Understanding/evaluating religious/theistic claims.

**aaqucnaona** · 03-31-12, 01:36 AM

Originally Posted by wynn

Not for an ordinary Joe.

An ordinary Joe has to do with faith in second-hand or third-hand information about the person the media present and call "The President."

Again, there is a difference between faith as in "It is possible to meet the president" or "The Sun will rise tomorrow" and "Being stupid/ignorant of science gets you into heaven" or "God want kill infidel!"*.

Strong atheism, when spelled out, does sound a little absurd, so even you need to modify your statements with possibility qualifiers.
Unfortunately, that sometimes leads to nothing but passive-aggressiveness.

Sometimes one has to escalate his opposition when the other side does.

*Sorry for the stereotype, but I needed a good example.

**wynn** · 03-31-12, 01:46 AM

Originally Posted by aaqucnaona

Again, there is a difference between faith as in "It is possible to meet the president" or "The Sun will rise tomorrow" and "Being stupid/ignorant of science gets you into heaven" or "God want kill infidel!"*.

Sometimes one has to escalate his opposition when the other side does.

*Sorry for the stereotype, but I needed a good example.

It's not clear why you keep limiting yourself to mainstream Christianity as the source of ideas you oppose.

**wynn** · 03-31-12, 01:47 AM

Originally Posted by aaqucnaona

Option 2. We dont wanna see or meet god. We just wanna know if he exists.

Why do you want to know whether God exists or not?

**Arioch** · 03-31-12, 01:53 AM

@wynn --

Well I do like knowing whether I'm right or not, it's this pesky obsession with reality I have.

**wynn** · 03-31-12, 02:41 AM

Originally Posted by Arioch

@wynn --

Well I do like knowing whether I'm right or not, it's this pesky obsession with reality I have.

I guess the next question is whether you are already certain that you have all the answers; or whether you still have some significant uncertainties and how you live with them.

**Saturnine Pariah** · 03-31-12, 07:41 AM

Originally Posted by lightgigantic

similarly hearing atheist ideas attempting to dress up as rational is also a big joke

You say the dardest things, who's adorable? who's a cute little theist! Yes you are! Yes you are!( pets on the head) you are so fucking cute i can't stand it!

**Saturnine Pariah** · 03-31-12, 08:01 AM

http://archive.org/details/AtheismAn...andaDasGoswami
74 minutes and 22 seconds of compelte Bull.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69TOuqaqXI

**aaqucnaona** · 03-31-12, 08:16 AM

Originally Posted by wynn

It's not clear why you keep limiting yourself to mainstream Christianity as the source of ideas you oppose.

Its no more vague than your never giving a straightforward answer.

**aaqucnaona** · 03-31-12, 08:17 AM

Originally Posted by wynn

Why do you want to know whether God exists or not?

Because that matters to you [and the theists] and the theists affect me directly + if God exists, knowing about him may be important.

**wynn** · 03-31-12, 08:29 AM

Originally Posted by Yazata

The issue is whether or not natural science has any epistemological access to non-natural being. If science doesn't have that access, then it wouldn't seem to be of very much use in describing, explaining or even determining whether or not such being exists.

I think both scientists as well as some theists have complicated the matter into absurd proportions, or at least sometimes (or often, as in popular discourse) present it in terms that are impossible to live up to.
I'm not sure whether this is avoidable, or whether it is a common step one has to make in the pursuit of developing spiritual maturity.

A few things to consider about ordinary human interactions:

- People talk about things, and sometimes they don't exactly know what they are talking about, but they talk about it anyway.
- People sometimes want other people to think, feel, say or do things. People sometimes want to influence other people.
- People may sometimes want from others what they themselves don't have or cannot give.
- People sometimes want to get away with less than honorable behavior.

This is how the givens of ordinary human interactions enter the discussion on transcendental matters.

A preacher, apart from talking about God, may also want to gain followers, money, fame, so the way he presents the message about God is affected by those ulterior motives.
What the people who are being preached to then are told is a mixture of pure motives (about God) and impure motives (about worldly gains). If they are uneducated in these matters (and they probably are uneducated on these matters), they won't be able to tell which is which, and will likely confuse the two.
Further, what the people then actually hear from that which they are told will depend on their desires, which are often worldly (they often just want to be sure that they will keep their job or soon find a better one, that their children will be healthy and their spouse will love them, and such). Much of what the preacher says won't get through to them, they may add a few things, not understand this or that.
It's a recipe for confusion.

