Claims vs. Beliefs

[mikkel_the_dane]

FYI, I am saying nothing new. What I am saying has been said by Indian philosophers and religious leaders including Buddha for millenniums - illusion, maya, anatta, anicca, etc. The only addition that I make is that Brahman is physical energy.

Yes, but just as some religious believers believe that they have evidence and so on for a god, so do you for a physical universe. But it is not so in either case.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

And I didn't say atheist are wrong because all they have is belief. They are wrong when they try to pretend they have more.

Every atheist I know bases his / her atheism on the lack of evidence for theism.

What do you mean then with "...when they try to pretend they have more"?
When you say such things, you actually expose that you don't really understand what the atheist position actually is.

Theism is the claim. Theism is what requires evidence.
Atheism is what you end up in by default when you aren't convinced by theistic claims due to lack of evidence in support of those claims.

Atheism on the other hand, is NOT a claim.
It's a position of disbelief of theistic claims.

I hope you understand the difference between "making a claim" and "responding to a claim".

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You are simply wrong. Science isn't about facts or proof, but working theories. Do some research.

Theories are explanations of sets of facts and are supported by evidence, in the form of facts.




Without facts, there is nothing to explain and nothing to go by.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Hogwash...in our culture today, anyone has access to all cultures and choose to wear whatever they please. You are confusing influence with choice.

And yet, the extreme vast majority of people grow up believing what their parents told them.

I can, with pretty great accuracy, predict your religion simply by knowing in which geographical location and / or community you grew up.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

So, do you accept these scholars or just the ones that support your views? Why would I accept a biblical scholar who wasn’t a believer?

 

[Aupmanyav]

Yes, but just as some religious believers believe that they have evidence and so on for a god, so do you for a physical universe. But it is not so in either case.

At the moment and till science comes up with something more substantial, my belief is that existence and non-existence are like switching a bulb on and off. Two phases, I do not believe in just a physical universe. It is like virtual particles, now existent, now non-existent. That is the end of the universe, 'mahapralaya', the great dissolution as in Hindu belief (It is supposed to be some 155 trillion years away - Hindu units of time - Wikipedia).

 

[Nimos]

How much difference is there in a person here on the forum saying, “The Baha’i Faith is the truth for today.” And, “I believe the Baha’i Faith is the truth for today”? I would think either way that they’d be expected to give reasons and proof way they believe it true.

I don't disagree that it is a grey area, but to me the difference lies in the word "believe" and the structure of the sentence. And normally I don't think people would get so deep into how the word is used as in this discussion, because it is basically about the word it self.

For instance, we might hear a Muslim say that the Quran is the final revelation from God and even though we know that this is what they believe, we also know that lots of other people disagree with this and therefore we can put two and two together and understand the statement as meaning "Im a Muslim and I believe that the Quran is the final revelation from God".

But are we being "*****y" about it, we could say that the first sentence you mention is a truth claim or a conclusion. The person saying this, claim to know that somehow the Bahai faith is the truth, end of story so to speak. And is equal to a statement such as "I like dogs".

The second statement, given that it uses the word "believe" clearly specify that this is not a truth claim, but merely a conviction that it is true. Equal to me saying that "I believe Trump would be a better president than Biden". I don't claim to know if that is actually true, merely that I think he would be. And obviously, unless we are extremely specific in regards to how we measure and what criteria we use to evaluate such statement, I can't prove my belief that Trump would be a better president than Biden. But as a casual statement without these specification, its simply a belief. (Obviously I don't think Trump would be a better president, just an example )

So again, I think it comes down to nitpicking because the discussion is basically about the use of the word "Claim" itself.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Beliefs can be presented, in a forum, as statements or claims.

"I believe in Cthulhu" is only a statement.

Embedded in said statement, is the claim that Cthulhu exists.


What this whole thread here comes down to, is that TB (and you?) like to pretend that whenever you prefix a claim with "I believe..." that that somehow absolves the burden of proof for said claim.

Which is obviously ridiculous.

Especially considering that whenever one makes a claim without said prefix, the prefix nevertheless is still very much implied....

Because why would one state a claim that one doesn't even believe to be accurate?

This is one of the most ridiculous attempts at wordplay I have ever seen.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

If we could demonstrate what we know is true it would be a fact and not a belief.
I make no claims that my belief is true because I know I cannot prove it.

