If You Are Certain God Exists Why Prove It?

[James Brown]

I wonder if the analogy has ever actually happened in real life. Several blind people, each touching an a part of an object much larger than themselves, all conclude the object is something else that they're familiar with.

Do blind people truly not know the difference between a tusk attached to a large living animal and a spear? Bear in mind, even if they've never had the opportunity to handle an elephant's tusk, they must be familiar with a spear to begin with. Else, they would never conclude that the tusk "is" a spear. Not "vaguely similar to," but actually "is" a spear.

Perhaps the point of the image is to mock blind people, to suggest that anyone who is blind is actually a dim-witted simpleton.

 

[Lion IRC]

The blind men/elephant motif applies just as much to a dozen different Christian denominations arguing over what type of elephant it really is.

As Learner would say... (Or Job)

“Behold, God is exalted, and we do not know Him"

 

[abaddon]

"The moral of the parable is that humans have a tendency to claim absolute truth based on their limited, subjective experience as they ignore other people's limited, subjective experiences which may be equally true....

"... In its various versions, it is a parable that has crossed between many religious traditions and is part of Jain, Hindu and Buddhist texts of 1st millennium CE or before. The story also appears in 2nd millennium Sufi and Bahá’í lore. The tale later became well known in Europe, with 19th century American poet John Godfrey Saxe creating his own version as a poem, with a final verse that explains that the elephant is a metaphor for God, and the various blind men represent religions that disagree on something no one has fully experienced. The story has been published in many books for adults and children, and interpreted in a variety of ways."

Here are the final verses summing up John Godfrey Saxe's poem:

"And so these men of Indostan, disputed loud and long,
each in his own opinion, exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!

"So, oft in theologic wars, the disputants, I ween,
tread on in utter ignorance, of what each other mean,
and prate about the elephant, not one of them has seen!"
​

And here I'm trying to find more on the theistic perspective:

Blind Men and the Elephant – Theological Truth
When it comes to the moral of the Blind Men and the Elephant, it seems that today’s philosophers end their agenda too quickly. Doesn’t the picture of the blind men and the elephant also point to something bigger -- The elephant? Indeed, each blind man has a limited perspective on the objective truth, but that doesn’t mean objective truth isn’t there. In fact, truth isn’t relative at all… It’s there to discover in all its totality. In theology, just because we have limited access to Truth, that doesn’t mean any and all versions of Truth are equally valid. Actually, if we know the Whole Elephant is out there, shouldn’t this drive us to open our eyes wider and seek every opportunity to experience more of Him?

(from here: https://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/blind-men-and-the-elephant.htm)​

The notion of discovering objective truth "in all its totality" is more than a little optimistic. But still, there is an elephant, and we all do in fact have limited perceptions and conceptions about it.

But, why leap to it being a "Him" and calling it "God"? How does a mysterious totality become a person? Isn't that jumping the gun a bit (or a LOT)?

Isn't biblical mythology just one culture's limited POV like the POV's of the other "blind men"?

Or if the Bible is a revelation of "objective truth", then doesn't that mean the world's other metaphysical constructs and mythologies are failures in comparison?

 

[abaddon]

The blind men/elephant motif applies just as much to a dozen different Christian denominations arguing over what type of elephant it really is.

As Learner would say... (Or Job)

“Behold, God is exalted, and we do not know Him"

"Arguing over". And "we do not know Him".

This, I think, is what atheists find to be a problem with going on about God's inscrutability. As Saxe put it: theists "tread on in utter ignorance, of what each other mean, and prate about the elephant, not one of them has seen!"

What's the basis for the disputes in different POV's? Wouldn't those have to rest on a sense of certainty?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I wonder if the analogy has ever actually happened in real life. Several blind people, each touching an a part of an object much larger than themselves, all conclude the object is something else that they're familiar with.

