So basically, what you're saying is that without accepting the existence of God, we have no reason to explain WHY we can think; correct? That is the core point of your argument for God's existence?
Is there something wrong with taking WHY's as inherently unanswerable questions? Even a person cannot distil all the reasons for which they do something, so how could one hope to explain the WHY for other things.
And say for instance, that I take your argument for the existence of a supreme being as correct; how then does that necessarily lead me to Christianity? There are any number of other theistic faiths that explain the questions as well as Christ.
Take Sacred's post for example, none of the argument I have read thus far explains how this could be taken as an illogical standpoint. I can see how blind atheism is completely useless, but I don't see how you can explain why I should chose a Christian God over any other, or indeed why I couldn't just embrace some religion that I hear one day on the street.

Finally, I just remembered this and I felt like I had to post it:
JESUS PROMISED THE END OF ALL WICKED PEOPLE
ODIN PROMISED THE END OF ALL ICE GIANTS
I DON'T SEE MANY ICE GIANTS AROUND
-Sorry for caps, but the copy-paste was already in that format and I'm late for next class.

Semck:

This conversation isn't making any sense any more... you are way out there bro.

http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/people/hopwood/haeckel.pdf
http://home.uchicago.edu/~rjr6/articles/Haeckel--fraud%20not%20proven.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12475051

Haeckel has been accused of "fraud" by the religious right since he was alive. The charges never stuck. Because they were seen then for what they are, a politically motivated and hypocritical hatchet job. Whereas Haeckel's opponents like His are absolved when they "exaggerate the similarities in embryos", but His wasn't accused of fraud in 1997 by a creationist Moonie attack dog.

What is all this fuss really about? Is it true that human, dog and chimp embryos are very similar, much more similar than their adult forms? Absolutely yes. None of this nonsense does anything to undermine the embryological case for evolution whatsoever. In fact if anything had Haeckel more faithfully done these drawings the evidence from embryology would be even greater. Did Haeckel write later editions of these drawings which more clearly indicated differences in the embryos? Yes. But the critics only focus on the 1st edition drawings from Anthropogenie, namely because the textbooks only used the 1st edition drawings, which came from the English translation of his work. Haeckel was using these drawings for lectures to lay audience, so they were schematics, and schematics were very commonly used during his time. Descent of Man also had schematics, but I'm sure Fulham and his hatchetmen creationists will have no problem accusing Darwin of "fraud". The people who charged him from "fraud" exaggerate the differences in the embryos by keeping the yolk sac, which is not part of the embryo and which Haeckel removed and quite clearly said he removed.

I like how you ignore the fact that this essay is an anti-slavery essay, and that Huxley was very much anti-slavery. And I'd very much say that yes, compared to the men of his day, including your churchmen friends, he was progressive.

""Clearly the high scientific authority of Professor Huxley is against the favourite notion of the partisans of slavery that there are signs about the negro that he has a place of his own in nature inferior to that of the normal man, and against the desired inference that he may fairly have a treatment corresponding to that place, and be excluded from rights and franchises that are agreed upon amongst men. Professor Huxley might have stopped here–for it was not necessary for him to say, as a man of science, what be might consider these rights and franchises to be. He might have vindicated the title of the Negro physiologically to whatever treatment is proper for human beings as such, and yet he might have believed in the necessity and expediency of slavery within that common society of human beings in which he had declared the Negro to be included. But be steps beyond the circle of the physiologist, and speaks strongly and generously his faith as a man. He believes in the doctrine of freedom, or equal personal rights for all men, and he pronounces the system of slavery to be root and branch an abomination–thus making his physiological definition of the ‘Negro‘s place among men equivalent to an earnest plea for Negro emancipation. Nay, as will have been noted, be goes farther, and, in [14] virtue of the strength of his feeling with respect to slavery, avows a state of opinion regarding the American War in which many who share his feeling with respect to slavery will refuse to go along with him."

http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/comm/Books/Taylor.html

Should we dig up what Anglican churchmen thought of slavery, or the fact that the Anglican church itself actively had slaves? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1510048/Church-offers-apology-for-its-role-in-slavery.html

Or maybe we should trot out quotes from what anti-slavery leaders like Frederick Douglass thought of the role of churches in this struggle?

"But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines, who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity."

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/douglassjuly4.html

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/douglassjuly4.html

What a powerful reference you provide Putin, thank you so very much -

One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American church towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by the churches in Eng land towards a similar movement in that country. There, the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, elevating and improving the condition of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of the West Indian slave, and re stored him to his liberty. There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. It was demanded in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, the Burchells, and the Knibbs were alike famous for their piety and for their philanthropy. The anti-slavery movement there was not an anti-church movement, for the reason that the church took its full share in prosecuting that movement: and the anti-slavery movement in this country will cease to be an anti-church movement, when the church of this country shall assume a favorable instead of a hostile position towards that movement.

