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09-12-2024, 07:06 AM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
(09-12-2024, 06:49 AM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: On naturalism, things that have no natural explanation are indeed problematic.
They're only a problem if you stop looking for an explanation and insert unfalsifiable mythological beings as purported answers. Science advances by continuing to look at things that don't have current explanations.
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09-12-2024, 07:19 AM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
Wow - thanks for this thoughtful engagement! You've given me a lot to think about and, yes, you are right that my definitions here are somewhat sloppy and that I have used some terms interchangeably that maybe I shouldn't have. I'll be back
(09-10-2024, 08:03 PM)Reltzik Wrote: (09-10-2024, 01:37 PM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: Hello everyone,
I would love to put forward a theistic argument and I am looking for honest, intellectually sound rebuttals. Can you refute this argument logically? What are flaws in the argumentation? Which premises or conclusions do you find unconvincing and why? What alternative explanations, backed by evidence, can you propose?
Here goes the argument, bear with me by reading ALL OF IT before engaging, please:
Introduction: For most people, it is a given that love is not only real, but essential to human experience and existence. However, explaining why that is so is not very straightforward. How can love be explained and does that explanation point to theism or atheism?
Going off of context, I take your meaning of the words theism and atheism here to be, respectively, the proposition that in fact at least one god exists versus the proposition that in fact no god exists. Be warned that there's a semantic minefield near here, because when people categorize themselves as theists or atheists it is usually along similar but significantly different definitions: the state of being convinced that at least one god exists versus the state of not being convinced that at least one god exists. I'll play along with what I think your meaning to be when it comes to abstract propositions, but please try not to characterize the positions that this or that person actually holds based on whether they call themselves a theist or atheist until you actually check.
Also, I'd suggest reducing your expectations here in two different ways. First, allow the possibility that an explanation of love would not be indicative of one over the other, instead fitting in with both scenarios just as easily. Second, allow for the possibility that a full naturalistic explanation might not yet be fully within our grasp, nor may it be within our grasp for a very long time if ever, and that it not being within our grasp wouldn't point specifically towards theism. Not doing so is the God of the Gaps fallacy, which is responsible for the mistake (to list one of many, many examples of this sort of error) that Christendom made regarding astronomy. It took centuries for humanity to explain the movement of the planets (including sun and moon, which were classed as planets at the time) in naturalistic terms, and that extended but ultimately temporary ignorance was taken by Christian theology as proof that God existed and was ordering the movement of the celestial bodies as a direct act of divine will. Motions of the planets became deliberate signs from God meant as signals to humanity, and each sunrise was seen as a direct miracle of divine providence. When more scientifically-minded people (many of whom were also Christians) began putting together a less supernatural explanation, it was seen as a direct attack on Christianity. Cue people being burnt at the stake.
(09-10-2024, 01:37 PM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: ARGUMENT:
A) For most people, love (in all its forms) is the most important thing in the world
B) It's tricky to explain the existence and importance of love on naturalism
C) The Christian story clicks well with people's experiece of love as a powerful and important thing.
D) Therefore, the existence of love (by the likelyhood principle) supports Christian theism over atheistic naturalism.
Is this the likelihood principle you're referring to? If not, then what is? If so, you're going to have to do a lot of statistical legwork to even define terms clearly enough to employ it, and also a lot of rhetorical legwork with technical mathematical jargon to argue that it points in the direction you'd like. Even if you could accomplish this, most audiences won't be able to follow it.
Also, we now have, instead of the alternatives of the abstract propositions of theism and atheism, specifically Christian theism vs atheistic naturalism. This is no longer a dichotomy. This substitution calls to mind the sort of rhetorical sleight of hand that I've come to associate with the most dishonest of religious apologists. (After a moment's thought, I'll revise that to a second-tier dishonesty. Still very bad, but some religious apologists go so far beyond this that a new category of awful has to be defined just for them.) I'll give you time to expand upon this, but be warned that some very big red flags just went up.
(09-10-2024, 01:37 PM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: Let me flesh this out a little bit: (You don't need to agree with Christian doctrine to grant Point C, but have a look to see if you think this point internally coherent on the super-hypothetical assumption that God exists, for argument's sake. Does this Christian description give a good context for the nature and importance of love as we perceive it in society and individually?
POINT C) Why it's not illogical for a Christian to say that love is real and that it is the most important thing:
- According to Christianity, God is love (1 John 4:7). Thus, God’s character would explain the nature of love: it is other-centered, self-giving, and serving as evidenced by the doctrine of the Trinity (three divine persons united in love).
-According to Christianity, humans exist to be loved and to love (1 John 4:16), which would explain why love feelsso meaningful.
-Christians believe love is eternal: the Trinity would show love to be prior to nature (there was love between Father, Son, Spirit before the universe began) and the doctrine of heaven would show that love does not end when people die. It goes on forever.
