Can atheists be rational? (not a parody thread)

[cj.23]

Before i have to go do stuff I must briefly reply to ask PixyMisa a question --
I wrote

On the contrary. It is not direct evidence of a God. It is evidence. Look back over the thread, and see my examples I have offered...

i) The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is evidence for the Big Bang
ii) The Fossil Record is evidence for Evolution
let's add a few more
iii) The Gallic Wars is evidence for Caesar's campaigns
iv) The bending of light recorded in the Michelson-Morley experiments is evidence for Relativity
v) The presence of the bacterium heliobacter pylori in patients with stomach ulcers is evidence for a link.

PixyMisa cryptically replied....

What is the common factor between all of these examples but absent from your "God" concept? (Actually, there are several correct answers.)

I am a theist of very little brain, so please, spell them out for me...

cj x

 

[RandFan]

As I appear to be completely alone defending my position in this thread, unsurprisingly really, especially as many posters who I had hoped might have input are busy with the "Is theism irrational thread?" - and i have not had the time to reply to that one in days - can I ask for patience in awaiting responses? I WILL reply to everyone, whether to agree, ask for more information or dispute their point -- but I am really busy and have limited time to respond. I am not intentionally evading any point. Please feel free to pm me with a link to any post you think needs immediate attention from me?

Sorry! I do fully intend to reply to PixyMisa nd FLS today.
cj x

cj, by all means. Take as much time as you need to respond to my posts. I should note that I've got to go out of town this week so I won't be able to respond for awhile.

Thanks.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Now, Temporal Lobe Epilepsy has been mentioned a great deal in this thread. The experience is internal, spontaneous, and like mystical experiences can have physiological effects on the percipent. Fuerthmore it is if i recall correctly associated with squared theta wave production for a short period after the the attack, which is a handy diagnostic tool. Still, how do we know TLE exists? The symptoms may seem bizarre to those of us who have never experienced it. The answer is of course the same way we know mystical experiences exist - patients have reported th symptoms, and we have looked for effects, having noted a wide similarity of experience across populations that seems to go beyond imagination. Let's take depression as a second example. How do we know depression exists? Maybe to an arch-behaviourist like Watson it would be a meaningless question - all we know is that depressed behaviours exists. (interesting point - how did Behaviourism explain depression? Anyone help?) However the naswer is the same - because people report depressive symptoms, though finding physiological correspondences is hard than one might imagine (the often seen claim that depression is linked with low serotonin levels is actually rather problematic - I'll explain what I mena by this if anyone is interested. There is some relationship, sure, but saying what constitutes low is, er, well difficult!)

There are always problems in studying internal conscious experiences - but with neurophysiology advancing, I think we will see rel progress in the next century, and actually introspective research is far more advanced in some ways than many people seem to realise.

Anyway, I'd better go do some work! I'll reply to FLS's other point shortly...
cj x

How do we know temporal lobe epilepsy exists? Patient reports, as you say, and the fact that we independently measure the seizure onset with patients in epilepsy monitoring units and can correlate the site of seizure onset and the spread of the seizure discharge with particular symptoms that follow a fairly set pattern. Then we cut out a small portion of the mesial temporal lobe in patients who do not respond to medications and their seizures disappear.

The reports of symptoms are linked to an objective finding. Remove the objective finding -- the seizure discharge as seen by EEG -- and the reported symptoms disappear.

So, we know that the experiences, however bizarre, are a brain phenomenon.

We are only now doing the same with mystical experiences, but there simply is not as much interest or as much immediacy because people's lives are not adversely affected by meditation.

 

[fls]

Now so far I have dealt with the vidence being different by not existing - but FLS' point is I think much subtler. If the evidence was different, the hypotheses would be falsified. So here we need to show that mystical experience can still exist, and yet provide a different outcome. Unsurprisingly I think we can...

If mystical experiences invariably gave a result that was indistinguishable from mental illness, we would not be able to claim them as evidence. If mystical experiences always accesed McKenna's "machine elves" we would be perfectly correct to postulate them as evidence for those, but not the Judeo-Christian God. If the content of mystical experience varied wildly, with no consistent phenomenal elements, but varied entirely in form based upon on the cultural and belief systems of the percipeint, again we would be justified in saying this weakened or negated the god hypothesis. If the mystical experience always resulted in a polytheistic realisation, the Judeo-Christian hypothesis would be weakened. (i'll review the fit of the experience to various faiths later...)

