Faith and Objectivity

Mark Adams

     Faith and objectivity will always be at odds.  This is because a thing must be verifiable with evidence in and of itself to be objective, at the very least, and while faith can be verified with evidence, it is not in and of itself verifiable by said evidence.  That is to say, faith can be backed by evidence, but faith itself implies a gap of evidence that eventually leads to the conclusion one then is able to believe in.  Faith is the glue holding something used as evidence to the belief at the end of the connected dots.  Faith not only implies belief, but belief as truth, in the face of things that contradict it and show otherwise with equal or more validity.  This differs from a belief based on the highest available validity that is subject to learn and admit fault (most importantly admitting fault outside the boundaries of any faith), which is required of objectivity.

     While faith can be defined any number of ways, let us not restrict ourselves to any one definition of it, but on the other hand let us not be so semantically open that we allow it to define all of belief, for there is a reason that it differs from other belief based words such as hope.  Faith can be based on evidence, it can be based on no evidence at all, and faith can be rational or irrational, faith can be hopeful but not hope itself in that hope does not imply belief, only a wish.  One has faith that their evidence, be it the bible, or the Qur'an, or the Talmud, or perhaps the Samhita, is the truth over all the others, this implies that in face of the same basic amount of evidence given by each of the other religions, the person of faith has chosen one absolutely over the others and declares it as truth, absolute truth nonetheless.  One has faith that their god died and rose from the dead because a book tells them so.  One has faith in 72 virgins awaiting them after death.  These are the gaps in evidence that faith accounts for.

     Faith is textbook subjectivity.  Not only is it an explanative statement for the unknown, be it connecting dots of evidence or not, it is not repeatable or verifiable by any other means than the self through choice.  Faith is rooted in the thoughts and interpretations of the self, be they rational and well formed out, even perhaps correct, it matters not for they are by definition interpreted by the self.  Ask any person about religion, they will tell you of many gods, each of them, all of them perhaps good well-intentioned people.  Ask any Christian about god and they will tell you of many gods, each of them, all of them perhaps good well-intentioned people.  There are always idiosyncrasies in belief, most Christians even of particular denominations will pick and choose what they believe in.  Now to the opposite side of the spectrum, faith from the fundamentalist, who go by the word presented them, and who lets face it are the more honest of believers and more honest and rational in their faith, because they follow to the letter the evidence they claim to be true.  The problem is, be it true or not, still they choose to believe and choose to have faith over any other answer of equal or more validity, and as such they still require faith to declare it as true.  The questioning has stopped, belief has set in, and other explanations are nil.  Objectivity does not deny critique, nor does it deny complete disproof.

Direct Contradictions in the Bible

Mark Adams

     Continuing on in my "So the Bible is Infallible, eh?"  series, I'd like to go over just a couple examples of failed biblical prophecy in scripture.  One thing that christians often love to do is post huge lists of what they call "fulfilled prophecies" in the bible that they then use to claim as proof of validity, the lists are so long they make fashioning any reasonable response to them near impossible, though just going through them we can pick them apart.  I welcome all christians here and would love to hear from you, I wish to debate you only in respect.  All I ask is that if you wish to discuss prophecies you think are fulfilled, post them one or two at a time and lets go over them so that we can really get into them and not just skim through them and both be left unsatisfied.  My last blog on where the bible was wrong in terms of morality got a lot of good comments from christians and I appreciate hearing from you, I learned a lot and hope to learn from this blog even a fraction as much as I learned from the last one.

The first failure I wish to discuss comes from Genesis, going over where God cursed Cain for killing Abel, yet what came from this supposed curse that god said would happen?

Genesis 4:11-12
And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand;  When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

yet we find that, only a few verses later:

Genesis 4:16-17
And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.  And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

     So what about settling down with a wife and having children and grandchildren has anything to do with being a vagabond?  What about building a city has anything to do with being a vagabond?  This is the antithesis of a vagabond and a fugitive...

