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For the sake of discussion, we are assuming some form of theism is true.
We can determine which of two things is more fundamental by seeing if one can be derived from the other without the reverse being true.
P1) X can be derived from Y.
P2) Y cannot be derived from X.
C) Y seems more fundamental than X.
When we look at monocentric and polycentric manifolds, we can see that polycentric manifolds are fundamental.
We can see this by thinking about a tree of life pattern of circles over an infinite plane. Not only does every circle have its own center, but every center is also the center of the entire pattern. This is similar to how every center of the observable universe (regardless of where the observation takes place) is also able to be considered the center of the universe, or how the universe expands from every single point equally.
This pattern is polycentric in nature, but yet each circle of the pattern can act as the basis of a monocentric system.
As such, if you have a polycentric manifold, you can derive a monocentric manifold from it.
However, the reverse is not true. No matter the nature of a monocentric manifold, you cannot derive a polycentric manifold from it.
So, replacing X and Y, we get:
P1) Monocentric Manifolds can be derived from Polycentric Manifolds.
P2) Polycentric Manifolds cannot be derived from Monocentric Manifolds.
C) Polycentric Manifolds seem more fundamental than Monocentric Manifolds.
Now, since we also know that Polycentric Manifolds actually exist, we can then take this a step further:
P3) Polycentric Manifolds exist.
C2) Polycentric Manifolds are fundamental.
C3) Monocentric Manifolds are not fundamental.
This is because if Polycentric Manifolds are something we could conceive are possibly more fundamental but do not actually exist, then it would be hard to say they actually are more fundamental.
Now, to relate this to theism, monotheism is a type of Monocentric Manifold, polytheism is a type of Polycentric Manifold. Thus, we can also add this to the argument,
P4) Monotheism is Monocentric and polytheism is Polycentric.
C4) Therefore, polytheism is true (derived from C2, C3, and P4).
Altogether, we have:
A) Some form of theism is true.
P1) Monocentric Manifolds can be derived from Polycentric Manifolds.
P2) Polycentric Manifolds cannot be derived from Monocentric Manifolds.
C) Polycentric Manifolds seems more fundamental than Monocentric Manifolds.
P3) Polycentric Manifolds exist.
C2) Polycentric Manifolds are fundamental.
C3) Monocentric Manifolds are not fundamental.
P4) Monotheism is Monocentric and polytheism is Polycentric.
C4) Therefore, polytheism is true.
Credit:
Argument is ultimately derived from Edward Butler's argument on the topic, with some help from Willdam to formulate the argument.
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Religion
I am talking both from a physiological and a psychological perspective.
The lockdowns drastically decreased social exposure with children, and masks also created a disconnect between face and voice, both very important for the psychological development of children.
The lockdowns, sanitization, etc. also will have drastically limited exposure to various microbes, and if the hygiene hypothesis is true that such exposure during adolescence is key to developing a proper immune system, then children could very well be at increased risk in the future.
So, how much damage do you think has been done? Do you think that people went way too overboard with the lockdowns? Do you think that lockdowns, mask, and/or other policies should continue to exist?
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Science and Nature
Have you not heard, guns kill people! My gun just tried to shoot me, but luckily it didn't succeed. Screw focusing on mental health, poverty, etc. We all know that it isn't that people kill people, it is those dastardly guns! Damn, my gun just tried to shoot me again!
That's it, we need to ban guns! That will solve the problem!
But wait... some of my guns are 3D printed... And with advances in that technology that means...
Oh no... anyone will eventually be able to print themselves a gun?
But guns are evil things! They kill people! What... what do we do?
I know! I remember reading an instruction manual about this before, what was it called... 1900? No. 1986? Not right either.... Oh well, point is, I have a solution!
Let's just get rid of the concept of privacy all together! Papa government will look after us! And anyone that tries to step out of line by abusing a 3D printer will be caught immediately and punished!
This way there are less of those evil guns roaming around. Damn guns, always trying to kill people. Why can't these things just leave us alone?
But... what if... what if someone still manages to get a gun? Oh no.... now there will be less people there to try and defend themselves or others... the CDC has stated that potentially up to 2.5 million defensive uses of guns occur each year... Oh well, screw that number, it pales in comparison to the estimated 500,000-600,00 thousand hospitalizations each year due to guns. After all, haven't you heard the saying that less is more?
Besides, Papa government has the police, they will protect us! After all, when the person standing in front of me has a gun we know that the police are right there to do something! That is why so often during school shooting tragedies we hear stories about the police just sitting outside doing nothing for quite some time!
Come on everyone, let's kill all those damn guns! After all, it is those guns that kill people!
Let's get rid of all guns and invite Papa government into our homes so we can ensure that with advances in 3D printing that no one ever uses such technology to make a gun!
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Politics
Is the past finite or infinite? Can objects have infinite causal histories? The Grim Reaper paradox sets out to show that this cannot be the case, and others have since added onto the discussion. I will start by presenting three formulations of the Grim Reaper paradox, the Pruss and Koon's Grim Reaper formulation, Koons Paper Passer version, and Daniel Linford's version.
Pruss and Koons Grim Reaper Paradox - text from WLC (www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/grim-reaper-paradox#_edn1)
Imagine that there are denumerably infinitely many Grim Reapers.
You are alive at midnight.
Grim Reaper #1 will strike you dead at 1:00 a.m. if you are still alive at that time.
Grim Reaper #2 will strike you dead at 12:30 a.m. if you are still alive then.
Grim Reaper #3 will strike you dead at 12:15 a.m., and so on.