Religionists are out there looking for the historical blind men and the historical elephant. /sarcasm

Just thinking about it intelligently, are blind people also implied to be stupid people? Why don't they just walk around after feeling the one part and feel other parts? Was the parable invented at a time when blindness was seen as a punishment from a magic creature? Most likely. Can't they also smell and hear? Have they never heard of an elephant before? Clearly it's meant to convey the notion that humans are stupid enough to be blind and also stupid enough to not operate with common sense.

It isn't difficult to understand the theological argument because the theological argument is for intellectual simpletons, like four-year-olds thinking about Santa.

And yes, what's with the blindfolds? Why not just take them off? The people aren't children, they're supposed to be mature adults but they're acting like dimwits, and this is supposed to make some deep religious point? It's insultingly dopey for anyone with even a few neurons.

 

[Wiploc]

Here are the final verses summing up John Godfrey Saxe's poem:

"And so these men of Indostan, disputed loud and long,
each in his own opinion, exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!

"So, oft in theologic wars, the disputants, I ween,
tread on in utter ignorance, of what each other mean,
and prate about the elephant, not one of them has seen!"
​

I read this poem in grade school in Kansas.

The poem was presented as complete, but the final stanza had been removed.

 

[abaddon]

Here are the final verses summing up John Godfrey Saxe's poem:
"And so these men of Indostan, disputed loud and long,
each in his own opinion, exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!

"So, oft in theologic wars, the disputants, I ween,
tread on in utter ignorance, of what each other mean,
and prate about the elephant, not one of them has seen!"

I read this poem in grade school in Kansas.

The poem was presented as complete, but the final stanza had been removed.

It's silly that the poem is presented at all (in whole or in part) in support of theism. Saxe's final stanza, the "moral" of the story, follows very obviously from the first 7 verses, which say nothing except what the cartoon shows. And what the cartoon shows is that ignorant people form opinions and then feel sure about them. So the only worthwhile lesson in it is: "don't do that".

How do believers end up disagreeing so much about an omnipresent being? The limits of human sensory faculties shouldn't be that much of a problem. "Unfathomable" doesn't excuse it.

 

[abaddon]

Competing descriptions of God are not a credence issue for me. Every single theist who claims God is an elephant trunk, or a tusk, or a flapping ear, or a tail - all unanimously agree that God IS a something real.

Is God a something real though? The cartoon blatantly shows how theists are ok with taking quick-n-easy opinions as knowing.

"Theists agree that God is real". Gosh, what a profound insight. UFO-believers agree that aliens visit planet earth. Astrologists all believe the stars affect human personality. A lot of people agree there's something to it. Maybe that's true! But what is the "something" REALLY, when one's done with the presumptive opinions?

 

[ruby sparks]

This surely explains everything.

 

[DBT]

It makes sense. Elephants are big and powerful, they remember everything and are they are wise.....for sure.

 

[Wiploc]

I believe remez last posted fifteen days ago.

I hope he'll be back. He said early on that he is busy, and there might be delays between his posts.

In his absence, I've been reviewing our early posts, back when we were discussing the KCA.

In post 44, remez said,

The KCA is sound and valid.

And he said,

But philosophy and science certainly support a past finite universe far more than an infinite one. You have seen the evidence I have provided many times. You cannot reasonably argue that a past infinite universe is more reasonable. Not even close. We are to the point of beyond a reasonable doubt.

So, remez claims that the KCA is sound, and that science says the partaverse began.

These are claims that pique my interest, because I've never seen them effectively defended.

So, after remez bumped, in post 84, I said I was willing to discuss these points.

In post , remez offered the KCA (Kalam Cosmological Argument):

p1 Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
p2 The universe began to exist.
C: The universe has a cause.

About P2, he says,

I’m not claiming absolute certainty, I claiming reasonable certainty. ... I contend that it is far more plausible that the universe began to exist ...

So, a less-than-certain certainty, and plausibility so impressive we might almost take it for probability.

