Should Skeptics, by definition, be Atheists?

[Belz...]

You have no idea how happy that makes me!

-Bri

PS: Let's just hope your real one is larger than your e-one.

My, my. Why doesn't it surprise me that you lower yourself to cheap pre-pubescent tactics, now ?

 

[Lonewulf]

My, my. Why doesn't it surprise me that you lower yourself to cheap pre-pubescent tactics, now ?

Thanks for quoting him. Now I see the wit of my opposition, I am glad I have taken myself out of combat with an unarmed man.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

So, are you saying that it is an absolute fact that it is impossible for consciousness to exist without a brain (i.e. that you have absolute proof that such a thing is utterly impossible), or are you just saying that there is no evidence of consciousness existing without a brain?

If the former -- well, let's see the proof.

If the latter, then you've answered your own question -- there can be a god who "doesn't want to be detected."

-Bri

Short of a new discovery changing our concepts of the laws of physics, it is certain consciousness cannot exist outside of the brain. It's nice to daydream is isn't so, but the laws of physics do not allow for magical beings.

Now, if you want to discuss the world beyond the one we live in, IE outside of the Universe or before the Big bang, we have no way of determining the natural laws of such places if they exist. Your gods that don't want to be detected might exist there. Your consciousness without a brain might exist there.

Those of us arguing against god beliefs being valid, or against using the definition of a god which science cannot test for recognize your position. You however, and more than a few others are ignoring rather than addressing our position. You aren't addressing it and giving the reasons you object. You are blind, for reasons I can speculate, to the actual point being made.

When god believers who are otherwise skeptics make the claim gods are outside of the realm of science, they have to change their definition of gods. Then they go on to equate two definitions of gods, the one they believe in and the one science cannot test for. It's sort of a reverse straw man. I'm going to define gods as something science cannot test for, then I'm going to use that argument to defend my belief in gods which are really not the same.

 

[Bri]

I just did.

You have a vastly different idea of what 100% means than I do.

Actually, it's pretty good evidence that ALL earth-based lifeform consciousness cannot exist outside of a brain.

Again, "pretty good" isn't 100%. And "ALL earth-based lifeform consciousness" does not include any other form of consciousness that we don't currently know about.

You stated that it "is an absolute fact that it is impossible for consciousness to exist without a brain." Can you prove that there is no other form of consciousness that can exist outside of a brain?

Are you STILL asking me to prove a negative ?

No, I'm asking you to provide evidence of your claim that it "is an absolute fact that it is impossible for consciousness to exist without a brain" by proving that it is impossible for consciousness to exist without a brain.

Do you admit that you can't?

-Bri

 

[Bri]

Short of a new discovery changing our concepts of the laws of physics, it is certain consciousness cannot exist outside of the brain.

If it was certain that consciousness cannot exist outside of the brain, you wouldn't have added "short of a new discovery changing our concepts of the laws of physics."

I'm sorry, but it is not certain, nor is it absolute fact.

You're also missing the point which was entirely made in reference to articulett's question here before Belz and LoneWolf got involved.

-Bri

 

[Bri]

My, my. Why doesn't it surprise me that you lower yourself to cheap pre-pubescent tactics, now ?

Yeah, and I feel really bad about that.

-Bri

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

I'd like to first reiterate that the topic of this thread is an exercise in futility in my opinion. No one will be able to come to any consensus on any given definition of skeptic that will "reasonably" define who are skeptics and who are not. I think 27-28 pages of posts bears out my point.

You're correct about no consensus, but so what? When do you ever get 100% consensus in these kinds of matters. I still think skeptics who believe in gods are either hypocritical, or have a blind spot and are in a state of denial about that belief, or both. And it is worth pointing that out now and again. I'm not sure going along with god believing skeptics, letting them off the hook by taking this position of separating science and faith is healthy skepticism. At some point these gods beliefs are going to fall by the scientific wayside the same way beliefs in gods controlling hurricanes and volcanoes have gone.

...Call my cynical, but all I see is people circling the wagons, tweaking defintions of an arbitrary category "skeptic" to continue holding the opinion they came in with. While others call out for reasonable definitions of said category, at least subconsciously knowing that no such definition would ever suffice.

I beg to differ. How about you address my two definitions of gods point that has still gone mostly unaddressed.


