Reasonable Leap into Light: Dan Peterson's Fair Conference Presentation

[Calm]

Some have been asking for a transcript of Dan Peterson's Fair Conference talk, here is it:

 

http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair-conferences/2015-fairmormon-conference/the-reasonable-leap-into-light-a-barebones-secular-argument-for-the-gospel

[Kenngo1969]

Here is it? 

Thankful, I am! 

P.S.: If I were a betting man, I'd bet dollars to donuts that one of the hangups getting it formatted and posted were those dang equations and graphics!

Edited December 9, 2015 by Kenngo1969

[Calm]

[SmileyMcGee]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Some have been asking for a transcript of Dan Peterson's Fair Conference talk, here is it:

 

http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair-conferences/2015-fairmormon-conference/the-reasonable-leap-into-light-a-barebones-secular-argument-for-the-gospel

Thanks, Calm!

[Robert F. Smith]

Illustrations should be included where possible, as in his original presentation.

To read it now was just as arresting as seeing and hearing him deliver it.  Thanks.

[Kenngo1969]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

[mfbukowski]

If science can prove God, science can disprove God.

I disagree that science can disprove God.  Spiritual beliefs can only be justified by spiritual "evidence".

Edited December 9, 2015 by mfbukowski

[Scott Lloyd]

Thanks for this.

I started a thread on it soon after it was delivered, I locked the thread after several people were criticizing it not based on actually having seen it but on a news summary I had written of it.

I had always intended to go back and reopen my thread once the transcript of the entire thing was available. But with the new board upgrade, I don't think I can reopen threads that I had previously closed.

 

Edited December 9, 2015 by Scott Lloyd

[3DOP]

15 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

If science can prove God, science can disprove God.

I disagree that science can disprove God.  Spiritual beliefs can only be justified by spiritual "evidence".

Is that to disagree with some of Dr. Peterson's argument? I did not see that he goes so far as the Catholic Church, but he certainly shows that science cannot be invoked to say that belief in God is irrational. Few, however strong their spiritual witness, can maintain faith in something that contradicts their own perception of reality. There is always a need to reconcile faith and reason.

Great talk. I especially appreciated his refutation of those, like Berkeley who have proposed that thought is illusion. As Dr. Dan has said more than once on these forums, it is not for nothing that he named one of his boys Thomas.

Edited December 9, 2015 by 3DOP

[SmileyMcGee]

I thought the argument was fair (pun intended). My take on his conclusion is that no one should feel like their testimony is contradicted by science and they believe  something unreasonable. i agree with that if that's his position. I don't think he ever stated that religious belief is more reasonable either. i worry though that some may take his message to mean "science proves that God exists" or "belief in God is the only reasonable position." I don't think he meant this at all, but the "fine tuning" argument as well as some varieties of Pascal's wager have been used by Christian apologists to "prove" that belief in the non-existence of God is not reasonable or that "science proves God."  

Also, I felt like Dan had a lot to say and little time to say it. It felt a little scattered and rushed. 

Edited December 9, 2015 by SmileyMcGee

[Gray]

16 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

If science can prove God, science can disprove God.

I disagree that science can disprove God.  Spiritual beliefs can only be justified by spiritual "evidence".

Depends on what you mean by God, right? I agree with what you say about spiritual beliefs. 

[mfbukowski]

42 minutes ago, 3DOP said:

Is that to disagree with some of Dr. Peterson's argument? I did not see that he goes so far as the Catholic Church, but he certainly shows that science cannot be invoked to say that belief in God is irrational. Few, however strong their spiritual witness, can maintain faith in something that contradicts their own perception of reality. There is always a need to reconcile faith and reason.

Great talk. I especially appreciated his refutation of those, like Berkeley who have proposed that thought is illusion. As Dr. Dan has said more than once on these forums, it is not for nothing that he named one of his boys Thomas.

Dr. P is a brilliant man and it is a wonderful, inspiring and faith-promoting talk which covers some of the preliminary requisites for the argument he is working on.

As he admits several times during the talk, he did not really have enough time to make a full-scale philosophical argument, but cited many illustrations for the beginning of such an argument.  I can't wait to see the six books!

[Scott Lloyd]

14 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Thanks for this.

I started a thread on it soon after it was delivered, I locked the thread after several people were criticizing it not based on actually having seen it but on a news summary I had written of it.

I had always intended to go back and reopen my thread once the transcript of the entire thing was available. But with the new board upgrade, I don't think I can reopen threads that I had previously closed.

