Plantinga: The God Delusion

[Operahaven]

This "deadening of the member" notion is nonsense.  Jewish men have no problem having great sex, getting it up or making babies. 

But Don I think we need to look at the bigger picture.... This is what medical science tells us about circumcision in the year 2008:

Circumcision destroys:

1. Its connective synechia, which fuses the foreskin to the glans while the penis develops.

2. Approximately half of the smooth muscle sheath called the dartos fascia.

3. Most of the erotogenic nerve endings on the penis, including the densely innervated ridged bands, reducing the sensitivity of the penis to that of ordinary skin.

4. Specialized epithelial Langerhans cells, a component of the immune system.

5. Thousands of coiled fine-touch receptors, including the Meissner's corpuscles.

6. Estrogen receptors--the purpose and value of which are not yet fully understood.

7. Ectopic sebaceous glands, which lubricate and moisturize.

8. The protective covering of the glans, normally an internal structure. The foreskin shields from abrasion, drying, and callusing, and protects from dirt and other contaminants.

9. The entire immunological defense system of the soft mucosa, which may produce antibacterial and antiviral proteins such as lysozyme, also found in mother's milk, and plasma cells, which secrete immunoglobulin antibodies.

10. Lymphatic vessels, the loss of which interrupts the lymph flow within a part of the body's immune system.

11. The frenulum, the sensitive "V" shaped tethering structure on the underside of the glans is also usually amputated, severed, or destroyed.

12. The apocrine glands, which produce pheromones, nature's powerful, silent, invisible signals to potential sexual partners.

13. As much as 50% or more of the total penile skin, radically immobilizing and desensitizing whatever skin remains.

14. The "gliding" mechanism. If unfolded and spread out flat, the average adult foreskin would measure 15-20 square inches, the size of a postcard. This abundance of specialized, self-lubricating skin gives the natural penis its unique-hallmark ability to smoothly "glide" back and forth within itself, permitting non-abrasive intercourse, without drying out the vagina.

15. The pink to red to dark purple natural coloration of the glans.

16. 10% to 20% of its circumference because its double-layered wrapping of loose foreskin is now missing making the circumcised penis thinner.

17. As much as one inch of the erect penis' length due to scarring and shrinkage from loss of the mobile, richly vascularized foreskin.

18. Several feet of blood vessels, including the frenular artery and branches of the dorsal artery, the loss of which interrupts normal blood flow to the shaft and glans of the penis, damaging its natural function and possibly stunting its growth.

19. An estimated 240 feet of microscopic nerves, including branches of the dorsal nerve.

20. Perhaps most importantly, between at least 10,000 to 20,000 specialized erotogenic nerve endings of various types, which can discern slight motion, subtle changes in temperature, and fine gradations in texture.

****

Just a few more reasons why I find the practice of circumcision - whether for religious or cosmetic reasons - absolutely insane.... It's the removal of a  functional  body part. 

[Al Moritz]

     I don't understand this. Epicurus said there were atoms, but he didn't know anything about them. The recent invocation of simplicity is a response to the success of recent scientific arguments. Aquinas could advocate anything, just as Plantinga does today, without incurring the slightest penalty. Arguments that can't be wrong can't be right, either, since there's nothing to make them so. It doesn't matter, Al, if witches are made of wood unless there are witches.

     My point was that the intelligent god of the modern theologian has been reengineered to answer the current scientific model, so intelligence is now seen as compatible with simplicity. I understand that the theist doesn't want to be seen as conforming his ideas to what science says, but it must be done to some extent for appearences sake, since appearences are the point of arguments which can't lead to anything else.

Complete utter nonsense. The intelligent God of the modern theologian happens to share the attributes of the model of Classical Theology, which has established these attributes many centuries ago, many centuries before modern science.

The attributes of God are independent of the particular way He chose to create the universe.

[Saul]

I've had it with the garbage you keep slinging at this site.  You're a pathetic role-model for an American jew.  But what really bothers me is that you continue to inititate and/or become confrontational in threads of a religious nature.  This is a place for music; if I want religious engagement, I'll head to the temple.  I sure don't want to hear what you have to say on the subject.

And Im confrotational?

[Joe_Campbell]

And Im confrotational?

yes.

[Norbeone]

And Im confrotational?

Are you Jewish?

[Ephemerid]

And Im confrotational?

It does get rather old.  I mean, how many of us here are Jewish anyway?  No one else here is Jewish (as far as I know), so why should we care?  You say you don't want to convert anyone, so what the heck is your point then?  "Woo hoo, I'm Jewish, I'm better than you!"   I'm just puzzled as to your whole reason for advertising your religion when you aren't even wanting to convert anyone (not that wanting to do that would be any improvement!). 

