一如既往地喜欢你的节目。
我喜欢伍迪·艾伦关于相信上帝存在的说法。
Something long the lines that he would believe in god when he received a sign. Like a lot of money in a Swiss bank account in his name.

I just found your show on the radio and i enjoy it very much. Right now in school we are reading Sophies World. This book is filled with many famous Philosophers and changes in society. The topic last night is very interesting and it helped me look at the existence of God in some new perspectives. I come from a very religious family but i myself am agnostic. Keep up the good work!
::letizia

我同意关于宗教概念的文明讨论是一个重大成就(这是我不喜欢宗教的原因之一，但我将把这个问题留到下次讨论)。
One point from the show on which I would like to hear more is the "regularities of succession" and "temporal orders" which you (Phil) spoke of as indicating the presence of some kind of intelligent design, but this never got identified in more detail before you turned to the argument based on "fine tuning" of key parameters in physics.
With regard to that "fine tuning" argument, it seems to me to be possibly defeated by a "many worlds" theory of physics. (Not that I subscribe to one at this point, but I can imagine that a useful one might at some point be developed.) So the mystery of fine tuning, while not exactly explained, does not seem inexplicable. And if it's not inexplicable then it does not force the introduction of a "god" concept.
你提出一个精细调整的物理宇宙的“偶然存在”意味着一些非偶然实体的存在，这对我来说是新的，但我不确定它是否真的超出了第一原因和完美和想象的论点的综合力量。
When you assert above that you did not "resolve the issue, either by agreeing that there are rationally compelling reasons for the existence of God, or rationally compelling reasons against God?s existence", I wonder why you denied caller Paul's suggestion that the proposition you defended is empty of content. It is only when the putative god is given some consequential characteristics that the question of existence or not becomes meaningful. My God may be a figment of my imagination for which I can find no referent in external reality. Is there any consequence of the non-existence of your god which contradicts any aspect of my experience (or of any experience which I can be shown how to have)?
我的最后一个问题来自于你对保罗的回应，你提到了“本体论”的论点，包括善、完美等，但没有时间更详细地解释。你能不能补充一点，为什么代表或体现这些概念的东西，应该与回答宇宙为什么会这样存在这个问题的东西是一样的?
Thanks again for a great show.
Alan Cooper

It was I who called and proposed an argument from irrelevance: that the question of whether God exists is irrelevant because no further consequence follows from God's existence. Therefore one need be neither a theist, an atheist, or an agnostic, because the issue itself is simply irrelevant. On this view, we can take a cue from Richard Rorty and simply change the topic of conversation, or from Wittgenstein and pass over in silence, so that we need not bother with the trouble of so much as being an agnostic. The tremendous effort of practicing agnosticism which T. H. Huxley describes in his famous essay "Agnosticism" could simply be sidestepped, as avoiding a potentially burdensome but unnecessary obstacle.
我提出这个论点的(部分)动机是最近重读了柏拉图的《善论》(Euthyphro)。苏格拉底提出了一个问题，什么是虔诚的虔诚，因为它被众神所爱，还是因为它是虔诚的而被众神所爱?请允许我重新表述一下:一件物品的内在价值是因为上帝重视它，还是因为它本身就有价值?如果上帝重视它是因为它具有内在价值，那么就内在价值而言，上帝似乎是多余的。在这种情况下，似乎重要的是内在价值本身，而不是上帝。
据我回忆，菲尔·克莱顿似乎提出了这样的论点:仅仅讨论上帝存在的事实本身就证明上帝的存在是有后果的。所以即使我们不同意上帝的存在，我们已经证明上帝很重要。因此，有神论者对无神论者和不可知论者取得某种胜利，仅仅是因为他们一开始就谈论上帝。在这一点上，我发现自己想起了理查德•道金斯(Richard Dawkins)和已故的斯蒂芬•杰伊•古尔德(Stephen Jay Gould)的政策，即干脆不与进化生物学的反对者辩论，因为这样做的事实本身就赋予了反对者的论点以正当性。
当我的“无关性”论证与菲尔的“相关性”论证放在一起时，这种分歧似乎是有目的性的。对上帝的讨论涉及到上帝的存在是有后果的，因为如果没有其他事情，他的存在对我们很重要，是我们活动的最终原因。但是，改变话题或保持沉默似乎意味着上帝对我们并不重要，因为上帝不是我们活动的最终原因。
Why then did I bother to call the radio show and raise the irrelevance argument in the first place? Am I not conceding to Phil's thesis that God is relevant? I don't think so. Only if it had been up to me to choose the topic of discussion do I think I could be charged with unqualified voluntarily participation. And herein lies a problem, I believe, with the type of teleological argument that Phil seemed to make. Only when the interlocutors are entirely free from compulsion to participate can they be said to find the existence of God a genuine concern. But as soon as compulsion enters into the picture, it seems to me, one cannot in truth say that the discussion proves that God is relevant -- at least not to those who have been forced to discuss the matter. (This is not to say I did not enjoy the discussion -- I did! But the topic was not my choice.)
However, teleological arguments suffer from another notorious difficulty. Even if we grant that a final cause is real as a final cause, i.e. it really is that for the sake of which we act, and even if we grant that the existence of the final cause has consequences, it still does not follow that the final cause actually does exist.
I too would love to hear Phil Clayton's thoughts about this.
Cheers,
-paul

