BHN: Valid versus invalid.
Jayhawker Soule That is remarkedly unhelpful…
I do not understand if this comment is unhelpful, or if you are referring to the remainder of the post, I assume this comment alone since you did not include the remainder.
I simply mean that not all of what passes as intuition is valid, just as not all of what passes for reasoning or logic is valid. If intuition is offered, there needs to be a means to determine its validity, which I tried to explain in what followed.
Intuitive proof is not easily transferred from one person to another.
Students of Zen masters spend years, and sometimes still fail.
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goat I think you are partly not pointing to the position of Raithpig and The Duke of Vandals correctly. Their position is that there is no reason to accept that something does exist until such time that there is evidence FOR it. They point out the principle extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. Until there is some evidence FOR something, it can't be disproved. If you look at the evidence for any specific God, that can be disproved.. for example, we can show that water does not spontaneously turn into wine, people do not come back from the dead, zombies never walked around Jerusalem, and the Tyre still exists to this day.
This idea of “extraordinary claims” seems rather subjective. This is inconsequential if we can agree on a meaning for the term.
You point out that ideas which violate the natural laws of science as we know them, would be extraordinary. I specifically state that that this is not the case with the god of Deism, but if it were, we would agree.
Furthermore, as I pointed out, these are not fringe beliefs. Well known, respected philosophers and scientists have advocated for intuitive proof for some time now (as well as the existence of a prime cause). I hesitate to say centuries, but I would say that would be correct.
Appeal to numbers and appeal to authority we know is fallacious reasoning, which simply means it cannot be proof, but it can be evidence, even strong evidence. With over half the human population believing in a prime mover of some sort, the extraordinary claim seems to me to be the claim that there is no such thing. From my position, the extraordinary proof burden is on
Duke and
Raithpig. It is only by assuming their position is true, that releases them from that burden.
From an impartial observer position, it seems to me the burden is equal.
I would argue that my claims are not extraordinary, except to some select groups.
There is also the evidence of intuitive proof. Intuitive proof is controversial, and not accepted by the same group mentioned above.
If a Deist makes the claim for a prime creator, who gets to decide what is acceptable evidence?
If an atheist makes the claim for eternal existence, without a prime creator, who gets to decide what is acceptable evidence?
That is the disparity between religion and science, no agreement on what is acceptable evidence. As I mentioned previously, my beliefs span the two.
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realthinker Simple branding of an idea that cannot be proven as "true" or "false" is, in my opinion, often inappropriate. I think what should be said instead is that the idea cannot be used as the basis for further reasoning. That is, any argument made with the idea as one of the foundational facts is nondeterministic. There cannot be a conclusive, deterministic conclusion for any argument that uses an unprovable idea as a necessary condition.
That's different than saying that if you cannot prove it it must be false.
Any argument using God as a necessary condition is nondeterministic. The conclusion cannot be found to be fact without accepting an unprovable necessary condition. I'm going out on a limb here, but any consequence of religion cannot be claimed to be factual universally because God, as described in the religion, is a necessary condition, and that necessary condition cannot be proven. But that does not mean that God is false, or that the consequence is false.
This, of course, only holds when the argument is between parties that cannot agree to the proof of the idea.
I stated in a separate post that I find the idea of a Deistic god to be very interesting, not unlike other wonders of the cosmos such as black holes, time warps, light speed, etc, but that when it comes down to my car not starting, or me dying of cancer, they’re just not very relevant. I believe this is consistent with what you are saying.
I make no assumptions such as “There is a Deistic god, therefore such and such will or should happen.”
Whether there is a god or not, I believe there are natural laws of material existence, which, when properly understood, can explain, predict, and prescribe actions of the material in a particular location, whether planetary, galactic, cosmic, or dimensional.
Whether there is a god or not, I believe there are natural (moral) laws of sentient beings actions, which, when properly understood can explain, predict and prescribe actions of the actors in a particular location, etc….
That which is, is, and time warps, black holes and the Deistic god are merely interesting side bars to our daily life.
Concepts such as kismet and providence are simply recognition that what goes around comes around. That which happens is predicated by that which happened. Events which occur as the result of a black hole, do not happen because of any wishes, desires or expectations of the black hole. It is the same with Deistic god.
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raithpig: Goat has clarified my position well. What you have done, BeHereNow is not only misrepresent my position but misrepresent the reality of scientific method.
I thought you might point out how I misrepresented reality, but see no explanation.
Intuition can be used in limited amounts in an otherwise supported system, but intuition alone can not be used to support a extraordinary claim for which there exists zero supporting evidence.
Actually, this is when intuitive proof is most useful. When logic, reason, and evidence fail to provide a solution, it is intuition which may reveal the truth. Once revealed, often we can backtrack and validate with reason, logic or evidence. A key issue here is that intuitive proof is the offspring of epistemology, and the mystical (not the supernatural or magic kind). It is relatively recently that it crossed over to the sciences. Intuitive proof is not based on reasoning or concrete evidence, therefore is has limited uses in the sciences. It leads the way to these things, through philosophy or religion.
When you take the claim of a non-supernatural "prime mover" at face value, it is meaningless because any problem that can be solved by this claim can be intuitively solved in a much more simple fashion by the infinite continuity of hydrogen and it's inherent molecular energy. In the battle of intuition, infinite basic molecules are a much stronger thesis.
Your use of “intuitively” and “intuition” are very strange, and make no sense to me.
Evidence exists that energy and matter can neither be created or destroyed, so any claim for a "prime mover" has to show from where that which is moved and the energy to move it is derived.
There are many possibilities for this explanation, and I see no need to identify the “correct” one. The easiest answer is to say it comes from the same place as the eternal cosmos without a creator. If the cosmos can have existed eternally, with no creation, certainly the creator could have existed forever, with no creation, and given of itself for the matter and energy that is the cosmos. A non-issue, not a “has to show” issue.
We can dismiss the "prime mover" without any harm to the evidenced theories of existence. When we add in the "prime mover" we gain nothing in the understanding of these evidenced theories and myriad contradictions must be overcome.
No contradictions, unless you invoke a particular god with a personality, which I have denied.
This leads me, and many others, to dismiss the "prime mover" because it is a claim wholly without evidence and in application without merit.
Without evidence you accept, is not the same as without evidence.
Unless one desires to call the inherent energy in hydrogen "god", then it just makes scientific sense to dismiss the concept.
I have been arguing all alone that science does not, as it exits today, make sense of everything. Simply because science must dismiss
anything, carries no meaning to some of us.
If we postulate a "prime mover" then by the very assumption that we need a "prime mover" we have raised the question of what moves the mover.
This is circular reasoning, if we postulate no prime mover, we raise the question of what moved the matter and energy. Unknowns or unexplained remain with or without a prime mover. Elimination of a prime mover solves no problem. Acceptance of a prime mover solves no problem. That which is, simply is.
Aristotle's is a limited philosophical view of mainly historical value rather than practical application.
I would class the need for a "prime mover" as a psychological phenomena that speaks to the mental state of the claimant. I would, by scientific necessity, dismiss it as a postulate without logical merit since it's only support is the emotions of the claimant which leads right back to psychology. The claim is the last gasp of the theist world view.
I offer no need for a prime mover any more than I offer a need for a skunk.
There exists a skunk. There exists a prime mover. No need to complicate things.
I see those shackles again.
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