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Author | Topic: Identifying false religions. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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Supposing that you have any reasonable standards of observing the world we live in, I wouldn't describe that as an assumption but rather an observation. To each his own, I guess. "Observation" suggests to me that there's data... something observed... showing that the supernatural could not have happened. At best, I'd say you could get an induction, based on your standard of observing never seeing the supernatural... but I don't think that necessarily follows. So it seems to me to be closer to an assumption than an observation.
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Phage0070 Inactive Member
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Catholic Scientist writes: "Observation" suggests to me that there's data... something observed... showing that the supernatural could not have happened. Centuries of consistent observation ruling out violations of natural law doesn't qualify as data showing that the supernatural could not have happened? Or are you suggesting that our sample of reality isn't representative of the whole? How about we turn this question around; what *would* qualify as that data you are talking about?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Centuries of consistent observation ruling out violations of natural law doesn't qualify as data showing that the supernatural could not have happened? Not really, although, I'm not so sure that all violations of natural law have been ruled out. There's plenty of unanswered paranormal mysteries out there.
Or are you suggesting that our sample of reality isn't representative of the whole? One possibility, or that something has changed over time. But these are just possibilities that remove the conclusion from being a necessity, not something that we have observed.
How about we turn this question around; what *would* qualify as that data you are talking about? Nah. I'd rather better understand what leads you to this:
quote: I think you saying that since every past supernatural explanation has been replaced by a natural one, then that means that we can conclude that the supernatural does not exist, so therefore an honest examination of the Bible would be without anything supernatural, right?
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Phage0070 Inactive Member
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Catholic Scientist writes: There's plenty of unanswered paranormal mysteries out there. The ability of people to make ridiculous claims is, so far as I can tell, unbounded. The lack of a single confirmed instance of a supernatural occurrence is far more telling.
Catholic Scientist writes: But these are just possibilities that remove the conclusion from being a necessity, not something that we have observed. So you would agree that such possibilities are simply hypothetical and that all our observations indicate that reality hasn't fundamentally altered in form or function within the time periods we are addressing, correct?
Catholic Scientist writes: I think you saying that since every past supernatural explanation has been replaced by a natural one, then that means that we can conclude that the supernatural does not exist, so therefore an honest examination of the Bible would be without anything supernatural, right? No. I am saying that since absolutely no supernatural occurrence, explanation, or claim has born out when reasonably isolated from error or fraud, the only intellectually honest response is to reject unevidenced claims of supernatural events until such time as sufficient supporting evidence is presented. I am not aware of any account of the supernatural within the Bible that has the support of that evidence, considering the unbroken string of failures referenced above. Given the vested interest of extremely large and resourceful organizations to present such evidence, as well as the careful research of the scientific community as a whole, I consider concluding that the supernatural does not exist a very solid position. Thus, if we are to strip the Bible of unreasonable or untrue claims it would be utterly lacking in the supernatural. Source: xkcd: Age Milestone Privileges (Randall Munroe)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Hi killinghurts,
I've browsed this thread a couple of times, but haven't really gotten into it yet.
What steps would you take to identify a false religion? I would start with false beliefs. The world is not flat - any belief that the world is flat is falsified by evidence that proves it is a false belief. The world is not the center of the universe - any belief that the world is center of the universe is countered by evidence that shows that the earth orbits the sun, and the sun orbits the center of this galaxy, and the galaxy is moving in space, showing that this is a false belief. The earth is very old - any belief that the world is not very old is falsified by evidence that proves it is a false belief. The universe is even older - any belief that the universe is not extremely old is falsified by evidence that proves it is a false belief. There has not been one universal world wide flood - any belief that there was a world wide flood is falsified by evidence that demonstrates that it is a false belief. That is just some examples of false beliefs. Whether believing one or more of these means that one's religion is false, however, is a different matter: if these beliefs are inconsequential to the core beliefs of the religion, and those core beliefs are not contradicted by evidence, then those core beliefs of the religion per se can be (tentatively considered) valid. However, if the religion depends on the validity of core beliefs that are falsified, then that religion is probably false (in whole or in part). Beyond that, I don't believe that there is any way to tell how valid an untested (not invalidated) belief may be, and if the religion is founded on such untested (not invalidated) beliefs then there is no way I can see to gauge the validity of the religion. Enjoy. we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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Rahvin Member Posts: 4046 Joined: Member Rating: 7.6
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This reply is really to you and to Phage.