Hi Paul,
While we are waiting to hear from Phil perhaps I could respond to a couple of your comments.
First, I would like to add to your response to the idea that discussion of the existence of God implies that such existence has consequences, which you refute by claiming that compulsion exempts your participation from proving anything. I agree, but would go further.
我本人并没有被强迫参加讨论，但我不希望我的参与被当作证明上帝是否存在的证据。
事实上，我讨论上帝的存在，并不是因为我相信上帝的存在本身会产生后果，而是因为我相信相信上帝的存在会产生后果(其中一些可能是好的，但许多肯定是坏的)。
And to your penultimate paragraph I would add that for the existence of a final cause to have consequences would actually make it less likely to exist - since failure of the consequence to occur would imply non-existence of the cause, whereas what follows from its existence might actually still occur in the absence of that existence as a consequence something else. (This is why I asked Phil for a non-occurring consequence of non-existence rather than a consequence of existence.)
cheers,
Alan

Hi Alan,
We have the following argument:
P1: If God exists, then there are consequences.
P2: There are no consequences.
-----------------------------------------------
C:所以，上帝不存在。
The conclusion follows from the premises by modus tollens, i.e. denying the consequent.
Alan, if I understand you correctly, we both agree that P1 is dubious, and that regardless of P2 the argument cannot properly be judged sound because we do not know that P1 is true.
I think Phil would probably find this argument unsound because he would find P2 false while agreeing with P1.
So I think all three of us would agree that this argument is unsound, although Alan and I for one reason, Phil for another.
Now, Alan suggests shifting the burden of proof onto the theist by demanding an example of some non-occuring consequence of God's non-existence, so as to rephrase the argument like this:
P'1: If God does not exist, then there are consequences.
P'2: There are no consequences.
------------------------------------------------
C': Therefore, God exists.
这也是一个有效的论点。而且，它反过来把有神论者置于不利的地位，即必须证明否定的普遍性，即没有结果，而无神论者只需要提出一个结果的例子就可以获胜。
Notice that C and C' are contradictories, i.e. necessarily either C is true or C' is true, but not both. This means that anyone either agreeing or disagreeing with the proposition that God exists
must reject exactly one of these conclusions, either C or C'. And, because these are valid arguments, they must also reject at least one premise P1, P2, P'1, or P'2.
The theist will reject P2 while the atheist will reject P'2. But both theist and atheist will probably accept P1 and P'1. Indeed, they must accept at least one of these in order for their own argument to win.
What I'm advocating, on the contrary, is that we call both P1 and P'1 into question. I think it is entirely possible that God could exist with no consequences, and that God could be non-existent with no consequences. I am not convinced that either P1 or P'1 is true. So my position differs from what I take to be a standard agnostic position, which is to suspend judgment on P2 and P'2, while accepting or remaining neutral about P1 and P'1.
我称这个为无关论点，因为如果P1和P1 '1都不为真，那么P2或P2为真都是无关的，不管C或C'为真。虽然有神论者、无神论者和不可知论者可能会争论P2和P2，但我将简单地把讨论的话题转移到一些相关的事情上。
Cheers,
-paul

