Be a good little atheist...

[Malerin]

If a supernatural being exists, they are not inside this universe and they do not interact with it. If they were, or did, it would be detectable. it would be the only place in the universe where laws don't apply. Quite easy to detect.
If they exist outside this universe, and don't interact with it, then for all intents and purposes, they don't exist.

And that is what I said about the tiny bit of doubt that an atheist has. It is possible that a god exists outside and doesn't interact but there is no doubt one doesn't exist within the universe.

To top it off, theists are looking for the god described in the bible, q'uran, talmud, or other religious text of their choice. Look at what is attributed to those gods. These gods were easily detected by bronze aged people and yet for the past several thousand years, nothing. Those gods just aren't powerful enough to hide from anyone. In fact, they aren't even powerful enough that naive, unsophisticated humans couldn't hide from them. (Adam and Eve in the garden.)

In this light, how much doubt can there be that gods don't exist? Close to zero by my calculation.

Unless they only interfere when they know they won't be detected.

Example: Suppose a supernatural being sees that a child will trip on a doll left on the stairs. It moves the doll a half inch when no one is looking. No one notices (detects) that the doll has moved. Kid goes walking down the stairs and doesn't break her neck.

It is impossible to detect a being that only interacts with the world when it's not being detected by anyone. Since we only observe a very small part of the world at any given time, this interaction could be going on all the time and we wouldn't know it. It would also explain lost wallets and socks.

Now let's suppose you want to test for this sort of thing. So you measure where the doll is, watch it very closely, and don't see it move. That's proof of non-interference right? Oops, not really because you're assuming your memory of the measurement is accurate and the notes you wrote down haven't changed. The supernatural being simply moves the doll, changes your memory and notes to match the doll's new location, and you haven't detected a thing. But the doll has moved.

 

[qayak]

Unless they only interfere when they know they won't be detected.

Example: Suppose a supernatural being sees that a child will trip on a doll left on the stairs. It moves the doll a half inch when no one is looking. No one notices (detects) that the doll has moved. Kid goes walking down the stairs and doesn't break her neck.

How many children fell down stairs last year?

It is impossible to detect a being that only interacts with the world when it's not being detected by anyone. Since we only observe a very small part of the world at any given time, this interaction could be going on all the time and we wouldn't know it. It would also explain lost wallets and socks.

Your god is reduced to stealling wallets and socks?

Now let's suppose you want to test for this sort of thing. So you measure where the doll is, watch it very closely, and don't see it move. That's proof of non-interference right? Oops, not really because you're assuming your memory of the measurement is accurate and the notes you wrote down haven't changed. The supernatural being simply moves the doll, changes your memory and notes to match the doll's new location, and you haven't detected a thing. But the doll has moved.

And amnesia, he specializes in amnesia. In fact, he's so busy worrying about you detecting his preventing one child from falling down the stairs that he missed the 500,000 people who drowned in the tsunami.

Is this a being we need concern ourselves with?

 

[Malerin]

Unless they only interfere when they know they won't be detected.

Example: Suppose a supernatural being sees that a child will trip on a doll left on the stairs. It moves the doll a half inch when no one is looking. No one notices (detects) that the doll has moved. Kid goes walking down the stairs and doesn't break her neck.

How many children fell down stairs last year?

I don't know. Would the number be ten times higher if supernatural being(s) did not occasionally interfere? Who knows.

I'm not arguing motives of such beings, I'm just taking issue with your claim that interference in the world by a supernatural being must be detectable. A sufficiently omnipotent/omniscient supernatural being will always defeat your attempts to detect it.

It is impossible to detect a being that only interacts with the world when it's not being detected by anyone. Since we only observe a very small part of the world at any given time, this interaction could be going on all the time and we wouldn't know it. It would also explain lost wallets and socks.

Your god is reduced to stealling wallets and socks?

Maybe it likes to have some fun sometimes. I lost a wallet once and it ended up on top of an oven mit in a cabinet in my kitchen. True story.

Now let's suppose you want to test for this sort of thing. So you measure where the doll is, watch it very closely, and don't see it move. That's proof of non-interference right? Oops, not really because you're assuming your memory of the measurement is accurate and the notes you wrote down haven't changed. The supernatural being simply moves the doll, changes your memory and notes to match the doll's new location, and you haven't detected a thing. But the doll has moved.

And amnesia, he specializes in amnesia. In fact, he's so busy worrying about you detecting his preventing one child from falling down the stairs that he missed the 500,000 people who drowned in the tsunami.

Again, I'm not assigning motives or values. Just explaining, in principle, how it could be done and not be detected. Perhaps God has a good reason for not intervening on a massive scale and "tipping his hand". Perhaps God did intervene somehow and kept the death count from being twice as bad. Perhaps, if we're eternal beings, God doesn't apply the same morality to death as we do. If you knew, as sure as you know you exist, that when you die you continue existing, death ceases to mean much (see NDE patients and their attitudes about dying).

