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[Ashes]

That's a good question, Ashes, and my answer would be that the default answer must indeed be that we don't know, but that it must also be probabilistic. There are simple cases where the probabilities are obvious--take a lottery, for example. If I buy a ticket, the neutral answer ahead of time must be that we don't know whether or not I'll win, but that the chances are vanishingly small.

Now, how do you assign probability to something totally abstract like God or religion? Some folks would argue you can't, and that's fine. I would use something along the lines of Solomonoff's inductive inference using Kolmogorov complexity (which sound all fancy, but together they're essentially just a formalized version of Ockham's Razor). By this model, adding a God to the universe adds an enormous quantity of complexity without actually adding any explanatory power, and so the initial probability for a God must be considered quite small. This could change with evidence one way or the other, of course. I would likely argue that over the centuries, the weight of evidence has mostly accumulated on one side and not the other, and the conception of what God is has retreated as physical evidence has failed to manifest. And I'd further argue that once you remove any possibility of physical actions from God, and make Him a sort of abstract metaphysical entity, He sort of loses His luster.

But that's neither here nor there. I'm not going to tell you you're wrong for believing, I just want to point out that it can be fair and rational to start out with a low probability for God. (Although, per the prior discussion, I'd also add that plenty of atheists are neither fair nor rational!)

Edit:
Here's a good layman's explanation of Solomonoff's induction: http://lesswrong.com/lw/dhg/an_intuitive_explanation_of_solomonoff_induction/

And now that I've read the prior page, I hope iapetus doesn't slap me!

The point being expressed is that we're dealing with guesswork. 99.9% certain people are absurdly overoptimistic about their own ability to deduce the mysteries of the universe such as in the concern with life in out of space. Sometimes, demonstrations of their poor ability to reason well, suggests to me that they are leaning on others who have far greater ability to do so. And that's kinda meh.

I find it hard to deduce how many [if any] alternate universes there are; let alone whether or not there are entities behind the universe in question. And now we have people closing the loop on the basis of absence of evidence, when in theory, everything could be evidence.

If it helps, I have faith, there are no kittens on the moon.
I mean, I don't know for sure. but I have faith.

 

[iapetus]

I feel like this may come down to how we define evidence. I'd say that a lot of things like the Ptolemaic universe and Freudian psychology were at least to a degree based on observation. They weren't based on very good evidence, but they weren't based on nothing at all. Of course this leads us down the rabbit hole of "does anything come from nothing at all or are all ideas the result of some form of observation"

Well, since we're talking about hypotheses, they're based on something, because they're an attempt to explain an observed phenomenon. If they don't explain that, then they're not really a hypothesis. When trying to explain why gravity explains the inverse square law, "Bacon and banana make a great pizza topping!" is not a hypothesis. "Because a chain of apes stand between any two bodies and pull them with the appropriate force based on calculations carried out by lemurs" is, though it's unsubstantiated and very easy to test and discard. Nobody's going to propose a hypothesis like that because it's so obviously wrong. So there's a filtration process when coming up with the hypothesis, and whatever parsimony principles you like to apply will probably make sure that the first hypotheses you come to will rely on established wisdom where possible. But the whole point of a hypothesis is to present something that you don't have evidence for, make predictions based on it, then test those predictions until either they prove you wrong or give it increased credibility.

 

[iapetus]

My belief, therefore, is that if one is highly knowledgeable and perfectly rational, then the usual theological claims wouldn't seem to be very plausible at all, because there is little evidence for god in the first place. The closer one gets to the truth, the less plausible theology appears. There are certainly cases of intelligent, educated people believing anyway (for example, Francis Collins), but I think they're putting aside the evidence and choosing to believe because they want to believe; any rational reasons why they say they believe are simply after-the-fact rationalizations.

So your preconceptions about what's plausible based on what you believe should apply across the board? Or we go with the majority view based on a selection of people who meet your definition of 'intelligent' and 'educated'? Or maybe the majority view across the board determines plausibility? Or does the majority decide what counts as 'intelligent' and 'educated' and we poll them for plausibility?

