What if that belief in a just god was the JWH manifesting in a theistic context? Could that be a possible consequence/result?

This rarely ever works well. It's not hopeless to say: "Here are green balls. There's a bucket. Discuss!" but you're usually better off saying: "Here are green balls. Thus they need to be thrown in that bucket. Yes/No/Maybe?", i.e. making a specific claim that people can work with (argue for/against) rather than putting a few concepts on the table and pray that an intelligent debate ensues.

This is what zumby alluded to: It's not clear that you get cause and effect right: You were suggesting that there's a cognitive bias called the JWH that simply exists (as per your suggestion "that the Theism is more likely to be a consequence of our cognitive biases."). Now, some people are (obv. by childhood indoctrination and the oppressive presence of buildings with pointy roofs and bells in them) getting the idea that there's a just god out there and have problems reconciling that with the notion that there is evil in the word. But wait! You can't phrase it in this way because IFF the JWH is a prior cognitive bias, the problem of evil in the world is ALREADY superfluous (i.e. explained by the JWH) as there is no evil in the world strictly speaking, just appropriate causes for appropriate consequences and vice versa (this is what the bias claims, right? So if it's the underlying bias under which we operate, there is no real evil - just appropraite conssequences - and certainly no problem of evil). The problem of evil, which you suggest needs an explanation evaporates under the assumption of teh JWH for the theist and atheist alike.
I guess if you want to maintain that the JWH has primacy, you'd have to assume that the idea in just god is an extension of it, hence that some people, so to speak, found a certain way to phrase the JWH, that included words like "god" and "just". This phrasing then resulted in what's now referred to as the problem of theodicy. Conceptually, it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem but suggesting that there were originally people, untroubled by ideas of a god, yet burdened with a JWH and then came up with the concept of a just god to make more sense of how the JWH could work irl is pretty far-fetched.

Hence, it seems more plausible to assume the opposite: The belief in a just god, under the presence of evil in the world leads to various explanations, trying to reconcile that seeming inconsistency, and the JWH is one of these explanations. Later on, some problems if this explanation emerge and give rise to theological discussions such as the PoE.

Needless to say, and this has been pointed out to you repeatedly, few believers hold that the existence of evil is routinely rendered as "God does bad things to people". So, your continuance of clinging to that notion casts doubt on your ability to even characterize the religious situation you're trying to explain (via JWH and its relation to the PoE) correctly (i.e. in a way that theists would agree to be accurate), let alone provide an explanation that seems plausible to theists and atheists alike.

Not sure what you're saying here but the idea of sin is certainly not the belief that there's an invisible force that punishes you for committing a sin.

The idea of sin is simply the belief that there is morally wrong behavior, which, if morals are ultimately grounded in god imply a transgression against god, which is called sinning.

The belief that there's an invisible force that will punish you for committing a sin is not really what most theists believe either. It is, however, a biblical trope, and is discussed in biblical studies under the term act-and-consequence relationship or "connective justice". It has noting in particular to do with the PoE or theodicy.

If I did make a thread with such a lousy premise, and given the way it usually goes, I would expect someone to start arguing with me about whether or not the balls are really green.

If I can't 'put concepts on a table' occasionally then I have less reason to post here than I thought.

Oh gosh, confusion after confusion. Forget the "more likely to be a consequence" comment, it had nothing to do with the OP, I was just making an offhand remark about something Zumby said. It has no relevance to or bearing on the OP.

Actually what the bias claims is that people believe what you said but the truth is that it's mostly random. We're simply trying to impose order on a chaotic world because it allows us to function. Are you deliberately misstating how the bias works to make a point or have you failed to understand it?

There is no PoE for Atheists. I have no need to reconcile evil with a benevolent god because I don't believe in any gods. It's also a red herring. Atheists are subject to the JWH in other ways but they're not relevant ITT because we're not looking at atheists.

Also, I don't suggest that the Poe 'needs' explanation, I suggest that when Theists explain it in a way that reassures themselves, they may be experiencing the JWH.

Is my English so bad that these simple points are being confused by how I'm making them?

Is it? More far fetched than the idea that there are gods at all? If there are no gods, then we invented them for a reason and as Dawkins suggests, that might be a byproduct of cognitive mechanisms that had a different evolutionary purpose. However, this is not the argument I'm making ITT (it's similar but the the subject isn't the existence, or not, of god), nor do I want to go in that direction.

How can you say that 'few believers hold' anymore than I can say 'many believers hold' (Which I haven't said but which would be roundly pounced on if I did).