-Human sin would explain how love both points to God in its beaut when it's at its best, as well as how we fail at it.
-Love is the highest moral duty in the Bible (Mark 12:30-31) which would ground our human sense that love is an 'ought' (something we should be doing/living) as it would provide a law-giver who gives authority to the perceived moral law (or etihical principle) of love.
Out of charity, I will for the sake of argument temporarily grant you that Christianity meshes fairly comfortably with the experience of love.
(09-10-2024, 01:37 PM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: Let me flesh out the naturalistic position as well and forgive me if I got something wrong. Obviously these views don't apply to all atheists, but I'm trying to paint a view of naturalism/materliasm leaning on the work of Richard Dawkins, among others:
Not knowing which others you're leaning on, and not having made anything like an extensive study of Dawkins (I read only one book of his, something like 15 years ago), I likely can't comment upon whether you are making an accurate representation of what those individuals believe. But I will comment on whether it is an accurate representation of naturalistic (and now we're roping materialism into this somehow?) models explaining the emotion of love.
(09-10-2024, 01:37 PM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: POINT B)
-Reductive materialism can explain love only as a chemical process. Why does it feel like it's so much more? There' no other chemical process we dream, write, make songs and movies, are willing to die for, etc. like love.
There's also electrical elements in the neurology. You're being sloppy in your descriptions here. But that doesn't affect your main point, so I'll move on.
In what way does it feel like more than a chemical (and electrical, and probably some other things I don't know about because I haven't studied neuroscience) process? By what referant? On what basis are you implying that x level of feeling is what we'd expect from a merely... dammit, I need a different word than chemical now. Natural, let's go with that. On what basis are you implying that x level of feeling is what we can expect from a merely natural process, and anything beyond that must be supernatural?
I'd point out that some of the most intense emotional experiences come from drugs, whether alcohol or heroin or LSD or others. (Disclaimer: I've led a very boring life and I have no direct experience with these. I also have not directly experienced anyone else's emotions. In both cases I have to go off of the reports of others.) LSD in particular is described as producing experiences that feel outright spiritual. It is produced in chemistry labs (even if they're often of the disreputable sort) and is, in fact, a chemical. On what basis would I assume that powerful emotions require something more than natural elements?
Also, you're identifying that the most frequent subject of art (and mathematically speaking there would have to be a most-frequent, unless there was a tie), pointing out that nothing else is as frequently the subject of art as it (hence, the most frequent), and... then demanding a supernatural explanation for that? I don't follow. If you're just emphasizing the point that the feeling of love is important to us, that's fine, but you seem to be taking it further. Why does most-frequent have to equate with supernatural?
(09-10-2024, 01:37 PM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: -If love is only an illusion to help us work together to ensure survival (Michael Ruse) then we can't really say that love is real, yet it is such a basic experience.
I'm not familiar with the works of Michael Ruse, so I can't comment on how well you're representing him. But I would dispute the characterization of love as an illusion being representative of naturalistic thinking. Love is an experience. It might be entirely internal to a mind, the way that we'd expect any thought or emotion to be. How does that make it illusory? It's not like a delusion or a mirage, where some flaw in our minds or perceptions leads to us constructing mental model of the outside world which vastly diverges from reality. Love isn't a mental model of the outside world at all. I'm... really not getting what you're getting at with this love-isn't-real thing.
(09-10-2024, 01:37 PM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: -Evolutionary biology casts love as the passing on of genes for the survival of the species. According to Richard Dawkins, romantic love is only an evolutionary illusion.
Our minds are shaped by evolution (which, yes, is governed by survival pressures) into things which have the capacity and predilection for love. That doesn't make the love unreal, any more than our bones having the capacity and predilection to produce red blood cells make the blood they produce unreal. But that doesn't mean that love, or blood, must be something inexplicable outside of naturalism.
(09-10-2024, 01:37 PM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: -Naturalism cannot truly account for altruism (selfless love) as it is not beneficial for survival
Yes, it definitely can, if in no other way than it can account for moths flying towards flames.
Moths have an impulse to travel towards light (usually moonlight) in a way that is, most of the time, beneficial to survival of the genes. Sometimes, when the moth encounters firelight instead of moonlight, that impulse does not benefit survival. Taken on average, the impulse provides a net benefit, hence why it is evolutionarily favored.
Similarly, the impulse towards helping people around us could be explained as something which, on net, tends to improve our genetic survival. Humans are a communal species, whether those communities are tiny tribes or vast empires, and we are generally dependent upon the humans around us for our own survival and the survival of our progeny. The impulse to help others around us can in this way, even at the cost of our own lives, can carry a survival advantage for our genes, even if in some particular instances it doesn't work out that way. So long as the impulse tends to on net benefit the survival of the genes it will be evolutionary favored.
