Peanut Gallery

Who'd have thought that here at EvC we'd find ourselves arguing about a natural phenomenon being explained in terms of natural causes with people who raise an unverified, unfalsifiable, vague, unscientific and generally supernatural counterarguments?

I think part of the misunderstanding has to do with the theory being proposed as leading to the position that there is no god.

Actually it leads to the position that gods are more likely to figments of human imagination than real entities.Relative likelihood and all that.....

I don't think it does. You don't have any actual probilities of gods existing with which to be relative to. And inductive probabilites are not physical probabilities. You're gonna have to make an assumption of a probability in there, most likely the one that you're trying to conclude.

Can you name anyone that has proposed this? Please link to the post, I've completely missed that.

It might not be that explicit, but Bluegenes proposed the theory to answer the question "Why not agnostic?" in Message 167.

But he doesn't even imply that his theory leads to the position that there is no god, let alone propose it. That you think that is what he is saying probably explain a lot of your misgivings.It does lead to the position that any conception you have of god is your imagination. But as to whether a god actually exists, the theory is basically neutral. If a real god was to turn up, we would know that at least one god concept was not pure imagination, and the theory would be falsified.

And as you well know (because you took part in all of them) this thread followed a whole raft of previous threads where it was made abundantly clear that none of the atheists involved here (including bluegenes) are talking about absolute certainty. E.g. Message 168 + up and down thread + numerous places elsewhere.And even when RAZ refers to his technicolour scales which are included in the Great Debate thread he recognises that bluegenes is taking a 6 position which is not one of certainty. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Is this English?The only "assumption" being made is that highly evidenced conclusions are more likely to be correct than unevidenced ones.I think you will find that this approach is widely adopted, rather fundamental to the validity of scientific conclusions and more than borne out by the achievements this scientific approach has led to.

Straggs, what do you mean by "highly evidenced conclusions"?You mean about the supernatural? What kind of evidence do you have about the SN that is "highly" evidenced to conclude they don't exist?You mean like testing the SN emperically? Is there a test to do so? You seem to be trying to bridge the gap by using natural methods to conclude the supernatural is just our imagination. You can't know ANY better than WE know, right?Isn't subjective evidence for both of us? You see it one way, I see it another? Why is yours any MORE right than mine?You say it's more likley they don't exist, I say it's more likely they do. Why do you think you have the upper hand? Because of natural conclusions about the SN?IF, the SN DOES exist why would it be detected thru natural means? Because it can't doesn't mean it isn't there. It's just the testing we have, is inadequate.Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.

Person A: "I have a supernatural thing here! It is Thor's anger!!"
Scientist B: "I'll investigate....Oh, it is just lightning."Person C: "I have a supernatural thing here! It is god's love!!"
Scientist D: "I'll investigate....Oh, it is just a rainbow."etc...etc...etc...This doesn't conclude that they don't exist.
It concludes that all known supernatural concepts originated in the human imagination.

I mean conclusions like the conclusion that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old rather than being omphamsitically created last Thursday.I mean conclusions like the conclusion that gravitational effects are caused by space-time curvature rather than immaterial and undetectable gravity gnomes linking masses together.I mean the conclusion that evolution actually took place rather than the notion that fossils and genetic evidence were simply planted by Satan to make us believe ungodly things about the creation of species.I mean the conclusion that gods are products of the human mind rather than real entities.Etc.Which part of this is confusing you?

The last seems out of place and totally un-evidenced.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

So which concept of god are you suggesting as more likely to exist than be a product of human imagination?

I'm not, I'm simply saying that what you said is simply an un-evidenced assertion, your personal belief.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!