I think you saying that since every past supernatural explanation has been replaced by a natural one, then that means that we can conclude that the supernatural does not exist, so therefore an honest examination of the Bible would be without anything supernatural, right? The term "supernatural" denotes a completely undefined set of phenomenon. The term is functionally useless. "Supernatural" really means "something we don;t currently understand." As our understanding grows, it stops being supernatural. Cars, light bulbs, and blessed air conditioning would all have been considered "supernatural." It's just like the word "magic," it means nothing, explains nothing, and serves only to cause these silly debates on whether the "supernatural" exists or not, as if the "supernatural" were an easily defined set of phenomenon. There is no such thing as the "supernatural" in terms of "that which does not obey nature's laws." If gods exist, they do not supersede nature's laws - nature's laws are simply different from our current limited conception of them, and the real laws allow deities. There is no "supernatural" vs. "natural." There is only "well-understood" vs. "not well-understood." That may take some of the sense of awe and majesty out of some people's beliefs, but it's still the truth. Saying that something is simply an exception to the way the Universe works for absolutely everything else ("Goddidit," "it's magic," "it's supernatural") is absolutely nothing more than an intellectual dead end for the mentally lazy, because these things offer no explanations and are instead excuses to stop thinking, to retain a model even after it's been proven to be inaccurate, and so on. A few thousand years ago, if you showed someone a hot air balloon rising into the air, it would seem to be an exception to the natural law that things in the air fall down. Imagine what would have happened if we simply said "oh, it's magic; gravity still says that everything falls down, but this balloon thing is a magic exception, driven by some supernatural force." We understand today that the balloon rises because of a lower density than the surrounding air - knowledge that was only attained through continuing to investigate the mysterious observation that hot air rises. Every single thing ever discovered was once a mysterious observation, a puzzle, "supernatural," until someone worked out the answer. This blade cuts the believer and the skeptic, because the end result is that the mysterious question is never investigated and an explanation is never found. The reason no "supernatural" claim has ever been verified to exist is twofold: 1) there are plenty of fraudsand 2) once we understand it, we stop calling it "supernatural." There's no point to this useless arguing over whether the "supernatural" exists or not. "Supernatural" is just another way of saying "something not explained by my current model of reality." The real debate is whether our model of reality is accurate, or whether so-called "supernatural" phenomenon require us to change our model to include the new data. Each claim, in the Bible or elsewhere, should be individually investigated, regardless of whether the claim seems to violate current theories, regardless of whether they're labeled as "supernatural." The only arbiter of what is and is not real is reality. Either you have observations that support your hypothesis sufficiently above competing hypotheses to believe that it may be the most accurate, or you do not.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2507 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined:
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RAZD writes: The earth is very old - any belief that the world is not very old is falsified by evidence that proves it is a false belief. That's a very odd statement coming from someone who claims to be a "completely impartial agnostic" on the age of the earth.
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.2 |
There's plenty of unanswered paranormal mysteries out there.
Examples please. I would venture to guess most of your examples are unanswered because they either have not been investigated or the "phenomena" could not be repeated or independently verified. People can claim anything, verifying things as truthful or real is a big issue. Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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Phage0070 Inactive Member
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razd writes: Whether believing one or more of these means that one's religion is false, however, is a different matter: if these beliefs are inconsequential to the core beliefs of the religion, and those core beliefs are not contradicted by evidence, then those core beliefs of the religion per se can be (tentatively considered) valid. No. If those beliefs are inconsequential to the core beliefs of the religion, and those core beliefs are not contradicted by evidence, then those core beliefs can be tentatively considered not disproved. The lack of evidence to the contrary is not in and of itself a reason to believe a claim. The existence of an undetectable pink unicorn may not be contradicted by evidence, but it isn't reasonable to tentatively consider such a belief true based on that fact.
