Is there evidence your god beliefs are true while other god beliefs are false?

[articulett]

Whoa! Careful with your quotes Art. The first round was just a warning.

By the way have you noticed any material by T'[email protected], now I'm slipping towards the profane.

I haven't seen him lately. Maybe he raptured.

 

[HghrSymmetry]

Good point.

 

[Mobyseven]

Okay. I get you now.

Interestingly enough, I once hung a jury because that sort of evidence was what was presented and it was insufficient for me to convict. Not for 10 other people on the jury though.
Sigh. You're making the same mistake about my argument that nearly everyone else here does. I can only presume I do not present it well. I'm not arguing that believers are correct. I'm only arguing that they are not irrational or delusional in coming to their conclusion, or at least, no more so than any other human being .

We get your argument. It's still wrong. Otherwise you would be able to present us with a rational argument for the existence of god.

 

[cyborg]

I'm only arguing that they are not irrational or delusional in coming to their conclusion, or at least, no more so than any other human being .

I'm pretty sure that most people who say, "God exists," haven't given much thought to it.

I agree, a personal experience isn't proof. However, it is supporting evidence.

Yes, but evidence of what?

That is rather the thrust here.

 

[articulett]

Evidence that people are very good at finding "evidence" for what they want to be true.

Evidence of "confirmation bias".

 

[Faithkills]

I agree, a personal experience isn't proof. However, it is supporting evidence.

If only I knew this in college, I could have saved a lot of time writing lab papers.

But more importantly I think we need to immediately alert the scientific, especially the physics, community. They are wasting all this money on accelerators trying to tease out information about how the universe works when all they ever really needed was a personal experience.

 

[articulett]

Science can't explain it to me, therefore my woo is true!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

hia Beth,
I guess its the level of evidence that is acceptable.

Even anecdotal evidence is evidence, but for the skeptic it's been seen to be not reasonable enough on the god issue anyhow. This might be down to the lack of objective evidence, which skeptics prefer to use anyway.

Subjective evidence ,ie anecdotal evidence, is way more likely to be accepted by most skeptics IMO, if supported by objective evidence.

I think it's just where one sets the bar on what you consider to be evidence at all, really....

I hate to say it but your misconceptions of what has been said here only serve to feed into Beth's lack of understanding of what she isn't getting either.

Subjective evidence is used in medical research all the time. And it is not always supported by physical evidence though sometimes it is.

The difference is if you want an anecdote to be useful, you need to collect anecdotes in a systematic way, preferably with controls to determine the significance of the subjective experience.

I take it you are a god believer wanting to believe you have magical evidence for god those of us not convinced simply aren't believing.

You have an experience, or believers do. Your experience is evidence YOU HAD/HAVE AN EXPERIENCE. What you believe about that experience is not evidence of god. That is your conclusion about your (or someone else's) 'experience'.

I would bet that you couldn't even determine something consistent in the way of that 'experience' from believer to believer. In the end, all you have is an internally generated belief and you expect the rest of us to believe you that it is externally generated. Where's your evidence? You don't have any.

It has nothing to do with setting any bar. A conclusion is not evidence. It is a conclusion.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Another thing I've noticed is this idea that atheists are starting from the position 'no god exists' and thus obtaining that as the conclusion. Quite aside from the fact that 'no god exists' is not the starting point (instead it is the conclusion), it completely ignores the fact that many atheists, myself included, were theists for a number of years prior to becoming atheists. If one starts with the idea that god exists and ends up realising that he doesn't, it kind of screws up Beth's argument that we've reached that conclusion by begging the question, eh?

I too believed in God as a child. My belief faded sometime in my teens and I became more convinced god beliefs are unsupportable as I spent much more time thinking about the evidence in later life.

And I have said repeatedly what is often left out of these discussions is the overwhelming evidence of where god beliefs originated in the first place. The evidence is very clear god beliefs are a human generated fantasy. There is no evidence any god beliefs originated because people interacted with any real gods. You don't need any assumptions one way or the other as to the existence of gods. You merely need to follow the evidence to its conclusion rather than assuming any conclusion ahead of the evidence.

