Originally posted by Scott R:
The downside?
Well, it gives atheists and agnostics a turn on the martyr pole.
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quote:Without commenting on the ruling, it's worth noting that advocating prayer is implicitly advocating a religious belief.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
Hopefully given the Supreme Court's recent shift towards the right, it will eventually rule that the government, while not advocating any specific religion or religious belief, can recognize the value of religiousness in general.
quote:So let's just forget about all those non-religious taxpayers?
Originally posted by Tresopax:
Hopefully given the Supreme Court's recent shift towards the right, it will eventually rule that the government, while not advocating any specific religion or religious belief, can recognize the value of religiousness in general.
quote:No, we won't forget them any more than we forget anti-military folks on Veteran's Day.
So let's just forget about all those non-religious taxpayers?
quote:I hope so too. I suspect we may have different estimates of the said value, though.
Hopefully given the Supreme Court's recent shift towards the right, it will eventually rule that the government, while not advocating any specific religion or religious belief, can recognize the value of religiousness in general.
quote:I'm not sure if the analogy holds there, in a number of ways. The military and the government are intrinsically linked. Religion and the government are explicitly separated. Therefore, anti-military folks should not expect the same sort of freedoms that areligious folks demand, as one is protesting a well-established, constitutionally mandated structure of government, and the other is protesting something that's well understood that the government should not be involved in.
No, we won't forget them any more than we forget anti-military folks on Veteran's Day.
quote:And yet, it's government support for religious prayer. It doesn't really matter if they aren't supporting one religion over another, for to the non-religious, support of religion in general is bad enough. I don't see why we religious groups can't all get together and declare a National Day of Prayer. Why does it have to come from the national government?
I wouldn't say it is advocating a specific religious belief. It doesn't say who to pray to, or how to pray, or that prayers will be answered, or that all people ought to pray...
quote:I realize many religious folk will disagree with what I said above (many atheists do too!), but my main point is that we're always better off promoting education and rationality (something I can't imagine ANYONE would disagree with) wherever possible. I'm not interested in converting anyone to atheism, though if that's the end result, bonus!
Just wanted to offer some counter thoughts.
First off, let me make it clear that I fully support the decision, strongly disagree with the idea of a national prayer day, and think it's great that this has been accomplished.
But I also have some issues, and they mostly center around effectiveness and resources. So this ruling has come down, and this prayer day will cease to exist. And ideally that brings us all one step closer towards a truly secular society. But I question how much this act really helps us towards that goal. How many religious folks and organizations, who already have a less than favorable view of atheists (we're the least trusted minority in the country right? or is it least liked? or both?), will now have an even LESS favorable view of non-believers. Who see this is as yet another attack by us godless heathens on the values they hold so dear. Whether they are right or wrong to hold them is a different matter. If our goal is a world free from religious dogma in the public sphere and government, I don't think that putting people on the defensive and attacking them (whether that is what's happening or not is besides the point, that's how it is interpreted) is the most effective way to reach our goals.
It's not like we founded a religious society (regardless of what some christians will tell you), separation of church and state was written in from the beginning. The problem isn't a government or constitution that promotes religion, it's the continual influence of religious individuals generation after generation who wrongly infuse our government with religious principles. This will never go away until religion itself becomes less a part of the lives of individuals in our society, or at the very least, individuals grow up with a healthy respect for the principles set forth in the constitution (and more generally are aware of how their actions affect those around them). I know I tend to be in the minority on this, but I've always said the best way to create a society free from religious dogma is not to attack religions, but to promote education. To promote the study of science, and history, and philosophy (logic in particular), and even the study of religion (in a factual comparative sense). And so I think the time and resources spent battling things like this, and the many other legal battles fought by atheist organizations can be better spent. Separating Church and State is an attack on the values and beliefs of many religious people (in their minds), but just maybe, teaching them about the reasons for, and importance of, that separation, particularly while they are younger, can help them develop into adults with a respect for the idea. Maybe the resources of atheist organizations would be better spent in the education lobby above all else.
Or better yet, imagine if all the atheist organizations around the country banded together, and on the day of the national prayer day all volunteered in their local communities. Contact the press and make a big deal out of it. "On this day, when people of faith gather to pray, we have decided to go out and help our fellow man and those less fortunate". I think it makes a fantastic point.
Just some thoughts! I do think it's a great ruling, and I understand the importance and affects of legislating these issues, this is just some thoughts I've had in general when seeing similar court cases.
p.s. - I realize this was spearheaded by the FFRF, which right there in the title obviously has an agenda different from a humanist group lets say, but I think my broader points still are relevant!
quote:Except that having a military has tangible benefits for the country. Having a religion does not. No benefits unique to religion, anyway.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
No, we won't forget them any more than we forget anti-military folks on Veteran's Day.
quote:I would remove the one line stating who to pray to. Other than that, I think it is suggesting prayer in a way that is not specific to any religion or nonreligious belief system. It specifically recognizes the freedom to not worship in the proclamation.
Throughout our Nation’s history, Americans have come together in moments of great challenge and uncertainty to humble themselves in prayer. In 1775, as the Continental Congress began the task of forging a new Nation, colonists were asked to observe a day of quiet humiliation and prayer. Almost a century later, as the flames of the Civil War burned from north to south, President Lincoln and the Congress once again asked the American people to pray as the fate of their Nation hung in the balance.
It is in that spirit of unity and reflection that we once again designate the first Thursday in May as the National Day of Prayer. Let us remember those who came before us, and let us each give thanks for the courage and compassion shown by so many in this country and around the world.
On this day of unity and prayer, let us also honor the service and sacrifice of the men and women of the United States Armed Forces. We celebrate their commitment to uphold our highest ideals, and we recognize that it is because of them that we continue to live in a Nation where people of all faiths can worship or not worship according to the dictates of their conscience.
Let us also use this day to come together in a moment of peace and goodwill. Our world grows smaller by the day, and our varied beliefs can bring us together to feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted; to make peace where there is strife; and to lift up those who have fallen on hard times. As we observe this day of prayer, we remember the one law that binds all great religions together: the Golden Rule, and its call to love one another; to understand one another; and to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth.
The Congress, by Public Law 100-307, as amended, has called on the President to issue each year a proclamation designating the first Thursday in May as a “National Day of Prayer.”
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 7, 2009, as a National Day of Prayer. I call upon Americans to pray in thanksgiving for our freedoms and blessings and to ask for God’s continued guidance, grace, and protection for this land that we love.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this seventh day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.
BARACK OBAMA
quote:So shouldn't it be the "National Choose to Worship or Not Worship Day"?
Originally posted by Tresopax:
It specifically recognizes the freedom to not worship in the proclamation.
quote:I think I agree with this to some extent, but the fact is that that different people naturally gravitate to different priorities. I think there are relatively few people who systematically say "okay, what is the best thing I can possibly do to improve the world" and then do it. If I were choosing how to spend my time by that guideline, dealing with persecution of atheism in America wouldn't register as a blip.
I realize many religious folk will disagree with what I said above (many atheists do too!), but my main point is that we're always better off promoting education and rationality (something I can't imagine ANYONE would disagree with) wherever possible. I'm not interested in converting anyone to atheism, though if that's the end result, bonus!
quote:QFT
Originally posted by Tresopax:
I wouldn't say it is advocating a specific religious belief. It doesn't say who to pray to, or how to pray, or that prayers will be answered, or that all people ought to pray... it just says that prayer in general is a thing to be celebrated with a day.
quote:No, we won't forget them any more than we forget anti-military folks on Veteran's Day.
So let's just forget about all those non-religious taxpayers?
quote:That's not the point.
Originally posted by Javert:
quote:Except that having a military has tangible benefits for the country. Having a religion does not. No benefits unique to religion, anyway.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
No, we won't forget them any more than we forget anti-military folks on Veteran's Day.
quote:Victiiimm cooompleeex.
Originally posted by Javert:
My only concern is to wonder how long before it's claimed this ruling means that no one is allowed to pray.
quote:True, but my point is, groups like this do make these issues a priority. And my personal opinion is that their method of achieving their goals is not the most efficient way they can be going about things. Give me a Neil deGrasse Tyson over a Dawkins any day.
Originally posted by Raymond Arnold:
quote:I think I agree with this to some extent, but the fact is that that different people naturally gravitate to different priorities. I think there are relatively few people who systematically say "okay, what is the best thing I can possibly do to improve the world" and then do it. If I were choosing how to spend my time by that guideline, dealing with persecution of atheism in America wouldn't register as a blip.
I realize many religious folk will disagree with what I said above (many atheists do too!), but my main point is that we're always better off promoting education and rationality (something I can't imagine ANYONE would disagree with) wherever possible. I'm not interested in converting anyone to atheism, though if that's the end result, bonus!
quote:kmbboots, I would argue that we were founded by individuals of varying religiosity, who created a government under the principle of separation of church and state in large part to protect religious freedoms of individuals, which just as importantly, protects us all from state sponsored religion. It's an important distinction I think.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Strider, if you really want to go back to the beginning, religion was inextricably bound to civil government and was the reason most of the original settlers came to this continent. We were founded, in the most part, by and for religion.
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To when the idea that civil government should not enforce religious belief and practice was radical enough to get a person banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
quote:See Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, Mary Dyer...
Originally posted by aspectre:
On the contrary, the founding charters explicitly mention freedom <b>from</b> religion as well as freedom <b>of</b> religion.
quote:Can you point me to the founding charters that mention freedom from religion?
Originally posted by aspectre:
On the contrary, the founding charters explicitly mention freedom <b>from</b> religion as well as freedom <b>of</b> religion.
quote:Hm. KoM, can you produce a valid birth certificate?
Originally posted by King of Men:
I mean, KoM for President 2032, by all means;
quote:Not at all QFT The military is the governments job. Telling people to pray most certainly is not.
Originally posted by Kwea:
quote:QFT
Originally posted by Tresopax:
I wouldn't say it is advocating a specific religious belief. It doesn't say who to pray to, or how to pray, or that prayers will be answered, or that all people ought to pray... it just says that prayer in general is a thing to be celebrated with a day.
quote:No, we won't forget them any more than we forget anti-military folks on Veteran's Day.
So let's just forget about all those non-religious taxpayers?
quote:That's a bunch of malarkey. The colonists came for lots of reasons, including religion, but the puritan element was by no means the majority at the time of the revolution. The idea that the political or philosophical, or even numerical heft of the American colonies lay in religious exiles is crap. Most people came to start new lives in a promising new place. The pilgrims are the narrative, not the reality. Aside from that, the key philosophical concepts upon which the nation was based were a-religious, and furthermore the reasons for the revolution were not religious, and the support for revolution was not among religious people, but among a powerful elite class. The framers were largely deist but not deeply religious men with strong moral and ethical convictions, they were not religious freedom fighters, and the country was not founded in order to allow the free practice of religion. Let's be very clear on that point. We were certainly *not* founded for, least of all "in the most part" for religion.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Strider, if you really want to go back to the beginning, religion was inextricably bound to civil government and was the reason most of the original settlers came to this continent. We were founded, in the most part, by and for religion.
quote:I'd have no complaints with a National Day of Reason to celebrate and call upon Americans to use reasoning to solve problems.
The only analogy I can think of is a similar proclamation - made by President KoM, no doubt - "calling on Americans not to pray, nor indeed go to church, but to try solving some of their own dang problems for a change without relying on superstition".
quote:I don't agree exactly with that interpretation. I agree advocating activities or ceremonies that relate to a specific religion would be an "establishment of religion", but I don't think advocating aspects of religiousness in general (prayers, funerals, marriages, spirituality, and other things that are widespread across most religions) qualifies. For instance, look at chaplains in the military. That's a case of the government specifically facilitating religiousness, in general, because the government sees a benefit to it.
Respecting an establishment of religion does not mean, and did not mean at the time, just establishing a state run religion. An establishment of religion can mean any religious ceremony or activity, and "respecting" it just means "that is in some relation to it" (think "in respect to"). That is, Congress is forbidden from making laws about religious behavior.
quote:At what point does does something go from bring an aspect of a specific religion to being an aspect of religiousness in general? Does being "widespread across most religions" mean something is shared by a majority of religions, or a majority of religious people?
I agree advocating activities or ceremonies that relate to a specific religion would be an "establishment of religion", but I don't think advocating aspects of religiousness in general (prayers, funerals, marriages, spirituality, and other things that are widespread across most religions) qualifies.
quote:But the First Amendment doesn't say "you won't establish religion unless there's a benefit to it."
That's a case of the government specifically facilitating religiousness, in general, because the government sees a benefit to it.
quote:Chaplains are there to faciliate the service members right to free exercise of religion, which is the other half of the constitutional protection regarding religion. Whether the government sees a benefit to it is irrelevant.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
For instance, look at chaplains in the military. That's a case of the government specifically facilitating religiousness, in general, because the government sees a benefit to it.
quote:Yeah, right. Chaplains are there because the American army, like most armies, dates from a time when the nation was a lot more monolithic, and having the regiments pray every Sunday was the Done Thing. They are government-sponsored religion and should be removed; the argument "We've got chaplains, so we can do religious thing X as well" gets things exactly backwards.
Chaplains are there to faciliate the service members right to free exercise of religion
quote:I think it really depends on how we're defining prayer, which is part of the point, really. Even if we remove specific mention of God from the proclamation, as Tresopax suggests, I can think of quite a few religious people who would object to, for example, the idea that prayer requires humiliation, or even that it ought to include it. (I'm taking into account here that "humiliation" in this context does not mean "a shaming in front of witnesses".)
Originally posted by Strider:
in this specific situation, besides non-believes, who most likely don't pray, are there any other religions out there who don't pray? Or who might be offended by a proclamation like this? Do buddhist's pray? Hindus? Does the wording exclude them when it asks for God's guidance and grace? Is "the year of our lord" a common way to denote the year in government statements? Doesn't this exclude every person who is not a follower of Jesus? I'm honestly asking, I don't really know.
quote:False, as decided in Marsh v. Chambers, 1983.
Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Yeah, right. Chaplains are there because the American army, like most armies, dates from a time when the nation was a lot more monolithic, and having the regiments pray every Sunday was the Done Thing. They are government-sponsored religion and should be removed; the argument "We've got chaplains, so we can do religious thing X as well" gets things exactly backwards.
Chaplains are there to faciliate the service members right to free exercise of religion
quote:
On September 25, 1789, three days after Congress authorized the appointment of paid chaplains, final agreement was reached on the language of the Bill of Rights., Clearly the men who wrote the First Amendment Religion Clauses did not view paid legislative chaplains and opening prayers as a violation of that Amendment, for the practice of opening sessions with prayer has continued without interruption ever since that early session of Congress.
Standing alone, historical patterns cannot justify contemporary violations of constitutional guarantees, but there is far more here than simply historical patterns. In this context, historical evidence sheds light not only on what the draftsmen intended the Establishment Clause to mean, but also on how they thought that Clause applied to the practice authorized by the First Congress - their actions reveal their intent. An Act "passed by the first Congress assembled under the Constitution, many of whose members had taken part in framing that instrument, . . . is contemporaneous and weighty evidence of its true meaning."
It can hardly be thought that in the same week Members of the First Congress voted to appoint and to pay a chaplain for each House and also voted to approve the draft of the First Amendment for submission to the states, they intended the Establishment Clause of the Amendment to forbid what they had just declared acceptable. In applying the First Amendment to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, it would be incongruous to interpret that Clause as imposing more stringent First Amendment limits on the states than the draftsmen imposed on the Federal Government.
This unique history leads us to accept the interpretation of the First Amendment draftsmen who saw no real threat to the Establishment Clause arising from a practice of prayer similar to that now challenged. We conclude that legislative prayer presents no more potential for establishment than the provision of school transportation, beneficial grants for higher education, or tax exemptions for religious organizations.
quote:That should probably read "False, as wrongly decided in Marsh v. Chambers..."
False, as decided in Marsh v. Chambers, 1983.
quote:You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. You were talking about what the country was founded for, and by. I say it wasn't religion. If you're talking about some other country, in the more distant past, which is not the one we live in, then why is that important?
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Orinoco, as I thought I made clear in my post to Strider and subsequent posts, I am not talking about the revolution. I am talking about much earlier when Englishmen first came to this continent. When the pilgrims and other settlers were reality. American history didn't start in 1776.
quote:Yeah, what Tom said. The court decision you cite should have taken the bull by the horns and declared that that early Congress was being inconsistent for bad reasons.
False, as decided in Marsh v. Chambers, 1983.
quote:This calls to question whether the original intent trumps later wisdom. I believe that the original framers were largely trying to keep any particular Christian sect from gaining power...that was the fear they were trying to allay. I doubt anyone at the time gave serious thought to the rights of atheists or Buddhist or witches. Yet they wrote the establishment clause in a manner non-specific enough to allow this new understanding to fall neatly within its mandate.
Originally posted by Kwea:
In this context, historical evidence sheds light not only on what the draftsmen intended the Establishment Clause to mean, but also on how they thought that Clause applied to the practice authorized by the First Congress - their actions reveal their intent.
quote:I think that if several different major religions, independent of one another, come to accept the same concept or practice then it can probably be considered not specific to one religion. Judeo-christianity did not invent prayer; other religions prayed in their own ways in other parts of the world independently from the religions of the Middle East.
At what point does does something go from bring an aspect of a specific religion to being an aspect of religiousness in general? Does being "widespread across most religions" mean something is shared by a majority of religions, or a majority of religious people?
quote:String, the clause you quote does not say: "Congress shall make n law respecting any particular establishment of religion." It says quite clearly that it shall make no laws of this kind, at all.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ."
I think that a National day of prayer does not fall under respecting an establishment of religion because it favors no particular establishment
quote:And this is a strawman argument. The establishment clause does not allow the government to take an "officially atheist stance," nor does it allow the government to place any burden of proof upon any religious beliefs. The establishment clause prevents the government from holding an official religious stance. What's more, it prevents the government from encouraging or discouraging any practice of religion, whatever. That does not an "officially atheist stance" make.
The separation of church and state amendment was established to keep the Government from being intrinsically tied to one or more specific religions, not to force the official policy of the United States to be 'there is no force, or God, or other power that cannot be officially observed through the scientific method'. I would go further and say that an officially atheist stance by the U.S. government would effectively respect the establishment of humanism, which is a particular establishment who's stance of exclusive non-religion makes it a religious group by excluding those who are religious as heretics of their dogma.
quote:Have we ever sacrificed a goat in the Capitol to start a session of Congress? Because that would be awesome.
Judeo-christianity did not invent prayer; other religions prayed in their own ways in other parts of the world independently from the religions of the Middle East.
quote:I don't think there'd be anything unconstitutional about a National Day of Animal Sacrifice either - and I say that as someone who does not support animal sacrifice as a religious practice. Declaring such a day would not pressure me to sacrifice a goat or reject my religious beliefs in any significant way, nor would it establish any religion as the official US religion given many different religions have a history of sacrificing animals independent from one another.
Have we ever sacrificed a goat in the Capitol to start a session of Congress?
quote:It's also worth noting String, that atheism does not equal humanism. First, are you talking about the philosophy or the organization? And regardless of which, the vast majority of atheists are not humanists. Atheism is just a lack of belief in a deity, while humanism brings along with it a whole host of criteria that not all atheists agree with. And further, not all humanists are atheists. Humanism talks about leading a meaningful and ethical life without recourse to a deity, but in no way bars individuals from having religious beliefs, as long as they agree with the basic humanist principles.
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:And this is a strawman argument. The establishment clause does not allow the government to take an "officially atheist stance," nor does it allow the government to place any burden of proof upon any religious beliefs. The establishment clause prevents the government from holding an official religious stance. What's more, it prevents the government from encouraging or discouraging any practice of religion, whatever. That does not an "officially atheist stance" make.
The separation of church and state amendment was established to keep the Government from being intrinsically tied to one or more specific religions, not to force the official policy of the United States to be 'there is no force, or God, or other power that cannot be officially observed through the scientific method'. I would go further and say that an officially atheist stance by the U.S. government would effectively respect the establishment of humanism, which is a particular establishment who's stance of exclusive non-religion makes it a religious group by excluding those who are religious as heretics of their dogma.
quote:No, no. I mean sacrificing an animal as part of prayer. No need to separate the two practices, after all.
I don't think there'd be anything unconstitutional about a National Day of Animal Sacrifice either...
quote:Are we allowed to eat the holy goats?
Originally posted by dkw:
Would they serve it in the congressional cafeteria afterwards?
quote:Are we allowed to eat the holy goats?
Originally posted by dkw:
Would they serve it in the congressional cafeteria afterwards?
quote:Could you please explain what that means? Ar you saying that the historical record is not what it seems to be or that the people involved didn't really mean what they wrote or something else? Thanks.
Originally posted by Orincoro:
Anyway, I still think you're wrong. Religion is the narrative for colonization, not the reality.
quote:I believe I *do* understand it. I believe it is not as you portray it... lets stop treating each other like idiots.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Again, history didn't start in 1776. If you want to understand it, you have to know what came before. You need to put it into some context.
quote:I would love to see analysis of this that moves deeper that the atheist/theist/deist question. For example -- the difference between the calvinism of John Adams and the deistic humanism of Jefferson shows up in the difference between assumptions about equality in the Massachusettes constitution vs the Declaration of Independence. And the model of our three branches of government is the presbyterian form of church polity. What would the constitution have looked like if James Madison hadn't been presbyterian?
Originally posted by Orincoro:
But for the most part emphatically no, religion did not play a key role in civil government, even in the earliest days of the American nation.
quote:I believe that we should assume, for the purpose of most religious discussions, that your views are not representative of a majority of self-identified Christians
Originally posted by kmbboots:
MightyCow, I would.
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quote:I believe there is a National Magic Day, October 31st, and a Magic Circle day too
We just need to add a "National Day of Magic" where everyone is encouraged to cast beneficial magic spells for the betterment of America.
quote:It really doesn't matter if Christians are or aren't cool with it. What matters is: it wouldn't violate our freedom of religion in any way.
We just need to add a "National Day of Magic" where everyone is encouraged to cast beneficial magic spells for the betterment of America.
Christians would all be cool with that, right?
quote:Why not?
And I would not feel significant pressure to reject my Christianity just because the government declared a National Day of Magic.
quote:Absolutely. That I don't find it overwhelmingly oppressive does not mean that I am not aware that my government would prefer that I pray, and has officially endorsed that action.
Do you feel significant pressure to reject atheism because of a Day of Prayer?
quote:My point wasn't that it mattered if Christians were cool with it, but that some people are saying, "What's the big deal with a national day of prayer? Nobody is making you pray."
Originally posted by Tresopax:
It really doesn't matter if Christians are or aren't cool with it. What matters is: it wouldn't violate our freedom of religion in any way.
quote:I only know a few people who consider Thanksgiving a religious holiday. To almost everyone I know, it's an excuse to get together with family and friends and eat a lot. Christmas is likewise so secularized that it is only a religious holiday if you make it one.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
How bothered are atheists by Thanksgiving?
quote:I want the national government to stop treating the sane minority like a bunch of crazies that can be safely ignored; to stop assuming that superstition is the default mode and is ok; and to stop clearly displaying an opinion in an area where it is bound by the Constitution not to have an opinion. "Respecting an establishment" includes favouring generalised religion over no religion, and a national day of prayer clearly does that, as well as favouring praying religions over non-praying ones.
It feels like you want to deny comfort to those who find comfort in prayer.
quote:Tangential to the main discussion, but you should. "That which can be destroyed by truth, should be". Prayer does nothing; consequently any comfort derived from it is false, or at most is of the sort that can just as well be had from managing to internalise the phrase "Nothing to be done about this, I should work on something else".
I don't begrudge people comfort in prayer
quote:Wording to that effect was explicitly considered and rejected.
String, the clause you quote does not say: "Congress shall make n law respecting any particular establishment of religion."
quote:Because part of life in modern free society is learning how to be yourself while constantly being told by other people how you should be. I see advertisements everyday telling me how I should act, what I should buy, etc. I see people everyday who have expectations about how I should behave. I hear messages all the time from many directions telling me what I should believe, many of which come from sources whose opinion I care a lot more about than the government's. No person in our society can grow up without learning to maintain their own identity against a sea of expectations from the rest of the world. The pressure created by a government proclamation about a National Day of Magic is essentially like a tiny drop of water in that sea.
quote:Why not?
And I would not feel significant pressure to reject my Christianity just because the government declared a National Day of Magic.
quote:But if Christians were to think such a day is a "big deal" they'd be wrong. Just like those who made a big deal about the evils of Harry Potter books were wrong.
Nobody would be making Christians practice magic if there were a nationally sanctioned Day of Magic, but you wouldn't hear the end of it about how the government was trying to corrupt the youth of the country or encourage anti-Christian sentiments from many Christian groups.
Just trying to offer the Christians some way to empathize, since many don't seem to get what the "big deal" is with this.
quote:Of course you have a problem with it, or at least it certainly sounds like you do. At least KoM is copping to it.
Prayer does nothing tangible, but it does offer some people comfort. If they are unable to find that comfort elsewhere, and if the act of that prayer is otherwise neutral, I don't have a problem with it, any more than I go around telling children that Santa Clause is their parents.
quote:This. In fact, my reaction to this is very similar to my reaction to those Christians who get all het up about Harry Potter.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
But if Christians were to think such a day is a "big deal" they'd be wrong. Just like those who made a big deal about the evils of Harry Potter books were wrong.
quote:I think that you are getting to the crux of the issue. Endorsing a national holiday doesn't violate anybody's constitutional rights, and making a big deal out of it just distracts from the fact that many of our rights are being illegitimately taken from us in some way or another.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:It really doesn't matter if Christians are or aren't cool with it. What matters is: it wouldn't violate our freedom of religion in any way.
We just need to add a "National Day of Magic" where everyone is encouraged to cast beneficial magic spells for the betterment of America.
Christians would all be cool with that, right?
Magic, like prayer, is a concept shared across many religious groups and recognizing it would not imply an establishment of any national religion. And I would not feel significant pressure to reject my Christianity just because the government declared a National Day of Magic.
On a similar note, some Christians already are not cool with Halloween, which does include references to demons, ghosts, etc. But if they were to sue some government agency under the First Amendment for doing something to recognize Halloween, I'd hope the legal system would reject that lawsuit firmly.
quote:That's the way it is, but no means is it the way it should be. Many pretty horrible things were popular at one time or another.
If enough people want it it gets done. That's the way it should be.
quote:This is no more valid than when anti-gay marriage activists claim that the legalization of gay marriage will lead to the legalization of incest, bestiality etc.
Originally posted by King of Men:
Because once you start down that road, you'll never stop. What about those religions that require an animal sacrifice for their rites? Are we to have national days of animal sacrifice, ritual drug use, and religious-ecstatic dancing?
quote:They are both slippery slope arguments, but one is definitely more wrong than the other. There's a clear dividing line between same sex marriage and those other things, whereas there is no clear boundary to special beliefs or practices various groups of people might want to recognize with a National Day. One could even note that we already have so many such days that people largely ignore them; we've already gone down that path. (Unlike officially recognizing non-consensual sexual relationships with specific civil benefits, which is not at all demonstrably likely.)
This is no more valid than when anti-gay marriage activists claim that the legalization of gay marriage will lead to the legalization of incest, bestiality etc.
quote:No actually, it isn't; the US Constitution was written explicitly to say what sort of things the majority was not allowed to legislate, and state support of religion is one of those things. Now I don't say that the Constitution is written in the stars and the mountains as the only way things can be done, but when a law is on the books I like to see it enforced, especially when it protects me.
It's not like anyone just has a right to a have a day for their beliefs. If enough people want it it gets done. That's the way it should be.
quote:You can have 365 days for prayer, or 366 every fourth year. What you cannot have is explicit government support for it.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
I"m sorry, KoM. My last post wasn't intended to be taken seriously. I do think that you could possibly get something like National Reason Day or something like that passed. But I think that your aim here is less to have "a day" for atheists than it is to keep other people from having "a day" for prayer.
quote:You know what, having a national day of prayer or not in no way protects you from anything. I'm not saying that minorities don't need protection from a tyrannical majority, but that isn't what is happening here. In fact it is the opposite. As is sometimes the case when a vocal minority imposes it's will on a silent majority, be it a religious group or a secular one. I can understand why somebody would be hellbent on taking religion out of public life. They are scared of the power religion can hold over people, especially if it stands in the way of power they want.
Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:No actually, it isn't; the US Constitution was written explicitly to say what sort of things the majority was not allowed to legislate, and state support of religion is one of those things. Now I don't say that the Constitution is written in the stars and the mountains as the only way things can be done, but when a law is on the books I like to see it enforced, especially when it protects me.
It's not like anyone just has a right to a have a day for their beliefs. If enough people want it it gets done. That's the way it should be.
quote:Heh, yeah we've all heard this one before. It's part of the victim complex you've clearly established around your religious beliefs, that makes you think that not being allowed to exercise political power in the advancement of those beliefs is not just protecting a minority, but actually subjugating you to its will.
Originally posted by String:
I'm not saying that minorities don't need protection from a tyrannical majority, but that isn't what is happening here. In fact it is the opposite. As is sometimes the case when a vocal minority imposes it's will on a silent majority, be it a religious group or a secular one.
quote:What "kind" are we talking about here?
Frankly that's why your kind is afraid of immigration, afraid of change, afraid of young people and new ideas- you think anything that isn't directly under your control, at the heart of an overwhelming majority, is a danger to you.
quote:It says that congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of religion and it says congress can't force people to practice a given religion or any religion at all. It doesn't say congress is not involved in the debate; it doesn't say congress shall make no laws respecting religion whatsoever.
It says that congress is NOT INVOLVED in this debate, at all.
quote:It does, in fact, say that congress is not involved in the debate. You don't understand the issue. Laws made by congress can effect establishments of religion, but they are not to "regard" establishments of religion. A national day of prayer is a law endorsing religious practice directly. That's a no no. It's a simple issue, really, and religious people should be as concerned about it as atheists. Government sponsorship of religion is a bad thing for everyone, not just the losers.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
It doesn't say congress is not involved in the debate; it doesn't say congress shall make no laws respecting religion whatsoever.
quote:I am afraid of the power religion can hold over people. Have you seen some of the religious leaders that people are allowing to hold this power?
Originally posted by String:
They are scared of the power religion can hold over people, especially if it stands in the way of power they want.
quote:http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/36/I/A/1/119
36 U.S.C. § 119 : US Code - Section 119: National Day of Prayer
The President shall issue each year a proclamation designating
the first Thursday in May as a National Day of Prayer on which the
people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and
meditation at churches, in groups, and as individuals.
quote:http://www.wiwd.uscourts.gov/assets/pdf/FFRF_v_Obama_Order.pdf
...Defendants identify no other instance in which
Congress has endorsed a particular religious practice in a statute.
The thanksgiving proclamations are distinct from § 119 in at least three important
ways....
Although the law does not always point in the same direction on matters related to the
establishment clause, my review of that law requires a conclusion that 36 U.S.C. § 119 is
unconstitutional...
The President too remains free to
discuss his own views on prayer. Van Orden, 545 U.S. at 723 (Stevens, J., dissenting). The
only issue decided in this case is that the federal government may not endorse prayer in a
statute as it has in § 119.
quote:
Finally, even if I were to consider as relevant the actions of early Presidents, that
tradition does not point in one direction. Although George Washington may have supported
thanksgiving proclamations, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison did not. “President
Jefferson . . . steadfastly refused to issue Thanksgiving proclamations of any kind, in part
because he thought they violated the Religion Clauses.” Lee, 505 U.S. at 623 (Souter, J.,
concurring). Jefferson explained that “[e]very religious society has a right to determine for
itself the times for [prayers] and the objects proper for them according to their own
particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands where the
Constitution has deposited it . . . [C]ivil powers alone have been given to the [federal
government], and no authority to direct the religious exercises of [its] constituents.” 11
Writings of Thomas Jefferson 429
quote:
Madison objected to thanksgiving proclamations because they “seem to imply and
certainly nourish a national religion,” 3 The Papers of James Madison 560 (1962), quoted
in Davis, supra, at 90 (emphasis in original), and, more specifically, they tend “to narrow the
recommendation to the standard of the predominant sect.” Madison's Detached
Memoranda, quoted in Lee, 505 U.S. at 617 (Souter, J., concurring). Although Madison
“gave in to demands to proclaim days of thanksgiving” during the War of 1812, Davis,
supra, at 90, he later regretted it, McCreary, 545 U.S. at 879 n. 25, which simply shows how
difficult it can be as an elected official to resist popular opinion, even if it violates one’s own principles.
A few years later, Andrew Jackson followed Jefferson’s example and refused to issue
thanksgiving prayer proclamations.
quote:What is the downside to the government endorsing/celebrating religion in general, given that the government doesn't favor any specific religion and that the government doesn't force or pressure anyone to practice religion or believe in a religion? Why would that, given those limitations, be a bad thing for everyone?
It's a simple issue, really, and religious people should be as concerned about it as atheists. Government sponsorship of religion is a bad thing for everyone, not just the losers.
quote:Firstly, because religion in general is a bad thing. Secondly, because bad or not, the Constitution gives atheists protection from this sort of thing.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:What is the downside to the government endorsing/celebrating religion in general, given that the government doesn't favor any specific religion and that the government doesn't force or pressure anyone to practice religion or believe in a religion? Why would that, given those limitations, be a bad thing for everyone?
It's a simple issue, really, and religious people should be as concerned about it as atheists. Government sponsorship of religion is a bad thing for everyone, not just the losers.
quote:"Infrastructure" to me means a tangible thing that enables or facilitates an action or activity. Under that definition, I don't see how National Day of Prayer enables or facilitates prayer; any more than Dental Hygiene day facilitates tooth brushing.
Originally posted by King of Men:
[Edit] Removed response to snark.
The privilege is that the national government, with all its power, recognises 'having faith' as the default state, the one on which no comment is needed, and then provides infrastructure to support that state. It is a very powerful affirmation of craziness. It says that those who do not pray are outsiders, not full citizens.
quote:I think Mucus did a good job of explaining that, too.
I'm trying to explain why the law is a good thing.
quote:And did he convince you?
I think Mucus did a good job of explaining that, too.
quote:He convinced me that there's a POV that can make a reasonable argument that the National Day of Prayer, as endorsed by the government, is unconstitutional.
did he convince you?
quote:Probably not in the same way that you do; which is why I asked. I see, theoretically, that there may be a point about a declaration excluding otherwise law-abiding members of a society from...something.
Originally posted by King of Men:
The government says "This day should be devoted to this religious activity", and you don't see how that is privilege for the theists who practice that activity, over those who don't? Seriously?
quote:
In Plano, Texas, a multicultural group and a group of Christians held “dueling
prayer services” on the National Day of Prayer after fighting over the right to
hold their events at the city council building and threatening to file a lawsuit.
Theodore Kim, “After threat of suit, city steps aside in prayer,” Dallas
Morning News, May 2, 2008, at 16B;
quote:
In Richmond, Virginia, a Jewish organization criticized a National Day of
Prayer event attended by various state officials at the state capitol because the
event’s sponsor excluded non-Christians. Robin Farmer, “Diverse gathering
marks day of prayer: Christian-oriented event leaves some feeling excluded,”
Richmond Times Dispatch, May 2, 2008, at B1;
quote:
In Victorville, California, local residents complained that "Hindus, Buddhists,
Muslims and Sikhs are being excluded” from the National Day of Prayer event
at the town hall. The organizer responded, “this entire nation was founded on
Christian faith. The reason we are a great county is because we're Christian.
In the Muslim countries, you can get shot if you're Christian." Brooke
Edwards, “Faiths clash over Day of Prayer,” Daily Press, April 27, 2008;
quote:
In Salt Lake City, Utah, Mormons were excluded from National Day of Prayer
of events because they are not “in accordance with the evangelical principles
[of] the task force,” including a belief in the “Holy Trinity” and that the Bible
is the “only written word of God.” Travis Reed, Associated Press, May 4,
2004;
quote:Of particular interest, note that in the last paragraph, thats a reference to James Madison's argument about refusing Thanksgiving Proclamations that I quoted on the previous page.
These incidents suggest that James Madison’s prediction seems to have come true: in many instances, the
National Day of Prayer has “narrow[ed] the recommendation [to pray] to the standard of
the predominant sect.”
It is true that much of the controversy has been generated by events of private
organizations such as the National Day of Prayer Task Force. However, government
officials, including former Presidents, have sometimes aligned themselves so closely with
those exclusionary groups that it becomes difficult to tell the difference between the
government’s message and that of the private group.
...
If the National Day of Prayer was not a public observance, members of minority religious groups
or secular groups would have less reason to be concerned about being excluded from events celebrating the day.
quote:Can you justify this statement? Smells like hyperbole from here...
Originally posted by MightyCow:
ScottR: In the same way you would be harmed if Islam were declared the National Religion.
quote:I'm simply trying to demonstrate for you what it might feel like from a Christian perspective, compared to how a National Day of Prayer feels to an atheist.
Originally posted by Scott R:
Can you justify this statement? Smells like hyperbole from here...
quote:Pardon, but that's exactly what both we and the judge are telling you: When it comes to religion, it is. The government is not permitted to declare any religion official, and that includes religion in general.
Originally posted by Scott R:
Mucus:
Again, inclusion in American society is not a constitutional guarantee.
quote:Or to elaborate, this was one of the more confusing parts of the ruling. But, while inclusion might not be a constitutional guarantee, the government might still be bound to not endorse things that might prove divisive. There is a slight difference.
Originally posted by Scott R:
Again, inclusion in American society is not a constitutional guarantee.
quote:
(“Justice Breyer claimed to rely on
abstract ‘legal judgment’ rather than the Court's traditional tests, but he essentially applied
the traditional endorsement test.”). He considered the purpose of the display and the effect
it had, concluding that “the monument conveys a predominantly secular message.”
...
The only new factor that Justice Breyer incorporated into his analysis was that the
display did not have a “divisive” history before the lawsuit was filed. Id. at 704. To the
extent this is a relevant factor in this case, it does not seem to favor defendants.
quote:As you show every time you post on this topic.
Originally posted by King of Men:
Yes. That's what I said. "None so blind", eh?
quote:No kidding. It's sad that he has to keep pointing it out over and over.
Originally posted by Kwea:
quote:As you show every time you post on this topic.
Originally posted by King of Men:
Yes. That's what I said. "None so blind", eh?
quote:Okay. So you feel irrationally paranoid.
Originally posted by MightyCow:
quote:I'm simply trying to demonstrate for you what it might feel like from a Christian perspective, compared to how a National Day of Prayer feels to an atheist.
Originally posted by Scott R:
Can you justify this statement? Smells like hyperbole from here...
quote:I don't want the government explicitly supporting any religion, especially my own. I inherently distrust Mormon politicians in a way that I do not mistrust, say, Catholic ones.
I don't want the government explicitly supporting a religion other than my own, and I suspect that you don't either.
quote:I'm not convinced. The...um...jury is still out on that one.
the government might still be bound to not endorse things that might prove divisive.
quote:Hardly.
Originally posted by MightyCow:
ScottR: In the same way you would be harmed if Islam were declared the National Religion.
quote:Like a neurotic Lab chasing the same tattered tennis ball 24 hours a day. No one else sees value in the ball, but the Lab keeps going after it over and over, dropping at people's feet.
Originally posted by MightyCow:
quote:No kidding. It's sad that he has to keep pointing it out over and over.
Originally posted by Kwea:
quote:As you show every time you post on this topic.
Originally posted by King of Men:
Yes. That's what I said. "None so blind", eh?
quote:If you read a bit of the discourse surrounding the passing of the Constitution, you'll see it was put in place to prevent a good deal more than that. And, just as with free speech, our understanding of what the Constitution means in a modern context is continuously evolving, separate from the exact intents at the time of its passage.
It's fairly well know that the Framers didn't want a State religion. That's what the anti-establishment law prevents.
quote:It seems clear to me. Let's reword it, in that section the logic is.
Originally posted by Scott R:
quote:I'm not convinced. The...um...jury is still out on that one.
the government might still be bound to not endorse things that might prove divisive.
quote:I was just bringing that part up to discuss what tangible harms might come up, not because I think it is directly relevant to the main logic of the ruling.
Because I have concluded that the National Day of Prayer does not serve a secular purpose, Justice Breyer’s concurrence does not suggest a different result in this
case.
quote:Well, I guess I got told.
Originally posted by Kwea:
Hardly.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
quote:Well, the first point isn't convincing because I believe religion is good.
quote:Firstly, because religion in general is a bad thing. Secondly, because bad or not, the Constitution gives atheists protection from this sort of thing.
quote:What is the downside to the government endorsing/celebrating religion in general, given that the government doesn't favor any specific religion and that the government doesn't force or pressure anyone to practice religion or believe in a religion? Why would that, given those limitations, be a bad thing for everyone?
It's a simple issue, really, and religious people should be as concerned about it as atheists. Government sponsorship of religion is a bad thing for everyone, not just the losers.
quote:If America amends the constitution, then America amends the constitution. Until then, the constitution says that the government shall pass no law that establishes religion. I think it is perfectly sensible to argue that that be interpreted to mean what it actually says.
You can't say the Constitution should be interpreted to give us a specific right because it does give us that right. America could always amend the Constitution to change that, if there's no good reason for it other than that it's been interpreted that way in the past.
quote:Do you belong to a faith that believes the practice of magic is harmful?
I don't really see a real danger in that, even if I lived in a country where the majority of people believe in and tried to practice magic.
quote:As constructive as you making the same false, ignorant, intolerant statements bashing other people's beliefs? It hasn't stopped you, or even slowed you down.
Originally posted by King of Men:
Wow, you're being really constructive in this thread, Kwea. Speaking of always doing the same old things.
![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
quote:I do believe that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me.
As constructive as you making the same false, ignorant, intolerant statements bashing other people's beliefs? It hasn't stopped you, or even slowed you down.
quote:Being popular or tactful is not; but that is not the same thing. I understand that you do not like my style of argument; however, I do give actual arguments, not mere name-calling and repetitive accusations of, um, repetitiveness. As for ignorance, you have attempted to enlighten me and I have disagreed with your assertions; if I make the same arguments which you feel are false to fact, it is not because I am ignorant but because I found your version unconvincing.
Obviously being constructive is not really a concern for you.
quote:Calling the religious crazy IS name calling, and is not an argument.
however, I do give actual arguments, not mere name-calling and repetitive accusations of, um, repetitiveness
quote:Well, there you go again with the mislabeled intolerance. Again, insult and lack of respect do not result from not tolerating someone, but from not accepting them. As for rigidity of belief, you perhaps intend that as criticism; but the purpose of an open mind, like an open mouth, is to close it upon something solid. Alas, most people chew nothing but mud.
But you are so rigid in your beliefs, so intolerant of others beliefs and values, that you constantly belittle and insult them, and their beliefs on a regular basis.
quote:Then you are mistaken.
yet I do not reference violence in my definition of tolerance.
quote:This assumes that you are typical, which may not be so. But even if you were, I'm not the only atheist out there; it's valuable to have a wide spectrum - a marketplace, to coin a phrase - of argumentative styles, so as to have a key to fit every lock, as it were. It is not as though Tom has converted you, either; so it does not seem to be the style which is the barrier, but rather your own obtuseness.
Even if you don't like me (which is fine), the fact that I still dislike agreeing with you even when our views are similar should tell you how effective your arguments are in fact. (not very)
quote:Well, yes it can, actually. It is done all the time. Furthermore you know it can be helped, as you've seen it done in this community, sometimes inspired by one of your more dramatic cases of soapbox-hopping.
If their feelings are hurt, that can't be helped...
quote:This is as close as I think you've come to stating what has been clear for awhile: you're not actually attempting to persuade people when you insult them (sorry, 'don't accept them'), but instead are working towards some other goal. That's a step forward, I suppose. Maybe in a few years if you're asked the question again, you'll actually answer it honestly?
...it's valuable to have a wide spectrum - a marketplace, to coin a phrase - of argumentative styles, so as to have a key to fit every lock, as it were.
quote:In what is almost certain to be wasted time: how do you know they cannot tell right from wrong? I'm not talking about all religious people everywhere as a group. I'm asking how you can point to one religious person and say, "You're crazy, and you're wrong, and that unprovable thing you believe in doesn't actually exist."? Because you do that too, of course.
To call people who literally cannot tell right from wrong 'crazy' is accurate use of language: That's what insanity means.
quote:As a matter of fact, life is physics. And to head you off at the pass, it is nonetheless full of mystery, passion, and interest. That you need, apparently, to invent spirits and ghosts in your own image if life is to have meaning for you makes me - I choose my words with a non-unpleasant sense of irony - pity you.
Life isn't physics.
quote:If I am ignorant, you have done nothing to alleviate the condition; remind me again which one of us has the ethical system enjoining him to love his enemies? You mistake disagreement for ignorance. And I make no pre-judgements; I judge your inability to tell right and wrong apart only after you have demonstrated the fact. If you dislike the judgement, that is your privilege; but to say it was made before we spoke is a plain falsehood.
All I did was allow you to prove your own ignorance and prejudice.
quote:I do not think that is what I said. My intention was to state that I argue for the benefit of those not reachable by sweet respectfulness; that angle is well covered by other atheists here. It may be that I stated this badly, but I do not see how you extracted a confession of a sinister "other goal".
This is as close as I think you've come to stating what has been clear for awhile: you're not actually attempting to persuade people when you insult them (sorry, 'don't accept them'), but instead are working towards some other goal.
quote:I ask what their evidence was for a certain assertion, and they respond that it's not about evidence, it's about faith. Here is evil, staring you in the face and grinning. I state this, not in an attempt to be funny or ironic, but as simple truth.
In what is almost certain to be wasted time: how do you know they cannot tell right from wrong?
quote:Well, 'sweet respectfulness' is one way I suppose to describe what you're not doing. That said, who do you think you have reached by your, I don't know, bitter disrespectfulness approach? The angle you're covering isn't covered by other atheists because it doesn't work. But maybe that windmill did you wrong somehow...
I do not think that is what I said. My intention was to state that I argue for the benefit of those not reachable by sweet respectfulness; that angle is well covered by other atheists here.
quote:So, because someone does not have a good reason for believing something, that particular belief must be wrong? That doesn't follow, and it's hardly evil. What a silly word to use for someone rejecting faith as a basis for reaching decisions!
I ask what their evidence was for a certain assertion, and they respond that it's not about evidence, it's about faith. Here is evil, staring you in the face and grinning. I state this, not in an attempt to be funny or ironic, but as simple truth.
quote:You can tell yourself this as often as you like, shout it to the world, in fact, but that won't make it one iota more true than it is now. And it's not true now. If you think most people get angry at you for suggesting they give a 'coherent account etc. etc.', well, you're just not paying attention. Or you're assuming you can read their minds and understand them better than they understand themselves, which would be an interesting claim for you to make, having such a keen understanding of madness that is.
