极速赛车168官网 Comments on: Atheism, Evidence, and the “God-of-the-Gaps” https://strangenotions.com/god-of-the-gaps/ A Digital Areopagus // Reason. Faith. Dialogue. Sun, 03 Jan 2021 15:31:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 极速赛车168官网 By: ToothierToast https://strangenotions.com/god-of-the-gaps/#comment-215270 Sun, 03 Jan 2021 15:31:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=2839#comment-215270 I hate everything

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极速赛车168官网 By: Quark Spark https://strangenotions.com/god-of-the-gaps/#comment-196068 Fri, 28 Dec 2018 22:24:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=2839#comment-196068 Atheism is not a position on philosophy.
It is a single position on a single subject. Belief in the existence of a god or gods. The only qualifier to be an atheist is that you reject belief in the claims of the existence of a god or gods. That's it. It does not inform anything else.

Why is this do hard to understand?

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极速赛车168官网 By: brianmacker https://strangenotions.com/god-of-the-gaps/#comment-73436 Mon, 24 Nov 2014 17:08:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=2839#comment-73436 In reply to Paul Campbell.

I believe in the existence of wasps but don't love them. Knowing something exists is not equivalent with loving it. The god of the bible is a pretty vile creature, far worse than wasps, and I doubt I'd love such a thing.

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极速赛车168官网 By: David Bennett https://strangenotions.com/god-of-the-gaps/#comment-57792 Sun, 31 Aug 2014 02:26:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=2839#comment-57792 Scientific aetheists do not argue that there is evidence that one or
more gods do not exist, only that there is no good reason to believe
that they do. Aetheism is the starting point of reason. I will not
believe anything without good reason to do so, otherwise how should I
decide in what to believe. I could presume unicorns or fairies created
everything, and I would have as much reason on my side as do those who
believe in a single omnipotent god. The parsimony principle, also known
as Occam's Razor, suggests ideas that are not necessary to understand
the world and have not evidence to support them should be discarded.
For as has been proven, anything *might* exist and be controlling
everything by means unseen. Gods are unnecessary and so aetheists refuse to accept they exist.

When believers can provide evidence that one or more gods exist which cannot be explained by other phenomena that are already known to exist, scientific aetheists will accept the existence of God. Aetheism is therefore clearly falsifiable, and many aetheists would be grateful for proof that a loving god exists. It is just that no evidence has ever been put forward or can apparently be imagined by the author of this article that would survive the critical scrutiny required under the Popperian method, which is to say no good evidence for the necessity or existence of any god can even be imagined. This, as Martin Luther argued, is why all theists have to have faith. Faith is not evidence and it is certainly not proof.

The physical universe does not appear to require a god to create or run it. Proven physical laws suggest everything we can perceive could either have always existed or have spontaneously formed without any external causal impetus. Every time religion tries to find a role explained only by the existence of a god, science has provided an explanation based on known phenomena. The god of the gaps is therefore not a proof that god will never be proven to exist but a mockery of the inability of the religious to do anything more than retreat from the world of material things as science explains away successive mysteries. Soon religion will be forced back into the untestable, and therefore incredible, world of metaphysics.

You cannot blame aetheists for your inability to deliver reliable evidence to support your hypothesis that there is a god. Until you can prove Luther wrong and demonstrate scientifically and unambigiously that one or more gods exist your beliefs will appear completely unfounded to all those who do not share your faith (or possibly delusion).

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极速赛车168官网 By: Ararxos https://strangenotions.com/god-of-the-gaps/#comment-56813 Wed, 13 Aug 2014 13:33:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=2839#comment-56813 In reply to Michael Murray.

The arranged parts can create Consciousness? And what arranges these parts infallibly to create conscious creatures? If that was the case why the Internet hasn't obtain Consciousness yet but mindless creatures have?

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极速赛车168官网 By: Michael Murray https://strangenotions.com/god-of-the-gaps/#comment-56769 Tue, 12 Aug 2014 20:57:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=2839#comment-56769 In reply to Ararxos.

You made a flawed claim, you said that what we consider as life is just a healthy organism (a working machine), materialism doesn't separate life from non life, it says that everything is made of materials therefor everything belongs in the same state.

The mistake is yours in thinking that the only important thing is what something is made of not how those parts are arranged and how they behave dynamically over time.

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极速赛车168官网 By: Ararxos https://strangenotions.com/god-of-the-gaps/#comment-56748 Tue, 12 Aug 2014 12:27:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=2839#comment-56748 In reply to Michael Murray.

You made a flawed claim, you said that what we consider as life is just a healthy organism (a working machine), materialism doesn't separate life from non life, it says that everything is made of materials therefor everything belongs in the same state.

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极速赛车168官网 By: Michael Murray https://strangenotions.com/god-of-the-gaps/#comment-56710 Mon, 11 Aug 2014 20:52:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=2839#comment-56710 In reply to Ararxos.

I was replying to

I mean everything breaks down to materials so there is no difference between something dead or alive.

not talking about consciousness when I discussed the phone example. You would have to ask Penrose and Hameroff if their theories tell us rocks are conscious. I think David Chalmers believes that rocks are conscious.

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极速赛车168官网 By: Ararxos https://strangenotions.com/god-of-the-gaps/#comment-56654 Mon, 11 Aug 2014 14:09:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=2839#comment-56654 In reply to Michael Murray.

So if we arrange the particles in a rock the rock will obtain Consciousness?

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极速赛车168官网 By: Michael Murray https://strangenotions.com/god-of-the-gaps/#comment-56647 Mon, 11 Aug 2014 13:00:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=2839#comment-56647 In reply to Ararxos.

Actually I find the idea that consciousness or some proto-consciousness is a kind of fundamental property of reality interesting. More Buddhist than Christian I think. I don't see why it would be a problem for me as a materialist. If that's the way the world is that's the way the world is.

What is the difference between your phone when it's working and your phone after you've driven over it? The arrangement of the particles and fields I would have thought. What else ?

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