Can atheists be rational? (not a parody thread)

[cj.23]

No, I don't think I do believe in poodles. They demonstrably exist - there is no belief necessary. I also don't believe that the sun will come up tomorrow, or that the earth is made of rock and not cheese. These things are demonstrable, and no belief is required.

Then you have more faith than I. I mean the poor old Felis silvestris silvestris might soon go the way of the Felis silvestris grampia
as it's difficult to differentiate them from good old Felis Catus - and for all I know dog breeders may decide that the breed known as poodles are just funny looking retrievers. The sun might not come up tomorrow as well - I'm just assuming it will, based on previous experience, but that just predicates 'uniformity of nature' - it's an Induction not a Deduction. I have been wrong on many things in my life, so I tend not to be too dogmatic (or poodle-matic) about things like that anymore.

Joking aside, I hold all my beliefs provisionally - and assign them confidence intervals. All the things you note are things I am incredibly confident are true, but I'm not going to insist they are - someone might be able to convince me otherwise given suitably incredible evidence...

cj x

 

[Roboramma]

No, I don't think I do believe in poodles. They demonstrably exist - there is no belief necessary. I also don't believe that the sun will come up tomorrow, or that the earth is made of rock and not cheese. These things are demonstrable, and no belief is required.

The fact that you know something exists doesn't mean that you don't believe it exists. I believe that the person that raised me is my father, though I've never had a blood test to find out. If after such a test, I found out that I was right, that wouldn't mean I no longer believed it, only that said belief was justified.

 

[MattusMaximus]

Both innit? So to get back to the point, hopefully clarified in discussion with MM above, methodological naturalism discounts supernatural explanations for phenomena in science. And then you tell me there is no evidence of supernatural explanations for phenomena in science? How is this not perfectly circular reasoning exactly?

Uh, but I still stand by my earlier objection - methodological naturalism does not necessarily discount the supernatural. MN just says that we cannot discuss the validity or invalidity of supernatural explanations due to the constraints of our interactions (i.e. natural methods are the only ones we can actually test).

So on the question of supernatural explanations, MN is technically neutral.

On the other hand, philosophical naturalism necessarily excludes the existence of the supernatural. But modern science does not require an acceptance of PN, as evidenced by numerous religious scientists who do good science all the time using MN.

Yet by any definition of evidence they are evidence. Evidence does not make something true. Evidence merely helps us construct a hypothesis that creates an explanatory model for the evidence.

Yes, but a hypothesis is meaningless, scientifically, unless it can be tested. It isn't a question of evidence, it's a question of testing the validity of the explanation behind the evidence.

And if you start to invoke the supernatural as an explanation, then you immediately leave the realm of science because you have now closed off the possibility of testing the claim using the methods of science (MN). You could be correct, but we would have no way to verify that.

 

[Darat]

I don't disbelieve in any god(s) though?

cj x

Let me get this right: you don't believe in Zeus and you also don't disbelieve in Zeus*?



*And remember this is Zeus as was worshipped not a re-defined Zeus.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

My point was you asserted "there is no evidence for God". I have already falsified this, by providing evidence for God.

...snip...

No you haven't what you have asserted is that a claim such as :

"God spoke to me"​

is evidence that God exists.

 

[Mojo]

So even if a naturalistic hypothesis works, how do you know invisible goblins aren't the real cause? You rationally don't. You seem to ascribe a remarkable degree of confidence to things which can never be certain. Now I'm not postulating invisible goblins - well not tonight - because we have insufficient evidence for that to be sensible - but my original point is rather more sensible than pointing out to you the limits of rational knowledge.

How would you differentiate between "invisible goblins" and gods?

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

No you haven't what you have asserted is that a claim such as :

"God spoke to me"​

is evidence that God exists.

But that is evidence that God exists. It isn't reliable evidence, but it is evidence.

 

[Darat]

But that is evidence that God exists. It isn't reliable evidence, but it is evidence.

Oh no it isn't! (Sorry still pantomime season over here.)