...furthermore become angry at the suggestion that they should.
quote:I can form no link between what you are posting and what I posted; it follows that at least one of us is completely mis-reading the other. In case I'm the one being mis-read, let me try to restate my thesis in different terms: To reach a wrong conclusion from evidence is not evil, but only misguided. But to reject evidence as a means for reaching conclusions is evil. It is, if you like, an epistemological form of evil; it is the rejection of all that make humanity more than an ape. To reject evidence and reason is to reduce yourself to the level of a child or animal, or to willingly take drugs that will damage your brain. To borrow from within the Christian faith, it is a sin akin to suicide: The horror that a Christian might feel at seeing someone throw away the gift of life, I experience when someone tells me that it's "not about evidence".
So, because someone does not have a good reason for believing something, that particular belief must be wrong? That doesn't follow, and it's hardly evil. What a silly word to use for someone rejecting faith as a basis for reaching decisions!
It appears the answer to my question is, "I don't." Killing people is no less wrong if I believe it's wrong because people ought only be beaten nearly to death. All you know is that their process is wrong, but you don't stop there, do you? You say, "Nobody can possibly have reached a correct answer through an incorrect process. I know it, and they're stupid and evil for thinking otherwise."
quote:If you wish to directly contradict my experience, that's up to you; there is no possible response to the man who is willing to merely call you a liar. What I have said is based on my experience with Christians; perhaps you have interacted with a different set, and so formed a different conclusion.
You can tell yourself this as often as you like, shout it to the world, in fact, but that won't make it one iota more true than it is now.
quote:
tol·er·ance [tol-er-uhns]
–noun
1.
a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.
2.
a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own.
3.
interest in and concern for ideas, opinions, practices, etc., foreign to one's own; a liberal, undogmatic viewpoint.
quote:
—Synonyms
1, 2. patience, sufferance, forbearance; liberality, impartiality, open-mindedness. Tolerance, toleration agree in allowing the right of something that one does not approve. Tolerance suggests a liberal spirit toward the views and actions of others: tolerance toward religious minorities. Toleration implies the allowance or sufferance of conduct with which one is not in accord: toleration of graft.
quote:It's equally difficult to respond to someone who calls you crazy.
If you wish to directly contradict my experience, that's up to you; there is no possible response to the man who is willing to merely call you a liar.
quote:Quite so: I draw your attention to 'permissive'. To permit someone to take an action presupposes that one has the power not to do so; if I have no power of preventing you, then my permission is irrelevant. Ultimately, such power rests in violence. What you do not see in these definitions is mention of an approving attitude; my mere disapproval is no intolerance as long as I cannot or will not enforce it.
A fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.
quote:No, my default position is not whatever the minority wants. Being a Christian puts me in a HUGE majority. But this debate aside, I'd really like to point out how bigoted your opinion of me is. I am not afraid of immigration, I favor amnesty, and a relaxed system that helps immigrants come to this country and become citizens, I believe the US is for everybody not just those that are born here. I'm not afraid of change. Change is neither a good or bad thing, it's neutral. Please, afraid of change. What's next are you going to tell me I'm against motherhood? And young people? Man, I'm 27 last I checked, that isn't old. Am I afraid of totally incompetent zombies that believe everything they here on the daily show (or Glenn beck for that matter)? Yes. Am I afraid of a demographic that goes out and literally votes for whoever MTV's vote or die campaign tells them to? A little bit. But what I'm really afraid of, Orincoro is people is who are bigot's and don't even know it. I bet you consider your self an open minded liberal thinker, you don't harbor ill will towards people who think differently than you, and you would never assume think that just because someone is white, black, gay, or straight, that you could generalize their opinion or state of mind as inferior to yours. Yet you DO NOT HESITATE to address a statement to me headed by the words YOUR KIND. What does that even mean? who are my kind? IF you want to put me in box, Ono, here are some parameters for you. I'm a libertarian but not a Radian Randroid, I'm a Christian who doesn't belong to any particular denomination. I like to think of myself as constitutionalist. I land just right of center on the bell curve. I'm against abortion and the death penalty, I voted for John Carey and John McCain, respectively. So, their you go, now you can figure out who my kind is, if you really want to bother.
Originally posted by Orincoro:
You seem to think the default position should be whatever the minority wants. Frankly that's why your kind is afraid of immigration, afraid of change, afraid of young people and new ideas- you think anything that isn't directly under your control, at the heart of an overwhelming majority, is a danger to you. The constitution was put there specifically to make sure that we *could* live at peace with each other despite our society changing over time. Why would you want to undermine such a great thing? Something that helps you, every day?
quote:
Originally posted by Scott R:
The downside?
Well, it gives atheists and agnostics a turn on the martyr pole.
![[Taunt]](graemlins/taunt.gif)
That's pretty boss.
quote:I agree with this. At the risk seeming to pucker up, That some wisdom being dropped right there.
Originally posted by King of Men:
Tolerance does not mean agreement, it does not even mean respect; it means agreeing to live in the same society without violence.
quote:"Crazy" and "Insanity" are not the right terms for that. "Human" is the word you are looking for.
To call people who literally cannot tell right from wrong 'crazy' is accurate use of language: That's what insanity means.
quote:Lol I guess my definition of tolerance was wrong. I kind of equated to the feeling of tolerating something, even if it bugs crap out of you.
Originally posted by Kwea:
quote:
tol·er·ance [tol-er-uhns]
–noun
1.
a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.
2.
a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own.
3.
interest in and concern for ideas, opinions, practices, etc., foreign to one's own; a liberal, undogmatic viewpoint.
quote:
—Synonyms
1, 2. patience, sufferance, forbearance; liberality, impartiality, open-mindedness. Tolerance, toleration agree in allowing the right of something that one does not approve. Tolerance suggests a liberal spirit toward the views and actions of others: tolerance toward religious minorities. Toleration implies the allowance or sufferance of conduct with which one is not in accord: toleration of graft.
quote:I think this is central to where you and Kate Boots keep talking past each other. She asserts that faith is not about propositional truth claims, and therefore not a matter for evidence. You persist in interpreting her as saying that it is about chosing to believe propositional truth claims without evidence.
Originally posted by King of Men:
In case I'm the one being mis-read, let me try to restate my thesis in different terms: To reach a wrong conclusion from evidence is not evil, but only misguided. But to reject evidence as a means for reaching conclusions is evil. It is, if you like, an epistemological form of evil; it is the rejection of all that make humanity more than an ape. To reject evidence and reason is to reduce yourself to the level of a child or animal, or to willingly take drugs that will damage your brain. To borrow from within the Christian faith, it is a sin akin to suicide: The horror that a Christian might feel at seeing someone throw away the gift of life, I experience when someone tells me that it's "not about evidence".
quote:Well, redifining terms to prove that your beliefs are "right" is a very convenient way to prevent cognative dissonance.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:"Crazy" and "Insanity" are not the right terms for that. "Human" is the word you are looking for.
To call people who literally cannot tell right from wrong 'crazy' is accurate use of language: That's what insanity means.
quote:I agree, but here's the first stumbling block: you have no way of knowing the ultimate conclusion is wrong, that is, that there is a God. I mean, you just don't. There are gobs and gobs of evidence against various specific ideas of God, but none whatsoever against the notion that God exists. That's why I took care to talk about specific individuals, and please note that I'm not saying that's sufficient reason to believe in God.
To reach a wrong conclusion from evidence is not evil, but only misguided.
quote:I don't know that I'd say it was evil, though I can see where you're coming from. I would certainly say it's pretty dumb, though. But I'm quite certain we would disagree very much on just how many people actually reject evidence as a means for reaching conclusions.
But to reject evidence as a means for reaching conclusions is evil.
quote:For example, I would be astounded to discover that even a small fraction of people who say that mean 'not about evidence' the way you mean it. If you would broaden your discussion past, "Nuh-uh, that's not evidence," you might actually get somewhere aside from yelling at theists about how stupid and crazy they are.
To borrow from within the Christian faith, it is a sin akin to suicide: The horror that a Christian might feel at seeing someone throw away the gift of life, I experience when someone tells me that it's "not about evidence".
quote:No, I don't, it's just a bit unusual to hear someone so vehemently rejecting imprecise thoughts and terms as you do throw a word like 'evil' out there. What is evil to you? Do you know it when you see it? etc.
You also appear to object to my using the word 'evil' and simultaneously denigrating faith as a route to truth. Why is that? Do you think that only theists can believe there is evil in the world?
quote:And what I have said is based on my observations of your interactions with Christians over the years on this board. I can't and don't speak to your motives and methods outside of Hatrack. How could I? But I can speculate as to both here, which is what I did. Or do you think there is someone who your approach has reached? Could you point them out? Point to a meaningful discussion in which the thoughts you intended to provoke were actually provoked on the other side?
If you wish to directly contradict my experience, that's up to you; there is no possible response to the man who is willing to merely call you a liar. What I have said is based on my experience with Christians; perhaps you have interacted with a different set, and so formed a different conclusion.
quote:I think you misunderstood what I intended to say. What I was saying is: Making mistakes about what is right and wrong is not a sign of insanity. All human beings make mistakes like that.
quote:Well, redifining terms to prove that your beliefs are "right" is a very convenient way to prevent cognative dissonance.
quote:"Crazy" and "Insanity" are not the right terms for that. "Human" is the word you are looking for.
To call people who literally cannot tell right from wrong 'crazy' is accurate use of language: That's what insanity means.
Believing that shoes are made by Elves isn't silly, I like to call it "smart." Damn, that was fun!
quote:Yes, it is. And it's not your disapproval that bothers me, and other people who disagree with you. It's the ridged intolerance for other people's views, and that disdain you show for their right to disagree with you.
Originally posted by King of Men:
True; as noted, the art of curing insanity is in its infancy. But cheer up, you may yet be saved; I don't recall whether you are numbered among the nuts, or among the merely misguided. Is your belief based on evidence, or do you take it on faith, as a conscious 'choice to believe'?
quote:Quite so: I draw your attention to 'permissive'. To permit someone to take an action presupposes that one has the power not to do so; if I have no power of preventing you, then my permission is irrelevant. Ultimately, such power rests in violence. What you do not see in these definitions is mention of an approving attitude; my mere disapproval is no intolerance as long as I cannot or will not enforce it.
A fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.
They all believe in science, and data collecting, but they usually can't seem to agree easily on what the data means.
quote:Will it?
But religion will feed our spirits, and help us remain human even amongst the stars. It will provide social stability, and help us educate the next generations on both their rights and their responsibilities as human beings.
quote:And even if it will, is it the only thing that can do so? Or even the best thing that can do so?
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Will it?
But religion will feed our spirits, and help us remain human even amongst the stars. It will provide social stability, and help us educate the next generations on both their rights and their responsibilities as human beings.
quote:What he was saying seemed pretty clear to me. Crazy wasn't making a mistake, crazy was willfully and persistently believing in an outcome that eschews evidence. In fact I agree with that, though I'm sure I disagree a great deal on just what 'evidence' is.
What was he saying then? As I understood it, he was defending calling the religious crazy based on the fact that they fail to tell right from wrong, in his opinion.
quote:Well, yes. I have in fact hazarded some guesses on why this is.
But if you talk to people who educate themselves in their own religion, usually things are not so clear cut.
quote:lol...yup. And I read them, and ever agreed with some of your points, without becoming insulted. Mostly.
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Well, yes. I have in fact hazarded some guesses on why this is.
But if you talk to people who educate themselves in their own religion, usually things are not so clear cut.
quote:You are evaluating this evidence wrongly. It is not as strong as you believe it to be. It is not a question of "what evidence can we find for this position". By that standard I could claim leprechauns on my garden on the basis of a Hatrack post, and when someone pointed out that this wasn't very compelling, I'd say "Not for you, but it's the only evidence we have." That would be silly, and so is your assertion.
KoM, it may not be compelling evidence FOR YOU, but when dealing with issues that are not necessarily tangible, like religion, emotions, and our purpose in the world it may be the only possible evidence we can find.
quote:And there it is, the crazy, hidden just under the surface. You cannot 'choose' to believe. Either you have evidence or you don't. If you must make a conscious choice to interpret the evidence in accordance with what you want to believe, then you have departed the way of sanity and gone into the outer dark where the ape-men howl and beat hollow logs with the thigh-bones of their enemies. Repent, and come into the light.
I see evidence for God every time I look at nature, or hear music. I don't claim to know who God really is, or what mechanisms he uses to move the world, but my personal experiences tell me that there is one. I choose to believe,
quote:I do not see a split, any more than there is a split between science and phlogiston theory. I see a hypothesis which the evidence does not support, and I see people who nonetheless insist on asserting it.
The split you see between reason and religion is a false dichotomy.
quote:The assertion that you are able to compartmentalise your craziness does not invalidate the diagnosis of crazy.
None of that makes me less rigorous when conducting clinical trials for a new drug, or when doing a treatment for a patient who is dying.
quote:Well, compartmentalization of crazy certainly limits the relevance of the diagnosis. Even if we grant the "crazy" part.
The assertion that you are able to compartmentalise your craziness does not invalidate the diagnosis of crazy.
quote:This is reasonable; that is why I said evil rather than socially sub-optimal. I am making a moral point, not a legal one.
Well, compartmentalization of crazy certainly limits the relevance of the diagnosis. Even if we grant the "crazy" part.
quote:If the only possible evidence regarding a proposition is lousy, the wise, reasonable thing to do is to not draw any conclusions about that proposition.
Originally posted by Kwea:
[QB] KoM, it may not be compelling evidence FOR YOU, but when dealing with issues that are not necessarily tangible, like religion, emotions, and our purpose in the world it may be the only possible evidence we can find.
quote:You can't be serious. You are claiming that if evolution had not equipped your brain to like music, that you would be thinking "since my species is not capable of a deep emotional feeling associated with certain combinations of tones and rhythms, there must not be a God"?
I see evidence for God every time I look at nature, or hear music.
quote:And other people's personal expereince tell them that they should torture and burn heretics. Why should anyone treat your personal expereicnes as more correct than theirs? Doesn't history more than demonstrate that people can come to horribly inaccurate conclusions, yielding senselessly awful consequences based on personal experiences?
I don't claim to know who God really is, or what mechanisms he uses to move the world, but my personal experiences tell me that there is one.
quote:Not to mention heritable genetic disorders. Like fatal familial insomnia!
Spend a weekend researching all the differnt strategies of parasites. Some are pretty gruesome. Concentrate on the kinds that prey on human children, and then tell us what that research reveals about your God. No fair looking only at the pretty stuff.
quote:Who is your god, that anything is owed it? At some point you must judge; there is no exterior source of duty, even in a theistic universe. If the god of Abraham were tomorrow to appears in the clouds and shout that your duty is to be a submissive housewife, you might obey to avoid hellfire, but in your heart of hearts you would judge, and find the duty real or imposed; you cannot take the word of a mere god for such a thing. Thus, to answer your question, I am the one who judges what duties are owed; and so are you, however you might protest otherwise.
Who are you that such a duty is owed?
quote:I do not understand the question.
What have you given yourself that you haven't already received?
quote:There is a gaping whole in your logic which must be addressed. There is no clear reason why a belief that life is good natural implies that the pursuit of truth is moral imperative. Your conclusion doesn't follow from your assumption. There is far more to life than rational intellectual exploration of the Universe. At least there is far more than that to my life.
That life is a good thing, a gift as the theist might say, and that we are therefore obliged to make the most of it. It follows that we have a duty to think as deeply as we can, to explore as much truth as we are capable of, and to learn whatever we can learn; in short, to be the finest thinking apes imaginable given the constraint of having only a few pounds of highly-connected matter to do it with.
quote:
If we want to stage a fair fight between religious and secular moralities, we can't eliminate one by definition before the match begins.
quote:Not the pursuit of truth, but the pursuit of perfection as a human, which includes holding true beliefs.
There is no clear reason why a belief that life is good implies that the pursuit of truth is a moral imperative.
quote:You are still begging the question. What constitutes perfection? You can't answer that question without an assumption about what is good.
Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Not the pursuit of truth, but the pursuit of perfection as a human, which includes holding true beliefs.
There is no clear reason why a belief that life is good implies that the pursuit of truth is a moral imperative.
quote:I didn't. I defined perfection to include true beliefs; I observed that one cannot form such beliefs without evidence; I therefore discarded faith, to be understood as the rejection of evidence. This does not of itself reject religion. Lisa, to take but one example, is religious without faith (in the narrow sense I'm using it here.) Kmb isn't. That religion is not supported by evidence is a further fact about the universe, not derivable from my first principles; if I had my current ethics but no information about the origin of the universe, I would be obliged to test the various religious hypotheses floating about.
If you sincerely want to determine whether secular ethics or religious ethics are superior, you can't start off with defining good to be secular and evil to be religious.
quote:I have no objection to exploring spiritual questions. What I object to is 'choosing to believe' particular answers, taking them on faith. I have now explained this several times. Since you show no sign of understanding what I'm saying, perhaps you should take a moment to go back and re-read.
How do we determine what constitutes a "true belief"? Isn't that the crux of the argument and you just wiped it out as though it didn't even exist? You start from the assumption that material truth is the only truth. If that assumption is wrong, then you are violating your own stated ultimate moral good by insisting that exploring spiritual questions is evil.
quote:Reality testing.
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
How do we determine what constitutes a "true belief"?
quote:No, it's the only kind of claim that we can possibly verify or falsify. How can anyone know truth without a reliable way of detecting false?
You start from the assumption that material truth is the only truth.
quote:Since there is clear evidence that the Universe is more than 6000 years old, the world cannot be as described in Genesis; this rules out a whole class of religions right there. However, my phrase 'origin of the universe' was intended as shorthand. Other religions assert facts, such as the efficacy of intercessory prayer, which are refuted by knowledge that has nothing to do with the origin of the universe. Wherever a religion has made some prediction and there is no evidence in its favour, I can use that knowledge to discard that religion. If the test had not been done, or if I were ignorant of the lack of evidence, then I'd have to check it myself.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
What information about the origin of the universe do you have that releases you from whatever "obligation" to test various religious hypotheses that you would have if you didn't possess that information?
quote:Well, there you go: You don't have any. Your religion makes no predictions or assertions about the universe, it just preaches a sort of wishy-washy general niceness. Tea and biscuits do not a cosmology make.
And how would you test the hypotheses of my religion?
quote:How is it you are in a position to evaluate someone else's experience and judge whether it is weighty evidence or not? I'm not talking about specific cases which can be reasonably evaluated, I'm talking about the sweeping generalizations you routinely engage in on this topic. Kwea or Scott or myself are not just evaluating the evidence incorrectly, all religious people are.
You are evaluating this evidence wrongly. It is not as strong as you believe it to be. It is not a question of "what evidence can we find for this position". By that standard I could claim leprechauns on my garden on the basis of a Hatrack post, and when someone pointed out that this wasn't very compelling, I'd say "Not for you, but it's the only evidence we have." That would be silly, and so is your assertion.
quote:This supposes, wrongly, that a given piece of evidence can reasonably only point towards one conclusion. That it cannot possibly point to more than one thing at a time.
And there it is, the crazy, hidden just under the surface. You cannot 'choose' to believe. Either you have evidence or you don't. If you must make a conscious choice to interpret the evidence in accordance with what you want to believe, then you have departed the way of sanity and gone into the outer dark where the ape-men howl and beat hollow logs with the thigh-bones of their enemies. Repent, and come into the light.
quote:'The evidence', by any fair standard you could possibly be using, neither supports nor does not support the existence of God, KoM. It simply doesn't. If you were agnostic as opposed to a militant atheist, though, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
I do not see a split, any more than there is a split between science and phlogiston theory. I see a hypothesis which the evidence does not support, and I see people who nonetheless insist on asserting it.
quote:Perhaps the problem lies in that while you have explained what you object to, you appear to see that practice literally everywhere in all religious people as the fundamental foundation of their religious beliefs.
What I object to is 'choosing to believe' particular answers, taking them on faith. I have now explained this several times.
quote:You are still begging the question. You can't detect hydrogen with x-ray photo electron spectroscopy. That isn't evidence that hydrogen doesn't exit or isn't important or interesting. Its evidence that x-ray photo electron spectroscopy isn't an adequate tool to answer all questions of interest.
Originally posted by swbarnes2:
quote:Reality testing.
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
How do we determine what constitutes a "true belief"?
What did you have in mind? Judging beliefs by the sincerity of believers, or how strongly believers like their beliefs?
quote:No, it's the only kind of claim that we can possibly verify or falsify. How can anyone know truth without a reliable way of detecting false?
You start from the assumption that material truth is the only truth.
quote:It's too bad you didn't get from the context that that was a typo on my part. Read "majority," not "minority," and see if you can respond again in that light.
Originally posted by String:
No, my default position is not whatever the minority wants. Being a Christian puts me in a HUGE majority.
quote:Give it another 5 millenia. You never know...
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Will it?
But religion will feed our spirits, and help us remain human even amongst the stars. It will provide social stability, and help us educate the next generations on both their rights and their responsibilities as human beings.
quote:Wait, what? Why would I think so?
Your comparison to a Hatrack post serving as evidence for leprechauns is also pretty cheesy, for a variety of reasons you're already familiar with. One of them being that if someone claimed to have seen leprechauns in their garden in a Hatrack post, you would have a much higher reasonable standard of believing they were simply lying for laughs than you would if they claimed to have prayed and through prayer communicated with God, for example.
quote:When different people have very similar experiences but interpret them
How is it you are in a position to evaluate someone else's experience and judge whether it is weighty evidence or not? I'm not talking about specific cases which can be reasonably evaluated, I'm talking about the sweeping generalizations you routinely engage in on this topic. Kwea or Scott or myself are not just evaluating the evidence incorrectly, all religious people are.
quote:Yes, yes. There's a standard answer to this which you know perfectly well, so I don't know why you're even bothering to bring this up.
'The evidence', by any fair standard you could possibly be using, neither supports nor does not support the existence of God, KoM. It simply doesn't. If you were agnostic as opposed to a militant atheist, though, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
quote:The gestalt of all the evidence available to you gives you a unique maximum-likelihood hypothesis, which you are obliged to take as your current best guess. What you want to believe does not come into it, unless you are a monkey.
This supposes, wrongly, that a given piece of evidence can reasonably only point towards one conclusion. That it cannot possibly point to more than one thing at a time.
quote:You are mistaking 'using evidence and reason' for 'the scientific method'; the two are not the same. The scientific method is a much narrower category. One more time, and now if you don't get it I'm going to give up on you: Spiritual experiences are evidence, about which we can reason. To simply assert "I believe X", however, is not evidence, and is not a means to truth. If it were, then everyone who asserts their belief would agree on what they took on faith; since they contradict each other, they cannot possibly all be correct, and therefore do not have reliable knowledge. Nowhere have I required lab experiments to replicate spiritual results; all I desire is that people not jump to the conclusion they wanted, especially when - odd coincidence - that conclusion happens to be the socially acceptable one in their neighbourhood.
I postulate that there are truths which can not be discovered by the scientific method. You are arguing that this postulate is false (or even evil) because it can't be explored scientifically.
quote:X-ray photo electron spectroscopy can't detect fairies either. Does this mean that since x-ray photo electron spectroscopy can't detect everything, it's sound for me to conclude based on x-ray photo electron spectroscopy data that fairies exist?
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:You are still begging the question. You can't detect hydrogen with x-ray photo electron spectroscopy. That isn't evidence that hydrogen doesn't exit or isn't important or interesting.
Originally posted by swbarnes2:
[qb]quote:Reality testing.
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
How do we determine what constitutes a "true belief"?
What did you have in mind? Judging beliefs by the sincerity of believers, or how strongly believers like their beliefs?
quote:No, it's the only kind of claim that we can possibly verify or falsify. How can anyone know truth without a reliable way of detecting false?
You start from the assumption that material truth is the only truth.
quote:Again, how can you determine if you've found a truth without a robust method of distinguishing truths from falsehoods?
I postulate that there are truths which can not be discovered by the scientific method.
quote:No, I'm arguing those postautles are 99.99999999999% likely to be wrong, and that as it's better to be neutral than to believe a false thing, those posulates shouldn't be held. And my conclusion isn't a postulate, it's an evidence-based conclusion based on the evidence of human history and psychology.
You are arguing that this postulate is false because it can't be explored scientifically.
quote:Okay, so how adequately does your religion answer the question of "Who was God's last prophet?
The fact that your tool doesn't allow you to measure something, is not evidence its non-existence or its morality. Its evidence of inadequacy of the tool.
quote:Before I answer that, let me ask another question, please: would you actually believe something other than, "It's a joke for laughs," if someone on Hatrack created a post which said, "I just came inside from seeing a leprechaun in my garden," and that person is otherwise, so far as you can tell, quite sane and non-delusional and had been behaving in similar fashion for as long as you had known them?
Wait, what? Why would I think so?
quote:How are you in a position to evaluate whether their experiences were very similar or not? Unless I'm mistaken, physics just as an example does not train one in finding and gauging the extent of insanity or delusion, and even folks actually trained and educated in doing so will tell you it's far from a sure thing without extensive investigation.
When different people have very similar experiences but interpret them...
quote:This I agree with. While of course I don't go as far as you do into thinking they're stupid and insane, I am - absent any other information and all other things being equal - likely to be at least a little less convinced that someone who was brought up steeped in a particular religion has reached that religious conclusion completely independantly and fairly than someone who, for example, converts. But my word on this - as a convert - well, there's a huge potential for bias there, so take it for what it's worth.
...in accordance with the myth that happens to be prevalent in their own neighborhood...
quote:I have often wondered if human beings experience spirituality in many common ways at all, or if this is just a facet of the limits of human language.
Thus, when your spiritual experience, or rather your interpretation of it, is directly contradicted by someone else's interpretation of his spiritual experience...
quote:I'm bringing it up because you usually go a great deal further than the thoroughly reasonable style you're taking today. But I guess I shouldn't have done that, my mistake.
Yes, yes. There's a standard answer to this which you know perfectly well, so I don't know why you're even bothering to bring this up.
quote:I disagree that the gestalt of all the evidence available gives only one current best-guess. For example, I honestly don't know which I would want to believe more at any given time: that God exists, or that there is no God, or that if there is a God, I ought not spend any time believing in God. I know myself pretty well, and if there are times when I have wanted to believe in God, I knew even while wanting to believe that that there had been and would be again times I would not want to believe in God, or would rather simply not care.
The gestalt of all the evidence available to you gives you a unique maximum-likelihood hypothesis, which you are obliged to take as your current best guess. What you want to believe does not come into it, unless you are a monkey.
quote:Well no, and I did not say so. Rather my assertion is that, if someone came into Hatrack and said, "I just decided to believe in a God, since it's not really about evidence", my first reaction would be to dismiss it as a joke, if one in rather bad taste. It took me quite some time before I could believe that kmb really intended to say this; I thought we had to be mis-communicating very badly.
Before I answer that, let me ask another question, please: would you actually believe something other than, "It's a joke for laughs," if someone on Hatrack created a post which said, "I just came inside from seeing a leprechaun in my garden," and that person is otherwise, so far as you can tell, quite sane and non-delusional and had been behaving in similar fashion for as long as you had known them?
Would your first most likely explanation for the post be something other than, "Heh, this is a joke!"
quote:I merely take them at their word: They describe them in very similar terms. Only the conclusions differ.
How are you in a position to evaluate whether their experiences were very similar or not?
quote:Well, I will concede the possibility that two hypotheses could be roughly equally well supported, perhaps each having a 30-40% probability. In this case you would be justified in hedging your bets. I suggest, however, that the hypotheses 'God' and 'no God' are not in this state.
I disagree that the gestalt of all the evidence available gives only one current best-guess.
quote:I didn't ask the question to make a statement about your symmetry, but just to gauge whether it was a real question or simply one to make a rhetorical point.
In other words, you've got my symmetry backwards: I do not say that leprechauns are as likely as gods, but that gods are as likely as leprechauns.
quote:My favorite food is spaghetti and meatballs. My sister's favorite food is spaghetti and meatballs. Although we both make the same claim, we of course mean radically different things. She prefers her spaghetti and meatballs with only enough sauce to thinly coat the past; I prefer enough sauce to make the pasta swim sometimes. She prefers her meatballs small, bite-sized; I prefer my meatballs 2-3' in diameter, large enough to require spade-work on the plate to get bite-sized pieces. She prefers no pepper at all that I've ever seen her add; I prefer gobs of fresh-cracked black pepper. She prefers what I consider to be crappy store-bought grated cheese in a plastic can sprinkled on her spaghetti; I prefer mine straight up or very rarely with a very small amount of good, freshly grated cheese.
I merely take them at their word: They describe them in very similar terms. Only the conclusions differ.
quote:How are you in a position to speak so authoritatively on where those two hypotheses fit for someone else? You've already granted the possibility of meanginful personal evidence, but you dispute how weighty it ought to be. Where is the cutoff? How do you decide where the point is where personal evidence ceases to matter?
Well, I will concede the possibility that two hypotheses could be roughly equally well supported, perhaps each having a 30-40% probability. In this case you would be justified in hedging your bets. I suggest, however, that the hypotheses 'God' and 'no God' are not in this state.
quote:The relevance is that, for me, 'wanting to believe in God' is not a thing which actually motivates me to believe in God. I suggest that this kind of thinking might be less common than you think, but even if it's not, it's not why I believe.
I don't quite see the relevance of your uncertainty on what you most want to believe; could you clarify?
quote:But human language is reliable for describing the differences in food preference; you just did so yourself. The equivalent of your 'spaghetti and meatballs' construction is 'spiritual experience'; but that's not a description, it's a label. Although the Twitter version doesn't allow one to compare two spiritual experiences, it does not follow that it cannot be done at all.
If human language cannot be relied upon to accurately express the whole picture on something as basic as favorite foods, why on Earth are you so ready to accept that when people use the similar language to describe their spiritual experiences, they're referring to the same spiritual experiences?
quote:At the point where others have the same experience but draw a different conclusion. If mystics all agreed, that would be one thing; but all they can agree on is "We can see glorious visions and receive messages". Very well, I do not dispute that part, only the significance they attach to the messages; they all cancel out, leaving nothing but random noise. Notice that the cancellation means that the actual weight doesn't really matter; 1000-1000 is the same as 1-1, to wit, zero.
How are you in a position to speak so authoritatively on where those two hypotheses fit for someone else? You've already granted the possibility of meanginful personal evidence, but you dispute how weighty it ought to be. Where is the cutoff? How do you decide where the point is where personal evidence ceases to matter?
quote:You're omitting a step in the process: seeking out the same source that led to the ecstatic vision in the first place, and learning what you can from there. I can see how that step would be unpersuasive at best if you discount its utility to begin with, thogh.
Well, how do you know that other people's 'Virgin Mary' is anything like yours? If you cannot rely on language for communications about spiritual experience, then you cannot say anything about how similar your religion is to anyone else's; it would then be each man for himself, to invent a new religion wholly from scratch. If you were really going to assert this, then for consistency you'd have to abandon everyone else's visions and experiences as being evidence supporting your religion.
quote:Now we're back to them having the same experience and then drawing a different conclusion. It seems possible to me at least that they had different experiences, reached different conclusions, but used similar language to describe both.
At the point where others have the same experience but draw a different conclusion.
quote:Really? is your only rebuff to my statement that I failed to correct a mistake that you made? Your statement was still bigoted, and patently false. next time you attack someone personally, try to know who they are first.
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:It's too bad you didn't get from the context that that was a typo on my part. Read "majority," not "minority," and see if you can respond again in that light.
Originally posted by String:
No, my default position is not whatever the minority wants. Being a Christian puts me in a HUGE majority.
From your response though, I'm guessing I was right.
quote:I think it would be possible to do an experiment to see if you can form such beliefs without evidence (as you are defining evidence):
I defined perfection to include true beliefs; I observed that one cannot form such beliefs without evidence; I therefore discarded faith, to be understood as the rejection of evidence.
quote:I thought about this for a while, to make sure you weren't correct, and it turns out that you're not.
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:Of course you have a problem with it, or at least it certainly sounds like you do. At least KoM is copping to it.
Prayer does nothing tangible, but it does offer some people comfort. If they are unable to find that comfort elsewhere, and if the act of that prayer is otherwise neutral, I don't have a problem with it, any more than I go around telling children that Santa Clause is their parents.
quote:Okay, sure. We take 4 third graders, and explain the Monty Hall problem to them. We tell one student to simulate the Monty hall problem with 3 cards 100 times. We tell the other students to ask the people he thinks are good sources. One asks his 5th grade brother and his dad. Another asks his 3rd grade math teacher. The other asks his neighbor, whom he knows is a math professor at university.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
First we come up with a broad variety of questions on different topics. Then we give these questions to people and ask them to answer them, using one of two methods. One set (Group A) of people can only answer the questions using their own evidence and their own reasoning; they can't look up answers in books or ask people. The other set (Group B) of people can only answer the questions by finding people or books that they feel are trustworthy and trusting those sources;
quote:Really? I could be wrong, but I don't see anyone on this board calling for every religious person to be locked up.
Originally posted by katharina:
Except you treat all religious activity as if it were of the "driving under the influence" kind.
quote:Well no, the logistics would be quite impractical. It's already much too expensive to lock up the 3% of the population we've got behind bars in this year 2010. Even the destructive-labour camp is unlikely to be a practical solution when one attempts to apply it to something like four-fifths of the population.
Really? I could be wrong, but I don't see anyone on this board calling for every religious person to be locked up.
quote:You perceive me treating all religious activity that way, because you drive under the influence but you don't think it hurts anyone, so you want to be left alone.
Originally posted by katharina:
Except you treat all religious activity as if it were of the "driving under the influence" kind.
If you really believed your analogy, we could see your lassaiz faire instead of you having to tell us about it.
quote:If your posts on religious topics and people are any indicator, you do treat all religious activity that way - it's just that the good religious activity is in spite of and not because, and it's really quite lucky nobody was hurt. They're just DUIs that don't happen to hurt anyone this time. Like I said though, at least KoM cops to it.
You perceive me treating all religious activity that way, because you drive under the influence but you don't think it hurts anyone, so you want to be left alone.
quote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but to you isn't driving under the influence in this comparison 'using religion as the basis for any action that affects any other human being anywhere'?
Now if someone decides to drive while under the influence, I have a big problem. If someone is a school bus driver and uses on the job, I have a really big problem with that.
quote:Yes, that's certainly a fair characterization of religious belief.
As with religious belief, you've both elected to ignore all evidence and simply choose to believe what you wish were true.
quote:The irony is so thick, you could cut it with a The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Who exactly are you caricaturing, MightyCow? Yourself? That's a serious question, because I'm beginning to think this is deliberate. If it is, and I've missed the joke, it wouldn't be the first time, stuff whooshes over my head all the time.
Ad hominems always win. Good show. I have been bested.
quote:Granted. My point is, though, that you do (unless I'm mistaken) acknowledge that some, at least, of the things religious people use as the basis of their beliefs are evidence-just not that it should be considered compelling, definitely not more compelling than other evidence.
To be fair, I do think that Lisa and the others are, in fact, allowing their emotions to influence their evaluation of the evidence. However, there is a difference - to use religious terminology - between being a sinner who acknowledges the right path, and being a Satan-worshipper, deliberately breaking the commandments not through failure of character but through plain rebellion.
quote:The key question is: Is the first student more likely to get the correct answer than the second, third and fourth students are? My guess is that the first third grader won't be able to figure out how to simulate the problem correctly on their own, or do the math correctly to analyze their results on their own, without help from some authority - meaning the students who ask others will likely do better answering the question. And clearly, those who find authorities who have greater knowledge of math will be more likely to give the correct answer to the student.
Okay, sure. We take 4 third graders, and explain the Monty Hall problem to them. We tell one student to simulate the Monty hall problem with 3 cards 100 times. We tell the other students to ask the people he thinks are good sources. One asks his 5th grade brother and his dad. Another asks his 3rd grade math teacher. The other asks his neighbor, whom he knows is a math professor at university.
Are the second and third and fourth students equally likely to get the right answer? Or is the likelihood of getting the right answer proportional to the authority being familiar with the facts of the math?
Is the first student likely to get the wrong answer if she simulates the problem correctly and accepts what the evidence tell her?
We are back to the evidence; the closer you are to it, the more likely you are to be accurate. And some authorities are closer to the evidence than others. Math professors aren't just making things up to sound superior; they really do know a lot more math than your dad.
quote:Fact-checking prospective authorities to see if they do a good job tracking the truth?
The question then becomes: How do we determine what counts as an expert authority and what doesn't?
quote:The ideal would be to stay undecided about the matter in question until one attains the knowledge or ability to fact check. Kids can't always do this, but in practice adults pretty much always can.
I'd agree with that. But what happens when you don't know enough or lack the ability to fact check well?
quote:I'm not convinced of this. Even setting aside the time commitment (and related opportunity cost) of studying to the required level of competency in every discipline you want to fact check, people's brains work differently and not all adults have the capability to become competent in every area. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that few if any do. In theory your statement is true, in practice not so much.
Originally posted by Destineer:
The ideal would be to stay undecided about the matter in question until one attains the knowledge or ability to fact check. Kids can't always do this, but in practice adults pretty much always can.
quote:Right.
Granted. My point is, though, that you do (unless I'm mistaken) acknowledge that some, at least, of the things religious people use as the basis of their beliefs are evidence-just not that it should be considered compelling, definitely not more compelling than other evidence.
quote:When someone reaches a conclusion which her stated evidence just doesn't support, I must conclude that there is some additional thing which convinced her, which she has not given; humans being what they are, emotion is the most obvious candidate.
That said, I do wonder how you know any given religious person well enough to gauge if at all, much less to what extent, her emotions influence her evaluation of her religious experiences.
quote:This doesn't help you. If you are alledging that people who know the facts and how to analyze them are better at getting correct answers than people who don't, that supports my argument, not yours.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
The key question is: Is the first student more likely to get the correct answer than the second, third and fourth students are? My guess is that the first third grader won't be able to figure out how to simulate the problem correctly on their own, or do the math correctly to analyze their results on their own, without help from some authority - meaning the students who ask others will likely do better answering the question.
quote:It was always clear to me. It wasn't clear to you, since you have often said that people should go with their "personal judgment", even when the expert opinion completely disagrees. Why bother finding good authorities when you are going to go with what your "personal judgment" says, and not what the authorities tell you?
And clearly, those who find authorities who have greater knowledge of math will be more likely to give the correct answer to the student.
quote:To sensible people who use words to communicate, and not to confuse issues like you do, it is not faith to conclude that the sun will rise to morrow, nor is it faith to trust an authority who knows the relevent evidence. It is perverse for you to use the term "faith" to refer to the above things, it is dishonest for you to keep using it in that way when you have been told not to over and over again not to, and it is just stupid for you to be dishonest so transparently.
If all that is true then the experiment would show that, when it comes to third graders trying to solve the Monty Hall problem, faith in an authority trumps trying to examine evidence themselves, as long as you find a knowledgable enough authority.
quote:I agree with dkw on this. In addition to what was mentioned in the quote, there's also just some subjects that are difficult to fact-check in a cut-and-dry way.
I'm not convinced of this. Even setting aside the time commitment (and related opportunity cost) of studying to the required level of competency in every discipline you want to fact check, people's brains work differently and not all adults have the capability to become competent in every area. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that few if any do. In theory your statement is true, in practice not so much.
quote:It helps me if it's the truth, regardless of whether it supports my argument or not.
This doesn't help you. If you are alledging that people who know the facts and how to analyze them are better at getting correct answers than people who don't, that supports my argument, not yours.
quote:I'm not saying any of that. I don't agree with any of those four things.
Basically, by saying "Forget evidence, trust authorities", what you are saying is that you should find an "authority" who is saying what you want to hear, tell yourself they are a good authority, and then you should believe them.
quote:This is perfectly sensible, but it runs again into the problem of human language as a means of communication. I mean, it's all we've got, but it's far from perfect. Incredibly flawed, in fact-people have gotten killed over the flaws. So when a given person's stated evidence doesn't support their stated conclusions, there are three possibilities that I can think of: that they're simply being deceitful, that there is a separate piece of evidence that has been omitted from the statement, or that the stated evidence was not understood. Or I suppose there is a fourth possibility, that the stated conclusion is supported by the stated evidence, and the one hearing it is simply mistaken in thinking it doesn't, but that's fine, we generally think everyone else is wrong anyway.
When someone reaches a conclusion which her stated evidence just doesn't support, I must conclude that there is some additional thing which convinced her, which she has not given; humans being what they are, emotion is the most obvious candidate.
quote:This is exactly what was alleged about you before, and you denied. But a tiger can't change his stripes.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:It helps me if it's the truth, regardless of whether it supports my argument or not.
This doesn't help you. If you are alledging that people who know the facts and how to analyze them are better at getting correct answers than people who don't, that supports my argument, not yours.
quote:They are direct consequences of your previous arguments; that people shouldn't bother trying to collect evidence, because it's too hard; that it's just as much a "faith" call to accept overwhelmingly well-supported claims as it is to believe somethign with absolutely no evidentiary support at all; that a person should ignore reason and evidence if their "personal judgment" disagrees with what reason and evidence tell them.
quote:I'm not saying any of that. I don't agree with any of those four things.
Basically, by saying "Forget evidence, trust authorities", what you are saying is that you should find an "authority" who is saying what you want to hear, tell yourself they are a good authority, and then you should believe them.
quote:Hm. Irreconcilable differences here, I think, because I don't think there are limits to the number of interpretations one could put on 'a sense of peace'. Or at least the limits would be the extent to which humans define 'peace' differently, and having a 'sense of' something differently, etc. I don't know, but I suspect, that the differences are actually quite a lot greater than you think, and I support that thought with the spaghetti and meatballs example.
I cannot reconcile this with the way such experiences are described. There are limits to the number of interpretations one can put on such phrases as "a sense of peace", "I saw a light/an angel/a figure", "a voice told me". These things are not so much more complex than the spaghetti-and-meatballs example; a paragraph suffices to get the essential points across.
quote:That doesn't follow. Imprecision is not an insurmountable barrier to communication, anymore than kids using a ruler in class is an insurmountable barrier to measuring how long one foot is without using sophisticated electronic measuring equipment.
If we cannot judge similarity on these grounds, then we cannot use language to discuss such matters at all.
quote:Well, no, not really. My stance is simply this: how can you know about someone else's stance? I don't agree that that person is unable to know their own experience, just because you and I cannot ever perfectly and sometimes not even adequately understand it.
"A woman appeared to me, gentle and sorrowful of countenance, and told me she was Mary; and said I should be healed" followed by an unexpected and complete remission of cancer could not be taken as evidence in favour of Catholicism even by the one who saw the woman, because what does 'Mary' and 'sorrowful of countenance' mean? This is a nihilist position which annihilates itself.
quote:Mormon, to answer your second question. To answer your first, the weight of the testimony of others is only used, by me, as a way to gain different questions to ask. While I am moved by the testimony of others, it doesn't add or subtract from my faith, and it had zero to do with my conversion. I was a walk-in.
If you belong to any religious community whatsoever, you must at least recognise some sort of common beliefs with the others of that community, and with its founders; how can you do so, if you cannot relate your visions to what they say? (It would be helpful here if you could remind me what denomination you belong to; I could then be a bit more specific, and the argument would be easier to follow.)
quote:He's not setting the bar based on personal preference. He's setting it based on empircal testing; do the claims supported only by such evidence stand up to reality testing?
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Not compelling evidence to you - and that is okay. But you don't get to set the bar and say that it is no evidence at all.
quote:Yes, the parents of Kara Neumann made a choice. Based on their "evidence". I have no idea why you want to wave the process that led to that choice around as a wonderful thing that everyone should support and praise.
And I have said that, when it comes down to it, we make choices.
quote:I don't see why KoM goes on and on in these long discussions. All he's saying is that your interpretation of all of those things is flawed. I agree, but I would never spend 7 pages explaining why to you. I've sat at too many pub tables having that discussion to care about the total lack of outcome. I just assume between 60% and 80% of the population is mildly loopy, and another smaller portion have full blown bat****itis.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Granted all of that evidence is subject to interpretation, is not generally transferable or replicable, is not proof, but it is something. What do you want to call it?
quote:When I said I was a walk-in, I mean that one evening, I had an experience that led me to decide to attend church that Sunday. Now, to set that decision in context, I didn't grow up attending church, nor did my mother, father, sister (which makes my entire immediate family), nor did my grandparents or even my cousins. In fact, to my knowledge, they still don't, years later (I can't speak for sure about all of them). So I think I can safely discount the notion, if you were to consider it, that I chose to attend church because of the experience of others weighing on me. Church simply wasn't something my family did, or even all but a few of my friends and coworkers, except for the biggest holidays, funerals, and weddings.
As for your assertion that you do indeed disregard others' experience as evidence for your faith, I think I must simply beg to differ. If you belong to any religious community whatsoever, you must at least recognise some sort of common beliefs with the others of that community, and with its founders; how can you do so, if you cannot relate your visions to what they say?
quote:I do think that all decisions that can be made with empirical testing ought to be. I feel pretty strongly about that, in fact. However, I don't extend that belief into thinking that where no empirical testing can be done, the thing to do is decide nothing, even if the only other available decision-making processes are flawed.
...that doesn't mean that all decisions must be made with empirical testing.
quote:So KOM is wrong when he dismisses "evidence" that he find uncompelling, but it's okay for you to judge people because you don't find their evidence compelling? You are sure that you have evidence to support your beliefs, and you are sure that Tres has evidence to support his beliefs, but because the Neumanns came to a conclusion you disagree with, you feel safe in concluding that they had no good evidence?
Originally posted by kmbboots:
[QB] As far as I'm concerned, Kara Neumann's parents had no compelling evidence for their decision and plenty of compelling evidence against.
quote:On the other hand, what if the only action for which one is condemned to hell is believing in God solely to hedge one's bets against hell?
Originally posted by Juxtapose:
A person rigorously following that logic should also feel compelled to believe in any god that also presides over a creation that includes some form of hell. Presumably, some of those gods are jealous about that kind of wanton faith.
It looks like this someone is screwed no matter what.
quote:Oh, come now. First, nobody here has said they believe 100% there is no god; six-nines is quite good enough, however. Second, Pascal's Wager is truly weak, because it considers only the hypotheses "no-god" and "hellfire-god". There is also the Atheist God who condemns you to hellfire for believing this sort of sophistry, who is, on the evidence, exactly as likely as the plain hellfire-god; thus there is no way to hedge your bets. You can only follow the evidence where it leads.
Is empirical testing enough to 100% conclude that there isn't a god?
Because a proper application of decision analysis then allows someone to:
1) look at the empirical evidence to estimate that there is a one in a billion chance there is a god
quote:Forgive me for saying so, but this just sounds like you are picking and choosing what seems nice to you and giving any backing for that your seal of approval, while deciding that anything you disagree with has insufficient evidence.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Not compelling evidence to you - and that is okay. But you don't get to set the bar and say that it is no evidence at all.
