No such thing as God.

[iconoclast]

NeitherExtreme,

Quote: ‘But, sometimes science must move into an area of much less direct observation and much more speculation and "filling in the blanks" based on other assumtions, that is if they need to speak on such subjects at all. Pre-historic religious belief is certainly one of those areas.’

I agree, and or concede your point. Might I refer you to the explanation of my reasons I gave to Didymos Thomas below. The point about scientific speculation is that it’s not purely speculative, but speculative about the causes (or effects) of something that actually exists or happened. Thus, there are facts and logical relations directing speculation.

Quote: So let's leave the doors open where we can, rather than continuing in humanity's long history of worldview wars.

I have no objection in principle to people believing whatever makes them happy – but not at the cost of the life of the species. The cost is too high – and if that means I have to tear down the façade and expose people to the stark depths of the universe, then that’s precisely what I’ll do. Your heart is lead, drowned in dread, you cry bitter tears, and why? You looked reality in the eye. They’ll get over it. I did.

Quote: Again, though, this is really the study of what is, not why or what should be. That's the whole problem. We need something to answer the second two questions before it's going to be valid for governing people.

Function – or die. Take your pick.

As these points are numbered I will omit quotes.

• If the underlying value is function then it requires that humankind act in accord with the reality of the environment – and the proven method of achieving valid knowledge of reality is science. I’m not asking that you believe it – religion requires faith, science requires disagreement and curiosity, not a mindless consensus. And the situation we face could hardly be better. We’ve hammered out an orthodoxy on the middle ground – beat it level that we might meet there, and use what can be known to sort ourselves out, while there are still so many things not quite nailed down that the attempt to interpret things this way and that by the people of different regions will push scientific discovery forward with terrific energy.
• Got kids? That’s what we do, and it does decrease the quality of life in some respects, but grants a different kind of fulfillment, and this is just the same. Why do we have kids – apart from biological programming and dodgy condoms? I think it’s about legacy – genetic and intellectual. We want to matter to a future we won’t be around to see. And this is just the same. It matters to me here and now, even if I might live all my days in the lap of luxury, that I belong to a species headed for extinction. It matters to my concept of self – the idea of who I am and what my purposes are, and this plays out on the grand scale. If everything’s going to fall apart in 50-100 years time – there’s nothing to lose and nothing to be gained.
• I don’t know. Building site laborer?
• Then you will probably adapt well to survival in the new environment. But seriously, important point. Might I refer you to the answer I gave to Ruthless Logic on the question of equality? This has been widely misunderstood. The emphasis must be placed on environmental sustainability.
• The global government will require a monopoly on the legitimate use of force – and so will not allow guns to be manufactured or owned other than by the global government. You don’t have a right just because you think you have a right – and so there is no removal of your rights requiring justification.
• Because we are humans – animals, but not animal. The proposal addresses one specific problem we need to get under control – over-population, and does so in a manner that can be viewed as fair. It may be in the future, given a greater knowledge of and trust of science that it would be acceptable genetically remove the defects of weaker members of the species, (or of their off-spring) but at present it is deeply controversial, and in any case not necessary to secure the immediate future.

I’m not trying to build a perfect society – this is just what’s necessary for humankind to survive into the future. The fact that so promising a future follows from these ideas should not I think, be used as excuse to dismiss them as utopian. The brick analogy is all very well, but think in terms of concrete. People are shaped that way because of the shape of the ideological mould. It’s only the mould that needs to change, not the people.

[iconoclast]

Didymos Thomas,

Where I argue that God occurred to man as an explanation of his existence, and followed from conscious recognition of the artifact artificer relationship, the supposition is based upon an evolutionary conception of man, and reconciles the following evidence:

‘If human evolution were an epic, the Upper Paleolithic would be the chapter where the hero comes of age. Suddenly, after millennia of progress so slow that it hardly seems to progress at all, human culture appears to take off in what the writer John Pfeiffer has called a "creative explosion."
At a German site called Vogelherd someone picked up a piece of ivory 32,000 years ago and carved an exquisite horse in miniature – mouth, flared nostrils, jowls, curved haunches, and swollen belly, all breathlessly realistic. Before Vogelherd, there were no representational horses. Before Vogelherd, all horses were horses.’

