How many posters here are Atheist?

[J.C.MacSwell]

Dispixic: one who denies the existence of pixies

 

Disturbance: Inability to accept the possibility of turbot wearing turbans

[swansont]

Dispixic: one who denies the existence of pixies

 

Wouldn't that be one who doesn't believe in digital displays?

[1veedo]

It may be your opinion. however, logic will support, their being a God or no God, faeries etc. It is all in the assumptions (often based on faith) you start with.

I'm assuming that we cant prove the existence or nonexistence of God.

[Reaper]

Apastafarian, one who denies the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

[ParanoiA]

Apastafarian, one who denies the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

 

And your soul will simmer in tomato sauce with the rest of the deniers...

[J.C.MacSwell]

I'm assuming that we cant prove the existence or nonexistence of God.

 

Agree.

[Elessarina]

Wow.. this thread has flown.. have i created a monster?

[Callipygous]

sort of...

 

from reading the posts im getting a bit of a mixed message on whether or not SFN is ready to have the P and R section reintroduced. : P

[lucaspa]

So what you are effectively saying is that it takes faith to disbelieve in unsupported hypotheses? That anyone can put forth any cockamamie hypothesis and whomever lacks belief in their supposition does so on faith?

 

From the pov of science, to say "I believe (entity) does not exist" without the evidence to falsify it is making a statement of faith. What is confusing you, I think, it that all of us share some beliefs. You can I share, for instance, a belief that leprechauns don't exist. When enough people share a belief, we often lose sight of the fact that this is a belief and mistakenly think of it as "true" or "fact".

 

Now, you can say "I don't know if (entity) exists or not." This is what I would call "lack of faith". There is no faith on either side -- existence or non-existence. You, however, tend to equate "disbelief" and "lacks belief". I claim those are 2 different things.

 

They are different.

 

The questions are not different. What you have done is say that the answer to the questions is different. When first posed, there was no evidence for any of those entities!

 

We have observable evidence of atoms, quarks and even natural selection. We have working hypotheses that make successful predictions for these entities and phenomenon.

 

1. I think the major problem is that several people here have a mistaken view of how science works. This mistaken view is that first you gather evidence and THEN you make a hypothesis/propose an entity.

 

However, science most often works the opposite. First you ask the question/propose the entity, and then you go looking for evidence. So, after looking specifically for evidence in an attempt to falsify atoms, quarks, and natural selection, they are supported. BTW, "predictions" are simply "evidence/observations we have not seen yet".

 

We've got zero proof to support any God hypothesis.

 

1. As stated, that's not true. I'll get back to that later.

2. But you have to ask the question: Why don't we have supporting evidence? Is it because there is no supporting evidence or is it because science can't find or identify it? It's the latter. I did this in my post when I said "Science is in the same boat when looking for evidence of deity. The methodology of science is incapable of directly detecting deity. It's called Methodologial Materialism (or Naturalism). Despite some claims about it, MM comes directly from how we do experiments."

 

I wouldn't necessarily agree that it even meets the requirements of a hypothesis since it makes no testable predictions that could be tested and observed.

 

Again, is this the hypothesis' fault or a problem with how science works? It's a problem with science.

 

Now, back to the "proof". You have to define what you mean by "proof". The only "proving" science can do is "disproving" or proving that something does not exist. Even with all the supporting evidence we have, we [and I mean scientists] have not, strictly speaking, "proven" natural selection or gravity.

 

"the experimental results may square with the hypothesis, or they may be inconsistent with it. ... but no matter how often the hypothesis is confirmed -- no matter how many apples fall downward instead of upwards --the hypothesis embodying the Newtonian gravitational scheme cannot be said to have been *proved to be true*. Any hypothesis is still sub judice and may conceivably be supplanted by a different hypothesis later on. ...To my mind the great strength of Karl Popper's conception of the scientific process is that it is realistic -- it gives a pretty fair picture of what actually goes on in real-life laboratories." "The Threat and the Glory", by P.B. Medawar (Nobel Prize winner in medicine), HarperCollins, New York, 1990 (original publication 1959). pp 96-101.

