Phi for All

That's where I see the problem. No god(s) are observable (by scientific standards), so how are you going to verify it even if you get a consensus definition?

Since god(s) remain outside what scientists could observe and test, how can we say "God does NOT exist" is a falsifiable statement? What set of circumstances can you envision that could refute the existence of something you're not supposed to be capable of observing and testing? I think both stances are non-falsifiable.

It's not your fault at all. It's disturbing to the entire staff when well-meaning, inquisitive people like you come to the Speculations section and get drawn into wildly unsupported ideas. They can be very fun but this one in particular should be taken with a salt lick. But I think you get the idea. I usually use the quote function to avoid having people misinterpret my posts this way. And I've read the thread, and all the reports it's engendered from people demanding we close it because you think stringing a bunch of words together magically makes a theory. That's where all the attention is coming from. Defending without listening isn't science. Can you really tell me you've been listening to ajb and swansont when you still call this a theory? When you think there will be a point where they will drop their objections to your physics-word-jumble-salad approach and admit that you were right?!

"God cured my mother" is a claim, an assertion. "I think God cured my mother" is an interpretation, an opinion. The former ALWAYS gets pounced on here, as well it should. The latter can be questioned like any opinion but not held to the same standard as an assertion. Just once I'd love to hear, "God regrew my mother's amputated leg". He seems to be very good with cancer and pneumonia. Perhaps the root of the problem is the inherent non-falsifiability of god(s). When we try to apply scientific methodology to an entity that chooses to remain unobservable by that methodology, it predictably fails. And every miracle I've ever heard of can more easily be explained naturally. I like that concept of belief inextricably linked to doubt. It reminds me of the scientific method. A suspicion of anything people claim as certain is healthy, imo too. This is why I separate belief into trust, faith and hope. I feel it's important to identify whether my belief is based on evidence (which I can check if I doubt it enough), a gut feeling or wishful thinking. I can live with my wishful thoughts. I make no assertions about them and I don't try to mold my life around them. I still define faith as certainty without support. And I just can't invest that kind of belief in something I can't possibly know about. I do understand. So many words have nuances that tag along whether we want them or not. Perhaps it's because certainty isn't a scalar quantity. It has direction ("I'm certain you're explanation is right" or "I'm certain your explanation is wrong"), and all else in between is really degrees of doubt. Maybe?

Dude, she was clearly thanking ajb for his link. That you construe this as praise for your idea is very disturbing.

That's moving the goalposts AND a strawman. It's never really been about impacting the planet as an object, has it? It's about impacting our environment. We DO have a demonstrable, quantifiable impact on our own environment, and while the planet will certainly continue as a planet, it could continue without us. Especially if we're so arrogant as to think we can muck it up as much as we please.

Props to Freddie Hg! That's fantastic!

Why do so many religions treat their teachings as Truth? Christianity even went so far as a branding campaign, making scripture synonymous with it ("The Gospel Truth!"). This alone has caused many science-minded people to avoid it. Well I think that's the whole point. Why would any scientist hold beliefs he trusts to one standard of evidence, and beliefs he has faith in to another? For our purposes here, this is what causes so much wasted discussion, since most aren't willing to let religion get a special pleading pass when it makes assertions that science would have to back up with solid evidence. Am I wrong or isn't that what is really being discussed here for the last several pages? Whether people can assert ANYTHING without supporting it? If I say "All doctors are men", evidence can refute that assertion. If I say, "The doctor didn't cure my mother, God cured my mother", you seem to be saying I get to make that assertion without being held to the same rigor as the first claim. Does that really seem right to you, especially when religion starts making claims science has simpler, natural explanations for? Isn't purity of faith the goal, whether it's attainable or not? Isn't faith supposed to be strong and abiding, complete and without doubt? If you tell your priest you have doubt, isn't he going to try to fix it, help you remove your doubt? I disagree with "I would view faith as a much greyer area than this". I think this treatment is what allows faith to appear so strong to believers even though it's built on feelings more than reputable evidence. Faith is believing with confidence despite a lack of evidence. It's special but it's not "gray". It seems to turn on whether you think this type of belief is stronger for having no basis or weaker because they're asserting things they can't possibly know. I also disagree with "It's all about what can be known for certain". More definition problems, sorry. Certainty is knowing for sure, established beyond doubt. I don't think it's a good word to use with "degrees" in this context. Just an opinion, motivated by the desire for clarity. *edit to add: I really do appreciate your clarity and input on this subject, despite my disagreements. Arguments can be good discussions and thank you for showing that. Dude, you went too far, that's all. Own it. And using terms like "common sense" is not only insulting, it's vague and subjective. Faith is already defined as belief despite a lack of evidence. I said that waaaaay back when you first brought this up, and you've been trying to assert that this makes theists wrong or stupid ever since (how else are we to interpret a lack of "common sense"?). Please don't keep using "common sense" as some kind of objective measurement. It used to be common sense to throw spilled salt over your shoulder to ward off the devil.