 

[Ashes]

So your preconceptions about what's plausible based on what you believe should apply across the board? Or we go with the majority view based on a selection of people who meet your definition of 'intelligent' and 'educated'? Or maybe the majority view across the board determines plausibility? Or does the majority decide what counts as 'intelligent' and 'educated' and we poll them for plausibility?

Sociological surveys are 100% legit. give or take a per cent here or there.

 

[Necromanti]

You might want to say it better, then.

A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. The requirement for it to be a hypothesis is that it is a possible explanation for that phenomenon. And also, since we're looking at things scientifically and we've agreed this is necessary, that it's testable (and therefore probably predictive). Other than that, it's unsubstantiated; there is no evidence at this point that it is the cause of the phenomenon, just that it could explain it. It's using it to make predictions and testing those predictions that substantiates it.

Which part of the definition do you disagree with?

Funnily enough, one of your latest posts models what my response was going towards, and what I was trying to argue from the beginning. (I thought you were initially just playing devil's advocate.)

So...

When trying to explain why gravity explains the inverse square law, "Bacon and banana mke a great pizza topping!" is not a hypothesis. "Because a chain of apes stand between any two bodies and pull them with the appropriate force based on calculations carried out by lemurs" is, though it's unsubstantiated and very easy to test and discard. Nobody's going to propose a hypothesis like that because it's so obviously wrong. So there's a filtration process when coming up with the hypothesis, and whatever parsimony principles you like to apply will probably make sure that the first hypotheses you come to will rely on established wisdom where possible.

...I'm glad that we agree, then, that we would disregard hypotheses that fail to explain a phenomena, or have insufficient evidence to back them up. (And it seems you no longer disagree with my personal, scientific-based parsimonious view of the universe.)

But the whole point of a hypothesis is to present something that you don't have evidence for, make predictions based on it, then test those predictions until either they prove you wrong or give it increased credibility.

I said that we could not formulate a satisfactory hypothesis involving deities because sufficient evidence cannot be acquired. And it's not just evidence that must be testable. The hypothesis needs to be falsifiable, and the experiments need to be repeatable. Hence why I highlighted the importance of empirical evidence.

And since you brought up what a discardable hypothesis would look like, one that is useful to us would not be unsubstantiated since we use the scientific method. We would build a hypothesis based off of the framework of knowledge that we already have, and we would need an original interest or observation of some sort from which we would then create that hypothesis because it's explaining something observable.

There is already evidence for us to want to ask a certain question about a trend in observations, which may or may not lead to us rejecting our null hypotheses if what we are looking at is statistically significant. The unsubstantiated hypothesis, like you mentioned in your example, would be eliminated through the filtration process. In short, a falsifiable hypothesis that is relevant to us wouldn't be pulled out of thin air, and is rather based upon something that observations had led to us, err, hypothesizing. (Again, this is all still talking about scientifically useful hypotheses, and not about the metaphysical and unobservable.)

And besides, the scientific method isn't that linear or simple. The testing of a hypothesis has a multitude of different stages, and it can start from anywhere in the process (and go back and forth).

 

[Mgoblue201]

So your preconceptions about what's plausible based on what you believe should apply across the board? Or we go with the majority view based on a selection of people who meet your definition of 'intelligent' and 'educated'? Or maybe the majority view across the board determines plausibility? Or does the majority decide what counts as 'intelligent' and 'educated' and we poll them for plausibility?

It would obviously require quite a lengthy discussion to fully defend my belief of what constitutes a justified theistic/atheistic belief structure, but I don't think it's terribly controversial to attempt to establish some baseline of justification, for the only other option is to admit that all knowledge is entirely subjective. All of the questions you proposed could easily be applied to scientific knowledge. Who determines what's plausible? What constitutes proper justification? That's all a very interesting philosophical discussion, but I don't think you would disagree that at some point a belief no longer becomes justifiable if there is enough evidence against it. I simply think we've already reached that point with religion. Implicit in all this, of course, is that it's my personal belief, and therefore I never said that everyone must think the same way I do, though I don't think it's controversial to say that, at the very least, the "progress" of modern science and philosophy has undermined religious authority and efficacy a great deal.

