Current Poll (Religion)

[Senethro]

Is the statement "God exists." a factual claim or an interpretation?

[Haunted]

Quoting novium from 11:40, 17th Aug 2007
I didn't miss the point. I didn't create a straw man.
It'd be the same as...oh, I don't know, a man seemingly raising another man from the dead, wouldn't you say?

No! More fantastic and undeniable than that. Millions of humans and instruments whitenessing the rearranging of the stars into a message from god. SOMETHING THAT CAN NEVER BE EXPLAINED WITHOUT INVOKING A SUPERNATURAL INTELLIGENCE.

Whether or not people believed it (even if they were present) would depend on what they already believed.

No! You'd have to be a madman to ignore such a thing. No athiest or agnostic could remain so after whitnessing such a thing. Granted, if god spelt out the name of the 'correct' religion (say mormonism) then you may find that those from other faiths (mostly the fundamentalists I'd argue) would somehow twist it into a test of their faith.

No interpretation can be proven, remember?

Nothing can be proven 100% as we all know. But you can prove something beyond reasonable doubt. The sign as described above would prove beyond all reasonable doubt the existence of a supreme supernatural intelligence.

So with the stars in the sky, even if they changed very suddenly... it wouldn't mean anything. People would believe what they would.

They may choose to do so but we then comment on the logic of their positions. Atheism and agnosticism would cease to be a defensible logical stance. A question would remain, is this YHWH saying hello or is this Shiva testing me? Now, that is an interpretation that can never be answered (not sure the infamous razor can be applied to such ludicrous situations).

It wouldn't be "proof" of anything. It's just be one more thing, like the sun coming up every morning, or the fact that there exists an "I" to ask these questions. Or miracles... and yes, even today there are unexplained things that people call miracles.

The sun comes up because of gravity which is a natural process we understand. My example cannot be a natural process not can it ever be described as one. It is "proof" of a god.

People whose philosophies don't see things that way don't see it as "proof" that they are wrong. And they are quiet right to do so.

No, philosophies can be wrong if they make statements about the natural world, alot of them do. Indeed, surely a good philosophy should be falsifiable?

And I might note that not knowing about be theology has not stopped him, or you, for that matter. But that's the beauty of strawmen, isn't it?

The criticisms about his theology were trivial (getting a passage from the wrong book in the new testament for example). If theology is a straw man then what is theologians have to stand on?

You never actually have to question your world view. You can just smugly go on making assumptions about, oh, I don't know, why people aren't just atheists when it's so obvious.

My world view can be falsified! I have said as much, if you show me incontravertible evidence to the contrary I will adopt it! This is why atheism is more logical than theism. Any theist can dismiss evidence agaisnt them as a test of their faith, it's so wonderfully circular.

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[novium]

An interpretation, obviously. As I have been arguing for nigh on 10 pages now.

Quoting Senethro from 13:09, 17th Aug 2007
Is the statement "God exists." a factual claim or an interpretation?

[hr]

Neither the storms of crisis, nor the breezes of ambition could ever divert him, either by hope or by fear, from the course that he had chosen

[Haunted]

Quoting novium from 12:55, 17th Aug 2007
Are you saying then that Dawkins has really bothered to know his theology and philosophy?

See my Emporers wardrobe quote.

Let me ask you this: do you remember that book "The bell curve"? The horrible, fallacious thing, arguing basically for old fashioned eugenics and racism? Would you feel the need to read it from cover to cover, having skimmed through it, read a few passages, noted the fact that it was bullshit, and read the reviews and criticisms?

Logically no. Emotionally yes, I could immediately make a judgement on it if it flied in the face of all that I had learned. If I wanted to be sure that this was bullshit I would have to investigate it myself.

I certainly didn't. I wasn't going to be convinced by it. I could already spot the flaws, and I could read how other people responded to to it. That satisfied my curiosity, and thus I felt no need to suffer through the rest of it.

Yes we simply don't time to go through every book or whatever. However, if you insist on making lengthy comments and opinions about this one then it is perhaps worth your while just sitting down and getting through (it is a nice read, flows very well). You took the time to skim the whole book (for what purpose I can only guess), would it have taken that much more effort to just read it?