Such a situation seems clearly conceivable—given the possibility of an actually infinite number of things—but leads to an impossibility:
You cannot survive past midnight, and yet you cannot be killed by any Grim Reaper at any time.
You cannot point to any particular Grim Reaper as the one that killed you as there will always have been a different Grim Reaper that should have done the job, yet you also must be dead.
Paper Passer Version - text from Trent Horne (https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot/debate-gods-existence-trent-horn-vs-alex-oconnor)
Imagined beings called paper passers who exist at every January 1st in the past.
So there’s one at January 1st, 2020, one at January 1st, 2019, and so on into an infinite past.
Their job is to receive a piece of paper from the passer who held it during the year before them and to see if it’s blank.
If the paper is blank, then they write a unique number assigned to them on it.
If the paper they receive already has a number on it, however, then they just pass the paper along to the next paper passer at the end of the year.
Now here’s the question, what number is written on the paper given to the paper passer at January 1st, 2020?
There has to be some number written on it because if it were blank then the 2020 paper passer would write his number on it.
But it can’t be blank because if it were, the 2019 paper passer would have written his number on it.
But the 2019 paper passer could not have written his number on it because if the paper were blank when he got it, the 2018 paper passer would have written his number on it.
If there are an infinite number of paper passers, then we have a paradox.
If there are an infinite number of paper passers, then we have a paradox.
Daniel Linford's Version - text (https://useofreason.wordpress.com/2020/01/05/the-grim-reaper-paradox-and-the-original-solution-part-1/)
This one isn't so much a formulation of the Paradox to show the problem but to raise issue with a potential solution.
Malpass tries to formulate Hawthorne's objection to work against the Pruss and Koons formulation of the Grim Reaper Paradox.
Essentially, the objection is that while we might not know where the first moment the person is dead at we can say that we know where the last moment they are alive is at.
To quote from Malpass's blog,
"Hawthorne first considers the case of a ball rolling towards an open-infinite Zeno-sequence of walls. 2 miles away there is a wall; 1 and 1/2 miles away is another wall; 1 and 1/4 miles away is another wall; 1 and 1/8 miles away there is another wall, etc. Thus, there is an infinite sequence of walls, ever closer to the point that is exactly one mile away. There is no wall which is the ‘closest’ to the one mile point (which makes it an open sequence). Suppose the walls are impenetrable and cannot be knocked over (etc). The ball is rolled towards the walls. What happens as it arrives at the one mile mark? Hawthorne’s answer is as follows:
“The ball does not proceed beyond a mile and it does not hit a wall.” (p. 625)"
So, the solution proposed is that despite no Reapers actually doing to killing that the person still dies.
Daniel Linford responds by proposing the following,
Let’s suppose that an infinitude of guns is pointed at Fred and an infinitude of guns is pointed at Sue.
Let’s assume that if a gun fires at Fred, then Fred is killed, and if a gun fires at Sue, then Sue is killed.
After one minute has elapsed, if no gun has yet fired at Fred, then gun 1 will fire at Fred.
After half a minute has elapsed, if no gun has yet fired at Fred, then gun 2 will fire at Fred.
And so on — after 1/n of a minute, if no gun has yet fired at Fred, then gun n will fire at Fred.
No guns ever fire at Sue.
After the time interval, Fred has been killed yet — if the Hawthorne solution is to be believed — no bullets struck Fred and no guns were ever fired.
After the time interval, Fred has been killed yet — if the Hawthorne solution is to be believed — no bullets struck Fred and no guns were ever fired.
Fred and Sue are in the same situation because while an infinitude of guns were pointed at both of them, no gun was ever fired.
What explains the difference between Fred and Sue?
This is, I believe, a powerful objection. Neither Fred nor Sue were fired at. If they were they would die, yet by Hawthorne's solution Fred is dead anyways despite the same course of events happening to him as happened to Sue. How is this justified?
The answer tends to be, as argued by philosophers like Craig, Koons, Pruss, etc. that there simply cannot be an infinite causal past. There must always be some sort of first cause, as otherwise a paradox arises. This is a view I am very sympathetic to, and so I want to ask what your thoughts are on this topic. Do you think there can be an infinite causal past? What is your solution to the Grim Reaper Paradox if you wish to preserve an infinite causal past?
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Philosophy
Playing 'Go' again after a few years away, mostly against either an AI or my brother (that also only recently started playing). If anyone wants to play a match I would be down (probably only would have time for 9x9 or 13x13 though).
I would be doing it through https://www.funnode.com/
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Gaming
INTRODUCTION
Often we find atheists and, to a lesser extent, agnostics in the online debate sphere demand that the verification principle is the only rational way of establishing whether or not god(s) exist. I would like to counter that idea with an argument I think is both the most sound argument for god while also being one of the weakest, the argument that people have experienced god(s).
I know that when this is first seen that many people will be quick to judge that it is a weak argument, but I hope that we can take the time to go over the premises first. This argument can be broken down, ultimately, into two parts. Part One is establishing that using Reid's Principle of Credulity is rational. Part Two is showing short and to the point, applying it to god(s). I will also preemptively address a common criticism of the argument in a Part Three.
PART ONE
“In absence of counter-evidence — we should believe that things are as they seem to be.” - Richard Swinburne
The above quote comes from the philosopher Richard Swinburne, one of the main proponents of the argument for god from Reid's Principle of Credulity. It helps outline what, precisely, the principle is. It helps with establishing the position that one should tentatively hold to. This is why, despite thinking the argument is sound, I hold that it is a weak argument for the existence of god(s), as when it stands on its own any proper counter-evidence defeats it. This is also why I feel the argument is useful, as it forces the atheist and the agnostic to have to provide counter-evidence. No longer would the defense of "lack of belief due to no evidence" be justified. One of the strengths of the argument, in my mind, is that we all already make use of this principle in our day-to-day lives, even if we aren't really aware of it.
