On "All Your Job Are Belong to AI"

AI is hype, it has always been hype, and it will always by hype. There will *never* be an AI that *actually* thinks, that *actually* knows/understands, that *actually* reasons.

There is presently a lot of concern -- valid concern, in fact -- that as AI models are refined in the coming years, AI will eliminate huge swaths of "white-collar" jobs. But, understand this: AI may indeed eliminate these jobs not because the AI is so "advanced", or (laughably) "better at thinking that humans are", but rather because the jobs are pointless RIGHT NOW. The jobs are make-work "jobs", not *real* jobs, for they do not produce real value -- in fact, such "jobs" actually destroy value by wasting the ultimate resource, which is a human's potential to produce something of value.

Here is an insightful comment someone posted in response to the linked video -- "I think that the singularity is when a model has collapsed to such a degree that it gives the same answer to every prompt."

Presumably, that answer will be "42".

Via YouTube, George D. Montañez, PhD: Model Collapse Ends AI Hype

Have you fixed the Lisbon Problem?

 Douglas Wilson: "Have you fixed the Lisbon Problem?"

These pretend atheists (*) like to pretend that "The Problem Of Evil" refutes the Christian understanding of the nature of God. It does not; and they studiously avoid and ignore any and all Christian responses to said problem. MOREOVER, their atheistic "solution" to "The Problem Of Evil" is to deny that there are such things as Good or Evil in the first place.

Can you not see the absurdity of this? The God-haters want to point to the reality of "senseless" evils (**), whether of a moral or of a "natural" nature, WHEN IT SUITS THEM to use such evils as a cudgel with which to attack Christianity and as an excuse to deny the reality of God. Having done so, they shrug their shoulders at the truth that one must at least implicitly acknowledge the reality of God – and one must acknowledge that the Christian understanding of the nature of God is broadly correct, even if incomplete (as, of course, *any* human understanding of the nature of God must be incomplete) -- before one can even point to the reality of such evils.

Stripped to its core, the atheistic “Argument From Evil” is this – “God is.  Ergo, God is not!”

(*) They are not truly atheists, because they refuse to follow the logic of their premises to the inescapable logical conclusions. Rather, they are God-haters.

(**) Christianity says that God will rectify all the evils of history, that God will make sense of all evils, that not one of the evils in all of history is ultimately meaningless.

Atheism says that the very concept of 'evil' is meaningless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n16mPd60j1w

Atheists Trusted Sam Harris, Until . . .

In the linked video, David Wood discusses the general intellectual dishonesty of Sam Harris. In this post, I zero in on a specific and long-standing example of the intellectual dishonesty of Harris and of 'atheists' in general.

@3:35 Sam Harris: "If there were good reasons to believe that Jesus was born of a virgin ... that would be part of our rational world-view. It's only when people lose their purchase on evidence and argument, when they have bad reasons, that they talk about faith."

As is traditional with God-deniers, Sam Harris is asserting selective hyper-skepticism. It is not true that 'atheists' rationally deny the possibility of events which "break the laws of nature". Rather, they assert those possibilities as proven fact ... until some event which "breaks the laws of nature" is believed to have been deliberately and purposefully caused by God. Evangelical Atheists assert that you must believe in the possibility of events which "break the laws of nature", events which they also say no one has ever witnessed and no one is ever likely to witness, and which events are accidental and meaningless. And they assert that you are a fool, or at best an ignoramus, if you do not also assent to the possibility of these accidental and meaningless hypothetical events. Simultaneously, they assert that you are a fool, or at best an ignoramus, if you do believe the reports of people who claim to have witnessed and recorded certain events which "break the laws of nature" ... when those events are recorded in the Bible and are attributed to intentional and purposeful intervention in the regular working of the "laws of nature" by the Creator of the "laws of nature". ============ Consider this quote is from "The Demon-Haunted World" by Carl Sagan "Consider this claim: as I walk along, time -as measured by my wristwatch or my ageing process -slows down. Also, I shrink in the direction of motion. Also, I get more massive. Who has ever witnessed such a thing? It's easy to dismiss it out of hand. Here's another: matter and antimatter are all the time, throughout the universe, being created from nothing. Here's a third: once in a very great while, your car will spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of your garage and be found the next morning on the street. They're all absurd! But the first is a statement of special relativity, and the other two are consequences of quantum mechanics (vacuum fluctuations and barrier tunnelling,* they're called). Like it or not, that's the way the world is. If you insist it's ridiculous, you'll be forever closed to some of the major findings on the rules that govern the Universe. *The average waiting time per stochastic ooze is much longer than the age of the Universe since the Big Bang. But, however improbable, in principle it might happen tomorrow." ============ My response is: And, sometimes, iron axeheads which have flown off their handles and fallen into a pond or river float to the surface. [This is a reference to a miracle of the prophet Elisha, as recorded in II Kings 6:1-7] And, sometimes, the dead bodies of persons who really and truly are dead, rise back to life. [This is a reference to a number of resurrections recorded in both Old and New Testaments, including that of Jesus the Christ.] So, given what 'scientistes' (*) believe and assert about the nature of reality, how can their denial of, and refusal to believe, any of the miracles recorded in the Bible be anything other than selective hyper-skepticism, which is to say, intellectual dishonesty?

(*) 'scientistes' is my mocking term, a la Miss Piggy, the Artiste, for those who assert scientism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EbsZ10wqnA

An Atheist Grapples With The Source of Morality

While as an 'atheist' he cannot yet see it, what Carl Benjamin (aka "Sargon of Akkad") is reaching for in the intro is the realization that morality is grounded in the nature of the Triune God: true morality is transcendent, inter-personal, and relational.

