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Author Topic:   Identifying false religions.
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 121 of 479 (567033)
06-29-2010 11:38 AM
Reply to: Message 119 by RAZD
06-29-2010 7:05 AM


Re: Another opportunity?
Hi RAZD,
The truly rational position, of course is that we don't know, we can't know because we don't have enough information to know, and therefore cannot decide the truth or falseness of the notion/s ... and thus any decision made must necessarily be opinion, and must be held as a tentative possibility at best.
Assuming an actual vacuum of evidence (while I don't think any such thing exists, I can debate a hypothetical...), what reason could you have for pulling one or even several ceonceivable hypotheses and estimating their probability to be higher than any other conceivable hypothesis?
Let me illustrate with an analogy. I promise, no unicorns.
Many people suggest that a murder has occurred. However, there is no evidence of a murder to be found - no bloody knife, no discharged firearm, no body, no signs of a struggle, etc. Assume that we have some hundreds of thousands of people without solid alibis; the hypotheses that each (or several) could have committed the murder have not been falsified.
Is it then down to personal opinion to even suggest the possible identity of the murderer? Perhaps John Baker once ran over your dog, and you really don't like him - is it rational due to your personal feelings that you should consider John to be the most likely murderer?
When you say "I believe..." you are actually saying "I estimate this particular hypothesis to have a higher probability of accuracy than all competing hypotheses; I think this one is the most likely." How is it possible to claim rationality or even logical consistency when estimating one possible hypothesis to be more likely than other competing hypotheses in a dearth of evidence?
Let's try another exercise. I have a 6-sided die. It is conceivable that any side could come up on top when the die is rolled, and no possible result is falsified. Is it rational to say, "I think that the die will most likely come up as 6; I believe 6 will be the result"? If all of the hypotheses are equally possible, are all logically consistent, none have been falsified, and there is no evidence to differentiate one from the other, is it rational to estimate one possible result as more likely?
If an actual probability analysis shows that all of the competing hypotheses are equally probable (regardless of how likely or unlikely they are), what reason do you have for then inflating the probability of one of those equally likely hypotheses in your own mind?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 119 by RAZD, posted 06-29-2010 7:05 AM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 122 by Straggler, posted 06-29-2010 7:48 PM Rahvin has replied
 Message 125 by RAZD, posted 06-29-2010 9:28 PM Rahvin has replied

Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


(1)
Message 122 of 479 (567155)
06-29-2010 7:48 PM
Reply to: Message 121 by Rahvin
06-29-2010 11:38 AM


Re: Another opportunity?
I promise, no unicorns.
Awwwwww!!!
If an actual probability analysis shows that all of the competing hypotheses are equally probable (regardless of how likely or unlikely they are), what reason do you have for then inflating the probability of one of those equally likely hypotheses in your own mind?
There are an infinite number of possible wholly unevidenced god concepts. Even if we accept that one is definitely correct (quite an asumption!!!) the probability that any given concept advocated by any given believer is correct is astronomically small to the point of irrelevant.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 121 by Rahvin, posted 06-29-2010 11:38 AM Rahvin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 124 by Rahvin, posted 06-29-2010 8:20 PM Straggler has not replied

Peg
Member (Idle past 4929 days)
Posts: 2703
From: melbourne, australia
Joined: 11-22-2008


Message 123 of 479 (567159)
06-29-2010 8:15 PM
Reply to: Message 77 by killinghurts
06-21-2010 9:04 PM


killinghurts writes:
I'll assume there's some non-literal translation you are trying to convey with that passage, as it is merely a story about a man who makes a cooking fire and uses the left over wood to make a carved image of god to worship (which is, apparently a bad thing according to the Bible and should be punishable by death).
So back to my original question, how does this allow us to determine if a religion is invented by man?
if you cant work it out from that scripture then i can't help you.
But i still love you!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 77 by killinghurts, posted 06-21-2010 9:04 PM killinghurts has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(1)
Message 124 of 479 (567160)
06-29-2010 8:20 PM
Reply to: Message 122 by Straggler
06-29-2010 7:48 PM


Re: Another opportunity?
There are an infinite number of possible wholly unevidenced god concepts. Even if we accept that one is definitely correct (quite an asumption!!!) the probability that any given concept advocated by any given believer is correct is astronomically small to the point of irrelevant.
I agree, but that doesn;t even matter.
If I roll 20-sided dice, each possible result has a 5% chance - far more than once chance in an infinite set. It would be irrational in the extreme to say "the dice will come up as a 7, because I like 7." The chance that it will be 7 is exactly the same that it will be 8, or 12, or 20.
The irrationality doesn;t simply lie in choosing an extremely unlikely possibility. If there were a 6% chance that the die would land as a 7, then choosing 7 over 8 or 12 would be rational because it would be more likely than the other results, even if it's still a small chance.
The irrationality lies in saying that 7 is more likely even though the actual probability that 7 will be the result is identical to the other possibilities.
RAZD's irrationality doesn't necessarily lie in believing that an unlikely possibility is the most likely (though that's still a far cry from confidently saying that the unlikely possibility is likely to reflect reality...).
Hi irrationality lies in selecting one of many equally probable or improbable possibilities and saying "this one is more likely because it's personally preferable to me."
Just like with my previous analogy: who is the murderer, when you have zero evidence? If we have several hundred thousand individuals who have not been falsified, but no evidence of a murder, is it rational to say "I think it's likely that Jimmy did it," when there is an equal chance that any of them could be the murderer?
Of course, the probability is still greater that the murder never happened (and absence of evidence can only ever be evidence of absence even if it's not proof, else the absence of a dragon in my garage is evidence that there is a dragon in my garage, an obvious logical absurdity)...

This message is a reply to:
 Message 122 by Straggler, posted 06-29-2010 7:48 PM Straggler has not replied

RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 125 of 479 (567171)
06-29-2010 9:28 PM
Reply to: Message 121 by Rahvin
06-29-2010 11:38 AM


Almost there - now apply it to the topic ...
Hi Rahvin,
Well you're closer than Straggler ever got, now let's complete the thought.
Is it then down to personal opinion to even suggest the possible identity of the murderer?
You will note that I did not say that you must make a decision (and in fact many times have asked why some people seem to need to make a decision even when there is insufficient evidence), just that if you do that then you need to accept that it is an opinion based on belief and worldview, and not on evidence. Certainly, in a case of murder I would argue that a decision not be made unless there were sufficient evidence.
Assuming an actual vacuum of evidence (while I don't think any such thing exists, I can debate a hypothetical...), what reason could you have for pulling one or even several ceonceivable hypotheses and estimating their probability to be higher than any other conceivable hypothesis?
Which is why an agnostic position -- that we don't know is the logical rational conclusion ... as I have said many times.
Many people suggest that a murder has occurred. However, there is no evidence of a murder to be found - no bloody knife, no discharged firearm, no body, no signs of a struggle, etc. Assume that we have some hundreds of thousands of people without solid alibis; the hypotheses that each (or several) could have committed the murder have not been falsified.
Again, if you don't have sufficient evidence to form a logical conclusion, then the logical answer is that we don't know, we can't know, because we don't have the evidence to know.
Let's try another exercise. I have a 6-sided die. It is conceivable that any side could come up on top when the die is rolled, and no possible result is falsified. Is it rational to say, "I think that the die will most likely come up as 6; I believe 6 will be the result"? If all of the hypotheses are equally possible, are all logically consistent, none have been falsified, and there is no evidence to differentiate one from the other, is it rational to estimate one possible result as more likely?
And again, the logical conclusion, the rational position, is that you don't know, you can't know, because you don't have the evidence to know.
When you say "I believe..." you are actually saying "I estimate this particular hypothesis to have a higher probability of accuracy than all competing hypotheses; I think this one is the most likely." How is it possible to claim rationality or even logical consistency when estimating one possible hypothesis to be more likely than other competing hypotheses in a dearth of evidence?
Now explain this point to Straggler and bluegenes, and anyone else that believes that there is a higher likelihood that the atheist position is true.
As I have said before, the logical position is agnostic: that we don't know, that we can't know, because we don't have enough evidence to know.
Message 124: The irrationality lies in saying that 7 is more likely even though the actual probability that 7 will be the result is identical to the other possibilities.
RAZD's irrationality doesn't necessarily lie in believing that an unlikely possibility is the most likely (though that's still a far cry from confidently saying that the unlikely possibility is likely to reflect reality...).
Hi irrationality lies in selecting one of many equally probable or improbable possibilities and saying "this one is more likely because it's personally preferable to me."
So then it is a good thing - in your opinion - that I don't actually do that, yes? Perhaps you should restrict your claims about what I say to actual quotes, rather than make stuff up.
If I roll 20-sided dice, each possible result has a 5% chance - far more than once chance in an infinite set. It would be irrational in the extreme to say "the dice will come up as a 7, because I like 7." The chance that it will be 7 is exactly the same that it will be 8, or 12, or 20.
But you can say that one of the numbers will come up, yes? The probability of winning a lottery is small, but the probability that a lottery will be won is high.
...
...
Well, now that we have covered this topic once again, so everyone can have had their say and make their pet pronouncements of what they believe is true, perhaps we can get on with the topic:
If an actual probability analysis shows that all of the competing hypotheses are equally probable (regardless of how likely or unlikely they are), what reason do you have for then inflating the probability of one of those equally likely hypotheses in your own mind?
Does this argument provide you with a test to determine whether or not a specific religion is false?
It seems to me, curiously, that all you have is, that it would be your opinion (based on your own argument of not having evidence one way or the other), that it is probable that the (fill in this blank with your favorite) religion is false because it is one of many.
Somehow that is not much of a test, would you not agree?
Enjoy.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
R ebel A merican Z en D eist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


