I’ve written about the God of the Gaps mentality in the previous post, and argued against it. As I said, even most Christians reject it, because, by using the still unknown as proof that God exists - as the “residence” of God - they are causing God to “shrink”, as we explain more and more. Therefore, non-fundamentalist Christians advocate, instead, that God has created a natural universe, and that what is still unexplained is probably natural.
As I said, that’s a much more sane way of thinking. One would say, then, that the God of the Gaps believers should really realize that they are quite obviously wrong. Right?
Now, since the God of the Gaps thinking actually “reduces” their god, why do people still believe in it? It didn’t make sense - if I was a theist, I’d rather believe in a “big”, celestial, glorious god, instead of a permanently shrinking one, used as a “magical” explanation for anything we don’t know (yet). So, I wondered about it.
And I think I’ve found the answer.
The God of the Gaps mentality is a defense against Occam’s Razor.
Occam’s Razor is usually quoted as “choose the simplest explanation”, but what it originally said was this: “entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity”. In other words, provided with several, apparently valid explanations for something, choose the one with the smallest number of entities.
So, consider the two following choices:
1- The universe is 100% natural, and there is a god.
2- The universe is 100% natural.
See what I’m getting at? If the universe is natural, then it can exist without God, and according to Occam’s Razor, we should choose the 2nd option, which has one less entity (God). In other words, if the universe is 100% natural, then there probably is no God.
Therefore, people who believe in the God of the Gaps - in other words, who believe that there are supernatural parts of the Universe, which are the province of God, and therefore unexplainable by man - do have a reason for believing that. Even if they’ve never heard of the term “Occam’s Razor”, they’re probably aware enough to realize that, if something can happen naturally, without divine intervention, then it probably did happen naturally. And if everything can happen naturally, it probably does… so, what is left for God to do?
A fully natural universe has no need for God. That’s why many theists refuse, at all costs, to accept a fully natural universe. They prefer, instead, the increasing absurdity of saying God is in the unknown, and then, as that unknown becomes known, they “retreat” God to the next unknown. Repeat as necessary.
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Well, there are other things you need to consider. Most of the people I argue with will not convert from Christianity because, and I quote this from an actual conversation, “Knowing that God is out there makes me feel good”.
A fully natural universe has no need for God.
Well, no, it dosen’t, but how did the universe come about in the first place? That question is why I remain Agnostic.
Isn’t your definition of the term ‘natural’, ‘That which happens without God’s intervention’? Your statement, “If the universe is natural, then it can exist without God” is therefore circular. It’s the same as saying, “If the universe exists without God, then it exists without God.”
That’s true. If the universe exists without God, then it exists without God.
What I’m saying is that it doesn’t exist without God. Neither of the two choices you propose is true, because the universe is not 100% natural. In fact, choice #1 is a blatant contradiction - Or, to give you the benefit of the doubt, at least a very strange and subtle thing to say. “The universe has no connection with God whatsoever, and God exists.” There must be things that exist that are not part of the universe.
What I need from you is a good definition of the term ‘natural’.
I agree with Joe: The universe coming into existence out of nothingness is an unnatural event. It shows that the universe is not 100% natural.
But we don’t know that, do we?
We don’t know how the universe came into existence. Maybe it has always existed. We don’t know. Maybe we’ll never know. But that does not prove that God exists - you’re doing the God of the Gaps thing again. We don’t know, so it must have been God.
Just because we don’t know something, it doesn’t mean it’s “magic”. Nor does it mean that we’ll never know.
Really, “God did it” is a very lazy answer.
If everyone had always been satisfied with it, we’d still be living in caves.
Not exactly. It’s more like “if it can exist without God, then it probably does.”
Again, that’s not it. It’s more like “God exists and may have created the universe, but, as it is, it could also have appeared, or have always existed, without there ever being a god.” Sounds strange, I know.
All those die hard Christians are going to have a big problem with this
because the bible says God made nature.
(A few quick rejoinders before the main text here: Of course the beginning of the universe is unnatural. Nature (or ‘natural law’) can’t exist prior to the universe. Therefore, whatever did exist prior to the universe must be unnatural. Also: Of course the universe always existed. Time can’t exist prior to the universe, so all time has taken place while the universe has existed. [That is, unless by using the word 'always' you assume that time didn't have a beginning and won't have an end. In that case I deny the correctness of the term.])