Is this a being we need concern ourselves with?

That depends on the person.

 

[Hellbound]

A sufficiently omnipotent/omniscient supernatural being will always defeat your attempts to detect it.

And this leads directly to Sagan's famous dragon:

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.

 

[Malerin]

A sufficiently omnipotent/omniscient supernatural being will always defeat your attempts to detect it.

And this leads directly to Sagan's famous dragon:

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.

Is someone claims they're in love, can they prove it to you? Can you disprove their claim? Can you test it?

Is such a claim "veridically worthless"? Or does it tell us a lot about the person?

Anyway, the standard theistic response (among many) is that the universality of spiritual experience is evidence that there is a spiritual component to the universe (God) that we are responding to. If billions of people suddenly claimed to feel the presence of an incorporeal dragon in their lives, that would certainly be noteworthy. But they don't, so we can dismiss Sagan's incorporeal dragon as being disanalagous.

ETA: And how do you know God doesn't answer prayers? Because there have been studies on the efficacy of prayer? This assumes, of course, that God would answer all prayers in all situations in the same way. Quite a big assumption. Science is irrelevant when it comes to beings that don't want to be scientifically detected (but choose to make their presence known in other ways: introspection and personal experience).

 

[Mister Agenda]

If billions of people suddenly claimed to feel the presence of God in their lives, that would be noteworthy, too; but it seems that close to all of them were raised to believe in God since they were small children. It doesn't even need to be billions. If 10% of the atheists who regularly post to this board reported suddenly feeling the presence of God in their lives, that too, would be noteworthy. People believing what they were raised to believe: not noteworthy, absolutely typical.

 

[qayak]

I don't know. Would the number be ten times higher if supernatural being(s) did not occasionally interfere? Who knows.

Or the number could be exactly what it should be if no god exists. That isn't support for your claim.

I'm not arguing motives of such beings, I'm just taking issue with your claim that interference in the world by a supernatural being must be detectable. A sufficiently omnipotent/omniscient supernatural being will always defeat your attempts to detect it.

So will a non-existent one. Once again this doesn't support the claim of there being a god. So, no evidence for gods and tons of evidence against gods.

You haven't even increased the doubt factor because in order to do so you need to show that something is happening not merely that it could happen.

Maybe it likes to have some fun sometimes. I lost a wallet once and it ended up on top of an oven mit in a cabinet in my kitchen. True story.

That's your best evidence? Couldn't have been that you just forgot where you put it or someone put it there without your knowledge?

Carl Sagan was right. When your claim is silly, silly evidence will be used to support it.

Again, I'm not assigning motives or values. Just explaining, in principle, how it could be done and not be detected.

Well, you have a hypothesis, now you need evidence.

Perhaps God has a good reason for not intervening on a massive scale and "tipping his hand".

Perhaps he doesn't exist.

Perhaps God did intervene somehow and kept the death count from being twice as bad.

Perhaps he doesn't exist.

Perhaps, if we're eternal beings, God doesn't apply the same morality to death as we do.

According to the christian bible, we aren't and he does.

 

[Mister Agenda]

Is someone claims they're in love, can they prove it to you? Can you disprove their claim? Can you test it?

It's an ordinary claim. I would take their word for it unless I had reason to believe otherwise or there were somehow stakes involved that would motivate me to make some extra effort to confirm the claim.

Is such a claim "veridically worthless"? Or does it tell us a lot about the person?

It is not 'veridically worthless'. It tells us the person is probably in love, therefore (hopefully) in a relationship, probably in a good mood...yeah, it says a fair amount about someone.

Anyway, the standard theistic response (among many) is that the universality of spiritual experience is evidence that there is a spiritual component to the universe (God) that we are responding to. If billions of people suddenly claimed to feel the presence of an incorporeal dragon in their lives, that would certainly be noteworthy. But they don't, so we can dismiss Sagan's incorporeal dragon as being disanalagous.

Universal? I don't think that word means what you think it does.

ETA: And how do you know God doesn't answer prayers? Because there have been studies on the efficacy of prayer? This assumes, of course, that God would answer all prayers in all situations in the same way. Quite a big assumption. Science is irrelevant when it comes to beings that don't want to be scientifically detected (but choose to make their presence known in other ways: introspection and personal experience).

The same can be said about's science's applicability to beings that only exist in our imaginations. There is a reason for that.

 

[qayak]

Is someone claims they're in love, can they prove it to you? Can you disprove their claim? Can you test it?

First, define "prove it."

As much as anything else can be proved, yes we can.

