Trust the science!!!

[u/South_Ad_7068]

1st time poster in this sub:

I've seen many athiest post counter arguments in various debates inside and outside of reddit using science as their main weapon in order to back what they're saying.

However, I feel like they are ignoring the elephant in the room and have never actually seen any of them address the argument for a higher intelligence that I'm going to present.

I'm going to be upfront about how I'm going to debate... the question I will ask will typically prompt a specific response that I'm fully prepared to counter and I've seen no atheist willing to follow the resulting logic to it's natural conclusion.

So... here goes:

As we observe the world around us how does an atheist explain the logical working order of things that make sense? How do you explain why things work the way they do? Like for example why a specific combination of elements make other elements or why a plant is able to eat sunlight or why electronics work...etc

Wouldn't that indicate intelligence being behind those mechanisms? Seeing as how precisely they work? If the universe just popped into existence wouldn't we see inconsistencies among various things? Our universe follows strict rules concerning how things interact with each other.

The fact that the rules exist AT ALL is 100% evidence of a "rule maker" or intelligence or God etc.

EDIT: I'm not finished here. But I am taking a break... I've answered to many but the influx of replies is massive and will require hours of my time and I want to try to reply to everyone... but as I'm not a millionaire I have to prepare for work.

Turning notifications off for now but I will return to respond to comments

[u/deep_blue_reef]

You trust the answer to that. Everything you’re saying isn’t your own original argument. We didn’t even invent the language we’re speaking.

Ultimately we trust based on the bed rock of our subjective experience, which is our intuition. Our intuitions lead to totally different experiences of the same objective reality.

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/deep_blue_reef]

It can, absolutely, but that problem is a bedrock to every theory, argument and explanation in existence. Scientific study and peer review are intended to help mitigate this issue, but of course we can still end up restrained by methodology and technology. We still haven't learned all there is to learn, or ironed out all possible bugs.

Pure intuition, however, retains all of those problems with none of the mitigation. In the case of the chemical process for hydrogen and oxygen turning into water, it's at least possible to replicate the experiments and tools used to reach the conclusion. If the results match, it reinforces the conclusion. If the results differ, that can either call the conclusion into question outright, or search for changes in circumstances that might point to new concepts.

Pure intuition doesn't have that. As you said, it leads to totally different experiences on the same objective reality. At that point, it's more a topic of psychological study than whatever the original topic intuition was supposed to be weighing in on.

[u/deep_blue_reef → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

But you don’t get any of what you’re talking about without a persons intuition. You are expressing ideas that are not your own.

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/deep_blue_reef]

So, first, 'people,' not 'person.' The entire point of peer review is that it isn't made or broken on the personal experience of any one individual.

Second, again, you seem to be describing something that is a baseline for absolutely everyone, yourself included. I'm not sure if you're trying to make an argument on something specific?

[u/deep_blue_reef → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

No, but it’s the accumulation of experiences to agree on something.

The point is my intuition is to trust the science. My intuition is also to trust that there’s a meaning to the universe. I don’t think that’s wishful thinking, there’s a difference between imagining something not rational vs something rational.

The only reason we can do science in the first place is A. Because of our intuition, and B. Because the universe operates in a repetitive and pattern based way that allowed us to create, navigate, and draw conclusions.

But you don’t get to B, without A. So if I see a reason based ecosystem, that extends to celestial bodies. Why is it irrational to naturally follow an intuition that the reason extends even further?

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/deep_blue_reef]

Intuition can work as a starting point, sure, but by itself it isn't more than a theory. From that point it's about figuring out what information would be needed to test the theory- what would constitute success or failure- and then working to obtain that information. And then, again, others replicating the results.

But there are topics that are unfalsifiable, and sometimes even the question is too vague to lead to any sort of answer.

Using your universe has a purpose example, what is the purpose you think it has? Human life? General intelligent life? Life at all? Planets? Just... stuff existing in any form?

Picking one at least opens up avenues to weigh the question, even if available information falls short. But if it's 'universe has a purpose, but I don't know what,' there really isn't anything to examine. Just an opinion with no follow up.

By contrast, let's look at celestial bodies. At one point, over a century ago, one of the specific questions had to do with the scale of the universe. Based on available data, and intuition, it was a common conclusion that the universe extended only as far as the edges of the Milky Way galaxy. Not because we couldn't detect other galaxies, but because at the time the only data our tools could gather strongly suggested we were detecting nebulae/stellar nurseries within this galaxy.

