GMS argues and doesn't argue against logical validity of 3 proofs for God

For anyone familiar with the format. This is not one discussion, it's ten (I counted the time signatures), some of which followed up by discussions with others, here P Jaworek and Mark Nieuweboer, and all following up a part in the following video:

3 Arguments for God That Are NOT About God
Genetically Modified Skeptic | 15 Dec. 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kiKkAS05U4

3:18 What you are saying is, the indignation against what someone believes utterly wrong is founded in "emotion as contrasted with reason" ...

I disagree. There is a certain Nazi atrocity that was not exclusive to Nazis, that in Germany ended 1945 - thank you Patton! - but in some other places continued to the seventies. Eugenics, with forced sterilisations. I think two states in Canada were into that, and Catholic hospitals were the only one not providing that "service."

Now, obviously, this proposal met with lots of indignation. And what was the response, from the ones marketing it? "You are just being emotional"

Now, the problem here is presenting "emotion" as a base category distinct from reason. On the contrary, the idea that this proposal is wrong is definitely rooted in objective morality, via reason. A faculty which has innate access to such ideas. On the other hand, "wrath" in the abstract is a passion. However, "indignation" is truly an emotion and what that means is, it is the interplay between such an idea of reason and the raw passion called wrath, and emotions in general are the interplay between reason and passion.

3:49 Before you start to argue "circular reasoning" let me break it down.

God existing causes (and therefore explains) morality being objective.
Morality being objective proves God existing.

In other words, "God exists 'because' morality is objective" is synonym to "God exists as is proven by morality being objective"
And "morality is objective 'because' God exists" is synonym to "morality is objective as is caused by or grounded in God existing"

There is no circularity on the proof side, there is no circularity on the explanation side.

And you start like making a point for the correctness of the premiss.

Most dealing with it reason:
"Morality is obviously objective, therefore God exists"
You reason (or sound quite a bit like doing so), more like:
"God doesn't exist, therefore morality isn't objective"

3:57 "our existential fears and sense of moral superiority"

Now you are doing a bit of "moralising" (except it's immoral), based on fears being shameful and sense of moral superiority being prideful.

With no objective morality, how do you argue "fears are shameful"?
With no objective morality, how do you argue "sense of moral superiority is prideful"?

And also the allegation is gratuitous.

I certainly fear, and have reasons to fear a society in which the existence of moral objective values is denied by the élite. In Germany forced sterilisations ended in 1945 (thank you Patton, once again!) but in Sweden in the 1970's (thank you Olof Palme).

But I neither fear a world in which moral objective values do not objectively exist, nor a world which shrinks to half the volume each 24 hours, including all observers, and certain physics constants being adjusted accordingly. Both worlds are things I do not fear, because they are things I do not entertain as remotely possible.

Again, I can say that when discovering objective morality, as a philosophical concept, I felt moral inferiority for my country, Sweden, and my past, brought up fairly much in Sweden, with some redeeming exceptions for Austria and homeschooling with a Christian mum. So, I was very far from picking it up to express an already existing moral superiority I could already take any pride in.

The allegation on this one could come from the fact that moral objective values become conscious so often in situations of feeling moral superiority - like a man at least moderately sober may feel morally superior to the friend who needs help to get home. But they actually also come to the forefront in situations of feeling moral inferiority - the man walked home waking up next morning with a headache, for instance. It's just that CSL by politeness, and also knowing the modern culture to be shameless, came to conclude it was better to remind readers of situations of moral superiority.

Now, if you were an alien without morals (very inconceivable ultimately), you could of course say that the sense of moral superiority or inferiority is an illusion. But it would be odd if any sense, exterior or interior, were always providing illusions. In a dream you may see things that aren't there, but you still trust your eyes when you are awake. You can suffer from tinnitus, but apart from that you trust your ears. So, why would a sense of moral superiority always be illusory or one of moral inferiority?

P Jaworek

What a waste, I'd suggest putting your most ridiculous claims last so others may read what you wrote. There doesn't have to be morals outside of us for us to have morals. We have subjective and changing morals, that's how we know blackmail, intimidation, genocide committed by your God are all immoral. We agree on it. So simple but you're too afraid. Get well.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek "We have subjective and changing morals,"

That's why you don't know whether your morals are correct or not.

"that's how we know blackmail, intimidation, genocide committed by your God are all immoral. We agree on it."

You would on that view just know it was "immoral" right now, by just your own taste. So?