In this part I will go over three different premises and how they all lead to the principle's validation.
P1) Your senses tend to be accurate.
P2) You are honest more often than you are dishonest.
C1) If you claimed to have experienced X then, absent counter-evidence, you likely had a true experience of X.
P3) There is no justification that the above is not universal.
C2) If someone claims to have experienced X then, absent counter-evidence, they likely had a true experience of X.
The strength of this argument is that denial of P1 or P2 will lead to different issues while P3's denial requires the use of the special pleading fallacy. To avoid fallacious logic and avoid logical traps you must accept all three premises, which means accepting the conclusion of the argument. To explain,
Rejection of P1 leads to solipsism, as if your senses tend to be inaccurate or are only accurate half the time then you will never be justified believing anything you observe is true. How, then, can you hold any justified beliefs about the external world? You cannot, as any piece of evidence cannot be justifiably believed.
As such, if you wish to avoid solipsism you must accept P1. This means that your senses tend to be accurate, which results in the conclusion that you should believe your senses unless you have a justified reason to doubt (counter-evidence).
Rejection of P2 also is a trap. If you reject P2 you must either choose the view that you are dishonest more often than you are honest or that you are dishonest and honest an equal amount.
If you reject it by claiming "you are dishonest more than you are honest" then it leads to the conclusion that we cannot trust that any statement you make is true without corroborating evidence, but that includes your statement that "you are dishonest more than you are honest." Since we cannot trust that that statement was made honestly, it is justified to think that you do not actually believe that "you are dishonest more than you are honest".
Even claiming to be honest and dishonest evenly does not avoid this issue, as it means we must suspend judgement on any statement you make until there is reason to accept, including whether you are honest and dishonest evenly.
We can have a thought experiment as well, is this a case you are being honest or dishonest? If dishonest, then we now know that you are either honest more or less often than dishonest, which goes back to the previous point where we end up unjustified thinking that you are dishonest more than you are honest. Since that is justified and the thought experiment is that your statement about being honest and dishonest evenly is false, that means we can conclude that you are, in fact, honest more often than dishonest (and that this dishonesty happens to just be an example of the minority of statements you make).
If, in our thought experiment, we assume that the statement is held in true belief then it leads to the conclusion that (absent corroborating evidence) we are unjustified in actually believing it is held in true belief.
This means that the only justified view is that, regardless of what you say, you actually accept P2.
Furthermore, rejecting P2 is not at all pragmatic when it comes to living your daily life. If you reject P2 and do not live your life as if you reject it, it raises doubts on if you actually reject P2. As people tend to live pragmatic lives, then unless we have corroborating evidence, we are yet again justified in thinking that you actually accept P2 regardless of what you say.
A consequence of P2 is that what you say should be believed to have been said with honesty unless we have reason to believe otherwise (counter-evidence).
So, since your senses tend to be accurate (which results in the conclusion that you should believe your senses) and you tend to be honest (which means we should trust your statements to be made honestly unless we have reason to believe otherwise), we can conclude that "If you claimed to have experienced X then, absent counter-evidence, you likely had a true experience of X".
Since we cannot make use of the special pleading fallacy to say that this is somehow a unique characteristic of you, we must extend this universally. This means that we can conclude that "If someone claims to have experienced X then, absent counter-evidence, they likely had a true experience of X".
This means we have validated Reid's Principle of Credulity.
PART TWO
This is a short segment that has one premise that should be uncontroversial,
P4) People have claimed to have had an experience of god(s).
C3) Absent of counter-evidence, these people likely had a true experience of god(s).
If part 1 is sound and P4 is true, then C3 must be true. From here it is a question on if the atheist or agnostic can provide counter-evidence. If none can be provided then the logical conclusion is that we should tentatively hold to theism as true.
PART THREE
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" - Carl Sagan
The above quote from Carl Sagan is not uncommon in the online religious debate sphere, where the god claim is often called an extraordinary claim. A common rejection I have seen to the above is that Reid's Principle of Credulity might be evidence, but it isn't extraordinary evidence and thus cannot be used to argue for the existence of god(s) (as the god claim is labeled as extraordinary).
I would contest that this argument actually works. In fact, I believe that in order to justify the view that the god claim is an extraordinary one would require you to provide evidence/reasoning that would already act as the counter-evidence that the argument already accounts for. To explain, in order to say a claim is extraordinary rather than ordinary you must either draw the line arbitrarily (which makes the label unjustified), appeal to something internal to the claim that makes it extraordinary, or appeal to something external to the claim that makes it extraordinary.
I would argue that you cannot point to something internal to the claim that makes it extraordinary. This is because if the justification was internal to the claim, then the context of when or where the claim is made does not change whether it is ordinary or extraordinary. This just is not the case, however. For example, if I say I will be visiting South Korea in a few days and will be back in just over a week that is an ordinary claim today, but 200 years ago that would be extraordinary. Another example, let's say that I saw a floating city. Extraordinary claim, right? But let's say the same exact claim was made in a stereotypical high fantasy world, not that extraordinary anymore.
What this means is that justification for the label "extraordinary claim" can only be something outside of the claim itself. Whatever you appeal to would constitute evidence that said claim is false or unlikely. This means that it isn't that the claim is extraordinary, it is just that the claim already has counter-evidence. In order to justify the label of a claim being extraordinary you will need to provide that counter-evidence, but in doing so you are already operating in-line with the argument (as it only concludes that the claim should be held in absence of counter-evidence).
