Post 620. But please, Claus, read through the whole post first before you start misinterpreting my answers.
[*]If we as skeptics are to criticize what believers say, we have to criticize what they claim - not what we want them to claim.
Who is criticizing "what we want them to claim"? I don't get this one at all.
[*]We can't, as skeptics, test non-testable claims.
I saw no disagreement to this in this thread.
[*]That is why it is not an issue for skepticism if some people want to believe in an acknowledged imaginary god/friend/bartender. Credo Consolans beliefs are not incompatible with a skeptical approach. It all comes down to evidence - and whether evidence is claimed or not.
But once those people define their god as acting within the Universe, that god becomes testable. Claim your god answers prayers and that can be tested.
[*]In the case of an intervening God, it is skeptical to position that the existence of God can be proven - or not. We can simply examine the evidence pro and contra. In the case of a non-intervening God, we can't know if he exists or not. There is nothing to examine.
Again with the two definitions. To my knowledge no one claims the god in their beliefs does nothing, certainly no formal religions claim this. So you can't test for the god as defined by science, but that is not the god defined by people. Science fit the god concept to untestable scientific principles. Science did not take god beliefs as they actually exist.
Now as regards to proving the negative, science doesn't try to prove the negative. That fits somewhat with your position here. Problem is, do we prove astrology or psychic powers do not exist? Do we prove aliens have not visited? Not really, rather we prove there is a better explanation for beliefs in things like alien abductions. We show that psychic powers and astrology predictions fail.
No one invents an astrology or psychic power definition which when defined as such, cannot be tested.
There is overwhelming evidence god beliefs and religions originated from people and not because people had real encounters with gods either now or in the past. Going beyond that claiming one cannot disprove gods therefore maintaining a god belief is still within the skeptical philosophy only works if you are merely saying you cannot prove the negative. But maintaining that belief as a legitimate belief, whether you claim it is because you don't need evidence or because you believe your evidence is internal in some way is not in keeping with the skeptical view of the world.
[*]We can say that beliefs based on evidence and beliefs based on faith are compatible, as long as the beliefs based on faith are not in conflict with the beliefs based on evidence.
In the case of god beliefs, they are incompatible. Because science follows the evidence. It doesn't say well since you cannot prove the negative I am going to believe. There is no evidence
for gods.
[*]The skeptical approach is to say: "God does not exist", the same definitive way we can say "The Earth is not flat". We can do that because the scientific evidence shows this. While always provisional, it is as definitive as it can get without becoming dogmatic.
This is great. But in reality, god beliefs are not handled quite so purely by skeptics. The two god definitions is an example.
[*]The atheist who says "There is no God, because there is no scientific evidence" is a skeptic. The atheist who says "There is no God, regardless of what comes up" is certainly not a skeptic. Such a person is no different from someone who says "Sylvia is a psychic, regardless of what comes up".
No one here said the latter.
[*]It is not being skeptical to presume that things don't exist until they have been proven to do so. The skeptical thing is to say that we don't know either way until evidence comes in, whatever it may show.
But the evidence is overwhelming that god beliefs are inventions of the human mind. To ignore that is to ignore the elephant in the room.
[*]We can say that X is unverifiable and untestable today. What we can't say is that it will always be unverifiable and untestable.
Again, the best explanation for gods beliefs is they are myths. I have no issue with the untestable premise as long as the actual evidence we do have is not conveniently left out of the discussion.
[*]We can't criticize someone's belief for being irrational, if they don't claim that their belief is rational. In this case, they already know that they are - but they are irrational in a non-evidential way.
Again, no one is saying anyone with an irrational belief is a bad person or that they aren't a skeptic otherwise. We are saying their god beliefs are not skeptical beliefs.
[*]We can't disprove gods, exactly the same way we can't disprove invisible pink unicorns.
And just how is it you disprove invisible pink unicorns?
