RC:

i agree with nothing this time God is Alien, thus your syllogism P2 can be replaced with Alien. Once again, I do not defend dogma here, only suggest that Alien cause has the same logical formula as God cause. That's it. You read it from the framework of proof. .. Again, I offer no proof of God. Just as others offer no proof of Alien. Yet in your "world," Alien is ok to talk about.

You didn't point out the false analogies, you just said they were. Still waiting.

I didn't address superior forms of faith, you did. I was speaking to ground within the debate. How a proposition of fact becomes a proposition of value or policy. The begging the question position is grounded in A is true, therefore B is true. Evolution is true, therefore we must change our minds about creationism. The warrant needs to be articulated or we beg the question. . . "truth" and "belief" again. . .no answer.

Your repeated diatribe about the core of science and knowledge is fine and dandy. Yet you still don't speak to its value. You assume (without warrant) it has value. Your only support is the next part about the failures of religion and its internal deficiencies. . . earlier you spoke to negative evidence. . . hmmmm.

The idea that religion holds unique possession of intolerance is problematic as you stroll through herstory. Some would suggest that intolerance/racism etc. is grounded in sexism, gender inequality, or even anthropocentricism (view of nature). They would suggest that religion is just the result of these intolerant ideologies.

On the price of admission. . .Answer the Malthusian argument once again. . . your "peace" position comes with a price as well. .

Your last part makes no sense. I have said repeatedly, I do not defend God. . I only suppose we are all silly.

Finally, why does our communication have to be rational? If we all become rational, we all become peaceful? How doe we get there? Malthus again, or at the least, become Philosopher Kings?

Do I have a target on my head?

Calladus:

I pretty much agree with all of your last post. My argument is that science holds no inherent value. However, Peter and RC seem to suggest it does, that somehow once we "get it" all the bad stuff goes away. I'm sure you would suggest it's the "best" and that's why I'm here

Peasant Farmer upon listening to Jesus up on the mount: "What did he say?"
Pharisee: "I think he said Blessed are the cheese makers."

Calladus --

That was highly clarifying, and there are a lot interesting things to discuss about this as a new topic. I suggest we move it to another thread. (it has little to do with the Cosmological Argument)

I can see an interesting debate on the application of science vs the application of religion, and what beneficial and non-beneficial results arise from each.

You are playing at bait-and-switch games. When you first entered this discussion, your argument was a challenge to the epistemological validity of science. I pointed that out in my first comment in this discussion and you appear to have affirmed my understanding. But now you are arguing that the uses of science are problematic. That problem is distinct from the epistemological problem, and I hinted at that in my previous comment, when I kept saying that you were talking about politics rather than science.

If you want to talk about the epistemological weaknesses of science, and whether the knowledge we gain through methodological naturalism should be considered true, factual information about a real world, or whether it should be looked upon as nothing more than social construction, which we can discard or ignore at our pleasure, then we can talk about that. (You do talk about it a little with your reference to Toulmin.) That is a fascinating philosophical issue and it deserves its own thread.

And if you want to talk about how the information gleaned by the scientific method has been hijacked, distorted, and otherwise used and abused by people in the service of political ideology, power struggles, and so on, regardless of whether that information falls into either of the two categories I articulated in the previous paragraph, then we can do that, too. And that probably deserves its own thread, too.

But either way, you really need to choose which route you're going to take in this discussion. The others may be satisfied in leaving that question open, but I am not. I would be interested in discussing either or both of those problems, but I want to know the point you are trying to make here, in this discussion, in this context.

And I'll tell you something else: It's one thing that your writing within particular comments is vague and slippery. I can almost overlook that as a product of your apparently genuine (and perhaps even admirable) desire to achieve profound insights that escape articulation. But when you pull a bait and switch across multiple comments, it starts to look a lot less like you are a brilliant mystic (as you appear to want us to think) and a lot more like you are just a careless and sloppy thinker. I'm not saying you don't have the ability; I'm just saying that if you do, it's not coming through.



The only thing I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around is what exactly you are trying to say. See above for how you can fix that problem in this discussion.



This is a problem of epistemology, not unique to science. You could substitute "Information from your own senses" for science and problem would still be there. Observe:

Claim: Information from your own senses must be applied or believed.
Grounds: Information from your own senses is "true" or "valid."
Warrant: Because something is true or valid, it must be believed or applied.

