Recently I came upon another of those philosophical debates claiming atheism to be an illogical belief system, and I thought I'd pose the debate here if only to see how an actual atheist would respond.

The debate goes something like this: According to naturalism one cannot trust his instincts and ability to reason as reason is simply the evolution of the mind.  Chance is therefore what gives one the ability to think.  Knowledge can therefore not be comprehended.  One cannot argue based off of knowledge if knowledge cannot be trusted.  If an atheist then seeks to defend his stance then he would be unable to do so as to do so would be self-refuting.

This argument is purhaps one of the reasons Einstein believed there to be a God.  He claimed that one of the most amazing things about the universe is the very fact that it can be comprehended.

So this is something along the lines of "a mind formed by naturalistic evolution cannot reason because the capacity to reason was formed as an adaptation".

I don't really get it, why does the ability to reason being "simply the evolution of the mind" undermine it in any way? This all seems strkingly similar to Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism. If that's the case then all one has to do is point out that reasoning and thinking about things which accurately represent te actual world would have greater survival value than reasoning and thinking about things which are random and have nothing to do with reality.

I think to make a better argument you would have to say exactly why the thoughts and knowledge of an evolved mind would be unreliable.

Recently I came upon another of those philosophical debates claiming atheism to be an illogical belief system, and I thought I'd pose the debate here if only to see how an actual atheist would respond.

The debate goes something like this: According to naturalism one cannot trust his instincts and ability to reason as reason is simply the evolution of the mind.  Chance is therefore what gives one the ability to think.  Knowledge can therefore not be comprehended.  One cannot argue based off of knowledge if knowledge cannot be trusted.  If an atheist then seeks to defend his stance then he would be unable to do so as to do so would be self-refuting.

This argument is purhaps one of the reasons Einstein believed there to be a God.  He claimed that one of the most amazing things about the universe is the very fact that it can be comprehended.

mindstorm

The premises here seem inherently false and intentionally loaded.

......and Einstein.......

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

Big Al

[QUOTE="mindstorm"]

Recently I came upon another of those philosophical debates claiming atheism to be an illogical belief system, and I thought I'd pose the debate here if only to see how an actual atheist would respond.

The debate goes something like this: According to naturalism one cannot trust his instincts and ability to reason as reason is simply the evolution of the mind.  Chance is therefore what gives one the ability to think.  Knowledge can therefore not be comprehended.  One cannot argue based off of knowledge if knowledge cannot be trusted.  If an atheist then seeks to defend his stance then he would be unable to do so as to do so would be self-refuting.

This argument is purhaps one of the reasons Einstein believed there to be a God.  He claimed that one of the most amazing things about the universe is the very fact that it can be comprehended.

Sitri_

The premises here seem inherently false and intentionally loaded.

......and Einstein.......

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

Big Al

I do not deny Einstein did not believe in a personal God, but he still believed there to be a God (even if it be from a deistic approach).  I wish I had his quote, but it's written in a book of mine about 15 miles from where I currently am...

I do not deny Einstein did not believe in a personal God, but he still believed there to be a God (even if it be from a deistic approach).  I wish I had his quote, but it's written in a book of mine about 15 miles from where I currently am...

mindstorm

Not even the deist variety, his "god" had no intelligence and provided no afterlife.  His "god" was a force of nature.  He went out of his was to explain this repeatedly.  His "god" was the constants of the physical universe, that was why he fought so dogmatically against quantum theory even after most everyone else had accepted it as fact; this randomness in the universe was for him, the killing of his god.

I think words quoted above "If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." should have already been enough to disqualify deism without any further explaination.

According to naturalism one cannot trust his instincts and ability to reason as reason is simply the evolution of the mind.mindstorm

This seems to me like the fundamentally flawed premise in this argument.  Naturalism is simply the assertion that there exists nothing supernatural, and that anything that appears supernatural is simply something for which we have not found its natural explanation.  Naturalism is expressed somewhat in what philosophers call the "double burden" on those wishing to prove that a miracle occurred: they must prove both that it actually happened and that it had no natural explanation, the problem here being that the more a person believes one, the less likely they are to believe the other.

