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BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2012 11:56 pm Post subject: 761

Elethiomel wrote:

The right question to ask is: Do we need to suppose anything more in order to explain what we can observe? As for measurements... this is not a question that is unapproachable by empirical science, even if the answer is not fully understood yet.

Life after death seems to be a major selling point for most if not all religions, and that does kind of hinge on human consciousness being somehow decoupled from the biological brain.

But my question meant, do we even need to posit the idea of human consciousness itself in order to explain what we can observe in humans? It seems like we can explain how the entire body works without the need for the idea of human consciousness.
_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 12:03 am Post subject: 762

Thok wrote:

Even if everything you feel or do can be entirely reduced to chemicals and nerve cells reacting, why isn't it important what you feel? Those other bundles of chemicals and nerve cells in your life seem to care about that.

No, no, no, let me explain. It looked like you were dismissing my feelings of God making sense as "just the chemicals and nerve cells reacting" and then asking what I really feel as if 1)that wasn't really how I feel and 2)however I really feel is somehow not "just the chemicals and nerve cells reacting". I was asking why my feelings were important to the discussion, not important in general. I was very confused, and still am, by your question and the context you posed it in.

Thok wrote:

can you realistically separate the chemicals and nerve cells from everything else?

I guess it depends on the platform of discussion.

Thok wrote:

Does it matter whether your behavior comes from science or something else

Not to this discussion, it doesn't. All the matters is what can and can't be put on a probability scale. That's the central issue.
_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

Thok
Oh, foe, the cursed teeth!

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 12:44 am Post subject: 763

BraveHat wrote:

I was very confused, and still am, by your question and the context you posed it in.

Good.

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 12:59 am Post subject: 764

Jack_Ian wrote:

I can appreciate a theistic argument that goes something along these lines.

Creation comes with an inherent bias, ordained by the creator, such that life is inevitable and that there is an inexorable drive towards some epiphany.
This "ghost in the machine", drives the evolution of intelligent creatures and instils a desire to seek something beyond the physical.
I can even perceive of such a creator tweaking his creation in order to reach its final conclusion.

Under such conditions, many religions would emerge. None correct, but each improving over eons until the eventual perfect one evolves and the final epiphany is revealed.

I can appreciate that, too. Unfortunately, it's an explanation and not an argument, so my original conviction still stands that there are no sound pro-theist arguments (i.e. a series of premises that lead to the conclusion of a god's existence).

Jack_Ian wrote:

That being said, I think its much more likely that religion is just the mind's way of dealing with the trauma of realising how much of our environment is out of our control.
For early metaphysical thinking beings, looking into the abyss must have been extremely traumatic. The mind is good at filling in the blanks. That's why eye-witness testimony is so unreliable. Inventing some force that encompasses the abyss in some comprehensible way would be the obvious result.

I don't deny that circumstances create the need to believe certain things, and that that is part of human nature. I just think it's equally likely that the need exists because of a god as the god exists because of the need. In fact, I don't deny that the entire universe and all it's laws, mechanisms and history can be explained without reference to a god or gods. I just think that it's equally likely that an explanation with a god or gods is true.

Jack_Ian wrote:

Even now. People cling onto religion for comfort. It lets people "know" that good deeds will be rewarded and that bad deeds will be punished. It allows people to let go of any angst they might have regarding their own mortality. It places a balance and order on the world that is far easier to comprehend than the chaos that is otherwise apparent.

It can also place a worse kind of angst on people by introducing the idea of eternal suffering. This kind of angst far exceeds any possible angst about mortality.

The emotional utility of religion neither advances nor discredits it's truth claims.

Jack_Ian wrote:

Children have imaginary friends that provide comfort. People suffering an intense mental trauma become deluded, inventing false memories, experiencing amnesia or even creating completely new personalities in order to cope. Isn't it then obvious then, that creating a god is the inevitable result of coming to terms with our own existence and its fleeting nature?

No, it's not obvious. The only reason that we commonly believe a child's friend is imaginary is because we start from the premise that angels and spirits don't communicate with people. So that's where we end up. Curiously, even people who believe that angels and spirits exist and that they were constantly communicating with people during Biblical times, rarely ever believe their child's imaginary friend can be one. As for the rest, the trumpet is not the cause of the king's arrival but always proceeds it. We start from the premise that the trauma is the cause of the delusions, false memories, new personalites, etc rather than a coinciding event and that's where we end up. But it's just as likely that the traumas are like trumpets, serving a purpose in the events, without being the primary cause of them.

Jack_Ian wrote:

Given what I have learned over the years about human nature and the workings of the universe, believing in God just seems like the less logical decision. You might argue that believing in God is not supposed to be a logical choice, but can we really trust our "spirit guide" given that many come to different and opposing conclusions after much devout meditation upon the matter?

The reason I don't see how believing is God is less logical then believing there is no God, is because neither is logical at all to my mind. The only logical decision is to suspend judgement on the matter. As far as what to trust, it depends on where your hopes lie. If you're hoping to find happiness and fulfillment, your intellect and reason can lead you just as much astray as your "spirit guide", or whatever you consider that to be. Your reason can only get you from point A to point B. It can't help you figure whether point B is going grant you happiness, fulfillment, all that spiritual stuff.
_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 1:01 am Post subject: 765

Thok wrote:

I wrote:

I was very confused, and still am, by your question and the context you posed it in.

Good.

Is that a spiteful comment, or am I missing something?
_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

Jack_Ian
Big Endian

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 1:09 am Post subject: 766

Ever heard of the "God Helmet"? Would you want to try it? If you experience the presence of God after the helmet induced specific pattern in your brain, would it change your opinion about God at all?

Zag
Tired of his old title

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 1:46 am Post subject: 767

People have "experienced the presence of God" after taking LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs, too. It doesn't mean that it was anything more than a hallucination. Creating hallucinations with magnetic fields instead of with drugs doesn't make them any less hallucinatory.

Thok
Oh, foe, the cursed teeth!

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 2:00 am Post subject: 768

BraveHat wrote:

Is that a spiteful comment, or am I missing something?

You recognize that you don't understand a comment and are trying to puzzle it out. I'm hopeful for any sort of thoughts that might come from that process.

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 2:07 am Post subject: 769

BraveHat wrote:

Chuck wrote:

The reasons for believing in them have disappeard, like with rain gods and volcano gods. Shouldn't we reject a god that makes it rain when when other causes are observed to cause rain?

Why? Should I reject the idea that your consciousness exists because everything your body does can be explained by bio-chemical processes?

Elethiomel wrote:

You should probably reject the idea that human consciousness is the result of something other than biochemical processes, yes. Not sure if that is what you're asking, though.

The point is that consciousness, in one important sense of the word (the sense used here), is something that can't be inferred to exist from observation of all the body does, which can be explained by bio-chemical process.

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 2:17 am Post subject: 770

Jack_Ian wrote:

Ever heard of the "God Helmet"?
Would you want to try it?

I would love to try something like that! (hopefully, there'd be no permanent damage to my brain). Have you?

Jack_Ian wrote:

If you experience the presence of God after the helmet induced specific pattern in your brain, would it change your opinion about God at all?

I guess I wouldn't know until it happened. As of now, I don't see how it could, considering that I don't think the experience of God's presence can weigh toward the likelihood of Him existing. I think it can incite certainty and belief, just not objective probability.
_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 2:25 am Post subject: 771

Zag wrote:

People have "experienced the presence of God" after taking LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs, too. It doesn't mean that it was anything more than a hallucination. Creating hallucinations with magnetic fields instead of with drugs doesn't make them any less hallucinatory.

True. It also doesn't mean they didn't actually experience the presence of God, either. It doesn't mean the drugs or the God helmet were the cause of these feelings, or conversely, that if they were, the feelings were the same as the feelings of actually being in God's presence. Add to that the unreliability of human testimony (people might have claimed to be in God's presence because they want to believe that or because they don't know what actually being in God's presence is like), and one really can't make reasonable conclusions about a god's existence. Any explanation is possible, because of the mysterious nature that's part of the definition. That's my only point.
_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 2:27 am Post subject: 772

Thok wrote:

You recognize that you don't understand a comment and are trying to puzzle it out. I'm hopeful for any sort of thoughts that might come from that process.