There are more ways to account for it than the moth-and-flames model, and many of them can be true simultaneously, but the moth-and-flame model alone suffices as an explanation.
... also, even if you could show that the evolutionary model failed to explain how love works, that wouldn't automatically make a god the explanation. Your side doesn't get the privilege of being right by default.
(09-10-2024, 01:37 PM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: -Love doesn’t have any objective meaning, since naturalism can only explain subjective meaning. (Without God there is no grand narrative that gives purpose or direction to the universe. Instead the universe just is, and one day it will cease to be in the heat-death of the universe
You're giving me a thousand tiny irrelevant errors to quibble about and I shouldn't take the bait but.... GRAH! Heat-death wouldn't be the end of the universe, any more than the battery dying in your phone would be the end of your phone. There, I said it, now on to the relevant stuff.
No, love wouldn't provide objective meaning. Why would it? Emotions like love are the sort of thing we usually equate with subjectivity.
In what way would love not having objective meaning imply that a god must exist? How are those two logically connected at all?
Also, why would we think objective meaning existed? If we want that, and it's not there, then the universe isn't exactly as we'd wish it to be. In another startling, breaking story: fire is hot. Can you demonstrate the actual existence of objective meaning? If not, why rest an argument upon that premise?
Also, the universe's purpose being defined in terms of the intentions and values and goals of a single subject, even a divine one, would by the definition of the words be subjective rather than objective. The purpose wouldn't be innate within the object itself (in this case the universe), but instead be a feature of how some subject (in this case God) viewed it.
(09-10-2024, 01:37 PM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: -Since there is no intentionality in how nature evolves, we cannot say we are (as humans) made for love.
Not in the sense of someone specifically designing us for that particular purpose, no, we couldn't say it.
... well, okay, you could, but it wouldn't be factually correct to say it.
(09-10-2024, 01:37 PM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: -What we experience as love is only a random byproduct of an unguided process.
-Love can only amount to an emergent property on materialism. It comes after nature. The end of the natural also means the end of love. Death ends all love. Only memory lives on, until the heat death of the universe, then nothing will remain
So? Love is what it is. Why should its origins matter more than what it is? Why should we value how it came to be more than we value the fact that it exists? And why should we expect love to still be around if everyone who might be capable of feeling love is dead?
(09-10-2024, 01:37 PM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: -Naturalism can only determine how loving/unloving behavior impacts survival, but it cannot explain the pain and suffering of corrupted love, since it cannot judge it as morally wrong, but only less conducive to survival.
-Naturalism is only descriptive, not prescriptive and it cannot explain love as a moral duty beyond survival-conducive behavior. There is no love-law-giver and love has, thus, no authority.
And now you're trying to cast love as a moral standard?
.... and resting it on a premise that morality is authority-based?
What?
... okay, you haven't actually presented a case for that and so I can't respond to it. I'll just give you feedback for its place in your overall argument. Roping the moral argument into this would require a whole lot of legwork to establish, so much so that it makes no sense to tack it on at the tail end of an already-long argument. Split it off into its discussion to have at a later date. (Just don't start another thread on it for, say, a week. Forum convention favors focusing on one topic at a time, and rapid-firing a bunch of threads off in a short span of time can get you banned for spamming.)
(09-10-2024, 01:37 PM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: TRYING TO REFUTE MYSELF:
-Could altrusim be explained the kinship or reciprocity principles, which show that even selfless love could be evolutuionary advantageous and, thus, don't need a divine grounding? Can we still call this behavior love if it turns out the be selfish (even if the benefits are only reaped later or indirectly)?
Mostly addressed this already, but if you're going to insist that altruism is something that can't unintentionally come back as a genetic survival benefit at a later date, you're setting the bar very high to demonstrate that any examples of that sort of altruism exist, and you need examples of it for the argument to work.
(09-10-2024, 01:37 PM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: -Romantic and monogamous relationships are evolutionary advantageous and don't need a grounding in God, even though passing on genes would work better in polygamous or polyamorous contexts as Richard Dawkins attests.
I won't touch on polyamory. But for polygamy... Work better for whom? Not for the women involved, whose children would on average have fewer providers or less-focused providers and thus poorer odds of survival. Not for the majority of males, who wouldn't get to pass their genes on at all. In any event, we don't expect the perfect adaptation to the challenge of genetic survival from evolution. Just a workable one.
(09-10-2024, 01:37 PM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: Conclusion: For those who believe that love is most real, and most important, for those who have a notion that love provides uniquely appealing answers to existential questions (like why are we here? what is the meaning of life? why is love so special and so important?) the Argument from Love provides tentative reasons to believe in the Triune God, especially in contrast to its naturalistic alternatives.
Um.... no? How do any of the things you've been trying to say coalesce together into this conclusion?
Okay, we've reached the end of your argument. That temporary charity in which I granted you that valuing love meshed well with Christian theism is now hereby revoked.