But, if I read remez correctly, he doesn't intend to be retreating. While he isn't actually supporting his claims that the KCA is sound and that the partaverse began, he is -- however diffidently -- restating them.

It is remez's position that the KCA is sound, and that science says the partaverse began.

-

In post 109, I respond.

P1 looks like special pleading, and I don't know of any reason to think it's true. I offer virtual particles as an example of things that begin without cause. So P1 not is not only unsupported, it looks false.

P2 is unsupported. As remez said in post 44, "You don’t just get to assume the science is on your side. You have to make a case for that." Remez has not made a case.

-

What is a beginning? I offered this definition: "If stuff existed at time zero, but didn't exist before time zero, then stuff began."

This definition works for me, but not for remez. It makes my hamburger begin, but it also makes his gods begin. Once he realizes that, he should offer another definition of "begin," so that I can point out that that definition doesn't work for him either.

But he won't go there. He will stick with my definition of "begin" -- even though, according to this definition, his gods began.

-

Problems with C:

There is no room for the allaverse to have a cause. It would have to cause itself, because, by definition, there is nothing else.

There is no time for the partaverse to have a cause. Remez includes time as part of the partaverse; he says time began.

For the partaverse (including time) to have a cause, then, the cause could not precede the effect. First, that's linguistic nonsense. Second, if true, it would eliminate the need for a first cause.

We are not bound by remez's imaginings about the rest of the allaverse. This remnant is presumably imaginary, made up. Even if it existed, we have no reason to suppose it would work the way remez needs it to.

-

Instead of making arguments, remez has settled for naming some:

Evidenced by the 2nd law of thermodynamics, expanding universe, cosmic radiation background, the galaxy seeds, relativity, the BGV theorem, all the failed cosmological models for and eternal universe, the absence of any viable cosmological model theorizing eternality in the past, etc.

I need him to actually make an argument, not just suggest that arguments may exist. So I respond to this argument-by-insinuation by quoting remez himself. Back in post 44, he wrote, "They all fail but which one do you want me to address. Your generality here suggests your belief in authority speculations as credible alternatives. Show me you can hang and present one that is your candidate as most credible."

-

Remez says science agrees with him. I call for him to show me either a a scientific consensus or a reason so compelling that we can judge even without that consensus.

-

Post 110:

Remez defends P1 this way:

P1 everything that begins to exist has a cause.

This is the law of cause and effect. Sometimes referred to as the causal principle or the law of causality. It’s foundational reasoning. Foundational to science. To deny it would basically render your position unreasonable.

He claims, once again, that science is on his side. And his evidence is this: If I don't agree with him, I'm wrong. What a load of malarky.

-

It's late. I'm going to post and retire even though I haven't finished with post 110. Presumably I'll be back tomorrow.

 

[Lion IRC]

p1 Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
p2 The universe began to exist.
C: The universe has a cause.

...P1 looks like special pleading, and I don't know of any reason to think it's true. I offer virtual particles as an example of things that begin without cause. So P1 not is not only unsupported, it looks false.

"Virtual particles began to exist"
"The universe began to exist"
If one of these statements is uncontroversial then neither is the other.

To claim that a 'thing' began to exist without a cause - spontaneously, unpredictably, unexpectedly, mysteriously... - that's unmitigated WOO and it also falls into the category of special pleading because it's a claim that cant be verified. If Krauss, Stenger, Carroll et al were real intellectually honest (real scientists) they would say we don't know whether a thing was "uncaused" or whether it was caused by an undetected prior event/cause.

P2 is unsupported. As remez said in post 44, "You don’t just get to assume the science is on your side. You have to make a case for that." Remez has not made a case.

You dont have to justify the claim that a 13.9 billion year old 'thing' did not exist prior to its birth. It's either 13.9 billion years old or it has ALWAYS existed. (Ageless). Now, you were saying that 'things' can come into existence. So why does remez have to persuade you that things coming into existence is plausible/possible?

