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Atheism vs. Christianity, the Existence of God, and the Biblical Canon
Anybody want a throwback to some old-fashioned culture war? I was thinking about religion recently. I was also reading the State of the Motte thread and somehow wound up in this old thread about atheism.
In it is some interesting commentary on the state of the atheism vs Christianity debate:
I broadly agree with this, but not how you might think. I think that logically, it is probable that God does exist, so I am not an atheist. In particular my favorite argument is the argument from causation. There must be an uncaused cause; this can be identified with God.
However, that's a long way from being a canonical Christian. Consider:
The full lists in Genesis 5 and 11 go on like this, generation by generation. Adding up each father's age at his son's birth gives 1,948 years from Adam to Abram.
Now if you add this up, as a canonical Christian you must believe that from creation of Adam to the birth of Jesus around 4 BC, there were roughly 4000 years. Also, my Genesis is from the Hebrew Torah. The Septuagint gives older ages at fatherhood, so it makes 5500 years. Which is correct?
Unfortunately I don't think any amount of presuppositional logic could get canonical Christians out of this conundrum.
One thing I noticed however is that the source of all Biblical errors-according-to-empirical-science is Hebrew scripture. Almost no errors are in the New Testament outside of the books that go hard on Hebrew Scripture, like Matthew.
If you care about this and having a coherent theology to defend, you may get into New Testament criticism. It's a humanities field with low certainty, so it's possible to hold a lot of positions in it. But one popular idea is that of Markan priority. Mark was an earlier Gospel than Luke and Matthew, which are edits of Mark. You will notice that Luke and Matthew are the most egregious offenders of Hebrew scripture injection. Mark reads very differently. In Mark, Jesus mocks the Sabbath and declares kosher laws void. In Matthew, this is re-written so that he comes to fulfill the law and not abolish it. We are treated to excessive Hebrew genealogies that don't match archeology, quotes from the Torah a lot, and general arguments that he's a Messiah sent by Yahweh because he does all of the things that were prophesied about that Messiah, except, of course, making Judea the king of the world.
There's a lot of fulfillment of those Hebrew prophecies missing in canonical Mark and John (this is important because critics believe these were edited by the Matthew and Luke people later to align them, so they are not even in their original states), but a main one is Jesus's relation to David. In Matthew we are slapped with that genealogy. In Mark we get
In John we get:
Matthew and Luke give mutually exclusive birth narratives that fail historical tests (one claims there was a massacre of 2 year olds, one claims an empire-wide census that isn't recorded anywhere and doesn't fit Herod's dates) that make him born in Bethlehem. But in John and Mark he's just from Nazareth.
So the canon of the bookshelf Bible is extremely hard to defend scientifically, yet the original Gospel seems to be more defensible, as long as you accept that Jesus could do magic.
Another question of coherency is what does Jesus save us from? The canon claims Jesus saves us from ... himself. Yes, in this canon, Jesus is one person of the Trinity, a single being that will torture you if you don't accept his salvation. That's kind of an odd way to behave ... I'm not judging morally since I accept theology is above morality, but it still seems intuitively odd.
This brings me to John 8:44 and its controversy. It says:
I have read that the most natural translation here was,
In this case Jesus is talking to the practicing Jews who do not believe in him. So he is pointing out their father created the devil and is a liar. Which fits the empirical errors in Hebrew scripture noted above.
Alternatively this was declared too supportive of Marcionite and Gnostic heresy so the orthodox reading prevailed:
And this is weakened to mean that the Jews were the children of the devil because, I don't know, they rejected their own Messiah or something, as Matthew and Luke make clear, wherein the Jewish majority oppose Jesus with little motive beyond malice, despite Jesus fulfilling their law exactly as written. What is more likely, Jesus mocked their God and they killed Jesus, or that Jesus proved he was their God and they killed their own God that they worship?
Technically I suppose it doesn't matter how you translate this, the Jews were very devout and are called children of the devil either way. Unless they were having secret black sabbaths, I think this line is pretty clear about what it means for the Hebrew God.
Going back to Salvation, this goes best with the idea that Jesus is saving us from a deity like the Hebrew God, something that created the tarnished world, is wrathful and violent, which kills and writes lies.