You've been arguing in terms of a fairly abstract creator-god who somehow bestowed meaning and purpose into the universe and our emotions. But let's look at the god of Christian theism, specifically. This god, we are told...
* Cursed the entirety of humanity to an existence of suffering based entirely upon the (supposedly) bad actions of two individuals. And don't give me that inherited sin argument, we're talking about an omnipotent god here. Sin wouldn't pass from parent to child if God preferred that it didn't.
* Wiped out almost the entirety of humanity in a vast flood (and drowning is an extremely painful way to die) in a temper tantrum over some vaguely defined wickedness.
* Among many other plagues upon the entire nation, killed every firstborn child of Egypt for the disobedience of a single ruler... a ruler whose heart God hardened so as to perpetuate that disobedience longer than it otherwise would have continued.
* Set the Israelites upon genocidal rampage after genocidal rampage, putting men, women, and children to the sword for no crime other than being part of the wrong nation.
* Inflicted several days of suffering, and ultimately death, upon the baby of a king as punishment for that king's adultery and betrayal of the woman's husband.
* Consigns to an eternity of indescribable suffering any person who does not believe that a fairly unusual tale of a particular individual being divine, dying, and resurrecting actually transpired.
This list is extremely abbreviated, as I'm sure my fellow forum-goers will happily expand upon. But let's just examine one more point.
The highlight of this god's interactions with humanity, so we are told, is sending his son to live and die as a human as a blood sacrifice for the salvation of humanity. But this is supposedly an omnipotent god. He could have achieved the salvation of humanity with a figurative snap of his omnipotent fingers, WITHOUT his (supposedly) beloved son having to experience a premature, torturous, bloody death.
Now imagine that you're this God, and you're faced with this choice. You need to see to the salvation of humanity. Do you...
(A) Consign your beloved son to torture and execution and so save humanity, rather than snap your fingers and so save humanity, or...
(B) Snap your fingers and so save humanity, rather than consign your beloved son to torture and execution and so save humanity?
I can see an option C or D or E being in the mix. But tell me in which possible scenario, assuming you actually loved your son, would you choose option A over option B? John 3:16 shouldn't read "For God so loved the world". It should read "For God so hated Jesus".
Is love consistent with the abstract proposition of the general notion of a god? Maybe.
Is it consistent with Christian theism, specifically? FUCK no. If Christian theism says some things that do sound consistent with love, that's just an example of Christian theism being inconsistent.
(09-10-2024, 01:37 PM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: Thanks for reading this through! Can you please include the word or emoji 'HEART' in your response, so that I know you have read through the entire thing (congrats on your endurance, haha) and I can, thus, take your response very seriously? Thanks!
The heart is a glorified meat-pump. It keeps our brains alive so that we can experience love, and the elements of the brain which govern its operations will tend to speed it up when we experience love. Other than that, it has nothing to do with love at all. You're equating the wrong organ with love.
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09-12-2024, 07:21 AM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this!
(09-11-2024, 03:20 AM)Astreja Wrote: (09-10-2024, 01:37 PM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: ARGUMENT:
A) For most people, love (in all its forms) is the most important thing in the world
B) It's tricky to explain the existence and importance of love on naturalism
C) The Christian story clicks well with people's experiece of love as a powerful and important thing.
D) Therefore, the existence of love (by the likelyhood principle) supports Christian theism over atheistic naturalism.
No, that argument absolutely does not work.
A: Argumentum ad populum fallacy. It doesn't matter how many people think love is important.
B: Love is a survival-positive psychological trait and likely evolved; therefore, naturalism adequately explains it.
C: The Christian story is vile and grossly immoral. In addition to having a human sacrifice as its central event, there are multiple Christian sects that believe that refusing the "gift" of substitutionary atonement will send someone to eternal torment. That is not love; that is the very antithesis of love.
"God is love" is bullshit. Only love is love, and we don't need gods to explain it.
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09-12-2024, 07:23 AM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
If God exists I'm pretty sure it won't need the likes of you to tell everyone.
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09-12-2024, 08:07 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-12-2024, 08:08 AM by Inkubus.)
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
(09-12-2024, 07:19 AM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: Wow - thanks for this thoughtful engagement! You've given me a lot to think about and, yes, you are right that my definitions here are somewhat sloppy and that I have used some terms interchangeably that maybe I shouldn't have. I'll be back
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09-12-2024, 08:39 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-12-2024, 08:54 AM by Rhythmcs.)
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
(09-12-2024, 06:49 AM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: Hi!
Great point! Any arugment can open up a whole lot of new lines of argument! Firguring that out is, in part, what I'm doing on this thread!
I think there's a big difference with your example: On naturalism, things that have no natural explanation are indeed problematic. I would suggest they are either an illusion/not real (and naturalism prevails) OR this thing's reality would suggest that perhaps the given worldview - here, naturalism- is wrong (naturalism fails, because love-in this case-prevails). However, there is no problem with God having no natural explanation, because, if God exists, naturalism cannot explain everything and God can logically be explained super-naturally.