[quote]Quoting Haunted from 12:50, 17th Aug 2007
As I've said, on the surface, comparisons can be drawn. But look deeper (i.e. why they know the things they know) and you'll see why it isn't so.

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[Gubbins]

I go away for 21 hours, and look what happens - three pages gets spawned! I hate to think what will happen when I go away this weekend... just when I was really getting into it as well. Haunted: if I haven't addressed all your points, I'm sorry, you may have to ask me again if you wish to continue the debate.

Novium, I think you and I are along the same lines with the personal interpretation part, even if one of us has the book upside down. I'd argue that a person's choice of religion is inevitably down to their weighing of evidence (in evidence, I'm counting their own interpretations), which is in turn coloured by their past experience. I also hate to think how many times you've mentioned "straw men" in this thread... is this some personal obsession...?

I'm still not entirely about your exact semantic use of the phrase "world view". You seem to be applying it in a way that is different to most of the rest of us. We can explore the world through science and thus derive causes and effects for our actions and those of others. In doing so, we can prescribe a personal "meaning" to those action, in terms of what we want to (or think we should) achieve. I don't see this as being at odds with any religious "meaning" one might ascribe to life.

As to the separation of scientific thinking and theology, I see little reason to believe in a God whose presence or effect cannot (even theoretically) be tested through visual observation. It would appear to me that this belief is creating something where nothing exists. Again, though, this is a personal conclusion, so perhaps you have a different take on this?

[hr]

...then again, that is only my opinion.

[xsilence]

Um, guys... Do any of you really expect prove/disprove the existence of God/gods/whatever in a Sinner thread? I think you're all going in circles, so just agree to disagree already!

[Rilla]

I think everyone's forgetting (or maybe not- I'm not reading everything everyone says exactly, and certainly I'm not going to read over some pages that I've missed) -

That God/Religion of any kind are faiths - by their very nature, they are never going to be proven or not.

People believe in a God not because they have evidence for it, but because they have faith - they believe without any proof. Any amount of evidence one way or another is irrelevant.

[hr]

Be good to yourself because nobody else has the power to make you happy.

[novium]

it's kind of a silly question to ask in any case. Why do we need an example of something that can't be explained without invoking a supernatural intelligence? That's an issue of proof, of which there can never be, as I have argued.
Even if such a thing could exist, and magically be accepted by every one...it would not "prove" anything, because as I have repeated many times now, you can't prove an interpretation. There would never just be one interpretation, do you get what I am saying?

I mean, think about the fish with the names "allah" and "Muhammad" written on them with their scales in arabic. I don't see that as proof of anything, do you? But then again, I'm not inclined to. I see what I expect to see.


Sigh. my example about the sun rising every morning was not to suggest that believers are gullible fools that believe God makes the sunrise, and that there need not be any other explanation. I meant that, a believer can look at the sunrise, and seperate from the mechanics of it all, see meaning there. It just plays into what they already believe.

LASTLY: your world view can't be falsified. World views can't be falsified by definition. you've looked out at the world, and within yourself, and sensed nothing more. Fine. But you assume that you are correct about this, that what you sensed is True.
That only the questions that science can ask/answer are worth asking.

On top of that first belief, you've looked around you, and pulled from the world you see support and justification. But it's only support and justification because you've viewed them through the lens of that first interpretation, you see?

You'll never convince your opposite to believe as you do, because from that first thing, they interpreted it differently and view the world through a different lens. Your support and justifications will always seem wrong to your opposite, because they see those things differently than you do. They might even seem flawed, where, working from your original interpretation, the logic is sound. They will see different things in the same images. And vice versa.


His theology is very wrong, in the assumptions he makes about how those things are used and interpreted. Like your own things about why believers believe in God. This is why he remains so unconvincing, except to people who already agree with him. He doesn't truly understand the viewpoints he is arguing against, and so simplifies them in absurd ways, and makes assumptions with no basis. That's why, for example, all the teapot analogies in the world fall flat. Because he, like you, misses the point about world views and *meaning*. He's trying to prove/disprove a world view. How pointless is that?