False.

Knowledge is a SUBSET of belief.

I believe 2+2 equals 4 ==> a belief that can be demonstrated, aka knowledge.
I believe Jesus never existed ==> a belief that can not be demonstrated, aka not knowledge and instead a baseless belief.

 

[Nimos]

I can see how that might sound like a claim, if you do not include what I said before that:
I believe that the true Messengers of God met their burden by providing evidence that supports their claims.

I think this is where a lot of the difference lies or a lot of confusion might also be.

Normally we would structure our thoughts or argument like this, to just simplify it:

1. (Experience/Exposure) We are exposed or experience something, and this could be anything from simply seeing or hearing something, to a deep or thorough research into a given topic.
2. (Belief) From that we shape our belief. For instance "I believe in UFOs" because I have experienced or been exposed to something which convinced me that this were true.
3. (Argument) From here I could get into an argument with someone about why I believe this to be true. And I could draw on (1) to create my argument and use this to create claim statements. And this person could question these and we could have a back and forth about them. But I wouldn't draw on (2) and this person couldn't really argue against my belief, because it is obviously arrived at from something else, the belief itself is passive so to speak. Equally you couldn't argue against whether "I like red more than blue". But if I claim that the reason for this is because red is much better for our health than blue or some other none sense, you can "attack" that claim.

Obviously this is a circular approach, because (3) is basically also (1) the Argument step is also us getting experience or exposure to something and this might make us change our belief. If you demonstrate to me that my argument about "red being healthier than blue" is wrong, I might actually change my belief.

So in your case, the discussion or argument is not whether you believe Baha'u'llah is right or wrong, because clearly you do. But whether or not they have met the burden of proof, which ultimately convinced you that this is the case. In which case, you would have to present an argument for why this statement:

1) Their Person (their character, as demonstrated by the life they led)

Would or could lead to the conclusion that Baha'u'llah were telling the truth. Its obviously a bit difficult here, because you haven't made an argument for it, but merely a statement, but again ultimately you would have to structure an argument based on it or it would be a pointless statement.

That was my point above. I cannot prove that Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God and that is why I do not claim that He was a Messenger of God.

Again, I hope you see the difference in the above explanation, its not about your belief, but about what led to it. Those can be questioned and evaluated to figure out whether they are logically sound or rational.

Again, a person might say that they believe that Jesus were the son of God, but when asked how they reached that conclusion, they say that they did it, because the bible said so.

This is obviously not a sound argument for drawing such conclusion, because the bible is what made the claim in the first place. So clearly that is going to support that idea.

So I can't disprove your belief as such, but I can demonstrate from a logical and rational point of view, that your argument is not sound.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

1. the burden of proof rests on the person who is making the claims.

Yes, because claims can't demonstrate themselves. But the burden of proof is inseparably linked to the claim. The person is just the agent.

A person who believes in someone else's claims doesn't have any burden of proof.

I have just explained to you how that is not true.

2. when I express a belief, I am not making a claim: "I believe God exists" is not a claim that God exists.
It's that simple to me.........

In other words, you feel like one can take ANY claim, prefix it with "i believe" and that somehow absolves it from a burden of proof????

Owkay then.

I believe you are an alien.
I believe you are delusional.
I believe your religion is a scam.
I believe Elvis is alive and well.
...........................


This is beyond ridiculous.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

"to believe X is true" does not qualify as a claim because I am not stating or asserting that X is true.

"To believe X" LITERALLY means that you accept X as being true.

 

[Nimos]

Claiming to like dogs, or in my case cats is not the same as making a truth claim. You have no burden of proof to prove you like dogs so it is really more of a statement than a claim.

In its purest understanding of the word, almost everything is a claim, even when I simply say that "I like dogs". Whether I have to prove it or not, I would agree about. But people could question my claim, because lets say someone had seen me kick a dog, and then I tell someone else that "I like them", clearly the person which saw me kicking the dog, would question my claim about liking them.

So it fulfills the criteria of how we understand a claim, but it is not really a testable claim.

The problem with that is that no religious belief can be proven to be true, which is why I do not claim my beliefs are true. All I have is evidence and the kind of evidence I have is not accepted by atheists as evidence.