I want to address one more quote by Carl Sagan as well,
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" - Carl Sagan
This is one I absolutely agree with. Absence of evidence alone is not evidence of absence unless you can construct a proper modus tollens. This means that, unless you provide a sound modus tollens, you cannot appeal to "lack of evidence" (using whatever criteria you give as to what evidence is) as being justification for the claim being an extraordinary one. Lack of evidence is not counter-evidence, it is only a lack.
CONCLUSION
With this argument it ends up with the atheist or agnostic needing to now provide justification for their position in the debate. Counter-evidence needs to be provided or else theism is rationally concluded as true (tentatively). Not only must counter-evidence be provided, but they also must defend against arguments that it is not, in fact, counter-evidence. That is the strength of this argument, it makes it so no longer is the theist playing defense but the atheist and agnostic is.
I know this argument will be unconvincing to most people, but it is important to remember that an argument can both be sound and also be unconvincing. We are not purely rational beings after all.
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Religion
Why do critics of Race Realism frame the idea as inherently attacking the dignity of people based on race?
So often I find people criticize Race Realism by trying to tie it as inherently racist in nature, but I do not see why. When science discusses that men are, on average, more aggressive than women, or women are, on average, more empathetic than men it is not seen as inherently sexist, nor is it seen as justification for sexism. It is understood that just because men and women are different in some aspects that it doesn't change the moral value of the individual, the dignity of the sexes is not in threat.
However, when people try to talk about how people of different races might be, on average, different due, in part, to nature it is seen as inherently racist, an attack on the moral value of the individual, etc.
Why does this happen? If Race Realism is true it does not follow that any race is morally of greater importance, it just means that there are differences. It doesn't justify racism, just like differences between men and women doesn't justify sexism. Yet that is consistently brought up by many who oppose the idea of Race Realism.
So why is this so often brought up as if there is an inherent link?
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Politics
Why do you use this definition of atheist (the Flew definition)? It is a definition rejected by essentially all academics in the Philosophy of Religion, yet it is common to find laypeople on the internet use this definition of atheist. Within academia the definition of atheist is "one who believes there are no gods", yet so often when this definition is mentioned online it seems 'atheists' almost take offense to it and get defensive of the 'lack of belief' definition.
Why is this? Why hold onto a definition that is rejected by academics? Especially those here, on a website designed for debating? Why not use the definitions used in academia?
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Religion
Intro
Many times theists will bring up religious experience when discussing theism, whether their own or testimony they have heard from others. It is most commonly brought up either for one to validate their own beliefs or when a theist wishes to attempt to use the Argument from Religious Experience in atheism vs theism debate, but this is not the only time it is relevant. Regardless of whether or not the Argument from Religious Experience is good or not I would say that religious experience actually offers a problem to the monotheist. In this thesis I will be primarily using Greer’s argument about religious experience to defend the polytheistic position. As this argument is primarily meant for use against monotheists I think that it would be best to disregard the atheistic position on religious experience and focus on the monotheism vs polytheism aspect of the debate.
Greer’s Argument from the Diversity of Religious Experience
John Michael Greer in his book A World Full of Gods: An Inquiry into Polytheism makes a clear case that within the context of theism, the diversity of religious experience people have better supports polytheism than monotheism. The reason for this is that the monotheist tends to require the use of special pleading in order to justify a monotheistic interpretation of diverse religious experience.
To understand the various monotheistic interpretations Greer used the following analogy (summarized).
A researcher visits a village with five houses to inquire the residents on their beliefs in feline(s). The researcher knocks on the first villager’s door (Villager A) and asks them about their views.
Villager A tells the researcher that of course they believe in the existence of the Cat. The Cat is a tabby and has blue eyes. I leave kibble out for the Cat and the Cat eats it, proving that the Cat is real. I even once experienced the Cat and it looked at me with its blue eyes and proceeded to eat the kibble. Some of the other villagers believe in different cats but they are wrong, the cats they believe in do not exist. They leave out other foods which are probably eaten by hobos.
The researcher then proceeds to go to the next house and asks Villager B about their beliefs. They proceed to tell the researcher that they believe in the existence of the Cat as well. The Cat has short, black hair and green eyes. They put a bowl of milk out for the Cat every day and it is eaten by the Cat. They also had a personal experience of the Cat, having even turned their life around and become sober after their experience. They also say that other villagers have different beliefs about the Cat but they are mistaken, they actually are simply experiencing and feeding rats that some mistake as being Cat. One day Cat will purge the village of these rats and we will see who gets scratched and/or bitten!
The researcher proceeds to the next house and asks Villager C about their beliefs. Villager C also professes belief in the Cat, who is a marmalade tom with orange eyes. Villager C, however, is much more tolerant of the other villager’s views on Cat. After all, they got some info correct, they also think that the Cat has 4 legs, tail, pointed ears, and whiskers. However, Villager C says that the reason they got some information wrong about Cat is because they likely saw the Cat in bad light condition or when the Cat had rolled around in dirt. They also had seen Cat, having seen it on the top of the fence dividing her property with her neighbor’s, thus they know that the Cat isn’t limited to just their property. They put out canned food for the Cat, believing that this is the proper way to feed it, but says it likely is eating the food left out by others as well, just that canned food is more proper.
The researcher proceeds to the next house to ask Villager D. Villager D scoffs when asked, saying that belief in the existence of Cat is nonsensical. They had never experienced Cat and believes that other villagers hadn’t either. What they experienced were hallucinations or misperceptions of non-feline phenomena, oftentimes due to an intense will to believe. They say that if you wish to see Cat badly enough that you will be convinced anything could be Cat. The disappearance of the various foods? Could be hobos or any number of explanations that don’t require the existence of Cat. Villager D also points at the contradictions of Cat. One cat cannot be a tabby, a short black haired, and a marmalade tom at the same time.