I don't like disappointing people, but I'm honestly apt to dismiss it rather than keeping puzzling over it as long as I have no clue what you're talking about.
_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

Chuck
Daedalian Member

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 3:04 am Post subject: 773

BraveHat wrote:

Chuck wrote:

If ten different people claim a different one true god then at most one can be correct. They might all be wrong. If I know nothing of the gods myself, shouldn't I suspect that person #1 is wrong when he tells me about his god since I know that at least 90% of the people claiming a one true god are wrong?

No. Since you know nothing of the gods, you don't know whether or not the god of person #1 is on an even probability scale with the others.

For example, if I roll a die, it's unlikely that 3 will come up. But if someone else rolls a die and tells me quite confidently that a 3 will come up, immediately I'm thinking there may be other factors involved that would render my even-distribution scale ineffective. There might be a magnet in the die or he might have a remote control for it or there might be some kind of marking on the die that will react with where ever he rolls it to turn up the 3 or maybe all the non-3 number wash off easily to reveal a three and he dowses the die with the wash or some crazy trick like that. Or maybe he's just very skilled at tossing the die in such a way that he can get the number he wants to come up. The possibilities are infinite. Or he may just be using the same scale as I am and hoping to get lucky, rather than look ridiculous. In any case, that fact that he's appears confident the 3 will come up gives me reason to suspect my scale of probability may not be useful.

Likewise, if you pick any one of those believers, and have no idea what the basis of their confidence is, you can't know what scale of probability to use, and I don't see how there could even be one.

Since I know nothing about the probabilities for each one true god belief being correct, I can roll a ten sided die to determine which person to ask. That gives me at best a 10% chance of being told that a real god exists. I don't need to know the individual probabilities. It doesn't matter what they are.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I think the chipmunk gods are as serious a claim as the Christian god. People wrote about the Christian god. I wrote about the chipmunk gods. The people who wrote about the Christian god might have been inspired by him. I don't know. I might have been inspired by chipmunk god #4. I don't know. I'm not seeing much of a difference between the two god theories. The chipmunk god theory might even be more likely since it doesn't rule out other gods. I suspect both have just been made up but can't prove either is untrue.

Because of the context in which you wrote about the chipmunk gods, there's nothing to reasonably give me the impression that you or anyone else actually believe in the chipmunk gods. That's what I meant by "serious."

No one who claims that a god exists gives me the impression that he actually knows. Doesn't the same principle apply? If someone tells me something I think knowledge is more important that belief.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

No. The religious activity we have observed throughout history can just as easily be attributed to a people trying (and failing) to deal with real gods, as it could be to people making up and abandoning said gods. Why is the latter more likely than the former?

No real gods have ever been found. All we see are abandoned gods and a few that people still cling to that haven't been found.

As I wrote above, that's just one way of looking at it, no more likely than the other way.

With no results to show, there's no reason to believe they're moving toward a real god instead of away from one, or that their efforts even matter. Is there any reason to believe that they're moving in the direction of a real god?

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

There doesn't appear to be any progress toward real gods Gains in knowledge seem to move away from them

And what gives the impression that gains in knowledge are moving away from them?

We can see that few if any people still pray to rain gods and volcano gods in favor of nonintentional explanations.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

Chuck wrote:

Aren't at least most gods made up?

Not of necessity.

Then how do we know about them?

I don't follow your question. Gods aren't necessarily made up, therefore there's no way to know about them?

If a god that never existed is known to us, how do we know about it if no one made it up? Weren't all the gods you don't believe in made up?

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

Where am I saying only one is real?

Most people seem to believe only in their own gods. Do you believe in a great many?

I only believe in one. But that doesn't mean, objectively, that others aren't real, or that the one I believe in is real. I don't see how my beliefs about God are even relevant to this conversation.

Chuck wrote:

The reasons for believing in them have disappeard, like with rain gods and volcano gods. Shouldn't we reject a god that makes it rain when when other causes are observed to cause rain?

Why? Should I reject the idea that your consciousness exists because everything your body does can be explained by bio-chemical processes?

You can detect your consciousness so a conscious person is the kind of thing that can exist, and when there's one of something there are often more. We don't know that any such thing as a god can exist.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

Should we keep saying "maybe, maybe not" to the idea that a chariot hauls the sun across the sky?

A physical chariot, no. That has measurable attributes which can be detected. If the chariot is metaphorical, yes.

We might not have detected it yet. The sun is kind of bright. It's hard to see things near it. Doesn't that make it a "maybe, maybe not" proposition just like the existence of a god?

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

Chuck wrote:

Why do worshipers make a god more real?

They don't. They give occasion to consider a god's existence.

OK, I've considered it and see no reason to believe it.

Hence, "maybe not"

Just like I don't believe there's a colony of highly intelligent spiders in each of our major cities plotting our destruction and using mind control machines to make us forget them after we see them. Same kind of "maybe not.".

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

Since there seems to be no reasonable way to tell. is it rational for people to pretend to know with 100% certainty that their own gods exist and that they know exactly what their own gods want of them? Or are most religious people of the world irrational?

Here's just my take on it. Everyone is partly rational and partly irrational. I think most of what really drives us in life is not susceptible to rational consideration. Nonreligious people are no different than religious people in this respect. The only difference, I think, is that religious people don't rely as heavily on their rationality to make big decisions. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Our intellect can often get in the way of vital emotional needs.

The child whose parents are praying for her cancer to go away instead of getting medical treatment might disagree, unless sufficient brainwashing has been done.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

Does tne "maybe, maybe not" rule apply to things other than gods?

It's generally the only real world application of it. I've never heard of someone claiming any of the following....

I just proposed them. They might all be true. How would anyone know?

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

If someone proposes that there's an inivisble bigfoot at every intersection and it steps aside so cars and people can pass, is the best answer "maybe, maybe not"? Is Harry Potter and his whole magical society actually real? Is the answer "maybe, maybe not"? Do all parents molest all of their children and most of us mentally block it out? Maybe, maybe not? Is nothing ridiculous enough just to be ruled out due to lack of evidence that it's true?

Not on the strength of lack of evidence alone, no. But all those examples you gave are not anything I've been presented with a serious belief. So there's no reason to respond to them with "maybe, maybe not". If someone really believes any or all of them, then unkown factors are now implied, and yes the only reasonable response, unless there is evidence against it, is "maybe, maybe not".

So would one believer mean we should all start taking these things seriously? I don't see how convincing someone of something that I or someone else made up means it should be taken more seriously. People believe things that aren't true. Some lose a lot of money that way. How about if some people are making money by promoting a belief that they can't show is true? Would that push it toward "probably no"?

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I think gods are as likely to exist as the Harry Potter world. I can't disprove either but I'd be very surpised if any gods or wizards turned out to be real. I don't know if that makes me a strong atheist. Some definitions of strong atheists insist on 100% certainty that there are no gods and I can't claim that. I probably come pretty close, though.

I don't think there is anyone who fits that definition. Even Richard Dawkins doesn't claim 100% certainty. Maybe Victor Stenger?

I debated people on YouTube for a couple of years. I've seen all sorts of defintion claims.

Quote:

I just don't see how, given that at least one person believes sincerely in the existence of a god, and that there is no evidence against the god's existence, that there can be any sound reasonable response other than "maybe, maybe not".

How about "Maybe but not worth considering due to lack of anything known to be real to think about."?

Elethiomel
Daedalian Member

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 5:01 pm Post subject: 774

extropalopakettle wrote:

BraveHat wrote:

Chuck wrote:

The reasons for believing in them have disappeard, like with rain gods and volcano gods. Shouldn't we reject a god that makes it rain when when other causes are observed to cause rain?

