Inductive Atheism

I doubt that very much. Has it been established beyond all unreasonable Hindu Hypothesese? If you like, you can replace that with djinn (the alleged creatures that inspired tales of wish granting genies such as the one that lived in Aladdin). If they have been established as not real - then we can also establish that Islam is false, which would be interesting.Until then - you're going to have to settle with proving the less well known Slavic paganism as being false. Now there's a religion with an interesting pantheon....Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

LOL - RAZD's scale of confidence is not the thing here. No I wont! Okay then, let's hear it - how do you define what is supernatural? No. Perhaps he used to be a long time ago. But not now. Not today. Why waste any more time talking about him.

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

Do you now understand that the theory under discussion is all about supernatural CONCEPTS and their source of origin? Is this now clear to you? So now historical god concepts don't qualify as supernatural either. What language are you using here? I am happy to provide you with my preferred wording if you want. But first I suggest that you buy yourself a copy of any major English dictionary and look up the word "supernatural". Then tell me how a magic hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, destruction, fertility, healing, and the protection of mankind doesn't qualify as "supernatural". He seems to think it is. Personally I think that evaluating the quality of your own arguments on the basis of self-defined criteria measured on a self-defined scale is an exercise in self referential circularity of epic proprtions. But there you go. Then it would seem that if we discount your inability to grasp the fact that Bluegenes theory is about the origin of supernatural CONCEPTS and your confusion about what "supernatural" actually means in the English language we are left with a position that is no more in agreement with RAZ's delusional nonsense than mine.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Please try to avoid shouting on Sunday mornings. Thanks.

Excuse me, I thought it was about supernatural BEINGS, as in the original august snowball at the top of the hill: For me, there is a difference. One might even argue a significant difference. A rock can exist without life in the universe, but can a concept of a rock exist without someone to do thinking, someone there to do the conceptualizing? I was sloppy there. I didn't want to talk about concepts of beings, I wanted to talk about the actual beings. So I rushed and made a mistake. Yes, Thor is a supernatural concept, but no, he is not a supernatural being. Because he has been explained as a fictional character. Well, he was just trying to be illustrative and helpful. Except that Bluegenes theory is about the origin of supernatural BEINGS, not concepts. And I have stated that I agree with you & bluegenes - only I word it: "The Set of Supernatural Beings is extremely likely to be equivalent to the Empty Set." Note that I would not argue that the Set of Supernatural Concepts is equivalent to the Empty Set, since you & bluegenes and others have amply demonstrated that.1. There are things/beings/events that have been scientifically explained.2. There are things/beings/events that have not been scientifically explained.Once a thing/being/event that used to be unexplained has been explained, then it is moved from its older box 2 into the new box 1. For example, in this case, the concept of Thor. But Thor, the former supernatural being, is now no longer a supernatural being, but is now instead merely a fictional character in Box 1. Note that your supernatural concept of Thor was unchanged as it moved from Box 2 to Box 1, but that the supernatural being has been changed into a fictional being.Is this helpful? Do the concepts of things have to move around with the things? Seems tidy. I would prefer it that way.Box 1 contains things/beings/events that used to be considered supernatural, but have now been scientifically explained.Box 2 has some curious things in it.There are things/beings/events that some think today are supernatural, but when scientific analysis is eventually brought to bear upon them, they will turn out to have a natural explanation and get moved into Box 1. These are all of the predictions of bluegenes' theory.What about those things/beings/events that some think are supernatural and also will never ever be brought under scientific analysis? What about "can never be explained by science"? Is this set the Empty Set? Looks like it.But we are not 7.0d on the Dawkins scale.

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

Have you actually read trhe thread in question?Bluegenes: "If you're arguing that I should have used the awkward phrase "supernatural being concepts", which I think I have used in earlier posts, then I think you're being pedantic." Message 48Bluegenes: "In the real world, I presented not only evidence, but essential proof that human beings can and do make up supernatural beings. Strictly speaking, and more correctly but clumsily phrased, "supernatural beings- concepts". Message 57I could go on.If you don’t understand the difference between a theory seeking to explain the indisputable fact that supernatural concepts and human belief in such things exist, with a theory that explicitly denies the existence of supernatural beings then it is no wonder you are so confused. But this is your failing of comprehension. Nobody elses.

There is a big difference between supernatural beings and supernatural concepts. I don't think it's pedantic in this instance. If bluegenes has revised his theory (and it appears he has implied that he would have written "supernatural being concepts" if he had known it would be a problem) in this manner, it still remains to be seen where his evidence is leading. I think everyone here has agreed that humans can make up supernatural concepts willy-nilly. But the examples given so far are still evading the Big Enchilada SB Dudes. Concepts would seem to require someone to do the conceptualizing, no? Conceptualizing is mental activity. The process of imagining can help conceptualizing. Adding this layer of terminology does indeed look like stuffing the stocking with more instances of "Hey, I just made up this SB, therefore it's made up" trinkets. So what I wrote in Message 95 wasn't helpful in your understanding of where I'm coming from?

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

It would only be about real extant SBs that have an existence outside our minds if such a thing could be shown to exist, in which case the theory would be falsified and non-existence.Short of falsification, there's no known difference between SBs and SB concepts.If you understood, from the phrasing of the theory, that I meant that we humans have both invented supernatural beings and then manufactured real ones, I think you could have thought a little harder about it.In English, we would say "Harry Potter is a book about a wizard", not "Harry Potter is a book about a wizard-concept." Or "fantasy novels often concern supernatural beings", etc.When we say that the creation mythologies contain many different supernatural beings, we are not making a declaration about the existential state of those beings.Zeus is described as a supernatural being, whether he exists or not.If you're trying to make a semantic argument against the theory, it won't work for mine or any other scientific theory. Theories can always be rephrased for clarification. Mine could certainly be better phrased, but most readers will understand what's meant with the current phrasing, so it's not worth bothering with it at this point.

