Can you *know* there is no God?

[Selene]

Brant/Greg:

Both of your statements seem to be true, therefore, what is the factor that "shades their difference?"

A...

[Brant Gaede]

Greg's last two sentences are wrong.

His first two sentences set up a seductive inertia for truth that isn't truth.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

Reason is the opposite of faith.

Knowing is the opposite of ignorance.

I stared at those two propositions more than once. I like Brant for a bunch of reasons, but I want to pull this apart.

Faith is accepting scriptural testimony and revelations as facts. "The church is true" little Mormon girls are taught to recite. "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so" are the first verses of a Protestant Sunday School song. Preachers are in the business of propounding sermon topics that flow from premises like salvation of your immortal soul (which is not your body). Radio host Dennis Prager lectures daily on the authority of the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses. Another national Jewish talkradio host Michael Medved introduces and closes each daily show with his catchphrase "the greatest Nation on God's green Earth." Medved's 3-hr Christmas show was devoted to citing evidence of God's hand guiding America throughout history. For two thousand years, biblical scholars and learned men of faith have employed reason to integrate and illuminate cockamamie ghost stories, most notably Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Martin Luther, and nearly every one of the popes, imams, and princes that wielded practical power over millions. Objectivists and scientists are not the only ones who employ reason. Crazy premises are the problem, like dialectical materialism (Marxism) and centralized national unity (Fascism). So, there's no opposition as such between faith and reason. University departments are filled with communist thought and religious reasoning.

Knowing doesn't extinguish ignorance. Nor does knowledge happen automatically. Often, we're in the same position as a gospel author. I saw such-and-such with my own eyes! Cops and courts are accustomed to conflicting eyewitness accounts. The whole point of due process is to admit the best evidence, to challenge it by cross-examination, and then instruct the jury that their verdict must be unanimous and beyond reasonable doubt -- and still the courts manage to get it wrong and convict the innocent, a fact that emerges years later with better science. Science is a flying carpet ride of ignorance mistaken for truth. Hawking had to recant on black holes recently. Some day in the distant future we'll finally be disabused of Adam Smith's labor theory of value and Hayek's theory of social evolution (I hope). To say that we know something is a profound claim, likely to be attacked on all sides by counter-claims and stacks of contrary evidence.

If I had to use those four words -- reason, faith, knowing, and ignorance -- I'd say I know there are practical chores to be done, and in ignorance of what tomorrow may bring, I have faith there will be another opportunity to use reason.

[Brant Gaede]

How reason is used and should be used are frequently not the same. To rationalize is not to reason. It's to use reason as a "stolen concept."

We can also ID right reason off a bad or wrong premise. Religious or legal or what have you. For instance, there is THE LAW. Inside the law is reasoning off the law. Outside the law we can say the law should be repealed for it's bad law. I could not discuss immigration law philosophically with my step-mother who was an immigration judge. About THE LAW, however, she was an expert (and a slave).

--Brant

we are frequently less ignorant and knowledgeable than we think we are: sometimes we hide from the truth--out there and in our heads (that's why critical thinking can be so hard)--but usually we pretend knowledge (this is a generic statement)

[Wolf DeVoon]

I like evidence.

[Brant Gaede]

That's because I've driven you to drink.

[moralist]

Brant writes:

Reason is the opposite of faith.

Knowing is the opposite of ignorance.

Reason is intellectual activity. Liberal intellectuals believe they are reasonable. It takes the objective reality of the just and deserved consequences of our actions to sort that out.

In contrast, knowing by direct personal experience of objective reality is not a function of the intellect. So I position knowing by experience in a higher priority of validity than mere thought.

I could go along with knowing being the opposite of not knowing...

...as long as the not knowing isn't intellectual denial.

Greg

[moralist]

Brant writes:

His first two sentences set up a seductive inertia for truth that isn't truth.

Seductive, eh Brant... so it even you'd like to think it's true.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Brant writes:

Reason is the opposite of faith.

Knowing is the opposite of ignorance.

