Tabula Flexuosa

Assailing the Ineffable

2011-08-24T15:38:00.000-07:00

God is often referred to as unknowable, infinite, omniscient and ineffable. Ineffable means to defy expression or description or too sacred to be uttered.

Following a conversation here, led to my thinking more of the place of the ineffable in Christian apologetics.

Arguments for the ineffable take the basic form: we cannot fully describe God because He is unknowable and infinite (and we are mere men), so God can neither be fully described nor disproven (on the basis of our inability to account fully for His Nature).

Clever, huh!

What are the possibilities?

There is a God. This God is an all-round impressive God: supernatural, infinite, and beyond description; so failure to describe this God is actually to describe a property of this God's existence, and hence is to support the notion that this God has actual existence (usually undefined). Because this God is ineffable, it is difficult to account for His mysterious behavior and purpose, though He typically seems utterly indifferent.
There is a God. This God is definable: fickle, vain, demanding, cruel, vindictive, punitive, jealous, etc. (as depicted in the Bible). Because this God is fickle, it is difficult to predict His mysterious behavior and purpose, though He typically threatens to act like a Punitive Parent.

Depending on the particular religious beliefs, One of the above Gods, and it's not always clear which One, has taken the trouble to interfere to some degree with the Universe and with Life on Earth. Could it be both of them rolled into one? "But they are so different!" you say.

Examining just one Brand of Godhead: Whichever God was so interested in His Special Creation that He sent his Son, perhaps Himself, down to Earth via Immaculate Conception. He, Who can arrange any miracle that He chooses, arranged for the Crucifixion and Resurrection of His Son or Himself. Why go to all this trouble? He wanted to offer us Salvation in exchange for our worshipping Him and for behaving like good, obedient little children – or else we'd be punished for all eternity. How do we know this? His Son or He told someone who told someone who wrote it all down in differing versions. How else? Certainly not through non-circular evidence.

There is no God. This absence of the supernatural leaves the purposeless universe at the mercy, and sometimes benevolence, of mostly measurable, testable, physical forces. These natural forces operate on the basis of a hierarchy of mechanisms that operate on different scales – from the subatomic to the cosmic. Some 10 billion years after a rapid expansion of spacetime, a planetoid formed within the arm of a galaxy at the edge of the universe. Within 500 million years of that planet's cooling, life had spontaneously appeared on the planet.

Complexity emerged within those life forms, ultimately generating one species with a thirst for answers, but not necessarily for accurate explanations. For psychological reasons, this species invented the increasingly complex conceptualizatons of supernatural mechanisms to 'explain' inexplicable phenomena. One of these philosophical lineages led to the invention of the Christian God.

Eventually, some members of this species began to investigate and investigate and investigate how the world really works, and this knowledge led to doubt about the supernatural invention. Some members of this species were particularly emotional thinkers and chose to faithfully retain the old beliefs and promises, some rational thinkers looked at the evidence and decided that the supernatural only appears ineffable because God does not exist.

Thus the notion of an ineffable deity, which began its conceptual life as an attempted explanation for the inexplicable, ultimately served double duty as an excuse for theological inconsistencies in Christian apologetics.

The Problem with Polemics

2011-08-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

I think that the chief difference between those who practice a scientific approach to understanding of the natural world and those who practice a philosophical approach is illustrated in the progress of thinking from the ancient philosophers to modern science.

The ancient philosophers believed that they could understand the world solely by thinking about a relatively few empirical observations. Although such approaches might be relevant to discussions of value-laden subjects such as ethics or esthetics, they were of limited value in understanding the physical world.

By the 17th century, Sir Francis Bacon was emphasizing the need for a more scientific approach to understanding the physical world.

"As a procedural starting point, at the dawn of a movement that would become modern science, Bacon rejected both the scholastic view that equated knowledge with conservation and the Renaissance reform that sought to recapture a long-lost perfection. Natural knowledge, he proclaimed, must be reconceptualized as a cumulative process of discovery, propelled by processing sensory data about the external world through the reasoning powers of the human brain." [s]

The idea caught on and the scientific revolution ensured that scientific understanding replaced the metaphysics of the ancients, medievals, and the earliest scientists. In the scientific method, a set of observations leads to formulation of hypotheses that propose logical explanations for the empirical phenomena. Predictions are made on the basis of these hypotheses and are tested against further empirical and experimental data. If further data does not support the hypothesis, then a new hypothesis is formulated that better fits all available data. Ultimately, those hypotheses that withstand this possibility of falsification become accepted as theories. Thus, scientific theories are much more likely than are 'vernacular' theories to accurately exlain reality. Scientific knowledge, then, is a system of verified or verifiable empirical data logically interconnected by tested theories.

Although the history of ideas is interesting, science discards disproven hypotheses and moves on, “historical” philosophy does not. By “historical philosophy", I refer to rhetoric, polemics, and apologetics, which are more concerned with the appearance of authority than with the truth value of content and which set out to argue a position by quoting those who have previously made a statement that follows the position taken by previous writers. This is quite different than the use of references to scientific articles, which point back to empirical or experimental evidence rather than to mere opinion.

It is circular to attempt to prove a point solely by noting that some ancient philosopher had said something with which we agree, yet this is a standard apologetic ploy. This tactic would be equivalent to my claiming that sperm contain microscopic humans and calling up Lamarck’s beliefs to “prove” my point.