 

Faith is a belief in something, not a disbelief...

 

But a "disbelief" is believing in the opposite.

"b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof "

 

So, when you say "I disbelieve in God" you are saying "I believe God does not exist." That's a firm belief for something for which there is no proof. QED

 

When I see a being rip through the fabric of reality, then, I will believe in God.

 

And now you know why theists believe! What have you stated? You've stated you will "believe" when you have personal experience/evidence.

 

Theists already have had personal experiences of deity.

[Reaper]

And your soul will simmer in tomato sauce with the rest of the deniers...

 

Its better than your soul simmering in burning sulfur:D. I like tomato sauce.

 

So, lucespa, how do you propose we prove, or disprove, the existence of God? As far as I know that usually falls under the jurisdiction of philosophy. However there are attempts using science that can be used to falsify the existence of God. I don't quite buy the personal experience argument.

[lucaspa]

This depends on what you mean by "agnostic." In this case you're confusing agnosticism with weak atheism. See my above post,

 

LOL! No, you are trying to make a new term -- "weak atheism" -- and have it be agnosticism. Thank you for proving my point that "weak atheism", upon examination, becomes either agnosticism or "strong" atheism.

 

1. The belief that there is a god (theism)

2. The lack of belief that there is a god (weak atheism)

3. The belief that there is no god (strong atheism) So many people missunderstand what atheism is. I'm working on a post right now at bodybuilding.com for theists -- maybe I'll link to it latter.

 

We understand what atheism is. Some atheists are tying to disguise what atheism is in order to try to con us that it isn't a faith.

 

Now, let's look at that "lack of belief". What is that, exactly. If it is the neutral position "I don't know if deity exists", then that is agnosticism. Agnositicism was defined long before you tried this shell game trick.

 

Nobody likes to address a straw man

 

I know that you are making a strawman. The strawman is yours. We are just calling it what it is. There can be advantages in building a strawman. In this case the advantage is psychological: it disguises that atheism is a faith so that some atheists can try to delude themselves, and us, as to the real nature of atheism. We simply aren't letting you get away with it.

 

Paranoia, there are tests you can do to see whether "I don't believe" or "lack belief" is really a neutral position and whether we really use it as a neutral position. You simply test it outside theism/atheism.

 

1. Go to any synagogue and announce "I lack belief that the Holocaust happened." See if they take that as a "neutral" position. Or do they interpret that as "I believe the Holocaust did not happen"?

 

2. Go to a sports bar in any major city and announce "I lack belief that (favorite local team) is a good team."

 

3. Go to a pro-life meeting and announce "I don't believe the fetus is a human being."

 

Faith doesn't distinguish anyone as being a member of the believers or not. It sounds to me like we might as well just strike it from the dictionary. What do you think?

 

We keep the word. We just recognize that, in some case, BOTH sides are equally a matter of faith. Atheists are "believers". The believe deity does not exist. They are also believers in another sense: they believe that the processes we call "natural" occur on their own. That belief exactly fits Webster's "firm belief in something in the absence of proof".

[Callipygous]

In this case the advantage is psychological: it disguises that atheism is a faith so that some atheists can try to delude themselves, and us, as to the real nature of atheism. We simply aren't letting you get away with it.

 

i get really tired of people playing that game.

 

if we go by your rules the word "faith" is meaningless anyway. i have faith that my eyes are telling me the truth, i have faith that its really a plastic keyboard im touching right now. i have faith that my socks really do smell bad.

 

do i actually know any of these things? no, of course not, i cant. i can only have faith that im not in the Matrix right now.

 

so fine, yes. atheism is faith, but so is existence.

 

now lets go re-describe the entire situation since youre "not letting us get away with it."

 

Theists have irrational faith in god. that is, it isnt based on any sort of logic, since logic would dictate that the simplest answer is always the correct one, and god is nothing but an extra step.

 

Atheists have rational faith that there is no god, since the universe is perfectly capable of existing as is without such an addition.

