Question for Atheists...

[YoursTrue]

I think for myself. But believers, like yourself, don't. You don;t follow a God, you follow some religious framework that others designed and spread as truth. You don't understand how you do this.

Why are you asking me for answers that only a theist should know? Notice you offer no answers to your own questions. Why did your God design genes that cause cancer in children? Why did your God create flesh eating bacteria? Explain the purpose.

If your God exists it acts shy, or likes to play hide and seek, but no one ever finds it. Oh many claim to to find God, but these mortals don't behave in a way that impresses anyone that they claim is true. I'd think if some mortal actually found God that they would be remarkable humans with an astounding wisdom. Instead we see arrogance and other human flaws.

That's why so many different religious people find different Gods.

That's how children find evidence of the Tooth Fairy in the money under their pillow, or find Santa in the present under the tree. How do you explain colored eggs hidden in the bushes? Amazing the truths we find.

Are you open to the possibility that your religious beliefs are false? Be honest.P

And you offer no illumination. At least cancer and bacterias are real. What can you show about your God that supposedly caused them, and deliberately harm people? Go on. Answer. It's what you see and it's clear, answer it.

As far as following some religious framework designed by others, all I can say is that there are different types of trees and each one has its own framework as well. I grew up with the Bible as the basis for my family's belief system, but I didn't understand it until much later in life because no one really explained it to me until I was older, and -- it wasn't my family's religious concept even though based on the Bible. But I began to listen. Before that I examined other religious concepts and did not find them reasonable. (In my opinion, not speaking for others.) For many years I declared that I did not believe in God, but then things happened to made me turn to God in earnest. And He answered me. And I began to read and study the Bible with people I respected.

 

[Aupmanyav]

I totally agree. Those ways are not all physical.

Now you add another debatable thing. What is physical and what is not? Are light electricity physical or not?

Let's say that's true about posing a hypothesis and test to see if it works. Then you say that hypotheses are tested. How can the hypothesis of scientists who don't believe in God about the origin of the universe be tested?

Science has not yet claimed anything about 'singularity'. Science is investigating it. The religious make claims and give no evidence.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Of course you are. You could always talk to us Christian, more often.

Christians are no less walls, than Muslims, Bahais and often Hindus.

 

[Aupmanyav]

So we’re placing the observer back in his privileged, pre-Copernican position at the centre of the (observable) universe? Isn’t that a bit risky, for all sorts of reasons?

Ignorance is not always risky. We have managed to live with it for nearly 200,000 years.

Even if observation should be regarded as a complex interaction equivalent in principle to any other interaction, it remains a truism that for observation to occur, there has to be an observer; which makes observing anything at all neutrally, independently of how we choose to observe it, a logical and technical impossibility.

Yeah, that is when the 'maya' theory of Hinduism comes into play.
"Brahma Satyam, jagan-mithya .." (All that we observe is an illusion. Brahman, the stuff of the universe, alone is the truth; the observed is an illusion.

 

[ppp]

How can the hypothesis of scientists who don't believe in God about the origin of the universe be tested?

Not believing is not a hypothesis.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

But, in this sense, an 'observation' is any sufficiently strong interaction with a complex environment. Wheeler said this quote before this aspect was discovered.

So where is the observer of the observation in regards to the sufficiently strong interaction with a complex environment?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Not believing is not a hypothesis.

Well, yes.
But if you apply science to any claim including I don't believe, then you have to explain using science how that claim could be falsified.
In more broad terms I don't belive is a part of a model at least based on the testing of God, for which if it is a true test it includes the conditions for getting a postive result.
In other words it is not absolute that there is no God, rather it is so far that for a test for God, we get a negative result, but that is so far.

And thus if you claim with science you don't believe in God, it means that you actively have done something. Namley tested if there is a God. So I don't believe is not just a passive, but in effect an active claim.

 

[AppieB]

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What caused you to stop believing in the supernatural?

Believing in the supernatural is not rational but at one time, I couldn't see that. It seemed the most rational thing in the world to believe in the supernatural. I did so without question. Rational meaning to develop your thoughts based on reason and logic. I suppose I lack a rational mind but didn't know it. The only requirement to be rational, I thought, was to have a brain.

Or perhaps you never believed in them. Good for you. You were born with a more rational mind.

I suspect I kept asking why and how. Perhaps that simply causes one's mind to become more rational overtime.

I was brought up in a religious (catholic) household, so that was the 'reason' I believed. As I grew older I questioned my beliefs, religion and the supernatural. It just didn't make sense to me so I stopped believe at the age of 17/18. Just don't have a reason to believe.

 

[1213]

There's always an excuse.
But they are annual layers.

I don't believe that. There can be different reasons for layers, and they are always result of how much rain, melting and freezing there has been. For example there could have been years without no rain, or years when the ice has melted and frozen many times. This is why they count can't be trusted, it is too simplistic and ignorant principle.

 

[1213]

That has been tested. For example, we know the dates when certain volcanoes erupted. And we can see the traces of ash from those volcanoes in the ice layers. This allows us to know that layers correspond to years. There are other tests along this line, all of which show that the layer<-->year correspondence is correct.

Even if one layer would actually fit to other alleged times, it doesn't necessary mean that they are all correctly counted.

 

[ratiocinator]

Even if one layer would actually fit to other alleged times, it doesn't necessary mean that they are all correctly counted.

It's kind of spooky how all the 'problems' in all the methods are just right to give a self consistent result that you don't like is wrong, don't you think?

 

[PureX]

And what you are suggesting is *exactly* the scientific method: propose an hypothesis and test it to see if it works. But, don't *assume* it works. Do actual testing to see when it works and when it doesn't.