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This message is a reply to:
 Message 121 by Rahvin, posted 06-29-2010 11:38 AM Rahvin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 126 by bluegenes, posted 06-29-2010 10:21 PM RAZD has replied
 Message 129 by Straggler, posted 06-30-2010 2:50 PM RAZD has replied
 Message 130 by Rahvin, posted 06-30-2010 6:38 PM RAZD has replied

bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(2)
Message 126 of 479 (567175)
06-29-2010 10:21 PM
Reply to: Message 125 by RAZD
06-29-2010 9:28 PM


Re: Almost there - now apply it to the topic ...
RAZD writes:
Now explain this point to Straggler and bluegenes, and anyone else that believes that there is a higher likelihood that the atheist position is true.
Let me introduce you to the concept of the random hypothesis.
Cosmologists tell us there is dark matter in the universe. Assuming they're correct, we don't know what that dark matter is at present. So, it is reasonable to be agnostic on the question of what it is.
Hypothesis: Dark matter is composed of quadrillions of small dark demons who have manifested themselves in the universe.
That is a random explanatory hypothesis of dark matter. It is random because it is completely baseless, and has no scrap of positive evidence to support it.
Like all such hypotheses, it is very unlikely to be true, as it would only be so by sheer chance.
We do not have an explanation of the universe, what it ultimately is and, if it wasn't always there in some state, how it came to be. So, it is very reasonable to be agnostic on the questions "what is the universe and why is it there?".
Hypothesis: A god did it.
That is a random explanatory hypothesis of the universe. It is random because it is completely baseless, and has no scrap of positive evidence to support it.
Atheists are people who see no reason to believe in that particular random hypothesis, just as they would think the "dark demons" hypothesis very unlikely.
Do you see the difference between being agnostic about what the universe is and why it is there, and not believing in one particular random hypothesis put forward to explain it? Millions of such baseless hypotheses can be made.
The "atheist position", as you put it has no explanation for the universe.
This atheist would consider any particular baseless hypothesis purporting to explain the universe as very unlikely.
On the topic, any individual religion can be considered to be very unlikely to be true. They are all random baseless hypotheses about the world.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 125 by RAZD, posted 06-29-2010 9:28 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 133 by RAZD, posted 06-30-2010 9:00 PM bluegenes has replied

Pauline
Member (Idle past 3735 days)
Posts: 283
Joined: 07-07-2008


Message 127 of 479 (567183)
06-29-2010 11:42 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by Rahvin
06-22-2010 8:11 PM


