Double-blind Prayer Efficacy Test -- Really?

[Polymath257]

Lol..." You just don't understand." ( While you confirm that indeed there's much speculation.) How predictable.

Well, by what you said, you show that you do not understand what Darwin said.

Have you actually read anything (a full book) he wrote?

 

[Polymath257]

"a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods."

Lacking belief means you don't believe, not that you kind of, sort of believe sometimes. As I said if you don't know for sure, you are an agnostic.

I do not believe in any deities. That does not mean I disbelieve in all deities.

There is a gap between active belief and active disbelief. if you don't have active belief, then you are an atheist.

Let me give an analogy. There is a proposed subatomic particle called an axion. it is sort of a super photon and is part of many theories of particle physics. But it has not been detected.

I do not believe axions exist. I also do not believe that axions do not exist. because they have not been detected, I lack a belief in axions, but I do not actively disbelieve in them since I think they are a possibility. I think it is a question that can be answered, eventually, so I am not an agnostic about them (an answer is possible).

I lack belief in any deities. Some deities I actively disbelieve in (Thor, Yahweh, Athena). Others I see as possibilities (a teenager from a race of high dimensional beings that made our universe as an art project).

But because I do not actively believe in any of them, I am an atheist.

 

[Polymath257]

You are still assuming you have the freedom to choose.

No, only that choices are made by us.

 

[Polymath257]

"The basis of morality is Thinking and Caring. Care about those around you and the effect you have on others. And Think about what you do and how it impacts the world around you. Compassion and a sense of Fairness are other good moral values."

All of what you said here is completely beyond your control if you have no free will, but you still act as if you can decide right and wrong.

Whether or not we have 'free' will, we still *do* in fact make decisions about what is right or wrong. It's just that those decisions are not 'free' in the limited sense you want. But, when I make a decision, the causal nexus is in my brain: so it is 'my' decision. I am the one making it, whether it is 'free' or not. And it is my responsibility whether it is 'free' or not.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Then you aren't an atheist.

He's probably an agnostic atheist, as I am.

 

[SkepticThinker]

No, more likely they just decided to reject what they once accepted as true. That doesn't make it untrue. They were not necessarily mistaken, they just rebelled. Belief is a choice.

Or they realized they didn't have good reasons for believing.
Or that they were believing on faith, which is not a pathway to truth.

I don't agree that belief is a choice. I can't believe things that I'm not convinced of. Can you?

 

[SkepticThinker]

You ever noticed that organizations like AA include a higher power in their program? Why? Because overall they get more successful results.

Actually AA has pretty dismal results.
CBT is the better way to go.

I've been to a ton of AA meetings with my father who never did kick his terrible habits, though he tried and tried.

 

[KWED]

How do YOU know there is no transcendence or meaning to life? Where is your rebuttal?

There is no evidence that there is.
There is no rational argument that there should be.
Everything we know suggests that there isn't.

So the question really is - why do you think there is?
You are making the positive claim, so the burden of proof is on you. And thus far you haven't been able to produce anything that comes close to evidence or rational argument.

Therefore the reasonable, default position is that there is no reason to accept your claim. And it will remain as such until you produce something better.

 

[Polymath257]

Influence isn't even on the table here. It's irrelevant to the discussion. No free will equals no decisions, only the illusion of making decisions.

That depends on what you mean when you say 'make a decision'.

So, to me, a decision is made when the mind goes from a state of being unsure to a state of not being unsure. This is often, but not always, a state concerning some action to take. The transition from 'not knowing what to do' to 'knowing what to do' is what is known as 'making a decision'.

Further, if most of the causal influences involved in that transition happen in my brain, then I am the one making the decision.

All of this makes sense whether or not there is 'free will'.

 

[Polymath257]

Making a choice based on "Thinking and caring" requires free will.

I disagree. A choice does not require that the will be free, only that we go from a state of not knowing what to do to a state of knowing what to do.

 

[Polymath257]

Nonsense. We all choose what to believe. Certainly we may weigh the evidence but we still choose. Rebellion against God is usually because someone doesn't want to follow what he says so they decide they no longer believe.

I do not choose. The evidence either convinces me or it does not. I don't actively decide whether the evidence is convincing or not.

 

[Polymath257]

If there's no free will, there's no real decisions. What is hard to understand about that?

I understand the claim.

I simply disagree with it.

 

[Polymath257]

No it just means your words would not matter, because they are just universe farts.

No, they *do* matter to those who are reading them and interested enough.

They don't matter to the majority of the universe, or even the majority of humanity.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

No free will equals no decisions, only the illusion of making decisions.