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Phage0070 Inactive Member
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Rahvin writes: If gods exist, they do not supersede nature's laws - nature's laws are simply different from our current limited conception of them, and the real laws allow deities. Unless the religious view is true, and the god or gods actually exist and operate outside of reality. In that case it is the terms "natural" and "reality" which are lacking, or referencing a subset that we previously thought was the whole. I take your meaning, but I think the distinction (vague as it is) is helpful to the discussion. Simple terms aid in the conveyance of simple ideas, such as assessing basic credulity.
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Rahvin Member Posts: 4046 Joined: Member Rating: 7.6
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Unless the religious view is true, and the god or gods actually exist and operate outside of reality. In that case it is the terms "natural" and "reality" which are lacking, or referencing a subset that we previously thought was the whole. Which is an absurd position, and says something about the believer and their lack of understanding how to go about increasing knowledge of the Unvierse, but says absolutely nothing with regards to gods existing or not existing. There is no "outside reality." If something exists, then it is real, that's part of the definition of what it means to exist as opposed to being a figment of imagination. If something which exists happens to appear to bypass what we understand to be the rules that govern nature, our understanding of the rules is flawed; the real rules obviously do allow whatever exceptions were observed, and we simply don;t understand it yet.
I take your meaning, but I think the distinction (vague as it is) is helpful to the discussion. Simple terms aid in the conveyance of simple ideas, such as assessing basic credulity. And I think it's bait for skeptics to respond with incredulity as soon as they see "supernatural." The moment you see that word, your conclusion becomes "because everyone knows there's no such thing as the supernatural," and you fill in the reasons afterward as post-hoc rationalization. The line of reasoning is false even when the conclusion is correct, and it traps the skeptic into discounting even those very few phenomenon that do exist through shear personal incredulity. From the other side, the believer just stops thinking and answers a mysterious question with a mysterious answer - in other words, an explanation with nil explanatory power, a predictive model that makes no predictions, a conveyance of zero knowledge. I think the term and the debate around it are actually worse than useless - they stop debate about the actual phenomenon and any relevant observations, hypotheses, tests and so forth, and focuses it instead on a red herring of personal credulity and emotionally satisfying but informationally vapid "answers."
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Phage0070 Inactive Member
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Rahvin writes: There is no "outside reality." If something exists, then it is real, that's part of the definition of what it means to exist as opposed to being a figment of imagination. Unless you subscribe to a dualistic view where God exists, but not within reality. Or perhaps that god is a collective consciousness and in essence is imagination. I'm not trying to defend this position, but if it actually were the case that a god existed outside of reality (as nonsensical as that might appear)... then it wouldn't be part of reality. You argue quite reasonably that there is no such place or thing, and I would be inclined to agree considering that is part of my argument against gods being able to exist there.
Rahvin writes: From the other side, the believer just stops thinking and answers a mysterious question with a mysterious answer. I don't see how your definitions are going to prevent that. A theist will simply argue that your definitions rule out the existence of their deity *by definition*; it is you being closed-minded rather than them not providing proof for their claim.
Rahvin writes: I think the term and the debate around it are actually worse than useless - they stop debate about the actual phenomenon and any relevant observations, hypotheses, tests and so forth,... I think in many cases it aids the discussion of actual observations. If someone believes because the Bible says stuff happened, then there is nowhere for the discussion to go. Classifying it as supernatural claims or natural claims doesn't address the meat of the issue at all.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Hi Phage0070, do we need to rehash this again?
Perhaps you can pay more attention to my position than bluegenes has ...
The lack of evidence to the contrary is not in and of itself a reason to believe a claim. That makes it not invalidated yet. Thus the belief is not falsified. Another word for that is valid. Valid, in logic, does not mean proven: Valid Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
quote: It's just something that may be true if the premises are true (not invalidated). If the premises are not disproven, then the conclusion may be (tentatively considered) true. In addition, a religion is usually (in my experience) composed of more than one specific belief, but on a structure that ties many beliefs together. Thus the reason to believe {inset religion here} does not usually lie in one specific belief.
No. If those beliefs are inconsequential to the core beliefs of the religion, and those core beliefs are not contradicted by evidence, then those core beliefs can be tentatively considered not disproved. You can believe this, of course, for this is just your opinion. Curiously, being opinion doesn't make it correct, but it is a valid opinion if it is not contradicted by fact -- IMHO. Of course, by your own argument, it isn't reasonable to tentatively consider your belief to be true, based on the fact that it hasn't been invalidated. Have fun with that. Now - perhaps - we (including bluegenes) can discuss the topic, rather than rehash old battles that are off-topic here.