There is nothing in naturalism that posits that we cannot trust what we have observed, and any sufficiently rational atheistic argument will invariably be based on that.

Evolution isn't chance. /thread

This argument is purhaps one of the reasons Einstein believed there to be a God.  He claimed that one of the most amazing things about the universe is the very fact that it can be comprehended.

mindstorm

While I'm not Einstein, me and him share(d) religious views to a long extent and that is not a reason for me personally at least. I do know that paraphrase is related to the complexity of the universe and how uncomprehendable it is that it all is ruled by physical laws which we can discern.

[QUOTE="mindstorm"]

I do not deny Einstein did not believe in a personal God, but he still believed there to be a God (even if it be from a deistic approach).  I wish I had his quote, but it's written in a book of mine about 15 miles from where I currently am...

Sitri_

Not even the deist variety, his "god" had no intelligence and provided no afterlife.  His "god" was a force of nature.  He went out of his was to explain this repeatedly.  His "god" was the constants of the physical universe, that was why he fought so dogmatically against quantum theory even after most everyone else had accepted it as fact; this randomness in the universe was for him, the killing of his god.

Actually he just denied that the decay of atoms would be random, not quantum theory in general. :P

I think the randomness rather changed the nature of his god than killed it. He stated he did not think his god plays dice, but who is to say that there can't be one that would? Of course it's not quite the same thing - does it ultimately matter when the term 'god' is already used in such a unconventional way in his religion though? The overarching theme of both beliefs is still that the universe is governed by certain determined laws.

According to naturalism one cannot trust his instincts and ability to reason as reason is simply the evolution of the mind. Chance is therefore what gives one the ability to think. Knowledge can therefore not be comprehended. mindstorm

Actually he just denied that the decay of atoms would be random, not quantum theory in general. :P

I think the randomness rather changed the nature of his god than killed it. He stated he did not think his god plays dice, but who is to say that there can't be one that would? Of course it's not quite the same thing - does it ultimately matter when the term 'god' is already used in such a unconventional way in his religion though? The overarching theme of both beliefs is still that the universe is governed by certain determined laws.

inoperativeRS

Well the killing of his god bit was a bit of my own metaphor, but everything else in my statement above was taken almost directly from this book. In it, the very randomness of anything in quantum theory was very unsettling to him.

Recently I came upon another of those philosophical debates claiming atheism to be an illogical belief system, and I thought I'd pose the debate here if only to see how an actual atheist would respond.

The debate goes something like this: According to naturalism one cannot trust his instincts and ability to reason as reason is simply the evolution of the mind. Chance is therefore what gives one the ability to think. Knowledge can therefore not be comprehended. One cannot argue based off of knowledge if knowledge cannot be trusted. If an atheist then seeks to defend his stance then he would be unable to do so as to do so would be self-refuting.

This argument is purhaps one of the reasons Einstein believed there to be a God. He claimed that one of the most amazing things about the universe is the very fact that it can be comprehended.

mindstorm

[QUOTE="Big Al"]

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

Sitri_

That is not to say, that he was an athiest, though -

 

"In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."

"I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God."  

Albert E

He didn't believe in a personal God, but only because he couldn't see how a personal God could allow suffering. What he failed to understand was the actual motives of God and he made the incorrect assumption that God intended this universe as it is now. In other words, he couldn't get past the moral problems in the universe. 

That is not to say, that he was an athiest, though -

He didn't believe in a personal God, but only because he couldn't see how a personal God could allow suffering. What he failed to understand was the actual motives of God and he made the incorrect assumption that God intended this universe as it is now. In other words, he couldn't get past the moral problems in the universe. 

Lansdowne5

He would fit my definition of atheism.  I can subscribe to the metaphoric god that he talks about, so if you want to use that definition, I am not an atheist either.

