Re: Reading Dawkins ... was "Scrump"

On Sep 26, 4:36 pm, Robert Bannister <robb...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Paul Wolff wrote:
Hatunen <hatu...@xxxxxxx> wrote
On Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:39:00 +0100, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)"
<m...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:08:20 -0700, Evan Kirshenbaum
<kirshenb...@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

For Dawkins, without a reasonably plausible non-mystical explanation
for the complexity all around us, "somebody made it" (without the
specific details, of course) probably *is* the best bet.  But we have
such an explanation now, so an alternative would have to be
demonstrably more likely to be true and more powerful.

The non-atheist might ask "Who or what created the conditions in
which this
'plausible non-mystical explanation' could exist?

The answer to that, of course, would be a matter of belief. Not
to mention that it begs the question of whether such a person or
thing needs to exist.

Whether or not every effect has a cause, or every event has a cause (a
different kind of assertion, according to Kant), it is largely supposed
that what is, is brought about by some prior agency.

I find it difficult to understand the reasoning (or is it just
attitude?) that on the one hand is committed to science and logic to
explain how Z follows from Y, but in respect of A, which is a huge and
astounding set of conditions, rules and physical values, not to mention
a kilogram mass estimated to be ten to the power of between fifty and
sixty, is content to say that A just spontaneously was, and no cause
need be implied.

Where did you get the mass estimate? My understanding is that the
current evidence is consistent with an infinite ("flat") universe, and
that cosmologists like the idea.

Some physicists, by the way, would like to find an explanation for the
conditions, rules, and physical values as the only consistent result
of a much smaller set of assumptions. I'm not saying they will.

Me too, but I find it even more difficult to understand the reasoning
that leads to a divine being that always was and ever will be. Even
harder is the reasoning that suggests that if such a being exists then
it is imperative to worship it and pay a tithe to the select few who
claim to be on speaking terms with it.

I can understand the always-was-and-will-be part. Congruously with
Dawkins's arguments, postulating a God to explain the universe gives
you an infinite regress--unless your method for stopping the regress
is to say that there must be a philosophically necessary being, a
being that could not fail to exist. But the very definition that
makes this a solution to the infinite-regress problem means that the
being must still exist.

I agree that the worship part is harder (beyond a sense of gratitude,
maybe) and the tithe part is harder still. But see C. S. Lewis, /
Surprised by Joy/. He started from the question of whether it would
have possible for the universe not to exist (and from a rejection of
materialism), and ended as an Anglican.

Me, I like the answer Dave Hatunen attributes to science: we don't
know why there's something and not nothing, but we don't need to.

--
Jerry Friedman
.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: Reading Dawkins ... was "Scrump"
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