All the problems with Christianity

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Except the question here is whether scientific explanations are intrinsically methodologically naturalistic. Not everybody agrees that science is intrinsically methodologically naturalistic, and some argue it is only pragmatically methodologically naturalistic. An example of the latter is philosopher of science Maarten Boudry: https://sites.google.com/site/maartenbo ... naturalism , https://sites.google.com/site/maartenbo ... ects=0&d=1 . Those sources cited to give a view of where he stands and his arguments, and also as reading. An example of cases where science has gone into areas that only make sense to inquire if intrinsic methodological naturalism is rejected is where science has done studies on the efficacy of prayer. In prayer efficacy studies, all efforts are made to exclude naturalistic explanation by having random churches pray for random patients with a control group, but this makes no sense unless the scientists were inquiring on a supernatural cause and thus could accept supernatural explanations.

The issue that comes up is that many atheists are actually proponents of provisional methodological naturalism and NOT intrinsic methodological naturalism. That's why God is called "The God hypothesis" and other sorts of things in many situations. And this kind of viewpoint isn't excluded by a definition, it isn't incoherent, and so your dismissal through an appeal to definition doesn't work.


That's not exactly what I said. My point is that if you have a causal model for how the world works, we should expect a lot of similar kinds of things to what we'd expect from a scientific explanation.

Even further, the failure to get a good explanation isn't really a defense of non-physical things, but rather it's a reason to be skeptical of the legitimacy of that kind of explanation.

As for implied? No. I've already said that I don't have to agree that science is intrinsically methodologically naturalist, and I actually don't agree with that. If science is not intrinsically methodologically naturalistic, then no implication of the sort exists. The failure of science to make non-physical scientific theories is really a failure of design hypotheses to be plausible explanations, NOT something written off from the get-go.


I'm simply critical of the situation because to influence the workings of a brain requires some kind of intervention that impacts some set of neurons but not other parts of the body, and not other bodies. And the kind of influencer you're talking about doesn't even seem as if it impacts all of the neurons in the brain, or even has epistemic access to all of the neurons of the brain. So, my question is how does it work? What logical steps is it doing to cause certain outcomes?

My problem at the moment is that your influencer is vaguely defined. It's "that thing that does random crap", but we don't know what it's doing at all, or how it fits into various neuroscientific realities, and as far as anybody can tell it's an ad hoc addition that can only be defended because it is so undefined that it cannot even be refuted by any philosophical or scientific line of argumentation. I'm asking that it be fleshed out so that way we can actually meaningfully recognize how it interacts with human neurology so we can understand it. I can try to flesh it out for you by holding it to representing conscience will, but it's not fair for me, the opponent to describe your idea for the purpose of knocking it down. I can move that direction though, as any sort of metaphysical entity is going to run into some really questionable problems when we talk about the actual details of an actual working brain. And it's these kinds of problems that will tend to push people away from a metaphysical addition to the brain.

So, to speed things up, the split brain cases provide a very clear problem for metaphysical influencers:
1) If the influencers impact both hemispheres of the brain, then our influencer must be different than the phenomenal self. This conflicts with our sense of free will being a choice made by the phenomenal self.
2) If the influencer only impacts one side of the brain, then the other side not needing an influencer to function would be evidence that an influencer is an unnecessary hypothesis.
3) If both sides of the brain develop an influencer in response to a corpus collosum split, then we have a metaphysical reality with what appears to be a large set of ad hoc rules and intelligent responses far beyond any set of data explained by it or need for those rules, suggesting that we are making ad hoc explanations and multiplying entities beyond necessity when another explanation for our reality makes more senes.

I see that the conversation is delving deeper into philosophy than is common. There's value in it, but I hope that the outcome will be condensed arguments simple and concise enough to be readily understood by most religious people. These would also be more difficult to dismiss or ignore. They should specifically target the defences of the thought-systems which sustain religion in the mind of the infected individual. For example:

The claim that God etc are non-physical and therefore it's unreasonable to demand a scientific explanation, is a commonly used cop-out, which should be thoroughly exposed, but very concisely & simply. I think the psychology of religious belief should have greater emphasis, for example, "terror management theory". But it depends on what one's goals are: persuading, engaging, or strutting, in these discussions.