And suffering was not the reason he didn't believe in it.  He likened religion to "childish superstition."  According the Issacson biography, not once is suffering cited as the reason he lost his faith as a child and never cited as a reason he didn't get it back.

I'm not exactly sure why we're debating on Einstein's religious beliefs, considering that they're pretty much just an answer to a trivia question; whether or not Einstein believed in the same God that oneself believes in does not exactly make one more or less correct in that belief.

I'm not exactly sure why we're debating on Einstein's religious beliefs, considering that they're pretty much just an answer to a trivia question; whether or not Einstein believed in the same God that oneself believes in does not exactly make one more or less correct in that belief.

GabuEx

Ultimately it is, but at least I get to feel like I get some utility out of the time I spent reading about him. :P

So this is something along the lines of "a mind formed by naturalistic evolution cannot reason because the capacity to reason was formed as an adaptation".

I don't really get it, why does the ability to reason being "simply the evolution of the mind" undermine it in any way? This all seems strkingly similar to Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism. If that's the case then all one has to do is point out that reasoning and thinking about things which accurately represent te actual world would have greater survival value than reasoning and thinking about things which are random and have nothing to do with reality.

I think to make a better argument you would have to say exactly why the thoughts and knowledge of an evolved mind would be unreliable.

domatron23

I'm not exactly sure why we're debating on Einstein's religious beliefs, considering that they're pretty much just an answer to a trivia question; whether or not Einstein believed in the same God that oneself believes in does not exactly make one more or less correct in that belief.

GabuEx

[QUOTE="domatron23"]

So this is something along the lines of "a mind formed by naturalistic evolution cannot reason because the capacity to reason was formed as an adaptation".

I don't really get it, why does the ability to reason being "simply the evolution of the mind" undermine it in any way? This all seems strkingly similar to Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism. If that's the case then all one has to do is point out that reasoning and thinking about things which accurately represent te actual world would have greater survival value than reasoning and thinking about things which are random and have nothing to do with reality.

I think to make a better argument you would have to say exactly why the thoughts and knowledge of an evolved mind would be unreliable.

danwallacefan

Meh I'm just going to copy/paste the response that I gave in your old thread about this argument:

As far as I could tell the guy was basically saying that a belief in naturalistic evolution is self defeating because it fails to account for a reliable cognitive faculty that will be able to discern truth. Behaviour, he says, not semantic content matters in respect to natural selection therefore the beliefs of a mind formed by naturalistic evolution are intrinsically questionable.

It's a neat argument but it fails for the plainly simple reason that true beliefs are more adaptive than false beliefs when it comes to representing the external world and satisfying desires. The guy makes the point that different beliefs (true and false) can result in the same adaptive behaviour and he uses the example of Paul the hominid to illustrate this. In the first scenario Paul does not like being eaten by tigers and so when he sees a tiger he has a true belief that it may eat him and then flees. In the second scenario Paul loves being eaten by tigers and when he sees a tiger has the false belief that it wont eat him and then flees. In this case both a true and a false belief produced the same adaptive behaviour. The problem is though that only Paul in the first scenario fulfilled his desire of not being eaten, the Paul in the second scenario utterly failed in his desire of becoming tiger food.

In the same way that evolution is blind to thoughts and semantic properties so too are we blind to evolution. Paul is not thinking about what is and isn't adaptive he is only thinking about his desire in regards to the tiger. An organism striving to satisfy his desire can survive natural selection only if those desires coincide with what is adaptive. That's why you don't get people who love to be eaten by tigers.

If our desires reflect what is adaptive then only true beliefs will suffice in the mutual pursuit of adaptivity and mental satisfaction.

[QUOTE="danwallacefan"][QUOTE="domatron23"]

So this is something along the lines of "a mind formed by naturalistic evolution cannot reason because the capacity to reason was formed as an adaptation".

