Just as frustrating, many classical theists will gladly apply this criticism to any other deity, religious framework, or supernatural explanation...except their own.
They do the same with the Euthyphro dilemma. I've been directly told that was a limitation on the classical gods, but not the Christian one, and not by a fundagelical, but by a "ground of being" Christian then going to Harvard Divinity School.
Maybe I'll write up what I was thinking in those quotes. Super busy in the last stages of my dissertation, hopefully, while trying to find a job and also doing language classes. Still, I should probably justify my time on this app by doing something other than replies.
The thing is, I am not trying to be disparaging by calling this magical thinking or comparing God to a wizard, believe it or not. It would be pretty cool if reality is magical at bottom. This way of thinking, common across cultures, itself cries out for explanation. What's more, these religious types often have no difficulty describing what it *would* look like for a wizard to be going around casting spells, just look at the Gospels. The main guy is not only communicating messages he's also giving a range of miraculous displays and even repeating the same miracles multiple times.
I like the example of a forest fire Sheng-Tsai (Mindful Living) presented. Let's say you see a forest ablaze. That dramatically increases the probability that something caused the forest fire. Someone proposes that a fire-breathing dragon caused it. You might object that their proposal isn't well-supported, but they respond "The dragon hates this particular forest and enjoys watching it burn, so the fire is more expected under the dragon model than by undirected happenstance, in fact it's basically guaranteed under the dragon model because the dragon wants to cause it and has the power to do so. So the fact that we see the fire strongly supports the dragon model."
Although, about your following paragraph:
> Think about it: The sentence “God created humans” contains far less explanatory content than the sentence “Natural selection shaped human biology,” while raising far more questions. That’s because “created” in the God sentence is under-defined relative to “shaped” in the natural selection sentence.
I'd say the sentence “Natural selection shaped human biology,” also has basically no explanatory content. I think the real difference is that it's pointing to the mountains of scientific research into evolution and particularly human evolution. While the phrase “God created humans” isn't pointing to an analogous mountain of research.
The thing is, I can expand upon what the word “shape” means in this sentence and similar, and then point to the evidence. There is no equivalent with God talk. I mean, maybe if you think “God molded man from clay” counts but I'm doubtful.
Well put that a wizard will always SEEM more probable, when plenty of good old-fashioned informal logic puzzlers remind us that intentional agents are actually less common than unintentional ones.
Just as frustrating, many classical theists will gladly apply this criticism to any other deity, religious framework, or supernatural explanation...except their own.
They do the same with the Euthyphro dilemma. I've been directly told that was a limitation on the classical gods, but not the Christian one, and not by a fundagelical, but by a "ground of being" Christian then going to Harvard Divinity School.
Maybe I'll write up what I was thinking in those quotes. Super busy in the last stages of my dissertation, hopefully, while trying to find a job and also doing language classes. Still, I should probably justify my time on this app by doing something other than replies.
The thing is, I am not trying to be disparaging by calling this magical thinking or comparing God to a wizard, believe it or not. It would be pretty cool if reality is magical at bottom. This way of thinking, common across cultures, itself cries out for explanation. What's more, these religious types often have no difficulty describing what it *would* look like for a wizard to be going around casting spells, just look at the Gospels. The main guy is not only communicating messages he's also giving a range of miraculous displays and even repeating the same miracles multiple times.
If you like wizarding displays, the Acts of Peter is a blast.
I like the example of a forest fire Sheng-Tsai (Mindful Living) presented. Let's say you see a forest ablaze. That dramatically increases the probability that something caused the forest fire. Someone proposes that a fire-breathing dragon caused it. You might object that their proposal isn't well-supported, but they respond "The dragon hates this particular forest and enjoys watching it burn, so the fire is more expected under the dragon model than by undirected happenstance, in fact it's basically guaranteed under the dragon model because the dragon wants to cause it and has the power to do so. So the fact that we see the fire strongly supports the dragon model."
Although, about your following paragraph:
> Think about it: The sentence “God created humans” contains far less explanatory content than the sentence “Natural selection shaped human biology,” while raising far more questions. That’s because “created” in the God sentence is under-defined relative to “shaped” in the natural selection sentence.
I'd say the sentence “Natural selection shaped human biology,” also has basically no explanatory content. I think the real difference is that it's pointing to the mountains of scientific research into evolution and particularly human evolution. While the phrase “God created humans” isn't pointing to an analogous mountain of research.
The thing is, I can expand upon what the word “shape” means in this sentence and similar, and then point to the evidence. There is no equivalent with God talk. I mean, maybe if you think “God molded man from clay” counts but I'm doubtful.
Well put that a wizard will always SEEM more probable, when plenty of good old-fashioned informal logic puzzlers remind us that intentional agents are actually less common than unintentional ones.