God & the Fairy Tree

There are STILL people who believe in the Fae and the Sidhe. They are believed in exactly the same way gods are believed in.

So you're saying that faith in god is based on an appeal to popularity fallacy.Sounds good to me.But it's not just about a joke vs belief in gods. This thread touches on why, if an individual is going to have blind faith in a supernatural entity for which there is no objective evidence, they choose a singular entity (ie the Christian god) and not any other supernatural entity for which there is an equal amount of evidence, and, in some cases, even an equivalent number of followers. I'm talking specifically about an ideas merits, though. I completely acknowledge the fact that the majority of humanity neither recognizes nor cares about their own logical fallacies.The fact is, when weighed solely on the facts, faith of any sort in a specific supernatural entity is logically inconsistent if the believer does not ALSO believe in the existence of every other unfalsifiable supernatural entity.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

I've never heard of them, so I might take that belief to be a joke.But if the idea was popular enough, I wouldn't think it was a joke.

the very proposition of christian faith (if not others) is that there are seen and measurable facts which demonstrate the thing which is believed. as such, it appears that the textbook definition of 'faith' is not necessarily an accurate depiction of what religious faith is. the one you quote isn't even really an accurate definition of how we use faith in our ordinary lives. we have faith in people because they have previously demonstrated their competence. this translates into expectations of future performance. this is the precise definition that christianity provides for faith in their god: that he has previously kept his promises and performed great tasks and will continue to do so. regardless of the veracity or demonstrability of these tasks, they are supposed to have occurred and thus that god would continue to behave in the expected fashion. this is not the vacuous, hopeless delusion you describe. generally.

I think you're exaggerating the whole "properties" thing. You're making up a straw-god and straw-fairies and claiming that they're unfalsifiable.We're not talking about the properties of gods and fairies, planets and electrons. We're talking about the concept.How were electrons falsifiable before there was any evidence of them? How were Neptune and Pluto falsifiable?We observed perturbations in the orbit of Uranus and inferred that "something" must be causing them - just as some people infer that "something" must have created the universe or converted their tooth into a quarter. Astronomers could infer the probable properties of an eight or ninth planet before it was observed - just as some people infer the properties of gods or fairies. Those inferences help us decide where to look, provided we have powerful enough telescopes/godoscopes. We don't know how accurate our inferences were until we can observe something real.I'm just not seeing how your position is so different from the godists or the fairyists. All of you are choosing what you think is the most likely geography between you and Asia - continent, island or emptiness.

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This is basically the same argument as the 'All Christians Are Atheists Concerning Zeus' ploy. Forget about the excuses for not seeing fairies or not feeling God's presence. What you need to know is 'why do people believe in gods and not fairies?' We take the sign as a joke because it is not common to believe in fairies, that's all. As a people in general, we are convinced, we 'know' there are no fairies, while we are in large part still comfortable with the idea of gods. Blame it on culture...we grew out of fairies and leprechauns, satyrs and ogres and giants. We moved on to the completely unseen, the supernatural and extraterrestrial. If you are a total skeptic, this would be a natural progression. As we learned more about the world we were able to laugh at the idea of sneaky imps and such but we still didn't have all the answers.I can't tell you why we don't believe in fairies, as you know we can and will believe anything, and you probably sucked it right in as a child with the tooth fairy and Santa. Later, it probably wasn't hard to convince you they were fake, and you may have even figured it out yourself.So how come we haven't figured out there is no God? I suppose you have, and I suppose the rest of us still 'feel' that there is something more. I know I always have, and I am unsure about what form It takes or what It is outside of my imagination, but I certainly feel that there is more.I do believe that you can tap into some higher feelings, whether they are initiated by God or by one's own consciousness, and I wouldn't hesitate to tell people to meditate or spend quiet time to see what they find. I feel it is vital for humans to collect their thoughts, and I know I have 'recieved' much inspiration from analyzing myself and praying. Can't prove it's God, of course, but as long as feelings ARE being produced FROM spiritual endeavors, the belief in the existance of the supernatural will continue. It just so happens that we no longer believe the Supernatural has tiny glittering wings, and that is the result of the collective imagination of the world and centuries of transition.There have always been Marthas and Marys, and I know that some of us are just born to be the practical type, but I have an innate distrust of those who are afraid to listen to their own thoughts. I am not going to laugh at someone who says 'you haven't heard God speaking to you' because they are simply relating their experience with spirituality through the accepted terminology of the time. However, I am skeptical of the folks who think 'God's voice' is money, success, perfect children, answers to all your prayers.