 

[biomorph]

I hate to say it but your misconceptions of what has been said here only serve to feed into Beth's lack of understanding of what she isn't getting either.

Ah well, thats a shame, because that wasn't my intent. Perhaps i didn't do such a good job.

Subjective evidence is used in medical research all the time. And it is not always supported by physical evidence though sometimes it is.

I agree, perhaps my linking of anecdotal evidence with subjective evidence is incorrect.

The difference is if you want an anecdote to be useful, you need to collect anecdotes in a systematic way, preferably with controls to determine the significance of the subjective experience.

Thanks, and agreed.

I take it you are a god believer wanting to believe you have magical evidence for god those of us not convinced simply aren't believing.

You take it wrong then. Read my posts.

You have an experience, or believers do. Your experience is evidence YOU HAD/HAVE AN EXPERIENCE. What you believe about that experience is not evidence of god. That is your conclusion about your (or someone else's) 'experience'.

Yup. Never thought otherwise. I've come to no such conclusion.

I would bet that you couldn't even determine something consistent in the way of that 'experience' from believer to believer. In the end, all you have is an internally generated belief and you expect the rest of us to believe you that it is externally generated. Where's your evidence? You don't have any.

I don't bet.
I've never said there was any evidence. There isn't any. I never said i had any. I don't expect anyone to believe anything without external evidence. My point was that skeptics rightly do not accept anecdotal evidence. Other nonskeptics do, however misguided that is. i don't accept anecdotal evidence either. I was just trying to get Beth to come to a common ground using her own value system in order to understand the fallacy of anecdotal evidence. This does not make me a believer.

It has nothing to do with setting any bar. A conclusion is not evidence. It is a conclusion.

It does for nonskeptics , who erroniously consider evidence to include anecdotal. I was trying point out the mentality of raising that threshold to exclude what nonskeptics would rightly consider to be evidence, because it isn't evidence in real terms..

Perhaps, in your eyes, I havn't been saying what you think should have been said. Perhaps i misread the theme of the posts in this thread. I'll consider that next time.

 

[epeos76]

Not that it is very timely anymore, but here are some articles supporting points disputed earlier. They are really only relevant to SkepticGirl's earlier claims that it is delusional to imagine god beliefs have any effect on morality.

1. For point that the biomechanics of moral decision making are in their infancy, and not the sole relavant factor see:

Adrian Raine and Yaling Yang, Neural Foundations to Moral reasoning and Antisocial Behavior, Oxford University Press (2006).

From the abstract: "This review summarizes key findings from brain imaging research on both antisocial behavior and moral reasoning."

After concluding that certain antisocial behaviors "may in part be due to impairments in the brain regions subserving moral cognition and emotion" the article states: " . . .an understanding of the neural basis to moral decision making is still in its infancy." and cautions that "nteractions between neural and social risk factos for antisocial behavior cannot be ignored."


2. For point that complexity of language is involved in at least one facet of moral decision making see:

Courtney Melinda Hale and Helen Tager-Flusberg, The Influence of Language on Theory of Mind: a training study, Developmental Science (2003)

The study concluded that language training improved children's scores on a false belief test (judging person who acts on a false belief).

3. For your consideration (and use!)

Ap. Djiksterhuis & Ad Van Kniiperberg, The Relation Between Perception and Behavior, or how to win a game of trivia pursuit, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1998 Vol. 74 No. 4.

People who imagined a someone knowledgable (a professor) did better on a knowledge based test. People who imagined soccer hooligans did worse.

What effect would you expect imagining, singing about etc. someone really virtuous to have on a test of that virtue?

 

[Beth]

Not that it is very timely anymore, but here are some articles supporting points disputed earlier. They are really only relevant to SkepticGirl's earlier claims that it is delusional to imagine god beliefs have any effect on morality.

Thank you Epeos. I appreciate your return and your posting of relevant cites. Your last point is not something I'd considered before, but it is also supported in a more general way by a book I read some years ago called "Mindfulness" by Ellen Langer. (Isn't the Internet wonderful! I couldn't have found it on my bookshelf these days, but it's on amazon http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_g...ripbooks&field-keywords=mindfulness&x=18&y=20 )

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Ah well, thats a shame, because that wasn't my intent. Perhaps i didn't do such a good job. ....

