Damn it, CB!
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Atheism vs Theism |OT|
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Damn it, CB!
Dude Abides
Banned
Again, you are mistaking weak evidence for not-evidence.
Classics are not generally standard in education curricula in the US, either in high school or university.
CornBurrito
Member
What?!
creationtheory
Member
I claim dragons exist therefore my word is (weak) evidence that dragons exist.
Dude Abides
Banned
If you said you saw one, yes it would be.
Your loss.
It's a good story, pretty much anyone that could read and write (using an alphabet) for the past 2500 years has learned it (up until recent it seems). Much of its character is even imbued in The Gospel of Mark (and Matt, Luke, John by extension) and other writings. Considered by many the quintessential Hero's Quest.
It was required reading in my Sophomore HS literature class, I guess that's less universal than I thought, or is no longer the case (I'm getting old).
Oh well I guess.
I saw 50.
creationtheory
Member
Dude, they are so real. Praise the dragon lord!
Necromanti
Member
It always confuses me when people use Roman accounts that describe Christians as evidence for the historicity of Jesus.
creationtheory
Member
It isn't confusing when you look at it this way: people are stupid.
CornBurrito
Member
I've definitely read it, because I recognize the part with "nobody." I just forget a lot of the details.
Earthstrike
Member
Or, perhaps this is evidence that someone saying something, doesn't make it so!
Philosophy fell by the wayside when educators decided to split sociology and psychology away from philosophy.
Now it's pretty much only for people who search it out and take it up as an interest or major.
Way more interested in philosophy of science, so I would say I am not missing out on anything
Thaedolus
Gold Member
A claim cannot be used as evidence for the authenticity of the claim.
Example: John Doe might claim dragons are real because he's seen them.
The claim that John saw dragons is not evidence of the authenticity of the claim. Evidence might be the fact that John has a photographs to confirm his claim, but the fact that John made the claim isn't a fact in support of the claim.
Evidence needs to be an accepted fact or truth. It is a fact that The Bible was written. It is a fact that The Bible makes many claims. These claims are not evidence for their own authenticity. That's basic logic people.
Example: John Doe might claim dragons are real because he's seen them.
The claim that John saw dragons is not evidence of the authenticity of the claim. Evidence might be the fact that John has a photographs to confirm his claim, but the fact that John made the claim isn't a fact in support of the claim.
Evidence needs to be an accepted fact or truth. It is a fact that The Bible was written. It is a fact that The Bible makes many claims. These claims are not evidence for their own authenticity. That's basic logic people.
If someone is living in the 21st century and clings to beliefs clearly refuted by logic, reason, and science, I don't really care what work they have done, they aren't an all-around intellectual.
Another thing...
I remember I took philosophy up at school...first thing we learned was Artistotles principle of contradictions. I like to believe it's one of the best decisions I've ever made.
The education system is too rigid nowadays. Getting kids to think about abstract concepts seems frowned upon. The correct answer is favoured over good reasoning.
Last year I was given the task of going to a local school and giving a lecture on promoting trade skills (Electrical, plumbing, carpentry etc) as the UK has a shortage and they wanted me as a plumber to plant this idea into the minds of these under 16 year olds.
Instead I just talked about the value of philosophy in promoting critical reasoning skills, cognitive ability, and emotional and social skills.
I don't know if anyone really listened but I enjoyed it.
I remember I took philosophy up at school...first thing we learned was Artistotles principle of contradictions. I like to believe it's one of the best decisions I've ever made.
The education system is too rigid nowadays. Getting kids to think about abstract concepts seems frowned upon. The correct answer is favoured over good reasoning.
Last year I was given the task of going to a local school and giving a lecture on promoting trade skills (Electrical, plumbing, carpentry etc) as the UK has a shortage and they wanted me as a plumber to plant this idea into the minds of these under 16 year olds.
Instead I just talked about the value of philosophy in promoting critical reasoning skills, cognitive ability, and emotional and social skills.
I don't know if anyone really listened but I enjoyed it.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Well yeah. Very very weak. So weak that for the sake of sanity it falls below the resolution of evidence we have to take seriously. There is a non-zero chance that at any moment all of the particles in my body will suddenly be on Mars, but its so small of a chance that I don't think about it, or any of the infinite number of other very low probability possibilities.
