Peanut Gallery

I'm confused as to why people think that a theory which predicts that all gods are products of the human imagination is anything to do with trying to prove God exists or proving that it doesn't.It seems that people see the theory 'All supernatural beings are products of human imagination' and see it as if it were a assertion, as you implied earlier. It is not an assertion, it is a thoery.

Yes, a conclusion, not an absolute fact. Drawing a conclusion and stating a truism are different processes. Conclusions can be drawn from the fact that a theory exists that is not falsified and is supported by the evidence.Are you saying there is a problem in drawing conclusions from theories? The conclusions might be wrong.They are not 'proofs'. It's a perfectly valid assertion to make. It just so transpires that evidence exists that shows it is false. This latter property is missing in the conclusion that gods are not real.

I fail to see how that difference is relevant here. We aren't debating whether or not there is a god. We are discussing whether or not our concepts of gods are products of human imagination or are derived from a consideration of the evidence. It seems that your position is that our god-concepts cannot be derived from a consideration of the evidence, which it transpires, is in agreement with Straggler.

Then it seems you and Straggler agree, and your point is merely one of semantics. You seem to be arguing that a certain interpretation of Straggler's words is problematic, but I don't think that that interpretation is the one Straggler actually meant.

The elf was used as evidence that humans do invent supernatural beings, since RAZD stated there was no evidence they really did. Bluegenes provided primary evidence of humans inventing supernatural beings for RAZD.If you wish to suggest that different supernatural beings are more likely to be real than others - the onus is upon you, as Stile points out, to explain why you aren't special pleading. The only thing that separates them is that the yellow elf is falsifiable and falsified.Of course, some supernatural concepts are more believable than others. And the inexact science of psychology has identified at least one of the characteristics that these entities have that makes them memorable and perhaps even believable: if they are minimally counterintuitive. It is next to impossible to prove that a certain chimpanzee living in 1567 shares common ancestry with Henry VIII. Theories aren't about proofs. You are in agreement with blugenes. Bluegenes does not suggest that it is proven that superJesus is a figment of the human imagination. He is much closer to the opinion that superJesus is probably a product of human imagination, not that it is a proven fact. Really?

This is just as inane as asking for evidence of the IPU, which was being done earlier and which you conceded was approaching things backwards.There is this concept of Jesus Christ, the miracle worker (or at least someone through whom miracles were performed). There are two explanations that are of interest at this time:1. There was a Jesus Christ, and he performed miracles. People witnessed it, and that is where our conception of Jesus originated.2. There may or may not have been a Jesus Christ, but the supernatural properties ascribed to this entity are the result of embellishments via the human imagination.The first is an unevidenced theory. The second has evidence for it. There is evidence that humans embellish stories, to levels that reach a certain minimally counterintuitve nature (too outlandish is too unbelievable and those ideas are quickly forgotten about). The Jesus story has the characteristics of natural human embellishment. There are other stories that share characteristics of the Jesus one, and they are mutually exclusive (principally because of the exclusivity of monotheism).The second explains the concept, provides evidence of the mechanisms proposed to be involved, is consistent with everything else we know, is coherent and self-consistent, and is falsifiable in that any time the first theory gains evidence it could be falsified.

As someone that has read Straggler's epistemological stance, and understood it, I can assure you that in Straggler's epistemology knowledge is intrinisically tentative.That is, one can know something, but be wrong about it. From wikipedia

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Fallibilism (from medieval Latin fallibilis, "liable to err") is the philosophical principle that human beings could be wrong about their beliefs, expectations, or their understanding of the world...Some fallibilists argue that absolute certainty about knowledge is impossible...Another proponent of fallibilism is Karl Popper, who builds his theory of knowledge, critical rationalism, on fallibilistic presuppositions.

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That is what Straggler means when he says

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I KNOW to all practical intents and purposes

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What about it? I believe he is referring to a property that a thing has: being unexplainable in terms of natural processes. He is saying that something being inexplicable means that it cannot be explained as opposed to 'unexplained' which might imply that there is an explanation, just one that has yet to be found.Its the difference between unexplainable and unexplained. Of unclimbable and unclimbed. Of undesireable and undesired. You'll have to explain what you mean. What infallible knowledge is Straggler claiming?