So I'm confused then, were you or were you not supporting Beth's contention that we are discounting less reliable evidence? The truth is we are contesting the claim that a conclusion is evidence. No one is concerned that some evidence is more reliable than other evidence. Beth doesn't believe we understand that part of her argument and have no issue with it. But we do understand that and aren't arguing the evidence for god is too weak to be considered. We are arguing there is no evidence, weak or otherwise. Beth is trying to make a straw man argument that we simply discount evidence that isn't of "scientific quality" as she puts it.

A conclusion does not turn an experience into evidence for the conclusion. It is as simple as that.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Not that it is very timely anymore, but here are some articles supporting points disputed earlier. They are really only relevant to SkepticGirl's earlier claims that it is delusional to imagine god beliefs have any effect on morality. ...

Sorry to bust your straw man here after all your work but I actually conceded this pages ago. God beliefs can help a person conquer an addiction, for example. That is of course if you view addiction as a moral shortcoming rather than an illness.

I might have comments on the rest of your post but I'm not going to bother finding the links for your assertions right now. Maybe you could post them yourself like a good little forumite?

 

[Beth]

Sorry to bust your straw man here after all your work but I actually conceded this pages ago. God beliefs can help a person conquer an addiction, for example. That is of course if you view addiction as a moral shortcoming rather than an illness.

I'm not sure that you have to view addiction as a moral shortcoming in order to benefit from a religious conversion. Why did you throw that last consideration out? Do you really believe that? If so, why?

 

[articulett]

Scientologists run narcanon... the group supposedly gets a lot of people of drugs... but it appears some trade one addiction for another.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm not sure that you have to view addiction as a moral shortcoming in order to benefit from a religious conversion. Why did you throw that last consideration out? ...

Because epeos76 worded his post in terms of god beliefs resulting in morality beliefs.

If he ever gets around to posting a link, I'll take the time to address the rest of his post.

Do you really believe that? If so, why?

I'm a health care provider. I view addiction as more illness than immoral.

 

[biomorph]

So I'm confused then, were you or were you not supporting Beth's contention that we are discounting less reliable evidence? The truth is we are contesting the claim that a conclusion is evidence. No one is concerned that some evidence is more reliable than other evidence. Beth doesn't believe we understand that part of her argument and have no issue with it. But we do understand that and aren't arguing the evidence for god is too weak to be considered. We are arguing there is no evidence, weak or otherwise. Beth is trying to make a straw man argument that we simply discount evidence that isn't of "scientific quality" as she puts it.

I was trying to get Beth to see how maybe skeptics get to the point of not accepting anecdotal evidence from her perspective, rather than ours/mine. How to get from a position of accepting anecdotal evidence, to one that correctly cannot. So are you, we are just, perhaps, employing different methods...and ,my apologies for the confusion, non intended.

A conclusion does not turn an experience into evidence for the conclusion. It is as simple as that.

True.

 

[Beth]

I'm not sure that you have to view addiction as a moral shortcoming in order to benefit from a religious conversion. Why did you throw that last consideration out? ...

Because epeos76 worded his post in terms of god beliefs resulting in morality beliefs.

If he ever gets around to posting a link, I'll take the time to address the rest of his post.

Do you really believe that? If so, why?

I'm a health care provider. I view addiction as more illness than immoral.

I sorry, you misunderstood the question. I wasn't asking how you viewed addiction, but rather if you believe that someone must view addiction as a moral shortcoming rather than an illness in order for their religion to be effective at helping them conquer their addiction? By extension, that would imply that religious beliefs or religious conversion would not be helpful to someone who viewed their addiction as an illness. Is that your opinion? If so, why do you think that?

 

[Beth]

I was trying to get Beth to see how maybe skeptics get to the point of not accepting anecdotal evidence from her perspective, rather than ours/mine. How to get from a position of accepting anecdotal evidence, to one that correctly cannot.

I understand why skeptics view anecdotal evidence that way. I have no problems with it. It's a perfectly rational approach. My point is simply that it isn't the ONLY way to view such evidence and those who give it a greater weight than zero are not irrational or deluded to do so. I agree that it doesn't make them correct.