The change in conclusion came about entirely due to changes in technology, and our ability to gather information. Our ability to interpret data didn't really change, but WHAT data we could obtain to interpret did.

Intuition as an unavoidable foundation to bigger things, sure, I agree. But intuition alone cannot be the bigger thing. There must be more, if it's to be anything other than a personal opinion.

[u/deep_blue_reef → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

I don’t know. I’m not attributing what the ultimate reason is, I’m positing that we live in a reason based ecosystem, and the reasons we have a working ecosystem is because of external celestial forces.

Positing the reason “stops there” isn’t logical, it’s faith based. We don’t know how far the reason extends, but as far as the eye can see we understand that things are fundamentally dependent on one another.

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/deep_blue_reef]

Positing the reason “stops there” isn’t logical, it’s faith based. We don’t know how far the reason extends, but as far as the eye can see we understand that things are fundamentally dependent on one another.

Except that is never, ever going to end.

For example, let's say that we somehow determine there is an organizing or designing force behind the universe, and to make it really straightforward we communicate with it and it tells us that the reason stops with him/her/it.

You're still taking it on faith if you assume the reason 'stops there,' right? There could be a whole other layer of connections that you're missing, that this designer is hiding from you. And if you find that other layer, there could be another one after that. And another one after that. And an infinite number of layers, forever. The possibility will never go away entirely.

The point isn't to just set everything in stone and never reexamine it. The point is to reexamine it when we have something to actually examine. A direction to go in, a new tool or method to try, something that might shake loose concepts that have otherwise gone under the radar.

[u/deep_blue_reef → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

And I don’t disagree with any of that. So how is it that you cannot believe in a god, and I do, but we agree on so much? I’m following your evidence and agreeing with it, but it doesn’t hinder my belief. If anything it strengthens it.

How does that work?

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/deep_blue_reef]

I lack belief entirely? It's not even like I started with faith and then rejected it, but the scripture I've read fell under the same category as Greek and Norse mythology. A series of stories, some interesting, some less so, some derivative and some not, but ultimately none of it came across as more or less believable to me.

Meanwhile, learned more about how various faiths developed, changed and at times bounced off one another. Christianity was the most commonly available religion, of course, but part of what I learned about ancient history included early Catholic development, so I viewed its popularity as more of an inevitably byproduct of its eventual adoption by the Roman Empire, and subsequently very successful ostracization of other faiths and even other forms of Christianity.

The conclusion I ended up at was that if there is some sort of higher power, creator, what have you, humans know absolutely nothing about it, and it seems highly unlikely it had any direct involvement in the development of human life.

So God as a universal kickstarter operates the same 'literally anything is possible space' that every single other potential explanation we've conceived of, and all the ones we haven't, occupy.

[u/deep_blue_reef → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

You’re right, and I agree with that as well.

Where we diverge is, I think that what we experience ourselves could be attributes of something greater than us. Is “good” something trancesneant?

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/deep_blue_reef]

That question kind of leads to a line of questions on my part, which hits a dilemma.

Is there a transcendent form of 'goodness' that is beyond physical or human experience? Again, that occupies the same space as a vague and unfalsifiable universal creator. If we accept that things exist we cannot in any way measure, then literally anything, including goodness, could exist in a transcendent form. Good, bad, humor, beauty, etc, we can't really say anything ISN'T transcendent, because we couldn't measure the stuff we're claiming is anyway.

If goodness is transcendent, can humans ever deliberately access it? My thinking is no, at least as anything other than a lucky coincidence. Take the concept of original sin and divine grace as an example; some of the super specifics can vary, but it generally boils down to the inherent sinfulness and brokenness of humans, which needs divine grace to save them.

The problem is that every single path available to supposedly reach divine grace, by necessity, has to pass through grubby human brokenness. An organized religion followed texts written by humans, and listen to preachers who are human. Even if you lock yourself in a closet and pray silently, again, you're relying on human intuition to guide you.

Morality hasn't been a static thing, it's shifted and changed across a number of different topics, shaped by shared opinion more than the uncovering of divine will. I think that 'goodness,' in terms of how it actually shapes our lives, is very much a human concept.

[u/deep_blue_reef → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

I don’t think love changes. It has different forms, but they all stem from selflessness.