The researcher then proceeds to the final house to ask Villager E about their beliefs. Villager E laughs and informs the researcher that there have been three different cats in the village for years, one a tabby, one with short black hair, and one a marmalade tom. Each has its own territory they mostly respect and knows where and when to get the food they each prefer. All of them occasionally go to Villager E’s house as well as they have kibble, milk, and canned food for them. She laughs and says it is funny as she had recently spotted a blue burmese female recently and has had a litter of kittens. How the other villagers react when they see these she cannot imagine.
Each of these five villagers represents a different view one can take. Villagers A, B, and C are ‘mono-felists’. They believe in one Cat but have different views about other people’s experiences. Villager A thinks that none of the cats other people believe in exist at all (existence-exclusive). Villager B thinks that the other cats people believe in are real, just not cats (value-exclusive). Villager C thinks that there is one cat with many faces (inclusive). Villager D is an afelist, they don’t think cats exist at all. Villager E is a polyfelist and believes there are many cats.
Explanation of the Analogy and Monotheist Positions
From the analogy it should be easy to see that the monotheists(monofelists) require special pleading in order to justify the experience of others within their framework, but we can go into more detail here.
Let’s take two people, Jack and Jill. Jack believes in Odin while Jill believes in Yahweh.
If Jill is an existence-exclusive monotheist they hold the view that Odin does not exist and Yahweh does. How do they justify this view? Jill might appeal to the Bible as a sacred text, but Jack can respond that he has the Havamal, the Words of Odin. Jill might appeal to prayers, revelations, and religious experiences she or other believers in Yahweh have… but Jack could do the same with those that believe in Odin. Jill could claim to have experienced miracles, but so could Jack. Jill might appeal to prophets or heroes/martyrs of Christianity, but then Jack could once more do the same. The evidence that Jill can provide as to why Yahweh exists and not Odin also exists for other religions, thus special pleading is ultimately required to justify accepting Jill’s view over Jack’s.
This problem is not solved by Jill taking the view of the value-exclusive monotheist either. How can Jill give evidence that Yahweh is the only God and that Odin is something else? Through special pleading, as, just like above, the reasons Jill can give can be matched with reasons Jack can give.
It also persists if Jill takes the inclusive view. How can Jill justify that Yahweh is the face behind the mask while Odin is a mask? Once more this cannot happen.
One attempt to salvage the monotheistic god would be to say that all experiences are not the face behind the mask but a mask, but this runs into a different problem, how do you justify the experiences of the polytheist? Is Jack so stupid that he cannot tell that Odin, Loki, Freya, etc. are all the same one god? Take an analogy, you sit in your office with the door closed and periodically you hear someone walk by your office with different music playing. Could it be one person? Sure, but why think it is? Especially if what you hear can range from genre to genre, different levels of bass and treble, different volumes, etc.? While it is possible it is one person walking by there is no good reason to think this is the case. So why should one accept the ‘one god many faces’ approach to monotheism? They shouldn’t.
Conclusion
I believe that the thesis has made it clear, religious diversity favors the polytheistic interpretation over the monotheistic one. The monotheistic interpretation requires special pleading and/or unfounded assumptions in order to justify the diversity of religious experience that occurs across the world and throughout time. As such, if religious experience is to be seen as valid then, until evidence/arguments are provided for monotheism, polytheism is more likely to be true.
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Religion
For the sake of discussion we will assume the teleological argument is sound, as I desire this discussion to focus more on monotheism vs polytheism than atheism vs theism.
So, what is the Teleological Argument for those unfamiliar? It is the watch maker argument, that the universe or certain things in nature appear to be designed and such design demands explanation, that explanation being god(s).
William Lane Craig is a popular proponent of this argument, specifically from the fine-tuning of the universe. His specific argument can be found in his essay “Five Arguments for God” (link below). To copy from his essay, the argument is as follows:
"Here, then, is a simple formulation of a teleological argument based on fine-tuning:
1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design"
As we will assume the soundness of the argument for sake of discussion, we now the universe was designed, but does this get us to the monotheistic god that WLC argues for? I think not. There is nothing about the argument that demands the designer be a single entity, it opens in up to the possibility of a multitude of designers working at the fine-tuning of the universe. In fact, the argument itself stems all the way back to Ancient Greece (like many theistic arguments), and thus to polytheists.
A common argument against the polytheistic interpretation is to attempt to argue Law of Parsimony (Occam's Razor), but this, I would argue, is not sufficient. There are two ways in which parsimony works, quantitatively and qualitatively. In regards to theism the qualitative parsimony is based on how many categories or sets of things exist, keeping in mind that sets can be made up of many, one, even no things. Quantitative parsimony deals with the number within a category/set. I think using quantitative parsimony in this instance is flawed, and I will use an analogy to help demonstrate this.
Within physics there is an idea called the One Electron Theory which posits that within the universe exists a single electron. This electron moves both forward and backwards in time, thus creating every instance of an electron and positron in the universe from a single particle. This theory would be favored if we use quantitative parsimony, but the theory is a rejected one. In fact, an even more extreme idea would be to posit that all particles in the universe could, likewise, be a single particle. This idea was proposed by physicist Dr. Weiping Yu in his paper "The U-Theory of Everything (- A single Particle Theory of Universe)".
Both of these ideas would definitely be favorable if we operated the Law of Parsimony quantitatively, but yet physicists reject this and still opt to posit new types of particles one at a time in their models of the universe. This is because of something many that attempt to argue for parsimony forget, syntactic simplicity.