...I find some elements of Truth in many places.
...I have yet to see compelling evidence that it is all nonsense.
quote:And you support this by using Pascal's Wager, which you apparently agree is an extremely weak argument... so what was your point?
My point is simply that saying "there's no way a reasonable person can believe that" is making a false statement.
quote:I don't see how Pascal's Wager can compel belief. If you rationally determine that the chances of there being a god are, say, one in a billion, then that is in some sense the very definition of not believing in a god; this is what non-belief means. You might decide, on the grounds that hellfire is very bad, to go through the rituals and observances of some faith or other, because there are gods that allow you to be saved by works and not faith; but your estimate of the probability is your belief or non-belief, and cannot be changed by your estimate of the consequences of being wrong.
To KoM: I didn't say Pascal's wager was strong or there weren't other options. All I'm saying is that there is a set of assigned probabilities that can lead a reasonable person to reasonable determine that believing is a good idea.
quote:No. And most sensible atheists make no such claim. It's a strawman used against atheists by people who don't understand what atheism is. And please, don't bother us with the agnostic/atheist false binary either- it's quite meaningless in practice as most atheists do not actually believe that there is an empirical test possible that proves there is no god. This is not because we believe that there *could* be a god, but rather that god is a construct specifically designed to elude empirical testing, which is why it survives as a religious belief. Inasmuch as we cannot prove god does not exist, it is not an "open question," any more than the idea of a Flying Spaghetti Monster controlling the universe cannot be proven, but is nonetheless anything but an "open question." The fact that a negative cannot be proven, mind you, is not evidence of anything- just consider that literally any scenario imaginable, and many that have not been imagined, cannot be disproved... but we don't believe in any of them. Prima facie evidence of the existence of god, ie, religion, is not positive proof of anything.
Originally posted by just_me:
Is empirical testing enough to 100% conclude that there isn't a god?
quote:I’m glad to hear you say that, Rakeesh. I often find myself in a similar situation, and sometimes feel like I’m missing something. Well heck, maybe I am, but I guess I’m all right with that if it’s the price I pay for my upbringing. I liked my upbringing. Not at the time of course …
I did, and from there it was basically off to the races. Since then, of course I have had many experiences with the testimony of others; they get shared a good deal, after all. But I've only ever viewed those testimonies as evidence of their faith, never mine. Perhaps it's my sharply secular background with only vague religious undertones in a few places, but while the experience of religion has been communal as well as individual for me, the evidence and the reason for it has always been personal.
I’ve been a member about 6 years (including a 2 year mission) and I still find myself speaking a different language from the rest of the parishioners much of the time. Growing up the son of a physicist in a non-theist household, my speech is much less couched in the spiritual even when speaking of spiritual topics, and my ability to consider someone else’s testimony as part of my own is … limited.
quote:When describing myself prior to conversion, or my family currently I always use the term 'atheist', in particular after I discovered a lot of people don't know what 'agnostic' means. I agree that a hard-liner definition of atheist is a difficult one to fit, and not something that would be very rational. I normally use the term in conversation when referring to those who might agree that God as an entity cannot be disproved, but felt every confidence that none of the deities from the major religions were feasible. Then agnostic would be (for me) someone that was on the fence about, say, a Christian God. It's not terribly useful when everyone uses different definitions of the same word, but those two are hard to pin down to common usage and that's what makes the most sense to me.
please, don't bother us with the agnostic/atheist false binary either- it's quite meaningless in practice as most atheists do not actually believe that there is an empirical test possible that proves there is no god. This is not because we believe that there *could* be a god, but rather that god is a construct specifically designed to elude empirical testing, which is why it survives as a religious belief. Inasmuch as we cannot prove god does not exist, it is not an "open question," any more than the idea of a Flying Spaghetti Monster controlling the universe cannot be proven, but is nonetheless anything but an "open question." The fact that a negative cannot be proven, mind you, is not evidence of anything- just consider that literally any scenario imaginable, and many that have not been imagined, cannot be disproved... but we don't believe in any of them.
quote:umm, the line you quoted takes a different meaning out of context than in the context of my post.
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:No. And most sensible atheists make no such claim. It's a strawman used against atheists by people who don't understand what atheism is. And please, don't bother us with the agnostic/atheist false binary either- it's quite meaningless in practice as most atheists do not actually believe that there is an empirical test possible that proves there is no god. This is not because we believe that there *could* be a god, but rather that god is a construct specifically designed to elude empirical testing, which is why it survives as a religious belief. Inasmuch as we cannot prove god does not exist, it is not an "open question," any more than the idea of a Flying Spaghetti Monster controlling the universe cannot be proven, but is nonetheless anything but an "open question." The fact that a negative cannot be proven, mind you, is not evidence of anything- just consider that literally any scenario imaginable, and many that have not been imagined, cannot be disproved... but we don't believe in any of them. Prima facie evidence of the existence of god, ie, religion, is not positive proof of anything.
Originally posted by just_me:
Is empirical testing enough to 100% conclude that there isn't a god?
I think a central problem in this ongoing public dialogue is that theists and religious people are by and large very poor logicians. I'm not such a great one myself, but it isn't hard to see daylight from the shade.
quote:The impression I had from numerous previous threads was that you did not consider oral tradition, personal testimony, personal experience, or other authorities to be true evidence. (This was our disagreement over "evidence" wasn't it?)
I say again: It is evidence; but because so much of it conflicts, it is not compelling, in fact not even very interesting. The bar is too low.
quote:Why discard any evidence? Why not attempt to assign it all an appropriate weight based on how convincing the evidence seems to be? For instance, if you had four scientific studies that gave different results to a particular question, I'd think the solution would be to give more weight to the study with the best methodology and the largest sample size or to the ones where results seem to fit more closely with everything else we know about science. I wouldn't discard all four studies equally because they disagree.
An honest appraisal gives all such evidence equal weight, and finding that they contradict each other, discards them all - at least on questions of cosmology.
quote:You might, if you were actually paying attention, note that I wrote that it was okay for KoM to find evidence uncompelling. And, yes, that is how it works. People come to crappy conclusions - and letting your child die for no reason is a crappy conclusion - and you figure they got something wrong.
Originally posted by swbarnes2:
quote:So KOM is wrong when he dismisses "evidence" that he find uncompelling, but it's okay for you to judge people because you don't find their evidence compelling? You are sure that you have evidence to support your beliefs, and you are sure that Tres has evidence to support his beliefs, but because the Neumanns came to a conclusion you disagree with, you feel safe in concluding that they had no good evidence?
Originally posted by kmbboots:
[QB] As far as I'm concerned, Kara Neumann's parents had no compelling evidence for their decision and plenty of compelling evidence against.
Do you really not see the rank hypocricy here?
quote:No. See my post above, which explains why you are mistaken.
The only point behind the question, and I'm sure I'm not making it well, is that if there is any probability at all that there is a god then there is a chance that a reasonable person will assign such weights to all the possible outcomes and combinations of there behind different kinds of gods that they might decide to believe.
quote:I was using 'discard' as shorthand for "assign the evidence a weight so low that the hypothesis should be disregarded". I don't know why you theists are all so binary about this; usually it's atheists who get accused of that. (Projection?) There is such a thing as evidence which does not convince. The testimony of a suspect to the effect that he was nowhere near the scene of the crime, he has an evil twin brother whose prints were found on the bloody knife, his sainted mother will attest to his character, he remembers nothing of the night in question, and besides all that he ain't never done nuffin', is evidence, and is entered as such in the record of the court. The jury is quite at liberty not to find it convincing, and we may then say in ordinary English that they discarded it.
Why discard any evidence? Why not attempt to assign it all an appropriate weight based on how convincing the evidence seems to be?
quote:They didn't think it was for "no reason". They did what they did because their judgment told them it was the right thing to do. Their experiences and their faith told them that they were doing God's will. How is following God's will a "crappy conclusion"? Or are you God, that you know what is and isn't God's will?
Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:You might, if you were actually paying attention, note that I wrote that it was okay for KoM to find evidence uncompelling. And, yes, that is how it works. People come to crappy conclusions - and letting your child die for no reason is a crappy conclusion - and you figure they got something wrong.
Originally posted by swbarnes2:
quote:So KOM is wrong when he dismisses "evidence" that he find uncompelling, but it's okay for you to judge people because you don't find their evidence compelling? You are sure that you have evidence to support your beliefs, and you are sure that Tres has evidence to support his beliefs, but because the Neumanns came to a conclusion you disagree with, you feel safe in concluding that they had no good evidence?
Originally posted by kmbboots:
As far as I'm concerned, Kara Neumann's parents had no compelling evidence for their decision and plenty of compelling evidence against.
Do you really not see the rank hypocricy here?
quote:As best you can tell HOW? What tells you that they are wrong, other than that they just seem wrong to you?
They were, as best as I can tell, wrong.
quote:That's a fair way to describe it. But if this is what's going on, I don't think its fair to say the religious are making beliefs without concern for evidence. It's more along the lines of: they sharply disagree with you on what sorts of evidence should be discarded and what should be kept.
I was using 'discard' as shorthand for "assign the evidence a weight so low that the hypothesis should be disregarded". I don't know why you theists are all so binary about this; usually it's atheists who get accused of that. (Projection?) There is such a thing as evidence which does not convince. The testimony of a suspect to the effect that he was nowhere near the scene of the crime, he has an evil twin brother whose prints were found on the bloody knife, his sainted mother will attest to his character, he remembers nothing of the night in question, and besides all that he ain't never done nuffin', is evidence, and is entered as such in the record of the court. The jury is quite at liberty not to find it convincing, and we may then say in ordinary English that they discarded it.
quote:Of course. And one can also make a lot of money by robbing widows and orphans, and eat well off of pigs. There's empirical proof. Does this mean that everyone believes that God allows everyone to do all those things? Kara got diabetes, how can a believer argue that that was contrary to God's plan? The Neumann's judgement and honest belief was that prayer and prayer alone were the right tools to be used.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Swbarnes2, For starters, there is compelling (empirical even) evidence that medical care is useful for treating medical diseases and that, often, people will die without it when they could otherwise be helped.
quote:Right. You don't know the evidence, but it can't be good, because you disagree with the conclusion. Creationists say the same thing, you know, for much the same reason.
I don't know what evidence they have for believing God wanted them to refuse medical care but I have never seen any that was at all compelling.
quote:You are doing it again.... kmbboots did not say this. The point, I believe, was that nobody can perfectly tell the difference between correct and incorrect beliefs, and that kmbboots gets to judge for herself the correct way to weigh the evidence in a way that may be very different from the way the Neumanns saw it. Everyone must judge for themselves what they believe to be the difference between correct and incorrect, based on the evidence they have available to them.
You and you alone can tell the difference between correct and incorrect beliefs. Evidence can't be worth anything if you don't know about it.
You know what I mean, Vern?
quote:This is precisely why I find myself unwilling to converse with swbarnes2 on the topic of religion.
You know you could try not to read my posts in the most hostile way possible.
quote:Well, if anyone doubted your earnestness, this should take care of it.
You know what I mean, Vern?
quote:Who cares if I'm earnest? Religion doesn't mean squat to me. That doesn't mean I can't discuss it intelligently, calmly, respectfully, and with some humor. What's wrong with humor? I love calling people Vern IRL. I find it highly entertaining. Other people seem to as well. That doesn't mean that my points don't deserve thought, I think. But whatever. I can't think of a more random moment to jump on the steven-hating train, but it's your call, I guess.
Originally posted by scifibum:
quote:Well, if anyone doubted your earnestness, this should take care of it.
You know what I mean, Vern?
quote:Indeed; but that's not all that's going on. Kmb has explicitly stated that, and I quote, "it's not about evidence", "I choose to believe", and "I get to choose". If this is not ignoring evidence then I don't know what is.
That's a fair way to describe it. But if this is what's going on, I don't think its fair to say the religious are making beliefs without concern for evidence. It's more along the lines of: they sharply disagree with you on what sorts of evidence should be discarded and what should be kept.
quote:There's such a thing as an externality. Every time someone affirms something without giving evidence, the public thought-space is polluted a little bit more with the idea that this sort of thing is ok.
The craziness can be measured by the lengths to which the crazy person will go. Believing in transubstantiation does not, as folks have said, actually cost an individual something. It certainly doesn't lead to that person's son or daughter dying in agony of a burst appendix.
quote:But you are sure that it's lousy. That's a great example of how open you are to finding "Truth" in other people's religion.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Swbarnes2, I don't know the evidence in the Neumann case.
quote:Didn't you just argue that people are lousy at describing deeply important visions of faith? If they wrote a book about the profound prayer experiences that led them to their conclusions about medical care, would that make them less likely to be wrong? It's a religious belief. Why not assume that the expereinces leading them to their beliefs are exactly as profound and deep and meaningful and personally convincing as yours are to you.
I don't know what argument they made for medical treatment damaging Kara's soul. So I am indeed guessing. My guess is based on my experience that I have never seen a good argument for why medical treatment would damage a soul. If you have, share it with me and I'll see if it is convincing. Is there Scripture? Tradition? What?
quote:Glimmers. Right. The "glimmers" where they overlap with your previous beliefs.
I think that all religions have only glimmers of Truth. I have found one that I think has more glimmer than others. That is why I choose it.
quote:You say "choosing to believe is awesome", and I say "The Neumann's choice to believe was awesome?", that's not a hostile reading. That's applying your argument to a specific case which leads to consequences you don't like. But if you accept a line of reasoning, you have to accept all its consequences too. Not whine about how mean it is for people to point out that the argument you choose to make leads to awful things.
You know you could try not to read my posts in the most hostile way possible.
quote:Well, in the case of surgery affecting the soul, the reasoning isn't that hard to explain. The soul exists and rests in the body. Surgery opens the body and might damage it. Thats only really two or three leaps.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Mucus, what do you find particularly wacky about Immaculate Conception? I could explain the difference to an alien.
quote:
That's true, Rakeesh. However, if going by obvious, repeatable consequences leads one to health, safety, and other good things, then why is it wrong to turn it around and ask mainstream religions to show obvious, repeatable good consequences of believing their particular beliefs, versus simply keeping an open mind on the existence of God?
quote:What's with the Vern? And anyway, I'd be very interested if you could lead me to a study that even comes close to answering that question. Happiness being a notoriously difficult thing to measure, of course.
Are Mormons happier/healthier/richer than Episcopalians/Hindus/Muslims/Taoists, given similar backgrounds and opportunities? I don't think so. [Smile] You know what I mean, Vern?
quote:OK, so if religion not meaning anything to you isn't what's stopping you from doing those things...what is?
That doesn't mean I can't discuss it intelligently, calmly, respectfully, and with some humor.
quote:I'm afraid you've misunderstood me. When I said my own evidence for my own faith was strictly personal, I did not mean that it was only that I had prayed and just heard back 'Mormonism' and went along with it while treating as neutral other aspects of the faith. I meant that the thing that got me to ask the question about Mormonism was personal. It didn't have an external source, or if it did it was so subtle that I don't recognize it, and therefore you hardly would either.
But that's a spiritual experience which you didn't have yourself. It follows, then, that your entire interpretational framework is founded on precisely the thing which you say you discard! That is, to put it mildly, a bit inconsistent.
quote:I was just joking with the Vern thing. You need to lighten up. It's not helping your case to get all touchy and worked up. Or, to put it another way, anger doesn't work . That essay is about politics, but I think it applies to religion.
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
OK, so if religion not meaning anything to you isn't what's stopping you from doing those things...what is?
quote:That was a joke, sorry. See now-capitalized Earnest.
Originally posted by scifibum:
quote:Well, if anyone doubted your Earnestness, this should take care of it.
You know what I mean, Vern?
quote:Of course not. You yourself just argued that people are lousy at sharing the information from religous experiences, remember? Differing definitions of meatballs ring a bell? Just assume that it was their personal judgment that their powerful religious experiences confirmed their beliefs about medicine, and God's will. That they are just as confident in their ability to detect "Truth" as you are.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
[QB] Swbarnes2, you are correct. Because all the other arguments for faith healing and denial of medical care have sucked and, from what I understand, the Neumann's didn't have anything other than that, I assumed that their arguments were the same sucky arguments. I thought that a reasonable assumption until I was given more information, but I didn't know. Again, do you have more information?
quote:Because you can't convince him. Neither could the Neumanns convince you. Do you see the problem here? Once you throw away reason and evidnece, you've got no leg to stand on when criticizing the Neumanns. They believe they did the right thing. Their justifications are the same as yours.
I am not trying to convince KoM of my beliefs. Nor you for that matter.
quote:And since when is following the will of God crappy for believers? How long did your church think that burning heretics was good, and not crappy? Why should anyone believe your definition of "good" over their own (which in many cases, is supported by strong religious feelings)?
Again no. I have written that choosing good things are good and that choosing crappy things is crappy.
quote:The Neumanns. They "choose to believe" that God wanted their daughter to get no medical treatment. They choose the "good" thing of doing God's will.
What do you think my "line of reasoning" is? How have my arguments led to awful things?
quote:Can't it?
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
The thing is, the craziness cannot be measured 'aside from' its consequences.
quote:You are inching your way towards a definition of craziness which relies on the Kolmogorov complexity of a concept, or perhaps on the Shannon information required to describe it. An excellent idea.
Thinking that you're Napoleon seems to me to be less crazy than thinking you're the secret love-child of Lady Gaga and Reagan, who also happens to be Napoleon, even if both have the same consequence of sending you to the asylum.
quote:For the hundreth time. They "choose to believe". They chose what they believed was "good stuff"; following God's will. This is exactly the thinking you advocated and praised. Not the outcome, but the process. Sure, they had absolutely no reason and evidence that their beliefs were right, but you yourself have argued that evidence and reason aren't needed to answer many questions, so the lack of evidence and reason isn't a problem. They had what Tres would call "strong evidence" (meaning, strong subjective feelings that were convincing to THEM), leading them to make a personal judgement call to choose to believe what they believed.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
The Neumann's justifications may be many things - as you pointed out, I don't know what they were - but as I would not justify such a thing, why would you say they are the same as mine? I have no justification for denying medical treatment.
quote:I really don't know how to approach this. Both seem equally crazy to me, which is natural, because I'm the outsider (aside from the fact that Napoleon is dead, of course). Craziness cannot be judged entirely aside from its consequences because those consequences help serve as a measure of the 'commitment' (regretable word in this case) to the craziness in the face of sanity. In other words, I imagine it's easier to believe in something - both to claim belief and actually believe - when there are no real consequences.
Thinking that you're Napoleon seems to me to be less crazy than thinking you're the secret love-child of Lady Gaga and Reagan, who also happens to be Napoleon, even if both have the same consequence of sending you to the asylum.
quote:Mmm... I think you're misguided. And I'm brave enough, and smart enough, to embrace reality. You're missing something- and say what you want about me, because I am arrogant, but it doesn't make me wrong.
Originally posted by Kwea:
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion regarding religion or spiritualism, of course, but it is way beyond that to assume you have the insight or intelligence to judge every person who disagrees with you is delusional or foolish.
If it's truly beneficial to be atheist/agnostic over theist of some sort, that calls into question the bravery of 'facing reality', doesn't it?
quote:In short, yes.
Originally posted by King of Men:
... a definition of craziness which relies on the Kolmogorov complexity of a concept ...
quote:Hold on.
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
(aside from the fact that Napoleon is dead, of course)
quote:I'm not sure if you're joking or not. If you were serious: while I certainly think it's incredibly unlikely, I also think it's much more likely than being Napoleon.
You don't have a problem with the idea that a person could be the secret love-child of Ronald Reagan and Lady Gaga?
quote:The more important thing is that it doesn't make you right, either. If you understood that, perhaps you'd be less so.
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Mmm... I think you're misguided. And I'm brave enough, and smart enough, to embrace reality. You're missing something- and say what you want about me, because I am arrogant, but it doesn't make me wrong.
Originally posted by Kwea:
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion regarding religion or spiritualism, of course, but it is way beyond that to assume you have the insight or intelligence to judge every person who disagrees with you is delusional or foolish.
quote:Indeed, it isn't terribly difficult to figure out, if one is willing to use ones reason and common sense. I'm not in a unique position to comment, I'm simply willing to go to the mental effort to base my beliefs on more than guess work and happy feelings.
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
You being familiar with both the likelihood of Ronald Regan and Lady Gaga's having ever had sex and the likelihood of most religious beliefs are in a unique position to comment, of course?
quote:The key, which you are ignoring, is "NO explanation." If we don't currently have an explanation for something, then simply inserting a place-holder called "God" doesn't get you any closer to an explanation, especially if you actually recognize that you don't actually know the answer.
Originally posted by Kwea:
...but there will always be mysteries and wonders for which we have no explanation.
quote:Whatever makes your bread rise. I have heard it said more than once that not believing in God was scary. I don't find it scary, so perhaps your right. Perhaps it only scares some people, and only those people are cowards. fine with me.
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
If one recognizes the comfort is false, and that if set aside the benefits will outweigh the deluded costs, again, I don't really see that as bravery so much as plain pragmatism.
quote:I was being serious, although the example was obviously meant to be humorous.
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
I'm not sure if you're joking or not. If you were serious: while I certainly think it's incredibly unlikely, I also think it's much more likely than being Napoleon.
quote:While we can both accept that being a love-child of the two is less unlikely than being Napoleon, both are non-zero probabilities. However, how would you compare a) the likelihood of a person in an asylum being Napoleon
Thinking that you're Napoleon seems to me to be less crazy than thinking you're the secret love-child of Lady Gaga and Reagan, who also happens to be Napoleon, even if both have the same consequence of sending you to the asylum.
quote:Hah. I have no interest in being right in the way that you clearly desperately need to be. Note, I have made no claims about the veracity of any religious belief here, and I don't need to. Why atheists waste their time arguing with religious people on their own terms is beyond me. The terms were set up by religious people to help them brainwash their children. And no, I don't care how "ignorant" or "intolerant" I sound. I don't find tolerance of monstrous acts to be a virtue.
Originally posted by Kwea:
The more important thing is that it doesn't make you right, either. If you understood that, perhaps you'd be less so.
quote:I can't speak for Kmb's beliefs, but I don't agree with the religious viewpoint that religion isn't about evidence. It may not be about having rock solid proof, but I do think that if authoritative sources count as a sort of evidence then religion very much is about evidence.
Indeed; but that's not all that's going on. Kmb has explicitly stated that, and I quote, "it's not about evidence", "I choose to believe", and "I get to choose". If this is not ignoring evidence then I don't know what is.
quote:You don't have to necessarily care about religion for religion's sake to discuss it respectfully, but you do have to care that those you are discussing it may hold it very close to their hearts and have respect for those people's feelings and intelligence.
Who cares if I'm earnest? Religion doesn't mean squat to me. That doesn't mean I can't discuss it intelligently, calmly, respectfully, and with some humor.
quote:What YOU are ignoring is that somethings aren't ever going to be answered, and all of our knowledge helps us understand the world we are in, but doesn't answer most of the types of questions I am talking about.
Originally posted by MightyCow:
quote:The key, which you are ignoring, is "NO explanation." If we don't currently have an explanation for something, then simply inserting a place-holder called "God" doesn't get you any closer to an explanation, especially if you actually recognize that you don't actually know the answer.
Originally posted by Kwea:
...but there will always be mysteries and wonders for which we have no explanation.
quote:Indeed. This is why it's important to not state an answer when we don't actually know it. "I don't know" is where we start that journey and any other answer suggests the journey has already been completed. The more I don't knows we leave properly in place the more wonderful journeys we have before us to take.
Sometimes the trip to try and answer those questions is more important than finding a rote answer.
quote:Is it possible you really are unaware of how badly you're contradicting yourself?
Note, I have made no claims about the veracity of any religious belief here, and I don't need to. Why atheists waste their time arguing with religious people on their own terms is beyond me. The terms were set up by religious people to help them brainwash their children.
quote:You appear to be channeling a lazier version of me. Monstrous acts, agreed, but surely then there is virtue in attempting to stop such acts? Even if it's only posts on an Internet forum, there might be some good in it, and certainly it costs very little. Indeed, you're posting anyway; for the effort you've expended saying you don't care, you might have helped someone.
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Hah. I have no interest in being right in the way that you clearly desperately need to be. Note, I have made no claims about the veracity of any religious belief here, and I don't need to. Why atheists waste their time arguing with religious people on their own terms is beyond me. The terms were set up by religious people to help them brainwash their children. And no, I don't care how "ignorant" or "intolerant" I sound. I don't find tolerance of monstrous acts to be a virtue.
Originally posted by Kwea:
The more important thing is that it doesn't make you right, either. If you understood that, perhaps you'd be less so.
quote:Then maybe you will have to live with thsoe questions being unanswered, rather than feeling all superior about having nonsense answers to them.
Originally posted by Kwea:
quote:What YOU are ignoring is that somethings aren't ever going to be answered, and all of our knowledge helps us understand the world we are in, but doesn't answer most of the types of questions I am talking about.
Originally posted by MightyCow:
quote:The key, which you are ignoring, is "NO explanation." If we don't currently have an explanation for something, then simply inserting a place-holder called "God" doesn't get you any closer to an explanation, especially if you actually recognize that you don't actually know the answer.
Originally posted by Kwea:
[qb] ...but there will always be mysteries and wonders for which we have no explanation.
quote:1. I make no statement about the veracity religious *beliefs.*
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:Is it possible you really are unaware of how badly you're contradicting yourself?
Note, I have made no claims about the veracity of any religious belief here, and I don't need to. Why atheists waste their time arguing with religious people on their own terms is beyond me. The terms were set up by religious people to help them brainwash their children.
quote:I'm not at all convinced I have the tools necessary to be helpful to people who have been victimized by religion. Here I'm just sharing my opinion to voice some support for what I feel is right- that's a lot more political than practical. On a daily basis, I have no confidence in my ability to change people's minds, and I am not sure that attempting to do so would not strengthen any particular person's resistance to reason. As for posting here- I know very well the feelings of the interested parties, so I post often only to add my voice to a particular chorus. I don't care strongly about changing anyone's mind here, really- I feel at best I'm probably just an unpleasant reminder to them of how foolish they sound most of the time, on this subject.
Originally posted by King of Men:
Even if it's only posts on an Internet forum, there might be some good in it, and certainly it costs very little. Indeed, you're posting anyway; for the effort you've expended saying you don't care, you might have helped someone.
quote:And I wouldn't have criticized you if you had said that. I was being critical of your claim that you 'weren't making any statements'.
2. I find the *terms* with which those beliefs are are discussed and taught to be constructed in order to retard and discourage honest intellectual inquiry.
quote:If you lack the self-awareness to understand when you are and aren't making a statement about something, I wonder how you can lay claim to understand my reasons for believing in the religion I do-particularly when I have only very incompletely ever shared them with this community.
Even if you turned out to be right, I would still recognize how weak your actual reasons are for believing what you do.
quote:And you appear to be channeling a version of me here, saying that. Or several people. Anyway, I (of course) agree with you: if something awful is going on, one has a duty to try and stop it, and one's duty to make the attempt in the most likely effective way increases in proportion to the event's awfulness.
Indeed, you're posting anyway; for the effort you've expended saying you don't care, you might have helped someone.
quote:For every thing we find out we realize 3 things we don't understand. I don't think that we will ever be able to know everything.
Originally posted by MightyCow:
First off, I don't believe that there are that many things we'll never know. We know more each day, I don't see why that should stop.
Secondly, I don't mind some of the "life is fun, be nice to people" parts of religion, although you can certainly get all that stuff without invoking some higher power or another.
What I think is silly is saying, "I don't know something, so I'll just consult my local myth, and then feel better about not knowing, because I can fool myself into thinking that I kind of know, as long as I don't examine that belief in the slightest."
quote:Riiiight. Forgot you were the arbiter of the meaning of all words. Pardon me master.
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Orincoro,
Saying that these terms were put in place to help parents brainwash their children is, by almost anyone's standards, going to be viewed as 'making a statement' on the veracity of those beliefs. People are brainwashed into bad, awful things, not true, honorable things. That's one statement. The time wasting remark is certainly indicative, but wouldn't be enough without the brainwashing remark.
quote:So when you used the term 'brainwash', you didn't mean to convey your belief that brainwashing children into religious belief is awful and a forcing into false belief?
Riiiight. Forgot you were the arbiter of the meaning of all words. Pardon me master.
quote:Really, for every new thing we learn? I don't think this is true. There must be some subjects where we know just about everything. Besides, that doesn't mean we are incapable of knowing. It's a matter of scientific advancement.
Originally posted by Kwea:
quote:For every thing we find out we realize 3 things we don't understand. I don't think that we will ever be able to know everything.
Originally posted by MightyCow:
First off, I don't believe that there are that many things we'll never know. We know more each day, I don't see why that should stop.
Secondly, I don't mind some of the "life is fun, be nice to people" parts of religion, although you can certainly get all that stuff without invoking some higher power or another.
What I think is silly is saying, "I don't know something, so I'll just consult my local myth, and then feel better about not knowing, because I can fool myself into thinking that I kind of know, as long as I don't examine that belief in the slightest."
quote:I've already denied it. You didn't like my denial, so you ignored it, and now apparently it doesn't exist. This is an issue with you- it's as if anything you disagree with is so beyond the pail that it doesn't even exist to you.
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
I also note that in your sarcastic response, you don't actually deny my criticism.
quote:So much the better, if true. It means our children will never run out of things to learn. In any case, what has that got to do with the truth of religion?
For every thing we find out we realize 3 things we don't understand. I don't think that we will ever be able to know everything.
quote:My criticism was that you had very poor self-awareness about your own post, in that you claimed not to to be doubting the veracity of religious beliefs, and that you didn't need to, while in fact making pretty clear statements about both. In fact you went ahead and did so while still claiming you didn't need to! Your response to this was to state that I was not the master of the English language.
I've already denied it. You didn't like my denial, so you ignored it, and now apparently it doesn't exist. This is an issue with you- it's as if anything you disagree with is so beyond the pail that it doesn't even exist to you.
quote:I'm not sure I grant this premise. I mean, it sounds good as a system of belief, but hardly empirical. How do you measure the 'public thought-space'? Anyway, my personal stance on people affirming claims without giving evidence is neutrality, absent any considerations of that person's integrity, and the likelihood of the particular claim. I don't really think some nebulous concept of the public thought space ought trump what seems to me to be a pretty reasonable outlook.
There's such a thing as an externality. Every time someone affirms something without giving evidence, the public thought-space is polluted a little bit more with the idea that this sort of thing is ok.
quote:Well, my problem here is that you're examining religion only from a 'what problems does it cause' angle. When taken to extremes, religion can be quite dangerous and detrimental to society. Framing the entire discussion in those terms, though, doesn't seem very reasonable to me, because put simply the 'faith-healers' is not an accurate representation of the way in which people live their faiths.
Conversely, belief in the likes of transubstantiation gives familiarity support to such things as faith healing; the whole class of religious ideas is, even in a secular society, available as a category that needs to be given serious thought. This is the purpose of such constructions as Russell's teapot, the IPU (blessed be Her hooves), and the FSM: They are examples of ideas which everyone dismisses as wacky even though they have as much evidence in their favour as transubstantiation. (To wit, someone told you about them.) Ideas have consequences, even when they're not experimentally testable.
quote:Nope. As I said above, I was almost completely unaware of Mormonism in any substantial way. Perhaps one of my friends, and not a very close one at that, none of my close friends, none of my family, and no coworkers that I knew of at the time were Mormon. My only exposure to any actual Mormons had been in high school where I viewed it more as an oddity - I distinctly recall thinking they were quite nice people who believed in some really strange, nutty stuff, in fact - and Orson Scott Card, who I didn't even know was a Mormon until well after I began reading his work.
I observe that you say "attend Church" as though there were only one option; this suggests to me - although perhaps it's only a quirk of language - that you were, so to speak, a "Mormon atheist". When you had a spiritual experience, you interpreted it in terms of Mormonism.
quote:But I can take something to be evidence for an established doctrine without saying that I use the experience of others as evidence for believing in that doctrine. It doesn't have to be circular, and certainly wasn't in my case. I ignore the experience of others as evidence in support of my own personal faith. I don't think you've really made your case here, because it seems to me you're setting up some false dichotomies. It's not a matter of either you only use internal evidence as support for your faith and thus have an entirely new religion, or you buy into other people's experiences meaning your faith is not entirely internal. A third possibility is that my faith is internal the way I mean it: between myself and God, and the evidence for it comes from that relationship, and not any other human being.
You cannot simultaneously take something as evidence for an established doctrine built on others' experience, and say that you ignore the experience of others!
quote:Have I addressed this objection above? Lemme know if not.
But that's a spiritual experience which you didn't have yourself. It follows, then, that your entire interpretational framework is founded on precisely the thing which you say you discard! That is, to put it mildly, a bit inconsistent.
quote:Ah, I see. No, I did not claim not to be doubting anything. I claimed to have made no statements about their veracity up to that point. I made it entirely clear I didn't believe in them myself.
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
My criticism was that you had very poor self-awareness about your own post, in that you claimed not to to be doubting the veracity of religious beliefs,
quote:What does this mean?
I asked myself.
quote:That's one way of looking at it, I suppose. Not one that is supported by your posts, though.
Ah, I see. No, I did not claim not to be doubting anything. I claimed to have made no statements about their veracity up to that point. I made it entirely clear I didn't believe in them myself.
quote:That's two big old contradictions right there. And as for not having made statements about the 'veracity of religious belief'...
Note, I have made no claims about the veracity of any religious belief here, and I don't need to. Why atheists waste their time arguing with religious people on their own terms is beyond me. The terms were set up by religious people to help them brainwash their children.
quote:This is not the sort of language used when someone 'doesn't want to make a claim about the veracity of religious belief'. Someone brainwashed into something doesn't really believe it, it's a trick, they've basically been compelled to believe it. True belief cannot be a product of brainwashing.
It's part of the victim complex you've clearly established around your religious beliefs...
&
I just assume between 60% and 80% of the population is mildly loopy, and another smaller portion have full blown bat****itis.
...but rather that god is a construct specifically designed to elude empirical testing...
&
I find all people who believe in God in any religious sense to be delusional, or else just foolish, or possibly simply misguided. Deism on its own is not crazy, just wrong in my opinion.
quote:I don't know everything about what other people are saying. I can recognize, however, when someone quite plainly contradicts themselves and then doesn't respond to criticism about it. I can see that sunlight from the shade quite fine, thanks. As for dropping it, well, neither of us are good droppers of things, Orincoro. I was at least attempting ineffectively to do so, but you decided to dig in.
Once again, you believe you know *everything* about what other people are saying, and you don't. I don't even know what we're talking about anymore. Perhaps you should just drop it for once.
quote:I just realized I hadn't responded to that-while obviously many of our particulars differ, Hobbes's description resonates with me.
I’m glad to hear you say that, Rakeesh. I often find myself in a similar situation, and sometimes feel like I’m missing something. Well heck, maybe I am, but I guess I’m all right with that if it’s the price I pay for my upbringing. I liked my upbringing. Not at the time of course … [Wink] I’ve been a member about 6 years (including a 2 year mission) and I still find myself speaking a different language from the rest of the parishioners much of the time. Growing up the son of a physicist in a non-theist household, my speech is much less couched in the spiritual even when speaking of spiritual topics, and my ability to consider someone else’s testimony as part of my own is … limited.
quote:You wouldn't call a brainwashed belief that the Earth orbits the sun to be a good belief, would you? You would claim that belief to be fundamentally and hopelessly flawed, however much the actual thing it believes in happens to be true.
Wait, why not? Someone cannot be brainwashed into believing the Earth goes around the sun without being presented plausible evidence for that belief? Or would you not call that a true belief, as in, a belief in something that is true, because the person who believes it does so without good reason?
quote:Heh, is this supposed to be another 'not making a statements'? I can see it pleases you to suggest that there is some deep-seated, desperate discomfort with religion that religious people such as myself cower from, shying like a vampire from sunlight. That's fine. I don't have a problem with thinking that, as long as you cop to it. It's when you start saying you're not making statements that I chime in.
And why doesn't the person "really" believe it? Do you say that because you know something I don't about brainwashing victims? Are you really as psychic as you constantly present yourself? No, I think you would like to believe that brainwashing victims don't "really" believe in things because if they could, then that might mean you could make someone believe anything, and that might mean you're wrong, and true belief can be a product of brainwashing.
quote:Here's the thing: these opinions rang through loud and clear from your posts in this very thread, to say nothing of your other posts on religious topics on Hatrack. Not really caring whether you think I'm a deluded nutjob or not, having long embraced that I too think plenty of people are deluded nutjobs, I'm fine with that belief.
Now, excuse me for having negative views of religious indoctrination, but I do. I find it despicable. Now, please, read my mind and tell me what I really think, since you were so insistent that I claim my opinion. I am not afraid to share it, and not embarrassed by it.
quote:Going off the definition of 'belief' being bandied about here, there are two kinds of belief: the kind one has to be brainwashed or indoctrinated into, and the other kind, the kind arrived at by strictly logical, empirical thinking. One kind of belief is obviously to be praised, the other shunned and criticized. One kind of belief relies upon getting at them while they're helpless kids, and the other upon a good solid education and then leaving someone alone to come to the proper conclusions.
Going off the technical and oft-misused definition of brainwashing, when you're brainwashed to believe something, you really, really actually do believe it, to every extent that 'belief' is defined.
Going off the pop-psy interpretation of brainwashing, that's belief too. It's not fake-belief any more than a child who has grown up fully indoctrinated into a cult is not experiencing 'real belief' just because it was in all ways coerced.
quote:When don't you think you've made a safe presumption is my question? Basically your answer to my question of how are you qualified to make such judgments is, "You haven't shared your reasons yet." When the truth is, I am sharing my reasons, right now, in this thread, I am just not going into complete details.
I made a safe presumption, I think. That you haven't been willing to share your reasoning here indicates to me that you don't have a lot of confidence in it being relatable to others. Sound reasoning is by its nature relatable.
quote:Well, if your self-awareness about your own naivete is as good as your self-awareness about when you are and aren't making a statement about something, frankly I question whether you're really a good judge of that.
That includes having faith about your reasoning. When presented with next to nothing, I can safely assume I'm right- suffice it to say that of all the reasoning I have ever heard, or read, none of it has been strong. None. And I am not naive about the subject- I have read and discussed widely.
quote:Can be. Not must be. I freely grant that these kinds of experiences are tied up in emotions and subjective experience, thus ought to be suspect. I suspect them myself, even when I am the one experiencing them.
I think my point still stands. Why would it be so personal to share religious beliefs if they weren't so emotional? It isn't especially personal to share one's understanding of the Pythagorean Therom, or locations one has lived.
Religious beliefs are tied intimately with emotion and personal values and identity. It can make one feel exposed and vulnerable to share them, which is precisely the same reason it can be so difficult for people to look at them objectively, or honestly consider changing them based on someone else's view of facts or evidence.
quote:I think, frankly, that it is. The only people I know who believe in a "pearls before swine" philosophy are, perhaps understandably, the people who believe in the book it's from.
Is, "If you won't share them, they must be bad," really the most reasonable assumption to make when faced with an unshared religious view?
quote:Specifically, you're on the stand, claiming to have evidence -- and when asked to produce that evidence, you're pleading the Fifth. Is it really wrong to conclude that your evidence is self-incriminating?
There's a word for what you've got before you've got evidence.
quote:Those aren't the only people you know who believe in that sort of thing, Tom. I can say that with a pretty good level of confidence because I very much doubt everyone you know shares the most intimate and important details of their lives with you.
I think, frankly, that it is. The only people I know who believe in a "pearls before swine" philosophy are, perhaps understandably, the people who believe in the book it's from.
quote:Is that a serious question? Because I could've sworn that pleading the Fifth, if we're going to stick to legal comparisons, was not in and of itself either an admission or evidence of guilt. Second, I'm not on the stand - that assumes an amount of 'right' that you would quite rightly object to if coming from a religious person towards you.
Specifically, you're on the stand, claiming to have evidence -- and when asked to produce that evidence, you're pleading the Fifth. Is it really wrong to conclude that your evidence is self-incriminating?
quote:The fact that a thing cannot be disproved does not speak strongly of its truth value.
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
I don't think it should prove anything. Remember, I'm the person who doesn't think other people's faith should be evidence for mine. But I certainly don't think it should disprove anything, either. If a scientific, empirical approach is truly the watchword, that is.
quote:First of all, that's not quite what's happening here. What's happening here is that you are completely ignoring the details I have shared, latching onto the things I have not, and now you get to conveniently claim, "If you don't answer all of my questions, well, it's reasonable to presume your reasons are bad." But it's not, it's one of the things it is reasonable to presume.
The fact that a thing cannot be disproved does not speak strongly of its truth value.
quote:Because you have not provided the details that would enable us to, for ourselves, ascertain the quality of your evidence. You have said, "Oh, yeah, I went into a lab-like building somewhere and ran some tests -- and let me tell you, I definitely achieved cold fusion."
What's happening here is that you are completely ignoring the details I have shared...
quote:Even if I did, it would still be meaningless or at least not quality evidence, to you. It would be to me if I heard it from someone else-other people's experience not being a motivator to me personally, remember?
Because you have not provided the details that would enable us to, for ourselves, ascertain the quality of your evidence.
quote:[b]Exactly.[/i] "...because we started out thinking that..." That's what I've been saying from the beginning. Finally, at least someone is acknowledging it! As for only having confirmed that I believe I've got evidence, well, sure, I was never interested in using my experience as evidence for you. All I say to others is what worked for me: ask the question.
That's why people are dismissing your "evidence;" because we started out thinking that, yes, you had wrongly concluded that you have evidence for the existence of God. And all you've done is confirm that, yes, you believe you have evidence for the existence of God.
quote:I believe this is likely to be the case, and that's actually the reason I think people refuse to share their experiences -- not because it's too "special" to share, but because when exposed to the light of day it appears roundly unconvincing.
Even if I did, it would still be meaningless or at least not quality evidence, to you.
quote:I have asked the question.
All I say to others is what worked for me: ask the question.
quote:Chill out please. I said it doesn't speak strongly of its truth value, and it doesn't. End of story. I got the sense you were thinking it might, or at least implying that it might. I want you to understand why I think it doesn't. That's all.
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
The fact that something cannot be disproven speaks strongly only that it cannot be disproven. No more, no less. If you would stop going further than that into making the kinds of ridiculous psychic claims that you so huffily object to, this conversation would've been over a dozen posts ago.
quote:Yeah, and we might get different results if we went into trials assuming the person on trial was indeed guilty. That's what you're talking about. You're talking about something like a jury going into a case being told to not assume a person is innocent. We build in such assumptions to stop the jury from being overly credulous of the prosecution's arguments.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
You might have more luck getting a good understanding of a person's evidence for religion if you don't go into the conversation assuming that the person is wrong and if you don't approach it as a trial.
quote:Honestly, if this kind of thing continues to be said, it's going to be hard to think that you're not being deliberately obtuse.
Why should we begin assuming that the evidence is right?
quote:By most standards of logical thinking that I've ever heard of, and I'm a layman, you don't get to automatically reject them, either.
By most standards of truth, you don't get to just make claims and have them automatically accepted.
quote:I shouldn't be surprised that you're assuming a great degree of importance that you simply don't possess. If you think I'm not sharing because I'm worried it appears unconvincing to you, well, there's really nothing I can do about that. I demand you inform me in explicit detail about the last disagreement you had with your wife, or the last time you were angry with your child. If you won't share it, well, that's just because you're probably just worried I'll think you were wrong or something.
I believe this is likely to be the case, and that's actually the reason I think people refuse to share their experiences -- not because it's too "special" to share, but because when exposed to the light of day it appears roundly unconvincing.
quote:Good for you. Shall I do as you do, and insist that you didn't really ask the question? How do I know you've asked the question, just because you say so? Or are claims like this only to be viewed with automatic skepticism when they come from religious people?
I have asked the question.
quote:I'm certainly no less chilled out than you are, Orincoro. Your assumption of the cool, rational stance would be much more convincing if it didn't come coupled with sneering disdain every third or fourth post. Put another way, I really don't know why you're clinging to your high horse.
Chill out please. I said it doesn't speak strongly of its truth value, and it doesn't. End of story. I got the sense you were thinking it might, or at least implying that it might. I want you to understand why I think it doesn't. That's all.
quote:Where, please. I realize it'd be a change of pace to substantiate your claims, but humor me.
I don't recall asking you anything of substance on the subject, but I do recall you vehemently denying anyone's right to ask you questions.
quote:Yes, a lack of resentment is surely one of the hallmarks of your posting style. But, OK, anything you like. In an effort to get to know the sort of person you are better, I would like to know in total detail about the biggest, nastiest dispute you've ever had with a loved one. And after your description, I'll be asking lots of probing questions which you must also be equally candid about. And you should know that if you don't, I reserve the right to assume you're secretly ashamed of your behavior and convinced, somewhere, that you were completely in the wrong.
You may ask me anything you like. I may not have adequate answers at all times to all questions, but I don't resent them being asked.
quote:I believe you. Brainwash was far too strong a term, obviously. I think your parents didn't prepare you adequately to deal with the influence of others, or perhaps there is some aspect of your essential nature which causes you to be influenced negatively by other people in this way. Or maybe you *were* brainwashed by someone. That I don't know for certain, though I wouldn't assume it.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
* Orinoco is not going to believe that my parents didn't brainwash me despite the fact that I am more religious than my parents, my siblings and I have a variety of religious beliefs or none at all, and I choose a different religion than I experienced as a child.
quote:Ok, I sit corrected on this point.
Nope. As I said above, I was almost completely unaware of Mormonism in any substantial way. Perhaps one of my friends, and not a very close one at that, none of my close friends, none of my family, and no coworkers that I knew of at the time were Mormon. My only exposure to any actual Mormons had been in high school where I viewed it more as an oddity - I distinctly recall thinking they were quite nice people who believed in some really strange, nutty stuff, in fact - and Orson Scott Card, who I didn't even know was a Mormon until well after I began reading his work.
quote:Ok. This is in some sense consistent. But if that's so, then you are resting the entire structure of Mormon doctrine, or at least whatever parts of it you personally believe, on one man's experience, merely because that man happens to be yourself. Consider just how much Shannon information is contained in the Book of Mormon's account of pre-Columbine America, absolutely none of which is supported by archeology. You can do Bayes: What is the probability that these huge civilisations should have existed, and left utterly no trace in the record? What is the prior probability of an angel appearing to a random grifter and giving him gold plates which, mysteriously, disappear a few years later? Surely this is an enormous amount of implausibility to rest on one experience, or even a series of experiences. On the other hand, what is the probability of someone saying to themselves "Is X true?" and finding an inner conviction that it is indeed so? This happens all the time, as you must well know, without any apparent regard for the actual truth value of X. Your faith is an upside-down pyramid; you rest a mountain of stone on its tip!