It's merely evidence that someone claims that they spoke to God. Consider another example, if I said to you I was Napoleon Bonaparte would you say that was evidence that I actually was Napoleon Bonaparte?

ETA: A longer post from a thread all about what "evidcene" means expands on my point: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=3643978#post3643978

 

[cj.23]

No you haven't what you have asserted is that a claim such as :

"God spoke to me"​

is evidence that God exists.

Almost but not quite. What I'm actually asserting is there exist a couple of states commonly called mystical which possess certain characteristics across cultural, gender and demographic populations - among them being claimed ineffability, a noetic status, and certain content claims such as a bright white light. or in the case of monistic experiences a "dissolution of ego" where the subject -object distinction breaks down. Those states are often claimed by those who experience them to be direct contact with the divine, that is direct experience of said deity, and I noted few experiments that have attempted to study the neurology of such experiences.

So while any single individual saying "God spoke to me" or "I saw Bigfoot" does not perhaps constitute very impressive evidence, though clearly it is still evidence unless it can be shown to be otherwise, what I'm asserting is rather stronger.

Still ultimately, yes Darat, you are correct. I'm asserting people claim direct experience of God, and that is after all, by definition, evidence. So the statement "there is no evidence for God" is clearly untrue. In fact you could disprove this line by looking out of the window (in much of England at least) and seeing a Church spire. Evidence of belief in God, and thus evidence thatsomeone sometime felt god was talking to them - which is evidence for God, is it not?

cj x

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Oh no it isn't! (Sorry still pantomime season over here.)

It's merely evidence that someone claims that they spoke to God. Consider another example, if I said to you I was Napoleon Bonaparte would you say that was evidence that I actually was Napoleon Bonaparte?

Yep. Pretty terrible evidence, but evidence nonetheless. Evidence is a thing helpful in forming a conclusion. Based on the evidence that you have provided I can conclude any number of things, such as you happen to be named Napoleon Bonaparte because your parents have a sick sense of humor; you are crazy; you really are Napoleon Bonaparte; etc.

Evidence by itself doesn't tell us anything. It is the framework for evaluating evidence that makes sense of it.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

So the statement "there is no evidence for God" is clearly untrue. In fact you could disprove this line by looking out of the window (in much of England at least) and seeing a Church spire. Evidence of belief in God, and thus evidence thatsomeone sometime felt god was talking to them - which is evidence for God, is it not?

cj x

Nope it is just evidence that some people claim a belief in God or the way I put it "god spoke to me".

To claim that those claims are evidence for God requires us to ignore a lot of other evidence. In other words we have to discard evidence to come to the conclusion that claims for God are evidence of God.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Almost but not quite. What I'm actually asserting is there exist a couple of states commonly called mystical which possess certain characteristics across cultural, gender and demographic populations - among them being claimed ineffability, a noetic status, and certain content claims such as a bright white light. or in the case of monistic experiences a "dissolution of ego" where the subject -object distinction breaks down. Those states are often claimed by those who experience them to be direct contact with the divine, that is direct experience of said deity, and I noted few experiments that have attempted to study the neurology of such experiences.

So while any single individual saying "God spoke to me" or "I saw Bigfoot" does not perhaps constitute very impressive evidence, though clearly it is still evidence unless it can be shown to be otherwise, what I'm asserting is rather stronger.

Still ultimately, yes Darat, you are correct. I'm asserting people claim direct experience of God, and that is after all, by definition, evidence. So the statement "there is no evidence for God" is clearly untrue. In fact you could disprove this line by looking out of the window (in much of England at least) and seeing a Church spire. Evidence of belief in God, and thus evidence thatsomeone sometime felt god was talking to them - which is evidence for God, is it not?

cj x

There is evidence of these states, but the claim that these states represent direct experiences of the divine is a conclusion based on a particular framework. The actual evidence is of the experiental state.

 

[OneShotKi11]

Why do we have to prove the non-existence of things that dont exist? I thought we figured out that this was impossible...

 

[Darat]

Yep. Pretty terrible evidence, but evidence nonetheless. Evidence is a thing helpful in forming a conclusion. Based on the evidence that you have provided I can conclude any number of things, such as you happen to be named Napoleon Bonaparte because your parents have a sick sense of humor; you are crazy; you really are Napoleon Bonaparte; etc.