You seem more insecure in your religious belief because you always feel the need to broadcast it to the world.  Its one thing to be proud about your religious heritage-- its quite another to advertise it every chance an opportunity arises. 

[Saul]

It does get rather old.  I mean, how many of us here are Jewish anyway?  No one else here is Jewish (as far as I know), so why should we care?  You say you don't want to convert anyone, so what the heck is your point then?  "Woo hoo, I'm Jewish, I'm better than you!"   I'm just puzzled as to your whole reason for advertising your religion when you aren't even wanting to convert anyone (not that wanting to do that would be any improvement!). 

You seem more insecure in your religious belief because you always feel the need to broadcast it to the world.  Its one thing to be proud about your religious heritage-- its quite another to advertise it every chance an opportunity arises. 

Where did I advertise it?

[Ephemerid]

Where did I advertise it?

Too many posts for me to link to...

[Saul]

Too many posts for me to link to...

Well I didnt make a religious post for about 2 weeks now.. so just relax..

[Ephemerid]

Well I didnt make a religious post for about 2 weeks now.. so just relax..

Thank G-d. 

[Saul]

Thank G-d. 

No, its 'thanks' to people like you who are 'uncomfortable' about G-d but seem naturalists when it comes to atheism

[Ephemerid]

No, its 'thanks' to people like you who are 'uncomfortable' about G-d but seem naturalists when it comes to atheism

I have no beef with religion per se, but hey, whatever floats your boat...    It doesn't bother me that other people theists, atheists or whatever-- I've grown rather apathetic toward that whole issue.  But its awfully puzzling extolling the great virtues of orthodox Judaism when you don't want to convert anyone, and there also aren't any (?) other "lapsed" Jews here to get them back on the "right track."  Very puzzling to say the least.

[Shrunk]

This is in some dismal places practised as a custom. It is physical abuse amounting to mutilation with very serious affects on health. In any civilized country it is a criminal offense. I think it can only be blamed on man's wickedness, not on religion.

That last sentence only makes sense if you assume that religion is anything other than a creation of man.  As I see it, religion is a man-made ideology.  And one of the tenets of this ideology is that rational thinking must be subservient to divine revelation.  As such, it often serves as justification for atrocities such as female genital mutilation.  Which is not to say that such atrocities would not occur without religion.  Rather, they are the result of a human tendency, of which religion is the most pervasive expression.

[Florestan]

something as absurdly improbable as the theistic God

We understand nothing of the works of God unless we take it as a principle that He wishes to blind some and to enlighten others. - Blaise Pascal

(A fundamentalist, superstitious and un-scientific claim --- but true, nevertheless.  )

[Hector]

Are you Jewish?

Is the Pope Catholic?

Hey, has anyone else seen the New Commandments?

Sorry, chaps, taking drugs is a no-no!

[Ten thumbs]

That last sentence only makes sense if you assume that religion is anything other than a creation of man.  As I see it, religion is a man-made ideology.  And one of the tenets of this ideology is that rational thinking must be subservient to divine revelation.  As such, it often serves as justification for atrocities such as female genital mutilation.  Which is not to say that such atrocities would not occur without religion.  Rather, they are the result of a human tendency, of which religion is the most pervasive expression.

I take your point. Religion is often used as an excuse for actions even when there is nothing in that religion's writing to justify them.

[Norbeone]

I take your point. Religion is often used as an excuse for actions even when there is nothing in that religion's writing to justify them.

Even when there are such things in the religion's writing, that fact does not justify them.

[Wanderer]

Is the Pope Catholic?

It's not a widely known fact that since before the Schism the title of Pope was (and still is) only reserved for and bestowed upon two bishops; the Roman pontifex and the (now called orthodox) patriarch of Alexandria.

So, the answer really depends on which one you mean... 

[Al Moritz]

I had said:

Modern physics and cosmology shows that the laws of nature have to be exceedingly special to allow for the evolution of any complexity (not just life) in the first place. And atheism's attempts to explain away this fact are weak.

     I don't think so. I don't understand what special means in this context. We have no very clear idea of how special the conditions are, since we don't know how freely they can be different from what they are.

and:

It is also an assumption that the physical constants of the universe are independent of each other and need to each be individually fine tuned.  It might be that they are as interrelated as the radius and circumference of a circle; there is only one specific relationship they can have.   We just don't know.