I think that both science as well as some theists effectively wish to avoid these givens of ordinary human interactions:

Science does it by trying to objectify and neutralize the search for God. But in the process, it denies and eliminates the importance of humans and their intentions and relationships altogether. In theistic religion, the aim is always a personal relationship (of one kind or another) with God, but the scientific approach wants to do without that relationship altogether. It's throwing out the baby along with the bathwater.

On the other hand, some theists emphasize a hyperindividualistic approach to God, where they expect that a person would develop a relationship with God all on their own, simply by an act of introspection, with no help or teaching from other people who have successully done so. That approach can effectively lead to a kind of solipsistic insanity in the name of the search for God.

So when trying to understand and evaluate theistic claims, we need to consider the givens of ordinary human interactions: we need to be sure that the maker of those claims is pure and wishes us well, and we also need to make sure that our own intentions for listening and engaging in discussion of theistic claims are pure.

If one enters discussion of theistic claims because one has old scores to settle with particular theists, or because one is trying to distract oneself from one's life problems and such, then those are not pure intentions, so one shouldn't delude oneself into hoping for pure results.

**Saturnine Pariah** · 03-31-12, 08:31 AM

@LG
I would take you serioulsy...if you didn't try to apply invalid evidence to an idea such as God that cannot by the scientfic method devlope or even be supported by evidence. It's a paradox, the " evidence" you try to validate in these forums just like your god doesn't exist or is so faulty that it cannot even be considered rational or objective. You are a cute little theist in my eyes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlaCq...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wV_R...feature=relmfu

**Grumpy** · 03-31-12, 09:25 AM

Yazata

Determining whether there's a scientific method, and if so what that method is, is still an active area of debate in the philosophy of science.

Actually, no. The scientific method, in one form or another, is the basis for all scientific knowledge. Some areas of science do not meet these standards(notably psychology and other areas involving the study of human's thought processes), others are beyond testing(Theoretical Physics), but we don't consider conclusions in those areas as being dispositive and our confidence in them is not firm.

It something from outside nature was interfering with nature, those interventions might just look like causal anomalies to science. Conceivably, science might not even be able to detect interventions from outside, if the interventions involve classes of events that people already feel confident that they understand.

So a god is constantly interfering with nature to the point that the interference looks like a natural law? Throughout the Universe? In every instance? No wonder he's too busy to answer prayers.

If there was a 'miraculous' intervention from outside nature, about all that science could say about it is that an event happened whose cause is still unknown and as yet not fully understood. And unless the intervention was a dramatic attention-grabbing violation of our expectations of what the natural order is, probably nobody would even notice.

So such miracles are restricted only to those instances where the effect is so minor that we wouldn't notice no matter how hard we look? Seems a variation on the god of the gaps argument, with the gaps in this instance being our ability to see the effects.

The issue is whether or not natural science has any epistemological access to non-natural being. If science doesn't have that access, then it wouldn't seem to be of very much use in describing, explaining or even determining whether or not such being exists.

The issue is whether science can evaluate or understand the likelyhood that these theistic claims are true, real, extant in the physical world. However real they are in the minds of man, all concepts are seperated into those that can be evidenced and those that cannot. Belief is the mind's acceptance of things without evidence(and the whole of the supernatural exists here)and that's fine as long as that acceptance is confined to the mind. But once one projects that concept onto the real world, science certainly can evaluate the reality of that concept. Not with certainty, true. But with probability.

Originally Posted by Yazata
Science, particularly physics, often seems to be interested in subsuming individual observed events as instances of general "laws". But the alleged actions of religion's supposed transcendental being(s) are typically more along the lines of one-offs and don't appear to be law-governed in the same way that physical events appear to be. The actions of these hypothetical religious objects seem to be captured more naturally in a narrative story line than by a mathematical equation. ”

“ Originally Posted by Grumpy
We call those story lines "fiction". ”

Or if they're true, we might call them 'history'.

But they cannot be shown to be true. Just one example is the Biblical claim of stopping the sun. The claim only appears in one text, but such an event would be worldwide. Why no coroboration in any other text? Probably because the claim is not true, it would have been a sensation not likely to be unmentioned in numerous texts all over the world. And even having similar claims in different texts is not dispositive, flood myths are ubiquitous, but the physical evidence shows no sign of a single worldwide flood in the last ten thousand years or so(or even in the entire geological history of the world, for that matter). But devastating floods happen even today, we just don't turn them into mythology, or consider them as punishment of the gods(well, if you discount Pat Robertson).

There are questions about what kind of general laws supposedly govern history.

I would question anyone saying laws govern history at all. History is just the things that occur, what we make of those occurrances is not the history, it is our interpretation of history. We know that most ancient men attributed occurrances in history as the acts of god(we still use the phrase)and that this interpretation colors what they chronicled, we also know they simply made stuff up that did not actually occur(often based on a kernal of truth, so a bad local flood becomes a bad worldwide flood).