From Stanford:
"Syntactic simplicity, or elegance, measures the number and conciseness of the theory's basic principles"
Essentially, the reason that many particles is better than one is that supposing one particle requires more hypotheses to support the idea while many particles does not. I believe, for a few reasons, that the same can apply to god in the teleological argument.
We can start with the more complex, the fine-tuning, and move on from there. To start with, I believe that it isn't a stretch to think that if there is a single god that there would be a Unified Theory of Everything, which would be representative of the principle in which said monotheistic god designed the world. The problem is that such a theory, while it had its proponents among physicists, has lost popularity.
Stephen Hawking helped popularize the idea of a unified theory of everything but eventually gave up on the notion and declared such a thing to be wishful thinking. The reason for this being Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem. To quote from quantamagazine on :
"He proved that any set of axioms you could posit as a possible foundation for math will inevitably be incomplete; there will always be true facts about numbers that cannot be proved by those axioms. He also showed that no candidate set of axioms can ever prove its own consistency."
A more recent book on the subject is Dr. Lars English's "There Is No Theory of Everything" where he argues that no single set or rules can unify relativity with quantum mechanics as something can be true on a quantum level but false at the gravitational level.
Without a single Unified Theory of Everything, that means the principles behind the design of the universe are many, and we must ask why a single designer would use many principles instead of just one when there exists a Possible World that can be imagined in which a Unified Theory of Everything does exist. I believe that there being one category of beings, god(s), with multiple gods within said set better explains multiple principles behind the design of the universe than one god.
But this only addresses the aspect of the Teleological Argument around the Fine-Tuning of the universe, what about when we get to other aspects of the Teleological Argument?
With how long ago the Teleological Argument was first created it is obvious that it was not always used on the Fine-Tuning of the universe's very principles, like how WLC likes to argue, but about the world and nature itself and what can be found in it. In fact, a well know formulation today is the Watchmaker analogy, but this actually is a modern version of Cicero's argument from his work "On the Nature of the Gods",
"When you see a sundial or a water-clock, you see that it tells the time by design and not by chance. How then can you imagine that the universe as a whole is devoid of purpose and intelligence, when it embraces everything, including these artifacts themselves and their artificers?"
These early formulations did not stem from the in depth mathematics and high level physics of the modern day, however, but of observation of the world itself. This, however, raises a question. If, like how a building demands a builder nature demands a designer, then why is it that societies the world over when observing nature do not conclude monotheism (not even those that originated the argument)?
When we look at history, if the natural world points so easily to a design by god, and more specifically a monotheistic interpretation, then we should expect to find many people from across the world and across time reaching the conclusion of monotheism, but this is not the case. In the Americas, Asia, Africa, etc. we do not see monotheism having arisen but, instead, polytheism. Even monotheistic religions like Judaism can be seen to have henotheistic (and quite possibly polytheistic) roots to them (even Genesis 1:26 uses the plural 'gods'). The historical record would indicate that people from across the world and across time, when looking at the design of the natural world, concluded that there were many gods. The question that must be asked is why.
Why is it that when people see the design of the world around them that they, seemingly independently, came to the conclusion of many designers instead of one? When we account for syntactic simplicity when coming up with a parsimonious answer I believe that we can conclude that it is because there are multiple designers.
Sources:
William Lance Craig's “Five Arguments for God” - https://media.thegospelcoalition.org/ee/articles/Craig_Atheism.pdf
Weiping Yu "The U-Theory of Everything (- A single Particle Theory of Universe)" - https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014APS..APR.Y9007Y/abstract
Stanford on Simplicity - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simplicity/
quantamagazine "How Gödel’s Proof Works" - https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-godels-incompleteness-theorems-work-20200714/
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This thread is being made as a place to discuss the topic of abortion. The motivation for creating it was that I did not want to spam a different thread with SkepticalOne's and my discussion on the topic.
For some background, I have been pro-choice since I got into political discussion about a decade ago, but recent events and arguments have made me start to reconsider. I have not yet taken up the pro-life position, but am wanting to, in this thread, entertain the idea in a rational discussion on the topic.
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Why be pro-life? For years I viewed the issue of abortion solely through the lens of rights, but recently I have come to realize that rights make up only half of the discussion, responsibilities are also important to discuss. To copy some of my comments from the other thread,
"Ultimately, just laws are created for two reasons. One, to protect people's rights (and prevent one person from infringing on another's rights). Two, to enforce fundamental responsibilities (responsibilities that are weighed as more important, in some instances, than the individual's rights). All just laws consider both these points and tries to find where the balance should be. The pro-life position tends to wish to protect the life of the unborn by upholding the responsibility of the mother. It is the desire to protect one's life but the responsibility aspect is considered when making this decision."
"Rights get limited by responsibilities and obligations all the time. Take a newborn baby as an example. The legal guardian of a newborn baby has moral and legal obligations which can, in some instances, limit the freedoms said guardian would enjoy if they did not have these obligations. This is why neglect of a child is a legal issue. Responsibility/obligation, in this instance, is placed before rights/freedom.The question is if such a thing should be placed on the unborn as well. So, not including cases of rape, does a woman have a responsibility over the life of their unborn child, and does that responsibility lead to a limit on the bodily autonomy. That is the debate.If you only care about maximizing freedom and rights then the answer might seem clear, no matter what the unborn is infringing on the bodily autonomy of the mother and thus is 'guilty' of violating the rights of another. However, if you prioritize only rights and freedom like this then, some would argue, we must also agree to get rid of laws around neglect (as well as some other laws). After all, these laws too put responsibility and obligations before rights and freedom, and the same ethos behind these laws can be argued to apply in cases of abortion."
