Sunday, 15 June 2014
Why deny revelation?
One Christian friend recently said,
"We even trust reason above revelation to explain the things that cannot be laboratory tested, such as, how the world came to be in the first place..."
We trust reason because it is all we have that we can rely on.
We know too much about the frailties of the human brain to trust revelation. And we know revelation offers us contradictory stories. Whose revelation will you believe Daniel's, Mohammed's or Joseph Smith's?
No, we have learnt the hard way, if you want to know something, find it out for yourself. We have done that. And we have done it spectacularly well.
We now daily use things like high definition TVs, computers, the internet, mobile 'phones and 450 seat airliners that, only 200 years ago, would have been regarded by those who favoured revelation as witchcraft and magic. None of these things were discovered through revelation—they are the result of hard work, rigorous thinking, rejecting superstitious beliefs and grounding our ideas on evidence.
In that extraordinarily successful project we have discovered and understood the particles from which atoms are made, we have explored the outer-edges of the universe, unravelled the inner workings of our sun and we have travelled to other planets.
None of this has brought us any nearer to confirming the existence of God. Instead, it has eliminated many of the reasons people once relied upon for their belief in God.
We have found God to be imperfect, insufficient and immoral. We have found that are no reasons left for believing in God apart from our own inadequacies.
Saturday, 14 June 2014
How logic fails God-believers
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“Jack is looking at Anne, but Anne is looking at George. Jack is married but George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person?” The answer can be "yes" or "no", or "cannot be determined".
Around 90% of people will get this wrong despite the fact that you are given all the information necessary to get it right.
Many of the people who fail to solve this conundrum are very sure about another, infinitely more difficult conundrum with highly incomplete information. They say, "Something cannot come from nothing therefore the universe must have been created by something outside of the universe. That something we call God".
People arrive at this conclusion:
1) Knowing it is based on inductive reasoning which never guarantees a correct conclusion (we never see something coming from nothing, therefore it cannot happen) .
2) Not knowing what, if anything, existed prior to the Big Bang.
3) Knowing the laws of physics (and, therefore, classical cause and effect) cannot have applied before matter appeared.
The Jack, Anne and George conundrum illustrates that humans typically have limited and highly fallible logic skills yet we can still be certain we have the correct answer to highly complex problems even when we lack the information to solve them.
So, for the avoidance of doubt, the "Something cannot come from nothing" argument is fatally flawed and you do yourself no credit if you repeat it.
Oh yes, the correct answer to the Jack, Anne and George conundrum is "yes". Did you get it right?
______________________________
If you need help with the logic...
Jack is married, George is not, Anne is either married or not.
If Anne is not married: a married person (Jack) is looking at an unmarried person (Anne).
If Anne is married: a married person (Anne) is looking at an unmarried person (George).
So, either way, a married person is indeed looking at an unmarried person. We have sufficient information to determine that a married person is looking at an unmarried person, but not which couple this applies to.
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Nildogma, the blogga
About Me
- Nildogma
- As a 20-year-old I was insatiably curious about the world and passionate about rejecting superstitions and all kinds of false beliefs. I still am today. Sometimes when people believe things that are not true, it make little or no difference but sometimes the consequences can be disastrous and deadly. Now, I do what I can to help people improve their thinking skills, especially in how they impinge on core beliefs, such as cultural values and religious beliefs. I have an active Facebook page for which I create memes and write articles almost daily. I also engage people in on-line debates. You can find me here: https://www.facebook.com/bill.flavell.1 I lecture at universities around the world and present or debate at public meetings. I also, draw on my management consultancy background to help freethought groups, almost anywhere in the world, to get organised, develop strategy and improve their media and presentation skills. If you would like me to present at your university or for your church group or freethought group, please contact me.
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