Why? Should I reject the idea that your consciousness exists because everything your body does can be explained by bio-chemical processes?

Elethiomel wrote:

You should probably reject the idea that human consciousness is the result of something other than biochemical processes, yes. Not sure if that is what you're asking, though.

Which sense of the word is that?

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 12:15 am Post subject: 775

Chuck wrote:

That's absolutely true, but I think it's fairly clear that it hardly translates to there being at best a 10% chance that a real god exists. Suppose one of the people instead says a god doesn't exist. Obviously, you'd have a 10% chance of being told a god doesn't exist, but that doesn't mean there is at best a 10% chance that a god doesn't exist.

Chuck wrote:

No one who claims that a god exists gives me the impression that he actually knows. Doesn't the same principle apply? If someone tells me something I think knowledge is more important that belief.

If someone gives me the impression that they really believe something, then, as a fellow human, the only respectful response for me to have is to consider it possible unless or until some evidence against it is brought forth. Otherwise, I'm just baselessly raising myself above that other person. If someone gives me the impression that they don't really believe it, then there's no occasion to consider it. That's really the only point behind the significance of someone believing something.

In terms of pure logic, yes, your chipmunk god is just as likely as any other god or no god existing. Which is only to say,there's no scale of likelihood to weigh it on.

The reasoning is really very basic:

Belief A:
Evidence for? Yes
Evidence against? No
Conclusion: "Probably true"

Belief B:
Evidence for? No
Evidence against? No
Conclusion:"Maybe true, maybe false"

Belief C:
Evidence for? No
Evidence against? Yes
Conclusion: "Probably false"

belief in a god is of the B type, therefore "maybe true, maybe false"

How does no evidence for and no evidence against automatically lead to "probably false"??

Chuck wrote:

There doesn't seem to be, no.

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

And what gives the impression that gains in knowledge are moving away from them?

We can see that few if any people still pray to rain gods and volcano gods in favor of nonintentional explanations.

Most gods are described as supernatural entities influencing the natural world in ways humans can't fathom. So if one or more existed, wouldn't we expect humans to welcome explanations that can actually give them some control over the universe, after being helpless for so long? That's a perfectly reasonable explanation on the theist side of the argument for people moving away from a god in favor of science. How is that scenario less likely than the scenario that they're moving away because gods don't exist?

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

Chuck wrote:

Aren't at least most gods made up?

Not of necessity.

Then how do we know about them?

I don't follow your question. Gods aren't necessarily made up, therefore there's no way to know about them?

If a god that never existed is known to us, how do we know about it if no one made it up? Weren't all the gods you don't believe in made up?

If most gods absolutely contradict most other gods, such that most of them couldn't exist if any of most of the others did, then yes, most gods would be invented. (And incidentally, this wouldn't mean that all the gods I don't believe in are inventions. It could be the case that I believe in an invention god)

However, that's really the only condition. It doesn't seem to me that most gods are, of necessity, mutually exclusive of one another. They could very well be different version of the same god, for example. I discussed that concept more in this thread: http://www.greylabyrinth.com/discussion/viewtopic.php?t=13879&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=monotheism&start=0

Chuck wrote:

Correct. If we knew whether it could or could not exist, or even whether it was likely or unlikely to exist, then we could reasonably say "probably not" or "no". But because we don't (and can't) know, it's not reasonable to say that.

Chuck wrote:

In terms of pure logic, I agree.

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

The child whose parents are praying for her cancer to go away instead of getting medical treatment might disagree, unless sufficient brainwashing has been done.

So what? An artist-at-heart child who never had the courage to stand up to her parents and quit medical school, becoming an apathetic doctor who lost her practice and got sued after botching up a major operation might agree. Neither example makes it untrue.

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

Chuck wrote:

Does tne "maybe, maybe not" rule apply to things other than gods?

It's generally the only real world application of it. I've never heard of someone claiming any of the following...

I just proposed them. They might all be true. How would anyone know?

I'm not saying anyone would. I'm just saying that in most non-hypothetical cases, the conversation requiring acceptance, rejection or suspension of judgement of a belief is typically about gods.

Chuck wrote:

So would one believer mean we should all start taking these things seriously?

No, it means we should suspend judgement until evidence weighs for or against it. That's all. Nothing serious about that, except the respect one shows for the believer.

Chuck wrote:

I don't see how convincing someone of something that I or someone else made up means it should be taken more seriously.

If I didn't know you weren't sincere in your beliefs, I would as a fellow human being want to respect your beliefs. And I would see no reason not to if nothing weighed against them.

Chuck wrote:

People believe things that aren't true. Some lose a lot of money that way. How about if some people are making money by promoting a belief that they can't show is true? Would that push it toward "probably no"?

No. What someone is doing with their belief has no bearing on the probability of it's truth value. It may push me toward speaking out against accepting it as true, however. There is no chance my money would go toward this person's cause, unless I believed in something about what they were saying. I don't have to label it as bullshit in order to avoid being suckered. That would just be inventing a conclusion for protection, for I have no actual way of gaging it's truth value.

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

I don't think there is anyone who fits that definition. Even Richard Dawkins doesn't claim 100% certainty. Maybe Victor Stenger?

I debated people on YouTube for a couple of years. I've seen all sorts of defintion claims.

I've gleaned the definition from several sources, but the closest one to official would have to be wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism

Chuck wrote:

How about "Maybe but not worth considering due to lack of anything known to be real to think about."?

mmmmm, "maybe, maybe not" takes up much less of my time.
_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

Jedo the Jedi
Paragon in Training

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 12:59 am Post subject: 776

Bravehat wrote:

Chuck wrote:

How about "Maybe but not worth considering due to lack of anything known to be real to think about."?

mmmmm, "maybe, maybe not" takes up much less of my time.

Though this argument certainly doesn't.[/troll]
_________________
Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 1:10 am Post subject: 777

I wrote:

I'd just like to announce that I have nothing left to argue about with atheists...

"nothing" is a loose term
_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

Chuck
Daedalian Member

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 4:20 pm Post subject: 778

BraveHat wrote:

Chuck wrote:

It doesn't really say anything about the probability of any god existing at all but it show that at least nine of them believe something that's not true. This makes them unrealiable as sources of information.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

No one who claims that a god exists gives me the impression that he actually knows. Doesn't the same principle apply? If someone tells me something I think knowledge is more important that belief.

It would also depend on why he believes it. If he doesn't give a reason or was told about it by someone who just made it up then I have no more reason to believe it than I have to believe in the chipmunk gods that I made up. It doesn't matter that he believes it. I can show respect of his belief by not calling it ridiculous, but that doesn't mean I should really give it anything better than the same chance as the chipmunk gods of being true.

Quote:

The reasoning is really very basic:

Belief A:
Evidence for? Yes
Evidence against? No
Conclusion: "Probably true"

Belief B:
Evidence for? No
Evidence against? No
Conclusion:"Maybe true, maybe false"

Belief C:
Evidence for? No
Evidence against? Yes
Conclusion: "Probably false"

belief in a god is of the B type, therefore "maybe true, maybe false"

How does no evidence for and no evidence against automatically lead to "probably false"??

If Belief B were a theory of who dropped a quarter on my sidewalk last night and there is no evidence for or against it having been that partcular person, wouldn't that make Belief B probably not true?

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

There doesn't seem to be, no.

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

And what gives the impression that gains in knowledge are moving away from them?

We can see that few if any people still pray to rain gods and volcano gods in favor of nonintentional explanations.

Just the opposite seems to be true. People reluctantly abandon their gods. They still cling to them even today.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

Chuck wrote:

Aren't at least most gods made up?

Not of necessity.

Then how do we know about them?

I don't follow your question. Gods aren't necessarily made up, therefore there's no way to know about them?

If a god that never existed is known to us, how do we know about it if no one made it up? Weren't all the gods you don't believe in made up?

