Hacker News Reader

Comment by zw123456 | Hacker News Reader

I can give one example explanation. My Father is an evangelical Christian (FYI, I am not, I am an atheist and a science enthusiast). I have asked him this exact same question out of curiosity. Here is the answer he gave (albeit just one perspective). He said "God is so powerful that he can do anything including placing all that evidence there to test our faith". That shuts down any reason to continue a conversation (needless to say this is a topic we generally avoid).

Someone once said (not sure the attribution) "never try to reason with someone who has irrational beliefs".

View on HN

Bertrand Russell: "But if once such possibilities are admitted, there is no reason to place the creation of the world at one point rather than another. We may have all come into existence five minutes ago, provided with ready-made memories, with holes in our socks and hair that needed cutting. But although this is a logical possibility, nobody can believe it."

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Last_Thursdayism

The really neat bit is that the concept of Last Thursdayism itself, along with Bertrand Russell, was also one of those things created entirely last Thursday.

Which, of course, leads to an even better double-bind, in that it creates a situation of functional equivalence, because, if God makes the universe look and operate as if it is X billion years old, all inquiry and prediction based upon evidence of that conclusion will, by definition, be accurate. So it may not be the "truth", but from the perspective of living in it, that doesn't matter in the least.

And if it only comes up as a matter in the afterlife, (that is, heaven doesn't like the given individual for acting upon the lie) there's another twist in the bind presented: that is God wants the given individual to live, but to do so requires interfacing with the rules of physical reality, which means accepting the predictive power of the "lie".

True. The real test of faith is actually accepting billions of years of planetary development and evolution, and still believing in god.

Taking the response in good faith I would assume that it's just showing the way the debate could go. It's rather constructive, whereas asking why repeatedly, seeking to arrive at a contradiction, is a fool's errand that may work both ways. Proof by contradiction is an important tactic to weed out misconceptions, but the strategy for communication is to find common agreement. Faith is a loaded term, so in effect the response opens up the meta level to your believes about faith. Indeed, I wouldn't go there out on a limb, either, if I don't have anything to add.

>He said "God is so powerful that he can do anything including placing all that evidence there to test our faith".

So his God is a deceiver. It's impossible to know the truth about anything in that universe. Because you don't know, can't know, when God is putting a finger on the scale.

That sort of reasoning reminds me of:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-god.html

Q7. So if God directed evolution, why not just say he created everything at once?

Mainly because all the evidence suggests otherwise. If God created the universe suddenly, he created it in a state that is indistinguishable from true age. If he did create it that way there must be a reason, otherwise God is a liar. Whatever that reason may be, a universe that is exactly like one that is old should be treated as if it were old.

Your father's beliefs are not necessarily irrational, they are just based on different assumptions. Your assumption is that the order in the universe arises from causality and physical law. His assumption is that the order in the universe arises from purpose, i.e. he believes in teleology. That is not in and of itself irrational.

On the contrary, there are no additional assumptions that need to be made in order to reject the idea that the universe was created by a being. Physical laws are not assumed to be an authority that dictates how the universe works. They are just descriptions and models based on what we've observed so far, which means they can be updated based on further observations. In other words, if we were to observe evidence of a powerful being, then our descriptions and models would then need to take that into account. Until then, there is no justification for making that assumption.

First of all, your introduction of "a being" is a straw man. I never said anything about a "being". All I said was that teleology, i.e. the assumption that existence has purpose, is not irrational.

Second, physical laws are not "just" descriptions and models based on observation. Any finite data set is consistent with an infinite number of theories. To whittle down that infinite set you need additional assumptions. Some people choose teleology, some don't. But there's no rational argument one way or the other.

Your comment was in defense of the rationality of believing that a god, specifically the Christian god, planted fossil evidence in order to test our ability to discount it entirely. Now you're saying that this God character doesn't follow from this "purpose" and that invoking that idea is suddenly a straw man outside of this discussion?