 

Though I can't re-open my prior thread, as I could have before the software update, I will link to it here.

As I mentioned, I recall getting some pushback from folks who had not heard or read the talk and were speaking from limited understanding, as it were. I had always intended to reopen the thread once a full transcript was available.

 

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, 3DOP said:

Is that to disagree with some of Dr. Peterson's argument? I did not see that he goes so far as the Catholic Church, but he certainly shows that science cannot be invoked to say that belief in God is irrational. Few, however strong their spiritual witness, can maintain faith in something that contradicts their own perception of reality. There is always a need to reconcile faith and reason.

Great talk. I especially appreciated his refutation of those, like Berkeley who have proposed that thought is illusion. As Dr. Dan has said more than once on these forums, it is not for nothing that he named one of his boys Thomas.

Regarding Berkeley, I am not sure what you mean. I did not see that refutation in Dan's talk.  I am hoping that you understand that his idea that "abstract ideas" are illusory is part of a view similar to mine and to Pragmatists- a philosophy called "Idealism"-  that abstract thought actually brings one away from "reality", not toward it.  Common sense "reality" is what we EXPERIENCE, not some underlying substance we cannot experience.  "Substance", as an abstract notion therefore becomes an illusion.  Berkeley would agree that it makes no sense to speak of "correspondence" between perception and "reality" because we cannot know any reality other than what we experience.

Quote

There is, however, an obvious alternative. Common sense dictates that there are only two crucial elements involved in perception: the perceiver and what is perceived. All we need to do, Berkeley argued, is eliminate the absurd, philosophically-conceived third element in the picture: that is, we must acknowledge that there are no material objects. For Berkeley, only the ideas we directly perceive are real.

http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/4r.htm

Abstract "Substance" cannot be perceived and therefore is not "real".

In my view, all he lacks is an understanding of materialism and the view that even spirit can be understood to be "matter".  But that is for another day.

Edited December 9, 2015 by mfbukowski

[Meadowchik]

On 9/12/2015 at 7:09 AM, mfbukowski said:

If science can prove God, science can disprove God.

I disagree that science can disprove God.  Spiritual beliefs can only be justified by spiritual "evidence".

This is what I think, too. 

A thought experiment has been useful to me:  Suppose we're all there at God's feet, witness to His glory and all He has to share with us.  I can imagine that some would step forward and call it all some technilogically-advanced parlor trick. Barring that, I can imagine individuals doubting that God merits His glory, that even if He has power it is by chance or accident.  Otherwise I can still imagine entities doubting God's expressions of love to His children.  After all, it has been done before.

So, yes, in the end, whether one believes God and believes in God truly is a matter of faith. However, faith is more real than some might suppose.  It is something that develops and grows when it is given room and nurture in the soul to do so.  It cannot be duplicated in a sterile, spiritless vaccuum. So when spirit is there, and the spirit wills to try faith by sincere nurturing, something will be created, a new creature of existence.

IMO

[SeekingUnderstanding]

I thought the presentation was interesting. I've always been fascinated by the fine tuning of the universe. I guess the question that I have is how does God solve the fine tuning of the universe? If we suppose that a tuned universe must have a creator, wouldn't we suppose that the creator has a creator? Where does it end? Doesn't it kick the can down the road?

Another interesting part to me was this:

Quote

He says, OK, that lack of curiosity seems rather unscientific. Imagine you were in front of a firing squad. You’ve been sentenced to die. There are 12 or 15 sharpshooters standing about 25 feet away. They’re aiming at a target on your chest. The person counts down, pronounces the order to fire, they all fire, and … you’re still there. What do you say? “Well, you know, I’m not curious because, obviously, if they’d killed me, I wouldn’t be here to ask the questions. So, you know, so I’m not going to inquire any more to find out why I’m here.” That’s a certain lack of curiosity there, it seems to me.

While throwing up our arms and stating that the anthropic principle solves the fine tuning of the universe does seem to show a lack of curiosity, it would also seem that throwing up our arms and stating that it must be God shows the same lack of curiosity. Why weren't you killed by the firing squad? It must be because God saved me... I guess again, I am not seeing how God is an answer that provides meaningful information here anymore than just saying "if they'd killed me, I wouldn't be here to ask the questions."

When Newton developed the universal law of gravitation he couldn't figure out how come the planets orbits were stable. Rather than investigating further he threw up his hands and said it must be divine intervention. The assumption of divine intervention did nothing to further our understanding of how it really worked which took additional curiosity and asking the right questions.