 

[qayak]

ETA: And how do you know God doesn't answer prayers? Because there have been studies on the efficacy of prayer? This assumes, of course, that God would answer all prayers in all situations in the same way. Quite a big assumption. Science is irrelevant when it comes to beings that don't want to be scientifically detected (but choose to make their presence known in other ways: introspection and personal experience).

The fact that there is a problem with an experiment that shows prayers don't work doesn't help the argument that they do work.

EVIDENCE PLEASE!

 

[thaiboxerken]

The fact that experiments have shown prayer doesn't work doesn't really mean that there is evidence that prayer doesn't work?! Is Malerin taking the piss?

 

[Hellbound]

Is someone claims they're in love, can they prove it to you? Can you disprove their claim? Can you test it?

Is such a claim "veridically worthless"? Or does it tell us a lot about the person?

First, define "prove it."

As much as anything else can be proved, yes we can.

This. If you can clearly define what you mean when you say "in love", then yes, it can be tested, and yes, it is veridically worthwhile. If, instead, you use the same type of arguments to determine love as with God (i.e.-no matter what disproof comes along there's some excuse as to why it was still really love), then it is worthless.

Tell me, if someone says they love you, do you take their word for it? Or do you compare what they sya with your own idea of what love means, and then measure their actions against that ideal?

Anyway, the standard theistic response (among many) is that the universality of spiritual experience is evidence that there is a spiritual component to the universe (God) that we are responding to. If billions of people suddenly claimed to feel the presence of an incorporeal dragon in their lives, that would certainly be noteworthy. But they don't, so we can dismiss Sagan's incorporeal dragon as being disanalagous.

So it doesn't apply because you say so? Besides, can you explain this universitality of experience? And how does that conclude a god exists? COnsdiering that the very idea of what a god is varies from place to place and time to time, there is very little commonality in the spiritual experience. All that commonality means is that our brains are all constructed in a similar manner...and evidence exists to support hte notion (such as the ability to induce spiritual experiences through physical means, such as hunger, drugs, or magnetic fields).

ETA: And how do you know God doesn't answer prayers? Because there have been studies on the efficacy of prayer? This assumes, of course, that God would answer all prayers in all situations in the same way. Quite a big assumption. Science is irrelevant when it comes to beings that don't want to be scientifically detected (but choose to make their presence known in other ways: introspection and personal experience).

First, read the research before you presume to say what it does or does not assume. Testing does NOT assume all prayers are answered in the same way. Testing only assumes that if prayer has any effect, it can be seen by comparing groups prayed for/praying and those that do not. If there is no difference between groups, then how can you say prayer has any effect?

Science can detect things on the level of parts per billion, measure times in femtoseconds, and identify diseases and anomilies in a population that affect less than a thousanth of a percent of the population. So you are, in effect, stating that the power of prayer is, by necesity, limited to less than this. Or you're simply saying that it is impossible to test because someobody up there keeps playing the shell game, which leads us directly back to Sagan's dragon.

 

[Malerin]

I don't know. Would the number be ten times higher if supernatural being(s) did not occasionally interfere? Who knows.

Or the number could be exactly what it should be if no god exists. That isn't support for your claim.

I wasn't trying to support a claim. You brought up the amount of kids who die in accidental falls for some reason (to prove the capriciousness of a supernatural being intervening to save other kids, perhaps?). I'm offering the possibility that such a being might be satisfied with saving one, two, or a thousand lives. I'm not saying such a being exists- I'm point out that it could exist, and we would have no idea it's intervening on a massive (or minor) scale.

It was all in repsonse to this:

If a supernatural being exists, they are not inside this universe and they do not interact with it. If they were, or did, it would be detectable. it would be the only place in the universe where laws don't apply. Quite easy to detect.

A supernatural being would only be easy to detect if it wanted to be easily detected. You're making a huge assumption when you claim a supernatural being "could not interact with [the universe]" and it would be "quite easy to detect".

Do you admit that a supernatural being could interact with the universe and could not be easily detected? If not, I want evidence for your assertions.

I'm not arguing motives of such beings, I'm just taking issue with your claim that interference in the world by a supernatural being must be detectable. A sufficiently omnipotent/omniscient supernatural being will always defeat your attempts to detect it.

So will a non-existent one. Once again this doesn't support the claim of there being a god. So, no evidence for gods and tons of evidence against gods.

I'm not trying to provide evidence.

You haven't even increased the doubt factor because in order to do so you need to show that something is happening not merely that it could happen.

Something is always happening. What exactly do you want me to show is "happening"?

Maybe it likes to have some fun sometimes. I lost a wallet once and it ended up on top of an oven mit in a cabinet in my kitchen. True story.

That's your best evidence? Couldn't have been that you just forgot where you put it or someone put it there without your knowledge?

It wasn't mean to be evidence. Just an anecdote. I don't know if God messes with people in this way. Maybe my wife played a trick on me.