(James Shreeve. The Neanderthal Enigma. 1995.)

Shreeve goes on to discuss how the soil around this site in central Europe is seeded with trinkets and engravings that appeared almost overnight, without there being some sudden coincident change in cranial capacity. So, although biological evolution underlies the change, that’s not where the change occurred. It must have been a conceptual change – and one that constitutes the difference between an intelligent animal living in the environment, and a man, remaking his environment. I think it reasonable to suppose that that concept, and that dramatic change in behaviors occurred because of conscious recognition of the artifact-artificer relationship.
Admittedly, it’s a theory – but because the artifact-artificer relationship, re-applied, implies the Creator God hypothesis, and because God concepts have been central to human society throughout known history, for me, the theory has validity because it reconciles these perceptions in non-contradictory relations.

You say that archetype is a generalization – but not if one accepts the evolutionary nature of man, and therefore the idea of conceptual development. All concepts have archetypes – the original formulation of an idea, applied and re-applied – with intermediate stages disappearing, until the relation between the archetype and end product is unrecognizable.

I don’t understand why duality is inherently dubious – particularly in relation to a concept. Many concepts are dualities: hot and cold, good and bad, in and out, creator and created. The logical relation is sound, even though it’s not what actually happened.

Quote: What I have to object to is the use of this archetype in any attempt to discredit the value of religion/belief in God, especially of modern man.

Over-ruled.



"they agreed to submit to the objective authority of God’s will". This seems misleading. More accurately, religious practice and observation allowed early man to form more complex social structures. Submitting to God's will, especially a supposed 'objective authority' seems to miss the point.

Well, right back at ya – you miss the point. This argument explains how hunter-gatherer tribes formed social groups. You see, like chimpanzees, hunter-gatherer tribes likely had a shifting hierarchy headed by an alpha-male, his authority based on threat and use of violence, family relations and alliances maintained by bribery. Chimpanzees have strong social instincts within the troop, but the males particularly are violently xenophobic toward chimps of other troops. The alpha male eats first and gets the best and most food, and mates with more females than lesser males.
Therefore, in the absence of some higher justification for social organization, any two tribes could at best achieve separate co-existence, for otherwise, at the slightest provocation, the original tribal identities would reassert themselves, and every material and marital decision would become a bloodbath. But it did happen, hunter-gatherer tribes did form societies, and this requires explanation. This is another perception reconciled by the theory.

Really? I have it backwards? What – all of it?

These texts were not refutations of one another. They often depend on one another.

I think that you are historically incorrect, and conceptually incorrect. (This is from memory, so spellings and dates are somewhat approximate.)
Jesus, who was probably a real person, rather than, on the one hand, the Son of God, or on the other, merely a cipher, hated the religious orthodoxy. He spent half his life bemoaning the shortcomings of Judaism – and the other half attacking the Roman State, and consequently, the Jews conspired with the Romans to have him killed.
400 years later, Maxentius brought his troops to the Mulvian bridge outside Rome and is reputed to have had a dream in which he saw the sign of Jesus, and heard the words, ‘in this sign you will conquer.’ Next morning he told his soldiers to paint the Christian symbol on their shields, and the promptly defeated Lucinius – fighting under the imperial symbol of Sol Inviticus.
Maxentius untied Rome before he died, but never managed to reconcile the church in the west with the church in the east, on the question of the nature Jesus. (see: Council of Nicecea. 325 a.d.) The empire fell around 410 a.d., and split in half. The western half of the empire continued with the Son of God idea, while the Eastern half of the empire developed Islam, in which Jesus features as a minor prophet.

First, I do not think you have firmly established any religious doctrine/legend/parable/ect as a 'pseudo-reality'.

Again, you misunderstand. The pseudo-reality is the division of humankind – in denial of the fact that we are a single species. Humankind is divided into groups defined by their different conceptions of God, and adherence to the articles of that religion derived from assertions about the nature of God.

