h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

F110697?thread=3723125


(I'm not sure that I am)

I'm quite certain I am not

Neither the 'Anti-Realist Agnostic' (whatever _that_ means), nor the (oxymoronic?) 'Realist Theist' views, stripped of their adjectives, are coherent..

To have a position means to posit something, and as far as I am able to determine, the theist postion never quite gets around to defining whatever the word 'god' is supposed to mean. The theist position isn't one, therefore the theist 'none-position' falls to the argument from non-cognitivism, and the argument is over before it begins.

Agnosticism is barely a 'stand-alone' 'ism' at all. Allow me to quote myself:

"Basically, agnosticism is the 'position' that we should suspend judgment on the existence or non-existence of gods.

There can, therefore, be agnostic theists, and agnostic atheists
The agnostic theist asserts the existence of god, but maintains it is not possible to prove the assertion, therefore the non-existence of god is possible.
The agnostic atheist dismisses the idea of a god, but also does not believe it is possible to disprove such ideas, therefore the existence of god is possible.

Thus defined, agnosticism is also incoherent:
If one presupposes that no knowledge about “god” is possible, (including semantic knowledge), then one cannot give any objective meaning to “god”. Therefore the propositions -- “the existence of gods is possible”, and "the non-existence of god is possible", both of which are part of agnosticism, also both become meaningless, and so is agnosticism made meaningless. "

Anyway, it was a positive b***h of a week last week, so I'd rather have a and play guitar

Maybe I'll join in later...

There's a bit in Stoppard's 'The Real Thing' where Henry says:

'Persuasive nonsense. Sophistry in a phrase so neat you can't see the loose end that would unravel it. It's flawless but wrong. A perfect dud.'

There's also a bit where Henry compares a bit of writing to a crude imitation of a cricket bat.

I'm not sure if we're dealing here with a neat phrase or 'a lump of wood of roughly the same shape trying to be a cricket bat.'

Perhaps we're also dealing with good old fashioned doublethink.

Heavy reliance on authority, selective rationalization, a tendency to ad hominem etc etc add up to the kind of fallacious 'reasoning' that just makes me tired.

It is difficult enough to engage in meaningful discussion in a forum, when the participants are honestly striving to achieve harmony, understanding, and can at least agree on ground rules.

It becomes next to impossible when the ground rules don't exist, or are selectively altered by one or the other participants for expediency's sake.

I suppose the fallacies could be enumerated, and exhaustively analysed, but what's the point?

>>> I try to avoid the term Anthropic principle since it is too human centered
???...

Surely that is exactly the point. *Observing* that the universe has structures/laws which allow for our existence is no more than observing that we exist. If it didn't, we wouldn't.

How can this lead to an objective view that 'Belief In God' must be >>> better than 0.5 ?

>>> the problem is it's a bit facile. Since a puddle is not intelligent...

(This observation is 'a bit facile').

I think the point is, is that the 'puddle' begins to assume its environment must have been 'designed' to support it, because it supports it so perfectly. (Rather than, the puddle came in to existence in a way which met the structures laid down by the already-existing hole).

>>> the problem is ... a puddle is not intelligent. If it was, and if it was genuinely legitimate to assign its intelligence to the particular shape of the puddle then the argument would be OK (replace 'man' for 'puddle' and 'environment' for 'hole').

>>> The fundamental constants of the Universe seem to be set up in such a way that is not happenstance, there is either hidden pattern or phenomenal luck.

>>> As I understand it the argument that this if this is not design evidence, it is that this arrangement is just how things are, i.e., we are lucky. If we where not, we would not be here, therefore we must be just lucky.

If so are we not swapping 'faith in a designer' for 'faith in good luck'?

'Faith in good luck'??? wtf?! We exist. That is the whole point. We exist, and the conditions required for us to exist, exist. If they didn't, we wouldn't. No further explanation is needed.

How do we need 'Faith in good luck'? If we didn't have the good luck to exist, we wouldn't exist to observe that we don't. (This is some kind of joke, I think?) If these phenomena weren't the way they are, which enable our existence, we wouldn't exist.