Purpose is not something that exists outside of the minds of creatures that can harbor intent. It is inherently subjective, and is often intersubjective. We generally agree on the purpose of the specialized tools we create, but not because the purpose is an inherent property of the tool. Even if the universe was created by a race of gods or pixies or what have you, the purpose they had for it would not necessarily be shared by us.

Actually physical laws are just descriptions and models. To whittle them down you must remove additional assumptions, not add. The fewer assumptions needed to explain the evidence, the better the model. There may be additional data out there that ends up poking holes in our models, in which case we respond by revising the model. Some of the better models we've come up with have actually made surprisingly accurate predictions.

It is rational to base your beliefs on consistent and verified observations, rather than our fanciful imagination.

> Your comment was in defense of the rationality of believing that a god, specifically the Christian god, planted fossil evidence in order to test our ability to discount it entirely.

That's right.

> Now you're saying that this God character doesn't follow from this "purpose" and that invoking that idea is suddenly a straw man outside of this discussion?

Yes, but you left out a very important caveat: I would restate this and add one word:

"... this God character doesn't necessarily follow from this "purpose" ..."

I'm not taking a position on whether or not God does follow from teleology, only that he might. Sorting out whether he does or not is a very thorny problem which is ridiculously beyond the scope of an HN comment.

All I'm saying is that, because God might follow from teleology, you cannot (rationally) dismiss out of hand someone who believes in God as being irrational no matter how irrational their conclusions may seem to you at first glance. Quantum mechanics is pretty frickin' bizarre too. It is possible that they have come to their beliefs in a perfectly rational manner, but starting from an assumption (like teleology) that you simply do not accept despite the fact that you can't actually prove that it is false, at least not rationally :-)

I’m saying that teleology without a mind(s) to hold the purpose is not a coherent concept because purpose is not an intrinsic property of objects. Even if it was a coherent concept, you seem to have decided that it is unfalsifiable, and for some reason you think that makes it rational to believe in. Do you think that all unfalsifiable ideas are perfectly rational to believe in merely because by definition they can’t be proven wrong?

> purpose is not an intrinsic property of objects

Can you prove that? Can you falsify it?

> it is unfalsifiable, and for some reason you think that makes it rational to believe in

No, it is (at least potentially) rational to believe in it despite the fact that it is unfalsifiable, not because it is unfalsifiable.

We should merge this thread with:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18053609

This is a little confused. A theist could easily say that the 'universe arises from causality and physical law', but that God set in motion those laws (deism). A popular form of proto-biology in the early nineteenth century, 'natural theology', committed itself to studying the natural world because it believed that God's divine genius was manifest in its splendour, intricacy, and so on. Also, one could say that the 'universe arises from casuality and physical law', and observes a teleological direction. Most Enlightenment philosophers in the eighteenth century believed that both were true.

Sure. I don't see how anything you said is at odds with what I said.

Well it is. Your implied opposition was that theology is based upon teleology; atheism upon a belief in physical laws. But a atheist could believe the former, and a theologian the latter. So it hardly works.

> Your implied opposition was that theology is based upon teleology

No. Not "is". Could be. Big difference.

Not to be pedantic, but you say 'is' in both relevant clauses:

'Your assumption is that the order in the universe arises from causality and physical law. His assumption is that the order in the universe arises from purpose, i.e. he believes in teleology'

That's right. The OP's father assumes [1] teleology and reasons from there to theology. But I'm not saying that if you start with teleology you necessarily end up with theology, only that you can en up there without being irrational.

By way of contrast, it is much harder to rationally get to theology without starting with teleology (though not impossible). So most atheists simply reject teleology out of hand, and then go on to conclude that theism must be irrational. It's not.

---

[1] Of course I have no idea whether or not this is actually true. I'm just presuming. But it's a plausible presumption that is true of many religious people even if it happens not to be true in this particular case.