Quote: As for the division of mankind, I do not understand the focus on religion. Nationalism is equally divisive if abused. And that's where the real division rests, not in religion, but in nationalism. The history can be confusing…

…and clearly you are confused. Religious identification underlies national identity. This can be shown with reference to historical fact. The nation state only came into existence in 1650. Before that, it was all Empires, each one encompassing many language groups and recognizing no legitimate limits to their territory, nor recognizing the sovereignty of others. In Europe, there was the Holy Roman Empire, but this was torn apart by religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants. The agreement that ended a century of conflict was the Treaty of Westphalia, causing the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, and instituting a system of sovereign nation states. That’s why today, for example, France is largely Catholic and Germany is largely Protestant.
Admittedly, re-application of the concept has not always adhered to this principle – but if you consider the partition of India into Muslim and Hindu areas with the creation of Pakistan – clearly, religious identity underlies national identity. Further, look what the Shia, Sunnis and Kurds are doing in Iraq – pulling the state apart by seeking religiously defined independence. Look at Northern Ireland or Israel and Palestine.

What Darwin fails to do is answer those questions in a way that is instructive - okay, we evolve, so what?

It’s not just that we evolve – but that if we don’t evolve we’ll die.

How do we apply this to our daily lives?

We learn to adapt to changing circumstances.

What is the moral lesson here?

There is no moral lesson. It’s a fact. Unless you mean ‘moral of the story’ – which I shall interpret as ‘what is to be learnt?’ If that’s your question then we need to change in order to survive.

Now, I think we can extrapolate some from Darwin's work, but I think we will find those teachings to be very close to many religious teachings.

No, the very essence of ideology – be it religious, political or economic is preventing change. Religious change is heresy, political change is revolution, and economic change is bankruptcy. That’s why, if we carry on as we are, we aren’t going to survive.

Darwin's evolution does not present any intellectual threat to religion, or belief in God.

Well, I suppose it depends upon what kind of God you imagine. If you imagine a God who created the Heavens and the Earth – then evolution is a direct refutation. If you imagine a God who just lit the evolutionary firework, so to speak, and then stood back and watched, well maybe Darwin doesn’t pose a direct refutation, but even this is contradictory. As I argued in the very beginning, the chains of cause and effect that tie reality together speak of a consistent reality in which everything that exists is consistent with the existence of everything else. Evolution couldn’t have occurred otherwise. Because you have acknowledged that evolution did occur, a supernatural, omnipotent, omniscient God can’t exist. If you argue that He does, then open the door on every other bizarre skeptical possibility, as Daniel C. Dennett puts it, God is a ham sandwich wrapped in tinfoil.

It’s not the language. It’s what the language signifies and the connotations of the meanings conveyed, as they effect the decisions we make, and behaviors we engage in.
I know what the moral meaning of the story of Adam and Eve should be – ‘Son of Adam, you have eaten of the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Now swallow!’ But, no. It’s stuck in your throat. You refuse to see what you know. You’re going to choke to death because you haven’t got the courage to swallow.

[NeitherExtreme]

Hi again iconoclast.

Well, I do have some thoughts in direct response to a lot of your post, but after writing them, it felt like we might be begining to go in circles... I can post those thoughts if you want me to, but I'm not sure how helpful it would be. Also, I don't want to start reacting to what feels to me like a "Big Brother" scenerio, which might get us sidetracked too far.


SO, one issue at a time... Heres my problem with your claim that your ideas are scientifically based: Science observes. Ideologies direct. It's a matter of function. It's like expecting a compass to tell you what direction to take. First you need a desired direction, then a compass. Do you disagree?

[Didymos Thomas]

The Creator God archetype you mention might be useful in some situations - the one before does not seem to be one. You are criticizing the value of belief in God for mankind, but only considering an over-generalization about what God means to people.

Archetypes, by definition, are over-generalizations. Because man evolves, criticizing this archetype is pointless - the God you criticize is not a God of man. So, arguments about the mistaken belief in this archetype creator God are not sufficient for your purposes here.

I don’t understand why duality is inherently dubious – particularly in relation to a concept. Many concepts are dualities: hot and cold, good and bad, in and out, creator and created. The logical relation is sound, even though it’s not what actually happened.

Notions of God do not always rely on duality. Another flaw in your use of the creator God archetype you present here.

I'm not sure what you're trying to do here. You present this archetype of god-notions and then discredit the archetype as a useful belief for mankind. Okay. But mankind does not believe in an archetype. Not only does mankind not believe in the archetype, but your archetype does not encompass all god-notions which men do believe in because your archetype relies upon duality.