Problems multiply tremendously if we turn our attention to a hypothetical transcendent creator whose existence is said to be prior to whatever laws of nature exist. Simply by definition, the laws of nature would only apply in the created realm of nature and wouldn't even apply to such a being. So all the models that have science subsuming particular events as instances of general laws wouldn't even apply in this situation.

Not really, such a god is irrelivant to reality, cannot be evidenced and in all probability exists only in the mind of the believer.

Somebody can approach music by studying the psychology and anthropology of music if they like. I prefer to listen to it. It's a very different psychological process and a very different experience.

Music is something someone does, it is not a statement. And beauty is in the eye of the beholder. While in Korea I heard stuff called music that sounded to me like someone was torturing a bag of cats with a blowtorch, but those around me seemed to appreciate it. It is a subjective thing.

Grumpy

**Yazata** · 03-31-12, 10:42 AM

Originally Posted by wynn

I think both scientists as well as some theists have complicated the matter into absurd proportions, or at least sometimes (or often, as in popular discourse) present it in terms that are impossible to live up to.

I don't think that hypothetical non-natural beings are knowable by natural means. That's simple enough.

I'm not sure whether this is avoidable, or whether it is a common step one has to make in the pursuit of developing spiritual maturity.

The veiled implication might be true in my case, I make no boasts of spiritual maturity, however one might choose to define that.

I think that both science as well as some theists effectively wish to avoid these givens of ordinary human interactions:

Science does it by trying to objectify and neutralize the search for God.

Science typically addresses itself to non-human objects and it strives for objectivity. You're doubtless right that probably isn't the best way to relate to somebody person to person. This sounds like a peculiarly personal-theistic variant on my argument that science might be unable to perceive the 'inner' experiential point of religion.

As for me, I'm not a personal theist. I don't have a clue what the fundamental principle(s) of the universe are, and certainly don't imagine them as one or more giant super-cosmic... persons.

But yeah, most theists do imagine their 'God' that way and your kind of argument against science's religious competence by trying to shift the emphasis to personal relationships would probably be very persuasive and even central to many theists, from their point of view.

**Grumpy** · 03-31-12, 10:43 AM

wynn

Strong atheism, when spelled out, does sound a little absurd, so even you need to modify your statements with possibility qualifiers.

Strong Atheism is as much an unevidenced belief as theism. That's why there are few thoughtful atheists who are strong atheists. We seem to have only one on this forum, but thoughtful is not a word that I think applies to his reactive posts and hostility.

An ordinary Joe has to do with faith in second-hand or third-hand information about the person the media present and call "The President."

Got any videos at all of any god holding a press conference? I think we can safely say that the President exists, given the evidence.

It's not clear why you keep limiting yourself to mainstream Christianity as the source of ideas you oppose.

It is the mainstream. If you are talking about the flow of water in a river, it is generally the mainstream you are speaking of. If it is not, you have to define what other aspect of flow you mean. If you would like to examine some other concept(which evidently is different enough to be important to you), define it.

Why do you want to know whether God exists or not?

I have already concluded that he doesn't, but that is not the question of the thread, is it?

I guess the next question is whether you are already certain that you have all the answers; or whether you still have some significant uncertainties and how you live with them.

Certain? No. Know everything? Hardly. Uncertainty is a fact of life, get used to it or stop functioning.

People sometimes want to get away with less than honorable behavior.

Yeah, tell me about it. We've just recently had a demonstration of people wanting to use racism as a tactic in debate yet complain when that racism is pointed out(by way of example).

Science does it by trying to objectify and neutralize the search for God.

Science tries to objectify knowledge of reality, god does not enter into it UNLESS there is evidence that indicates a god is neccessary. The search for god is strictly a theist occupation and science only enters into that if theists make claims that their god affects reality. I'm sorry if science provides knowledge that precludes what god was always said(by theists)to be responsible for. We didn't set out to preclude any god, it just turns out that way when we actually looked.

But in the process, it denies and eliminates the importance of humans and their intentions and relationships altogether.

Hogwash, there are whole segments of science that study those very things. Anthropology, for one. We spend a lot of time and effort to try and understand the psyche of humans and their motivations.

In theistic religion, the aim is always a personal relationship (of one kind or another) with God, but the scientific approach wants to do without that relationship altogether. It's throwing out the baby along with the bathwater.

The scientific approach simply finds no reason to think that the god you are talking about exists outside of the mind. There is probably no baby, in this case.