 

do you feel better, now that were not getting away with anything?

[lucaspa]

long ago when Einsteins theory was new it was stated to prove that there was no "luminiferous ether".

 

I'm afraid your history is wrong. You can't disprove by a theory. The "aether" was disproved by the Michelson-Morely experiments. What Special Relativity did was provide an alternative mechanism for light to be waves.

 

Some people clung to the old theory and said that Einstein had only proved that the ether could not be detected.

 

What actually happened was that Lorentz made an ad hoc hypothesis to account for the results of the Michelson-Morely experiments. Lorentz said that the earth contracted just the right amount to compensate for the movement thru the aether.

 

You can always save a hypothesis from falsification by introducing an ad hoc hypothesis. In fact, we do this all the time in the lab when results don't come out as expected. However, the key is: ad hoc hypotheses must be tested independently of the hypothesis they are trying to save. That is, they must have some other consequences that we can look at. The Lorentz contractions had no other consequences so people ignored it.

 

What's the difference between something that can never be detected and something that doesn't exist?

 

So, do tachyons not exist? They can't be detected.

 

Also, you have to distinguish between "never be detected" and "unable to be detected by the methods we are using". You are confusing the two.

 

I can't detect the fairies at the bottom of my garden because they hide whenever (and however) I look for them thereby depriving me of evidence.

 

Do the fairies have any effect on the physical universe? If not, then they are untestable. Basically, what you have done is add the ad hoc hypothesis "hide whenever and however I look for them" to the hypothesis of fairies. You have deliberately constructed a hypothesis that can't be tested.

 

On the other hand, people tell me that this absence of evidence is not evidence of absence so I should believe in them anyway.

 

NO! We never said that. We simply said that using "absence of evidence" to say something did not exist was a fallacious argument.

 

Unfortunately, like the pixies, crop circle making aliens and the monsters of lots of cheap sci fi I have read, God comes into the same category as the fairies.

 

Sorry, but no.

1. Science fiction stories have explicit acknowledgments that they are writing fiction. Therefore that falsifies the monsters as real.

2. You can falsify the crop circle aliens by having alternative mechanisms for making crop circles.

3. The fairies are deliberately fabricated by you -- therefore you have said they are fiction.

 

Deity is said to influence the physical universe and communicate with people. It's just that we are unable, by science, to support or refute those claims.

 

Whenever I say I'm an atheist people tell me that my explicit disbelief in God is a faith, so I'm not really an atheist.

 

No, you're an atheist. It's just that you don't want to acknowledge that your position is faith. In this regard, your denial of reality is like creationists denying science.

 

They never mention my faith that C3PO isn't real in spite of the fact that it's just as valid a faith.

 

Because George Lucas has an explict statement that Star Wars is fiction. If you pick another faith -- such as leprechauns don't exist -- then they share your faith and don't mention it as a faith.

 

Sooner or later you realise that everything is "faith" - I can't prove to you that I'm real rather than a computer generated set of statements but I bet most of you believe in there being a real me.

 

In a sense, yes. In the thread "Assumptions of science", we delineated that any search for truth depends on statements of faith:

I exist.

I am sane.

 

Once you accept those, then within that system some statements are NOT faith. The earth is not flat is not a statement of faith. There are quite a few statements in science that are not statements of faith: all the falsified hypotheses.

 

Strictly this means that there are no atheists and, therefore, that the word has no meaning.

 

Your premise seems to be: the word "atheism" cannot involve faith. That's the premise we are arguing against. Atheism is a faith. You want to deny that, and will even stop using the word rather than admit that atheism is a faith.

 

In the limit, to say you are an atheist you must have faith in the idea that the word "atheist" has a meaning, but that means you have faith so you aren't one.

 

As far as I'm concerned those who put the non existence of God in the same group of hypotheses as (for example) "grass is green", "the sun will rise tomorrow" and (from most people's point of view most people ) "gravity obeys an inverse square law" are called atheists.

 

Which simply shows that you are still trying to deny that atheism is faith.