 

Edited December 10, 2015 by SeekingUnderstanding

[Gray]

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I thought the presentation was interesting. I've always been fascinated by the fine tuning of the universe. I guess the question that I have is how does God solve the fine tuning of the universe? If we suppose that a tuned universe must have a creator, wouldn't we suppose that the creator has a creator? Where does it end? Doesn't it kick the can down the road?

Another interesting part to me was this:

While throwing up our arms and stating that the anthropic principle solves the fine tuning of the universe does seem to show a lack of curiosity, it would also seem that throwing up our arms and stating that it must be God shows the same lack of curiosity. Why weren't you killed by the firing squad? It must be because God saved me... I guess again, I am not seeing how God is an answer that provides meaningful information here anymore than just saying "if they'd killed me, I wouldn't be here to ask the questions."

When Newton developed the universal law of gravitation he couldn't figure out how come the planets orbits were stable. Rather than investigating further he threw up his hands and said it must be divine intervention. The assumption of divine intervention did nothing to further our understanding of how it really worked which took additional curiosity and asking the right questions.

 

As interesting as the fine tuning subject is, I'm not sure how it's meaningful to Mormon theology. I can see how mainstream Christians are interested in the subject. But they envision a single God as the first cause of all existence. Mormon theology is more of a ground-up evolution, with contingent Gods and contingent universes. I don't think you need fine tuning in Mormon theology. 

[mfbukowski]

6 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

This is what I think, too. 

A thought experiment has been useful to me:  Suppose we're all there at God's feet, witness to His glory and all He has to share with us.  I can imagine that some would step forward and call it all some technilogically-advanced parlor trick. Barring that, I can imagine individuals doubting that God merits His glory, that even if He has power it is by chance or accident.  Otherwise I can still imagine entities doubting God's expressions of love to His children.  After all, it has been done before.

So, yes, in the end, whether one believes God and believes in God truly is a matter of faith. However, faith is more real than some might suppose.  It is something that develops and grows when it is given room and nurture in the soul to do so.  It cannot be duplicated in a sterile, spiritless vaccuum. So when spirit is there, and the spirit wills to try faith by sincere nurturing, something will be created, a new creature of existence.

IMO

Exactly!

There are some illusionists of late that are incredible.  The only way you can know is to know for yourself!

[mfbukowski]

9 minutes ago, Gray said:

As interesting as the fine tuning subject is, I'm not sure how it's meaningful to Mormon theology. I can see how mainstream Christians are interested in the subject. But they envision a single God as the first cause of all existence. Mormon theology is more of a ground-up evolution, with contingent Gods and contingent universes. I don't think you need fine tuning in Mormon theology. 

You don't.

The presumption that you do indicates that one believes one needs science to prove God.  You do not.  God is ineffable- there is no proof but the spirit.

What is needed is showing that personal revelation "justifies" religious belief and therefore makes it "true".   William James did that over a hundred years ago and philosophers like Wittgenstein accept that.  Most of contemporary philosophy is about the compartmentalization of "truth" within communities and disciplines, but for some reason we have not caught on to that yet.   We like our old sectarian idea of "truth" we inherited from Aquinas and Augustine.

Go figure.

Personal revelation justifies belief in the truth of the gospel and that idea is founded on good philosophical principles.  That's about all that is needed.  It's really that simple.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

I'm a big fan of DCP's work in ancient studies (I'd recommend his talk on The Cosmic Mountain In The Qur'an, which I thought was great, and hope he reads Hamlet's Mill sometime soon so he can see where all this cosmological imagery is coming from), but I've long been dissatisfied with his treatment of secular themes. 

The thing is, the arguments he's taken from traditional Christian apologetics are simply not applicable or even necessary for the LDS understanding of God, and we should stop trying to make them fit. They actually significantly weaken our case. The sequence of links he's trying to make to form a bridge going from philosophical theism to Christianity in particular and finally to Mormonism simply don't connect, because the traditional post-apostasy Christian God is so fundamentally different from the LDS God. We can't get here from there. If we would stop taking our cues from evangelical apologetics, we would see that this is actually our deepest strength. 

We should not be hoping for others to go from atheism to what most people understand as traditional theism; if those were the only two options, atheism would be the better one. The omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, creator-of-all-from-nothing philosopher's God is a totalitarian monster fantasized into existence by deeply patriarchal men who would only deign to worship a deity who could control people [especially women] the way they wished they could. Christopher Hitchens is absolutely correct that if this is the only God, the only moral response is not just atheism, but active anti-theism. Hitch makes the excellent point that when he hears atheists follow a declaration of unbelief with the wistful longing that they wish they could believe [in traditional theism], he has to wonder "Why?" 

