First and foremost, despite any appearances, I was specifically NOT attempting to cast aspersions onto Marcus’ personal character or honesty as a whole. Upon re-reading my post, I can easily see where people may get that impression. However, I have never agreed that a person’s character is equivalent to the ideas they may have, or, in this specific instance, the arguments they use to support their ideas. For the record, “intentional dishonesty” is nowhere to be found in the list of attributes I’d ascribe to Marcus’ character, and there is observable evidence that I believe that is true. If I thought him to be dishonest, I’d not be wasting my time here. As a general habit, I don’t wrestle with pigs.

Secondly, I likewise was not speaking towards the idea and point that Marcus was attempting to make in his original post. The observable fact that an athiest can demonstrate morality is indisputable. It is indisputable that some athiests even demonstrate a greater morality than some theists. The most basic observations of people render this point so obvious as to hardly be even worthy of debate, and I find it a shame that such arguments are made necessary by unthinking fools who claim otherwise.

In short, by calling the argument dishonest/deceptive, I was speaking ONLY of the *argument* as presented. One can agree with an idea while still pointing out perceived flaws in the presentation of said idea. Furthermore, an attack on Marcus’ character in presenting a dishonest argument requires that intention be shown. I never stated specifically that I believed Marcus was being intentionally dishonest, and any wording which implies it is my fault (more on that in a moment). As people begin to know me, they will realize that attempts to “read between the lines” of my writings is very suspect. I freely state what I believe with a high degree of specificity; Had I meant to say that Marcus was intentionally deceptive, I would have stated it plainly with no inference needed. As an example, note my wording in the last sentence in the preceeding paragraph.

As I said, it is easy to see where people make the mistake in interpreting my points. This is my fault, and was caused by me doing the exact same thing that I so frequently accuse others of doing: Writing from a position of anger rather than reason. I so frequently see people using deceptive arguments to press their points and I find it annoying and of no use in the search for truth. The most numerous recent examples I’ve seen have specifically been athiests arguing against religion, and upon seeing the same thing apparently happening here, I snapped and wrote my response based on an emotional reaction of anger. For that, I apologize. While I do firmly and unapologetically accuse most athiests of basing their arguments on “anti-theism” rather than a promotion of athiesm, which reveals to me that their motivations are to attack religion for some perceived or real injustice done to them rather than any search for truth, it does not make it right for me to turn around and demonstrate the same flaws.

All that said, my four main points remain. A quote from someone was paraphrased, and while it may be argued that the base meaning wasn’t changed, it remains true that the wording was changed in a manner which carries significantly more negative emotional response, the very definition of loaded language and appeal to emotion. Furthermore, the paraphrased quote was used, to illustrate a point totally contrary to the point the original author expressed in the article quoted (false attribution). The original author specifically states that the meaning Marcus ascribed to his quote was absurd. The so-called “counter” position, the “athiest’s position”, was no counter at all; it was just another restatement of the Golden Rule. While it may indeed be an athiest position, it is likewise the position of most theists as well and thus isn’t a good illustration of the differences between them. That, and the bit about theists not agreeing with others including themselves, is a non sequitur.

A good idea deserves a good argument supporting it. A good idea, expressed via a fallacious argument, risks being improperly discarded due to the faulty argument for it, especially if the person making the argument is known as somone who cherishes logic and insists that his opponents hold to it. Marcus had a good and important idea, I do not dispute that at all. I assert that the argument made for it was poor, that he would have called anyone else on it had they attempted to do the same things, and that I was disappointed due to knowing for a fact that Marcus is wholly capable of making his point without resorting to such fallacies. He would not have had to search very far to find a quote from some theist which wouldn’t have had to be paraphrased or twisted. Adding to it, I firmly believe that Marcus’ point MUST be made; theists who ignorantly claim that athiests cannot be moral need to have their claims vigorously disputed and proven false. But the ignorant theists will only see an unsubstantiated attack on their beliefs and will tend to dismiss the otherwise valid point out of hand when they see the errors in logic used in presenting it.

If the existence of tea between the Earth and Mars was observed, two theories may arise. One is that due to some accident (with an infitesimal probability), molecules came together and formed the tea. The other is that it was spilt from a nearby teapot. In this case, agnosticism is indeed the only intellectually honest position, until one of the following things happen: 1) the actual formation of tea is observed thus proving the infinite improbability theory, 2) the existence of the teapot is observed thus proving the spilt tea theory, or 3) observation proves the nonexistence of the teapot, denying the spilt tea theory. Prior to any one of these three events, belief in either theory is nothing but blind faith; agnosticism is the only proper choice.