...What is a beginning? I offered this definition: "If stuff existed at time zero, but didn't exist before time zero, then stuff began."

That seems like a sound position to take.

 

[Wiploc]

In Post 110, remez says,

If the universe were eternal it would not need a cause,

Maybe he wouldn't want to know the cause, but I certainly would.

because it did not begin to exist and then would itself be a candidate as the first cause. Now with that hopefully understood

Yeah, right. Hand-waving is not an argument.

we need to look at history. For millennia the universe was strongly believed to be eternal. However, with the discovery of an expanding universe the
strength for that belief came into question. Only 150 years ago is was reasonable to consider the universe eternal.
Now…
Juxtaposed with the understanding that the first cause argument predates the discovery of an expanding universe.

I don't see how this is supposed to be relevant.

Thus it is unreasonable to NOW assert special pleading because for millennia the universe was thought to be in the same category that you are now calling a “carve out”. What was carved out was the reasonability of the universe being eternal.

I'm don't follow this. I don't get it.

I don't see how what people used to believe somehow keeps this from being special pleading: "Everything is caused except the category of things that includes my god."

as explained above. The principle of cause and effect has a reasonable exemption…..that which doesn’t begin to exist…… that which is eternal….that which is the first cause. If the universe were eternal it would have no cause.

Elsewhere, remez says that the exemption for unbegun things is not an exemption. But, here, he admits that it is.

He says the exemption is reasonable ... because it is. He seems to think he's giving a reason, but his reason is just a restatement of the claim it purports to be defending. Eternal things are uncaused because they are uncaused.


Previously, I said that, according to the scientific consensus, virtual particles are uncaused. This makes P1 (Everything that begins to exist has a cause) seem to be false. Since the KCA seems to have a false premise, the KCA seems to be unsound.

Remez offers three responses:

1) in no way can you reasonably consider indeterminism the consensus view.

It's what I've always heard. So I believe it is established.

Christians occasionally tell me that it can't be true because they disagree with it, or because it doesn't make sense to them. But they don't tell me it's not what most scientists believe.

Remez may be the first with this argument.

David Bohm? This link addresses that “consensus” thought of yours….. https://www.wired.com/2014/06/the-new-quantum-reality/ …it is not offered as argument….only deeper background info. It is a secular good read, that’s all.

I'm not going to click on that link. I've been trained not to. If I try to argue with linked arguments, I wind up being told, "Why are you arguing with that part of the article? That's not the point I wanted you focus on. It is foolish of you to argue with points I don't defend."

So, if remez wants to make a point from that article here in this thread, then I will attend to it.

2) Indeterminism does not mean uncaused.
And…..

I have read, from many sources over the years, that most physicists consider virtual particles to be uncaused.

3) VP do not come into being out of nothing. They arise as spontaneous fluctuations of the energy within the quantum vacuum, which is an indeterministic cause of their origination.

This could lead to an interesting discussion. WLC (William Lane Craig) likes to say, "Out of nothing, nothing comes." Two points can be made:

a) Since remez says virtual particles do not come into being out of nothing, WLC's objection doesn't apply here.

b) If nothing comes from nothing, then Jehovah couldn't make the partaverse out of nothing.


When I conclude that P1 (Everything that begins has a cause) seems false, and therefore the KCA (Kalam Cosmological Argument) seems unsound, remez says this:

You need to rescue the reasoning of your offered defeaters. Because I sincerely feel I have defeated each defeater you presented, at least to a degree that my reasoning is more reasonable than your defeaters.

What are his defeaters?
- He repeats his claims repeatedly.
- He says I'm wrong and unreasonable if I disagree with him.

I don't get it. It's like he thinks P1 is so obvious that there's nothing to be said in its support. Maybe he thinks rephrasing the claim is all one can do.

And maybe he's right, and I just don't get it? Maybe, but I'm skeptical.

And skeptical is the right thing to be if I don't see that P1 is true.

I'm in exactly the position I'd be in if remez was claiming that a first cause is impossible because infinite regress is necessarily true.

