What's the Difference?

[JustJim]

Lets compare all these three. A) god that can be demonstrated, B) god that cannot be demonstrated, C) god that does not exist.
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6. Is a likely candidate for creator of the universe: A) no, B) yes C) yes.
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If you have any questions regarding any of these answers I will be happy to explain.

I think I'd benefit from explanations of almost all of them, just to make sure I'm understanding you.

For example, in your Item #6, above, you say that god that does not exist is a likely candidate for creator of the universe. To me, that is no different from saying that other explanations besides god are likely candidates for the origins of the universe.

Correct, I thought that both B and C were likely candidates. I have stated numerous times that I think the cosmological argument is unconvincing and that no creator seem to me to be a perfectly rational possibility. I particularly like Stephen Hawking suggestion that it all began with a quantum event. I don't believe that this is what happened but I don't measure rationality by my own beliefs.

I also scratched my head a lot wondering how a god that does not exist could be a likely candidate for God of the Bible, and I still don't get that.

In other words, I think that one can decide that the god described in the Bible is a god that does not exist and that this is perfectly rational decision. Again I don't believe that this is the case but I don't measure rationality by my own beliefs.

I guess I can add that this means that I do not pretend that my beliefs are decided by some line of thinking that determines one possibility as the only rational possibility. I think that people who do this are just fooling themselves. Instead I look at all the rational possibilities and choose one (if I can) that best seems to fit my experience. Which is to say that at most I will only judge a possibility to be lacking in rationality (though I usually prefer to say that it is not very reasonable and use "rationality" to refer only to logical self-consistency) if it contradicts the objective evidence and not (say that it isn't rational) if it contradicts the evidence of my personal experience.

Super, Mitch. That clears up a WHOLE LOT of stuff! Thank you!

P.S. Your previous complaint had me "looking over my shoulder" so to speak to try to see how I write things compared to your "bar room" vocabulary preference. I see that that a lot of the difficulty is because I try to close all the holes through which someone can make a legitimate criticisms. Surely you can see how self-serving a request that I don't do that would sound to me. You may indeed prefer that I speak in a way that makes it easy for you to tear what I say to shreds. But I would simply take myself elsewhere (like a bar or a pub) before I would do that here.

I think the things you're referring to were stated about Moonwood the Hare, and not you. I have no trouble understanding your posts -- at least not because of the way you phrase or express things. I admit I sometimes (often?) have trouble understanding your meaning, but I attribute that equally to your and my difficulties with being understood and understanding each other.

Thanks for your reply here, Mitch. I could enjoy a pleasant dinner conversation with you if it went like this.... (Assuming you'd be buying, that is....)

Jim

[Lazduc]

Prayer comes to mind as probably the most demonstrable aspect of religious belief. My opinion. ( Prayer not hope, wishing or wanting.) Aside from thanks and praises, asking may be right up there on most lips. So I think if the asking kind of prayer is answered, meaning an outcome coincides with the prayer's prayer exactly as anticipated and that if the prayer is opposite of the anticipated outcome both results could be construed as answered. I have heard many prayers ended with the admonition, let thine will be done. A little leeway for those of that persuasion. ( I read recently of a mother who had several statues of her favorite religious entities on her dresser...when she felt her prayer was not answered, she would face the statues towards the wall.) I rather liken this to the current topic. To demonstrate the non-demonstrable to demonstrate that the non-demonstrable is undemonstrable to demonstrate.

Lazduc

[mitchellmckain]

Thanks for your reply here, Mitch. I could enjoy a pleasant dinner conversation with you if it went like this.... (Assuming you'd be buying, that is....)

Jim I have always liked you, especially since you earned my respect by demonstrating that you could see me with startling accuracy and I have admitted as much. We both lose our temper at each other and I think it is often for much the same reason of plain fustration at not getting through to each other and not being able to understand why that is.

[Moonwood the Hare]

Okay Jim. Let me have a shot. Imagine a miracle has taken place. Not a really wild one like me saying something you understand but a fairly mundane turning of water into wine. This is examined carefully and there seems to be no causal explanation. A Christian says that he believes this was an act of God to demonstrate his power and purpose. A materialist says that he cannot except this it must have been a random quantum event of some kind. From the point of view of physics, from what can be examined both explanations would be describing events that looked the same. But if God really did it as the Christian claims that would be a difference.