We could also say there's only one game and that chess, Monopoly, and baseball are just versions of it. But a lot of inventing still went on. Labeling them as different versions of one thing doesn't change that for games or gods. I wouldn't know about Zeus if no one made him up or he told us about himself.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

SInce we don't know that such as a thing as a god can exist, we should say maybe it can, maybe it can't. Then, only if it can exist, we can say maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. So it's already less likely than other conscious human beings which we already know can exist.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

In terms of pure logic, I agree.

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

The child whose parents are praying for her cancer to go away instead of getting medical treatment might disagree, unless sufficient brainwashing has been done.

The artist child has a say in the matter by college age. The child with cancer whose parents have the right to decide on medical treatment doesn't.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

Chuck wrote:

Does tne "maybe, maybe not" rule apply to things other than gods?

It's generally the only real world application of it. I've never heard of someone claiming any of the following...

I just proposed them. They might all be true. How would anyone know?

I'm not saying anyone would. I'm just saying that in most non-hypothetical cases, the conversation requiring acceptance, rejection or suspension of judgement of a belief is typically about gods.

Most people would probably reject the chipmunk gods. Would it be better to suspend judgement instead?

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

So would one believer mean we should all start taking these things seriously?

No, it means we should suspend judgement until evidence weighs for or against it. That's all. Nothing serious about that, except the respect one shows for the believer.

If no evidence is expected for or against some idea, should we suspend judgement indefinitely? If someone says God wants a city's water supply to be poisoned, should we suspend judgement while he does it because we have no evidence for or against the proposition?

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I don't see how convincing someone of something that I or someone else made up means it should be taken more seriously.

If I didn't know you weren't sincere in your beliefs, I would as a fellow human being want to respect your beliefs. And I would see no reason not to if nothing weighed against them.

What if you know someone's belief about something is wrong but can't demonstrate it to him, such as an event you witnessed. Should you still respect his belief? What if he's going to harm someone else based on that belief?

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

It seems like you'd be acting as though "maybe, maybe not" were really "probably not" in that case.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

I don't think there is anyone who fits that definition. Even Richard Dawkins doesn't claim 100% certainty. Maybe Victor Stenger?

I debated people on YouTube for a couple of years. I've seen all sorts of defintion claims.

I've gleaned the definition from several sources, but the closest one to official would have to be wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism

As a defintion for atheist, I like "Someone who is not a theist." That seems simple and doesn't make any assumptions that might not be true.

Chuck wrote:

How about "Maybe but not worth considering due to lack of anything known to be real to think about."?

Quote:

mmmmm, "maybe, maybe not" takes up much less of my time.

But it seems more accurate. Even if "maybe, maybe not" were the appropriate response to the chipmunk gods, people would probably not be rounding their chipmunks just in case. They'd act as though it were "maybe, probably not." In spite of no evidence one way or the other, they'd see that it was ridiculous.

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2012 1:48 am Post subject: 779

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

Chuck wrote:

Keeping with assuming that each person's description of the god(s) completely contradicts the other 9 descriptions so that at best only 1 description could be true (which I don't believe is generally true amongst people of different faiths, but that's another debate), it still only shows that they are unreliable as sources of the god(s) descriptions. It does not show that any one of them believe a proposition which in and of itself is unlikely to be true, nor does it show, and this is the important point, that the god or god(s) they are claiming to describe correctly (though at least 9 of them would have to be unlikely to be describing correctly) are unlikely to exist in any form, which is the position of a strong atheist.

Chuck wrote:

Logically speaking, you're right. The fact that he believes it does not increase the likelihood that's it true. And in both your case, and the case of the true chipmunk god believer, it is neither likely nor unlikely to be true. It's just some mysterious idea.

Practically speaking, people rarely base the credit they give on likelihood alone but, usually, on how useful the credit will be. If I'm about to leave my apartment when a neighbor calls and tells me there's a man walking around with a gun in the hallway, I will automatically give his claim enough credit to refrain from leaving that very second, as I was going to do. If he tells me instead that there's a man walking around with a gun somewhere in Missouri, there's no practical need for me to give it any credit or discredit. Same with the chipmunk gods. If someone seems to have confidence that chipmunk gods exist, I'll give it enough credit so that I can respect his or her confidence, but if someone does not apparently have any confidence in that idea, I have no practical need to credit or discredit it.

I think the underlying thesis behind my post is that the discredit of the proposition that at least one god exists cannot be based on logic (and neither can the credit of it) and so there must be some other motivation. However unlike theism, which does not require the discredit of other people's intangible beliefs (contrary to popular opinion), strong atheism does, and the motivations for that are suspicious to me. It is specifically the fact that god beliefs are abstract, nebulous and unable to be fully explicated which makes concluding that they are probably false inexplicable. Concluding that they are dangerous and impractical is explicable. Concluding that it would be much more practical to just say they're false is explicable. Concluding that they are probably false, is inexplicable.

I think what primarily justifies strong atheism is it's ability to make things simpler.

Chuck wrote:

That itself would not make B probably untrue, no. Only evidence against it being that particular person would.

If you chose a person at random for the theory, and the number of possible people who could have dropped that quarter is more than two, then there is already evidence against it: namely, your odds of choosing the correct person.

Chuck wrote:

Just the opposite seems to be true. People reluctantly abandon their gods. They still cling to them even today.

Do people reluctantly abandon their gods, or do they reluctantly admit that they already have?

Chuck wrote:

There are least two equally likely possibilities (among others):

1) At some point in the past, some person or group of people invented Zues

2) At some point in the past, some person or group of people perceived something real (not just abstract) and called it Zues.

In both cases, lots of human invention had to occur: in the first, to create the god and in the second, to try and understand and relate to the god. That real thing which was perceived could be the same thing people now call God or Allah, and understand in a completely different way.

Both possibilities can account for human invention with regards to gods and neither is more likely than the other.

Chuck wrote:

If something exists, then it can exist. A conscious person exists. Therefore, a conscious person can exist.

If there's no reason something can't exist, then it can exist. There's no reason a god can't exist. Therefore, a god can exist.

Back to being equally as likely as unlikey.

Chuck wrote:

The artist child has a say in the matter by college age. The child with cancer whose parents have the right to decide on medical treatment doesn't.

Maybe, but the principle still operates regardless of how helpless the sufferer is.

Chuck wrote:

Most people would probably reject the chipmunk gods. Would it be better to suspend judgement instead?

Logically, yes. Practically, it depends on the situation.

Chuck wrote:

Suspending judgement doesn't mean believing what he says. We still have to be true to our beliefs and take action against threats. If we have to tell ourselves he's probably wrong in order to do that, then so be it. We ought to recognize, however, that that's a motivational tool, and not a logical conclusion.

Chuck wrote:

Knowing he's wrong because I was a witness is like the ultimate evidence against his belief. Why would I respect it?

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

What someone is doing with their belief has no bearing on the probability of it's truth value. It may push me toward speaking out against accepting it as true, however. There is no chance my money would go toward this person's cause, unless I believed in something about what they were saying. I don't have to label it as bullshit in order to avoid being suckered. That would just be inventing a conclusion for protection, for I have no actual way of gaging it's truth value.

It seems like you'd be acting as though "maybe, maybe not" were really "probably not" in that case.

Not necessarily. I might tell myself "probably not" in order to protect against being suckered, but I don't think that would be necessary and it certainly wouldn't be a sound conclusion. I'm just focused on not being taken advantage of. It doesn't mean that his claims are, in reality, unlikely to be true.

Chuck wrote:

As a defintion for atheist, I like "Someone who is not a theist." That seems simple and doesn't make any assumptions that might not be true.

That's the definition I go by as well.

Chuck wrote:

Even if "maybe, maybe not" were the appropriate response to the chipmunk gods, people would probably not be rounding their chipmunks just in case. They'd act as though it were "maybe, probably not." In spite of no evidence one way or the other, they'd see that it was ridiculous.