I'd want to see the logic of his argument. I'd want to know why I should believe that. I'd want him to do more than just restate his claim in various ways and tell me I'm unreasonable if I don't agree.

So far, then, it looks to me like P1 is unsupported. I see no reason to agree with P1, and, therefore, I see no reason to agree that the KCA is sound.

More later.

 

[Jarhyn]

In Post 110, remez says,



Maybe he wouldn't want to know the cause, but I certainly would.






Yeah, right. Hand-waving is not an argument.

we need to look at history. For millennia the universe was strongly believed to be eternal. However, with the discovery of an expanding universe the
strength for that belief came into question. Only 150 years ago is was reasonable to consider the universe eternal.
Now…
Juxtaposed with the understanding that the first cause argument predates the discovery of an expanding universe.

I don't see how this is supposed to be relevant.

Thus it is unreasonable to NOW assert special pleading because for millennia the universe was thought to be in the same category that you are now calling a “carve out”. What was carved out was the reasonability of the universe being eternal.

I'm don't follow this. I don't get it.

I don't see how what people used to believe somehow keeps this from being special pleading: "Everything is caused except the category of things that includes my god."

as explained above. The principle of cause and effect has a reasonable exemption…..that which doesn’t begin to exist…… that which is eternal….that which is the first cause. If the universe were eternal it would have no cause.

Elsewhere, remez says that the exemption for unbegun things is not an exemption. But, here, he admits that it is.

He says the exemption is reasonable ... because it is. He seems to think he's giving a reason, but his reason is just a restatement of the claim it purports to be defending. Eternal things are uncaused because they are uncaused.


Previously, I said that, according to the scientific consensus, virtual particles are uncaused. This makes P1 (Everything that begins to exist has a cause) seem to be false. Since the KCA seems to have a false premise, the KCA seems to be unsound.

Remez offers three responses:

1) in no way can you reasonably consider indeterminism the consensus view.

It's what I've always heard. So I believe it is established.

Christians occasionally tell me that it can't be true because they disagree with it, or because it doesn't make sense to them. But they don't tell me it's not what most scientists believe.

Remez may be the first with this argument.

David Bohm? This link addresses that “consensus” thought of yours….. https://www.wired.com/2014/06/the-new-quantum-reality/ …it is not offered as argument….only deeper background info. It is a secular good read, that’s all.

I'm not going to click on that link. I've been trained not to. If I try to argue with linked arguments, I wind up being told, "Why are you arguing with that part of the article? That's not the point I wanted you focus on. It is foolish of you to argue with points I don't defend."

So, if remez wants to make a point from that article here in this thread, then I will attend to it.

2) Indeterminism does not mean uncaused.
And…..

I have read, from many sources over the years, that most physicists consider virtual particles to be uncaused.

3) VP do not come into being out of nothing. They arise as spontaneous fluctuations of the energy within the quantum vacuum, which is an indeterministic cause of their origination.

This could lead to an interesting discussion. WLC (William Lane Craig) likes to say, "Out of nothing, nothing comes." Two points can be made:

a) Since remez says virtual particles do not come into being out of nothing, WLC's objection doesn't apply here.

b) If nothing comes from nothing, then Jehovah couldn't make the partaverse out of nothing.


When I conclude that P1 (Everything that begins has a cause) seems false, and therefore the KCA (Kalam Cosmological Argument) seems unsound, remez says this:

You need to rescue the reasoning of your offered defeaters. Because I sincerely feel I have defeated each defeater you presented, at least to a degree that my reasoning is more reasonable than your defeaters.

What are his defeaters?
- He repeats his claims repeatedly.
- He says I'm wrong and unreasonable if I disagree with him.

I don't get it. It's like he thinks P1 is so obvious that there's nothing to be said in its support. Maybe he thinks rephrasing the claim is all one can do.

And maybe he's right, and I just don't get it? Maybe, but I'm skeptical.