The rest of your argument is a straw man all about the fairness issue. No one on either side is kicking anyone out of the club.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

If it was certain that consciousness cannot exist outside of the brain, you wouldn't have added "short of a new discovery changing our concepts of the laws of physics."

I'm sorry, but it is not certain, nor is it absolute fact.

You're also missing the point which was entirely made in reference to articulett's question here before Belz and LoneWolf got involved.

-Bri

How long are you going to repeat an argument no one is really arguing about just because they aren't using the same terminology as you? We all get the, "can't prove the negative" concept in science. The other side of the coin, however, is, "what conclusions do you draw from the evidence you are presented with?"

This particular thread debate is an exercise in semantics and nothing more.

OTOH, there are some actual different points of view being discussed in this thread. In particular, the one I asked you to address that you again ignored. I'll go look at articulett's comments if you address mine.

 

[Bri]

Now, if you want to discuss the world beyond the one we live in, IE outside of the Universe or before the Big bang, we have no way of determining the natural laws of such places if they exist. Your gods that don't want to be detected might exist there. Your consciousness without a brain might exist there.

I have already addressed this pages ago, most notably here. An omnipotent, omniscient being could easily hide from us if it so chose, and could choose to interact with our world only when we're not looking. I really don't see any logical necessity for the two definitions of "god" that you keep talking about. Science cannot disprove either one.

-Bri

 

[CFLarsen]

OTOH, there are some actual different points of view being discussed in this thread. In particular, the one I asked you to address that you again ignored. I'll go look at articulett's comments if you address mine.

What kind of juvenile school yard behavior is that? If you feel someone's arguments are worth looking at, go look at them.

Now:

Can you please provide the calculations and data on which you computed the probability that Hal believes in gods sans evidence?

If you don't know Hal, how can you presume to speak on behalf of all Deists (minus Hal)?

How can you know how all Deists have come to their Deism?

You say that Hal is in denial. How is that falsifiable?

How can you be in denial of something you are not aware of? I am not aware of the Gross National Product of Myanmar. Am I in denial of it?

Why can't you be in denial of something you are aware of?

 

[voidx]

You're correct about no consensus, but so what? When do you ever get 100% consensus in these kinds of matters. I still think skeptics who believe in gods are either hypocritical, or have a blind spot and are in a state of denial about that belief, or both. And it is worth pointing that out now and again. I'm not sure going along with god believing skeptics, letting them off the hook by taking this position of separating science and faith is healthy skepticism. At some point these gods beliefs are going to fall by the scientific wayside the same way beliefs in gods controlling hurricanes and volcanoes have gone.

I agree that those beliefs should not be let off the hook. I don't recall saying otherwise. Since we agree here there's nothing else to say.

I beg to differ. How about you address my two definitions of gods point that has still gone mostly unaddressed.

Obviously I made a blanket statement. My bad. I wasn't speaking to anything you posted in particular, in fact I've only glanced at aspects of the last 7 or 8 pages. However, if you, for example, think that Lonewulf, Belz, Bri and Beth have made any progress whatsoever in clarifying anything to one another, thats fine. I myself am unconvinced.

For the record I don't think I've done any better myself. But I am attempting to use a different tact.

The rest of your argument is a straw man all about the fairness issue. No one on either side is kicking anyone out of the club.

I defined what I think atheism should be, or is to me. I didn't apply the label to anyone as a means of tearing down their arguements, so hows it a straw man? And where did I mention anything about fairness? I'm not sure to what you're referring to here.

As for not kicking anyone out of the club, please, there's 27 pages of just that. MOST people in here are arguing over whether one can be a theist and still be labelled a skeptic, the defintion of which is hotly debated. Others are asking for a definition which "reasonably" excludes theists from being skeptics as a means for the others to justify that a skeptic can't be a theist. Disregarding anything else they have to say until they do so to their satisfaction.

I do think that most people in the atheist/no gods camp have more so been trying to take the position that while one can be skeptical of certain beliefs, they can most certainly be very unskeptical, or give a free pass to their belief in Gods religion. The other side has kept trying to pigeon hole them into a definition of what defines a skeptic, as a means of drawing a line in the sand, so they can then attack that line. Do you disagree?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

So, are you saying that it is an absolute fact that it is impossible for consciousness to exist without a brain (i.e. that you have absolute proof that such a thing is utterly impossible), or are you just saying that there is no evidence of consciousness existing without a brain?

If the former -- well, let's see the proof.