I am now beginning to think that the evidence against the chipmunk gods (still assuming you made it up) is your odds of making up a correct model of reality out of the infinite possible correct models of reality...I'll have to think about it more
_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

Chuck
Daedalian Member

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 2:12 am Post subject: 780

BraveHat wrote:

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

Chuck wrote:

It does show that claims about gods from these people is unreliable, and the claim that a god exists is such a claim.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

If someone told me frequently all my life that there was a man with a gun in the hallway and I've never seen him, and other people claim men with knives, men with bombs, and men with axes; after a while they'd start losing credibility.

Quote:

I think the underlying thesis behind my post is that the discredit of the proposition that at least one god exists cannot be based on logic (and neither can the credit of it) and so there must be some other motivation. However unlike theism, which does not require the discredit of other people's intangible beliefs (contrary to popular opinion), strong atheism does, and the motivations for that are suspicious to me. It is specifically the fact that god beliefs are abstract, nebulous and unable to be fully explicated which makes concluding that they are probably false inexplicable. Concluding that they are dangerous and impractical is explicable. Concluding that it would be much more practical to just say they're false is explicable. Concluding that they are probably false, is inexplicable.

I think what primarily justifies strong atheism is it's ability to make things simpler.

I think a justification for strong atheism is to notice that the supernatural entitiies that people make up never seem to be found to be real later. Not all of them are claimed to be undetectable but we still never seem to see them. I don't see why a gods should be any different than any of the other wild stories that people have made up. While a god might be claimed to be undetectable, I don't see why appending, "oh yeah, it's invisble" to an improbable claim suddenly makes it a respectable theory.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

So if I invented many theories for the origin of the universe each having as much evidence in their favor as creation by a god, would that mean a god probably didn't do it?

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

Just the opposite seems to be true. People reluctantly abandon their gods. They still cling to them even today.

Do people reluctantly abandon their gods, or do they reluctantly admit that they already have?

Chuck wrote:

We do see imaginative people making up stories. We still don't see any of the gods that people have described. It seems far morely likely that they were made up.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

We don't know that a god can exist.

Quote:

Back to being equally as likely as unlikey.

Chuck wrote:

The artist child has a say in the matter by college age. The child with cancer whose parents have the right to decide on medical treatment doesn't.

Maybe, but the principle still operates regardless of how helpless the sufferer is.

The princple is that behaving irrationally might make the parents feel better because they think their child is in God's care. But irrational behavior affects others, such as the child in this case.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

Most people would probably reject the chipmunk gods. Would it be better to suspend judgement instead?

Logically, yes. Practically, it depends on the situation.

By suspending judgement, should people round up some chipmunks just in case or is it more reasonable to act as though the chipmunk gods almost certainly don't exist and not bother the chipmunks?

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

But if God really does want the water supply poisoned then it should be done. Saying that you're suspending judgement seems meaningless if your actions show that you reject the idea. You wouldn't need the motivational tool it you were really suspending judgement.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

Knowing he's wrong because I was a witness is like the ultimate evidence against his belief. Why would I respect it?

I thought you were respecting beliefs out of respect for another human being.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

It seems like you'd be acting as though "maybe, maybe not" were really "probably not" in that case.

That seems like another reason for strong atheism. I can't prove there's no god but the probability of being suckered is high enough that the reward doesn't sway me.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

As a defintion for atheist, I like "Someone who is not a theist." That seems simple and doesn't make any assumptions that might not be true.

That's the definition I go by as well.

Chuck wrote:

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 11:00 pm Post subject: 781

Chuck wrote:

It does show that claims about gods from these people is unreliable, and the claim that a god exists is such a claim.

I'm not sure it shows that existential claims about gods from these people are unreliable, but even if so, it only means that one cannot rely on the claim that a god or gods exist. I'm not talking about reliance on or acceptance of a claim. I'm talking about suspension of judgment.

Chuck wrote:

Lifelong continuous claims about men in hallways leave time for empirical evidence for or against to become apparent. One can always look down the hallway (a circumscribed tangible area within the claim) and actually see whether there's a man there or not. One cannot use similar empirical methods or any empirical methods to verify or disconfirm a god or gods. Such an abstract concept as a god is left wide open for the possibility of 9 different people to experience the same thing and describe it completely differently. "it's a bird, it's a plane, it's superman" doesn't mean that nothing just flew past them. It's equally likely as unlikely that something did, and they just can't seem to explain it right.

Chuck wrote:

As a strong atheist, you are assuming two things: 1)people are inventing the entities themselves, rather than misapprehending them, and 2)It's actually possible to "find or see that they're real" empirically. These are both strong atheist assumptions. Strong atheism cannot be justified by strong atheist assumptions anymore than theism can be justified by divine assumptions. It's just circular.

Also, that a claim can't be verified does not make it improbable. If I tell you I dreamt I was a frog last night, you wouldn't think I probably didn't just because you can't verify it. Finally, who said "it's invisible" is an appendage rather than a foundational claim?

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

If you chose a person at random for the theory, and the number of possible people who could have dropped that quarter is more than two, then there is already evidence against it: namely, your odds of choosing the correct person.

So if I invented many theories for the origin of the universe each having as much evidence in their favor as creation by a god, would that mean a god probably didn't do it?

If I told you I dreamed I was a frog and you invented many other theories of what I could have dreamed, each having as much evidence in it's favor as the frog dream, does that mean I probably didn't dream I was a frog? If instead I didn't tell you anything about my dream, only that I had one, what are the chances you are going to make up the real dream I had? Is there no difference in meaning between these two scenarios?

Chuck wrote:

We do see imaginative people making up stories. We still don't see any of the gods that people have described. It seems far morely likely that they were made up.

If a god is invisible, there are two possibilites:
1)The god exists, and so we can't see it
2)The god does not exist, and so we can't see it.
Either way, we can't see it. So how does not seeing it make the invisible god far more likely to be made up?

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

If there's no reason something can't exist, then it can exist. There's no reason a god can't exist. Therefore, a god can exist.

We don't know that a god can exist.

Sure we do, I just showed it can with the syllogism above. I didn't show it does, but I showed it can.

Chuck wrote:

The princple is that behaving irrationally might make the parents feel better because they think their child is in God's care. But irrational behavior affects others, such as the child in this case.

Rational solutions to an empirical problem, like a child's physical illness, is basic. What I meant about religious people not relying heavily on rational solutions is not that they ignore the basic rational solutions that are made available to us through modern technology, like those insane parents who think that prayer is going to physically heal the child. Rather, what I mean is that they use prayer and rituals to aid them in dealing emotionally with those basic things. They employ their rationality to solve problems like everybody else, but they rely on their faith to deal with the outcomes. That's what I think the main difference is. Of course there are nutcases that take their faith to insane extremes.

Chuck wrote:

By suspending judgement, should people round up some chipmunks just in case or is it more reasonable to act as though the chipmunk gods almost certainly don't exist and not bother the chipmunks?

If you don't believe in the chipmunk gods, it's reasonable to act as if they don't exist at all...why stop at probably don't exist? And the reason is it's much simpler, and less time consuming to not round up chipmunks. This simplicity and ease of lifestyle indicates in no way the probability of the chipmunk gods existing or not.

Chuck wrote:

You might need the motivational tool to protect the water supply. All suspending judgement means is that I admit I don't know if it's true or not. I'm suspending judgement on whether or not it's true (because there's no way to find out). I'm not suspending action on following what I believe and trying to save the water supply. That would be stupid. If someone wants to poison the town's water supply, I'm already poised to try and stop it, unless something I believe changes my mind. God wanting it is not something I believe, therefore my mind is not changed. I don't need to have the positive belief that God doesn't want it in order keep my course.

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

Knowing he's wrong because I was a witness is like the ultimate evidence against his belief. Why would I respect it?

I thought you were respecting beliefs out of respect for another human being.

Earlier in this discussion, I wrote:

Knowing he's wrong because I was a witness is the ultimate evidence against it. No respect necessary.