And in fact, intimidation is not always wrong, and genocide is not wrong to the lord of life and death as it would be wrong to a man who is not lord of life and death.

"So simple but you're too afraid."

It's convoluted and I am not afraid of your argument.

"Get well."

Speaking of blackmail, that one makes me somewhat afraid of what you might be up to.

4:37 Actually, it doesn't "focus on humans" ...

It focusses on existence as we know it.

5:40 He is not adressing most young atheists in their normal everyday mentality. But he is very right about what atheism ultimately:

• leads to
• already has led to in some élites.

There are people who think "the planet matters more than man" and - you perhaps know that discourse.

6:13 Well, the point of a proof is precisely to:

• lead from a premise we do not hesitate on
• to a conclusion we otherwise would hesitate on.

If that's the point of each criticism, one would like to know what you are in fact saying "about us" and not just "about God" ...

Again, you are doing some fake moralising over premises involving other things than the conclusion to be certain about.

P Jaworek

Again, your timestamp has nothing to do with your BS comments after it. We don't take an unlikely premise and then conclude another assertion is true? Only a desparate complete fool would do that. All of these arguments are unlikely to be true on their own, not a "premise we do not hesitate on". The point of a proof is to demonstrate a concept purely from observations not the garbage you wrote. Your mistaken for baseless conjectures. Look up proof and look up conjecture and see which fits your definition, Hans.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek My timestamp certainly involves when GMS made a claim that per se is pointless but which he wants to weaponise, and which I deweaponise.

He had precisely made the claim that these arguments are "not about God" in the sense that the premises don't get their credibility from God. And he was precisely going to apply that to the next subject, consciousness. A perfect timestamp to remark, that premisses are very normally about other things than just the conclusion.

If that sounds like BS to you, sorry, you have no credibility whatsoever as a philosopher.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek I see you extended the original comment since I answered it. (Or you didn't, I answered too rapidly, could be).

"We don't take an unlikely premise and then conclude another assertion is true?"

The thing is, the premises are not the least unlikely. It's their denial that is so.

"The point of a proof is to demonstrate a concept purely from observations not the garbage you wrote."

Concepts aren't actually proven, they are defined.

Truths are proven. And observations include introspective such and behavioural such. We know we have consciousness and it has no material attributes from introspection. We know moral judgements are uniformy made as if morals are objective.

And we may or may not know something about finetuning, but in the case of the cosmology you stand for, we certainly would do so.

6:21 There is no known physical process that can produce consciousness.

Computers aren't conscious. We agree computers are just physics. But some attribute consciousness to computers, because how they work out mimes a conscious thing.

Now, we do that with very obviously non-conscious things too. Like counting on an abacus, not just with web2.0calc, or deciding with dice, not just with randonautica, we should keep this very well in mind before attributing consciousness to any computer.

The perhaps most confusing thing in this respect, unless you actually know more than one language and can often do without it is translation software. When Kennedy Hall showed a google translate from Latin to English with a tweak on the brand name Balenciaga, he assured his audience that it cannot be simply fortuitous. Because translating software is very sophisticated.

Well, it is also as dumb as one can expect from a totally non-conscious thing (unconscious would refer to temporary states of beings that can have conscious moments) and this means it needs human feed back to not ruin its reputation. It was the human feedback to it which had been abused.

However, this may need some explanation - doesn't a translator need to understand both languages? An actual translator, yes. A translation software, not the least. It builds on a vast lineup of texts that occur in both languages and then calculates equivalences from there (like a web2.0calc or an abacus calculates = without consciousness at all of what it is doing). The results sometimes very well show (without absuing the feedback) that the software has no consciousness.

You may know a certain Clive Staples came to be known as Jack because at age four he decided "I'se Jaxie" after a dog named Jaxie had been run over ... the Ukrainean wikipedia had this story, I could recognise "Djaksi" or Djeksi" in cyrillic, so I could make out the passage. Well, the google translate I used gave an English where Jaxie ran over a car instead.

P Jaworek

What is your point? We still have the hard problem of consciousness and many other unexplained observations. None of what you stated after the timestamp itself relates to this video about emotional blackmail.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek The problem is, there is no emotional blackmail involved in stating "the hard problem of counsciousness" is only hard for materialists. And for their position, "hard" is a severe understatement, more like impossible.

