Dean, I find that for once I can't come up with any clever or scintillating remarks. All I can do is go, "Hmmmmmm...."

I do indeed hope to hear more on this later...

Got home safe BTW... Took me till about my house to realize I was sober enough, wasn't quite sure till then.

Moe contends that a belief in free will virtually precludes a non-belief in God.

At times I've had the same thought, which is why I've never been able to call myself a strict atheist.

It's a good thing you posted that followup comment, Dean. I was thinking more along the lines of Moe saying, "So, you want to sleep, eh? Well, I ain't leavin' until you admit there's a God! BWAHAHAHAHA!"

Dean:

a belief in free will virtually precludes a non-belief in God

And I repeat, "Hmmmmmmmm..." Somehow, what ricochets through my mind is Charles Peirce's "'Neglected' Argument for the Reality of God" (Collected Papers, 6.452-493), which might almost be described as an "argument from woolgathering." What was of interest to Peirce is precisely the free element in woolgathering-- the sportive, meditative, ludic element of "pure play" or "musement."

Not necessarily for every individual, but for many people, as the mind rambles over "the forms of trees, the compositions of sunsets, the nature of pleasure and pain"-- over the fact that "every small part of space, however remote, is bounded by just such neighbouring parts as every other"; over "the constitution of the hydrogen atom"-- even over "aggregates of unformulated but partly experienced phenomena"-- the idea of God will recur again and again. Peirce analyzes how this vague "hypothesis of God" is woven into the deductive and inductive structure of inquiry, concluding that inscribed in the logical structure of thought itself is a tropism toward belief in God. A tropism rooted, in the first instant, precisely in that "free" element of "pure play"-- which, under Peirce's philosophy, is not just psychologically but ontologically "free."

No idea if this bears any relation to what you and Moe were discussing last night. Anyhow, it's what pops into my fevered mind on (to steal a line from Jack Kerouac) "Friday afternoon in the universe."

(Someone out there sitting at their computer, slapping their forehead): "Gee, where does that Burgess get this crap from, anyhow?! :)

You're going to have to flesh out Moe's argument a little more, because being a dim agnostic, I don't get it. Although Charles Pierce's argument as laid out by Paul makes even less sense to me.

The very belief or non-belief in God itself seems to be a tropism, doesn't it?

The very existence of self-awareness appears to preclude predestination. Yet it brings us to a tautological question: yes, existence exists, but if something must have created it, what created the creator? And if I accept that the creator is eternal, why can't I just as easily accept that existence itself is eternal and not invoke a creator at all?

The question seems unanswerable.

I should have been named Israel. Except I'm not done wrestling with him just yet.

(I'm sure most of you just read that and thought, "What the fuck is Dean smoking?" But I'll bet Moe and Paul both understood it perfectly.)

Dean:

Oops, you're righter than I am in the use of the word tropism: "The turning or bending movement of an organism or a part toward or away from an external stimulus, such as light, heat, or gravity." I tend to use the word (and was thinking of it in regard to Peirce's argument) in the more limited sense of "turning or bending toward a stimulus."

yes, existence exists, but if something must have created it, what created the creator? And if I accept that the creator is eternal, why can't I just as easily accept that existence itself is eternal and not invoke a creator at all?

God is a richly woven Persian carpet, the world is a threadbare rag; ah, but diaphanous is the rag, a diaphanous veil on the face of the Almighty is the threadbare rag...

Now I gotta run. You've been wrestling at the ford of the Jabbok all night until daybreak; me, I've got to pull some things together and then make it down to the high school football game in Waukon this evening.

Well Dean, if Moe convinces you that there is a G-d, you'll have to stop calling yourself a Bright, now won't you? :-)

Wow Dean, that's great. It's always good when people examine their beliefs, even when they come to conclusions I disagree with?

Hmm, does this make me a Bright even if I loathe the term? (Actually, I may be warming to it)

Or am I an agnostic theist? An open-minded Calvinist? An orthodox Christian?

Maybe I'm just a paradox.

Hm,
Boviosity! calls Instapundit a "heathenish blogger".