Chuck wrote:

That seems like another reason for strong atheism. I can't prove there's no god but the probability of being suckered is high enough that the reward doesn't sway me.

My behavior in that situation doesn't indicate I think the probability of being suckered is high. It indicates that I'm insuring myself against being suckered regardless of what the probability is.

Suppose you were at a casino where a rich man offered to play a game of Fortune with you. "How do you play that?" you ask. He explains that you flip a coin and if it comes up heads, you win ten million dollars. If it comes up tails, he kills your entire family in front of you and then burns you alive. Would you play the game even though it's even odds or would you avoid playing to insure against the horrible tails fate? That's similar (though a lot more extreme) to what my behavior with the money guy indicates. It's not based on probability but on stakes.
_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

Zag
Tired of his old title

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 1:20 am Post subject: 782

BraveHat wrote:

... those insane parents who think that prayer is going to physically heal the child.

How arrogant of you to call them insane. Why do you get to say that YOUR completely unjustified beliefs are OK, but theirs are insane?

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 2:50 am Post subject: 783

Zag wrote:

I wrote:

... those insane parents who think that prayer is going to physically heal the child.

How arrogant of you to call them insane. Why do you get to say that YOUR completely unjustified beliefs are OK, but theirs are insane?

I guess "extreme" would be a better word. I admit using the word "insane" could be hypocritical of me to say, and maybe arrogant, I don't know. I'm not above either fault. I was trying to distance myself from them, and I think I used that word out of anger that I was starting to feel like my arguments were making me out to defend the harming of children, which I hope is not the case.

My point, in a more civilized form, was that the parents seem to be ignoring rationality altogether, instead of employing it along with their faith. I hope you're able to view that in context of the rest of what I was saying in that paragraph.
_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

Chuck
Daedalian Member

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 2:58 pm Post subject: 784

BraveHat wrote:

Chuck wrote:

It does show that claims about gods from these people is unreliable, and the claim that a god exists is such a claim.

I figure I'm suspending judgement by not denying the possibility that they're right about a god existing. But if they're all describing the same thing I'd expect a better matching description. If two people claimed to see a bird and one said it's four inches tall and white while the other said it was two feet tall and black, I wouldn't think they saw the same thing. "Maybe, probably not" seems appropriate.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I'd think it was a bird or a plane. If someone said "it's a hallucination, it's a myth, it's God", I wouldn't make God my first guess.

People have claimed empirical evidence of gods in the past. There are stories of people talking to their gods, seeing miracles, and bearing their children. So I could reasonably expect some kind of evidence.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

It's not so much an assumption as an observation that people do make things up, do make mistakes, and are often fooled while I see no gods at all. Since no gods are actually needed for beliefs in gods and no gods are seen, I see no reason to propose that any such things exist. "Maybe, probably not" seem like a reasonable position to take.

Quote:

Also, that a claim can't be verified does not make it improbable. If I tell you I dreamt I was a frog last night, you wouldn't think I probably didn't just because you can't verify it. Finally, who said "it's invisible" is an appendage rather than a foundational claim?

I'd think you were remembering a dream just as I often do. If you told me my neighbor dreamt he was a frog last night without actually hearing it from him, I'd think you were guessing.

Gods weren't always claimed to be invisible. Mythologies have claims of people seeing them and talking to them.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

So if I invented many theories for the origin of the universe each having as much evidence in their favor as creation by a god, would that mean a god probably didn't do it?

I have evidence that people remember and accurately report dreams since I've done so. I've never seen a god create a universe nor do anything else.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

We do see imaginative people making up stories. We still don't see any of the gods that people have described. It seems far morely likely that they were made up.

I see no reason that a god has to be invisible, so there's no more reason to believe in it than there is to believe in anything else that anyone claims exists but is invisible. I find it hard to believe that Count Dracula, Harry Potter, and The Invisible Girl are all standing outside my window watching me after having made themselves invisible. It's the same for a god.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

If there's no reason something can't exist, then it can exist. There's no reason a god can't exist. Therefore, a god can exist.

We don't know that a god can exist.

Sure we do, I just showed it can with the syllogism above. I didn't show it does, but I showed it can.

We don't know that there's no reason that a god can't exist. You seem to have made that up.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

The principle is that behaving irrationally might make the parents feel better because they think their child is in God's care. But irrational behavior affects others, such as the child in this case.

I can see where some pointless rituals might make people feel better, but they're not really acting as though they really believe those rituals will cure their child. They seem to know it's not really going to help and it's not irrational to just want to feel better.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

By suspending judgement, should people round up some chipmunks just in case or is it more reasonable to act as though the chipmunk gods almost certainly don't exist and not bother the chipmunks?

It depends on what the chipmunks gods are going to do if they don't get their sacrifices. If it's going to be eternal torture, wouldn't the "maybe, maybe not" reasonng dictate that they should be rounding up their chipmunks since the waste of some time on earth is more than offset by avoiding eternal torture? But even if I added the eternal torture to the chipmunk god story, I doubt that many people would bother rounding them up. It's probably for the same reason that I don't bother to kneel in front of a cross or bow toward Mecca.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

Then it seems there is little difference between not believing something and believing it to be improbable. You would behave toward the water poisoning god as a strong atheist would. After all, isn't obedience to God more important that a town full of people who God wants to take now rather than later?

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

Knowing he's wrong because I was a witness is like the ultimate evidence against his belief. Why would I respect it?

I thought you were respecting beliefs out of respect for another human being.

Earlier in this discussion, I wrote:

Knowing he's wrong because I was a witness is the ultimate evidence against it. No respect necessary.

Then if someone tells me he's 100% certain that Jesus was God on earth because his preacher told him so, I need show no respect because preachers have told me the same thing I don't know it to be true. I'm a witness to the fact that being told something doesn't not mean it must be true.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

That seems like another reason for strong atheism. I can't prove there's no god but the probability of being suckered is high enough that the reward doesn't sway me.

But the money guy isn't threatening you with a horrible death. At worst you lose some money and the possible gain could be much greater than what you might lose. If someone offered me a coin toss in which I lost $1000 on heads and won $5000 on tails, I'd take the bet. If someone offered me an investment deal that might make me $5000 for risking $1000, I wouldn't take it. In the case of a coin it's "maybe, maybe not" but in the investment deal it's "maybe, probably not," It might be different if I knew more about the investment, but for a complete unknown, "maybe, probably not" seems appropriate. It's the same for beliefs in gods.

Zag
Tired of his old title

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 6:29 pm Post subject: 785

I haven't exactly been following, but I think that the talk of a wager must come from (or at least must mention) Pascal's wager. I'll summarize, for any who haven't heard it: Pascal applied game theory to the 'wager' of believing in the sort of God of his day, where if you believe, you go to heaven and if you didn't believe and it turns out you were wrong, you would go to hell. Cost: Going to church once a week-ish, parroting a few phrases, otherwise living according to the appropriate teaching. Odds: unknown Potential payoff: The difference between an INFINITE afterlife in heaven vs. an INFINITE afterlife in hell. Game theory says that since the payoff is infinite, it doesn't matter how small the odds are; it is still a worthwhile bet. Note that if you believe and you're wrong, the "payoff" is the same as if you never believed, the lack of an afterlife, so that isn't included in the 'cost.'

Chuck
Daedalian Member

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 8:11 pm Post subject: 786

That's assuming that God will reward belief and punish disbelief and not the other way around. But one seems just as likely as the other so there's no benefit to believing at all.

Zag
Tired of his old title

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 11:50 pm Post subject: 787

(This is an argument made by Plato.) Since what we know about gods is what the priests tell us, it makes no sense to claim to believe in the god(s) but disagree with the priests' interpretation.

Chuck
Daedalian Member

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 12:39 am Post subject: 788

I guess Plato didn't have lots of one true faiths to choose from.

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 1:38 am Post subject: 789

Zag wrote:

(This is an argument made by Plato.) Since what we know about gods is what the priests tell us, ...