But there comes a point where it is safe to say none. The chances of your body teleporting to Mars is 0 practically speaking. For instance there is no god. To claim otherwise would be like claiming you will win the powerball lottery 5 times in a row. This is not an impossibility, but it doesn't somehow make it a non ridiculous claim.
creationtheory
Member
Thank you for getting my point.
If by 'safe' you mean 'accurate', then no.
If by 'safe' you mean 'wrong, but a level of wrongness I'm willing to accept' then kind of.
To claim that I will win the powerball lottery 5 times in a row is a ridiculous claim.
To claim that it is impossible to win the powerball lottery 5 times in a row is an equally ridiculous claim. Possibly more ridiculous, as though the chance is vanishingly small that I will win the powerball lottery 5 times in a row, it might happen. It will never be the case that it is impossible to win five times in a row.
And we're back to the point where we're discussing assigning probabilities to things purely on our own preconceptions about whether they're true.
Chaplain
Member
The Oxford Philosopher Ravi Zacharias is going to be at Princeton University tonight for a private event for students and faculty only. For those that are interested, Princeton University will be streaming this lecture live over the net beginning at 5pm PST, followed by questions and answers in an open forum setting.
Stream begins at 5pm PST: Live Stream link: Ravi Zacharias - Why I'm Not An Atheist
Stream begins at 5pm PST: Live Stream link: Ravi Zacharias - Why I'm Not An Atheist
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Ravi is super hardline about worldview construction. If you ask him a question, he will take you through an 8-step process of how he arrives at his view on the topic. Every time, he will have constructed the relevant portion of the Christian worldview for you. Yet every time, he will have completely ignored the worldview of the one who asked and the disagreements it has with the Christian worldview. Because of this, all he does is take a verrry roundabout way of dodging the point of the question and claiming that Christianity is right and justified because it believes it is right and justified.
Because he does this so quickly off the top of his head, most people are unable to catch the way he utterly missed the point of them asking what they did in the first place. They aren't sharp at picking out the half dozen ways he fell of the rails right away, so they usually have no objection to immediately speak out and he comes off seeming authoritative when all he was is confident in how to describe his own worldview. Even many intelligent people are bad at dealing with this sneakiness (Dawkins is straight awful at it), but I think Sam Harris is pretty sharp about it. I'd like to see them have a go at each other.
Because he does this so quickly off the top of his head, most people are unable to catch the way he utterly missed the point of them asking what they did in the first place. They aren't sharp at picking out the half dozen ways he fell of the rails right away, so they usually have no objection to immediately speak out and he comes off seeming authoritative when all he was is confident in how to describe his own worldview. Even many intelligent people are bad at dealing with this sneakiness (Dawkins is straight awful at it), but I think Sam Harris is pretty sharp about it. I'd like to see them have a go at each other.
Chaplain
Member
I would love to see this as well. But I do not think Ravi does debates. =[
I have to disagree here. It's incorrect to say that it's impossible, but it's not ridiculous. Technomancer put it well when he said that it essentially falls below the resolution of what we should take seriously. Humans can't hold probabilities that small in their heads. Which means if we try to envision that kind of probability, we end up basically rounding up to the smallest probability we can understand ("You're telling me there's a chance!").
So while saying there's zero chance is incorrect, for practical purposes it might be more accurate than saying that there is a chance, as far as what it'll get rounded off to in our heads.
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Yeah. To put it another way: If you played baseball with someone and threw a pitch only for them to watch it the whole way as it flew by them, walk over and pick it up, toss it in the air and hit it out of the park, you would be utterly stupefied as to what just happened. Ravi seems to enjoy doing that to laymen rather than establish credibility among people who know their shit.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
This Ravi guy sounds pretty crazy, but I guess he is a good debater:
Because it looks like a bunch of nonsense.
Because it looks like a bunch of nonsense.
Ugh.
I honestly think one's overall contributions to society are far, FAR important than want they express privately.
Do I know if John Carmack/Linus Torvalds/(my physics prof) believes in God? No. Does it matter one iota? No.