Rahvin writes:
We're getting close to novel length No rush though, it's not like we're on a deadline.
Hi Rahvin,
Yeah, we're getting close to it becoming a more Christianity-specific discussion, I think. I'll tell you why in my post...
The main difference here is that, as you just stated, faith invovles making an effort to be more credulous regarding certain claims than any evidence actually supports.
No. That's not what I believe, and not what I intended to convey in my writing. Faith involves willing belief in certain claims without expecting any corroborating evidence that support said claims. Without is the key word. Faith is when I believe in a given claim or idea knowing that it might never be proved true by means that I can understand (ex: God's existence cannot be proven by empiricism) or is NOT provable by tangible means. Evidence does not even enter the question...when I'm making a conscious effort to believe claims in my religion. I treat religion differently because there is not much that is tangible about religion. It is not like science or history where one can effortlessly rely on empiricism. It is different. It has more to do with the heart than with the mind or eyes. Therefore, we deal in terms of faith and doubt...not in terms of fact vs fiction.
But the entire line of reasoning that includes faith is irrational and easily leads to false conclusions - and that fact should be obvious
That fact that faith is irrational is obvious to everybody- as you say, even me. I a not a worshiper of rationality and empiricism. This is exactly what I meant when I gave you the....remember the car-crashing demon illustration? People view the world differently and this greatly affects their conclusions. I believe that there is more than meets the eye. That our minds...and our numbers...and out research....and a lot out there can and does deceive us. If I defy all that "facts" tell me and choose to believe in a claim that is not factually valid (or invalid, for matters concerning faith), then so be it. This is just the way some people think. If my beliefs eventually are the source of harm to the society and myself, then I obviously must discard them. When you say "Faith could easily lead to false conclusions", it makes me think of Christians that would like to see homosexuals killed, or Christians who like to see people on death row hanged because they did something wrong. And I'm with you on that, that hate should not prevail BECAUSE of faith. However, Rahvin, that hardly is a blemish on the religion itself. People don't realize that Christianity does not call for hatred. Both the Christians who do hate, and the outsiders watching them hate. At the end of the day, the religion has to suffer all reproach.
Under the hypothesis that God answers prayers, one would predict a given prayer to be answered. Yet unanswered prayers are not seen as evidence against god - rather, they are seen as negative responses from god,a nd further evidence that he actually exists.
You're missing the point. After one subscribes to faith, one does NOT look for evidence to prove it. If answered/unanswered prayers count as evidence for/against the existence of God, then why do I even need to have faith in Him when I can just evaluate His existence while being a skeptic by weighing the answered against the unanswered prayers? Right? When a person has faith, that means irrespective of whether or not God answers prayers, he has taken a oath that he believes that God exists.
I was a theist. And theists are not a uniform group. I know how at least some of them think because I was exposed to them for many years, and used the same lines of reasoning myself.
Yes, you--like many other people, were looking for some kind of vindication of your faith. That is not how it works. For if it did, that would not be faith. For example, if we treat answered/unanswered prayers as evidence and count up the number of answered/unanswered prayers (bascially, perform an experiment) and based on the results, conclude whether or not God exists---then faith does not come into the picture at all. Science does. And such a ideology is a fact not a belief. What is faith is, is when we believe something irrespective of what thousand people tell us...or what our own eyes fail to tell us.
The existence of a god whose contingency rests on his answering prayers is the most retarded argument ever to come from a theist. I got a job--god answered my prayer, therefore he exists. Or vice versa. I did not get a job...don't be fooled into thinking such arguments are religion, Rahvin.
There is no difference. Agreeing with what the Bible says still requires attributing the observed event to divine providence. There is no actual difference between saying "God healed my daughter" because the Bible says god will take care of you and saying "God healed my daughter" because you personally believe that god will take care of you. A distinction that makes no differenceis not a distinction at all.
It makes no difference in terms of then rationality of the argument, that much I agree. Saying "God healed my leg because God says He meets physical needs" isn't more rational than "I think God healed my leg" I was just telling you that when Christians attribute events to divine intervention, then are doing it out of faith and respect....not of confusion or a love of saying "goddidit"
In either case, attributing such events to a deity does indeed involve faith, but there's another word for it: non sequitur. It's a compeltely unfounded logical leap, attributing causality when correlation hasn't even been established. Such applications of faith are not to be lauded - they;re logical fallacies, perfect examples of flawed thinking.
For you its called non-sequitur--a logical fallacy, for me its called faith-- the hope of discovering God. I don't care if science establishes a causality where there is correlation, because I already have faith that there IS causality irrespective of what 200,000 people tell me.
If I deal with tangible, observable things in terms of faith and doubt, call me a fool. I reserve such things only for religion.
Let me ask you this question Rahvin.
Assume for arguments' sake that ALL religions' deities 1. empirically, 2. scientifically, 3. repeatedly, and 4. independently have been physically observed by the world. so much so that if you wanted, you could take your car to Buddha's house and I to Thor's house and have coffee with them. Every single one of them claims to be god. Who would you believe, Rahvin?
The existence of a deity is not contingent on anything. However, a prayer-answering deity should in fact answer prayers, else it's not actually a prayer-answering deity. If prayers are in fact answered with a statistically significant margin over a double-blind control group, that would be evidence supporting the hypothesis of a prayer-answering deity (and a few other hypotheses that don't necessarily involve deities, but it would at least establish a correlation between prayer and the prayed-for event happening; the next step would be to control for the specific deity prayed to, to eliminate the non-deity hypotheses as well as eliminating false deities).
Why, why, why do you do this to yourself?
How do you expect to "control" for a given deity? How do you...
I don't know about the Norse gods, but now this a fairytale. What you just said. I don't for one minute believe you are using the right instruments to evaluate religion. When the game calls for faith and doubt, youre using rationality and science to play the game. IS it working?
They are evidence. They just aren't very strong evidence, because the existence of the gospels equally supports the hypothesis that they are works of fiction or a dozen other hypotheses.
Uh, actually, they are markedly different from fiction. Ask any scholar who has evaluated them properly.
Not to mention the fact that there is serious dispute as to whether the authors of the gospels were actual eye-witnesses, as the earliest and best individual copies of the texts we have available tend to post-date the events by a significant margin. And of course the fact that we have so many different versions of the texts that, to paraphrase Bart Ehrman, author of Misquoting Jesus, there are more errors and mistranslations in the New Testament than there are words. The gospels themselves aren't quite the same as your typical eyewitness account given in a court of law or on the nightly news.
The Bible is one of the best preserved historical texts of all history. Where there is uncertainty, there will always be debate. But when you compare it with other texts, there are remarkable facts about its preservation.
It is possible that this is true. It is not likely. It is roughly as possible as the existence of my unicorn. You can't touch it or see it or ever make any observation of it directly or indirectly, but it could still be there.
The question is simply whether there is an adequate probability that any of these faiths accurately reflect reality to justify confidence in them? If they have a 5% or lower probability of being accurate, should one believe that they actually are accurate?
If higher probability should justify faith then why do we need faith at all? Isn't faith what you do when you have absolutely zilch probability of a claim being proved/disproved. Isn't faith also for things that we can never scientifically assign a probability to? IOW, isn't faith what we employ when dealing with intangible deities? Why then, do you bring probability into the picture? What does BLIND faith have to do with numbers?
Welcome to Bayesian reasoning. Does it look like it makes sense?
Oh, I've encountered it before. My brother, a computer engineer, introduced me to it. It is a great tool......but not for evaluating religion. Religion is abstract.
I would conclude that the accident was caused by a previously unknown creature, which posesses claws and black/white feathered wings. I don't have any evidence supporting "demon" over "feathered dragon" or much else.
The evidence so far is very similar to seeing an object fr off in the distance. With limited means for observation I might only be able to tell that the object is a building, but be unable to tell whether it's a house, or a barn, or a store, etc. As I'm able to uncover more details that support some hypotheses and eliminate others, I'll be able to make more andmore specific descriptions until I can actually identify the object.
To draw an extremely precise conclusion based on very imprecise data is like recording the length of a pen in millimeters when your only measurement tool is a ruler whose smallest unit is inches - it requires an unfounded logical leap from the evidence to support such a conclusion, even if that conclusion later turns out to be correct.
In other words: The available evidence is inconclusive, and therefore I cannot draw an accurate conclusion. I don't know.....yet.
What if, for arguments' sake, you life was at stake? You have two options 1. I don't know. 2. I will go with the eye-witness, it was a demon. And your life depended upon it, in some way.
This is the situation people encounter in religion. Here is a person who claims to be god, who has certain demands. (in a sacred text, or some other means) Do they say 1. I don't know who you are or whether or not you even exist really or 2. I believe you are who you say you are based on the information given to me (either through a sacred text, or a missionary etc) irrespective of any evidence, I don't need it.
Everything is a question of less or more wrong, and faith is never useful in being less wrong. I don't "Wager." I analyze and conclude. My conclusions are never absolutely precise, but my method gives me the most important advantage of all:
the ability to recognize when I'm wrong, and change my mind accordingly.
The rewards and consequences of belief in Christianity specifically are certainly all-or-nothing. The problem is that Pascal's Wager is stupidity of the highest order: it's not a binary choice of "believe in God and maybe go to heaven" or "don't beleive in God and maybe go to Hell." The real wager is every conceivable religion vs. every other conceiveable religion - perhaps if I belive in the Christian god, Odin won't let me into Valhalla; we all know what the Christian god would do if I worship Zeus.
Sorry, Rahvin, but if you believed in the Christian God, you would not be believing that Odin even exists. I know, that is a giant logical leap. But such leaps happen in faith. Infact, that is how faith works. You look at them as logical leaps because for you, your reasoning power and analytical skills are more important in resolving matters. But in faith, people take people's words as plain fact irrespective of reasoning or analyzing. When God says that only He is the true God (John 14:6), then guess what, Odin doesn't exist. Thor doesn't exist. Frigga doesn't. Freya doesn't. Loki doesn't. I know, you might be uncomfortable with such thinking....but this is faith.