What does "know" mean in that context?

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 2:07 am Post subject: 790

extropalopakettle wrote:

Zag wrote:

(This is an argument made by Plato.) Since what we know about gods is what the priests tell us, ...

What does "know" mean in that context?

Oh, and then what if I just declare myself a "priest"? Then I know what I "know", but disagree with the interpretations of other priests.

JohnP
Icarian Member

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 2:17 am Post subject: 791

Then you'd be history repeating itself.

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 8:17 am Post subject: 792

JohnP wrote:

Then you'd be history repeating itself.

So I shouldn't have bacon and eggs for breakfast???

JohnP
Icarian Member

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 12:32 pm Post subject: 793

I didn't say history shouldn't repeat itself.

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 1:06 pm Post subject: 794

Chuck wrote:

If one of them was wearing glasses that shrinks everything and the other one glasses that magnified everything plus a pigment abnormality in his eye, I'd think it would be perfectly plausible for them to have seen the same thing. The glasses and vision parameters would be analogous to the different cultures, lifestyles and mentalities from which the different religions are based. They might have imagined the bird, or they might also have just described a real one through their different filters.

Chuck wrote:

I'd think it was a bird or a plane. If someone said "it's a hallucination, it's a myth, it's God", I wouldn't make God my first guess.

I know, but we're talking about people saying "god's a this, god's a that, god's a the other thing". It's in that respect, that I say it could equally be different views of the same thing as not.

Chuck wrote:

People have claimed empirical evidence of gods in the past. There are stories of people talking to their gods, seeing miracles, and bearing their children. So I could reasonably expect some kind of evidence.

I think if someone claims that there is empirical evidence of their god, and the evidence they give does not reasonably weigh in favor of their god, then the claim that it's empirical evidence can be dismissed. If their faith is actually based on thinking that the empirical evidence weighs in favor of their god, even after it is empirically demonstrated to them that it does not (and only they would know if the demonstration appears sound to them), then that might be evidence to themselves that maybe they don't really believe (but rather, just want to believe). But I don't see how we can rationally come to think it's likely that their god doesn't exist.

As for talking to gods, witnessing miracles and bearing a child of god, one would first have to determine what those things would even mean in the context of a belief system, before one could know what to expect. Strong atheists often consider religious claims only at face value, without much regard for hermeneutics. I do admit, however, they are often justified in doing this when arguing against theists who take the claims at face value as well.

Chuck wrote:

It's also an observation that people often misinterpret, lie about, view differently, get 2nd, 3rd, 4th......99th hand information about, real things. Since we can't know if someone really believes something or if they are just wish-fulfilling or some other ulterior motive, then we can't know if real gods are needed for real beliefs in gods. And I agree with you about having no reason to propose a god exists, if there's no evidence for one. I'm just adding that I see no logical reason to reject a god (though I'm beginning to see practical and useful reasons) if there's no evidence against one. We may be coming to a standstill here.

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

Also, that a claim can't be verified does not make it improbable. If I tell you I dreamt I was a frog last night, you wouldn't think I probably didn't just because you can't verify it.

I'd think you were remembering a dream just as I often do. If you told me my neighbor dreamt he was a frog last night without actually hearing it from him, I'd think you were guessing.

Would you say, then, that if you can relate an unverifiable claim to your own experience, you have reason to accept it, but if you can't, you have reason to reject it?

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

Finally, who said "it's invisible" is an appendage rather than a foundational claim?

Gods weren't always claimed to be invisible. Mythologies have claims of people seeing them and talking to them.

We can observe people today, lots of people, claiming to "see God" and "talk to God" as well, while still maintaining that God is invisible. (That's only contradictory if you take it literally). I see no reason it can't be true in ancient times as well.

Chuck wrote:

I have evidence that people remember and accurately report dreams since I've done so. I've never seen a god create a universe nor do anything else.

Yes, we must be coming to a standstill. You think reason requires evidence to suspend judgement on claims and I think reason only requires evidence to accept claims. I observe that someone claims to believe in a certain god without evidence for or against it. For every plausible "no god" reason for why they are claiming it, there is an equally plausible "god exists" reason. I am left without the reasonable means to figure the odds.

Chuck wrote:

I'm not suggesting you believe either one. I'm suggesting, perhaps quite radically, that the thought "it's likely false", though completely understandable, is in the end a practical convenience, rather than a logical conclusion. It's simply due to the fact that one can't practically live one's life acting as if every one of the infinite possible non-evidence scenarios was true.

Chuck wrote:

We don't know that there's no reason that a god can't exist. You seem to have made that up.

Something must be defined in falsifiable terms, for there to be a reason it can't exist. A god is not defined in falsifiable terms. Therefore, it is not the case that there is a reason a god can't exist.

Chuck wrote:

The desire to cope well is not irrational, but the solution is certainly not rational. Most people who pray aren't doing so because they know of a scientific mechanism that connects prayer to emotional and mental stability. They are doing so because they believe it's a real conversation with a real deity. Most prayers are them turning to the deity to ask his/her/their aid in coping. That is not rational, it's based on faith. They may not believe the prayer will cure the child, but they are certainly hoping it will help.

Chuck wrote:

Correct, and that reasoning is probably the fact there are infinite amount of non-evidence scenarios with eternal torture consequences for not believing, and it's impossible to live your life as if each one of them were true, or even as if two contradicting ones were true. So since you can't make a choice based on likelihood, you have to choose a scenario you do believe in. And if there's none you believe in, then you choose to ignore all of them. That's a reasonable support for weak-atheism. Choosing to ignore them is not the same as concluding that any one of them is probably false (strong atheism).

Chuck wrote:

Yes, but since I don't have the belief of God wanting that, or probably wanting that, I have to go by what I do believe. The difference between me and a strong atheist is not in our general reaction toward the claim, but that I see the reaction as being based on a survival mechanism and not on a reasoned belief.

Chuck wrote:

Well, yes, 100% certainty about something merely because it was told to you by someone else is not a respectable position, and while I wouldn't show respect for it, I might show empathy if he seemed genuinely naive, rather than simply fatuous. But the key phrase is 100% certainty. That is just as unsupportable reasonably as 100% certainty that it's all B.S.

Chuck wrote:

If shysters are a dime a dozen, then the chance that the money guy is sincere is "probably not". That doesn't mean the chances of the supernatural scenario he's promoting is "probably not". It's still a "maybe not". On the "maybe not" side, it's a scenario that is completely invented by humans. On the "maybe" side, he's exploiting an actually real scenario for his own ends. If I invested in him, the chances of my having supported a corrupt person are good. I still don't know, however, what my chances are of supporting a corrupt cause. If it were possible to determine that the scenario he was promoting was odd-on favorite to be true, I might pay the small fee to have access to information about it. Even corrupted information could give me hints and clues to the nature of the reality. However, the odds in favor or against that scenario cannot be determined, so I have go by the stakes. The chance of having a real scenario is not worth the risk of supporting a completely corrupt one.
_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 1:31 pm Post subject: 795

Zag wrote:

(This is an argument made by Plato.) Since what we know about gods is what the priests tell us, it makes no sense to claim to believe in the god(s) but disagree with the priests' interpretation.

I'm going to assume your summary is accurate, because I'm too lazy to look it up.

I disagree that the premise must be the case. If a god exists, why couldn't He or She personally reveal it to someone without going through a priest? Or would such a revelation make someone a priest?

As for the conclusion, what if two different priests have contradictory interpretations? A believer would have to disagree with at least one of them.
_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

Chuck
Daedalian Member

Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2012 4:50 am Post subject: 796

BraveHat wrote:

Chuck wrote:

Of course there might be unusual glasses and pigments involved. That's why it's "maybe, probably not" instead of "impossible" It's the same for reports of gods. If someone claims one all powerful god and someone else claims a bunch of lesser gods, maybe they're seeing the same thing differently, but probably not.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I'd think it was a bird or a plane. If someone said "it's a hallucination, it's a myth, it's God", I wouldn't make God my first guess.