The lack of evidence to the contrary is not in and of itself a reason to believe a claim. Interestingly, I did not say that just because something has not been invalidated means you must consider it true (this is the pink unicorn fallacy of course), just that you may consider it (tentatively) true, and thus that it is not unreasonable if someone does believe it. Such a belief is not a false belief, because it has not been invalidated. A host of such beliefs (ie a religion) pointing to the same general conclusion is sufficient for many people to consider their beliefs valid. Any religion that does not incorporate any falsified beliefs, cannot be considered (identified) de facto a false religion, on the basis of available evidence. But any religion that relies heavily on one or more falsified beliefs is fair game, and the more falsified beliefs are involved, the worse it is. Personally, I consider any fundamentalist form of "young earth" creationism to be a falsified religion. Note that this does not mean that christianity, islam, etc, are false religions, just the fundamentalist splinter sects that insist on believing a false belief in a young earth. Enjoy. by our ability to understand R ebel A merican Z en D eist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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Phage0070 Inactive Member
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RAZD writes: That makes it not invalidated yet. Thus the belief is not falsified. Another word for that is valid. No, that isn't what "valid" means in the context of logic. A logically valid argument is one where the conclusion follows from the premises. A valid argument could be made for something that has solid evidence to the contrary, simply by including untrue premises. Evidence to the contrary is therefore irrelevant to determining the logical validity of an argument.
RAZD writes: It's just something that may be true if the premises are true (not invalidated). If the premises are not disproven, then the conclusion may be (tentatively considered) true. No, it may not, at least not on those ground alone. For instance: Premise 1: The IPU is invisible.Premise 2: The IPU is pink. Premise 3: The IPU is a unicorn. Premise 4: The IPU exists. Conclusion: An invisible, pink unicorn known as the IPU exists. This is a valid argument. It has no premises which are disproved. However, those elements are NOT enough to tentatively consider the conclusion true.
RAZD writes: Now - perhaps - we (including bluegenes) can discuss the topic, rather than rehash old battles that are off-topic here. Following the thread of logic, discussing the topic is impossible if you are going to insert untrue premises. A wildly incorrect view of logic makes any response you might offer on the topic pointless to discuss.
RAZD writes: ...just that you may consider it (tentatively) true, and thus that it is not unreasonable if someone does believe it. No, it is not reasonable to consider something true if a logically valid argument can be presented to prove it, and there is no contradictory evidence. If you don't understand this, it is no wonder you are a theist.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Ah, Phage0070, we have been over this.
Is this supposed to be an ad hominem ? I didn't realize that just being a theist was a bad thing. Or is it just a poor argument from consequences?
Poisoning the Well fallacy?
Congratulations on repeating the IPU fallacy ... again ... Those elements are not enough to say that you must consider the conclusion true, certainly, but they are also not anywhere near enough to tentatively or otherwise consider the conclusion false either. Amusingly, therefore, if someone wants to believe in the IPU, this shows that such a belief is not unreasonable.
Curiously, I am not the one that posted a self contradicting opinion about the validity of belief.
And interestingly, just because arguments with untrue premises can be valid, does not mean that that arguments with premises that have not been invalidated cannot be valid.
Intriguingly, what I said was: quote: ... and the definition provided in Message 103 shows that a conclusion is valid if (a) the form is properly constructed and (b) if the premises, taken as true in the argument, lead to the conclusion. This does not mean (I repeat) that the conclusion is proven , just that it is valid. A logically valid argument is one that may be (tentatively considered) true if the premises are not known to be false.
Again, YOU consider this statement true even though you have no evidence to prove it, it is just your opinion. Repeating your opinion does not prove it is true either. Curiously, the fact remains, that this statement means that this statement cannot itself be considered reasonable. Have fun with that. Now do you want to continue with the topic, or continue to wallow in mud slinging? Enjoy. Edited by RAZD, : end by our ability to understand R ebel A merican Z en D eist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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