Can the legal and moral responsibilities to take care of the unborn be compared, on some level, to those to take care of a newborn? The pro-choice position would conclude no while the pro-life position would be to conclude yes.
As you might have noticed, in one of the above quotes I specified 'not including cases of rape'. Why is this important? Because consent, even consent to potential consequences, is a necessary part of what gives one responsibilities. Let's take an example of someone driving a car.
If I get into my car with the express purpose of driving from A to B, nothing else, I engaged in the act of driving with a clear purpose in mind. If, during the course of events, I hit accidentally hit and kill a person I still am responsible. When I chose to drive I never did so with the idea of killing a person in mind, and the odds of it happening are small, but that does not change the fact I am responsible. Vehicular manslaughter is always a possibility whenever you chose to drive from point A to point B, and as it is a possible consequence of the action that means that when I chose to drive I also chose to take responsibility if and when this accident occurs.
However, if I do not chose to drive from point A to point B but am being forced to by another, possibly a passenger with a gun to my head, then if in the process of driving I accidentally kill someone it is not my responsibility. I would not be charged with vehicular manslaughter. This is because it was not my choice to drive, I thus did not consent to the possible consequences that may come from driving.
Consenting to an action means responsibility for consequences, even if those consequences are unintended and/or unlikely. This applies to numerous situations legally. Why should this not apply to sex, pregnancy, and the life of the unborn?
People do not just become pregnant out of nowhere, it does not happen overnight for no reason. Pregnancy is, outside of cases of rape, a consequence of a choice one makes. A man and woman decide they want to have sex, they do not do it for the purpose of having a child and they find it unlikely that such an event will happen, but does that matter? Much like in the example of the driver when two people consent to having sex they also take on the responsibilities that come with that choice, one of which is pregnancy.
If I want to avoid ever having the chance of being charged with vehicular manslaughter then I will never drive a vehicle, if I wish to avoid ever having the responsibility of parenthood I will never have sex with a woman. If I choose to drive I take on responsibilities that come with said action, if I choose to have sex I take on responsibilities that come with said action.
One objection that SkepticalOne made was that "the limitations potentially imposed on a female parent by forced birth can never be applicable to the male parent." I must ask why this is, necessarily, an issue. Sexual dimorphism is a real thing, as such there will always be differences between men and women. There are some responsibilities that one sex might have to take on that the other cannot. We do not live in a perfectly 'fair' world, sexual dimorphism as a defense against taking on responsibilities needs a better defense than the existence of sexual dimorphism.
Another objection from SkepticalOne, in regards to the analogy to a newborn and neglect (from one of the above quotes), was that "an unwilling parent can legally give the child up." True, but even during periods in which they desire to give the child up for adoption they are responsible for the well-being of the child. Until such a time that another person consents to take responsibility over the child their well-being is still your responsibility. It is not that responsibility vanished, it is that it transfers. Abortion is not a transfer of responsibility, it is the ending on one. Furthermore, adoption is not immediate either. When you call an adoption agency about giving up your child they do not just come and take the child away and relinquish you of responsibility, it takes time, sometimes a longer time than you might desire. Why then is it not seen in a similar way with pregnancy and adoption? You can arrange things while pregnant, and just like if you try to arrange things afterwards, it takes time. Since the option given for a parent to no longer be responsibility for their newborn takes time I do not see why abortion becomes a comparable option for the unborn.
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I know that there are more points I could make (and some I know I have missed), but I told SkepticalOne I would get this post made coming up on 24 hours ago and so will post it for now.
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Intro
It is common to see Christians ascribe the property of 'Omnibenevolence' to Yahweh. It gets taught by priests to their congregants, parents to their children, and even theologians to their audiences/students. It is nice to think that there is a powerful force out there that has an unconditional love for all things, including you, but the problem is that this just is not Biblical. This does not mean that a Christian cannot subscribe to the idea that Yahweh is all-loving, but that just means that they have to, on some level, reject the Biblical depiction of him.
And I know, many people are probably getting ready with the common argument that 'god hates the sin and not the sinner', but I have to tell you that the Bible disagrees.
Why the Biblical Yahweh is not 'Omnibenevolent'
It isn't hard to see why the idea that Yahweh is all-loving is sometimes seen as Biblical, after all we have verse like John 3:16 and 1 John 4:8.
- John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
- 1 John 4:8 - "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."
The problem is that using just these verses is very much cherry picking the Bible to get as good a look at who Yahweh is as possible. When we look at more scripture this idea of Yahweh being all-loving falls apart.
John 3:16 is shown to not mean Yahweh is all-loving in John 15:18-19, so in this case we don't even need to go to a different book of the Bible.
- John 15:18-19 - "“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world*, but* I have chosen you out of the world*. That is why the world hates you."*
God so loves the world, but not everyone belongs to the world. In fact people can be 'chosen out' of the world. This is not all-loving, this is loving only those 'of the world' and not all are 'of the world.
We also see in Proverbs that Yahweh's love is conditional, Yahweh loves those that love him:
- Proverbs 8:17 - "I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me."
We even have verses where Yahweh explicitly hates people. It is not Yahweh 'hating the sin not the sinner' but explicitly hating the 'sinner'.
- Proverbs 6:16-19 - "These six things the Lord hates, Yes, seven are an abomination to Him: A proud look, A lying tongue, Hands that shed innocent blood, A heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that are swift in running to evil, A false witness who speaks lies, And one who sows discord among brethren."