Now lets take a slightly less spectacular event. A coin is found in the mouth of a fish and the finder uses it to pay his taxes. A Christian says this was the hidden hand of God, a materialist says this is just a coincidental sequence of events. In terms of what can be physical detected there is one event but two explanations. But again if God really did this as the Christian claims there would be a difference.

So suppose someone has cancer and someone prays and the cancer goes into remission. The Christian says this was an answer to prayer and the materialist says it was a spontaneous remission. Again there is no difference in the physical events but if God has acted in answer to prayer in ways we cannot understand that would still be a difference although not one that could be observed.

If it is the case that God has acted in each of these three cases then there will be a difference even if there is no method which could detect that difference. Even in the case of a supernatural miracle another explanation will always be possible because there is nothing within creation that can be identified as God by physical investigation. Such differences if interpretation do not only occur between Christians and materialists they can occur between the more relaxed materialists interpretations. Here is a fairly well known example.

Now they [the genes] swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control. They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence.

Now they are trapped in huge colonies, locked inside highly intelligent beings, moulded by the outside world, communicating with it by complex processes, through which, blindly, as if by magic, function emerges. They are in you and me; we are the system that allows their code to be read; and their preservation is totally dependent on the joy we experience in reproducing ourselves. We are the ultimate rationale for their existence.

These statements are mutually exclusive, but there are no empirical facts which differ. So I contend that different interpretations even if no physical difference can be observed are saying different things about reality and one claim may be truer than the other.

[Matt]

I'm ONLY saying that a non-demonstrable god is indistinguishable from a non-existent god. I wish I could find a way to make people understand that difference. NO ONE seems to get it, and I'm absolutely SURE that's MY fault.... <<sigh>>

I get it JustJim.

If a god doesn't demonstrate himself in history, then his existence is meaningless. This argument defeats Deism and the Flying Spaghetti Monster critique.

[Keep The Reason]

Okay Jim. Let me have a shot. Imagine a miracle has taken place. Not a really wild one like me saying something you understand but a fairly mundane turning of water into wine. This is examined carefully and there seems to be no causal explanation. A Christian says that he believes this was an act of God to demonstrate his power and purpose. A materialist says that he cannot except this it must have been a random quantum event of some kind. From the point of view of physics, from what can be examined both explanations would be describing events that looked the same. But if God really did it as the Christian claims that would be a difference.

This is really the only one of your examples that comes close to being a demonstration of an event that is so inexplicable that it defies rational explanation providing the water turns to wine instantaneously and not via the unremarkable method of water going through the fermentation process of turning into wine.

But the fact is, we see coincidences all the time, including medical ones, though we never seem to see remissions on the order of, "And his entire decapitated head regenerated and he's fine!" Instead, we only consistently see events that have these multiple --and vastly simpler-- explanations, even if they aren't particularly commonplace. What is more likely, that a fish swallowed a coin, or that a Jesus rose from the dead? Just given the the preponderance of both coins and fish, the former is vastly more likely to be the actual explanation, and the former nearly zero in likelihood.

Furthermore, your model does utterly nothing to indicate the author of these events is even "a god" (Yahweh) anyway, as opposed to, let's say, Zeus, or Beelzebub, or Satan, or Gorlac from the Ninth Planet of Devlarian Gamma IV or Randi the Amazing (Magician). There is no explanatory power in even offering the idea that a "god did it"; in fact, it's tantamount to being meaningless. The reason this overt fact doesn't simply jump out at all of us is that we're so used to the assertion that it's a "god thing" -- and "god things classically get exempted from having to support a single whisper of what they claim -- that it's become almost unnoticeable.

Except, of course, it's not.

