Atheists and their jargon of insults

[F1fan]

The problem is most people simply don't understand science or its metaphysics.

Science has no metaphysics, so it seems this statement applies to you.

 

[MikeF]

I agree that the first two fold into each other, but I see the universe being knowable as a valid assumption of science. I like your metaphor of the baby and how we enter this world without any assumptions and learn through experience as we develop. But even without assumptions at that stage, can we know if what we learned from experience as a baby is useful in understanding the past through observation of the present for instance. Can a baby know that gravity worked the same way for it's parents?

I feel my execution here is a bit awkward, but I'll leave it as it came out of my head.

I would suggest that a baby is probably not contemplating whether gravity worked in the past for it's parents, but I get what you are asking.

Concepts like past, present, and future, or even things like object permanence ( think of the peak-a-boo game) develop over time as their body of experience grows. Once language becomes available, the child no longer has to rely solely on personal experience but can begin to receive information on the experiences of others. Of course childhood development is more complicated than I've describe here, but I don't think that complexity changes the basic principle I'm describing.

So back to your gravity question, for a child who through experience over time forms conclusions about gravity, that personal history of the consistency of gravity over that period would lead the child to conclude that gravity will remain consistent and that it had always been consistent, even for its parents. There would be no data point to cause doubt. The conclusion about gravity in the past would only be strengthened by corroborative evidence provided in historical descriptions of events prior to the child's birth.

Essentially, knowledge about the world is built through experience over time, which is limited by our perspective, our ability to experience or observe. It is consistency over time and the number of corroborating experience that determine the level of confidence in the knowledge that is acquired.

Hopefully my reply here is not too awkward and I have adequately addressed your question.

 

[ratiocinator]

It's not assumptions that are the problem. The problem is erroneous assumptions like the one tha6t says there's no room for God inside of human knowledge.

It's not an assumption. Science has simply never found any evidence or need for 'god' or even one consistent definition of the term to use as an assumption or not. Scientifically, it's a meaningless word without a single and relevant definition.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Because it's a huge waste of time. Why would I waste my time one someone who won't even engage honestly and plays the "I believe nothing" games?

I just explained to you my beliefs (insofar as they can be called that). But you want to insist on knowing my own beliefs (or lack thereof) better then I do.
Yet *I* am the one who's dishonest?

Dont project your methods onto me okay? I dont decide something is true or not simply based on subjectively finding it insufficient.

Who said anything about it being subjective?

Hopefully you haven't, and surely you know that you not doing X doesn't mean nobody does.

Yet you are talking to ME.
Maybe you should stick to the things *I* say when you wish to "debate" ME.

My gods are immaterial, physicalism would falsify them for instance.

That's a contradiction in terms. Since it would require falsifying the unfalsifiable.
It is impossible to demonstrate that undemonstrable things don't exist.
To have a falsifiable hypothesis, the hypothesis itself must make predictions that can be tested.
Instead, you are asking me to "prove" an unproveable "alternative".

It's not you, it's all of us. Without faith we couldn't function, this is why things like solipsism are important but also impractical. I mean can you so much as prove you're talking to a real person right now?

As I expected and predicted.... you changed the meaning of the word "faith" in order to be able to say that I invoke it.
The assumption that you are an actual person is based on evidence. It's based on knowledge of how forums work.
You are welcome to try again.

Faith means faith, trust without certainty.

No. Words have multiple meanings.
Religious faith is belief without evidence.
Trust is based on evidence, usually a track record that shows the thing that is being trusted is actually trustworthy.
Like, I trust that my pc will boot when I hit the power button. And that trust is earned because it did so the previous thousands of times I hit the button.

I already did in this thread haha.

Where?

So theres so much evidence for atheism you could write books on it, yet you cant present any.

There is no evidence "for atheism", because atheism isn't a claim. You changed all the terminology in there, which is dishonest.
The point being discussed was that the evidence for theism was insufficient. When you conclude such, then you default to atheism.
Atheism isn't a claim. How many times must it be repeated?

I don't really care what you find subjectively sufficient lol.

Who said anything about "subjectively"?

This obsession with the burden of proof gets embarrassing

For the theist.

, it's a fun way to know someone doesn't have reasons for their beliefs.

And again you double down on this strawman. I explained it multiple times already.

1. This very thread had an atheist gaslighting a theist. The same person is calling theism "woo". Another atheist had a mod edit their post haha.

Another "so what" argument

2. RF is good specifically because with a couple ignores you can avoid this, much better than like r/debatereligion

Yeah, ignoring people is a good way to make sure you stay in your bubble and don't have to consider other opinions.