Hi Paul,
I think it is possible (and necessary) to be more lenient with the theists than you suggest, since replacing your P2' with:-
P2": at least one of the predicted consequences of non-existence fails to occur
still gives a valid argument for existence.
但是，尽管现在的标准如此之低，我从未见过任何一个可以检验的例子，如果没有神存在，它就一定是真的。(当然，我认为“如果没有设计师，我们就不会有眼睛”等等，但在每一种情况下，所谓的证明都相当于“我无法想象没有设计师会发生什么”，不幸的是，所有* *真正证明的是他们自己缺乏想象力(讽刺的是，他们对自己所缺乏的能力完全自信——即想象和考虑所有非神论的可能性)。
Nonetheless, there are people much smarter than I who do believe in the existence of gods that they consider not to be irrelevant. Such people never claim to prove the existence of their gods on rational grounds, nor do they identify observable consequences of such existence. The relevance of these gods derives, so far as I can tell, not from observable consequences but rather from what I call "exhortatory consequences" because belief in such a god appears to demand (and enable?) certain patterns of behaviour from the believer.
I think I have some inkling of why such people believe, but I do not really understand it and I wish I did.
-Alan

Alan,
What I find interesting are the justifications and logical maneuverings employed by theists and atheists.
为了确认或否认上帝的存在，人们不需要知道上帝是否存在。More generally, in order to believe that P (where P is any proposition) it is not necessary to know that P.
But if we are to be consistent then it is necessary to deny the knowledge claims of those with whom we disagree. In order to consistently believe that P, we must reject as invalid or unsound any argument purporting to demonstrate that not-P.
所以我们有信仰的差异。为了相信P，我们不需要知道P，但是我们需要拒绝别人的任何声明来知道非P。为了相信上帝存在/不存在，我们不需要知道上帝存在/不存在，但我们确实需要拒绝任何声称能证明与我们信仰相反的论点。至少如果我们要保持一致的话。
This is significant, I believe, because it means that if we wish to study the rationale behind a theist or atheist's belief, we should perhaps not look to see what arguments are adduced in support of their belief, but rather to see what arguments are adduced to reject the opposing view. That is, in order to understand why one believes that P, it is typically more useful and informative to understand why one does not believe that not-P, rather than to understand why one believes that P.
So I agree that many who believe do not claim to have knowledge. Knowledge is optional for belief. But at the same time everyone who believes must reject the knowledge claims of those who disagree, on pain of inconsistency. So the rejection of knowledge is not optional for belief. This is where things get interesting, I think, because nobody can consistently believe without at the same time rejecting the contradiction of what one believes.
But we can take all this a step further. Anyone who rejects a knowledge claim can be expected to provide reasons why they reject it. These reasons are presumably applicable to any argument, not just arguments with which one disagrees. So by criticizing opposing arguments, the theist/atheist gives criteria for evaluating any belief about God's existence, including their own. In this way the believer provides the criticism of his own belief about God.
例如，有神论者可能会拒绝上帝不存在的论点，理由是我们不知道前提为真。但是，如果我们不知道一个命题是正确的，就必须放弃对它的信仰，那么有神论者也必须放弃对上帝存在这一命题的信仰，除非已知它是正确的。因此有神论者可以反驳自己的信仰。
So, Alan, I agree that many intelligent people are theists without claiming to know their belief is true. But that's irrelevant. No theist can accept the atheist's knowledge claims, and if we are to apply this rejection of knowledge claims to all beliefs equally, then it would seem the theist must abandon his own belief in God as well.
事实上，正是在这一点上，我对许多有神论者和无神论者提出了批评。如果一个信念因为我们不知道它是正确的而被拒绝，那么这个矛盾的信念也应该被拒绝，如果我们不知道它是正确的。我们不能总是两面都有，因为我们不知道某一种信仰是对的而拒绝它，同时接受另一种信仰，即使我们也不知道它是对的。
-paul