Now that term for Bright I could get behind :)

David- I didn't convince him "that there is a God" What I did was convince him that what he believed all along just wasn't compatible with Atheism in any sense, and that his own belief system added up to to a belief in some sort of god or supernatural force.

The conversation actually started with me telling him that however enamored he was of the term, he's no "Bright."

Dean,

Sit down some day and take a look, a really good look at butterflies, birds and flowers. When I see these and realize there is no need for them to be beautiful in order to fulfill whatever niche they occupy in existence, I am overwhelmed with the glory of God as Artist and Engineer.

I have no idea what His plans are. I do not presume to claim that I do, or that I know the way for any one else to interact with God. But I know He exists and He will interact with you if you permit it. May you find your path to God. Seek and you will find. Ask and it will be given to you.

See what happens when you wax spiritual in a public place.

In many respects, God exists. For one thing, if billions of people believe there is a God, and live their lives accordingly. Therefore, God becomes "real" for them and thus a real social force. I liken this to a child that has an imaginary friend. This friend is indeed very real to them.

As far as the beauty in the world, that is the biggest crock of shit argument I keep hearing. What about the millions of starving children in Africa covered in big biting flies? How the fuck is that beautiful? How about birth morbid defects? And please spare me the "it's all part of God's mysterious plan."

Believing that there is a God is like trying to teach a pig to sing. It's a waste of time, and it just annoys the hell out of the pig.

Tim the Soldier

Hi Dean,

One reason I believe in God is my conviction that there is an objective morality. Objective morality is incompatible with atheism (physicalism/naturalism/materialism) for the same reasons as free will. If the universe is nothing more than small particles combining in various ways, then there is no basis to say that some things are right and others are wrong.

Because I believe that it really is wrong to kill Jews for being Jewish, that this morality is not a social construction or a product of evolutionary survival, then I'm forced to concede that there must be more to the universe than particles joining in particular ways. Because nothing in nature supports the truth that it is wrong to kill Jews for being Jewish, morality must by underpinned by an extra-natural source.

As for your question about the tautology of created creators, I don't believe the dilemmas are equivalent. Once you admit God into the creation equation, the introduction of supernaturalism permits additional possibilites, such as uncreated creators, that aren't possible without reference to extra-natural forces or beings. It's a cop out in one sense, but if you believe in a God who created the universe and deliberately didn't want to be too obvious about it, then it's not too hard to believe that there are many things he understands that we do not.

In any event, I'm impressed by your willingness to keep an open mind.

- Matt Evans

I've been giggling most of the day with the different posts. Paul really cracked me up when he made his second post about someone out there smacking their forehead after reading his first post- I had just taken care of my early morning schedule and was eager to read, Deans World. I enjoy so many of Deans regulars and Paul threw me, I sincerely smacked my forhead before I reread what Paul had quoted from a book he really cared for that was really great.
So many people had wonderful things to say on this that my words seem all bottled up but if I could go back to about 1966 for some reason, and play this beautiful song over and over again for you Dean, it would be on a old hi fi stero and you would hear coming from that old thing Burl Ives singing- "MY CUP RUNNETH OVER WITH LOVE"
Burl Ives? Man shes an ole lady? 1966? Maybe not. 1966 has nothing to do with my age, just a beautiful year and nice era. Irish yes.

Tim,

Not every thing in the world is beautiful. Not everything in the world is fair. Just as God exists, so does Evil. But the existence of not-beauty does not imply the non-existence of God. I can not speak for others, but for myself, it is indeed a mystery why Evil exists. I enjoy the beauty and do what I can to resist Evil. I will disagree with what you say about believing in God and teaching a pig to sing. Teaching a pig to sing would indeed be hard work. Believing in God is no work at all.

I guess my laziness in exploring the various proofs presented here explain my apathetic agnoticism. Not only do I not like providing an answer "is there a God?", I don't even think the question is important.

Because I believe that ... morality is not a social construction or a product of evolutionary survival, then I'm forced to concede that there must be more to the universe than particles joining in particular ways.