Now, is this a crazy reading? Not at all. It's a popular historical reading that lost out but not without a fight. It fits the theology of Marcion and some Gnostic groups, who were declared heretics in the mid-to-late 2nd century by proto-orthodox writers. Before around that point, this idea was more popular. I have a radical, maybe unfounded idea, that this theology even could be the original theology of the Gospels, but this is controversial in the Church and the Academy. In the Church it's obvious why: it's the same Church that called it heresy. In the Academy we have atheists who claim Jesus was an essene or something. I will admit my belief is somewhat loaded on the idea that Jesus actually performed miracles. I lean towards this because I don't have a restricted prior against magic, I think all things are possible for the right being, and I think Jesus was obviously somebody because otherwise we would not have a religion about him, particularly one where he died very quickly, a material failure, with only a handful of followers. Other prophets accumulate riches and a harem.
I will stop here, but I thought this could be a fun discussion to be had, because I think it deals with the main adversary of atheism from a different perspective. Also, if you can convince me that the canon is untarnished, I will convert to Catholicism or a similar branch. I originally got into this because I was born secular and was memed into looking for a Church, but this forces me into a predicament in the world of schism. Which Church? The only proper way is to get into theology if I'm serious about it. And this is what I think so far. My priors haven't converged.
I do not think this is the best argument for existence of God as it is still defensive as it just follows some form of natural theology. You can always claim somethin like that a Big Bang is uncaused cause or something similar.
On the other hand I do believe that presuppositional apologetics is extremely strong as it shows huge blind spots of many secular and humanist ideologies. It also shows how shallow the overall paradigm of these ideologies is. In short, the argument is that everybody including let's say secular materialist works on some sort of presupposition where they just assert access to certain metaphysical claims. And this is incredibly hard from any humanist paradigm that starts from human or human mind in Cartesian sense.
The point being, that none of these paradigms have any "right" to use any universal claim. E.g. if an atheistic materialist claims that nothing else exists except of matter - what is his grounding for this claim? He as a finite being was not everywhere, every time and thus he has no grounds to utter such a claim. The do not have access to any stable metaphysics. The theist paradigm actually solves this issue. There is exists an omnipresent and all-powerful being and all universals are anchored in this divine mind. By allowing for such an entity to exist, one does have justified grounds to use these universals.
I used an analogy before in form of how god in Gödel's ontological proof serves as an anchor that provides for a modal collapse that smooths away existence of unprovable truths. That is the point of my presupposition. In this analogy materialist is denying existence of Gödel's god, but he at the same time also denies existence of unprovable truths and claiming that they have access to modal collapse without any grounding.
They want to eat the cake and have it too, they often either do not understand how these meta-level arguments such as Transcendental Argument for God work or they just ignore them and still pretend as if they can use the very language for which they do not have any proper justification.
... but that has no bearing on whether a god exists.
If you want to use this as a criticism of materialism, dropping the "atheist" part, then you still have a massive problem:
What gives you the "right" to declare such a being exists? How you could you, a being who is not omnipresent or all-powerful, possibly verify its existence? You're stacking the deck by allowing one side to assume the existence of an arbitrarily complex entity that will fit into whatever shape hole they need; that's a far bigger issue than materialists trying to comment on matter.
This is gibberish.
Again, this goes meta-level higher. It allows for God to exist. The other paradigms outright reject this idea. It is about web of beliefs AKA paraigms. Beliefs do not exist in isolation, they have implications. And there are some fundamental and mutually incopmatible beliefs that lead to completely different paths and that shut down forever the other path. Are you a monist like idealist or materialist who says "only matter exists", or are you pluralist and you believe in multiple realms. Do you believe in objective or subjective morality etc. These are fundamental paradigmatic pressupositions that you need to be aware of.
Because it grounds everything else. Again an analogy - what gives you a "right" to say that 2+2=4 as opposed to 2+2=24546534? A coherent explanation of the rest of the math. Especially if the person endorsing 2+2=24546534 then just says that 1+1+1+1 = 4 as if it is not in contradiction at all with previous statement. It is a paradigmatic level, a meta level argument. You cannot say just say that there is no reality except of subjective experience. FUCK YOU. That is a universal statement that CANNOT be proven by subjective ground-up justification. It is an invalid move exactly as saying that "married bacheolrs exist" while at the same time saying that you are a proponent of logic.
It is called an analogy. What exactly did you not understand from this?
I don't know why this topic got you so emotional, but even with your long record of AAQCs, this is not acceptable. Take a day to cool off.
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You are deeply confused about many things. I strongly recommend you use simpler words, because you're tangling yourself up by slinging around complicated words in ways that don't actually coherently refer to anything. (Apologies for being blunt; I don't mean this as an insult.)
You've already lost me. There is nothing about this that is a meta-level higher.
Yes, of course.
Yes, I'm aware of these things you're calling "paradigmatic pressupositions [sic]", but that could more accurately be called "beliefs".
