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ConsequentAtheist
SFN Regular
641 Posts |
 Posted - 08/24/2004 : 08:42:39 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
The god in my god theory is the standard god of the majority of religions. ... If one wants to define a god as not interacting with humans and therefore not detectable so therefore not falsifiable then we are talking about two different things. It goes with the position that one can't reach absolute proof nor rule anything out ever.
Oh, so the god of your theory is a Falsifiable God, not the other gods, and your theory is that 'Falsifiable God(s) are Falsifiable. Furthermore, you seem to argue that this Falsifiable God is falsified by virtue of defects in religious dogma.
This seems very much like 'No True Scottsman' meets 'Argumentum ad logicam'.
Perhaps more relevant is the "not interacting with humans and therefore not detectable so therefore not falsifiable" confusion. The issue is not interaction. In the Exodus/Conquest narrative, God tells Moses that He will "harden" Pharoah's heart.
quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
Start with the premise, if there is a god there should be some evidence.
But it is a false premise, and one that exposes a fundamental issue concerning the Supernatural - once accepted, all "shoulds" fly out the window.
quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
As to the belief that god made everything as is, fossils and all, there are other criteria one could use to test a god under those conditions.
So you simply change the subject?
quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
I think one of my points being missed here is that I am claiming god can be tested for rather than, I have developed complete clear unquestionable criteria and done all the tests.
No, you are the one missing the point. If there is a Supernatural realm, tests are meaningless.
quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
And, the second point I think is being missed is that instead of just testing for the presence of a god, the true scientific approach would be to start with the evidence, not the conclusion and see where the evidence takes you.
But that is an argument for methodological naturalism, not philosophical naturalism. We're not talking about physics here but metaphysics.
quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
The evidence is 'religion' that has developed throughout all human societies. The test should be what best explains religion, human manufacture or real gods. ... Using this approach, there is overwhelming evidence religion is a product of the human psyche, not a product of real gods.
The map is not the territory. There is overwhelming evidence that science, art, and the development of really good chili dogs are likewise the product of the human psyche. But none of this has much to do with the existence of God(s).
Permit me a question: what do hold as axiomatic?
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For the philosophical naturalist, the rejection of supernaturalism is a case of "death by a thousand cuts." -- Barbara Forrest, Ph.D. |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2004 : 15:07:20 [Permalink]
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I'm not sure if I'm the one actually making the assertion. Could it be you (and others who agree with you) that are asserting that something can be 100% sure? It is easy to show this, name one example where you could be 100% sure about, and if that example can be, I withdraw my claim.
However, from my point, it is impossible to show that you can never be 100% sure. For me to show this to be true, I would have to do so for every single thing in the universe. So I say that I am almost certain that you can't be 100% certain.
To back my position however, I will restate what I said before. Science is always changing, its dynamic. Because of this, you can never be 100% sure when showing something through science, as it can always change. The only way you could be 100% sure is if that science was static, which no part of any science is. |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
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ConsequentAtheist
SFN Regular
641 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2004 : 15:43:56 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
What it seems to me is that you consider the improbable as impossible, or at least nearly impossible. This is just the general feeling that I get, and its partially due to the fact that I don't think anything is impossible.
quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
I'm not sure if I'm the one actually making the assertion. Could it be you (and others who agree with you) that are asserting that something can be 100% sure?
This is getting tiresome. Is it a "fact that [you] don't think anything is impossible" or not? |
For the philosophical naturalist, the rejection of supernaturalism is a case of "death by a thousand cuts." -- Barbara Forrest, Ph.D. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2004 : 15:57:40 [Permalink]
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quote:
If there is a Supernatural realm, tests are meaningless
Could you elaborate on that point some? I'm not following you....
if supernatural realm = true
then
tests of the supernatural realm = meaningless
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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ConsequentAtheist
SFN Regular
641 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2004 : 17:12:56 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
We will never know if anything is true or false with 100% accuracy.