But that was not my main point. I said all that to kind of drive my point home. And that is, when you wager, you wager on your best possibility. If the Norse gods appeal to you, wager on them. If Jehovah does, wager on Him. If Shiva does, wager on him. And when you do wager (IF you do), let go of all rationality which binds you and play the game in terms of faith.
However, like you just said, you don't like to wager.You like to observe and analyze. So be it. I was just explaining it to you.
How much is history? How much is made up by people? How do you tell the difference from one to the next? Regardless, the preconception lies in the fact that the Bible effectively lists the qualities of god and sets up your definition of what a god is and is not - the descriprion of what a god is is not a conclusion carefulyl derived from experimentation and evidence, but is rather a preconception based on an appeal to the authority of the various Biblical authors. The fact that the source is the Biblical authors rather than your own mind is irrelevant - you're still increasing your support of one definition of god and decreasing your support in all other definitions, not based on evidence, but because of a preconception.
You're writing yuor conclusion ("God has these attributes...") before determining why you should think so.
I agree with every thing you say. And I believe I have found THE one small point of disagreement. I probably would not have caught it had you not mentioned the phrase "appeal to authority of Biblical authors." Herein lies the crux of the matter. When people believe the pre-conception of God in the Bible to the true depiction of the real, existent God, they are essentially relying on the Biblical authors' credibility. They're staking it all on 40 people' words. And the reaosn some people are comfortable doing this, is because they treat the Bible just like it wants to be treated. A supernatural book. If it never claimed divine inspiration, people would not care about what the 40 men and women author's said in it....atleast not as much. I agree with you that we shouldn't take people's word/testimony as conclusive data. But when they claim something as unique as supernatural intervention, again....we're playing the faith game not the rationality game.
Pauline writes:
I imagine that you interested in furthering this conversation based on the level of interest and time you put into your previous couple posts. I imagine that you will respond pretty soon, since you have been doing so. I imagine that you will indeed further our conversation. I do not assertively say you will, only that I believe you will. That's faith, the evidence of things unseen...being sure of things hoped for.
Rahvin writes:
But you have seen. That's the difference. If you and I had never spokem previously, then you would require faith to believe that I would read your message. But you already have an established track record of me responding to your messages - much like repeated observations that thrown pens fall back down. That's not faith, Doc, that's a perfectly rational conclusion based on available evidence.
It might be. But the decision of whether or not to respond to my post was a voluntary choice based solely upon your will. It is not like there is a scientific law governing our conversation here on EvC. Which is why probability and evidence do not click. I might very well have evidence in the form of your previous posts, of your expressed interest in conversing...I might calculate the probability of your replying to my post at a high level...and yet, you are not compelled to reply. But you did. While playing peek-a-boo with a child, it not certain that the person behind the curtain will always appear...after 3 or 4 times, he might or not appear. It is based solely upon his will whether or not to appear before the child. But the child anticipates his appearing...that's faith. When he does infact choose to appear, then faith is justified. If he doesn't...then faith was in vain. Why do you bring probability into the conversation? Neither you are, not the person behidn the curtain is bound by probability, are you?
It does, if you're basing your faith entirely on an appeal to the authority of your supposed deity. Not all theists do so. Many simply find emotional solace in the claims of a given faith, or find the "basics" to be personally credulous even if the details are allegorical, etc.
Yes, like theistic evolutionists. But even they, are missing the whole point.
That study certainly is interesting. However, that was actually a NYTimes article, and so I have to take it with a grain of salt - reporters are not scientists, and they tend to sensationalize. Most of the misconceptions we have today about things like cosmology and evolution are because of sensationalism in reporting science and journalists trying to convey ideas they don't understand themselves.
The researcher wrote it.
But if so, so be it. You always have the opportunity to go read the real research paper itself.
What your moral compass says about the claims of a religion has no conenction or influence over whether those claims are accurate.
And what if, what my moral compass tell me about a religion is infact what I personally believe to be true. i.e reflect reality. You'll call that, irrationality. I call that faith.
The existence/nonexistence issue is the only one of any relevance. Or would you continue to worship your deity even knowing it didn't exist, simply because you agree with it's imagined ethics?
Yes, it is. But that issue is resolved individually, not universally. It cannot be resolved universally, simply because it is dealing with abstract entities. And so, personal faith is a perfectly reasonable way to resolve the issue? To some it might look like irrationality, but what gives? My issue is resolved....for me, that is.
Your moral compass will never ever help you be less wrong about the Universe - it's only useful for dealing with other people.
Science is the best way to study the physical universe. My moral compass, I reserve, only for religious purposes.
Either the claims made in the Bible are verified by observations in reality or they are not. I don't exclude anything. My determination of whether Christianity's various claims about the real world (Genesis, etc) is independant of whether I morally approve of the content - as it should be. Anything else is absurd. When you ask whether the Moon exists, or what it's made of, does your sense of morality have anything to do with the answers, or are the solely determined by observation?
1. no, my sense of morality has nothing to do with the answer
2. The answer is determined solely by observation
But, Rahvin, aren't we dealing with the moon here? Very much physical, an entity?
And shouldn't we change our mode of analysis when dealing with an abstract entity, if we are interested in doing that?
I exclude nothing. The claims made in the Bible (supposedly made on god's behalf by the human authors) are no exception. Whether I approve of the genocide described in teh flood myth is completely independent of whether I think the flood actually happened.
You're looking at the facts, Rahvin. I'm looking at the moral content. All the time when I was talking about how I would use my moral compass as a means to navigate through various scriptures, I was talking about evaluating them moral content. But you apparently think I use it to evaluate general claims. I don't.
All I use it for, is to evaluate the moral content. For example, if x religion commands its followers to murder, my moral compass tells me, no: don't follow this religion-it is going to cause harm to you and your fellow beings. That's it.
I mean any omnipotent omniscient deity that Created the Earth in 6 days, rested on the 7th, made woman from the rib of a man made from dust, dorwned the entire Earth except for a menagerie and an incestuous family aboard a boat made of gopher wood, saved the Jews from Egyptian slavery by killing every firstborn child in the nation, gave the Ten Commandments, twice, and later sacrificed himself to himself for a debt he claimed we owed him.
There may have been a man (or men) named Jesus of Nazareth who wandered around the region of Jerusalem and founded a splinter sect of Judaism that proclaimed him to be the messiah of Jewish myth. That man may have been executed by the Romans, so on and so forth. But I find it spectacularly unlikely that Jesus was actually of "supernatural" origin - that he was the son of a deity, or the deity incarnated into human form, or some combination of the two; that he performed physics-breaking "miracles;" that he rose from the dead. I find these things to be unlikely because other than religion these things would better occupy the pages of a Harry potter novel than a history or science textbook; in every case these themes have belonged to works of fiction and have never been observed to happen in the real world. They bear all the hallmarks of flase belief - an unfalsifiable, untestable set of beliefs that are objectively impossible to differenciate from fantasy except that this particular fantasty is widely accepted as true by a large segment of the population.
Here's where it gets, Christianity-specific. I tried to ignore these specific spots in this particular thread, but we can try to address them in another one. And this...
I do not disdain Christianity as the potential "true religion" because of my moral disapproval. I wouldn't worship the Christian god even if he did exist because of my moral issues with his behavior,
You just made our conversation 1000X more simpler and more clearer, Rahvin. If this is the outlook with which you now approach Christianity, then I am not surprised that you left it in the first place. Infact, I don't buy your "I once believed, but now don't" argument too. How is that possible? Not just with you but with anybody....
If they "once believed" and "now don't", then obviously their faith was based on contingencies other than the ONLY necessary one--God. If your "once faith" was based on whether or not you approved of genocide, then how is that a faith in Jehovah God, Rahvin?
Rahvin writes:
"There exist two afterlives - one is called heaven and it's a paradisical reward for people who live good lives/worship this deity. The other is called hell and is a place of eternal torment for people who didn't obey the rules/worshipped the wrong deity."
Pauline writes:
Thats why Pascal came up with a wager.I don't understnad why some people are willing to wager and some other people are not at all.
Rahvin writes:
Because some people are too ignorant of statistics to realize that Pascal's Wager is bunk, and some are not. As I explained above, Pascal's Wager depends on a binary choice between an unlikely positive reward and an unlikely horrible punishment, with "nothing happens" occupying the vast majority of the probable results. Pascal unfortunately only considered Chrsitianity vs. Not Christianity. To put it in simple terms:
Let's say you have a 6-sided dice. Christianity is represented by the 1. The others are all alternative religions. Pascal's wager involves choosing either 1 or everything else - he's treating it like a coin toss ratehr than a roll of the die. In actuality, there are countless competing mutually exclusive religions, with Chrisitanity being only one. Rather than "nothing happens" occupying most of the probability space, "you wind up in somebody else's afterlife" is far more probable.
In other words, what if I bet on Christianity, but the Muslims or the Hindus or the Norse or the Egyptians or the Inca or the Aztec or the Greeks or the Iroquois or the Druids or somebody else was actually right? I just wind up in somebody else's Hell.
Beyond that, it treats the probability of a hypothesis being accurate as pure random chance, rather than a rational conclusion based on evidence. It's utterly absurd. The only reason Pascal's Wager ever works is because both fear and the hope for a reward are powerful motivating factors and frequently override our decision-making process. In other words, Pascal's Wager works on people who listen to their hearts instead of their heads, and somehow manage to establish credulity because they find something preferable and something else scary.
I am not proposing PAscal's wager as a solution to our problem. You missed the point I was trying to make with that. I was only trying to tell you that, there come situations in life where the ONLY the other option is to wager. The one option is to not have an opinion. The other option is to wager. We don't encounter such situations on a frequent basis, but religion is surely one of them. That was my point. Are we comfortable with wagering? Or are we with being agnostic? Pascal was with wagering. I am with wagering. You are with being agnostic...ar atheistic, whichever. That only was my point.
Edited by Pauline, : No reason given.
Edited by Pauline, : No reason given.
Edited by Pauline, : No reason given.
Edited by Pauline, : editing