If you agree that the JWH is one of these explanations then are you not answering the OP? I wondered if it may play a part, you agree that it might.


Same difference. Possibly explained by the cognitive mechanism of the JWH.

Then why did you quote a specific part of my response and then respond to it with the broader argument. That is guaranteed to cause confusion.

People who are just looking for a discussion rather than to defend a position usually don't argue with the responses. And I didn't say you were trying to demonstrate the "belief in god" is false, but "belief in a just god".

But it IS relevant to your OP so it's somewhere you could start further investigation. For example, is the JWH cross-cultural? Does/did it happen in fatalistic societies or societies with morally ambivalent deities (particularly thinking of the Ancient Greeks here)? These are empirical questions to which you could, in principle, find the answer in the relevant literature.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it was a requirement that the first premise be universal (it's not). Rather I was saying that your specific argument would be valid if the first premise were a universal.

This is unclear and still invalid. It is invalid because it could be that even if all humans are susceptible to cognitive biases that they are not all susceptible to the specific JWH cognitive bias. If so, it could also be the case that only non-theists are susceptible to the JWH cognitive bias. Thus, the premises could all be true and the conclusion false, making the argument invalid.

Second, you are introducing a modal operator into the conclusion that doesn't appear in the premises ("may be", which I am understanding as meaning possibly). I think the reason you are doing this is because you implicitly recognize that the argument is not sound if the conclusion is phrased in the way it should be following your premises:

C1) Theists are susceptible to the JWH.

Notice also that I am interpreting (P2) as saying:

All humans are susceptible to cognitive biases.

Didn't realise that what I was doing had implications beyond being a casual remark.


Ok, then I'm not trying to prove that belief in a just god is false. I'm not really trying to prove anything is false so as much as suggesting an explanation for an observed behaviour. Even if I was right and the JWH is in play, it doesn't mean that there's no god or that god is or isn't just, only that some theists may be finding a reassuring solution for the PoE that is actually a built in cognitive mechanism acting on their thought process.

OK, then within the limits imposed by my lack of training in Psychology, I will do just that.

And we are supposed to smell that?

Cute but futile. Quite the opposite. You apparently are confused about the notions of reality and perception of reality. Biases influence our perception of reality. That's why they're biases, rather than just (accurate) observations. If a person perceives reality in a JWH-biased way, an objective case of observed evil (say, the electroshocking of subjects) ceases to be evil (i.e. unwarranted execeise of physical force on an innocent) but instead is perceived as a just consequence of what MUST have been prior bad action (i.e. a just punishment of a bad person). What the "objective" reality of that situation is, has no necessary causal bearing on the perception of the situation by the person.

If, now, the JWH is a bias that is the result/byproduct of some evolutionary cognitive mechanism and is therefore evolutionary ingrained in us (something you're now suggesting in passing just below - which leads me to smell that this is ... something you don't hold? Hold? Its hard to tell.), then our perception of reality is shaped by it. Through other, additional biases (such as confirmation bias), dissenting evidence will be suppressed, such that it doesn't interfer with our perception. Thus, if we take these claims and mechanisms at face value, our perception of reality will never stumble upon an "unjust evil" in the first place. You do see, I hope, how this could constitute a problem if you hold that the JWH is a means to explain perceived cases of objective evil (i.e. an evil that the JWH-influenced perceiver cannot construe as the just result of prior bad actions).

All of the highlighted parts represent unfounded claims. But you don't argue for that. So I guess you think it's ok to make them anyhoo.

Fair question. I can only speculate, but the answer might include phrases such as "is a catholic", "has studied theology for 15 semesters", "understands the terminology used, the theological implications involved etc".

Another case of some random thought, this time about sin and whatnot, you threw out that we were supposed to intuit was not really relevant? Or were we supposed to intuit what you meant, rather than what you said?

Well, yeah.

I wasn't trying to be cute. I haven't given a comprehensive list of the types of 'evil' that would be appropriate for the JWH although Dered and I did briefly touch on this down thread. I expect that some types of 'bad things' are not the kind that we can rationalise to ourselves in the manner that the JWH causes, and some are. The difference between the two or what falls into what category isn't important, for the sake of the dicussion we can assume that some are (since the JWH exists) and that those are the ones that are pertinent.

Actually creating that list would be very difficult, frought with debate, and ultimately pointless. Either we accept that some bad things are rationalised through the cognitive mechanism JWH, or we don't ans we say that JWH is bunk.