You're not a judge, Iconoclast.

Well, right back at ya – you miss the point. This argument explains how hunter-gatherer tribes formed social groups. You see, like chimpanzees, hunter-gatherer tribes likely had a shifting hierarchy headed by an alpha-male, his authority based on threat and use of violence, family relations and alliances maintained by bribery. Chimpanzees have strong social instincts within the troop, but the males particularly are violently xenophobic toward chimps of other troops. The alpha male eats first and gets the best and most food, and mates with more females than lesser males.
Therefore, in the absence of some higher justification for social organization, any two tribes could at best achieve separate co-existence, for otherwise, at the slightest provocation, the original tribal identities would reassert themselves, and every material and marital decision would become a bloodbath. But it did happen, hunter-gatherer tribes did form societies, and this requires explanation. This is another perception reconciled by the theory.

But none of this supports your claims about the relation of religion and social evolution. What's more interesting is that what you describe still continues in modern human society. The only difference is that we tend to control ourselves for social cohesion.

You presented god as the reason for man moving from hunter-gatherer groups into societies. Simply not the case. Man did not invent notions of god and then, because of those notions, move into society. Man learned how to grow his food, and because agricultural societies force people to work in larger, closer groups, religion naturally developed as a matter of social cohesion.

More importantly, religion serves this same purpose - religion promotes social cohesion. If you are concerned with humans killing each other, social cohesion should be something you seek to promote, not stamp out.

I think that you are historically incorrect, and conceptually incorrect. (This is from memory, so spellings and dates are somewhat approximate.)
Jesus, who was probably a real person, rather than, on the one hand, the Son of God, or on the other, merely a cipher, hated the religious orthodoxy. He spent half his life bemoaning the shortcomings of Judaism – and the other half attacking the Roman State, and consequently, the Jews conspired with the Romans to have him killed.

Check your history, then. Jesus was probably not a real person as the only extra-biblical source we have to confirm his existence is Josephus, who's authenticity is far from certain. More likely, Jesus was created as a mythical cult figure of the gnostic Christians and then used by Roman authorities for political ends.

As far as canon goes, Jesus does not spend his time criticizing Roman authority. When the priests came to him and tried to get Jesus to make political comments about Rome what did he say - "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, give to God what is God's" something like that, right?

Jesus aside, how does this show I'm incorrect about my historical understanding? The Gospels surrounding the Jesus cult were not intended to refute Jewish canon and The Koran was not intended to refute the Gospels.

400 years later, Maxentius brought his troops to the Mulvian bridge outside Rome and is reputed to have had a dream in which he saw the sign of Jesus, and heard the words, ‘in this sign you will conquer.’ Next morning he told his soldiers to paint the Christian symbol on their shields, and the promptly defeated Lucinius – fighting under the imperial symbol of Sol Inviticus.

You thought I was historically incorrect, but I know this is historically incorrect. It was Constantine, not Maxentius - Maxentius was defeated by Constantine's smaller force after Constantine supposedly had a vision and called his troops to paint crosses on their shields.

Maxentius untied Rome before he died, but never managed to reconcile the church in the west with the church in the east, on the question of the nature Jesus. (see: Council of Nicecea. 325 a.d.) The empire fell around 410 a.d., and split in half. The western half of the empire continued with the Son of God idea, while the Eastern half of the empire developed Islam, in which Jesus features as a minor prophet.

Again, Maxentius never ruled Rome, and certainly never united the empire. Constantine was Roman Emperor, and Constantine moved his capital to the eastern part of the empire, renaming Byzantium Constantinople.

Initially, there was no eastern or western church. Instead, powerful Bishops ruled from places like Rome, Constantinople and Alexandria. The Roman pope was not any more powerful than the Bishop of Alexandria or the Patriarch in Rome until he bribed Attila not to invade.

In any case, the Council of Nicea was called by Constantine. The result was the Nicean Creed and the condemnation of Arianism, a powerful Christian denomination of the time started by Arius of Alexandria, which the Bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, tried endlessly to wipe out - and the Counsel of Nicea was one step in Athanasius' campaign to stamp out Arianism, even though the next to Emporers in the east were Arian Christians.