You cannot transform a bull elephant into a hummingbird by rubbing its balls with cocoa butter - but feel free to try. |
For the philosophical naturalist, the rejection of supernaturalism is a case of "death by a thousand cuts." -- Barbara Forrest, Ph.D. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2004 : 19:32:25 [Permalink]
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quote:
Posted by ConsequentAtheist:You cannot transform a bull elephant into a hummingbird by rubbing its balls with cocoa butter - but feel free to try.
that
hurt
my
brain
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2004 : 20:01:53 [Permalink]
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Warning: Absurdity ahead
quote:
You cannot transform a bull elephant into a hummingbird by rubbing its balls with cocoa butter - but feel free to try.
Are you saying that you have investigated the entire universe, hell, even our entire planet and have not found a bull elephant that would transform into a hummingbird by doing as you said? No, because you can never search everywhere.
Now, let me make this clear. You can prefectly lable this claim as false, but you must in doing so acknowlege that you have not investigated every possible place where this creature could exist, and that you can not.
This is the same situation that we find with the Truth. We can know things are true, gravity, evolution, but we will never know the Truth (that is, an absolute truth). Hell, we don't even know if the Truth exists, and if we did know the Truth, we wouldn't know that we know the Truth.
It is the same way with claiming things to be false. Something that you think is false can become true under light of new evidence. Since you don't know all the evidence, and for the foreseeable future you won't, you can never assert that you know anything 100%. |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
| Edited by - Ricky on 08/24/2004 20:02:45 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2004 : 20:23:49 [Permalink]
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beskeptigal wrote:quote:
For me personally, I feel there is more than sufficient evidence that religion and god(s) are a product of human imagination. But I don't claim to be the expert who has tested all religions and everyone should accept my conclusion. There is a lot of possible testing that can be done. That's why I described the hypothesis. One has to define the criteria to be tested and validate whether the criteria are indeed a valid measurement and do the testing.
Indeed. Perhaps if your hypothesis had been, "given that all religions of which I, beskeptigal, am aware describe a god which definitively should leave evidence in its wake, none of those gods - which have apparently all been human inventions - exist." We could have skipped a lot of this. Unfortunately, you said:...you don't have a definition of any god(s) that humans have described, since all gods are described as interacting with humans. Which is a gross over-generalization, since I have described - both here and elsewhere - both the "do nothing" god and the "isn't doing anything right now" god many times, neither of which fits your definitions. As I said, I have a problem with your premises:If there were gods, (as defined by humans) they would have interacted with humans.
If gods interacted with humans, the interaction should be detectable. I am a human. I define 'god' in such a way that no organized religions believe in one, to my knowledge (I find their ideas of 'god' to be pathetically weak and whiny). The gods I define are not in the habit of interacting with humans, as they have better things to do, but might in the future.quote:
I don't take that position because I think it doesn't serve any purpose in trying to understand the Universe and all that is in it.
The only reason, so far as I can tell, to take the position that we humans are unable to comprehend what a real god might be like (and thus that a real god may very well be undetectable even if it interacts with humans) is during philosophical discussions within which someone introduces the idea that they can disprove 'god'. Like in this thread.
It usually turns out that the claimant requires that 'god' be defined very strictly, which does little to advance a general philosophical or religious argument. Like in this thread.quote:
The saying isn't mine but it fits. I have an open mind, but not so open that there is a hole in my head. And, I have no problem reconsidering something I have ruled out if new evidence arises. Science can be on a continuum of very esoteric or very practical. I'm quite a bit over on the practical side.
Practicality is fine. Outside hypotheticals such as this, I'm a very practical kind of guy. I don't sit around and think about bizarre deities unless I'm involved in a discussion like this one.
The problem is, when you're talking about a being which allegedly created the entire freakin' universe, practicality flies right out the window.quote:
I don't have a monopoly on what the criteria need to be, I have looked at some criteria, as I said previously, and have concluded there is overwhelming evidence that there is no god.
