SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Like what?
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Double-blind Prayer Efficacy Test -- Really?
- Thread starter Kenny
- Start date
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Nope. You clearly didn't read his posts in their entirety.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Evidence for the Big Bang | National Schools' Observatory
The Big Bang isn't a scientific experiment though. You didn't read the question properly.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Those are claims you'd need to demonstrate, rather than just assert.
You really need a crash course in what constitutes evidence and what is just a baseless claim.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Right, some things are just bald assertions. Like that claim.
Sheldon
Veteran Member
You can't study every religion to know they're all wrong except the one version of Christianity you believe either, but at least I know science works. Planes don't fall from the sky (unless angry theists are involved), cars work, my computer links to the internet and my messages appear online, doctors cure people, surgery saves people, chemistry produces sound results, biology and medical research based on the fact of species evolution works, etc etc etc...
All we have for religious beliefs are unevidenced anecdotal claims, and humans have imagined thousands of deities using faith, even Christianity now has 45k varyingly different sects and denominations globally.
Sheldon
Veteran Member
That's not evidence, just a string of unevidenced claims.
Sheldon
Veteran Member
Nope, simply repeating your claims endlessly is not evidence.
So what, nether does religion, just an unevidenced claim goddidit, using inexplicable magic.
Nonsense, the unevidenced claim goddidit has no explanatory powers whatsoever.
If you want anyone to believe you have even a cursory grasp of the principles of logic, you might want to not include a known logical fallacy, called an argument from incredulity fallacy, and in the same sentence you make a rhetorical appeal to logic,
Sheldon
Veteran Member
There is no fence, agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive. One can be both an atheist and an agnostic, I am an agnostic regarding all unfalsifiable claims, I cannot be otherwise, and I disbelieve them, I cannot rationally do otherwise.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Well, it is in its original version the Evil Demon.
Evil demon - Wikipedia
The problem is that if you and your experiences are caused by something else than you, then you can't know if your experiences are about nature or if that something is cheating.
No one has ever solved that and that connects to this as naturalism as axiomatic assumptions:
Philosophy of science - Wikipedia
But since I am effect not a believer in any positive metaphysical claims, I still have to believe that you and I are real and thus I have faith in methodological naturalism.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Science very much is different because we use the "scientific method" that religious believers don't. However, that is not to suggest that the latter is wrong, just that it's an entirely different process altogether.
Evolution doesn't have a purpose, but it does result in an effect. Nature appears to experiment with whatever things can be produced by genetic variation, retaining those variations that can most successfully propagate their genes to the next generation. This results in the progressive diversification and increase in complexity in the tree of life without their being any purpose or intelligent input into the process.
If a spiritual sense is possible for an organism such as man, and if it facilitates survival, it will become increasingly more prevalent in the affected population. That it isn't clear exactly how this benefits man is not an argument against a naturalistic process generating this sense. Perhaps it antagonizes suicidal tendencies, or leads to a greater respect for other people and animals, or a rejection and opposition to those lacking the faculty who would despoil our communities.
Keep in mind, evolution also experimented with cannibalism when it creates minds like Daumer's. It appears that the experiment failed and his genes expunged. But had there been some hidden benefit to this behavior, we would expect it to propagate. That's how "blind causation" works on biological populations. One can imagine another time and place where cannibalism had a salutary effect on the gene pool. In such a setting, we would expect the practice to spread and remain stably present in the population for as long as it conferred a survival advantage. But not in Jeffrey Daumer's world, where he was incarcerated and eliminated in prison. In his world, cannibalism is a maladaptive behavior is weeded out.
EDIT: I just came across this and have looked at about 2 minutes of it. It may address this issue, so I wanted to get it out there:
No, it doesn't, just like your claim that a god exist. Why? You give your deity a pass that critical thought regards as a special pleading fallacy, but others don't. It appears that everything but that deity needs an explanation, including laws that may be outside of it to which it is subject. Where did they come from? Where does the universe come from? These are questions you'll post, but never where did God come from. Well, the critical thinker says that if those questions are arguments for a god, that the same questions applied to a deity are an argument against its existence. Not that he believes that questions like yours argue against naturalistic hypotheses, but that if the theist does, his claim is quickly dispatches with by citing the special pleading fallacy he is relying on.
I'll agree that there is no need for whatever you mean by a soul and spirit, nor good evidence that such words refer to anything not generated by the body and brain and just as natural as they are. A will is needed for all conscious animals, and merely means that its brain generates instructions to act based upon its conscious content and the circuits that process it.
What I have is a personality, not a soul, and what I have is a spiritual faculty, not a spirit. There is insufficient evidence for the empiricist to believe that either is not the result of the workings of physical objects and processes.
You still haven't explained why it can't be the case that we are automatons or robots or meat bags or whatever you call animals lacking free will. Until you do, all you have here is a fallacy called an appeal to undesirable consequences. Your argument appears to be "Oh no, God forbid!"