If the latter, then you've answered your own question -- there can be a god who "doesn't want to be detected."

-Bri

This is exactly what I said, an argument in semantics. All evidence points to the fact consciousness does not exist without a physical brain. All evidence points to the fact invisible pink unicorns do not exist in my backyard. All evidence points the the fact the gravitational pull of the Earth will not suddenly cease.

All of those statements are in general equal in terms of the strength of the evidence. Yet god believers don't choose to consider life after death and their specific god beliefs in the same way as they consider the evidence gravity is not going to suddenly cease or the same way they think of "absolute proof" as you put it that IPUs are not in my backyard.

You can argue all day about the philosophical aspects of science not proving the negative. Or you can argue all day about the real world aspects of science having overwhelming evidence of the positive (truth of the statements in my examples above).

If you are not arguing one of these positions, then you need to say so. Because there are many skeptics who would argue, "you can't prove the negative", to support their own beliefs that the real evidence is NOT actually overwhelming. And that is what really underlies this semantic exercise.

 

[Bri]

How long are you going to repeat an argument no one is really arguing about just because they aren't using the same terminology as you? We all get the, "can't prove the negative" concept in science. The other side of the coin, however, is, "what conclusions do you draw from the evidence you are presented with?"

This particular thread debate is an exercise in semantics and nothing more.

The recent derail came about because of the one comment I made to articulett to which Belz and LoneWolf decided to respond.

OTOH, there are some actual different points of view being discussed in this thread. In particular, the one I asked you to address that you again ignored. I'll go look at articulett's comments if you address mine.

I'd be happy to. Which one are you referring to?

-Bri

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Thanks for pointing this post out. I had missed it earlier.

....That´s where we maybe talk past each other. Which evidence is misinterpreted? That´s quite the core of my argument: As long as there is no evidence regarding the mechanism of how everything started, people start (or better: don´t stop) to make up stuff (gods, deities, powers, whatever) to fill the gaps. If there would be evidence, and the believers would misinterprete it, one could tear their "gods conclusion" apart. Without evidence, one can´t prove them wrong, and that, at least for me, puts deists in a different camp than the followers of religions which make testable claims that always failed when actually put to test. It´s still not the camp where I belong to, but I can somehow understand that people think that way.
They just can´t live with the dissatisfying nosiness curiosity.

It comes down to you and I simply interpreting the evidence differently for the initial god beliefs which developed in humans.

I would think we agree that

• the human brain looks for explanations and correlations, that's how it is structured to organize data.

Where we seem to disagree is

• how god beliefs came to be inserted as having a causal relationship to some of the organized information.

If I understand you correctly, you think

• "god (or magic) did it" merely filled in the blanks because human nature didn't tolerate the absence of an explanation.

I think the evidence suggests

• humans observed chance events and looked for causes
• human nature includes ritualistic and superstitious characteristics
• some rituals or similar behavior/thoughts or observations seemed to cause chance events
• that evolved from believing other humans had power to dead ancestors had power to gods with powers existed.

In your case, belief occurred without evidence. In my case belief occurred because evidence was misinterpreted.

As far as not being able to tolerate not knowing, you must be miserable. We'll never know everything at least not anytime soon.

You can look at my replies to Claus regarding Deists and exempting themselves from evidence of gods they believe exist. They did not come to those beliefs in a vacuum. They came to those beliefs after religious indoctrination usually in childhood. You have to ignore that in order to believe the skeptic Deists really came to their conclusions about gods with no evidence. You'd have to show that they never in their lives evaluated the usual evidence for god beliefs. Skeptic Deists can claim they first believed because of the evidence they were indoctrinated with (Mother's word, peer influence, whatever) and then discarded that evidence but maintained the belief. I don't buy it.

As far as Deists being in a different camp than the usual theists, they aren't likely to proselytize, they don't need to prove to anyone else any rationale for their beliefs. But god beliefs are unsupportable beliefs none the same. The fact you admit that doesn't make your belief any more skeptical than someone who says I believe because I have faith and also admits to having no empirical evidence.

 

[CFLarsen]

Thanks for pointing this post out. I had missed it earlier.

I'm sure you haven't missed these:

Can you please provide the calculations and data on which you computed the probability that Hal believes in gods sans evidence?

If you don't know Hal, how can you presume to speak on behalf of all Deists (minus Hal)?

How can you know how all Deists have come to their Deism?

You say that Hal is in denial. How is that falsifiable?

