Balancing Faith and Science

quote:

---

I filled in the gap in knowledge with my own personal subjective feelings and interpretations of those feelings to make a rational decision about the world we live in. That decision includes the existance of a god.

---

Subjective feelings are not rational, so one cannot make a rational descision on what to believe based uupon feelings.

So, explain how you prove a negative, then.

subjective ( P ) Pronunciation Key (sb-jktv)
adj.Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world: a subjective decision.
Particular to a given person; personal: subjective experience.
Moodily introspective.
Existing only in the mind; illusory.rational ( P ) Pronunciation Key (rsh-nl)
adj.
Having or exercising the ability to reason.
Of sound mind; sane.
Consistent with or based on reason; logical: rational behavior. See Synonyms at logical.Using these definitions, I don't see how that because something is subjective it cannot be rational.If something proceeds from, or takes place in, my mind while I am of sound mind, or have the ability to reason, then, according to these definitions, said thing (ie a belief in god) could be both subjective and rational.This message has been edited by Catholic Scientist, 07-07-2005 09:04 PM

Sure it is, ever hear of not guilty verdicts.

Let's study this and see what we make of it. I am going to copy it down:

Firstly it is widely accepted that evolution can produce a remarkable range of physical adaptions despite not being desiged to do so. That it could also produce mental adaptions is a reasonable inference and thus the question of whether the process is "designed" to produce a particular result is something of a red herring.Note also that Lewis does not even attempt to offer any explanation for the origin of reasoning capabilities. Any potential designer must posess reasoning capabilities, and if reasoning capabiities must be the result of design (even at one or more removes) we hit an infinite regress. The situation, then is already weighted in Lewis' behaviour since he avoids answering the larger question placing whatever explanation he has (if indeed he has one !) beyond criticism.The second paragraph is simply an arrgument from personal incredulity. However it would be equally valid - or rather equally invalid - to reject Lewis' idea of a creator on the same grounds. Thus Lewis' argument boils down to a purely subjective assessment. Moreover there is no sign that his subjective assessment of the possibility of reasoning capabilities evolving (despite the fact that they clearly are advantageous) is based on anything like an adequate assessment of the issue. Indeed there is no doubt that similar arguments could be made for any complex adaption - even if reasonable lines of evolutiuon are well-known to the experts they could be hard, indeed, for the uninformed layman - like Lewis - to explain (the evolution of the human eye is a common example). Thus Lewis' argument against an evolutionary explanation carries little weight.Thus what Lewis' argument comes down to is no more than his personal bias in favour of a belief in God. He presents no positive argument other than God's (assumed) capability and willingness to produce the result we see. Yet that is precisely what he must do - even if his argument against evolution were valid it still relies on the assumption that that there are no other alternatives to God - an assumption which is certainly questionable and would be very difficult to justify.

A legal verdict is not the same as logical proof. It isn't even the same as legal proof. A court case can have no proof, but still a verdict.What is meant by "it is impossible to prove a negative" is that it is logically impossible to prove absolutely that something does not exist or is not the case.

---

We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

So then is it impossible to prove a positive?

A legal verdict is a finding of fact. one can never be sure there are no ghosts under the bed.

quote:

---

Using these definitions, I don't see how that because something is subjective it cannot be rational.

​

If something proceeds from, or takes place in, my mind while I am of sound mind, or have the ability to reason, then, according to these definitions, said thing (ie a belief in god) could be both subjective and rational.

---

I'll remind you that part of the definition of "subjective" you provided was "Existing only in the mind; illusory".I'll also mention that a key part of rational descisions is the use of logic, and your God of the Gaps logic is poor logical reasoning.

quote:

---

Sure it is, ever hear of not guilty verdicts.

---

Notice how they are called not guilty verdicts rather than innocent verdicts.So, please walk us through the logical proof of a negative, please.

quote:

---

So then is it impossible to prove a positive?

---

No.

quote:

---

A legal verdict is a finding of fact.

---

No, it isn't.There is a lot of squishy language in the law like "preponderance of evidence", and "reasonable doubt", etc.For example, the OJ Simpson criminal trial returned a verdict of not guilty. Does that mean we can all be 100% sure that he didn't kill Nicole Brown?

quote:

---

one can never be sure there are no ghosts under the bed.

---

Exactly.We are not onmicient, we do not have all knowledge, so we cannot know that there are no ghosts under the bed.We do not have any evidence for there being ghosts under the bed, but that could be just because we cannot ever detect them, or perhaps have not developed the technology to detect them yet.

Of course not. You need only produce one tangible example of an invisible (hence 'tangible') pink unicorn to logically prove that an invisible pink unicorn exists.But if it does not exist, there's nothing you can do to prove it. You can't produce the evidence, because something that doesn't exist usually doesn't leave much evidence.

---

We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

What beliefs of mine are irrational? Where I said we should all 'play nice'? That's not irrational, it's from experience, here in the real world. Things that are not here in the real world, like gods, do not exist for me until someone can produce evidence of such things.