The problem, as Descartes noticed about four hundred years ago, is that we have trouble demonstrating that information from our senses is true. And science is a method devised specifically to try and guard against that problem, by making repeated observations, recording the information derived, collating it, drawing conclusions, making predictions, testing them, recording the observations from those tests, and so on. There are perfectly decent philosophical arguments for why science cannot overcome the barrier presented by doubts about whether our own senses are "telling the truth," but the practical problem with those arguments is that we nevertheless appear to be conversing, observing and talking about things in the world that others can also observe, and so on. Philosophers have been back and forth about this problem since Descartes: Do we start with cognition, doubt our senses, and try to work our way from our own minds into the outside world? Or do we start with the outside world and try to figure out how any information can possibly get into our minds through those doubtful senses?

Nevertheless, as interesting as all that surely is, I am still trying to figure out exactly what you are arguing here about the "Cosmological Argument." So I will leave aside further philosophical discussion until you clarify your meaning.



Your question is vague as written. Assuming I even know what you mean by "a logical/positivist paradigm" here, are you asking me to compare law and religion from that paradigm, or are you saying that your "allegiance to God" falls within that paradigm, which information would be to assist me in formulating the comparison you have asked for?

But I am not sure what you mean by "a logical/postivist paradigm" here, and I am altogether unsure of whether you are using that term, or what you mean by that term, as a way to tie my hands and force me to reach the conclusion want me to reach.

At any rate, I will try to address your question quickly and simply, as I have other, employment-related things that I need to do:

The rule of law is a practical method for ordering and organizing society, and keeping tensions simmering instead of boiling over. It has many faults, including the fact that much of it appears to be just made up from thin air, but it also has the benefit of being constantly tested, not in a "scientific" manner, but in a political manner: Are we achieving our goals? Moreover, while legal concepts often seem to have been drawn from thin air, they are also not referents of real or even allegedly real things. Everyone knows that they are entirely abstract, especially lawyers, which probably contributes to us being some of the most cynical people alive.

Religion, on the other hand, while I would argue that it historically began as primarily a practical method for ordering and organizing society, is not viewed as such by its adherents, who see it rather as a means of providing meaning through narrative or providing access to the divine. Religion has enormous faults, but they include a problem that does not occur with law: While it, too, is built from lots of made-up stuff, its imaginary concepts are alleged to correspond with something "real"--the supernatural, which cannot be observed or tested in any meaningful way, political or scientific.

To me, the rule of law is a tool. Citizens "buy in" by agreeing, tacitly or explicitly, to abide by the law, and they obtain certain benefits because of it. My profession, as a lawyer, is to help people navigate the more complex aspects of the law when they find themselves embroiled in legal conflicts. I have no "allegiance" to the rule of law. If it were to stop working, or become unnecessary (as so many lawyers devoutly wish!), I would gladly abandon it and do something else with my life.

The "allegiance" of religious practitioners, however, does not reveal (as I have observed) a view that religion is a tool. While there is a "buy in" element, as with law, and "benefits" to people who do "buy in," there seems to be general agreement among most religious people that not only do they have no plans to abandon religion if it stops "working," but they seem to agree also that it is not even possible for religion to stop working. That gives their "allegiance" a strange character; it is rather like saying, "I am going to stand by my best friend, even if he is accused of committing a crime, even if no crime has been committed, even if my friend does not exist!" Which is, in my opinion, approaching something like insanity.

Finally, the rule of law does not shape my entire view of the cosmos. Most lawyers will tell you, to the contrary, that the rule of law is quite malleable, and we, as a society, bend it frequently to fit our preexisting view of the cosmos (or at least our view of how people in the cosmos ought to behave). Religion, on the other hand, is an important factor in shaping its practitioners' view of the cosmos. I know because I used to be religious. While skeptics still argue, and I am one of them, that practitioners are shaping their religion to match their view of the cosmos, I still think there is a kind of feedback loop between the two factors that is not present for people who "believe in," follow, support, or hold "allegiance" to the rule of law.

Peter:

I need to get ready for Church I will get to the Law/Religion stuff later. But I will admit that I have jumbled and jumped threads, it's a patience thing. And on any field of existence (natural or supernatural) I will never suggest I am smart. Merely a blue collar guy trying to hang with the big boys.

My original intent was to argue that science, by nature, is bound to human application. Then, I critiqued the application.

Have a good evening all.

I agree with Peter, who justifies his position by asserting:



We can test this by noting that as the interactions between social groups changes, so does the law: in a modern industrialized culture, we have many laws dealing with interactions between various groups (countries/states, businesses/consumers, etc). If we separate people, we have fewer and fewer laws as the others are no longer relevant. In extreme isolation, we may only have family laws (to govern a family structure) or at the completely isolated individual level, whatever personal ethics that person finds relevant.