Not quite sure I understand your last point about God being bad. My case it not that love is good and therefore God exists, but only that the goodness of love seems to imply a meaning that might not be able to be explained on the basis of natural selection and chemical processes, but would make sense in a reality created by a being that self-identifies as love and that creates out of love and for the purpose of love. My point is that this seems a more coherent view with how we experience and think about love than just atoms and molecules. The whole "love is an illusion" bit hangs on hoping that the other person in your convo sees this as a bad thing and would reject it. They can, ofc, simply agree and that's that. Or....they could posit that love is real and has a natural explanation.
Further, that love has noncognitive meaning - in that it makes me feel YAY! That love has subjective meaning, in that I want it and that I want to give it. That it has relative meaning - in our familial relationships and our societies. That love has objective meaning - in that we love and are loved and both have demonstrable effects on our lives regardless of whether a given subject our family or society (or a god) believes otherwise.
I suspect that you would struggle to explain what the addition of a god is supposed to add to love.
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09-12-2024, 09:17 AM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
(09-10-2024, 06:04 PM)SYZ Wrote: Incidentally, you need to know right from the start that there is
absolutely NO point, and no worth, in citing biblical scripture in order
to support any or all claims you make on these forums.
(09-12-2024, 07:04 AM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: ...Also, I'm afraid you must have misunderstood why I used references to the Bible. They are only there to support the claim that within the Christian worldview love is seen as primal or in other words, it gives evidence to the claim that love is important and makes sense internally when you assume a Christian worldview. I am very well aware that writing down Bible verses is not very likely going to convince anyone in this forum as you say.
Thanks for your response.
You need to understand that from an atheist's point of view
the Abrahamic bible is largely a work of fantasy fiction and
misrepresentation, mythicism, and even blatant lies. And as
such, atheists of course hold no stead with any of it.
At any rate, atheists are no different when it comes to love
than theists; it's solely a human state of mind. Nothing
more, nothing less. No bible necessary. End of story.
And no; I didn't misunderstand anything you said. I've seen
it from a thousand other theists over the years. Sorry.
I'm a creationist; I believe that man created God.
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09-12-2024, 09:41 AM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
(09-12-2024, 06:12 AM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: B) The way I say it naturalsim can offer explanations based on evolutionary biology (survival, passing on of genes) and chemical processes, which are ways to see what is going on with this thing we call love, but does it explain why for many people it feels like it's the most important thing in the world, what gives meaning to their lives, something that immortalizes the human experience, inspires art
Yes.
When considering the role of emotions, cognition widens the choice of actions and behaviour available to an organism, while emotions narrow them.
For example, fear is a very strong emotion and results in a fight or flight response. But if you control your emotions and take time to think about your situation you can often find better alternatives. .g. standing up to a bully but talking your way out of danger.
So why do we have emotions? They allow evolution to drive an organism towards certain behaviours. For example in the case of fear, sometimes you do just need to act quickly without thinking about it in order to stay safe. e.g. to jump out the way of a fast moving object.
Therefore emotions do feel very strong to us as individuals because they need to override all other considerations in the moment.
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09-12-2024, 10:20 AM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
There is a giant leap here between "Love", something that we know ultimately is chemicals in our brain making us feel a certain way about others that forms long lasting attachments between people and: "The creator of a universe".
Those are two very different things, and that latter is a huge claim you have to start with: Prove god exists, and then we'll talk about IF that god then has anything to do with my biological/chemical reactions.
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09-12-2024, 11:21 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-12-2024, 11:22 AM by Dānu.)
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
(09-12-2024, 06:38 AM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: Thanks for engaging and reading the whole thing! I admit that, for time reasons, I don't do all the alternatives justice and I have to kind of rush through things. Here are some thoughts on your reply:
1) You describe love within the context of natural selection very clearly. However, can natural selection explain altruism? Can it explain love of complete strangers? Can it explain loving actions (selfless and serving) to people that no one ever sees or notices, and thus, have no benefit of reciprocity?
Can naturalism explain love and altruism? Yes. Do we currently know what the naturalistic explanations are? No. That's a key difference. You need for natural explanations not to be possible, which is not the case. Arguing that because we don't know some thing (naturalistic explanations) therefore some other thing is true (God) is an argument from ignorance and is therefore invalid. Your skepticism as to there being natural explanations counts for nothing. You have to be able to show not that they are unlikely, but that they are in fact impossible, or else you have nothing.