3. Are you saying if atheists on RF didn't abuse theists this implies it never happens in any context?

No.

I will say however that the vast majority of the time when theists claim abuse by an atheist, the truth in fact is that there is no abuse at all and the theist is just butthurt that someone is challenging their beliefs. Such theists have a habbit of having extreme emotional investment in their dogmatic beliefs. Challenging those beliefs is then considered a personal attack.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

.... for theism?

He's asking what that evidence is.

Sigh indeed, don't you guys get tired of these silly games? "Agnostic atheism" is a pointless term

No it's not.

because nobody rational is ever asking you to prove with metaphysical certainty there are no gods.

I've been asked that many a times.

There's atheism, Agnosticism, theism,

This is incorrect. (a)gnosticism and (a)theism are NOT mutually exclusive. They in fact deal with different subjects.
One is about knowledge and the other about belief (in gods)

The atheist simply does this so they can say "well I can't prove gods don't exist"

And we indeed can't. It's impossible to disprove unfalsifiable claims because such claims make no testable predictions.
By the same token, it's impossible to disprove undetectable dragons.
You are welcome to try if you disagree.

as if this means they don't find a godless universe most likely.

Finding something "likely" is not the same as expressing "certainty".

Do you think it is most likely that there is no undetectable dragon following you around everywhere you go? I'm guessing you do.
Can you prove there are no such dragons? No, you can't.

See? it's not rocket science.

 

[MikeF]

My attention was first directed to my own assumptions when I came across some remarks of Descartes, in particular where he points out that if you want to argue that reason is a valid tool then you can't use reason to support your argument.

This got me thinking about what other assumptions I make that likewise I can't validate without first assuming they're already correct.

I therefore assume not only that (1) reason is a valid tool, but that (2) a world exists external to me, and (3) that my senses are capable of informing me about that world.

(Actually I start with (2), then (3), then (1), for whatever difference that might make.)

To me, assumptions would be required to imagine anything other than the world that exists external to myself. When first thrust into the world and becoming conscious of it, we have not yet developed abstract thought with its inherent need to differentiate between which of our abstract thoughts are and remain representative of actual reality, the world around us, and which thoughts no longer conform to reality. I think it is more than appropriate to take this abstraction-free awareness of the external world, and the existential demands it places on us, at face value. To do otherwise would require assumptions, assumptions without evidence, uninformed by experience.

 

[ratiocinator]

My attention was first directed to my own assumptions when I came across some remarks of Descartes, in particular where he points out that if you want to argue that reason is a valid tool then you can't use reason to support your argument.

I was reminded of this recently in Stephen Pinker's book Rationality. The reason, of course, that we go on using reason is basically because it works. It allows us to reach conclusions that consistently turn out to be correct.

I therefore assume not only that (1) reason is a valid tool, but that (2) a world exists external to me, and (3) that my senses are capable of informing me about that world.

I'd argue that 2 and 3 are justified by the fact that, even if they aren't true, they might as well be for all practical purposes. Whatever it is that we perceive with our senses as the 'external world' is inescapable and behaves consistently.

As Philip K. Dick said "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away".

So absolutely they are assumptions but not ones that cannot be defended.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

So absolutely they are assumptions but not ones that cannot be defended.

This.

As I once formulated it: not all assumptions are created equally

Reasonable and justifiable assumptions aren't problematic.

 

[shunyadragon]

Whatever @shunyadragon .

I apologize for not confirming to your expectations of debate and discussion by displaying solidarity with a person who felt attacked.

I didn't write my response you quoted for your approval, or for you at all.

Indicating you are giving un-asked for advice.

That's a real Sin.

This is an open forum and comments of your posts are not a sin. My objections to the course of the thread are specifics. The posts by the thread author were insulting to atheists and other non-believers, and made generalizations that were not true. Also, the actual topic of the thread the epistemological arguments for the existence and non-existence of Gods was never addressed.

The author of the thread did not respond to specific questions that were in no way insulting, but genuinely asked to get the the thread on a serious topic instead of insulting atheists,

 

[MikeF]

I think you're framing it in terms of individual psychology. No one would argue that baby's first experiences weren't observations, but what's unclear to me is what that has to do with scientific epistemology. That's just the human experience. Unless you meant to draw a connection between the two, which is fine, I suppose. But I see the baby and positivism as two different things. The baby is human experience. Positivism is an abstract logical structure that suggests a research method.

