Why assume God? randomness & free will

The continuing debate with RationalRoundtable on the question of: Why Assume God?

Backlog of debate videos:
http://www.youtube.com/user/themanofearth#grid/user/51843503C5D76002

The Secret Life Of Chaos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeCnWWH5AvM&playnext=0&list=PL9BDE914E...

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[Sines314]

Watching this, I thought of something. I see these hijacked deist arguments all the time... but I have never heard someone even begin to link the god of the logical arguments to Yahweh. They claim they can prove an allpowerful intelligence, etc... but I can honestly say I have never heard them go from there to Yahweh. Has anyone else? I'm curious to hear someone try.

[themanofearth]

@Sines314 That's a good point. I think I'll do a video on it when I have a chance.

[LocustFurii]

Well a limited understanding. Which is not unheard of, it's common knowledge that we still have a very limited understanding of things like electricity, gravity, hell we're still searching for the elusive "god" particle that allows things to interact. We have made leaps technologically because of what we do know but there is a tremendous amount of data of even the immediate forces around us that eludes our grasp.

[themanofearth]

@LocustFurii This is true and it may be true that we can never know EVERYTHING but (and I'm not being or even trying to be snide, smart alecy or adversarial with this statement AT ALL) so what?

We can only base our model of reality (in our heads and otherwise) on what we know about this reality whatever it is. If we discover something different about it that changes our sense of reality we have no choice but to change our model/understanding of reality OR be wrong about its nature.

[LocustFurii]

@themanofearth That is true but on a personal nature, I have accepted that belief in something even whether or not it's true is something that I need to exercise motivation and purpose. For instance, if I have a strong belief in myself that I can be a great programmer and land a good job doing it, the probability of my success goes way up if I strongly believe it's true even tho I can't prove it until I do it. So, skepticism only takes you so far in life. A tangent I know but for me it relates.

[themanofearth]

@LocustFurii Yeah but skepticism shouldn't take you anywhere the same as atheism. Atheism is only a position on a single assertion, skepticism is only a descriptive word to describe a position to question everything. What you do with the answers (even if the answer is "I don't know" or "I CAN'T know") is something completely different. That would be pure cynicism and optimism you're trying to get at in that post and no one is wholly one or the other. We're all cynical optimists. :-P

[Hardryv]

Anytime a theist attempts to use science, logic, or philosophy to "prove" the existence of a god, it smacks of dishonest desperation. They know they have nothing so they cross their fingers and try their best to express some intellectual chutzpah.

All around they claim absolution but have nothing to show for it, and then project against alleged atheist absolution... but that's just projection (bound within their own frustration after siding behind their hopelessly indefensible position).

[estragon9]

The world is completely saturated with random behavior. The air you breath is a teaming brownian soup of atoms. Every physical object is the same. The Sun pours out 10 to the 12th photons every second each one traveling in a random direction. Atoms decay occurs at random. Parents contribute 1/2 of their genes, which half, its 50/50. A meteor hitting you is just the combined result of these many small random events.

[estragon9]

I like the video. I disagree though that rolling a die is deterministic. Even is you knew a almost everything about the roll, there would be the random motion of the atoms that make the die. This random motion would prevent you from predicting with certainty the outcome of the roll. you might be able to get it close, but sometimes you would reach a tipping point that would not me predicted.

[estragon9]

The only difference in the two types of randomness your describe is the probability of observing the event. Or perhaps there is a difference is that the top one is very hard to estimate the probability. Otherwise they are the same type of randomness.

[LocustFurii]

@themanofearth I'll concede to that :-P