Immaterial "Evidence"

Your worldview is a tautology. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

So if I see a bird in the woods and it flys away then I have to disbelieve that I saw it because I can't repeat it... that's retarded. Regardless, we're left with the claim that she wrote it down the night before and new she was going to win. Tautological. Not necessarily.If I see a bird one time then I think I can believe that I saw it. And in practical purpose, this is exactly how people behave. Nobody denies everything until its repeated and verified. that's not my logic... I'll acknowledge it when you show me it.

we're cross posting now because you edited while I was replying. I'm getting ready to run out the door so I'll just wait for you to reply to my other reply and then I'll combine them into one next time I get on.

Of course.Now, what about Mountain Lions in Missouri?: Message 9It all about where you put those levels of acceptance.Perdition seems to be going the "scientific only" route, which Straggler seemed to start with but has slowly allowed a little bit of leeway. I'm a bit farther to the accepting side, myself.I don't think we can say that one specific placement of that line is THE rational one.

Now, when the question is asked: "Did he do it?" (not 'can we convict him')What is your answer? Yes, no, or I don't know? Even with this extra evidence, when the question is asked: "Did he do it?"What is your answer? Yes, no, or I don't know? Nope. And I don't know that god exists, but I think that he does. Not convicting, but it could make me think that he did do it.

One flaw is in the assumption that because we cannot distinguish something from a guess then it is equivalent to a guess.

And I disagree with that notion.If the confidence comes from my directly experiencing it, then my inability to repeat the experience to determine its accuracy doesn't necessitate that I abandon that direct experience. I dunno. If that were true, then it wouldn't be claimed that atheism is the rational choice over agnosticism. And I think that's wrong.If I see something once, I can have rational confidence that I did see it even though I cannot demonstrate the accuracy to be better than random guessing.And to say that because I cannot demonstrate it, then it isn't evidence is to go the route that only things scientific are evidence.

When one of the concepts is a made-up satire, like the IPU, you can rationally doubt that it is as accurate as a legitimately believed divine concept.

I don't even know what you're talking about anymore. Now that you've both italicized and bolded the word 'degree' and turned agnosticism into the flip of a coin, I don't think we're talking about the same thing, or maybe we are more than we think.When you limit athesim to being just a degree of it qualified with a likelyhood, then I don't think we talking about the position that god does not exist... it basically becomes agnosticim in the sense of: "I don't know but I doubt it." This still falls into the agnosticism that I think is more rational and logical than the atheism that claims that god does not exist. And I don't think that agnosticism has to be a 50-50 thing either. In addition to including the "I don't know but I doubt it" it also includes "I don't know but probably." So really, when you say that:'a degree of "human invention is the most likely explanation" atheism IS justified over "It's 50-50 I just don't know" agnosticism'then actually I agree. But its a strawman of my position.In my position atheism answers the question "Does god exits?" with "No." and agnosticism covers the non-no answers all the way up to the "yes" that makes the person theist. It is not just the 50-50 "teeter-tottering on the fence" position where as leaning any amount one way makes it either atheism or theism.In this sense, your position of "human invention is the most likely explanation" is justified over 50-50 agnosticism, but it remains agnosticism and it is more rational/logical than a blatant "no, god doesn't exist" atheism that I have been referring to.Does that clear it up?Now, this also places me, when limited to rational and logical explanations, as an agnostic as well. I don't know that god exists. But given all this "immaterial evidence", I'm leaning towards the 'he probably does' side of the fence. Its just that I'm comfortable being irrational and allowing for faith to let me cross that line into theism. But you seem to not want to allow for those reasons for me to lean to that side to count for anything and I think they should so there's a major disagreement.You, on the other hand, seem to want to remain rational/logical. I don't think you can rationally/logically get to the "no, god doesn't exist" atheism but I do think that your "I doubt it" atheism is justified, just that I don't think its properly called 'atheism'. Although, maybe in the sense that you don't believe that god does exist it is rightfully called atheism, but I don't think you've rationally crossed the line into active disbelief in god.You've used the fact that specific descriptions of god have been shown to be false to get a likelyhood for a god in general but I don't think it follows.

xkcd: The Search

No, not absolute certainty, but certainty yes. If you weren't certain then you'd be agnostic, no?Position 6 on the scale starts with "I don't know".From Message 34

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The key difference is that those of faith are necessarily 1s whilst those that call themselves atheists would more likely describe themselves as 6.999999999Rs as they would generally accept that absolute certainty about anything requires the sort of faith that they oppose!!