 

Look, "faith" isn't a bad word. You seem to be equating "faith" with "wrong". Faiths can either be accurate or inaccurate. Atheism may be correct. Theism may be correct. It's just that, now, to be an atheist is to believe firmly (as you acknowledge) without evidence to prove.

[Reaper]

Faith = Belief in something even though there may not be adequate evidence or grounds on which to base it on.

[lucaspa]

i get really tired of people playing that game.

 

if we go by your rules the word "faith" is meaningless anyway. i have faith that my eyes are telling me the truth, i have faith that its really a plastic keyboard im touching right now. i have faith that my socks really do smell bad.

 

This doesn't make the word meaningless. It simply points out that more of our existence is based on faith than we like to admit. Science is a very limited form of knowing and most of our lives are done outside it. Also, we share faith in a lot of things.

 

Now, for you personally, you do have overwhelming evidence that all these things exist, don't you? So why do you call them "faith"? I submit it's simply because the rest of us aren't experiencing what you do.

 

no, of course not, i cant. i can only have faith that im not in the Matrix right now.

 

so fine, yes. atheism is faith, but so is existence.

 

Technically, yes. In ANY search for truth, there are some statements we must take as true without the ability to prove that they are true. The two basic statements are:

1. I exist

2. I am sane.

 

However, we ALL share those statements of faith. So we assume they are true. Now we can look at some other statements:

 

1. The earth is not flat.

2. Proteins are not the hereditary material.

 

We can prove those. So they aren't faith.

 

There are other statements that we accept as (provisionally) true because they have overwhelming supporting evidence:

1. The earth is round.

2. Humans have 46 chromosomes.

3. All matter is made of atoms.

 

Those also aren't faith.

 

Then we come to some other statements that we do make on faith:

1. Tachyons exist.

2. Deity exists.

3. Deity does not exist.

 

These statements can be either correct or incorrect, but we simply don't have the evidence to say so.

 

Theists have irrational faith in god. that is, it isnt based on any sort of logic, since logic would dictate that the simplest answer is always the correct one, and god is nothing but an extra step.

 

Sorry, but your "logic" is wrong. By data. The simplest answer is NOT always the correct one. So you have shown that it is atheism that is the irrational faith, becasue you believe in a statement -- the simplest answer is always the correct one -- when you have empirical evidence against it.

 

since the universe is perfectly capable of existing as is without such an addition.

 

How do you know that? Where's your data? Point to a universe that you KNOW doesn't have deity so we can see one that exists without deity!

 

THIS is why atheism is so dangerous to science.

1. The idea that "the simplest answer is the correct one" would have us stop doing science because all we have to do is look for the "simplest" answer and never have to test it!

2. Saying as fact something that hasn't been tested ("the universe is perfectly capable of existing without [deity]") ignores how we do scientific experiments. It basically says we don't need the scientific method anymore; we can just make pronouncements of fact without data!

 

If we go with your justification for atheism, then all of science is wrong and we don't do it anymore.

[Callipygous]

Faith = Belief in something even though there may not be adequate evidence or grounds on which to base it on.

 

yes, the problem is people try to take that completely literally, and when you do that theres no reason for the word "faith" to exist. you might as well redefine faith as "human perception".

 

the word "faith", as its used in any modern, non-nitpicking, conversation really means believing something because it makes you feel better, as opposed to because its what makes the most sense.

[lucaspa]

What is the term for someone that does not believe in faeries?

 

Someone that has faith faeries does not exist in the absence of falsification of fairies.

 

The reason I ask is that I do not like the idea of a label being applied to me because I do not believe in something that does not exist;

 

How do you know deity does not exist? That's the issue that we are trying to decide: does deity exist? You are saying that deity does not exist -- as a fact -- but never provide the evidence for it.

 

Your (and my) belief that fairies don't exist is also faith. We just happen to share this particular faith.

 

the word "faith", as its used in any modern, non-nitpicking, conversation really means believing something because it makes you feel better, as opposed to because its what makes the most sense.

