Are you a secularist

[tsig]

Show me the science and logic behind a good piece of art and a bad one

Without god there is no art?

 

[Craig B]

The Islam claims you mention are not verifiable as true or false. You (I think) are assuming them false because you belief that no god exists, but this is an assumption on your part, not an established fact.

No, I don't agree with that. Claims made by Islam - I mean factual or at least factoidal claims - may in principle be true or false. But determining that requires evidence. If there is none, the factual assertion is not to be accepted. And the duty of providing the evidence lies with the person making the claim. Are you saying that Islamic assertions are "not verifiable" in principle? Why not? If God sent the Angel Gabriel to give Muhammad the words of the Quran, that could be verifiable, by Gabriel appearing in the sky and telling us so. In reality it is verifiable; it is just that no evidence has been provided in support of this and other factual religious claims.

Things unverifiable in principle are not factual statements, but for example moral teachings, like Love your neighbour. These are different, and are not to be confused with the factual assertions by which religions define themselves. To be a Muslim, by definition, I must believe that there is a unique God, and that Muhammad is the messenger of this God. Evidence, please. For it is verifiable in principle.

 

[tsig]

The problem is that if you go for strong logic, rationality and objective evidence(empirical facts as by the scientific method) then all morality and ethics are irrational as you can't do normative claims using science. I.e. anyone who makes moral and ethical claims are irrational as he/she can't give evidence for these using the scientific method. So if you hold any moral or ethical claims you are irrational and shouldn't do science.

What we are always doing in these kinds of threads is a variant of scientism, i.e. science can give evidence for all of reality including the right moral and ethical claims. Science can't do that, but that is not a specific problem of science. The problem is that you can't make moral and ethical claims using objective evidence, neither using science or any other method, which involves objective evidence. You can explain morality and ethics as a natural phenomenon using science, but you can't do normative claims using the scientific method.

How rational is it to claim that morality comes from some outside source? A source that no one can access directly.

No one here but theists expect science to tell them what morals are, apparently you have been so indoctrinated in the powerless of humans that you cannot conceive that someone would not need the fear of hell or the love of god to guide ones steps.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

How rational is it to claim that morality comes from some outside source? A source that no one can access directly.

No one here but theists expect science to tell them what morals are, apparently you have been so indoctrinated in the powerless of humans that you cannot conceive that someone would not need the fear of hell or the love of god to guide ones steps.

So only those who believe in a variant of a god, claim objective ethics? Only religious people claim objective ethics?
So you are an ethical relativist and subjectivist, tsig? I.e. there is nothing objectively wrong with believing in a god? It is only subjectively wrong and there is no objective evidence for the fact that it is wrong to believe in a god? Is that what you claim?

Or can you give scientific evidence for the fact that it is wrong to believe in a god?
So what are you, tsig - an ethical objectivist or subjectivist/relativist?

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

"There's no morality without Woo!"

"Why?"

"Because I'm defining morality as needing Woo!"

Yes because there's no logical reason for not murdering, raping, or stealing. Totally impossible to dislike those things without the giant invisible sky wizard ordering us to.

So you admit that it is subjective and not possible to give scientific evidence for murdering, raping, or stealing being wrong?

 

[JoeMorgue]

So you admit that it is subjective and not possible to give scientific evidence for murdering, raping, or stealing be wrong?

Sure whatever you want to believe, knock yourself out and then go off on a big long tangent about how nothing you think relates to anything you do.

Stop talking to people like they don't know your sthick. Our memories aren't that short.

That's the problem with people that don't believe in rationality, you can't be rational with them.

 

[Dani]

The problem is that if you go for strong logic, rationality and objective evidence(empirical facts as by the scientific method) then all morality and ethics are irrational as you can't do normative claims using science. I.e. anyone who makes moral and ethical claims are irrational as he/she can't give evidence for these using the scientific method. So if you hold any moral or ethical claims you are irrational and shouldn't do science.

What we are always doing in these kinds of threads is a variant of scientism, i.e. science can give evidence for all of reality including the right moral and ethical claims. Science can't do that, but that is not a specific problem of science. The problem is that you can't make moral and ethical claims using objective evidence, neither using science or any other method, which involves objective evidence. You can explain morality and ethics as a natural phenomenon using science, but you can't do normative claims using the scientific method.

I define "irrational" as not consistent with reason.