I think this is wrong. If those things that are called mystical experiences had a different set of characteristics, then the various descriptions wrt mystical experiences would reflect those different characteristics. Those people studying the state, would have a different set of expectations by which to evaluate the experiences. And they would similarly presume that if it were any different, if the idea didn't vary widely across many cultures or didn't invariably result in a polytheistic experience, they would consider the idea of God weakened.

On the other hand, if the fossil record had a different set of characteristics, such as no variation, then there would no longer be a Theory of Evolution Through Natural Selection.

Linda

 

[six7s]

Thanks for the reply, cj

You see for theism to be irrational, well we would surely be have to falsify the position "theism can be rational". SO far as I can see no one has done this yet?

Try this:

All theism encompasses blind belief in completely unsubstantiated assertions; this is, at best, circular reasoning and, therefore, irrational
​

I sincerely suggest that those who can find fault with that simple statement are:

• either merely intent on reinforcing their own, private, delusions
• or intent on promoting their delusions before a wider audience

Both of which seem, to me, as being irrational

Or the belief there is no god, or in weak atheism, no gods I personally know of, or probably no gods, or maybe no gods - yes.

I sincerely fail to see how such distinctions are relevant in a discussion following the OP

Sorry it took a while - it was back on page 2 which meant finding it with loading speeds like i'm experiencing took a while!

Do you know that clicking the wee

in a quoted section will automagically whisk you to the relevant post

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Atheism is rational.

People do not know if beings which could be considered gods exist. There is no consistent body of good quality evidence which points at the existence of such beings being likely or even possible and there is plenty of good quality evidence gods have been used to explain what we now are natural, material phenomena. Therefore it is rational for people to not believe in such entities.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Atheism is rational.

People do not know if beings which could be considered gods exist. There is no consistent body of good quality evidence which points at the existence of such beings being likely or even possible and there is plenty of good quality evidence gods have been used to explain what we now are natural, material phenomena. Therefore it is rational for people to not believe in such entities.

Very well put!

cj and some others seem to have a strange idea of what it means to be rational.

I would ask them if they think it's rational to believe in the assertion in a Nigerian scam e-mail you might receive. Under cj's thinking, if we can prove that the assertions are possible-- or better yet, if we can't prove certainly that they are impossible-- then it is rational to believe them.

 

[Frozenwolf150]

On the contrary. It is not direct evidence of a God. It is evidence. Look back over the thread, and see my examples I have offerred...

i) The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is eviudence for the Big Bang
ii) The Fossil Record is evidence for Evolution
let's add a few more
iii) The Gallic Wars is evidence for Caesar's campaigns
iv) The bending of light recorded in the Michelson-Morley experiments is evidence for Relativity
v) The presence of the bacterium heliobacter pylori in patients with stomach ulcers is evidence for a link.

The problem with your analogies is that you're looking at them backwards.

1) The microwave background is a prediction of the Big Bang theory, in that if an expansion occurred 14 billion years ago, we'd expect to see its fingerprints in the form of microwave radiation. Sure enough, this is what has been found. It was because of this testable prediction that cosmologists searched for and found said background.
2) The fossil record was evidence of creatures that lived long ago. People were discovering fossils before Darwin formulated the theory of evolution. In China, for example, they thought they were the bones of dragons, and in North America, the native tribes thought they were the bones of thunder birds. Once we had the theory of evolution however, it made predictions about what types of transitional fossils we should expect to find. Sure enough, many of these fossils have been discovered.
3) Caesar had reasons prior to the invasion, including pre-emption against the mobilizing Gallic tribes, the military prestige it would earn him, and the debts he had to settle at the time. In other words, this would also fall under a prediction and that which logically follows from it.
4) Also a prediction, which the experiment was designed to test.
5) The possible presence of an infection causing germ in an ailing organ is not an unreasonable prediction either, considering that we already know that disease germs cause a lot of ailments. Finding the bacteria would confirm this prediction.