On the other hand, some theists emphasize a hyperindividualistic approach to God, where they expect that a person would develop a relationship with God all on their own, simply by an act of introspection, with no help or teaching from other people who have successully done so. That approach can effectively lead to a kind of solipsistic insanity in the name of the search for God.

"with no help or teaching from other people who have successully done so"

I see no evidence any such person has actually existed, the meme of god is probably just a collective delusion passed down through indoctrinization. Those seeking the divine on a personal basis at least aren't burdened by the likely erronious conclusions of previous generations, though they are probably searching for Unicorns as well.

So when trying to understand and evaluate theistic claims, we need to consider the givens of ordinary human interactions: we need to be sure that the maker of those claims is pure and wishes us well, and we also need to make sure that our own intentions for listening and engaging in discussion of theistic claims are pure.

That is all assuming that any theistic claim has value or is real, don't you think? Our intentions have no effect on what is actually true.

If one enters discussion of theistic claims because one has old scores to settle with particular theists, or because one is trying to distract oneself from one's life problems and such, then those are not pure intentions, so one shouldn't delude oneself into hoping for pure results.

Again, intent has no bearing on what is true. If it is true it is true whatever the intent.

Grumpy

**Literphor** · 03-31-12, 01:04 PM

I'm curious to know what sort of mental techniques were used to develop the scientific method in the first place. Shouldn't this "meta-technique" that gave birth to today's discipline be considered? Do you think that maybe this "art" could be deployed to create something better than modern science?

**Arioch** · 03-31-12, 01:36 PM

@wynn --

Am I certain that there's no god? Of course not, and I've never said anything to the contrary. However I've not seen a single thing that would necessitate god as an explanation nor any direct evidence that a god exists regardless of whether one is needed or not. So why should I believe?

However the lack of evidence doesn't mean that I still can't keep searching, and according to you and LG I've got to use a special tool to do so. But this only helps me if I know what that tool is and if that tool produces reliable results. So far the only tool that has been offered up, faith, has shown itself to be far less reliable than just guessing based on the knowledge I already have in that it produces results so disparate as to be mutually exclusive. How can a tool that does that be reliable?

**lightgigantic** · 03-31-12, 07:43 PM

Originally Posted by Saturnine Pariah

You say the dardest things, who's adorable? who's a cute little theist! Yes you are! Yes you are!( pets on the head) you are so fucking cute i can't stand it!

You also say some pretty far out things too

Originally Posted by Saturnine Pariah

http://archive.org/details/AtheismAn...andaDasGoswami
74 minutes and 22 seconds of compelte Bull.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69TOuqaqXI

9 minutes and 40 seconds of dribble

(or are only atheists that are so cute and adorable that they drive us out of our fucking minds allowed to say such things totally divorced from points of discussion?)

Or do I have to find a youtube vid tagged "atheists are morons" before I can say such things with authority?

Seriously dude, if you got something to say, say it.

**lightgigantic** · 03-31-12, 07:51 PM

Originally Posted by aaqucnaona

Option 2. We dont wanna see or meet god. We just wanna know if he exists. And we dont need to meet the president to do that, we have enough proof as it is.

then you are restructuring the statement to ask a different question

"Does the investigation/direct perception of the ...."

Not playing into your false dicotomy - agenticity/intentionality is not an important factor for the empirical observation of anything that actually affects us or is relevant to us.

If you want to talk about empirical claims (particularly the high end variety) it practically requires a whole adult life time of intentionality (at the very least, I doubt one could even get a job as a janitor at NASA with no previous experience or training)

**lightgigantic** · 03-31-12, 07:56 PM

Originally Posted by Saturnine Pariah

@LG
I would take you serioulsy...if you didn't try to apply invalid evidence to an idea such as God that cannot by the scientfic method devlope or even be supported by evidence. It's a paradox, the " evidence" you try to validate in these forums just like your god doesn't exist or is so faulty that it cannot even be considered rational or objective. You are a cute little theist in my eyes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlaCq...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wV_R...feature=relmfu

we are as likely to watch these as you are as likely to listen to the full audio of my previous link.

If you can't reiterate the arguments of links you want to bring to our attention, please don't waste your time.

**Arioch** · 03-31-12, 08:07 PM

@LG --

Why the preoccupation with direct observation? Science doesn't require direct observation, indirect observation, such as observing effects rather than the cause, is enough. I don't actually need to see the president to observe the effects the president has on my life, such as the bills he signs into law.

Quantum theory is a great example of this, as is gravitational lensing in relativity. You're artificially limiting the tools we can use, and arbitrarily so at that.