I’m working on a way to explain this concept to the nice strangers who stop by my house from time to time.
Written for the LW audience:
The problem with the God hypothesis is that it is indistinguishable from innumerable other stories that can be made up to explain the same phenomena, and whose validity is supported equally well by the evidence.
For example: I once made a tuna sandwich, ordinary in every way except that it had the special ability to create the universe, both past and future. It was not God, which I verified by eating it. This is the tuna sandwich hypothesis for the existence of the universe (TSH).
The TSH is superior to the God Hypothesis in two important ways: first of all it was tasty; and second, the theory is much simpler. Instead of needing all kinds of crazy special attributes like omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience, the tuna sandwich only requires the special ability to create the universe for all time; so it is a more likely explanation for the creation of the universe. In other words the likelihood that God created the universe is relatively lower than the TSH due to the joint probably of all the claims that the God hypothesis makes about God. All that existence you enjoy (or suffer from) is better evidence for the TSH.
This can be repeated for the other phenomena attributed to God, and instead of “tuna sandwich” you can pick anything—for example any real number—which makes the set of choices uncountable.
Given the other possibilities, the likelihood that the God hypothesis is true is infinitely small; which rational systems will round to zero.
I am looking for a way to make this easier for a layman to understand, and to make it less offensive to those with strongly held beliefs.
I definitely get these types of explanations, but don’t know that they actually hold up. You need to posit a timeless tuna sandwich, and we only know about material (bounded by space-time) tuna sandwiches. It would seem that whatever you suggest will be an incredible aberration from daily experience.
Not that god doesn’t suffer from the same issues… just saying that making up a universe-creating tuna sandwich doesn’t, in my opinion, actually have any advantages over “timeless/spaceless being with ability to create the universe.” At least that is posited to have existed before/outside creation vs. you recognizing from within it that something within it had the power to create from without.
Does that make any sense?
I think it all breaks down and my personal answer at the moment is simply that if there is and “outside time-and-space”, then no one on this side of the wall can possibly know what’s on the other side unless we make some serious technological advances. Most philosophical trains of thought break down for me as soon as they say it’s logically necessary for a being to have existed “before” the big bang. “Before” is utterly meaningless prior to the existence of cause and effect. We use our knowledge of causation from inside the universe to posit the type of relationship that must have existed between the big bang event and some other being or power. I don’t think that flies.
In any case, I am currently more satisfied with that defense vs. trying to come up with an analogy that, in my opinion, suffers from all of the same pitfalls as the deity hypothesis and even a few more :)
In any case, I am currently more satisfied with that defense vs. trying to come up with an analogy that,
in my opinion, suffers from all of the same pitfalls as the deity hypothesis and even a few more :)
This is of course the point. The TSH is obviously stupid, but the God hypothesis is weak against even very stupid alternatives. Some of the other innumerable alternatives may in fact strike some as more plausible than the God hypothesis, but that doesn’t make them better.
I don’t understand… why bring up an obviously flawed response if you know it’s flawed? I guess I don’t see the point in using something like a tuna sandwhich that a theist will simply reject out of hand rather than explain the problem with the god hypothesis directly.
Even if you insist on using the tuna sandwhich… it still has more issues than the god hypothesis, so I still don’t see the point, I guess.
I did state the problem with the God hypothesis directly; I said:
The problem with the God hypothesis is that it is indistinguishable from innumerable other stories that can be made up to explain the same phenomena, and whose validity is supported equally well by the evidence.
I gave the TSH as an example of ridiculous sounding creation theory that is actually more likely than the God hypothesis, within the space of unfalsifiable theories that the God hypothesis occupies.
To restate this: The God hypothesis is indistinguishable from a story that somebody just made up. For every case that boils down to “God did it”, we can create innumerable equivalent stories that claim “X did it”, for some value of X; with no way to select which story (if any) is correct.
Thanks for clarifying. I think we’re nearly on the same page in that we agree that both hypotheses are ridiculous. The only issue I see with TSH vs. god is that god has been defined as something that is outside time/space, omni-max, etc.
Does that mean anything about the plausibility of such a thing? No way.
But… it has been defined that way, whereas a tuna sandwich will always be confined to time and space. You could fix this by being the sole witness to a tuna sandwich bursting through a rip in space-time and informing you that it was outside time and space.
God, by the apologists’ definition, could actually be more plausible than the tuna sandwich you put together in your kitchen because the tuna sandwich is made of matter and go is defined as not. Matter seems only to exist in space-time and I see that as a strike against the TSH. It runs into objections re. the infinite regress and how it has existed long enough to create the universe from “outside” (or before or however you want to think about it) the universe when it’s made from perishable bread and fish-stuffs.
The only issue I see with TSH vs. god is that god has been defined as something that is outside time/space, omni-max, etc.
Actually, you may not be aware that mayonnaise is critical to universe creation. Since God does not contain mayonnaise the God hypothesis is less plausible than the TSH.
So you claim that existing outside space and time is necessary for the creation of the universe and I claim that mayonnaise is necessary. Do either of these claims allow us to select between the theories? I don’t see how; but by adding these additional requirements we increase the complexity of the theories and reduce their relative likelihood within the set of unfalsifiable theories.
Christian apologists can make compelling arguments because in the realm of made-up-stuff there is plenty that appeals to our cognitive biases. I agree that existing outside of space and time feels like a better property of a universe creator than containing mayonnaise; but that feeling is based from our very human perspective and not from any actual knowledge about how the universe came to be the way we see it now.
Actually, you may not be aware that mayonnaise is critical to universe creation. Since God does not contain mayonnaise the God hypothesis is less plausible than the TSH.
:)
Christian apologists can make compelling arguments because in the realm of made-up-stuff there is plenty that appeals to our cognitive biases. I agree that existing outside of space and time feels like a better property of a universe creator than containing mayonnaise...