With this in mind, ethical claims are not ultimately rational, but aren't irrational either, because there is no inconsistency. You can have all sorts of rationally justified beliefs about how the world is and still act upon how you'd like the world to be. This is not inconsistent.

I would use the term "arrational" to mean something which is not inconsistent with reason, but isn't rational either.

On the other hand, yes, Sam Harris is utterly wrong regarding science and morality. He holds an irrational belief which, ironically, would make him unfit too.

 

[tsig]

So only those who believe in a variant of a god, claim objective ethics? Only religious people claim objective ethics?
So you are an ethical relativist and subjectivist, tsig? I.e. there is nothing objectively wrong with believing in a god? It is only subjectively wrong and there is no objective evidence for the fact that it is wrong to believe in a god? Is that what you claim?

Or can you give scientific evidence for the fact that it is wrong to believe in a god?
So what are you, tsig - an ethical objectivist or subjectivist/relativist?

I am an atheist.

Morals/ethics come from humans.

 

[tsig]

So you admit that it is subjective and not possible to give scientific evidence for murdering, raping, or stealing being wrong?

Since most humans would rather not be murdered, raped or robbed whenever they gather in groups they make rules about those things within the group.


ETA: If you need an external force to tell you that being murdered, raped or robbed is bad then you need to stop by your nearest Reality Check station and have your Reality Sensor recalibrated.

 

[MG1962]

Without god there is no art?

Yeah cause that is exactly the question I asked

 

[JoeMorgue]

There is no need for any irrational, unsupported, religious, mystical or pseudoscientific belief to maintain a basic level of respect for the well being of other conscious creatures or to enjoy aestically pleasing works of art.

 

[PixyMisa]

A test for rationality? Do you have one? Does it discriminate against religious believers? If so, then I think it would be unconstitutional.

No, it doesn't "discriminate" against religious believers. It would identify them as irrational, along with conspiracy theorists, whole food faddists, anti-vaxxers, and other people who believe in nonsense.

I don't follow your logic. What prevents a 'good' scientist from having a religious belief? I can understand some religious beliefs being incompatible with some scientific endeavors, but as a general logical rule, I don't follow this.

Religious belief can come about in two ways: False premises and faulty logic. Either of those are serious problems in any scientific endeavour.

What do you consider an atheist Christian?

Confused.

A closeted atheist?

An atheist.

Or would a member of a creedless Christian church (they do exist) that believes the entire bible to be a collection of myths from early human societies be an atheist in your opinion?

I don't care. The question is not what group they consider themselves part of, it's what they believe, and why.

 

[PixyMisa]

So you admit that it is subjective and not possible to give scientific evidence for murdering, raping, or stealing being wrong?

Give me an objective definition of "wrong" and I'll give you objective reasons why murdering, raping, and stealing are wrong. Or, depending on your definition, not.

 

[tsig]

Show me the science and logic behind a good piece of art and a bad one

Without god there is no art?

Yeah cause that is exactly the question I asked

Then maybe you can clarify why you think science and logic could tell you when you like a piece of art and what is the consequence if they can't.

Art is a purely human thing done by humans for humans so why should anyones' opinion of it have any significance beyond the human?

Science can't tell you whether or not you should like chocolate or vanilla ice cream either.

 

[JoeMorgue]

We all know how this vaudville act goes.

As soon as we argue that you don't need some mythical Woo to have morality someone is going to drop the argument down to absurdist "Prove that pain hurts using nothing but how I narrowly define logic or ADMIT MY WOO!!!!" level of hairsplitting. It's nothing but moral solipsism.

Humans are social creatures. Everything you need to know about morality can easily be extrapolated from that.

 

[stevea]

Sure, but that is intellectually dishonest. So the question is, does intellectual dishonesty make a candidate unsuitable for such a position?

I don't think you understand the definition of "secularism".

Secularism is the principle of the separation of government institutions and persons mandated to represent the state from religious institutions and religious dignitaries.

It's perfectly coherent to believe in some religion and also believe in the principle that the state should not reflect any religion. I imagine that most minority religions would prefer secularism. This requires no intellectual dishonestly.

Everyone's irrational about something, therefore it's wrong to hold anyone to any intellectul standard, therefore Woo.

It's highly probable that every person holds unsupportable beliefs, even rationalist/atheists, but your leap to the claim "therefore it's wrong to hold anyone to any intellectual standard" makes no sense and AFAIK no one is suggesting that. Collins was appointed as NIH head precisely b/c he met high intellectual standards. Strawman argument, fallacious conclusion.