Nothing in this paragraph actually addresses my point about your criticism of materialism.
... no, it isn't. You need to stop saying "paradigmatic" and "meta" if you want to actually communicate anything. 2+2=4 isn't based on anything meta. And this entire avenue of who has the "right" to make philosophical claims isn't useful.
Excuse me?
If you're going to claim a thing CANNOT be done, the burden is on you to supply a watertight proof. Just because you can't see a way to do it doesn't mean there's no way to do it. Though again, you're tangling yourself up with words like "universal" and "justification".
I am aware of what analogies are, thanks. Your "analogy" is meaningless nonsense. "god in Gödel's ontological proof serves as an anchor that provides for a modal collapse that smooths away existence of unprovable truths" -- this doesn't mean anything.
If you think I'm wrong, you should be able to explain what you mean in simple words. I don't mean "dumb it down" -- you can assume that I'm familiar with Godel's ontological proof, mathematically capable, etc. I mean explain this in plain English, without hiding behind phrases like "modal collapse" that don't actually mean anything.
Ok, I will use simple language. You used this argument:
This is universal statement that there has to be an uncaused cause. How do you know that to be true? How do you justify this statement - did you personally examine all effects and traced them to their causes - or did you just use your imagination to just assert it to be the case? In that sense it is your presupposition. But in fact I do not even have to go that far. For instance what is a "cause" if number 2? How does it exist, how is it caused? First cause is accepting physicalist presuppositions, it is playing inside that narrow box. The meta-level argument goes beyond that.
That is what I am talking about meta-level. Also just to be sure, I am not classical theist and I do not think that natural theology is truly a coherent system to explain God. A system similar to Neoplatonist Gnostics, who presuppose the existence of THE ONE and just handwave any justification for that idea including One and the Many problem via some system of tiers and whatnot.
Of course 2+2=4 is reliant on various presuppositions such as that math and laws of logic exist and so forth. How do you know that 2+2=4 as opposed to 5 and again in a justified manner that excludes "all" other possibilities? It is basic question of presupposed epistemology and metaphysics. You boldly claim that you are beyond presuppositions, on what grounds?
"Just because you can't see a way to do it doesn't mean there's no way to do it.". Exactly. This applies 100% to you and your stupid First Cause argument. Thank you for pointing that out so eloquently.
Okay, analogy in simple words. Gödel's god solves the problem of unprovable truths, it provides for modal collapse that all truths are necessary and excludes unprovable truths. If there is somebody who denies existence of Gödel's god and AS WELL say that there are no unprovable truths, that is a problem. He cannot have access to modal collapse without presupposing Gödel's god entity. That was the point for the analogy.
Simple words, okay. You say "Presuppositions wrong. It presupposes stuff. Haha. I know that there is uncaused cause! I know it because it is what it is. Everybody agrees. Justification not necessary. This presupposition correct, I know it bro. Checkmate presuppositionalists. I can say "everything can be explained without presupposition, pretend I do not have presuppositional grounding for universals like "everything" or "explain" and I can say you are bad presuppositionless - just because"
No, I didn't. Go back and check the username you grabbed the quote from.
If you're going to be an asshole and call my arguments "stupid", maybe make sure you're replying to the right user.
So, I'm going to skip over defending an argument I never actually made.
Stop making stuff up.
I never claimed I did. Stop making stuff up.
2+2=4 is a useful, coherent model for counting discrete entities. I "know" it is true insofar as it consistently works.
2+2=4 is not universally physically true. If I add 2 clouds to 2 clouds, I don't (necessarily) get 4 clouds, because clouds are not a discrete entity that's appropriate for modelling via addition.
But within mathematics, within the rules of the game of addition, 2+2=4. If you think that's not "justified", then i reject your concept of justification as being useful.
You're still making statements like this that don't mean anything.
This is a parody, right? I literally flagged up "modal collapse" as the primary example of nonsense phrases you're using. You're not using simple words in this explanation. I don't think you can use simple words, because you're not actually conveying any kind of coherent concept; you're just stringing together big words in a way that feels like an explanation to you.
And no, Godel's god doesn't "solve the problem of unprovable truths"; that's nonsense, and shows you don't understand Godel.
No, I didn't. Please stop lying.
If you're going to be childish and rude, try actually reading the comment you're replying to.
It does not matter in this case. The point was usage of universal claims without justification. Which you claimed right here in this discussion bellow.
And? Telling stories about unicorns to my daughter also works consistently, the same about stories about all kind of made up things. But that is also besides the meta-point I am making - why is "consistently works" any form of justification? What does it even mean and how did you came up with it?