In reality
we are just
using different terms of expression
to describe
similar nirvana...
I think the biggest 'pitfall' is calling IT anything.
It just IS that IS ALL
'Names calling...labeling'...
leads to division more than anything..
I prefer to call it Light
that IS ALL.
LIGHT!
I'm convinced that a porpoise
likely experiences IT
greater than any human..
People for the most part
don't even hold language
sacred anymore...
It's everything...
emotion, sex, enlightenment,
exercise,empathy, and many experiences of life
that science has absolutely no way to measure..
my experiences tell me this with no reservation.
I never expect anyone to share my experiences.

REligion is culture...it's never separated from it and for the most part in the world we live in religion is the core of culture...making it a way of life of minute to minute in some cultures in rituals to attain expectations that religious text provides.
REalistically putting a chain on God
is like putting a collar and leash on a Dog;
it is a limitation imposed by a human
but it does not change the core of what a dog is.
Using the term God and various definitions to describe
IS another silly link for what IT really IS...
eye of the beholder that IS ALL..
ALL IS ALL aHA!

Are you guys tripping on LSD or something?

Well, I think Bitoku sought that out to some extent.


It's hard to expose if he's going to say that we should have a different expectation for a non-scientific idea in terms of the explanation. Even further, we're currently stuck on his view of free will and how it works.

Agreed. That's partly why I've been trying to keep my responses here simple and to the point. Another reason is that I just don't have enough time to be coming on here and reading essays each day, let alone writing them in response. Sometimes I just have to skip over the posts that are really long.


Personally I think the scientific evidence for non-physicalism can be seen as the holes in scientific understanding and the things that science can't explain.
Having said that, I realize that science is ever evolving, and that at least some of those holes are certainly a matter of just discovering them through future research and scientific method. But as of right now, there's definitely holes. Now a hard-line physicalist is usually arguing from a standpoint that all of the holes in science can be potentially filled by future scientific study. And maybe they're right, but it seems close-minded to not also consider the possibility that there may be some things that can never be answered through science.
I think this uncertainty is basically where this whole current debate comes from, and it's obviously not one that's not going to get solved today or anytime in the immediate future.

It's hard to call that evidence. The list of those things is ever-declining, and now largely exists in the margins of our understanding and often outside of the things we'd really care about having as non-physical.


Is it really closed-minded? All the hard-line physicalist has to do is to make an inductive argument or an appeal to ontological parsimony. After all, a physicalist doesn't have to argue that the universe must be physical so much as they have to argue that the physicality of the universe is more plausible than not.


I don't think there is much of a debate going on. Naturalism generally much more popular among philosophers than non-naturalism. It's at least a 2:1 ratio of naturalists to non-naturalists. http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl And theism is even worse at a 5:1 ratio of atheists to theists.

That's not to say that these ideas are beyond the pale, only that there is a clear direction a lot of people seem to lean on it. I mean, I don't see this as tending to be much of a debate, especially not one on the absolutely abstract level, as to argue for non-naturalism, I'd think we'd need some candidate non-physical thing or set, and that this would have some very powerful argument to overcome our prior inclinations towards parsimony and our induction that a scientific solution may be forthcoming.

I'm wondering, why do you find it interesting to talk about this topic if you don't see it as much of a debate?
I don't mean this as an attack on your arguments, I'm just genuinely curious (I have an interest and degree in psychology as well as philosophy... with my interest in psychology probably being the stronger of the two if I had to choose).
I don't really tend to engage in arguments that I think are already won one way or the other myself, so I'm just curious about your motivations here.

http://xkcd.com/386/

So, the issue isn't that I really find the topic interesting. I actually don't, and part of me wishes I had the sense not to talk about apologetics-y issues. However, I have an opinion and so I will tend to argue on the basis of it, and my opinion is based upon what I perceive as the best conclusion.

Also, I'm not sure why you cite your degrees. Sure, they represent some time and formal training, but undergrad educations generally don't make you an expert in a topic area.

