Have you ever had a religious or supernatural experience?

[Kingpoleon]

I'm curious as to how you draw the line directly from the quantum state to disproving materialism/determinism. Obviously I see the connection-- but the fact that matter (albeit subatomic matter) behaves in a counterintuitive way does not in itself disprove materialism, yes? There is a big difference between materialism and determinism. To disprove materialism, you would have to prove that factors outside of the material world (supernatural factors, for example) interact with the material world and influence causation. To disprove determinism, you would have to establish the existence of an "uncaused cause"-- something that behaves truly randomly and operates outside the realm of the laws of causation. These are two different tasks; you could have a nonmaterialistic deterministic world (such as the Calvinists argue for) just as easily as you could have a materialistic nondeterministic world. In any case, the fact that certain pieces of matter behave in as-yet-unexplained ways does not disprove either materialism or determinism; such an argument still only addresses physical particles, and it also does not sufficiently demonstrate that the behavior of such particles was not predetermined by prior causes.

Quantum mechanics, such as it is, and modern physics research is problematic for materialism because atoms aren’t exactly physical “things” as such. I do agree that laws and causality approach one rather than zero - I don’t think they reach one absolutely, because to do so would be to violate themselves.

Materialism necessitates the principles of locality and local causation. Ronald Hanson, in 2015, demonstrated lack of locality on particles more than a kilometer apart. Local realist theories which also hinge upon determinism(statistical dependence) and thus a lack of free will are therefore highly implausible.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1508.05949.pdf

I don't like the "agnostic" label because I think it's a cop-out. I think the only fair way of looking at the dilemma of god is to say that you cannot know for sure whether or not such a supernatural force exists, but there is currently not enough evidence to make a convincing argument for it. I don't think you'll meet many atheists who say they know for sure that there is no god; the consensus view is that a godless world is the only logical interpretation given the information we have at present.

For the record, this will hold true even if the Rapture happens one day and the Christian god is revealed to be the one true deity-- the people who currently believe in god today will always have been wrong to do so, because they never had the proper amount of evidence to jump to such a conclusion.

I actually concur with you about the implications of opposing agnosticism. Even if there is no afterlife or God, the people who currently do not believe in God today will always have been wrong to do so, because the evidence suggests a contrary interpretation of the facts.

Ok, but do you believe that there have been miracles since the 19th century or not? Because in one post you said that the odds of there being none during that time period were the same as George Washington not having existed.

None which I believe are satisfactory, but that could result from my own lack of research. My absence of evidence thus far is not conclusive evidence of absence, hence why I am an advocate of moderate cessation. However, I don’t think the materialist has correctly evaluated these because the presumption of zero without any theological reasoning is rather poor grounding.

[Kingpoleon]

To be clear, all you have done in this thread is argue against materialism and determinism. Some of your arguments are fair-minded and convincing. However, you have not yet made a single reasonable argument for the existence of a creator, and I think you know that.

That is not my intent. We still do not know that the universe began from nothing. My own view is rather like Maimonides here: I think it more likely that the Big Bang was preceded by a “Big Bounce” of sorts and view God more as a sustainer in that sense than a Creator. Of course, the physicists will ultimately conclude upon this, but from my own study of physics from a number of books, I think the Big Bounce is most likely. I should point out, here, that you haven’t “begun from nothing,” as you previously implied. Materialistic determinism is your belief system, not the absence of one. It is far too intuitive of an idea to really grasp me - I have always been highly suspicious of people who make arguments from “common sense,” because it is never followed by sensible things. Even Thomas Nagel, who is heads and shoulders above almost all of his peers, has this annoying habit.

So... you believe that miracles have happened in the past 100 years, but you've never heard of any that were convincing to you? Then why cite Craig Keener? The man blathers on endlessly about the "miracles" he supposedly witnessed while running a 102-degree fever in the Congo or whatever; his picture should appear beside the dictionary definition of "unconvincing."

Keener is a rather serious scholar and is one of the most cited people in New Testament academia, a prestigious field in its own right. You don’t get your Doctorate at Duke and teach at Asbury unless you are a seriously intelligent person. The main thing Keener is notable for in New Testament studies is his book The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, which caused a bit of a revolution in his field by reframing Jesus’s Jewish background. If you’d actually like to see a crazy person who “works” in NT studies, you should look into Richard Carrier, the world’s worst abuser of Bayesian statistics.

I believe it’s possible that miracles continued after the Apostolic Age, and those three are decidedly convincing. Now, I’m not absolutely convinced on them and could be convinced by hardline advocates of cessation. See here for further information on the topic.

[Kingpoleon]

I have always been highly suspicious of people who make arguments from “common sense”

This is a good place to leave this conversation. I have nothing to add.

You’re not actually suggesting that arguments from a gut feeling are better than arguments from empiricism, rationalism, and emotionalism, are you?

[Kingpoleon]

A reading list for those I have made interested in physics, neurology, and systems biology:

Dancing to the Tune of Life by Denis Noble
Systems Biology by Herbert Sauro
A Practical Guide to Cancer Systems Biology (translated from Chinese)
The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist
The Case Against Reality by Donald Hoffman
You Are Not Your Brain by Jeffrey Schwartz
After by Bruce Greyson
The Matter Myth by John Gribbin and Paul Davies
Modern Physics and Ancient Faith by Stephen Barr
The Waning of Materialism by two dozen authors

[Kingpoleon]

As far as common sense goes, it is a completely anti-science way of going around the world. In the most quantifiable intellectual field - chess - a grandmaster has the same odds of winning against an amateur adult who’s been playing ten years as against a five year old child. For us to pretend that common sense is a good metric in philosophy, metaphysics, physics, chemistry, biology, or economics is to be wrong. We have to deal with the literature as we can understand it and not at some random level we wish it were at. Everything in all of these fields we know runs deeply against “common sense,” and analytic philosophy still refuses, by and large, to admit that. Materialistic philosophers cling to an old way of thinking that physics disproved a hundred years ago and neurology forty years ago. They were wrong and remain wrong.

[Kingpoleon]

As far as common sense goes, it is a completely anti-science way of going around the world. In the most quantifiable intellectual field - chess - a grandmaster has the same odds of winning against an amateur adult who’s been playing ten years as against a five year old child. For us to pretend that common sense is a good metric in philosophy, metaphysics, physics, chemistry, biology, or economics is to be wrong. We have to deal with the literature as we can understand it and not at some random level we wish it were at. Everything in all of these fields we know runs deeply against “common sense,” and analytic philosophy still refuses, by and large, to admit that. Materialistic philosophers cling to an old way of thinking that physics disproved a hundred years ago and neurology forty years ago. They were wrong and remain wrong.

Perhaps you have a different definition of common sense than I do.

That would explain why you were so offended by my relentless attack upon it. I am afraid to say it, but the postmodernist points about meta narratives seem uncannily accurate.

[Kingpoleon]

Look, all I'm asking is that you admit that your faith is just that-- faith. You shouldn't feel the need to justify your beliefs using the language of science (which will inevitably result in disappointment). You cannot reason through a belief that you didn't arrive at through reason in the first place-- so why try?

This is an oddly presumptuous statement. It reminds me of an interesting tweet:

https://mobile.twitter.com/GHeathWhyte/status/1353620818102788096

I am rather confused as to your preference for fideistic religion rather than Thomistic religion. You are the first atheist I have met with such a preference.