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl That still has nothing to do with this video, nor does it make sense (or a point). It's a hard problem for physicalists, but not for anyone else. There's lots of options where consciousness is assumed instead of matter and everything else is built around that. Anyway, nothing to do with the video.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek "There's lots of options where consciousness is assumed instead of matter and everything else is built around that."

And from these on, you can actually start cutting out the self contradictory ones and boil it down to Theism, as CSL carefully did in Miracles, though it was about reason and morality, not consciousness.

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Nope, you can't cut out any speculation without cutting out theism. Only science and math surrounding consciousness will remain. How people got it right or came close in the past will be nothing more than a curiosity.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek Not the least. Introspection remains observation.

@P Jaworek And I am not "cutting out any speculation" - and obviously neither are scientists doing so. There is no "speculation free" knowledge.

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Introspection about or after observed reality not just imagination and conjecture. You're talking about what's out there not about your feelings or biography.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek Introspection is adequate documentation about the fact we are conscious.

6:24 Well, consciousness actually neither has nor can be explained "naturalistically" from a nature starting out with only non-conscious building blocks and processes.

Totally. And I am aware of the arguments from neuropsychologists. Yes, awake consciousness, dreams, REM state and deep sleep and coma are all accompanied by different states of the brain. Yes, the brain scanners by now can determine if I think of a bottle or a car.

But correlation does not mean causation. While the brain state may be necessary for me, as a being composed of consciousness and a physical body to enjoy this or that consciousness while still in my body, this does not mean it is an adequate explanation for the consciousness.

You could of course go the whole hog in abolishing your reason by saying the "adequate explanation" thing is an illusion. Again, this would involve you both as cutting down your own case (the statement of neuropsychologists in favour of naturalistic explanations involve a logic that appeals to concepts like "adequate cause") and once more pretending a sense we often have is always illusory.

Just as the sense of moral superiority or inferiority can sometimes be wrong and it would be curious if this implied it were always illusory, so also the sense of "adequate explanation" or causation can sometimes be wrong and it would also be curious if this implied it was always illusory.

Mark Nieuweboer

Prove your outrageous claim "nor can be explained". "Correlation doesn't mean causation" fails as such, because correlation is natural too.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Mark Nieuweboer Our total experience of matter as matter is sense experience of non-conscious things, or of things (like ourselves) that seem conscious for sth other than matter.

Our total experience of mind (apart from many claims of direct contact with spirits) is from us, or a very reduced type of mind, animals.

This is for "nor can be explained."

That the correlation certainly is natural in us, doesn't mean it shows neuropsychologists the correct causation in their quest of finding a naturalistic origin for us in a universe supposedly starting out as only matter and energy, no mind. This being for "fails as such" ...

7:05 The argument can't be resposing on human consciousness being "so unique" if it leads to appealing to another consciousness.

In an atheist world view, consciousness could be considered as a quality always residing in man, and this because the universe and earth is in a steady state, you go back a billion years, there were humans, you triple that distance of time, there were humans and so on ... ultimately even such atheists would have to concede that consciousness in the individual man has an on and off existence, and this calls for an explanation other than man as known in the flesh. Pantheism or reincarnation or both could try to solve that.

Compared to the computer the "so unique" is actually very well carried out by even commonplace facts. Dice don't decide, abacusses aren't mathematical geniusses, neither do [or are] randonautica or web2.0calc, and google translate as well as bing simply don't translate.

With animals, they are certainly conscious of sense objects. Not necessarily the same ones as we (chimps can't hear P, T, B, D, and probably even CH and K, DJ and G are too shrill), but they can be conscious of sense objects. They can not reason, and they can not know morality.

7:19 Two objections.
1) "we want to believe X" doesn't mean X is untrue
2) "we want to believe X" is therefore also not an argument against arguments for X.

I may want to believe I have sufficiently money on my bank account to pay rent up to including May if the flat is small, but this is not contrary to the fact that 520 € * 6 = 3120 € (the initial expenses are roughly equal to another month), 7187 € - 3120 € = 4067 €, 152 days = 22 weeks, 4067 € / 22 = 185 € per week, which is more than I spend as homeless most weeks, though some of these cold ones have been exceptions to that. So I have arguments for being able to pay rent up to May. The problem is, someone else wants me to be able to either pay two years in advance, or have an income for the at least two following years, but that is another story.

Ergo "we want to believe X" neither invalidates X as a fact or a given train of reason for X being factual.

