Atheism - Shadows of Doubt

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
No, whoever said it did?

I'm just stating it out loud, in case some have forgotten.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by GePap
I do not believe for an instant that you can "justify" making a claim about its outcome, simply based on a knowldge of what probability is.

Then you would have no reason not to invest in a lottery ticket, whereas I can conclude that a lottery ticket is a bad investment.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by DaShi
Actually, it is more stupid for an aetheist to say, "I do not believe in god." in your argument. Here you want to say that the aetheist is stating that he has no belief at all in regards to god. In order for this to be true, he would have to have absolute certainty that there is or is not a god.

This makes no sense to me whatsoever. I don't see why someone would need to have absolute certainty in two possibilities. I do not believe that an atheist needs to be certain that either of two things could be true.

Also, atheism does not refer specifically to God, even if that's how it is commonly used. To me, an atheist not believing in god means that an atheist has a whole lot of beliefs about a lot of things, but none of them concern god. An atheist may also not believe that there are spirits, ghosts, animistic forces, and (to be an ass) pink unicorns, along with a whole host of other things; but that's not the point.

The latin prefix 'a' means without. It does not specify what is. An atheist believes in a lot of things - maybe the scientific method, or aliens, or skepticism, or communism, or whatever - and it just so happens that one of the things an atheist does not believe in is god.

What you're doing... it's... it's silly, really. You're labeling someone by what they aren't, and not what they are. JohnT believes in capitalism - believes in free market, individualism, the entrepreneurial spirit - all that stuff. By consequence he does not believe in communism.

But you wouldn't label him an anti-communist. You wouldn't say that he faithfully believed communism to be wrong, because that's not the point. He may faithfully believe capitalism to be right, and this just so happens to mean he believes communism to be wrong.

Or, for a more extreme, and perhaps more applicable example: consider an archaeologist who studies Ancient Egypt. Such a scientist may formulate many theories about how and why the Pyramids and the Sphinx were built. He may think it was done by this king, using that method. And this is all he believes. As a consequence of this belief, he also does not believe that aliens built the pyramids. But does this make him an anti-alienist? No. It just means that his beliefs don't cover that, because his beliefs are on a different matter.

Atheism, in my opinion, is no different. All it talks about is what is not believed, and not what is believed.

Now you're free to disagree with me. Heck, what can I do if you do? The fun is in the debate. But please don't take my disagreements as personal.

Blar. Uh. What. I'm confused. The whole point was that I'm not taking this seriously. I'm playing devil's advocate because, as you said, it's fun. I mean, it was you who made the facetious claim that the reasoning I had rehearsed "in front of a mirror" had been attacked and that I was upset over it.

Really, that you think I'm somehow losing sleep over this debate confounds me. I'm only here because I think you're using funny logic, not because I feel a need to defend my beliefs, which - as I've said again and again - haven't even come up in this thread.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
I would like to point out the whole lottery ticket thing is realy a poor analogy for reflection on the hypothesis of god, I atempted to improve the analogy by comparing it to a lottery in which the ticket can never be redeamed for the prize money (see earlier post). This better reflects concept of an untestable hypothesis being by default false. A hypothesis that has the desency to be testable can at least be entertained even if we admit it has an infintesimal probability of being true, by testing we can grow that tiny chance of being right by verifying experimental prediction untill the theory is a strong as special relitivity. The untestable theory is just rubbish to be discarded as less then wrong. Do you agree/disagree with that principle?

Say what? Your example sucked. We may well know truth from falsehood--though not in this life--eventually. If we believers are all wrong, we will die and cease to exist and never know. But if, say, the Left Behind sickos are somehow right, we will all know it in a long Tribulation period full of hackneyed characters and ridiculous writing. Then Evil-Jesus will come and make us all explode with wrath-lasers or something.

What you are doing is stacking the deck against God and calling it an argument. Only empirically falsifiable theories can be accepted. Why? Because otherwise you'd believe in silly stuff like religion. Why is religion silly? Because it's not empirically falsifiable. Well, we can't argue with THAT brilliant logic, can we? If you assume from the beginning, as a first principle, that nothing supernatural is true, your whole argument is based on an assumption that presupposes your belief. "Bearing in mind the fact that the Jews are part of an international conspiracy to kidnap and eat our babies, do you support the state of Israel?"

[Lorizael]

Being as how I'm in favor of both population control and dead babies, I would have to go with yes, I like Israel.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Lorizael


This makes no sense to me whatsoever. I don't see why someone would need to have absolute certainty in two possibilities. I do not believe that an atheist needs to be certain that either of two things could be true.

An aetheist doesn't have to be certain to not believe that either things could be true. He only needs to be certain that there is no god to use the statement "I do not believe there is a god." Of course, a theist could say, "I do not believe there is a god" as well. However, he would add, "I know there is one" to resolve the paradox. An aetheist wouldn't have to add "I know there isn't one" because it's understood.

Blar. Uh. What. I'm confused. The whole point was that I'm not taking this seriously. I'm playing devil's advocate because, as you said, it's fun. I mean, it was you who made the facetious claim that the reasoning I had rehearsed "in front of a mirror" had been attacked and that I was upset over it.

Really, that you think I'm somehow losing sleep over this debate confounds me. I'm only here because I think you're using funny logic, not because I feel a need to defend my beliefs, which - as I've said again and again - haven't even come up in this thread.

Please don't tempt me.