Well yes and no, obviously you can't prove it, but if God is real, there is nothing really preventing him from doing it. He could send down Jesus and let him walk on water, turn water into wine etc. We could even assume that we would be able to somehow measure or observe the effect of God, if he is assumed to be an intervening God. We would expect to see things which would clearly defy natural laws etc.

So I think it depends how one look at it.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Every atheist I know bases his / her atheism on the lack of evidence for theism.

What do you mean then with "...when they try to pretend they have more"?
When you say such things, you actually expose that you don't really understand what the atheist position actually is.

Theism is the claim. Theism is what requires evidence.
Atheism is what you end up in by default when you aren't convinced by theistic claims due to lack of evidence in support of those claims.

Atheism on the other hand, is NOT a claim.
It's a position of disbelief of theistic claims.

I hope you understand the difference between "making a claim" and "responding to a claim".

No, because to claim there is such a concept as evidence, is to make a positive claim. You as an atheist make a positive claim, because you claim that there is evidence.

 

[Nimos]

In other words, you feel like one can take ANY claim, prefix it with "i believe" and that somehow absolves it from a burden of proof????

Owkay then.

I believe you are an alien.
I believe you are delusional.
I believe your religion is a scam.
I believe Elvis is alive and well.
...........................


This is beyond ridiculous.

It is not incorrect, the word "believe" does change things. You might believe that there are other lifeforms in the Universe, in fact we know that the majority of scientists believe this, at least that is the impression I get. That doesn't mean that we jump on them with signs saying "Burden of proof". They are not claiming to know whether it is true or not, simply that they believe that it is very likely.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yes, because claims can't demonstrate themselves. But the burden of proof is inseparably linked to the claim. The person is just the agent.



I have just explained to you how that is not true.



In other words, you feel like one can take ANY claim, prefix it with "i believe" and that somehow absolves it from a burden of proof????

Owkay then.

I believe you are an alien.
I believe you are delusional.
I believe your religion is a scam.
I believe Elvis is alive and well.
...........................


This is beyond ridiculous.

Yeah.
I believe there is evidence.
I know that there is evidence.
As far as I can tell you are of the 2nd version, so you have a burden of proof.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It is not incorrect, the word "believe" does change things

I completely disagree.
The word "believe" is ALWAYS part of the course when making claims - including when it isn't mentioned explicitly.

Suppose I claim "god exists".
Does that not IMPLY that I believe it?

What is the practical difference between
"god exists"
and
"I believe god exists"?

To me they express the exact same thing.
Both statements express that the person who utters the statements, accepts the existence of said god as true / accurate.

I see no difference.

You might believe that there are other lifeforms in the Universe, in fact we know that the majority of scientists believe this, at least that is the impression I get. That doesn't mean that we jump on them with signs saying "Burden of proof".

Except that we do.

And those scientists will then go on to provide us with their reasoning and evidence for why they believe the claim that life exists elsewhere in the universe.

They'll talk about how life is made up from the most prevalent elements in the universe.
They'll talk about how life pretty much originated on this planet very fast once the planet was in a state where it could sustain it (which would be evidence that abiogenesis isn't that rare of a process).
They'll talk about the sheer size of the universe and the trillions upon trillions of stars with even more planets orbiting those stars.
Etc.

And all of that will culminate into the supported conclusion that life elsewhere in the universe is extremely plausible.

When someone says "I believe X", then the response is "why?"
==> that "why" question is asking about the justification for it. Aka, the burden of proof.

They are not claiming to know whether it is true or not, simply that they believe that it is very likely.

And "it", would be the claim "life exists elsewhere". And by expressing their belief, they'ld be saying that said claim is true / accurate / very likely.



I've asked this multiple times now... what is the practical difference between
"X is true" and "I believe X is true".
When you say "x is true", aren't you then implicitly saying that you believe that?
How is that different from the second statement?

It seems to me that the only difference is that the second statement merely mentions explicitly what the first statement implies.

 

[Nimos]

I completely disagree.
The word "believe" is ALWAYS part of the course when making claims - including when it isn't mentioned explicitly.

Suppose I claim "god exists".
Does that not IMPLY that I believe it?

What is the practical difference between
"god exists"
and
"I believe god exists"?