Uncut diamonds and broken tempered glass have the same face value. Why is one worthless and the other priceless?The answer to the question is quite obvious.

That's just not true. ALL supernatural entities have supposed characteristics and histories that can make some or all appear false to the observer.There is also the prevailing idea which I subscribe to, that ALL entities are people's versions of ONE entity. That can not be proven, but it eliminates the need for competition entirely. I can quite contentedly tell you that I believe something exists, and I am capable of finding which version most fits my ideas of what that Something is.

Precisely. Expectations (=speculations) of future performance.We can only expect because we can have no facts about future human performance or divine performance.

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You cannot separate the "concept" of an electron from its defining properties...unless you mean a more generalized term like "some smaller building block of the stuff we actually see."How am I exaggerating, exactly? Please, explain how I have falsely represented faith in a god or fairies or anything else. If a person says they believe in X, X has basic attributes that distinguish it from the word "something." The Christian God, for example, is commonly referred to as all-powerful, all-knowing, and benevolent, and is supposed to be the creator of the universe. And he doesn't like to leave direct evidence of himself. Fairies (in the context of this thread) are supposed to be skittish little winged humanoids who conveniently fly away whenever you try to see them. Both of these supernatural entities are unfalsifiable, and have no evidence to lead to them. The inferences regarding electrons and planets were based upon actual evidence. Belief in supernatural entities is based on nothing objective whatsoever. It can easily be demonstrated that inferring that an intelligent supernatural entity created the universe is unnecessary, not founded on evidence, and based entirely on blind faith. One may as well point to a rock and say "an intelligent person made that rock, because it exists." Once again, continents, planets, and subatomic particles have actually been observed, and there was indirect evidence that led to their discovery. Saying there may be an additional continent when the entire world has not been explored is reasonable. Saying that there may be an as-yet unobserved supernatural giant troll living under the Sacramento bridge despite the fact that no one has ever seen it, and no indirect evidence of its existence has ever been seen to suggest there may be something there other than that the bridge does exist, is irrational and delusional.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Yeah, that's identical to what I'm saying I was saying that an appeal to popularity fallacy is why one is oviously a joke and not the other. We already covered that.They choose a singular enrity because they "have some event or perspective in their personal, subjective experience that they hold as evidence". Nah, not if they don't "have some event or perspective in their personal, subjective experience that they hold as evidence". Then its not the same thing anymore.So there you have your difference.

Exactly.Your idea of what Something is.In other words, you're defining it yourself, not basing anything on objective fact.Once again - to a believer, the subjective personal experiences are counted as fact. The unbeliever, the outside observer, sees that the pattern of faith is identical to the pattern of delusion and rationalization. The patterns of belief in fairies and god and Santa are all identical.The difference is primarily in the popularity of the delusion, much like cults - once they have enough public support, we call them "religions."It's a fundamental difference in the way the world is approached.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

...except to the outside observer, who has no existing faith, and does not count an individual's subjective experiences as evidence. To him, there is no difference.This is the impasse I've been talking about. Based on the merits of the arguments alone, there is no difference. For someone who already has faith in a particular supernatural entity, there is.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Bingo. That's what I've been saying.

But that's wrong because the sign is obviously a joke, while theism is not. There IS a difference, even to him.The difference was even assumed in the OP. The question is WHY is there a difference.Why do you think that fairy-ism is obviously a joke and theism is not? THAT, I can agree with.The "joke-ness" of the claim is not based on the merits of the arguments alone though, even to the outside observer. The popularity of the idea also comes into play, as I have been saying and is exemplified in the OP.