 

No, it doesn't. Let's take this out of religion. Last November I walked into a voting booth and voted for the candidates I believed would do the best job in office. Now, did my vote make "sense"? Yes. I could give you reasons for all my votes. But, did I have "proof"? Of course not! In order to have proof, I would have had to have looked into 2 futures -- where each candidate held office -- and then seen which did better.

 

Now, atheism makes the most sense to you. To those who have direct, personal, experiential evidence of deity, then being theist makes the most sense to them.

 

The difficulty is that you have different evidence than theists.

 

The idea that faith is associated with "makes you feel better" shows that you have assigned a lesser knowledge or truth value to "faith". In your view, "faith" is always associated with "not true". Therefore, when we say "atheism is a faith" you are hearing that as "atheism is not true".

 

The problem doesn't lie with the word "faith", but with the desire by some atheists to give atheism a truth value it doesn't have.

[Callipygous]

Sorry, but your "logic" is wrong. By data. The simplest answer is NOT always the correct one. So you have shown that it is atheism that is the irrational faith, becasue you believe in a statement -- the simplest answer is always the correct one -- when you have empirical evidence against it.

 

you have an example? if an explanation is complete, that is, it doesnt leave some part of the story unjustified, then the simplest version is the correct one.

 

I walked to the door.

 

I thought about walking to the door and then aliens teleported me up into their space ship, altered my memories so i would think i was walking to the door, and then teleported me back down to the door.

 

what incredible "faith" i have that im actually walking places and not being teleported.

 

 

How do you know that? Where's your data? Point to a universe that you KNOW doesn't have deity so we can see one that exists without deity!

 

when presenting crackpot theories about a magic man in the sky who created everything out of his sheer will, the burden of proof is left on the one doing the presenting.

 

show me something in this universe that requires the existence of a deity to be the way it is.

 

THIS is why atheism is so dangerous to science.

1. The idea that "the simplest answer is the correct one" would have us stop doing science because all we have to do is look for the "simplest" answer and never have to test it!

 

you know thats not what that statement means.

 

the "simplest explanation" doesn't mean we just come up with the quickest easiest way of saying something and leave it at that. it means whatever explanation we come up with that FULLY explains the situation doesnt need to be embellished with fairies and ghosts and magic men creating things out of thin air. its fine the way it is, it doesnt need to be, and shouldnt be, dressed up with a bunch of fanciful gibberish that makes it more encouraging.

 

 

No, it doesn't. Let's take this out of religion. Last November I walked into a voting booth and voted for the candidates I believed would do the best job in office. Now, did my vote make "sense"? Yes. I could give you reasons for all my votes. But, did I have "proof"? Of course not! In order to have proof, I would have had to have looked into 2 futures -- where each candidate held office -- and then seen which did better.

 

and when was the last time you had a conversation with someone who described your choice of candidates as "faith" instead of "opinion" or "preference"?

 

 

im not sure why i spent so long trying to explain it Occam's Razor

[Reaper]

yes, the problem is people try to take that completely literally, and when you do that theres no reason for the word "faith" to exist. you might as well redefine faith as "human perception".

 

the word "faith", as its used in any modern, non-nitpicking, conversation really means believing something because it makes you feel better, as opposed to because its what makes the most sense.

 

Well, not exactly, when people have faith, they usually have some reason to have it. Of course I am speaking in a philosophical context.

 

What you are describing is wishful thinking.

[lucaspa]

you have an example? if an explanation is complete, that is, it doesnt leave some part of the story unjustified, then the simplest version is the correct one.

 

Now you have just made circular reasoning. You have just said that ANY explanation is the simplest no matter how complicated it is. No, in order for you to use it, the simplest explanation must be the correct one BEFORE it is tested.

 

And yes, I do have an example from my own experience. However, all you have to do is look at the scientific literature on signal transduction to see that the simplest explanation is not always the correct one.