But I can take something to be evidence for an established doctrine without saying that I use the experience of others as evidence for believing in that doctrine. It doesn't have to be circular, and certainly wasn't in my case. I ignore the experience of others as evidence in support of my own personal faith.
quote:The girlfriend analogy. I was thinking of this particular point:
Where, please. I realize it'd be a change of pace to substantiate your claims, but humor me.
quote:Read for sarcasm, I'm assuming.
Do you have a girlfriend? Then tell me all about the most intimate details of your last fight with her, so your love and intimacy can be judged.
quote:I have composed myself, and am calm. You don't seem to be. Perhaps you should take a break before answering.
Yes, a lack of resentment is surely one of the hallmarks of your posting style. But, OK, anything you like.
quote:In that particular case I *do* feel uncomfortable talking about the subject, and I think the reason for that was that I *was* at least partly to blame for what happened.
In an effort to get to know the sort of person you are better, I would like to know in total detail about the biggest, nastiest dispute you've ever had with a loved one. And after your description, I'll be asking lots of probing questions which you must also be equally candid about. And you should know that if you don't, I reserve the right to assume you're secretly ashamed of your behavior and convinced, somewhere, that you were completely in the wrong.
quote:Yes, well, first of all it's a big discussion, and it also tied into a disagreement we were having. Second, you have said things that indicate you do assume that I think a lack of evidence should serve as proof.
Rakeesh: if you were less obtuse, you would have realived that I was responding to the post directly above mine.
quote:I am only troubled by this in proportion to the insistence of the person claiming the experience as proof that I ought to take it as such also.
The reason I am frustrated when people claim their experiences as "proof" of God is that they are entirely unconvincing, unless one suspends all disbelief (something that religious people are themselves generally unwilling to do for other religions).
quote:Nope. I wouldn't believe that about God, either, were you to say it. And I don't expect you to believe me just because I say it.
If I told you that I had a fantastic time watching Get Smart, that it's indescribable with language, but that because of that experience I am convinced that Get Smart holds supernatural Truths, would you believe that Get Smart is actually a supernatural movie, with say, the power to heal and that it makes the universe stable?
quote:That's essentially true, yes, though I would of course dispute the 'merely'.
But if that's so, then you are resting the entire structure of Mormon doctrine, or at least whatever parts of it you personally believe, on one man's experience, merely because that man happens to be yourself.
quote:I freely admit it's incredibly unlikely. I don't even know how much of that I believe actually happened. In all seriousness, if it weren't for the Mormon allowance for inaccurate translation, I might not have been able to convert. Some of the improbabilities would have been sufficiently high if I were compelled to either believe they happened or not be a Mormon.
Consider just how much Shannon information is contained in the Book of Mormon's account of pre-Columbine America, absolutely none of which is supported by archeology. You can do Bayes: What is the probability that these huge civilisations should have existed, and left utterly no trace in the record? What is the prior probability of an angel appearing to a random grifter and giving him gold plates which, mysteriously, disappear a few years later? Surely this is an enormous amount of implausibility to rest on one experience, or even a series of experiences.
quote:The probably of 'someone' doing this is something well above zero, of course. The probability that I did this, out of almost nowhere? That I just willed myself to be a Mormon, absent any sort of social or familial conditioning? Absent, in fact, almost any experience of Mormonism at all up to that point? Well, the probability of that taken entirely alone seems to me to be pretty low. Certainly quite a bit higher than the probability I am secretly crazy.
On the other hand, what is the probability of someone saying to themselves "Is X true?" and finding an inner conviction that it is indeed so? This happens all the time, as you must well know, without any apparent regard for the actual truth value of X.
quote:My own experience includes questions asked, so I don't know how I am doing it wrong.
If you are really saying that you only take your own experience as evidence for Mormon doctrine, then I have to say, you're doing it wrong. This is not evidence, it's wishful thinking and special pleading.
quote:It wasn't vehement, I just picked an exaggerated example to highlight my point. I don't actually want to know about the biggest fight you ever had, and even if I did, I would not presume to insist you share everything. But even if I did, and you refused to share everything, I wouldn't presume what you didn't share was kept hidden out of secret shame.
That reads to me like a vehement defense of your right not to answer questions you consider personal. Now to me your right to answer questions that are too personal comes with the limitation that you are essentially unable to participate in a conversation on this topic if it centers around logic and reason. Reason and logic are not too personal. They are philosophical questions, and if you can't find a way to answer them without feeling you have exposed yourself to ridicule, and you are unwilling to engage, then you I think you have forfeited the debate.
quote:Why is it in these discussions with you, your own self-evaluations are the only ones that are valid?
I have composed myself, and am calm. You don't seem to be. Perhaps you should take a break before answering.
quote:Well, perhaps this is at the heart of our disagreement. I am not offended when you express doubt at my faith. In fact, I expect people - not just you, but everyone - to have doubts about my faith. Actually that's about the only expectation I have for how other people view my faith. I am not offended, intellectually or emotionally, if another viewpoint is offered. I am intellectually offended when an alternative viewpoint is presumed to be true in the absence of an explanation.
So if I were to invite you to share that story with me, and I felt that very deep sense of anxiety and guilt that accompanies discussing such inner conflicts, I would hopefully recognize that this meant I was in some degree of doubt about my reasoning, and my actions. I still am, by the way, which is why I *won't* be offended intellectually if you offer an alternative viewpoint. Emotionally, it might be difficult. It's an incompletely healed wound.
quote:On the other hand, Mormonism is still a flavour of Christianity in a largely Christian society. It isn't like you converted to Hinduism or Buddhism. IIRC, almost half of the US population has changed religions at one point or another, and the most common is from one flavour of Christianity to another.
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
... Well, the probability of that taken entirely alone seems to me to be pretty low.
quote:For how many people does that mean a spiritual change and religious conversion, and for how many people a change in address and attendance at a new church? With all the denominations floating around, I think a lot of people probably convert without even realizing it.
Originally posted by Mucus:
[QUOTE] IIRC, almost half of the US population has changed religions at one point or another, and the most common is from one flavor of Christianity to another.
quote:While this is certainly true overall, I don't believe it applies to me. I was not even slightly Christian prior to my conversion. In fact, prior to my conversion I would roughly estimate I spent as much time being agnostic as I ever did theist, and even when I was a theist - I can recall this feeling distinctly, even today - my leanings were largely centered around 'I hope'. The holidays my family and friends did celebrate in common with Christians, we celebrated entirely in a secular way. Christmas was the time to decorate - with lights, tinsel, candy canes, and big bulbs, not crosses or nativities - and embrace the spirit of giving to one another and being kind to one another. Easter was a holiday where a really good breakfast could be expected, along with some candy. Even on Thanksgiving, when I think back I can recall...maybe two?...out of, say, the twenty-five thanksgivings I can remember that included prayer, and even those were for the benefit of those only slightly less secular than we were.
On the other hand, Mormonism is still a flavour of Christianity in a largely Christian society. It isn't like you converted to Hinduism or Buddhism. IIRC, almost half of the US population has changed religions at one point or another, and the most common is from one flavour of Christianity to another.
quote:You're begging the question. I don't, in fact, believe it's unreasonable to be offended by an assumption in the absence of evidence. And that's what this is. The only fact you have is that I will not go into complete detail with you. That's all. Anything else is just speculation, and quite frankly just as likely to involve your own personal feelings and preconceived notions as any religious leanings you might choose to characterize as false. I also don't grant that a refusal to go into complete detail means one is being unreasonable, either, but I'm perfectly accepting that that's a difference of opinion.
It is unreasonable for you to be offended when others presume they are correct because you are unwilling to answer for yourself. It is unreasonable to require that every presumption of truth requires a complete explanation unbidden. Ask for a complete explanation, and you can expect it from a reasonable person. You have gotten *very* complete explanations, from many of these people, at many different times. Again, you just didn't agree with them. Why does that offend you?
quote:What kind of theist?
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
... In fact, prior to my conversion I would roughly estimate I spent as much time being agnostic as I ever did theist
quote:What kind of prayer?
Even on Thanksgiving, when I think back I can recall...maybe two?...out of, say, the twenty-five thanksgivings I can remember that included prayer ...
)
quote:If you're asking me, I'm trying to determine how likely it is, given a person that has converted in the United States, how likely it is that they converted to Christianity.
Originally posted by Orincoro:
Who cares about the trappings anyway?
quote:*shrug* Good for you. You're quite entitled to have that opinion, and if I were you there's a strong chance I would feel the same way. But it would be a result purely of my own opinion, not something indicated in and of itself, as you suggest, by the other party not sharing. As for whining, where was the ad hominem attack that wasn't entirely supported by things you had actually said? Feel free to reference those, if you would; otherwise, well, you're just full of crap.
That is indeed a difference of opinion. In my opinion your unwillingness to explain yourself is an admission of weakness. In my opinion your ad hom whining about my preconceptions is further admission of weakness. Finally, in my opinion refusing to go engage in a discussion frankly and expecting that one should *still be taken seriously*, is downright laughable.
quote:Finally! Some honesty. Next time, get that out there in front of the conversation instead of the end of it, and we could just skip the whole mess where you insinuate your reasons aren't grounded on your contempt and disdain towards religious people. I don't know why it was so difficult for you to just say that straight out, because it's been quite clear to I imagine just about everyone you thought that way. Now the reason for the presumptions you make is clear: they're a product of something you thought before being told, "I'm not going to discuss everything." Not after.
Ultimately you leave no choice but for anyone reading what you have to say to dismiss you, and I think that's exactly what you want. I think that's how your religion works- anybody who isn't so witless as to fall for your obfuscations is a bully for saying so. Well, I don't cry alligator tears for you- but I welcome you to continue playing and losing the defensive game till the end of time.
quote:The really, really hazy kind. There was a God somewhere, or perhaps some sort of unifying force like in Hinduism. Christianity in all its stripes was basically a superstition to me, and to my family.
What kind of theist?
quote:Hmmm...non-denominational Christian prayer, I think. Or rather what was thought to be non-denominational. I don't remember clearly enough.
What kind of prayer?
quote:Right. Anything you say is opinion, and beyond reproach for that reason, but I have to prove my opinions? I have to provide a reference to an ad hom that *wasn't entirely* supported by what I said? And why exactly do I have to do that? Dude, ad hom whining is not *not* whining as long as "it is entirely supported by what I actually said," whatever that is supposed to mean. I don't know how anything I say provides support for such an attack. There is no supporting or not supporting an appeal to emotion... it just *is*. So forgive me, I think you've lost the thread.
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
As for whining, where was the ad hominem attack that wasn't entirely supported by things you had actually said? Feel free to reference those, if you would; otherwise, well, you're just full of crap.
quote:My turn to call bullshit. Show me where I do this, exactly. And keep in mind, *you* have drawn the comparison, and it is up to you to back it up. Show me where I'm even approaching, even skirting a line close to that kind of crap. Do I start threads on the topic? Do I even frequent most religious threads? Not really to the former- and I never start threads on it.
you've long been approaching malanthrop-esque levels of hackery, perhaps due to whatever issues you have with the brainwashing your parents attempted to inflict on you.
quote:Wow, you are such a weasel. My contempt is for your beliefs, first. That is the grounding. My contempt for you, and by that I mean religious people generally, is for their weakness, following from adherence to said belief. You have insinuated otherwise, and you are wrong. It comes with many exceptions and is not an absolute by any means.
reasons aren't grounded on your contempt and disdain towards religious people.
quote:Would you really like to know? I have no problem with sharing this information, actually. As you may have noted, I'm not particularly worried about my privacy. Those things I don't share are usually confidences shared; while I wouldn't mind someone knowing, I know the other party or parties involved would, so I refrain out of respect for them. I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility that your God is an introvert.
I demand you inform me in explicit detail about the last disagreement you had with your wife, or the last time you were angry with your child.
quote:Well, if the thread's still around from 2002, you might be able to find my lengthy discussion of that very process. If not, though, it's worth noting that I'm not claiming that you're lying about having had an experience that you believe was divine in nature; I'm claiming that you've misinterpreted that experience. A closer analogy is to assert that I must have somehow asked the question in the wrong way.
Good for you. Shall I do as you do, and insist that you didn't really ask the question? How do I know you've asked the question, just because you say so? Or are claims like this only to be viewed with automatic skepticism when they come from religious people?
quote:OK, it's become crystal clear you're just not listening. 'Beyond reproach' is not something I have insisted upon. Where have I demanded that my opinion be held above reproach? Nowhere. If you're going to say I have done so, you ought to be able to show me where.
Right. Anything you say is opinion, and beyond reproach for that reason, but I have to prove my opinions? I have to provide a reference to an ad hom that *wasn't entirely* supported by what I said?
quote:I haven't attacked you any more than you've attacked me...just assumed, absent a detailed explanation, whatever I presume to assume. I'm using your approach, it's just that because it's me doing it, I reach different conclusions, so it's suddenly objectionable. That's a problem with your approach, the assumption absent evidence approach.
I don't know how anything I say provides support for such an attack. There is no supporting or not supporting an appeal to emotion... it just *is*. So forgive me, I think you've lost the thread.
quote:Well, first, you've been 'calling bullshit' from the get-go. Second, what, now it's unreasonable to presume before knowing what one's motives are? Wow!
My turn to call bullshit. Show me where I do this, exactly. And keep in mind, *you* have drawn the comparison, and it is up to you to back it up. Show me where I'm even approaching, even skirting a line close to that kind of crap. Do I start threads on the topic? Do I even frequent most religious threads? Not really to the former- and I never start threads on it.
quote:I have not seen those exceptions. Therefore, having not seen them, I will presume that you're lying and that they don't exist. Incidentally, liking someone in spite of their religion doesn't actually count.
Wow, you are such a weasel. My contempt is for your beliefs, first. That is the grounding. My contempt for you, and by that I mean religious people generally, is for their weakness, following from adherence to said belief. You have insinuated otherwise, and you are wrong. It comes with many exceptions and is not an absolute by any means.
quote:And, again, you're not listening. I'm beginning to think that I was right initially: you are incapable of listening on this subject. I don't think your beliefs are entirely reactionary. When I said 'perhaps due to the way your parents brainwashed you', I was parodying your approach to the thinking of others.
As much as you woud love to frame my beliefs as entirely reactionary, because that fits your image of me, I'm afraid it just isn't so.
quote:Bullshit. You are so desperate to be right, not just on this topic but on most that you post here, that your posts reek of it. I don't need to be right, or to have other people tell me I am. I actually prefer when people don't agree with me a lot of the time, because it helps me see the other side of issues I might not have seen on my own.
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Hah. I have no interest in being right in the way that you clearly desperately need to be.
Originally posted by Kwea:
The more important thing is that it doesn't make you right, either. If you understood that, perhaps you'd be less so.
quote:I have, many times, by quoting you directly. Either you ignore them, or you wait until like fifteen posts later to acknowledge what was already pretty clear in the first place (that is, the contempt/disdain for religious people in proportion to how important religion is in their lives). Yes, you'll claim you don't actually think that, but as you have indicated, we don't have to take each other at our words, do we? We get to make presumptions about others absent any evidence from that person.
Regardless, you don't have to provide proofs for your opinions of me, just proofs of such very bold comparisons as that. I mean, Mal? Come on, that's practically Godwin.
quote:Well, that's rich. Your feelings aren't something that you're compelled to prove. Only religious feelings. But, here, if it does count: how do you react when a religious person says, "Love the sinner, hate the sin!"
Sure it does. I like you despite your being a prick. I still like you, so I don't see how that doesn't count. It's not like I don't actually like you. I do. That's a feeling, and so I don't have to prove it. You don't have to believe it, because I can't prove it, but it's still the case. Same goes for my personal exceptions to the feeling of religious people being weak. I don't think they all are. I think most of them are. But that's a feeling, again, and not something I'm compelled to prove.
quote:I am skeptical of your claim that skepticism is a more sensible approach than credulity. Do you have any non-anecdotal evidence that a skeptical approach to others produces more truthful beliefs than credulity? I believe that using a moderate degree of trust as a default leads one to have both more accurate beliefs and a happier life.
The scientific method directs us towards attempting to disprove postulates, not to prove them. Logic also directs us towards attempting to nullify arguments, not to enhance them. The advancement of reason is found in the act of oppositional thinking, not in "open-mindedness." True open mindedness is the ability to accept when one's own beliefs are shown to be inadequately reasoned or stated.
A sensible approach to such claims as religious people make is skepticism, not credulity.
quote:Maybe it would be more sensible and happier for you to be more credulous about the claim
Originally posted by Tresopax:
I am skeptical of your claim that skepticism is a more sensible approach than credulity.
But I now am more of an agnostic these days. I made a practical choice to switch to an Episcopal faith rather than remain RC because I like the rituals I grew up with, and believe that the form of worship doesn't particularly matter. But I believe, and my personal experiences bear this faith out, that there is a God, even if we don't know his exact form.quote:I couldn't disagree more with this. To me, skepticism - strange as it might sound to y'all religious people are shades of crazy folks;) - is definitely one of the single most helpful personality traits a human being can have, as far as getting along well in the world.
I am skeptical of your claim that skepticism is a more sensible approach than credulity.
quote:I agree with this. Some argue that religion has killed more people than all the wars combined. I would be interested in knowing how many lives were saved by religion, or how many people changed their lives and helped others after turning to religion.
Originally posted by Kwea:
I also believe that while we hear about a lot of bad things people do in the name of religion, there is an untold wealth of positive stories every day we don't hear of normally. If a church inspires people to help other people and make our world a better place, far be it for me to discourage them.
quote:Of course, we certainly have done and some still do - even by force and violence. It isn't exactly our best trait, though, and one I am sorry to see atheists emulate.
Originally posted by Geraine:
Religious people don't force you to believe in God, it would be nice if a little respect could be shown and to try and force them to convert to atheism.
quote:If this was all that had been happening in this thread, the discussions would have gone quite differently.
That is certainly not unreasonable, especially considering that they are often somewhat unsure themselves, and frequently don't have an "answer" until one is provided by a religious tradition.
quote:This is a bit...incomplete. 'Religious people' don't do anything monolithically. It's just too big a group. However, some religious people have and do most certainly try and force non-believers to believe. Very fortunately for us, that sort of effort is generally very much frowned upon, and we have plenty of good laws in place to protect people from that in the United States...but it does still happen.
Religious people don't force you to believe in God, it would be nice if a little respect could be shown and to try and force them to convert to atheism.
quote:And strange as it might sound, I actually agree with that too but simultaneously think that trustingness (for lack of a better term) is also on that list of most helpful personality traits.
I couldn't disagree more with this. To me, skepticism - strange as it might sound to y'all religious people are shades of crazy folks;) - is definitely one of the single most helpful personality traits a human being can have, as far as getting along well in the world.
quote:I think too often that attitude carves the humanity out of the person being discussed. Like, love gay people, but hate their essential nature. But often those "sins" are not things I consider to be weaknesses. I abhor weakness, as I suspect most people do, because I can easily recognize it in myself, and am troubled by it. I don't think there are many people, if any, who are so different. At the same time, I think it's fair to distinguish between those weaknesses that are inherent, and those that are not. Inherent weakness is not to be hated- that kind of "sin," is nothing bad to me, it's life. I think Calvinists and puritans and other such absolutists end up shooting themselves in the foot, because any shortcoming in the road to perfection is the fault of the person who has no choice but to be whom they are. But there are forms of moral weakness that go beyond the pale too, that I think do involved choices, and do reflect something about our intentions to the world around us. Those have to be reacted to, or at least I feel an urge to react some of the time.
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
But, here, if it does count: how do you react when a religious person says, "Love the sinner, hate the sin!"
quote:Oh God... I'm breathing deep. I'm fighting as serious attack of the giggles here.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
Do you have any non-anecdotal evidence that a skeptical approach to others produces more truthful beliefs than credulity? I believe that using a moderate degree of trust as a default leads one to have both more accurate beliefs and a happier life.
quote:You are, just not in those exact terms. Skepticism, and to some degree negativism is the approach to a worldview which holds basically that the good (you could substitute humanity or consciousness) is an aberration of nature which cannot be relied upon. That's how I see it anyway.
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Speaking for myself, I mean it as a method-be skeptical of things at first, evaluate them, reducing skepticism depending on the evaluation. I'm not really familiar with it as a world view.
quote:If I trust what you are saying then I must be skeptical and ask: What was the study - what method did you (or would you) go about using to test it? What were the results?
In answer to your "question" Tres... yes I do have non-anecdotal evidence that a skeptical approach to others produces more truthful beliefs. I did a study. Take my word for it. You will have truthful results if you believe what I am saying to you, and you will have a happier life.
quote:But dishonor by association is real dishonor, seems to be the theme of a lot of anti-religious thinking I see. *shrug* That's a message that resonates in a lot of your thoughts to religious people, even if you don't come right out and say so. Just saying.
Honor by association is not real honor.
quote:That's irrelevant. If a religious person can't hate the sin but love the sinner, particularly in cases where the sin is part of their 'essential nature'...why is it exactly you are capable of abhorring (another common word used in place of this is 'hate', you know) religious people's religion, but not the religious people themselves, particularly when for many of them it is a huge part of their identity?
But often those "sins" are not things I consider to be weaknesses.
quote:I don't. I don't think it's wise to abhor something that is fundamental to being human, that is, having weaknesses. I think one can have a philosophy built around eliminating weaknesses without abhorring them.
I abhor weakness, as I suspect most people do...
quote:Religion not falling into the category of inherent weaknesses in your opinion, I take it? Can't something become inherent? Suppose I agree that religion isn't an inherent trait of many human beings. Couldn't it be an inherent trait of many human beings after being trained in it for decades, as you think they are? And then aren't you left with abhorring an inherent weakness? You are the one who has said that someone can be brainwashed into true belief, after all.
...I think it's fair to distinguish between those weaknesses that are inherent...
quote:Seriously dude? I was presenting the fallacy in reverse in order to demonstrate that it was flawed, not in order to actually demonstrate the opposite argument. The opposite argument fails for the same reasons. How stupid do you think I actually am?
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Orincoro,
quote:But dishonor by association is real dishonor, seems to be the theme of a lot of anti-religious thinking I see. *shrug* That's a message that resonates in a lot of your thoughts to religious people, even if you don't come right out and say so. Just saying.
Honor by association is not real honor.
quote:Heh... Rakeesh it is clearly relevant to me. Please stop confusing my arguments from my answers to your questions. This was an answer to a question about what i have to say about "hate the sin, love the sinner." I can't exactly prove my feelings on it to be true. I am not trying. Notice all the "I consider," and "I feel," and "to my thinkings?" Those are all indicators that I have no framework in place for an argument. Everything I say about myself is relevant, to me. Stop being an ass.
quote: But often those "sins" are not things I consider to be weaknesses.
That's irrelevant.
quote:No.
And then aren't you left with abhorring an inherent weakness?
quote:The point being made is that religion has no answer. It is not enough to demonstrate that science can't answer some question or other; this doesn't show the religion can. It's true that religion will often attempt an answer, where scientists have the honesty to say they don't know; but since you have no means of checking correctness, this is no better than guesswork. To say "We have a guess" is not a satisfactory answer; to say "We are certain of this" when in fact you're only guessing is just a lie.
MC, Religion does not have all of the answers. I don't know of any religion that claims to have all of the answers. I don't think scientists have all of the answers either.
quote:Ok, so you're saying that you converted because some of the doctrine might be wrong? And really, if the mistranslations can be so large as to hide away the pre-Columbine civilisations, then come now, how can you trust the rest? A translation that can invent something of that size out of 'mistakes' is no better than plain fantasy.
I freely admit it's incredibly unlikely. I don't even know how much of that I believe actually happened. In all seriousness, if it weren't for the Mormon allowance for inaccurate translation, I might not have been able to convert. Some of the improbabilities would have been sufficiently high if I were compelled to either believe they happened or not be a Mormon.
quote:Why would you think so? By your account, the decision wasn't "become a Mormon" but "check out the Mormon church". I don't see this as a particularly low probability, people do that all the time - not just with the Mormons. Rather the question is, having made such a decision, what is the probability that a positive answer will float up out of your subconscious? And I ask that you please try not to treat yourself as special. The correct reference class is "all people who have decided to pray for guidance on a given church". We know that some considerable percentage of them get 'positive' guidance; very many converts tell a story like this. We further know that they can't all be right. So, what is the probability that you'll get a positive answer, even if there is no god to give you one?
The probably of 'someone' doing this is something well above zero, of course. The probability that I did this, out of almost nowhere? That I just willed myself to be a Mormon, absent any sort of social or familial conditioning? Absent, in fact, almost any experience of Mormonism at all up to that point? Well, the probability of that taken entirely alone seems to me to be pretty low.
quote:Ah, no. I was talking about empistomology, not morality. Positivism holds that the only things which are real are those which can be perceived by the senses and empirically verified. There is no "negativism" as it's counterpart. Alternatives would be things like idealism and realism.
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:You are, just not in those exact terms. Skepticism, and to some degree negativism is the approach to a worldview which holds basically that the good (you could substitute humanity or consciousness) is an aberration of nature which cannot be relied upon. That's how I see it anyway.
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Speaking for myself, I mean it as a method-be skeptical of things at first, evaluate them, reducing skepticism depending on the evaluation. I'm not really familiar with it as a world view.
Positivism as a worldview is essentially that the good is a state endowed with existence by those that perceive and judge it, and so evolves in response to the needs of the same. You can extend that much further to state, for example, that the evolution of humanity into a cyborg or cybernet race would be to the good, because the good would evolve to match the needs of humanity. But on the other hand that if we did evolve into cyborgs and encountered other life upon which we inflicted deep harm, our evolution would be to the bad, because we would have acted against the good in relation to all life. Positivism increases its scope as the universe increases in size. Negativism I think holds that basically no matter what we do ultimately, the universe sorts everything into an ultimate score in the negative column, meaning what is to the good is not ultimately possible to achieve.
quote:I think this is true, if you confine your definition of "most people" to young adult males. Particularly those who have philosophical sympathies leaning toward Friedrich Nietzsche. I don't beleive it holds true for humanity in general.
Originally posted by Orincoro:
I abhor weakness, as I suspect most people do, because I can easily recognize it in myself, and am troubled by it. I don't think there are many people, if any, who are so different.
quote:There are options in between those two possible answers, though.
To say "We have a guess" is not a satisfactory answer; to say "We are certain of this" when in fact you're only guessing is just a lie.
quote:KoM, I understand where you are coming from. My point is that until we can map the entire universe and beyond, and come to a perfect understanding of our universe, how do we know that there is not a being out there that is not more advanced than us? That has a greater understanding of physics, biology, and chemistry?
Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:The point being made is that religion has no answer. It is not enough to demonstrate that science can't answer some question or other; this doesn't show the religion can. It's true that religion will often attempt an answer, where scientists have the honesty to say they don't know; but since you have no means of checking correctness, this is no better than guesswork. To say "We have a guess" is not a satisfactory answer; to say "We are certain of this" when in fact you're only guessing is just a lie.
MC, Religion does not have all of the answers. I don't know of any religion that claims to have all of the answers. I don't think scientists have all of the answers either.
quote:You don't know much about me, or what my philosophical sympathies are. But clearly you show something of your own by tarring me with that particular brush. Hint: just because someone talks about weakness doesn't make them Nietzsche. Now will you dispense with the name calling?
Originally posted by dkw:
quote:I think this is true, if you confine your definition of "most people" to young adult males. Particularly those who have philosophical sympathies leaning toward Friedrich Nietzsche. I don't beleive it holds true for humanity in general.
Originally posted by Orincoro:
I abhor weakness, as I suspect most people do, because I can easily recognize it in myself, and am troubled by it. I don't think there are many people, if any, who are so different.
quote:How do you feel about meteorology then? Weather forecasts neither claim to be certain of tomorrow's weather, nor claim to be just guesses.
quote:I must say that a compromise between "unsatisfactory" and "lie" does not strike me as very promising, thanks kindly.
To say "We have a guess" is not a satisfactory answer; to say "We are certain of this" when in fact you're only guessing is just a lie.
quote:I'm not quite catching where I made any claim about you in particular or your philosophical sympathies. Perhaps you could point it out to me?
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:You don't know much about me, or what my philosophical sympathies are. But clearly you show something of your own by tarring me with that particular brush. Hint: just because someone talks about weakness doesn't make them Nietzsche. Now will you dispense with the name calling?
Originally posted by dkw:
quote:I think this is true, if you confine your definition of "most people" to young adult males. Particularly those who have philosophical sympathies leaning toward Friedrich Nietzsche. I don't beleive it holds true for humanity in general.
Originally posted by Orincoro:
I abhor weakness, as I suspect most people do, because I can easily recognize it in myself, and am troubled by it. I don't think there are many people, if any, who are so different.
And one point in the context of a much larger conversation is not what anyone would call *a lot*. Perhaps you should reign in your speculations.
quote:And they have a verifiable success rate, which is what they give as their probability. Where are the verifiable successes of religion?
How do you feel about meteorology then? Weather forecasts neither claim to be certain of tomorrow's weather, nor claim to be just guesses.
quote:Yes.
Your argument about guessing is just as valid for science as it is about religion. Can science provide a definitive answer on the actual size of the universe?
quote:Yes, although it has not yet done so.
Can science provide definitive answers on whether there is life on other planets?
quote:Yes; there is an upper bound on the available information in the universe.
Can science provide a definitive answer on how advanced these civilizations could be?
quote:All your above questions, and in addition the following: What is a good life? What is our purpose? How should we act?
Perhaps you could provide me some examples of some things religion have "no answer" to.
quote:So if (when?) we map the entire universe and come across a being that is far more advanced than us, and tells us that using the knowledge He/She has, he was able to form Earth and create life, it wouldn't make a difference?
Originally posted by kmbboots:
My point is that even if (when?) we map the entire universe and beyond and come to a perfect understanding of the universe - it doesn't make any difference.
quote:A lot was not in quotations, I was emphasizing it with *these* little guys.
Originally posted by dkw:
I'm not quite catching where I made any claim about you in particular or your philosophical sympathies. Perhaps you could point it out to me?
And while you're at it, why are you refering to anyone calling anything "a lot"? I don't see that term in any of my posts.
quote:Yes. But you are not making the distinction between "X is possible" and "X is true". It's possible Obama is wearing white underwear today; should I therefore believe it? It's possible that someone is being assaulted in the deserted corridors of the lower levels of the physics building; ought I to call the campus police? This distinction is so elementary that I find it hard to believe you're arguing honestly. "It is possible" is such a weak standard that you would not apply it to any other belief of yours whatsoever. Yet in the case of religion, that's the defense you offer? "Well, it could be true?" Come now. This is not evidence, this is not even argument, this is a kindergartener trying desperately to make Santa give him presents. Here we are all adults; can we not keep this conversation at a higher level than so?
Let me ask you this from a scientific standpoint. Would it one day be possible to terraform a planet? Create life in a lab? Use the knowledge we have of the human genome to essentially heal blindness or regrow a limb?
quote:Questioning or not questioning religion is not important to an association fallacy- you just made a point: x does good things, therefore x is of positive value. Basically if x is the church, and y is good, and part of x is y, the fallacy is to assume that all of x is y, or vice versa.
Originally posted by Kwea:
Ori, I never said you had no reason to doubt, or question, religion. Organized religion in particular.
I don't believe, since I didn't say that, that the fallacy you mention is what I stated at all.
quote:No, you were talking about me. You were condescending, and now you're being coy. Rather than simply disagree, you had to put me in my place, and adopt this "who me?" approach. You know damned well why I find the comparison offensive, and you intended it. I don't have to read minds to see that.
Originally posted by dkw:
No, I made an insinuation about you generalizing your internal experience to humanity in general. I suggested one sub-group of humanity that your generalization likely does apply to at a higher than average rate. That does not imply that everyone who has that particular experience fits is that particular subgroup.
quote:I don't know why but I feel like I can hear your accent here, especially in the "come now" part... weird!
Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Yes. But you are not making the distinction between "X is possible" and "X is true". It's possible Obama is wearing white underwear today; should I therefore believe it? It's possible that someone is being assaulted in the deserted corridors of the lower levels of the physics building; ought I to call the campus police? This distinction is so elementary that I find it hard to believe you're arguing honestly. "It is possible" is such a weak standard that you would not apply it to any other belief of yours whatsoever. Yet in the case of religion, that's the defense you offer? "Well, it could be true?" Come now. This is not evidence, this is not even argument, this is a kindergartener trying desperately to make Santa give him presents. Here we are all adults; can we not keep this conversation at a higher level than so?
Let me ask you this from a scientific standpoint. Would it one day be possible to terraform a planet? Create life in a lab? Use the knowledge we have of the human genome to essentially heal blindness or regrow a limb?
quote:No, I was not and I am not. You are making an incorrect assumption about my intention and my motives. I am sorry that my post was not more clear, and it was possible for you to interpret it in that way.
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:No, you were talking about me. You were condescending, and now you're being coy. Rather than simply disagree, you had to put me in my place, and adopt this "who me?" approach. You know damned well why I find the comparison offensive, and you intended it. I don't have to read minds to see that.
Originally posted by dkw:
No, I made an insinuation about you generalizing your internal experience to humanity in general. I suggested one sub-group of humanity that your generalization likely does apply to at a higher than average rate. That does not imply that everyone who has that particular experience fits is that particular subgroup.
quote:Which is?
Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:And they have a verifiable success rate, which is what they give as their probability. Where are the verifiable successes of religion?
How do you feel about meteorology then? Weather forecasts neither claim to be certain of tomorrow's weather, nor claim to be just guesses.
quote:Yes.
Your argument about guessing is just as valid for science as it is about religion. Can science provide a definitive answer on the actual size of the universe?
quote:So in otherwords, they are guessing that there is, but have not yet been able to.
quote:Yes, although it has not yet done so.
Can science provide definitive answers on whether there is life on other planets?
quote:So again, no.
quote:Yes; there is an upper bound on the available information in the universe.
Can science provide a definitive answer on how advanced these civilizations could be?
quote:All your above questions, and in addition the following: What is a good life? What is our purpose? How should we act?
Perhaps you could provide me some examples of some things religion have "no answer" to.
quote:No! Wrong! Science does not say any of those things. Science, in fact, does not answer any of those questions. My point all along has been that neither does religion; and so, saying "science cannot answer all questions" is not a boost to religion, it is just noise.
Right. Let me ask you the same question. What is a good life from a scientific perspective? What is our purpose? How should we act?
From a scientific perspective, the first would be answered by how much we procreate, the second would BE to procreate to ensure our species continues, and the last would be to do anything to survive.
quote:Guesswork. Not answers.
From MY religious perspective, having children and watching them grow and learn is a good life. Our purpose would be to be able to return to God, and how we should act should be in accordance to the other two questions.
quote:You are quite mistaken, all these things can be studied scientifically. Really, you ought not to make such blithe pronunciamentos about things you clearly know nothing about.
God may not be able to be proven scientifically, but can the same not be said for "feelings?" Love, joy, happiness, forgiveness, friendship, and beauty--are essentially impossible to prove; however, that makes them no less real. I cannot look at a friendship under a microscope or place it on scales to measure its value in my life.
quote:Yes, yes, and so what? You are completely ignoring my post where I responded to this question.
If we find one other sentient race that is more advanced than humans, then it would be safe to say there were others that were even MORE advanced, perhaps even to the point of having a perfect knowledge of science to the point that creating a planet, terraforming it, and placing life here is possible.
quote:13.7 billion lightyears.
Which is?
quote:No. Your question was, "Can science do this", and the answer is, yes it can. It hasn't been done yet, but it is quite possible; the method being, send someone in a rocket and check. This has nothing to do with guesswork. You are confusing "Can produce an answer" with "Has an answer right now". A very bad habit, common in theists.
So in otherwords, they are guessing that there is, but have not yet been able to.
quote:Perhaps you don't understand what "upper bound" means? You keep trying to discuss science without, apparently, any knowledge of it. Tell me, what sort of education do you have? I ask not to put you down, but because I've been assuming a college-level education, which would give us some shared vocabulary I've been using. If I'm trying to explain to someone with a high-school or, absent gods help us, lib'ral arts education, then I'll start from a much lower base of assumed knowledge. But you should please stop making the assumption that you know anything about what science is, does, or can do, when you demonstrate in your every post that you don't.
So again, no.
quote:It wouldn't be God. Though God may have worked through that being.
Originally posted by Geraine:
quote:So if (when?) we map the entire universe and come across a being that is far more advanced than us, and tells us that using the knowledge He/She has, he was able to form Earth and create life, it wouldn't make a difference?
Originally posted by kmbboots:
My point is that even if (when?) we map the entire universe and beyond and come to a perfect understanding of the universe - it doesn't make any difference.
quote:Sure. It won't make us gods. Or more divine than we already are.
I don't think God is a magician. I think he has a perfect knowledge of the laws of the universe, and uses them to accomplish His will.
Let me ask you this from a scientific standpoint. Would it one day be possible to terraform a planet? Create life in a lab? Use the knowledge we have of the human genome to essentially heal blindness or regrow a limb?
quote:No offense taken. To be completely honest with you I majored in English with a minor in Portuguese. This in itself is interesting since I work for a payroll company. The two required science courses I took were taught by someone that thought it would be better to push an agenda than actually teach science, so we ended up watching nothing but films on climate change.
Originally posted by King of Men:
Didn't see this due to bad quoting.
quote:13.7 billion lightyears.
Which is?
quote:No. Your question was, "Can science do this", and the answer is, yes it can. It hasn't been done yet, but it is quite possible; the method being, send someone in a rocket and check. This has nothing to do with guesswork. You are confusing "Can produce an answer" with "Has an answer right now". A very bad habit, common in theists.
So in otherwords, they are guessing that there is, but have not yet been able to.
quote:Perhaps you don't understand what "upper bound" means? You keep trying to discuss science without, apparently, any knowledge of it. Tell me, what sort of education do you have? I ask not to put you down, but because I've been assuming a college-level education, which would give us some shared vocabulary I've been using. If I'm trying to explain to someone with a high-school or, absent gods help us, lib'ral arts education, then I'll start from a much lower base of assumed knowledge. But you should please stop making the assumption that you know anything about what science is, does, or can do, when you demonstrate in your every post that you don't.
So again, no.
quote:No. The light is redshifted; this is not the same as having traveled.
I see you stated the 13.7 billion light year number. Every scientific article I have read states that while the light has traveled 13.7 billion lightyears, the actual distance the light has traveled is much greater (something like 78 billion lightyears) since the universe is still expanding.
quote:What's north of the north pole? You can't get there from here any more than you can go faster than lightspeed by accelerating steadily.
That is neither here nor there, just wanted to point that out. I am interested what the general consensus is on what comes after the "edge" of the universe if one were able to travel that far.
quote:If it never interacts with us, not even to the extent of exchanging photons, then yes, I don't see how you can say that it exists.
If space is infinite, does this mean that it does not exist, since we can no longer measure it?
quote:You apparently believed in a finite, measurable being three hours ago, when you posted your stuff about finding an advanced civilisation. When you shift the goalposts like this it's impossible to have a useful conversation. It appears to me that you've given up on evidence again and are now saying it's about having faith. If so, please see this thread, two pages back. If not, please stop waffling about finite versus infinite.
I think we are talking about two different versions of God KoM. You are referring to God as something finite, something we can measure. And here is where we differ. I don't believe in a finite being, I believe in an infinite being. Whether that being came into existence naturally or not, I do not know. It comes down to how you view God. Empirical, stable, demonstrable protocols, (again, I am ignorant in these things) are used to measure something that is finite.
quote:I think you might be very interested in the book "Blink" by Malcom Gladwell. http://www.wikisummaries.org/Blink:_The_Power_of_Thinking_Without_Thinking
Originally posted by Geraine:
One night my companion and I had an appointment with a family in this neighborhood. The neighborhood was considered the favela (ghetto) and was a poor part of the village.
When we started walking down the road, I got this feeling that we should just turn around. The feeling was in my gut, like when you go down a steep hill in your car or ride a rollercoaster. I ignored it but it kept getting worse and worse, and I just felt like we had to turn around; that something bad would happen if we didn't.
I decided to ask my companion how he felt, so I did. He looked at me and said "I have a really strong feeling that we should turn around." I felt a shiver down my spine, but we turned around and went home.
quote:Or maybe you would have scared off the shooter and saved the man from being sent to the hospital. Or maybe your witnessing would have convinced the shooter to join your church and save poor children from their bad situations.
The next day we saw the family and apologized for not coming over. They said that it was good that we hadn't. There was a shooting on the street in front of their house, and a man had been sent to the hospital with a bullet wound.
I don't know what could have happened if we continued on to their house. Maybe nothing would have happened. On the other hand, maybe we would have been shot by a stray bullet.
quote:This is what is known as selection bias. We remember the things that confirm what we want to believe, and forget things that contradict our beliefs. We find things that we are looking for to be very interesting, so we're more likely to notice and remember them, so we end up with very inaccurate "evidence", because we discount things that could disprove our conclusion.
Again, I am genuinely interested in your thoughts on my experience, and will treat them with respect. It happened ten years ago, but I still remember it vividly.
quote:You are moving the goalposts now - your argument before did not entail the question of verifiable success rates. It was that religion either can offer only a guess, or can lie about being able to prove what it knows, neither of which is a helpful thing. But weather forecasting, like religion, is an example of one of many areas in which an assertion can reasonably be made that is neither proven nor a complete guess; it is made on partial evidence. Thus, it is definitely possible for a field of knowledge to be unable to prove the answer to certain questions yet be able to give answers to those questions that are more reliable than simply random guesses.
And they have a verifiable success rate, which is what they give as their probability. Where are the verifiable successes of religion?
quote:<nit>Confirmation bias, actually.</nit>
This is what is known as selection bias.
quote:I look at the soul, or spirit as like this.
Does light have mass?" this can be taken to mean different things if the light is moving freely or trapped in a container. The definition of the invariant mass of an object is m = sqrt{E2/c4 - p2/c2}. By this definition a beam of light, is massless like the photons it is composed of. However, if light is trapped in a box with perfect mirrors so the photons are continually reflected back and forth in the box, then the total momentum is zero in the boxes frame of reference but the energy is not. Therefore the light adds a small contribution to the mass of the box. This could be measured - in principle at least - either by an increase in inertia when the box is slowly accelerated or by an increase in its gravitational pull. You might say that the light in the box has mass but it would be more correct to say that the light contributes to the total mass of the box of light. You should not use this to justify the statement that light has mass in general.
quote:Not a cosmologist, but I recognize a fundamental misconception when I see one.
Originally posted by Geraine:
KoM: Regarding what you said about the north pole and space...You are of the opinion the Universe is shaped like a hyperplane/hyperspehere/hyperboloid? If it is shaped like a doughnut, what does it loop around? What would lie at the core of a looped three-dimensional cosmos? Is a higher spatial dimension beyond the limits of observation possible?
quote:The distance between any two observable points is expanding. Imagine you have a giant bowl of spaghetti, and you're just sitting in it minding your own business, and slowly you start to realize that the noodles all seem to be growing fractionally bigger and less close to each other, from your perspective and the edge of the bowl seems to be further and further away in all directions. Now, remember you have no way of knowing if the bowl is getting bigger, or if you or getting smaller. To ask at that point whether the bowl is going to fill up some larger container is an interesting one... but what if the room the bowl is in is also getting bigger, or what if nothing is getting bigger, and you're just getting smaller? Have you ever been sitting on a train, in a station, and been suddenly disoriented when a train parked next to it moved, causing you to believe you were moving? Similar sort of problem here. Perceived movement based on a change in some key point of reference doesn't equal movement, per se. Just because the universe is expanding does not mean it is "getting bigger." It is not larger in relation to any object, and so the expansion of the universe could as easily be seen as a uniform decrease in size of everything in it. In the analogy, you either changed size or did not change size relative to everything around you. But in the real universe, you would also be part of the phenomenon. You would not be able to observe the difference, which would only express itself, in any way you could observe, in tiny and difficult to observe behaviors of high speed particles.
If it is expanding, what is it expanding in?
quote:Congratulations. I look at women like objects.
Originally posted by Geraine:
I look at the soul, or spirit as like this.
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
quote:You do if science works like Star Trek the Next Generation- the analogy makes it possible!
Geraine: What does it mean that we have spiritual mass that is different from regular mass? No offense, but if you just make up terms like "spiritual mass" and then say that they mean what you are trying to prove, you don't really prove anything.
quote:I move no posts, I merely clarify what my phrase meant. It is precisely the quality of having no verifiable success rate that makes religious answers mere guesswork; the two are equivalent. To qualify such guesses by adding a probability - whether that probability is said to be 10% or 100% - does not help the underlying problem; it merely compounds it by giving a false veneer of certainty.
You are moving the goalposts now - your argument before did not entail the question of verifiable success rates. It was that religion either can offer only a guess, or can lie about being able to prove what it knows, neither of which is a helpful thing.
quote:No, I'm of the opinion that your question is meaningless. You might as well ask - I put this in a religious framework for ease of communication - how much time passed before Creation. Since time begins at creation, there is no before; you are effectively asking "What would I see if I went back to before God said 'Let there be light'?".
Regarding what you said about the north pole and space...You are of the opinion the Universe is shaped like a hyperplane/hyperspehere/hyperboloid?
quote:You are trying to discuss mathematical problems in English. This does not work.
If the Universe is expanding, is there a limit? If the universe is nothing but a loop or plane, how can it expand? If it is expanding, what is it expanding in?
quote:Yes, yes. What does this have to do with faith versus evidence? Try to stick to the point. Do you have any evidence for your 'spiritual mass'? If not, how dare you come here and assert that it exists?
Spiritual bodies still having mass, however a different type of mass than we are currently. I guess it could be argued that the mass in our physical bodies are as old as the universe itself when it comes down to it. Since mass is eternal, but takes on different shapes, the mass we are made up of has existed since the beginning of the universe, just in different forms.
quote:and
Tossing out the appeal of a relationship counselor who was fired for refusing to counsel gay couples, a top British judge has ruled that Christian beliefs have no standing under secular law because they lack evidence and cannot be proven.
quote:
“In the eye of everyone save the believer religious faith is necessarily subjective being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence. It may of course be true; but the ascertainment of such truth lies beyond the means by which laws are made in a reasonable society,” he said.
“Therefore it lies only in the heart of the believer, who is alone bound by it. No one else is or can be so bound, unless by his own free choice he accepts its claims.
“The promulgation of law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified. It is irrational, as preferring the subjective over the objective. But it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary,” he continued.
quote:KoM: What would you see if you went back to before the big bang happened?