Excellent. We discovered a difference of counting by identity vs division. However the realm of numbers is realm of counting by identity, so this analogy does not wok. 2+2=4 is either true or false, there is nothing like "kind of". We are talking about a concrete thing - abstract concept of standard numbers and not clouds or persons inside Trinity. Which is by the way a good argument against OP's Gnosticism.
And here we are. A universal metaphysical game. Either you believe 2+2=4 or you are out. You reject the concept of justification of anything outside of 2+2=4, because presumably it goes against your presupposition. Anything other than 2+2=4 such as 2+2=5 or 2+2=6 up to 2+2=Googleplex is not part of this presupposition and thus an incoherent paradigm not to be taken seriously. If somebody believes in his drug induced schizoid mania that all + operations are 42, you would discard it as incoherent and not worth any serious discussion.
This is exactly my position but on meta-level higher. There are paradigms with no justification for 2+2=4, they have no grounding and even worse, they positively reject the only entity - GOD - that could provide such grounding. As you named it, they break rule of "math" and metaphysics and thus they speak gibberish. Now you may have some inkling of my presuppositional argument.
You yourself said that You can assume that I'm familiar with Godel's ontological proof, mathematically capable, etc.. I don't want to waste more time on this. Do you want to explain the analogy or not? It is not crucial for my point. If you do not grasp it, that is still okay.
Actually it does matter that you're ascribing quotes to me that I never said, and positions that I don't hold.
Not in the way that 2+2=4 "works". You're extremely confused if you think you can just conflate two entirely different meanings of the word "work".
Then first you need to justify why "justification" matters. What do you even mean by it?
No, sorry, that's nonsense. You failed to understand. This has nothing to do with identity or division.
Mathematics consists of models. One such model is "here are the natural numbers, and we can use addition on them". This is good for counting things like pebbles, so we use it for that. This is bad for counting things like clouds, so we don't use it for that.
Nowhere has identity or division entered into it.
It is true, within the rules of the model. And we also use it as a shorthand for another true statement: "If you have two things, and another two things, and you group them together -- without breaking anything or fusing anything together -- you end up with four things".
... in what world are numbers concrete and clouds not??
You really need to use simple language. You're tangling yourself up. What do these statements even mean?
No, I don't. Stop making stuff up.
Still meaningless. I have no idea what you're talking about, and neither do you. If I'm wrong, try and communicate it using plain English. No "meta", no "paradigmatic", no "metaphysical".
I did. I also explicitly said that phrases like "modal collapse" were meaningless and making you confused. You then decided to use "modal collapse" in your simple words explanation. If you actually understand what you're talking about, you can explain it without saying "modal collapse".
I'd love an explanation. A genuine explanation that doesn't hide behind using complicated words to disguise the fact that there's no actual substance there.
Look, here's how you sound to me. Suppose I said something like this: "Here's an analogy: the atavistic ontological modalities of pseudo-presuppositionalist frameworks lack consanguinity with the indirect supplication of their co-philosophies."
And then you ask me to explain what that means, and I sneer and say "oh, I suppose if you're not smart enough to understand part of my analogy".
That's ok. Neither of us grasps it.
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I noticed a while ago where an academic philosopher or follower thereof comes in to a discussion with that word, justification, the discussion is already over, for what they demand is not evidence or logic but a lengthy, wordy essay that acknowledges their shibboleths (both conceptual and corporeal) and which largely suits itself to the genre customs of the dry academic « philosophy » journals. Ironically, this is a demand of dogma and faith and not a demand coming from the desire for truth.
Mit « Gödel » (mir shaudert!) ist es immer so.
The word justification is a very powerful word, because in the end it proves that all the subjectivist have is assertions. And I agree - discussion is over because often times they do not even have coherent paradigm to explain why to have discussion at all.
Oh, I am done, what a powerful argument. Also you absolutely did not understand what I am talking about, Gödel's ontological proof is not Gödel's incompleteness theorem which you probably moronically misunderstood it for.
I am not a subjectivist, I have Bayes, logic, and evidence (priors wash out under sufficient amounts of the latter). Read again:
I have no interest in lowering myself to this. I will not produce that writing, I do not need to write pointless words, I will not cite Gödel, I will not cite Quine, I do not care for them, their work is useless to me. I have no interest in academic (philo)sophistry « justification ».
Seems you have heard my attitude before, maybe when someone wrongly interprets his « ontological proof » ? (I have heard it said it debunks science. Wow.)
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