Pascal's Wager is, honestly, one of the very worst defenses for theism. Not only is it illogical, it is downright offensively immoral. If the only reason we have for acting decently is because we might be punished someday, we are really not getting the point. The Bayes' Theorem stuff similarly misses the mark, because traditional theism is so deeply incompatible with Mormonism that the cumulative case doesn't actually ... accumulate. 

I'd have to see the individual studies before I believe that religious people are "healthier" - we might not do drugs or drink coffee, but sugar is just as insidious, and our diets are generally pretty horrific. Besides, even if it is true that people feel more contented, etc, that would have nothing to do with whether or not the actual doctrines about the existence and character of the Gods are true; it would just mean that we have formed a more-or-less successful community of social animals who take care of each other. 

I'm continually completely flabbergasted when Mormons say things about "indicator(s) of something in the universe that is beyond just matter and motion." We have deep, radical, profound materialism canonized right there in our D&C: "There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter [...] it is all matter." How can something exist if it is not, in some sense, "mere" matter? 

I'm also pretty disappointed that DCP drew on Calvin and Plantinga, of all people. The "sensus divinitatis" is so culture-dependent as to be useless, and the "proper warrant" and "properly basic" stuff Plantinga goes on about is just so absolutely ludicrous I'm surprised DCP didn't see through it immediately.

I'm one of the people who has absolutely felt the Sehnsucht, the longing for Pure Northernness; I know exactly what Lewis and DCP are talking about. But that deep plaintive yearning nostalgic ache simply cannot be connected to a God unless we have been culturally conditioned to expect such a God as a necessary cause. And we don't need to. (By the way, contra DCP's remark in this talk, Dawkins and Hitchens and all the rest have all quite often affirmed that they have felt all the "transcendent" beauty in music and landscapes, etc that believers are always using to argue in favor of God - I'd actually argue that, if anything, they might feel it even more deeply, since instead of just praising God for nature, the biologists go out and study it and understand how these wonderful plants and animals evolved. 

I'm kinda torn about the paranormal stuff. On the one hand, to believe in Joseph Smith at all, some sort of mental communication has to be admitted, and I think there is a bit of evidence that we might discover some method in the future, what with all the stuff they're doing now with robotic limbs for amputees and computer replications of dream-imaging. On the other hand, the idea of a "supernatural" event is nonsensical (and I'm glad DCP later says that he has problems with the term!); Brigham Young said that there are no miracles, except to those who do not understand. I don't understand how anything "supernatural" can exist; if it exists at all, it is a part of nature. We might not understand it, but there are a lot of things we don't understand. And I have not once seen any evidence that any contemporary medium or psychic or séance or ESP experiment was even remotely credible. Joseph Smith himself doused the more, uh, exuberant spiritual flames raging among some of his contemporaries. I'm not a Brigham Young hater (he was a complicated dude), but c'mon, I'm pretty sure he believed in, like, the table-rappings and early Spiritualist stuff going on in his day; personally, I'd like to think that if spirits exist, they have better things to do with their time. The Skeptical Inquirer debunked Gary Schwartz, and I doubt John Hick's transcendental metaphorical views would dovetail with Mormonism very well at all. 

Mormonism has absolutely no need for the supposed "fine-tuning" argument, because we don't start off with the idea that God created anything from nothing in the first place. If God and every other coeternal [material] Intelligence is intrinsic to the universe, then we simply exist. The need for fine-tuning dissolves. Besides, who or what tuned the fine-tuner? At a certain point, evolution of some sort becomes, really, the only option. That doesn't deny the possibility of creations within the natural universe, including creation which harnesses preexisting unguided evolution; humans plant gardens, and God is said to be a Gardener. Evolution is still working on our plantains, and for that reason humans can cultivate them and breed them into better-tasting bananas. I'd call the garden and the fruit a "creation" [create = Latin creare = produce, beget, related to crescere = arise, grow, related to crescent, cereal, the Goddess Ceres, etc.] but it is definitely not a creation from nothing, and evolution is still a factor. It seems to me that evolution is part of what gives us freedom. To say that the universe must be specially-designed with us in mind is to reason backwards; of course we're [usually] [fairly] well adapted to our environment. If our ancestors weren't, we wouldn't exist. DCP just shrugs this off, and yet ... counting particles and measuring forces and ratios is kinda beside the point. If that seems like a "lack of curiosity", I think the common tendency to just say "God did it" whenever there's a gap in our knowledge that needs filling is much worse. My personal favorite speculation is panspermia/cosmic ancestry, which deals with the problem of the "origin" of life [so soon after conditions made it possible to sustain] much more robustly, I think.   