 

In 1965 Marshall Urist published a paper in Science describing the phenomena of ectopic bone induction. Urist took bone from one rabbit and demineralized it and then put the deminernalized bone (organic matrix) back under the skin of another rabbit. A new nodule of bone formed at the site. Obviously bone never forms normally under the skin. This is bone induction. Subsequent papers by Urist and others demonstrated the phenomena across several mammalian species and demonstrated that a protein was responsible for the effect. Urist named the as-yet-unpurified protein bone morphogenetic protein (BMP). Ockham's Razor said that there was one protein, and also reasoning based on evolution, since it would be "confusing" to have more than one protein direct such a critical biological phenomena.

 

At least 8 labs were working on the problem simultaneously, and the job took from 1965 until 1990. Everyone could get a partially purified preparation having 3 major bands on gel electrophoresis, but could get no further. Eventually Wozney and Wang's group at Genetics Institute used a brute force approach and got partial amino acid sequences from the 3 bands, got the cDNA sequences, and cloned every possible protein with those sequences. It turns out there are at least 10 BMPs. All of which induce ectopic bone formation. The natural product is actually a heterodimer (one peptide chain from 2 genes) of BMP-2 and BMP-7. when presenting crackpot theories about a magic man in the sky who created everything out of his sheer will, the burden of proof is left on the one doing the presenting.

 

Now, I suppose you are going to say that "one BMP" did not "fully explain" the situation. That is a copout. Because, in fact, single BMPs WILL cause the phenomenon.

 

show me something in this universe that requires the existence of a deity to be the way it is.

 

Show me something that you know does not require the existence of a deity to be the way it is. This is the limitation of science that I talked about before: methodological materialism.

 

when presenting crackpot theories about a magic man in the sky who created everything out of his sheer will, the burden of proof is left on the one doing the presenting.

Now you are engaging in the Shifting the Burden of Proof fallacy. And also turned science on its head. I showed above that science DISPROVES hypotheses. The burden, in science, is to disprove.

 

Darwin had this in the Fontispiece of Origin of Species. It is stated as "fact" but in reality it is a hypothesis. Can you show, by science, that it is wrong?

 

"The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is stated, fixed, or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once." Butler: Analogy of Revealed Religion.

 

the "simplest explanation" doesn't mean we just come up with the quickest easiest way of saying something and leave it at that. it means whatever explanation we come up with that FULLY explains the situation doesnt need to be embellished with fairies and ghosts and magic men creating things out of thin air.

 

So, now you use Special Pleading. We can have "not simple" explanations, as long as we don't use entities you have decided don't exist.

 

BTW, you realize that Big Bang has the universe appearing "out of thin air". So, when we hypothesize things like quantum fluctuations or God to explain the BB, should we not do that?

 

As it turns out, you have misunderstood Ockham's Razor. Bad history and philosophy of science. The idea that the "simplest explanation is correct" actually comes from Newton.

 

Ockham's Razor is often stated: "the simplest explanation is the correct one"

 

Poor William of Ockham. This is actually the position he argued against. Others argued that nature always takes the simplest path. Thus, since the angle of reflection = angle of incidence, it was thought that the angle of refraction must = 1/2 the angle of incidence, because this was the next "simplest" equation.

 

What William of Ockham actually said was that, indescribing a phenomenon, do not use unnecessary entities. His example was a typical statement of his time: “A body moves because of an acquired impetus” vs “a body moves”. The "acquired impetus" was a force that was thought to be imparted to a body and kept it moving. But Ockham noted that "move" was simply a change in position over time. Therefore, the correct way to describe the phenomenon was "a body moves". Leave out "impetus" or any other cause entirely. Now look at a modern example supposedly explaining the Razor:

 

“Consider for example the following two theories aimed at describing the motion of the planets around the sun:

 

The planets move around the sun in ellipses because there is a force between any of them and the sun which decreases as the square of the distance.*

 

The planets move around the sun in ellipses because there is a force between any of them and the sun which decreases as the square of the distance. This force is generated by the will of some powerful aliens.”******* http://phyun5.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node10.html

 

You would say that the last is not the simplest. HOWEVER, the first one also violates Ockham's Razor because it is not the simplest way to describe the phenomenon of planetary orbits. The correct Ockham statement is "The planets move around the sun in ellipses." No need to add ANY "force".