Let’s play a game. I call it the ‘why?’ game. It’s where I ask you “Why do you exist?” and you answer me. Then, I take whatever answer you gave me, and I ask, “Why does that exist?” We continue until you eventually answer me by saying, “There’s no reason why that thing exists. It is self-existent.” Whatever the thing is that you think is self-existent, that’s what you think is the creator of the universe. It’s also how I can place your religion.
If you think that the universe ‘appeared’ all by itself, you’re probably a Materialist - That is, you think that matter is self-existent. You think the universe created itself.
Here’s my problem with Materialism: Matter doesn’t have any volition - But creation requires volition, since a great number of choices have to be made about what is to be created. For instance: Gravity follows an inverse square law. Why that instead of some other law? How is it that matter decided on the inverse square law, but we never see matter deciding anything now? The Materialist hypothesis seems to me to be attributing properties to mere matter that it clearly does not have.
God makes more sense in the role of Creator. He’s a person with volition, so He can decide to have gravity follow whatever law He wants, the same way you or I can decide to have chocolate instead of vanilla ice cream. I also maintain that He is free to break that law if He wants to. We call these times ‘miracles’.
You may also answer my ‘why?’ question by telling me that it’s a silly question, that nothing happens for any reason, and that everything is meaningless chaos. No answer to a ‘why?’ question is available. (You probably won’t say this. I can tell because you exhibit signs of doing things for a reason, like using human language.)
(By the way: I’m still waiting for a good definition of the term ‘natural’.)
(By the way again: I love discussing important issues with thoughtful, respectful people. Thanks!)
Ok listen
Can or cannot there is no why. Children play the why game why, why, why, why.
Time is not real ok, it’s impossible and it has been damn near proven. It is a figment of our consciousness, and in science it is little more that reference points.
So there is no such thing as a beginning and an end with the universe. It’s the same with “god” where did he begin? Oh he always was, ok I could agree with that, but since we are made in his image do you expect me to believe in a massive everlasting space man.
The big bag theory is wrong, it doesn’t make any sense. Energy in = energy out.
Now this just doesn’t say that the big bang isn’t realistic but where did the energy come from, it also says where did god get all this energy in this “natural” universe.
There are trillions of big bangs happening every 1 second of human consciousness.
And the universe will never collapse in on itself instead we will meet up with fragments of another explosion and slowly spiral into it. Creating the setup for another such explosion as the big bang.
God is not needed anywhere, there is a much more logical answer to everything you put god into.
Do dogs go to hell?
Do computers go to hell?
Do monkeys go to hell?
Do bacteria go to hell?
I mean damn we are nothing but a bacterial civilization. We have all the plumbing and food gathering systems and sewage systems to keep this large host of bacteria alive.
We even have a think tank which is just like fucken parliament, and every fucking time we do something bad.
We feel sickness we feel pain we are punished for what evolution thinks is a bad decision.
We are just a fucking decision centre for billions of bacteria. Our decision centre has made us so successful that we no longer use it all the time for survival but the arts, music and philosophy.
We couldn’t explain anything without pure ration knowledge of the land around us.
Hence why biology took so long to develop was due to the amazing number of myths that were used to prove the earliest works of biology wrong.
Don’t ask what the word natural means.
If some one changed the meaning of that word to pink donkey.
Would you say yes the world is pink donkey, NO.
It is what it is, words cannot describe it.
I leave with this.
If A.I. was developed and it made up its own religion, you would say that’s religion is false because it’s not the chosen species and god has not shown himself.
Then it would wipe us all out.
I like your blogs because you’re a thinker. I don’t know about believing in a God of the gaps but I do believe that the earth and universe were created simply because there is too much design to it. I’ve personally come to that conclusion after studying anatomy and physiology. The mechanisms of a single cell are amazing let alone putting them all together to make a whole person, animal, tree, etc. To me that takes some logic but at the same time I’m not your fanatical theist or philosopher because I agree with your concept that people won’t see what hasn’t worked in the past.
I don’t think I’m quite clear on what your actual belief is but I will assume evolution. I’m not trying to be a smartass at all but I want to know if you can prove evolution? Like for instance, are there new creatures evolving out of a swamp somewhere? You see, I’m open to hearing people out but you have to give me a little more to go on. By the way, I’m not really big on science either for the fact that I’ve seen people smoke all of their lives and die of nothing but old age. I’ve seen people who never drank die of liver cirrhosis. I’m not saying that certain things aren’t fact but that I’d rather just leave things as natural without explanation and live life. I have that same feeling about religion. I think people are so busy trying to explain every little thing that they forget to live.