[DaShi]

Well Lorizael, clearly your last post shows that I've exhausted you on this subject. You can no longer challenge my "funny" logic. Since all you're left with now is strawmen and ad hominem, I see no need to further discuss this with you. I'm not so cruel to do so, or at least trying not to be.

[Lorizael]

K.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Elok
What you are doing is stacking the deck against God and calling it an argument. Only empirically falsifiable theories can be accepted. Why?

well, for one, it creates a single standard for judging theories., and one that any human being can understand and see work in some manner.

Because otherwise you'd believe in silly stuff like religion. Why is religion silly? Because it's not empirically falsifiable. Well, we can't argue with THAT brilliant logic, can we? If you assume from the beginning, as a first principle, that nothing supernatural is true, your whole argument is based on an assumption that presupposes your belief. "Bearing in mind the fact that the Jews are part of an international conspiracy to kidnap and eat our babies, do you support the state of Israel?"

There is nothing inherently wrong about having a system of ceremonies, rituals, and moral codes that shape your everyday activities and value system. The problem arises fomr the fact that modern Liberal values simply do not coexist well with any system that can claim that for unseen, unknowable reasons certain limits must be placed on human beings.

[Elok]

I understand that, GePap, but as an argument it's ****e. It's pretty much the textbook definition of Begging the Question ("there is no God because I do not admit the possibility of a God"), but he's bringing it up like it's QED. It's not, unless we share his values, which we obviously do not or we would not be having this discussion. It's just the guiding principle of his life, and he has given no reason why it is more valid than mine.

Not that I'm especially eager to hear him try; if past experience is any indication, the argument will eventually boil down to "religion---->Spanish Inquisition," and that's not convincing either. If blaming everything on Satan is unacceptable, blaming everything on religion is no less of a scapegoat. At this point I'm just looking to shoot down the neat and tidy secular humanist masturbation fantasy he seems to have bought into like half the other atheists in the world. Load of simplistic tripe...

[GePap]

I am an aethist for a s imple reason. God is an additional step that adds nothing to my life. Saying some consciousness that we can;t know created the universe just punts those pesky questions of origin one step back, but then tries to cheat by claiming to have provided an answer.

As for questions of life post death, I see no point. One reason I have Nietzsche as my avatar. Living for the afterlife is ignoring this life to one degree or another. Only problem is, this life is the only one everyone agrees that we have. What lies beyond that is pure conjucture. NO Christian can disporve a Hindu, who can't disprove a Buddhist, about what comes after death. And as for the moral codes they provide, the modern secular liebral values driven system seems less likely to decide to sacrifice lives for metaphysical goals, which is always in my book a good thing.

I am not a militant aethist- let people be religious if they want, as long as they don't undo this world because of their visions of another they can;t show exists.

[loinburger]

The problem with applying scientific principles to religious hypotheses is that, whattayaknow, it's pretty friggin difficult to verify a hypothesis about the afterlife, seeing as how most of the people who can elucidate on this matter are dead. Ditto with the other supernatural hypotheses posited by religion -- if it's a supernatural hypothesis, then whattayaknow, natural science doesn't really do a helluva lot when it comes to verifying (or falsifying) it.

Now, there are some religious hypotheses (e.g., young-earth creationism) that directly contradict natural science, and I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that these idiotic religious hypotheses are idiotic. But when it comes to the hypotheses that (so says me) are not verifiable, I'm content to let LOTM walk the fields while I sit at home and look at porn.

[Elok]

I am of the opinion that secular morals only "work" because of their competition with religious morals, combined with human beings' own moral inclinations (whether instinctive or socially imposed doesn't much matter, as humans are social animals). It's much the same phenomenon that allows opposition parties to enjoy wild popularity even when they don't have anything original to offer; there's little need to stand *for* anything provided you can stand against something else.

I've gone into this theory of mine before. Just to head off the usual flames, I don't mean to suggest that, if there were no religions around, humanity would revert to savagery. The more I think about it, I suspect something more of the reverse. Religious belief cannot cease to exist entirely, just because without it morality would have no genuine root. The cognitive dissonance involved in so consistently acting against our own best interests would be maddening, even if it were emotionally imperative. Without a supernatural telos, morality is just a shared form of OCD (I said "to head off the usual flames." New flames I expect and can probably handle).

Beyond that statement of necessity, it seems highly suspicious to me that we should have such a powerfully ingrained urge to no purpose. That's hardly "proof," but I don't mean it to be. I have my own reasons for believing, and I have no intention of giving other people a problem so I can foist my solution to it on them. Loin can continue watching his porn (though if he looks anything like his avatar I DO NOT want to think about that in detail).

[Impaler[WrG]]

Ok Elok, I admit my world view could seem tautological but please demonstrate a world view which is not in some way tautological. Its a world view which is simple, rational and holds water. It values experimentation and reality above all else and thus my world view values hypotheses by their receptivness to experimentation.

It might seem that I'm just a Materialist and have precluded the existence of the supernatural as the start, this is not so, I am not as you say beging the question. The logic would go...

I - An untestable hypothesis is false
II - The supernatural is untestable
II - Theirfor the supernatural is false

Its not my fault the supernatural is untestable, if it would show up and submit to analysis then I could entertain it. And its not just the Baby I'm throwing out either, I'm getting rid of all the dirty water as well. Like for example beliving in "parelell universese" that can never to observed or verified in any way. I assert them to be false as well.

[Jon Miller]

1 - An untestable hypothesis is false
II - String theory is untestable
III - Therefore String Theory is false

I already pointed this out.

Jon Miller