I posted your quote, Claus, which I was referring to. People can draw their own conclusions as to what you meant.
I have not argued that you are not allowed to have an opinion on what a skeptic is. I said you are not allowed to impose that opinion on others as being the final truth about what a skeptic is.
Care to articulate the difference between, "cannot be tested" and "is not evidence based"?
Care to read what I said?
In the natural world, that would be correct, I see no reason to make exceptions for some god beliefs.
Nobody is doing that.
You have yet to make a case for some god beliefs being outside of skepticism and other god beliefs not being except the "not evidential" case. But "not evidential" is the essence of "not skeptical".
I am not trying to.
Excluding their specific god belief, not their person. What is so hard about that concept?
No, no, no. You are also saying that they are not skeptics anymore.
Good.
Or else what?
I answered the posts in sequential order.
And I don't have a clue what your imaginary friend analogy was about, nor did your follow up posts make it any more clear. I just gave up on that one.
I asked you what it was you didn't understand in the posts.
Listen, just put me on ignore. Don't make idle threats.
What "threats"? If I am threatening you, report me to the moderators.
Put me on ignore too Claus...
Yes, I could. But what would be the result?
By putting you two on ignore, I won't be able to see your arguments, and cannot criticize them, if I find reason to.
What is the benefit and for whom? You would not hear my criticism. But you would be free to criticize my arguments all you like.
If I put the two of you on ignore, the only ones who benefit are you two. It puts you in a position where you can tear my arguments apart, but where you both are safe from my criticism.
Here's a better idea: If my crititism of your points is such a drag, put me on ignore. That way, neither of you would have to even see the criticism.
Sure, it would mean that I would be able to criticize your points, without you seeing it. But then, I'm not the one suggesting that one party should not listen to the other.
Your questions are silly and irrelevant... they are clearly designed for you to win your imaginary game. You aren't saying anything and you aren't fooling anyone but yourself. You want god belief to be rational
No, I don't.
or to be something other than woo or a delusion
No, I don't.
-- but you've made no case for that while presenting one straw man and semantic game and ad hom and loaded question after another.
Since I don't argue either, I don't have to make a case.
You present no case for any point of view and you imagine yourself making one valid point after another-- it doesn't matter to you that only you seem to think this.
I cannot tell your rantings from other woo nothingness and so I've concluded it fits in that category.
Yes, you are very quick to give up on "understanding" a point that you don't agree with, after which you simply relegate it to the woo-bin.
But I think you might want to work on communicating with older forum members before inflicting yourself on newer members as T'ai does. Suppose you are coming across like T'ai. How would you possibly know? Take the most obnoxious forum member you know-- what makes you think that others find you less obnoxious, anything? Or is it just one of those non-evidentiary beliefs that you put outside of skeptic scrutiny. I seem to always be able to understand the people you are endlessly arguing with, but never quite follow you. This leads me to logically conclude that the problem is you and you can't fix it because you have no awareness that the problem is you.
Does it matter at all to you that nobody but you seems to understand your point and nobody but you thinks you are make a valid case for anything?--nobody but you seems particularly clear on what you are saying-- only that you are readily mischaracterizing the rest of us while putting your inferences out of the realm of skeptical scrutiny with language games. How is discussing something with you any more valuable or edifying than discussing something with T'ai or a creationist? What's your damn goal anyhow. To bully skeptics into believing that there might be a god that is more than human imagination?
Nowhere have I said anything like that.
To convince yourself that god belief is not irrational?
Again, no. I am specifically saying that their god belief is irrational.
We all know that we can't address claims not made. But we also know enough to understand that all beliefs of a certain ilk are very probably woo... we have no reason to conclude otherwise.
How about addressing the claims I actually make, instead of constantly getting them wrong?
And I don't understand your imaginary friend analogy or Lucifer questions or any of it.
Here's a hint: Lucifer is perceived as evil in Christianity. Yet, Lucifer did not start out as being evil - he was the morning star, Venus. It was only later that he became another word for Satan.