I know, but we're talking about people saying "god's a this, god's a that, god's a the other thing". It's in that respect, that I say it could equally be different views of the same thing as not.

I wouldn't say equally. When things looks different it's usually because they are different. Mistakes are often made, but we don't spend our lives mistaking everything for everything else.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

What about people who claimed to have had actual sightings and the witnessing of miracles of gods they did believe in? I don't see much difference between that and people reporting to have seen gorillas in Africa or pagodas in China. I would expect to be able to see such things for myself if they actually existed. The same would be true if people reported sightings of dinosaurs in the antarctic, but if I couldn't go see those even if I went there, I'd think the dinosaurs most likely don't exist. It's the same for gods. If they're real and people have reported seeing them then I should be able to see them too. If I can't then maybe they exist anyway, but probably not.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

Since I don't see a giant robot outside my window, it leads me to believe that there's no such robot, not that there might be an invisible giant robot. "Maybe, probably not" seems like best position to take on the exstences of a god and of an invisible giant robot. I suppose I could go out and throw rocks to see if any bounce of the robot. If I throw rocks in many directions and hit only the mailman, that would add evidence for no robot. This test won't work for god, so he's still as likely to exist as the pre-rock tested robot, which is probably not. It doesn't seem reasonable to give untestable theories a greater expectation of being true. If you disagree then I guess it's a standstill.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

Also, that a claim can't be verified does not make it improbable. If I tell you I dreamt I was a frog last night, you wouldn't think I probably didn't just because you can't verify it.

I'd think you were remembering a dream just as I often do. If you told me my neighbor dreamt he was a frog last night without actually hearing it from him, I'd think you were guessing.

Would you say, then, that if you can relate an unverifiable claim to your own experience, you have reason to accept it, but if you can't, you have reason to reject it?

If I haven't had the experience but it's something that's generally known to be possible and widely reported to happen then I'd give it a greater chance of being true. If it could be demonstrated to me it would be even better. I believe that Australia exists but not that Hogwarts School of Wizardry exists.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I wrote:

Finally, who said "it's invisible" is an appendage rather than a foundational claim?

Gods weren't always claimed to be invisible. Mythologies have claims of people seeing them and talking to them.

If people are seeing and hearing a real god then I'd expect to be able to as well, If someone tells me there's a leprechaun on my lawn that turns invisible when I look at it, I'd strongly suspect that it isn't really there. The invisibility of god doesn't seem like a necessary attribute and sounds more like something that was made up to explain away his apparent absence. Of course I can't prove the invisible god or invisble leprechaun don't exist. All I can say about the possibility is "maybe, probably not."

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I have evidence that people remember and accurately report dreams since I've done so. I've never seen a god create a universe nor do anything else.

People make things up. If I don't see any evidence for something then it seems likely to have been made up.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

It could be that acting as though "it's likely false" is so often practical is because those things really are false.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

We don't know that there's no reason that a god can't exist. You seem to have made that up.

We don't seem to have picked a definition of a god so we can't claim that there's no definition of a god in falsfiable terms.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

Then it could have future harmful effects. If they pray and the child gets better they might think the prayer worked and rely on it next time, or tell the child it worked leaving the kid with incorrect information which could be detrimental later.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

I doubt that most people would analyze the chipmunk god question as you have. They'd just dimiss as silly. That would be a belief that it's not true.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

As with the torturous chipmunk gods, even a tiny chance that God wants the water poisoned would outweigh the penalty for defying him if he does. You can say "maybe, maybe not" but you act as though there are no consequences to being wrong. What seems more likely is that the "maybe, maybe not" reaction to nonsense is a coping mechanism to help you deal with the inconsistency of accepting one god as likely and other gods as unlikely.

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

Wouldn't it be better to educate someone about the impossibility of his certainty rather than leave him deluding himself?

Quote:

Chuck wrote:

It looks like shysters and people claiming non-existent supernational beings are both a dime a dozen to me. I'd think it unlikely that anyone offering a ridiculously good investment deal or information about his god was telling me about reality.

Maybe we can test the usefulness of the "maybe, maybe not" attitude for the existences of supernatural things for which we have no evidence for or against. We can't test God, but I could make up a supernatural being who, by its nature, must appear in the next week. Since there's no evidence for or against it now, we'd have to say "maybe, maybe not". Then we could see if it appears. We could try it many times to see what percentage of the time such "maybe, maybe not" propositions are true.

Zag
Tired of his old title

Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2012 3:58 pm Post subject: 797

BraveHat wrote:

My point, in a more civilized form, was that the parents seem to be ignoring rationality altogether, instead of employing it along with their faith.

Those people aren't 'ignoring rationality.' They feed their children, make sure that they are adequately clothed, teach them not to walk in front of moving cars, etc. They do the rational things to keep their children safe and whole. However, for whatever reason, they believe that invasive scientific procedures might threaten their child's opportunity for a positive afterlife, so they forbid those. I don't agree with their decision, but I understand the logic of it. Given their assumption, the conclusion is rationally correct. (However, the assumption is based on faith, not rationality.) You are assuming that you have struck the perfect balance between faith and rationality and are being judgmental of others who have struck a different one. I think that sin is called 'pride' in your religion's nomenclature.

You remind me of the observation that, to some drivers, anyone going slower than them is a loser and anyone going faster is a maniac. They consider that their specific MPH (or KPH) over the speed limit to be the perfect one. I think that the only people with any right to judge others in that respect are the ones who stick strictly to the posted speed limit and never exceed it. (Definitely not me, by the way, but I also refrain from judging those to wish to exceed the speed limit by more than I wish to exceed it.)

On the scale of rationality, I am the person who never exceeds the speed limit. I believe in making decisions based purely on rationality, making the best assumptions possible based only on what can be observed. Therefore, I DO have the right to judge those who don't. Someone who makes some decisions that way and some by faith doesn't really have the right to judge those who have struck a different balance.

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2012 4:15 pm Post subject: 798

Zag wrote:

I believe in making decisions based purely on rationality, making the best assumptions possible based only on what can be observed. Therefore, I DO have the right to judge those who don't. Someone who makes some decisions that way and some by faith doesn't really have the right to judge those who have struck a different balance.

Nothing personal, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but from past discussions I've determined there's a strong component of irrational faith in your world view ... and a component of irrational faith that I don't know you're aware of.

Zag
Tired of his old title

Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2012 4:56 pm Post subject: 799

extropalopakettle wrote:

Oh, I don't take it personally. I totally set myself up for that. Please, let me know of the specifics. I may disagree or I may learn something and attempt to change.

I didn't make it clear above, but I should have said that while I believe in such an approach, I'm quite sure that I don't always succeed in applying it. There's certainly an amount of "spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" involved, some self-deception, and all the other problems to which people are prone.

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2012 3:47 am Post subject: 800

Zag wrote:

You are assuming that you have struck the perfect balance between faith and rationality and are being judgmental of others who have struck a different one. I think that sin is called 'pride' in your religion's nomenclature.

You might be giving me too much credit, Zag Revenge most foul!

If I believed I've struck any kind of perfect balance, at least my judging others would have some rational, if mistaken, support. Alas, to the extent that I've judged them ("insane", "nutcases"), I've done so out of pure frustration and ignorance. I'm not secure enough in my philosophy to feel entitled.

When I judge people on the road, it's typically out of frustration as well, rather than entitlement. Although I can't think of a recent time where I judged someone for their speed. I usually don't care, unless I'm running late.

In truth, I don't believing in judging others at all, because I can never know all the circumstances that lead them to their actions. I cannot see into other people's hearts and minds. Nevertheless I end up judging people anyway. I don't like being hypocritical but it happens some times. All I can do is try to catch myself and yield when others catch me.

Yes, Pride is the greatest sin in my religion's nomenclature. And I often think of what C.S. Lewis said, "If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed"

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