Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Please Read OP)

Morbert wrote: »

That position that most atheists, including myself, would find problematic. We believe statements about reality must ultimately be evidenced for others to find them compelling. That reality is quantum mechanical has been comprehensively evidenced. The metaphysical claims of various religions have not.

In fact, I would wager most Christians would not agree with your position above, as literature is full of evidence-based arguments for particular religions. They would presumably disagree with my above statement, and argue that there is indeed evidence for God.

I agree completely that most Christians would not agree with my position as most Christians base their beliefs on the New Testament and in particular the gospels, and while the texts may not have been written by eye account witnesses they are clearly believed to be handed down from eye witnesses. A minimum for any Christian is to believe in the reality of Jesus Christ as described in the gospels.

However, there is also a strong mystical or subjective tradition in Christianity, both mainstream and fringe. St. Augustine, Francis of Assisi, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Teresa of Avila, etc. in mainstream Christianinty and the Christian Gnostic movement.

On QM, I find it hard sometimes to distinguish between physical and metaphysical. Clearly the basic theories of QM have been supported by very solid physical evidence, but many of the interpretations e.g. Everett's many worlds, are highly metaphysical. How do you interpret Bell's theorem without getting into the metaphysical?

tommy2bad wrote: »

No fear, just caution about the knowability of what we call reality.
I am assuming we are discussing the limits of knowledge rather than the existence of anything at all.
I brought up love, justice, hate, stuff we take for granted as existing but when subjected to examination all we can 'measure' is behavior. Behavior of people, chemicals whatever. (Yes, Brian Shanahan, their are actual studies and experiments you could have linked to). What we prove the existence of isn't love or hate though, it's a set of phenomena. We can repeat the same 'measurement' for religious experience and as easily prove the existence of God.
See how it gets stupid?

You appear to be assuming that "love", "justice" etc exist some how externally to human behaviour? Based on what?

Love is an English word describing a human emotion that humans experience.

Justice is an English world describing a human notion of correct behaviour

etc.

There is no reason, nor need, to assert or assume anything beyond this, nor do I think anyone actually does.

As for God, we can certainly study the human behaviour of belief in God, and we do. What we have found does not point to anything external to human behaviour either.

tommy2bad wrote: »

Why is it that atheists will accept love hate justice mercy as 'real' yet refuse the same acknowledgment to God?

Love hate justice etc are real. They are really human emotions, behaviors and opinions. People fall in love with each other. people hate each other. People think some things are just, and others are not just. All this is studied as part of anthropology.

And I think you would have to go a far way to find an atheist who didn't accept humans believe in gods.

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

Using quantum physics to "prove" god is as valid as using quantum physics to "prove" homeopathy. Quantum is often used by people who don't understand any science in order to "back up" their gibberish, because quantum physics have often been publicly described as weird.

”As Deepak Chopra taught us, quantum physics means anything can happen at any time for no reason!"
Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth

Quantum physics is the go to for any wacky or unsupported idea a super-naturalist wises to justify. Don't have a clue how your crazy idea is supposed to work, just invoke quantum physics and when someone asks you to explain in maybe a bit more detail, just explain to them that no one understands quantum physics.

One used to invoke magic or a miracle when they wanted to justify something they couldn't actually explain, now it is quantum physics. Though telling nagirrac called it "magic", which frankly speaks volumes.

tommy2bad wrote: »

Theirs more to living than just empirical evidence.

You might want to tell that to the guy who build a "plane" out of chicken feathers and crashed into the English channel off the cliffs of Dover.

It is easy to say such vacuous fortune cookie things because you have the comfort of being surrounded by scientists who work day in and day out making sure all your medicines, your machines, your computers, your cars etc work as expected.

That gives you the freedom to believe any nonsense you want, and say there is more to life than empirical evidence.

It frankly doesn't matter if you are right or wrong, and as such it doesn't matter if you can support your beliefs, because you have the privilege and comfort of being surrounded by people for who it does matter, and you get your toaster from them rather than building your own, you get your car from them rather than building your own, you get your medicines from them rather than building your own.

Zombrex wrote: »

What you claim are the implications of Bell's theory are not the implications of Bell's theory. They are just some nonsense you made up,
Find me a reputable scientist who agrees with your assessment of what the implications of Bell's theory is.