Sweet, Matt is taking over this blog. Rock on buddy! It’s now called “Way of the Mind, Corrected by Matt”.
The problem with the Occam’s Razor argument presented in the post seems to me to be a mixture of Matt’s and Gina’s post. It all relates back to how you define “natural”. People who support the design argument may choose to go through a list of criteria and requirements that, according to our understanding of the environment, would be necessary to create everything that we see around us. If you’ve ever sat through such a display, I can assure you that this list is long, detailed, and completely, entirely unlikely from occurring again (if it indeed it did in the first place).
Therefore, the statement “2- The universe is 100% natural.” is actually comprised of millions upon millions of little elements.
While the statement “1- The universe is 100% natural, and there is a god.” only requires one element; the element in the second half of the sentence.
So, if you really want to follow Occam’s Razor, the choice seems pretty clear to me.
Jenssen:
It seems very strange to me for an Atheist to discourage a Christian from asking ‘why?’ Don’t Atheists generally encourage people to ask questions about the world around them? To look at things reasonably? Isn’t it reasonable to ask why things exist?
Regarding, “It is what it is, words cannot describe it.” - If the world cannot be described with words, what are words for? Why are we talking if our words can’t explain anything about the world around us? I don’t have time for a point-by-point refutation of statements made by a person who doesn’t even believe that words can describe the world. If words can’t describe it, what point is there in using words to talk about it?
I can’t see how you can come to that conclusion. That statement has all the elements as the other, plus one (God).
“Natural” means that no supernatural designer, creator or maintainer is required for it to exist / work.
It’s like, say, rain. Once, people thought that rain was “the tears of the gods”, or something like that. Then, we found out that rain is - and always was - a natural phenomenon, after all. Still, one might perhaps say that the rain on a particular day didn’t happen naturally, that it was God creating it, for some reason. Sure we could. But Occam’s Razor tells us that it probably happened naturally, anyway - because that explanation has one less entity.
The difference here is that we know how rain works, and not how the universe began. My point, however, is that, once, we didn’t understand rain either…
Of course there are words to describe the world around us.
Ill sum up what I mean this way, describe in words what a new colour would look like to me will you please.
Words can barely describe emotions never mind the totally unknown perplexities.
We cant really describe the universe only put in into our perspective and relate it to earthly bound objects.
And why I say there is no why, is due to my knowledge that there is no obtainable answer.
And the more you study, the more you look, the more it starts to become empty and useless. I will still press on but ignorance is bliss and don’t you forget it.
So here’s my philosophy. Accept and deny all ideas at the same time, and as for staying in the world.
Your a long time dead don’t be in any hurry. And it’s all worth another drink another joint another laugh and another fuck.
Jennsen: sometimes, you sound like the Ruler of the Universe in Douglas Adams’ Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
From Wikipedia:
Defining the term ‘natural’ in terms of the super-natural doesn’t make it very easy for me to understand what you’re talking about. What I think you really mean by ‘natural’ is - Whatever follows laws that we can understand (or: natural law). Hence, when you discover that rain follows certain laws, you call it a natural phenomenon.
My point is only this (And this is why a Christian will be unconvinced by your argument): Discovering that rain is caused by something else doesn’t tell you anything about first causes, or about what is or is not self-existent. Science doesn’t address first causes. It can’t. That’s why I bring up the ‘why?’ game and the beginning of the world. We can discover the laws behind the phenomena until we’re blue in the face and it wouldn’t have any bearing on the Christian claim that God created the universe.
Here’s Lorne’s point (Forgive me if I misunderstood you):
Occam’s razor says not to multiply entities beyond what is necessary. Here are a few necessary things:
1) That the world exists.
2) Each thing that exists is either caused by some other thing or self-existent.
3) There must be at least one self-existent thing.
Lorne wants to apply Occam’s Razor to self-existent things (of which there must be at least one). The Christian claim is that there is One self-existent thing - God. The Materialist claim is that all matter (each electron, each brick, each sandwich, etc.) is self-existent. Which claim seems to have multiplied entities? Is it more likely that there’s one self-existent thing that causes all the electrons, bricks, and sandwiches, or that each individual electron, brick, and sandwich causes itself all on it’s own?
