Posted by blue on June 24, 1998 at 17:18:15:
In Reply to: what's being debunked here? posted by jared on June 23, 1998 at 00:50:06:
: : I have seen Occam's razor used as a "given" during debate on this page. After looking at the premise, as explained below, it seems a non sequitur. My comments are bracketed:
: :
: : Occam's razor was formulated by William of Occam (1285-1349) and says: "Non est ponenda pluralites sive necessitate" or in english: "Do not multiply entities unless necessarily". It is a principle for scientific labour which means that one should use a simple explanation with a few explanatory premises before a more complex one.
: : [So far, this seems harmless enough]
: : Let's say that everything must be created, and that was done by an omnipotent god. A god which stands above time, space, moral and existence, which is self containing and in it self has it's own cause. This entity can surely be replaced by the known world.
: : [Now how can one possibly get to the last sentence from the previous two? How can anything infinite and omnipotent be replaced by the known world, by definition a subset of a finite entity?]
: : The world stands above time, space, moral, existence, is self containing and in it has it's own meaning.
: : [This must be a most unique definition of "world"]
: : Most theists agree that god has a nature. Then we must raise the question, who created god's nature? If we just accept that god has a nature and exists without a cause, why not say that the known world just is and that the laws of physics are what they are, without a cause?
: : [Here we get fallacy caused by the false replacement of infinite God with a subset of a finite object. But can anyone give a cause for the existence of the laws of physics or mathematics?]
: : God is not really an explanation, only a non-explanation. It is impossible to gain information from non-information so God as an explanation is a dead end. When we have said that the reason for something is that 'god did it that way' there is no way to understand it any further. We just shrug our shoulders and accept things as they are. To explain the unknown by god is only to explain how it happened, not why.
: : [In practice, the opposite is true. Genesis 1 and 2, for instance, explain why God created the universe, not necessarily how He did it.]
: : If we are to investigate the world and build our views of life from the world, we cannot assume a god.
: : [In a sense this is true, because we cannot find God by studying His creation in the way, say, a pantheist would expect. But study should lead us to conclude, but not find, God.]
: : Because adding god as an explanation leaves as many, if not more questions than it explains, god has to be removed with Occam's razor if we are serious in investigating the world.
: : [And, of course, this doesn't follow from the broken logic above. God answers the "why" completely. The "how" is, for the most part, left up to us to discover. That's why so many of us Christians study various schools of science as a hobby -- or a profession, for that matter.]
: : [Perhaps I found a poor explanation of Occam's razor. Is there a better one?]
: Perhaps I'm missing something here, but it seems that Occam's razor, as a principle, has not been touched by the arguments. What has been debunked, from my understanding of your thoughts, is a string of straw-man anti-theological speculations. In other words, Occam's razor is a baby in the dirty bathwater of the rest of the arguments. When you were satisfied that they were poor arguments, you threw them out, and since they mentioned Occam's razor, you threw it out as well. What are your objections to Occam's razor, independent of the poor arguments adduced against theism?
: And if you're satisfied that the god hypothesis answers the "why" completely, what's the point in discussing it?