And skeptical is the right thing to be if I don't see that P1 is true.

I'm in exactly the position I'd be in if remez was claiming that a first cause is impossible because infinite regress is necessarily true.

I'd want to see the logic of his argument. I'd want to know why I should believe that. I'd want him to do more than just restate his claim in various ways and tell me I'm unreasonable if I don't agree.

So far, then, it looks to me like P1 is unsupported. I see no reason to agree with P1, and, therefore, I see no reason to agree that the KCA is sound.

More later.

Yeah, it's a begged question, in its entirety. Not everything has some specific cause. It's like they're not reading the other thread where we are discussing quantum mechanics. Granted I'm pretty sure the whole discussion flies over their heads anyway.

Some things are indeterminate (wave collapse!). Some things are "uncaused" (vacuum fluctuations!). My expectation is that the universe itself has an indeterminate cause (that it is everything that can cause universe), until it has to have been one of them. And that this list may include "nothing": it may never be determinable.

It is like a virtual machine: it is running a virtual hardware, the software sees all the same behavior, from the inside, the system just doesn't and most importantly can't know. The universe is independent of it's hardware. It has the same deterministic behavior as, say, a bare metal implementation. They share the same mathematical identity. They are the same "universe".

But that isn't something Lion even has the background to understand. It's something I barely have the background to understand and only because I've worked on so many operating systems, computing environments, simulations, and virtualizations that I'm damn near sick of it.

As an example: let's say I fire up an Arduino, and it is set up to not have any user input. When it fires up, it starts looping through its run function and starts calculating pseudorandom numbers and lighting up LEDs. This isn't even a complicated program. It's behavior can be implemented in trivially different ways by different people: Initialize SRAND with a 0, and output to some set of pins a binary representation of the product of a call to stand every cycle.

Ultimately, many things can cause this to run. It can be caused because it gets plugged in, it can be programmed by someone else the same way, as stated. All of these are the same universe, excepting perhaps when they are terminated at some arbitrary point. It is one universe with many causes.

 

[abaddon]

God doesn't become a reasonable hypothesis based on something like the KCA anyway. "Want to see me REASON that God exists? Well, here... the KCA!"

That can never be a convincing demonstration of reasoned faith. It only shows the theist already believes the conclusion on blind faith and is merely looking for reasons to pile on top to make his blind faith look like "rational faith". Whatever adjective, the choice to believe on insufficient evidence (have faith) is not a virtue, it's a problem to solve by not doing it.

There's even a powerful theistic reason to avoid the god-of-the-gaps logical fallacy: "How wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge. If in fact the frontiers of knowledge are being pushed further and further back (and that is bound to be the case), then God is being pushed back with them, and is therefore continually in retreat. We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know."
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Yeah, show the God first here in the universe. Then afterwards try to use him to explain anything.

 

[Wiploc]

It's like they're not reading the other thread where we are discussing quantum mechanics.

Link, please.

 

[Keith&Co.]

The elephant is a patchwork elephant.
A holy man worships an elephant.
Someone else describes their god's walrus tusks. Holy man claims this supports his god, with his tusks.
Someone else describes her god's round hippo feet. Holy man claims this supports his god, with such feet,
Add anaconda worshipers, holy man claims they're describing his god's trunk.
Rhino tail? Yep!
Baby blue whale, 5.4 tonnes? Hey! That's what the elephant god weighs!

Ganesh? Don't make fun of my elephant god, smartass.

 

[Iznomneak]

It's like they're not reading the other thread where we are discussing quantum mechanics.

Link, please.

I think he is referring to the last few pages of this thread:

https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?21744-The-Causation-Argument/page24

 

[Wiploc]

Thanks.

 

[remez]

I believe remez last posted fifteen days ago.

I hope he'll be back. He said early on that he is busy, and there might be delays between his posts.

I hope to as well. So sorry for an avoidable delay at this season in life.
You have been great.