Really, you've concluded that there is no god as described by any notable human religion of which you are aware. The point that I and others are trying to make is that generalizing from that to "no god of any sort ever" leaves much to be desired.quote:
But, the door is open if others wish to establish alternative criteria to be tested. I have yet to be shown by any challengers evidence that would meet the criteria proving a god exists.
Well, your criteria. But it's important to note that the people here talking to you aren't claiming that they have proof that any conception of god exists, only that your argument successfully covers only a teensy weensy subset of "all conceivable gods."quote:
As to the belief that god made everything as is, fossils and all, there are other criteria one could use to test a god under those conditions. Research into whether or not prayer has an effect, for example, can be tested.
No, it cannot. As Robert Carroll describes, the idea that reality can be modified through prayer invalidates the assumptions of science itself, and thus invalidates the very idea that god can be tested. Plus, there's a wonderful cop-out: a successful test is evidence of god, while an unsuccessful test is evidence that god doesn't want to reveal himself through testing.quote:
The Bible's own inconsistency while god is supposed to be perfect is another.
The Bible was only 'inspired' by god, it wasn't written by him. Test complete, and inconclusive.quote:
There still are sufficient errors in the Bible to test for, but more importantly, the criteria I suggest is to look for evidence that exceeds what people could have known or thought of at the time. The Bible version of the beginning totally ignores the rest of the world that was out of the Bible originators' awareness. That's evidence for human origin of the religion.
Nah, that's just evidence that god only told the Jews what he wanted them to think.
If it's not clear, I've just been playing devil's advocate, here. If you'll pardon the irony.quote:
There is still a vast amount of evidence pointing toward human origin and no evidence pointing toward god origin.
Again, only if you insist upon putting limitations upon god. Some of which believers themselves insist upon, and others which they would find foreign. If you allow for the apologetics, the only verifiable thing you get is a reduction (but not to zero) of the idea that Christianity, at least, is of human origin. It certainly doesn't add up to more than zero evidence for god.quote:
I think one of my points being missed here is that I am claiming god can be tested for rather than, I have developed complete clear unquestionable criteria and done all the tests.< |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 08/25/2004 : 03:05:55 [Permalink]
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Clearly we have different interpretations and conclusions here. I hold to mine and am confident they are valid despite the fact that for some, my interpretations and conclusions are not acceptable.
Some take the position that religion is or could be based on real god(s). But there is no evidence of that. You can argue, I have not evaluated all the possible evidence. My position is I have seen sufficient evidence to support that conclusion.
Religion is an historical phenomenon. It exists in rituals, stories, written texts, and so forth. I see no reason to elaborate on what gods are or what religion is. We have lots of other cultural aspects of society which provide comparisons and patterns that give us some structure for understanding culture and society. And, religion is consistent with other aspects of culture and society.
So again, religion is explicable and consistent with the evidence that it is purely a human creation.
But where is there any evidence religion and the belief in god(s) is not a human creation?
The idea you cannot evaluate the existence of god(s) by the scientific method is based on the premise that god is not religion, beliefs, rituals, stories, written texts, and so forth. But what evidence is there for a god(s) that doesn't arise from the beliefs, rituals, stories, written texts, and so forth?
So I see no reason to add the existence of a force in the Universe, especially a sentient force, when there is no reason or evidence to initiate such an existence.
So either god(s) are the gods of beliefs, rituals, stories, written texts, and so forth, or god(s) are just something you want to throw in the mix out of the blue for no reason.
What reason do you have, other than beliefs, rituals, stories, written texts, and so forth to consider a sentient force in the Universe? How does that differ from say adding in something like 'purple energy' which I just made up and decided you can't prove it isn't part of the Universe?
I understand your position that you think there can be a sentient force in the Universe despite there being no evidence. And by the same reasoning we cannot test for purple energy nor a sentient force because they are out of the realm of science.
