Absence of Evidence..............

The underlying assumption in your post is that only empirical evidence is valid in order to believe something, and that's a huge fallacy.1. People have to make decisions all the time without scientific evidence, and arguably most of their decisions have no scientific evidence. There is no real empirical evidence for example in deciding whom to marry, except perhaps in limiting the available candidates to people with certain specific standards, and even then, conducting a peer-review study isn't feasible to determine if the evidence excluding certain people is valid.2. Another fallacy is the assumption that empirical evidence is a good standard to follow in the first place. First off, empirical evidence is reliant on technology. If we were to base all of our beliefs on empirical evidence, we should have no morals, no ethics, and no faith because we don't have comprehensive studies, nor the technology, to accurately determine and scientifically validate many aspects of those things. I would argue we have plenty to verify the existence of God based on the order of the universe, but that doesn't tell us a lot on whether Jesus is the Messiah, for example, and we have no real evidence for what is right and wrong from a science perspective. Moreover, since our technology is limited one shouldn't expect everything to be testable just yet anyway. Lastly, subjective evidence can be and often is more accurate than objective, empirical conclusions.To give you an example, I have believed since I was a child that the reason people got colds when it became cold had something to do with it being cold. That was a subjective opinion flying in the face of science for a very long time. The idea was that people contacted more colds due to being inside. However, last year it came out that actually certain viruses, such as the flu, grew better in cold weather. Subjective opinion was correct in this example, and accepted scientific opinion was wrong.Another example from my childhood involved the brief period people actually claimed margerine in the 70s was healthier than butter. Never bought that for a minute.The simple fact is empirical evidence is unreliable as a standard and must be tempered with subjective evidence from one's own life.

Wrong. First off, the idea isn't the soul is inherently undetectable but merely we cannot detect it now, and many probably think we never could, but there is always the potential for technology to evolve whereby we can detect the soul.Secondly, the idea isn't even that we cannot detect the soul, but rather we subjectively can detect it.The only rational conclusion is that it is absurd to dismiss the existence of the soul based on limited technology and invalid assumptions about the limits of empirical inquiry.

So you have a prejudice against these particular beliefs?Interesting.Fact despite scoffing at these things, which are widely varying, in reality each one should be considered on it's own merits. Take Bigfoot.....that's something subject to objective analysis, not something like the soul.Why is it mentioned here then by you?Ghosts? Ok, could be this is close to things like the soul or God in terms of our lack of technology. Are we to dismiss all personal stories of encounters of ghosts just because some are prejudicial against the idea? It would be more reasonable to think all of these people did in fact experience something. Personally, I think there is a real phenomenon of ghosts but don't know what it is.Alien abduction? Once again, there is something real in the experience of the people that claim these things, but by "real" it could be something psychological and not externally real, or it could well be there are alien abductions. Simplistically writing this off just displays an intellectual bigotry.Bottom line...since science is limited by technology, it is always incapable of producing empirical data for some issues until someone figures out how to do so, and so it's just ignorance to pretend a lack of empirical evidence has any real meaning when subjective evidence is present. The more reasonable conclusion is that the weight of the evidence thus far indicates some sort of reality. In other words, dismissing subjective evidence wholesale unless confirmed with empirical evidence is a fallacy.

Prove it then. Show me where empirical evidence, the kind measuring up to scientific scrunity, is reliable for deciding whom to marry, for deciding what is right and wrong or if even right and wrong outside personal choice, even exists.In reality, making conclusions based solely on empirical evidence is wholly unreliable for most choices a human being makes.

Sure, if someone is willing. Take acceptance and belief in Jesus Christ. It's something that can be verifiable to someone that walks the walk. It's personally empirical though still subject to debate. Nevertheless, almost if not every Christian I have known feels they have personal contact with God and some in remarkable manners, including receiving miracles.Moreover, the idea they should reject belief in Christ, despite the mountain of evidence often in their own lives, just because a scientists says there is no empirical proof of Christ is an absurd fallacy. Just because the scientist has no personal evidence of Christ does not mean others are the same as him.