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by Rahvin, posted 06-22-2010 8:11 PM Rahvin has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 128 by Phage0070, posted 06-30-2010 7:51 AM Pauline has not replied

Phage0070
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 128 of 479 (567228)
06-30-2010 7:51 AM
Reply to: Message 127 by Pauline
06-29-2010 11:42 PM


Pauline writes:
If my beliefs eventually are the source of harm to the society and myself, then I obviously must discard them. ... At the end of the day, the religion has to suffer all reproach.
It appears that those harmful things which you avoid now are the result of trial and error; stumbling blocks which the religious have encountered and the harm they have inflicted are now avoided by rote rather than vision.
How then do you address one of the greatest harms of all? I refer to the partner a theist provides to an atheist in any cooperative goal, such as society. A team member who is unable or unwilling to look at evidence and make rational decisions based on that evidence is a hindrance rather than a help. Are we to suffer the trial and error of a theist looking for the right answer that is in front of them, or is the atheist eternally to instruct the theist on proper behavior based on the evidence?
Pauline writes:
After one subscribes to faith, one does NOT look for evidence to prove it.
The reason why theists so often try to defend faith by pretending it isn't belief in a concept without evidence, or even an attempt to find evidence, is because such behavior is clearly monumentally stupid and harmful to others. Apply such a behavior to *anything* else and you would see it for yourself.
Suppose you were to use faith toward the subject of the state of the traffic lights you encounter. Lets say you faithfully assume that they are all green... obviously you are going to get pasted by another car eventually, and are a great harm to others. Not all the time of course, sometimes it is actually green and everyone is fine. But it should be clear that you are a danger to others regardless.
In the case of faith your options are much greater; there may be millions of possible colors of the light, or no light at all. You may not be able to see the light, either because you have painted the windshield opaque (went to a Christian college) or conditions prevent it from being viewed at all. The fallout from your decision is the same though; faith that you know something that you don't know, have no reason to know, is harmful in and of itself.0
Pauline writes:
Isn't faith what you do when you have absolutely zilch probability of a claim being proved/disproved. Isn't faith also for things that we can never scientifically assign a probability to?
No, that is called "lying". Or pulling stuff out of your butthole, making stuff up, or "imagining". The proper, honest answer is "I don't know." Especially so when you *cannot* know.
Pauline writes:
What if, for arguments' sake, you life was at stake? You have two options 1. I don't know. 2. I will go with the eye-witness, it was a demon. And your life depended upon it, in some way.
Pascal's Wager? Again?
The proper response is uncertainty with increased caution. Religion would get you killed here, when the previously unknown winged bear-scorpion attacks the theist with a Bible, a cross, and unwavering faith that his/her fictional deity will protect them.
Pauline writes:
...then obviously their faith was based on contingencies other than the ONLY necessary one--God. If your "once faith" was based on whether or not you approved of genocide, then how is that a faith in Jehovah God,
How can you claim to have a moral compass when it is fixed on a god, and you are unable to assess the morality of something like genocide? How can you claim to be a moral agent at all?
Your moral compass through faith is an arrow drawn on a rock pointing a random direction. I see no reason why you would defend such a thing.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 127 by Pauline, posted 06-29-2010 11:42 PM Pauline has not replied

Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


(1)
Message 129 of 479 (567300)
06-30-2010 2:50 PM
Reply to: Message 125 by RAZD
06-29-2010 9:28 PM


Testing The Untestable
You have amended and ambiguified your terminology in this thread but your entire point here is nothing other than a rehash of your much stated and discredited demands for disproof.
RAZD previously writes:
Perhaps you have trouble understanding it -- all you need is evidence that shows god/s do not, or can not, exist.
RAZD previously writes:
Curiously, we both know that your evidence is still inconclusive on the issue of whether or not gods exist, because it is incapable of proving that no gods can exist.
Etc.
No amount of evidence favouring human invention can ever in practise actually disprove the existence of any concept envisaged to be empirically irrefutable. No matter how blatantly made-up that concept may be. From gods to the Easter Bunny via Thetans and the IPU along with her infinite army of allies. As such there is no point discussing evidence with you until you accept that disproving things is as unnecessary as it is futile.
Will you agree that disproving unfalsifiable god concepts is an unnecessary step in determining whether or not a religion is probably false?
RAZD writes:
Somehow that is not much of a test, would you not agree?
What test can we undertake to prove that the magical and empirically unknowable Easter Bunny can not exist or does not exist?
Does this have any significant bearing on our conclusion as to whether or not this particular entity actually exists?
These are not rhetorical questions.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 125 by RAZD, posted 06-29-2010 9:28 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 132 by RAZD, posted 06-30-2010 8:39 PM Straggler has replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(2)
Message 130 of 479 (567351)
06-30-2010 6:38 PM
Reply to: Message 125 by RAZD
06-29-2010 9:28 PM