However, I can use the scientific method to evaluate beliefs, rituals, stories, written texts, and so forth which is all the evidence I see for a god(s). I can find no other evidence.
I have spent a lot of time examining religious teachings and texts of many kinds. The evidence is overwhelming that god(s) are only a creation of humans. There is no evidence contained in the beliefs, rituals, stories, written texts, and so forth for the existence of real god(s).
If you want to define god as something for which there is no evidence, something for which there is equal evidence for purple energy, you would be in keeping with the standard position that god is beyond science. I find that position is like an ostrich with its head in the sand. Of course god in that case is beyond science, because god in that case does not exist.
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ConsequentAtheist
SFN Regular
641 Posts |
Posted - 08/25/2004 : 03:21:17 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
Warning: Absurdity ahead
Yes. |
For the philosophical naturalist, the rejection of supernaturalism is a case of "death by a thousand cuts." -- Barbara Forrest, Ph.D. |
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ConsequentAtheist
SFN Regular
641 Posts |
Posted - 08/25/2004 : 04:00:39 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
Religion is an historical phenomenon. It exists in rituals, stories, written texts, and so forth. I see no reason to elaborate on what gods are or what religion is. We have lots of other cultural aspects of society which provide comparisons and patterns that give us some structure for understanding culture and society. And, religion is consistent with other aspects of culture and society.
This is all true, even insightful, but it serves in no way as evidence against the supernatural. |
For the philosophical naturalist, the rejection of supernaturalism is a case of "death by a thousand cuts." -- Barbara Forrest, Ph.D. |
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ConsequentAtheist
SFN Regular
641 Posts |
Posted - 08/25/2004 : 04:49:50 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
quote:
If there is a Supernatural realm, tests are meaningless
Could you elaborate on that point some? I'm not following you....
Hashem created the world, replete with fossil record, some 57 centuries ago. What do your tests prove? |
For the philosophical naturalist, the rejection of supernaturalism is a case of "death by a thousand cuts." -- Barbara Forrest, Ph.D. |
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furshur
SFN Regular
USA
1536 Posts |
Posted - 08/25/2004 : 05:35:19 [Permalink]
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quote:
quote:
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You cannot transform a bull elephant into a hummingbird by rubbing its balls with cocoa butter - but feel free to try.
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Are you saying that you have investigated the entire universe, hell, even our entire planet and have not found a bull elephant that would transform into a hummingbird by doing as you said? No, because you can never search everywhere.
Now, let me make this clear. You can prefectly lable this claim as false, but you must in doing so acknowlege that you have not investigated every possible place where this creature could exist, and that you can not.
After reading that gem I am 100% sure that I have finished visiting this thread!
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If I knew then what I know now then I would know more now than I know. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/25/2004 : 10:25:56 [Permalink]
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beskeptigal wrote:quote:
Some take the position that religion is or could be based on real god(s). But there is no evidence of that.
There doesn't appear to me to be any evidence that anyone in this thread holds that position. Religions are not the same thing as gods. While most religions have gods, it is not necessarily true that possibly existing gods have religions on Earth which worship them. And it is certainly untrue that god-concepts occur only within the religions of which you are aware.quote:
So I see no reason to add the existence of a force in the Universe, especially a sentient force, when there is no reason or evidence to initiate such an existence.
And there is no reason to do so, outside of the discussion of the possible existence or non-existence of possible gods, and this thread is just such a discussion. Or, within a nice game of Dungeons & Dragons.
Funny and off-topic, but a guy I used to know ran a D&D world in which if enough people believed in a god, that god would come into existence. Hilarity ensued as we, the players, would dream up wacky and useless gods, convince a bunch of townsfolk that the gods needed worship, and poooof!, the gods would appear. Kept at it until one of the peskier gods we dreamed up started following us around, making trouble. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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