Carl Sagan was right. When your claim is silly, silly evidence will be used to support it.

Except I'm only arguing against your previous unevidenced assertion:

If a supernatural being exists, they are not inside this universe and they do not interact with it. If they were, or did, it would be detectable. it would be the only place in the universe where laws don't apply. Quite easy to detect.

The burden of proof is on YOU to show why a supernatural being would be "quite easy to detect".

Again, I'm not assigning motives or values. Just explaining, in principle, how it could be done and not be detected.

Well, you have a hypothesis, now you need evidence.

So you admit your assertion is wrong?

Perhaps God has a good reason for not intervening on a massive scale and "tipping his hand".

Perhaps he doesn't exist.

Always a possibility.

According to the christian bible, we aren't and he does.

I don't really care about the Christian Bible. Did you assume I did for some reason?

 

[Malerin]

First, define "prove it."

As much as anything else can be proved, yes we can.

I'm assuming you directed this at me by mistake.

Requoting Hellbound's post:

And this leads directly to Sagan's famous dragon:


Quote:
Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.

So what do you think Sagan means here?

 

[Malerin]

The fact that experiments have shown prayer doesn't work doesn't really mean that there is evidence that prayer doesn't work during experiments?! Is Malerin taking the piss?

FTFY.

I totally agree that there's evidence that prayer doesn't work during scientifically controlled experiments. That, of course, is a much different claim than "prayer doesn't work".

 

[tsig]

I don't know. Would the number be ten times higher if supernatural being(s) did not occasionally interfere? Who knows.

I'm not arguing motives of such beings, I'm just taking issue with your claim that interference in the world by a supernatural being must be detectable. A sufficiently omnipotent/omniscient supernatural being will always defeat your attempts to detect it.





Maybe it likes to have some fun sometimes. I lost a wallet once and it ended up on top of an oven mit in a cabinet in my kitchen. True story.





Again, I'm not assigning motives or values. Just explaining, in principle, how it could be done and not be detected. Perhaps God has a good reason for not intervening on a massive scale and "tipping his hand". Perhaps God did intervene somehow and kept the death count from being twice as bad. Perhaps, if we're eternal beings, God doesn't apply the same morality to death as we do. If you knew, as sure as you know you exist, that when you die you continue existing, death ceases to mean much (see NDE patients and their attitudes about dying).



That depends on the person.

Why is god sneaking around?

 

[quadraginta]

Why is god sneaking around?

Because he doesn't want anyone to catch him.

If you had his rap sheet you'd be on the lam, too.

 

[tsig]

Is someone claims they're in love, can they prove it to you? Can you disprove their claim? Can you test it?

Is such a claim "veridically worthless"? Or does it tell us a lot about the person?

Anyway, the standard theistic response (among many) is that the universality of spiritual experience is evidence that there is a spiritual component to the universe (God) that we are responding to. If billions of people suddenly claimed to feel the presence of an incorporeal dragon in their lives, that would certainly be noteworthy. But they don't, so we can dismiss Sagan's incorporeal dragon as being disanalagous.

ETA: And how do you know God doesn't answer prayers? Because there have been studies on the efficacy of prayer? This assumes, of course, that God would answer all prayers in all situations in the same way. Quite a big assumption. Science is irrelevant when it comes to beings that don't want to be scientifically detected (but choose to make their presence known in other ways: introspection and personal experience).

I asked.

 

[tsig]

Unless they only interfere when they know they won't be detected.

Example: Suppose a supernatural being sees that a child will trip on a doll left on the stairs. It moves the doll a half inch when no one is looking. No one notices (detects) that the doll has moved. Kid goes walking down the stairs and doesn't break her neck.

It is impossible to detect a being that only interacts with the world when it's not being detected by anyone. Since we only observe a very small part of the world at any given time, this interaction could be going on all the time and we wouldn't know it. It would also explain lost wallets and socks.

Now let's suppose you want to test for this sort of thing. So you measure where the doll is, watch it very closely, and don't see it move. That's proof of non-interference right? Oops, not really because you're assuming your memory of the measurement is accurate and the notes you wrote down haven't changed. The supernatural being simply moves the doll, changes your memory and notes to match the doll's new location, and you haven't detected a thing. But the doll has moved.

Rather the ultimate god of the gaps.

 

[tsig]

If billions of people suddenly claimed to feel the presence of God in their lives, that would be noteworthy, too; but it seems that close to all of them were raised to believe in God since they were small children. It doesn't even need to be billions. If 10% of the atheists who regularly post to this board reported suddenly feeling the presence of God in their lives, that too, would be noteworthy. People believing what they were raised to believe: not noteworthy, absolutely typical.

Well the people who I have known who have claimed to feel the presence of god in their lives generally became self righteous idiots.