 

[Vaporak]

Cyan's post is a pretty good explanation of what I've tried to express a few times in this thread. I've devoted a lot of words to it in the past, so I'm going to try and see if I can do it concisely this time:

-We start with the axiom that evidence is the way to determine the probability of claims being accurate. Read to the end before you jump on me for this

-There are also theoretically infinite claims about the nature of reality.

-Are all claims by default, without evidence, assumed to be plausible or implausible? I see it as only two options, if someone has a third option, well I kind of address that in the next point.

-If we assume all claims are plausible by default that makes it basically impossible to think about anything. Every small variation on any claim is as valid as any other until...evidence has been found against it? I don't actually know how this world would work. And I think that this issue occurs even if all claims are assumed to be only semi-plausible; any attempt to theoretically understand the world that assumes all possible claims have enough weight to require consideration requires infinite time to reach any meaningful conclusion.

-Therefore all claims by default need to be considered implausible. My claim that the sun is actually green and has a giant glass filter around it that makes it look yellow has no evidence at this time, therefore it is implausible.

-The claims of God have no evidence. Therefore they are implausible

-But wait! What if you don't agree with the axiom? What if you don't think evidence is the only, or even primary way to determine plausibility of claims?

-Then I'd love to hear what else you think should be used. I'm serious here.



I would argue the opposite, that most hypothesis are substantiated in some form by inferences made from past knowledge.

Good question, I can think of two cases myself where your general outline isn't followed, and for good reasons. First I think you need to be more specific on what you mean by "evidence" but I'll take it to mean empiric evidence because that's the typical usage.

I'm not sure if you are aware of it or not but Mathematicians and Logicians do not follow your outline, and is a good example of how behavior works when rejecting/not using your evidence axiom. Here is an example proposition: "Every even integer greater than 2 is equal to the sum of two prime numbers."
We could follow your advice and start doing computations on each even integer to gather evidence, and we have. Every even integer up to 4*10^18 is equal to the sum of two primes. But the reason the computations happen is in the hopes of finding a counter example to disprove the conjecture, not in the idea that by finding more true examples that they are proving the conjecture true. I picked this one out because it is a famous unproven theorem in mathematics that has a considerable amount of "evidence", to highlight the different approach mathematicians take. I think we can agree that mathematics is not irrational or an unfruitful line of inquiry? A better example that I don't have on hand would be a sequence that via computation appears to converge but in fact diverges. There's been some noteworthy examples that are noteworthy because some argued that they were convergent series based on the computational evidence.

This problem generalizes in that all formal logic does not rely on evidence, but scientific theories do rely on formal logic and mathematics and assume them to be true before doing anything. Therefore the assertion of the primacy of evidence is not congruent with how the scientific method actually works in practice.

The second issue I would raise is the issue of Black Swan Problems \ Out of Context Problems. These are inherently unpredictable events, so the plausible/implausible dichotomy seems unuseful when dealing with them or discussing them. Classifying an Unknown Unknown as implausible as you seem to be suggesting seems contradictory as you are asserting information about something you by definition have no knowledge of. Further, when you have to act in the face of such a problem they are by definition situations with no evidence to guide you in your decision making (determining the plausibility/implausibility of solutions), so another decision making algorithm is required and I think it is worth investigating what they might be. On average humans seems to have a built in loss aversion bias when dealing with these situations, a sort of assume the worst when there is little to no information, and it's hard to say that is a bad algorithm.

 

[iapetus]

Funnily enough, one of your latest posts models what my response was going towards, and what I was trying to argue from the beginning. (I thought you were initially just playing devil's advocate.)