When Carl says @0:10, "[According to leftism, morality] has to be essentially rationally calculable. But actually, if you think about it, a lot of what we actually do that is moral, is actually very sentimental and habitual, right? We didn't think about it, we just do it, because it's the right thing to do. So, if you are actually taking principles like 'freedom' and 'equality', well actually you can destroy the family with those principles. You don't 'owe' anything to your parents, and you can't say that your father is 'superior' to you, because that's not 'equality'. And so you're bound by being ... you didn't choose your parents, and so by the principles of 'freedom' and 'equality', you can be un-bound from your own family. And children can have no responsibility not only to their own parents, but their own country" ... what he is grasping at is the understanding that moral hierarchies, such as father and son, nation and man, loyalty, duty, and so on, are grounded in the transcendent inter-personal relationships of God-the-Father and God-the Son and God-the-Holy-Spirit. While everyone likes to poo-poo "Divine Command Moral Theory" (i.e. "An act is moral/immoral because God says it is moral/immoral") as obviously false, it is not actually false, but rather is incomplete. For example, so long as he is not violating the true morality to which he himself is also subject, if a father commands his son to do or not to do, then that thing is moral or immoral for the son, irrespective of whether the son understands why his father has so commanded. Similarly, if God -- who is Morality Itself -- commands us to do or not to do, then that thing is moral or immoral for us to do, even when we do not understand why he has commanded it so. Now, a fuller, more complete, understanding of morality is that morality is grounded in the nature and character and relationships of the Persons of the Godhead: that is, in the truth that "God is Love". And thus our moral obligations one to another and moral expectation one from another are grounded in relationship and love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92JuNDOx9sU

The nature of reality

The following is a comment I posted to this thread --

Both 'theism' and 'atheism' are affirmations and denials about the nature of reality ... and about the nature of human beings.

[Between the two of them, they cover all possibilities for the nature of reality; there is no excluded middle, there is no alternative third option.]

'Theism' *affirms* that "the ground of all being" is an actually existing mind: a rational Who.

'Atheism' *denies* that "the ground of all being" is an actually existing mind, and contrarily affirms that "the ground of all being" is some set of mechanistically determined states: non-rational whats.

'Theism' does not deny that there are mechanistically determined states; what it denies is the assertion of 'atheism' that such states are the entirety of reality. Thus, 'theism' -- because it definitionally affirms that "the ground of all being" is a rational Who -- has no particular problem with the real existence of the billions of Whos who comprise the human race.

'Atheism' -- because it definitionally denies that "the ground of all being" is a rational Who -- not only cannot explain the reality of human minds, but logically must deny that they really exist at all. [To assert that mechanistically determined states comprise the entirety of reality *just is* to assert that there cannot exist any entities which are not mechanistically determined; that is, it *just is* to to deny that there can exist any beings who are free agents, who are minds.]

'Atheism' is irrational and absurd, and thus is immediately seen to be the false affirmation about the nature of reality.

And there is only one alternative to 'atheism': 'theism'.

Feser on Radical Skepticism

... and as relates to same-sex mirage --

Edward Feser (2015): Marriage and The Matrix

Post-Modern Science: The Illusion of Consciousness Sees Through Itself

Denyse O'Leary: Post-Modern Science: The Illusion of Consciousness Sees Through Itself

...
Naturalist philosopher Patricia Churchland puts the proposition most starkly: Evolution selects for survival and “Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.”

“Truth, whatever that is”? One sees into the soul of post-modern science here.
...
Gobry [previously quoted concerning the self-evident absurdity of the Naturalists' "consciousness is an illusion" assertion] seems not to grasp that absurdity is no longer an issue. We are animals and animals are never absurd; they live and then they die.

Similarly, literary critic Leon Wieseltier [echoing Darwin (*), whether or not he realizes it] writes, “If reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? … Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it.” Yes, it can. The power invoked is not reason but the rhetoric of reason, a weapon for those who do not believe in the concept against those who do.

(*) This is referred to as "Darwin's Doubt"

“But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? [To William Graham 3 July 1881]”

“But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?”

And -- just as his disciples today -- he didn't let the knowledge that his programme logically entails the denial that we even can reason truly/soundly and acquire real/true knowledge get in his way.

Compare and Contrast

William Vallicella (2017/08/03): Reliably Inconclusive

Such is philosophical argumentation. Philosophers arrive at conclusions, but the conclusions they arrive at are inconclusive.

If the "conclusions" at which "philosophers" arrive are (always-or-generally) inconclusive, then philosophy is worthless.

On the other hand, if what he really means -- and he does (in part) -- is that no matter how "conclusively" one establishes a conclusion, it is always possible for a free being to ignore-and-deny the logical necessity-given-the-premises of the conclusion; that is a free being may assert the premise(s) and yet deny the logical entailment(s) of the very premise(s) he has asserted; or, to use other words: to lie to himself.

As I've said before, Vallicella's problem is that (in almost all cases where it matters) he care more for the chin-wagging side of "philosophy" than he does of logical/rational task of determining/discovering what is true-and-may-be-known-to-be-true. This flaw is most obvious as regards "the God question" -- he's a "theist" who *hates* (and thus denies) the fact that we can know, without recourse to the Biblical Revelation (or any other alleged divine-revelation), using only the application of reason to experience, that there is a Creator-God (that is, that atheism is a false understanding of reality and the nature thereof).


William Vallicella (2017/08/04): A Neurosurgeon on the Immateriality of Thought

Michael Egnor, A Map of the Soul. Not philosophically sophisticated, but worth a look.

Given Vallicella's witticism of just one day prior, who gives a damn that he holds Mr Egnor's piece to be not "philosophically sophisticated"?

Amusing Contrast

Scott Adams (2017/04/20): Big Red Flag for Cognitive Dissonance

Scott Adams (2017/04/19): You Don’t Have Free Will – but You Might Get It Someday

There *is* no such thing as 'cognitive dissonance' were it really true that "You Don’t Have [as people say (*)] Free Will". Moreover, if "You Don’t Have Free Will" now, then you never will "get" it in the future.


(*) To say that we "have" free will is to use sloppy language, however common it is. The truth is that we *are* free wills; our "free will" is not something we can gain or lose, as though it were a cold or a foot.

The Illusion Delusion

I'd like to share with Gentle Reader a comment/explanation from Kristor at The Orthosphere --

winstonscrooge - "Perhaps consciousness is the universal and the you of waking is an egoic illusion."

Kristor - "It’s an interesting notion. But all the phenomenal evidence we have – that, by definition, we can possibly have – contradicts it, so …"

winstonscrooge - "What specifically?"