In order for your analogy to work, you'd have to establish that the theory of God's existence makes the testable prediction that people experience him. There are a few problems with this line of reasoning though. Do we have reason to think that God works that way? Is there a mechanism of interaction by which he gives people experiences? Would God give two different people the same experiences? Can these experiences be duplicated in different people, including nonbelievers? In other words, you can't go from "experience" to "God exists." It's only evidence of people's belief in God, where God still may or may not exist.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Is it actually true that mystical experiences are identical across cultures? There is really no cultural input into these experiences?

Let's set some ground rules for this issue -- if we are to be confident in mystical experiences being an experience of another reality, then the reports should be consistent in the way that people describe reality here, such as the way we describe a tree across cultures. They cannot be analyzed like other internal states (seizure, depression) which have significant differences in description because, in different people they involve different brain areas to varying degrees. There will always be cultural influences, but there is a very high degree of consistency for tree description across cultures. Do we have that sort of consistency for mystical experiences?

There isn't much sense in proceeding without this degree of consistency, even though there is an alternative, more parsimonious explanation -- that all such experiences depend on common neurological pathways. The latter is also a potentially testable claim.

 

[PixyMisa]

I think this is wrong. If those things that are called mystical experiences had a different set of characteristics, then the various descriptions wrt mystical experiences would reflect those different characteristics. Those people studying the state, would have a different set of expectations by which to evaluate the experiences. And they would similarly presume that if it were any different, if the idea didn't vary widely across many cultures or didn't invariably result in a polytheistic experience, they would consider the idea of God weakened.

Indeed.

If what CJ is suggesting were true, we would expect to find that the vast majority of people throughout history were not only Judeo-Christian, but Anglican. And that we had no beliefs in elves and goblins and ghosts and reincarnation and suchlike, only in the holy duality. (Of course, this still wouldn't constitute good evidence, but it would make his claims less ridiculous.)

Here on planet Earth, though, CJ is proclaiming that exclusive truth belongs to a breakaway sect of a breakaway sect of the religion of one particular bronze age desert tribe, based on a very selective reading of a vast body of anecdotes.

 

[cj.23]

Here on planet Earth, though, CJ is proclaiming that exclusive truth belongs to a breakaway sect of a breakaway sect of the religion of one particular bronze age desert tribe, based on a very selective reading of a vast body of anecdotes.

I am claiming no such thing,as i am sure reading this thread would inform you? When did i ever claim Anglicanism represented the sole objective truth??!!! Please demonstrate me making this claim, with evidence?!!!

cj x

 

[cj.23]

PixyMisa,

you going to resolve this cryptic conundrum?
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4338714#post4338714

cj x

 

[MattusMaximus]

CJ, I know that I haven't been on the thread for a day, but I'd really appreciate it if you could respond to my post...

What specifically distinguishes Zeus/God from Invisible Goblins? What is it that makes the IGs naturalistic but makes Z/G supernaturalistic? You need to be very clear and concrete in your definitions & descriptions here.

Having said that, outline an experiment that could test for your hypothetical IGs, one which uses methodological naturalism.

Also, please outline what kind of test you'd put forth for the Z/G hypothesis - if not one using MN, how would you do it in a manner that is repeatable and independently verifiable? How can you possibly invalidate either Zeus, God, or both? Please outline the protocols clearly.

And, lastly, I repeat my earlier questions...

1. If your test (whatever that may be) validates Zeus, will you start to worship Zeus?

2. If your test invalidates both Zeus and God, will you drop all religious belief and embrace atheism?

 

[Geri_Berri]

Good point. Just make a rational argument for the non-existence of god/ddess(e/s) then...

cj x

If you believe in god then regardless on what statements any atheist will or have ever made, no christian/believer is going to all of a sudden say - OHH THAT MAKES SENSE TO ME, IT'S ALL SO CLEAR!! and make a mental note ---> "note to self must become an atheist because I now beleive their ideas are so rational and make sense to me" <--NOT GOING TO HAPPEN LMAO at least to many it won't!!