I had answered this on the "Scientific fundamentalists" thread already, but here we go again:

There cannot be a necessity of laws of nature (i.e. they have to be as they are) for logical reasons: even if the laws of nature are the way they are because they have to satisfy a unique and unified system of forces (and thus the constants all are interrelated), they could have been built around another unique and unified set of forces. There is no logical disputing that.

Perhaps the values of the parameters cannot be anything (most multiverse proponents would probably say they can), but they can nonetheless be a tremendous variety of possibilities.

See also what physicist Stephen Barr has to say about this, from his article "Anthropic Coincidences", which is worth reading as a whole, at:

http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2208

(You can substitute "the choice of God" with "random shuffling of parameters", if you want to go for what might be possible in terms of laws of nature by merely "natural" means.)

"Einstein famously asked whether God had a choice in how He made the world. Many physicists nowadays suspect not. They suspect that all mathematical relationships in the laws of physics will turn out to be dictated by some deep underlying principles that leave no room for things to have been otherwise. One frequently hears the possibility discussed that the laws of physics are "unique." The idea is that everything about the physical world-the kinds of particles that exist, the kinds of forces and their relative strengths, the number of dimensions of space and its degree of flatness, the energy levels of the carbon-12 nucleus, and so on, down to the smallest detail-may have to be as they are on account of some fundamental physical principles. If so, God could not have the freedom to arrange the laws of nature to be "propitious for life" or otherwise, since His hands were completely tied.

"However, this is plainly wrong. Physical principles could not have tied God's hands, for the simple reason that He could have chosen some other principles upon which to base the laws of physics. For example, while the relative feebleness of the electromagnetic force, which we saw to be anthropically fortunate, may be a necessary outcome of a "grand unified" framework, it was by no means necessary that the world be built according to such a "grand unified" framework. In fact, we still do not know whether it is. So, in this particular matter God clearly did have a choice-indeed, many choices, as there are many mathematically self-consistent frameworks that involve "grand unification" and many that do not.

"As a matter of fact, there are an infinite number of mathematically self-consistent sets of laws of physics that could have been chosen as the basis for the structure of a universe. This is incontestable. When those (good) physicists talk about the laws of physics being possibly "unique," they are speaking very loosely. What they really have in mind is the idea that a unique set of laws may be necessary if it has to satisfy certain assumed preconditions. For example, many theorists believe that there is only one possible set of laws-"superstring theory"-that can incorporate simultaneously the principles of quantum theory and the principles of Einsteinian gravity. However, there is certainly no reason to suppose a priori that the universe had to incorporate either quantum theory or Einsteinian gravity. In short, the universe could have been made differently, and if it had been life might not have been able to arise. These assertions, it seems to me, can hardly be disputed." (End of quote.)

***

Thus, there cannot logically be a "necessity" of laws of nature, which science might be able to investigate. Science can also not investigate if the laws of nature that we observe are ontologically necessary (i.e. have a necessity of being). Ontological necessity is an issue for philosophy, not science.

[Al Moritz]

Furthermore, that fact that they [the laws of nature] are so special isn't evidence that there must be a God behind it. Why don't people allow science to progress even more before reverting to that old story?

I have answered also this issue about progress in science, when it comes to answering those questions, already before, but here we go again:

We have three options for the naturalistic emergence of these laws:

1. Brute chance for the emergence of these laws. However, chance on a sample of one (our universe) cannot be investigated scientifically.

2. A necessity of these laws – they could not be any other way. I have just addressed this point above.

3. The multiverse. Here we have a randomization of laws of nature in trillions of trillions of universes (the multiverse), among which our universe then is a statistically necessary outcome. This theoretically eliminates the unsatisfactory concept of chance. However, science cannot study the putative multiverse because of absolute observational limits: the particle horizon and the visible horizon of our universe. Important: These observational limits are even conceded by scientists who are proponents of the multiverse theory – not doing so would be irrational, given their nature.

The visible horizon is limited by the Cosmic Background Radiation at 300,000 years of age of our universe. Before that age, matter and radiation were coupled and the universe was opaque: photons scattered randomly, unlike later until now. The particle horizon in physical cosmology is the maximum distance from which particles  can have traveled to the observer in the age of the universe. It represents the portion of the universe which we could have conceivably observed by the present day. This limits our establishment of causal connections.

For an excellent discussion of this, i.e. the question of ultimate origins and the absolute limits of science, I strongly urge you to study the following paper by George Ellis, a leading theorist in cosmology:

http://www.mth.uct.ac.za/~ellis/enc2.pdf

(You can skip over the mathematical formulas.)