Oh, I think we agree on a lot of the main points. The big thing that we both come to is the idea that a hypothesis should be testable, which flushes out a lot of the undesirable ones. Does that mean that something untestable is untrue? No, but it brings no value to the table.

So... ...I'm glad that we agree, then, that we would disregard hypotheses that fail to explain a phenomena, or have insufficient evidence to back them up. (And it seems you no longer disagree with my personal, scientific-based parsimonious view of the universe.)

Oh, I never did. My point is that principles of parsimony are dangerous and often misused. "God done it" isn't discarded because it isn't parsimonious by the definition of the majority of these principles. It's discarded because it's untestable and has no predictive power. And principles of parsimony don't tell us what is right. It tells us what is the most useful line of enquiry - the simplest solution is far from always right, but it is normally a good approach to attack the simplest solution first and only add complexity if it turns out to be necessary.

And if I'm being picky, I'd suggest that something that doesn't explain the phenomenon it should do isn't really a hypothesis in the first place. But absolutely we discard hypotheses that fail in their predictions (or rework them so that they explain the new observations), and we give less credence to ones that have little or no supporting evidence than ones that successfully predict over a long period of time.

And since you brought up what a discardable hypothesis would look like, one that is useful to us would not be unsubstantiated since we use the scientific method. We would build a hypothesis based off of the framework of knowledge that we already have, and we would need an original interest or observation of some sort from which we would then create that hypothesis because it's explaining something observable.

But as I pointed out, the hypothesis itself is a new proposition, and it's unsubstantiated. It's not eliminated through the filtration process, as you suggest. It's eliminated by the prediction/testing cycle.

And besides, the scientific method isn't that linear or simple. The testing of a hypothesis has a multitude of different stages, and it can start from anywhere in the process (and go back and forth).

You can't test the hypothesis until you know what the hypothesis is. At that point you can test and discard it immediately.

 

[iapetus]

It would obviously require quite a lengthy discussion to fully defend my belief of what constitutes a justified theistic/atheistic belief structure, but I don't think it's terribly controversial to attempt to establish some baseline of justification, for the only other option is to admit that all knowledge is entirely subjective. All of the questions you proposed could easily be applied to scientific knowledge.

But then the answer is a simple one. I concur that this hypothesis seems implausible, but it makes predictions that are not made by other models, and those predictions are upheld by testing them. So as mad as it may seem, until we can find cases that it doesn't handle or a more plausible/simple theory that has the same (or ideally better) predictive power, it has value.

This is why science is awesome.

When we venture into the realm of the untestable, though, we don't have that benefit, and a lot of things do become more subjective.

Who determines what's plausible? What constitutes proper justification?

In the case of science, empirical evidence. Ka-ching!

That's all a very interesting philosophical discussion, but I don't think you would disagree that at some point a belief no longer becomes justifiable if there is enough evidence against it.

True, and for certain belief systems, that's already the case. For others, it isn't, because they live in the tricksy areas outside the observable and testable.

I simply think we've already reached that point with religion. Implicit in all this, of course, is that it's my personal belief, and therefore I never said that everyone must think the same way I do, though I don't think it's controversial to say that, at the very least, the "progress" of modern science and philosophy has undermined religious authority and efficacy a great deal.

The problem comes in when we start trying to apply subjective measures to fundamental rules such as burden of proof and the suchlike. It's the same reason American bridge rules are broken with respect to alerting.

 

[squall23]

I'd like to post about my supposed "Christian childhood", it's not anything offensive, but I feel I need to talk about the one figure that tried to change my life.

For the first 7 years of my life, my household also included an overzealous Christian aunt. She's a very nice person but she was also the only religious person in my immediate family. For some unknown reason, she had enough pull within my family to try and turn my sister and I Christian.

When I was born, I was to be baptised. However, on that day, apparently the priest got sick, so my parents called it off all together. When my sister was born, my aunt also wanted her to be baptised. Same priest, again got sick on that day, so again my parents called it off. To this day, we take these 2 events as a sign.