Evidence by itself doesn't tell us anything. It is the framework for evaluating evidence that makes sense of it.

Have a look at the post link I edited in after you quoted my post: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=3643978#post3643978 I don't think we are in disagreement really. My point is just that given the framework we do have i.e. the one that currently works the claim "God spoke to me" cannot be claimed as evidence for God's existence.

 

[cj.23]

Yep. Pretty terrible evidence, but evidence nonetheless. Evidence is a thing helpful in forming a conclusion. Based on the evidence that you have provided I can conclude any number of things, such as you happen to be named Napoleon Bonaparte because your parents have a sick sense of humor; you are crazy; you really are Napoleon Bonaparte; etc.

Evidence by itself doesn't tell us anything. It is the framework for evaluating evidence that makes sense of it.

Absolutely agreed. One of the claims I see most often about all kinds of things is "there is not evidence for X". Of course there is evidence for X, or we would not even be discussing. There is no evidence that makes X a demonstrable conclusion. There may not be enough evidence to make X even remote reasonable. It could be that all the evidence alleged for X is really explicable by Y. And so forth -- but it is still evidence.

The claim "there is no evidence for X" just attempts to delegitimatize the question of entity X - it is a rhetorical trick; if you wish to demonstrate that hypothesis X is unsound you need to explain all the alleged evidence for it by a better model or models - and even then technically you can not be logically certain which proposition is correct. Still, once you accept evidence, and realise that evidence is always data we impart a confidence to in respect of any given hypothesis, you do not need to give in to epistemological chaos - you can argue "the physical evidence for Bigfoot is extremely weak, with all that subjected to analysis found to be perfectly natural or fraudulent" or "big foot sightings appear strong evidence, but we mucst consider the knowwn history of haoxing and the problkem of eyewitness testimony". This is a little harder than asserting "ther eis no evidence for Bigfoot", but has the advanatge of being accurate and requiring you to think.

The problem is the "there is no evidence for X" formulation has slipped in to the sceptical vocabulary - i find myself using it sometimes as well - and it's a dangerous habit. There is as I pointed out evidence for leprechausn and the FSM - how much faith you put in that evidence is a personal judgement, but evidence exists for both. I just happen to think there are better mechanisms (Folklore & Satire) for explaining how the evidence arose than th eexistence of either as objective beasticles - but that doe snot mean there is no evidence for them.

cj x

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Have a look at the post link I edited in after you quoted my post: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=3643978#post3643978 I don't think we are in disagreement really. My point is just that given the framework we do have i.e. the one that currently works the claim "God spoke to me" cannot be claimed as evidence for God's existence.

I think I would state it slightly differently. Since evidence is just a thing that helps one form a conclusion, it is really just a data point.

The framework helps us to evaluate evidence as good or bad. Given our current framework, I would say that the evidence "God spoke to me" is bad evidence for the actual existence of God and good evidence that Risperdal in is my future.

ETA:

I think the problem we run into is when other folks try to say, "well that's just your framework and I use another framework." But not all ways of looking at the world are equivalent.

 

[Darat]

Absolutely agreed. One of the claims I see most often about all kinds of things is "there is not evidence for X". Of course there is evidence for X, or we would not even be discussing. There is no evidence that makes X a demonstrable conclusion. There may not be enough evidence to make X even remote reasonable. It could be that all the evidence alleged for X is really explicable by Y. And so forth -- but it is still evidence.

The claim "there is no evidence for X" just attempts to delegitimatize the question of entity X - it is a rhetorical trick; if you wish to demonstrate that hypothesis X is unsound you need to explain all the alleged evidence for it by a better model or models - and even then technically you can not be logically certain which proposition is correct. Still, once you accept evidence, and realise that evidence is always data we impart a confidence to in respect of any given hypothesis, you do not need to give in to epistemological chaos - you can argue "the physical evidence for Bigfoot is extremely weak, with all that subjected to analysis found to be perfectly natural or fraudulent" or "big foot sightings appear strong evidence, but we mucst consider the knowwn history of haoxing and the problkem of eyewitness testimony". This is a little harder than asserting "ther eis no evidence for Bigfoot", but has the advanatge of being accurate and requiring you to think.