(09-12-2024, 06:38 AM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: 2) I like your example, but it doesn't quite apply, I think. Perhaps we could frame it like this: a) Bacon is a good thing b) There MIGHT be a Flying Bacon Monster, whose very essence, according to the Flying-Bacon-Monster cult, is love. FBM-believers think this is how the tasty divinity describes itself: as love and as having made the world for love. c) Thinking that the existence and experience of love could validate the belief in the Flying-Bacon-Monster of love would be at least a rational thought, since the experienced reality and the held belief would harmonize - that's cognitive consonance.
You are confused. The bacon example has nothing to do with love, it is simply a parallel analogy showing the problem with your line of reasoning. Regardless, you didn't actually provide a response which answers the objection so the objection stands. If one defines some X as "the good" then naturally one is going to attribute all good things to that X. But that does not in any sense justify believing that X is responsible for any specific good thing.
(09-12-2024, 06:38 AM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: 3) Yes, I have not considered other religions, and there could certainly be made a case for other religions, to a certain degree. I think Christianity would have a stronger claim, because it is the only religion that in their own sacred texts defines God simply as love. I appreciate your point on Hinduism, it's certainly worth exploring, but for this particular argument I've decided to test whether it holds any water as evidence for the God of Christianity. And yes, I have assumed, for this argument's sake that we atheism and materialism go hand in hand, but I'm aware it doesn't always. From my research, however, it does often enough for me to assume this confluence for the argument's sake.
As noted, not considering other arguments is fatal to the case that love is evidence for God. You can't simply brush it aside.
(09-10-2024, 04:51 PM)Dānu Wrote: There is too much wrong here for me to detail unless you want to pay an hourly rate for tutelage.
However I will make a couple of quick comments.
1. That you are incredulous as to whether nature can explain love is not an argument. You repeatedly conflate what we want (love) with what nature wants (fitness). It's entirely possible that we have evolved to want things that increase fitness. An example is fatty foods. Prior to civilization, acquiring fatty foods increased our fitness because they provided more calories and thus could sustain us longer. Thus those individuals who preferred fatty foods had an edge in terms of survival. Thus the desire for fatty foods was selected for because it increased survival. The story with love is much the same. Homo sapiens sapiens gives birth to young that are not able to survive on their own at birth and require a long period of raising and shepherding them before they are ready to live independently. The longer the parents or caregivers cooperated to raise their offspring, the more successful the offspring would be once they left the nest. Thus the desire to stay together and care for offspring was selected for. The genes themselves do not do the selecting. They simply provide the raw material upon which selection operates. Thus your understanding of evolution is simply not accurate.
2. There are two steps on the Christian side of things. First, to describe a valuable thing that exists (love) and then attribute the existence of that desirable thing to God (an inference). I am required to acknowledge the first part as it's a fact that love exists and can be described. I have not been given any reason why I should be required to grant step two, attributing this good thing to God. That primitive worshippers of God attributed this good thing to God is not in and of itself a reason why I should do likewise. And there's nothing remarkable about them attributing the good thing to God as it need not be true for them to claim it, and attributing the good to God is pretty natural, whether or not God exists. For example, most people would say that bacon is a good thing. If I attribute the existence of bacon to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, while I'm sure that you'll acknowledge the existence of bacon, you won't necessarily accede to my attributing it to my favorite god.
3. Other religions provide alternative accounts of love and your argument is completely silent on them. For example, as a secular Hindu, I see Bhakti yoga, the path of loving the godhead, as a legitimate and proven path for acquiring Krishna consciousness and ultimately moksa. Thus there is an extremely practical and divine aspect t to love which has nothing whatsoever to do with Christian explanations of love. You appear to have concentrated upon naturalism because you have mistaken atheism as requiring a belief in materialism, but there is nothing about atheism that requires such, and in focusing on what is essentially a mistake, you've ignored all the other religions and cultures that offer their own explanations for the existence of love. This is an example of the misapplication of the law of the excluded middle, namely in only considering two potential explanations when more than two explanations exist. This alone is enough to render your argument invalid and thus is fatal to your conclusion.
I HEART SHEEP.
Mountain-high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Mâyâ.
Fear not — it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies.
Vivekananda
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09-12-2024, 11:23 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-12-2024, 11:28 AM by Dānu.)
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
All of PleaseProveMeWrong's replies are basically, "Yes, that's a good point, but I still like my argument better." These are not rational responses.
The fact that someone claims that something is the case, such as the bible, is not evidence in and of itself for it being the case. Yes, scripture describes love as being central. That does not establish a link.
Mountain-high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Mâyâ.
Fear not — it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies.
Vivekananda
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09-12-2024, 11:53 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-12-2024, 12:01 PM by Alan V.)
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
(09-12-2024, 06:12 AM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: A) I agree, for some it is not, that's why I said most.
B) The way I say it naturalsim can offer explanations based on evolutionary biology (survival, passing on of genes) and chemical processes, which are ways to see what is going on with this thing we call love, but does it explain why for many people it feels like it's the most important thing in the world, what gives meaning to their lives, something that immortalizes the human experience, inspires art and reflection, etc.?
