If skepticism makes you an atheist

bruto said:
Of course first you'd have to accept that first premise, "if scepticism makes you an atheist." It's a big "if."
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That's quibbling over the extreme, isn't it? Let's face it, for the vast centre-ground of scepticism (should that perhaps be the sceptic constituency? I am so focused on the mid-terms :) ) atheism is a given. The supernatural can make no sensible case for itself. The further we look into the universe the same we see no need to postulate a god.
 
jimlintott said:
...Later, I learned that when asked, I would ask what is god? The answer is almost different every time and varies from god is love to god is an actual physical being who micromanages all of reality.

So if believers gave a consistent answer to the question "what is god" and if that answer was plausible then I would consider it.
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I agree. If someone can give a clear definition of what God is and does, that would make any discussion of God a lot easier.

Define God
 
For me even the question is irrelevant. Why even consider the possibility that there might be a God so that I may ask myself what would prove him to me ? Why bother with God more than Santa or Mickey Mouse ? To make an analogy with the 1M challenge, God hasn't even passed my preeliminary tests. It makes as much sense to me as wondering what would take to accept the moon as the deity of fertility or the horse-shoe as a bad luck repellant. I don't even bother with such questions and this does not make me a fundamentalist; just a realist.
 
My athiesm stems from a comprehensive look at God.

There are many conflicting religions.

These religions cannot answer even simple questions.. and they never have been able to.

These religions claim many different things, but the more we look at them, the less evidence there is for these claims.

The more we explore life and the universe, the less we seem to need a supernatural explaination.

I would ask for -any- evidence for God. Any evidence would be extraordinary.
 
zizzybaluba said:
Here's another thought: If a personal god exists, why couldn't (s)he just re-arrange my neurons so that I did believe?
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Uh oh, maybe I shouldn't have said that...
Feeling woozy...
Can't... control.. thoughts....

I have seen the glory! ALL PRAISE ZEUS!!!
 
Thanks for the comments so far, and sorry for the hippocratic oath thingy there (fortunately g is uncorrelated with spelling ability:).

Don't have much time here, but by "if skepticism made you an atheist...." I didn't mean to imply that to be skeptic, one must be atheist. Just that different people have different reasons for atheism, and if you're an atheist because your general world view is skepticism (thereby dismissing ghosts like you do gods), then...

I just wonder how trully open minded we might be? Seems like many heathens trot out the fact that they're willing to change their minds with new evidence (whereas many theists never will change their minds) as proof that skeptical thinking is superior.

But it made me wonder if it's an empty claim, in that unless god whacked us on the head, we'd most likely resist converting (good point above about the vacuity of theism, though).

Is "show me proof and I will change my mind" really a benefit to adopting skepticism? God whacking us on the head (subject to verification that it's indeed god, versus a trick or hallucination) should be sufficient for belief in that god no matter what one's world view.

I'm just wondering if there's less extraordinary things out there that could happen, which if did happen, would make me convert.

I think the million dollar prize is a good example. If anyone ever won it, I'd reconsider my skepticism about many things, inlcuding gods.

I've always said that showing prayer works (the right way) would convert me. This is the only example I can come up with of something that seems plausible (or at least verifiable) that could possibly convert me.

Can't think of anything else tho.
 
bpesta22 said:
I've always said that showing prayer works (the right way) would convert me. This is the only example I can come up with of something that seems plausible (or at least verifiable) that could possibly convert me.
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What's the "right way" for prayer to work ? Eg, if we have 100 parents of kids with terminal cancer and they all pray for their kids to be saved, there wouldn't die any kids from cancer, right ? What about parents praying to God to bring their dead kids back ? Aren't those ways "right" and wouldn't they also be extraordinary ?
 
El Greco said:
What's the "right way" for prayer to work ? Eg, if we have 100 parents of kids with terminal cancer and they all pray for their kids to be saved, there wouldn't die any kids from cancer, right ? What about parents praying to God to bring their dead kids back ? Aren't those ways "right" and wouldn't they also be extraordinary ?
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I think the right way is showing that prayer has an effect on those being prayed for (in controlled, double blind, replicated studies).

If the experiments were well designed and replicated, I would say any effect size bigger than zero would be enough (i.e., anything requiring a nonmaterial explanation would do it).

I wouldn't require god to heal all his sick kids, just those so that p < .05!
 
jimlintott said:
I've been atheist my whole life so I have many times been asked why I don't believe. Later, I learned that when asked, I would ask what is god? The answer is almost different every time and varies from god is love to god is an actual physical being who micromanages all of reality.

So if believers gave a consistent answer to the question "what is god" and if that answer was plausible then I would consider it.