Doid you read it all my friend? Or did you maybe get your extract from here?
http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=11&article=560

Putin be careful when you send that thesis in, this little gem took me all of 5 minutes to uncover!

Did you actually read that racist diatribe from Huxley? You will note that I posted it in its ENTIRITY.

Haekel's great lie, which he was determined to ram it down everyone's throats, was that human embryos show a progressive record of evolutionary history. Because, for example, he held that humans are descended from fish he found it necassary to ''illustrate'' a gill in the developing human embryo's neck. It was a desperate act designed to support his ideas rather than the honest and accurate reporting of data - this is scientific fraud in anyone's language.
Here is a reader friendly review from the terrble creationist rag Science! :-)
http://www.ichthus.info/Evolution/DOCS/Richardson2.pdf
Science 5 September 1997:Vol. 277 no. 5331 p. 1435

Written by that well known creationist nut job - Michael Richardson, Embryologist at St. George's Hospital Medical School :-)

Now has anyone the remotist idea why these drawings have been reproduced for over a century in school biology textbooks?

why was this thread started?

out of respect to the OP I will state that I am an agnostic in that I do not believe one can know whether or not God exists in any form. All current religions as well as atheism in my belief are possible, but none can be/have been proven so I withhold judgment on all of them and in the mean time live as rightly as I know how.

Douglass can be forgiven for not realizing that the fraud Wilburforce was a vehement racist and misogynist who thought slaves should be whipped at night and put on the breaks on the abolition movement in England. He's more knowledgeable about his own country.

The Richardson article was addressed in the articles I referenced above, specifically the point about Richardson's article keeping the yolk sac and then jumping up and down saying the drawings were faked. But of course you didn't bother to read anything I sent you, and you still insist the anti-slavery Huxley was more racist than your churchgoing friends.

Putin I have not been involved in your convo but can you summarize how Wilburforce was a racist? I have not heard this and know that here in Senegal he is an appreciated figure.

". Richardson has even argued—implausibly, given the inevitable theoryladenness of so much drawing—that tendentious copying proves intent to deceive: Michael K. Richardson and
Gerhard Keuck, “A Question of Intent: When Is a ‘Schematic’ Illustration a Fraud?” Nature, 2001, 410:144.
This certainly cannot be shown by comparison with figures produced over thirty years after the event."

Since you seem incapable of reading anything but your smears.

"
Science based its report on an article by Richardson et al. (1997) in Anatomy and
Embryology. They argued that vertebrates did not go through an early
Fig. 1 Illustration from Elizabeth Pennisi, ‘‘Haeckel’s Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered,’’ Science, 1997
1
Though Richardson never retracted this judgment, he seems to have moderated his view in a subsequent
article (see Richardson and Keuck 2003). The authors write: ‘‘Haeckel’s much criticized embryo
drawings are important as phylogenetic hypotheses, teaching aids, and evidence for evolution. While
some criticisms of the drawings are legitimate, other are more tendentious’’ (p. 495).
148 R. J. Richards
123embryological stage (the so called ‘‘phylotypic stage’’) in which different species
were morphologically quite similar, although this had been the conviction of many
embryologists of the past and the present. They maintained that not only did
Haeckel’s images misrepresent the actual state of embryos but so did those of
Wilhelm His, perhaps the most famous embryologist of his day and Haeckel’s bitter
enemy. His, they contended, also exaggerated the similarities of embryos and
ignored their differences. The main point of the article by Richardson and his
colleagues, however, was to show that embryologists in the late twentieth century
did little better. ***The authors, though, accused no one of fraud***. That charge was
made in the Science article, and then only against Haeckel. Parity of reasoning
should logically have required another conclusion: if the indictment of fraud should
be made against Haeckel because of too-similar images, then it ought to be brought
also against His and the many modern embryologists whom Richardson and his
colleagues cited, since they, too, supposed a phylotypic stage in embryogenesis
(Richardson et al. cite the following modern embryologists as believing in a
phylotypic stage in which vertebrate embryos very closely resemble one another:
Butler and Juurlink 1987; Wolpert 1991; Slack et al. 1993; Alberts et al. 1994;
Collins 1995). Actually, these recent embryologists ought to have been judged more
culpable, given the increase of knowledge, standards, and instrumentation during
the last 125 year"

" ***The authors, though, accused no one of fraud***. That charge was
made in the Science article, and then only against Haeckel."