Kristor - "All the evidence we have, without exception, is evidence we are aware of. By definition, we can’t have awareness of evidence that we are not aware of. So we can’t have evidence that the only sort of evidence we can have – the sort we are aware of – is illusory. All the evidence we can possibly have points to the suggestion that our conscious awareness is not illusory."

The "interesting notion" (as Kristor put it), popular amongst God-deniers, in particular, and those who wish to do what they know to be immoral, in general, that our consciousness of ourselves is an illusion is an incoherent notion; it is self-refuting.

IF it were true -- if it even could be true -- that our consciousness of ourselves is an illusion, THEN we could never know it to be true; and we could never truly know it to be even a logical possibility.

Morality ... and God!

Victor Reppert: "If the Christian God exists, doesn't he get to decide what is right or wrong? Or could an existing God be mistaken about, for example, whether gay relationships are right or not.

Consider the following scenario: God created the world, and decreed that marriage was the only proper place for sex, and that marriage was a relationship between a man and a woman. But, he got it wrong, and gay was really OK.

Is that scenario even possible?"

Legion of Logic: "Can God be wrong about morality? Can the creator of chess be wrong that bishops move diagonally?

The only way God could be wrong about morality would be if either he didn't create the universe, or morality somehow transcends both God and the universe. But in any scenario in which God created the universe and morality does not transcend both, then God can't possibly be wrong ..."

me: Moreover, if one posits that morality transcends God-the-Creator-of-the-Universe, all one has actually done is assert-without-reason that there is a God-Above-God-the-Creator ... and then we are right back to Square One with nothing "solved" from the point of view of the person who wishes to set himself up as competent to put God-the-Creator on trial.

==========
Morality exists if and only if there are persons -- which is to say, free agents -- for moral obligations obtain only between persons/agents. That is, a person does not have a moral obligation to a rock, nor a rock to a person, for only agents may have moral expectations which impose corresponding moral obligations upon other agents.

Moreover, morality exists if and only if there are persons in communion or relationship, for moral obligations obtain only between persons in relation to other persons. That is, the precise moral expectations and obligations between persons depend upon and follow from the relationship between them -- for example: if there are persons living on a distant planet, we have no moral obligations to them, nor they to us, because there is no relationship whatsoever between them and us.

HOWEVER, the reality of moral expectatons and obligations cannot be grounded in the relationships between contingent persons. To attempt to do so is just another way of denying the transcendent reality of morality; it's just to deny that there really is any such thing as morality.

Consider: if one person is a ruler and another person is ruled by that ruler, then those two persons are in a relationship which imposes certain, though different, expectations and consequent obligations on each. Now, add a third person, one who is also ruled by that same ruler. IF the moral expectations and obligations between ruler and ruled followed from the relationships between these contingent persons, then any commonality between the moral expectations and obligations obtaining between the ruler and the first subject, on the one hand, and between the ruler and the second subject, on the other hand, would be accidental/coincidental -- to discover/understand some fact of the moral expectations and obligations obtaining between the ruler and the first subject would tell you nothing about the moral expectations and obligations obtaining between the ruler and the second subject.

THUS, morality is, and must be, grounded in the relationship(s) obtaining between non-contingent persons.

----------------
And, by the way, I have just demonstrated that God is a plurality of persons -- while this is not a demonstration that God is precisely Three Persons, it *is* a demonstration that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is not in conflict with what "unaided reason" can tell us about the nature of God ... or of ourselves.

At the same time (without getting into it here), reason also tells us that there is One God.

So, there is One God ... who is a plurality of Persons.

Implications!

In a recent post on Victor Reppert's blog, Bob Prokop explodes the common atheistic talking point that critical thinking leads one to embrace atheism --

"I'm curious what you think would be an acceptable demonstration of the claim that critical thinking leads to atheism. (I do think this is true, but I am wondering what you think would demonstrate it to you, and others.)"

It's not gonna happen, because there is simply no conceivable way that honest, critical thinking will ever lead to atheism.

Atheism demands that one close one's mind to the illogic of something coming from nothing (or else one has to redefine "nothing" to the point where it is actually "something").

Atheism demands that one overlook the fact that atheism necessarily means there is no objective morality, that good and evil are nothing more than subjective judgements of a mind that one can't actually trust to make such judgements.

Atheism demands that one ignore the fact that 99.9 percent of humanity since the Dawn of Time have believed in, worshiped, and prayed to God (or to gods). Atheists are required to think their tiny minority are "right" and the overwhelming majority of people are "wrong" about the most important of all imaginable questions.

Atheists must insist that all questions can be reduced to matters of empirical evidence and "science" - that art, literature, history, music, architecture, personal experience, all are somehow defective or fundamentally lacking, not quite worthy of trust, ultimately to be (negatively) evaluated against the one-and-only objective standard given the atheist seal of approval.

Atheists must never, ever allow themselves to realize that atheism means that everything is meaningless, that in the end of ends it does not matter what kind of life one leads, or even whether one is or is not an atheist - because a single microsecond after one's death, it is all as though it never happened, so who cares?

Atheists must never face up to the inevitable implication of materialism that individual identity does not really exist - that we are simply complex bundles of matter and energy, which, if its configuration is somehow altered or destroyed, becomes something else.

Atheists must believe that our noblest traits, our highest aspirations, our sublimest thoughts, are nothing more than electrical impulses and chemical reactions in a soulless meat machine, of no greater significance than combustion or sublimation. The love I feel for my family is simply a Darwinian survival mechanism.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Atheism is the very negtion of critical thinking. To the contrary, a case can be made for its being perilously close to insanity

Exactly!

Both the affirmation of the reality of God and the denial of the reality of God are statements about the very nature of reality, of truth, of reason, of morality, of meaning, of love, of beauty, of personhood, of agency, and of our individual selves (and of much else, besides; that list is not exhaustive). The question of the reality of God is the First Question, because everything else follows from the answer to that question.

At the very least, every one of the demands and entailments of God-denial that Mr Prokop lists ought to give one pause regarding one's God-denial if one really is engaging in critical thinking; and some of them are sufficient to demonstrate the falsity of God-denial. Thus, if one really is engaging in critical thinking, then one simply will not continue to deny the reality of God. So, far from critical thinkng leading a person to atheism, in truth it leads one away.

