not think this is a case of us just not understanding the issue well enough, it's not a God-of-the-gaps sort of thing. This is a metaphysical question, not a scientific one, and I do not think the answers to metaphysical questions are knowable.

Perhaps "the origin of the universe" is a phase-transition like the sorites paradox (i.e. how N sand grains transition into heap) ...

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