I don't really get it, why does the ability to reason being "simply the evolution of the mind" undermine it in any way? This all seems strkingly similar to Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism. If that's the case then all one has to do is point out that reasoning and thinking about things which accurately represent te actual world would have greater survival value than reasoning and thinking about things which are random and have nothing to do with reality.

I think to make a better argument you would have to say exactly why the thoughts and knowledge of an evolved mind would be unreliable.

domatron23

Meh I'm just going to copy/paste the response that I gave in your old thread about this argument:

As far as I could tell the guy was basically saying that a belief in naturalistic evolution is self defeating because it fails to account for a reliable cognitive faculty that will be able to discern truth. Behaviour, he says, not semantic content matters in respect to natural selection therefore the beliefs of a mind formed by naturalistic evolution are intrinsically questionable.

It's a neat argument but it fails for the plainly simple reason that true beliefs are more adaptive than false beliefs when it comes to representing the external world and satisfying desires. The guy makes the point that different beliefs (true and false) can result in the same adaptive behaviour and he uses the example of Paul the hominid to illustrate this. In the first scenario Paul does not like being eaten by tigers and so when he sees a tiger he has a true belief that it may eat him and then flees. In the second scenario Paul loves being eaten by tigers and when he sees a tiger has the false belief that it wont eat him and then flees. In this case both a true and a false belief produced the same adaptive behaviour. The problem is though that only Paul in the first scenario fulfilled his desire of not being eaten, the Paul in the second scenario utterly failed in his desire of becoming tiger food.

In the same way that evolution is blind to thoughts and semantic properties so too are we blind to evolution. Paul is not thinking about what is and isn't adaptive he is only thinking about his desire in regards to the tiger. An organism striving to satisfy his desire can survive natural selection only if those desires coincide with what is adaptive. That's why you don't get people who love to be eaten by tigers.

If our desires reflect what is adaptive then only true beliefs will suffice in the mutual pursuit of adaptivity and mental satisfaction.

It goes without saying that Einstein was an extremely intelligent man -- any indication of his belief or lack of belief in God would at least support the view that either is the more rational option.MetalGear_Ninty

That's an appeal to authority fallacy - I could just as easily note that scientists are vastly disproportionately atheist compared to the population at large. Those two facts would be directly contradictory unless we simply accept the fact that however brilliant someone may be, that does not make their religious beliefs any more valid than someone else's.

[QUOTE="domatron23"][QUOTE="danwallacefan"][QUOTE="domatron23"]

So this is something along the lines of "a mind formed by naturalistic evolution cannot reason because the capacity to reason was formed as an adaptation".

I don't really get it, why does the ability to reason being "simply the evolution of the mind" undermine it in any way? This all seems strkingly similar to Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism. If that's the case then all one has to do is point out that reasoning and thinking about things which accurately represent te actual world would have greater survival value than reasoning and thinking about things which are random and have nothing to do with reality.

I think to make a better argument you would have to say exactly why the thoughts and knowledge of an evolved mind would be unreliable.

danwallacefan

Meh I'm just going to copy/paste the response that I gave in your old thread about this argument:

As far as I could tell the guy was basically saying that a belief in naturalistic evolution is self defeating because it fails to account for a reliable cognitive faculty that will be able to discern truth. Behaviour, he says, not semantic content matters in respect to natural selection therefore the beliefs of a mind formed by naturalistic evolution are intrinsically questionable.

It's a neat argument but it fails for the plainly simple reason that true beliefs are more adaptive than false beliefs when it comes to representing the external world and satisfying desires. The guy makes the point that different beliefs (true and false) can result in the same adaptive behaviour and he uses the example of Paul the hominid to illustrate this. In the first scenario Paul does not like being eaten by tigers and so when he sees a tiger he has a true belief that it may eat him and then flees. In the second scenario Paul loves being eaten by tigers and when he sees a tiger has the false belief that it wont eat him and then flees. In this case both a true and a false belief produced the same adaptive behaviour. The problem is though that only Paul in the first scenario fulfilled his desire of not being eaten, the Paul in the second scenario utterly failed in his desire of becoming tiger food.