Did you notice this line?

Wilburforce publicly supported the decision by the Pitt government to send troops to Haiti to crush an anti-slavery rebellion. The Haiti revolution was used as an excuse for withdrawing the anti-slavery bill in the 1790s which had already been approved by parliament. He opposed efforts to immediately abolish the slave trade and kept putting the breaks on the movement by insisting on a "gradual" approach (indeed, the 'Anti-Slavery Society's real name was the "The Society for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery" and was formed when the movement for abolition was reaching a fever pitch). The people who pushed for immediate abolition were largely led by women, and of course Wilberforce couldn't countenance women being involved in politics. Wilberforce also established a slave colony in Sierra Leone, euphemistically called an "apprenticeship program". People there were bought and sold and worked for no money.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/aug/03/wilberforce-slavery-sierra-leone

Wilberforce even went so far as to fire the governor of Sierra Leone for threatening to expose Wilberforce's slavery scheme.

It's easy to get confused because Wilberforce and his cronies established organizations with progressive sounding names like the "Abolition Society", but then when you dig deeper you see that they openly state that their mission is not to abolish slavery!

http://thesojournerproject.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/william-wilberforce-abolitionist-or-opportunist/

Mr. Wilberforce also couldn't stomach the thought of eating at the same table as Africans or Asians, putting up screens and segregating them from his white guests.

http://books.google.com/books?id=J8rVeu2go8IC&pg=PA211&lpg=PA211&dq=Fryer+1984+wilberforce&source=bl&ots=MsU619VIBZ&sig=0p6-gvmkH3dtpvp6g6ZlkJPbNNs&hl=en&ei=QGhmTrqdH-yjsQKvuaG9Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=screen&f=false

Oh and there's that gem about Wilberforce advocating the whipping of slaves, but only at night you see, after a day's work. You don't want to interfere with their productivity.

http://books.google.com/books?id=EXlYZdsdFGgC&q=whip#v=snippet&q=whip%20wilberforce%20night&f=false

And this doesn't even begin to touch on Wilberforce's extreme reactionary views on working people in general. He once said that the "progressive rise of wages was an evil sufficient to ruin the commercial greatness of our country".

@Mafialligator: "Then I guess what I'm saying is that presented with this argument I remain unconvinced that God, particularly as described by any of the world's major religions is the ONLY available explanation or solution to your dilemma. It just happens to be a solution."

Well, I think the problem here is, you haven't actually identified any other solutions. Solutions in the abstract, or possibly existent solutions, are of no use to you. It's not like you can say, "My worldview is incoherent, but somewhere out there there might exist a worldview that's not, so that's fine." You can only say that if you don't really believe your worldview in the first place. If you do, you have to take seriously its implications, and (thus) stop taking induction seriously.

So, get to work actually finding one of these other world views, and then I'll try to argue that it doesn't really serve your purpose. (Christianity, of course, does make the claim that the Christian God is the only possible basis for knowledge: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge," and a score of similar passages).

"I suppose my position on the matter is similar then to Hume's. We don't know that any form of reasoning is in any way valid, but for practical purposes I will continue to use it because it seems to work."

Well, we've already seen that "it seems to work" is actually no evidence at all for its continuing to do so. What you (and Hume) are doing is actually just ignoring the consequences of your own world view -- treating it as though it were false.

In fact, what you're doing is borrowing from mine. In fact, I would suggest that you are relying, on some level, on an inborn knowledge that God will indeed continue to sustain the world, so you can count on that assumption even though your worldview implies otherwise.

"But for my day to day purposes I'll consider myself a de facto atheist, because it just won't get you anywhere to constantly be prepared for a fundamentally disordered universe at any point."

As I said above, this already begs the question. If we're going to assume very specific improbable universes (such as the ordered one), why not assume different ones, like the 747 to Monaco? That one will certainly get me somewhere if it's true. Only if you are already assuming induction does this argument for induction make sense.

Put another way: you say "it just doesn't get you anything to be prepared for a disordered universe at any moment." I would say, it just doesn't get you anything to be prepared for an ordered universe at each moment, either -- unless it's going to be ordered.

Thank you once more for the response.

@Warren: Thank you for the response as well.

"So basically, what you're saying is that without accepting the existence of God, we have no reason to explain WHY we can think; correct?"

Yes, but one crucial additional point which (unfortunately) invalidates your attempted rebuttal: I'm also saying that without accepting the existence of God, we have no reason to expect THAT we can think (correctly). (Or that there's anything correct to think).