P Jaworek

I don't get it. Start again from where you are homeless or paying two years rent at once or something like that? What we want to be true means it can be untrue. So what?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek What we want to be true doesn't mean it IS untrue. It doesn't ADD reasons against believing a thing.

I did the maths, if renting me an apartment January to May were an option, I definitely would have the means according to what it says on the withdrawal receit and according to my calculation.

Mark Nieuweboer

Two objections: GMS didn't make any of those two claims.

Third objection: it's dishonest of you to suggest he did.

The video has several flaws, but your prejudice prevented you to spot them.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Mark Nieuweboer He did not directly make the two claims.

But he is playing on suggesting them to those watching the video. Especially in unstated form.

That takes care of the "dishonesty" charge. If stating what will happen in someone's mind when watching this video unprepared (which I totally wasn't; thank you Jack!) is dishonest from me, stating what will happen in someone's mind when hearing the three arguments for God is equally dishonest on his part.

Equally, without those two principles in the background, his rant doesn't make very much sense.

Mark Nieuweboer

"... he is playing on them ..." only demonstrates your prejudice.

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl What the hell are you talking about? What we want to be true is mostly untrue. Because we're right sometimes means absolutely nothing, especially relating to this video. Correct me if I'm wrong about what you mean.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek "What we want to be true is mostly untrue."

What we would like to be true while knowing it ain't so is mostly ain't so, but what we want to be true and think is true is mostly true.

Wanting something is irrelevant as to truth value. We are usually not so incompetent that what we think about sth is false.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Mark Nieuweboer A reasonable one.

Mark Nieuweboer

Shrug. Precious few people admit that their prejudices are unreasonable.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Mark Nieuweboer Perhaps for a reason. Perhaps because your prejudice is the odd one out ...

The one saying, apparently, most prejudices are unreasonable.

Mark Nieuweboer

Blablabladibla.
Fact remains that in this video GMS didn't make either of those claims.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Mark Nieuweboer Fact remains he made remarks making not much sense unless he tried to subreptitiously imply them.

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Well you certainly are. Total BS, most of what we want to be true turns out to be false or grossly inaccurate. See what scientists and matheticians say about that, the real breadwinners of our knowledge.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek "See what scientists and matheticians"

I suppose you mean matheMAticians, but I don't make the ones or the others my Bible.

Mark Nieuweboer

Name them. Then we're talking at last.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Mark Nieuweboer I already made a time stamp you can click. Rewind a bit. Listen. A bit later, 7:33 GMS has just used the words "provides a satisfying explanation why we are so special" ... he really is out to make listeners believe the three arguments are wrong because they are what we wish, for instance being "so special".

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl So then you have no knowledge, none you can share anyway. These days our knowledge is communicated through rationality. You might be using it sometimes without even knowing it!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek "These days our knowledge is communicated through rationality."

Less and less, judging from you.

For my part, I simply don't equate "scientists" and "mathematicians" with rationality, any more than with truth.

Sure, both make attempts at being rational, attempts of finding truth, but they succeed less and less these days.

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Hogwash, they're the only ones making useful theories. You don't even make sense. I could make your own point 10x better than you. The trouble is, I don't get you. Who the hell produces any knowledge besides scientists (let's just include math within science).

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek Philosophers. And theologians preserve knowledge.

Neither of them are what you would include as scientists and among them, you would prefer those most subservient to "science" as it now is.

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl As it now is (exclusively), yes now.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek Well, then I have answered who except them produce or preserve knowledge. Some outside the science you admire actually do that.

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Only in the last post did you appear to say that scientist produce the knowledge now. Any point yo make about the video though?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek You are seriously grammatically challenged.

I was saying first that YOU don't admit philosophers and theologians, and then that YOU prefer among these only those who are subservient to science as it is now.

I was definitely not saying that I myself thought that only science as it is now produces knowledge.

What is your reading experience apart from your expertise? Novels of less than 200 pages? Or, if longer, someone like Ken Follett, desperately modern in tone as well as in message?

@P Jaworek "Any point yo make about the video though?"

I am countering your points here. I already countered the video in my original comments.

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Is that all you got, you with your caps lock and "...most subservient to science, as it is now". Sorry if I don't get you, what are you saying? Now most people are subservient to science? How about science is knowledge. Why can't you just say that. [censored]

Manipulation?

As in, "Science can be thought of as both a body of knowledge (the things we have already discovered), and the process of acquiring new knowledge"

Get to a point, Hans.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek Well, I don't agree that science as it now is necessarily is knowledge.