No, it's not empirical evidence. Furthermore, it could never be the basis of deciding right and wrong other than personal or soceital choice. The idea that what is right and wrong is what makes people feel good is not empirically arrived at, but is itself a subjective choice.Let's say the idea is to make yourself feel good and that is the basis of right and wrong....who is to say empirically? So you'd have to ask what made you feel good, not what made the other person feel good, or heck, how about the fact something can make both you and another person feel very good, but someone else very bad.Morality is simply not empirically verifiable.

So in other words, you arbitrarily choose utilitarianism as your morality and then claim you did so via empirical evidence?Also, "causes the most happiness" to whom? the majority? the species of human beings? the earth itself? That's your opinion, not fact. But let's play a game here. Say one nation decides, hey, we don't like these people....maybe they set up death camps to get rid of them. Hey, there is no universal "good" according to you.Would you agree then with someone claiming the reason the Holocaust was wrong was that the Allies won and the Germans lost? If they had won, then they'd be writing the rules for the "most happiness."Moreover, it is arguable that the most happiness would have been if we joined in with Germany since Stalin and communism caused far more unhappiness to far more people than even Hitler. Hitler was just intent on killing the Jews, gypsies and mentally handicapped folks. Stalin was killing off whole towns and such. Mao's policies results in the starvation of more than both Hitler and Stalin's murders.So utilitarianism would have to say that the right thing to do was to sacrifice the Jews to appease Hitler in order that the most happiness for the most people would be acheived.Right?This is, of course, an extreme example, but it illustrates the difficulty even after ASSUMING a standard for good, being able to empirically validate the right path. It also, imo, illustrates the problem with rejecting right and wrong as something out there we tap into.Edited by randman, : No reason given.

speaking of ghosts and empirical evidence....http://www.news.com.au/...story/0,23739,23776826-954,00.html

Empirical evidence is that which is reproduced in a study, right? You seem to confuse objective evidence with empirical evidence, and yep, nearly everyone marries someone with no empirical evidence.They have objective evidence as a filter, but even there, the deciding factor is subjective evidence for the most part. In other words, they limit the candidates via objective evidence and pick based on subjective feeling.

Define "personal empirical experience" please. Personal experience is not empirical data unless and until it is subjected to empirical verification under certain standards.

straggler, you are missing the point. Just because someone hasn't yet thought of a way of detecting the soul doesn't mean there isn't a means of doing so.But the article awhile back published in the Lancet offers evidence for the soul or mind existing apart from the body. That alone proves you are wrong, as they offered testimony of out of body experience where brain wave function was too low to record events in the room, and yet people remembering things that occured after their heart stopped as evidence.I am sure as time goes by some will come up with other technigues to try to verify the existence of the soul.

Really? So if I pray and experience God's presence, can I say that I have empirically proven the existence of God? Action A led to experience B, after all. That been working out well for ya? I believe in sowing and reaping as faith perspective. I don't think expecting people to follow your request not to hurt your feelings is rational though. Sure, it may help if you are nice guy. In some circumstances, it might do the opposite though. How do you deal with the contradiction that it may be better for the species to prevent certain people from reproducing and passing on inferior genetic qualities such as inherited diseases with the idea that the best way to make everyone happy is to give them what they want and treat everyone well. In fact, if we make sure everyone is well-fed, taken care of, etc,.....does that even produce the greatest good? Does it make sense to incentivize out of wedlock births by paying teen Moms when they get pregnant and have a baby?Is the greater good or lesser good for China to limit families to one child?Moreover, the basic reality is picking utilitarianism is not done by empirical means but is merely a subjective choice and even after that subjective choice, it is often impossible to empirically know the best choice.Once again, most decisions have very little to do with empirical data. You are not answering the question. Faced with someone with more death camps, Stalin, and an ideology spreading with more destruction, communism, and someone with less death camps in terms of numbers killed, Hitler, which is the moral choice? Are you kidding me? We consigned millions of people to their deaths and oppression by propping up Stalin and handing him easter europe. By far, the greater happiness for the largest number of people would have been to let Hitler destroy Stalin and Soviet communism. We did not for the sole reason we didn't want Hitler dominating the world. In making that choice for our own self-interest, we willingly sold out millions of people knowingly.It would have been nice if we had a motive to protect the Jews and others, but we wouldn't even let them emigrate despite knowing what was occuring. Regardless, the best way to increase the most people's happiness would have been to make peace with Hitler and let him take the Soviets down. Not saying that would have been right because I don't think it would have, but please don't fool yourself about the consequences of our actions. Stalin, our ally, was a far worse monster than Hitler, which is hard to do.