The Church did not split until 1054 when the Pope in Rome and Patriarch in Constantinople mutually excommunicated one another. The causes were various.

The eastern half of the empire continued to be Christian, predominantly Christian until Islamic invaders came. And Islam was not developed in the Byzantine Empire or in any other lands once ruled by Rome - Islam began on the Arab peninsula in Mecca. Further, Jesus is not a 'minor' prophet, his name is mentioned more than any other pre-Islamic prophet in the book.

Again, you misunderstand. The pseudo-reality is the division of humankind – in denial of the fact that we are a single species. Humankind is divided into groups defined by their different conceptions of God, and adherence to the articles of that religion derived from assertions about the nature of God.

Then the psuedo-reality is entirely your own invention. We are equally divided along lines of hair color and music preference. These divisions do not deny that we are a single species. Religion does not cause us to deny that we are a single species either.

…and clearly you are confused. Religious identification underlies national identity. This can be shown with reference to historical fact. The nation state only came into existence in 1650. Before that, it was all Empires, each one encompassing many language groups and recognizing no legitimate limits to their territory, nor recognizing the sovereignty of others. In Europe, there was the Holy Roman Empire, but this was torn apart by religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants. The agreement that ended a century of conflict was the Treaty of Westphalia, causing the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, and instituting a system of sovereign nation states. That’s why today, for example, France is largely Catholic and Germany is largely Protestant.
Admittedly, re-application of the concept has not always adhered to this principle – but if you consider the partition of India into Muslim and Hindu areas with the creation of Pakistan – clearly, religious identity underlies national identity. Further, look what the Shia, Sunnis and Kurds are doing in Iraq – pulling the state apart by seeking religiously defined independence. Look at Northern Ireland or Israel and Palestine.

Nations existed prior to 1650 - look at ancient Greece with it's city states.

One religion might be embraced by various nations. Divisions in religion are usually the result of nationalistic divisions - ie, the division of Islam into Sunni and Shia sects.

Prior to the Reformation, both Germany and France were Catholic. The division was one of nations, not of religion. Religion is adopted by nations, not nations by religious sects.

Mentioning the division of India and Pakistan, or Iraq is to ignore the history of those nations states - which is to say that they were invented by British Imperialism.

What Darwin fails to do is answer those questions in a way that is instructive - okay, we evolve, so what?

It’s not just that we evolve – but that if we don’t evolve we’ll die.

And if we evolve we die as well. Lose lose, eh?

Ah, but you mean the species. In that case, yes, change is paramount. We must change to meet the changes in our environment. Darwin was not necessary for that wisdom to emerge, and I believe the value of change has been noticed long before Darwin drew his first breath.

No, the very essence of ideology – be it religious, political or economic is preventing change. Religious change is heresy, political change is revolution, and economic change is bankruptcy. That’s why, if we carry on as we are, we aren’t going to survive.

Only when ideaology is taken to extremes and held fundamentally. We can have religious change without heresy - Buddhism has many sects and no heretics. We can have political change without revolution - American politics have certainly changed since 1865.

I'm not arguing that mankind faces serious problems, I only argue that religion is not the cause.

Well, I suppose it depends upon what kind of God you imagine. If you imagine a God who created the Heavens and the Earth – then evolution is a direct refutation. If you imagine a God who just lit the evolutionary firework, so to speak, and then stood back and watched, well maybe Darwin doesn’t pose a direct refutation, but even this is contradictory. As I argued in the very beginning, the chains of cause and effect that tie reality together speak of a consistent reality in which everything that exists is consistent with the existence of everything else. Evolution couldn’t have occurred otherwise. Because you have acknowledged that evolution did occur, a supernatural, omnipotent, omniscient God can’t exist. If you argue that He does, then open the door on every other bizarre skeptical possibility, as Daniel C. Dennett puts it, God is a ham sandwich wrapped in tinfoil.

Darwin - and all of science - is dangerous to literal interpretations of scripture. Otherwise, not the slightest issue. If anything, Darwin, and all of science, is complementary to religion when we do not fall into the trap of religious fundamentalism.