Hahahaha I like it.
I don’t quite know how to reply but you have definitely convinced me to read the book.
But ill take it as a compliment and yes, if the possibility of Christian afterlife comes true I would like to go to heaven.
Oh and matt
Go into the depths of science and you will find.
That it addresses all possible causes for everything; you may not find anything though.
For science is not at all what you think it is.
Sure there is an institution of science that gets to decide what’s “real” but they are a very small and isolated part of science.
But really it’s not at all like any religious institutions or any institutions.
True science is found in every open thinking individual, and it most definitely covers all possible topics with a thousand theories.
There are Buddhist scientists.
There are Muslim scientists.
There are scientologist scientists (although I hate to admit it)
And there are Christian scientists.
And if they follow logical sound steps to reach their conclusion (Unlike you however who just seems to skip entire chapters to get to the end) I will accept their opinion as truth due to this inability to prove them wrong.
“I can’t see how you can come to that conclusion. That statement has all the elements as the other, plus one (God).”
Nope, it _eliminates_ all the other elements but one (god). If you assume that one element to be true, then all the others follow. However, if you exclude god you are left with all the little elements to fend for themselves.
Matt’s self-existence explanation is good too.
Jenssen, you said that your philosophy is to both accept and deny all ideas at the same time, which shows that you have no respect for the principle of non-contradiction (which says that a thing cannot both be and not be, in the same way, at the same time - Basically, it says to either accept or deny an idea, never both). The principle of non-contradiction is the foundation of all logic. Logic is essential to science. Therefore, your philosophy is anti-logic, anti-science, anti-knowledge, and anti-life.
But besides all that, what you say about science is mostly correct. I don’t know where you got the idea that I would disagree with you about that. What I said was that science can’t address the question of first causes - since science deals with the universe, it can’t deal with what came before the universe.
(By the way: I absolutely love Douglas Adams. He’s one of the greatest writers the English language has ever had. But I wouldn’t trust the Ruler of the Universe to open my can of peaches for me, much less rule my universe.)
Sorry, but I really don’t see how the universe “follows” from God, or how it is many entities without God but just one (or even none) without him.
After all, why must a god necessarily create a universe? I could even insert a quote from Sister Miriam from Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri here (if you know the game, you know which one I mean).
How I rationalize it is that though I may agree and disagree with all theories.
I apply probability to each one of the theory’s and take my stand point on what has the highest level of probability.
And if you think along the terms of probability then I am most probably right about everything.
Hahaha but the probability of that is so low that I can’t believe even for an instant that I am probably always right.
Which means I should probably re estimate the individual probabilities on all my theory’s which in turn creates a vicious cycle.
Oh and to say I disagree with you contradicts what you think about me.
And the principle of non contradiction is just that, an old principle.
And show me a guy that has never contradicted himself and ill show you a guy I killed to show you that no living man has never contradicted himself.
And that applies ten fold for open minded people. (I.E. ill kill them good)
You get my point. They dont exist.
I disagree simply because it will attempt to bring your theory as close to reality (reality as a combined perspective) as I can get it.
Oh and heres a short list.
I respect Pedro’s and matt’s (matt you and me share a first name) opinions.
Despite my origional posts I do see the steps to your conclusions.
But I do not respect the parrot which is lorne.
Stop snuggling up to matt and disagree with him in search of real truth, I mean whats the probabilitiy that hes always right.
Or right at all, I tell you its not high for any of us so carve your own path.
Jenssen: Why must I disagree with Matt in order to search for real truth? Based on my readings, the probability of him being right on _any_ subject is significantly higher than you. I actually disagree with almost everything you’ve ever said on this website, I just don’t think your inane ramblings deserve recognition.
Pedro: You are right; “a god” doesn’t necessarily create or do anything. I’m talking about applying Occam’s Razor to a creationist god theory. If I believe that god created the universe and everything in it, then that one thing can easily explain all the other things. They “follow” from god.
However, if I do not believe in a creationist god, or any god, then I must believe in all the other millions of prerequisites necessary for this universe to exist.
Which is why you believe in god.
And what are the “Prerequisites” for existence.
existence has no prerequisites.
and maybe you should actually know what an element is before you use them for the affirmation of god.