Now the same can be said for the religious - Please state your rational argument for the existence of god insert argument here ______________

Guess what? whether you are believer or non believer...god cannot be proved or dis-proved <---FACT

 

[thaiboxerken]

TBK, have you actually read any of what I have written in this thread? No insult intended, I'm just confused!

I agree, you are confused as to what logic and evidence are.

I don;t say this at all. I say that often people hideously misunderstand evidence and logic...

And you seem to have expertise at this.. The misunderstanding part, that is. Your understanding of evidence and logic is so pathetic that it could be used to justify a belief in anything and everything ever thought of.

My argument that I feel you are misrepresenting on evidence is simple. If someone says "there is no evidence for UFO's" they are clearly talking nonsense. There is huge amounts of evidence for UFOs. Most of us have seen a light in the sky we can not identify. So let's tighten that definition - "there is no evidence that flying saucers containing extraterrestrial intelligences are visiting Earth."

You're playing a semantic game in this paragraph. When people talk of "UFO" it's generally understood that they're talking about space-ships. For you to nitpick that point is just silly and is tantamount to trolling.

It's still wrong. There is a huge amount of evidence to that effect, some physical, some testimonial, some recordings, etc, etc.

There is no significant evidence of ET space-ships visiting earth. NONE. By significant, I mean reliable, verifiable and empirical.

The sceptic does not say "there is no evidence", the sceptic addresses the evidence, and shows how that evidence is better explained by other explanation

Wrong. It's is definitely acceptable to say that there is no evidence of a silly assertion if there is no significant evidence of that silly assertion. When a believer presents things that they believe is significant evidence, then the skeptic should tell them why it's not acceptable. However, a skeptic does not have an obligation to list out all of the non-significant evidence for a silly assertion.

If you want to say "I do not believe that flying saucers containing extraterrestrial intelligences are visiting Earth.", because the evidence that supports that contention is very weak, and better explained by othe rmodels - sure, I'm with you all the way. I don't worry I'm going to be probed by little grey men either.

See above. You're nitpicking.

The point is the evidence exists - and must be addressed, not merely dismissed.

If the evidence is not even close to being acceptable, especially for extraordinary claims, it should be dismissed.

I certainly don't believe anything that is popularly believed is true - far from it, I believe people believe all kinds of myths, and i challenge them.

Yet here you are trying to convince people that your god exists based on popular beliefs.

I often here challenge myths that I find prevalent among sceptics, because this is a sceptic community - the infrasound theory of ghosts, the conflict myth of the historical relationship between Science and Religion, the literal reading of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", the pagan parallel crap about Early Christianity, the nonsense talked about the canon and Nicea, idiocy spouted about Witchcraft in the Early Modern period, and all kinds of other nonsense with as much substance as a New Age pilgrimage guide to Rosslyn chapel. If you don;t think it's important to challenge false beliefs prevalent in the sceptical community, then we will have a fundamental disagreement. I don't think many people will agree with you though...

Some of what you call "myth" seems to be fact and some are not. It's obvious that you have beliefs that you adhere to and simply will not budge on. You are a true believer, yet you call yourself a skeptic. Your word magic will not work in this forum, I don't understand why you insist on trying to trick people into believing your god exists. Until you have some significant evidence, you will not convince me.

 

[Mojo]

PixyMisa,

you going to resolve this cryptic conundrum?
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4338714#post4338714

cj,

You going to resolve this one?
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4338379#post4338379

 

[Darat]

I am claiming no such thing,as i am sure reading this thread would inform you? When did i ever claim Anglicanism represented the sole objective truth??!!! Please demonstrate me making this claim, with evidence?!!!

cj x

I will agree that you have not explicitly stated this and said that it is (to paraphrase) only a glimpse of divinity however you do pose a conundrum for people trying to have a discussion with you: should we accept the label you apply to yourself or the other stuff that you state are your actual beliefs? Whether you want to accept it or not the official/authorised definition of your self-applied label does not match up with your beliefs if you claim Anglicanism does not represent the "sole objective truth".

Sincerely I would suggest that you re-consider using "Anglican Christian" as a label if you do not want people to think that you follow the doctrines and accept the beliefs that are associated with "Anglicanism".