In the same way that evolution is blind to thoughts and semantic properties so too are we blind to evolution. Paul is not thinking about what is and isn't adaptive he is only thinking about his desire in regards to the tiger. An organism striving to satisfy his desire can survive natural selection only if those desires coincide with what is adaptive. That's why you don't get people who love to be eaten by tigers.

If our desires reflect what is adaptive then only true beliefs will suffice in the mutual pursuit of adaptivity and mental satisfaction.

What?

Did you even read what I wrote? I never mentioned anything about a false belief leading to maladaptive behaviour.

My point was that behaviour is the result of ones desires paired with ones beliefs. You desire not to be hurt so you run away from things that you believe to be dangerous. You desire to copulate so you copulate with whatever looks like a fertile female of your species etc etc.

In any scenario where false beliefs lead to adaptive behaviours (which is what the argument is saying would be possible with naturalistic evolution) an organisms desires must be disappointed. Paul had the false belief that the tiger was not dangerous but the reason why he ran away was because he wanted to be eaten. His behaviour was adaptive yes but as far as Paul is concerned he failed in his goal.

Organisms don't act based on what they think will propegate their species the most, they act based on their desires. Do you have sex because you want to behave adaptively? No you do it because it feels damned good. Do you run away from predators because you want to live long enough to pass on your genes? No you do it because you don't want to get mauled.

So lets say you have organism A whose desires coincide with what is adaptive and organism B whose desires coincide with what is not adaptive. Lets say that they either generate false beliefs F or true beliefs T.

AF (an organism with adaptive desires who has false beliefs) would quickly die out I think you and I can both agree on that point

AT (an organism with adaptive desires who has true beliefs) would behave exceedingly well and would have a very good chance of being selected for

BF (an organism with non-adaptive desires who has false beliefs) would behave adaptively some of the time and would have an average chance of beng selected for

BT (an organism with non-adaptive desires who has true beliefs) would die out very quickly indeed

So I suppose the argument comes down to considering whether AT or BF would be fitter. I'll articulte a scenario where I believe that BF would falter where AT would prevail.

Copulation: BF must pick a suitable partner of the correct species, gender and age to copulate with if he is to act adaptively. BF wants to copulate with a young, male of a different species. Lets say that there are 1000 items in BF's environment (trees, rocks, predators, males) only ten of which would be ideal to mate with. He obviously has to select very carefully otherwise he will get a false negative which might impact his fitness. Well there would be a 1% chance of him getting a false positive but 99% of the time he will be copulating something that would not get pregnant.

Compare this to AT who desires to copulate with an appropriate mate and who can accurately discern what objects in his environment are females of his species at a fertile age. Obviously he would be far more successful that BT.

Do you honestly believe that BF could behave consistently and as adaptively as AT?

[QUOTE="MetalGear_Ninty"]It goes without saying that Einstein was an extremely intelligent man -- any indication of his belief or lack of belief in God would at least support the view that either is the more rational option.GabuEx

That's an appeal to authority fallacy - I could just as easily note that scientists are vastly disproportionately atheist compared to the population at large. Those two facts would be directly contradictory unless we simply accept the fact that however brilliant someone may be, that does not make their religious beliefs any more valid than someone else's.

No, it doesn't make their religious beliefs more valid, however it does make their beliefs more likely to be true then say that of an uneducated youth.

You can't completely divorce the two concepts of belief and intelligence.

"To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious."

Einstein often used religious metaphors and even referred to himself as religious, but not in a supernatural sense.

"I have never imputed to Nature a purpse or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism."

I understand why this is confusing to some, and it doesn't help that his words are often cherry picked and taken out of context to support the religious side to anargument. It's a shame that people twist Einstein's words to support their side, and any religious person who does this on purpose just makes their religion look worse.