Consider just a few of the above entailments of atheism --

Atheists must never, ever allow themselves to realize that atheism means that everything is meaningless, that in the end of ends it does not matter what kind of life one leads, or even whether one is or is not an atheist - because a single microsecond after one's death, it is all as though it never happened, so who cares?

This is one of the logical entailments of God-denial that ought to cause one to seriously doubt that God-denial is the truth about the nature of reality. That is, this entailment itself doesn't show that God-denial is false (though other entailments do), but it does show that very few human beings -- including one's own atheistic-professing self -- are actually capable of *really* believing that atheism is the truth about the nature of reality.

No one -- including every self-professed atheist -- really believes that *everything* -- including atheism itself -- is meaningless. No one -- including every self-professed atheist -- really believes that it doesn't matter in the least what a person believes about the nature of reality. No one -- including every self-professed atheist -- really believes that it doesn't matter in the least how a person conducts his life.

Now, of course, the fact that no one -- including every self-professed atheist -- really believes this particular logically inescapable entailment of God-denial does not in itself prove that God-denial is the false view of reality. But it does expose a very serious cognitive dissonance involved in attempting to assert that atheism is the truth about the nature of reality -- if one doesn't believe the logically inescapable entailments of a proposition which one asserts, then one either doesn't really understand the proposition or one doesn't really believe the proposition in the first place. If one asserts that 1+1=2 and yet denies that 2+1=3, then one either does not understand what one is talking about, or one doesn't really believe what one has asserted.

It's a curiosity: atheism is odd, and possibly unique, in this regard -- atheism is a world-view the truth of which matters not in the least were it actually the truth about the nature of reality; the question of the truth of atheism matters only if atheism is not true.

Atheism demands that one overlook the fact that atheism necessarily means there is no objective morality, that good and evil are nothing more than subjective judgements of a mind that one can't actually trust to make such judgements.

This is another of the logical entailments of God-denial that ought to cause one to seriously doubt that God-denial is the truth about the nature of reality -- even the people who explicitly and publically assert that there is no such thing as objective-and-transcendent morality continuously demonstrate by their own behavior that they don't really believe what they have asserted!

Consider just one common example of their behavior belying their assertions --

Richard Dawkins (along with many other famous 'atheists') is on very public record of affirming the logical entailment of atheism that there are no such things as 'right' and 'wrong', that is, that there is no such thing as transcendent morality, and of affirming this as a logical entailment of atheism. Richard Dawkins (along with many other famous 'atheists') is *also* on very public record of asserting that this or that (e.g. rearing one's child as a Christian; being a "creationist"; punishing criminals because they have chosen to be criminals; being sexually jealous of one's spouse; and on and on) is 'wrong'. Richard Dawkins (along with many other famous 'atheists') constantly asserts that there is no "way things ought to be" ... and also constanly asserts that this or that "ought not be" -- this is a blatant self-contradiction: either he (and they) does not really believe the former assertion, or does not really believe the latter assertion(s).


Now, consider this immediate topic in light of the prior one.

Suppose it really is the case that there are no such things as 'right' and 'wrong', that is, that there is no such thing as transcendent morality. And after all, this really is a logically inescapable entailment of atheism.

And, suppose it really is the case that that *everything* really is ultimately and utterly meaningless, and thus it doesn't matter in the least how one conducts one's life. And after all, this really is a logically inescapable entailment of atheism.

Now, suppose those two propositions simultaneously -- for, after all, if atheism really is the truth about the nature of reality, then both propositions are true.

Does one now see how it is that so many 'atheists' constantly seek to shape public opinion by means of asserting self-contradictions?

Atheism demands that one overlook the fact that atheism necessarily means [that all our thoughts/judgements/conclusions are nothing more than the output] of a mind that one can't actually trust to make such judgements.

Atheists must believe that our noblest traits, our highest aspirations, our sublimest thoughts, are nothing more than electrical impulses and chemical reactions in a soulless meat machine, of no greater significance than combustion or sublimation. The love I feel for my family is simply a Darwinian survival mechanism.

If atheism is the truth about the nature of reality, then you cannot reason -- you cannot *know* anything ... including that you cannot know anything ... and including knowing that atheism is the truth about the nature of reality.

Everything that is coheres, and it cohers in God, and God alone: to deny the reality of God is to deny the coherence of reality. This doubtless explains why 'atheists' so readily retreat into irrationality as a means to protect their God-denial from rational critical evaluation -- contrary to their constant self-promotion, they are not committed to reason/rationality, but merely to refusing to acknowledge God.

Atheists must never face up to the inevitable implication of materialism that individual identity does not really exist - that we are simply complex bundles of matter and energy, which, if its configuration is somehow altered or destroyed, becomes something else.

This is one of the logically inescapable entailments of God-denial which shows it to be absurd, and thus shows it to be false, and thus shows its denial to be true.

When one encounters a God-denier saying such things as "Consciousness is an illusion" or "The 'self' is an illusion" or "There is no such thing as 'free-will'", that isn't just some blow-hard blowing hard (however much that 'atheists' tend to be blow-hards). These claims and other such claims are logically inescapable entailments of atheism.

And when one encounters a God-denier saying something like, "Well, I am an 'atheist', and *I* don't believe that consciousness is an illusion", then one simply is dealing with a blow-hard -- what this or that 'atheist' is willing to affirm does not alter the set of propositions which are logical entailments of atheism.

When one denies the reality of God, then logically and inescapably one has also denied the reality of one's own self: but this is absurd. Since one *knows* that it is absurd to deny the reality of one's own self, and since this absurd denial is logically entailed by the denial of the reality of God, then one *knows* that the initial or grounding absurdity is in the denial of the reality of God.

This is why I say that every 'atheist', as an 'atheist', is intellectually dishonest. This isn't just me being "mean"; this is me "following the logic where it leads" -- atheism is absurd (and thus is false); atheism entails obvious absurdities (and thus is seen obviously to be false); not a single one of the 'atheists' one will ever encounter has any rationally exculpating excuse for continuing to ignore the absurdity of God-denial; that is, every single 'atheist' one will ever encounter asserts the absurdity of God-denial knowing it to be absurd, and thus knowing it to be false.