In essence, the value of an idea depends upon its content and not upon how many illustrious, but mistaken thinkers have stated it. (To be fair to apologistic philosophers, I think that their intent is to discuss content even though their thinking is distorted by insistence on defending weak positions.) The strength of science, which is both misunderstood and attacked by its detractors, is that scientific knowledge is continuously scrutinized and refined by its qualified practitioners, whose work is measured according to accepted standards (peer review). Although professional (academic) philosophers do work within a logical system, philosophers work within areas that exclude the possibility of experimental verification. If the area under study could be experimentally tested, then that investigation should involve scientific method and would be outside the field of philosophy.

Not only do many people fail to understand the content and nature of science, they mistakenly assume that any thought system – set of opinions – counts as valid philosophy. In this Misinformation Explosion Age, people are increasingly unaware that lay opinion, particularly biased opinion, carries no real authority about the natural world whenever lay opinion runs counter to established scientific knowledge. Let's designate such people, Laypersons of the Misinformation Explosion, or LAMEs. Not only do LAMEs form illogical opinions on the basis of too little information, they form mistaken opinions on the basis of deliberate or ignorant misiformation pasted across the Internet. LAMEs are particularly credulous in the face of emotionally appealing rhetoric, and this is particularly apparent in relation to the ridiculous creation vs evolution debate, which really ought not to be a debate at all since only the scientific explanation is empirically supported.

The problem, I think, lies not merely with polemics and apologetics as rhetorical devices to sell an argument, it lies also with the fact that those who argue such positions also 'think' in the same clumsy style. That is, rather than learning the techniques of critical thinking, they assimilate (and later quote) arguments that they have accepted purely because they like the argument or its conclusions. They often go so far as to admit, "I like what Joe Bloe says about this, [quote]."

Such emotional, LAME thinkers are not so much concerned with whether or not the argument is logically based upon relevant evidence as they are distracted by the emotional appeal that the argument's conclusion provides. Such thinkers will uncritically accept any conclusion that fits their preconceived notions or biases without any concern or awareness of whether or not the conclusion represents reality.

LAMEs are emotional thinkers who construct their view of the world, not from logical analysis of empirical evidence, but from a pastiche of favored conclusions: ignorant conclusion 1 + unfounded conclusion 2 → illogical conclusion 3.

Typically, the arguments of LAMEs are packed to overflowing with false premises and fallacies of logic. For example, further compounding the cognitive mistake of favoring misinformation with emotionally appealing conclusions, illogical conclusion 3 may be cited as proof of ignorant conclusion 1 and/or unfounded conclusion 2.

Omnia in Ventor

2007-12-31T23:59:00.000-08:00

Life is full of interesting discoveries, so this blog will be a repository for sundry tidbits.

Life is also replete with irritants, so this blog will be a release valve, which could evolve (hint, hint) to be deliberately noisome to creationists and religious dogmatists, not to mention Regressive Conservatives and Republicans.

Latest Quiz – the image at left has been color-altered – what does it depict?

So, with tongue planted firmly in cheek . . .
ɷ The Etymology of Mimble Wimble
ɷ Dastardly Stubborn Mean IV Revised
ɷ Do Canadians hate Americans?
ɷ Do Americans hate Canadians?
ɷ The Bathing Suit

With interest . . .
ɷ Topical Oinkment
ɷ Karyoti
ɷ Through the Microscope Brightly
ɷ Explore Virtual Caves
ɷ Galleria
ɷ In God, Distrust
ɷ Aboriginal Rock Art
ɷ We, the Products of Blind Evolution

It is with great irritation that we bring to you . . .
ɷ Creationism only flourishes amidst Ignorance
ɷ Myths Revered and Myths Exposed
ɷ un-designed intelligences = intelligent [sick] design
ɷ All Concepts are NOT created Equal
ɷ Black Sheep are Sheep Too
ɷ Silly Ideas
ɷ Free Speech or Propaganda of Hate?
ɷ hate tanks
ɷ Should One Call One's Ex a Dog?
ɷ The Wedge Document

With relief . . .
ɷ Judge Jones Rules

Quo Vadis?

Roll-over images for a snap preview of link destination (snap is a cool widget/web search tool that I stumbled across on someone's website.)

...section index...

Topical Oinkment

2007-12-31T23:57:00.000-08:00

Click on the images!

_________________

I have played with posting 'dates' so as to set up this blog in subject areas – links to the latest mimble or wimble are next – the latest (a quiz) is HERE.

Tabula Flexuosa

Assailing the Ineffable

The Problem with Polemics

Omnia in Ventor

Topical Oinkment

All Concepts are NOT Created Equal

Silly Ideas

Black Sheep are Sheep Too

Anti-Stupidity Quotes

Behe Retreats

Complexity Reductio

Creationism only Flourishes Amidst Ignorance

Free Speech or Propaganda of Hate?

Furor over Stupidity

Numbers Games

Pet Peeves

Out, Damned Spam!

Myths Revered and Myths Exposed

Pseudoscience Chicanery

Rigidity and Religiosity

Error Filled Belief Systems

Un-Designed Intelligences

Galleria

Aboriginal Rock Art

Karyoti

Through the Microscope Brightly

Explore Virtual Caves

Bible Bumping

Blogswarm Against Theocracy

In God, Distrust

Agnostic vs Atheist

YEC Yack

Dei Non Existent

Twisting and Turning

Tabula Atheista

associated

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