If this is rational, it's based on a useless logic: a logic that allows arbitrarily introducing new facts and rules. e:True for arbitrary e. This is why arguing with christians is mostly a fools errand.

> it's based on a useless logic

It helps a lot of people deal with existential despair and thereby get through the day. That's not useless.

It's useless for figuring out what is true. You are right that not everyone cares about that, in which case logic has no real use for them.

> It's useless for figuring out what is true.

Only if teleology is false, which you cannot prove rationally. If teleology is in fact true, then assuming it is true can be very useful for figuring out what is true.

Being rational is not about proving every fanciful idea false. It's about not believing in things without rational justification. You can't simply propose an unfalsifiable idea and declare that the fact that the idea is unfalsifiable means it is rational to believe in it. I could believe that the universe actually runs on invisible, undetectable fart gas left over from a dead race of cosmic faeries, and just as easily can declare, "If my fart gas theory is true, then assuming it is true is useful."

Generalized: "If my wild idea about X is true, then assuming it is true is useful for figuring out what is true."

This is the definition of irrationality. If you want to be rational, you don't start with your conclusion and work backwards from there.

> You can't simply propose an unfalsifiable idea and declare that the fact that the idea is unfalsifiable means it is rational to believe in it.

The fact that teleology is unfalsifiable is not the reason it is (potentially) rational to believe it. Russell's teapot is unfalsifiable, but it is not rational to believe in it. However, consciousness (for example) is also unfalsifiable. A conscious being cannot be experimentally distinguished from a philosophical zombie. It is nonetheless not irrational to believe in consciousness.

Consciousness is only unfalsifiable if you define in such a way that there is an undetectable and magical component to it, which is an unjustified and unfalsifiable assumption. Otherwise the most you could say is that it can sometimes be hard to detect, and that our understanding of how it works is very limited. We know it can be altered by physical changes in the brain. Hard solipsism aside (you're not really going to go there, are you?), we have plenty of evidence that consciousness exists.

So since we agree that the unfalsifiability of an idea does not make it rational to believe in it, then it should also be clear that the statement "you can't prove it is false" is not an argument in favor of your idea.

(merging threads on your request)

Can you prove that? Can you falsify it?

I made an argument for it. I used the example of tools that we make for specific purposes. Do you not agree that those purposes are not an intrinsic property of the tools? If you don't agree with that, I'm interested in knowing where you believe the example fails.

Well, I can tell you that I have subjective experiences. I can't prove that to you. You can call it undetectable and magical, but it's very real to me. It is also unfalsifiable, at least to me. There is no conceivable evidence you could present to me that would convince me that I don't have these experiences.

We could settle on a logic that includes some of these unfalsifiable aspects as axioms or rules. A useful logic doesn't necessarily imply unfalsifiability in the sense of physical experiment. It could very well contain axioms we all reasonably agree on, like "I exist." The problem with Christianity is not that it makes unfalsifiability claims, it's that it includes all-encompassing statements like "god is everything", "god does everything". How does this tree grow? God grows the tree. How is it that I age? God ages me. How come it appears the tree grows according to laws? God made the laws--or more perversely--god made me think there are laws. This perspective is useless for fuethering knowledge. In fact it attacks knowledge by trivializing it. It unversally wraps every possible statement in "god". My stance toward christians is they may as well keep all the god stuff to themselves because it adds absolutely nothing to the conversation.

I totally agree that adopting Christianity as an axiom makes no sense. However, "existence has some greater purpose or meaning" is a not-entirely-unreasonable axiom for someone to adopt, and I think someone could get from there to Christianity as a conclusion.

I disagree, the belief system as described is strictly irrational, in the sense that its fundamental assumptions contain a inconsistency that then permits one to prove anything. (I.e. A = not A therefore anything.)