Quoting Haunted from 13:13, 17th Aug 2007

No! More fantastic and undeniable than that. Millions of humans and instruments whitenessing the rearranging of the stars into a message from god. SOMETHING THAT CAN NEVER BE EXPLAINED WITHOUT INVOKING A SUPERNATURAL INTELLIGENCE.

Whether or not people believed it (even if they were present) would depend on what they already believed.

No! You'd have to be a madman to ignore such a thing. No athiest or agnostic could remain so after whitnessing such a thing. Granted, if god spelt out the name of the 'correct' religion (say mormonism) then you may find that those from other faiths (mostly the fundamentalists I'd argue) would somehow twist it into a test of their faith.

No interpretation can be proven, remember?

Nothing can be proven 100% as we all know. But you can prove something beyond reasonable doubt. The sign as described above would prove beyond all reasonable doubt the existence of a supreme supernatural intelligence.

So with the stars in the sky, even if they changed very suddenly... it wouldn't mean anything. People would believe what they would.

They may choose to do so but we then comment on the logic of their positions. Atheism and agnosticism would cease to be a defensible logical stance. A question would remain, is this YHWH saying hello or is this Shiva testing me? Now, that is an interpretation that can never be answered (not sure the infamous razor can be applied to such ludicrous situations).

It wouldn't be "proof" of anything. It's just be one more thing, like the sun coming up every morning, or the fact that there exists an "I" to ask these questions. Or miracles... and yes, even today there are unexplained things that people call miracles.

The sun comes up because of gravity which is a natural process we understand. My example cannot be a natural process not can it ever be described as one. It is "proof" of a god.

People whose philosophies don't see things that way don't see it as "proof" that they are wrong. And they are quiet right to do so.

No, philosophies can be wrong if they make statements about the natural world, alot of them do. Indeed, surely a good philosophy should be falsifiable?

And I might note that not knowing about be theology has not stopped him, or you, for that matter. But that's the beauty of strawmen, isn't it?

The criticisms about his theology were trivial (getting a passage from the wrong book in the new testament for example). If theology is a straw man then what is theologians have to stand on?

You never actually have to question your world view. You can just smugly go on making assumptions about, oh, I don't know, why people aren't just atheists when it's so obvious.

My world view can be falsified! I have said as much, if you show me incontravertible evidence to the contrary I will adopt it! This is why atheism is more logical than theism. Any theist can dismiss evidence agaisnt them as a test of their faith, it's so wonderfully circular.

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[hr]

Neither the storms of crisis, nor the breezes of ambition could ever divert him, either by hope or by fear, from the course that he had chosen

[novium]

Ah,and that quote so perfectly proves it! He doesn't know jack shit about what he's talking about, so he claims that it isn't worth knowing, and so he doesn't have to know. That's as circular as your "test of fatih" thing.

I didn't say anything about making an emotional judgement. I looked at its arguments, and found them to be logically fallacious. The same fallacy ran through the entire damn thing. Why then, waste my time reading it? I constantly am skimming through books in the library for research purposes. Once, for example, I have established that
Mellersh's book on Minoan Crete and the role of women in it is working on an extremely flawed theoretical foundation, why should I bother to read it? Life is short. After reading arguments like, "nevertheless, he will be a brave man, or if a girl, an even braver woman, for surely in any age it is not natural for the gentle sex, the child bearing sex, to do such things", seeing that the theme of assuming that victorian gender roles and preconceptions are universal runs through the entire text.... I don't need to read through the entire thing to discount it. I can already see its main flaw. I already know that it's time to move on to the next book.
Reading through it would just be an exercise in masochism. Have you ever tried yelling at at a book for lousy reasoning? It's not very satisfying.

Skimming book = spending 15 minutes in a bookshop flipping through it, reading the "good bits".
Reading the book = 4 hours of slogging through something. See the minoan example above. ANd I've not made lengthy comments. I've merely pointed out that a major flaw that stood out even in the skimming.