Of course, the proponents who have blind faith in the infinite improbability theory will attempt to attack the teapot theory by saying “but you haven’t shown how the teapot got there”, but this isn’t a valid argument for the problem at hand. We’re working on a theory to explain the existence of the tea, not a theory regarding the existence of a teapot. At some future point after the tea itself has been sucessfully explained, assuming that the spilt tea theory was shown correct and a teapot has been observed, then we may begin on a theory regarding how it got there and the arguments between passionate believers can begin anew while the honest agnostics sit and watch and chuckle to themselves.

One current “Celestial Teapot” is known as dark matter. If we return to the times prior to the theories which predict dark matter, and randomly stated that it was possible that there was invisible matter in the universe, there’d be no reason to believe it or, as you say, even be agnostic about it. If you went as far as saying that there was actually more of the invisible matter than the visible matter in existence, you’d encounter nothing but derision and scorn due to the simple unbelievablity of it.

However, we currently possess a theory which has proven itself reliable time and again at explaining observable fact. This theory has considerable baggage, however, in that it requires/predicts the existence of a whole LOT of celestial teapots. Now, there is considerable reason to lend at least tenative belief in the existence of the teapots, simply to avoid gutting what is otherwise a useful theory.

My theory predicts the existence of something which made a conscious decision to create the universe; I casually refer to it as “God”. This theory addresses the issue of why we are here, and subsidiary theories based upon it sucessfully address the existence of observed facts referred to as spiritual values (love, etc), predict that natural selection will work towards producing consiousness, as well as resolve the irreducible complexity problem of that original biological cell springing to life. These theories are consistent with other known theories, such as natural selection; indeed, certain effects seen in quantum mechanics are predicted/required by my theory. In short, my theory is consistent with observable fact, other theories which explain observable fact, and serves to provide explanations for issues which either aren’t explained by existant theories or are at least problematic for those theories. Further, I am fully prepared to revise my theories as necessary to accomodate any future observed facts.

Because my theories actually strive to explain facts, and particularly because they remain consistent with both themselves and other known facts (not to mention widely accepted theories), it is thus shown that my prediction of God’s existence is specifically not a case of the “Celestial Teapot”. I did not start this theory by positing God, God is rather a prediction of the theory; the hypothesis was not random or unnecessary as seen in the teapot analogy. If you think your theory explains things better than mine, fine, but you admit that it is a *belief*; you have more faith in your theory than mine. But until someting is proven either way, agnosticism…is the only truly honest opinion.

I sense that you thought I was setting you up or challenging the statement here. I can understand the mistake, both of us make a habit of challenging each other’s assertions. But, honestly, that was just a question to make sure we were talking about the same thing. Many people, both now and throughout history, toss around terms like “universe”, but I see so many unnecessary arguments occurring because it’s obvious that each side is ascribing different meanings to terms they’re using. Like my recurring “belief is not synonymous with faith” rant, which annoys me even more when I see theologists misusing the terms (best example: the church itself trying to grapple with the “faith vs. works” argument).

But yeah, I was just trying to find out if you were speaking about a physical universe only, a universe which includes mind (ability to think), or going as far as including the actual content of a thought. I can roll with any particular definition, but do need to know which one is in force. Of course I wasn’t questioning whether you lost the ability to love in your worldview, that’d be absurd. You just assign that evidence to the wrong theory. *grin*

I am unsure if my posited God literally exists outside of the universe definition which includes content of thought. Much more work and thought is needed here, and I’m rather annoyed at the Church for not working this problem long ago instead of doing their best to stagnate and strangulate these important investigations. I’m inclined to wonder if there has been someone who actually did figure out the linkages between the spiritual and mental “levels” but they woke up one night just in time to see Church’s henchmen burning their work right before killing them. Heck, they did worse to people who dared promulgate the teachings of some of the other Apostles that the counsel of Nicea decided were heretics. Let’s see. They claim there was this guy who was the most important guy who ever lived. During his life, a handful of people hung out with this guy. After he died, the people who hung out with him went around telling everyone about their experiences. Then some mercinary priests, cashing their paychecks from the Roman government, decided by fiat that some of the people who hung out with him were right and the others were wrong. Then they went and burned any copies of teachings they didn’t like, teachings of people who hung out with their guy as much as anyone else, then they burned the people caught possessing or speaking these teachings. Total bullshit. Is it just me, or if you thought some guy was the most important guy who ever lived, wouldn’t it be of utmost importance to preserve the knowlege held by every single person you can find who ever had a first hand account of him? Okay, now I’m ranting. Sorry. This particular rant is certain to be a foundational post on my blog.