I am interested in the reasons an otherwise rational, intelligent person believes in a deity if that is information they would want to offer, but that is the extent of that interest.
Count Dookkake
Member
This Ravi guy sounds like quite a character. I wonder if he is a modern Marjoe.
lol.
The bolded handily sums up the whole charade.
lol.
The bolded handily sums up the whole charade.
Absolutely. But my feeling is that, even if someone single-handedly achieved the greatest feat ever known to man, I'd nevertheless be disappointed if that person believed in a God of the traditional sort. I can respect religious folks who accomplish things, but there's a level beyond or apart from that as well. Works backed by a proper understanding and method of attaining knowledge is surely ideal.
Chaplain
Member
Can I get some opinions on the following 10 minute video:
Human Evolution? - The Compelling Genetic & Fossil Evidence For Adam and Eve - Dr. Fazale Rana
Human Evolution? - The Compelling Genetic & Fossil Evidence For Adam and Eve - Dr. Fazale Rana
SquiddyCracker
Banned
Sounds like mitrochrondial eve:
and Y-chromosomal Adam, but that's where the analogy breaks down:
I think we've had a similar conversation before Cyan, in relation to religion A being true, and b to z being false.
The math is devalued because you can have one perfectly true statement, and devalue it, simply, by having an infinite number of fictional statements so that overall it has an infinitesimal small chance of being true by virtue of comparison.
Heck, I can make up a religion right now, and then add that to the pile. On balance it's unreasonable to say such statistics hold integrity when you can 'break it' so easily.
That 99.9% of all religions must be false holds true to a degree [perhaps arrived at by virtue of contradiction [e.g. religion a says one god, religion b says says 2 gods, both cannot be correct], but we need to understand the full scope of what it is that we are suggesting.
archnemesis
Member
The presentation is quite misleading and he's being intentionally vague.
• The recent human origin is about 200,000 years ago. Not the 6000-10000 you get from the Bible.
• A small population is strictly different from 2. He's right about Mitochondrial Eve though.
It's an interesting topic, but it's not evidence for Adam & Eve.
Edit: The second half about hominids is completely unscientific.
Edit 2: "15 Neanderthal specimens have yielded DNA" followed up by "displayed limited genetic diversity". No shit.
Edit 3: All organisms on Earth are connected and share a common ancestor. Claiming that there is "no genetic connection to modern humans" is nothing other than a lie.
I think everybody here would happily agree on that.
Well, sure. But there are a couple of things to consider here.
Firstly, if an event happened, then all other conflicting events cannot have happened. If I didn't win the lottery 5 times on a row on 5 tickets, then I can't have won the lottery 5 times in a row with those same tickets. Similarly, where events described by one religion conflict with events from the other religion, at best only one has the ability to be right and have happened (and could still be wrong). And again similarly, where accounts of events described in the Bible conflict with one another (such as the resurrection of Jesus), at best only one has the ability to be right and have happened (and could still be wrong).
Most religious accounts (and texts) are wrong in part or in whole then and could be dismissed if only we could "find the right one". And even then, the "right one" could still be wrong.
Secondly, if we are going to allow and hold valid infinitesimally small possibilities such as the Earth and Universe only being 6,000 years old because "all of science including biology, geology, chemistry, physics, and cosmology could be wrong" and "God and/or Satan has the power to obfuscate the Truth from mankind", then you are effectively saying "any claim is possible because fallible man and magic".
That is an impractical position that would reduce any discussion to nonsense, not to mention it reaches far outside any and all "official" religious doctrine I am aware of. "God moves in mysterious ways" is bad enough without the addition of "God put that dinosaur bone/geological layering/tree of life/tectonic system/radioactive decay/common ape ancestor/speed of light/expanding Universe/cosmic background radiation there to test us".
That post was more intended as a response to the 5 Powerball wins example. There are other considerations you have to take into account when looking at something like religion, where you can't just do math to easily find the obviously correct answer.
I will say, what you describe above isn't how I'd go about assigning probabilities to religions. There are an infinity of explanations for anything, and if you followed that process you'd never come to any conclusions. I posted a somewhat more thorough explanation a few pages back in this thread.
Yeah, I was harking back to an earlier post too - much earlier on in thread iirc. Are you referring to your more recent post about inductive inference? Are you familiar with the problem of induction?