The problem is the "there is no evidence for X" formulation has slipped in to the sceptical vocabulary - i find myself using it sometimes as well - and it's a dangerous habit. There is as I pointed out evidence for leprechausn and the FSM - how much faith you put in that evidence is a personal judgement, but evidence exists for both. I just happen to think there are better mechanisms (Folklore & Satire) for explaining how the evidence arose than th eexistence of either as objective beasticles - but that doe snot mean there is no evidence for them.

cj x

There is plenty of evidence that the FSM as a fictional creation exists, there is not one iota of evidence that the FSM exists as the deity it is described as being or do you claim that there is evidence of the FSM's divinity?

According to your way of looking at it we can say that there is evidence for the earth being flat and leave it at that. I profoundly disagree with that way of stating something since it is not useful, and it is untruthful.

Yes there is evidence that could be interpreted as meaning the earth is flat, but only if we ignore all the other evidence we have about the shape of the earth. It may well have been that for some pre-historic humans it was rational from the evidence they had to conclude that the earth was flat. Today even though we have access to the same evidence as those pre-historic humans did it would not be rational to conclude that the earth is flat. The evidence itself hasn't changed however our knowledge-base (i.e. accumulation of evidence) has.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Darat,

I think this is one of those language ambiguity thingies. As you know, I'm pretty sure, we are saying the same thing. I know that what you mean when you say "there is no evidence for God" is the same thing that I would word "there is no good (or reliable) evidence for God". Maybe we should start using the word interpreted more often, because it is the interpretation of what the evidence means that is important; and your way of saying "there is no evidence for God" simply includes the interpretive framework in the assertion -- it's short-hand, in other words.


ETA:

Sorry, see you just said essentially the same thing above.

 

[cj.23]

There is plenty of evidence that the FSM as a fictional creation exists, there is not one iota of evidence that the FSM exists as the deity it is described as being or do you claim that there is evidence of the FSM's divinity?

Is there any actual evidence of the FSM's divinity? Nope. Well if it exists I have never seen it. Pastafarians -take note! Show me your evidence!

According to your way of looking at it we can say that there is evidence for the earth being flat and leave it at that. I profoundly disagree with that way of stating something since it is not useful, and it is untruthful.

I have not seen the evidence, but I would be interested. I think if light rays were to to bend upwards as they approached the Earth, deflected, you could probably explain the ship over the horizon thing, but I generally have not seen much evidence for a flat Earth. I will cheerfully consider any provided. I don't think anyone could accuse me of a priori nay saying... I must say I have a confidence that the Earth is a slightly squished globe approaching my confidence in poodles existing.

The thing is we do not have to retreat to the Dark Ages - we simply accept that evidence is evidence, and then ascribe a confidence level to it. People constantly tell me there is no evidence for people seeing ghosts - there is you know, mountains of it. I have, and for all I know you may have too. That is evidence. It does not mean we ave to assume "ghosts are dead people" - it could be argued as evidence for that, but it can also be arghued as evidence for hundreds of other hypotheses. We simply admit the existence of the evidence, the data of the raw experience, then start to try and work out what the best explantory model is to fit it.

The evidence for God exists - but we can interpret, and create models for evidence in many ways. I think the evidence for bigfoot (and I'm not expert) is insufficient to establish the reality of bigfoot, and better explained by other hypotheses. You feel the same about the God evidence.We both I suspect agree that the fossil record provides good evidence for Evolution - and so forth...

cj x

 

[cj.23]

There is evidence of these states, but the claim that these states represent direct experiences of the divine is a conclusion based on a particular framework. The actual evidence is of the experiental state.

Sure, in the same way that the fossil record is only direct evidence for the fossil record, but can be used as evidence for evolution, and Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is only direct evidence of CMBR, but can be employed as evidence for the Big Bang.

cj x