Quoting Haunted from 13:22, 17th Aug 2007

Quoting novium from 12:55, 17th Aug 2007
Are you saying then that Dawkins has really bothered to know his theology and philosophy?

See my Emporers wardrobe quote.

Let me ask you this: do you remember that book "The bell curve"? The horrible, fallacious thing, arguing basically for old fashioned eugenics and racism? Would you feel the need to read it from cover to cover, having skimmed through it, read a few passages, noted the fact that it was bullshit, and read the reviews and criticisms?

Logically no. Emotionally yes, I could immediately make a judgement on it if it flied in the face of all that I had learned. If I wanted to be sure that this was bullshit I would have to investigate it myself.

I certainly didn't. I wasn't going to be convinced by it. I could already spot the flaws, and I could read how other people responded to to it. That satisfied my curiosity, and thus I felt no need to suffer through the rest of it.

Yes we simply don't time to go through every book or whatever. However, if you insist on making lengthy comments and opinions about this one then it is perhaps worth your while just sitting down and getting through (it is a nice read, flows very well). You took the time to skim the whole book (for what purpose I can only guess), would it have taken that much more effort to just read it?

Quoting Haunted from 12:50, 17th Aug 2007
As I've said, on the surface, comparisons can be drawn. But look deeper (i.e. why they know the things they know) and you'll see why it isn't so.

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[hr]

Neither the storms of crisis, nor the breezes of ambition could ever divert him, either by hope or by fear, from the course that he had chosen

[novium]

My argument is simply that anything trying to answer the big "Why" is like you said, faith, no matter what answer you supply. (atheism, theism, whatever).

I wasn't even arguing about god(s), just belief.

Quoting Rilla from 13:37, 17th Aug 2007
I think everyone's forgetting (or maybe not- I'm not reading everything everyone says exactly, and certainly I'm not going to read over some pages that I've missed) -

That God/Religion of any kind are faiths - by their very nature, they are never going to be proven or not.

People believe in a God not because they have evidence for it, but because they have faith - they believe without any proof. Any amount of evidence one way or another is irrelevant.

[hr]

Be good to yourself because nobody else has the power to make you happy.

[hr]

Neither the storms of crisis, nor the breezes of ambition could ever divert him, either by hope or by fear, from the course that he had chosen

[novium]

My use of the term 'world view' is basically the same as in the quotations supplied by Munchingfoo.


I am not sure what you are saying here:
"In doing so, we can prescribe a personal "meaning" to those action, in terms of what we want to (or think we should) achieve. I don't see this as being at odds with any religious "meaning" one might ascribe to life."

I think perhaps we are speaking past each other.


As to this:"As to the separation of scientific thinking and theology, I see little reason to believe in a God whose presence or effect cannot (even theoretically) be tested through visual observation."

My only conclusion is that your belief is that god(s) should be testable through visual observation. This is an extention (if you'll pardon me taking the liberty) of your assumption of a generally materialist world view. To go back to my two people looking out example, you're the one saying 'there is only that which can be sensed'. That's fine. That's the root of your world view. That's your core Truth. It's an interpretation, and that's fine. But it's not testable. You'll never know for sure that you're right about that first assumption...as none of us will. It's not possible to know, because, as I said, it's an intepretation.

And really, that's my only point.

Quoting Gubbins from 13:31, 17th Aug 2007
I'm still not entirely about your exact semantic use of the phrase "world view". You seem to be applying it in a way that is different to most of the rest of us. We can explore the world through science and thus derive causes and effects for our actions and those of others. In doing so, we can prescribe a personal "meaning" to those action, in terms of what we want to (or think we should) achieve. I don't see this as being at odds with any religious "meaning" one might ascribe to life.

As to the separation of scientific thinking and theology, I see little reason to believe in a God whose presence or effect cannot (even theoretically) be tested through visual observation. It would appear to me that this belief is creating something where nothing exists. Again, though, this is a personal conclusion, so perhaps you have a different take on this?

[hr]

...then again, that is only my opinion.