Sure. A black hole inherently has an escape velocity that is equal to or in excess of the speed of light. No, not like that. I'm not suggesting, and nor is Straggler that idealism is correct. We're talking about defining properties, not ideal forms.There are defining features of placental mammals, even though we don't believe in an ideal placental mammal. We can use these 'inherently placental' features to discriminate between placentals and marsupials. It's the supernaturalists who have overstepped the mark if anyone has, since they are the ones that have defined supernatural entities as being beyond the scope of natural explanation. Straggler is just taking them at their word that supernatural things are definitionally beyond natural explanations - and are therefore inherently inexplicable in those terms.Personally, I reject the notion that the supernatural is inherently inexplicable - I think it is merely a cheap escape clause to evade the scrutiny of skepticism.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

No, because many proposed supernatural beings can influence the natural world in various ways. I believe that it is possible to empirically confirm the existence of many supernatural beings, should they exist.While they may or may not defy natural explanation, their existence can still be evidenced.

I've said it a few times now, for instance Message 1282. I've used the example of a ghost of person who is confirmed dead, who has the personality and memories of the deceased. We could confirm that it is real by using a password system, to prove that real information is being transmitted, and it is not a hallucination. We might obtain evidence that ghosts exist, but we don't therefore know how memories survive brain death. We would know ghosts exist, but we can't explain them.

Ah, the entire field of epistemology settled by an online dictionary We know that the world is over 4 billion years old. We know we can be wrong sometimes, even about things which we have high confidence in. Therefore we could be wrong about the age of the world. This is resolved by understanding knowledge in the context of the principle of fallibilism. Without it, there is nothing we possess that can be called knowledge about the physical world, which is accessed through a biased and imperfect filter (our percetion/sensory system). Since we want to say some things are knowledge, we either adopt a weaker definition of knowledge than being 'a justified true thing which is believed' or we use an alternative, more pragmatic, definition of truth (such as with the imperfect criteria for truth)Either way, there is a giving way to tentativity that can be expressed when we say we know something.

But not with 100% certainty. The conclusion is still tentative. Therefore, by your stated standards we do not know it. Indeed - we don't know anything about the world by your stated standards. Its not redefining it, it is defining it. And it isn't 'almost knowledge' it is actual knowledge, tentatively concluded given the imperfection of our measuring equipment and our minds.If you want to suggest it is impossible to know anything since we can never be 100% certain, that's fine. But don't balk when others argue that all knowledge is tentative, but is still knowledge. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

It is tentatively true. True enough for my book to be called knowledge. But there is not 100% certainty about the truthhood of the statement, so by your standards you cannot say that you know that the evidence, test methods and information we currently have show the earth to be over 4 billion years old. I'm not redefining it, I'm using a more complete understanding of what knowledge is based on centuries of discussion, controversy and debate - rather than relying on an online dictionary as the canonical definition which you are using to dismiss said debate.If you want knowledge to be about 100% certainty you have to deal with the fact that this means we cannot have knowledge.

Strange that you'd pick such an old post to repeat your belief that bluegenes is dipping the shallows and is ignoring possible deeper truths. But if it helped inspire this particular analogy I think we can both walk away pleased.Take Jesus. Is he a supernatural being? Or are his supernatural properties figments of human imagination? Take the Islamic Allah. Is he a real supernatural being? Or is he a figment of human imagination?If Allah (as described in the Koran) is real, then Jesus was not a supernatural being. If Jesus is supernatural, Allah is built from the human imagination.I have provided a set of two big names. One of them came about as the result of human imagination. We could do the same for a few others.The only way to save both is to add ad hoc rationalisations that render them both unfalsifiable (see: RAZD's Hindu Hypothesis for an example)For what should be obvious reasons, it is difficult to specifically point to the origin source of ancient religions. Their ancient tenacity does not give them special place though. They aren't to be presumed to be the 'deeper fish' in our pond. There is no reason to propose a selection bias just because there are ancient ideas in play. And as bluegenes has already pointed out, they're fair game for the mutual exclusivity ploy.