My point is if a spiritual “level” exists, if an afterlife exists, it has properties which will be succeptable to the use of logic and mathematics in the analysis thereof. We should be able to, using what we can observe and concieve, at least take a stab at it, even if it amounts to something similar to alchemy. Alchemy was way off base, but it was a necessary precursor to chemistry and the rest of natural science. To me, if there’s an afterlife, when you wake up there, you’ll find that all, or at least most, of the mathematics and logic you learned are still applicable, and more importantly, useful. This relates to what you were saying about logic trumping physics and imagining a universe with different physical laws. This is indeed very similar to what I’m doing; I posit a “level” or dimension or something, a spiritual level, in which the things we hold as spiritual values are quantifiable and submit themselves to logic. I frequently visualize this place as somewhere where you could stub your toe on a clump of justice (for suitable values of “toe” and “clump”). I think you’ll like the afterlife, as there will still be awesome math puzzles to solve. And we’ll still get to argue about the existance of God too, because I seriously doubt proof will be immediately forthcoming (in hindsight, we’ll see our “salvation” as being a mechanistic process).

“Evolution via natural selection can only produce capabilities that confer a survival advantage. While a brain capable of understanding absolutely everything would be nice, there’s no reason to think that evolution is predestined to produce such a brain.”

I’m inclined to totally agree with Gould in the idea that if we “rewound the tape”, things would look totally different. The observed randomness in mutations is way more than sufficent to infer that, especially given the timeframes we’re talking about. That’s why I was careful to say that if the mental capacity was “needed”, it would be delivered. As for NS only conferring things with survival advantage, I tend to agree with that too. This point is important to me as well, as I believe that the definition of “things with survival advantage” gets pushed too far. I note that as the conflict with my theories increase, the wider that definition tends to be. That is, I’m in general agreement with NS; the only conflict I have is when “things with survival advantage” is pushed to include the things I call spiritual values. The ability to concieve the statement “I think, therefore I am” wasn’t necessary. If the world is mechanistic, then only mechanisms are necessary to survive in it. Sure, it could be a improbable random mutation accident in the endlist list of improbable random accidents I’m being asked to swallow, but as that both the improbabilities and cardinality of that list approaches infinity, I find Occam’s razor of use in deciding between that and a theory that it appears that life of any kind always seems to strive to “better” itself, and some of those mutations aren’t quite as random as they appear. Evolving minds that have the capability to exhibit consiousness was the entire point of the entire shooting match, and it really doesn’t matter what kind of body or brain it is housed in. We can rewind the tape, and we will look totally different, but we’ll still be having this argument. The only difference, other than our arrangement of our physical bodies, is how long it’d take.

I concur. The difference, then, may lie in the definition of “evidence” and the definition of “possible”.

Let’s take the notion of possible. It needs to be refined to involve the concept of consistency. One example I use frequently is from the Bible. Three men, traveling from the east, were supposidly following a star in the east. Using accepted definitions of “east”, this is wholly impossible. If you’re traveling from the east, your motion has at least some westward component. If you’re following a star situated in the east, your travel will contain no westward component, unless you’re taking a detour. Therefore, taken at surface value only, it is inconsistent and therefore not even remotely possible.

Unrelated tangent: The idea that this statement is totally impossible only applies if you also subscribe to the original conjecture of people who had no knowlege of astronomy that the star centered itself over Bethelehem and did not move. Given that we now realize that stars in the night sky appear to move due to the rotation of the earth, and in fact, a star appearing in the east or west will actually show the greatest movement, it opens up other potentials. Perhaps the star was generally referred to as being in the east, or perhaps it was seen in the east at the time the story was written, and the writer was simply being unclear. This “eastern star” may well have been in the west during the period of night that the men were traveling. Perhaps the writer was himself located westward of this star, and when he referred to it being in the east he was speaking from his perspective but when he was referring to the men, he described their origin relative to the destination. It is also necessary to consider that at the time, a person using stars to navigate was necessarially more knowlegable than the common populace and by default qualified for the designation of “wise”. Perhaps the writer was just terribly confused with all the talk about what star was where at a given time. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. If you buy the story, it is sufficient to just assume that people who knew how to navigate via the stars successfully did so, and the writer was guilty of attempting to provide details outside of his understanding. If you don’t buy the story, then simply dismiss it instead of trying to use it as proof against anything except the foolish concept of inerrancy. It is in no way a falsification of anything else. Anyway, dammit, now I’ve spent excessive time on this tangent. Back to my original point….

