God & the Fairy Tree

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Just don't tell Shraff that you poor deluded insane brain-washed comfort-seeker.

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Apparently we can't string a sentence together without our religion having preached it to us.

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You know, it is a sign that one has a weak argument when one has to resort to gross negative exaggerations of one's opponent's arguments.

Now, it all makes sense.

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In spite of all the bluster by theists, we have no way of knowing if there is a God or fairies or both. And in spite of all the bluster by atheists, we have no way of knowing that there isn't.

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That's why the most intellectually honest position is Agnosticism.

“People who admit the possibility of something” in this context is a description that fits agnostics, and many who are described as atheists, Richard Dawkins, for example.Parasomnium will correct me if I’m wrong, but my impression of the O.P. was that he was asking religious people to explain what appears to him to be an inconsistency in their attitude towards English garden fairies and their attitude towards the God that they firmly believe in. He was talking about people who believe in “X”. English garden fairies have specific attributes. They are very small (measured in inches rather than feet) supernatural flying entities with translucent wings, beautiful and generally benign, although mischievous at times. They can come with optional extras, of course, but that’s about the basic description.I cannot think off-hand of a religion which demands only the admission of a possible something. Parasomnium uses the word God, singular, and all the monotheistic religions demand faith in specific Gods with specific attributes.For example, in Christianity, the God is a creator of everything, has an interest in us and wants to be worshipped by us, particularly favours one middle-eastern tribe and sends his son amongst them by means of an immaculate conception, is omniscient and omnipresent, etc. To people of that particular faith, He is not just any possible something that might possibly be there, and I think it’s to such people that Parasomnium is really addressing his O.P. Specifically, the type who say things like: So I think that you’ve been slightly at odds with the O.P. in your discussion.In both cases, the English garden fairies and the Christian God, there’s no evidence that they are anything other than human inventions. There’s plenty of evidence that it’s a characteristic of our species to invent supernatural entities of many different kinds, and that we’re easily capable of believing in our own inventions. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a famous believer in the garden fairies of this magic isle in the early 20th century.But perhaps you won’t agree that there’s no evidence for a God of some kind, because of this: Did I miss a post in which you described this indirect evidence? If you didn’t, I’d be genuinely interested to know what it is.Incidentally, I think it’s important to distinguish between people who think there’s no evidence for the existence of supernatural entities, and those who claim to know that such things cannot possibly exist. I’m one of the formerPicking out any supernatural entity or entities with the characteristics of a human invention and having faith in it or them is what’s delusional. Conan Doyle fell for some fairy photos faked by two kids as a result of his latent desire for the supernatural. Admitting the possibility of “something”, as you put it, and speculating on that something (or things) isn’t delusional at all. I’m sure there are possibilities way beyond even our fertile imaginations.

Falsifiability is not an exact thing - we can always add extra entities to our hypothesis to save it from falsifiability. That is why we include the principle of parsimony in science. Something becomes unfalsifiable when no matter what evidence surfaces in the future, it can be consistent with the hypothesis.Fairies? If we get physical evidence of them: consistent with the fairy hypothesis. If we don't get physical evidence: this is consistent with the fairy hypothesis (because we might have added the extra entities: they have the property of shy/quick/flying/possibly invisible at will.).A hypothesis that has 'magic' in it somewhere will often come to the point where it cannot be falsified since any evidence that logically exist would be taken as further confirmation of the hypothesis regardless of the nature of that evidence. There might be something out there is a general possibility, not really a hypothesis. We see evidence that something is out there, so we start to build a hypothesis to describe that something. We might end up with a hypothesis that says that something is massive and should reflect light from the sun. That is easy to falsify: Simply find something. That might be practically difficult, of course, but that doesn't mean that the falsification is not trivial to see once finding something has taken place. It depends on how you view the world really. It all comes down to your opinions on parsimony. A building could have an invisible fairy pushing from the north, east, south and west with equal force but we'd never know. Since there is no way to detect these fairies, they are unfalsifiable. As they are unfalsifiable and unnecessary to explain why the building doesn't topple over - they are considered unparsimonious entities.Sure - if you are using a philosophy that gives equal value to entities whose framework means they don't need to leave any evidence than to those that leave evidence and subject themselves to falsifiable hypothesis...that is fine. However, that kind of philosophy shares many characteristics with the philosophy many children develop. It is a childlike philosophy, or - as the OP terms it 'immature'. This is because the philosophy allows for the imagination to be a guide to the world.

At the risk of invoking the wrath of Brennakimi, I'll restate my case.Picture some religious people with their children at the Fairy Tree. Let them be of the type that would say things like "if you don't feel the presence of God in your life, it's probably because you don't believe hard enough".Now they read the sign of the Fairy Tree. The adults smile at each other and have some fun with their kids, as the gardeners intended. Then I walk up to them, and ask them why they themselves don't believe the Fairy Tree story, like their children do. They say: "We all know that fairies don't exist, don't we?" "But," I respond, "the sign says that the reason we don't see them is because we have scared them off. Joking aside, isn't that reasonable?" They'll answer: "Of course not. If it was, you could prove anything."Maybe it's because they agree with the communis opinio, which is that fairies don't exist, that they conclude that something must be wrong with the reasoning, even if they are not as knowledgeable about logic and cannot name it as an ad hoc fallacy.But then they go somewhere and have a discussion about their faith and they commit the very fallacy they spotted at the Fairy Tree. I'm not making this up, it has happened to me. Not that I've met them at the Fairy Tree of course, but I have spoken to religious people who used this kind of argument to defend their faith. They were otherwise very sensible and intelligent people, whom I could reasonably expect to behave as I described above if confronted with the Fairy Tree.It's probably again the communis opinio, this time of a different community, that makes them oblivious to the mistake they make. Their belief is so unquestionable that it's somehow immune to the same kind of scrutiny they would otherwise employ to see through jokes like the Fairy Tree story, or more serious scams and deception based on the same abuse of logic.All I am wondering at is how this can be. I marvel at the apparent power that religious faith wields over some people that they lose their ability to reason well.Edited by Parasomnium, : No reason given.Edited by Parasomnium, : No reason given.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