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6.99999R = 7.0 Its certainty that isn't absolute. Does god exist?Yes, no, or I don't know?Me? I don't know, but I think he does, so I'm gonna go with 'yes', ie #2If you say 'no', then you're an atheist. If you say 'I don't know but no', then while you're counting as a "degree" of atheism, you also count as agnostic. But its an uncertain degree of atheism that can just as rightly be called agnosticism, IMHO. And this is different from a 6.9999R.BTW, where is this demonstrated reliability?Using the objective evidence that countless cultures have independently found enough reason to believe in god(s), we could argue that it is more likely that there actually is god(s) than all of those cultures being completely mistaken, so the rational conclusion based on the objective evidence is a degree of theism over 50-50 agnosticism I don't know anybody whose a 50-50 agnostic as everyone has leaned one way or the other. And those leanings can be rationally justified either way. I think you're wrong that you're particular leaning is the one rational one. Since you're bringing up old shit, how about this one: Message 29

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I am "atheistic" about fairies living at the botttom of my garden.
This "atheism" towards fairies is based on the absence of evidence. Logically speaking should I be agnostic about fairies?
Would you say that you are agnostic about fairies?

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No, I don't think weighing a likelyhood and leaning slightly to one side is being certain of a position.And I don't think that weighing the likelyhood can lead to enough certainty to take an active position. You're still making the illogical leap from 'some gods being shown to be invented' to 'gods don't exist', if you're going to take that argument to certainty.

Well, I see this as a different position than: "Atheism (as opposed to agnosticism) is the only rational position when the objective evidence is evaluated". I had a whole thread on the definition of atheism: Message 1. I found this post to: Message 71 for more back story if you care to read it.I can appreciate that the meanings of words change and that my definition could be getting outdated. Yes, but I'm calling that agnosticism and it fits in with what I have been advocating the whole time. Then you're wrong that "thousands of proclamations on a particular subject has a 100% failure record", but that is not for this thread. I can accept that as a logical and rational answer to the question (although I could equally accept 'probably so' as well).It fits within the agnosticism that I have been claiming should be the position since the beginning.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

Mine too. Uhhh, I seem to get 'indignant', as you say, when you ignore what I've put my time into writing that I feel challenges your position just for you to repeat your same position back at me. You do seem zealously static at some times. I'm recalling two different poeple in those thread I linked to. One claimed to be an actual 7 and the other was arguing against allowing for a doubt of god's non-existance. They don't fit into my definition of agnostic. Cool, I'll remember that in the future If it doesn't show that the god doesn't exist, then how does it show that the god doesn't exist? That sounds like just a change in understanding, not really a "failure". And I think I'm missing how that gets transfered into there not being gods.Back in the day, people believed that gods we're behind all sorts of things. Lets use Apollo pulling the sun across the sky with his charriott. Now, we know that there is no charriott pulling the sun across the sky, so you're saying that that description of a god has failed. But that doesn't show that there aren't any gods behind all sorts of things. And proving specifically that he isn't using a charriott doesn't show that Apollo doesn't exist, or even that he isn't infuencing the sun, although we do know that he's not using a charriott to do it. There still exists the possibility that Apollo exists and influences the sun, but that the specific of him using a charriott was human invention.And I realize that's very godofthegapsy... (and I'm not trying to argue for the actual existence of Apollo)But I think that there are some fantastic things going on 'behind the scenes' of our existences and I've been lead to believe this by what I feel are very real glimpses of those things. I even think that some of the older religions were on the right track, although a lot of their specifics were off. And even for myself, I'm sure some of the specifics I add to those glimpses are faulty too. But I think across all cultures, we have been on to something real and actual.Now, what you're saying is that disproving those specifics also disproves the whole idea, or at least it allows you to assign a probability of the actuality of the idea. But I don't think it translates over like that. I think you've created a false dichotomy in assuming the mutual exclusiveness of the actual existence of god and people's invented specifics about him. Really, I am not effectively atheistic to them.However, a lot those ancient ideas on the specifics are obviously way off, and also people seem to ascribe magic to things they simply do not understand (thinking fire here), too some 'lesser' cultures sorta went off the deep end. Hell, people are just plain wrong about a lot of stuff, you're right there. But I think you're overstepping the bounds of where the actual evidence against it allows for. Sure, no problem. I don't dislike you or anything. I'd rather debate with people I don't agree with though. There's no fun in agreeing, and disagreement leads to much more learning. Yes.