I think a good philosopher producing knowledge and a good theologian preserving knowledge are more likely to be critical to science as it now is.

Why should I be stating your opinion, when I disagree with it?

@P Jaworek "Science can be thought of as both a body of knowledge (the things we have already discovered), and the process of acquiring new knowledge" - fine, but that's not science as it now is.

First of all, it's true of sciences, not all sciences as such, and second, when these sciences are actually consulted, they aren't called "science" but by their single names, like electronics or chemistry.

9:29 "we want to believe the argument's premises because of the emotional appeal"

I am here reminded of your INTRO - you said you were not trying to assess the soundness of the arguments logically. That was very strategic of you.

Because when psychoanalysing someone believing an argument, you are looking at a totally different direction to the one which could allow you to see if it is logically sound.

The case of bias in politics by your sponsor of the video is only possible because the public is specifically encouraged to polarise and go into parties, in the political systems we have. Whatever the advantages, it definitely means on many issues, lots of people will be wrong and be chosing the wrong side because of their over reaction against the side that is right on the issue. On my view this is usually not the same party or other partisan type of side on all issues. But the net result is, people get used to being wrong, get used to this not mattering because the other side being even wronger and get used to many others being wrong. And get used to this being due to bias.

This may be a case for not buying too much into the political system when discussing much more ultimate questions.

You probably have more to say, I will anyway end my listening here, because I think this is a point that sums up the defects of your approach on this issue.

P Jaworek

Can you put your "defects" in point form? I read this twice and still can't spot them. Only something about politics which I also didn't understand.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek I made several points along the time signatures I noted. To miss none of the comments, go to "sort by" and don't take "top comments" but "chronologically" ... my own comments being fairly sequential.

BUT if your schooling makes you less apt than most for understanding my point (could be the case if you are a shrink, for instance), how about chucking it for today and getting back tomorrow with fresh eyes after being refreshed by a good night's sleep?

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl There's no sense to be made of this OP or your reply. If there were, you could reiterated it with even 1 point.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek As already stated : the points are in my comments to different time signatures.

You have so far found comment number 9 (TS 7:19) and 10 (TS 9:29 = this one). I told you to look up the other comments by me, told you how to find them, and you haven't found them. Not my fault if you are challenged in attention span or grammatic comprehension or whatever.

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl I still see no point in this thread. I say delete it.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek Why would I please you on that account?

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl You mention "political system" like it has anything to do with this video. You're delusional. You can leave this pointless thread for everyone to see.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek Did you remark the sponsor of the video?

If GMS made a connexion between the sponsor and the subject, why shouldn't I pick up on it?

"You're delusional."

You are overexcited and hardly in a state to judge.

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl It's not excitement, it's frustration that people would say half a message and expect anyone to understand. What connection to politics? That is what I asked and you didn't answer.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek Actually, you misrepresent what you said.

"You mention "political system" like it has anything to do with this video."

That's not asking "What connection to politics?" but flatly denying there is one.

Now, if you ask what the connexion is, well, to GMS "as we talk of how we should be suspicious of our inherently human biasses, here is if you want to be suspicious of the biasses of political reporting" - for me it was "we probably got suspicious - in part of the Western Civilisation - of our own inherent human biasses by starting to suspect the bias of political reporting" - which again depends on a system of submitting the highest power of the state to elections. With many parties (or in US, two parties, mainly).

@P Jaworek "people would say half a message and expect anyone to understand."

If my article with the comments and debates were written on paper rather than available with a link to the video, one would obviously have to include portions of the video, which would normally need the permission of GMS.

However, in this format (under the video) and its mirror on the article (yes - you are in it) one can always start by watching the video, since more than one of my comments makes more sense after doing so.

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl You still didn't answer, what connection to politics. You're wasting your words trying to spin the wheel.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek I am wasting them on you, obviously, perhaps not on all our readers ...

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Highly doubtful anyone will read your word soup.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek Yeah, there are guys who bet on that .... doesn't always work out like that though ...

@P Jaworek By the way, on "word soup" - you seem challenged grammatically ...

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl More assertions, no proof

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek The blog where our debate was long second highest, now third highest was 19/12 seen 229 times.

P Jaworek

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Still no clue as to the meaning of your ramblings and numbers.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@P Jaworek You wanted proof - of what? I guessed it was of the fact us having readers.