Re: Almost there - now apply it to the topic ...
Hi Rahvin,
Well you're closer than Straggler ever got, now let's complete the thought.
Is it then down to personal opinion to even suggest the possible identity of the murderer?
You will note that I did not say that you must make a decision (and in fact many times have asked why some people seem to need to make a decision even when there is insufficient evidence), just that if you do that then you need to accept that it is an opinion based on belief and worldview, and not on evidence. Certainly, in a case of murder I would argue that a decision not be made unless there were sufficient evidence.
Yet curiously you feel it's appropriate to believe in a deity. Why are you comfortable making a decision given inadequate evidence to distinguish amongst multiple equally probable hypotheses in one scenario, but not in another?
Why are you incapable of recognizing that an absence of evidence always adds a higher probability to the hypothesis of absence than to any other possibility, and therefore the hypotheses with the highest probability of accuracy are that no murder ever occurred, and that gods do not exist?
Assuming an actual vacuum of evidence (while I don't think any such thing exists, I can debate a hypothetical...), what reason could you have for pulling one or even several conceivable hypotheses and estimating their probability to be higher than any other conceivable hypothesis?
Which is why an agnostic position -- that we don't know is the logical rational conclusion ... as I have said many times.
And yet you yourself are not an agnostic - you're a deist. Are you acknowledging that your position is irrational?
Beyond that, of course, we don't really have a total absence of evidence, just as we don't really have a total lack of evidence for our hypothetical murder - the absence of a dead body, a murder weapon, or signs of a struggle are all observations which support the hypothesis that no murder ever occurred much more strongly than they support any particular hypothesis involving a murder.
Many people suggest that a murder has occurred. However, there is no evidence of a murder to be found - no bloody knife, no discharged firearm, no body, no signs of a struggle, etc. Assume that we have some hundreds of thousands of people without solid alibis; the hypotheses that each (or several) could have committed the murder have not been falsified.
Again, if you don't have sufficient evidence to form a logical conclusion, then the logical answer is that we don't know, we can't know, because we don't have the evidence to know.
Indeed, and this once again begs the question of how you can recognize agnosticism as the only rational position given zero evidence, and yet still believe in a deity - cognitive dissonance? Yet in reality we do have the ability to make observations, and we do not actually have a complete and utter lack of evidence regarding deities. If we did, as I allowed for the purpose of the argument earlier, then the only rational position would be agnosticism...and yet this requires that we make ourselves blind and deaf to the observations we are able to make.
A more accurate statement than "there is no evidence regarding deities" would be "there are no observations that increase the probability of the existence of any particular deity beyond any others." There are many observations, however, that increase the probability that no gods exist, just as the observation of a clean and empty desk increases the probability that there is in fact no pen on my desk.
Let's try another exercise. I have a 6-sided die. It is conceivable that any side could come up on top when the die is rolled, and no possible result is falsified. Is it rational to say, "I think that the die will most likely come up as 6; I believe 6 will be the result"? If all of the hypotheses are equally possible, are all logically consistent, none have been falsified, and there is no evidence to differentiate one from the other, is it rational to estimate one possible result as more likely?
And again, the logical conclusion, the rational position, is that you don't know, you can't know, because you don't have the evidence to know.
And again, if you think we have a total absence of evidence, why do you feel comfortable taking a position when you admit that the only rational position is agnosticism?
When you say "I believe..." you are actually saying "I estimate this particular hypothesis to have a higher probability of accuracy than all competing hypotheses; I think this one is the most likely." How is it possible to claim rationality or even logical consistency when estimating one possible hypothesis to be more likely than other competing hypotheses in a dearth of evidence?
Now explain this point to Straggler and bluegenes, and anyone else that believes that there is a higher likelihood that the atheist position is true.
As I have said before, the logical position is agnostic: that we don't know, that we can't know, because we don't have enough evidence to know.
You miss one very, very important fact, RAZD, as you always do:
I allowed the premise that we are operating under a total absence of evidence for the sake of argument, to illustrate the fact that if we had a total lack of evidence, then the only rational position would be agnosticism, and that this means that your position (that a deity does exist) constitutes an irrational and unjustified inflation of your own personal estimation of the probability of one hypothesis over all competing hypotheses. In short, your own position of deism would be irrational, as it would require you to say that one of the possible results of a roll of the dice is more likely than the others.
However, reality is not a roll of the dice. We do have the ability to make observations, even though none of our observations can truly be absolutely conclusive. We do have the ability to analyze those observations and see which hypotheses they favor most strongly. And the fact of the matter is, even though we cannot falsify all conceivable deities (as you like to say, even if all A are B, all B are not necessarily A), we can determine whether the hypothesis that no gods are present is more probable than all of the individual god hypotheses.
Every time we make an observation that does not require gods, the hypothesis that there are no gods is supported more strongly than any of the god hypotheses - because in a Universe with no gods, we would anticipate that no gods would be required in any observation 100% of the time, while individual god hypotheses can accommodate a lack of observations that require gods less than 100% of the time.
It's true that Jimmy could be our hypothetical murderer. The prospect hasn't been falsified. It's possible that he simply cleaned up the mess so well that no evidence was left behind. But it is more probable given absolutely no observations supporting any murder hypothesis that no murder actually occurred. The possibility that Jimmy would perfectly hide all evidence that a murder took place is extremely unlikely even assuming a murder did take place, and so the observation of no murder evidence does not very strongly support that hypothesis; the possibility that no murder evidence would be found if no muder actually took place is nearly 100%, and so that hypothesis is supported far more strongly by the same observation.
This is the position of the agnostic atheist: we can't know for sure, but it's more probable that no gods exist.
The irrationality lies in saying that 7 is more likely even though the actual probability that 7 will be the result is identical to the other possibilities.
RAZD's irrationality doesn't necessarily lie in believing that an unlikely possibility is the most likely (though that's still a far cry from confidently saying that the unlikely possibility is likely to reflect reality...).
Hi irrationality lies in selecting one of many equally probable or improbable possibilities and saying "this one is more likely because it's personally preferable to me."
So then it is a good thing - in your opinion - that I don't actually do that, yes? Perhaps you should restrict your claims about what I say to actual quotes, rather than make stuff up.
Are you or are you not a deist, RAZD? If yes, than you believe in a deity, which is one of many equally probable unfalsifiable mutually exclusive conceivable deities. You have chosen to artificially inflate your own personal estimation of the probability that your hypothesis is correct over the probability that other hypotheses are correct, despite no observations that increase the probability of your hypothesis over others.
Or do you have an observation that increases the probability of your hypothesis beyond that of others? So far, your argument has seemed to rest on just a few simple points:
1) Unfalsified and logically self-consistent hypotheses are still logically valid
2) Falsification of A does not falsify B, because even if all A are B, all B are not necessarily A
3) All things being equal and in the absence of evidence, belief comes down to personal preference
You've specifically declined to discuss your position as a deist except in the most general and broad sense, and so all I have to work with here is what you've given me. Feel free to clarify your position if
I agree with 1), except that I would point out that logical validity does not carry any weight suggesting actuality; a completely logically consistent and unfalsified map may be drawn which corresponds to no actual territory. Logical self-consistency and lack of falsification are simply how we select the still-possible hypotheses, not how we select which are more likely than others.
I agree with 2), a logical truism.
3) is where I vehemently disagree, because personal preference is irrelevant to the probability of any given hypothesis. If the probabilities are equal, it is irrational to select one over the others; if the probability of one is greater than the others, it is irrational to make any other choice.
If I roll 20-sided dice, each possible result has a 5% chance - far more than once chance in an infinite set. It would be irrational in the extreme to say "the dice will come up as a 7, because I like 7." The chance that it will be 7 is exactly the same that it will be 8, or 12, or 20.
But you can say that one of the numbers will come up, yes? The probability of winning a lottery is small, but the probability that a lottery will be won is high.
Indeed. But again, the dice analogy only functions if we continue to allow that no evidence is present at all, that there is literally no distinction given by observations we can make that distinguishes hypothesis A from B from C. That's simply not the case in reality - we can make observations that adjust the probability of god-hypotheses in exactly the same way we can make observations that adjust the probability of our murder-hypotheses.
...
...
Well, now that we have covered this topic once again, so everyone can have had their say and make their pet pronouncements of what they believe is true, perhaps we can get on with the topic:
If an actual probability analysis shows that all of the competing hypotheses are equally probable (regardless of how likely or unlikely they are), what reason do you have for then inflating the probability of one of those equally likely hypotheses in your own mind?
Does this argument provide you with a test to determine whether or not a specific religion is false?
Yes and no. The question in this case is not so much identifying specific false hypotheses. The question is determining those that are most likely to be true. If a mutually exclusive hypothesis is more likely to be true than competing hypotheses, then the other hypotheses are more likely to be false. If A XOR B, and A is more likely than B, then B is more likely to be false.
Absolute falsification is extremely difficult, and some would say philosophically impossible.
It seems to me, curiously, that all you have is, that it would be your opinion (based on your own argument of not having evidence one way or the other), that it is probable that the (fill in this blank with your favorite) religion is false because it is one of many.
Somehow that is not much of a test, would you not agree?
I would agree, which is why it's fortunate for me that this is not my argument.
Simply being one of many with no additional information is akin to rolling a many-sided dice, and it is irrational to say that "I think x will be the result" when all of the other possibilities are equally likely. That does not in any way suggest that the most likely result is no result - this analogy only works in a literal total absence of evidence of any sort, a lack of any and all observations and testing. It means that arbitrarily choosing one as more likely because it is personally preferable is irrational, and that is all it was intended to illustrate. You seem to agree by saying that in such instances that agnosticism is the only rational position, which again makes me confused as to your own status as a deist and your previous comments on the subject.
My analysis of all observations that I have made myself or am aware of is simply that the "no gods" hypothesis is more strongly supported than any of the god hypotheses. This is due to the fact that if we assume no gods, the Universe we would anticipate would have a high likelihood of matching what we actually observe, much like we would anticipate finding no body, no murder weapon, and no signs of a struggle if in fact no murder has occurred. If we assume gods, there would be a lower probability of a Universe where prayers aren't answered in a way statistically distinguishable from not praying; where all of the laws of nature make sense so far without any sort of divine requirement; etc.
If it has a bill, swims in the water, is a warm-blooded vertebrate, and lays eggs, it might be a platypus, but it's most likely a duck.
If I observe no dragon in my garage, there might be an invisible dragon, but it is more likely that there is simply not a dragon.
The "no gods" hypothesis is not simply one of many - it is one that is supported by observations far more strongly than each individual god hypothesis, and therefore is more likely to be true. This means that any individual god hypothesis, barring additional observations that alter the relative probabilities, is likely to be false because it is mutually exclusive with a more likely hypothesis.
Because the "no gods" hypothesis is more likely to be true than all competing hypotheses, I am compelled to tentatively select it as my "belief" in order to maintain rationality and logical self-consistency. If additional observations were made that would shift the probability significantly in favor of one or more god hypotheses such that any of them would then be greater than the "no god" hypothesis, then I would need to re-evaluate my position.
For an actual test of hypotheses, I apply the same method to all propositions, of a religious nature or otherwise.
Are there observations regarding the hypothesis that shift its probability meaningfully in either direction from a random guess? If not, how can you ensure that the map is in any way tied to any possible territory? Very few hypotheses have absolutely no observations that can be made.
Are there any observations that would never be seen if the hypothesis were true? If so, test for those observations. Positive observation of something that the hypothesis does not allow falsifies the hypothesis.
Are there competing hypotheses that better explain the observations? If so, those are hypotheses are more likely to be true, and the inferior hypothesis should be tentatively discarded pending new observations.
It all boils down to Bayes' Theorem. The probability that a hypothesis is accurate given an observation is equivalent to the probability that the observation would be observed if the hypothesis were accurate, multiplied by the prior probability that the hypothesis was accurate prior to the observation, divided by the probability that the observation would be made across all hypotheses.
If a hypothesis strongly predicts an observation that is highly unlikely across all possible hypotheses, then such an observation would be very strong evidence that the hypothesis is more accurate than others.
If a hypothesis weakly predicts an observation ("x will happen 5% of the time") that is extremely likely to happen across all hypotheses, such an observation will reduce the probability that the hypothesis is accurate.
I find that with regard to all relevant observations that I am personally aware of, the "no gods" hypothesis relatively strongly predicts the appearance of a wholly natural world with no need for divine influence, which is exactly what we see; and that this is unlikely to happen spread across all possible hypotheses, since most hypotheses include gods. This combination increases the probability that the "no gods" hypothesis is correct beyond the probabilities of competing god hypotheses. This occurs cumulatively with every observation that is strongly predicted by the "no gods" hypothesis, while simultaneously the continued observation of an absence of strongly predicted evidence for any god hypothesis reduces the likelihood that each is accurate. This leaves me with only one rational position:
It is most likely the case that no gods exist, barring new observations that significantly change the relative probabilities of the relevant hypotheses.
Enjoy.
Indeed.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 125 by RAZD, posted 06-29-2010 9:28 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 131 by Straggler, posted 06-30-2010 7:48 PM Rahvin has not replied
 Message 134 by RAZD, posted 06-30-2010 10:17 PM Rahvin has replied
 Message 137 by New Cat's Eye, posted 07-01-2010 12:05 PM Rahvin has not replied

Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


(1)
Message 131 of 479 (567362)
06-30-2010 7:48 PM
Reply to: Message 130 by Rahvin
06-30-2010 6:38 PM


Faith Based Agnosticism With Opinions
Rahvin writes:
And yet you yourself are not an agnostic - you're a deist. Are you acknowledging that your position is irrational?
Actually RAZ has declared himself to be a faith based agnostic with a deistic opinion.
See below.
RAZD introducing the Dwkins scale writes:
From the Google cached copy of website (so you can access without signing in) of "Where do you stand on the probability of God's existence?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.00: Strong theist. 100 percent possibility of God. In the words of C.G. Jung, 'I do not believe, I know.'
2.00: Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. De facto theist. 'I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there
3.00: Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. Technically agnostic but leaning towards theism. 'I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.'
4.00: Exactly 50 per cent. Completely impartial agnostic. 'God's existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.'
5.00: Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. Technically agnostic but leaning towards atheism. 'I don't know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be sceptical.'
6.00: Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. 'I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.'
7:00: Strong atheist. 'I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung 'knows' there is one.'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most devout theists would be 2's with some (fundamentalists?) that can be classed as 1's.
I'd say I'm a 3 - "agnostic deist."Message 34
So RAZ is an agnostic deist.
RAZD writes:
To start, I'm a 3, and my reason for leaning to the theistic side is personal subjective experience that leads me to believe there is possibly a spiritual essence to life that can be further explored with an open mind. More need not be said, other than that I have seen absolutely no evidence to contradict this position. Message 66
Here we see that he is an agnostic with deistic leanings based on subjective "evidence".
RAZD writes:
I assume that my personal belief in the existence of god/s is just personal opinion until such time as there is empirical objective evidence for or against the existence of god/s. If this belief is "based solely on reason" then I am bound by limits of logic and the limits of empirical objective evidence, which is why I necessarily end up as an agnostic theist "3" position Message 306
Being bound by the limits of logic and reason as he is RAZ continues to state that he is an agnostic with a desitic opinion founded on subjective evidence.
RAZD writes:
I am agnostic on whether god/s exist or not. My personal opinion is that they may be possible.
Just for reference I am a "3" on the Dawkins scale:Message 253
Here he re-expresses his deistic opinion.
RAZD writes:
As a result of the logical analysis we have:
1. Absolute Theist: knows god/s exist. (logically invalid position)
2. Strong Theist: the existence of god/s is more likely than not. (logically invalid position)
3. Weak Theist: the existence of god/s is possible, maybe likely, but not sure. (logically valid position)
4. Agnostic: god/s may exist or they may not, there is insufficient evidence to know one way or the other. (logically valid position)
5. Weak Atheist: the non-existence of gods is possible, maybe likely, but not sure. (logically valid position)
6. Strong Atheist: the non-existence of god/s is more likely than not. (logically invalid position)
7. Absolute Atheist: knows that god/s do not exist. (logically invalid position) Message 91
If you follow the various links you will be rewarded with RAZD's bewildering attempt to mathematicalise the logic of belief and the limits he imposes by means of his ever-changing array of scales.
It is truly fascinating stuff.
RAZD writes:
I would need to have more than subjective evidence to move from "3" to "2" and be based on reason.
This is also why an atheist position based on reason, logic and the available objective empirical evidence can only justify a "5" position, rather than a "6" position. Message 296
Once again the paramount importance of logic and reason are stated with regard to the limits on belief.
RAZD writes:
You still miss the reality here: faith is not a conclusion, not a choice, and that no logic, good, bad or indifferent is used. Message 243
And here we see RAZ's original position on his deistic faith which discludes logic as having any bearing whatsoever.
Make of all this what you will.......
But don't say you have not been warned......

This message is a reply to:
 Message 130 by Rahvin, posted 06-30-2010 6:38 PM Rahvin has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 135 by RAZD, posted 06-30-2010 10:47 PM Straggler has replied

RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 132 of 479 (567366)
06-30-2010 8:39 PM
Reply to: Message 129 by Straggler
06-30-2010 2:50 PM


So we can (finally) scrap the "it's made up" concept as unworkable?
Hi Straggler,
Still having trouble with the basic concept of agnosticism I see.
... nothing other than a rehash of your much stated and discredited demands for disproof.
Amusingly it is only in your mind that it is discredited ... perhaps because you are one that specifically has failed again and again to provide evidence to support your position, and yet fail to see that this failure means your position is highly suspect, at best.
Will you agree that disproving unfalsifiable god concepts is an unnecessary step in determining whether or not a religion is probably false?
Why should I agree to something that is purely your opinion? Especially when I think your opinion is wrong on this issue?
The fact that unfalsifiability makes it difficult for you to decide whether god/s may or may not exist is not my problem.
No amount of evidence favouring human invention can ever in practise actually disprove the existence of any concept envisaged to be empirically irrefutable.
In other words, you agree that your much vaunted "evidence favouring [in your opinion] human invention" is incapable of helping to determine whether a specific religion is false or even suspect.
This does not surprise me, as I have noted before that it is useless in demonstrating what you think it demonstrates.
I'm glad to see you agree that this inability makes your "evidence" useless in such practical applications.
Does this have any significant bearing on our conclusion as to whether or not this particular entity actually exists?
Is it critically important to you that a conclusion absolutely must be reached regarding the Easter Bunny?
In the interest of furthering this topic (rather than rehash what has already been rehashed enough), I would say that where we would most need to identify false religions is where beliefs become dangerous to society -- fundamentalist terrorist bomb behavior, cult behavior, and the like. I don't see the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus being major issues here (and these are more like folk tales than religions per se eh?)
Nor do I see - if the only issue is disproving unfalsifiable god/s - that the unfalsifiablity issue is even a minor concern.
So far, at least as far as I can tell, there seems to be agreement that two tests we have for false religions are:
  1. that there are a number of beliefs that are contradicted by empirical evidence of reality, and the truth of these beliefs are held to be critical to the religion (flat earth, young earth, etc), and
  2. that there are a number of beliefs that are contradicted by other beliefs from the same religion, and the truth of these beliefs are held to be critical to the religion.
Any others?
Enjoy

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
R ebel A merican Z en D eist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


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This message is a reply to:
 Message 129 by Straggler, posted 06-30-2010 2:50 PM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 136 by Straggler, posted 07-01-2010 6:23 AM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 133 of 479 (567371)
06-30-2010 9:00 PM
Reply to: Message 126 by bluegenes
06-29-2010 10:21 PM


And still no test on this issue ...
Hi bluegenes, still not seeing the picture.
Let me introduce you to the concept of the random hypothesis.
Hypothesis: A god did it.
That is a random explanatory hypothesis of the universe. It is random because it is completely baseless, and has no scrap of positive evidence to support it.
Excellent.
Hypothesis: No god did it.
That is a random explanatory hypothesis of the universe. It is random because it is completely baseless, and has no scrap of positive evidence to support it.
Atheists are people who see no reason to believe in that particular random hypothesis, ...
Yet, amusingly, by your own logic you see no reason to believe no god did it.
On the topic, any individual religion can be considered to be very unlikely to be true. They are all random baseless hypotheses about the world.
Except that this is just your opinion, and one that contravenes your own logic here. You have no evidence on which to base an iota of an inkling of how likely or unlikely it is, and therefore you have no reason to believe that it is unlikely.
Unfortunately, for you as well, as far as the topic goes, your personal opinion is not a test of how valid a religion is. That you personally believe that all religions are highly suspect at best, only means you have a narrow mind on this topic: your opinion does not affect reality in any way.
Now do you have a test that relies on something other than your (useless) opinion?
Enjoy.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
R ebel A merican Z en D eist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