The DNA stuff reminds me of my recent read of The Language Of God by Francis Collins, which was a terribly disappointing book. I read Moody's book on near-death experiences recently as well, and it was similarly unimpressive. Besides, I really don't know why DCP wants materialism to collapse, in light of D&C 131, as I quoted above. Naturalism is essentially inescapable; how can something exist that is not part of the natural world? This does not necessarily preclude some form of "intelligence" which can exist separate from the body it directs [DCP is correct in saying we still don't understand consciousness well], but that intelligence would still be a part of the natural, material world. From what I've read of the Pam Reynolds case, it doesn't seem very promising to me at all. 

What gives me a slight glimmer of hope in the possibility of a resurrection has to do with information theory and what I guess could be termed "atom replacement." That is, our bodies are essentially patterns of information arranged in a particular way. If the "mind" is some sort of self-existing energy packet which can inhabit animal bodies such as us featherless bipedal primates, then I can think of sci-fi devices that, I dunno, scan our atomic structure, 3D-print a copy [that corrects all genetic ailments, such as the built-in obsolescence of death], and transfer the consciousness from the old body to the empty new one. Or, y'know, something. Whatever. But that sort of speculation has to eventually be grounded in some sort of naturalistic material universe, if it's possible at all. 

In the end, this just isn't a "secular" case at all, and the vast majority of secularists will remain unimpressed with these arguments. The thing is, I think we could have a deeply productive conversation with atheists, because for all intents and purposes, we are "atheists" in regard to the traditional God of essentially all of western theology. We need to look at the underlying structure of the arguments and worldviews rather than just assume that because these guys over here use the word 'god' and 'religion' we're on their side rather than the guys who use terms like 'humanism' and 'naturalism'. 

What I strongly agree with DCP about is that the common phrasing about 'knowing it's not rational and yet believing anyway' needs to go away. If faith is to be viable, it needs to make sense. That's why I wish we emphasized Joseph Smith's teachings more: "Mormonism is truth; and every man who embraces it feels himself at liberty to embrace every truth: consequently the shackles of superstition, bigotry, ignorance, and priestcraft, fall at once from his neck; and his eyes are opened to see the truth, and truth greatly prevails." 

"The doctrine of the Latter-day Saints, is truth. […] The first and fundamental principle of our holy religion is, that we believe that we have a right to embrace all, and every item of truth, without limitation or without being circumscribed or prohibited by the creeds or superstitious notions of men, or by the dominations of one another, when that truth is clearly demonstrated to our minds, and we have the highest degree of evidence of the same."

"I beg leave to say unto you, brethren, that ignorance, superstition, and bigotry placing itself where it ought not, is oftentimes in the way of the prosperity of this Church." 

Edited December 11, 2015 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

(Weird formatting issues resolved. Sorry for the wasted space. It's weird that we can't delete posts, yo.) 

Edited December 11, 2015 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[mfbukowski]

I am opposed to the whole structure of "This IS that"

It is like asserting A=C.  All you are doing is establishing an identity- a definition if you will, which may or may not be a useful analogy for anything.

Even the sentence on its own "matter is energy" is pretty useless.  Throw in some equations which define first what you MEAN by "matter" and then show how it becomes what we usually MEAN by "energy" and that is something entirely different.  Be very suspicious when you hear an identity like that.  "God is substance", "God is love", "Spirit is matter" "The moon is green cheese".   All you are doing is defining one word to mean the other word and saying nothing.

Beware of the word "is".  After all Bill Clinton invented it.  You don't know where it's been.

Edited December 11, 2015 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Dang ya Jeremy.

You have to write about sex a little less and about philosophy a little more.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

But the one is so much more interesting than the other. 

[mfbukowski]

I was thinking today that atheists are better at justifying statements about religion than "Christians" are, because they understand that truth is contextual.  Rorty for example would have no problem with someone saying "I know the church is true".  Perfectly rational.  Nagel is so afraid that there might BE a God he has publicly said that he "hopes" there isn't one.  That is called "faith".

It takes a person who knows nothing about philosophy to know that what you are saying is "not true".

If we just relaxed and learned from the atheists what they think about the Greek Temple of Truth, we could stop this sectarian creedal nonsense and get on with restoring the truth of Christ, the way Alma taught it.

What we need in this church is a good dose of Alma and less Aquinas.  Go figure.