It shouldn't, not when it comes to trusting explanations about the phenomena we experience every day. Opinion is fine for many things, but not for science. There needs to be a benchmark that's held to higher standards than how many people like it. Just funny enough, imo. I'm not as well grounded in math as many here are, but I can see the importance of not looking for "proof", or even worse, Truth! when it comes to various phenomena. I could never trust explanations that are considered absolutely "True" based on anything, much less mass appeal. Could you, really? Wouldn't that be like using the Nielsen rating system to determine quality when all it really does is measure popularity? I think we would end up with explanations that made people happy instead of informed. That's good enough for TV but not for science.

Not the same though. We're talking about personal faith. It needs no evidence until it's used to make assertions. Then it fails, but that's because it's defined as belief without evidence. If you're willing to defend the "special experience" prerequisite for faith, are you willing to assert that a huge majority of people never had any kind of special religious experience that cemented their belief, that formed the basis of their faith? Couldn't such an experience happen when reading the Bible or having a loved one survive cancer after they prayed for it? Does it have to be a lightning-strike or NDE-type of thing before it's valid for that person? Believe me, I think faith in gods is irrational, but I'm not willing to assert it's irrational for everyone. I don't care to guess at motives, or whether or not someone had a special enough experience to make them believe what they do.

So, "a huge majority of peoples faith is baseless" is now a fact? So much that it's considered "common sense"? Citation needed, please. How can you really assert that this huge majority of religious people never had any experiences they considered sufficient enough to make them believe? Does it have to be miraculous or just seem miraculous? I've never met anyone who really believed that didn't have a good reason for it, even if the reasoning wasn't up to scientific rigor.

Oh, totally. The censors have made it worse. What a bunch of holes.

OK. So, knowing that your stance requires guesswork, assumptions and estimates about people you don't know, are you at least willing to stop asserting that faith, blind or not, makes no sense at all? Perhaps the claim can be amended to "Faith makes no sense to me"?

Actually, iNow is right, science doesn't deal in proof. Proof is really only available in math, because we can't test for everything, everywhere. For science, it's usually a preponderance of evidence, so we use theories instead. Proof signals the end of the search, and we really don't want that to happen. Proof makes us stop looking. And this is another example of misunderstood definitions. We say, "Prove it!" but really mean, "Sway me with a preponderance of evidence!" Who claimed their belief in God was without any experiences to make them believe? I don't recall anyone claiming that, unless you're talking about you. How would that even work?! This is probably where Iggy's strawman complaint comes from. I'm still unsure whether calling it "blind" faith is moving the goalpost or not. I've used that term before in the context that faith often overlooks reality in favor of spirituality. But you seem to be using it to mean "believing in God without having a miraculous experience". How on earth are you supporting THAT?! Wait, don't answer that. This thread isn't about whether believing in God is right or wrong.

Sorry, I don't see the contradiction. A court of law has different methodology than a science lab. An eye-witness (which is what many people claim the writers of the Gospels were) can sway a jury or a judge, especially a highly credible witness like a policeman. But it's not enough for even Einstein to simply witness something and use that in support of his theory. Even Einstein would need to show his peers his evidence. That's why biblical accounts aren't credible by themselves as scientific evidence. It's anecdotal at best. The demarcation is in the rigor. Humans are notoriously HORRIBLE witnesses. We see what we want to, or what we think should be there. Seeing something isn't enough, unless you can recreate the event so everyone can see it the way you did. That's why the methodology works on natural phenomena, and fails when applied to the supernatural. No one here but you is claiming that a personal belief in God is wrong or nonsensical for everyone. They're explaining why THEY don't believe in any gods. Ask them. You're falling into the same bad arguments you claim to be against. "It makes no sense" is an argument from incredulity, unless you can provide some evidence that God doesn't exist. You can decide not to believe for yourself if you like; it's an opinion and everyone has one. And as long as the person who believes in God isn't trying to insist that there's scientific proof for him, or try to attribute to God something more easily explained by nature, their belief isn't wrong, not for them it isn't. You can't prove God exists and you can't prove he doesn't using science. It's a concept outside nature and not for science to explain. And just like trying to prove God's existence is like trying to prove Orville Dragonbacher'sTM existence, you'll end up with nothing but bad arguments and popcorn farts.