Reason is intellectual activity. Liberal intellectuals believe they are reasonable. It takes the objective reality of the just and deserved consequences of our actions to sort that out.

In contrast, knowing by direct personal experience of objective reality is not a function of the intellect. So I position knowing by experience in a higher priority of validity than mere thought.

I could go along with knowing being the opposite of not knowing...

...as long as the not knowing isn't intellectual denial.

Greg

Ah. The ratio of truth to not truth is improving.

--Brant

not too much of a strain, I hope

(before you know "intellectual denial" you have to know "intellectual," for the positive is hard truth and the negative derived from the positive and is an attenuation thereof: all that grubbing around in the dirt you do we all do or should do is an intellectual activity, albeit primitive--your erudition reveals the truth through implication [that's right, you use what you deny (your brains)])

(You don't know the ~power~ of the intellectual side of the force! Join me and together we will rule OL!)

[william.scherk]

Hawking had to recant on black holes recently.

Oh yeah?

I like evidence.

Me too. What is the evidence that Hawking 'recanted' on black holes?

I think you may have chosen the wrong words -- had to recant -- which smack of erasing claims made in sworn statements before law, a situation in which a scientist is forced to repudiate his earlier testimony.

The latest Hawking paper about the 'event horizon' contains the phrase "[t]here are no black holes." It is a handy headline, but obscures meaning by truncation.

Recantation is ... the inappropriate concept. Resolving an apparent paradox is hard work.

Information Preservation and Weather Forecasting for Black Holes

It has been suggested [1] that the resolution of the information paradox for evaporating black

holes is that the holes are surrounded by firewalls, bolts of outgoing radiation that would destroy

any infalling observer. Such firewalls would break the CPT invariance of quantum gravity and seem

to be ruled out on other grounds. A different resolution of the paradox is proposed, namely that

gravitational collapse produces apparent horizons but no event horizons behind which information is

lost. This proposal is supported by ADS-CFT and is the only resolution of the paradox compatible

with CPT. The collapse to form a black hole will in general be chaotic and the dual CFT on the

boundary of ADS will be turbulent. Thus, like weather forecasting on Earth, information will

effectively be lost, although there would be no loss of unitarity.

Edited December 26, 2015 by william.scherk

[moralist]

Brant writes:

before you know "intellectual denial" you have to know "intellectual,"

All you need to believe is that your intellect is the totality of your being, and that you are the god creator of thought sitting on the throne of your darkened mind.

Then intellectual denial is a SLAM DUNK...

...because you cannot act contrary to your thoughts while you believe thought is only you and nothing else.

(hint: I relate to my mind as if it is a radio and I'm the guy listening to it. )

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Is this the from insanity argument?

[Brant Gaede]

Hawking had to recant on black holes recently.

Oh yeah?

I like evidence.

Me too. What is the evidence that Hawking 'recanted' on black holes?

Uh, he said he did.

--Brant

good enough for the layman--no?

[william.scherk]

Hawking had to recant on black holes recently.

Oh yeah?

I like evidence.

Me too. What is the evidence that Hawking 'recanted' on black holes?

Uh, he said he did.

--Brant

good enough for the layman--no?

Not this layman, no. Look at your rendering -- "He (Wolf) said he (Hawking) did ('had to recant [on]** black holes')" ... or "He (Hawking) said he (Hawking) did ('had to recant [on] black holes').

This might be a job for The Word People. Or maybe The Evidence People.

_________________

** -- sharp-eyed Brant.

Edited December 27, 2015 by william.scherk

[Brant Gaede]

"On" black holes.

Your attitude is justified if you know it's bullshit for you're calling bullshit.

But I see you added a lot of material to your post.

It's only a word problem respecting Wolf for Hawking made some important changes acknowledged as such.

And I've no qualifications in theorectical physics so I just take everyone's word in Wikipedia.

You can chase Wolf around with your word hatchet all you want and I won't blame you, but know what you are doing.

--Brant

[Selene]

You can chase Wolf around with your word hatchet all you want and I won't blame you, but know what you are doing.