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This message is a reply to:
 Message 126 by bluegenes, posted 06-29-2010 10:21 PM bluegenes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 143 by bluegenes, posted 07-02-2010 7:43 AM RAZD has replied

RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 134 of 479 (567381)
06-30-2010 10:17 PM
Reply to: Message 130 by Rahvin
06-30-2010 6:38 PM


back up and try again, how can assumed "probability" be a test for false religion?
Hi Rahvin,
Yet curiously you feel it's appropriate to believe in a deity. Why are you comfortable making a decision given inadequate evidence to distinguish amongst multiple equally probable hypotheses in one scenario, but not in another?
Please see Straggler's compendious summary of my actual position (gosh he is learning to use quoted statements rather than try to paraphrase ... small miracles do happen) in Message 131:
quote:
Actually RAZ has declared himself to be a faith based agnostic with a deistic opinion.
So RAZ is an agnostic deist.
Here we see that he is an agnostic with deistic leanings based on subjective "evidence".
Being bound by the limits of logic and reason as he is RAZ continues to state that he is an agnostic with a desitic opinion founded on subjective evidence.
Here he re-expresses his deistic opinion.
RAZD writes:
As a result of the logical analysis we have:
1. Absolute Theist: knows god/s exist. (logically invalid position)
2. Strong Theist: the existence of god/s is more likely than not. (logically invalid position)
3. Weak Theist: the existence of god/s is possible, maybe likely, but not sure. (logically valid position)
4. Agnostic: god/s may exist or they may not, there is insufficient evidence to know one way or the other. (logically valid position)
5. Weak Atheist: the non-existence of gods is possible, maybe likely, but not sure. (logically valid position)
6. Strong Atheist: the non-existence of god/s is more likely than not. (logically invalid position)
7. Absolute Atheist: knows that god/s do not exist. (logically invalid position) Message 91
...
So you see, I am consistent in stating that anything other than pure agnostic is based on opinion when there is an absence of evidence pro or con. Faith (of any kind) is a (personal) opinion.
Sadly, for you, this deconstructs most of your post: you are arguing against a straw man.
Why are you incapable of recognizing that an absence of evidence always adds a higher probability to the hypothesis of absence than to any other possibility, and therefore the hypotheses with the highest probability of accuracy are that no murder ever occurred, and that gods do not exist?
To be clear, concise, precise, and specific: you are claiming that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
Point 1: curiously, when I stated that this is as part of atheistic belief waaaaaay back a long time ago, a large number of (angry) atheists said it was presumptuous (to put it kindly) than anyone would claim this for any atheist. It amuses me every time I see it claimed.
Point 2: this is a logical fallacy (which is why the previous angry responses when I point this out at that time).
This is the position of the agnostic atheist: we can't know for sure, but it's more probable that no gods exist.
No, you're weaseling there: the truly agnostic atheist cannot judge the probability and knows it, it is his opinion that no gods exist, and he recognizes that it is just opinion.
As soon as you make a statement about the probability you are making a claim based on opinion and without evidence.
Please take note of #6 on the above scale:
6. Strong Atheist: the non-existence of god/s is more likely than not. (logically invalid position).
Here you have made the irrational assumption that you know something you do not know in order to "calculate" the degree of probability: you assume that you know the actual possibilities.
This is your opinion, it is not based on any facts, nor is it a logical conclusion from the available evidence. If you want to see the simple analysis (what Straggler amusingly called "bewildering attempt to mathematicalise the logic of belief") that shows that 1, 2, 6 and 7 positions are logically invalid see Message 273 - I should not need to repeat it here.
Yes and no. The question in this case is not so much identifying specific false hypotheses. The question is determining those that are most likely to be true. If a mutually exclusive hypothesis is more likely to be true than competing hypotheses, then the other hypotheses are more likely to be false. If A XOR B, and A is more likely than B, then B is more likely to be false.
And how do you determine this probability without the use of opinion? What is your metric that gives us a repeatable rating number of probability that anyone can use and come up with the same value?
Assume we have a lottery, and there an unknown number of tickets sold:
Does the hypothesis that no one will win the lottery have a higher or lower probability than the hypothesis that one specifically identified ticket will win the lottery?
Does the hypothesis that someone will win the lottery have a higher or lower probability than the hypothesis that no one will win?
Do the unknown rules of the lottery affect these probabilities?
If you cannot actually measure the actual probability, then you are left with no viable test.
Enjoy.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
R ebel A merican Z en D eist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


• • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •

This message is a reply to:
 Message 130 by Rahvin, posted 06-30-2010 6:38 PM Rahvin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 139 by Rahvin, posted 07-01-2010 1:08 PM RAZD has replied

RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 135 of 479 (567387)
06-30-2010 10:47 PM
Reply to: Message 131 by Straggler
06-30-2010 7:48 PM


Re: Faith Based Agnosticism With Opinions vs Atheist With Opinions?
Thanks Straggler, you got it mostly right.
If you follow the various links you will be rewarded with RAZD's bewildering attempt to mathematicalise the logic of belief ...
Amusingly, the mathematics of logic is well known. A better reference is Message 273 , as it has a brief summary of this analysis, one that I think is fairly clear.
... and the limits he imposes by means of his ever-changing array of scales.
I prefer to think of it as clarifying the distinctions.
And here we see RAZ's original position on his deistic faith which discludes logic as having any bearing whatsoever.
Amusingly this is the oldest post in the lot you have quoted from.
Curiously we can look up the definition of faith:
faith —noun (American Heritage Dictionary 2009)
1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief, trust.
3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
4. often Faith Christianity The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
6. A set of principles or beliefs.
Faith is an opinion, based on personal beliefs and worldview.
And we can go to the very first post that kicked off this multithread debate, for my position on the logic and agnosticism:
Percy is a Deist - Now what's the difference between a deist and an atheist? thread Untitled
(Message 4)
Thread 6960:Percy is a Deist - Now what\'s the difference between a deist and an atheist?
Forum 6:Faith and Belief
', 500)" onMouseOut=" hb.off(0)" onMouseMove="mouseTracker(event)">Message 4 (02-09-2009):
The rational conclusion based on evidence is agnosticism, the uncertainty of existence of god/s.
Atheists are on one side of the line of agnosticism, deists are on the other. This may be a fine line, but the distinction is real, like the difference between negative numbers and positive numbers, with the zero position being your fine line.
The atheist believes there is no evidence of god/s and that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence (all A is B, B therefore A logical fallacy).
The deist believes that god/s is/are essentially unknowable, that all evidence points to the way the natural world functions as created, and all we can understand is how it works.
When you look back at it, you will see that I have been consistent. This still comes down to:
Message 117 :
One can have an opinion about whether the notion is true or false, and as long as one recognizes that it is opinion based on belief\worldview, and not a conclusion based on fact, that is okay with me.
Logically, it seems to me, it is equally rational to think that X may be tentatively considered to possibly be true, as it is to think that X may be tentatively considered to possibly be false, due to the lack of evidence on which to base a logical decision: all you have either way is opinion based on belief\worldview.
The truly rational position, of course is that we don't know, we can't know because we don't have enough information to know, and therefore cannot decide the truth or falseness of the notion/s ... and thus any decision made must necessarily be opinion, and must be held as a tentative possibility at best.
You either have (leaving out the various distinctions in grades of beliefs):
Opinion based belief that X is true
No opinion, agnostic
Opinion based belief that X is not true
Enjoy.
Edited by RAZD, : clrty

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
R ebel A merican Z en D eist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


• • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •

This message is a reply to:
 Message 131 by Straggler, posted 06-30-2010 7:48 PM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 142 by Straggler, posted 07-01-2010 3:10 PM RAZD has replied

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