Definintion from Dictionary.com:  Vagabond:
"wandering from place to place without any settled home; nomadic"

     Building a city is not "without any settled home", nor is it "wandering from place to place".  Now, I have been told that the hebrew words more accurately translate into an inability to farm the land, but then how does one support a city without farming?  Obviously a vagabond does not farm because he does not stay in one place long enough to reap any benefits from such.  I have also heard that it was just referring to an "instability".  What is so instable about founding an entire city, having a wife and children....?

Logical conclusion:  failed prophecy

The second failure I'd like to go over comes from the New Testament, from the mouth of Jesus himself as he addressed his 12 disciples:

Luke 9:27
But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.

     All of the 12 apostles died, obviously before Jesus returned and before they went to heaven.  Some have told me in the past that Jesus was referring to something such as the holy spirit, or that the very presence of Jesus among them fulfilled his statement here, but this does nothing for the words "see" and "kingdom of god".  The holy spirit, as described in the trinity, is god, not the kingdom of, and the same with Jesus.  Also, the holy spirit is not necessarily "seen", to my knowledge. 

***UPDATE***
Due to some great debate in the blog, there are several things I have learned in regards to this scripture.  I hadn't realized the extent to which kingdom was used as a metaphor, and there are many.  Writing this blog, my vision of kingdom was one that you "enter into", such as god and Jesus say in many places in the bible, but it is also used in other places with many other meanings, such that several things, even driving out demons, can be used here.  Jesus, however, makes no distinction here in this verse, so kingdom is left to mean anything the reader intends (as is much of the bible).  Therefore, based on this, I have updated my conclusion.  Great job people this is what debate is all about!
***UPDATE***  (5-7-09)

Logical conclusion: failed prophecy  Too Vague to Conclude in Absolute.

     And with that I open the floor to debate, comments and critiques, both of which are welcome.  How are these not clear examples of the bible being flawed?  Please feel free to express yourself, all I ask is that we try and keep it respectful, there is no need for anger if we are here to learn.  Thank you!

So the Bible is Infallible, eh?

Mark Adams

Killing the Cosmological Argument.

Mark Adams

The Cosmological "Argument":
1.  All things are caused. (nothing can cause itself)
2.  There cannot be an infinite regress of causes.
3.  Therefore there was a first cause
4.  This first cause is god

     Logically this is one of the worst arguments for a god, though sadly it is still commonly used.  I'd like to show how easy it is to defeat this argument.  As usual, I welcome all critique.

     The third statement is in direct contridiction to the first.  If all things are caused, then there is no first cause.  What is this first cause other than something that was NOT caused, which violates the first statement, and/or something that caused itself, again violating the first statement.  The whole argument is thrown out the window with that alone.  By making the first statement, it thereby makes any "uncaused cause" an oxymoron.

     The second statement is also in direct contridiction to the first. If all things are caused then there IS an infinite regress of causes.  Most christians also believe that God is eternal, but statement 4 puts a beginning on this god.  If god is eternal, then time is infinite, which makes an infinite regress of causes possible. 

    Then of course I have to mention the god of the gaps fallacy by assuming that even if there were some first cause that it is a god, especially that it is the Christian god.  What is left out is any empirical backing for even the slightest form of conscious awareness.  Once one gets past all the direct contridictions and proceeds to the crux of this argument, they find a delicious milky core of logical fallacy.

     Some might attack my argument by saying that some places list the first statement as "there exist things that are caused", which in itself means nothing in terms of an absolute, for it never says that there ONLY exist things that are caused, but then it will also state that nothing can be the cause of itself which implies that all things are caused.  No matter how you twist the logic, twist the words, they do not fit.  This argument is taught as debunked even in first year philosophy courses, there is no reason for its use today. 

Complexity from Higher Complexity
(An atheist's theological argument, with refutation of course...)