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I assume that it meets a need the theist has, one the atheist doesn't have. Isn't that obviously correct? If you get a drink and I don't, doesn't that mean that you had a need that I didn't have? If you're dating but I'm not, doesn't that mean that you have a need that I don't have? So, if you retain a god belief that I have jettisoned, that means that you have a need being met with faith that I no longer have. So yes, in a sense, we are both the way we are because it makes us happy. You are happier with a god belief, and I am happier without one. I find that many theists consider that impossible. They describe the humanist experience as empty, never recognizing that humanists would become theists if a god belief satisfied some otherwise unmet need in them, or that those who became humanists found that reason met their needs more than faith. That's how it is for me and I suspect all other humanists.
My experience was the opposite. The god belief was bondage and escape from it the liberation. How do I know? I've lived life both ways. I can only imagine how continuing in religion would have cost me. I don't think that I could have come to an understanding of the power of critical thought and the fallacy of faith. How many fruitless hours would have been spent reading scripture that don't illuminate and attending church services that never offered more than what you call fizz. How many thousands of dollars would I have given them? When I was a believer, I was quite generous, giving $1000 to my church in 1973 when I was in the Army making almost nothing, plus $20/week in the plate. I would never have developed clear ideas about morality or my place in society or the universe, instead seeing myself as having some debt to a god and some duty to try to make others believe like I do. I wouldn't be the autonomous citizen I am, but rather, stuck in a mentality of being subject, but to a god rather than a king.
I cast all of that aside, which freed me to pursue a humanist's life. No longer did I wonder what God lets doe-eyed children die of leukemia. It's much more liberating to believe that one lives in a universe where that is just bad luck rather than the will of such a powerful entity. I no longer lived life thinking that this world is inferior and fit for apocalypse, nor that humanity was born diseased and fit for perdition, nor that was society something to be shunned, nor that my body is vile flesh.
I was a Christian. The purpose for which we were taught that we were created was to join a select group called the saved to praise a deity for eternity in an afterlife, and that we would be judged based on our performance here on earth, all of which was being watched and recorded and would figure into whether we got the part or were shown the door. How's that not an audition?
Thanks for answering the question. It's so much more valuable to the other guy when you do that. And to you.
That information informs my opinion of what is the most helpful way to post to you. If you are trying to promote Christianity to unbelievers, I support you making your best argument and retaining the most ethos, which means you being aware of how your audience perceives and judges you, and what effect that has on your stated purpose. If you want to make others think that following God might be a good choice for them, you probably want to make a good impression to show what it's done for you, and that means understanding how they think.
I recall from my Christian days my pastor saying that we wanted to present an image that makes others think, "I want what he has." They called it one's witness. You were to smile a lot, be polite, and avoid profanity. You never start with the stick, hell - only the carrot. In this venue, if you want to have that impression with the skeptics you are posting you, you'll need to present a different face, one that recognizes their values. And if you can't do that, it behooves you to realize that before having the opposite of your intended effect.
I've been trying to explain to you what your witness actually accomplishes in a mixed venue like RF containing many experienced empiricists and critical thinkers under the assumption that if you know, you might want to modify your approach, but if none of that mattered to you and you really didn't care what others think as you have stated, that I had nothing to offer someone merely auditioning for heaven with some celestial virtue signaling intended for an audience of one.
Please correct me if I'm mistaken. You've issued mixed signals, one about trying to send a certain kind of positive message to others and one saying you don't care what they think.
ppp
Well-Known Member
I am not sure what the connection is between methodological naturalism and the existence of the Evil Demon.
Nature is simply the reality with which we (or at least I) are presented. Illusion, or otherwise. Methodological naturalism is a set of method for employing the consistencies of that reality. Even if it is a demonic illusion, it still produces useful results - which is all that is promised.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
No, if you are tricked by an Evil Demon, you aren't in the reality, you think, you are in. So I don't exist and you are not reading this on a screen.
Notice the first assumption here:
Philosophy of science - Wikipedia
1. that there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers.
It is not that you have experiences, it is about that what they are about, are real.
ppp
Well-Known Member
It doesn't matter if I am being tricked. I am presented with a universe. Methodological naturalism is not about determining whether or not I am being presented with the real universe. It is about mapping out the presentation, itself. I don't think that we have ever been in the reality that we think we are in, trickster demon or not.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Or else you are lying or delusional. That's a possibility also. You never considered that maybe we believe in God and worship him for his sake and not ours? That it really isn't about us at all, but we just have the humility to understand that?
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
We already acknowledge that humans make logical and cognitive errors, can suffer from delusions, etc.
Hence the reason we're the ones looking for evidence backing up these claims we're talking about.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
But you never considered that you might be the delusional ones. ..
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
You thought good work would save you? That's incorrect. Also eternal life starts here and now for a believer, not after death. We don't audition for heaven. We are given grace when we truly believe. Most everyone else thinks we are auditioning for heaven in this life, because most people and most religions believe they get there by their works, that's where Christianity is different.