C) I agree that it matters whether the claims make sense and are based on evidence. The point I am considering is that the evidence that I suggest in the question above would harmonize if a loving God who created the world for love existed.
Your argument seems to be that most people prefer spiritual explanations for love over naturalistic explanations, since in naturalism love is reduced to "chemical processes" (which you have repeated a couple of times). However, this shows that you do not understand the range of possible naturalistic explanations. Not all of such explanations are reductive, where the whole is merely the sum of the parts. Some naturalistic explanations are emergent, where the whole is more than the sum of the parts. We understand that new properties operate by new rules from the perspective of emergent materialism. Most people, who prefer spiritual explanations so-called, have likely never heard of emergent materialism as another possibility, or what it implies.
This is yet another reason why your logic is an argument from ignorance. You don't understand the alternatives well enough to say what is more likely.
Strictly from the point of view of the economy of the hypothesis, since spiritual explanations require another, spiritual level to reality, they are much more complicated than material explanations, which require only a material world which we already know exists. Therefore, applying Occam's Razor, we can ignore spiritual explanations as highly unlikely -- that is, unless we have strong emotional investments in spiritualism. That is the problem for spiritualists, who were trained to believe in certain ideas before they understood what the real alternatives are. Your love of spiritualism becomes an intellectual trap at that point.
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09-12-2024, 02:04 PM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
When people say "gawd is love," I have to simply agree that yes, gawd is nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain, making them feel better. Much like an endorphin rush, a nicotine buzz, or a line of coke.
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09-12-2024, 03:20 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-12-2024, 03:32 PM by Deesse23.)
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
(09-12-2024, 06:12 AM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: Hey there,
Thanks for engaging!
A) I agree, for some it is not, that's why I said most.
B) The way I say it naturalsim can offer explanations based on evolutionary biology (survival, passing on of genes) and chemical processes, which are ways to see what is going on with this thing we call love, but does it explain why for many people it feels like it's the most important thing in the world, what gives meaning to their lives, something that immortalizes the human experience, inspires art and reflection, etc.?
C) I agree that it matters whether the claims make sense and are based on evidence. The point I am considering is that the evidence that I suggest in the question above would harmonize if a loving God who created the world for love existed.
Obviously, one way out of this argument would be to say that the naturalistic account as given in B is correct and that the minority of A is right and everyone else is just totally exaggerating love and it's all a big lie of consumerism, etc. Is that a direction you would take?
I don't understand the sock reference. I'm new to this forum, is it an insider thing?
Thanks! I mean what i say and i say what i mean. I usually dont give hidden messages to read in between lines.
A) then we agree your point A is irrelevant? Love being the most important thing to some and not being the most important thing to others has nothing to do with the existence of a god?
B) As Paleo already told you. If naturalism cant explain x (and i am granting this to you for the sake of argument), does that make x divine? 10.000 years ago, naturalism could not explain fire, and we couldnt imagine it ever could. Was fire divine? Was it warranted to think fire was divine?
Love being nice, awesome, inexplicable, giving meaning to life, being the greatest thing since sliced bread.....does that warrant thinking Love being divine?
C) What evidence do you suggest? How strong is that evidence? God is a possible explanation? What about all the other possible explanations? Before you even can consider a god being a possible explanation, you need to establish that a god is even possible (to exist) at all. Please demonstrate that your god possibly exits (and is not internally contradictory like a tri-omni one).
Naturalism is most probably correct, we know a lot about the chemistry of the brain already, it does not matter what most or many or a minority of people think or feel about love. Reality and the universe in general does not care what you think or feel about it.
Your last part is just a red herring and strawman. I never hinted at consumerism, or claimed that love is "exaggerated". Again: it does not matter to the truth of the origin of love how you feel about the importance of love to your life, or anyone elses life.
Edit: You are a christian, right? How is a god who invented hell, and is throwing most people there, loving?
R.I.P. Hannes
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09-12-2024, 07:52 PM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
(09-12-2024, 06:38 AM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: 1) You describe love within the context of natural selection very clearly. However, can natural selection explain altruism? Can it explain love of complete strangers? Can it explain loving actions (selfless and serving) to people that no one ever sees or notices, and thus, have no benefit of reciprocity?
A couple of things here.
1) Yes, actually it can. There's scientific literature going back over half a century on the topic of altruism both in humans and in other animals. Google scholar and the keywords "Altruism Evolution" will be your friend. Here are a couple of the more recent articles to get you started:
Explaining Human Altruism (Vlerick, 2021)
Reproductive Value and the Evolution of Altruism (Rodrigues & Gardener, 2022)
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy also has a good entry that's slightly less technical.
2) Even if we can't explain something there's no good reason to go invoking the mystical. " I don't know" is a perfectly good and entirely honest answer.