Unfortunately, objective morality is not a premise with which you can begin reasoning, but rather a conclusion that must be reached. You can't start with objective morality and use it to prove the existence of a Deity -- the reasoning must proceed in the other direction: a Deity exists, the Deity is the Creator, the Deity has established some moral code for his creation, and so on. Your belief in objective morality is just that, a belief, and cannot be used as evidence for anything.

Unfortunately there is no real evidence for the existence of a Deity. So you can't support objective morality from that direction either.

You may not want to live in a world where morality is a social construct and an evolutionary relic, but your desire has nothing whatsoever to do with the nature of morality. I agree -- life would be so much more convenient if there were some absolute standard by which we could measure ourselves. Not seeing any such standard, however, I muddle through the best I can, which is all any of us really ever do. Some of us muddle through by inventing justifications for an objective morality, then behaving as though such a thing exists. That seems like the long way 'round to me, but whatever works for you, by definition, works for you, and that's all you really need. As long as you don't egregiously violate the consensus morality, no one is likely to object.

Well, if you say so, Jerry.

Although lookee what came up in my magic eight-ball:

The idea of the highest good... cannot be realized by man himself...; yet he discovers within himself the duty to work for this end. Hence he finds himself impelled to believe in the cooperation or management of a moral Ruler of the world, by means of which alone this goal can be reached.

—Immanuel Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone; quoted by Ronald Hepburn, in "Moral Arguments for the Existence of God," The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 5, pp. 381-85.

Please note. I'm not claiming Kant was right. I'm not claiming Kant was wrong. I have no dog in that hunt, and (despite my religious bent) arguments from morality don't exactly grab me.

I'm simply observing that, as Hepburn puts it, "From the time of Kant to the present day, a great many attempts have been made to base arguments for God's existence... on a very special feature of [the] world— human moral experience."

Point of clarification: did you mean to say that there is such a tradition in modern philosophy, but that in your judgment it has been unsuccessful? Were you simply unaware that there has been such a philosophical tradition? Or were you just feeling that it was ipse dixit time?

I was vaguely aware of the philosophical tradition of arguing for the existence of God based on man's innate moral sense, but I reject it. Mainly because man has no innate moral sense, as anyone who has raised a child knows. Kids who go around stealing or murdering or whatever have not been corrupted; they are in their natural state of having no moral compass, of not knowing right from wrong.

Of course it seems innate to you, because it was instilled in you when you were a child and you have long forgotten the process. That doesn't mean it was always there, any more than you always existed because you can't remember being born.

Jerry: Thanks for your clarification.

Mainly because man has no innate moral sense, as anyone who has raised a child knows.

I dunno, Jerry. I've got five kids, and I've noticed that they try to cover up their misdeeds very, very early, so they know something. Perhaps you just want to give me credit for instilling values at an early age, but I think there's more to it than that.

Kids who go around stealing or murdering or whatever have not been corrupted; they are in their natural state of having no moral compass, of not knowing right from wrong

I'd say they do know, but their natural state is to do wrong on a regular basis.

Hi Jerry,

Yes, I realize that my belief in an ojective morality is a belief.

What I meant is that my belief that some things really are right or wrong is more powerful to me than my beliefs about reality that cast doubt on God's existence. The two beliefs conflict and both can't be right. So we each take sides.

This was the same factor that lead Dean to wonder if his belief in free will was greater than his skepticism about God, too, and which he'd give up first.

- Matt

My students and are are making a scientific poster about microbes in extreme environments on earth. We want it to be entitled, "What other planet features this?" after a Jack Kerouac line. Could you help us identify the proper source from which it came??? The Kerouac quote we want to include goes something like this:

but tell me, didja ever see a universe
as vast as this that starts out a friday afternoon
on a scaffold with workers in blue uniforms painting
white paint? and microbes warring in your kidney?
and misaroolies microbing in the inners of mercury?
and microbe microbes dreaming of the ultimate
microbe-hood which ultimates out to this imaginary
universe? going nowhere? never having been born?
as twan-yu-ti said to his mother as he walpoled
while he ferried her across the wail bar wild bar
wart fence moonlight midnight lucian dolophine
immensity visions of the tatagata seat of purity end
womb and people would come to his hut to inquire,
"What other planet features this?"

Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated!!!