Mark Adams

     I formed this argument FOR god a little over a week ago after debating with a friend on my last blog, went out for a cigerrette and the following is what came into my mind.  This argument attempts to show god through a view of reverse entropy, in other words going backwards up the ladder.  Take a look and see how easy it is to get caught in this type of thinking without looking deeper into it with logic.  I welcome any critiques to either my statements (S) or my problems (P).
Key points to remember going in:

Entropy = a measure of unusable energy within a closed or isolated system,....also a gauge of randomness or chaos within a closed system. (from allaboutscience.org)

The Markjalogical Argument: ;)
S1.  There exists the 2nd law of thermodynamics, in which higher order decends to lower order, usable energy to less usable energy (increasing entropy).
S2.  The lower order comes from the higher order, ie the earth feeds off the energy from sunlight while the sun runs out of energy.
S3.  All order/energy decends into disorder/unusable energy, therefore all lower forms of order and energy came from higher forms.
S4.  Both life and consciousness take energy, and are ordered, the latter insomuch as it allows for a self-awareness and actions to be taken based on such.
S5.  Therefore, based on the 2nd law of thermodynamics, there must be a higher conscious living order from which this order stems, be it channeled through evolution or through any other means.

Problems
P1.  There is nothing to suggest a relationship between life/consciousness and this highest order.  Just because life/consciousness comes from energy, only means it is a consequence of such and not subject to all the same properties. Consciousness, even as a form of energy, can be described as ordered, and all this means is that there was usable energy for it to develop, the same as any other consequence of usable energy, the same as with life itself.  My point is, there should be no more explanation needed for consciousness as for say photosynthesis, the latter of which requires no consciousness.  Life is a bit different in that there is no other form that can be used in a valid comparison, but we know not only the ingredients that caused life, and that they are abundant throughout space, we also know the conditions under which the first life developed and are close to reproducing them ourselves.
P2.  The highest energy would be subject to entropy the same as any other, thus decending into disorder.  For example, in my S2, the earth may get it's energy from the sun, but it does so as the sun releases and uses that energy, thus decending into a state of higher entropy.  Any higher order would thus be devoid of omnipotent qualities, and subject to mortality.  This argument itself cancels out such a being, as the ability to create such wonders as the universe and life itself would all but require such omnipotence and immortality (hence why gods are always prescribed such qualities).
P3.  From the available usable energy there is plenty to build complexity, and we see this in every child that is born (though the aging process itself is an increase in entropy), and every seed sprouting. We see this in the body taking material and building what it needs to make the body function.  We see this even in non-living things, such as tornado's, hurricanes, et cetera. It is easily observable, repeatable, and testable.  This negates the latter half of S3, just because all usable energy decreases does not mean that usable energy cannot be made more complex, it simply means that even that which is made more complex will decrease.
P4.  Building on P3 here, evolution has shown us just that, that lower life adapts and evolves into higher states.  Responding to evolutionary pressures, life is able to evolve into more complex states, which happens through a process of trial and error, with  more error than success (again showing a lack of omnipotence and intelligence). 

    Now, this all stemmed from a reasonable comment from an intelligent person who believed in science, evolution, everything the facts show, yet chose to place a god behind it all in order to explain the how AND why of it all, and yes "and" is a key word.  First, there need not be a why, the need for a why only is a consequence of consciousness/awareness, which itself is not needed for any existence or reality as it is only a perceiving device of such.  Second, this stems from the fallacy of looking at the world around you and seeing such complexity, and then looking to something even more complex to explain it, which in most cases this higher complexity is protected from such questions by an invented sanctity of some form or another.  This allows it to exist beyond a what-if status for people because they can brush logic aside by saying such things as "oh, god always existed", not seeing the fallacy in such words, for if an all powerful being can simply always exist, why couldn't anything else?  "How do you know that god always existed?"...."He said so".....  "Um...ok then..."  Not very scientific when broken down, in the end those that believe in a god are always forced to trade all scientific analysis and logic at the door for faith.

  In all actuality, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics shows a lack of an omnipotent, arguably even intelligent creator.  If an omnipotent creating force did exist then it would be the outside energy, endless usable energy, that would negate the very presense of entropy, since this force (god) would be that from which all things originated.  Anything less would be nothing more than a downward spiral of creation.  That things decend into disorder shows a lack of a guiding hand, at best it shows a degenerate reflection of agnosticism, a god of decay and folly.