"Is there something wrong with taking WHY's as inherently unanswerable questions?"

Perhaps not (some of them certainly will always be!), but there is a big problem with taking certain THATs for granted. If your worldview suggests that reasoning is futile -- and I'm suggesting that the atheist world view, if really taken seriously, and robbed of any secret theist preconceptions, does -- then there is no point continuing to reason.

"And say for instance, that I take your argument for the existence of a supreme being as correct; how then does that necessarily lead me to Christianity? There are any number of other theistic faiths that explain the questions as well as Christ."

With this I would disagree, although some may come closer than atheism. Naturally, depending on the specific faith you were referring to, my specific answer would probably change. We could continue with that discussion, but hey, at least deciding that atheism was incoherent would be a big start, right?

"Take Sacred's post for example, none of the argument I have read thus far explains how this could be taken as an illogical standpoint."

Well, I won't pretend to be an expert on Wicca, so I'd want to get him involved in the discussion if we were going there. But I would think that viewing nature or the biosphere as God might well lead to a lot of these same problems. Nature has never revealed to me its nature (if you will) or plans. This could be a completely whimsical God, and I'd be straight off to the problem of induction again.

It's crucial that the God of the Bible has promised order, see, and has made it clear that He made us to know Him and the world.

"or indeed why I couldn't just embrace some religion that I hear one day on the street."

Well, you'd just have to figure out if that religion actually grounded knowledge. Christianity says it wouldn't.

"JESUS PROMISED THE END OF ALL WICKED PEOPLE
ODIN PROMISED THE END OF ALL ICE GIANTS
I DON'T SEE MANY ICE GIANTS AROUND"

lol, nice. Of course, Jesus didn't promise anything like that in the immediate future, but I'll admit it's funny.

@yellowjacket: Sorry to hear you've checked out. I admit it's a little philosophical, but I think these are important questions to ask. Your very assumption that this is crazy, I would argue, is utilizing premises that your worldview cannot support. Why is your mind a good judge of crazy? What could account for that?

Regards.

Sorry, Warden not Warren.

@ semck - There are an infinite number of possibilities as to why we live in an ordered universe, and it would be impossible to conceive of every single one. Your proposal that I attempt to run through every conceivable explanation and let you prove how it doesn't work as well as a Christian God is an exercise in futility. We'll never get through an exhaustive list, and even if somehow we did manage to get through every possibility that I am capable of conceiving of, we'd still never be able to get through any of the possibilities that are beyond the scope of what humans can conceive of. Your argument that you know the Christian God is necessarily the only being that could possibly be sustaining the universe, because the Bible says he is, and hey "Presto, the universe is sustained!" is frankly begging the question. I'm not relying on some kind of inborn faith, I'm relying on the fact that I have been socially conditioned to expect the universe to remain fundamentally ordered, and I don't appreciate you telling me that I secretly believe in a god who I most definitely don't believe in. I'd appreciate it if you refrained from putting words in my mouth and beliefs in my head in future. And at any rate, were the universe to become fundamentally disordered at any moment, I would be completely unable to predict what the result would be. In fact the only contingency in which I will be able to make predictions about how anything behave is in the contingency that the universe remains fundamentally ordered, so I may as well keep at it, even if that may be proven wrong at any moment. At any rate, the implications of a fundamentally disordered universe for my ability to continue existing (or anyone else for that matter) would be so catastrophic that, let alone my ability to justifiably use inductive reasoning.

The fact of the matter is aside from the fact that the universe has, up till this point, remained fundamentally ordered, does not prove the existence of a Christian God. Just to give you an example, what if the universe is being sustained instead by a more Islamic Allah like figure? Or by some Hindu god? Or by some sort of extra dimensional being which is completely unconcerned with human affairs, you can't show that any of these is less likely to be the case than your particular god, can you? And that's only a very very small handful of peculiarly human possibilities, biased by the fact that humans have evolved to spend rather a lot of brain power developing a "Theory of Mind" and therefore have a tendency to impose a particular kind of human-like intentionality in situations where it may not be applicable at all.

Ok, so from a totally logical point of view, is it easier to believe the theory that the universe just created itself (from nothing), or is it easier to believe that God, someone from outside the system, created it? With no emotional baggage please.

It's easier to believe that the Universe created itself. It doesn't require me to believe in stuff existing beyond and outside everything that exists. You see what would be problematic in believing that I'm sure.