I know what the moral meaning of the story of Adam and Eve should be – ‘Son of Adam, you have eaten of the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Now swallow!’ But, no. It’s stuck in your throat. You refuse to see what you know. You’re going to choke to death because you haven’t got the courage to swallow

Were you making a point, or were you trying to stick an ad hominem in there?

[No0ne]

Originally Posted by NeitherExtreme

Hi again iconoclast.

Well, I do have some thoughts in direct response to a lot of your post, but after writing them, it felt like we might be begining to go in circles... I can post those thoughts if you want me to, but I'm not sure how helpful it would be. Also, I don't want to start reacting to what feels to me like a "Big Brother" scenerio, which might get us sidetracked too far.


SO, one issue at a time... Heres my problem with your claim that your ideas are scientifically based: Science observes. Ideologies direct. It's a matter of function. It's like expecting a compass to tell you what direction to take. First you need a desired direction, then a compass. Do you disagree?

It's more like calling the operator and asking him/her to help you find which way is north, then say Im standing right here facing this way, can you tell me where north is?

[Ruthless Logic]

Function – or die. Take your pick.

Iconoclast, by sloganizing ultimatums, although full of dramatic impact, the rational mind immediately recognizes the propensity of the claims to devolve into fallacies by reducing complex issues into FALSE DILEMMAS.


Rest Assure, life will continue with or without you-me-or them. It is kinda like the Program telling the Operating System it wants to invoke control based on seniority.

[iconoclast]

NeitherExtreme, Well, yes, i disagree, but to some extent i also agree. You can't attack me one the one hand for my ideas not being scientific - i.e. Why should the weakest of the species have the same repoductive rate as the strongest, scientifically speaking? and then, almost with the same breath, say that science observes - ideology directs.
There are, as you say, values that cannot be scientifically justified within these ideas - the survival of the human species for example, is a value with no ultimate scientific justification.

[Solace]

Lol, have to agree with Ruthless here, life will go on. However, the quality of life that goes on might well indeed be in jeopardy.

A couple of things here, iconoclast. You speak about the species needing to evolve, to force chance, but evolution is not and cannot be forced by the species evolving. What I mean is, we don't consciously evolve. We can change our actions and attitudes, no arguing, but that's not evolving. There's a difference between evolution and conscious change. Equating one to the other is misleading. If you're calling on mankind to change, then you have some ground to walk on. But if you're calling on us to evolve, then you're gonna sink. We can control change, but nature controls evolution.

Your artifact/artificer theory as a natural evolution for human society is suspicious ground for an atheist to be walking on. I could very well use the same analogy to argue for faith and/or religion. I could say, "See, before mankind adopted this concept of God, they were just undeveloped tribal barbarians, but once faith intervened man came to know a better way of life." Even to me it sounds unfounded, but it makes a whole lot more sense than taking the giant leap of logic and saying that because faith evolved naturally there must be no God.

Your whole vision of the future revolves around the notion that mankind must give up interest/reliance upon religous ideals. But if you'll scroll up to the top of the page and click on the "Branches of Philosophy" link, you'll quickly notice that even here, in an enviroment of learned (or at the very least, wanting to learn,) individuals religion is still of prominent interest. There are twice as many threads and posts here than there are in any other branch. Calling upon us to give up religion is absurd in that regard, let alone calling upon the remainder of mankind, a far greater portion of which, I am willing to wager, have more vested interest in religion than we here do.

[iconoclast]

Didymos Thomas, i have explained and explained these ideas to you, and yet you persist in misunderstanding them. perhaps this is because your idea of man as a creation of god is under attack, and thus you refuse to think in other terms. This may be the source of your misunderstanding of everything i say. can you, just for a moment, entertain the idea that man is an evolutionary being. then you cannot fail to understand the idea of conceptual development. it's in this context that the archetype occurred, but then developed as it was applied and re-applied through time, and by different peoples.
i am not critsizing the archetype. it was an important idea - allowing man to form societies by acting as an objective authority for law. but it has passed it's sell-by date. we now have better explanation for our existence, and thus a better objective authority for law.

[iconoclast]

Ruthless Logic, it's like this, it's like that, hahaha, no, it is what it is. function or die is not a slogan, ultimatum or false dilemma, it's an evolutionary fact. don't rest assured - if you do you're in denial. things are not going well - and we can't sort them out with these lies in the way.