Allegiance to the law, in other words, is always established by the context.

But allegiance to God, in theory, applies regardless of the populations involved. A man standing in a crowd in Paris as the same obligations and duty to his God as an astronaut alone on Mars. This makes allegiance to God dogmatic and immutable, not at all like allegiance to the Rule of Law.

You could also argue that the principle of allegiance to God and allegiance to the Rule of Law are the same, but I disagree.

When laws arise from allegiances to God (Sharia Law for example, or the Inquisition), one can easily show they are not the same kind of laws as Peter is talking about at all. They are absolute laws, that do not take into account context. Unlike regular laws, they are not meant to "order and organize" society as a whole, but to serve as a way to maintain the authority of those making the laws. This authority, since it cannot be derived from those governed, are said to derived from God.

These laws then are another form of an allegiance to God. Since the basis for allegiance to these laws is very different than the basis for allegiance to the Rule of Law, they differ in principle.

Based on these points then, I do not buy the claim that "allegiance to God" and "allegiance to the Rule of Law" are the same.

The bait and switch goes a little far. I'm not sure how a discussion of Logical Fallacies and the Cosmo Argument are mutually exclusive. The original post(s) include syllogisms (of which I didn't present). While I understand your criticism, I have made the effort to restate and present my positions. However, my having to do so, to escape the "ability" rebuttal, only feeds the exclusionary nature of your framework (yes framework). I can only summarize most of your responses as being the "double dog" straw man. As you have demonstrated once you "understand" my position, it now belongs somewhere else.

More law stuff: If we share the same premise, that religion and the law or social constructions. Why does the properties of those constructions allow you to freely choose one over the other? By your lesson, it's grounded in social evolution and survival absent the appeal to a higher authority. Malthusian philosophy must be, under that premise, our answer to ecological and environmental problems. This is at the crux of my indict to the allegiance to rational/logical thought, and still unanswered.

"Malthusian philosophy must be, under that premise, our answer to ecological and environmental problems"

I must ask at this point, since you have mentioned the philosophy of Mr. Malthus several times: What is your point? What premise are you talking about?

We cannot read minds here!

Nobody said they were. (But for the purposes of this forum, they are two separate discussions in two separate threads.) Seeing as how this sentence came after your reference to my bait-and-switch remark, it appears as though you are confused about what I said you had baited and switched. The problem is that, in this discussion of the "Cosmological Argument," you started off by talking about the epistemological weakness of science, but then ended up talking about the misuses of scientific knowledge after it had been obtained, which are two very different things.



I have no idea what you are talking about. You still have not told me what you think my "framework" is, but now you are telling me that it has an "exclusionary nature," which is just as vague.



Who is talking about "choos[ing] one over the other"? If we are still talking about religion and law--and with you, I never know--then you are forcing a false dichotomy. The vast majority of people here in the United States practice religion and abide by and believe in the rule of law, so they stand as examples that no "choice" need be made.

And if we are talking about your "indict to the allegiance to rational/logical thought" versus religion, then I have no idea why we were talking about law (and, in the other thread, about capitalism), because mere "rational/logical thought" is a whole other problem--one that I would argue is far below the level of "social construction." Moreover, I would also point out that there is also no reason that one would have to choose between religion and "rational/logical thought." There is a lot of rational and logical thought that goes into religion. Logic and reason are just tools for organizing and manipulating data, which may or may not be accurate. Religious people do lots of organizing and manipulating of data; we the irreligious simply claim that their data is faulty because they have failed to apply demonstrably effective methods for assessing the accuracy of information.

In the context of this discussion, about the "Cosmological Argument," as best I can sum up the situation so far, goes like this:

You have argued, essentially, that science does not disprove God, which I doubt anyone here would contest. This is yet another in a growing list of axioms, truisms, and wholly unremarkable statements that you have dressed up in obscure, pseudo-academic babble.

You have also thrown in some bizarre ideas about "academic apartheid," which mostly just had the effect of confusing the issues and getting everybody riled up.

So what is your point? I have to agree: we are not mind readers.

On a side note:

Plotinus said:



Why on earth would you say this but as an attempt to escape the myriad comments you've already made? You've written pages and pages of confident and assertive comments and then when called on it to clarify their confusing nature, you say this? There's nothing more frustrating to me than someone who will front an academic sounding facade and then retreat to the "I'm a regular guy" position. If you're just a regular guy, be real from the get go.

Straightforward ideas will get you further than using terms without defining them in the hopes that people will just accept your unstated definitions.