Yep, no free decisions. You may very well have described reality, and there is evidence to support that position, but the question is undecidable. Think about it. How could you decide this matter, even in a thought experiment involving time travel? You can't, even if you could revisit the exact same moment in time with all conditions identical to see if you could have chosen differently. Why? You wouldn't know that you had done that. If you did know, you wouldn't have the exact same mind making the decision, so no test. And if you did have the exact same mind, you would not remember yhat this was a test, or that you had been there before, or how you chose the previous time, just as you had none of those thoughts the first time you chose.

so you redefine all definitions based on what works for you?

Why not? I've got a few private definitions I use in thought. When I use them in speech or writing, I always indicate what the words mean when I use them.

But that is not what happened here. The definition for atheist that I use was already in existence. But it wouldn't matter if it weren't, and I had to coin it. Of course I'll use the definition that represents the idea I wish to convey with the word and not defer to other definitions that don't work. You and I have gone over this with the meaning of faith. I can't use your definition, because that's not an idea I need a word for.

Another poster and I have been grappling over the definition of a Christian. His idea is one I can't use. It involves being saved and being born again. How can an unbeliever use that definition? He can't. He needs to modify it so that the word Christian stands for the group of people that HE wants to refer to collectively.

And on this thread, there has been discussion about the definition of wisdom. In every one of these cases, I'm using the definition that represents what it is I am talking about. My chosen definitions of atheist, faith, and Christian already existed before I decided to use those words the way I do, and I think I coined that one, as I can't find the word used that way anywhere else, but it wouldn't matter if I had or do. I don't need for it to be original.

One more: I've chosen to use the word unbelief to mean a lack of belief in the agnostic sense, and disbelief the explicit denial that something is true. Why not? I've got two distinct words and two distinct ideas. It seems needlessly ambiguous to use both words for both meanings. Of curse, I need to explain that when using the words that way, as nobody would be expected to know my private definition otherwise when I used the words. Think of the difference between uninterested and disinterested. They have distinct definitions, so each idea gets its own word rather than treating them like synonyms to represent the same two ideas at once.

I'm a contract bridge enthusiast, where we use an artificial language to communicate the strength and shape of our hands. These bids are used in many different ways, so partners have to agree beforehand what a given bid means in a given context. It's all arbitrary (conventional), but as long as we know what the other is telling us with a given bid, it works. Moreover, we don't have to mean the same thing as long as we're aware of that. I can play with a partner who will bid 1 No Trump with five hearts or spades (the major suits), something I never do. So, when partner says 1NT, he may a five-card major, but when I bid 1NT, he knows that I have no more than four in either suit. It doesn't matter that we use different definitions of 1NT as long as we are clear to one another what WE mean when making that bid. This is the same. You don't have to use the word atheist the way I do to understand to what I refer when I use the word.

you have zero evidence that it's correct. It's totally speculative. So what you have is a belief.

I don't think we're talking about the same thing. The statement I made about the multiverse hypothesis being a logical possibility is correct as best I can tell, and has not been rebutted by you or anybody else. You're welcome to try if you can remember what it is. It gets tiresome rewriting it multiple times for the same person. Right now, my comment remains the last plausible one on the subject, which means that the matter is settled until somebody comes up with a plausible rebuttal.

they are just universe farts.

Is this your version of the multiverse theory? Crude, but not bad. Universe farts can be thought to emanate from from a gassy multiverse colon. More typically, the analogy is champagne generating gas bubbles, but lower gastrointestinal tracks generating farts works, too.

 

[Sheldon]

"The basis of morality is Thinking and Caring. Care about those around you and the effect you have on others. And Think about what you do and how it impacts the world around you. Compassion and a sense of Fairness are other good moral values."

All of what you said here is completely beyond your control if you have no free will, but you still act as if you can decide right and wrong.

It's curious how the concept of avoiding and preventing suffering so seldom appears in theistic notions of morality? I can cause suffering or not, and I can try to prevent suffering or I cannot, as I have a certain amount of autonomy, this need not equate to some people's notions of free will however. As it is pretty obvious there are many factors that govern my behaviour that I have little and even sometimes no control over. So this all hinges on your notion or definition of free will.

 

[dybmh]

I disagree. A choice does not require that the will be free, only that we go from a state of not knowing what to do to a state of knowing what to do.

Unless part of the programming/indoctrination includes freewill. Meaning, it can recognize its own bias and indoctrination and reduce their influence. Then the mind can freely choose. So maybe what you're observing is that freewill isn't required, but it's possible for some.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Is this your version of the multiverse theory?

No, it's my explanation of what we are without free will.

 

[Wildswanderer]

I can try to prevent suffering or I cannot, as I have a certain amount of autonomy,

Not in a deterministic Universe, you don't.

 

[Wildswanderer]

I do not choose. The evidence either convinces me or it does not. I don't actively decide whether the evidence is convincing or not.

Hogwash. You have just convinced yourself you aren't making decisions that's you actually are making.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Further, if most of the causal influences involved in that transition happen in my brain, then I am the one making the decision.

No, it was made long before you were born, if we live in a deterministic Universe. You are just a puppet doing what you have to do.