No, I'm of the opinion that your question is meaningless. You might as well ask - I put this in a religious framework for ease of communication - how much time passed before Creation. Since time begins at creation, there is no before; you are effectively asking "What would I see if I went back to before God said 'Let there be light'?".
quote:We use analogies to describe aspects of the universe in an attempt to clarify complex or unintuitive concepts to people who are unfamiliar with the concepts. You seem
Originally posted by kmbboots:
We know specific facts about the universe, too, yet can't entirely describe it.
quote:How many furious green ideas can sleep in a demented cement screwdriver?
KoM: What would you see if you went back to before the big bang happened?
quote:So if there were no men, then things would not happen one after the other? Come now.
Time begins at creation? Really? When you were "created", your perception of time began. Time passed before you were here, and will pass after you are gone. Time is a man made measurement. Seconds, hours, years, and so on were created by man in order to measure events in the universe.
quote:Works just as well for leprechauns.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
We can describe by analogy some aspects of God, but cannot describe God completely. God is infinite.
quote:This doesn't follow. You can experience something indescribable and still know about it.
But if something is indescribable, it is also unknowable, because you can't describe it to yourself.
quote:Sure, but what is that supposed to prove? If you truly witnessed a leprechaun, then by all means believe in leprechauns, even if you can't describe it...
Works just as well for leprechauns.
quote:So? I am not claiming that indescribability is evidence of existence; I am stating that neither is it evidence of non-existence and that the obstacles of language should be taken into account rather than used to score points.
Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Works just as well for leprechauns.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
We can describe by analogy some aspects of God, but cannot describe God completely. God is infinite.
quote:Kom, I love how you ask me a question from a religious standpoint, but as soon as I insert "Big bang" in the place of "creation" you say the question is meaningless.
Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:How many furious green ideas can sleep in a demented cement screwdriver?
KoM: What would you see if you went back to before the big bang happened?
Your question is meaningless.
quote:So if there were no men, then things would not happen one after the other? Come now.
Time begins at creation? Really? When you were "created", your perception of time began. Time passed before you were here, and will pass after you are gone. Time is a man made measurement. Seconds, hours, years, and so on were created by man in order to measure events in the universe.
Time may be finite or infinite. Our best evidence at the moment indicates it is finite. In a universe with finite time, time has a definite beginning, and there is no 'before' the beginning of time. There is no answer to the question "what happened a year before the beginning?" because you can't go there. There is no 'there' to go to. What's north of the north pole? What's east of moon, west of sun? There's no such animal.
quote:You misunderstood my intent. The question is equally meaningless whether expressed with creation or Big Bang; by using creation I was attempting to demonstrate the meaninglessness in language familiar to you, not put down religion.
Kom, I love how you ask me a question from a religious standpoint, but as soon as I insert "Big bang" in the place of "creation" you say the question is meaningless.
quote:In fact science does not say that. Common sense informs us that either there is a beginning to all things, or there isn't. The best evidence indicates a beginning. If there is a beginning, then that is an uncaused event.
Likewise, you just confirm what I typed in the second response. Time is a man made measurement. If the Big Bang happened, what caused it? Science says that everything that happens has a cause, I want to know what the cause of the big bang was.
quote:You fall into the trap laid by the devil that-does-not-follow, aided in this case by the devil use-the-word-without-understanding. "Infinite time" means only that, if you invent a time machine and go backwards, you will never hit a boundary beyond which you cannot go. "Finite time" means the opposite: There does exist such a boundary. (That said, there do exist formulations of modern physics in which time, indeed, is discarded as a variable.) In other words, the question is whether the universe has a beginning or not; testability doesn't come into it. You are apparently confusing these usages with your understanding of 'finite' humans and 'infinite' gods, with which they have nothing to do.
What you have just stated by saying time may or may not be infinite indicates to me that you are not being scientifically honest. Either it is infinite or it is not. If time is finite, it can be experimented upon and tested. If it is infinite, then it is untestable, and by your standards does not exist.
quote:...said the puddle of the depression in which it sat. You have been mis-informed about the degree of fine-tuning required to produce life, especially the one-grain-of-sand bit. In any case, what of it? Religion doesn't answer this question any more than science does; and religion can't answer it, while science is checking out several promising avenues of research into the question.
Can you explain why the Universe is the size that it is. Apparently it is a huge accident. The universe could not have been much smaller than it is for nuclear fusion to have happened in the first 3 minutes after the big bang, and if the universe were even one grain of sand greater in mass at the beginning, the universe would have collapsed before life could have started. The size of our universe is the exact size needed to sustain life.
quote:First, I appreciate the continued discussion.
Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:You misunderstood my intent. The question is equally meaningless whether expressed with creation or Big Bang; by using creation I was attempting to demonstrate the meaninglessness in language familiar to you, not put down religion.
Kom, I love how you ask me a question from a religious standpoint, but as soon as I insert "Big bang" in the place of "creation" you say the question is meaningless.
quote:In fact science does not say that. Common sense informs us that either there is a beginning to all things, or there isn't. The best evidence indicates a beginning. If there is a beginning, then that is an uncaused event.
Likewise, you just confirm what I typed in the second response. Time is a man made measurement. If the Big Bang happened, what caused it? Science says that everything that happens has a cause, I want to know what the cause of the big bang was.
quote:You fall into the trap laid by the devil that-does-not-follow, aided in this case by the devil use-the-word-without-understanding. "Infinite time" means only that, if you invent a time machine and go backwards, you will never hit a boundary beyond which you cannot go. "Finite time" means the opposite: There does exist such a boundary. (That said, there do exist formulations of modern physics in which time, indeed, is discarded as a variable.) In other words, the question is whether the universe has a beginning or not; testability doesn't come into it. You are apparently confusing these usages with your understanding of 'finite' humans and 'infinite' gods, with which they have nothing to do.
What you have just stated by saying time may or may not be infinite indicates to me that you are not being scientifically honest. Either it is infinite or it is not. If time is finite, it can be experimented upon and tested. If it is infinite, then it is untestable, and by your standards does not exist.
quote:...said the puddle of the depression in which it sat. You have been mis-informed about the degree of fine-tuning required to produce life, especially the one-grain-of-sand bit. In any case, what of it? Religion doesn't answer this question any more than science does; and religion can't answer it, while science is checking out several promising avenues of research into the question.
Can you explain why the Universe is the size that it is. Apparently it is a huge accident. The universe could not have been much smaller than it is for nuclear fusion to have happened in the first 3 minutes after the big bang, and if the universe were even one grain of sand greater in mass at the beginning, the universe would have collapsed before life could have started. The size of our universe is the exact size needed to sustain life.
quote:This is a stupid argument, and you know it.
Originally posted by Geraine:
I would argue that while religion does not answer the question regarding the size of the universe in a scientific sense, the sheer impossibility of the universe turning out how it did lends credit to the religious argument that the universe was created by design.
quote:To the best of our evidence, the universe as a whole exists without cause. I note that if you object to this, you must likewise object to an uncaused god.
Regarding the Big Bang, If something does not have a cause, how can it exist? Is there anything in this universe that exists without cause? Or is this a unique characteristic of the universe itself?
quote:Hydrogen, not helium; but in any case, wrong. An expanding universe must inevitably pass through a temperature at which nuclear fusion occurs. Whether this is from the first to the third minute or from the second to the fourth is not very relevant.
From what I understand (I'm not the scientist though) if the universe was smaller, nuclear fusion would have not have been able to take place during the first three minutes of the existance of the universe. If this did not take place the universe would have consisted entirely of helium, rendering the formation of rocky planets impossible.
quote:Sez you.
The universe contains 10 (to the 80) baryons. An addition of just 10 (to the 21 power) baryons (at 1.67×10 (to the −27 power) kg/baryon equals 1.7 mg of matter. If we were to add this now it would not make a difference, but if added at the beginning of the universe, it would have created a deviation in which life could not exist. The universe would consist of black holes, unable to support life.
quote:You, yourself, exist because a particular sperm and egg united. The probability of this, clearly, is one in several million. Your father has a similar probability of existing, and so on. Shall I conclude that you were therefore designed?
I would argue that while religion does not answer the question regarding the size of the universe in a scientific sense, the sheer impossibility of the universe turning out how it did lends credit to the religious argument that the universe was created by design.
quote:What is the cause of the radioactive decay of an atom?
Originally posted by Geraine:
Regarding the Big Bang, If something does not have a cause, how can it exist? Is there anything in this universe that exists without cause? Or is this a unique characteristic of the universe itself?
quote:Several million attempts at quantum-tunnelling through the barrier, each with a tiny chance of success.
Originally posted by Sean Monahan:
quote:What is the cause of the radioactive decay of an atom?
Originally posted by Geraine:
Regarding the Big Bang, If something does not have a cause, how can it exist? Is there anything in this universe that exists without cause? Or is this a unique characteristic of the universe itself?
quote:Not necessarily. The Universe hasn't always existed, it has a beginning and a finite age. Depending of course on the particular religion, God has no beginning. God has always existed. Now I will admit that this has problems of its own but it is certainly not irrational to object to something starting without cause but have no objection to something existing with no beginning (and therefore no requirement for a cause).
To the best of our evidence, the universe as a whole exists without cause. I note that if you object to this, you must likewise object to an uncaused god.
quote:But I do object to an uncaused God. The religion I belong to teaches that God was once a being very much like us, but that has progressed to the point he is now. Likewise we will one day be able to become like him.
Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:To the best of our evidence, the universe as a whole exists without cause. I note that if you object to this, you must likewise object to an uncaused god.
Regarding the Big Bang, If something does not have a cause, how can it exist? Is there anything in this universe that exists without cause? Or is this a unique characteristic of the universe itself?
quote:Hydrogen, not helium; but in any case, wrong. An expanding universe must inevitably pass through a temperature at which nuclear fusion occurs. Whether this is from the first to the third minute or from the second to the fourth is not very relevant.
From what I understand (I'm not the scientist though) if the universe was smaller, nuclear fusion would have not have been able to take place during the first three minutes of the existance of the universe. If this did not take place the universe would have consisted entirely of helium, rendering the formation of rocky planets impossible.
quote:Sez you.
The universe contains 10 (to the 80) baryons. An addition of just 10 (to the 21 power) baryons (at 1.67×10 (to the −27 power) kg/baryon equals 1.7 mg of matter. If we were to add this now it would not make a difference, but if added at the beginning of the universe, it would have created a deviation in which life could not exist. The universe would consist of black holes, unable to support life.
You made both these assertions before, and I told you that you were mistaken. When you simply re-iterate them, what are you adding to the discussion? At an absolute minimum, you should say where you are getting these interesting factoids.
quote:You, yourself, exist because a particular sperm and egg united. The probability of this, clearly, is one in several million. Your father has a similar probability of existing, and so on. Shall I conclude that you were therefore designed?
I would argue that while religion does not answer the question regarding the size of the universe in a scientific sense, the sheer impossibility of the universe turning out how it did lends credit to the religious argument that the universe was created by design.
quote:Who created Him, then, and where did He live before He made the universe?
religion I belong to teaches that God was once a being very much like us, but that has progressed to the point he is now.
quote:Thank you for demonstrating perfectly how theists make up anwers to questions based on nothing but their own wishes.
Originally posted by Geraine:
And KoM, while the odds of me existing may be 1 in millions, the odds of life existing at all in the universe are much, much great, to the point that you cannot compare them. My birth seems like a sure thing compared to the odds of the universe just snapping into reality.
quote:This can't be true. Any possible universe with you in it must also have life in it, but some possible universes with life in it would not have you. Therefore, even if we can't calculate what those odds are, the odds of a universe having life must be greter than the odds of a universe having you in it.
And KoM, while the odds of me existing may be 1 in millions, the odds of life existing at all in the universe are much, much great, to the point that you cannot compare them. My birth seems like a sure thing compared to the odds of the universe just snapping into reality.
quote:This also isn't true - if theists simply made up their answers based on nothing but their own wishes, theists would have a much easier time coming up with answers, and it wouldn't require so much work to live in accordance with those answers.
Thank you for demonstrating perfectly how theists make up anwers to questions based on nothing but their own wishes.
quote:You misunderstand the argument. Geraine claimed that the odds of Geraine being in the universe were a "sure thing" compared to the universe existing. That's like saying that while the odds of getting a bridge hand with no voids is quite likely, the odds of playing bridge are tiny in comparison. The odds of the former are pretty easily calculable. But if you know absolutely nothing about the odds of me and my 3 friends starting a bridge game, you can't possibly compare the two. At least, not honestly, if you have an intellectual integrity at least as developed as a third-grader.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
[QB]quote:This can't be true. Any possible universe with you in it must also have life in it, but some possible universes with life in it would not have you. Therefore, even if we can't calculate what those odds are, the odds of a universe having life must be greter than the odds of a universe having you in it.
And KoM, while the odds of me existing may be 1 in millions, the odds of life existing at all in the universe are much, much great, to the point that you cannot compare them. My birth seems like a sure thing compared to the odds of the universe just snapping into reality.
quote:Geraine doesn't seem to have a hard time coming up with claims about "spirtual mass", does s/he? Where are those answers coming from, if not religion?
quote:This also isn't true - if theists simply made up their answers based on nothing but their own wishes, theists would have a much easier time coming up with answers,
Thank you for demonstrating perfectly how theists make up anwers to questions based on nothing but their own wishes.
quote:Yeah, it's soooo much work to make things up about "spirtual mass". And to outright declare that something is "sheerly impossible" without lifting a finger to calculate anything.
and it wouldn't require so much work to live in accordance with those answers.
quote:How do you know?
And KoM, while the odds of me existing may be 1 in millions, the odds of life existing at all in the universe are much, much great, to the point that you cannot compare them.
quote:I don't understand the question.
What do you think of the cosmological constant?
quote:Very well, this is at least consistent. Moving then from the philosophical to the practical, what is your evidence in favour of your caused god? The uncaused Universe (or at any rate, the Universe with an apparent beginning beyond which it is very difficult to say anything about causes) has some evidence in its favour; it is not made up from the autumn sunshine. Where is yours?
But I do object to an uncaused God.
quote:I do not wish to make unfounded arguments from authority, even by proxy, so let me note in the interest of honesty that cosmology is not my field; particle physics is. (Although they do overlap to some extent, of course.) My knowledge of cosmology is that of an interested layman with eclectic reading habits.
And really, comparing KOM and Geraine, which of the two do you think has spent more time looking at the hard data about the nature and origin of the universe? I think that KOM has put a lot more reading and research into the answers he's claimed than Geraine has put into his.
quote:I don't understand why this is off limits.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
And thank you for demonstrating how some athesists lump all theists together and aim for the low hanging fruit.
quote:To this:
Thank you for demonstrating perfectly how theists make up answers to questions based on nothing but their own wishes.
quote:...after all, some theists may be careful not to make things up themselves, and just believe what trusted authorities have taught them. Others have invested a lot of study and prayer to determine what is true, and believe that their conclusions tend to oppose many of their own selfish wishes.
Thank you for demonstrating perfectly how some theists make up answers to questions based on nothing but their own wishes.
quote:I consider adults responsible for the goodness of their chosen authorities. If you know that your authority has no evidence, than it's not any better to trust him or her than to trust your own evidence-free personal judgement.
Originally posted by scifibum:
...after all, some theists may be careful not to make things up themselves, and just believe what trusted authorities have taught them.
quote:That's not going to work. You can't detect truth without a robust method for distinguishing false. Prayer doesn't do that. The long history of people praying, and still coming to greviously wrong conclusions demonstrates that pretty well.
Others have invested a lot of study and prayer to determine what is true,
quote:Sometimes. But I think most people who pray on things end up doing what they were going to do anyway, they are just more sure of it being right. Remember, they are only consulting their own heads. But yeah, I'm sure that somewhere, there was an inquisitor torturer whose prayer told him that he should not play hooky that day, but do his sacred duty of saving souls by ripping out fingernails.
and believe that their conclusions tend to oppose many of their own selfish wishes.
quote:Yes, dealing with other people's irrationalities can be tiresome.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
But it's boring.
quote:As a matter of interest, this was explicit church doctrine at one point. The Inquisitors recognised the possibility of error on their part; they reasoned, very naturally, that if they were inflicting pain on the basis of a false doctrine, they would inevitably go to Hell... and having gone so far towards rationality, made the about-face: Therefore, the Inquisitor is not merely doing an unpleasant but necessary task, he is putting his very soul at risk in the service of what he believes right and for the salvation of his victims! Heroism in the tightening of every screw!
Sometimes. But I think most people who pray on things end up doing what they were going to do anyway, they are just more sure of it being right. Remember, they are only consulting their own heads. But yeah, I'm sure that somewhere, there was an inquisitor torturer whose prayer told him that he should not play hooky that day, but do his sacred duty of saving souls by ripping out fingernails.
quote:Indeed, as a general rule the better sort of Catholic is not too dreadful at drawing logical inferences from a set of given premises. Treating theology purely as a game of logic, like mathematics with axioms not intended to describe the real world but just for fun, the Catholic tradition is probably the best available. It's just such a pity that the axioms they reason from are so completely out of whack, not to mention having a Shannon information requirement that you don't get from most mathematical systems.
Originally posted by Raymond Arnold:
What's sad is that actually makes sense.
quote:There is also a long history of people attempting to use reason and evidence, but still coming to greviously wrong conclusions.
That's not going to work. You can't detect truth without a robust method for distinguishing false. Prayer doesn't do that. The long history of people praying, and still coming to greviously wrong conclusions demonstrates that pretty well.
quote:It's been two days since this comment was posted, but as it wasn't argued in a manner satisfactory to me I decided to give my opinion on the matter.
To the best of our evidence, the universe as a whole exists without cause. I note that if you object to this, you must likewise object to an uncaused god.
quote:Point was it was inconsistent to reject an uncaused universe and to remedy that by adding an uncaused God. The important inconsistency is the rejection of the uncaused universe on the grounds that it is illogical, but not rejecting the idea of a god on the same grounds.
Originally posted by PSI Teleport:
It's entirely consistent to believe in both a caused universe and an uncaused god when you believe in a god that created time flow and causality.
quote:Yes, but it happens a whole lot less often.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:There is also a long history of people attempting to use reason and evidence, but still coming to greviously wrong conclusions.
That's not going to work. You can't detect truth without a robust method for distinguishing false. Prayer doesn't do that. The long history of people praying, and still coming to greviously wrong conclusions demonstrates that pretty well.
quote:You can't be this stupid. The success of modern medicine, based on evidence and reason, over what came before, which was in large part nothing but religious and magic superstition, is not merely anecdotal.
Again, I have asked several times if there is any particular non-anecdotal empirical evidence that using solely reason and self-examined evidence of the scientific sort will result in more accurate beliefs than trusting authorities...
quote:I'd think the infratructure of the Internet could only be created with numerous appeals to authority. For instance, the people who constructed my computer and the components within it most likely were not scientists who have examined the evidence proving all the physics upon which computers rely. Instead, they were likely just workers who were told or were trained by other authorities to know how to build a computer. They trust the directions given to them by those authorities.
Er... you are posting this on a computer connected to the Internets, no? Let's see you come up with that infrastructure by reference to authority.
quote:I'd trust the authority of the doctor; I believe in medicine and not faith healing.
I'll ask you the same question that you keep refusing to answer; if your loved one were extremely ill, and one person, a doctor, proposed to treat them using the best recommendations reason and evidence gave, and the other person, an authority on faith healing, proposed to use only the prayer that their personal judgment told them was required, which would you prefer were used?
quote:It makes a difference which authority is trusted! But the key is... I'm better off trusting one authority than refusing to trust any authority at all. If I refuse the doctor's advice because he can't present empirical evidence to me on the spot that proves his medical advice will work, then I suspect my loved one is more likely to die than if I trust whatever my doctor says.
In my example above, the first doctor is a medical authority, and the second guy is a religious authority. Are you going to argue that it won't make a practical difference which authority is listened to in this instance? That any "authority" is as good as another? Would you honestly be alright in flipping a coin to determine how your bleeding and dying family member was to be treated? Or would you trust the authority who possessed the medical evidence and reasoning?
quote:Right, I understand that. I don't necessarily agree. In the material world, effects have causes. But it isn't productive to try and limit God to the same rules. As I said before, it's not difficult to imagine a god that exists outside of time, outside of cause-effect relationships, and who, in fact, is the source of those things.
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Point was it was inconsistent to reject an uncaused universe and to remedy that by adding an uncaused God. The important inconsistency is the rejection of the uncaused universe on the grounds that it is illogical, but not rejecting the idea of a god on the same grounds.
Originally posted by PSI Teleport:
It's entirely consistent to believe in both a caused universe and an uncaused god when you believe in a god that created time flow and causality.
quote:Not difficult to propose the possibility as you've done here. It would be extremely difficult to imagine how an entity could exist in any meaningful way "outside" of cause and effect. It's not really an answer to anything, but a (sometimes handy) excuse for the lack of answers.
As I said before, it's not difficult to imagine a god that exists outside of time, outside of cause-effect relationships, and who, in fact, is the source of those things.
quote:It isn't productive, certainly, if one needs to believe in God, and needs one's own reason to be bent to fit that conclusion.
Originally posted by PSI Teleport:
But it isn't productive to try and limit God to the same rules. As I said before, it's not difficult to imagine a god that exists outside of time, outside of cause-effect relationships, and who, in fact, is the source of those things.
quote:A finite age, yes. "Beginning," and "Always," are problematic.
The Universe hasn't always existed, it has a beginning and a finite age
quote:Well yes, but in a way that nothing else we have ever experienced has a beginning. The beginning of the universe represents the beginning of the existence of matter and energy. That cannot be adequately analogized to the beginning of anything else in the univserse.
The Universe hasn't always existed, it has a beginning
quote:Exactly. It would be false to say that there was ever a point in time when the universe didn't exist. Nor is there any possible universe in general relativity like ours but with more time tacked on before the Big Bang. (This last bit is true because cosmological spacetimes are inextendable.)
A finite age, yes. "Beginning," and "Always," are problematic.
quote:For the umpeenth time, how do you decide which authorities to trust if not by their knowledge of the evidence?
Originally posted by Tresopax:
So yes, I think it would be possible to build a large computer network simply by trusting authorities, if you find the right authorities to trust.
quote:How did you decide that? Did you flip a coin?
quote:I'd trust the authority of the doctor; I believe in medicine and not faith healing.
I'll ask you the same question that you keep refusing to answer; if your loved one were extremely ill, and one person, a doctor, proposed to treat them using the best recommendations reason and evidence gave, and the other person, an authority on faith healing, proposed to use only the prayer that their personal judgment told them was required, which would you prefer were used?
quote:Really? Let's say that your spouse is bleeding very badly. You personally have witnessed mice and rats or chickens die from blood loss.
quote:It makes a difference which authority is trusted! But the key is... I'm better off trusting one authority than refusing to trust any authority at all.
In my example above, the first doctor is a medical authority, and the second guy is a religious authority. Are you going to argue that it won't make a practical difference which authority is listened to in this instance? That any "authority" is as good as another? Would you honestly be alright in flipping a coin to determine how your bleeding and dying family member was to be treated? Or would you trust the authority who possessed the medical evidence and reasoning?
quote:Well, the faith healer can't produce evidence "on the spot" either. So what is your reason for dismissing the faith healer again? You flipped a coin once upon a time?
If I refuse the doctor's advice because he can't present empirical evidence to me on the spot that proves his medical advice will work, then I suspect my loved one is more likely to die than if I trust whatever my doctor says.
quote:Usually I decide which authorities to trust based on their track record, the degree to which other trusted authorities say I should trust them, and my beliefs about how they learned what they claim to know. For instance, I trust doctors because they've healed me in the past, because most people I trust say doctors are effective, and because they learned their discipline through what I believe to be an effective medical education.
For the umpeenth time, how do you decide which authorities to trust if not by their knowledge of the evidence?
quote:This implied equivalency between scientific authority and theological authority is useless and sneaky.
I actually have no idea how much firsthand knowledge of evidence my doctors have had about some of the things they deal with, since they were doctors and not research scientists.
quote:Yes, I agree with that, regarding their personal experience. What I meant was I don't really know to what degree my doctors have looked closely at the controlled experimental data that often underlies medical advice.
The chances of you presenting to an experienced diagnostician with a condition they have not seen before is very slight. People tend to forget that doctors spend years working 80 hour weeks seeing every imaginable condition and administering every imaginable treatment. Most of the practice of medicine is not very theoretical.
quote:Swbarnes2 gave the example earlier of the family whose child died because they trusted a theological authority. On the flip side, a doctor may prescribe X for my common cold, and then if the common cold goes away in four days I have no idea if X actually made it go away faster or if that was just the natural course of the cold I had.
If you believe a mistaken scientific authority, your plane falls out of the sky, or your test tube explodes, or your disease kills you.
If you believe a mistaken theological authority... what? Nothing happens.
quote:That's part of what makes a scientific authority scientific - although practically speaking, it would be nearly impossible for me to verify most scientific claims myself, without investing the time to train as a scientist myself and without investing significantly in equipment and experimentation.
With a scientific authority, or even an authority from the social sciences, you are entirely welcome to walk through their work yourself, and in principle, should be able to verify every single last detail yourself.
With a theological authority, all you've got is their word.
quote:Ding, we're finished here. The track record is the experimental test. You don't rely on faith any more than I do.
Usually I decide which authorities to trust based on their track record
quote:You can't be this stupid. When asked "How do you pick which authorities to trust?", you can't possibly think "I listen to my other trusted authorites" is a sensible answer. That doesn't answer the question of how you decide what to believe.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:Usually I decide which authorities to trust based on their track record, the degree to which other trusted authorities say I should trust them, and my beliefs about how they learned what they claim to know.
For the umpeenth time, how do you decide which authorities to trust if not by their knowledge of the evidence?
quote:What do you believe that medical education consists of, if not learning the what the evidence and reason says about how the body functions, and what treatments work at making it better?
For instance, I trust doctors because they've healed me in the past, because most people I trust say doctors are effective, and because they learned their discipline through what I believe to be an effective medical education.
quote:You seem to think that no one but people in lab coats can know evidence. I don't see how an adult can go through life believing this. You would have to be the most incurious and helpless person alive for you to not have first-hand knowledge of some subject.
I actually have no idea how much firsthand knowledge of evidence my doctors have had about some of the things they deal with, since they were doctors and not research scientists.
quote:A nuclear bomb is an effective method of demolishing a building. Doesn't mean it's a good method.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
If your religion has a very good track record of providing effective answers to problems in your life, would you consider that an experimental test?
quote:Indeed, I do consider that an experimental test; since religion in fact has no answers, I discard it.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
If your religion has a very good track record of providing effective answers to problems in your life, would you consider that an experimental test?
quote:I was asking if you believe the cosmological constant exists.
quote:I don't understand the question.
What do you think of the cosmological constant?
quote:Religion definitely has answers. For instance, if the question is "Should I cheat on my wife?", the answer from a given religion might be "Definitely not." Whether those answers are correct or not is up for debate.
Indeed, I do consider that an experimental test; since religion in fact has no answers, I discard it.
quote:An answer which may or may not be correct is no better than flipping a coin; it is not answer at all but merely a refusal to say "I'm not sure".
Religion definitely has answers. For instance, if the question is "Should I cheat on my wife?", the answer from a given religion might be "Definitely not." Whether those answers are correct or not is up for debate.
quote:Not without evidence that they do better than those who follow a different authority, or none. To do otherwise is to commit the fallacy post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
Given you consider a good track record to be experimental evidence, if a person follows the answers given to them by a certain religious authority and those answers consistently lead to successful results in their life, then would you agree they are not crazy for placing a degree of trust in that authority?
quote:Clearly by "has no answers," he meant, "has no useful answers of its own."
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:Religion definitely has answers. For instance, if the question is "Should I cheat on my wife?", the answer from a given religion might be "Definitely not." Whether those answers are correct or not is up for debate.
Indeed, I do consider that an experimental test; since religion in fact has no answers, I discard it.
quote:My doctor's advice on how to best treat my cold may or may not be correct - but it is definitely better than flipping a coin. That's, in part, because he has a track record of being successful, which you've said counts as evidence in his favor. If a religious authority has a similar track record of success, then following that authority's advice is also better than flipping a coin.
An answer which may or may not be correct is no better than flipping a coin; it is not answer at all but merely a refusal to say "I'm not sure".
quote:Do you believe that in order for me to trust the advice of my doctor, I must first have evidence that he will give better medical advice than any other doctor?
Not without evidence that they do better than those who follow a different authority, or none. To do otherwise is to commit the fallacy post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
quote:How is success determined? Are the getting similar kinds of advice from both sources? Can't the success of one be determined objectively while the other only subjectively?
Originally posted by Tresopax:
My doctor's advice on how to best treat my cold may or may not be correct - but it is definitely better than flipping a coin. That's, in part, because he has a track record of being successful, which you've said counts as evidence in his favor.
quote:I already agreed to this, while denying that religion has any such track record.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:My doctor's advice on how to best treat my cold may or may not be correct - but it is definitely better than flipping a coin. That's, in part, because he has a track record of being successful, which you've said counts as evidence in his favor. If a religious authority has a similar track record of success, then following that authority's advice is also better than flipping a coin.
An answer which may or may not be correct is no better than flipping a coin; it is not answer at all but merely a refusal to say "I'm not sure".
quote:Well, as a practical matter you do exactly that every time you see a specialist; but the analogy is false. Doctor:priest::medical tradition:religion. So, you should have evidence that the doctor is working in a school that gives better results than other schools - and behold, indeed you have such evidence - not that he is the best practitioner of that school. Although, to be sure, that doesn't do any harm and rich people often do seek out doctors of high reputation, who charge accordingly.
quote:Do you believe that in order for me to trust the advice of my doctor, I must first have evidence that he will give better medical advice than any other doctor? [/qb]
Not without evidence that they do better than those who follow a different authority, or none. To do otherwise is to commit the fallacy post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
quote:Again, do you have even an inkling of why the doctor has a better track record than the faith healer? And no, "because they have better authorities" and "because I just believe they do" are not answers.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:My doctor's advice on how to best treat my cold may or may not be correct - but it is definitely better than flipping a coin. That's, in part, because he has a track record of being successful, which you've said counts as evidence in his favor.
An answer which may or may not be correct is no better than flipping a coin; it is not answer at all but merely a refusal to say "I'm not sure".
quote:So if a Muslim marriage counselor gives you excellent marraige advice, that makes her an authority in the divinity of Jesus?
If a religious authority has a similar track record of success, then following that authority's advice is also better than flipping a coin.
quote:It depends on the question. If the advice is "If you want X, you should do Y", then I'd say a success is indicated if you do Y and X occurs. If you have a pitching coach that says to perform certain drills to become a better pitcher, and if you perform those drills and afterwards are better able to pitch, that suggests (but doesn't prove) the advice was successful. If a religious authority says don't cheat on your spouse if you want a happy marriage, and if you don't cheat and later find yourself in a happy marriage, that suggests (but doesn't prove) the advice was successful. If the question is about something more subjective, or more objective, then determining its success will be more or less subjective accordingly.
How is success determined? Are the getting similar kinds of advice from both sources? Can't the success of one be determined objectively while the other only subjectively?
quote:But I think if you ask religious people if their religious authorities have a good track record when it comes to giving helpful advice, most will confirm it does. And I don't think the opinion of a person on the internet is going to trump the evidence that they, themselves, have seen in regards to the track record of their trust authorities.
I already agreed to this, while denying that religion has any such track record.
quote:I'll go with the same thing I said on page 12 of this thread: "Usually I decide which authorities to trust based on their track record, the degree to which other trusted authorities say I should trust them, and my beliefs about how they learned what they claim to know." But the point you bring up is... what if the thing they are asking me to trust them about is something different from the subject they've proven they know about in the past. In that case, I'd have to figure out to what degree the two are linked. If they got their marriage advice from the person they consider the last and best prophet of God, then the two are slightly linked. I think its safe to say that good marriage advice by itself is not very strong evidence of one knowing the last and best prophet of God. I'd think for most people, reaching conclusions about the last and best prophet of God entails many different sorts of evidence and many different authorities which together point towards a given conclusion.
If an LDS marraige counselor and a Muslim marriage counselor both give you the same marriage advice, whom do you believe is the beter authority on the question of who was the last and best prophet of God, and how do you decide that?
quote:Wonderful. How do you decide which authorities should be listened to, and which ones not?
Originally posted by Tresopax:
I'd think for most people, reaching conclusions about the last and best prophet of God entails many different sorts of evidence and many different authorities which together point towards a given conclusion.
quote:Again, what distinguishes a person you should trust on the matter of Jesus's divinity from someone whom you should not trust? If this is a question of any import to you, you should have an answer you can articulate.
Edit: Expanding on that last point, heaven/hell and various other religious topics are subjects where it is essentially impossible to test a person's or thing's expertise. That means we have a choice between either trusting nobody about it, or trying to piece together what/who to trust based on what clues we do have available.
quote:But it does make sense to say "I believe in this authority, and not that one, therefore, Jesus was just a human prophet"?
Hence, even though it would make no sense to say "This priest gives good marriage advice, so she must be right about God!",
quote:Is trusting the conclusions of reason and evidence really "nothing at all" to you? Really, what do you think is so magically special about how other people draw conclusions that it's hopeless for you to even try?
The alternative, trusting nothing at all, is no better than flipping a coin on that topic - or maybe more like saying "My vision is very blurry, so I'll see better if I just shut my eyes completely."
quote:Holocaust deniers have churned out a lot of books, and I'm sure there are enough that one can spend a great deal of time "studying" them. You can't think that all that study makes one good authoritiy about the Jewish experience in WWII.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
[QB] What "authorities possess that non-authorities do not possess is usually considerable study.
quote:That can allow you to be able to accurately understand what the writers thought, but it doesn't help you if the writers were flat out wrong about the facts of the world. You can't get an accurate understanding of how the world was created by reading the Bible, no matter how flawless your undertanding of ancient Hebrew is.
Authorities know how to, for example read the texts in the original languages and understand the context in which they were written.
quote:Again, there's a limit to how much real medicine you can practive based on Galen, no matter how many commentaries you read. If you want to treat cancer, you are better off ignoring Galen, and looking at cancer cells.
They have been exposed the accumulated wisdom that generations of other people who have spent time studying have gathered.
quote:It wasn't in Tres's argument. He seems to be desparate to find an authority to tell him what to believe. Rhetorically, he has to. He can't cede that direct examination is superior to hearsay, because he doesn't like the conclusions that direct examination of the facts, and only the facts, leads to. So he has to find someone who believes what he does, and label them an authority, and cling to that.
"I could draw my own conclusion based on the evidence", is a perfectly valid option. Knowing how to interpret the evidence is not automatic and "authorities" - not just one, generations of them - are pretty helpful here.
quote:I've read a little bit of a few, just for the experience (and because I couldn't believe anyone was trying to deny it to be honest) and some of it is pretty much that. Saying Nope, nope nope, and covering their eyes.
Originally posted by King of Men:
Actually I still don't think so, because it couldn't very well give evidence for its assertions or contradictions. But even at that, I must say I rather doubt you'll find any denialist literature quite so blatant.
quote:You are making untrue assumptions about why I care about the position I hold on this. I am not on a quest to justify Christianity to you here. My concern is epistimological. I am a strong believer in reason, evidence, and skepticism - but I've followed skepticism to what seems to me to be its inescapable end. That end is this: If you question everything you can possibly question (Descartes-style) and accept only what you, yourself, can directly conclude from the facts you are certain of without trusting anything else, you end up concluding that you really can conclude almost nothing at all. You end up with so little reliable knowledge that you are unable to live reasonably, or to even approach important questions like what you should do in life or why you should do it.
It wasn't in Tres's argument. He seems to be desparate to find an authority to tell him what to believe. Rhetorically, he has to. He can't cede that direct examination is superior to hearsay, because he doesn't like the conclusions that direct examination of the facts, and only the facts, leads to. So he has to find someone who believes what he does, and label them an authority, and cling to that.
quote:You can't do this with most authorities. I can't falsify my grandfather's claims about his experiences in World War II, but he was in fact there so he is the authority on his experiences there.
My point is that true "authorities" are only such to the extent that they know the underlying evidence relevent to their area of expertice as is demonstrated by their claims in that field being falsifiable and not being falsified. You can do this in medicine. You just can't do this in theology.
quote:How would you test this?
Originally posted by King of Men:
All topics are testable
quote:Falsifiable is usually a stricter standard than that. It only applies to general laws or truth claims, not individual events. A theory that states "Given such and such conditions, x will always happen" is falsified if an instance of x not happening under the stated conditions is observed. A claim about a currently existing object or phenomenon could also be falisfied, assuming it makes predictions about things that can be observed.
The point is that you *could* falsify his claims if, say, he had a friend or two with him, and they told a different story, or if you tested his claims against experimentation or examination of the areas he talks about.
quote:Well, it might be extendable in the future direction, or to cover some other missing piece (like how Schwarzschild space is extendable to cover the part inside the horizon). So being inextendable is a stronger condition than just not having "extra time before the Big Bang."
Originally posted by King of Men:
Now, I'm not skilled at general relativity, but it seems to me that "there is no universe like ours but with more time before the Big Bang" and "cosmological spacetimes are inextendable" are basically the same statement, but one is more technical. To say that one is due to the other, then, is not to add any information; it merely expresses the tautology, A equals A. Unless you are prepared to show the proof (as a side note, since GR is effectively mathematics, there can indeed be a 'proof' and not merely 'evidence'), the technical language is just an appeal to authority.
quote:By trying to find a topic which was not testable. I note that when a theist refuses to admit that his hypothesis has been falsified, that is not a refutation of its falsifiability. As a side note, I should perhaps have inserted the adjective 'interesting' before 'topics' in my sentence.
Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:How would you test this?
Originally posted by King of Men:
All topics are testable
quote:You confuse "I refuse to do X", and in fact "I refuse even to think about X", with "It is impossible to do X". These concepts are not the same.
Originally posted by Kwea:
I can't quantify my feelings for my family, and I am not willing to "test" those feelings about them in any way, not by choice, yet they are real, and influence my every day decisions.
quote:Just a quibble: when someone says "X is far more than the sum of its parts," they do not normally mean "X has a value that is supplemented by some supernatural force."
Human beings are complex beings, and are far more than the sum of their parts.
quote:This is not relevant to the question of whether something is knowable. I remind you of Lord Kelvin, saying something rather similar:
Originally posted by Kwea:
Nope. I am far more aware of the research in this area than you are, I would imagine. It's far more complex than you seem to think it is, and there is far more that we DON'T know than we do.
quote:And now we have a pretty good explanation of how nerves move muscles, and indeed that explanation is old enough that Lord Kelvin's words lay well within living memory when it was first proposed. "Infitely beyond"? Pff. About 50 years beyond, at most. Now you are not likely to be as famous as Kelvin, but are you really sure you wish to make such a statement? You might find yourself being similarly laughed at a mere century from now.
The influence of animal or vegetable life on matter is infinitely beyond the range of any scientific inquiry hitherto entered on. Its power of directing the motions of moving particles, in the demonstrated daily miracle of our human free-will, and in the growth of generation after generation of plants from a single seed, are infinitely different from any possible result of the fortuitous concurrence of atoms... Modern biologists were coming once more to the acceptance of something and that was a vital principle."
quote:You are on a quest to denigrate the use of reason and evidence, in favor of trusting whatever authority you can pick who agrees with your personal judgment. Your religion is just the most important reason you have to pick this argument.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:You are making untrue assumptions about why I care about the position I hold on this. I am not on a quest to justify Christianity to you here.
It wasn't in Tres's argument. He seems to be desparate to find an authority to tell him what to believe. Rhetorically, he has to. He can't cede that direct examination is superior to hearsay, because he doesn't like the conclusions that direct examination of the facts, and only the facts, leads to. So he has to find someone who believes what he does, and label them an authority, and cling to that.
quote:You don't have to do that, and you know that. Accepting only authorities who possess the evidence is nearly as good as having the evidence yourself. It's not about authorities. It's about having the evidence, one way or another.
My concern is epistimological. I am a strong believer in reason, evidence, and skepticism - but I've followed skepticism to what seems to me to be its inescapable end. That end is this: If you question everything you can possibly question (Descartes-style) and accept only what you, yourself, can directly conclude from the facts you are certain of without trusting anything else,
quote:You have to be kidding. If I had medical records showing that your grandfather were in a TB treatment center from 1938-1947, that would falsify his claims. If he claimed to be using weaponry that wasn't invented until 1970, that would falsify his claims.
quote:You can't do this with most authorities. I can't falsify my grandfather's claims about his experiences in World War II,
My point is that true "authorities" are only such to the extent that they know the underlying evidence relevent to their area of expertice as is demonstrated by their claims in that field being falsifiable and not being falsified. You can do this in medicine. You just can't do this in theology.
quote:People bet money, and their lives on the accuracy of what the authority of science tells them. And it's as good bet as we fallible humans can make. What are you willing to risk on the strength of my unfalsifiable authority?
Science is somewhat unique in that respect. But the downside of that is that science can only answer limited sorts of questions... only questions about testable topics.
quote:This is a good example. You may be telling the truth or you may not be. If you are telling the truth, I stand to lose millions of dollars if I don't trust you. If you aren't, I stand to lose $1,000. So, it's up to me to figure out whether to trust you or not - which, again, I use a variety of factors to figure out, including your track record, my understanding of how you learned what you claim to know, and what other authorities have said about you. Sometimes these decisions can be obvious, and sometimes they can be extremely tricky, relying on countless inconclusive pieces of evidence that only begin to suggest an answer when all of them are put together.
Or, forget your grandfather. I know where a multi-million dollar treasure is hidden. I don't intend to demonstrate that it exists, of course, but you have to accept me as the best authority you have on its existance.
So, send me an advance of $1000 as a show that you do trust my authority, and I'll use the money to arrange your travel to the treasure site. I'm your authority, so it's better that you trust me than draw conclusions yourself, isn't it?
quote:I bet my life every day on unfalsifiable authorities. For instance, I'm driving around a car at fairly high speeds on the authority of my mechanic who said it was safe to drive after he repaired it - despite the fact I know very little about how he was trained, his track record, or how carefully he has examined any sort of evidence, other than the fact that he works as a mechanic.
People bet money, and their lives on the accuracy of what the authority of science tells them. And it's as good bet as we fallible humans can make. What are you willing to risk on the strength of my unfalsifiable authority?
quote:Not at all. I am as much into reason and evidence as KoM is. If I weren't, I wouldn't bother wondering about authorities and to what degree we rely on them.
You are on a quest to denigrate the use of reason and evidence, in favor of trusting whatever authority you can pick who agrees with your personal judgment. Your religion is just the most important reason you have to pick this argument.
quote:No you aren't, but you like to think you are. It is an unfortunate side effect of the enormous victories of reason over superstition that these days, even superstitious people like to put on the trappings of science; it gives them status, if only in their own minds. If it doesn't actually work for them, because they've only copied the superficial aspects - such as making statements like "I care about evidence", oh well. The surface is what matters, for most humans.
I am as much into reason and evidence as KoM is.
quote:So you would have had no good reason not to trust my sock puppet, if the sock puppet made exactly the same offer, and had exactly the same kind of evidence as your grandfather did about his WWII experiences (which you already claimed were unfalsifiable, but you trust anyway)
Originally posted by Tresopax:
In this case, everything seems to point to the conclusion that you are making this claim up for the sake of this argument, so I'm not going to trust you.
quote:How do you intend to figure out whether or not I'm a knowledgeable authority? If you believe that your grandfather played poker with a guy names Mickey from Chicago during the war, and he's an authority on that, then I'm just as good an authority when I say I learned about the treasure from someone I met at a party in Vegas.
This demonstrates the way in which it is possible for failing to trust a knowledgable authority to be extremely costly.
quote:That's because you are lazy, not because the information is unknowable.
I bet my life every day on unfalsifiable authorities. For instance, I'm driving around a car at fairly high speeds on the authority of my mechanic who said it was safe to drive after he repaired it - despite the fact I know very little about how he was trained, his track record, or how carefully he has examined any sort of evidence, other than the fact that he works as a mechanic.
quote:KOM doesn't argue that people should ignore the conclusions of reason and evidence if their "personal judgment" tell them to. You do.
quote:Not at all. I am as much into reason and evidence as KoM is.
You are on a quest to denigrate the use of reason and evidence, in favor of trusting whatever authority you can pick who agrees with your personal judgment. Your religion is just the most important reason you have to pick this argument.
quote:Okay, but for the millionth time, how do you pick those authorities?
But I'm not going to lie to myself - my everyday beliefs and choices don't stem solely from an infallible bedrock of evidence and reason. In order to make evidence and reason useful and live life, I must trust authorities.
quote:Never said it required supernatural. Just that it doesn't exclude it, and that I doubt we ever will be able to know all of what motivates us.
Originally posted by MightyCow:
I don't know how aware of the research you are, but if you can point me to the research that tells us about the non-physical aspect of thought and emotion that requires some supernatural explanation, I'll eat my hat.
quote:I will give the same quote I've given twice to this question is thread but this time I'll bold it so it is clearer: "Usually I decide which authorities to trust based on their track record, the degree to which other trusted authorities say I should trust them, and my beliefs about how they learned what they claim to know." Other factors like my beliefs about their motives or the degree to which what they are saying conflicts with what I already believe also come into play - so it is a bit complicated. My beliefs about to what degree they know the evidence is definitely a factor, but it is not the only factor.
Okay, but for the millionth time, how do you pick those authorities?
quote:I have never said that trusting prejudices, biases, or wishful thinking is the right thing to do. Those things are just problematic side effects of trying to use good judgment. I think it makes sense to use evidence to check against those things when possible, but that it isn't always possible to check against them completely.
But this can't be your way, because you trust all kinds of authorities on all kinds of topics where there is no reason or evidence, (and you can't explain why you trust them in the first place, you can't even figure out why docotrs are better at fixing people than shamans) and you have repeatedly said that trusting one's prejudices and biases and wishful thinking (which are all major componants of "personal judgment") is the right thing to do.
quote:No, I don't. You are mixing "more likely to be wrong" with "almost certainly wrong". I'm okay with believing something that has a chance of being wrong, as long as it seems to me to be more likely right than wrong, if the other options are believing nothing at all or flipping a coin.
Some beliefs can stand up to rigorous real world testing, and pass, and some can't, and sorry, but that does make the first kind better than the latter, because it makes the first kind far less likely to be wrong. You really want to argue that beliefs that are almost certainly wrong are better than beliefs that are almost certainly right?
quote:Splendid, then you should stop doing so.
I have never said that trusting prejudices, biases, or wishful thinking is the right thing to do.
quote:Why you think bolding the part where your answer is obviously circular eludes me.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:I will give the same quote I've given twice to this question is thread but this time I'll bold it so it is clearer: "Usually I decide which authorities to trust based on their track record, the degree to which other trusted authorities say I should trust them, and my beliefs about how they learned what they claim to know."