--Brant

I would suggest the William wear body armor and hope that Wolf will not turn and make a head shot...

[william.scherk]

You can chase Wolf around with your word hatchet all you want and I won't blame you, but know what you are doing.

--Brant

I would suggest the William wear body armor and hope that Wolf will not turn and make a head shot...

Yeah.

Now we know that Hawking didn't exactly 'recant.' My curiosity is satisfied, my mission is fulfilled. I enjoy the sniping from the sidelines, though.

I gotta be fair to Wolf. There was a world of good sense in the paragraph from which I quoted. Being curious about one small awkward claim in it is one thing. I can't dismiss the argument on that ground, obviously. And I don't.

This is I guess the danger of truncation. I did not mean the 'had to recant' query to wash away the good ideas. Wolf's point that knowledge advances beyond earlier bounds is sound. Hawking's continued engagement with the paradoxes of black holes, and his new paper are good evidence that our present 'grasp' of 'knowledge' is not co-valent with 'truth' -- epecially at the dizzy heights of theory surrounding the physics of black holes.

Knowing doesn't extinguish ignorance. Nor does knowledge happen automatically. Often, we're in the same position as a gospel author. I saw such-and-such with my own eyes! Cops and courts are accustomed to conflicting eyerwitness accounts. The whole point of due process is to admit the best evidence, to challenge it by cross-examination, and then instruct the jury that their verdict must be unanimous and beyond reasonable doubt -- and still the courts manage to get it wrong and convict the innocent, a fact that emerges years later with better science. Science is a flying carpet ride of ignorance mistaken for truth. Hawking had to recant on black holes recently. Some day in the distant future we'll finally be disabused of Adam Smith's labor theory of value and Hayek's theory of social evolution (I hope). To say that we know something is a profound claim, likely to be attacked on all sides by counter-claims and stacks of contrary evidence.

If I had to use those four words -- reason, faith, knowing, and ignorance -- I'd say I know there are practical chores to be done, and in ignorance of what tomorrow may bring, I have faith there will be another opportunity to use reason.

In keeping with the season, I am sure Wolf can extract a compliment, and not be churlish with my query. Knowledge inched forward re "Hawking Recants!" Brant drove by Wikipedia! You went out on a limb and posted a GIF! We all win and baby Jesus is happy.

Edited December 27, 2015 by william.scherk

[Brant Gaede]

Well, I sorta knew what I'd find on Wikipedia.

--Brant

[moralist]

Brant writes:

Is this the from insanity argument?

Nope.

It's just a description of a different view from your view that the totality of your being is your intellect...

...and you're just as free to have your view as I am to have mine.

Greg

[Mike82ARP]

On March 11, 2015 at 0:44 PM, moralist said:

No.

You can believe there is no God, just as you can believe God exists. I regard both as being religions.

One is religion in the classical sense, while the other is secular leftist political religion. Politics is the foundation of secularism because government is god. Secular leftism is the fastest growing most powerful religion in the world. This is evidenced by the malignant growth of government all over the world... which is caused by a massive failure of people to properly live their own lives by decent values.

You can know God... but that is only through a real life personal experience of the reality of the Utterly Objective, which is not transferrable to others. In that experience each person is totally free to accept it or to deny it...

...for there is nothing more sacred than the power to choose.

Greg

Moralist bring up an interesting point here: " is only through a real life personal experience of the reality of the Utterly Objective, which is not transferrable to others."  The question I would like to add is, "Can you "know" that your spouse loves you?"   I assume for many of you love is an important part of your life.   As far as I know, there is no objective test that indicates real "love" versus fake "love".  How can one know that their spouse isn't just acting like they love you for some ulterior motive?  From my readings, it appeared that Ayn and Frank loved each other despite Rand's goings-on with Branden, but how could she "know" ( certainty implied) that Frank loved her?  