[qs] That's why the most intellectually honest position is Agnosticism.
[\qs]LOL, yeah right! So are you agnostic about fairies and ipu's or is it ok to dismiss them as entities made up by people? I think the only intellectually honest position is, given the history of religions and their gods, is to be an atheist about all human religions and their gods.

If I told my children that there were(hidden) fairies at the tree, they would certainly say "Dad!.... theres no such thing as fairies". Now I could reason with them, however, I never personally believed fairies existed simply because we have never been presented with any fairy claims beyond children's books. If there would have been, then things would certainly be different. I don't know how intricate or meaningful the entire claim would be but the circumstances would change nonetheless. Very much so. We are all moving on the assumption that fairies are limited to children's fairy tales. We seem to be missing the part which explains how these people have committed a fallacy. As it has been demonstrated numerous times throughout this thread, not all beliefs are created equal. Are we still talking about fairies or a different belief? Regardless of the belief or faith, in order to accurately criticize and categorize the sanity of the belief, it is mandatory to evaluate each doctrine individually. If we apply a general model to all types of faith and beliefs, then we can never truly conclude anything. We will only be generalizing. Now we are getting somewheres, can you explain in which areas the reasoning is lost? And does this apparent loss of reason apply to every type of faith or only to these person(s) or group?

That almost makes some sort of sense. Are we implying that people are dishonest if they believe in God?This logic is nothing more than common arrogance. The only way to gain authority over others beliefs is through a recognized counteractive process. What we are looking at here, are personal feelings presented as authoritative statements, no more no less. - aka. wishful thinking

In a way, yes, they are being dishonest to themselves. But this is a common human trait as we all delude ourselves about something. It's not arrogant to point out that there is no verifiable evidence for gods nor fairies and that to believe in one but not the other really isn't rational. It's ok to believe in what you want without evidence, just don't expect me to respect such beliefs or take them seriously.Edited by kjsimons, : removed extraneous word

I strongly disagree. But then, that's another topic entirely, isn't it.

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

Now we have partially traveled down the road to rationality. People can only be dishonest if they willingly participate. Some people(many) are unknowingly lead to believe in something. Such as God. They are not entirely at fault and (dis)honesty may not be applicable. If they are educated on matters and willingly choose to continue on a path of ignorance then the term may be better suited.I am a big fan of rationality! If only we used more rationality and less throw away logic, the world could become a better place.The final part of your statement is perhaps the most logical and functional statement I have read in this thread to date(I may have missed some). - This is the single most effective method of dealing with social indifference.

Maybe I should explain what the ad hoc fallacy is about. The Latin phrase "ad hoc" means "for this purpose". You commit the ad hoc fallacy if you use makeshift explanations for problems that occur when testing a theory. In the case of the Fairy Tree, the theory is that it contains fairies. But when a child scans the tree and sees no fairies, it notes that there is a problem with the theory.An ad hoc explanation for this problem could be: "If you see no fairies, it's because... because erm... oh, it's probably because you have scared them away. Yes, that must be it." (I have embellished the previous sentence to emphasize the ad hoc character of the explanation.)The "religious" fallacy you "seem to be missing" is right there at the top of my restatement post: Here, the theory is that if I believe what they believe, I will feel the presence of God in my life. When I tell them that I don't feel his presence, the might say: "it's because... because erm... oh, it's probably because you don't believe hard enough. Yes, that must be it." (The embellished version.)If I then come back with: "But I pray three times a day and believe with all my heart...", they might say: "Rrrright... then it's probably because... let me see..., it's because... you lead a sinful life. Yes, definitely." It's obvious that they are making things up as they go. That's what the ad hoc fallacy is: making things up on the fly to save your theory.My problem is that they spot it themselves in the Fairy Tree case, (a splinter in someone else's eye, you might say), but they fail to recognize it in their own story (the mote in their own). Why? Does religion make you blind?Does that clear things up?

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

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So are you agnostic about fairies and ipu's or is it ok to dismiss them as entities made up by people?

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I can't say, with 100% surety, that fairies or gods do not exist.It is impossible to know anything with 100% surety, since nobody is omnicient.

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I think the only intellectually honest position is, given the history of religions and their gods, is to be an atheist about all human religions and their gods.

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That would only be true if you hold all knowledge.Do you?

Yes it certainly does, in a case such as this it looks like we are definitely dealing with a little B&S. - My take on this is simple, beware of those who blame you for God's lack of. If God does indeed exist as advertised, then we have no need for games or excuses. Anyone trying to imply otherwise is most likely compensating.Having said this, I am not certain that someone molesting children for example, would receive a sympathetic ear either.Your example raises some interesting questions though. Isn't there a well documented format to receive answers from God? - As far as I can tell, if we play by the rules, then the promise of divine intervention stands. If memory serves me right there is a passage in the scriptures which urges people to put God to the test. My recommendation would be to take the initiative, do the research and find out what is required and make the call. If... after all is said and done you receive no response then you could rest easy knowing you have taken the initiative on your conclusion.