How can you be in denial of something you are not aware of? I am not aware of the Gross National Product of Myanmar. Am I in denial of it?

Why can't you be in denial of something you are aware of?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I have already addressed this pages ago, most notably here. An omnipotent, omniscient being could easily hide from us if it so chose, and could choose to interact with our world only when we're not looking. I really don't see any logical necessity for the two definitions of "god" that you keep talking about. Science cannot disprove either one.

-Bri

So are you arguing the philosophical principle science cannot disprove Thor, Zeus, Demons, Astrology, invisible pink unicorns? Or are you arguing no one can question someone's Christian God belief using empirical evidence?

 

[Bri]

This is exactly what I said, an argument in semantics. All evidence points to the fact consciousness does not exist without a physical brain. All evidence points to the fact invisible pink unicorns do not exist in my backyard. All evidence points the the fact the gravitational pull of the Earth will not suddenly cease.

All of those statements are in general equal in terms of the strength of the evidence. Yet god believers don't choose to consider life after death and their specific god beliefs in the same way as they consider the evidence gravity is not going to suddenly cease or the same way they think of "absolute proof" as you put it that IPUs are not in my backyard.

You can argue all day about the philosophical aspects of science not proving the negative. Or you can argue all day about the real world aspects of science having overwhelming evidence of the positive (truth of the statements in my examples above).

If you are not arguing one of these positions, then you need to say so. Because there are many skeptics who would argue, "you can't prove the negative", to support their own beliefs that the real evidence is NOT actually overwhelming. And that is what really underlies this semantic exercise.

I've no idea what all of this is about. As I said, I brought up the point for the sole purpose of addressing articulett's question, or more to the point so that articulett could answer his own question (I even put the question I was responding to in bold in my response).

-Bri

 

[Mobyseven]

Trolling? Are you simple?

Who has pointed out which definition?

Why would I have a definition that includes atheists and exludes all theists? If you had read my posts you would know I'm of the impression, at the moment, that no such definition exists.

There are plenty of definitions of skeptic that I'm happy accept, such as one I previously posted. But (as I previously posted) it doesn't fit the bill. I don't see why this is so complicated. If you think that skepticism includes atheists (by which we mean people who actively believe there are no gods, which includes me by the way) but excludes all theists then it should be possible to put this in a sentence starting with "a skeptic is:". I can't do it personally.

No, I'm not simple. I'm observing that no answer seems good enough for you, oh wise one, for else why would you ignore posts that actually answer your question? Like this one:

Alright then, lets try this again:

Should a skeptic, by definition, be an atheist?

No, because being a skeptic merely requires the application of skepticism. There are no other prerequisites to being a skeptic.

Should a skeptic be an atheist?

This is a different question, and the answer is yes. Through application of empirical skepticism, it is reasonably obvious that the evidence for god is the same as the evidence for bigfoot and the fairies - zilch. If a skeptic believes in god, it doesn't mean that they aren't a skeptic anymore, given that they probably haven't abandoned critical thinking in regards to other topics, but it does mean that they have not applied skepticism to their belief in god, or that they have applied skepticism and decided to believe an admittedly irrational belief. For them to apply skepticism and believe in god without it being one of those two options would require them to have some kind of evidence for the existence of god - if anyone has this I would kindly recommend that they stop keeping it a secret and let the rest of the world know about it pronto.

 

[Bri]

So are you arguing the philosophical principle science cannot disprove Thor, Zeus, Demons, Astrology, invisible pink unicorns?

Not sure what you mean.

Or are you arguing no one can question someone's Christian God belief using empirical evidence?

You can question an individual belief, but I doubt you can disprove the Christian God empirically or otherwise.

For example, it would be possible to disprove a belief that God must answer all prayers during scientific testing, but it would be difficult to prove that God never answers prayers.

-Bri

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm sure you haven't missed these:

Can you please provide the calculations and data on which you computed the probability that Hal believes in gods sans evidence?

If you don't know Hal, how can you presume to speak on behalf of all Deists (minus Hal)?

How can you know how all Deists have come to their Deism?

You say that Hal is in denial. How is that falsifiable?

How can you be in denial of something you are not aware of? I am not aware of the Gross National Product of Myanmar. Am I in denial of it?

Why can't you be in denial of something you are aware of?

Is this a language translation problem Claus? You are not aware of the protective brain mechanism of denial?

Understanding Denial