It's a case of a mind trained into a kind of cul-de-sac with no way out. For some people this keeps them on the straight and narrow, for others it runs them smack into a wall. But it is certainly irrational to believe in a Divine Omnipotent Creator who plays crude tricks on you.

> its fundamental assumptions contain a inconsistency

Really? What is it?

Well, rumcajz points out Bertrand Russell's objection, and apocalypstyx presents a fascinating aspect of the matter too, but the problem I'm talking about is the nature of implication/causation itself.

Rationality rests on implication.[1] The system we're talking about literally has "GOD -> anything" as an axiom, so it's useless for reasoning. If GOD -> (A -> B) for all A, B, and "->" then you can literally "prove" that anything implies anything else, or that everything implies God, but you can't disprove anything at all. Saying that there's a part of the system that can change anything about the system is essentially saying that there's no system at all. "Black is white and you get run over at the next zebra crossing."

If you believe that God will play tricks on you then you have nothing external to rely on. Again, this can be good or bad for a given person depending on their context. It's useless for reasoning, but you don't actually have to e.g. believe in Dinosaurs to reach God, so in that sense having no ability to rationalize can be a benefit if it prevents spiritual doubts. But many people instead are simply trapped in impoverished world-models. To wit: the Universe as revealed by scientific investigation redounds to the Glory of God far more than, say, the concepts of "young-earthers", or people who believe God a trickster.

[1] This is actually the one article of faith at the foundation of reason and rationality: that the Universe is comprehensible in terms of causation. The OP's father's god-image is jealous of even this wane and paltry rival.

> The system we're talking about literally has "GOD -> anything" as an axiom

No, the system we're talking about has purpose as an axiom and God as a (perfectly rational) conclusion.

> the system we're talking about has purpose as an axiom and God as a (perfectly rational) conclusion.

I'm sorry, but I don't see that.

The quote was:

> "God is so powerful that he can do anything including placing all that evidence there to test our faith"

To me, that reads as "God, therefore anything". Specifically all evidence of X is evidence of God, even (and especially) if X contradicts God.

I don't see that it says, "Purpose, therefore God."

For what it's worth, responding to a sidereal comment of yours, I agree with you that "teleology, i.e. the assumption that existence has purpose, is not irrational".

> I don't see that it says, "Purpose, therefore God."

It doesn't. I'm extrapolating. I'm saying that it is possible that such a conclusion can be arrived at rationally, for example, but starting from teleology as an assumption. Because this is possible, you cannot rationally conclude that a person is irrational just because they believe in God. They might be irrational, but they might not. To settle the question you'd need additional data.

> it is possible that such a conclusion [God exists] can be arrived at rationally ... starting from teleology [purposeful Universe] as an assumption.

I agree and indeed I did something like that: I built a model of God based on the assumptions that feedback exists and time is eventually transcended by humans or other sentients through technology or other means. I eventually discarded that model, but it was arrived at rationally.

> Because this is possible, you cannot rationally conclude that a person is irrational just because they believe in God.

I agree[1], however, I didn't do that. OP's father isn't irrational because he believes in God, he is irrational because he thinks God makes fake fossils. It's a concept of God so foolish as to disprove itself. If it were possible to mock God this would surely be the way to do it. The Flying Spaghetti Monster has more dignity.

[1] I am rational and I believe in God, so it would be hypocritical of me to claim that a person is irrational just because they believe in God.

> he is irrational because he thinks God makes fake fossils

You can't know that without knowing how he arrived at that conclusion. You cannot judge the rationality or irrationality of conclusion simply by looking at the conclusion. When you do so, you are making the exact same mistake that atheists make when they look at you and decide that you must be irrational simply because you believe in Satya Sai Baba.

Sorry, I was using that as a kind of short-hand and obscured my meaning. That particular belief is a symptom of the underlying irrationality of his belief-structure but not in itself necessarily arrived at irrationally in the general case, eh?

> You can't know that without knowing how he arrived at that conclusion.

