Alex Strait

Father, husband, software engineer, agentic ai specialist, musician, gamer, writer, American deist. 🇺🇸

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

Enlightenment stands in tyranny's way.

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

Let's take a look at your reasons here:

"natural systems evolve chaotically."

"virtually everywhere in the universe outside our planet's thin skin is violently hostile to life."

"sapience has and will occupy only a tiny fraction of its lifespan."

Every one of these has the assumption baked in that you are not only capable of discerning what is or is not necessary for life in the universe, but have done so.

What you shrug off as "chaotic" and "hostile" might just as easy be necessary conditions. It might just take 30 billion years and a whole lot of chaos to arrive at the point where you sum it all up and slap on those labels.

But you could stop and focus on the fact that you can reason at all. That's what should make you pause and think because you very well could be the demonstration that you've been seeking.

My advice is to not zero in on a specific telos because then you just get lost in the weeds. Better to first settle on a general telos or not.

Imagine if you woke up with total amnesia in one of those safe rooms where you have to figure out how to get out. You'd first have to realize that there was a goal in general before you could then start to explore and discover the specifics.

Likewise, with the telos of the universe we've all just "woken up" in the middle of a process and the first step is identifying the method, if any, to the madness. That's what the philosophical arguments for God like the transcendental/presuppositional/Aquinas type point towards. Not the specifics, but the general direction.

Have a good day. 🙂

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

@RealLindellTV @CarrieB78357467 @POTUS This kind of rhetoric is just tribalism. A perfect example of why actual substantive discussion/debate is necessary. Otherwise you just have a "he said/she said" situation and sides are taken. We need a dialectic not a team sport. 🤦‍♂️

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

Your hypothetical includes an analogy which is what I'm zeroing in on not accusing you of claiming the hypothetical person *is* believing due to fear.

To your question: if someone psychoanalyzes (a basis for assuming the reason) my belief in God I tend to feel uncomfortable because I don't think they're really in a position to do that. So it's presumptuous and rude which can be insulting, yes. Which is precisely why I avoid mind reading others.

That said, when people say "you're agnostic/atheist and they all secretly believe in God" it's usually just a lazy shorthand for the transcendental/presuppositional argument which can come across as presumptuous in the same way, but is actually a valid philosophical position to hold.

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

@cgp42 @hookskat No, I didn't argue that you must believe in God to trust your senses. But that you can often trace when people say "atheists actually believe in God" back to a coherent and long-standing philosophical argument. The laziness is reducing that to what amounts to mind reading.

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

@still_fnctional @hookskat Why doesn't it seem to? If I said "I'm agnostic on the claim that you're a criminal, you seem guilty, but how can I know? Why should I think you're innocent?"

Does that sound like I'm neutral?

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

@still_fnctional @hookskat I didn't say that it was enough to conclude, you asked for a reason and I gave you at least three. I'm also pointing out your flawed methodology that begins with the position of "no teleology" as your null hypothesis even though your starting point cannot possibly be neutral.

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

You can't be a neutral observer. No human can because to observe means you've already assumed that you are capable of observation which implies you believe in the reliability of your senses, that reality is rational and that what your observing operates on immutable laws. All of which are evidences already available for you to coherently argue for teleology in the universe.

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

It's possible to behave in such a way that implies assumptions irrespective of that person's conscious awareness of them.

Do your actions (any) implicitly operate on the assumption of a purpose to yourself and your environment or not? Both assumptions fall prey to your critique.

If we say the default is no purpose then your challenge equally applies in the inverse: why cant "nature" just be made up in our heads to explain away a reality that actually has purpose?

You're just kicking the can down the road because you too are subject to your own critique.

What is your default? Purpose or no purpose? Both positions have to be defended.

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

Yes, I agree but I think you're still straw manning them in a sense with your analogy. Because what you're encountering is a condensed, lazy version of a philosophically coherent position.

Likewise, if someone said that my belief is just because I'm afraid of death then I'd have a moment of of frustration, for sure, but if I unpack that what I find is unbelief that's trying to explain why I do believe with psychoanalysis. It's a lazy and condensed version of a deeper secular philosophical stance.

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

@mischavdburg Some of the coding principles and conventions are definitely challenged by AI. For example the spaces/tabs debate is effectively silenced by the advent of AI coding agents. But at the end of the day it's a language (human) model which still requires coherent semantic structure.

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

@Fair_and_Biased People with DS deserve to be born, but parents also deserve to have a life free from extreme burden. The happy middle ground is to ensure the parents have enough resources and help so they don't feel they have to choose between their quality of life and having a child with DS.

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

@darwintojesus Healthy pride is possible for beings bestowed with free will. If we own our actions then we deserve some credit for the good those actions produce and blame for the bad. The problem isn't that pride is inherently sinful, but it becomes a problem when we unduly inflate ourselves.

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

@JonHammond1701 @darwintojesus Bats, birds, bears, beets... battlestar galactica.

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

@genealogy1968 @atensnut She didn’t say rape is sexy. She said most people think of it that way (the fantasies), which is why she avoids the word for what happened to her. She described it as non-sexual and painful.

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

@jamesqquick But you didn't forget that you *could* checkout a new branch, what that means and why it exists. Syntax may get rusty, but the core concepts stick.

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

@NoahKingJr I would switch to the AI harness I used Claude to make.

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

Agree to a point, but the industry of software ended up a hot mess of abstraction layers that were essentially tribes fighting over extreme wealth. This created bloat that made the barrier to entry unreasonable and a forever shifting tech landscape that you could never settle in.

With AI agents all of it is funnelled through a final layer of abstraction that can cut through all of that noise and allow people to think architecturally rather than have to exist in the current next thing until the another tribe formed and a new cycle began. I personally will never look back. Agents are the endgame and I'm hear for it. They still have a ways to go, but the past ways of doing things are fading away and that's a good thing.

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

That's nonsensical. You wouldn't need to allude to a theodicy, like you did, if you didn't think it was a problem. You just don't flesh it out which is what makes it hand waving. If you're going to appeal to the content of reality as evidence of design then you need to also show why, using the same method, why exquisite destruction and suffering don't equally point to a design. A bomb is really good for destroying because it's designed to do so. And reality is chalk full of bombs, but somehow God gets all the credit and none of the blame? It just doesn't add up.

[Alex Strait @AlexTheStrait]

I'm pointing out the asymmetry between the level of attention to detail you put on creation vs the destructive forces in our reality. The former you go into meticulous often scientific detail, but the latter you explain by way of Judeo-Christian theology. But there's just as much, if not more, destruction and suffering content available for you to likewise go over with a fine tooth comb. But you just don't which is a curious inconsistency.

It seems to me that you are using a story to understand suffering, but leaning on the data to understand creation. Isn't that is what you accuse atheists of doing with evolution? That they just have a story?

As far as a moral standard goes I agree with you insofar as God provides that grounding, but that doesn't necessarily mean natural evil is a myth. It doesn't mean that data is irrelevant which is why the problem of evil has always plagued theists over the centuries. I think that to hand wave it a way, in the way that you are doing, is a philosophical mistake.