One point about the whole thing is that there are no beliefs completely divorced from evidence. It is the very existence of evidence which causes a belief to form. Some caveman saw a thunderstorm and came to believe that someone he couldn’t see was angry. His belief in God was justified in the same manner that modern scientists justify their belief in dark matter. Can’t see it, but can see the effects of it. Therefore, it exists. Although, the scientists’ equivalent of actually seeing a thunderstorm was imagining some equations which insisted it was there and forced them to go looking for the invisible stuff. They may or may not be able to call off the search, if they can ever agree on whether fundamental time exists or not and thus figure out whether general relativity is wrong or quantum mechanics is wrong. GR says it doesn’t. QM says it does. Both theories have good evidence, but only one is right as it now stands. At the moment, which one you go with is a matter of faith.

So, as you point out, nobody believes just anything that’s remotely possible. This is simply because nobody believes in anything for which they have no evidence. The creationist sees the same evidence of evolution that the Darwinist does, the only difference is that they can see it as evidence for their theory of creation rather than evidence for the theory of natural selection. The overwhelming majority of current theologists see evolution and, rather than denying it, use it concieve of things like “Evolution must be a perfect way to accomplish a creation”. Very few dispute evolution; it is an observed fact. Any dispute you see from reasonable people is with the theory of natural selection, and even then many creationists easily accept that at least partially as well as the age of the things as measured by radioactive decay.

The mention of asserting an age of something by carbon dating brings us to one of the main points. That is, the acceptance of something as evidence. Skeptics always say “show evidence”, and that is fine, especially since it is obvious that nobody believes anything without evidence. The key then, isn’t evidence per se, it is evidence that one finds acceptable. Evidence that meets some personal standard, and they should be held accountable regarding the application of that standard to all evidence presented. A person who says they don’t believe anything unless they see it should be forced to deny belief in the sun at any given instant. After all, someone could be supplying artifical light above the cloud layer, or, in the absence of clouds, the absolute best they can say is that “the sun existed approximately 8 minutes ago”. That may be pushing it a bit far, but hopefully it gets across the point. Everyone has their own standards of evidence. I accept the relative accuracy of carbon dating, but the young earth creationists do not. They accuse me of having insufficient evidence; that radioactive decay isn’t as stable as claimed. I think they are guilty of the inconsistency of refusing evidence that is demonstrably stronger than other evidence they gleefully accept. Fortunately, young earth creationists are such a tiny fraction of believers, constantly decreasing in number, and will be insignificant soon if they aren’t already. Unfortunately, they can scream louder and blog more and generally be more visible than the more reasonable majority.

Whew. This post is too long, I shoulda just written an essay instead of a comment. Sowwy.

“We should cultivate the better angels of our nature because the God we love and respect requires it.”

I paraphrased his statement, in the context of my example, as “The theist’s answer, according to Gerson, is that you should not kill your neighbor, because the God you love and respect forbids it.”

Apparently that’s what you call “dishonest”.

Again, Gerson word-for-word: “So the dilemma is this: How do we choose between good and bad instincts? … Atheism provides no answer to this dilemma.”

I provided a concrete example of a moral dilemma (see paragraph 1), and then go on to show how a non-theistic morality can provide an answer for it. That in itself is enough to logically refute Gerson’s point.

Apparently that’s what you call a “strawman”.

Name calling and casting aspersions do not constitute a rational argument.

“If you’re going to use that definition, we need to refine it slightly, but incredibly signifantly. There’s little doubt you mean to include everything we can actually physically observe, but do you include consiousness or thought itself? What about the contents of the thoughts? As a related question to a mathematician, does this definition include any transfinite entities in the universe?”

The one-bit answers to your first two questions are: yes of course, and yes of course. My friends with a “faith-based” worldview often seem to think that, if you’re an atheist, then you must believe that nothing but atoms and energy exists. Not so. When I became an atheist, “love” didn’t cease to exist, nor “consciousness”, not “thought” nor “joy”, etc. Nor did they become less. Those things exist as much for a person like me with a naturalistic world view, as they do to a person like you, with a faith-based world view. To use an even simpler example - but not too simple - “arrangements of physical objects” exist just as surely as “physical objects” exist. But an “arrangement” is a relation among material things, and not a material thing itself. So clearly non-material things exist. And this brings me to your third question above. If all this is true, then it’s quite possible that logical or mathematical objects - finite, infinite, and transfinite - have an existence that is more fundamental, more “real”, than physical objects. One way to think about this is as follows: it’s easy to imagine an alternate universe with different physical laws (for instance, just imagine that speed of light is 60 miles per hour, instead of 186,000 miles per second). But try imagining a universe with different logical or mathematical laws. Is it even possible? Logic trumps physics.