Okay, but for the millionth time, how do you pick those authorities?
quote:(emphasis mine)
Other factors like my beliefs about their motives or the degree to which what they are saying conflicts with what I already believe also come into play - so it is a bit complicated.
quote:It is a necessary consequence of your "personal judgment over reason and evidence" argument. It's a fantasy of yours to think otherwise.
quote:I have never said that trusting prejudices, biases, or wishful thinking is the right thing to do.
But this can't be your way, because you trust all kinds of authorities on all kinds of topics where there is no reason or evidence, (and you can't explain why you trust them in the first place, you can't even figure out why docotrs are better at fixing people than shamans) and you have repeatedly said that trusting one's prejudices and biases and wishful thinking (which are all major componants of "personal judgment") is the right thing to do.
quote:No, they are problematic side effects of being fallible humans prone to making mistakes. The best defense against making mistakes is to reality test with evidence, but if you are going to ignore those results every time your "personal judgement" diagrees, then you will be wrong a lot.
Those things are just problematic side effects of trying to use good judgment. I think it makes sense to use evidence to check against those things when possible, but that it isn't always possible to check against them completely.
quote:I'm sorry, but your belief that Baby Jesus is waiting for you in Heaven does not fall into the category of "more likely to be right than wrong". The Neumann's belief that God wanted them to deny their child medical care doesn't fall into that category either. Neither does the belief that martyrs get 72 virgins in Heaven. You are deluding yourself if you think otherwise. Did you forget that it's stupid and dishonest to claim to be able to compare two probabilities when you have absolutely no idea what they both are?
quote:No, I don't. You are mixing "more likely to be wrong" with "almost certainly wrong". I'm okay with believing something that has a chance of being wrong, as long as it seems to me to be more likely right than wrong, if the other options are believing nothing at all or flipping a coin.
Some beliefs can stand up to rigorous real world testing, and pass, and some can't, and sorry, but that does make the first kind better than the latter, because it makes the first kind far less likely to be wrong. You really want to argue that beliefs that are almost certainly wrong are better than beliefs that are almost certainly right?
quote:Well, my authority on that is Jesus' teachings - and if you repeatedly say a miracle is going to occur, and then it does occur, I consider that a pretty impressive track record. But that just kicks the can farther down the road... Then I assume you'd want to know what's the "track record" on the authority telling me that Jesus actually did predict miracles and actually did teach what I believe he taught. Those authorities are mainly the Bible and the Church, and both of those have an inconsistent track record. However, I haven't really seen an authority on the events of the life of Jesus with a better track record, and many other authorities I trust suggest it is worthwhile trusting the Bible and Church. Those factors together lead me to place some degree of trust in both. (However, I typically assume the Bible and Church may be flawed and mistaken when I'm given strong reason to believe they are mistaken on a given thing.)
But okay, so what is the "track record" with regard to your authority on the divinity of Jesus, for example?
quote:Yes, that's essentially right - although you oversimplify. There are many factors, so just coming into conflict with one belief of mine is not going to make me reject an authority by itself. I certainly don't expect authorities to be infallible, nor do I expect my prior beliefs to be always correct.
Bingo. You already believe, for completely separate reasons, that there has to be something more to your mind than just your physical brain. So when the authorities who know how the brain's physical functions tell you that you are wrong, your soul beliefs "come into play", and you reject the authorities.
quote:Saying "X is good" is not equivalent to saying "Y is good because X is good and Y is a inevitable given X." Free speech is a good right to have, but that doesn't mean hateful speech is good, even though allowing free speech will make hateful speech inevitable.
It is a necessary consequence of your "personal judgment over reason and evidence" argument.
quote:Why do you and KoM spend countless pages of countless threads advocating a viewpoint when you could just as easily say "I have no idea whether religious people are right or not"?
But honestly, what's so scary about saying "If there is a God, I have no idea what s/he is like, or wants"? What's so paralyzingly terrifying about saying "If there is life after death, I have no idea what it's like, or how my actions in life affect what happens there"? Why is it better to cherry pick authorities who pretend that they know these things, or to wish really hard and believe one's own wishes, than to admit those simple conclusions?
quote:I'd be glad they believed something, but I'd be unhappy that they believed the wrong thing.
Let's say that someone has a religious belief that your herasy is so vile and dangerous that it would be better for you to be tortured into repenting of it (even if that torture has a chance of accidently killing you) than it is for you to continue living.
Of course, this person, like you, believes that their beliefs are more likely to be true than not. So when they put you and your spouse on the rack, and show you the thumbscrews, are you glad that they believe something (based on the best of authorities, all of whom have great track records, and are supported by more good authorities)? Or would you rather have had them come to the conclusion that their authorities on the state of your soul didn't know anything at all, and that since they had no evidence about the existance, let alone state of your soul, that they'd better not draw any conclusions at all about it?
quote:Oh dear, dear sweet Tres. It does not work this way. We do not trust an unreliable source because there are no reliable sources. Reliability is not relative in that way- while we can weight our trust of different sources, the lack of good sources does not make the bad sources better.
However, I haven't really seen an authority on the events of the life of Jesus with a better track record, and many other authorities I trust suggest it is worthwhile trusting the Bible and Church
quote:What brain? Tres's thinking is not done by any mundanely material object, as we all know; his brain is merely a device to cool the blood.
you still shock me with the way your brain works
quote:So there's a book where a character says a miracle will happen, and then the book says it happened, and that's proof that the character was real and divine?
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:Well, my authority on that is Jesus' teachings - and if you repeatedly say a miracle is going to occur, and then it does occur, I consider that a pretty impressive track record.
But okay, so what is the "track record" with regard to your authority on the divinity of Jesus, for example?
quote:You could answer the exact question I asked, rather than substituting one that you made up.
Then I assume you'd want to know what's the "track record" on the authority telling me that Jesus actually did predict miracles and actually did teach what I believe he taught.
quote:What "track record" are you looking at? And how did you determine that accuracy of it? I just want to know your method. Are you comparing every event that happened in the Bible, and looking for hard evidence that it happened? And you looking at all the times the Church made theological claims, and then backtracked?
Those authorities are mainly the Bible and the Church, and both of those have an inconsistent track record.
quote:Again, I don't understand how you determined this, or what you think it means, and how you got from there to where you are. You read your one Bible text, and decided that since the texts were sometimes in agreement, that Jesus must be divine?
However, I haven't really seen an authority on the events of the life of Jesus with a better track record,
quote:This is getting ridiculous. You can't possibly be this obtuse. Why do you trust those authorities? Are those "authorities" really authorities on Jesus? You already admitted that your Muslim marriage counselor was no authority on Jesus, so who are you claiming is, and why?
and many other authorities I trust suggest it is worthwhile trusting the Bible and Church.
quote:But whom do you trust to tell you that the church is wrong? Science? I doubt it. Your own personal feelings? Seems a lot more likely.
Those factors together lead me to place some degree of trust in both. (However, I typically assume the Bible and Church may be flawed and mistaken when I'm given strong reason to believe they are mistaken on a given thing.)
quote:That you for confirming that you are just as biased and hypocritical and I've been alleging all along.
quote:Yes, that's essentially right - although you oversimplify.
Bingo. You already believe, for completely separate reasons, that there has to be something more to your mind than just your physical brain. So when the authorities who know how the brain's physical functions tell you that you are wrong, your soul beliefs "come into play", and you reject the authorities.
quote:Of course not. It has to be something that you believe very strongly. We all understand. Your belief in your soul is very important to you, and you aren't going to let a little thing like evidence about what is factually true get in the way of believing that what you wish were true is.
There are many factors, so just coming into conflict with one belief of mine is not going to make me reject an authority by itself.
quote:I agree, but I have never made that argument. Your "personal judgment reigns supreme" method of decision making is necessarily going to give prejudice and wishful thinking enormous play. It's just part of being human. My "believe only what passes rigorous reality testing" minimizes prejudice and wishful thinking.
quote:Saying "X is good" is not equivalent to saying "Y is good because X is good and Y is a inevitable given X."
It is a necessary consequence of your "personal judgment over reason and evidence" argument.
quote:I have an acquaintance who died a year ago in hospice, and her end was not made any easier by the fact that people like you decided, in the wisdom of their "personal judgment", that the relationship between her and her longtime partner was sinful and evil. They of course, had no evidence that this was the case, but they had their trusted authorities, just like you, and even had the "track record" of the Bible backing them up. Does this reasoning sound familiar? Maybe if some of the human time and energy wasted on trying to placate a God that no one can even demonstrate exists had been directed towards medical research, my acquaintance might have made it to her 40th birthday.
quote:Why do you and KoM spend countless pages of countless threads advocating a viewpoint when you could just as easily say "I have no idea whether religious people are right or not"?
But honestly, what's so scary about saying "If there is a God, I have no idea what s/he is like, or wants"? What's so paralyzing terrifying about saying "If there is life after death, I have no idea what it's like, or how my actions in life affect what happens there"? Why is it better to cherry pick authorities who pretend that they know these things, or to wish really hard and believe one's own wishes, than to admit those simple conclusions?
quote:Really? You'd rather see your spouse scream on the rack that admit that skepticism isn't such a bad thing?
quote:I'd be glad they believed something, but I'd be unhappy that they believed the wrong thing.
Let's say that someone has a religious belief that your heresy is so vile and dangerous that it would be better for you to be tortured into repenting of it (even if that torture has a chance of accidently killing you) than it is for you to continue living.
Of course, this person, like you, believes that their beliefs are more likely to be true than not. So when they put you and your spouse on the rack, and show you the thumbscrews, are you glad that they believe something (based on the best of authorities, all of whom have great track records, and are supported by more good authorities)? Or would you rather have had them come to the conclusion that their authorities on the state of your soul didn't know anything at all, and that since they had no evidence about the existence, let alone state of your soul, that they'd better not draw any conclusions at all about it?
quote:You didn't make it simple, you made it bad.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
[QB] The two box example is not an argument by analogy. It is a counterexample - which is why I made it intentionally simple.
quote:That wasn't what we were talking about though... I agree completely that we shouldn't exclude actual analysis of evidence. But we were discussing the trustworthiness of the Biblical account of Jesus. The question was whether I should trust the Bible given there wasn't other evidence available or some more trustworthy authority contradicting it. Orinoco said "We do not trust an unreliable source because there are no reliable sources."
Merely that if you rely on trustworthy people TO THE EXCLUSION OF ACTUAL ANALYSIS OF EVIDENCE, then you are setting yourself up for disappointment and failure.
quote:In my box example, all we know is that the random persons SAYS he looked in the box, and that the mother says to trust him. We don't know whether he actually looked in the box for sure.
In your analogy, it was a given that your authority has looked in the box. But that's not true in religion. And in real life, there are costs associated with picking some boxes over others.
So make your "authority" someone who can't demonstrate that he's seen the contents of the box, and is in fact selling it to your for $1000, and you've got pretty much what happens when religious charletans con their fellow believers out of their money.
quote:You did not mention in the example you gave that my spouse would avoid getting tortured if I was willing to admit that. I'd probably admit whatever they wanted me to admit to avoid my spouse being tortured.
But really, if you are willing to see your spouse be tortured rather than admit that skepticism is safer than believing totally unfounded things, you shoudln't have any problem handing over your money.
quote:Or, at least, criticism on the Internet.
Originally posted by Raymond Arnold:
In your extreme example, of course it makes sense to pick box number 2. But your example is so simplified as to be completely irrelevant. Orincoro's point wasn't that you should never trust authorities ever. Merely that if you rely on trustworthy people TO THE EXCLUSION OF ACTUAL ANALYSIS OF EVIDENCE, then you are setting yourself up for disappointment and failure.
quote:Of course, but in your example there is a) no downside to picking a box, b) no distinguishing features between the boxes, i.e. you don't have the capability of using rationality as opposed to trusting authorities, c) you are forced to pick at least one of the boxes. The second point is probably the biggest flaw with the analogy.
In that example, given there's no other information available at all, would you pick at random rather than listen to the person's potentially unreliable advice?
quote:It's still a bad analogy. If my scales, which are accurate enough to distinguish boxes form many other items, can't distinguish the difference between a clearly empty box, and the box that supposedly has a million dollars in it, and if the evidence suggests that it is impossible for anyone to have looked in the box, and I was being asked to pay for the privilage of owning this box, whose contents wouldn't be opened until after I'd spent a million dolalrs, then no, I wouldn't. I'd be better off with the free empty box then paying any amount of money on what the evidence shows is almost certainly another empty box.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:In my box example, all we know is that the random persons SAYS he looked in the box, and that the mother says to trust him. We don't know whether he actually looked in the box for sure. In that example, given there's no other information available at all, would you pick at random rather than listen to the person's potentially unreliable advice?
[QUOTE]In your analogy, it was a given that your authority has looked in the box. But that's not true in religion. And in real life, there are costs associated with picking some boxes over others.
So make your "authority" someone who can't demonstrate that he's seen the contents of the box, and is in fact selling it to your for $1000, and you've got pretty much what happens when religious charletans con their fellow believers out of their money.
quote:I can't believe I have to hold your hand through the simplest of intellectual exercises.
quote:You did not mention in the example you gave that my spouse would avoid getting tortured if I was willing to admit that. I'd probably admit whatever they wanted me to admit to avoid my spouse being tortured.
But really, if you are willing to see your spouse be tortured rather than admit that skepticism is safer than believing totally unfounded things, you shoudln't have any problem handing over your money.
quote:But Raymond, there is a DOWNSIDE to not picking mom's box. She's going to be disappointed you didn't listen to her, and you are going to have hear all about it in the car on the way home.
Originally posted by Raymond Arnold:
quote:Of course, but in your example there is a) no downside to picking a box, b) no distinguishing features between the boxes, i.e. you don't have the capability of using rationality as opposed to trusting authorities, c) you are forced to pick at least one of the boxes. The second point is probably the biggest flaw with the analogy.
In that example, given there's no other information available at all, would you pick at random rather than listen to the person's potentially unreliable advice?
quote:It is worth noting that this is not answering Tres' question. The point we're SUPPOSED to be talking about right now is evidence, in the real world, that evidence is superior to authority figures. (oddly enough, the simple fact that evidence in favor of evidence is preferable to an authority figure telling us that evidence is better is rather telling).
Which city would you be safer in? Mine or yours?
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
quote:
Of course, but in your example there is a) no downside to picking a box, b) no distinguishing features between the boxes, i.e. you don't have the capability of using rationality as opposed to trusting authorities, c) you are forced to pick at least one of the boxes. The second point is probably the biggest flaw with the analogy.
quote:Again... it is a counterexample, not an argument by analogy. It's not supposed to be similar to religion. It's supposed to show that the assertion Orinoco was making does not hold true in that case.
It's still a bad analogy.
quote:I don't think "your" city could exist. Human beings need to trust authorities on a daily basis simply to survive in a society - it's part of life. Even simple things require trust, like the first time you stand next to a road and trust the random person driving down the street won't run you over, even though you have no idea who that person is or have any evidence about them.
Which city would you be safer in? Mine or yours?
quote:I didn't notice. Sweet that it was mine!
Originally posted by King of Men:
Damn! I was going to try to get post number 666 in this thread.
quote:'fraid not. Trusting your mother not to lie to you about people she knows, and trusting that her religious beliefs are right are not the same thing. Full stop. For starters, you can establish a level of reliability with your family about real world stuff- would she lie? Would she never lie to me? Religious beliefs are not about lying necessarily, they are about being mistaken, and having mistaken beliefs. What comes from that is not a lie- it's the perpetuation of an error.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
The two box example is not an argument by analogy. It is a counterexample - which is why I made it intentionally simple. If you agree with me that it is rational to choose Box #2 rather than pick randomly, then it refutes Orinoco's suggestion...
quote:How often do I have to repeat myself? In my city, people do trust some authorities, in proportion to how well the authority knows the reason and evidence. In your city, you trust authorities based on how much your Mom likes them, and how closely what they tell you matches with what you already believe. So you trust your set of inquisitors torturing the other guy, because you already believe that their beliefs are correct, and everyone in your community likes him.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:I don't think "your" city could exist. Human beings need to trust authorities on a daily basis simply to survive in a society - it's part of life.
Which city would you be safer in? Mine or yours?
quote:No, because the person teaching you how to cross the street safely has all the reason and evidence they need to know that their method works
Even simple things require trust, like the first time you stand next to a road and trust the random person driving down the street won't run you over, even though you have no idea who that person is or have any evidence about them.
quote:No, it wouldn't because people would believe the authorities whose claims survived reality testing, knowing that those claims are grounded in evidence and reason
We could create a city where everyone attempts to use evidence and only evidence as the standard on which beliefs should be based, and where basing beliefs on authority is considered wrong and irrational. I suspect this would lead to the inability of one generation to transfer wisdom to the next generation,
quote:For goodness sake; I never said that my city would be perfect. Its populated by fallible humans. That's why reality testing is so important! My city reality test everything it can. Your city doesn't because they just trust "authorities".
And there'd still be extremists, who would have convinced themselves their extreme views are proven by the evidence, even when they aren't.
quote:I find t fascinating to compare the survival mechanisms of various religions. Some of them are amazingly clever.
Originally posted by Orincoro:
That's a fairly good analogy for religion. It's a viral meme that doesn't want to be killed, and loves to find new ways of spreading itself among people.
quote:Because no one gets hit by cars?
Originally posted by swbarnes2:
quote:No, because the person teaching you how to cross the street safely has all the reason and evidence they need to know that their method works
Even simple things require trust, like the first time you stand next to a road and trust the random person driving down the street won't run you over, even though you have no idea who that person is or have any evidence about them.
quote:All of these are possibilities - that's the risk you take when you place trust in someone or something. But sometimes the greatest risk is taking no risk, and I think that is the case when it comes to trusting things. I think on balance, refusing to trust anyone on the grounds that they aren't necessarily telling the truth is going to result in you having fewer accurate beliefs than trusting people who seem to you to be truthful, even if you will be at risk of accepting a false belief.
Maybe the guy your mom trusts is a con man, or a sociopath, and the "money" box he recommends has a deadly snake inside.
Making bets on only the authority of someone you "trust" because someone else tells you that they trust the person, for apperantly no good reason, isn't necessarily better than chance - it may be far worse.
Here's a concrete example:
I trust my cousin. The other day she emailed me a virus, which she received from someone she trusted. If I had opened the attachment based on that trust, rather than looked for evidence of it's safety, I would have spent hours fixing my computer.
Unvarifiable authority figures are just as likely to be wrong as you are. You're only moving the random guess up one level, so you don't have to take responsibility for it. You can use the authority as a scapegoat if you guessed wrong.
quote:How do people in your city know how well a given authority knows the reason and evidence?
In my city, people do trust some authorities, in proportion to how well the authority knows the reason and evidence.
quote:The doctor has a better track record because I've gone to doctors many times and was healed, whereas I've never gone to a shaman. If I went to a shaman and he consistently healed me, then I might change my mind. But since I haven't, I must conclude the doctor has a good track record because the things he's been taught are mostly true, whereas I can't assume anything about the shaman.
Again, can you really not explain the doctor has a better track record than the shaman when it comes to healing people's bodies?
quote:I never said people should only trust authorities. I explicitly said that people should check beliefs against the evidence whenever possible.
My city reality test everything it can. Your city doesn't because they just trust "authorities".
quote:I mean, there are authorities on the contents of this $1000 box who say they know there's a million dollars in it. That's about as well as one could possibly know the evidence of what's in the box.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
I mean, there are religious authorities who say they can talk to God at will. That's about as well as one could possibly know the evidence of God.
quote:Great. So our Muslim religious authority claims that God told him that Jesus was only a prophet, and not divine.
The only trouble is, its not always easy to figure out whether they really know the evidence that well or whether they just say they do.
quote:I'm not saying "can't". I'm saying "won't". I'm sure that you and Tres are exemplary in using reason and evidence in situations where reason and evidence tell you what you want to hear. And I bet you use it in sitautions where you would quickly face dire consequences for not using it. But will you accept the conclusions of reason and evidence when they fly in the face of your chosen religious beliefs? Or will you "choose to believe" whatever the hell you want to?
Originally posted by kmbboots:
I still fail to understand why you think that if one doesn't use evidence and "reason" exclusively, that one can't use them at all.
quote:Heh, wow, really? That's a pretty bold statement to make about a very large topic. And just to be clear, I would be just as immediately skeptical if you had said, "Scientific evidence is clear there is nothing psychologically unhealthy about birth control," even though I most certainly don't think there is anything psychologically unhealthy in doing so.
For instance, the scientific evidence is clear that there's nothing psychologically unhealthy about being gay.
quote:I am not arguing you should overrule reality-testing simply simply because you "choose to believe". I am saying that there are many cases where reality-testing is either impossible or cannot give conclusive results (like regarding the truth of my Grandpa's old war stories). In those many cases, I am saying it is wise to consider the input of trusted authorities on the issue too, along with the other evidence.
If you allow yourself the escape clause of deeming reality-testing unsuitable whenever its conclusions don't agree with what you previously "chose to believe", how will you catch your mistakes?
quote:Teachers. Experts of many sorts. Journalists do this as a profession. I think it is pretty common if you've learned something that you consider important to want to convince other people of it, even people who may not have the time or ability to do the research you did to learn that thing.
Now stop for just a moment, and think about what kind of person is going to seek out lazy or impressionable people and try to convince them of things?
quote:Yes, the risk of lies are the danger that comes with trusting authorities. But the flip side, if you are too afraid to trust an authority, is the danger of missing out on important information. Which danger is worse? As kmbboots suggested, I don't think you have to make that choice - you can use both authorities and evidence together to minimize the downsides of using each alone.
Would ponzi schemes, cults, and institutionalized prejudice (among many other ills) be nearly as common if more people valued evidence and demanded a higher standard to believe people, rather than simply accepted the word of authority figures who tell them things they wish were true?
quote:Show me where my religious beliefs fly in the face of reason and evidence.
Originally posted by swbarnes2:
quote:I'm not saying "can't". I'm saying "won't". I'm sure that you and Tres are exemplary in using reason and evidence in situations where reason and evidence tell you what you want to hear. And I bet you use it in sitautions where you would quickly face dire consequences for not using it. But will you accept the conclusions of reason and evidence when they fly in the face of your chosen religious beliefs? Or will you "choose to believe" whatever the hell you want to?
Originally posted by kmbboots:
I still fail to understand why you think that if one doesn't use evidence and "reason" exclusively, that one can't use them at all.
quote:To you, because if results did occur, you would no longer consider it credible.
All credible evidence shows that prayer produces no results,
quote:Because you aren't an established authority for me, because your claim contradicts numerous other beliefs I have about the world, and because as best I can tell you seem to be making that story up for the sake of this argument.
Tres: Lets go back to my brain leprechaun, who saved you from a cobra the other day. Clearly you didn't die from a cbra bite. In fact, I'm certain that you never evensaw the cobra approaching you - that's how good Roger (the leprechaun) is.
So you can't reality test this assertion, and the available evidence seems to support my claim (no cobra, you're not dead), why aren't you believing my claim and sending me $500?
quote:Ah, but in Star Trek you wouldn't even be having this conversations, because humans are just descendants of an ancient alien race, and cousins to Klingons and Romulans!
Originally posted by Orincoro:
This thread now makes me want to do that move from Star Trek Wrath of Khan where I turn the phaser on myself because I can't withstand the earwig any longer.
quote:It depends a lot on the details of who they are, the context within which they are making the claim, how they explain knowing that claim, etc. Also, the Bible seems to be consistent with other already-justified beliefs of mine in ways that your claim is not.
Tres: what makes my claim less compelling than someone else's claim that the Bible is the authority on God?
quote:Why? Why would I care whether Brain Leprechauns exist? If you told me the Leprechauns would give me gold coins, I'd want them to exist, but I'd be no more convinced that you were telling me the truth. Swbarnes claimed he would give me a million dollars earlier in this thread. I defintely would WANT him to be telling the truth about that - yet I rejected his claim as not true in my judgement. So there's not really any connection there between what I want to hear and the authorities I've advocated accepting.
As others have pointed out, it seems to be that you accept baseless claims if they say what you want to hear, and ignore baseless claims if you prefer a world in which they are not true.
quote:I wasn't referring to religion in that case - I was referring to the fact that I have to trust authorities and assumptions to get through everyday life. For instance, if my doctor says a pill will heal me and not kill me, I have to trust him if I am unable to go back and do the research myself at that particular moment in my life. Or even far simply things, like trusting google maps when it says I need to follow a given set of directions to get to the place I want to go.
How does believing any one particular religious book over the other options allow you to get through everyday life?
quote:I believe its likely that many world religions are in some part correct, and that mine is probably not completely correct. I accept mine because it seems close to being correct, given everything I've seen and know and trust from authorities. No single thing forces me to - its a combination of many things that leads me to that conclusion.
What forces you to accept that a different religion from yours isn't the correct one, or that none at all are?
quote:Yes, particularly if they are things that most people don't know and if they are things that are in some way connected with knowledge of Brain Leprechauns. (Like a math textbook shares many things in common with my beliefs, but that doesn't suggest it is an authority on literature.) However, again, that is only one factor - how you got that knowledge, what other authorities say about you, other experiences I've had with you, your motivations, etc. also would effect the degree to which you seem trustworthy.
If I make a long laundry list of things that you and I both believe in common, does that make me more trustworthy, regarding the Brain Leprechauns?
quote:Well, there's the whole having been made up before our eyes, just now, and the certain knowledge that it was done so as a rhetorical point alone.
...what is inherently untrustworthy about Brain Leprechauns?
quote:I didn't say that if you have enough credentials you can convince me of anything. I said authorities are only one piece of the puzzle - but other beliefs, evidence, reason, etc. also all come into play. Your explanation of Brain Leprechauns contradicts many things I already believe and know about the world (which is precisely why you'd consider me nutty if I believed you). So not only would you need to be an authority, but I'd also need to be convinced those other beliefs are mistaken. There's also some additional weight against your claim from the fact that you are the only authority that says this, and virtually everyone else I'd trust in the world would say that you are crazy.
If we establish that you'll never actually believe in Brain Leprechauns, regardless of my credentials, the your reasons for trusting authorities are illogical and inconsistent.
quote:And reasonable (your word) people have believed in leprechauns, hobbits, nisser, and other little people since (roughly) the beginning of history. Why does that have no weight?
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Reasonable people (unless you have an unusual definition of reasonable) have believed in God or Allah (is there a difference?) angels and souls since (roughly) the beginning of history. There is a certain "weight" to that.
quote:No, you're not. You're comically lying for the purpose of a debate. I know you are. You know you are. Everyone knows you are. I know it about as well as any human can know something about another human. But feel free to keep flogging with noodly appendages in an effort to prove a defunct point.
Kmbboots and Rakeesh: I am a Holy Prohet of the Brain Leprechaun, only now revealing to you the Good News of his protection and devotion to His Believers.
quote:I remember them in the ST cartoon. Were they presented before that?
Originally posted by rivka:
The concept of the Preservers was presented long before TNG.
(And the episode I believe you are alluding to is "The Chase".)
quote:Come on.
And really Rakeesh, you know that I'm lying? By what standard could you possibly know that?
quote:From the Star Trek Wiki:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:I remember them in the ST cartoon. Were they presented before that?
Originally posted by rivka:
The concept of the Preservers was presented long before TNG.
(And the episode I believe you are alluding to is "The Chase".)
quote:http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Preservers
The Preservers were a race known for transplanting civilizations in danger of extinction. This included several Native American tribes.
In 2268, the USS Enterprise visited the planet Amerind and discovered a civilization of American Indians living there. The Preservers had evidently transplanted a nearly extinct group of these Indians to Amerind. They may have transplanted various flora and fauna as well, for Amerind was richly populated by Earth-native forms. The inhabitants referred to the Preservers as the "Wise Ones." Because asteroid impacts threatened Amerind on a semi-regular basis, the Preservers constructed a deflector in the form of an obelisk and left instructions with the tribal medicine man.
Glyphs incised into the obelisk represented tones in a musical language. Among other things, they explained how to open the device. Once inside, a memory beam instructed visitors on the finer points of operating the deflector.
Leonard McCoy and Spock theorized that the Preservers were responsible for the spread of the many humanoids that populate the galaxy (TOS: "The Paradise Syndrome"). But about a century later, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and archaeologist Richard Galen learned that the Preservers were only part of the reason. (TNG: "The Chase")
Ronald D. Moore has stated that he'd considered, but intentionally did not specify, that the ancient humanoids seen in TNG: "The Chase" were in fact the Preservers. He noted, "but this could be them and be internally consistent." (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion)
quote:Yes,that's exactly how I react when someone tells me that a glass of wine is the literal blood of a man who died over 2000 years ago.
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:Come on.
And really Rakeesh, you know that I'm lying? By what standard could you possibly know that?
quote:Literal? Where have you heard that? I've never heard it in all my life, having taken communion thousands of time.
Yes,that's exactly how I react when someone tells me that a glass of wine is the literal blood of a man who died over 2000 years ago.
quote:
The Church's Magna Charta, however, are the words of Institution, "This is my body — this is my blood", whose literal meaning she has uninterruptedly adhered to from the earliest times. The Real Presence is evinced, positively, by showing the necessity of the literal sense of these words, and negatively, by refuting the figurative interpretations.
quote:I believe that they're making a preposterous claim, which is completely imaginary, and which no logical person would believe.
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
You believe that they're being disingenuous?
quote:Well, I don't know you are lying, but I have the ability to make a judgement call based on the incomplete evidence I have on what you are saying. My judgement is that you are not telling the truth about Brain Leprechauns.
And really Rakeesh, you know that I'm lying? By what standard could you possibly know that?
quote:Oh, it is? Muslims say of Christians, "They're lying, they're intentionally lying, and they're just lying to prove a point." I'd be fascinated to see some evidence of that that doesn't effectively amount to a few Muslims somewhere have said it.
Rakeesh: your argument is used by Muslims to show how wrong Christianity is. If it works for you, it works for them too.
quote:No, I really don't. You seem to think that I believe my knowing you're lying is somehow evidence in support of believing the claims of others. I don't. All I'm saying is that the situations are a bit different. When someone takes as evidence for God the religious claim of another human being, they usually are pretty reasonably convinced that the other human being actually believes what they are saying. I know you don't believe what you're saying-at least, the specific claim of it.
You'll have to do better than that.
quote:Yup. Speaking for myself and all other religious people, I just turn off the ole noggin and let the warm, comfy sheeplike sensation tuck me in at night!
This is really getting frustrating. Does religion demand a total lack of introspection, to go along with believing the illogical ghost stories of one book while denouncing all the rest?
quote:That's not what's being discussed here. What's being discussed is the difference between someone who makes a 'preposterous' claim and believes it and someone who makes a 'preposterous' claim and clearly doesn't.
I believe that they're making a preposterous claim, which is completely imaginary, and which no logical person would believe.
quote:It certainly can serve as a measure of truth if we're right about whether or not you're being disingenuous.
Besides, your or anyone's belief that I'm being disingenuous has no effect on the truth value of my statements.
quote:The test is not what you say or whether I believe it. The test is what is actually true - and thats something only you really know for sure, regardless of what you tell us, so you are the only one who is going to know for sure the true result of the test.
Tres: Of course I'm tellin the truth. A cobra didn't kill you, did it?
So, I've confirmed my statement. Do you believe it yet?
quote:That's quite a misconstruing of what he said.
Originally posted by MightyCow:
Ah, so things people really believe are more likely to be true than things people only say that they believe?
That is one of the most absurd things I've seen on hatrack.
quote:You think that more of the same will help?
MPH: I'm aware of that, but people aren't being intellectually honest here, and I'm trying to ferret out the truth.
quote:That's certainly a way of characterizing it that is flattering to your vanity.
Sadly, I think some people have a lot more invested in keeping up their wall against cognitive dissonance than I do in pointing out how inconsistent and illogical their criteria for belief in truth are.
quote:There is not zero evidence for belief in God. You are not persuaded by what evidence there is, that's all well and good, I can certainly understand that. But this constant smug droning repetition that there is no evidence isn't going to make it any more true than it already isn't. OK? Could you move on to a persuasive argument at some point in the near future, instead of flogging a thoroughly dead (as opposed to mostly dead) horse?
Disbelieving in me leprechaun because there is zero evidence for leprechauns, even though many people honestly believe in them and have for centuries is logical in the same way that disbelieving in the fantastical and evidenceless stories of holy books is logical.
quote:Do you have any evidence that any of the theists posting here believe that someone praying for you would keep a cobra away?
Originally posted by MightyCow:
It is clearly absurd to believe that my Brain Leprechaun saved anyone from Cobra Attack in exactly the same way that it is absurd to believe that someone praying for me to be safe today kept a cobra away.
quote:A major difference is that the only person supporting this view is you, you seem to have a rather obvious motivation to make up something to support you position, and you don't seem to have any way of knowing what you are claiming to know. Nobody else in the world has suggested that a brain leprechaun saved me from a cobra attack this week.
It is clearly absurd to believe that my Brain Leprechaun saved anyone from Cobra Attack in exactly the same way that it is absurd to believe that someone praying for me to be safe today kept a cobra away.
quote:You didn't ask whether we believe in leprechauns though. I'd be more inclined to believe in a leprechaun than a brain leprechaun, since you are the first person I've ever heard mention the latter creature. I'd also be more inclined to believe leprechauns merely exist than that one saved me this week from a cobra attack.
I am fairly certain that all the theists here believe in multiple supernatural things with the same amount of evidence as the leprechaun.
quote:Great. For the umteenth time, explain how you determine if someone is an authority on prayer. You must have a non-circular (meaning, not listening to other authorities) method, what is it?
Originally posted by Tresopax:
They'd have to either have a really good explantion of how they knew, or I'd have to believe they have a very profound authority on questions of prayer.
quote:So you are saying that there is more reason to believe in Islam than in Mormonism.
If one person believes in X and a million people believe in Y, there's a bit more reason to believe in Y.
quote:Okay, so how did you determine the Pope's authority?
If the Pope says Y and a random person on the street says X, there's a bit more reason for me to believe Y (assuming I ascribe some authority to the Pope.)
quote:So disregarding the data that supports the theory of relativity, like lots of Creationists and conservatives do (see the conservapedia entry on it), is the right and smart thing to do, since they don't believe in relativity, and the data contradicts what they do believe in. They are using their personal judgement to choose to believe that relativity is a liberal plot. All their chosen authorities tell them this is the case, and it matches their reason and evidence.
If X contradicts numerous laws of physics I believe in, and if Y does not, that's reason to judge Y is more likely.
quote:What is dishonest about believing one thing supported by one set of justifications, while not believing another thing that is supported by a different set of justifications? Would it be dishonest of me to accept five different weathermen telling me that it will be sunny tomorrow, while not believing a random person on the internet who says fire will fall from the sky tomorrow, if I personally possess no phsyical evidence myself for either?
What is intellectually dishonest is to claim that people somehow know that my claim is false and at the same time somehow know that their own supernatural claims, such as the existence of their deity of choice, are true.
quote:The mistake they are making is confusing "what they judge to be true" with "what they wish to be true" or "what needs to be true in order form them to avoid admitting they were wrong."
They are using their personal judgement to choose to believe that relativity is a liberal plot. All their chosen authorities tell them this is the case, and it matches their reason and evidence.
So, what exactly, if anything, are they doing wrong?
quote:Why is "judging" necessarily different from "wishing"? Isn't "judging" based on prior beliefs that can come from anywhere (like your belief that your soul and mind are separate, which you admit has no objective evidence), and authorities whose validity you obviously can't figure out how to determine?
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:The mistake they are making is confusing "what they judge to be true" with "what they wish to be true" or "what needs to be true in order form them to avoid admitting they were wrong."
They are using their personal judgement to choose to believe that relativity is a liberal plot. All their chosen authorities tell them this is the case, and it matches their reason and evidence.
So, what exactly, if anything, are they doing wrong?
quote:Likewise, everyone who comes to Vegas with a "system" for winning eventually judges that their system is bogus before spending their life savings gambling. No one fools themself that the system will win big for them on the next play.
You don't get to choose what your judgement says - your judgement says whatever it says. If you want it to be sunny, but you look outside and see that it looks like a storm is coming, your judgement is telling you rain is coming whether you like it or not.
quote:Okay, so the inquisitor claims that your soul is in mortal jeopardy, you think you are fine. Is he tricking himself, or are you tricking yourself thinking you are fine?
Some people take this mistake a step further, and expose themselves only to certain pieces of information, to trick their own judgement so they can believe what they want to believe. It is definitely possible to do that, but it is a mistake.
quote:I'm really not sure why you keep claiming intellectual dishonesty. We watched you make up the joke. Now, perhaps, if you had arrived at Hatrack a complete blank slate and posted about Brain Leprechauns, you would have some credibility, and the folks criticizing you while being religious themselves might be intellectually dishonest. But that's not what actually happened. We know you don't actually believe in leprechauns, not just because it's a fairy tale, but because you are the one who said it. As well believe me when I say, "I just love Rush Limbaugh to pieces and listen to his program religiously."
What is intellectually dishonest is to claim that people somehow know that my claim is false and at the same time somehow know that their own supernatural claims, such as the existence of their deity of choice, are true.
quote:That's not what people are actually claiming. Some people are claiming that people are more likely to believe things that are true than are not true, not that the number of believers somehow confers truth.
It is baffling that people are actually trying to claim that real belief or lots of people believing something makes it more likely to be true. You'll notice that nobody is suddenly on the leprechaun bandwagon after seeing my website links.
quote:The dishonesty is continuing to insist that this is the reason, this is why people have faith. Does it play a role? Certainly! But you go several steps beyond that.
It's dishonest to pretend that the reason is anything other than cultural norms and personal choice in belief.
quote:I think nobody is willing to address your links because they respond to a point that hasn't been made. Or, who does think that the number of believers has an actual impact on the truth of any given statement? I, at least, certainly don't, and it'd be just great if you'd stop speaking as though I do.
Nobody's willing to address my leprechaun websites. Those people all believe in Leprechauns and faeries.
Should we give their claim extra credibility since lots of them sincerely believe it?
quote:You've suggested we need to go out and find evidence to determine the answers to our questions. If that's the case then go out and gather evidence on this question: Do people who attempt to base their beliefs solely on evidence and reason end up with fewer false beliefs?
How are these conservapedia types supposed to change their mind if, like you argue people ought to, they trust their authorities, reject claims which disagree with what they already believe, and rely on their judgmenet as the final arbiter of their beliefs? You think that their authorities and beliefs are wrong. How are they supposed to figure that out, based on their authorities and beliefs?
My answer, of course is "Forget beliefs and authorities, believe only what the reason and evidence supports", but that can't be your answer, so what does that leave you?
quote:I agree that people are sometimes catastrophicly wrong. I believe that is unavoidable, no matter how you come to your beliefs. I believe that the best we can do is to try to keep our eyes open to see our own catastropic mistakes, and be willing to correct them when they happen before its too late. I think that if we do that, we may not end up with perfect beliefs, but we'll end up doing the best we can.
Oh wait, that's not what life is like at all. People's judgments are catastrophicly wrong, even in the face of overwhelming evidence all the time.
quote:I think the number of believers is a piece of evidence in favor of a belief, so I'll address this point: If it were the ONLY piece of information I had about them then I'd probably believe in leprechauns. However, leprechauns also violate many beliefs I have about the world, like my belief that rainbows don't have an "end" and thus can't have pots of gold at their end, or my belief that if leprechauns existed then they'd have been documented more clearly by now. In addition, you weren't talking about leprechauns of the sort described by those who believe in them. Your leprechauns were "Brain Leprechauns" which somehow stop cobras, and you are the only person I've ever heard talk about such a thing.
I think nobody is willing to address your links because they respond to a point that hasn't been made. Or, who does think that the number of believers has an actual impact on the truth of any given statement? I, at least, certainly don't, and it'd be just great if you'd stop speaking as though I do.
quote:This sounds like you're going for a really radical externalism about justification. According to a view like this, "truth tracking" performance determines whether a particular set of epistemic norms is correct.
If someone at some point concludes "a reasonable person bases all their beliefs purely on evidence and reason" and never questions that conclusion any further, then he's in trouble if that turns out to not be true.
quote:Not so. We have no way to know if their writings are any more true. We have clear evidence that your story is less believable, in that so far no one believes it.
Originally posted by MightyCow:
We have now way to know if the writers of the Bible (Koran, Book of Mormon, what have you) were any more believable than my leprechaun story.
quote:Yeah, because just anyone can do that sort of thing, right? People who try hard enough never fail, after all.
Most of the people at the time of the Bible didn't believe it either. If I tried as hard as the apostles, for years, I'm certain I could get a couple hundred followers.
quote:And, what, you think those that do don't have some skill or quality (or anti-quality, I suppose, depending on who you're talking about?) that you might not possess? I have a sneaking suspicion you would reject out of hand this sort of 'comparison' if it didn't suit your own rhetoric.
See modern cults for comparison-most of us see that they're odd, but they get dozens/hundreds who are willing to die for them.
quote:I'm far from certain about this.
. If I tried as hard as the apostles, for years, I'm certain I could get a couple hundred followers.
quote:You are overlooking all the differences in the details of these different stories. The Bible is different from your leprechaun story because it is written by a different author (or authors), it contains different details, it entails accepting different conclusions about the world, and so on. The details can make all the difference in whether something is believable or isn't. What you are arguing is essentially like saying that if I believe my history textbook is true then I should also believe Ender's Game is true, since both are books by some author and since I couldn't really verify either. But the details matter - I can easily judge that my history book is intended as truth, whereas Ender's Game is fiction, based on the details of what I know about each.
We have now way to know if the writers of the Bible (Koran, Book of Mormon, what have you) were any more believable than my leprechaun story. The only thing that is different is that these religious books have generations of history, so we are completely unable to judge the honesty, believeability, or authority of the sources.
It all comes down to cultural acceptability. If you believe in angels, it's OK, because that's part of a major religion.
quote:It doesn't determine what is correct. What is correct simply is what is true! And it doesn't determine what is justified either - what is justified is what you can conclude based on everything you have access to at the moment you are making the belief. Instead, I'm just pointing out that in situations where you aren't justified in claiming to be certain of a given belief, it is wise to be open to and gather new information that you didn't have before.
This sounds like you're going for a really radical externalism about justification. According to a view like this, "truth tracking" performance determines whether a particular set of epistemic norms is correct.
quote:I was using "correct" as synonymous with "justified" at that point.
It doesn't determine what is correct. What is correct simply is what is true! And it doesn't determine what is justified either - what is justified is what you can conclude based on everything you have access to at the moment you are making the belief.
quote:This doesn't follow at all. If you're justified in being 99% certain of P, it might be a very bad use of your time to seek out evidence against P when you know such evidence is unlikely to appear. To return to the example, it would be unwise for someone who doesn't have a very strong independent interest in epistemology to seek out evidence about whether the external world is real.
Instead, I'm just pointing out that in situations where you aren't justified in claiming to be certain of a given belief, it is wise to be open to and gather new information that you didn't have before.
quote:Do you really believe this? Do you think it's possible that our justification for the claim "a reasonable person bases all their beliefs purely on the evidence for or against them" can be undermined?
If someone at some point concludes "a reasonable person bases all their beliefs purely on evidence and reason" and never questions that conclusion any further, then he's in trouble if that turns out to not be true.
quote:The degree to which you'd actively go out and seek new information is probably going to depend on how certain you are of your belief and how important you think that belief is. But being open to new information is not necessarily the same as actively seeking it - even a person 99% confident of an relatively unimportant belief may benefit from being open to new information should it happen to appear.
If you're justified in being 99% certain of P, it might be a very bad use of your time to seek out evidence against P when you know such evidence is unlikely to appear. To return to the example, it would be unwise for someone who doesn't have a very strong independent interest in epistemology to seek out evidence about whether the external world is real.
quote:It could be undermined if you were mistaken about that being the definition of "reasonable". If by evidence one means only material scientific evidence, then I don't think that is the definition of reasonable.
Do you really believe this? Do you think it's possible that our justification for the claim "a reasonable person bases all their beliefs purely on the evidence for or against them" can be undermined?
I don't think it can, even by examples like the Cartesian demon. Basing your beliefs on evidence is the definition of being reasonable, even if you're in one of the unlucky situations where being reasonable leads to false beliefs.
quote:So in your scheme, since the shaman is certain that his prayers work, he will never look for disconfirming evidence.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
[QB]quote:The degree to which you'd actively go out and seek new information is probably going to depend on how certain you are of your belief and how important you think that belief is.
If you're justified in being 99% certain of P, it might be a very bad use of your time to seek out evidence against P when you know such evidence is unlikely to appear. To return to the example, it would be unwise for someone who doesn't have a very strong independent interest in epistemology to seek out evidence about whether the external world is real.
quote:But human beings being what they are, even if falsifying information falls right in their lap, they often won't accept it. How many people lose their faith when Jesus fails to heal their loved one? How many people die in the course of alternative "medicine" while their symptoms are obviously getting worse? How many people lose their savings to a "system" that was supposed to beat Vegas?
But being open to new information is not necessarily the same as actively seeking it - even a person 99% confident of an relatively unimportant belief may benefit from being open to new information should it happen to appear.
quote:Okay, so by your definition, is the torturer, who has no evidence to support his belief, but only the word of his authorities and his personal judgment, being reasonable?
quote:It could be undermined if you were mistaken about that being the definition of "reasonable".
Basing your beliefs on evidence is the definition of being reasonable, even if you're in one of the unlucky situations where being reasonable leads to false beliefs.
quote:If it's insulting to suggest it might be unlikely you're one of the quite rare people able to motivate others to actually live and die for you, then yes, I was definitely insulting you.
Rakeesh: I get that you're trying to insult me, so kudos for that, but you are entirely missing the point.
quote:I haven't followed this full discussion and so I don't claim I have any idea what point Tres was trying to make. I do however have serious concerns about the claim that ""a reasonable person bases all their beliefs purely on evidence and reason".
Originally posted by Destineer:
Also, Tres, let me re-quote what you said and check whether you're rescinding this earlier claim...
quote:Do you really believe this? Do you think it's possible that our justification for the claim "a reasonable person bases all their beliefs purely on the evidence for or against them" can be undermined?
If someone at some point concludes "a reasonable person bases all their beliefs purely on evidence and reason" and never questions that conclusion any further, then he's in trouble if that turns out to not be true.
quote:Hey man!
Originally posted by twinky:
I was disappointed to see that this thread was still going on, since I figured it would just be a repeat of the same old arguments... but then I saw that Destineer was posting! It's cool to see you around again.
quote:Rabbit, decisions aren't the same as beliefs. I agree that choices about what to do must often be made in the absence of evidence. In those cases, I'd say we act from ignorance. And that's fine, it's sometimes the best we can do.