There are a sum total of zero theoretical physicists who would disagree with what I have said about the implications of Bell's theory. The fact you would even say that demonstrates you do not "get" what quantum physics is telling us. The fact that morbert who knows his physics has not come on here and refuted my earlier discussion on the implkications of Bell's theory, with the obvious exception of the God bit, should be a hint.

Quantum physics is weird enough without anyone speculating on it or attaching it to beliefs in God or New Age ideas. Why do you think the most brilliant mind in the 20th century could not accept its implications? Einstein could not accept the fact that what we think of as local realism was incorrect. Bell set out to prove Einstein right, not prove Quantum theory right. He was trying to find hidden variables that would explain away the weirdness of QM. He didn't find any, and in fact proved in a most profound way that there cannot be any. Hundreds of physical experiments, since Bell's theory in 1964, have verified this and even gone further in proving that entanglement exists even if the particles involved in the experiment were not entangled earlier in the experiment.

Bell's theory starts from the premise that everything we observe as natural phenomena (everything we measure in the world we observe) can be described in theories in the context of realism. The predictions of these theories must differ from QM to validate realism. He designed an ingenious experiment to test his theory. In every case, including the hundreds of experiments ran since Bell, local realism is refuted in favor of QM.

What you may mean by reputable scientists is scientists in other fields, and here you are correct, working scientists in other fields do not consider the implications of QM or Bell's theory. If they did they would have to abandon their realistic philosophy that all their empirical science is based on.

Morbert wrote: »

nagirrac, what specifically do you mean by "realism" in this case?

The classical mechanics meaning of "realism" i.e. local realism.

The realism of objects that that have a pre-existing value before we measure them and that are only influenced by their immediate surroundings. The realism that is rejected by the Copenhagen Interpretation (developed long before Bell but soundly endorsed by Bell), that is still the view held by the majority of theoretical physicists.

Morbert wrote: »

That position that most atheists, including myself, would find problematic. We believe statements about reality must ultimately be evidenced for others to find them compelling. That reality is quantum mechanical has been comprehensively evidenced. The metaphysical claims of various religions have not.

In fact, I would wager most Christians would not agree with your position above, as literature is full of evidence-based arguments for particular religions. They would presumably disagree with my above statement, and argue that there is indeed evidence for God.

Well, considering that nagirrac is a deist rather than a Christian we're going to disagree naturally.

The question is God an objective God. From my point of view if we are talking about A) objective reality rather than subjectivity / postmodern ideology then there should be objective reasons to believe and trust in Him. A lot of Christians myself included would point to the eyewitness accounts that we have concerning the life of Jesus.

That's why I've been challenging nagirrac to tell us a bit more about what he thinks about Jesus Christ as opposed to making deistic arguments against atheism.

Technically deism is a form of atheism, because deism is not theism.

Morbert wrote: »

Ok. But then I should point out that this is distinct from the more common, metaphysical definition of realism. The Copenhagen interpretation, for example, does not say a system is brought into existence by a measurement. The systems is very much a real, mind-independent entity. It simply says the system is not necessarily an eigenstate of dynamical variables like momentum or position.

I'll have to come back to this later but my understanding of the Copenhagen Interpretation is that the system is a range of probabilities and a measurement gives rise to a specific eigenstate. The measurement does not have to involve a mind directly.

Meanwhile, what do you think of what I wrote in earlier posts regarding interpreting Bell's theorem and that it's proofs demonstrates that QM violates classical physics not just at the subatomic level but at the macro level.

tommy2bad wrote: »

For god sake, your sounding like some unfunny version of Sheldon now.
I''m so grateful to science and those that practice it for all the things you mentioned, as grateful as I am to the writers painters and composers for their contribution to the experience my life is to me.

Talk about scientism in the flesh, your constant preaching how science and only science contribute to life...?

Contribution to life, what ever that means, is not the issue. We are discussing contribution to knowledge, specifically knowledge about the true nature of reality, what exists and does exist and how things are.

You have the freedom to disregard important scientific principles in order to speculate about the existence of God, Jesus or what ever safe in the knowledge that while you are disregarding or ignoring these principles the guy building your bridge, or the doctor operating on you, or the engineer building your computer wont be. Yet you never seem to ask yourself if it is ok for you why is it not ok for him. Well cause the bridge would fall down.

It's the hypocracy I can't stand