So starting from 4 years old, my aunt would take me with her to church every Sunday. I didn't even know what I was doing there at the time since all I did was play with other kids. I didn't even know what religion was at the time! Now that I'm older, I believe she was trying to convert me through fun activities with other kids.

When I moved here to Canada, I stopped being "Christian", if I was one before.

The instant that I knew my aunt was trying to "bribe" me into Christianity was the Simpsons episode where Bart goes Catholic.

 

[iapetus]

To this day, we take these 2 events as a sign.

But... a sign from whom?

 

[Log4Girlz]

But... a sign from whom?

Jesus Mohamed Potter.

 

[Raist]

But... a sign from whom?

Wayne Gretzky.

 

[cutmeamango]

But... a sign from whom?

His parents. Calling off the baptism "because the priest got sick", a baptism only to soothe his aunt.

 

[t-ramp]

So, I've been watching some videos of William Lane Craig... the man is a moron. The confidence he has in his consistently awful logical and scientific claims is extraordinary. I'm on this debate at the moment, and John Shook brings up several good points that WLC just completely misses and responds to with the same utter bullshit.

His lecture that he gave after Dawkins declined to debate is great viewing if you want to listen to someone be appallingly wrong for a straight hour.

 

[hym]

A Scientific Description of God

So Mother Nature and Father Time fornicated and we called the offspring god, not being aware we were looking at a tiny fraction of a reflection. I'm really entertained by god definitions that attempt to fit an approximation of the traditional god concept into reality. It always falls short to really affect my atheist convictions though, the moment you drop a sentient entity with an independent consciousness from the description it doesn't match 99.99% of the previous gods anymore, so assigning that label to something else has little purpose aside from nostalgia and the liberty not to identify yourself with a minority.

This is of course a common pitfall suffered by religion itself, it usually gets legitimacy from building on preceding religions, and even acting as if it's the same characters involved while silently proposing they change agenda every once in a while and when the goal is achieved and the old is eradicated we move it disrespectfully to the Mythology box.

 

[oneils]

His parents. Calling off the baptism "because the priest got sick", a baptism only to soothe his aunt.

Yeah, I doubt it was pure chance. It was most likely his parents humouring his aunt.

 

[Dice]

I'm out of this for a while, likely years. Christopher Hitchens once said "Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. The grave will supply plenty of time for silence." and that challenged me for a while, but being so principled sucks. I won't be a spectator because I don't want to watch. I'm tired of hearing and making arguments. I feel like some guy who keeps fighting with his ex rather than moving on with a new life.

I spent 15 years in ministry trying to get people to understand and follow their own supposed beliefs. They were dull-witted and stubborn about that, so why would I expect them to grasp an entirely new worldview? No. No more for me. No more fighting. Only learning. It seems to me that the only people who care are those who have committed themselves to care, and those who have need little help to find their way.

I explained my reasoning to my friends, asked them to show me how it is wrong, asked them the basis for why I should believe the testimony of the apostles over those who started other religions, asked them to show me how the worldview can even have a conceptually coherent form for me to know what I'd be claiming to believe. They haven't even tried. I know it is because they can't and they know it. My friends are intelligent but unwilling to accept reason.

I'll leave the activism to those who have had the background to educate and think it is worth it to fight opponents rather than teach willing students all the more. As for me, there is a lot of learning I missed because of religion, so I want to focus on that. I am a man of science now. I shared this with one whom I consider to be my most intelligent, knowledgeable, reasonable, and atheist-sympathizing Christian friend. He soon put up this quote from a Narnia book.

"You see? They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their minds, yet they are in that prison and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out."​

What kind of shit is that nonsense? It is anti-intellectual poison that ensnares the mind and denies knowledge in favor of dreams. It's like some concept out of 1984, something to trick people into thinking that which helps them is harm. I can't compete with that, and I don't want to try. History shows us that, even if through setbacks and trials, truth takes over in due time. Have fun discussing if you like, but I would recommend against bothering to fight. The future will be built by the willing, so I am making myself a willing learner of the natural world. The only world we know.