3) Most importantly, "God" is not an explanation for anything. "God" is a placeholder word for a whole slew of concepts ranging from the Eastern Orthodox god and variants that we're even less familiar with, the god of Torquemada and the Inquisition, the god of modern Catholicism, the god of Pat Buchanan and Fred Phelps, the god of Spinoza... And I'm going to guess that I missed your idea of god in that fairly brief list. Clearly these are all very different and conflicting views of the Divine. Simply stated, "god" means wildly different things to different people and even if we could all agree on one "god" it still lacks either explanatory or predictive power. Goddunnit tells us nothing about how, why, or what we should expect for the future because none of us mortals can fathom the mind of god. It largely translates to "We don't know and stop asking questions!" which is entirely counterproductive for any genuine line of inquiry.
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09-12-2024, 09:04 PM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
Love is a feeling that can be gone as quick as it comes.
Does hate prove god or is hate reserved for Satan?
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09-13-2024, 08:50 PM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
(09-12-2024, 06:38 AM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: 1) You describe love within the context of natural selection very clearly. However, can natural selection explain altruism? Can it explain love of complete strangers? Can it explain loving actions (selfless and serving) to people that no one ever sees or notices, and thus, have no benefit of reciprocity?
It seems like, and I could be wrong, you are assuming these forces are being played out consciously, wherein a person is altruistic after consciously weighing pros and cons ("Is this being noticed? Can I expect this next thing I do to benefit me in my quest to send my genes into the next generation?"). Think of it as being much more automatic and without thought, as with animals. It's like a program running in the software of the brain, in the background. And even with that, much of it probably is conscious. People do make reasoned trade-offs and will fail to be selfless and altruistic if in a certain moment and situation they see it not only doesn't benefit them and may actively harm or kill them.
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09-14-2024, 02:27 AM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
Maybe it's just me but I get the feeling that atheists helping a believer fine tune his argument for gods existence. I wonder who will be his next set of recipients, possibly some more susceptible to arguments?
Being told you're delusional does not necessarily mean you're mental.
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09-14-2024, 06:09 AM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
(09-12-2024, 06:12 AM)PleaseProveMeWrong Wrote: I don't understand the sock reference. I'm new to this forum, is it an insider thing?
"Sock" means "sock puppet", which is what we call it when a user makes a second (or third, or fourth, etc) user profile and tries to appear to be a second (third, fourth, etc) person. It's usually used to (briefly) get around getting banned.
"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today." - Isaac Asimov
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09-14-2024, 04:45 PM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
Australia's original sock puppet...
[Melbourne TV, c.1960]
I'm a creationist; I believe that man created God.
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09-14-2024, 08:59 PM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
Or it's about reinventing yourself. Sockpuppetry is an art form.
Tweaking little things throws the sock sniffers off the scent.
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09-14-2024, 09:46 PM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
(09-14-2024, 08:59 PM)Edible crust Wrote: Or it's about reinventing yourself. Sockpuppetry is an art form.
Tweaking little things throws the sock sniffers off the scent.
Wouldn't be better if they 'reinvented' prior to banning? And I doubt that their 'core' would change all that much, multiple banning is inevitable.
Being told you're delusional does not necessarily mean you're mental.
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09-14-2024, 09:57 PM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
(09-14-2024, 02:27 AM)brewerb Wrote: Maybe it's just me but I get the feeling that atheists helping a believer fine tune his argument for gods existence. I wonder who will be his next set of recipients, possibly some more susceptible to arguments?
Probably, but who knows, maybe one of our little observations is what cracks the nut.
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09-14-2024, 10:00 PM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
(09-14-2024, 09:46 PM)brewerb Wrote: (09-14-2024, 08:59 PM)Edible crust Wrote: Or it's about reinventing yourself. Sockpuppetry is an art form.
Tweaking little things throws the sock sniffers off the scent.
Wouldn't be better if they 'reinvented' prior to banning? And I doubt that their 'core' would change all that much, multiple banning is inevitable.
Without the sock puppets these forums would be pretty boring though.
The same few people coming back for a dabble makes the post count go through the roof every time.
If they don't get recognised for sockpuppetry they shoot their selves in the foot and get banned anyway. All good entertainment.
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09-14-2024, 10:42 PM
Can love prove God? What's wrong with this argument?
(09-14-2024, 10:00 PM)Edible crust Wrote: (09-14-2024, 09:46 PM)brewerb Wrote: Wouldn't be better if they 'reinvented' prior to banning? And I doubt that their 'core' would change all that much, multiple banning is inevitable.
Without the sock puppets these forums would be pretty boring though.
The same few people coming back for a dabble makes the post count go through the roof every time.
If they don't get recognised for sockpuppetry they shoot their selves in the foot and get banned anyway. All good entertainment.
Some people like playing with them way more than I. To each his own.
Being told you're delusional does not necessarily mean you're mental.
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