As the Apostle Paul wrote 2000 years ago: men are without excuse in denying (and failing to love-and-worship) God. Pace Bertrand Russell, men do not deny the reality of God because they have "insufficient evidence". Rather, they deny the reality of God because they refuse to acknowledge the truth they already know.

The Handmaiden

James Hannam at Quodlibeta: Ethics and its importance to ancient Greek science -- "...The primacy of ethics and the belief in objective moral values explains both the multiplicity of Greek natural philosophies and the differences between them. It also shows us how utterly unlike modern science Greek natural philosophy was. Finally, it illustrates that the Greek attitude towards science was identical to that of early and medieval Christians. David Lindberg was fond of a metaphor he found in the work of Roger Bacon – that natural philosophy was the handmaiden of Christian theology. For the pagan Greek philosophers, whether they were theists or not, science was the servant of ethics."

It really is that simple

I've quoted this before, and no doubt I'll quote it again (to make, once again, the same point I'm going to here) -- From 'The Demon-Haunted World' by Carl Sagan --

Consider this claim: as I walk along, time -as measured by my wristwatch or my ageing process -slows down. Also, I shrink in the direction of motion. Also, I get more massive. Who has ever witnessed such a thing? It's easy to dismiss it out of hand. Here's another: matter and antimatter are all the time, throughout the universe, being created from nothing. Here's a third: once in a very great while, your car will spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of your garage and be found the next morning on the street. They're all absurd! But the first is a statement of special relativity, and the other two are consequences of quantum mechanics (vacuum fluctuations and barrier tunnelling,* they're called). Like it or not, that's the way the world is. If you insist it's ridiculous, you'll be forever closed to some of the major findings on the rules that govern the Universe.

*The average waiting time per stochastic ooze is much longer than the age of the Universe since the Big Bang. But, however improbable, in principle it might happen tomorrow.

As the above quote demonstrates to those willing to think about it, the God-deniers don't scoff at the possibility of miracles for any principled reasons, but only because as they have chosen to deny God, they must perforce deny all things connected in any way with God (*).

What is the difference between the claim that "once in a very great while, your car will spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of your garage and be found the next morning on the street" and the claim that an iron axe-head, rare and expensive in the time and place, which had flown off the handle into a body of water, was seen to float to the surface to be retrieved by the people who needed it?

Well, one minor difference is that no one claims ever to have witnessed the former -- and, in fact, the sort of persons who assert that it *could* happen simultaneously assert that the possibility of it actually happening is so vanishingly small as to be non-existent -- whereas the latter is claimed to have been witnessed, and that claim is recorded in a certain famous "bronze age religious text".

But the major difference, the difference that makes all the difference in the world, is that the former, should it ever be witnessed to occur, would be utterly meaningless, caused by nothing and for no reason and signifying nothing (**); whereas the latter not only had a cause, but had a personal cause, was the result of a deliberate act, and signifies, among other things, the lordship of God over "the Laws of Nature".

What is the difference between the claim that at some point in the far distant past, mere undifferentiated and unorganized chemicals became living entities, and the claim to have witnessed the death of a person and then later to have seen that very person alive?

Well, one minor difference is that no one claims ever to have witnessed the former -- and, in fact, the sort of persons who assert that it *did* happen simultaneously assert that the possibility of it happening again is so vanishingly small as to be non-existent -- and further, such an occurrence is contrary to what we believe we understand about "the Laws of Nature", whereas the latter is claimed to have been witnessed, and while such an occurrence is not commonly witnessed, it is not contrary to what we believe we understand about "the Laws of Nature".

But the major difference, the difference that makes all the difference in the world, is that the former, while asserted to have happened, and asserted to be one of the ultimate causes of our existing, is intrinsically utterly meaningless, being something that "just happened", for no reason, and given what 'Science!' has become of late, no cause; whereas the latter not only had a cause, but had a personal cause, was the result of a deliberate and reasoned act, and signifies, at the very least, the lordship of God over "the Laws of Nature".


Now, my point is that God-deniers do not denigrate the possibility of miracles and claims to have witnessed miracles out of any high-minded principles. And they certainly don't do it because miracles "break the Laws of Nature", as they like to accuse. For, as the Sagan quote makes clear to anyone willing to see, in the end the God-deniers deny that there even are any such things as "Laws of Nature".

No, the reason -- the *only* reason -- that the God-deniers denigrate the possibility of miracles and claims to have witnessed miracles is because, by definition, a miracle is the result of a deliberate and reasoned act of God, and signifies, at the very least, the lordship of God over "the Laws of Nature".

God-deniers don't hate miracles because they "fuckin' love science", as so many of them are wont to claim when they imagine that 'science' may be a handy stick for beating God, but because they hate God; it really is that simple.



(*) which is why, in the end, they always end up denying that they themselves, and you also, of course, even exist.

(**) well, it does signify the denial that there even *are* any "Laws of Nature"

By their own metaphor

By their own metaphor, 'atheists' are just assholes

A fool for all seasons

William Vallicella, 'the Maverick Philosopher', is a fool. And his foolishness in rooted in his refusal to acknowledge -- indeed, even to critically examine the question (*) -- that we human beings can know that the Creator is; and that, in fact, we cannot *not* know that the Creator is.

Consider these recent pronouncements --

William Vallicella: The Decline of the Culture of Free Discussion and Debate

... And now we notice a very interesting and important point. To be a liberal in the old old sense (a paleo-liberal) is, first and foremost, to value toleration. Toleration is the touchstone of classical liberalism. (Morris Raphael Cohen) But why should we be tolerant of (some of) the beliefs and (some of) the behaviors of others? Because we cannot responsibly claim to know, with respect to certain topics, what is true and what ought to be done/left undone. Liberalism (in the good old sense!) requires toleration, and toleration requires fallibilism. But if we can go wrong, we can go right, and so fallibilism presupposes and thus entails the existence of objective truth. A good old liberal must be an absolutist about truth and hence cannot be a PC-whipped lefty.

Examples. Why tolerate atheists? Because we don't know that God exists. Why tolerate theists? Because we don't know that God does not exist. And so on through the entire range of Big Questions. But toleration has limits. ...