 

[Ashes]

I've heard arguments like this before. And I grow wearisome of such arguments. It reminds me of this one time where somebody told me that the religious lot did not belong to the intelligentsia.

 

[KtSlime]

I've heard arguments like this before. And I grow wearisome of such arguments. It reminds me of this one time where somebody told me that the religious lot did not belong to the intelligentsia.

Well that has entirely to do with if one is a member of a religious lot that disagrees with the observed evidence now doesn't it?

 

[Cyan]

"You see? They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their minds, yet they are in that prison and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out."​

What kind of shit is that nonsense? It is anti-intellectual poison that ensnares the mind and denies knowledge in favor of dreams. It's like some concept out of 1984, something to trick people into thinking that which helps them is harm. I can't compete with that, and I don't want to try. History shows us that, even if through setbacks and trials, truth takes over in due time. Have fun discussing if you like, but I would recommend against bothering to fight. The future will be built by the willing, so I am making myself a willing learner of the natural world. The only world we know.

The quote is from The Last Battle. The remaining Narnian dwarves, who have already been taken in by a false Aslan, are now refusing to believe in the true Aslan. Having gone through a stable door into a new world, they refuse to see the new world and see only a stable. No matter how much Lucy and Edmund etc try to help them, they continue to reject Aslan and the new world. I think it's more intended to apply to crises of faith than atheism and disbelief. Could be wrong.

Anyway, I can see why you'd see that as an incredibly rude and dismissive response... because it basically is. Accusing someone of rejecting your ideas because they're closed-minded and afraid of the truth is annoying and not a little condescending--this is why I try not to do it too often.

 

[Ashes]

Well that has entirely to do with if one is a member of a religious lot that disagrees with the observed evidence now doesn't it?

I'm not sure I follow. It's clearly meant to strike a line between the irreligious and the religious - philosophically speaking.

 

[les papillons sexuels]

"You see? They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their minds, yet they are in that prison and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out."​

whenever I hear such things, I think of NGE, the white scene, in which he explains that in a completely limitless enviroment, your freedom is bound by the actions only you have. Once a plane is drawn, and gravity exists, your actions expand to the ability to move, jump and act on that plane, a wall, while acting as a boundry, creates new paradigms in structure of that world, giving you a place to reference. It's through that "cunning" which thought, and not belief, creates that we're able to be truly free us from ourselves.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Would it be irrational to claim with certainty that Narnia does not exist?

 

[Cyan]

Would it be irrational to claim with certainty that Narnia does not exist?

Depends what you mean by "irrational" and "certainty."

It'd be technically incorrect to claim absolute certainty that Narnia doesn't exist, but it'd be fair to say that the odds of it existing are close enough to zero that to even mention it as a possibility gives it too much credence--the human mind isn't able to properly understand epsilon probability.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Depends what you mean by "irrational" and "certainty."

It'd be technically incorrect to claim absolute certainty that Narnia doesn't exist, but it'd be fair to say that the odds of it existing are close enough to zero that to even mention it as a possibility gives it too much credence--the human mind isn't able to properly understand epsilon probability.

So a person can never be certain about anything, even the existence or lack of completely imaginary concepts?

For instance what of the Koogibooboo people? I just made them up. But technically they could be an alien race trying to communicate to us for the first time through me so beamed telepathic information into my brain to get you all to become familiar with their races name right?

 

[KtSlime]

I'm not sure I follow. It's clearly meant to strike a line between the irreligious and the religious - philosophically speaking.

Actually thinking about it, I'd say it's mostly correct. I guess it depends if you consider deistic beliefs to be religious, or if the religion in question needs a God (or anything else that doesn't exist). Religions generally don't conform to reality, so to believe in a religion that disagrees with reality seems to me to be the opposite of what is the ideal for a member of the intelligentsia.

But I personally leave some wiggle room, as long as they don't have any unproven theological doctrine.