If there are no gods, then the gods we believe do exist are inventions. No unfounded claim there, no criticism, no hidden meaning, just a simple hypothesis It's also reasonable to assume that there was a cause for that invention since, as is obvious, we do believe in gods.

But, the mechanism for that cause is not within the scope of this thread. This has never been about whether or not gods exist. It is about the bahaviour of those who do believe that they exist. That there may be a suspicion that both behaviours are the result of cognitive bias in some part, large or small, is the only similarity.


Ok, even if I accept your 'few believers', then are are believers who do believe that "evil is routinely rendered as "God does bad things to people". and they may be experiencing the JWH when rationlising it to themselves. Whether or not they form a majority or a minority doesn't really detract from the premise of the OP. I fact, it's an interesting addition to it. 'Yes it may be true but it's not common'.

No, you replaced my words with your words and arrived at the same place, that there is something that people may rationalise using the JWH. I literally meant 'same difference'.

Hypotheses are ideally identified as such to be able to tell them apart from actual claims, or assumed general truths or premises. And just to show you that there ARE indeed claims which were not founded (as no argument against obv. counterexamples were provided):

1st claim: "We" did something. Counterexample: The Matrix. The machines invented but it wasn't us. Another counterexample would be to explain the belief in God as an emergent property, which would mean not "we" did something, but the process of evolution did (to us).
2nd claim: Something was "invented":
Counterexample: The belief in god is an emergent property of a number of cognitive biases. If so, the belief in god woud be no more "invented" as the shinyness of a diamond, which is not a property of the individual carbon atoms but the result of a specific arrangement of a number of carbon atoms. Any other explanation that doesn't refer to intentional stances would also suffice.
3d claim: It was done for a reason: Counterexample: It wasn't.

Heck, not even the red is beyond dispute.

It's beyond me how you can even say that, let alone not see how this potentially guts the entire discussion right here.

Me: X is plausible.
You: I thought about X, but I believe Y.
Me: Y is irrelevant to X
You: I never said it was relevant, I'm just throwing it out there.
Me: Then why say "I thought about X, but I believe Y"
You: It was just a casual remark.

This is why my point - does the JWH cause certain theistic beliefs or the does the cultural influence of certain theistic beliefs cause the JWH - is important to your OP. You've already conceded that you are unable to adjudicate between JWH as cultural artifact and JWH as cognitive mechanism, which means you have some work to do to support the bolded claim.

Great

You seem confused about the mind relationship's with some claimed "reality". There is nothing intrinsic about "number of carbon atoms" that make it more real than some conjencture Mightyboosh is making. It might be better, but that has to do with metrics of measurement and methodology. And let's be honest... we both know that is not a door you want opened in this debate.

So ironically, you are committing the exact same error you accuse him of making.

wat? (I mean, clearly I was just being pissy, but I didn't even use the word "intrinsic", nor "reality".)

Edit to add: If what you're saying is that by referring to some unspecified number of atoms, I'm making a similar unclear claim as I accuse MB of making - you're quite wrong (or misunderstood). I was just giving an example of the phenomenon of emergence, which is often explained by examples of crystals, dunes or weather phenomena. I could have stopped my counterexample of 2) after the first sentence. In any case, the example didn't hinge on me specifying how many atoms lead to diamonds exhibiting shinyness, but merely on the phenomenon of emergence being "real".

I haven't been following all of the logical arguments very closely so I apologize if what I'm about to write is either completely redundant or obnoxiously wishy washy:

Even if MB has yet to find a logically valid way of expressing his argument or whatever, I think I would have no problem with the idea that the tendency to believe that the universe is "just" (in some way) is fairly universal and manifests itself also in religious contexts. I wouldn't say it provides cover for the PoE, but the whole reason the PoE is an actual problem for anyone is because the notion that God is good (or just, or however) is quite strong.

That said, I think even if you grant that humans have some natural tendency to believe in Justice, I don't think the observation of that tendency would dissuade a theist from their belief by itself. We just say that tendency exists because it is given by God.

I think that perhaps MB sees it as sort of "God of the Gaps" kind of thing, where having provided some alternative explanation for the existence of that tendency (i.e that it's neurological, or any other explanation from evolutionary biology) the theist is supposed to realize that God is not necessary to explain the tendency. But if so, I don't find it persuasive because I don't really approach the question from that direction in the first place. I didn't start out with some overwhelming intuition about Justice and then find theism to be the only viable explanation for it. My belief in God doesn't really hinge at all on God being able to explain why I believe in Justice. It's more like the other way around.