Now, aside from the fact that we *can* know that God is -- that in fact, we all do know it already -- the reason to tolerate God-deniers has nothing to do with knowledge or ignorance of the reality of God.

By Vallicella's rationale for tolerating them, should the majority of humanity come to accept the truth that we human beings can, and do, know that God is, it would then be “right” to cease to tolerate the God-deniers amongst us. You know, like they do to us whenever they get their filthy paws on the levers of governmental force. And the reason they *always* persecute us is precisely because their metaphysical commitments provide no reason to refrain from doing it.

William Vallicella: Does the Atheist Deny What the Theist Affirms?

So I am quite puzzled by Ryan's claim that the existence of God is contradicted by much of what we know to be true. I would like him to produce just one proposition that we know to be true that entails the nonexistence of God. The plain truth of the matter, as it seems to me, is that nothing we know to be true rules out the existence of God. I cheerfully concede that nothing we know to be true rules it in either. Pace the doctor angelicus, one cannot rigorously prove the existence of God. One can argue for the existence of God, but not prove the existence of God. By 'argue for the existence of God,' I mean give good arguments, plausibly-premised arguments free of formal and informal fallacy, arguments that render theistic belief reasonable. What I claim cannot be done, however, is provide rationally compelling arguments, arguments that will force every competent philosophical practioner to accept their conclusions on pain of being irrational if he does not.

2. Ryan also claims that there is no evidence for the God hypothesis. This strikes me as just plain false. There are all kinds of evidence. That it is not the sort of evidence Ryan and fellow atheists would accept does not show that it is not evidence. People have religious and mystical experiences of many different kinds. There is the 'bite of conscience' that intimates a Reality transcendent of the space-time world. Some experiences of beauty intimate the same. There are the dozens and dozens of arguments for the existence of God. Add it up and you have a cumulative case for theism.

The atheist will of course discount all of this. But so what? I will patiently discount all his discountings and show in great detail how none of them are rationally compelling. I will show how he fails to account for obvious facts (consciousness, self-consciouness, conscience, intentionality, purposiveness, etc.) if he assumes that all that exists is in the space-time world. I will expose and question all his assumptions. I will vigorously and rigorously drive him to dogmatism. Having had all his arguments neutralized, if not refuted, he will be left with nothing better than the dogmatic assertion of his position.

Look at this, the last paragraph especially: right there, the fool *has* proven that atheism is false -- which is to say, contrary to his continuous insistence that no one can either prove or disprove the reality of God, *he* has proven, right there, that God is.

But he refuses to see it, for he is a fool: he values something more than he values truth. And one of the things he values more that truth is "discussion and debate" (as in the title of the first linked post)


(*) his characterization of me as a "punk" is a manifestation of his refusal to reason about the matter, pure and simple.

The reason it's logically impossible to reason with 'these people'

As as follow-up to the previous post, the reason it's logically impossible to reason with 'these people' is that were they to honestly engage the issue, that honest engagement would compel them to acknowledge that atheism is false. Notice, I I didn't say that honest engagement with the issue would compel them to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is God -- that's a further issue, that cannot be addressed until first acknowledging that there is a Creator-God.

In the prior post, I presented the exchange, such as it is, of (the ever polite) Victor Reppert attempting to reason with JDHuey.

In this post, I'm give you mean ol' me, who has no need to be polite to liars, and worse than liars. In this post, copied verbatim from what I posted on Reppert's blog, I give you, once again, the proof that atheism is false ... as demonstrarted by those very logical entailments that JDHuey denies that anyone has ever shown.

some liar:"Nobody on this blog has ever shown that there are any logical entailments resulting from God not existing. People here state that they have, but they are mistaken."

Now, understand this: his assertion of false (it is, in fact, a lie). Many people, including Reppert (and me) have shown that there are propositions logically entailed by denying the reality of God, and have shown that these logical entailments are false.

VR:"The entailments would have to be ..."

You're trying to reason with someone who will lie to your face? This fellow has been posting here for months: it is not ignorace that explains how he comes to say that no one on this blog has ever shown that there are any logical entailments of God's non-existence. And it clearly isn't stupidity that explains his saying it. The only option left is that he is speaking from a stance of dishonesty. And, due to the particular nature of the subject matter, his lying isn't *merely* lying, he's engaging in intellectual dishonesty (aka: intellectual hypocrisy).

VR:"The entailments would have to be from the fact that mental states are not fundamental to the universe. This doesn't entail theism directly, though it does rule out the philosophies of mind that most atheists hold. Nagel would be an exception."

Your first sentence is not false, but it it incomplete; and your second sentence, the conclusion based on it, is false.

There are no such things as "mental states" if there are no such things as minds. So, if atheism were the truth about the nature of reality, then it is not *simply* that it is a "fact that mental states are not fundamental to the universe", but rather that it is a fact that there is no *mind* who is "fundamental to the universe" (and, after all, that's just a restatement of Western-style materialistic atheism).

And, if it is a fact that there is no mind who is "fundamental to the universe", then it is also a fact, as it is a logical entailment of the previous (alleged) fact, that agent freedom is not "fundamental to the universe". That is, Western-style materialistic atheism directly entails absolute mechanical physicalist/materialistic determinism. (Any non-materialistic atheism also entails determinism; for the determinism isn't "in" the matter, it's in the denial that there is a mind who is fundamental to reality),

So, if atheism is the truth about the nature of reality, then *every* event and state-change that may occur in reality is mechanically determined by prior events and states.

Now, if *every* event and state-change is mechanically determined by prior events and states, then there are no such things as agents; for the single most salient fact about an 'agent' is that he is not wholly determined: neither by the mechanical results of prior events and states, nor by "random" (i.e. "uncaused") events and states.

Or, to limit the scope of our investigation to "the universe", as you have done: if atheism is the truth about what is "fundamental to the universe", then *every* event and state-change of "the universe" is mechanically determined by prior physical events and states.

Again, if *every* event and state-change is mechanically determined by prior physical events and states, then there are no such things as agents, as in the above more general demonstration.