[gary_s]

But you're still focusing on the UNIVERSE and how it would be different if there was or was not a god. You're missing the point. If you could not demonstrate that such a god existed, then how could you attribute the non-existence of the universe to the non-existence of such a god, rather than to natural reasons for the universe not to exist? Do you see the difference? Remember, I am not saying that a non-demonstrable god is evidence that god does not exist. I'm ONLY saying that a non-demonstrable god is indistinguishable from a non-existent god. I wish I could find a way to make people understand that difference. NO ONE seems to get it, and I'm absolutely SURE that's MY fault.... <<sigh>>

Jim

OK, that's a bit different. I think I see your meaning now and in this particular context, I agree. In the two examples I offered, there is no way I can conceive for a human to tell the difference between the existence of the god I described and no god at all. What I thought you were asking was what would be the difference, which is a different question. Now, even within the context of my examples, you might find that others will argue that they CAN tell the difference, that they CAN know with a level of certainty that god exists. I have no way to refute this, but I don't believe it either. This is probably one of the most compelling reasons for my conclusion that god does not exist. I can't conceive of a god that existed the way I described it and yet still communicated with some people but not others; that seems cruel to me. And I also can't accept such claims as valid because I can't see a way to discern when someone may just be deceiving themselves unknowingly. So, it all just reduces down to a fuzzy ball of uncertainty for me and I can't sort anything out of it.

[gary_s]

Moonwood, I think you may just be reinforcing the chasm between you and Jim. Your examples do not describe how humans could determine the difference; they only highlight the fact that there could be real differences that we may or may not be able to discern.

I heard about a study recently that examined prayer-healing data and concluded not only that prayer can heal the sick, but that it can act retroactively, that the prayers actually travel backward in time. So, if a person is experiencing a sickness now, they may well survive because someone is praying for them in the future. Now here comes the funny part. This study was a hoax, but a lot of people bought it.

[Keep The Reason]

Moonwood, I think you may just be reinforcing the chasm between you and Jim. Your examples do not describe how humans could determine the difference; they only highlight the fact that there could be real differences that we may or may not be able to discern.

I heard about a study recently that examined prayer-healing data and concluded not only that prayer can heal the sick, but that it can act retroactively, that the prayers actually travel backward in time. So, if a person is experiencing a sickness now, they may well survive because someone is praying for them in the future. Now here comes the funny part. This study was a hoax, but a lot of people bought it.

Yeah, I was gonna say. Especially when studies have shown prayer is effectively useless

[StillSearching]

Moonwood, I think you may just be reinforcing the chasm between you and Jim. Your examples do not describe how humans could determine the difference; they only highlight the fact that there could be real differences that we may or may not be able to discern.

I heard about a study recently that examined prayer-healing data and concluded not only that prayer can heal the sick, but that it can act retroactively, that the prayers actually travel backward in time. So, if a person is experiencing a sickness now, they may well survive because someone is praying for them in the future. Now here comes the funny part. This study was a hoax, but a lot of people bought it.

Yeah, I was gonna say. Especially when studies have shown prayer is effectively useless

Not so fast. It depends upon the type of prayer, and how you define "useful" or "effective."

An example of a study on meditative prayer was the Bernardi study in the British Medical Journal in 2001. It reported that by praying the rosary or reciting yoga mantras at specific rates, baroreflex sensitivity increased significantly in cardiovascular patients.

Many accept that prayer can aid in recovery, not due to divine influence but due to psychological and physical benefits. It has also been suggested that if a person knows that he or she is being prayed for it can be uplifting and increase morale, thus aiding recovery. (See Subject-expectancy effect.) Many studies have suggested that prayer can reduce physical stress, regardless of the god or gods a person prays to, and this may be true for many non-supernatural reasons. According to a study by Centra State Hospital, "the psychological benefits of prayer may help reduce stress and anxiety, promote a more positive outlook, and strengthen the will to live."[13] Other practices such as Yoga, T'ai chi, and Meditation may also have a positive impact on physical and psychological health.