Of course! I actually wrote a lengthy explanation of my take on the problem of induction a while back, but I don't think I ever posted it. I'll see if I can track it down.
It always comes back to that, and I still can't grasp why people think it's a problem. The sane default is to accept that such things are neither proven nor disproven, but that while there's no evidence for them they can be ignored as possibilities. Just because you know that certain expressions of some of these religious beliefs are impossible to disprove isn't a reason to give them credence. Nor is it a reason, however, to give up on logic and claim that this means they can be counted as disproven.
We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. To my mind it's ridiculous, because there demonstrably is a chance. We can prove by simple examples that it's possible. We know that it's unlikely. We can calculate how unlikely. To claim that something's impossible when it very clearly is possible, no matter how unlikely, is lazy thinking and leads to all manner of wrongness.
Let's stick with the example of the Powerball win. If we accept that it's impossible to win it five times in a row, we can extrapolate this back to a proof that it's impossible to correctly call a coin toss.
Isn't that a bit like arguing that "no, the Earth isn't a sphere!" though? Technically, sure, you'd be correct: it's not a perfect sphere. But surely, you can see why someone would say that, right? And how that person really isn't all that wrong?
Just like you can't expect someone to describe the Earth's exact shape in a sentence, you can't expect someone to always seriously consider every tiny bit of evidence for anything, no matter how ridiculously weak (and "there's this old book that says something about it! oh, and other ancient texts that make somewhat similar yet contradictory claims, and then science looked into it and it wasn't pretty either, but still!" when it comes to the existence of a supernatural being is oh-so-ridiculously-weak). That's just unreasonable.
You want to point out that the possibility is technically there? Fine: you're right. Point made. Best thing to do now that we've been over this would be to not dwell though, as there is absolutely nothing else to see, there.
If a person were to state they will not win the powerbal lottery 5 times in a row, I would not call their rationale lazy thinking. Regardless of the hard numbers, I consider the answer no just as valid and actually more reasonable than "maybe" or "I cannot know, since there is a miniscule chance that you can". The numbers are so unfathomably small that no is just as valid and practical than "maybe" or "I cannot know". This line of reasoning extends to imagined characters like Superman, leprechauns, unicorns and god...who's actual existence is beyond our material ability to verify and thus can be discounted as conceivably existing.
It's a problem because once one side takes the position that "anything is possible" then there is no more meaningful discussion to be had.
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Ravi so far through morals:
-Demonizing with ambiguous poems
-Acting like a handful of historical correlations show causation
-Quoting half of an answer Dawkins gave it dodge the challenge it gave to you
-Acting like the lack of easy answers means a framework has no answers
-Using the Nazis to say atheism will lead to moral bankruptcy
-Quoting a song that ignores history to act like we recently fell from a lack of evil
The whole time raising his voice through his weakest points to try and make them sound more convincing. Typical charlatan. Moving rapidly from point to point on the note of a question each time to make it seem like no one has ever given answers to those questions.
Now he is moving on to meaning of life and I'm getting bored.
BY THE BEARD OF ZEUS he's defending and praising Mother Teresa. After a story spun to glorify her he quoted the title of Christopher Hitchens' book to call it vulgar (as a representation of atheism on the whole) and said that is all Hitchens had to say... Uh, really? All the pages of that book were blank? You are literally judging a book by its cover? Intellectually bankrupt. This is a sermon.
Edit: He has truly gone off the rails. He was always a fan of drawing emotional conclusions from limited data, but I don't remember him having a habit of falsely characterizing people's positions for a few toss-in strawmen, some to beat up and some to stand next to him as allies. I can only conclude that this is because he feels unable to take on their actual positions. Whatever his reasons, it is insulting to the people he references, those listening to him, and the academic institution who brought him on to say something meaningful.
-Demonizing with ambiguous poems
-Acting like a handful of historical correlations show causation
-Quoting half of an answer Dawkins gave it dodge the challenge it gave to you
-Acting like the lack of easy answers means a framework has no answers
-Using the Nazis to say atheism will lead to moral bankruptcy
-Quoting a song that ignores history to act like we recently fell from a lack of evil
The whole time raising his voice through his weakest points to try and make them sound more convincing. Typical charlatan. Moving rapidly from point to point on the note of a question each time to make it seem like no one has ever given answers to those questions.