As an insult, "ass" is much more mild, isn't it? I'll bet I could almost get a smile from an American if I said, "Stop acting like an ass!" I picture only scowls and escalated tensions if I used "asshole" instead. It must be the difference between being a jerk and being a dirty, stinking, crap-spewing jerk.

More definitions problems. Scientific evidence is different than legal evidence, so while eye-witness testimony is admissible in court (if the witness is credible), it's not enough on its own to support a theory. If Einstein had claimed to witness something in his lab that he couldn't reproduce for colleagues to verify on their own, it still wouldn't be considered evidence since it couldn't convince others through rational thought. Don't we always have problems with misapplied terminology? Even in science, different fields use certain words with varying emphasis and meaning. "Field" is actually a good example. A field of science? Math uses "field" differently than physics, which is different from the way computer science uses the term. I think the root of this problem lies with the term "irrational". If you think it means "not requiring evidence in order to be believed", it doesn't seem wrong to apply it to faith. If you think it means "crazy and superstitious", you're probably not happy having it applied to your religion. But the predictions that are verified have more natural explanations than goddidit. Or they attempt to explain one aspect while ignoring the trivially refuted basis of the argument (like trying to "prove" that the remains of Noah's ark exist without first explaining how all those animals could fit on a boat that size). Or biblical testimony for eyewitness accounts are used as "evidence", even though some of those eyewitness accounts contradict each other. How do you know which account to trust?

Faith: strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof. You're trying to argue that having faith in God is wrong, based on how irrational it is. Faith is NOT a rational belief to begin with. "Faith is wrong" is not an argument you can support in any way with regard to a personal belief or opinion. I've tried to show, in other threads, that faith isn't as strong as most people think. I tried to show that it's actually the weakest form of belief. But I can't say it's wrong, not until it's used to support an assertion and then is subject to all the rigor reasoned thought can bring to bear. Again, as long as faith isn't expressed as fact, it's a personal opinion. You don't get to tell me my logic is flawed because I think chocolate is the best flavor in the world, until I say "Chocolate IS the best flavor and I have evidence to prove it!" At least for our purposes of discussion here, trying to convince someone their faith is misplaced is every bit as much preaching as those who're trying to convert you to their faith. Then it's probably a semantics issue if you feel anyone here is attacking your stance undeservedly. Personally, I wouldn't use the word "evidence" in anything but a scientific context, just like I don't use the word "theory" when I mean "an idea I've pondered whilst showering". Precise terminology is something a theistic scientist would have to be more than normally attentive to. I think it's only evidence if it can convince others through rational thought. If it can't but you still think it's evidence, then I think you're invoking faith, in which case you shouldn't need evidence. Does that make sense?

What about the Republican party of the 50's and 60's? Ike was president when I was born. The Republican party should be ashamed of what they've done since then. And they show no signs of atonement, none at all. By the time I was old enough to be interested in politics, Eisenhower's fears about the military-industrial complex had already come true. Now, we don't wage wars for what's right, we do it only if it brings profit as well, which is a really stupid way to approach killing our own species. And it's both Democrats and Republicans now, since getting elected in the first place is all about which corporation you're writing legislation for.

This is what you DON'T get to do, question the rationality of faith. As long as it's a personal belief, you can offer your opinion to counter their opinion, but faith isn't supposed to be rational; you can't use reason to question it. Unless, of course, that faith becomes an assertion of fact; then it goes under the microscope. Until then, it's all anecdotal and personal opinion. Capable of being brought into question, certainly, but not in a scientific or rational way. If, by personal belief, you're talking about faith, I wouldn't call it evidence of anything. Evidence needs to be testable and repeatable, which most personal spiritual experiences are not. An angel came down in a wash of light and told you about God? Did you get a photo? Can you get him to do it again tomorrow at six? It's a powerful personal experience but it doesn't count as evidence in science. Faith isn't supposed to require evidence, it's a belief in something irrational that can't be supported by evidence. I think most of the problems people have here with religion is because they want their beliefs NOT to be considered irrational and look for ways that it's not. I think the Theistic Scientist needs to draw fine distinctions on what requires evidence to support it, and what is actually harmed by trying to collect evidence. Natural vs Supernatural. I get that science needs to keep an open mind, but it's seemingly impossible to deal scientifically with anything that's outside nature. Just not the right tool, like trying to measure the length of your sofa with a poem.