 

In the second edition of Principia, Newton listed 4 "rules of reasoning in philosophy" Look at #1:

 

"We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearance". This, to me, sounds more like parsimony than what William of Ockham stated.

 

I will now quote from John Losee's A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, 4th edition, pg 83-84.

 

"In support of Rule 1, Newton appealed to a principle of parsimony, declaing that nature "affects not the pomp of superfluous causes". But exactly what Newton meant, or should have meant, by a "true cause" has beena subject of some debate. For instance, both William Whewell and John Stuart Mill criticized Newton for failing to specify criteria for the indentification of true causes. Whewell remarked that if Newton meant to restrict teh "true cause" of a type of phenomnea to causes already known to be effective in producing other types of phenomena, then Rule 1 would be overly restrictive. It would preclude the introduction of new causes. However, Whewell was not certain that this was Newton's intended meaning. He noted that Newton may have meant only to restrict the introduction of causes to those of "similar in kind" to causes that previously have been established. Whewell observed that, thus interpreted, Rule 1 would be too vague to guide scientific inquiry. Any hypothetical cause could be claimed to display some similarity to previously established causes. Having dismissed these inadequate alternatives, Whewell suggested that what Newton should have meant by "true cause" is a cause represented in a theory, which theory is supported by inductive evidence acquired from analysis of diverse types of phenomenon.

Mill likewise interpreted "true cause" so as to reflect his own philosophical position. Consistent with his view of induction as a theory of proof of causal connection, Mill maintained that what disntinguishes a "true cause" is that its connection with teh effect ascribed to it be susceptible to proof by independent evidence."

 

I would note that the term "sufficient" is being ignored by Losee. What generally accepted criteria do we have that a cause is "sufficient"? Within the limited area of being a material cause, we may have such criteria. But extended to a general idea of "sufficiency", there is a failure of consensus on criteria.

 

All in all, Rule 1 does not work as a means of theory evaluation. I would note that science has discarded Rule 3:

 

"In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accuarately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypothesis that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions."

 

IOW, by Newton's rules, we can't falsify theories! Instead, data that contradicts them simply is viewed as exceptions to the theory.

[Callipygous]

Well, not exactly, when people have faith, they usually have some reason to have it. Of course I am speaking in a philosophical context.

 

What you are describing is wishful thinking.

 

thats my point actually, they are the same in my book. no one with faith will ever admit that its just because they are happier believing it. they always explain it with some story of how they feel the holy spirit, or had some experience that they irrationally associated with the divine.

 

note that i dont mean "irrationally" as some sort of insult, its just that most of the time with such anecdotes they create that association based on an emotional response, not a rational one.

[lucaspa]

im not sure why i spent so long trying to explain it Occam's Razor

 

I'm not sure, either, considering both you and Wikipedia got it wrong. Ockham's Razor simply does not work for evaluating theories and deciding which is the correct one.

 

no one with faith will ever admit that its just because they are happier believing it. they always explain it with some story of how they feel the holy spirit, or had some experience that they irrationally associated with the divine.

 

How do you know that the association was "irrational"? Remember, at least half of all scientists are/have been theists and many of them report personal experience. Now, these people are not "irrational" in their professional life. After all, they are the ones providing data that counter the Argument from Design. So to say that they are "irrational" here is Special Pleading.

 

You have decided it is "irrational" because you have already decided deity does not exist. Dismissing evidence simply because it is evidence is intellectual dishonesty.

 

"Where have we arrived at the end of seven chapters? Joseph Ford has said: 'More than most, [scientists] are content to live with unanswered questions.' (3). One of the questions science hasn't answered and may never be able to answer - let none of us assume otherwise - is whether there is a God. We have not been able to say that it requires double-think or other intellectual dishonesty to have great faith in science as we know it at the end of the twentieth century and also to believe in God - even a personal and intervening God.