[hr]

Neither the storms of crisis, nor the breezes of ambition could ever divert him, either by hope or by fear, from the course that he had chosen

[Haunted]

Quoting novium from 13:39, 17th Aug 2007
I can't imagine such a thing in reality, can you?

We just did! The stars, moving, that thing. We imagined it. We can comment about whether we think it's likely to happen or not but that's beside the point.

Besides, it's kind of a silly question to ask in any case. Why do we need an example of something that can be explained without invoking a supernatural intelligence?

Because it would be proof of god. Why are avoiding this?
You keep saying you can't prove an interpretation, I argue that god is not an interpretation, I offer an example of proof of god and you file it away as "silly" (it doesn't matter if it's silly) without addressing it.

That's an issue of proof, of which there can never be, as I have argued.

The star thing! undeniable proof of god. How many times?

Even if such a thing could exist, and magically be accepted by every one...it would not "prove" anything, because as I have repeated many times now, you can't prove an interpretation.

It would prove (beyond all reasonable doubt) that there is a supernatural intelligence. Not an interpretation.

There would never just be one interpretation, do you get what I am saying?

Only with regard to whether its YHWH saying hi or Shiva testing my faith.

I mean, think about the fish with the names "allah" and "Muhammad" written on them with their scales in arabic. I don't see that as proof of anything, do you? But then again, I'm not inclined to. I see what I expect to see.

A useless example, APOPHENIA yet again. Such a thing is entirely plausible. Stop avoiding the issue.

LASTLY: your world view can't be falsified. World views can't be falsified by definition.

The star thing, again. That happens, atheism is falsified (beyond all reasonable doubt).

you've looked out at the world, and within yourself, and sensed nothing more.

There is no proof of anything more. Hypothesising that is something more is a positive claim that needs evidence. Maybe that something more cannot interact or be detected in which case whats the use? FSM cannot be detected should we give him the same priviledge?

Fine. But you assume that you are correct about this, that what you sensed is True.

Until I am falsified.

On top of that first belief, you've looked around you, and pulled from the world you see support and justification. But it's only support and justification because you've viewed them through the lens of that first interpretation, you see?

Say I started off with belief in god (as so many must do). I would look around the world for evidence of his creation, I could look into the patterns of flowers and go "So beautifal, god is truly magnificent". Of course, I could further investigate this and take courses in biology and realise that god has nothing to do with the patterns on flowers. And so on with everything I could think of subscribing to god until I'm left with nothing but a 'gut feeling' that god is just testing me, and that if I stay true to him I will survive my own death.

You'll never convince your opposite to believe as you do, because from that first thing, they interpreted it differently and view the world through a different lens. Your support and justifications will always seem wrong to your opposite, because they see those things differently than you do. They might even seem flawed, where, working from your original interpretation, the logic is sound. They will see different things in the same images. And vice versa.

http://richarddawkins.net/convertsCorner
Read at your own leisure.

His theology is very wrong, in the assumptions he makes about how those things are used and interpreted.

Emporers wardrobe.

his is why he remains so unconvincing, except to people who already agree with him.

See above link

That's why, for example, all the teapot analogies in the world fall flat. Because he, like you, misses the point about world views and *meaning*. He's trying to prove/disprove a world view. How pointless is that?

The teapot idea has to be credited to Bertrand Russell; you have beef with him too I imagine?
And it seems it is you who has missed the point about the teapot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_teapot
For reference.

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[Gubbins]

Quoting novium from 13:39, 17th Aug 2007
LASTLY: your world view can't be falsified. World views can't be falsified by definition.

Now I'd disagree with this regarding atheism, assuming you mean what I think you do when you say "world view", as atheism isn't a belief, but a lack of it*. It is based on the proof and disproof of hypotheses, therefore proof of something contrary to its expectations would indeed falsify it.

*To drag out an old analogy, black (c.f. atheism) isn't a colour, but an absence of it. Then again, transparent (c.f. agnosticism) isn't a colour either.

On top of that first belief, you've looked around you, and pulled from the world you see support and justification. But it's only support and justification because you've viewed them through the lens of that first interpretation, you see?

