No, let's not. Universal statements ("everything") are NEVER observational facts. They are always predictions.
That everything I continue to ask will also be granted.
What evidence would convince you that god exists?
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No, let's not. Universal statements ("everything") are NEVER observational facts. They are always predictions.
That everything I continue to ask will also be granted.
Ask whom? The only thing one does in a prayer is to make a thought in one's head, the only observable phenomenon is electrical activity in the brain.
And we have a good workable hypothesis that explains how faith healing works as well.
We didn't when aspirin was first accepted as a drug. We still don't have mechanisms for many of the drugs in the pharmacopia. Yet we have evidence that they work, so they are approved, accepted, and prescribed.
Otherwise, you're setting up a double standard. We are allowed to believe in natural explanations that posulate unknown mechanisms, but not supernatural ones, even when the supernatural explanation passes every test that the natural ones do.
But how is it better than a prankster alien? Or a prankster god? Or a universal field of energy that is activated by a certain keyword? Or that it is prayer that has the magic power itself, without a god?
Maybe these aren't good hypothesis; maybe someone can suggest better ones. My point is that your hypothesis needs to be tested against rival ones.
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If praying to FSM would work, would you really think that FSM exists???
No we don't. That's the thing, we don't have a mechanism that would explain it.
We know the existence of the different chemical compounds, and their interactions with our brain chemistry.
That's the thing, "supernatural" is untestable. "Supernatural" is the double standard.
To test something is to observe it work in the natural world. To apply a supernatural quality or label to the explanation is to place it outside of the natural world, so therefore it is unnecessary.
Denver
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In some theology, the certain way God proves he exists is through 'revelation'. In this context, it means he reveals himself directly to your spirit (past your material self). That has the two-fer effect of also proving you have a spirit. But it is also a one-on-one thing: it only works 100% for the individual: the testimony of the individual may effect others through their belief or faith, but its not a direct revelation to them.
Yes, I think this is what KK is saying, isn't it?
Easily testable. If praying to one god works, but praying to other gods does nothing, then it's not the magic of prayer itself. Further definition of alien/prankster/wish-granting-energy-field is irrelevant; a being or force with a godlike power to grant wishes is indistinguishable from a god.
What do you mean, "better"? It's certainly arguably simpler explanation -- it postulates a single entity instead of a whole unknown alien civilization.
No, they're terrible. They're exactly the sort of "ad hoc" hypotheses that get ridiculed in other contexts as last Tuesdayism.
Okay, let's do the testing. There's a whole book of other attributes that God has that are not necessarily shared by your prankster alien. In fact, in this hypothetical situation, the usual tables have been neatly turned. At this point, "belief in [the Abrahamist] God" is the falsifiable hypothesis (indeed, it can be falsified at any point by someone praying and failing to have his limb restored) and materialism is the unfalsifiable one, precisely because you are reduced to pointing at any given fulfilled prediction made by the God hypothesis and claiming "but maybe there's an unknown materialist cause that we don't know about."
That argument doesn't work in the real world as an argument for God. But it is equally unacceptable in the hypothetical world where God behaves exactly as a literal reading of Matthew tells us He would, as an argument against God.
If praying to FSM worked, would you really think that it didn't????
Do you think that if you keep telling lies, they will suddenly come true?
We do not know the mechanism by which the brain experiences pain. In fact, the person who can figure that one out will probably win a Nobel prize for it.
We do not know the mechanism by which any chemical prevents the brain from experiencing pain. This is a direct consequence of our previous ignorance. And while we can indeed observe that certain drugs appear to affect certain neuroreceptors and whatnot, we don't have such data even for all the drugs we use.
And we've known about many of the drugs that we use for far longer than we've know about the neuroreceptors.
What did we actually know about the mechanism by which opium killed pain, say, in 1860? By your argument, it was irrational for doctors and hospitals all over the world to be using opiates.
Of course, that's patent nonsense. The doctors and hospitals knew just enough. They knew that it worked.
How would we "prove" that prankster aliens weren't reducing our pain every time we took an aspirin?
The problem here is that people are appealing to different meanings of the word "prove." From an empirical scientific perspective, nothing is proved absolutely, such that no possible future discovery could overturn the weight of that proof. What had better "proofs" to support it than Newtonian physics? In the late C18th you'd have been considered a madman to doubt the universal validity of Newtonian laws. Then Einstein comes along and, whoops, we can prove that there are limits to the explanatory power of Newtonian physics.
On an empirical basis, proof can only ever rise to the level of "best evidence" and never to the level of "it could not possibly be otherwise." The existence of a supernatural being of some kind can never be proven "beyond all possible future doubt" by empirical evidence (although an actually omnipotent being can establish its existence beyond all possible doubt simply by willing that this be the case). But it's fair to say that the existence of such a being could be "proven" to the same degree of confidence as, to use DrKitten's example, the efficacy of any given medical procedure.
So, if a guy floats up to you on a cloud and says "I'm the great hoodly doodly FlumWump and have magical powers!" and then proceeds to perform a series of magical acts for you under controlled circumstances and before competent and impartial witnesses, it is fair to say that that being has proven it's capacity to perform paranormal acts. It is also fair to say that this does not mean that at some future occasion these acts may be proven not to be paranormal, but merely the products of a technological capacity beyond our current understanding.
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Of course I wouldn't think that FSM exists if praying to him worked.
First one must remember that we humans have a whole set of statements about FSM. His form, the pirates, the way he created the world, et cetera. All that would be proven is that praying while __saying the words__ FSM yields results. Even if I would agree with you that a certain entity called FSM might exist, it needn't have any of the qualities we attach to itl. Same with Jahweh. Maybe "God" is actually is the _private_ name of an african god in the form of a zebra, and it is this african "god" that answers prayers, not what you think of as god while you pray.
Second... Well, I am not sure how to put this into words. Maybe I would think that there is real magic in the world which is activated by the word FSM, not that FSM exists. Have you read Pratchett?
Denver
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I don't know who KK is, but it is close to what TraneWreck said:
Though in my example, I was speaking of a single individual experience, and not just appearing to our physical selves, but appearing to part of ourselves (our spirit) that we are also purported to possess, but also don't appear to have any way to confirm.
Where does that come from?
We have a good idea of what it is though.
So? There's alot of things we don't know, it doesn't mean we don't have good hypothesis to explain them.
So? We used the chemicals and it worked repeatedly, that was all the proof we needed at the time.
You still haven't defined the mechanism of prayer.
The assumed mechanism I would think is:
thought
transmission of thought to "entity"
reception of thought by "entity"
regeneration of limb by "entity" (which itself would require a few steps and a mechanism of its own).
You see what the problem is with this mechanism?
Exactly. We have not been able to "prove" in the strong sense that if I drop a hammer, it will fall to the ground. We have lots of experiments suggesting that dropped things have fallen down, and we have a well-developed theory of gravity suggesting that they will continue to do so, but there is literally nothing on the table that refutes the theistic theory of Intelligent Falling.
Nothing other than plain common sense. But that's not a refutation in the mathematical or epistemological sense.
If I find that praying to the FSM (in the manner described by the Reformed Orthodox Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) will reliably regenerate limbs, then that's strong empirical evidence that the ROCFSM has it right. Especially if I can contrast this success with failures from the Ancient and Accepted Order of the Invisible Purple Unicorn (BBHHH) -- or from Catholicism.
Exactly. But if we use prayer and it works repeatedly, that will be -- by your own standard -- "all the proof we need."
Yes. It's a) hypothetical, and b) unneeded.
That wasn't my standard, it was the standard I said "at the time". We today have a higher standard for science.
We agree.