Not at all. I'm saying that if they applied rational thought and the scientific method to their religious beliefs, they would stop holding them.

This is pure concentrated nonsense. Pure reason cannot inform us about the physical world. . "The scientific method" is NOT a provable, it's closer to a religious tenet than you comprehend..

Anyone even vaguely familiar with the the concepts understand that science relies on abductive reasoning and it's results are therefore unprovable, and often are later falsified & revised. Science is highly dependent on extrapolation which is not justifiable on a deductive/inductive rational basis. It's clear that the scientific method selection critieria (Occam's Razor) produces sub-optimal selections regularly.

Science is fundamentally about creating an incomplete but expandable and revisable model that correlates with all of the empirical evidence (of the physical world) available. Science does not give us insight into "reality", it gives us merely a functional model that matches the collected observations and only of the observable world. Science is fundamentally a method of creating a practical system of unprovable and tentative beliefs about the physically testable world.


To rebut your specifics, there is no method of "rational thought" that can prove that a deity does not exist. Further, generally speaking, deism does not create a falsifiable hypothesis so cannot be tested by the scientific method. AFAIK no popular conception of a deity shows up as a mysterious burning bush every Saturday evening for lab testing. Further the scientific method is simply not applicable to a single unevidenced claim that some Jewish guy turned a barrel of water into wine 2000yrs ago. The evidence seems long gone.

Yes, many OT claims should have left sufficient evidence, the great flood, and we can speculate on the improbability of the Sun standing still in the sky - but many religions view these stories as allegory.

So religious beliefs are often not falsifiable claims and therefore cannot be the subject of scientific investigation.
===

Now IF you are a rationalist, and IF you believe that occams'srazor/parsimony-principle is the best method available for creating a practical model/U] system of unprovable beliefs, then you would immediately reject any deism, along with pixies and unicorns as unnecessary presuppositions. That doesn't mean they can't exist. Note also this abundant faith in Occams razor as a hypothesis selection mechanism is NOT an rationally belief scheme - it's "faith based" too.

--

To prevent a load of straw-maning and ad homs let me make my position clear.
I am an atheist/agnostic of the Huxlian variety.
I have degrees in science, and co-authored journalled papaers (tho' long ago) and have been elected to an honorary scientific society by peers.
I am a rationalist and not anti-science in any way.

I reject the reformulation of science-as-religion promulgated by some "true believers" here. Science has proven a very effective and practical means of apprehending parts of the physical world and for making predictions about the physical world. Those who believe that science provides "proofs", that "settled science" isn't an oxymoron, that science can be applied w/o evidence, w/o falsifiable hypotheses. or to events that are not observable, reproducible or repeated are ignorant fools. Even a really fine hammer doesn't convert everything into nails.

 

[Lorentz]

If you know that a person holds baseless and irrational beliefs

Assuming you are a human being, I'm 99.999% confident you too hold baseless and irrational beliefs. I surely do, even though I'm not aware which ones they are.

 

[SezMe]

I'm not tsig (thank FSM) but I'll add my two cents.

So you are an ethical relativist and subjectivist, tsig? I.e. there is nothing objectively wrong with believing in a god? It is only subjectively wrong and there is no objective evidence for the fact that it is wrong to believe in a god? Is that what you claim?

I can see no objective evidence that it is wrong to believe in a god. That said, I can see objective evidence that some who believe in a god do wrong things because of that belief.

What does that make me?

 

[Craig B]

Further the scientific method is simply not applicable to a single unevidenced claim that some Jewish guy turned a barrel of water into wine 2000yrs ago. The evidence seems long gone.

Is it? If there is no evidence of the existence of people today able to perform this feat, or any known means by which it could be done, is that not relevant to a claim that some guy did it 2,000 years ago? Can the scientific method not be brought to bear on this question?

Anyway, the only source we have for this act doesn't describe its performer as "some Jewish guy" but as

... the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

(John 1:1-4.) Science has nothing to say about the plausibility of such grandiose assertions?

 

[Minoosh]

Speak for yourself.

On what do you base your belief that you have no irrational beliefs?

ETA: I was interested in what you said about atheistic Christians. I'm not sure I understand where they are coming from, but I would like to learn more. I'm attracted to (my interpretation of) the narrative of Christianity, without holding any specifically Christian beliefs. I can't really elaborate at present but could, with some preparation.