One more comment on your comments: towards the end of your post, you say:

“Whether our current evolved brain has sufficient capacity for actually understanding it or not is yet to be seen, but evidence also suggests that if more capacity is ultimately needed, evolution via natural selection will serve to provide it.”

Evolution via natural selection can only produce capabilities that confer a survival advantage. While a brain capable of understanding absolutely everything would be nice, there’s no reason to think that evolution is predestined to produce such a brain. Quite the contrary, in fact. Stephen Jay Gould makes the point in one of his books that, if we could “rewind the tape” of the history of life by say 100 million years, and then set the whole process in motion again from that point, not only would human beings probably never appear, but it’s quite possible that no species capable of abstract thought at anything approaching our level (which I’m not saying is that high) would ever appear. Evolution is a combination of random variation, which broadens the tree of life, combined with natural selection, which narrows it. It’s not predestined to produce intelligence, any more than it’s predestined to produce Howie Mandel.

I just want to point out that you found a concept in a fictional book which you have found useful to present your opinion. The fact that Hermione also believes that she can fly on a stick did not deter you from extracting this relatively tiny passage and presenting it as an illustration of a truth.

I’d just like to thank you for verifying that it’s indeed acceptable cite fictional works when trying to present one’s point of view, as I personally tire of having my point of view discounted simply because I happened to cite works which are accused of being fictional when I’m trying to present my viewpoint.

I can hear the counter argument already, having to do with the difference in citing something to present a point of view versus citing something as justification for a point of view. And I’d agree that that counterpoint does sucessfully work against many people who argue the same viewpoint that I present. But you are also aware that the only parts of the Bible that I believe are even remotely authoratative are a distinct, extremely small subset of the whole thing, and when I quote from other places, I’m not using it as justification, but as illustration.

“Contrast this with the religious point of view: there is a certain set of absolute truths, which mankind has been in possession of since pre-history, and which are fixed and immutable. Doubting these truths - something even the most committed believer can’t help but do from time to time - is most emphatically not an avenue towards enlightenment. Rather, it is the road to hell.”

Imagine me, a religious person, being in total agreement with the previous points, and then seeing something totally alien to my beliefs being set forth as if they were indeed “the religious point of view” and then used to lampoon all religion as a whole.

No. Really. Let’s break this one down, and see the logic used by someone who claims to cherish it:

1) some religions claim absolute truth
2) some religions believe in hell
3) doubt is unavoidable
4) some religions believe that doubt leads you to hell
*) therefore, this is the point of view for all religions.

Can we see the logic error here, boys and girls? Sure. I knew you could. Although, interestingly, the irrevelant point provided can be used to prove something else. Namely, that some religions believe that hell is unavoidable. Hmm. Can’t find that one in my compendum o’ religious beliefs. Unavoidable hell? Nice work putting in an assertion which appears on the surface to be obvious, trivial, and irrevelant in the mix which has the subtle effect of actually claiming the exact opposite of religous belief in general. A for effort.

Anyway, that’s not the religious point of view, unless you deny that Deism, generic Theism, Paganism, Quakerism, Universalism, and Buddhism are religions. If you have a beef against fundamentalists, some Christians, some Jews, and some Islamics, then pick your fight with them, not with all religions. As soon as you put the shotgun and grenades away, you’ll find a LOT of people in the other religions you unthinkingly besmirch who are more than willing to join you in your fight against the raving fanatics of the world.

“As for me, I can very easily describe evidence that would convert me into the most devout believer: a heavenly choir of angels, levitating approximately 3 feet above my front lawn, would do the trick quite nicely, for instance. Or perhaps the discovery that the text of the New Testament is encoded in the junk DNA of human beings.”

So you admit to be willing to worship anybody who happens to have advanced holographic-like technology? Willing to trade your mind for a cheap trick played upon you by suitable application of technology you don’t understand? Make no mistake, Jesus’ words were stronger evidence of his divinity than any shady reports of seeing him walking around after he died, regardless of whatever that preacher you’re mad at said.