To me they express the exact same thing.
Both statements express that the person who utters the statements, accepts the existence of said god as true / accurate.

I see no difference.

This is the answer I gave to someone else with the exact same question:

I don't disagree that it is a grey area, but to me the difference lies in the word "believe" and the structure of the sentence. And normally I don't think people would get so deep into how the word is used as in this discussion, because it is basically about the word it self.

For instance, we might hear a Muslim say that the Quran is the final revelation from God and even though we know that this is what they believe, we also know that lots of other people disagree with this and therefore we can put two and two together and understand the statement as meaning "Im a Muslim and I believe that the Quran is the final revelation from God".

But are we being "*****y" about it, we could say that the first sentence you mention is a truth claim or a conclusion. The person saying this, claim to know that somehow the Bahai faith is the truth, end of story so to speak. And is equal to a statement such as "I like dogs".

The second statement, given that it uses the word "believe" clearly specify that this is not a truth claim, but merely a conviction that it is true. Equal to me saying that "I believe Trump would be a better president than Biden". I don't claim to know if that is actually true, merely that I think he would be. And obviously, unless we are extremely specific in regards to how we measure and what criteria we use to evaluate such statement, I can't prove my belief that Trump would be a better president than Biden. But as a casual statement without these specification, its simply a belief. (Obviously I don't think Trump would be a better president, just an example )

So again, I think it comes down to nitpicking because the discussion is basically about the use of the word "Claim" itself.

Except that we do.

And those scientists will then go on to provide us with their reasoning and evidence for why they believe the claim that life exists elsewhere in the universe.

They'll talk about how life is made up from the most prevalent elements in the universe.
They'll talk about how life pretty much originated on this planet very fast once the planet was in a state where it could sustain it (which would be evidence that abiogenesis isn't that rare of a process).
They'll talk about the sheer size of the universe and the trillions upon trillions of stars with even more planets orbiting those stars.
Etc.

And all of that will culminate into the supported conclusion that life elsewhere in the universe is extremely plausible.

When someone says "I believe X", then the response is "why?"
==> that "why" question is asking about the justification for it. Aka, the burden of proof.

There is a huge difference here, the scientists doesn't go out looking for answers to this, because we yell burden of proof, because someone let it slip that they might believe there is other lifeforms out there and then they are now caught in a trap having to proof it.

They do this because it can give us answers and explanations. If a scientist got on live TV and claimed that there is life on the moon of Europe, then surely the burden of proof is on him. But simply saying that it might be a good candidate for finding life doesn't or that they simply believe that there might be life there.

And all the things they know about life here on Earth, has nothing to do with whether or not they are required to prove that there is life else where, if such claim hasn't been made.

So even if all this knowledge have led them to believe that life else where is the most likely, and we ask how they reach that conclusion and they give all their answers, there is still no burden of proof on them. Because they never made a specific claim about there being life, simply that they believe so.

I think it falls to this one as well:

I think this is where a lot of the difference lies or a lot of confusion might also be.

Normally we would structure our thoughts or argument like this, to just simplify it:

1. (Experience/Exposure) We are exposed or experience something, and this could be anything from simply seeing or hearing something, to a deep or thorough research into a given topic.
2. (Belief) From that we shape our belief. For instance "I believe in UFOs" because I have experienced or been exposed to something which convinced me that this were true.
3. (Argument) From here I could get into an argument with someone about why I believe this to be true. And I could draw on (1) to create my argument and use this to create claim statements. And this person could question these and we could have a back and forth about them. But I wouldn't draw on (2) and this person couldn't really argue against my belief, because it is obviously arrived at from something else, the belief itself is passive so to speak. Equally you couldn't argue against whether "I like red more than blue". But if I claim that the reason for this is because red is much better for our health than blue or some other none sense, you can "attack" that claim.

Obviously this is a circular approach, because (3) is basically also (1) the Argument step is also us getting experience or exposure to something and this might make us change our belief. If you demonstrate to me that my argument about "red being healthier than blue" is wrong, I might actually change my belief.