Until then I consider the wide variety of ideas on what god is to be the best evidence against such a thing.
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I too have never been a believer. I think it's because I was spared the relligious-parent moulding and escaped societal moulding because I was exposed to the Graeco-Roman, Nordic, Egyptian mythoses(?) and Robin Hood, King Arthur, the Lone Ranger, Champion the Wonder-Horse (so much more impressive than Lassie) at pretty much the same time as the Bible stories. Frankly, Jason and Sinbad blow the Bible stuff right out of the water. No contest. It never occurred to me that any subset of such stories actually had special distinction becuse it described The Truth.

I got dinosaurs and Newton and Darwin and Archimedes and the nine planets (remember when life was that simple?) and so on at the same time. I'll always love good stories, but I'll always love knowledge as well, and I won't confuse the two.
 
bpesta22 said:
I wouldn't require god to heal all his sick kids, just those so that p < .05!
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Ok, but what about healing amputees and resurrections ? Would such requests be inappropriate ? Why does prayer have to be limited to cures that are not very spectacular ?

ETA: By this I mean that if even such requests are "acceptable", then a single case would be enough to convince me. I wouldn't need any statistics if my grandfather came back to life tomorrow.
 
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bpesta22 said:
I think the right way is showing that prayer has an effect on those being prayed for (in controlled, double blind, replicated studies).

If the experiments were well designed and replicated, I would say any effect size bigger than zero would be enough (i.e., anything requiring a nonmaterial explanation would do it).

I wouldn't require god to heal all his sick kids, just those so that p < .05!
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Um, you are aware that we've done that experiment already? Several times, in point of fact.

I'm willing to make a small wager that you will get a statistically significant effect if you run the experiment twenty more times. In fact, I'll bet you can even get a highly significant effect at the p<0.01 level -- if you run the experiment a hundred more times.

That's part of what I mean about "the realistic scenarios have already been investigated." If you're going to produce and trumpet a finding, you are also going to have to come up with some explanation for several hundred years of non-findings locked in file drawers and dusty archives.

"Open-minded" is not synonymous with "amnesiac."
 
Carl Sagan's Novel
Contact
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expresses his criteria of evidence for a Creator God. The Creator should have left a signature or a watermark on creation. In the novel a fictitious mathematical watermark is found.
 
bpesta22 said:
I've always said that showing prayer works (the right way) would convert me. This is the only example I can come up with of something that seems plausible (or at least verifiable) that could possibly convert me.
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Prayer is a very easy one to prove/disprove. And we don't need any prayer studies. We can just look at the insurance industry statistics.

Are thiests healthier than athiests or agnostics?

Are they richer? Better off?

Do they live longer?
 
DangerousBeliefs said:
Prayer is a very easy one to prove/disprove. And we don't need any prayer studies. We can just look at the insurance industry statistics.

Are thiests healthier than athiests or agnostics?

Are they richer? Better off?

Do they live longer?
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Given that insurance companies don't ask about religious beliefs or practices, I would imagine that no strong actuarial effect of prayer or religion has been established.
 
bpesta22 said:
I think the right way is showing that prayer has an effect on those being prayed for (in controlled, double blind, replicated studies).
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But this runs up against the godly principle not to unequivocally demonstrate its existence because that would devalue faith. Why would some god that's hidden itself for thousands of years for some reason suddenly reveal itself in a double-blind experiment instead of appearing in the sky to everybody? "Inscrutable" is not a quantifiable word. You is, or you isn't.
 
bpesta22 said:
I think the right way is showing that prayer has an effect on those being prayed for (in controlled, double blind, replicated studies).

If the experiments were well designed and replicated, I would say any effect size bigger than zero would be enough (i.e., anything requiring a nonmaterial explanation would do it).

I wouldn't require god to heal all his sick kids, just those so that p < .05!
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Hmmm? This seems to approach something, paraphrasing, "Do Not Test the Lord thy God" ... ;) Positive results might point more to Devilish intervention; confirmation of sorts in either case though. :)

I suspect we agree that absence of positive results adds no data; as drkitten pointed out, results to date have been statistically insignificant and/or unrepeatable.
 
Jon. said:
Given that insurance companies don't ask about religious beliefs or practices, I would imagine that no strong actuarial effect of prayer or religion has been established.
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See above and ... Of course this does leave open the possibility that a god is improving outcomes for some of the prayed-for while concealing the fact of its intervention by screwing over other prayed-fors in order to maintain the statistics and leave no trace of its passing. In the end the outcome is just the same - no reason to postulate a god.
 
Scepticism strengthened my agnostic position, nothing more. I don't know, most likely will never know, and I am not going to make any guesses. There is little reason to.

jimlintott said:
So if believers gave a consistent answer to the question "what is god" and if that answer was plausible then I would consider it.

Until then I consider the wide variety of ideas on what god is to be the best evidence against such a thing.
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Funny. This is one of the main reasons I am not an atheist.

To me, saying you don't believe in in [word that can mean pretty much anything] seems just as pointless and saying you believe in [word that can mean pretty much anything].
 
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