[QUOTE="MetalGear_Ninty"]It goes without saying that Einstein was an extremely intelligent man -- any indication of his belief or lack of belief in God would at least support the view that either is the more rational option.GabuEx

That's an appeal to authority fallacy - I could just as easily note that scientists are vastly disproportionately atheist compared to the population at large. Those two facts would be directly contradictory unless we simply accept the fact that however brilliant someone may be, that does not make their religious beliefs any more valid than someone else's.

It's also a misinterpretation to say Einstein believed in God.  

"I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. (Albert Einstein, 1954)"   

If that isn't clear enough for you ... 

I never meant for this topic to become a "what is Einstein's religion" debate... o.0  Whether he was a theist or deist was irrelevant to the topic, the point was his belief in a God.  Specifics did not matter.

I never meant for this topic to become a "what is Einstein's religion" debate... o.0  Whether he was a theist or deist was irrelevant to the topic, the point was his belief in a God.  Specifics did not matter.

 

mindstorm

That's not an appeal to authority fallacy.

No, it doesn't make their religious beliefs more valid, however it does make their beliefs more likely to be true then say that of an uneducated youth.

You can't completely divorce the two concepts of belief and intelligence.

MetalGear_Ninty

[QUOTE="GabuEx"]

[QUOTE="MetalGear_Ninty"]It goes without saying that Einstein was an extremely intelligent man -- any indication of his belief or lack of belief in God would at least support the view that either is the more rational option.MetalGear_Ninty

That's an appeal to authority fallacy - I could just as easily note that scientists are vastly disproportionately atheist compared to the population at large. Those two facts would be directly contradictory unless we simply accept the fact that however brilliant someone may be, that does not make their religious beliefs any more valid than someone else's.

No, it doesn't make their religious beliefs more valid, however it does make their beliefs more likely to be true then say that of an uneducated youth.

You can't completely divorce the two concepts of belief and intelligence.

If your argument was the demonstration of some sort of scientific proof of god Einstein presented, you would be correct in saying that it was not an appeal to authority. However this is not the case, you simply stated that Einstein believed in god and that he was smart. Your argument boils down to:

1. Einstein believed in god.

2. Einstein is smarter than you.

3. Therefore god exists. 

So it is an informal fallacy because of the disconnect in logical progression between 1. and 2. 

[QUOTE="MetalGear_Ninty"][QUOTE="GabuEx"]

[QUOTE="MetalGear_Ninty"]It goes without saying that Einstein was an extremely intelligent man -- any indication of his belief or lack of belief in God would at least support the view that either is the more rational option.Frattracide

That's an appeal to authority fallacy - I could just as easily note that scientists are vastly disproportionately atheist compared to the population at large. Those two facts would be directly contradictory unless we simply accept the fact that however brilliant someone may be, that does not make their religious beliefs any more valid than someone else's.

No, it doesn't make their religious beliefs more valid, however it does make their beliefs more likely to be true then say that of an uneducated youth.

You can't completely divorce the two concepts of belief and intelligence.

If your argument was the demonstration of some sort of scientific proof of god Einstein presented, you would be correct in saying that it was not an appeal to authority. However this is not the case, you simply stated that Einstein believed in god and that he was smart. Your argument boils down to:

1. Einstein believed in god.

2. Einstein is smarter than you.

3. Therefore god exists. 

So it is an informal fallacy because of the disconnect in logical progression between 1. and 2. 

There is still a disconnect in logical progression.CptJSparrow

Nope... he didn't say it would mean that God exists. He said it would make him more likely to exist.Funky_Llama

The conclusion is still invalid. The probability of a god existing is not contingent on the beliefs of Einstein. To offer the personal beliefs of an individual as proof of the existence, or likely existence, of a deity is unsound reasoning. To say it is more probable because a smart person thought it to be true is still an appeal to authority.  

[QUOTE="MetalGear_Ninty"]That's not an appeal to authority fallacy.

No, it doesn't make their religious beliefs more valid, however it does make their beliefs more likely to be true then say that of an uneducated youth.