What I recommend is setting 2,000 or so years of Western philosophy aside and start fresh in our approach to these questions from the vantage point of our current 21st century perspective, taking full advantage of our cumulative understanding of the world and ourselves that we have gained so far.

In that light, what I am suggesting to you is that we are all born amateur empiricists, amateur scientists. What we know, all that we can know is derived from our experiences. All science means, to be scientific if you will, is to engage in this empirical discovery in a professional manner that at its fundamental core acknowledges that any inquiry is conducted by human beings and that human beings have flaws and fallibilities that can affect and impede the success of the inquiry process, and therefore active effort is required to mitigate those inherent flaws and fallibilities to best ability. That is all that science is.

Well, we might be using different definitions of "assumption". I'm thinking about an assumption as a basic principle, an axiom of sorts, which is the necessary basis for a logical sequence that we call science.

To my mind, such basic principles or axioms are assumed because they cannot be factually established, right? If something is factual, no assumption is required.

I like this description of logic offered to me by @Heyo, “Logic is a tool to derive true statements from other true statements.” The trick to using this tool Logic effectively is in establishing your initial set of true statements.

What then, in our effort to understand the world and ourselves is our factual starting point? I submit that it would be our initial conscious awareness and realization that events are occurring around us and to us that are not in our control. Cataloging these events is what allows us to begin to make determinations about the reality around us, not mere assumptions. All that follows is built incrementally from this unassumed beginning.

 

[Nimos]

What is really "miracle" or "magic" or "supernatural" in an atheist mind?
IMHO, they are just things they cann't explain with their current personal knowledge

"Miracle" is merely another word for "luck", simply referring to a specific case where something going in your favor or against all odds.

"Magic" is something magicians do when they manipulate/trick people's brains or something used in books and movies.

"Supernatural" is something that describes something that goes beyond the natural world.

What are these to you and can you explain what they are?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Actually you changed it

No. You did. Right here in post #294:

It simply distinguishes between knowledge and belief. This isn't hard, surely?

You: "Right, and nobody rational is asking the atheist if they know with absolute certainty gods do not exist, they are asking what the atheist believes. This is why mentioning agnosticism is pointless, all intellectually honest people will avoid claiming absolute metaphysical certainty on most if not all things."

 

[SkepticThinker]

I said epistemological unfriendliness, this is a specific term.

I simply defined the term for you.

I don't need it defined for me. What I need is clarification about the claim you're making about atheists.

You cut out the pertinent part of my post that contained the relevant question I posed to you:

Can you explain how your assertion that atheists claim that "one must be a fool to believe in gods" has something to do with epistemology (theory of knowledge)? Your claim references belief, but epistemology refers to knowledge.

Of course it isn't subjectively convincing to one who has concluded atheism, who cares what is convincing but what is true.

This was in response to, “I've not seen any that I find convincing. And quite often when I ask for evidence, I don't actually get any."

I've asked you, for example.”

Notice how this isn’t really a response to what I said. And also notice that you haven’t provided any evidence, despite my asking, which helps make my point for me.

You are conversing with a person who wants to believe as many true things as possible while not believing as many false things as possible. Convincing evidence in this case would be evidence that demonstrates the veracity of the god(s) claims.

I mean if being subjectively convinced is defining of truth for you but nobody else, that's not equal standards.

This was in response to, “Your claim is that atheists, "holds Theism to standards it doesn't hold itself to;"

To which I responded, "I've not found this to be the case. Do you have an example? In fact, I've been called out by theists before for not lowering my standards of evidence to accept the claims of theism."

Can you explain how what you've said here is an example of atheists holding theism to standards it doesn't hold itself to" ... ?


I haven’t defined truth as something that is “subjectively convincing.”

So in response, you’ve provided no example.

In actuality, I hold theistic claims to the same standards of evidence that I hold anything else to. And in my experience, I’ve found that it’s theists who lower their standard of evidence in order to accept theological claims. For instance, accepting fantastical Biblical claims at face value while not accepting, say, the claims of the Qur'an at face value. That’s about the point that claims of needing “faith” begin to be invoked.

It was a comparison...

Not a good one.

Only 160 years? We've been interacting with the gods for over 10,000!

You missed the point here. The point is about evidence.

And now you’ve made a claim that requires evidence. I can easily demonstrate the claims of evolution for you. Nobody has yet to demonstrate that anyone has ever “interacted with the gods for over 10,000” years.

To the intellectually dishonest sure, who cares at this point.

Um, no. That’s about as intellectually honest as well as reasonable and rational as it gets. It’s also the definition of the word.