I think we can all agree that the concept of a "tree" is derived from the demonstrable existence of trees. Can the same be said of any supernatural concept?Can you give me an example of a supernatural being that is NOT a supernatural concept? I get where you are coming from but where you are coming from simply displays your complete inability to grasp the theory at hand. Are you "getting" it yet? CONCEPTSIt would be "illustrative and helpful" if he stopped imposing his fuckwitted scales onto everybody else in every great debate topic he decides to pursue this same issue in.

Yes, and the theory predicts that the Set of real extant SBs is equivalent to the Empty Set. This is another way to state the same thing, perhaps. No way was I thinking that they then manufactured real SBs!!! Yes and that is what I was suggesting at the beginning..... Well, in fact I believe I stated something to this effect in the Peanut Gallery at the get-go. If I recall, my original point was that it was stated clumsily enough to let RAZD jump on it, like through a crack in a wall. Later on things really got weird.

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

Not yet. Of course not. And even if I could I would ruin it the minute I "gave an example", as in stating it here in this forum, because that immediately would conceptualize it on arrival, if there were no conceptualizations of it yet. Just my description of it would attach "concept" to it. Suppose I described it by way of describing what it's not? That wouldn't be helpful. It would be like describing a tree as "not a river". No, I don't think you get where I was coming from or you wouldn't have asked those other questions.When I describe the Box 1 of explained things and the Box 2 of unexplained things, it was to illustrate why inventing an invisible imp on my shoulder was off-topic. The process of applying bluegenes theory should cause things in Box 2 to move into Box 1. Things like Casper The Ghost or the FSM began their existence in Box 1 from the get-go. They were never at any time in the past in Box 2. The theory predicts that when a scientific analysis is brought to bear on some candidate Supernatural Being in Box 2, that it will be shown to be a figment of human imagination and thus be transformed into a fictional character/thing/event and moved into Box 1. The "Supernatural concept"ness attached to it would remain attached to it. But things that begin in Box 1 should be off topic. This is desirable primarily to save time and avoid rummaging around in Box 1. We should be rummaging around in Box 2. After all, if there is something that would Falsify the theory, it would be in Box 2. And are you? Why did you snip off the rolling eyes? That should have given you a clue.

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

Where a well evidenced naturalistic explanation for a given phenomenon exists is it ever reasonable to invoke an unevidenced supernatural explanation as superior or even comparable?The existence of, and human belief in, supernatural concepts is a very real phenomenon. And perfectly able to be explained naturalistically.You continue to blatantly conflate the tentative theory that all supernatural concepts are derived from human imagination and the assertion that no supernatural beings can exist.Can you see how Bluegenes is talking about positive evidence for the former? As opposed to playing the silly 'disprove' one god at a time that RAZ and you seem determined to unjustifiably impose as necessary?Do you understand this very simple point or are you still confused?

Of course not. I am disturbed that you would think I think otherwise. Duh......... Where in the world am I doing this? I have said numerous times that I currently think the Set is an Empty Set, but that in no way is something I'm concluding from a misread of bluegenes theory. That is only to pound in the fact that I am on your side. Perhaps RAZD's battle has led this "one god at a time" notion, or this "consilience" nonsense, but where did I ever get into that? You have misconstrued my purpose. The only SB confrontation in the Peanut Gallery I had with bluegenes was over the IPU. It was the silly notion that you could do science from an armchair. Science is done by getting your hands dirty and any scientific theory that has stood up has involved someone or some people getting their hands dirty.If anything, it was you & bluegenes who started inventing things in Box 1, one at a time, that was silly. Silly beyond belief! Look, the day that I claim I am no longer confused by this world will never come. But you are barking up a wrong tree here. Or is that "you are not barking up the wrong river"?

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

I am now struggling to see where exactly it is that you actually disagree with Bluegenes theory in principle at all? Which of the geologists, cosmologists, physicists, chemists, meterologists, evolutionary biologists (is there another kind?), psychologists, historians, archaeologists, astronomers and numerous other "ologists" have not contributed to or "got their hands dirty" with regard to providing hard objective empirical evidence that refutes the actual existence of supernatural-being-concepts such as these: Solar deitiesWind godsFertility deitiesLunar deitiesThunder godsCreator godsFire godsDo you want peer reviewed literature that suggests that the Sun isn't being dragged across the sky by Scarab the godly dung beetle? Or by Apollo's flaming chariot? Or perhaps a peer reviewed paper on IVF that contradicts the idea that sacrificing lambs to a fertility goddess isn't the answer to a low sperm count?Where exactly is it that you want to "get your hands dirty" Xongsmith?

I DONT! Never have! Me? Not me. It was bluegenes. Modulous did make an eloquent point about not getting to choose the first test of the theory, but, if you go back enough it was all about the IPU. RAZD challenged bluegenes to demonstrate that the IPU was made up. Who created that? Give us the name(s)! When did they do that? Where is the exact internet trail showing the invention of the IPU?This is what I meant by getting your hands dirty, by forensic evidence, by the wet paint analogy.No armchairs, no cigars, no cognac.Modulous has since disarmed that line of attack.....i guess, although that would have been a lot of fun. (Of course the cognac line of attack would have had its own merits!)

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d