Do you believe all of them?
Believing that the sun is a chariot pulled across the sky is nice. Understanding the real relationship between sun and earth involves physics that allows us to do all sorts of things.
I would rather have the useful knowledge than the supernatural tale.
A Klein bottle also isn't real, but it's equation implies it is in some realm. So we have something that is not real in essence, yet not nonsensical at the same time. I was mainly referring to abstractions, like visual thought experiments in higher mathematics. These deductions often require great amounts of abstractualization and logic to arrive at a real result, but they also are intangible concepts, lacking any observable reality except by logical, relational and implied method.
Well, math and science are expressions of the same thing anyway, and science draws notions of true and false similarly. Higher math is a way of reaching into the intangible and grabbing at something, and even predicting the future.
He probably just needs more practice with discourse and structuring pointed responses. Confusion about what is tangible and what is intangible square observation and proof is forgivable. But it really isn't much of a discussion for the scientific method, as it deals with pure logic, relational ideas, and probabilities. In other words, what seems meaningful and what does not.
I must have misread your earlier post, then. My apologies; I thought you were advocating a truth that could be seen in folk wisdom, but not in science. I don't know of any folk wisdom that came up with the Klein bottle...
Tricky
Briefly immortal
Yeah, that was me who mentioned you. Apologies if it was unwelcome, but you were the best example I had to illustrate my point.
The only correction I would make to your statement above is about the "gray area of science". If you're talking about religion, it is not a gray area of science. It is not an area of science at all. Only when religion crosses the boundary into making claims about science, (such as the knowledge of what existed before the big bang) or when people who call themselves scientists make religious proclamations (like "there is no God") , do science and religion butt heads. Otherwise, we atheists respect your personal choice. as much as you respect science. 'Course, if you want to talk about logic, we can have a jolly old time.
I guess that is the case some times. I think most times it is when people do not try to listen and understand another's beliefs that the other person gets insulted. I think it is pretty clear that this is not an issue between you and me. But I am annoyed by those who respond to my earnest questions with metaphors, misdirections and mushmouth. I want to discuss these things. Why do some keep running away from the discussions?
LOL. Don't be too nice to me. I think you are wrong too, but I respect your willingness to admit (as I do) that you are capable of being wrong. Do I want to change your beliefs? I think it is a natural urge to wish to convince others that you are right, so I won't pretend that I am free from this urge. But I try not to take it personally if you don't agree with me, given the understanding that you will cut me the same slack when I don't agree with you.
I don't assume you are incorrect in your logic, but I believe you are. But it is an honest disagreement between people who respect each other. I'm sorry if your experience with some atheists has been less straightforward. We have some jerks in our ranks too. Humans. Go figure.
I agree completely. We don't know. But if we think we are right, should we not explain and debate why we think so? How but by sharing and comparing ideas can we ever hope to find what is right? I will freely admit that my philosophy is somewhat staid. It will take some darn good evidence/logic to change it. But I always try to listen to that evidence and logic.
Frankly WP, your reasons for belief are unassailable. You believe because you want to, not because of evidence. If only more people could admit such a simple thing, we atheists and theists would get along much better.
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Doesn't bother me a bit.
Belz...
Fiend God
What a ridiculous way of thinking. Why do you even believe in that immoral, evil god then ?
Belz...
Fiend God
Does that mean you know what happened "before" the big bang because you had a divine revelation ?
Belz...
Fiend God
Huntster said:
Your first few posts seemed condescending to me, Huntster. I think you had already learnt that from somewhere else.
Learning ? How ? There's no lesson at all. And if you think the bibble is the lsson, I've got a number of OTHER religious texts to talk to you about.
There is ? Could you provide a single example ?
I guess you don't. Still running away I see. Some crusader.
Huntster said:
Maybe he's a little green elf living in my left ear. Just because you can think it up doesn't make it likely.
You mean, blindly.
I'd just like to second this point. I find it very easy to understand why someone would want to believe in god. I find the idea nice in a lot of ways. If your life is better with that belief, and if no one is hurt because you hold it, then it is completely justified.
There are some reasons I don't - and I think they're good reasons. But if someone else says, "I believe because it's nice to, and it makes me feel good." for the most part, I can readily accept that. It's only when people try to convice me that I'm wrong not to believe, or that my beliefs lead to other things (like that I obviously can't find any meaning in the world) that I start to get annoyed.
The only reason I gave up belief in god is that Carl Sagan convinced me that believing something just because it's nice isn't a good enough reason.
But I don't deny others the right to do so. In fact, I find it refreshing when they are willing to admit that that is the reason. Rather than appeal to some "other type of knowing".
Mainly because I don't know what that is.
Belz...
Fiend God
And you're right. However, jumping from this to the belief in the thing for which there is no evidence, is quite a leap.
I know you claim that there IS evidence, but in Iacchus' case, he basically says that, if there IS NO evidence, then it exists!
Belz...
Fiend God
Because otherwise, skeptics would be required to proove that there is no pink unicorn, anywhere, or that light therapy DOESN'T work, etc. Millions of claims would have to be carefully debunked, and as many have stated, disproving a negative absolutely is impossible: there's always a cop-out the believer can use.
Iacchus said:
Just because you can't understand the lack of time, Iacchus, does not mean it's not true.
Belz...