Part of it is confirmation bias, I think. If something seems wrong, we cherry-pick all the stuff that seems wrong and ignore others explaining why it's right. Sometimes we become even more convinced it's wrong when we hear a reasonable, rationally arrived at explanation. It takes a lot more time to explain things when we already have a heavy bias towards a different answer. And part of it is our pattern recognition ability. Things that are wrong or out of place grab our attention and we MUST FIX THEM IMMEDIATELY! And I think people genuinely want to help someone who has it wrong. So some compassion thrown in there too.

I'm so tired of the privatization approach to everything. There are plainly many areas where cooperative, non-profit-oriented public funds, allocated by experts in that field, work much better than private funding where profit and market share are always the priority. I'm so sorry to hear that Oz is temporarily without its basic research funding. I'm sure we'll start hearing about lots of cost overruns due to private enterprise siphoning off those funds (and more) to fix not having the research done right in the first place. By the time people realize this in x years, you'll be x years behind. People have to ignore a lot of evidence and historical data to make a decision like this. I remember reading about how privatizing prisons in Arizona turned out to be a horrible boondoggle. It was supposed to be a move that saved a lot of taxpayer money but ended up costing a lot more, and made some corporations very rich. And they continue to do it, even though they know it doesn't work. Because privatized is always better, right?

Is anyone still arguing that assertions made here don't have to be backed up by evidence if they're based on faith? That's like having your cake and eating it too, or enjoying special protection as a corporation but wanting the privileges of being a person too. I haven't seen that lately so I can see Iggy's point about the current ridicule being so unproductive it's like a strawman. Science gives limited but trustworthy explanations backed by evidence, and religion gives you an omnipotent god who provides unlimited explanations based on faith in his power. I don't think anyone can ever fully integrate those two approaches, although I can see distinctions that would make being a theistic scientist much easier. "Don't make assertions without evidence" would be a good Rule #2.

If the definition of "believe" being used in an assertion is based on trust, as with something that has lots of evidence that can be studied and tested by anyone with the inquisitiveness to do so, then I would expect the person making it to share that evidence. If they can't, then it's probably based on either wishful hoping or faith. "You shouldn't TRUST in God because he can't be observed in a repeatable, predictable way that allows scientific evidence to be collected about him, the same way as leprechauns and dragons" is entirely correct. If your beliefs are worthy of TRUST, you shouldn't mind following proper methodology and sharing with peers so they can check it out. "You shouldn't have FAITH in God because he's just as supernatural as dragons and leprechauns" is a bad argument. If a person chooses to believe in something anyway that has no evidence for it, that's what FAITH is for. It's not supposed to be rational (when compared to a belief based on TRUST). But again, on a science site you should know that assertions based on FAITH alone are not going to go unchallenged. "You shouldn't HOPE God is real because that's just wishful thinking, like the folks who secretly believe leprechauns and dragons are real" is also a bad argument. If the definition of belief used is HOPE, that usually doesn't engender a bunch of assertions. If someone hopes that their consciousness lives on after their body dies but doesn't assert specifically how that happens, that's just an opinion and should be recognized by everyone as such. Sorry to force my definitions of belief into the thread, but that's the only way I can sort it so it makes sense to me. Belief seems to be grounded in different things, so it makes sense that we actually use different forms of belief depending on what explanation we're talking about.

As with much of the discussion on this site, how one words their arguments is paramount. I think a lot of the "browbeating" that goes on is more about showing how the assertion "God is REAL!" requires more to support it than the opinion "I think God is real". It can get repetitive and seem very heavy-handed but the alternative is to let people assert anything they want without challenge. Scientists, including theistic scientists, aren't (or shouldn't be) very good at lending tacit approval to poor arguments. They tend to speak up. And unfortunately, most arguments that try to "prove" something science classifies as super-natural lack support in basic ways that lead to easy dismissal. And then the argument gets treated like any concept based on a weak premise ("GR is WRONG so I have my own theory!") and the dragons start pooping corn and invisible unicorns start living in garages. Assertions should be treated consistently, don't you think? Religion shouldn't get a pass on a science site if assertions are made regarding it. Faith is based on belief without evidence. Is it too much to ask that it be considered opinion, at least here? I do wish that the knee-jerk reactions could be less boilerplate, less automatic. It does come off as heavy-handed and, because it really does involve opinion, it often seems directed at the person and not the argument. I'm not sure what the alternative is. There are places where people can assert whatever they want about their beliefs and not only go unchallenged but be encouraged by people who believe the same way. I have to assume they're here instead of there for a reason.