 

[Cyan]

So a person can never be certain about anything, even the existence or lack of completely imaginary concepts?

For instance what of the Koogibooboo people? I just made them up. But technically they could be an alien race trying to communicate to us for the first time through me so beamed telepathic information into my brain to get you all to become familiar with their races name right?

Yep! Now you're thinking probabilistically.

 

[V_Arnold]

Would it be irrational to claim with certainty that Narnia does not exist?

Log4Girlz atheism daily drive-by posting continues?
Narnia does exist. It existed in its creators mind, and so it was born. People are having experiences with it, through it, thanks to it. It exists.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Log4Girlz atheism daily drive-by posting continues?
Narnia does exist. It existed in its creators mind, and so it was born. People are having experiences with it, through it, thanks to it. It exists.

And you my friend are one of the lucky first (at least to the best of my knowledge) to have an experience with the Koogibooboo people. You're welcome.

 

[V_Arnold]

And you my friend are one of the lucky first (at least to the best of my knowledge) to have an experience with the Koogibooboo people. You're welcome.

Thank you for this experience.

 

[KtSlime]

And you my friend are one of the lucky first (at least to the best of my knowledge) to have an experience with the Koogibooboo people. You're welcome.

You might be on to something, PKD experienced a similar event. Perhaps Aslan is the demiurge, obscuring our sight of the Koogibooboo. It's all making sense now.

 

[Ashes]

Actually thinking about it, I'd say it's mostly correct. I guess it depends if you consider deistic beliefs to be religious, or if the religion in question needs a God (or anything else that doesn't exist). Religions generally don't conform to reality, so to believe in a religion that disagrees with reality seems to me to be the opposite of what is the ideal for a member of the intelligentsia.

But I personally leave some wiggle room, as long as they don't have any unproven theological doctrine.

So whilst the line drawn is philosophically inclined, you would discriminate based on things that require no position on the matter - i.e. researchers studying cancer, mathematicians, public thinkers, artists, authors, even critics.

I find the stance very silly. Even in regards to philosophers.

 

[RyanReedyMusic]

Some of my best friends are atheists. We have had some great discussions. The biggest thing I find is that Christians accept (The Existence of the Universe, The Bible, Jesus Christ etc) as evidence.

They say the believe and accept it as evidence.

However Atheists as far as my friends do not accept any of the above mentioned at all. In fact as many on Gaf have shown me. It does not count as any evidence at all in there eyes. They just simply exist.

Of course it comes down to the person.

My question is why do some accept and some deny it?

If those things exist and relate to God why do they exist at all?

Would destroying all aspects of "things related to God" change anyones beliefs?

 

[Log4Girlz]

Some of my best friends are atheists. We have had some great discussions. The biggest thing I find is that Christians accept (The Existence of the Universe, The Bible, Jesus Christ etc) as evidence.

They say the believe and accept it as evidence.

However Atheists as far as my friends do not accept any of the above mentioned at all. In fact as many on Gaf have shown me. It does not count as any evidence at all in there eyes. They just simply exist.

Of course it comes down to the person.

My question is why do some accept and some deny it?

If those things exist and relate to God why do they exist at all?

Would destroying all aspects of "things related to God" change anyones beliefs?

Are Mohammad and the Quran evidence of Islam? Or perhaps of a greater deity? To you, is Christianity and Islam the same?

Those things exist due to:

Human ego
Fear of death
Cultural bias
Logical fallacies (confirmation bias being the main vehicle behind faith)
Cognitive dissonance
Stupidity or willful ignorance

 

[RyanReedyMusic]

Do any atheists associate anything that Christians mention with God at all?

Do any of you guys deny that The Bible, Jesus Christ etc are related to God in any shape or form?

 

[Count Dookkake]

Do any atheists associate anything that Christians mention with God at all?

Do any of you guys deny that The Bible, Jesus Christ etc are related to God in any shape or form?

Can you please restate these questions?

They don't really make sense as is.

 

[RyanReedyMusic]

Can you please restate these questions?