Are you sure you’re familiar with epistemology?

For theists the term is equally pointless

Then it sounds like “the theist” needs to pay closer attention.

Give me a break.

No. Show me that atheists make that claim.

You cannot think of any way the garage dragon differs from gods?

There is evidence for neither, in my opinion. Unevidenced claims of invisible dragons aren’t all that different to me than unevidenced claims of invisible gods. And they both manifest in reality in the same way – which is to say not at all.


I’ll need you to answer my question. Thanks.

Then I would again direct you to compare Dawkins to Rowe. It's funny how only new atheists ignore the existence of new atheism when even other atheists call or out.

Or you could just explain the difference instead of claiming that I’m feigning ignorance or something.

 

[MikeF]

I've listed these [assumptions of science] countless times so I'm not going to try for comprehensiveness for the dozens of assumptions.

I know it can be frustrating, so thank you for indulging my query. I didn’t imagine it would be so involved.

There is an assumption that we can be logical. That we are understood. That theory can be extrapolated and reality interpolated. That progress is linear. That experiment can be interpreted in only a single way. That our species pre-dates recorded history. That we can will ourselves to see what exists. That we can reason to correct answers given sufficient evidence. That computer modelling has a meaning. That understanding consciousness is unnecessary to understand life and how it changes. That reductionistic science can be applied to all of reality even in its current incarnation. That there is no God. That free will is unnecessary to explain life. That reality conforms to law. That math can exactly be applied to reality. That knowing every variable is unnecessary to calculation.
The list goes on and on and on. All the assumptions are false. There are not even two identical objects in all of creation so math doesn't directly apply to reality. People close their minds to the complexity of reality which is far more staggering than any concept of "infinity" which is puny in comparison. We believe in our reductions of science without understanding even the definitions of things like "space" may be a poor representation of the reality. Every belief derived from language and every old wives tale is false or only correct from a specific perspective.

There are kernels of truth in your list related to difficulties faced by any investigative process because any such process is going to be conducted by human beings. The problems you allude to are not assumed to not exist, rather they are acknowledged and effort is made to mitigate them. Are those engaged in scientific inquiry always 100% successful? Of course not, which is why I use the term mitigate instead of eliminate. But over time, bad science will out … eventually. That is simply the reality of the process. Unfortunately, there is no better alternative, no other foolproof way to conduct such inquiry.

Regardless, none of what you have listed can be considered assumptions of science.

If reductionistic science has taught us anything it is the universe nor reality are clockworks. Species succeed by dancing with reality not by taming it. People want to believe in science. They want to believe what they learned on their parents' knees. They want to believe all you have to do is look and see reality. This is why we live in a crazy world where Egypto9logists refuse to even look and see how the pyramids were built. They already looked and saw it could only have been ramps and it doesn't matter because it had to be some savage and ignorant means like ramps, perhaps, or even ramps.

Always boils down to Egyptian pyramids with you.

We can't help but see only our assumptions and when we reason or study we always end up right back at our assumptions. It is definitional to our species which arose at an event we know only as the tower of babel.

This is exactly the kind of problem that a scientific approach acknowledges and makes conscious effort to mitigate. Other disciplines, not so much. This is exactly why science works.

[Science assumes] That there is no God.

I want to address this item on your list specifically. The label ‘God’ is utterly meaningless from a scientific perspective and therefore no assumptions or speculations are even possible. Those that use this term, from all my experience with its use, require significant assumptions with no possible scientific foundation. That seems to be the crux of the problem for those who are dissatisfied with the sciences. Is this the source of your frustration with science as well?

 

[shunyadragon]

I've listed these countless times so I'm not going to try for comprehensiveness for the dozens of assumptions. There is an assumption that we can be logical. That we are understood. That theory can be extrapolated and reality interpolated. That progress is linear. That experiment can be interpreted in only a single way. That our species pre-dates recorded history. That we can will ourselves to see what exists. That we can reason to correct answers given sufficient evidence. That computer modelling has a meaning. That understanding consciousness is unnecessary to understand life and how it changes. That reductionistic science can be applied to all of reality even in its current incarnation. That there is no God. That free will is unnecessary to explain life. That reality conforms to law. That math can exactly be applied to reality. That knowing every variable is unnecessary to calculation.

The list goes on and on and on. All the assumptions are false. There are not even two identical objects in all of creation so math doesn't directly apply to reality. People close their minds to the complexity of reality which is far more staggering than any concept of "infinity" which is puny in comparison. We believe in our reductions of science without understanding even the definitions of things like "space" may be a poor representation of the reality. Every belief derived from language and every old wives tale is false or only correct from a specific perspective.