Hmmm.....maybe reread my comment a bit. You response was predictable, but failed to see another point. If you are saying action A leads to feeling better and so that's evidence of action A being the right thing, you are saying feelings are the important thing, and that you have empirical evidence for feelings as what is right and wrong. In reality, you have no empirical evidence at all as in reality, what happens with one person might produce the opposite in another. Moreover, you have absolute no empirical evidence that the goal of making people feel better is the right goal, or is what we would call "good", any more than someone saying they experience God in prayer is empirical evidence of God. Very naive.....sure it helps to be nice, but frankly, if you are expecting no one to ever hurt you because you are nice guy, you might as well believe in magic, and certainly you are way, way off the empirical reservation.Moreover, doing the right thing will sometimes make some want to hurt you as it is not always popular as you surmise. First off, Stalin and the Soviets were more interested in spreading communism than Hitler was in conquering the world. Fact is he wasn't trying to conquer the world. He was insane, but his main objective was to conquer the Serbs so that more Nordic types could dominate, use eugenics to artifically select certain features, advance high technology (which they were very good at doing) and kill off the Jews in Europe.Fact is it is highly debatable that defeating Hitler was preferable to Stalin's defeat. Your best argument is that American dominance is preferable and so defeating Germany led to more American dominance of the world. But considering the numbers of people harmed by communism as opposed to the smaller numbers helped by American values, it would be very hard to sustain that argument empirically. I think you underestimate the international ambitions of communists. Moreover, yea, Hitler dominating Russia and Eastern Europe would certainly have been better than Stalin doing so, far better. Ask yourself this.If you were not Jewish or mentally handicapped, would you rather have lived under Hitler or Stalin in a time of peace?Stalin ruined his economy and people. Hitler's system, as barbaric as some aspects were, had a booming economy and far more personal liberty. Both were monsters, but Hitler was more a monster to a minority whereas Stalin and communism a monster to all. If you are basing things on utilitarianism, you'd have to say Hitler was better, and considering the 200 million or so Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc,....killed or caused to die with absurd policies, the best for most people would be for communism to have been crushed at that time. Keep in mind Hitler wasn't going to live forever.Of course, I don't have a problem with us crushing Hitler. But then again, I think advocating utilitarianism is somewhat naive, and I understand it perfectly well. Heck, I've studied this at the graduate level and when you break it down, it's unworkable as a universal concept, and at times, it's deadly.But it has it's place too.Edited by randman, : No reason given.

At most 30 million? At most, Stalin killed 110 million and the low estimates are 22 million. But getting into all the details are off-topic. Mao starved even more. Perdition, maybe you should think about that statement again.....past experience is definitely not empirical.

So before producing the study, are you admitting then that the existence of the soul is potentially empirically verifiable?Also, why should we only accept that which is empirically verifiable? If I or anyone has an experience with God, or angels or whatever, why should that belief be rejected simply because people lack the technology to experimentally verify it?Seems to me you are advocating a fallacy by ignoring the limits of current technology and so insist, regardless of one's own personal verification of something, that all should pretend it isn't there because, you know, we can't empirically verify it?Can you empirically verify the right person to marry? Even if theoritically possible, does anyone really do that?The answer is clearly no. So you admit to maintaining beliefs (doubts) without any empirical reason for doing so. You are a man of faith indeed. The question is whether your faith is rational and well-placed.