First, there are many many occasions in life where reason and evidence are insufficient to choose between two or more alternatives. Many of those instances demand that a person make a choice. Those instances can be as simple as deciding whether or not you want dessert or as complex as choosing between two job offers or whether or not to have a child. It simply isn't possible to lead a life based solely on reason and evidence. Most choices ultimately involve not only reason and evidence, but values that are personal and subjective and guesses about future events that no one can accurately predict.
quote:sw, Tres was quoting me here, and I agree with him -- if you really justifiably believe something is overwhelmingly likely, there's not usually much point in seeking out contrary evidence. That's what justifies KoM's dismissive attitude about religion, which Tres was criticizing above.
So in your scheme, since the shaman is certain that his prayers work, he will never look for disconfirming evidence.
Scientists, on the other hand, make a point to look for falsifying evidence. And they find it sometimes, and alter their conclusions accordingly.
Which mindset are you claiming leads to better medical outcomes?
Do you really think that that difference in mindset isn't an integral part of the difference?
quote:OK, I agree with this, but it's a pretty limited claim compared to what you were saying before. You were suggesting that whatever method actually leads us to the truth, even if it involves disregarding evidence, is rational.
It could be undermined if you were mistaken about that being the definition of "reasonable". If by evidence one means only material scientific evidence, then I don't think that is the definition of reasonable.
quote:But there's that "justifiably".
Originally posted by Destineer:
sw, Tres was quoting me here, and I agree with him -- if you really justifiably believe something is overwhelmingly likely, there's not usually much point in seeking out contrary evidence. That's what justifies KoM's dismissive attitude about religion, which Tres was criticizing above.
quote:How will you recognise the truth? This is circular. Tres's judgment tells him what he wants to be true, like that his brain and his mind are separate. Evidence contradicts this, but it's okay for Tres to disregard that in favor of his strong feelings, because those feelings are leading him to the "truth" that he believed in advance.
OK, I agree with this, but it's a pretty limited claim compared to what you were saying before. You were suggesting that whatever method actually leads us to the truth, even if it involves disregarding evidence, is rational.
quote:They all have their evidence too. If you find some flat-earthers, I'm sure they could explain what they believe to be their evidence that the earth is flat.
They all have their authorities. They all have their judgement.
quote:If a doctor is telling you that you need surgery to cure a cancer or you'll die, but you have personally tried homeopathic treatment and have come to believe it works, I recommend trusting the authority of the doctor over your limited evidence that homeopathic treatment works. So sometimes an authority can trump certain evidence. While other times, the evidence may be more convincing than the authority.
You can't bring yourself to say "If the reason and evidence don't support judgment, go with the evidence". So if you can't argue it, why should the person dying on homeopathic treatment do it?
quote:A side note on this: The thing I believed in advance is the opposite of what I believe now, on that topic. I originally believed, mostly because authorities told me, that brain = mind. Evidence and reason later led me to believe otherwise. So this particular example doesn't really help your case....
Tres's judgment tells him what he wants to be true, like that his brain and his mind are separate. Evidence contradicts this, but it's okay for Tres to disregard that in favor of his strong feelings, because those feelings are leading him to the "truth" that he believed in advance.
quote:Aren't decisions a type of belief though? If I choose A over B, doesn't my choice imply a belief that "A is the better option"? Unless I am choosing randomly... but even in that case I think that'd entail a belief that "A and B are equally good options, as far as I know."
So yes, decisions and actions can be rational without evidence. Beliefs, not so much.
quote:I wouldn't say that ANY method that leads us to the truth is rational. Just guessing and happening to be right every time is not rational, for instance.
OK, I agree with this, but it's a pretty limited claim compared to what you were saying before. You were suggesting that whatever method actually leads us to the truth, even if it involves disregarding evidence, is rational.
quote:No. If you're trying to kick your meth addiction, but succumb to weak will and decide to take the drug anyway, that doesn't mean you believe taking the drug is the better option. You might believe it's a bad option, but simply be unable to resist your strong desire to take it.
Aren't decisions a type of belief though? If I choose A over B, doesn't my choice imply a belief that "A is the better option"? Unless I am choosing randomly... but even in that case I think that'd entail a belief that "A and B are equally good options, as far as I know."
quote:I'd tend to agree with your usage. Although someone who believes astrology works, or that his layperson neighbor is a reliable source of information on religious questions, has almost certainly been irrational in the past. It's hard to see how someone could reach these conclusions without mis-weighing the evidence.
I would say that rationality entails a measuring of all information available to you - including not just evidence and logic, but also less reliable information including things authorities have told you and beliefs you've already come to in the past. (I would call all of that "evidence", from scientific studies to astrology to what my neighbor told me, but several objected to my using the term that way.)
quote:What evidence do you claim flat earthers have that is inconsistant with a very large spherical world? And no, their strong feelings are not evidence, nor is refering to authority.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
swbarnes2,
quote:They all have their evidence too. If you find some flat-earthers, I'm sure they could explain what they believe to be their evidence that the earth is flat.
They all have their authorities. They all have their judgement.
quote:But if the shaman offers to cut a hole in your brain to let the bad spirits out, then you shouldn't trust their authority, right?
quote:If a doctor is telling you that you need surgery to cure a cancer or you'll die, but you have personally tried homeopathic treatment and have come to believe it works, I recommend trusting the authority of the doctor over your limited evidence that homeopathic treatment works.
You can't bring yourself to say "If the reason and evidence don't support judgment, go with the evidence". So if you can't argue it, why should the person dying on homeopathic treatment do it?
quote:How do you decide which is which, other than chosing to believe authorities which agree with you, and believing the "evidence" when it agrees with you?
So sometimes an authority can trump certain evidence. While other times, the evidence may be more convincing than the authority.
quote:Yes it does, because you admitted previously that your "evidence" isn't evidence at all, it's just your feelings. And you have demonstrated that you are unable to apply your reasoning to any of the straightforward questions I've asked you over and over again, so I can't think much of what you call "reason", either.
quote:A side note on this: The thing I believed in advance is the opposite of what I believe now, on that topic. I originally believed, mostly because authorities told me, that brain = mind. Evidence and reason later led me to believe otherwise. So this particular example doesn't really help your case....
Tres's judgment tells him what he wants to be true, like that his brain and his mind are separate. Evidence contradicts this, but it's okay for Tres to disregard that in favor of his strong feelings, because those feelings are leading him to the "truth" that he believed in advance.
quote:Again, do you not understand that using a term in a completely different way than everyone else uses it is dishonest? It's marignally less dishonest to overtly admit you are being dishonest, but it's still dishonest.
I would say that rationality entails a measuring of all information available to you - including not just evidence and logic, but also less reliable information including things authorities have told you and beliefs you've already come to in the past. (I would call all of that "evidence", from scientific studies to astrology to what my neighbor told me, but several objected to my using the term that way.)
quote:That's just what the torturer does. His mental scale puts his religous belief that your spouse is a vile heretic on the scale, with his trust in his religious authorities that tell him that he is right, and the end result is his judgment tells him to pull your spouse apart on the rack. In fact, he even has his "strong evidence". It's exactly as convincing to him as your feelings that your mind and brain are separate are to you.
My view of reason is that we put all of that on a mental scale (judgement) which then tells us which answer is most likely to be true.
quote:How do you check the scale to know if you are weighing your feelings about your mind and brain are accurate?
But then that leaves me with the situation of a crazy person whose scale/judgement weighs the evidence all wrong - is that person rational? That's why I was making those comments about being open to new evidence even after having a justified belief. You have to continually check your scale to make sure you've weighed everything correctly, and then make adjustments as you find your mistakes.
quote:I'm not sure I agree with that. I'd think there is still a belief implied, if a decision was made to do it.... although the belief might be something like "I know this is a bad idea but its worth it to escape the pain of withdrawal." It's possible some things are just automatic, like breathing or yelling when in pain, but I wouldn't exactly call those decisions either.
No. If you're trying to kick your meth addiction, but succumb to weak will and decide to take the drug anyway, that doesn't mean you believe taking the drug is the better option. You might believe it's a bad option, but simply be unable to resist your strong desire to take it.
quote:I agree. This is the heart of the problem - but I wouldn't really call people irrational just for having a rotten foundation, unless they don't care how rotten the foundation is or don't do anything to fix it. (This is in part because I suspect everyone has a somewhat rotten foundation...)
That's why irrationality is so insidious. At a young age we reach mistaken impressions about the reliability of "experts" by a very natural train of thought (my mom must know what's morally right and wrong, since she always knew when I was being a bad child; everybody listens to this clergyman, so he must be very knowledgeable). Then we develop critical thinking skills at a later age, but are left with a rotten foundation of "knowledge" to build on.
quote:Where did I say that? I believe I specifically said the exact opposite of that.
hereafter to be believed without question.
quote:What can I say? Read your Aristotle, then read your Michael Smith. It's completely possible to intentionally do something while believing that it's in no way the best thing for you to do.
I'm not sure I agree with that. I'd think there is still a belief implied, if a decision was made to do it.... although the belief might be something like "I know this is a bad idea but its worth it to escape the pain of withdrawal." It's possible some things are just automatic, like breathing or yelling when in pain, but I wouldn't exactly call those decisions either.
quote:Okay, then can you tell me what specifically in this thread made it seem to you to be true that I support believing something without question?
What you say and what is true seem to have some level of disconnect, which is where the problem arises. I'm not accusing you of lying, but rather of having an inaccurate view of your process for deciding Truth.
quote:Can you give some examples of these significant differences that don't boil down to cultural acceptance or appeal to authority?
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
MightyCow, Whether you believe it or not, there are some fairly significant differences between your story and commonly accepted religious beliefs. There is a large amount of scholar work looking at new religious movements and the qualities that make them believable. You should at least look at what's been done in the area before you start making claims. That is, after, the scientific approach.
quote:Instead of "cultural acceptance" it should be prior justified beliefs. If you have a prior belief, which you believe is already supported by other justification, that Jesus is the physical incarnation of an all-powerful diety, then that prior belief makes it seem a lot more possible that Jesus performed miracles. That prior belief must be weighed against your other prior beliefs, such as your belief that spit is phsyically unable to cure blindless. Conflict with these prior beliefs is what makes a given thing seem crazy - and is why it might seem crazy to one person, but not to another person who approaches it having been raised in a way that led them to accept a different set of prior beliefs.
Nobody is answering my questions for example about why we disbelieve spirits causing disease, but believe that Jesus can cure blindness with his spit, or why human sacrifices to bring rain are barbaric and backward, but human sacrifice to appease a vengeful God is perfectly reasonable.
Most religions are based on beliefs that we would call crazy nonsense in a different setting. What makes them logical or believable, besides cultural acceptance and appeal to authority?
quote:You may not have it in front of you, but it exists, and can be provided to you. I don't think your clergy can do the same.
To say I have some evidence of quantum mechanics other than appeal to authority and its consistency with certain other prior beliefs I hold would be a lie.
quote:Since I'm referring to the scholarly study of new religious movements, none of the factors are closely related to cultural acceptance or appeal to authority.
Originally posted by rollainm:
quote:Can you give some examples of these significant differences that don't boil down to cultural acceptance or appeal to authority?
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
MightyCow, Whether you believe it or not, there are some fairly significant differences between your story and commonly accepted religious beliefs. There is a large amount of scholar work looking at new religious movements and the qualities that make them believable. You should at least look at what's been done in the area before you start making claims. That is, after, the scientific approach.
quote:Show of hands, please: who actually believes the last part of this statement and considers themselves a Christian?
Nobody is answering my questions for example about why we disbelieve spirits causing disease, but believe that Jesus can cure blindness with his spit, or why human sacrifices to bring rain are barbaric and backward, but human sacrifice to appease a vengeful God is perfectly reasonable.
quote:I did answer the substance of your question by pointing out it was fundamentally flawed. If you want an answer to a question, you should start by asking a clear and legitimate question. So far you have largely failed to do so, particularly in your earlier (mis)characterization of what Christians actually believe.
Rakeesh, so you can't actually answer the substance of the question, so all you have is complaining about my characterization of the scripture.
quote:Well, one big, obvious answer to that question is to point out how you're, according to Christian belief at least, partially comparing apples and oranges. Jesus being God and all raises the question: why is the death and resurrection of Jesus being compared to a human sacrifice? Or, in other words, it's beautiful and awesome to Christians because it is believed that God loved us human beings so much that God was willing to endure great pain, suffering, and even death, for our sakes. I'm putting that in very broad terms to apply to as many Christians as possible.
Why is it horrible and horiffic to believe that human sacrifices were necessary to change the weather, but it is beautiful and awesome to believe that Jesus's sacrifice on the cross was a vital step in the reconciliation of humanity and it's supernatural creator?
quote:I made a very specific focused criticism against a particular type of argument you are making. Perhaps rather than rolling your eyes, you could address my arguments.
Originally posted by MightyCow:
Really Rabbit, you want to bring your "ha, ha, stupid atheist" garbage here too, as you bring up red herrings instead of actually answering the questions?
quote:If my clergy said they had evidence they could provide to me, but that I couldn't understand it myself without several more years of study under people who already understand the evidence, and that even then I couldn't see the evidence myself unless I had access to a bunch of equipment that I do not currently have access to, would you count that as me having the evidence myself?
quote:You may not have it in front of you, but it exists, and can be provided to you. I don't think your clergy can do the same.
To say I have some evidence of quantum mechanics other than appeal to authority and its consistency with certain other prior beliefs I hold would be a lie.
quote:I'm pretty familiar with these ideas, though not so much with the specific research. These are excellent reasons for defending the importance of religion in general to many people. I, too, am put off by militant atheists who cannot see that adherence to religious beliefs is far more complicated than simple logical fallacy.
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:Since I'm referring to the scholarly study of new religious movements, none of the factors are closely related to cultural acceptance or appeal to authority.
Originally posted by rollainm:
quote:Can you give some examples of these significant differences that don't boil down to cultural acceptance or appeal to authority?
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
MightyCow, Whether you believe it or not, there are some fairly significant differences between your story and commonly accepted religious beliefs. There is a large amount of scholar work looking at new religious movements and the qualities that make them believable. You should at least look at what's been done in the area before you start making claims. That is, after, the scientific approach.
Its a pretty complicated question that I can't really do justice to. My very short and inadequate answer is this, religion isn't solely or even primarily about the mythology. Religious practices, rituals and theology are far more important than what it says about supernatural beings or creation. Religions thrive for two key reasons that have little to do with their underlying mythology. First, they encourage practices (like fasting, meditation, prayer, and other rituals) that stimulate the areas of the brain which create a sense of well being and altruism. Second, they offer compelling visions about how an individual relates to community and universe.
If the subject interests you, you should study it because a lot scholarly research has been done in the area. I have a general beef about people who make strident claims (in any area whether be it climate change, civil war history, or religion) without bothering first to learn what others have already discovered. I find it most ironic when its done by new atheists claiming to promote objectivism and reason.
quote:Likewise, everything the torturer has seen leads him to believe that his inquisitor boss is a trustworthy authority on the state of your heretic spouse's soul.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
[quote]"So what are you claiming is the difference between the doctor and the shaman if not the fact that the doctor has the evidence on his side, and the shaman doesn't?" The difference is that everything I've seen leads me to believe doctors are trustworthy authorities, which is not true for shamans.
quote:Including astrology books? Well, that's just what the torturer does.
"How do you decide which is which, other than chosing to believe authorities which agree with you, and believing the "evidence" when it agrees with you?" I use my best judgement based on all the information available to me.
quote:Do you really not understand that a circular answer is no answer at all? When I ask you how you pick authorities, you can't answer "I compare to the other authorities I previously picked".
"For instance, (for the millionth time) how did you decide whether Muslim religious leaders are authorities on the divinty of Jesus?" I used my best judgement based on the information I have about them, particularly the fact that their teachings conflict with many other of my beliefs and the fact that they base their conclusions on authorities I haven't accepted.
quote:Reason and evidence? After pages and pages of saying that personal judgment and reliance on authorities as the way to go, now you are dropping reason and evidence in?
"And though you disagree with the conclusion, you apparently find no fault with his method of drawing that conclusion?" If by "his method" you mean "using authorities along with evidence and reasoning to derive your beliefs" then yes, I find no fault in his method even though I believe his conclusion is totally wrong.
quote:Okay, so the torturer might change his mind if he had new information on the state of your spouse's soul. How do you suggest he go about collecting information on this topic? Won't he just reply that since your alternate authorities have "teachings [that] conflict with many other of [his] beliefs and the fact that [your alternate authorities] base their conclusions on authorities [he] haven't accepted", that he'll reject them, just like you reject the Muslim religious authorities?.
"How do you check the scale to know if you are weighing your feelings about your mind and brain are accurate?" Keep asking questions, keep being skeptical, and keep comparing your beliefs against new information.
quote:But the WHY doesn't take more than a sentence either. And I can do it without being circular. I trust the doctor because her claims have been reality-tested, and passed. The shamans haven't. There's no evidence about the state of anyone's soul, or if one even exists, or that God wants people to do or believe certain things, or even that God exists at all. The evidence says that torturing your spouse won't accomplish anything but pain, so that's why I conclude that torture is pointless. I disregard the Muslim religious teacher, not because he disagrees with what my Mommy told me about God, but because he has no evidence to support his claims.
"Really, this is a simple yes-no. I can answer it quite easily in a sentence, but why can't you?" I can answer all these questions in a sentence, like I did above, but I'm thinking you probably want to know WHY I answer them the way I do and how my answers fit together.
quote:This is a little off target. Your later post clarified how there's some science that may indicate why religions thrive. But MC is talking about reasons for accepting the specific mythology.
Whether you believe it or not, there are some fairly significant differences between your story and commonly accepted religious beliefs. There is a large amount of scholar work looking at new religious movements and the qualities that make them believable.
quote:Right.
He has no evidence, of course, he has only his authority, and his prior beleifs based on his personal judgment, but according to you, that's all he needs, right?
quote:You just said he has no evidence. If he does have evidence available to him, that changes the question. In that case, he needs to weigh the evidence and factor it into his decision.
It's not like he should allow the evidence to usurp his personal judgment's place as the final arbiter of decisions, right?
quote:Generally speaking, he should go with all the information he has - but it appears you've set up a situation where all the information he has is going to lead him to the wrong answer in that particular case. Similarly, I could say "What if the evidence tells a man he needs to torture your spouse, but a voice in his head speaks to him and tells him he should not. Should the man listen to the voice or the evidence?" In such a situation, listening to the voice would lead him to the right answer - but that doesn't prove that listening to voices in your head is generally the best way of choosing beliefs. All it proves is that I can invent one scenario where it turns out better.
The torturer's personal judgement, which is based on "all the information he has" including his respect for his chosen authorities, tell him that torture is the right thing to do. The evidence tells him that it won't accomplish anything but agony for your spouse. Are you arguing that he should or shouldn't allow the evidence to usurp his personal judgment as the final arbiter of this decision?
quote:This isn't circular logic. It's a regression. If you want to know how I began to trust the initial authorities in the regression, it was probably when I was a child, and it began by me simply trusting them and seeing what happens. People and things that proved trustworthy over time became authorities.
Do you really not understand that a circular answer is no answer at all? When I ask you how you pick authorities, you can't answer "I compare to the other authorities I previously picked".
And if those prior beliefs are based on authorites like you say they are, then you are circular again.
I note that "what does the evidence say" apparently plays absolutely no part in this process, does it?
quote:No, I've consistently argued that reason and evidence need to be weighed alongside authorities.
When just yesterday, you argued that people should ignore reason and evidence, and trust authorities (doctors) instead?
And now you are arguing something else?
quote:Once he has the new information he has to reconsider the old information too - if the new information is convincing enough then he might reject the old authorities that contradict it. Or if the new information is not very convincing, he might decide to stick with what the odl authorities said.
Okay, so the torturer might change his mind if he had new information on the state of your spouse's soul. How do you suggest he go about collecting information on this topic? Won't he just reply that since your alternate authorities have "teachings [that] conflict with many other of [his] beliefs and the fact that [your alternate authorities] base their conclusions on authorities [he] haven't accepted", that he'll reject them, just like you reject the Muslim religious authorities?
quote:I don't think we can figure out for sure who's wrong, given the information we have. I propose we each try our best to make our own good judgement about it, given the best information available to us - including the teachings of authorities and the evidence we've gathered.
Christians and Muslims can't both be right about the divinity of Jesus. One of them has to be wrong. How do you propose we figure that out? How would you detect if you were the one who was wrong?
quote:Actually, I'm arguing apples to apples. Christ was both Fully God and Fully Man.
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Well, one big, obvious answer to that question is to point out how you're, according to Christian belief at least, partially comparing apples and oranges. Jesus being God and all raises the question: why is the death and resurrection of Jesus being compared to a human sacrifice? Or, in other words, it's beautiful and awesome to Christians because it is believed that God loved us human beings so much that God was willing to endure great pain, suffering, and even death, for our sakes. I'm putting that in very broad terms to apply to as many Christians as possible.
Christians believe the sacrifice of Jesus was in order to obtain a much greater reward than improvement in weather, is another very obvious answer.
quote:Forgive me if I'm not expressing my point clearly. I don't have much time to devote to this. If I understand it correctly, MC is claiming that the primary reasons people find the mythology of various religions more believable than "leprechaunism" are familiarity and accepted authority figures.
I'm pretty familiar with these ideas, though not so much with the specific research. These are excellent reasons for defending the importance of religion in general to many people. I, too, am put off by militant atheists who cannot see that adherence to religious beliefs is far more complicated than simple logical fallacy.
But MC isn't making this claim. What you've summarized above could just as easily apply to his proposed leprechaunism. To ignore this, along with dismissing it because *he* clearly made it up, I think misses the point he's trying to make.
quote:Nearly identical. You have stretched the point beyond reason.
Christians believe that Jesus died so that we could live. The Mayans believed that they must make these human sacrifices so that they would receive rain, which would insure that their crops would grow and their people would survive.
The two sacrifices are very nearly identical.
quote:But authorities can trump evidence, right? You wrote that. And so can "personal judgement". You wrote that too. What's the point of collecting evidence if you can just decide that your chosen authorities and the prior beliefs that your personal judgment gives trump evidence?
Originally posted by Tresopax:
[QB]quote:Right.
He has no evidence, of course, he has only his authority, and his prior beliefs based on his personal judgment, but according to you, that's all he needs, right?
quote:You just said he has no evidence. If he does have evidence available to him, that changes the question. In that case, he needs to weigh the evidence and factor it into his decision.
It's not like he should allow the evidence to usurp his personal judgment's place as the final arbiter of decisions, right?
quote:I am simply repeating a scenario which your religious forebearers enacted a thousand times over the last thousand years. Don't blame me for simply describing the past.
quote:Generally speaking, he should go with all the information he has - but it appears you've set up a situation where all the information he has is going to lead him to the wrong answer in that particular case.
The torturer's personal judgement, which is based on "all the information he has" including his respect for his chosen authorities, tell him that torture is the right thing to do. The evidence tells him that it won't accomplish anything but agony for your spouse. Are you arguing that he should or shouldn't allow the evidence to usurp his personal judgment as the final arbiter of this decision?
quote:Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you have that extraordinary evidence (say, the 'torture' is a necessary medical procedure), then it should be done.
Similarly, I could say "What if the evidence tells a man he needs to torture your spouse, but a voice in his head speaks to him and tells him he should not. Should the man listen to the voice or the evidence?" In such a situation, listening to the voice would lead him to the right answer - but that doesn't prove that listening to voices in your head is generally the best way of choosing beliefs.
quote:The torturer did the exact same thing. So how does that path turn out for your spouse?
quote:This isn't circular logic. It's a regression. If you want to know how I began to trust the initial authorities in the regression, it was probably when I was a child, and it began by me simply trusting them and seeing what happens. People and things that proved trustworthy over time became authorities.
Do you really not understand that a circular answer is no answer at all? When I ask you how you pick authorities, you can't answer "I compare to the other authorities I previously picked".
And if those prior beliefs are based on authorites like you say they are, then you are circular again.
I note that "what does the evidence say" apparently plays absolutely no part in this process, does it?
quote:No, you explicitly denied it a hundred times. Remember when you said that kids shouldn't bother carrying out Monty Hall simualtions, they should just ask their 5th grade brothers instead? Evidence can't be important if prior beliefs and chosen authorioties trump it. Remember when I asked you what "evidence" supported your claim that your mind and brain were separate, and you could only cite your feelings as "evidence"?
And yes, I've said multiple times that evidence is a big part of the process.
quote:No, you haven't, and anyone reading this baord can see that plainly. I don't know what you hope to accomplish by transparently misrepresenting yourself. "Authorities trump evidence" does mean "weighed alongside".
quote:No, I've consistently argued that reason and evidence need to be weighed alongside authorities.
When just yesterday, you argued that people should ignore reason and evidence, and trust authorities (doctors) instead?
And now you are arguing something else?
quote:He is exactly as likely to do this as you are to question Jesus' divinity. So you tell us. What are the odds that the torturer can be argued out of his beliefs? Imagine your spouse's life hangs in the balance.
quote:Once he has the new information he has to reconsider the old information too - if the new information is convincing enough then he might reject the old authorities that contradict it.
Okay, so the torturer might change his mind if he had new information on the state of your spouse's soul. How do you suggest he go about collecting information on this topic? Won't he just reply that since your alternate authorities have "teachings [that] conflict with many other of [his] beliefs and the fact that [your alternate authorities] base their conclusions on authorities [he] haven't accepted", that he'll reject them, just like you reject the Muslim religious authorities?
quote:Great. What evidence have you gathered?
quote:I don't think we can figure out for sure who's wrong, given the information we have. I propose we each try our best to make our own good judgement about it, given the best information available to us - including the teachings of authorities and the evidence we've gathered.
Christians and Muslims can't both be right about the divinity of Jesus. One of them has to be wrong. How do you propose we figure that out? How would you detect if you were the one who was wrong?
quote:This is pretty similar to the point that MC was making, you know.
People accept specific religious mythology not just because its a familiar part of a world view they find compelling but because it supports a world view they find compelling.
quote:Of course there are, though I suspect that if you performed a survey asking detailed questions, the spread of answers illustrating an incredible gray area, just as a matter of percentages let us say, of how much Jesus was human and how much God, well, I think things aren't as clear-cut as you appear to believe.
First, I'd like to point out that there are indeed significant populations who believe the various versions of Christian beliefs I have used, but I'm willing to alter the wording to suit you if it will let us get on with the question at hand.
quote:You can't possibly be comparing apples to apples. You talked about human sacrifices compared to the death of Jesus, Jesus being, according to what you've just said, both Fully Human and Fully God. How can that possibly be apples:apples? It's apples:applesandoranges.
Actually, I'm arguing apples to apples. Christ was both Fully God and Fully Man.
quote:Well, now we're getting into specifics, finally. From the outlook you've described - I don't know much about Mayan culture - the two sacrifices are, indeed, quite similar at least in the views of the people performing them, except that in the Christian setting only one was required, and that was not the case in the Mayan setting. But qualitatively similar, if not quantitatively.
The Mayans believed that they were sacrificing only the most perfect and holy of their people, who were anointed by the Gods and actually took on the mantle and image of the God, attaining a holy status and being physically worshiped by the people as the God himself.
Christians believe that Jesus died so that we could live. The Mayans believed that they must make these human sacrifices so that they would receive rain, which would insure that their crops would grow and their people would survive.
quote:The point is to base your decision on the most and best information possible. (And again, you don't get to "just decide". Your judgement says what it says, and sometimes you won't like what it says. But you have to go with it regardless. If it says a piece of evidence trumps the authority, then you have to believe that. If it says the authority is more convincing, you have to believe that. If you are being rational, you don't get to say "Well, I like what X is telling me better, so I'm going to ignore the fact that Y seems more convincing than X.")
What's the point of collecting evidence if you can just decide that your chosen authorities and the prior beliefs that your personal judgment gives trump evidence?
quote:Again, would you admit to a man that he should listen to a voice in his head, if listening to the voice in his head was the only way to convince him not to torture your spouse? And if so, would that imply listening to voices in your head is generally a good strategy for making choices, or does it just imply I've invented one scenario where it is?
And no, in the scenario he has all the tools needed to draw the conclusion that he should not torture your spouse, if he acts based on reason and evidence, as I've been arguing he should. He knows that he can't point to real evidence concerning your spouse's soul. It's when he draws conclusions they you think he should, where he listens to his chosen authorities, and ignores any information that disagrees with his prior beliefs and chosen authorities, that leads to his ugly and unshakable conclusion.
quote:I'm fairly confident most people who are reading my posts carefully and who are out to understand what I'm trying to say rather than simply find something wrong with what I'm saying would have seen the many times where I've flatly said that evidence and authorities should both be considered.
quote:No, you haven't, and anyone reading this baord can see that plainly. I don't know what you hope to accomplish by transparently misrepresenting yourself. "Authorities trump evidence" does mean "weighed alongside".
No, I've consistently argued that reason and evidence need to be weighed alongside authorities.
quote:A lot more than I can list here, but most of it involves the successful results of applying the teaching of the Bible in modern life. But if you are limiting it only to direct evidence of Jesus' divinity, I am essentially unable to gather evidence of the sort you mean, because he has lived 2,000 years ago and I am not an archeologist. I'd love to consider any evidence someone could show me though.
Great. What evidence have you gathered?
quote:The fact that you can draw some parallels does not negate the fact that there are significant differences.
Originally posted by MightyCow:
Rabbit: In both cases, we are expected to believe religious authority figures who tell us that a particular death contained magical transformative, world-changing power.
I'm assuming that nobody here believes that the death of the god-men (and women) of the Mayan sacrifices actually had a supernatural power to change the state of the world, yet many people here believe that the death of the god-man Jesus did.
quote:The flaws in your argument are at the foundation of it, MightyCow. You're attempting to make your point by asking, "What is the difference between these two very similar sacrifices?"
Rakeesh: Both you and Rabbit are nitpicking my argument, rather than dealing with the meat of it...
quote:That's a very self-satisfying way to put the argument, but not very rhetorically persuasive since - again - it relies entirely on begging the question. "Why do you believe these baseless claims when they're baseless?" You're preaching to the choir and acting surprised when it only works on the choir.
...that there is no logical reason to believe the baseless supernatural claims of one faith over another, except that one chooses to believe o e tradition, and uses that prior belief and authority to justify those cases of magic, while denying similar cases in other religions.
quote:I guess what's confusing MC -- and what's confusing me, certainly -- is why you think the arguments made so far address the core of MightyCow's point. In other words, you are speaking as if you believe the details of Christ's sacrifice somehow meaningfully distinguish it from a Mayan sacrifice in ways that make it somehow more credible.
You could just try admitting, "Yeah, that was a flawed comparison, my bad." It would certainly establish some credibility, anyway.
quote:More accurately, I think he's saying "you and that guy over there have both stolen things." And you're replying, "I've stolen a frog, whereas he's stolen a doorknob! Those are two completely different things!"
To put it in terms you will appreciate, you might approach someone with Munchausen Syndrome and say, "You're clearly crazy. See, look at that kleptomaniac over there, he's crazy too, so that means you're crazy."
quote:MC, The meat of your argument seems to change from post to post as we refute what you appear to be saying. Now you seem to be saying is that there is no substantive difference between the Mayan belief that human sacrifice invokes some sort of magic that will make crop grow and the Christian claim that Jesus' sacrifice invokes some sort of magic that will absolve his followers of sin and allow them to be reunited with God in the after life.
Originally posted by MightyCow:
Rakeesh: Both you and Rabbit are nitpicking my argument, rather than dealing with the meat of it, that there is no logical reason to believe the baseless supernatural claims of one faith over another, except that one chooses to believe o e tradition, and uses that prior belief and authority to justify those cases of magic, while denying similar cases in other religions.
It is silly to keep insisting, as Tres is, that there is any reason or logic involved in which supernatural claims one believes are true, when any claimed "evidence" or reason for believing one works equally well for the other, or falls back on fallacious reasoning.
quote:How is it not culture? That's almost my definition of culture.
They believe the myths because they arise from a world view that they find personally compelling. That's not just culture ...
quote:That depends on how you define culture.
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:How is it not culture? That's almost my definition of culture.
They believe the myths because they arise from a world view that they find personally compelling. That's not just culture ...
quote:I would dispute the assertion that anyone, anywhere, has ever had positive knowledge of God transmitted to them. While knowledge of religion can certainly be transmitted, that's simply another form of culture; knowledge of God would not be, but neither does it exist.
If MC meant by culture was "an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge"...
quote:Yes Tom, we know you are an atheist. Is this somehow relevant to the discussion at hand or are you admitting that there is no more substance to your claims than this completely circular argument.
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:I would dispute the assertion that anyone, anywhere, has ever had positive knowledge of God transmitted to them. While knowledge of religion can certainly be transmitted, that's simply another form of culture; knowledge of God would not be, but neither does it exist.
If MC meant by culture was "an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge"...
quote:Rabbit, this hair you are splitting seems so fine I don't think I can see it. Why do they find this "integrated pattern" meaningful, when to someone else with a different cultural background it seems silly? I think you're fighting against the notion that religious beliefs are trivial because they're just the product of enculturation. But as you do so, you're just coming up with more and more verbose definitions of culture.
In the context of this discussion, MC seemed to be saying that Christian religious mythology is only more believable to modern Christians than Mayan mythology because its part of the culture in which they have grown up , it is familiar, they know lots of other people who believe it, they've been taught to respect the authorities who teach it, etc. If that is what MC meant, then no it absolutely is not just culture.
If MC meant by culture was "an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge" then yes people believe religious mythology because of culture but it can just as accurately be said that people believe the big bang theory solely because of culture.
People believe in religious mythology because it arises from an integrated pattern of human knowledge and experience which they find personally meaningful for dealing with the life questions they think are important. That isn't the same as holding a "baseless" belief.
quote:I've only presented one definition of culture and it was copied directly from a dictionary. I went to the dictionary because I decided I had no idea what you guys meant by culture. If you have a more concise definition, I'd be happy to work with it.
But as you do so, you're just coming up with more and more verbose definitions of culture.
quote:Oh, no argument. But it also seems silly. The more I learn about Mormonism, for example, both the sillier and more beautiful it seems to me. That it's a ludicrously outrageous religion doesn't mean that it's not capable of beauty; it just means that it's worth laughing at.
I have always found that the religion has some beautiful insights into the world and the way it works.
quote:Get back to me when you have a good explanation for why a hypothesis that is not falsifiable should be considered false.
Originally posted by Paul Goldner:
"For example, Newton's third law of motion (every actions has an equal and opposite reactions) is unprovable. All we can say as scientists is that we have never observed an exception to the law. Would it be fair to say that all science which rest on this law is based on nothing more than imaginary magic?"
Get back to me when you have a test I can carry out that would lend support to the idea that god exists. In the meantime, this year I demonstrated, against prior belief, to 80 17 year olds, that Newton's Third Law holds in situations when they think it shouldn't.
quote:Disco.
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
I hypothesize that the big band had no equal and opposite reaction. Prove me wrong.
quote:Tom, Culture is (by definition) "an integrated system of knowledge and beliefs which can be learned and transmitted". Your argument, as I understand it, is that religion isn't based on positive knowledge therefore its just culture. Which based on the definition of culture presented, that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. (Which isn't circular its a nonsequitor)
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
It's not completely circular. You cannot demonstrate that anyone, anywhere, has positive knowledge of God. Lacking that demonstration, we do not have any means by which we might make a distinction between knowledge of God and knowledge of religion. As knowledge of religion is cultural, we have no reason to assume that people who make decisions based upon their asserted knowledge of God -- which is, again, indistinguishable from their knowledge of religion -- are not also basing those decisions on culture.
quote:No, Newton's Law is falsifiable. Were we ever to observe an action that had no equal and opposite reaction, Newton's law would be falsified.
Are you trying to say that Newton's Third Law is not falsifiable because we can't observe every action?
quote:Edward Abbey - "Mormonism: Nothing so hilarious could possibly be true. Or all bad."
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Oh, no argument. But it also seems silly. The more I learn about Mormonism, for example, both the sillier and more beautiful it seems to me. That it's a ludicrously outrageous religion doesn't mean that it's not capable of beauty; it just means that it's worth laughing at.
I have always found that the religion has some beautiful insights into the world and the way it works.
quote:That was not, in fact, MC's point. The discussion has moved on so I'm not committed to it or anything, but MC's original point, before it shifted, was that Mayan sacrifices and the death and resurrection of Jesus were very, very similar to one another, so much so that all it would take was a quick look.
No. Your religious beliefs seem silly because they are built upon a foundation that appears silly. MC and Tom's point is that believing in imaginary magic is silly, regardless of what type of imaginary magic you believe in.
quote:Tres, doesn't this sound suspiciously like the "building on a rotten core" cases we were talking about before?
Instead of "cultural acceptance" it should be prior justified beliefs. If you have a prior belief, which you believe is already supported by other justification, that Jesus is the physical incarnation of an all-powerful diety, then that prior belief makes it seem a lot more possible that Jesus performed miracles. That prior belief must be weighed against your other prior beliefs, such as your belief that spit is phsyically unable to cure blindless. Conflict with these prior beliefs is what makes a given thing seem crazy - and is why it might seem crazy to one person, but not to another person who approaches it having been raised in a way that led them to accept a different set of prior beliefs.
quote:There's a lot of bad pop science out there about QM that makes it sound weirder than it actually is. It's a little weird, but not that weird.
But it is being unfair to religion to suggest this phenomenon is unique to religions. It's also true in other areas of life. Quantum mechanics seems just as crazy to me as religious miracles do (in fact, maybe more crazy... if someone told me Jesus had turned an ocean wave into a particle of ocean, and that it was actually both at the same time, I'd have a hard time even imagining it), yet I believe it because (1) scientists say so, (2) my prior beliefs suggest that if it weren't true then science would have found it to be false. To say I have some evidence of quantum mechanics other than appeal to authority and its consistency with certain other prior beliefs I hold would be a lie.
quote:This is true of a fair amount of religious language as well.
Originally posted by Destineer:
For instance, "wave/particle duality" is a heuristic, analogical way of thinking about the theory rather than a literal one. So some of the weird ideas you attribute to QM aren't really there in the theory.
quote:Do you know nothing of history? Of human psychology?
Originally posted by Tresopax:
The point is to base your decision on the most and best information possible. (And again, you don't get to "just decide". Your judgement says what it says, and sometimes you won't like what it says. But you have to go with it regardless. If it says a piece of evidence trumps the authority, then you have to believe that. If it says the authority is more convincing, you have to believe that. If you are being rational, you don't get to say "Well, I like what X is telling me better, so I'm going to ignore the fact that Y seems more convincing than X.")
quote:I don't understand your question at all. Would I convince someone to listen to their own hallucinations, if it served my own ends? That’s a moral question, not a logical one.
quote:Again, would you admit to a man that he should listen to a voice in his head, if listening to the voice in his head was the only way to convince him not to torture your spouse? And if so, would that imply listening to voices in your head is generally a good strategy for making choices, or does it just imply I've invented one scenario where it is?
And no, in the scenario he has all the tools needed to draw the conclusion that he should not torture your spouse, if he acts based on reason and evidence, as I've been arguing he should. He knows that he can't point to real evidence concerning your spouse's soul. It's when he draws conclusions they you think he should, where he listens to his chosen authorities, and ignores any information that disagrees with his prior beliefs and chosen authorities, that leads to his ugly and unshakable conclusion.
quote:Yes, I bet the Neumans only “occasionally” allowed their personal judgment to trump the evidence.
Please note that saying "Authorities occassionally can trump evidence" is different from saying "Authorities always trump evidence" or "Ignore evidence."
quote:For goodness sake, how often do I have to ask a question before you will give an answer? Why can't you just answer a simple question, instead of talking about answering it? You know "Facts X, reasoning Y, therefore conclusion Z (Jesus is divine)".
Great. What evidence have you gathered?quote:
A lot more than I can list here,
quote:You can’t be serious. That’s not “evidence” of anything. It’d be more convincing if you said “my evidence is an astrology book”.
but most of it involves the successful results of applying the teaching of the Bible in modern life. But if you are limiting it only to direct evidence of Jesus' divinity, I am essentially unable to gather evidence of the sort you mean, because he has lived 2,000 years ago and I am not an archeologist. I'd love to consider any evidence someone could show me though.
quote:That is quite frustrating.
For goodness sake, how often do I have to ask a question before you will give an answer?
quote:Well, thankfully teachers aren't allowed to do so, but it's certainly possible. People convince other people that belief in god is justifiable against previous expectation all the time, Paul.
My statement about the testability of god is that, unlike Newton's Third Law, not only is god not falsifiable, but I can't walk into my classroom and convince people, against previous expectation, that belief in god is justifiable.
quote:She's not just believing in things because they aren't falsifiable. You're leaving off a big part of the situation. It would indeed be quite silly to believe in something just because the belief can't be disproved. I'm certain if you inquired, though, you would find that Rabbit has positive evidence for her beliefs as well as a lack of negative evidence pointing to their being untrue.
In other words, there is nothing I can do that might convince me that god exists, therefore, your belief in things that aren't falsifiable is rational?
quote:You leave out the part where we add on new beliefs that can be falsified, and have been.
Believing in things that can't be falsified is bad epistemology. We can't discard false beliefs if we don't demand that all beliefs we hold be falsifiable. And if we can't discard false beliefs, then we never get closer to knowing true things, we just keep building on old bad knowledge.
quote:And when the hammer doesn't exist, believe nothing? That doesn't seem particularly rational to me. Or at least, not the only rational of all possible decisions.
Evidence is the reason to believe a particular hypothesis, falsifiability is the hammer to ensure that the hypotheses we've accepted aren't flawed.
quote:So you disagree that it happens all the time because there is a local example of a time it didn't? That doesn't seem like a very reasonable chain of thought to me, or am I misunderstanding you?
I disagree. Local example of one reason why would be AKA, who was clearly looking for a reason to believe in god before she believed in god.
quote:There's another absolute. No matter how much evidence there might be in support of a belief, it is always less rational to believe in it than not, if it cannot be falsified? It very much sounds to me like you're begging the question here. Could you go into more detail?
Believe nothing is not the opposite of "don't believe this particular claim." Believing a claim that can't be falsified is never more rational than not believing that claim.
quote:Not only do you not know how insubstantial my foundation is, you don't know how much of my 'castle' rests upon it.
ANd yet, in your religious beliefs, you are simply building a castle on an insubstantial foundation.
quote:The difference, I would say, is that you can understand the physics completely without the analogies if you know enough math.
Originally posted by dkw:
quote:This is true of a fair amount of religious language as well.
Originally posted by Destineer:
For instance, "wave/particle duality" is a heuristic, analogical way of thinking about the theory rather than a literal one. So some of the weird ideas you attribute to QM aren't really there in the theory.
quote:Hobbes was like this too. I remember quite distinctly.
" People convince other people that belief in god is justifiable against previous expectation all the time, Paul."
I disagree. Local example of one reason why would be AKA, who was clearly looking for a reason to believe in god before she believed in god.
quote:I believe that is highly disputed in philosophy of science. The types of scientific models/analogies that suggest areas for investigation are not reducible to mathmatics.
Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:The difference, I would say, is that you can understand the physics completely without the analogies if you know enough math.
Originally posted by dkw:
quote:This is true of a fair amount of religious language as well.
Originally posted by Destineer:
For instance, "wave/particle duality" is a heuristic, analogical way of thinking about the theory rather than a literal one. So some of the weird ideas you attribute to QM aren't really there in the theory.
quote:That's what we call the context of discovery, and has nothing to do with understanding existing science once it's on paper.
The types of scientific models/analogies that suggest areas for investigation are not reducible to mathmatics.
quote:This is definitely not true for quantum mechanics.
The difference, I would say, is that you can understand the physics completely without the analogies if you know enough math.
quote:No I don't. We've been over this before. When I speak of "evidence", in both science and religion, I mean "a thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment." Your persistent claim that there is no evidence that God exists requires some mental gymnastics that even many of your atheist peers find suspect.
Yes. You need "Evidence," to mean something completely different when discussing god than it means when you're doing research, otherwise you have to face a crisis of your faith. I understand that.
quote:When I first started reading philosophy, I was drawn to the idea of starting over with a fresh set of infallible assumptions as a foundation for beliefs. The idea was then that once we started with that rock-solid foundation, we could build on top of that and eventually end up with a logically-proven set of beliefs from top to bottom. But over time, I have been persuaded by the arguments of skepticism that such a thing is not possible. There is no set of infallible assumptions we can use as a foundation - and those philosophers who have tried to do such a thing seem to repeatedly end up making absurd conclusions. Instead, we are forced by our situation as limited human beings to begin with a rotten foundation, or at least a foundation filled with potential holes.
If you and I were right before to agree that beliefs formed by testimony early in life are systematically unreliable for this reason, doesn't that give those religious people who aren't later-life converts excellent reason to discount their beliefs?
quote:Without a lot more information about them, I could not say. But it is entirely possible to be in a situation where the circumstances are set up and your beliefs are set up in such a way where you did everything right given what you knew at the time but ended up in a tragic wrong conclusion. It is definitely possible to come up with such scenarios.
What do you think they should have done differently? How should they have come to a different conclusion, given their chosen authorities, best information, and prior beliefs?
quote:The same is true with the torture scenario you keep bringing up. Would I convince someone to think in a way that contradicts my assertions in this thread, if it served my own ends to get them to do so (by preventing my spouse from being tortured)? If the answer is yes, all you've really proved is that I really don't want my spouse to be tortured.
I don't understand your question at all. Would I convince someone to listen to their own hallucinations, if it served my own ends? That’s a moral question, not a logical one.
quote:I've answered this question each time you asked it. In fact, I answered this question directly after you cut off my quote at that comma - and you even replied to my answer separately in that same post.
quote:For goodness sake, how often do I have to ask a question before you will give an answer? Why can't you just answer a simple question, instead of talking about answering it? You know "Facts X, reasoning Y, therefore conclusion Z (Jesus is divine)".
A lot more than I can list here,
quote:Hobbes is around, but more on Sakeriver than Hatrack these days. AKA/Tatiana I haven't seen anywhere lately.
Originally posted by Destineer:
AKA and Hobbes. Those are the kind of Hatrackers I miss with all my heart.
quote:I would, but not because of anything in Hesse's approach. I don't know it very well, but I subscribe to an alternative view called the semantic account of theories, which I think accounts perfectly well for the examples she appeals to without any essential need for analogies.
Using Hesse's definition of the terms, that a productive model produces positive, negative, and neutral analogies, would you say they are dispensible?
quote:Yes it is. My conceptual understanding of QM, which I would say is as good as anyone's, doesn't depend on any analogies.
quote:The difference, I would say, is that you can understand the physics completely without the analogies if you know enough math.
This is definitely not true for quantum mechanics.
quote:It just seems obvious to me that belief in the authority of scripture is part of the rotten foundation, and one of the first things that should be corrected.