If reductionistic science has taught us anything it is the universe nor reality are clockworks. Species succeed by dancing with reality not by taming it. People want to believe in science. They want to believe what they learned on their parents' knees. They want to believe all you have to do is look and see reality. This is why we live in a crazy world where Egypto9logists refuse to even look and see how the pyramids were built. They already looked and saw it could only have been ramps and it doesn't matter because it had to be some savage and ignorant means like ramps, perhaps, or even ramps.

We can't help but see only our assumptions and when we reason or study we always end up right back at our assumptions. It is definitional to our species which arose at an event we know only as the tower of babel.

You already demonstrated your absurd ignorance of math and science and know more ignorance piled on how the Egyptologists investigate how the pyramids were built, The egyptologists and other scientists are constantly researching the pyramids from the course and origin of the stone to the construction of the pyramids,

Your self imposed ignorance is appalling.

 

[blü 2]

To me, assumptions would be required to imagine anything other than the world that exists external to myself. When first thrust into the world and becoming conscious of it, we have not yet developed abstract thought with its inherent need to differentiate between which of our abstract thoughts are and remain representative of actual reality, the world around us, and which thoughts no longer conform to reality. I think it is more than appropriate to take this abstraction-free awareness of the external world, and the existential demands it places on us, at face value.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't your last sentence simply confirm "A world exists external to me" is an assumption? An axiom? Not something whose correctness you could demonstrate without first assuming it was already correct?

 

[blü 2]

I was reminded of this recently in Stephen Pinker's book Rationality. The reason, of course, that we go on using reason is basically because it works. It allows us to reach conclusions that consistently turn out to be correct.


I'd argue that 2 and 3 are justified by the fact that, even if they aren't true, they might as well be for all practical purposes. Whatever it is that we perceive with our senses as the 'external world' is inescapable and behaves consistently.

As Philip K. Dick said "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away".

So absolutely they are assumptions but not ones that cannot be defended.

Indeed. I defend them the same way I defend science ─ because they appear to work very well.

But I think it does no harm to remember that their actual status is as assumptions.

 

[blü 2]

Proverbs 12
"Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,but whoever hates correction is stupid."

"Good people obtain favor from the Lord,but he condemns those who devise wicked schemes."

"A person is praised according to their prudence,and one with a warped mind is despised."

"The way of fools seems right to them,but the wise listen to advice."

"Fools show their annoyance at once,but the prudent overlook an insult."

You play their game , that's how you win

Yea, this is what posting on RF teacheth.

 

[cladking]

The problems you allude to are not assumed to not exist, rather they are acknowledged and effort is made to mitigate them.

The problem is most of these problems are impossible to mitigate without understanding consciousness. The greatest problem, the one that creates most believers in science is "That theory can be extrapolated and reality interpolated.". It is never legitimate to extrapolate theory in any way whatsoever however most of the time such extrapolations are not so far afield. Indeed, they are usually close enough to even allow calculation and prediction. The real problem comes from the nature of the human mind to interpolate; to color in what isn't known by what is known. We thereby think we know everything and don't even notice we can't calculate, can't predict, and can't communicate. Seeing what you believe is mysticism and most believers in science are exactly no less mystical than anyone else.

Until we learn the nature of consciousness we will have all these problems. I found the nature of consciousness by coming to understand the nature of the consciousness of ancient people. By this means I am able to see these problems. Mitigating them is easily done but nobody is going to take my word for it and call me names and gainsay me even if I say the sky is blue. They don't want to believe so they are blind to every fact I present. Among the insults they ignore what I say, every definition, and every single fact and experiment. They can't see my points because they believe something very different. They've colored in their reality with experiment and fact that does not apply but seems relevant.

 

[blü 2]

Science has no metaphysics, so it seems this statement applies to you.

I agree of course that science has no supernatural metaphysics; but (just to keep things clear) separately from the supernatural there's a branch of philosophy called 'metaphysics'. David Armstrong said ─

[There are] a great number of notions that, [...] we can call topic neutral notions. Instances are cause, class, property, relation, quality, kind, resemblance, quantity, number, substance, fact, truth, law of nature, power, and others. These notions are perfectly general, are very difficult to analyse and interconnect, and give rise to controversy, sometimes to bitter controversy, when we (and the ‘we’ here includes scientists as much as philosophers) try to discuss them. They are not exhausted by logic or mathematics. It is these sorts of notions, I suggest, that metaphysics strives to give a systematic account of.​