But, *we* are agents. We *all* know that we are agents: so, when that intellectual hypocrite with whom VR was attempting to reason, or any of the others, demands that someone "prove" that we are agents, claiming that this isn't a self-evident fact, then you know that you're dealing with someone who will assert that 0=1 if that suits his purpose: that is, not a mere liar, but a an intellectually dishonest person, an intellectual hypocrite.

Notwithstanding that, we can, as it turns out, prove that we are agents, using the method of proof by contradiction (which is the method I am presently using to prove that God is).

For, if we are not agents, then we are wholly deternimed by prior events and states. That's just a restatement of the definition of non-agency.

Now, if we are we are wholly deternimed by prior events and states, then we do not, and cannot, engage in acts reasoning. For, when engaging in an act of reasoning, the proper movement from 'A' to 'B' is not determined by any prior event or state (whether physical/material or not), but rather is demanded by the logical relationship obtaining between 'A' and 'B'. Gentle Reader will notice that I didn't say that the movement from 'A' to 'B' is determined by the logical relationship: this is because, as we are agents, as we are indeed free, we are free to refuse to make the movement demanded by logic-and-reason: that is, we are free to engage in intellectual dishonesty.

But, if we are not agents, that is, if we are wholly deternimed by prior events and states, then while the words, "If 'A' then 'B'; 'A', therefore, 'B'" might come out our mouths, there was on our part no decision to say it, and there was no prior act of reasoning behind our saying it. If one says it, he says it because prior events and states determined that the words come out his mouth. It could as well have been the words "If 'A' then 'B'; 'A', therefore, 'tomato'" that came out one's mouth.

But, the foregoing demonstrates an act of reasoning (and valid reasoning, at that, however much the intellectual hypocrites deny it). So, since we *can* reason, it is necessarily true that we are agents, that we are free, that we are not wholly determined by prior events and states.

So, as we have seen, one of the logical entailments of God-denial is affirmation of the assertion that we are not agents. And, as we have seen, another of the logical entailments of God-denial is affirmation of the assertion that we cannot engage in acts reasoning.

Another logical entailment of God-denial is that we cannot know any truths. The proof of this is as above, and I'm not going to walk the reader through it again. This is to say that we cannot know anything. And thus, we cannot speak the truth; nor can we lie, that is we cannot choose to speak what we know, or reasonably ought to know, to be untrue. Certainly, words may come out of our mouths that an agent, if one existed, may recognize are being true or false. But, if God-denial is the truth about the nature of reality, then there are no agents, and *we* cannot recognize the words coming out our mouths as being true or false, nor as having any meaning whatsoever.

The ultimate logical entailment of God-denial is that we ourselves don't even exist. I've walked through the reasoning behind that statement before; and I'm not going to do it again here (moveover, Gentle Reader is intelligent enough to see that it follows from the above).

When a so-called atheist says something like, and tries to convince you to believe that, "The self is an illusion", while his statement is internally incoherent (and is, indeed, self-refuting), he *is* generally trying his best to express this ultimate logical entailment of God-denial. That is, if there is no God, then there is no you!.

But, the proposition that you are not is false, and you *know* that it is false. Therefore, as the proposition that you are not is logically entailed by the proposition that God is not, it logically follows that the falsehood of the entailment proves the falsehood of initial premise: that is, the proposition that God is not is false, and you *know* that it is false. And, if the proposition that God is not is false, then the contrary proposition, that God is, is true; and you *know* that it is true.

Therefor: no man has any excuse for continuing to deny the reality of God. All men who continue to refuse to affirm the reality of God -- both 'atheists' and 'agnostics' -- are doing so because they *choose* to be intellectually dishonest on this matter. And, since this is the most fundamental question about the nature of reality, and of ourselves, it follows that no one should ever trust that any of them are telling the truth about anything. Certainly, they *may* tell the truth about some matter that doesn't immediately seem related to the ultimate question, but it is irrational of you to trust that they are doing so, for you *know* that they willingly lie about this question behind all other questions.


that liar, again:"If God does not exist then the world is exactly like it is. We simply have no need for that hypothesis."

If God is not, then there are no such things as hypotheses.

If God is not, then it is no lie (*) if I assert that JDHuey kidnaps and then rapes and murders babies, and then eats the corpses to hide the evidence. If God is not, then were I to assert this thing, that is simply "the world [being] exactly like it is".

(*) In this context, even actually making such a statement is not a lie at all, even had I not made it clear that I'm not making any such statement, for it would have been made to demonstrate the point of what is entailed by the lying fool's assertion that God is not.

And, there is one last thing I wish to add -- JDHuey's (ahem) refutation of the above arguement: "llion, Or it could be the case that I and the others are simply correct and you are wrong (and perhaps delusional)."

Recall: his assertion with which we started was that no one on that blog had ever shown that there are any logical entailments of denying the reality of God. Even had his claim been true that no one ever had, in the series of posts copied above, I had shown some of the logical entailments of denying the reality of God.

And his response was to demonstrate that his initial assertion of there having been no logical entailments of atheism ever presented on the blog really means, "I will never so much as consider any of the logical entailments of asserting atheism is the truth about the nature of reality".

It's logically impossible to reason with such people -- they already *know* the truth of the matter; the problem is that they will not acknowledge the truth.

It's logically impossible to reason with these people

The 'these people' with whom it is logically impossible to reason being the so-called atheists one encounters on the internet. And the 'when' of it is *whenever* the topic is clearly seen as related to God, or "religion", or the logical implications of denying the reality of the Creator-God.

Consider this exchange --

Ilíon: "While there are certainly 'atheists' who are *generally* honest, no 'atheist' is honest with respect the very question that defines them.

Even if there were no positive arguments for the reality of God, the obvious inescapable logical entailments of denying God prove that atheism is false. SInce there is no excluded middle, as "God is not" is false, then "God is" is true.

There is no way around this."

JDHuey: "Nobody on this blog has ever shown that there are any logical entailments resulting from God not existing. People here state that they have, but they are mistaken.
If God does not exist then the world is exactly like it is. We simply have no need for that hypothesis.

The AFR is flawed and certainly not obvious. Everything we know about how the mind works indicates that it is derived solely from our embodied selves - there are no ghosts in the machine."