So yes, I think you are exactly right to point out that what I am describing is very similar to the "rotten foundation" problem you described earlier. I think we all are always going to be stuck in that problem, in varying degrees. But I don't believe the solution is to recognize the rottenness later in life and then decide everything based on that rotten core is completely untrustworthy - like pulling out the rug from under our beliefs. Instead, I think the solution is to work back and over time determine which of your original beliefs are worth keeping and which require correcting - which are supported by all the new information you have, and which conflict with it. That can be a complicated process, and is never complete, but I think its the only real option we have.
quote:I should add that almost all believers are ignorant of the good arguments in favor of God's existence, as are most of the clergy they treat as authorities.
Originally posted by Destineer:
I think there are all sorts of good arguments one can use to support the existence of a creator.
quote:Most mainline denominations, including the one that Tres belongs to, don't believe that God wrote the Bible. I can't speak to what he personally believes, of course, but I think it is important to note that "authority of scripture" is a pretty broad term and distinct from particular beliefs about its author(s).
Originally posted by Destineer:
It just seems obvious to me that belief in the authority of scripture is part of the rotten foundation, and one of the first things that should be corrected.
What sort of post-hoc justification do you think can be given for the notion that the Christian Bible is the word of God?
I think there are all sorts of good arguments one can use to support the existence of a creator. But the historical evidence tells very strongly against the accuracy of the Christian account of this creator -- and every other accepted account I know of.
(I'm not saying that Jesus's life isn't historically well understood. I'm saying we have no evidence that the Bible isn't just one purportedly holy book among many, with a perfectly good cultural explanation for its existence that has nothing to do with God having written it.) [/QB]
quote:I don't think the Bible is written by God. I think it was written by people. I do think it is one purportedly holy book among many, and I give it the weight of a historical document from many many years ago. I presume some parts are mistaken, and some parts are misunderstood, but I think the main story is probably accurate. It is the main story that I consider most important; I am not one to try to derive rules of life from individual passages or brief phrases of the Bible. I also give more weight to the more recently written parts, and less weight to the older parts. Many parts seem to be just stories passed down, and I don't give those parts a lot of factual weight - although I do give them weight as moral lessons. It differs from other religious books because its teachings seem to me to be more effective than most, more consistent with reality as I observe it, and presents ideas the seem to make more sense to me. (For instance, the Qur'an as I understand it centers a lot on rules that seem somewhat arbitrary to me.) It also differs simply because I've taken more time to understand it; I'll admit its possible that if I studied other religious books carefully they might turn out to be convincing too.
(I'm not saying that Jesus's life isn't historically well understood. I'm saying we have no evidence that the Bible isn't just one purportedly holy book among many, with a perfectly good cultural explanation for its existence that has nothing to do with God having written it.)
quote:First of all, "reality as you observe it" is a biased sample given that you live in a largely Christian country.
It differs from other religious books because its teachings seem to me to be more effective than most, more consistent with reality as I observe it, and presents ideas the seem to make more sense to me.
quote:What makes you think truth is more important to him in this case?
I don't see how effectiveness has anything to do with truth. Self-deceptive positive thinking, a la The Secret, can be extremely effective in improving one's life. It also has no basis in fact.
quote:This is true. Odds are much higher that I wouldn't be Christian if I didn't live in a Christian country.
First of all, "reality as you observe it" is a biased sample given that you live in a largely Christian country.
quote:If you tell me "I've cooked X before and if you add ingredient Y then it will taste better", and then if I add incredient Y to my recipe for X, and then if X ends up tasting better, doesn't that give me at least a slight reason to think you probably were telling the truth about cooking X before? For instance, when the Bible says forgiveness is what a person should do, and then I observe that forgiving does seem to turn out right when applied in real life, I'm inclined to think it had an idea what its talking about.
I don't see how effectiveness has anything to do with truth.
quote:I don't think I know what limits may be on God's power or why Jesus's sacrifice was necessary. Unless God explicitly explained it to any of them, I don't think the authors of the Bible could understand what limitations are involved either. I think of it sort of as a powerful way to send a message to us.
Why was Jesus's sacrifice necessary?
Why couldn't God, whose power is limitless, save humanity without Christ dying on the cross?
quote:So how would the process of, say, re-evaluating the claims of Jesus’ divinity work? Well, we have you own words, so let’s see what you said:
Originally posted by Tresopax:
Instead, I think the solution is to work back and over time determine which of your original beliefs are worth keeping and which require correcting - which are supported by all the new information you have, and which conflict with it. That can be a complicated process, and is never complete, but I think its the only real option we have.
quote:Well, why don’t you find out? And honest debater knows the weak points of his or her argument better than their opponent. This is the result of your kind of thinking, so you have to accept the consequences, even the bad ones. How can you do that when you remain purposefully ignorant of what they are?
quote:Without a lot more information about them, I could not say.
What do you think they should have done differently? How should they have come to a different conclusion, given their chosen authorities, best information, and prior beliefs?
quote:Kara Neuman’s life and death aren’t “scenarios” that I just made up. It really happened. A child’s body is in the ground, because her parents made their decisions the way you advocate, by “occasionally” ignoring evidence when they disagree with it.
But it is entirely possible to be in a situation where the circumstances are set up and your beliefs are set up in such a way where you did everything right given what you knew at the time but ended up in a tragic wrong conclusion. It is definitely possible to come up with such scenarios.
quote:No, it’s not. I never, ever asked if you should do anything, and it’s just a plain lie to claim otherwise. I asked how you would reason with someone who was drawing conclusions the way you think he ought to be, with prior beliefs and chosen authorities. It’s easy to convince a rational torturer, you just demonstrate that there’s no evidence that the torture will accomplish the stated goal (fixing your spouse’s soul). So how do you convince the torture who is drawing conclusions they way you advocate, with his prior beliefs and chosen authorities?
quote:The same is true with the torture scenario you keep bringing up. Would I convince someone to think in a way that contradicts my assertions in this thread, if it served my own ends to get them to do so (by preventing my spouse from being tortured)? If the answer is yes, all you've really proved is that I really don't want my spouse to be tortured.
I don't understand your question at all. Would I convince someone to listen to their own hallucinations, if it served my own ends? That’s a moral question, not a logical one.
quote:Because what followed was not evidence of anything! And I have no idea how you go from “Christians live successful modern lives” to “Christ is divine”. That’s why you have to explain that. You might have well offered the success of wild rabbits in Australia as evidence, it would have made about as much sense.
quote:I've answered this question each time you asked it. In fact, I answered this question directly after you cut off my quote at that comma - and you even replied to my answer separately in that same post.
quote:For goodness sake, how often do I have to ask a question before you will give an answer? Why can't you just answer a simple question, instead of talking about answering it? You know "Facts X, reasoning Y, therefore conclusion Z (Jesus is divine)".
A lot more than I can list here,
quote:No, you could be honest as you eventually were, by admitting that you don’t have any evidence. But then you have to explain why you kept claiming to have evidence.
The trouble seems to be that you don't like my answer. But its going to be the same answer as long as your question remains the same - because answering otherwise would essentally be lying.
quote:So you are arguing that the burning of witches (which is clearly a teaching of the Bible) is evidence that Christ is divine? How on earth does that follow? That’s why you have to explain your reasoning. You’ve got about a billion Muslims, and most of them are getting through the modern world fine. Same with a smaller number of atheists, and they come to the opposite conclusion about the divinity of Christ. I think one might make a good argument that watching your child die needlessly while you do nothing but pray is the opposite of successful, but some people who believe in the divinity of Christ do exactly that. And it probably happens more often in Christian households who believe in the divinity of Christ than in atheist households who don’t.
Here's the rest of my answer: "but most of it involves the successful results of applying the teaching of the Bible in modern life. But if you are limiting it only to direct evidence of Jesus' divinity, I am essentially unable to gather evidence of the sort you mean, because he has lived 2,000 years ago and I am not an archeologist. I'd love to consider any evidence someone could show me though."
quote:Sure, because in this case my past cooking is a natural explanation for my skill. It would be hard to think up a credible story according to which I'm right about what ingredient to use, but wrong about my cooking experience.
If you tell me "I've cooked X before and if you add ingredient Y then it will taste better", and then if I add incredient Y to my recipe for X, and then if X ends up tasting better, doesn't that give me at least a slight reason to think you probably were telling the truth about cooking X before?
quote:The analogy here is very weak. I can easily think up a credible story according to which the Bible is right about forgiveness but wrong about its other claims.
For instance, when the Bible says forgiveness is what a person should do, and then I observe that forgiving does seem to turn out right when applied in real life, I'm inclined to think it had an idea what its talking about.
quote:OK. At this point, the careful and objective thinker will weigh the likelihood of this admittedly ill-understood idea against these easily-understood apparent facts:
I don't think I know what limits may be on God's power or why Jesus's sacrifice was necessary. Unless God explicitly explained it to any of them, I don't think the authors of the Bible could understand what limitations are involved either. I think of it sort of as a powerful way to send a message to us.
quote:What do you think I'm debating here? I'm definitely not trying to make a case that Christianity is better than Islam. I don't have enough knowledge of Islam to make such an argument. The only reason it comes up is because you keep asking why I believe Christianity rather than other religions - and I am answering.
Well, why don’t you find out? And honest debater knows the weak points of his or her argument better than their opponent. This is the result of your kind of thinking, so you have to accept the consequences, even the bad ones. How can you do that when you remain purposefully ignorant of what they are?
quote:I think my method of thinking catches errors more reliably than the method you are arguing for. That's because someone following your method would only catch errors when they have access to scientific evidence to demonstrate there is an error. In real life, I think the majority of errors are caught when an authority tells you that you are making a mistake - as in a doctor telling you that you shouldn't really do X. The cases where people listen to a religious authority and end up getting killed are far far fewer than, for instance, the number of people who die because they choose not to listen to the authorities who told them to wear a seatbelt and instead relied on the evidence they have collected themselves ("We've driven 1,000 times without a seatbelt and have never been hurt before!")
So you admit that people thinking your way can’t reliably catch errors. If people are examining all the evidence, which includes the context of that evidence (like recognizing that tiny studies don’t mean much, but that large ones with statistical power do, to the extent that the data collected actually addresses the purported conclusions, recognizing the various kinds of evidence have predictable accuracy ranges, etc), how likely is it that they can get “trapped” into believing things which the evidence falsifies?
quote:You'd need to either show him evidence, a line of reasoning, or some authority that he would consider weightier and more convincing than whatever it was that is causing him to think torture is a good idea. If he was thinking the way I'm advocating, he'd be open to the information.
So how do you convince the torture who is drawing conclusions they way you advocate, with his prior beliefs and chosen authorities?
quote:What evidence could you possibly come up with that would clearly show torture does not save souls? I'd say this method makes convincing him impossible - since the sort of evidence you are talking about does not exist for the question of "What saves souls?".
It’s easy to convince a rational torturer, you just demonstrate that there’s no evidence that the torture will accomplish the stated goal (fixing your spouse’s soul).
quote:Yes, but forgiveness is one of many important ideas that not only seem to work, but also seem to fit in with one another to create a coherent whole. All of it, together, outweighs the weirdness (which becomes a lot less weird if you approach it with the belief that a God probably exists who can perform miracles.)
The fact that Mark doesn't lie about whether forgiveness is beneficial is a tiny bit of evidence that he's not prone to lying. (That's not what you're talking about here though.) Anyway it's just a tiny bit of evidence, easily outweighed by the unbelievable weirdness of the story he tells about Jesus's miracles.
quote:Well, I don't really see it as something God was forced to do in order to forgive us. I just see it as the method He, for whatever reason, chose to use to do it. I don't pretend to know why God did things the way he did. I'd like to, but I certainly don't expect to.
OK. At this point, the careful and objective thinker will weigh the likelihood of this admittedly ill-understood idea against these easily-understood apparent facts:
(1) Foisting the punishment of a guilty person on an innocent being does not absolve the guilty person of his/her guilt, contrary to the idea of "Christ dying for our sins."
(2) God is the one judging people in the first place, strongly indicating that he could forgive us with no sacrifice required.
quote:In my opinion, the only good arguments for the existence of a creator are the design and fine-tuning arguments, which don't at all imply that God should be able to perform miracles.
All of it, together, outweighs the weirdness (which becomes a lot less weird if you approach it with the belief that a God probably exists who can perform miracles.)
quote:I wrote that in response to your ignorance of the Neumans, not of Islam. Though it's largely applicable there too. You yourself keep arguing that you are a stellar example of constantly testing your prior beliefs for errors, so what do you test them against, if you keep yourself ignorant of the counter-claims, and the reasoning and evidence supporting them? Honest people of integrity have a responsibility to understand the counter-arguments to their claims. Though if you wish to argue that this doesn't apply to you, I won't quibble.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:What do you think I'm debating here? I'm definitely not trying to make a case that Christianity is better than Islam. I don't have enough knowledge of Islam to make such an argument.
Well, why don’t you find out? And honest debater knows the weak points of his or her argument better than their opponent. This is the result of your kind of thinking, so you have to accept the consequences, even the bad ones. How can you do that when you remain purposefully ignorant of what they are?
quote:No, I asked you a very specific question about one aspect of your religious belief, and you gave a nonsense answer. If you want to be straightforward, and admit that you don't have any real evidence supporting your belief that Jesus is divine, then you could just be honest and do that. But "Some people who follow the Bible are successful" is not evidence that Jesus is divine. Do you actually need me to lay out in detail why it's not?
The only reason it comes up is because you keep asking why I believe Christianity rather than other religions - and I am answering.
quote:You wrote that you disregard claims that conflict with your prior beliefs, and you disregard authorities that you didn't already accept. You already showed that your method utterly rejects admitting error! Your own actions are the proof!
quote:I think my method of thinking catches errors more reliably than the method you are arguing for.
So you admit that people thinking your way can’t reliably catch errors. If people are examining all the evidence, which includes the context of that evidence (like recognizing that tiny studies don’t mean much, but that large ones with statistical power do, to the extent that the data collected actually addresses the purported conclusions, recognizing the various kinds of evidence have predictable accuracy ranges, etc), how likely is it that they can get “trapped” into believing things which the evidence falsifies?
quote:Really? Like how you admitted your error when the Muslim religious teacher showed it to you?
That's because someone following your method would only catch errors when they have access to scientific evidence to demonstrate there is an error. In real life, I think the majority of errors are caught when an authority tells you that you are making a mistake - as in a doctor telling you that you shouldn't really do X.
quote:Most people who choose not to wear seatbelts don't refrain because they think that seat-belts aren't helpful in an accident. They know that the evidence strongly supports the claim that seat belts save lives in bad accidents. They don't have to collect the evidence themselves to know that. Nor do they imagine that bad accidents are literally impossible. They don't wear them because they don't think an accident will happen this time. And most of the time, they are correct, and an accident doesn't happen. Seat-belt non-wearers aren't wrong about the odds, or the consequences of wearing or not wearing, either during an accident, or during a smooth ride. They just measure the sure convenience as being more important than the tiny chance of an accident.
The cases where people listen to a religious authority and end up getting killed are far far fewer than, for instance, the number of people who die because they choose not to listen to the authorities who told them to wear a seatbelt and instead relied on the evidence they have collected themselves ("We've driven 1,000 times without a seatbelt and have never been hurt before!")
quote:Again, how are you picking your authorities? What makes one authority "weightier" than another? Why is the doctor "weightier" than the faith healer? Why is your pastor "weightier" than the revered Muslim religious leader? Isn't it just because your pastor tells you thing that agree with what your original authority (Mommy) taught you, and the Muslim leader isn't? What could the Muslim possibly tell you that would make him more “convincing” than your chosen religious authorities?
quote:You'd need to either show him evidence, a line of reasoning, or some authority that he would consider weightier and more convincing than whatever it was that is causing him to think torture is a good idea. If he was thinking the way I'm advocating, he'd be open to the information.
So how do you convince the torture who is drawing conclusions they way you advocate, with his prior beliefs and chosen authorities?
quote:The torturer going to do exactly as you said you'd do.
If he was thinking the way I'm advocating, he'd be open to the information.
quote:Emphasis mine
I use my best judgment based on the information I have about them, particularly the fact that their teachings conflict with many other of my beliefs and the fact that they base their conclusions on authorities I haven't accepted.
quote:Again, read what I said. There is no evidence that torture will accomplish anything with regard to anyone’s soul since there’s no evidence that a soul even exists. The torturer has exactly as much evidence supporting the notion that torturing your spouse will fix their soul as he has that torturing himself will fix your spouse’s. There’s exactly as much evidence in favor of a God who wants worship and adulation as there is for a God who is disgusted and enraged by such irrational and primitive mewlings. Contrary to the common misunderstanding of the phrase, while absence of evidence is not proof of absence, it is evidence of it. It has to count for something.
quote:What evidence could you possibly come up with that would clearly show torture does not save souls? I'd say this method makes convincing him impossible - since the sort of evidence you are talking about does not exist for the question of "What saves souls?".
It’s easy to convince a rational torturer, you just demonstrate that there’s no evidence that the torture will accomplish the stated goal (fixing your spouse’s soul).
quote:As you said, "honest people of integrity have a responsibility to understand the counter-arguments to their claims." So look again at the answer I gave - I think it is possible to understand what I am saying. Again, I would be lying if I said the reason I believed Jesus is divine had anything to do with some sort of physical evidence from 2,000 years ago that proves it. (I don't even think it is possible to scientificly show divinity.) But I do think there is reason to accept the Biblical account as a historical authority, which in turn gives me reason to suspect Jesus may have been divine. It also fits with other beliefs I hold. If you want to label this as "no evidence" that's fine, but don't say I did not answer the quetion.
No, I asked you a very specific question about one aspect of your religious belief, and you gave a nonsense answer.
quote:Once again, I did not write that. I wrote that I weigh prior beliefs against new information - sometimes I may reject the conclusions of the new in favor of the old, or sometimes I may reject the old in favor of the new, but I don't disregard either.
You wrote that you disregard claims that conflict with your prior beliefs, and you disregard authorities that you didn't already accept.
quote:How do they "know" the evidence strongly supports the claim that seat belts save lives?
Most people who choose not to wear seatbelts don't refrain because they think that seat-belts aren't helpful in an accident. They know that the evidence strongly supports the claim that seat belts save lives in bad accidents. They don't have to collect the evidence themselves to know that.
quote:I'm measuring them based on many different factors, including the evidence they present, the reasons they present, the way I think they learned what they claim to know, my beliefs about their motivations, the consistency of what they are saying with my prior beliefs and observations, etc. If the Muslim leader proposed a set of beliefs that suddenly made all my prior, beliefs, and experiences make a lot more sense, then I'd probably believe him.
Again, how are you picking your authorities? What makes one authority "weightier" than another? Why is the doctor "weightier" than the faith healer? Why is your pastor "weightier" than the revered Muslim religious leader? Isn't it just because your pastor tells you thing that agree with what your original authority (Mommy) taught you, and the Muslim leader isn't? What could the Muslim possibly tell you that would make him more “convincing” than your chosen religious authorities?
quote:I don't think a religious fanatic who is following the position you proposed would be persuaded by this argument. He'd say "Well, you just said we needed evidence, so if you've got no evidence to convince me, I'm not persuaded by your argument."
There is no evidence that torture will accomplish anything with regard to anyone’s soul since there’s no evidence that a soul even exists. The torturer has exactly as much evidence supporting the notion that torturing your spouse will fix their soul as he has that torturing himself will fix your spouse’s. There’s exactly as much evidence in favor of a God who wants worship and adulation as there is for a God who is disgusted and enraged by such irrational and primitive mewlings. Contrary to the common misunderstanding of the phrase, while absence of evidence is not proof of absence, it is evidence of it. It has to count for something.
quote:I'm not sure I get why this follows. I think Herodotus is a good historical account of the Greek-Persian war. Is that supposed to give me reason to believe that the Oracle at Delphi had precognitive powers?
But I do think there is reason to accept the Biblical account as a historical authority, which in turn gives me reason to suspect Jesus may have been divine.
quote:Yes. The reason you don't believe that the Oracle had precognitive powers is because, I suspect, you have a much stronger prior belief that precognitive powers don't exist and that claims by ancients of having such powers are made up. On the other hand, if you believed that precognitive powers are a true common ability that certain individuals had occassionally throughout history, then I suspect you'd take Herodotus' claims about the Oracle more at face value, like you do with his other historical claims. (If Herodotus had said, for instance, "The Oracle could cook well" then you'd probably would take that as a reason to at least suspect the Oracle has cooking skills, right?) You weigh the claims of an authority in the context of all your other beliefs - which is why I'd think some claims of Herodotus you accept without much additional evidence and some you reject with the same lack of additional evidence.
I'm not sure I get why this follows. I think Herodotus is a good historical account of the Greek-Persian war. Is that supposed to give me reason to believe that the Oracle at Delphi had precognitive powers?
quote:I have no strong evidence that Christ is divine.
But that's not the sort of relatively strong evidence you claim to have about Christ.
quote:Hm. I'm starting to think you might have a reasonable point of view going here, dude.
I have no strong evidence that Christ is divine.
quote:You mean the historical account that says that the dead got up out of their graves? That's the kind of account you find historically accurate?
Originally posted by Tresopax:
[QB]quote:As you said, "honest people of integrity have a responsibility to understand the counter-arguments to their claims." So look again at the answer I gave - I think it is possible to understand what I am saying. Again, I would be lying if I said the reason I believed Jesus is divine had anything to do with some sort of physical evidence from 2,000 years ago that proves it. (I don't even think it is possible to scientificly show divinity.) But I do think there is reason to accept the Biblical account as a historical authority, which in turn gives me reason to suspect Jesus may have been divine. It also fits with other beliefs I hold. If you want to label this as "no evidence" that's fine, but don't say I did not answer the quetion.
No, I asked you a very specific question about one aspect of your religious belief, and you gave a nonsense answer.
quote:You wrote that you judged the claim, not primarily on any objective qualities, (like how well evidenced it was, no, there was absolutely no mention of evidence to be found), but particularly on its conforming to what you already believed.
quote:Once again, I did not write that. I wrote that I weigh prior beliefs against new information - sometimes I may reject the conclusions of the new in favor of the old, or sometimes I may reject the old in favor of the new, but I don't disregard either.
You wrote that you disregard claims that conflict with your prior beliefs, and you disregard authorities that you didn't already accept.
quote:They can read reports of accidents, and see that in comparable accidents, people wearing seat-belts survive more often. They can ask authorities who are authorities because they know the evidence. They don't ask their older brothers, or their mommies, or their pastors, because their mommies or brothers or pastors might not know the evidence, despite the fact that they really love and look up to their mommies. Is this simple answer truly beyond your ken?
quote:How do they "know" the evidence strongly supports the claim that seat belts save lives?
Most people who choose not to wear seatbelts don't refrain because they think that seat-belts aren't helpful in an accident. They know that the evidence strongly supports the claim that seat belts save lives in bad accidents. They don't have to collect the evidence themselves to know that.
quote:You have to sneak in that consistancy with your prior beliefs in. So if they have great evidence, but it disagrees with your prior beliefs, isn't that exactly what that "ocasionally I let my personal judgment (which was formed by mommy) trump the evidence" loophole is for?
quote:I'm measuring them based on many different factors, including the evidence they present, the reasons they present, the way I think they learned what they claim to know, my beliefs about their motivations, the consistency of what they are saying with my prior beliefs and observations, etc.
Again, how are you picking your authorities? What makes one authority "weightier" than another? Why is the doctor "weightier" than the faith healer? Why is your pastor "weightier" than the revered Muslim religious leader? Isn't it just because your pastor tells you thing that agree with what your original authority (Mommy) taught you, and the Muslim leader isn't? What could the Muslim possibly tell you that would make him more “convincing” than your chosen religious authorities?
quote:Funny how I have to ask you multiple times before "evidence" turns up in your qualifications. I'm curious why you are treating this like an abstract made-up scenario that never ever in real life could be investigated. Isn't the divinity of Jesus kind of an important issue for you? Shouldn't you investigating the accuracy of it as more than just an exercise in speculation?
If the Muslim leader proposed a set of beliefs that suddenly made all my prior, beliefs, and experiences make a lot more sense, then I'd probably believe him.
quote:Yes you need evidence which is why a lack of it supporting one's claim is a problem!
quote:I don't think a religious fanatic who is following the position you proposed would be persuaded by this argument. He'd say "Well, you just said we needed evidence, so if you've got no evidence to convince me, I'm not persuaded by your argument."
There is no evidence that torture will accomplish anything with regard to anyone’s soul since there’s no evidence that a soul even exists. The torturer has exactly as much evidence supporting the notion that torturing your spouse will fix their soul as he has that torturing himself will fix your spouse’s. There’s exactly as much evidence in favor of a God who wants worship and adulation as there is for a God who is disgusted and enraged by such irrational and primitive mewlings. Contrary to the common misunderstanding of the phrase, while absence of evidence is not proof of absence, it is evidence of it. It has to count for something.
quote:How do they know those reports are correct? How do they know the authorities that say they know the evidence actually do know the evidence?
They can read reports of accidents, and see that in comparable accidents, people wearing seat-belts survive more often. They can ask authorities who are authorities because they know the evidence.
quote:Depends on which authority you are referring to, specifically. In many cases, I believe they've directly experienced God. And yes, I am prepared to treat all claims of experiences of God or other divine things as evidence of some sort, assuming I judge those claims to be believable. (Unlike the earlier claims made about Brain Leprechauns, which seemed to me to be made up to prove a point.)
But now that you've admitted that you have no evidence in favor of Jesus divinity, what evidence do you claim your authorities have?
quote:It's important, yes. But it's important to me sort of in the sense that the solution to the BP oil leak is important to fishermen in New Orleans; it impacts their lives a lot, but they are not really in a position to do a lot about it. The divinity of Jesus is important to my religion, but it's also something I simply have not been given the information or tools to understand fully or with any sort of certainty. If I'm wrong about it, I'm not sure what consequences that will have for me. If I'm right about it, I'm not even sure what consequences that will have. So I'm content to let the theologians debate the details of that.
I'm curious why you are treating this like an abstract made-up scenario that never ever in real life could be investigated. Isn't the divinity of Jesus kind of an important issue for you? Shouldn't you investigating the accuracy of it as more than just an exercise in speculation?
quote:Because the reports are read and reviewed by other people who also know the data. And if subsequent evidence had contradicted the old claims, that would have forced everyone to rethink the old conclusions. No "Oh, my personal judgment tells me to ignore conflicting evidnece" is allowed.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
[QB]quote:How do they know those reports are correct?
They can read reports of accidents, and see that in comparable accidents, people wearing seat-belts survive more often. They can ask authorities who are authorities because they know the evidence.
quote:Do you really want to drag this into a Cartesion brain jar, where no one knows anything, and everyone could be lying to you for nefarious purposes?
How do they know the authorities that say they know the evidence actually do know the evidence?
quote:This is ridiculous. How many times do I have to ask a question before you will give an answer?
quote:Depends on which authority you are referring to, specifically.
But now that you've admitted that you have no evidence in favor of Jesus divinity, what evidence do you claim your authorities have?
quote:An honest person would have named one!
In many cases,
quote:And we circle around again. You aren't going to judge a Muslims person's experience believable because their claims conflcit with what you already believe, and you don't recognize their authority. You already said this.
I believe they've directly experienced God. And yes, I am prepared to treat all claims of experiences of God or other divine things as evidence of some sort, assuming I judge those claims to be believable.
quote:There's not a lot you can do about educating yourself? What kind of a helpless baby are you? You can't collect evidence, you can't investigate competing claims and arguments, you just wait to be spoon-fed by your Mommy?
quote:It's important, yes. But it's important to me sort of in the sense that the solution to the BP oil leak is important to fishermen in New Orleans; it impacts their lives a lot, but they are not really in a position to do a lot about it.
I'm curious why you are treating this like an abstract made-up scenario that never ever in real life could be investigated. Isn't the divinity of Jesus kind of an important issue for you? Shouldn't you investigating the accuracy of it as more than just an exercise in speculation?
quote:Okay, so what about the divinity of Hera? I imagine that you are quite certain about that subject, despite the fact that the Iliad is a decent historical authority that amply attests to the reality of Hera's divinity; what tools do you have that were appropriate to that question that were not appropriate to this one?
The divinity of Jesus is important to my religion, but it's also something I simply have not been given the information or tools to understand fully or with any sort of certainty.
quote:Yes, God forbid you be troubled to think about something, let alone investigate something. That's not your place. Your place is to believe Mommy, and the inquisitors that Mommy told you to believe and obey. And anyone else who dares to suggest that maybe Mommy is wrong, that it's better to try and figure things out for themselves (like the Money Hall problem, remember) is going to mess up.
If I'm wrong about it, I'm not sure what consequences that will have for me. If I'm right about it, I'm not even sure what consequences that will have. So I'm content to let the theologians debate the details of that.
quote:I find this mentality strange. It often comes from people who would rip their way through the world to uncover the truth behind an incomprehensible and violent act clearly caused by humans, and yet when it comes to God, they give up before they've even begun.
I don't pretend to know why God did things the way he did. I'd like to, but I certainly don't expect to.
quote:The whole point of being an atheist is that there is no recognizable evidence. If you're unsure or you think there might be evidence it's just indistinguishable from there being no evidence, you're agnostic.
Your persistent claim that there is no evidence that God exists requires some mental gymnastics that even many of your atheist peers find suspect.
quote:To me, all discussions between the religious and non-religious boil down to the final statement, "Well you can't know anything. How do we know that knowing is true?"
1. There are natural laws.
2. All phenomena have natural causes.
3. Observations must be reproducible to be "true".
4. All true claims can be verified objectively.
5. Nothing is self evident. All claims must be tested.
quote:Yep, sounds about right. Can you think of a supernatural phenomena*? I can't. I've demonstrated that science clings to reproducable observations like glue. Everything that scientists can consider "true" can be tried everywhere in the galaxy and the same results will occur, taking into account the environment. Last of all, the 4th one seems to be a rehash of the first three, but it's also not at all problematic.
1. All phenomena have natural causes.
2. Observations must be reproducible to be "true".
3. All true claims can be verified objectively.
4. Nothing is self evident. All claims must be tested.
quote:Aaah. Now we're down to reproducible tests and observations.
1. Observations must be reproducible to be "true".
2. All true claims can be verified objectively.
3. Nothing is self evident. All claims must be tested.
quote:How do you know the reports are reviewed? How do you know the people who reviewed them know what they are talking about?
Because the reports are read and reviewed by other people who also know the data. And if subsequent evidence had contradicted the old claims, that would have forced everyone to rethink the old conclusions. No "Oh, my personal judgment tells me to ignore conflicting evidnece" is allowed.
quote:I didn't say that. I believe Muslims who make (believable) claims that they experienced God, and I accept it as evidence. I just draw different conclusions from that piece of evidence than they do, since we approach that piece of evidence with different other beliefs.
You aren't going to judge a Muslims person's experience believable because their claims conflcit with what you already believe, and you don't recognize their authority. You already said this.
quote:I am not certain about that - it is similar to my other religious beliefs. Specifically, I don't believe in Hera because I've never seen or heard of anyone modern who claims to have any experience of her, and it fits in with my prior beliefs to assume that the Greeks were simply mistaken about her existence.
Okay, so what about the divinity of Hera? I imagine that you are quite certain about that subject, despite the fact that the Iliad is a decent historical authority that amply attests to the reality of Hera's divinity; what tools do you have that were appropriate to that question that were not appropriate to this one?
quote:It's not the questions of "What should I do?" that I leave to theologians. Those are the most important questions of religion. The questions I leave to theologians are the background questions.... things like "Does Christ=God?" or "Does God know what we'll do before we do it?" or "Did the Prodigal Son actually exist?" or "Is Genesis meant to be literal?" I consider these things less important because they don't directly alter the answer to "What should I do?" And I consider them not questions to worry extensively about because I believe they are unanswerable with any level of certainty. I could research all day long about Genesis, and I wouldn't be much closer to knowing whether it is intended to be a factual account.
To leave it up to the Theologians seems a little irresponsible, especially if you follow any of the tenets laid down in the Bible. If you're doing something for which you have no explanation for, only the word of a book, that seems like a problem.
quote:While I'm inclined to agree with you, I think we are just playing around with the ambiguity inherent in the word "believe."
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
I suggest that if you know you should be doing something and are not doing it, you do not truly believe you should be doing it.
quote:Do you reject all notions of a divided self (such as the conscious vs. subconscious mind) that make it possible for a person to simultaneously want and not want something?
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
I suggest that if you know you should be doing something and are not doing it, you do not truly believe you should be doing it.
quote:Haven't you ever done something you didn't want to because you thought you had some obligation to? You see someone drop some money on the street, and you want to pick that money and spend it on something you've been wanting to buy, but instead you call out to that person and give them money back to him. You want one thing, but believe something else should be done. You could pretend that what you want to be true is what you really believe is true, but that's just a lie.
Tres: What's the essential difference? This seems like more mental gymnastics to complicate the issue.
quote:Well, in a sense you are right... but the critical difference is which causes the other:
Why don't you want to do what you believe you should do?
quote:I suggest that your suggestion is completely contrary to my experience. There is no way that I believe that I should be watching Law and Order reruns instead of cleaning my apartment when I know that I will be having a houseguest on Tuesday. For any definition of "should" I can think of. I eat things that I know I should not eat because I want them.
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
I suggest that if you know you should be doing something and are not doing it, you do not truly believe you should be doing it.
quote:Could you do me the courtesy of defining how you are using should then?
Originally posted by kmbboots:
By that definition, your argument does not fit my experience.
quote:No argument. I believe the assertion on the table, however, is that people have a tendency to believe things which are already part of what they believe they should believe -- and by "should," here, I'll even include Kate's "should," by which I mean this:
If believing you should do X causes you to want to do X, then that's the right way to go about it.
If wanting to do X causes you to believe you should do X, then that's the wrong way to go about it.
quote:But clearly some part of you disagrees with you. That said, we're just quibbling over the word "should" at this point; the core of the argument is that you don't belong to a religion which is insisting that you do things you don't actually want to do.
Indulging my worst tendancies is not something I "should" do.
quote:Well she does belong to a religion which might ask her to do something where there are no other reasons for why she should do it other than God said so.
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:But clearly some part of you disagrees with you. That said, we're just quibbling over the word "should" at this point; the core of the argument is that you don't belong to a religion which is insisting that you do things you don't actually want to do.
Indulging my worst tendancies is not something I "should" do.
quote:No, she doesn't. She's been quite clear about that. It's one of the things that drives KoM nuts.
Well she does belong to a religion which might ask her to do something where there are no other reasons for why she should do it other than God said so.
quote:More specifically, what has been disputed here is that people choose religions that encourage what they believe to be their better natures and impulses. Like you, I think this is self-evidently true. Tresopax disagrees.
I am puzzled though over the idea that anyone would choose a religion that didn't encourage their better nature an impulses.
quote:I am trusting authorities that possess the reason and evidence. You are trusting your mommy because she was there first. I trust the doctors over the faith healers because the doctors possess the reason and evidence. You trust the doctors over the faith healers…just because. Probably because that’s what your Mommy taught you. If your Mommy had been Mrs. Neuman, or Mrs. Hauser, you would believe in faith healers instead.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
[QB] swbarnes,
quote:How do you know the reports are reviewed? How do you know the people who reviewed them know what they are talking about? You are doing the exact same thing I am doing - trusting authorities.
Because the reports are read and reviewed by other people who also know the data. And if subsequent evidence had contradicted the old claims, that would have forced everyone to rethink the old conclusions. No "Oh, my personal judgment tells me to ignore conflicting evidnece" is allowed.
quote:You haven’t understood a single thing I’ve said for days. I don’t trust my “prior beliefs”. I trust the evidence. My prior beliefs are based on the evidence as much well as I can make them, (unlike you, whose prior beliefs are based on what your Mommy told you, as you admitted previously), but I make mistakes, and when I see the evidence disagrees with my beliefs, I change my beliefs. I don’t “occasionally” decide to keep believing prior beliefs that aren’t supported by the evidence. You can’t say the same thing. Didn’t you once argue that allowing the evidence to trump one’s personal judgment as the final arbiter of decisions and belief was immoral?
You haven't seen the data yourself, or the people reviewing it. You simply trust it because your prior beliefs tell you that the process and the people involved results in good conclusions based originally on real evidence.
quote:You did. Must I quote you again?
quote:I didn't say that.
You aren't going to judge a Muslims person's experience believable because their claims conflcit with what you already believe, and you don't recognize their authority. You already said this.
quote:Emphasis mine
I used my best judgement based on the information I have about them, particularly the fact that their teachings conflict with many other of my beliefs and the fact that they base their conclusions on authorities I haven't accepted
quote:Okay, so under what circumstances would you find the claim that Jesus was not divine to be “believable”? What, besides the above mentioned “particular” strikes against the argument, lead you to find that particular claim (not at all unique to Islam, of course) to be unbelievable?
I believe Muslims who make (believable) claims that they experienced God, and I accept it as evidence. I just draw different conclusions from that piece of evidence than they do, since we approach that piece of evidence with different other beliefs.
quote:You are honestly claiming not to have concluded that Hera is false? Honestly?
quote:I am not certain about that - it is similar to my other religious beliefs.
Okay, so what about the divinity of Hera? I imagine that you are quite certain about that subject, despite the fact that the Iliad is a decent historical authority that amply attests to the reality of Hera's divinity; what tools do you have that were appropriate to that question that were not appropriate to this one?
quote:I am claiming that almost everyone thinks their authorities possess the reasons and/or the evidence. There is a difference - but the difference is that you used your own judgement and a bunch of prior beliefs to conclude that scientists really do have evidence while faith healers are mistaken or lying about having evidence.
I am trusting authorities that possess the reason and evidence. You are trusting your mommy because she was there first. I trust the doctors over the faith healers because the doctors possess the reason and evidence. You trust the doctors over the faith healers…just because. Probably because that’s what your Mommy taught you. If your Mommy had been Mrs. Neuman, or Mrs. Hauser, you would believe in faith healers instead.
Are you seriously claiming that there is no difference?
quote:You are trusting authorities that you believe have the evidence, but whose evidence you haven't seen. That means you are actually trusting a prior belief.
I don’t trust my “prior beliefs”. I trust the evidence.
quote:Yes. If you look at all the information available to you and judge something is wrong, then it would be wrong to do it based only on the "evidence" part of the information. If you conduct a study that says taking certain herbs will cure cancer, but the medical experts all say otherwise, and you personally judge that it is more likely you have been misled by your own study than that the doctors are all wrong, then it would be wrong of you to go forward doing nothing more than giving your cancer-striken spouse herbs.
Didn’t you once argue that allowing the evidence to trump one’s personal judgment as the final arbiter of decisions and belief was immoral?
quote:If 30 of my friends all independently came to me within the same week and said God appeared to them and told them Jesus was not divine, and if I was convinced by the details that they were not colluding with one another to trick me, then I'd find that pretty believable. That's just one possible scenario of infinitely many though.
Okay, so under what circumstances would you find the claim that Jesus was not divine to be “believable”?
quote:I have concluded that Hera is false. You asked me if I was quite certain. I am not certain. Like my other religious beliefs, I have faith in the conclusions I've drawn right now, but I haven't proven them with certainty and I could be mistaken.
You are honestly claiming not to have concluded that Hera is false? Honestly?
quote:And those doctors and scientists are refered to as "Doctors" or "Professor", or something like that. I've been using "Mommy" because it's what most small children call their favorite authority.
Originally posted by dkw:
swbarnes2, as a personal favor to the women on this site, could you please quit using "Mommy" in such a sneering way? There are plenty of mommies who are also doctors and scientists and such. And even those who aren't don't deserve the disdain you've been dishing out.
quote:If the belief that the fruit is usually good is adequately supported by evidence, say, a lifetime of eating it, then it's not unreasonable to conclude that you got a bad batch. That's not privilaging old beliefs over new ones, that's privilaging lots of data over a single data point.
Originally posted by Black Fox:
its pretty normal to have a higher standard for disproving a held belief than taking on a new belief( which would then be a belief in a completely new area). Example: I bite into a fruit A, a fruit I have never tasted before, and it tastes good. My belief now is that fruit A is a tasty fruit and I might go buy/pick some more. However, if I spend a lifetime eating Fruit A and all of a sudden I get a batch thats sour I will probably simply come to the conclusion that A is still tasty, but that this particular batch is bad. However, if by some miracle my taste buds changed and now fruit A tastes sour all the time it will take some time for that new belief to kick in. Perhaps not the best example, but it illustrates the point.
quote:I haven't said any of those things.
Tres is starting from beliefs that he already admitted have no real evidence supporting them at all. And he's ignoring contradictory claims, not because it conflicts with sound evidence, but because it conflicts with his favorite authorities, Mommy and Daddy.
quote:Do you claim that your authorities on the divinity of Jesus have evidence?
Originally posted by Tresopax:
[QB]quote:I am claiming that almost everyone thinks their authorities possess the reasons and/or the evidence.
I am trusting authorities that possess the reason and evidence. You are trusting your mommy because she was there first. I trust the doctors over the faith healers because the doctors possess the reason and evidence. You trust the doctors over the faith healers…just because. Probably because that’s what your Mommy taught you. If your Mommy had been Mrs. Neuman, or Mrs. Hauser, you would believe in faith healers instead.
Are you seriously claiming that there is no difference?
quote:And once again, looking at what the evidence says just isn’t in your equation, is it? That’s only for big people like Mommy and Daddy, not babies like you. You just pick your parents, and if you get diabetes, and the Neumans are your parents, well, can you explain for the board how that works out?
There is a difference - but the difference is that you used your own judgement and a bunch of prior beliefs to conclude that scientists really do have evidence while faith healers are mistaken or lying about having evidence.
quote:Okay, for the hundredth time, if it’s all just prior beliefs, and it’s all the same why do you trust doctors over faith healers? Do you really have no answer other than “Because Mommy and Daddy told me”, or “I flipped a coin”? If you had seen Kara Neuman dying in her parent’s house, would you have been absolutely bereft of a rational argument for calling 911?
quote:You are trusting authorities that you believe have the evidence, but whose evidence you haven't seen. That means you are actually trusting a prior belief.
I don’t trust my “prior beliefs”. I trust the evidence.
quote:Wait, so it’s okay for you to allow personal judgment to override evidence, but it’s not okay for me to do the same thing? Can you explain why?
quote:Yes. If you look at all the information available to you and judge something is wrong, then it would be wrong to do it based only on the "evidence" part of the information. If you conduct a study that says taking certain herbs will cure cancer, but the medical experts all say otherwise, and you personally judge that it is more likely you have been misled by your own study than that the doctors are all wrong, then it would be wrong of you to go forward doing nothing more than giving your cancer-striken spouse herbs.
Didn’t you once argue that allowing the evidence to trump one’s personal judgment as the final arbiter of decisions and belief was immoral?
quote:Convinced by the details? So if their details disagree with what you already believe, that’s your loophole. Okay, go make 100 friends among devout charismatic Muslims. Tell them that you are open to hearing the truth about Jesus’ divinity. Are you so sure that 30 of them won’t be inspired to set you on the right path to Allah?
quote:If 30 of my friends all independently came to me within the same week and said God appeared to them and told them Jesus was not divine, and if I was convinced by the details that they were not colluding with one another to trick me, then I'd find that pretty believable. That's just one possible scenario of infinitely many though.
Okay, so under what circumstances would you find the claim that Jesus was not divine to be “believable”?
quote:Yes, I claim they either have evidence or they've learned what they know from a chain of authorities that started with some sort of evidence or reasoning.
Do you claim that your authorities on the divinity of Jesus have evidence?
If so, why don’t you present their evidence?
quote:I've specifically said it is in the equation.
And once again, looking at what the evidence says just isn’t in your equation, is it?
quote:You said that you were going to use evidence the way it is really defined, not your made-up definition that includes "feelings". And now you have gone back on your word. That's not honest.
Originally posted by Tresopax:
In some cases, I can tell you what the evidence is: Some of them have direct personal experiences of God, or enlightenment, or spirituality in various forms.
quote:You left out what I quoted. Evidence was no where to be seen in the paragraph I cited. When I asked you about why you reject the Msulim claims of Jesus' non-divinity, that quote also said nothing about evidence.
quote:I've specifically said it is in the equation.
And once again, looking at what the evidence says just isn’t in your equation, is it?
quote:When I quote you word for word, you can't accuse me of making strawmen. When you write that evidence can be trumped by authorities and personal judgment,
Please stop arguing against positions I've said I don't hold,
quote:Oh, humor me. Really, I can answer every question I've asked you in a sentence or two. It's not that hard. You said once (after having tried to pass off "because I just believe in doctors"), that doctors know more "true things".
or asking questions I've already answered. I gave you my answer as to why I trust doctors over faith healers. It was an answer other than "Mommy told me" or "Flip a coin".
quote:What about the doctor whose "personal judgment" tells him to suspend your necessary medical treatment, in favor of the prayer and useless hebrs his "personal judgment" tell him are called for? The doctor should go ahead and do that? You refused to answer when I last asked the question.
I've also been pretty clear that I think you too should follow your personal judgement, not just me.
quote:To get you to admit that there is a distinction between beliefs that are adequately supported by evidence, and those that are not.
What is your goal in this thread?
quote:I'm not assuming that you advocate allowing one's personal judgment to trump the evidence. That's what you actually argued, I can quote you. It's not my fault if the Neumans did just that, and the consequences make your method look awful.
If you keep assuming my position is whatever is easiest for you to refute, then this discussion is not going to end up going anywhere.
quote:That's why I keep asking your specific questions, but getting you to answer is like pulling teeth. How many times did I ask you about your evidence of the divinity of Jesus before you admitted you didn't have any real evidence? How many times did I ask you how you determine your authorities, before you admitted that it's all based on what Mommy and Daddy taught you?
If you really want to understand my position then you can't ignore the details the distinguish my position from strawman positions.
quote:Okay, so can you explain how you deal with all the "evidence" of 1 billion Muslims who all think that Jesus is not divine?
I'm in complete agreement that totally ignoring all evidence that one disgrees with is a bad idea.
quote:I agree that there is a distinction between beliefs that are adequately supported by evidence, and those that are not.
To get you to admit that there is a distinction between beliefs that are adequately supported by evidence, and those that are not.
To get you to admit that given human fallibility, methods of thinking that have robust error-detection are more likely to give accurate results than methods that don't have this.
That religious claims are not adequatly supported by evidence, unlike scientific claims, which are valued in direct proportion to their evidentiary support. That your way of thinking does not contain functional error-catching mechanisms at all, making your unsupported conclusions highly likely to be wrong.
For instance, when you claim that people ought to ignore the evidence their personal judgement tells them to, that throws error-catching out the window. The part in bold is not a strawman, that's exactly what you have argued.
When you argue that you ought to judge a claim on whether or not it conflicts with what you already believe, with absolutely no mention of seeing if the claim squares with real evidence, that's also throwing error-catching out the window. And I can quote you arguing that too. And no, saying after the fact "Oh, but I really meant to look at the evidence too", after I point out how you never look at the evidence isn't honest arguing.