 

[PixyMisa]

I am claiming no such thing,as i am sure reading this thread would inform you? When did i ever claim Anglicanism represented the sole objective truth??!!! Please demonstrate me making this claim, with evidence?!!!

Hey, if you can't be bothered to read what you write, I don't see why anyone else should have to.

Do you believe in God? What conception of God? Why?

Answer me those questions three. Based on your prior answers, what I said accurately summarises your position.

PixyMisa,

you going to resolve this cryptic conundrum?
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4338714#post4338714

Sorry, I put you on ignore, since if you ever said anything sensible I could be sure someone would quote it.

I have spelled out the answer previously - indeed prior to that post - namely, that these five examples are:

(a) natural events with defined properties
(b) explained by well-formed hypotheses proposing natural causes
(c) supported by documentary evidence of known provenance from contemporary sources
(d) supported by objective physical evidence
(e) subject to logic, reason, and the scrutiny of the scientific method

None of which applies to your conception of God, which is, by your own specification, supernatural, outside of space and time, both immanent and transcendent, and by implication, not within the scrutiny of science.

In other words, this God thing you keep talking about is not science; does not even approach science; only looks like science to people who know nothing at all about science - and all because you designed it that way.

It's not falsifiable, has no explicative or predictive power, and indeed ignores all the normal rules of logic. The common expression for this is "not even wrong".

 

[Mojo]

In other words, this God thing you keep talking about is not science; does not even approach science; only looks like science to people who know nothing at all about science - and all because you designed it that way.

It's not falsifiable, has no explicative or predictive power, and indeed ignores all the normal rules of logic. The common expression for this is "not even wrong".

To be fair, he has stated that God and Zeus are not testable by "experimental science" - quoted in the post I linked to above (what he actually said was, "That is not to say one might not test the Zeus and God hypothesis, but not by experimental science."). He hasn't really said what form this non-scientific "testing" could take. He also has yet to say how we can determine whether a particular entity is a god, which he considers it sensible to believe in, or an invisible goblin, which he doesn't.

 

[cj.23]

Hey Darat!

I will agree that you have not explicitly stated this and said that it is (to paraphrase) only a glimpse of divinity however you do pose a conundrum for people trying to have a discussion with you: should we accept the label you apply to yourself or the other stuff that you state are your actual beliefs? Whether you want to accept it or not the official/authorised definition of your self-applied label does not match up with your beliefs if you claim Anglicanism does not represent the "sole objective truth".

I actually have as my .sig "I'm an Anglican Christian, so I declare my prejudice here. Please take it in to account when reading my posts.", yes. I am a member of the Church of England. At least we all agree on that. However, in as far as not possessing the exclusivity of truth the official/authorised definition of my self-applied label does matches up perfectly with my beliefs -- Anglicanism does not claim to represent the "sole objective truth". You think we think Methodists are bound to hell, or that we are right and they are wrong? Catholics? Orthodox? Sure we have differences with them on matters of doctrine, but we strive for unity, and do not condemn any others to hell do we? We share churches with Methodists, Baptists, Independents, Catholics, and Orthodox regualrly, and on occasion with Spiritualists, Wiccans and Neo-Pagans, with whom some Anglicans hold joint services. And you think we make an exclusive claim to truth??? As far as i know nothing could be further from the truth - we accept other religious traditions can contain experience of God. What are we supposed to condemn the Jews to hell? WTF? I just don't get it.

The problem here is that the Church I belong to is not what some posters imagine. This is I suspect part of the confusion... but there is no essential conflict between my beliefs and those of my Church as far as i know. If I ever go for ordination we will find out - I have been asked to consider it a couple of times in the past.

Sincerely I would suggest that you re-consider using "Anglican Christian" as a label if you do not want people to think that you follow the doctrines and accept the beliefs that are associated with "Anglicanism".

I don't have as far as I know any problems with the BCP, Canons or 39 Articles? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglican_communion_and_ecumenism gives you an indication we do not believe we are exclusive recipients of truth. In fact our church uses that as part of the definition of a "cult".

ETA: A brief atheist look at the Anglican Communion - http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/western/bldef_anglicanism.htm - entirely factual as far as i can see.
cj x