So, gods and demons are not the absolute entities as you would like them to be. What is one's person demon, can be another one's god. And sometimes, just a symbol.
Most skeptics understand these to be products of the human mind--they don't exist outside the human mind... nor do fairies or chupacabras... people can believe they have evidence... but they are making the wrong inferences from the evidence...just like people who believe Uri Geller is a real psychic. If anyone thinks god beliefs are more than that or wants a skeptic to consider such beliefs as more than that, then they would need to be the one to present evidence. There is no means of proving something exists only in the imagination of humans--but we can accept this to be the case for all supernatural claims unless or until some evidence somewhere puts such things into the realm of the real--the natural. I imagine Randi would agree as would most scientists and skeptics. It makes no sense to think otherwise. It's not a recipe for understanding anything. It's a recipe for gullibility... a method which says any woo could be true. Why be a skeptic unless you are interested in separating the truth from wrong perceptions, inferences, myths, opinions, and everything else? Isn't a skeptic about finding the best and most truthful explanation of our shared reality-- the facts that are the same for everyone. Either a god exists absent human imagination or he (it, they) do not. These are not equally probable possibilities. Things for which there are no measurable evidence are much more likely not to exist than things for which there are evidence. After all this applies to ALL non existent things that one might imagine-- all imaginary forces too. That's the bottom line.
Your semantics are all about putting others down and pretending super open mindedness of the "true skeptic" is a silly ruse to keep yourself from admitting that your god is as much woo as all the other things you call woo. You don't believe in other gods but you want it to be logical that the one that exists in your head is real. You don't want it to be the delusion you understand other gods to be or past life claims or Invisible pink unicorns. Your semantics is all about taking your god outside of known woo.
You are making things up again. I have not argued anywhere that whatever god there is in people's heads is real. On the contrary, I have argued the exact opposite.
Now, try the questions again:
Does calling yourself a skeptic make you a skeptic?
Why don't you write an article where you present your views on this, and send it to me? Or Skeptic Magazine? Or offer to present it at TAM? See just how your perception of what skepticism fares?
Can you point out where my point of view is inconsistent or not?
Do you think you could be wrong that I am trying to win points in a game?
Do you speak for atheist skeptics?
What is the reason Chupacabra is supernatural/paranormal?
Do you see demons as bad gods?
Or, you can put me on ignore. Then, you won't ever see them again, or be reminded of why they are still there.
That means you can't say "100%" to a non-evidential god either.
Well, we know at this very point in time verifying a person who lived 3 trillion years ago in a galaxy light years away is not going to happen.
That only makes it impractical. But not impossible.
It's impractical to send 100 people to the moon. But not impossible.
My position has not changed.
Skeptics require evidence and will not believe by faith alone. Claimed evidential or not, this does not change.
I'm not saying that your position has. You just need to go that step further: What if no such evidence is claimed? What's a skeptic to do?
Answer: A skeptic can't do anything. Especially not come to the conclusion that it doesn't exist.
You can
rationalize all you like until you get to the point where you say that gods don't exist, but that doesn't mean they can't be there. You always have to be open to the possibility, and your arguments should reflect that. Especially when you examine the beliefs of others.
It is conditionally impossible. I.e Currently impossible.
It is more correct to say it is impractical. "Impossible" is an absolute.
But atoms are not particularly self-evident, are they?
We can however state that skepticism was not applied to the god belief they uphold. This is my whole point, which you have already agreed to. So i am not sure why we are continuing to argue
Mainly because you are going too far, when you say that the gods don't exist, even though there is no evidence pro or con.
No one is saying they can't.
What most people here are saying is, they can still be skeptics, but they cannot claim to have been skeptical when it comes to their belief in god.
But they don't claim to. That's why the criticism is so wrong: You are criticizing them for doing something they are not.
So can you come up with another belief that is not evedential? We will use that as an example.
I already did: The imaginary friend.
Empirical evidence? No - because philosophical ideas are artificial human constructs. They don't exist outside of the minds that conceive and consider them.
