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Junior Member (Idle past 3497 days) Posts: 28 From: Australia Joined: |
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Author | Topic: I don't believe in God, I believe in Gravity | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
In that message you listed a bunch of stuff that can be tested scientifically and spouted some obviously erroneous nonsense about how "the scientific method is totally useless and worthless" when it comes to investigating how peoples and cultures are formed. The question was whether or not the stories in the Bible helped to create a culture. You could ask if British imperialism helped or hurt aboriginal australian art. That's not something you could investigate scientifically.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
If one wants to believe things that are likely to be true Do you think it is likely to be true that British imperialism was helpful in improving aboriginal australian art? Could you use the scientific method to determine that? How would you determine it?
how does one decide which parts of the bible are helpful and which are a hindrance? Figure out what you mean by helpful, find a way to determine if something is helpful or not, look at a part of the bible, use that way to see if it helpful.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Straggler writes:
If one wants to believe things that are likely to be true how does one decide which parts of the bible are helpful and which are a hindrance?CS writes: Figure out what you mean by helpful, find a way to determine if something is helpful or not, look at a part of the bible, use that way to see if it helpful. You have taken the same route as jar and abandoned the "likely to be true" stipulation. Well no, you would have found if it is likely to be true that the particular part of the Bible is helpful.
Belief in biblical stories may well be "helpful" in the sense it invokes feelings of comfort or whatever. But so what? You can use science to determine if the stories were true, like how we know there wasn't a Flud.
Well I certainly think looking for empirical evidence of British Imperial influence on Aboriginal art would have to be starting point for even considering such a question. Far more helpful than seeking divine revelation for example. Looking for empirical evidence for the part of the Bible helping you would also be better. I don't think I'm getting your point.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
You seem to be suggesting that theological claims can be assessed empirically much like theories of gravity can. Well that would depend on the claim, wouldn't it?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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Straggler writes:
You seem to be suggesting that theological claims can be assessed empirically much like theories of gravity can.CS writes: Well that would depend on the claim, wouldn't it? If you say so.... What's the alternative? That whether or not the claim can be assessed is independent of the claim, itself? Are you just defining theological claims into being unable to be assessed empirically? Is the all just one big tautology? Well here's one claim: God flooded the planet 4500 years ago. We can test that empirically and it turns out to be wrong. Here's another one: Following Jesus' teachings throughout your life will make it fulfilling. We can't really test that empirically. But you can come to a likelihood of that being true or not.
If we want to test the veracity of a theistic claim using these non-empirical methods you allude to how do we do that? Define the claim. Determine an output. Measure it. Analyze it against what was defined. Figure out if the claim was right. How do I follow Jesus' teachings? How do I know if my life is fulfilling? Did following the teachings have an impact on my fulfillment? Was the claim likely to be true or not?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Given the rest of your post, that's quite an ironic question. How so?
Subjective notions of whether one feels fulfilled (whether fulfilment be attributed to reading the bible, eating a chocolate bar, praying to Zeus, buying a fast car or anything else one can cite as leading to fulfilment) obviously aren't going tyo be subjected to any assessment of veracity beyond what one has already internally decided in one's own mind. Well no. A devout Christian could life their life according to Jesus' teachings and then figure out: "Well this isn't fulfilling at all. That theological claim was wrong. And since I want to believe things that are likely to be true, I no longer believe that following Jesus' teaching will make my life fulfilling. I suppose I'll rethink this whole Christian thing." They tested the claim against what they experienced and determined the likelihood of the claim being true.
However the statement "I don't believe in God, I believe in Gravity" isn't talking about things which exist only as one's internal state of mind are they? I don't see how that has anything to do with this. FWIW, my belief in God isn't anything like my belief in gravity. I know that gravity exists. I think there is a God.
If these non-empirical methods you speak of are limited to internal states of mind then what relevance do they have to either God or gravity? I don't think they're limited to internal states of mind.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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I'm not following you and I don't see that you have a point.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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You also asked:
quote: That is what I answered. But now you've moved the goalpost to:
Are these non-empirical methods you allude to relevant to theological claims (i.e. claims pertaining to God) or are they only relevant to internal states of mind (e.g. feeling happy, fulfilled etc.)? So you are just creating a convoluted tautology. How can I give you an example of something that can be tested and that is external to the mind but is also non-empirical?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
The parts of the Bible that make empirical claims can be tested using the scientific method. The claims in the Bible that can be scientifically tested are going to be empirical claims.
The parts of the Bible that make non-empirical claims are not going to be able to be tested using the scientific method. The claims in the Bible that cannot be scientifically tested are going to be non-empirical claims. You asked how the latter can be tested at all and I explained how. Now you're saying that they are not comparable to the former. Well.... duh.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
If these non-empirical methods you speak of are entirely useless with regard to things external to one's own mind then they continue to have no real relevance to examining the statement " I don't believe in God, I believe in Gravity" because both God and gravity are being put forward as things extant to human minds. That's fine. I chimed in to explain to you how you could test some of the non-empirical claims to figure out if they're likely to be true or not.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
CS writes:
And instead you ended up talking about things like 'personal fulfilment' which don't require any testing beyond one's own wholly internal subjective feelings as to whether one feels fulfilled or not. I chimed in to explain to you how you could test some of the non-empirical claims to figure out if they're likely to be true or not. Oh I'm sorry, I thought when you were talking non-empirical things that you were talking about things that were, you know, not empirical.
All experiences, whether empirical or not, involve the brain. Total nitpick, but experiencing the patellar reflex doesn't involve the brain.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
CS writes:
The mechanism of the elicited patellar refelex doesn't involve the brain; the experience of an elicited patellar reflex certainly does.
Total nitpick, but experiencing the patellar reflex doesn't involve the brain. That is a nitpick; yours was merely an error. Just sayin'.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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If belief rested on evidence, it wouldn't be belief, it would be fact. That's why people think its silly to conflate the two and say that you "believe" in gravity. My "belief" in gravity isn't like my belief in God. I know that gravity exists. I think there is a God.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
In principle, the supernatural could be witnessed by a scientific approach, but scientific explanations are supposed to be natural.
RationalWiki writes:
Methodological naturalism is the label for the required assumption of philosophical naturalism when working with the scientific method. Methodological naturalists limit their scientific research to the study of natural causes, because any attempts to define causal relationships with the supernatural are never fruitful, and result in the creation of scientific "dead ends" and God of the gaps-type hypotheses. To avoid these traps scientists assume that all causes are empirical and naturalistic; which means they can be measured, quantified and studied methodically.
source
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