And because of that, I feel like the entire line of argument is one level removed from a much more powerful argument, that being the PoE itself. That deals with whether the universe actually is just in any way, and whether the lack of justice that we see is compatible with an understanding of God. That seems far more important than questions about the nature of my beliefs about the justness of the universe. If the argument from the PoE succeeds, it's almost irrelevant where my belief in Justice comes from. And if some theodicy succeeds, any particular mechanism underlying such a cognitive bias can pretty easily be incorporated into a theistic account of that theodicy

tame_deuces has misunderstood your point completely, don't worry about it.

Pretty close to where I am on it. Except of course for the given by god bit.

Actually no, I wasn't really going anywhere with it. I'm not trying to explain evil, or suggest that god doesn't exist. Merely that the JWH manifests in theists as well as atheists and might have some impact on how theists deal with the PoE. Even if, as a theist, you admitted the possibility that the tendency may be affecting your perspective on this very specific issue, I doubt it would change anything about how you see the world.

I wish I'd never mentioned the PoE because of this. Perhaps I should have restricted the premise to 'bad things' but the PoE is a recognised problem that impacts on many theists and ultimately, any level of bad thing is surely just going to be part of that greater problem

Saying an idea isn't invented because it might be emergent is the intellectual equivalent of tying your shoelaces together. When you in addition claim counterexamples make an argument unfounded, you're lining to run 110m hurdles with them.

Other than that I'm not certain why criticism should be worrying if it is legitimate and not worrying when it is somehow illegitimate. Seems to me this should really be the other way around.

You've just not understood Freteloo's point. "Invented" implies "contrived" or "artifical", as per the definition he posted. "Emergent" (in the context of underlying cognitive structures) implies "natural". Artificial and natural are antonyms. Prima facie, there is a tension that MB has not recognised.

But even if this argument doesn't actually hold, it has nothing to do with your comments about "the mind relationship's with some claimed reality" or carbon being "more real" or w/e.

English is not Freteloo's first language so my comment was meant to reassure him that his point was perfectly clear (to me, at least), despite you misreading it.

Are you familiar with the tactic of attacking a proposed argument by providing counterexamples that undermine its validity?

"If there are no gods [yet some/many of us believe in them anyhow], then we invented them for a reason"

Depending on where you put the focus, this argument takes the evident belief in God (under the assumption that there is no god) and deduces three different things: that "we" did something, that it was an "inventing" and that it was done "for a reason".

If construing the belief in god as an emergent feature of underlying cognitive processes is plausible, then the initial argument is shown to rely on additional claims, not mentioned and/or argued for (for example: the belief in god must be the result of invention). I was attacking an argument about, not a proposed explanation of the belief in god(s).

But as it turned out, all of this is just one big footnote, since the original statement was a remark of which MB assumed everyone intuitively could see the attached sign flashing "attention, idle guessing; no actual claim made."

Actually I have and I wish I hadn't even answered the point since I don't think it's relevant to the OP. Were I to discuss it, I'd be just as happy to use 'emerged' as 'invented' because either way it doesn't change that religion might be a byproduct of our cognitive tendencies. In fact, emergent is a better way to describe it.

I've done a little research on the JWH (there isn't actually much material available) and it appears to be Neurological in origin but reinforced culturally. I don't think that changes my OP.

Not 'idle guessing', just poorly worded. I was just trying to find a way to articulate the alternative to there actually being no gods. I'd be happy to go with 'emergent' if I were having that discussion, but I'm not. I love the concept of emergence.

Dostoevsky talks about this in the 2 chapters before The Grand Inquisitor, where Ivan and his lil' bro are talking in the pub.

He (Ivan) mentions even if an event happened which objectively justified and explained everything and why it is what it is, it still would not atone for the tears shed by the little girl locked in the outhouse at night by her aristocratic parents. He also gives other, more brutal examples of how children are merely the medium for adults to exercise their evil id and fatalism.

Basically saying because everything is relative when it happens, what is the point of "justice" or understanding at a later point.

Even if this event was a God coming down to Earth or something akin, all those atrocities are forever horrifying and painful to the relative perspective of the victim.

This basically leads Ivan to conclude even if a theory of everything was proven, he would not be impressed -- he says "Let even the parallel lines meet and let me see them meet, myself – I shall see and I shall say they’ve met, but I still won’t accept it.”

So yeah philosophically speaking relativity is a bitch, there is never ever atonement. A moment is a moment and it is forever impressed, even the little babies thrown high in the air and caught on Turkish swords (another real life example Ivan mentions).

And Ivan knows no amount of spiritual proof of God are scientific proof of everything, can change this.