They don't really make sense as is.

Is there anything existing in the universe right now that you believe to be associated with a God or God himself?

 

[Erigu]

Some of my best friends are atheists. We have had some great discussions. The biggest thing I find is that Christians accept (The Existence of the Universe, The Bible, Jesus Christ etc) as evidence.
They say the believe and accept it as evidence.
However Atheists as far as my friends do not accept any of the above mentioned at all. In fact as many on Gaf have shown me. It does not count as any evidence at all in there eyes.

Because it's not.
I could write a book about purple unicorns today, and it would be just as real as the Bible. Would make my purple unicorns about as real as the Christian God, too. That was for the Bible.
As for the existence of the universe, how does it prove the existence of the Christian God?
And for Jesus Christ, there's no evidence that (if he existed at all) he wasn't a regular human being.
Simple, really.

 

[Count Dookkake]

Is there anything existing in the universe right now that you believe to be associated with a God or God himself?

No, because I have no reason to suspect the existence of a god with which to associate anything.

 

[RyanReedyMusic]

Because it's not.
I could write a book about purple unicorns today, and it would be just as real as the Bible. Would make my purple unicorns about as real as the Christian God, too. That was for the Bible.
As for the existence of the universe, how does it prove the existence of the Christian God?
And for Jesus Christ, there's no evidence that (if he existed at all) he wasn't a regular human being.
Simple, really.

Do you think its random that those who believe choose these particular things to be what they call evidence. Such as The Bible or Jesus?

 

[Log4Girlz]

Is there anything existing in the universe right now that you believe to be associated with a God or God himself?

Yes. The human imagination is very much associated with God. It was from whence he was birthed.

 

[RyanReedyMusic]

No, because I have no reason to suspect the existence of a god with which to associate anything.

Great answer. Finally someone who actually gives a solid answer. Thanks Count. \=/

 

[Ashes]

Are Mohammad and the Quran evidence of Islam? Or perhaps of a greater deity? To you, is Christianity and Islam the same?

I think one of the tests for being a Muslim, is the question: Do you believe in the testimony of Muhammed?

 

[RyanReedyMusic]

Yes. The human imagination is very much associated with God. It was from whence he was birthed.

Another great answer. Thanks Log \=/

So you believe its all in the minds of Christians and individuals like myself?

 

[Count Dookkake]

Great answer. Finally someone who actually gives a solid answer. Thanks Count. \=/

To be fair, I wish I had thought of Log4Girlz's retort.

So you believe its all in the minds of Christians and individuals like myself?

Not just you guys. Also all the believers of the thousands of religions that have ever existed.

 

[Orayn]

Do you think its random that those who believe choose these particular things to be what they call evidence. Such as The Bible or Jesus?

It's unsurprising. Accepting the Bible or your preacher's interpretation of it takes no critical thought at all and tends to offer simple, straightforward answers for things, while holding some of those same questions to scientific scrutiny leads one to solutions that might seems complicated and unsatisfying.

 

[RyanReedyMusic]

Have not most scientists on both sides of the spectrum agreed there was a big bang. One singular point at which the universe began?

 

[Augmented Batman]

I don't believe in any god nor any form of existence after death. That said if you could prove that there was a god I wouldn't deny it's existence but merely wouldn't care.
If by worshiping a god I could be guaranteed my continued existence after death I would do so but if I couldn't be sure of that then there would be no point.
Begging god to do anything with prayer seems incredibly stupid as if it's existed for even a few million years it likely doesn't give a fuck about anything and even if it did with the size of the universe I doubt it would bother with stopping famine on earth.
I would however try and very likely fail to somehow trick god into making me immortal somehow by arguing that there was no point in not letting me live for 20,000 years or something.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Great answer. Finally someone who actually gives a solid answer. Thanks Count. \=/

You cannot point to a claim as evidence to support to the original claim. You can't say "Hey, the bible is the word of god. My evidence to support this claim is the bible, if you turn to it, it states that it is the word of god".