You can't completely divorce the two concepts of belief and intelligence.

CptJSparrow

I think that Einstein's works established that he is a more credible source of 'truth' per se (speaking in terms of likelyhood)

To say that on the nature of metaphysical subjects that the musings of a genius is equal to that of a layman of education is a nonsense. One could only make such an assertion if they believed that intelligence was divorced from any ascertaining of metaphysical truth.

[QUOTE="Funky_Llama"]Nope... he didn't say it would mean that God exists. He said it would make him more likely to exist.Frattracide

The conclusion is still invalid. The probability of a god existing is not contingent on the beliefs of Einstein. To offer the personal beliefs of an individual as proof of the existence, or likely existence, of a deity is unsound reasoning. To say it is more probable because a smart person thought it to be true is still an appeal to authority.

NB: Funky expressed what I mean quite well in his previous post.

One could only make such an assertion if they believed that intelligence was divorced from any ascertaining of metaphysical truth.MetalGear_Ninty

I think the question could really be raised whether the ascertaining of metaphysical truth is even a possibility.

[QUOTE="MetalGear_Ninty"]One could only make such an assertion if they believed that intelligence was divorced from any ascertaining of metaphysical truth.GabuEx

I think the question could really be raised whether the ascertaining of metaphysical truth is even a possibility.

[QUOTE="Funky_Llama"]Nope... he didn't say it would mean that God exists. He said it would make him more likely to exist.Frattracide

The conclusion is still invalid. The probability of a god existing is not contingent on the beliefs of Einstein. To offer the personal beliefs of an individual as proof of the existence, or likely existence, of a deity is unsound reasoning. To say it is more probable because a smart person thought it to be true is still an appeal to authority.  

Anyway, an appeal to authority takes the form 'smart guy believes x, therefore x is true.' This does not.

Isn't it a metaphysical truth to say that it is impossible to ascertain 'truth'?MetalGear_Ninty

Yes, which means that I am not certain of that statement being true. :P

[QUOTE="MetalGear_Ninty"]Isn't it a metaphysical truth to say that it is impossible to ascertain 'truth'?GabuEx

Yes, which means that I am not certain of that statement being true. :P

[QUOTE="MetalGear_Ninty"]Isn't it a metaphysical truth to say that it is impossible to ascertain 'truth'?GabuEx

Yes, which means that I am not certain of that statement being true. :P

I think it's a reasonable inference to make, given that intelligence is positively correlated with being right in a belief.Funky_Llama

I think the question could really be raised whether the ascertaining of metaphysical truth is even a possibility.

GabuEx

[QUOTE="Funky_Llama"]I think it's a reasonable inference to make, given that intelligence is positively correlated with being right in a belief.CptJSparrow

[QUOTE="Funky_Llama"]I think it's a reasonable inference to make, given that intelligence is positively correlated with being right in a belief.CptJSparrow

Why do you speak of 'knowing' when I speak of probability? I don't assert any absolute truth in association with an intellectual authority.

[QUOTE="GabuEx"]

I think the question could really be raised whether the ascertaining of metaphysical truth is even a possibility.

CptJSparrow

I don't see the relavence of the point made.

Which logically means that you can't conclude that it is impossible to ascertain metaphysical truth. :PMetalGear_Ninty

No, but if it is impossible (which strikes me as something that really can't be entirely ruled out), then it would obviously follow that no one person's attempt at determining it is any better than anyone else's.

[QUOTE="MetalGear_Ninty"]Which logically means that you can't conclude that it is impossible to ascertain metaphysical truth. :PGabuEx

No, but if it is impossible (which strikes me as something that really can't be entirely ruled out), then it would obviously follow that no one person's attempt at determining it is any better than anyone else's.

If we introduce the 'if' factors, then we can pretty much say anything. :PMetalGear_Ninty

Welcome to philosophy. :P

Why do you speak of 'knowing' when I speak of probability? I don't assert any absolute truth in association with an intellectual authority.

MetalGear_Ninty