Victor Reppert: "The entailments would have to be from the fact that mental states are not fundamental to the universe. This doesn't entail theism directly, though it does rule out the philosophies of mind that most atheists hold. Nagel would be an exception."

Victor Reppert: "In fact, one atheist on this site defended a Nagel-type atheist position, and two of his fellow atheists suspected him of being a Christian in disguise."

JDHuey: "This is the rub. I do not remember that anyone on this blog has really demonstrated that a mental process as envisioned by an atheist philosophy of mind has been ruled out. It has been asserted many times but never demostrated.

The arguments put forward by Searle are hardly convincing. In fact, when I read books that cover research in consciousnes by people like Stanislas Dehaene or Antonio Damasio, it becomes evident that a lot of the objections by Searle are based on faulty conceptions of how the brain works.

Even you seem to have a faulty concept of a 'brain state'. It seems to me that you use that term as if the brain were a static system that transitions from one state to another. But the brain is a continuously dynamic system with massively interacting networks. You can say that the brain is in a state of paying attention or is asleep or is aroused or is calm but those states are processes not configurations."

Victor Reppert: "Perhaps I can put this as follows. Suppose I say that I can build a cat out of legos. I mean a real cat, not something that looks like a cat. And, I have lots of legos, and can put those legos into many interesting configurations. Perhaps they even function dynamically, as opposed to statically. It seems to me that no matter how complex these lego-formations are, it won't produce a cat, simply because there is a fundamental difference in kind between legos and cats.

It seems to me that no matter how much detail you use to specify the state of the brain, so long as you don't fudge categories, no mental state is entailed by all the physical state-descriptions. The physical always leaves the mental underdetermined. Now we can project the mental into the physical, but then we are going to need a mind to do the projecting, and so we aren't really going from the physical to the mental in the required way."

JDHuey: "The problem is not that Legos are not like cats but that Legos are not like atoms. A cat is not the same kind of thing as an atom but it is composed of atoms.

If you have something that can serve the same function as an atom and you configure them into the same visual and functional configuration that we call a 'cat'. And the results looks like a cat and acts in all ways like a cat, then in what way is it not a cat?"

This "dialogue" could continue forever, and while JDHuey will certainly contradict himself (increasingly so as it continues), he will *never* admit to anything. He will make all manner of assertions (never backing them up) that are false, but need to be true for atheism to be the truth about the nature of reality, demanding Victor Reppert prove them false, and never admitting when Reppert has done so.

It is logically impossible to reason with people who do that sort of thing.

What took you so long?

It seems that Barry Arrington at Uncommon Descent is only just now figuring out something; but it's an important something and he expresses his 'epiphany' well, so I wish to share it with Gentle Reader: Driving a Stake Through the Heart of Rationality Itself

'So what?'

Michael, at the 'Shadow to Light' blog, has a recent post discussing Sean Carroll's argument (ahem!) that 'Science!' and "religion" are "incompatible". Michael and the commenter TFBW note that "So what?" may be an appropriate response to the claims or arguments (ahem!) of the God-haters.

In fact, the "So what?" response is appropriate to *any* normative assertion made by those who deny that moral duties and expectations are real (or "objective" as people like to say), transcendent and universally binding.

I've discussed the "So what?" response at various times and places; here I'll try to present my ideas on this in an easy-to-follow way.

Consider the following hypothetical exchange, wherein the hypothetical Christian is, for the sake of argument, adopting the hypothetical atheist’s presumptions and the logical entailments thereof -- which include (but is not limited to) the statements that:
1) there are no real, universal, binding, transcendent moral obligations or duties;
2) we cease to exist - as though we had never been - when we die;
3) ultimately, *all* things will cease to exist;
n) ergo, nothing really matters.

Atheist (or Moral Relativist): "Christianity is false."

Christian: "So what?"

Atheist (or M.R): "Well, Christianity presents a false view about "God", and about man, and about the universe, and about man's place in the universe."

Christian: "So what?"

Atheist (or M.R): "Well, people shouldn't believe -- and certainly shouldn't teach others to believe -- things that are false!"

Christian: "So what?"

Atheist (or M.R): "But, it's *wrong* to try to covince people to believe things one knows to be false."

Christian: "So what?"

Atheist (or M.R): "Well, it's not good, for the individual nor for society, when people believe things that are false."

(pseudo-)Christian: "So what? ... Still, you have convinced me -- with your mere assertion -- that Christianity is false. But, you know what? I'm going to keep trying to convince people that it's true."

Atheist (or M.R): "But, but, but ... that woud be lying!"

(pseudo-)Christian: "So what?"

Atheist (or M.R): "But, it's *wrong* to lie. It's *wrong* to try to covince people to believe things one knows to be false."

(pseudo-)Christian: "You've already asserted that, and again I respond: So what?"


I expect that Gentle Reader is experienced enough, and a clear enough thinker, to be able to extend this hypothetical exchange indefinitely and in other directions, such that I need not belabor it.

But, notice this: atheism (or even merely moral relativism) is a curious worldview -- whether it is the truth about the nature of reality, and of God, and of ourselves matters *only* if it is not the truth about the nature of reality, and of God, and of ourselves. Is that *any* other worldview that matters only if it doesn't matter?

Notice another very important thing, not just from my hypothetical exchange (which, of course, I scripted), but also from your own experiences with so-called 'atheists' -- atheists' arguments against Judeo-Christianity, to the limited extent that they ever actually attempt to present an argument, *always* implicitly assume the very thing they (and the logic of their position) are adamant to deny (*): that there are real, universal, binding, transcendent moral obligations or duties, including, but not limited to:
1) it is *wrong* to lie;
2) it is *wrong* to reason or argue on the basis of what one knows, or at least believes, to be false;
3) it is *wrong* to decline or refuse to investigate, to the best of one's abilities, whether one's premises are sound;
3a) it is *wrong* to decline or refuse to learn, to the best of one's abilities, and adopt, a true view of the nature of reality;
4) it really does *matter*, not just now, but also after one has died and lo longer even exists, whether one lives one's life in accordance with what is true about the nature of reality;

(*) especially when these claims are deployed against their position of denial of God and of morality.