In this case we do know how he arrived at that conclusion and we know that it was due to a form of reasoning that obviates itself, that his reasoning is irrational, that he is, in fact, not reasoning by his own admission.

I can't say whether or not this religion is working for OP's father, but I can (and do) say that it is irrational, because it is irrational in its structure. Anyway, he doesn't have to reason correctly because (his) God(-image) does not require it, He is content with irrational faith.

Numbers are irrational. We can simply write 2+2 = 1 if we assume 1 is called 2. So how can you make religion irrational? Just because the story telling is bizzares and perhaps even unproven, doesn't mean the stories are irrational. We have science theories which cannot be proven and yet continue to be listed in the literature and called science. Let's respect religion. People have their preference and it is irrational and condensing to say we hold irrational beliefs. That's very insulting. I ask for apology here.

I began my conscious adulthood agnostic and irreligious. I sincerely and persistently pursued truth throughout my life, and eventually I found God. Sai Baba. I actually literally believe that Satya Sai Baba was/is/will-be an Avatar: God in Human form.

One of the many aspects of Baba's instruction is that one who loves God should rejoice when passing by any house of worship, be it a Church, Mosque, Synagogue, Temple, or an altar of unhewn stone. God is One.

Please do not think that I disrespect religion, and I apologize for giving that impression.

Anything that helps one cross the ocean of illusion and reach the safe shore of Eternity is good.

If a belief system helps you reach God then it is good even if it's irrational.

I am not sure it is ok to reply to yourself, but I was not sure where to put this. First, I appreciate all the thoughtful comments and would not down vote any of them.

Just to level set, when I say that I think my Fathers beliefs are irrational, I don't mean that in a derisive way, I simply mean they are not fact based or not based on logical reasoning. That is sort of the basis for faith I think. But I am not being disrespectful, I simply choose a different path that is science based.

I agree with you, but I would also want to clarify that there is an important difference between being respectful to people and being respectful to strongly held beliefs. The former is important for a peaceful society, and the latter gives undue protection to ideas that may not merit it. The two are often conflated because many people are trained to identify very strongly with what they've been taught, and to feel personally insulted and attacked when their beliefs are called into question.

The Bible repeatedly states that God cannot lie. Your father is making God out to be a liar. If it comes up again, if you want to start a fight, that's a direction you could go.

I downvoted you because people who have religious faith are not always irrational people. This is a cruel way to judge those who believe in higher beings. Watch your words, seriously.

My response is simply that we concept of time in religious text is not what we think it is. I think science exists and God also exists. Plenty of scientisits believe in God and science at the same time. Are you going to quote and say they are also irrational? Sigh. I may be an angry engineer but I don’t think you should imply all of us as irrational. Don’t do that. You are insulting everyone who believe in a religion for having belief in “irrational beliefs”.

You think it is rational to feel insulted when you are told you are being irrational? What goal are you optimizing for, and how do your actions facilitate the fastest means to converge on it?

Why is it not rational to feel insulted in the first place? Do I need permission and science to feel insulted? Is psychology irrational, then

Definition of irrationality:

> the quality of being illogical or unreasonable.

What part of what I said is irrational? Calling people having faith in religion is holding irrational belief? Irrational is a negative word, not a positive word unless you think we are talking about mathematics.

It is dangerous when your set of beliefs are held as above reproach such that any criticism of them is considered insulting. These are defense mechanisms that act to insulate ideas from scrutiny, and they're used to keep people indoctrinated into whatever their group's ideology happens to be.

If you can't handle your beliefs being questioned or called out as irrational without resorting to feeling personally attacked and calling for apologies, then you're not yet prepared to have an honest conversation about whether you're justified in having those beliefs.

I gave you the meaning of irrational that I'm using. You can cite any definition you want and demand I explain how what I said fits in the framework of definitions I never used, but that definitely doesn't seem like a reasonable or logical request. So maybe start with that?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com