[moralist]

24 minutes ago, Mike82ARP said:

Moralist bring up an interesting point here: " is only through a real life personal experience of the reality of the Utterly Objective, which is not transferrable to others."  The question I would like to add is, "Can you "know" that your spouse loves you?"   I assume for many of you love is an important part of your life.   As far as I know, there is no objective test that indicates real "love" versus fake "love".  How can one know that their spouse isn't just acting like they love you for some ulterior motive?  From my readings, it appeared that Ayn and Frank loved each other despite Rand's goings-on with Branden, but how could she "know" ( certainty implied) that Frank loved her?  

I'll answer your thought provoking question, Mike... and only for myself.

No, I don't know my wife loves me... but I trust she does.

Relationships are built upon trust.

Love is a byproduct of trust.

 

Greg

[Mike82ARP]

1 hour ago, moralist said:

I'll answer your thought provoking question... and only for myself.

No, I don't know my wife loves me... but I trust she does.

Relationships are built upon trust.

Love is a byproduct of trust.

 

Greg

Thanks for the response.  Since I'm not an Objectivist maven, but a novice, I don't know where "trust" fits in with the Objectivist philosophy.  Trust seems to me to be a subjective opinion.  Can you be sure your "trust" is not misplaced using the same ulterior motive scenario?   History is replete with betrayals. Or doesn't it matter?   I'm not trying to be  jerk. I always look for holes in my thought. I hat ego be wrong, so if I am I appreciate being informed.

[moralist]

2 hours ago, Mike82ARP said:

Thanks for the response.  Since I'm not an Objectivist maven, but a novice, I don't know where "trust" fits in with the Objectivist philosophy.  Trust seems to me to be a subjective opinion.  Can you be sure your "trust" is not misplaced using the same ulterior motive scenario?   History is replete with betrayals. Or doesn't it matter?   I'm not trying to be  jerk. I always look for holes in my thought. I hat ego be wrong, so if I am I appreciate being informed.

That's ok, Mike... I'm not an Objectivist either!

My only experience of Ayn Rand's writings is using Atlas Shrugged as an independent private sector Capitalist business operations manual. And you're absolutely right. My trust is totally subjective, and is a freely assumed risk. As the husband, it's my responsibility to set a moral tone in our relationship that's true enough to earn her trust. And as long as my wife trusts me, she gets to enjoy all of the benefits of our relationship.

Relationships are based on matching values...

...so if my wife had it in her to betray me, I would have deserved it.

Greg

[Mike82ARP]

I'm kinda in the same camp, Greg.  I find some of Rand's metaphysics unconvincing and have the same opinion as you do of AS and some of the other implications in the book..  I'm surprised some of the more dedicated O-ists haven't chimed in.  I'm sure they have someone they believe loves them, but what do they place their beliefs on?  You mentioned trust on your earlier email, but trust is a close corollary to faith, and that's a big no-no for the fundamentalist O-ist.    

[anthony]

4 hours ago, Mike82ARP said:

I'm kinda in the same camp, Greg.  I find some of Rand's metaphysics unconvincing and have the same opinion as you do of AS and some of the other implications in the book..  I'm surprised some of the more dedicated O-ists haven't chimed in.  I'm sure they have someone they believe loves them, but what do they place their beliefs on?  You mentioned trust on your earlier email, but trust is a close corollary to faith, and that's a big no-no for the fundamentalist O-ist.    

Trust as a close corollary to faith? I don't see that, but I realise many think so. Trust is or should be reality based, on what you know, not arbitrary. Though that doesn't mean it is risk free.

Trust is the confidence to get on a small boat to take you to the other side. Faith is believing you don't need a boat ...

A "dedicated O'ist" might answer that honesty and integrity tops most considerations in the character of those people close to him. Without omniscience one can never know for certain, and individuals can change, so I think it's wrong to elevate any person to some ideal of endless, trustworthy 'perfection'. However, from early on, an other's honesty (and deceit too) will show itself to an equally honest person. (The easiest man to con is a con artist, and the hardest an honest man, they say). One's many small evasions in not wanting to truly note the flaws in someone else's character is usually the start of a distrusting relationship. So trust has to be important to any rational person. He/she looks to the long term and values his self-confidence, which doubt and distrust in a significant other will diminish.