 

But why should anyone think such a combination of faiths might be necessary, or indispensable on a quest for fundamental truth? There are two reasons for thinking it might be. One would be to have first-hand, experiential evidence of God which was personally convincing. The second is because to dismiss belief in God summarily is to pass premature and unwarranted judgement on the sanity, honesty, and intelligence of a vast number of our fellow human beings who claim to have such experiential evidence, many of them the same persons we do trust implicitly when it comes to other matters. It ill becomes any of us to take the attitude that all evidence for God is false evidence, beneath consideration, simply by virtue of its being evidence for God, or even by virtue of its being outside the purview of science. Such attitudes are taken, sometimes in the name of science, but in truth this sort of attitude is intellectual dishonesty. Our most reputable scientists, whatever sins of arrogance that may occasionally commit, do not really declare that what they don't know isn't knowledge or that what they haven't experienced isn't experience."

Kitty Ferguson, The Fire in the Equations, pp. 281-282.

[Reaper]

thats my point actually, they are the same in my book. no one with faith will ever admit that its just because they are happier believing it. they always explain it with some story of how they feel the holy spirit, or had some experience that they irrationally associated with the divine.

 

note that i dont mean "irrationally" as some sort of insult, its just that most of the time with such anecdotes they create that association based on an emotional response, not a rational one.

 

No, your still misunderstanding me. Faith is not the equivalent of irrational thinking or wishful thinking. My earlier definition that I gave out applies to more things other than just the existence of God.

 

For example, I have faith that my car will not be stolen tomorrow. I don't have sufficient evidence to prove that it won't be stolen, but I have reason to believe it won't. The thought does give me some positive emotional response, but the faith isn't based on emotion.

[Callipygous]

Now you have just made circular reasoning. You have just said that ANY explanation is the simplest no matter how complicated it is. No, in order for you to use it, the simplest explanation must be the correct one BEFORE it is tested.

 

well, yes. thats sort of the way it works. the statement doesn't become correct after you test it, it was correct the entire time.

 

theres nothing circular about it. i could take a "simple" explanation of something and add on a bunch of stuff that also explains it, but goes 10 extra steps to get to the same conclusion. the original, simpler version is far more likely to be accurate.

 

your playing word games. I'm not interested.

 

 

Anything we learn about the universe Christians will add into their world view, and also add God to the explanation for the sake of their comfort. It's unnecessary.

 

Lets say we decide the big bang could occur because of quantum fluctuations. We do some testing and find out that quantum fluctuations DO occur, whether they actually caused the big bang or not.

 

Christians stating either that god caused the fluctuations that then caused BB, or that god directly caused BB and also created quantum fluctuations are just adding in a deity for no reason. Everything science postulates about the universe religion takes it and tacks "because of god" on the end of it. Theres nothing rational about it.

 

How do you know that the association was "irrational"? Remember, at least half of all scientists are/have been theists and many of them report personal experience. Now, these people are not "irrational" in their professional life. After all, they are the ones providing data that counter the Argument from Design. So to say that they are "irrational" here is Special Pleading.

 

You have decided it is "irrational" because you have already decided deity does not exist. Dismissing evidence simply because it is evidence is intellectual dishonesty.

 

i dismiss it based on the specific anecdotes that i have heard from people.

 

i have yet to hear any solid logic argument for the existence of god. When i talk to people with faith and ask them about those moments that made them believe there is never any rational merit to it.

 

seeing a waterfall at sunset and being shocked by its beauty and thus deciding there must be a god to create such a thing, as it couldnt have happened by chance, is not a logical process. its an emotional response to the experience. There is no reason to think it couldnt have happened by chance, and the only reason people jump to that conclusion is because of the emotional effect it has on them.

[Reaper]

Oh, BTW lucespa, personal experience is a pretty weak indicator of the existence of a deity, or the existence of anything for that matter. I have had personal experiences of flying in my dreams but that does not mean that I can fly.

 

Anecdotes, as Callipygous pointed out, are not evidence.

 

To have faith also means to utilize what is called inference to the best possible solution. To look at something and say "God did it" does not accomplish that.