Yet, you have no problems with someone calling himself a Bergsonian, or any of the other philosophical schools of thought. Why can't you extend the same to those who say they believe in a non-evidential god - which could be an imaginary friend?
Again, no - because it is an entirely subjective opinion that does not exist outside of the mind that conceives it.
Why is it that whenever arguments like this come up, people start talking about abstract ideas as though they are concrete, real world objects?
But that's what you are doing! You are treating their belief in a non-evidential god as if they had claimed it was evidential.
Extend the same to Deists as you do with the Monkees' fan and the philosopher, and you're there.
Are you entirely daft? Do you have a reading comprehension issue? How is me saying that it is bad for you to completely disregard evidence somehow indicative of me disregarding evidence? This entire thread I've been discussing the importance of evidence, and you turn around and say that - are you a freaking moron?
I am referring to your argument that the question of evidence is pointless. It isn't - the question of evidence is pivotal.
It is special pleading, because you are suggesting that the lack of evidence means that this specific claim is reasonable to believe. I doubt you'd say the same about homeopathy.
I wouldn't, because evidence is claimed in homeopathy.
And I know that we have to look at the evidence. I've been talking about the damn evidence this entire thread.
One example, Claus. One example of me saying that evidence is not pivotal in skepticism. That's all you need.
When most people commit the strawman fallacy, they at least try and make it subtle. You, on the other hand, have just attributed to me a position which is the exact opposite position to the one I hold. If you're going to argue with me, at least make sure that you argue against a position I hold.
You call the question of evidence pointless.
Wikipedia said:
It is supposedly a heavy creature, the size of a small bear, with a row of spines reaching from the neck to the base of the tail./quote]
What is supernatural/paranormal about that?
The problem is that the Chupacabra is nothing like a bat. Hence, saying that it is makes you look a little bit like an idiot. Do some basic research on a subject before you pass comment.
I am comparing Chupacabra with a blood-sucking bat, because both suck blood and are elusive creatures. But none are supernatural/paranormal.
Nope. But then, the Chupacabra is very, very different to a bat. The Chupacabra is a supernatural belief. Bats are not.
Oh? Ever heard of Dracula and his ever-present bloodsucking bats?
Chupacapra is a
cryptozoological phenomenon. Not a supernatural/paranormal one.
Hmmmmmmmm....... They can be communicated to others verbally, allowing them to exist in the minds of others, plus they can be communicated through written language which not only allows them to be communicated to others immediately, but also for a long time into the future.
I would say that there is clear evidence that they exist even if we can't actually see them.
In which case, everything we write about, "exists". I
think that's taking it a bit too far...
And even if they saw a bat and thought it was a chupacabra--it doesn't make chupacabra's real. It means their belief in the chupacabra caused them to make incorrect inferences regarding what it was they saw. It's the same as people thinking that belief in god or faith and feelings regarding god infer that there is a god that exists outside of human imagination.
What if the Chupacabra exists? Not as a bat, but a species? Is that impossible?
Do you think that any of those who believe in a god believe that their god is on par with principles of philosophy?-- Why say you believe in a god if it's really just a god philosophy you believe in (whatever that means). Don't you think that most people who believe in god believe in it as an anthropomorphic entity without a material brain? And is there a good reason to think that consciousness can exist absent a human brain? Do you think god belief can be treated as demon belief or other woo in regards to considering it a misperception of reality. Or do you think god belief deserves more consideration or deference so long as people aren't claiming they believe for a reason? (Claus' position.)
No, it is not my position. I am not saying that non-evidential god belief deserve more consideration or deference at all.
Some people seem to think that being on the fence regarding a god is the most skeptical position, but most who have weighted in, including me, think it's more logical to conclude that all gods are products of the human imagination and things that are undetectable and immeasurable don't exist or are indistinguishable from things that don't exist and can be presumed to be in that category.
Your problem is that you don't use either rationality or logic to reach your conclusion that gods don't exist. You reach it because you cannot imagine that it could be any other way.
Your whole argument is one long appeal to ignorance: What you cannot understand, cannot be. And then you guard yourself from being shown wrong by calling it "logic".