Now he is moving on to meaning of life and I'm getting bored.
BY THE BEARD OF ZEUS he's defending and praising Mother Teresa. After a story spun to glorify her he quoted the title of Christopher Hitchens' book to call it vulgar (as a representation of atheism on the whole) and said that is all Hitchens had to say... Uh, really? All the pages of that book were blank? You are literally judging a book by its cover? Intellectually bankrupt. This is a sermon.
Edit: He has truly gone off the rails. He was always a fan of drawing emotional conclusions from limited data, but I don't remember him having a habit of falsely characterizing people's positions for a few toss-in strawmen, some to beat up and some to stand next to him as allies. I can only conclude that this is because he feels unable to take on their actual positions. Whatever his reasons, it is insulting to the people he references, those listening to him, and the academic institution who brought him on to say something meaningful.
I think what you mean is that once one side takes the position that "logic can be ignored where it is inconvenient for me to follow it through to its conclusions" there is no more meaningful discussion to be had.
Nor would I. You seem to be completely missing the distinction between making a prediction that they won't, and making a claim that it's impossible. One is good common sense, one is irrational.
The issue here is that for day to day life we can ignore these possibilities. When you decide whether to buy a Cadbury's creme egg, I don't expect you to bear in mind that HAMTOMET the great Purple Hamster (may his cheek pouches ever be full) has declared them anathema to all those who post on Gaming Age. I certainly don't plan on living my life by the capricious whims of a hamster deity I just invented. I can't prove one way or the other whether HAMTOMET (may his cheek pouches ever be full) exists. He's carefully constructed to be immune to proof of this nature.
But if I want to be on the side of the rational, then I have to be rational. Can I prove definitively that HAMTOMET (may his cheek pouches ever be full) does not exist? No. It's that simple.
Should I go through my life working on the assumption that he doesn't exist? Well, yes. Should I ignore his teachings on creme eggs and show utter disregard for the fullness of his cheek pouches? Well, yes.
When the question is specifically about whether he exists, should I continue making this approximation and extend it to say that he does not exist? No. For the same reason that while I can say I almost certainly won't win the lottery five times in a row I can't say it's impossible; because I am on the side of the rational and I know that it could happen. I know that the odds (for my local national lottery) are one in 5.35*10^35. I also know that things with those odds do happen. What are the odds that the last five lottery draws gave the numbers they did? Why, they're 5.35*10^35 - the same as the odds of me winning the next five with any arbitrary set of numbers I choose. And the five before that? Equally staggeringly unlikely. And whether I win the next five or not (I can state fairly categorically that I won't, for the simple fact that I'm not going to be buying tickets) whatever set of numbers are drawn will have been exactly as likely as the numbers I would have chosen.
I choose to be a rational person rather than an irrational one. In order to say that I know something to be the case, I would like to actually know that it's the case. In order to lend credence to a hypothesis or a set of beliefs, I would like to have evidence for it. That's why it's stunningly obvious to me that rationality leaves you inherently in a state of agnosticism and weak atheism (with the strength of the atheism depending on the exact nature of the God we're dealing in - where the definition provides no protection from evidence and the evidence doesn't stand up, the atheism can be stronger, but for many forms of the Christian god and HAMTOMET (may his cheek pouches ever be full) it has to be weak).
It also seems stunningly obvious to me that anyone who claims to be on the side of the rational and superior to those credulous faith-mongers and their made-up gods but chooses to make (often knowingly) irrational jumps to support their view is a hypocrite.
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
So by virtue of taking every single statement ever as literally as you possibly can, you simply never say that anything is definitely nonexistent? Seeing as how you could make up billions of potential deities that could have meta-rules and special-case physics for everything, would you also then never say something is untrue? If the Christian God exists that means a being can be 3 and 1 at the same time. If that is possible then anything could be possible. Are you simply going to answer "Well most-likely no, but I am more convinced of this possibility" for everything in life just to have complete integrity between the most literal interpretation of your words and your absolute knowledge?
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