The more I keep reading from Christian Hermeticism and Rosicrucianism/Anthroposophy the clearer a particular case seems to be getting made that most mainline Christians have a very limited sense of the theurgic power of the bible.

Right now I'm at a four day retreat with a friend, it related to a campus Christian organization (one of their world summits) and I'm noting the following - the overall mainline Christian outlook seem very much seem to 'get it' (at least the ones who stay) albeit overall it seems like one of those strange cases where a whole bunch of people have the right answer but it's a bit like that right answer was almost arrived at by accident. In a way they don't get what they 'get', or at least its an intuitive understanding but its portability somewhat suffers because the raw materials to make it an equally intellectual understanding just aren't in their scope of reading. In that case they're left being a bit like the natural jock who can just about play any sport and win state championships doesn't know how he/she does it and wouldn't make a particularly good coach, similarly Christians of this sort will try to evangelize - have all the best intentions of saving souls - but they don't know how to translate what works for them to people who are unlike themselves or who need a more factual and less raw-intuitive understanding in order to take to the bible.

So far two days at an international Christian retreat and I'm enjoying it a lot, great speakers and overall the territory that people are speaking on and the way they approach the bible seems quite insightful. It doesn't feel like my frame of reference is breaking from theirs at all, its a bit closer to saying that it feels like I've just got more of the nuts, bolts, and chassy of the system on my radar.

What do you think of the "terror management theory" perspective on religion as a buffer for coping with the knowledge of one's own impending death?

Different paths arriving at the same destination
is only evidence that there is an underlying science
behind all religion..

It's just plain damn common sense.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out;

a child can do it;

that's the problem...

the illusions of culture
and the closed in parameters of the extremely limited
parameters of science make the opening of the needle smaller
and smaller
as time goes by...

This is simply
not something people arrive at
by logical arguments alone...
IN fact it has been said
that there is a 10 percent chance
to get there with logic
and a 100% chance
to get there by Love...

Unfortunately most people don't understand
that love or have long since forgotten
since early childhood...
as there are tens of thousands of
cultural illusory distractions now...
In the course of a week.

Most people
are in effect
zombies...
Dead
IS real...
LIfe for
many
in effect
is lost...

ahahahahahahahahahahaha!

click on my blog below
and look at the pictures
and figure it out if you can...
if you will, that is...
hehehahahah

Ever been high on life?
it's kinda cool....

To be even a bit more generous, particularly after hearing more witnesses today and their quality, it seems like a lot of very strong Christians aren't legalist thinkers (ie. worrying about the dotted i's, j's, crossed t's, etc.) and are much more concerned with the edification of the true vine (ie. Christ) and living the word first to inspire and speaking when people ask rather than being door to door theology salespeople like the Jahova's Witnessess would do.

Really it seems like all prayer is theurgy, most Christians not having read the neoplatonist classics (at least in recent eras) wouldn't think of it that way but it does seem like there's a very fine line between religious service and what was called divine magic or white magic.

That book I'm reading had another curious note. Eliphas Levi (author of the goat-head pentagram as well as a lot of deep research on the Tarot, Kabbalah, etc.) claimed that the most powerful magic order which had stamped out all others at the time was the Catholic Priesthood and that for a mage or sorcerer to even be relevant or stand a chance of being relevant he'd have to be able to offer the papacy a run for it's money in terms of theurgic power. That's a fascinating statement coming from one of the most well known occult adepts in modern times.

Very interesting...my Grandfather was A Catholic Priest that rebelled against the Vatican...speculation by my mother that my life was cursed for that....

I am not easily influenced by things like that.

Coming here to post this of what may be my last post here...I'm not sure about that...nice to see your face last on this thread...as you have a most open mind I see here yet...along with a few others about everything about GodETC.

I call this 418 For INfinity Now. It IS about True love True Will and yes that one that some people call God Allah or whatever...

What I find is the most important THAT beyond faith or hope is simply believing in me.

aND for some people to experience true love IT only two words or less...IT took me over 5 millions just to gain that part that was lost...every sacred number, Letter and word is worth IT because true love is life...and no not just the emotional kind...

http://katiemiaaghogday.blogspot.com/2013/08/418.html