There is only energy.
And my insane ramblings do not seek anyones divine recognition.
I seek answers for myself and try to help others with their search by trying to expose as many flaws as possible.
Sorry, but I really don’t see it that way. The universe exists. That much is accepted, unless you’re a “life is just a dream” mystic; neither atheists nor Christians believe that.
Therefore, we can’t consider it as a single entity with a god, and as an infinity of entities without one. It is, after all, the same universe.
Even if there was a creationist god, what would he have to do? Maybe create the Big Bang, sure. But, as far as we can see, everything afterwards has happened naturally. Oh, and maybe he could have adjusted the “random number generator” a bit, to ensure that life on Earth appeared, and within some parameters. Except for those two possibilities, the universe works naturally - and I believe that those two were natural occurrences, as well, but they’re the two things theists always say “came from God” and therefore “are proof that God exists”.
(Now, some will say, here, that nothing is really “natural”, that God exists in all things, that everything that happens in the universe happens because God wills it. But that’s, really, no more than another kind of mysticism - almost “new age”, in fact. It’s a denial of the natural, of the laws of nature, of objective facts. The most basic of observation shows that the universe functions within a set of physical laws - and they’re laws we’re capable of understanding.)
Anyway, my point is that, even if God existed and “sparked” the Big Bang, everything else could have existed without him.
And we’ve been wrong about so many other things before (saying they were “acts of God”, until we actually understood them) that I fully believe that both the origin of the universe and the origin of life happened naturally. If they did, then there’s no need for a god at all…
I’m trying to say that the origin of the universe is different in many ways from, say, lightning. I say that it cannot possibly be natural. It cannot possibly fall under natural law because of what natural law is. Natural law is a set of rules that we’ve discovered that explain what happens in the universe. That which follows these rules we say happens naturally.
Sometimes, natural law does explain how something came to be - Like lightning. If I ask, “What makes lightning?”, natural law can answer me. But it will only ever answer me with something else in the universe. This is why natural law has no answer for, “What made the universe?” Any answer that it gives will automatically be from within the universe, because that’s the way natural law is. If something within the universe created the universe, then the universe is self-existent, which means that, unlike everything in the universe, it exists on it’s own. Self-existency is a primary attribute of what we call God - So if natural law can explain the origin of the universe, then we have to call the universe God.
I don’t think that the universe is God. It doesn’t act like God would have to act. Therefore, I don’t believe that the universe is self-existent, I don’t believe that something within the universe created the universe, and I don’t believe that natural law can explain the origin of the universe.
This seems like a logical argument to me. I’ve tried to lay it out simply and clearly so that you guys can tell me why you disagree with it.
but time does not exist, and just as you cannot destroy all the energy in the universe you cannot create it either.
It always was and always will be.
And if you say that that is shit logic remember that you say the same thing about your god.
And that’s why I say that the god of the Materialists is mere matter.
But that’s where we disagree. You’re making the same mistake others did, before, about lightning: “I don’t understand it, what I know about natural law doesn’t cover it, therefore it surely can’t be natural.”
I don’t know (scientifically) more about the origin of the universe than you do. However, I’m not going to assume that, just because we don’t understand it now, we (humanity) never will. Nor do I invent supernatural explanations for what I don’t understand. After all, we humans have been wrong each time we were sure something else was “an act of God”.
Maybe the universe has always existed. We don’t know. Maybe the big bang theory is wrong - we assume that, because the universe is expanding, it had to start from a single point, but what if it didn’t? What if, say, it shrinks and grows cyclically? See, my point here is that scientific theories can be wrong, but when they are proved so, they are replaced with other scientific theories, not with “science can’t explain it, and it never will, as it’s an act of God”. In other words, the fact that a theory is wrong doesn’t mean that “science has failed”. Much the opposite, it’s how science is supposed to work: if a theory and reality differ, reality wins.
And that also suggests another point: even if you are right about the origin of the universe (which I don’t think you are), still, everything else has been shown to be natural. So what is there left for God to do? He “sparked” the Big Bang, gives people a comforting feeling when they pray, and deals with our souls after we die? That’s it?
That’s surely not the god of the Bible…
No you have that part of it slightly wrong.
In the materialist world.
Matter is not our god. We are the gods of matter.
And so were not blurred by words.
The only “material” I care about are my Dionysian feelings.