Apart from whether prayer affects other beneficiaries, research has suggested that prayer has benefits on the person performing the prayer, e.g. in May 2011 a study was conducted that suggested a “significant specific indirect effect” between meditative prayer and hope, adult attachment, and forgiveness.[24] Research has also suggested that prayer has a direct relation to a sense of overall gratitude in life.[25] Prayer may also aid those dealing with alcoholism, e.g. a 2010 study suggested that there is a strong correlation between prayer and reduction of alcohol consumption. Those who actively pray during the week reported half as many consumed alcoholic drinks.[26]
An increasingly more researched area within psychology of religion has been the relational implications of prayer, e.g. a study in 2011 conducted by Lambert et al. stated that when compared to a control group that experienced positive interactions with their significant other those in the prayer condition reported much higher feelings of unity and trust toward their significant other.[27] Studies have also shown that there are increased feelings of marital enrichment through prayer.[28] A study conducted in 2010 has also shown a correlation between prayer within relationships and reduction of infidelity.[29] As with other areas of research about prayer, it is debated whether these effects are a result of the prayer or whether the effects are linked to a “placebo effect.”

These are quoted from the article entitled "Efficacy of Prayer."

Now you can argue that any benefit was caused by placebo effect. That is debatable (in another thread of course), but I'd say that you've overstated your claim.

[Keep The Reason]

Now you can argue that any benefit was caused by placebo effect. That is debatable (in another thread of course), but I'd say that you've overstated your claim.

"Useless" was a bad choice of words, as meditative prayer can be a calming influence and thus might serve a useful purpose.

Supplicate prayer to a god does not significantly change the outcome of the target of prayer that cannot be accounted for by simpler, rational, and purely naturalistic means.

Better?

[gary_s]

Not so fast. It depends upon the type of prayer, and how you define "useful" or "effective."

Just trying to keep it simple here, but I'm pretty sure he was referring to the lack of efficacy of prayer as a form of medical treatment. Edit: I failed to noticed your later comments about this. OK, so you can find "studies" that claim benefits of prayer healing, but as we should all know by now, no single study is definitive. And the consensus of scientific work does not conclude that prayer healing is effective. In fact, the majority (don't quote me please) of studies that do find effectiveness in prayer healing usually are found to be flawed in some way. Many of these are simply done as anomaly hunting expeditions and others are simply not done with any scientific scrutiny. My hoax example was an attempt to subtly mock these poorly done "studies".

[Moonwood the Hare]

Moonwood, I think you may just be reinforcing the chasm between you and Jim. Your examples do not describe how humans could determine the difference; they only highlight the fact that there could be real differences that we may or may not be able to discern.

I heard about a study recently that examined prayer-healing data and concluded not only that prayer can heal the sick, but that it can act retroactively, that the prayers actually travel backward in time. So, if a person is experiencing a sickness now, they may well survive because someone is praying for them in the future. Now here comes the funny part. This study was a hoax, but a lot of people bought it.

If Jim or Carl Sagan is making a methodological decision that only things can be empirically demonstrated can be known then that needs to be recognized for what it is. But those of us who advocate non-empricist epsitemologies are not going to agree. So the question is are there valid grounds for non-empirical truth claims.

With these studies of prayer the thing I find most astonishing is that sometimes they show positive results; a positive result would for me be far more of a challenge than a negative one because it would imply either that God was allowing us to perform experiments on him or that answered prayer is not the work of God.

[mitchellmckain]

With these studies of prayer the thing I find most astonishing is that sometimes they show positive results; a positive result would for me be far more of a challenge than a negative one because it would imply either that God was allowing us to perform experiments on him or that answered prayer is not the work of God.

I would not find it astonishing or challenging, but then I would have little doubt that answered prayer is not exclusively the work of God alone -- not that I would not view any such study with considerable skepticism.

[Moonwood the Hare]

With these studies of prayer the thing I find most astonishing is that sometimes they show positive results; a positive result would for me be far more of a challenge than a negative one because it would imply either that God was allowing us to perform experiments on him or that answered prayer is not the work of God.

I would not find it astonishing or challenging, but then I would have little doubt that answered prayer is not exclusively the work of God alone -- not that I would not view any such study with considerable skepticism.

Well, yes, but that adds to the puzzle because if there is a human contribution to prayer it would depend on people being in the right frame of mind and it would not be likely that you would be in the right frame of mind simply by knowing someone had selected people randomly off a list as part of a double blind test.