Now this is precisely what I was getting at before when justifying my stance on agnosticism.

[hr]

...then again, that is only my opinion.

[Haunted]

Gubbins I think we're close to agreement on most things.
All your points I think come back to:
1. Absolute knowledge which is an impossibility.
2. You cannot prove a negative etc.
3. Origin of the universe not yet explainable by science.

The first two are untouchable, number 3 however may just swing it for you.

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[Gubbins]

Quoting Haunted from 14:16, 17th Aug 2007
Gubbins I think we're close to agreement on most things. [and the rest]

Yeah, I'd agree with all of that!

EDIT: Just thought - maybe God is an M-brane... stranger things have happened... okay, maybe not.

[Rilla]

Quoting Haunted from 14:16, 17th Aug 2007
2. You cannot prove a negative etc.

You can never accept a null hypothesis

(only fail to reject it)

[hr]

Be good to yourself because nobody else has the power to make you happy.

[Gubbins]

Quoting novium from 14:01, 17th Aug 2007
I think perhaps we are speaking past each other.

I think we are - I was trying to justify "meaning" behind a scientific 'world view'.

My only conclusion is that your belief is that god(s) should be testable through visual observation. This is an extention (if you'll pardon me taking the liberty) of your assumption of a generally materialist world view.

Yes... yes it is. Unlike beliefs in religions in general, which I can understand, I have a problem seeing how people can believe in something that is inherently untestable. I do not have a good reason to believe that there is anything apart from that which can be sensed. I was less introducing this as a point for debate as clarification of why others may choose to.

As for a proof of God's existence (like the stars one), I think this is getting into semantics again. We're not looking for a global Proof (if you like), that everyone must accept. We're looking for something that could be considered a scientific proof. People could still believe what they like, but then the science would say that God exists too, which would then give a lot more people reason to believe.

[hr]

...then again, that is only my opinion.

[Haunted]

Novium.

Looks like my arguements are nothing new.
If you have time, please read this
http://www.sfu.ca/philosophy/bradley/Fu ... hinker.pdf
Page 4 in particular deals precisely with "The moving star thingy".

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[novium]

Saying atheism isn't a color is like saying black isn't a color. it may not be, technically (i.e. it isn't a belief in *something*). However, neither is it nothing (transparent?). It, like a belief in God, is just one of many, many, many possible world views. Interpretations of the stuff around us in ways that a relevant to the larger picture (i.e. decisions, morals, politics, whathaveyou).

I guess I could sum up and apply my argument to the theist/atheist/agnostic thing and say that the default skeptical perspective isn't atheism, but agnosticism... as it recognizes that there is no way for us to discover the answers to the big question: Why?

To move away from agnosticism (in any direction) requires a leap of faith.

Quoting Gubbins from 14:09, 17th Aug 2007

Quoting novium from 13:39, 17th Aug 2007
LASTLY: your world view can't be falsified. World views can't be falsified by definition.

Now I'd disagree with this regarding atheism, assuming you mean what I think you do when you say "world view", as atheism isn't a belief, but a lack of it*. It is based on the proof and disproof of hypotheses, therefore proof of something contrary to its expectations would indeed falsify it.

*To drag out an old analogy, black (c.f. atheism) isn't a colour, but an absence of it. Then again, transparent (c.f. agnosticism) isn't a colour either.

On top of that first belief, you've looked around you, and pulled from the world you see support and justification. But it's only support and justification because you've viewed them through the lens of that first interpretation, you see?

Now this is precisely what I was getting at before when justifying my stance on agnosticism.

[hr]

...then again, that is only my opinion.

[hr]

Neither the storms of crisis, nor the breezes of ambition could ever divert him, either by hope or by fear, from the course that he had chosen

[Haunted]

Quoting novium from 14:41, 17th Aug 2007
To move away from agnosticism (in any direction) requires a leap of faith.

And this is where I think our fundamental disagreement is.
To move away from strict unknowingness (agnosticism) logically and without emotion, takes evidence, not faith. Testable, repeatable experiments and observations. Where do such things currently swing us? Atheism, undoubtably.

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn