To the Anti-Religious

[Just_me_Mike]

An altogether nonresponsive and worthless answer but thanks for sharing ...

I am afraid your stuffy brain my friend, doesn't have room for simple truth sometimes. Oh well...

 

[PureX]

It's not a conclusion - it's a rejection of any and all specific conclusions - on principle. I didn't say it was logical or conclusive, I said it was resonable - I was only arguing it on practical terms. The premise itself - that atheists claim to know that there is no god - is false anyway. So is the premise that theists think that there is no evidence for god - take yourself, for example. But anyway,

of course, even someone without any evidence and without any reason to pick a specific event could have made a lucky guess. Would you say it's equally resonable - in the dice case - to claim that it was a six or to claim it wasn't a six? What if there were a hundred possibilities instead of six? A million?

If you do think it's equally (un)resonable, I'd love to play some poker with you sometimes.

But it's still just as illogical to "reject all conclusions" based on no evidence because you still have no basis upon which to reject them. Just as you have no basis upon which to accept them. Your only logical stance is an open mind.

 

[themadhair]

For example, it may be impossible for some to know the answer exist to this problem
the solution of ax2+bx+c=0 is

Assuming you are solving for x then the answer is:

 

[PureX]

I disagree. I don't believe everything can be known. The term "know" implies having personal experience of something. And I see no reason not to suspect that there are aspects of reality that we humans are structurally incapable of experiencing. Therefor, we can never "know" these. The reason I suspect this to be so is that we have already discovered aspects of reality that we can't experience directly, but only know of through the enhancement of machinery.

 

[themadhair]

But it's still just as illogical to "reject all conclusions" based on no evidence because you still have no basis upon which to reject them.

What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence (is that a Hitchen’s quote?). No evidence for a proposition is a basis for rejecting it.

Your only logical stance is an open mind.

Having an open mind means being willing to consider an idea. After you have considered it dismissing the idea for lack of evidence doesn’t make one close minded.

Let me suppose that outside your house/building there is a vicious spectre that wants to kill you should you try to exit. You will reject this contention, and prove such by exiting, despite having no evidence. So does that make you close minded? Or does it signify a problem with your logic?

 

[Onkara]

I disagree. I don't believe everything can be known. The term "know" implies having personal experience of something. And I see no reason not to suspect that there are aspects of reality that we humans are structurally incapable of experiencing. Therefor, we can never "know" these. The reason I suspect this to be so is that we have already discovered aspects of reality that we can't experience directly, but only know of through the enhancement of machinery.

Then can we say that we know both the limitations of the known and know the tools to change those limits.

 

[PureX]

What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence (is that a Hitchen’s quote?). No evidence for a proposition is a basis for rejecting it.

Ah! You're another one of those deciders of all universal truth guys. There's one on the other thred just now, too. Well, it's certainly a clever quote - very poetical. But it's still not logical. And the reason (that I feel sure you will once again ignore) is that you have no basis to accept OR reject an assertion that comes with no evidence whatever. Because no evidence is still no evidence, and no evidence logically means that we can draw no conclusions.

Having an open mind means being willing to consider an idea. After you have considered it dismissing the idea for lack of evidence doesn’t make one close minded.

Yes it does, as it closes the mind to any further consideration, and it is also illogical.

Being open-minded, in this case, just means suspending judgment until some better and more conclusive evidence comes along.

Let me suppose that outside your house/building there is a vicious spectre that wants to kill you should you try to exit. You will reject this contention, and prove such by exiting, despite having no evidence. So does that make you close minded? Or does it signify a problem with your logic?

I would collect more information, and then decide.

 

[PureX]

Then can we say that we know both the limitations of the known and know the tools to change those limits.

We can say lots of stuff. But most of the time we're full of you-know-what. One thing we do know, though, is that we don't know everything. And we also don't know how what we think we know would change if we could know everything. What this all means is that we CAN know that we are ignorant, even though we ARE ignorant. What we don't know, though, is just how ignorant we are.

 

[Just_me_Mike]

Assuming you are solving for x then the answer is:

Yeah, yeah, that is easy to find on the internet

Anyway, there will still be people that can not look at that and know it is the answer, or that an answer exists

 

[Commoner]

But it's still just as illogical to "reject all conclusions" based on no evidence because you still have no basis upon which to reject them. Just as you have no basis upon which to accept them. Your only logical stance is an open mind.

I do have a basis for rejecting a specific (any specific) conclusion - if I know it is likely to be false. I've shown why it's likely to be false (but only given the premise that there is no evidence to support any specific claim).

I agree that in the dice example one cannot conclusively say it's not a six (I was never arguing that, and I never would), but it's certainly more resonable of the two choices.

You are inventing a choice that did not exists in the example. I was simply comparing two viewpoints (1. It was a six, 2. It was not a six) and explaining why one was better - not looking for a third, best option. I agree that it is logical to conclude that we have no idea which number was up.

We don't always have the option of not choosing - of having an open mind. If someone is holding a gun (hell) to your head demanding an answer, you'd better make the resonable one.

 

[themadhair]

Well, it's certainly a clever quote - very poetical. But it's still not logical.

Rather than claiming this ad nauseum, could you for once explain why?

And the reason (that I feel sure you will once again ignore) is that you have no basis to accept OR reject an assertion that comes with no evidence whatever. Because no evidence is still no evidence, and no evidence logically means that we can draw no conclusions.

Lack of evidence is evidence. If you search for something to try and show existence of that something, and come up with nothing after spending years searching, then you have a basis for rejecting that something.

Yes it does, as it closes the mind to any further consideration, and it is also illogical.

Being open-minded, in this case, just means suspending judgment until some better and more conclusive evidence comes along.

This is simply you redefining what open mindedness is. That doesn’t make it so.

I would collect more information, and then decide.

Lovely avoidance. Clearly you don’t believe what you say since you will, inevitably, exit the building. You are, in essence, using the lack of evidence for such a supposed spectre as a basis for rejecting its existence in exactly the same way I am doing with the god concepts that people have presented to me. I’m interested to know why both you and Darksun have deliberately avoided the central point in this analogies with your respective responses to them.

 

[themadhair]

Anyway, there will still be people that can not look at that and know it is the answer, or that an answer exists

I think you may not be aware of what unknowable actually means....

 

[PureX]

Lack of evidence is evidence.

No, it's just not. There is nothing more to discuss, here.

If you search for something to try and show existence of that something, and come up with nothing after spending years searching, then you have a basis for rejecting that something.

Not if you searched for the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time or by the wrong methods. Which is very likely if the result was no evidence of any kind.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

No, it's just not.

Actually, it is.

 

[themadhair]

No, it's just not. There is nothing more to discuss, here.

I find it interesting that you proclaim this as if it were obvious, and completely avoid the analogy that shows where you yourself don’t believe this.

Not if you searched for the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time or by the wrong methods. Which is very likely if the result was no evidence of any kind.

Isn’t this assuming the conclusion?

 

[Commoner]

No, it's just not. There is nothing more to discuss, here.
Not if you searched for the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time or by the wrong methods. Which is very likely if the result was no evidence of any kind.

Can you guess what else is likely to result in no evidence of any kind?

 

[themadhair]

Can you guess what else is likely to result in no evidence of any kind?

How did you know about my....oh wait...you were making a funny......carry on.

 

[PureX]

Isn’t this assuming the conclusion?

No. I was pointing out that if you searched wrongly, you would get the same results as if the thing you searched for didn't exist. This is why it's illogical to presume that if you find nothing, then it doesn't exist. It's illogical because there are many other possibilities for your getting that same result. Those possibilities are that you searched for the wrong thing, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, or by the wrong methods. (And I'm sure there are more.)

 

[themadhair]

It's illogical because there are many other possibilities for your getting that same result.

To be fair I’m quite happy to settle for one possibility that contributed to the result – that the reason I cannot find such evidence is that the concept I’m looking for doesn’t exist in reality.

 

[lunamoth]

If the glass is perfectly full, but you only look at it from only one particular angle, and insist that your angle is the only valid angle, no matter how long and hard you look, you will think the glass is empty.