God created evolution

''Douglass can be forgiven for not realizing that the fraud Wilburforce was a vehement racist and misogynist who thought slaves should be whipped at night and put on the breaks on the abolition movement in England. He's more knowledgeable about his own country. ''

So you charge yourself with the responsability of selectively quoting from him? Cherry picking the bit which suits your argument and leaving the rest out? My word this is some kind of methodology. Advice to anyone who bothers to read what Putin writes - check his references with care.

Of course, on Douglas, I was saving the best to last.......the man was undoubtedly a believer. Here is how he ends -

God speed the year of jubilee
The wide world o'er!
When from their galling chains set free,
Th' oppress'd shall vilely bend the knee,

And wear the yoke of tyranny
Like brutes no more.
That year will come, and freedom's reign.
To man his plundered rights again
Restore.

God speed the day when human blood
Shall cease to flow!
In every clime be understood,
The claims of human brotherhood,
And each return for evil, good,
Not blow for blow;

That day will come all feuds to end,
And change into a faithful friend
Each foe.

That doesn't read like a plea for atheism, still less an attack on God to me. No doubt many churchmen of his day agreed with him too, especially when he quotes Isaiah -

Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons, and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea' when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/kjv/isa001.htm

@ Mafia-- So... everything sprang from nothing, with no inputs?? That totally contradicts science, doesn't it?

@ Mujus - Everything did not necessarily spring from nothing. And even if it did that does not necessarily contradict science. At least, no more so than God springing from nothing.

When was there ever nothing?

@ Mujus. I anticipate the answer to your question coming in left field from QM. Strange isn't it how in one breath people can deny the application of QM to the macro world (ref the free will debate we had earlier) and in the next martial it to explain the origin of the universe? Nothing more than a case of Dennet's ''greedy reductionalism'' I say.

I strongly believe in the non-existence of any form of spiritual deity. But I can't really prove it so I respect others who don't.

"Advice to anyone who bothers to read what Putin writes - check his references with care."

You're a slimy, nasty little man, aren't you? For all your smarmy preening about how you're morally superior when it comes to the tenor of debates, there's no level of personal attack you won't sink to. This is at least the third time you've made veiled threats against my professional career, and all in the name of winning an e-debate. I put my research skills against the likes of you and your well paid Discovery Institute friends any day of the week. But nice deflection away from the fact that your British churchmen heroes were frauds and slavers themselves. Notice the righteous indignation fizzles away whenever it comes to people you've been propping up on a pedestal. I'm glad you never ever hold your religious huckster friends to the same standards as you hold evolutionists, either in terms of scholarship or in terms of their positions on the great moral issues of the day. Fucking opportunist.

I don't know why you love Douglass so much since it belies your previous strong support for the Confederacy and your past defamatory statements against Lincoln and the abolitionist movement in the US. But if the best you got is that Douglass himself wasn't an atheist, that's truly pathetic.

"I wonder if we have might ask contemporary Black people how they feel about Putin's ''brilliant scientist?'' "

Rich coming from a contrarian opportunist who defends the Confederacy and slanders the people who buried that Slave Empire.

@Mujus

"Ok, so from a totally logical point of view, is it easier to believe the theory that the universe just created itself (from nothing), or is it easier to believe that God, someone from outside the system, created it? With no emotional baggage please."

It doesn't matter which is easier. What matters is what there is evidence for. I'll freely admit that I'm not too well read on how the universe began, so I'm content to say I don't know if it was a god or something else. I don't intent to learn everything before I die. However, saying that we don't know how something happened is a piss-poor reason to believe in a god.

Also @ semck - It occurs to me that really you're just using a specific version of the Trancendental argument for the existence of God, for which there exist several rebuttals.

Point 1) The Hume-esque Skepticism of Induction is not universally held to be valid in philosophical circles. There are a number of philosophical responses which apparently make the Problem of Induction a nonsense, though I admit that I don't actually understand them. So lets leave them aside unless someone else does understand them and can explain them here.

2) Using Inductive Skepticism to prove that I secretly or unconsciously believe in God precludes the possibility that I may be using induction for entirely pragmatic reasons, even if I were aware that doing so was a logically invalid thing to do.

3) Even if I do grant that anyone who uses induction for any reason necessarily presupposes the existence of God (which I don't, again see point 2) I put it to you that that does not mean that God necessarily exists. Only that I presuppose his existence. I could very easily presuppose something which happened to be false. Finally as to your assertion that my use of induction proves that I secretly have an inborn faith in God, put there by Him so that I would actually have the capacity to learn is just that, an assertion. An unfounded and wildly speculative assertion at that.

Guillaume +1

While I disagree with your strong belief in the non-existence of said spiritual deity, I respect your belief in one's absence and appreciate your respect as stated in my belief in one's existence. Thank you.