And that is exactly what theists do when they engage in acts of faith. The difference being that the criteria for testing is subjective and circumstantial, as it would inevitably be with a philosophical theory/proposition rather than a physical theory/proposition. The method is the same. But the content, and therefor the criteria of viability are not.

Scientists propose new ideas all of the time. And then they or other scientists *test* them. It is only after they have been tested that they are accepted as being true (or useful).

Real scientists don't accept their theories as being "true". Only that they functioned within the parameters of the test. Real theists don't presume their ideas on God are the truth of God, either. Only that their faith in their idea of God is working for them, when they act on it.

Now, in what way is the hypothesis of a supernatural testable?

In the same was as any philosophical theory or proposition is tested: by acting on it and seeing what results. How to do that depends on how one ideates a "supernatural effect".

In what way is it useful for understanding?

It's not, really. It's only useful in term of functionality, same as with science.

Or is it only useful as motivation and convincing us to do what we have decided needs to be done?

Only???

 

[PureX]

On the contrary, scientists are usually very critical of the notions of other scientists.

Real scientists are just as skeptical of their own theories And the scientism crowd are not real scientists. They are science cultists.

That is expected and an important aspect of the scientific method. Any new idea has to go through a LOT of very intense critique and analysis as well as very rigorous testing *before* it is 'accepted' as valid.

Theories in science function or they don't. "Validity" doesn't really enter into it. That's the scientism crowd looking for science to give them 'truth'.

Many times, the public doesn't see this (it tends to be either in the journals or at conferences), but it is there and quite severe.

Some supposed scientists don't see it either, and fall into the scientism cult.

 

[Polymath257]

Yes, absolutely. Which made me dig out these words from George Kristoff Joos, quoted by Jonathan Schaffer in his paper 'Monism; the Priority of the Whole'

"Due to non-local features of quantum theory, a consistent description of any system must finally include the whole universe."

The problem is that QM *is* local. It is just not deterministic. The basic equations of QM have probabilities propagating at less than the speed of light. Correlations are formed and also propagate. You don't get entanglement of particles that have never interacted.

Even if observation should be regarded as a complex interaction equivalent in principle to any other interaction, it remains a truism that for observation to occur, there has to be an observer; which makes observing anything at all neutrally, independently of how we choose to observe it, a logical and technical impossibility.

As for decoherence, isn't that simply a mechanism for reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable?

No. Decoherence is simply applying QM to the measurement process to understand how an environment affects the state of the quantum system.

If you think classically, you will find QM to be paradoxical and counter intuitive. But QM isn't a classical theory and the universe doesn't appear to act classically. If, instead, you can think in terms of probability waves, it becomes far more intuitive.

 

[Polymath257]

Let's say that's true about posing a hypothesis and test to see if it works. Then you say that hypotheses are tested. How can the hypothesis of scientists who don't believe in God about the origin of the universe be tested?

For reasons of basic logic, the burden of proof is on those that make the existence claim. This is as true for deities as it is for subatomic particles.

Those who don't believe in a deity simply don't use a deity in their explanations. If those explanations work, no deity is required to explain things. That is a fairly simple test.

 

[Polymath257]

Real scientists are just as skeptical of their own theories And the scientism crowd are not real scientists. They are science cultists.

Theories in science function or they don't. "Validity" doesn't really enter into it. That's the scientism crowd looking for science to give them 'truth'.

Some supposed scientists don't see it either, and fall into the scientism cult.

Validity in science *means* functional. A theory is valid exactly as much as it predicts accurate results.

 

[Polymath257]

And that is exactly what theists do when they engage in acts of faith. The difference being that the criteria for testing is subjective and circumstantial, as it would inevitably be with a philosophical theory/proposition rather than a physical theory/proposition. The method is the same. But the content, and therefor the criteria of viability are not.

Do those of faith actively try to prove their ideas wrong?

If not, they are not doing real tests.

Real scientists don't accept their theories as being "true". Only that they functioned within the parameters of the test. Real theists don't presume their ideas on God are the truth of God, either. Only that their faith in their idea of God is working for them, when they act on it.

And do those of faith try to show their ideas are wrong? Do they try to find the limits of when their faith works?

If not,, they are simply doing confirmation bias.

In the same was as any philosophical theory or proposition is tested: by acting on it and seeing what results. How to do that depends on how one ideates a "supernatural effect".

It's not, really. It's only useful in term of functionality, same as with science.

Nope. Fundamentally different approaches: one of faith vs one of skepticism.

Only???

Yes, I used the correct word. You can use psychological tricks to motivate yourself that have nothing to do with whether the motivation is true or not.

And that amounts to self-deception.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Validity in science *means* functional. A theory is valid exactly as much as it predicts accurate results.

Yeah, that is your subjective understanding of science. I have another.

 

[Polymath257]

So we’re placing the observer back in his privileged, pre-Copernican position at the centre of the (observable) universe? Isn’t that a bit risky, for all sorts of reasons?

No. All I am saying is that the term 'observable universe' depends on the observer. And each observer will see a sphere around them constituting the observable universe.

Now, since humans have not managed to travel any substantial distance in the universe, ALL humans are essentially at the same loation and have the same spherical observable universe. But a civiliation 10 billion light years away would se a very different observable universe. Both 'observable universes' are simply pieces of the whole. Those pieces are limited by the finite speed of light and the finite age of the current expansion.

 

[Polymath257]

Yeah, that is your subjective understanding of science. I have another.

And when you use workds in non-standard ways, communication starts to fail.