Fiend God
Because that's not what they are.
Agnostics claim to have NO KNOWLEDGE. Atheists do NOT BELIEVE in God. If you ask ME, I'll say there IS NO GOD, a claim I can't back up completely, for sure. Still, it's my belief, based on SOME evidence. However, most atheists here do not hold that position, but they're not merely agnostics.
Iacchus said:
No we can't. No it's not.
Belz...
Fiend God
It's also rife with people believing that the earth is flat.
Iacchus said:
No, you'r claiming to KNOW something, Iacchus. Not just that we don't know everything.
Iacchus said:
Nigh-impossible, I'd say. Your dreams and perceptions are unreliable, as are anyone's.
ruach1 said:
Me neither... I just read that again. Why would atheists be proud of the fact that they haven't disproved the existence of god?
Well, I was just trying to get across what I made of DrK's post, but of course I probably said it much worse than drk would have anyway...
That aside, I do agree with what I made of drk's post, so, I should try to make myself clear, anyway.
I'm not sure what you mean by "a claim made proir to the empirical method". What I was refering to is claims that at the time hadn't been tested, nor were known to be testable. Claims which had no evidence for or against them. When someone makes claims like that, and most are later shown to be false, the rest that we don't yet know still may or may not be true, but it's silly to suggest that the fact that the original person made those claims can be evidence for them.
It's not evidence against them exactly, however. It just makes me realise that they can be put in with all other claims that have no evidence for them.
Here's the problem for me. I can agree that God could exist, until you start telling me something about God.
Theists usually do more than claim that God exists - they claim to know the attributes of God. This could be as simple as saying god created the universe, can effect it now, and loves us. I wonder, how do they know this?
There are so many possible gods that when someone offers me a specific one, I'm pretty sure it's not real. Much the same way that if someone were to hand me a lottery ticket, I would assume that it wasn't a winner. There still might be a winner somewhere, but anyone who pretends to know the numbers had better give me a good reason to beleive them.
If there is a God that created the universe, then all we know about it is what we see of the universe. We end up with einstein's god, just another word for the laws of physics. Assuming anything more than that is going beyond the evidence.
Of course there could be physics we don't know about yet - hell, there probably is - and some of it could be God. But to say anything about that - that it's intelligent, that it cares about us, that it doesn't like pork - well, that's no different than saying you know the name of the doctor who will write my death certificate. You might have made an accurate guess, but I feel safe in saying that you didn't.
Well, you added a couple of words in there for me, but okay.
Okay, but where does this pardigm come from? We certainly aren't born with it. On the other hand, we aren't born with the scientific paradigm either. But we find that it works. I find that trusting the evidence, so long as I make a valid interpretation of it, I actually do find things that are true. It works because it has predictive power, and that's useful. Useful enough that it's what all of our technology is based upon.
Does the christian paradigm work? We don't know. If working means knowing more about God, getting into heaven, etc. then I guess we can't know.
But imagine you know nothing about the world. I offer you all the evidence for the theory of gravity. Including experiencing it's effects. Watching the orbits of planets over the course of a year and taking down observations. Doing the math yourself. Records from the space program. etc.
You will probably find that after all this you'd say, "Okay, the theory of gravity is a very good and accurate description of the way the universe works. It may not be complete, but it's at the least accurate in these situations, to this degree." You now know something about the universe.
If on the other hand I told you about christianity, you would have no reason to take my word for it.
This, I think, is what we're talking about. Not, "could it be true?", but rather, "do we have any reason to believe it's true?"
That's what evidence is. A reason to believe. You could say, "well, we don't need a reason to believe." But you do. You obviously have one. there are too many possible beliefs, there has to be a way to distinguish between them. Pulling one from a hat at random is a possibility. As is believing the one that is the most attractive.
I prefer believing the one that I judge most likely to be correct. And the only way to do that is to weigh the available evidence.
I think you're suggesting that there is another way to do that. Another way to judge what is the most likely explanation (and by the way, when I can't make any judgement I'm happy to say I don't know). If so, please explain how it works.
Maybe. But we all rely on science for a lot of things in our lives. And we all believe at least some of it's conclusions. So we know it works. I don't know of anything else that works. You're right that if there is such a thing as divine revelation, that would be a valid method. But there's no reason to believe there is, so any arguement that starts from that assumption in order suggest a different way of knowing is circular.
In binary logic two NOTs cancel. So, "It is nothing to be proud of that one's belief can't be disproved" becomes "It is something to be proud of that one's belief can be disproved." And, "Atheists are not proud of the fact that they have not disproved the existence of God" becomes "Atheists are proud of the fact that they have disproved the existence of God."
Perhaps. But binary logic is better. See, "It seems that no one has the guts in the skeptical community to say that God can't be disproved" becomes "It seems that one has the guts in the skeptical community to say that God can be disproved." Just makes sure your claim that, God exists, can be falsified.
And, since when does one begin to equate a rock with a fish? ... unless of course it were a rock fish.
Yes, I am claiming that I very much do have the capacity to know.
Yes, we all could very well be living in The Matrix.
I don't get this sentence. What are you talking about?And, since when does one begin to equate a rock with a fish? ... unless of course it were a rock fish.
But offering us no reason to believe that you actually do.
So? In what way was that a response to what Belz said?