- Leviticus 26:27-30 - "'And after all this, if you do not obey Me, but walk contrary to Me, then I also will walk contrary to you in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you secen times for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, cut down you incense altars, and cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols; and My soul shall abhor you."
- Hosea 9:15 - ""All their wickedness is in Gilgal, For there I hated them. Because of the ebil of their deeds I will drive them from My house; I will love them no more."
- Malachi 1:2-3 - "Says the Lord. "Yet Jacob I have loved; But Esau I have hated, and laid waste he mountains and his heritage For the jackals of the wilderness.""
- Leviticus 20:23 - "And you shall not walk in the statues of the nation which I am casting out before you; for they commit all these things, and therefore I abhor them."
- Romans 9:13 - "As it is written, "Jacob I have loved, but Easu I have hated.""
Of course there still is a question about 1 John 4:8. Even with all this evidence that Yahweh hates, that not all get Yahweh's love there is a verse that says that Yahweh is love. This is the greatest issue with the Biblical Yahweh is that not all verses are consistent, but I think that Biblically there is more reason to reject the idea that Yahweh is love than accept it. Not only all the verses already provided which shows not all get Yahweh's love and that some even get Yahweh's hate, but two other verses together explicitly contradict the idea that Yahweh is love.
- 1 Corinthians 13:4 - "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud."
- Exodus 34:14 - "Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God."
Yahweh himself says he is a jealous god, and if we take the understanding of what love is from Paul then it is clear that if Yahweh is a jealous god that Yahweh cannot be love. Only one verse from one book of the Bible makes a clear case that Yahweh might be all-loving but so many books from across the Old and New Testaments show, in some cases quite explicitly, that Yahweh is not all-loving.
The above verses don't aren't even all of them that show Yahweh isn't all-loving, but considering how the majority of the rest come from Psalms, a book that is meant to be more poetic and thus not necessarily accurate in portrayal, I decided to omit mention of them.
Conclusion
I think that it is quite conclusive, if you believe in the Biblical Yahweh then you do not believe in an all-loving god. It isn't enough to say Yahweh 'hates the sin' because it is explicit in places that Yahweh does sometimes hate the sinner. If you wish to believe in an all-loving Yahweh you must go outside of the Biblical portrayal, you must abandon, on some level, the Biblical texts. The question I have is how much of the Bible must one reject before what they believe is no longer Christianity?
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One of the biggest issues I feel never gets talked about when it comes to the politics surrounding trans rights is how to protect both sex and gender as classes.
For example, let's look at a common issue that is brought up, restrooms. Restrooms are currently segregated, but a question needs to be asked, are they to be segregated based on sex or gender? One cannot 'protect' both simultaneously, as if you have them segregated by sex then regardless of gender identity you will use the restroom of your biological sex, but if you segregate based on gender then the initial reasons for creating these 'separate but equal' spaces is being violated, protecting people based on sex.
The same thing can be said about sports. They initially became segregated due to the sex differences, but the push for trans-rights has the push for having the segregation be based on gender instead.
To me, it seems that one cannot have both sex and gender as protected classes, and so we have to ask why one should be prioritized over the other. Should sex be a protected class or should gender? If sex, why not gender? If gender, why not sex?
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So often when I talk with Christians about the Trinity they use analogies which more align with the heretical views of modalism, partialism, or tritheism. When they don't offer those analogies they tend to either use such vague terminology that it isn't clear what they are talking about, simply give a link to a source that will 'explain' it for them, or simply admit that they don't understand it either.
Now, it could be that the issue is that I tend to get into these types of discussions in more casual forums with people that do not often engage in debate, and so hopefully, this being a debate-centric website, that won't be an issue here. I'm not saying that it cannot be done, but simply that I have not yet seen it done.
To those that believe the classical idea of Trinity (upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b3/Shield-Trinity-Scutum-Fidei-English.svg/1138px-Shield-Trinity-Scutum-Fidei-English.svg.png), can you explain it in a way that is easily understandable and not heretical?
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The Anthropic Objection to the Teleological Argument is, basically, that it should be unsurprising that we find the conditions for life in the universe because such conditions are a prerequisite for us to ponder the question in the first place, that we are in a biased position towards detecting the conditions necessary for our existence and, when the bias is accounted for that the arguments for the Teleological Argument break down.
This, however, has been objected to by William Lane Craig with the following,
"You're dragged before a firing squad of a hundred trained marksmen with rifles aimed at your heart; you hear the command; you hear the roar of the guns; and you see that you're still alive, that they all missed [i.e., you see one hundred 'apparent coincidences']. You say: 'That's not surprising, because their missing is obviously required for me to be alive... The fact that you are making the observation is not surprising given that they missed. But the 'coincidence' of missing needs explanation!"
In essence, WLC argues that even though it is not surprising that the conditions are as they are, as it is needed to ponder the question, the fact that the conditions are as they are is still something significant that requires explanation, hence the Anthropic Objection does nothing to actually refute the Teleological Argument. Furthermore, even if chance is a possibility it would still be quite the absurd conclusion to draw based on the analogy.
And I agree that if WLC's analogy is to be applied to the universe that it does raise up some serious questions about the explanation.
However, a common rejection to WLC's analogy that I have seen is the case of a lottery ticket.
The odds of winning the lottery are extremely small, yet when someone wins the lottery and ponders why they are the ones that won said lottery it is not reasonable to conclude that there must be some explanation for it outside of chance. It is unreasonable to assume that it was designed for him to win said lottery, there is no need for further explanation.
And so we are left with which analogy should be applicable to the universe? Or is it even a good idea to use analogies when addressing the Anthropic Objection in the first place?
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