Now that was what I needed. As soon as you started going there above with mayonnaise-as-necessity, I started wondering if perhaps I’m just intent on the “outside-time-and-space” requirement because that’s what I’ve always heard debated and argued.
...but that feeling is based from our very human perspective and not from any actual knowledge about how the universe came to be the way we see it now.
And then you actually went there and all is clear.
I’m working on a way to explain this concept to the nice strangers who stop by my house from time to time.
Written for the LW audience:
The problem with the God hypothesis is that it is indistinguishable from innumerable other stories that can be made up to explain the same phenomena, and whose validity is supported equally well by the evidence.
For example: I once made a tuna sandwich, ordinary in every way except that it had the special ability to create the universe, both past and future. It was not God, which I verified by eating it. This is the tuna sandwich hypothesis for the existence of the universe (TSH).
The TSH is superior to the God Hypothesis in two important ways: first of all it was tasty; and second, the theory is much simpler. Instead of needing all kinds of crazy special attributes like omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience, the tuna sandwich only requires the special ability to create the universe for all time; so it is a more likely explanation for the creation of the universe. In other words the likelihood that God created the universe is relatively lower than the TSH due to the joint probably of all the claims that the God hypothesis makes about God. All that existence you enjoy (or suffer from) is better evidence for the TSH.
This can be repeated for the other phenomena attributed to God, and instead of “tuna sandwich” you can pick anything—for example any real number—which makes the set of choices uncountable.
Given the other possibilities, the likelihood that the God hypothesis is true is infinitely small; which rational systems will round to zero.
I am looking for a way to make this easier for a layman to understand, and to make it less offensive to those with strongly held beliefs.
I definitely get these types of explanations, but don’t know that they actually hold up. You need to posit a timeless tuna sandwich, and we only know about material (bounded by space-time) tuna sandwiches. It would seem that whatever you suggest will be an incredible aberration from daily experience.
Not that god doesn’t suffer from the same issues… just saying that making up a universe-creating tuna sandwich doesn’t, in my opinion, actually have any advantages over “timeless/spaceless being with ability to create the universe.” At least that is posited to have existed before/outside creation vs. you recognizing from within it that something within it had the power to create from without.
Does that make any sense?
I think it all breaks down and my personal answer at the moment is simply that if there is and “outside time-and-space”, then no one on this side of the wall can possibly know what’s on the other side unless we make some serious technological advances. Most philosophical trains of thought break down for me as soon as they say it’s logically necessary for a being to have existed “before” the big bang. “Before” is utterly meaningless prior to the existence of cause and effect. We use our knowledge of causation from inside the universe to posit the type of relationship that must have existed between the big bang event and some other being or power. I don’t think that flies.
In any case, I am currently more satisfied with that defense vs. trying to come up with an analogy that, in my opinion, suffers from all of the same pitfalls as the deity hypothesis and even a few more :)
This is of course the point. The TSH is obviously stupid, but the God hypothesis is weak against even very stupid alternatives. Some of the other innumerable alternatives may in fact strike some as more plausible than the God hypothesis, but that doesn’t make them better.
I don’t understand… why bring up an obviously flawed response if you know it’s flawed? I guess I don’t see the point in using something like a tuna sandwhich that a theist will simply reject out of hand rather than explain the problem with the god hypothesis directly.
Even if you insist on using the tuna sandwhich… it still has more issues than the god hypothesis, so I still don’t see the point, I guess.
I did state the problem with the God hypothesis directly; I said:
I gave the TSH as an example of ridiculous sounding creation theory that is actually more likely than the God hypothesis, within the space of unfalsifiable theories that the God hypothesis occupies.
To restate this: The God hypothesis is indistinguishable from a story that somebody just made up. For every case that boils down to “God did it”, we can create innumerable equivalent stories that claim “X did it”, for some value of X; with no way to select which story (if any) is correct.
Thanks for clarifying. I think we’re nearly on the same page in that we agree that both hypotheses are ridiculous. The only issue I see with TSH vs. god is that god has been defined as something that is outside time/space, omni-max, etc.
Does that mean anything about the plausibility of such a thing? No way.
But… it has been defined that way, whereas a tuna sandwich will always be confined to time and space. You could fix this by being the sole witness to a tuna sandwich bursting through a rip in space-time and informing you that it was outside time and space.
God, by the apologists’ definition, could actually be more plausible than the tuna sandwich you put together in your kitchen because the tuna sandwich is made of matter and go is defined as not. Matter seems only to exist in space-time and I see that as a strike against the TSH. It runs into objections re. the infinite regress and how it has existed long enough to create the universe from “outside” (or before or however you want to think about it) the universe when it’s made from perishable bread and fish-stuffs.
Does that make any more sense?
Actually, you may not be aware that mayonnaise is critical to universe creation. Since God does not contain mayonnaise the God hypothesis is less plausible than the TSH.
So you claim that existing outside space and time is necessary for the creation of the universe and I claim that mayonnaise is necessary. Do either of these claims allow us to select between the theories? I don’t see how; but by adding these additional requirements we increase the complexity of the theories and reduce their relative likelihood within the set of unfalsifiable theories.
Christian apologists can make compelling arguments because in the realm of made-up-stuff there is plenty that appeals to our cognitive biases. I agree that existing outside of space and time feels like a better property of a universe creator than containing mayonnaise; but that feeling is based from our very human perspective and not from any actual knowledge about how the universe came to be the way we see it now.
:)
Now that was what I needed. As soon as you started going there above with mayonnaise-as-necessity, I started wondering if perhaps I’m just intent on the “outside-time-and-space” requirement because that’s what I’ve always heard debated and argued.
And then you actually went there and all is clear.
Thanks!