So in your case, the discussion or argument is not whether you believe Baha'u'llah is right or wrong, because clearly you do. But whether or not they have met the burden of proof, which ultimately convinced you that this is the case. In which case, you would have to present an argument for why this statement:

1) Their Person (their character, as demonstrated by the life they led)

Would or could lead to the conclusion that Baha'u'llah were telling the truth. Its obviously a bit difficult here, because you haven't made an argument for it, but merely a statement, but again ultimately you would have to structure an argument based on it or it would be a pointless statement.

So the burden of proof in the case with the scientists, would be on the claims made to support their arguments for there being life is likely and not the believe it self.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I completely disagree.
The word "believe" is ALWAYS part of the course when making claims - including when it isn't mentioned explicitly.

Suppose I claim "god exists".
Does that not IMPLY that I believe it?

What is the practical difference between
"god exists"
and
"I believe god exists"?

To me they express the exact same thing.
Both statements express that the person who utters the statements, accepts the existence of said god as true / accurate.

I see no difference.



Except that we do.

And those scientists will then go on to provide us with their reasoning and evidence for why they believe the claim that life exists elsewhere in the universe.

They'll talk about how life is made up from the most prevalent elements in the universe.
They'll talk about how life pretty much originated on this planet very fast once the planet was in a state where it could sustain it (which would be evidence that abiogenesis isn't that rare of a process).
They'll talk about the sheer size of the universe and the trillions upon trillions of stars with even more planets orbiting those stars.
Etc.

And all of that will culminate into the supported conclusion that life elsewhere in the universe is extremely plausible.

When someone says "I believe X", then the response is "why?"
==> that "why" question is asking about the justification for it. Aka, the burden of proof.



And "it", would be the claim "life exists elsewhere". And by expressing their belief, they'ld be saying that said claim is true / accurate / very likely.



I've asked this multiple times now... what is the practical difference between
"X is true" and "I believe X is true".
When you say "x is true", aren't you then implicitly saying that you believe that?
How is that different from the second statement?

It seems to me that the only difference is that the second statement merely mentions explicitly what the first statement implies.

You are doing a dichotomy in that you assume there are only two versions of answers as true or false. You leave out unknown.
I don't not know if objective reality is natural/physical/material, but I act as if it is. Further I accept that other people act differently.

So -X is Y is true.
-X is Y is false.
-X is Y is unknown.
In other words it is according to you impossible to have another understanding than your understanding of true, false and unknown. That is not the case as there are in fact at least at minimum 6 versions of truth and even more if you include knowledge, metaphysics/ontology and logic.

You are in effect no different than some religious believers because you share the idea of only one in effect Truth. But that is not so, if you include the unknown and that even truth has limits.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

But are we being "*****y" about it, we could say that the first sentence you mention is a truth claim or a conclusion. The person saying this, claim to know that somehow the Bahai faith is the truth, end of story so to speak. And is equal to a statement such as "I like dogs".

I don't think that's a proper analogy.
"i like dogs" is not a claim concerning "external" reality. It's an expression of a personal preference.

In french, we say "les gouts et les couleurs, ça ne ce discute pas".
Which roughly translates to "personal tastes, are not a subject of discussion".

Clearly "i like dogs" is of an entirely different order as saying "I believe dogs are aliens".

There is a huge difference here, the scientists doesn't go out looking for answers to this, because we yell burden of proof, because someone let it slip that they might believe there is other lifeforms out there and then they are now caught in a trap having to proof it.

It's called the "burden of proof", but we all know that what is meant is evidence.

When a scientist expresses a belief that life exists elsewhere, people WILL ask him "why?".

To me, again, there is an equivalence here:

A: "Life exists elsewhere in the universe"
B: "what evidence supports that?"

vs

A: "I believe life exists elsewhere in the universe"
B: "why?"

==> the answer to B's question in both cases would be the same. Because it's asking about the same thing: the justification for the belief / support for the claim being believed.

Does prefixing "life exists elsewhere in the universe" with "I believe" change anything about the statement?
I don't think so. In both cases a justification would be required for it to be valid / rational.

If no such answers are forthcoming then both the statements, without and without the prefix, are without rational justification.

Which is just another way of saying that the burden of proof concerning the claim of life existing elsewhere in the universe, has not been met.

I just don't agree that you can take any claim, explicitly prefix it with "i believe" and then get to pretend that one shouldn't be challenged on it and / or that it suddenly doesn't require any form of justification anymore.

I think it's a total cop-out and just a silly excuse.