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Post by Life on Oct 31, 2017 11:10:42 GMT 5
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Post by creature386 on Oct 31, 2017 14:11:20 GMT 5
Hm, the existence of huge terrestrial floods in the Middle East at some point in history is only weakly related to the question of the existence of God. They at best show that the Noachian flood had some real-life inspiration.
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Post by elosha11 on Nov 11, 2017 1:18:15 GMT 5
I've switched to six now. Curious, what moved you from a 5 to a 6? |
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Post by creature386 on Nov 11, 2017 16:24:15 GMT 5
I don't operate under the same definition of the word "God" as I did before. My newer definition is more anthropocentric, narrowing the category and hence lowering the probability.
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Post by prehistorican on Dec 25, 2017 9:01:05 GMT 5
Agnostic, a 2-3 I would say.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Feb 10, 2019 3:33:41 GMT 5
I wasn't sure where to put this, so if there's a better thread for this post, the moderators can feel free to move it. So, the other day I had looked up circular reasoning when someone on Carnivora accused another of committing it, when I found the following.  SourceI had read over the blog post and eventually looked at the image itself. I eventually got to the bottom right corner of the triangle and...what? WHAT!? WHAAAAATTTT!!!!!??Granted I'm sure there are atheists out there who (subconsciously) fall into a fallacious way of thinking and think that bottom right corner statement, but assuming this guy is applying this broadly (i.e. as the single atheist thought process for god and the evidence thereof), then the way this person has the bottom right point and connects it to the top point just looks like a strawman. |
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Post by theropod on Feb 10, 2019 20:17:53 GMT 5
I think the concept of supernatural entities doesn’t leave any other options than circular reasoning. For example, isn’t the definition of supernatural sort of that it is not bound to natural laws? So if it really exists, wouldn’t it thereby be bound to natural laws, even if we have not discovered them yet and hence not be supernatural any more? If it is not bound to any laws, then we would run into the aforementioned omnipotence-issue (creating a rock too heavy to lift itself…), which is self-contradictory, ergo impossible.
Basically I think the concept of theism with an omnipotent god itself doesn’t work, there’s no point in criticizing the logic used to disprove something that basically already disproved itself.
That of course doesn’t refer to every belief that is not based on concrete scientific evidence, but specifically the belief in beings not bound to any kind of physical constraints, which seems to include the abrahamic religions’ god as there’s never any indication that there are any limits to its power. There therefore cannot be evidence of such beings, because by their own definition they are impossible in reality because they are self-contradictory (Yes I know a bunch of theists are going to answer this with "But our god transcends the boundaries of logic!" or something like that, to which I would reply "Then what is the point of thinking about it at all, if reality is not bound to even the rules of logic, and especially, how can you be sure something exists, if the mere possibility is already contingent on discounting the most elementary logical principles?".)
Now if we were arguing about the existence of some concept of god that is not omnipotent, such as the ancient greek gods, or maybe that the earth and all life that we know was created by extremely powerful aliens ("gods"), or that we are all living inside a simulation run by such aliens, that’s another issue entirely. Here we only need to apply Occam’s Razor, and since there seems to be no evidence that can only be explained by the existence of such beings as opposed to any of the more parsimonious explanations, I think the gods fail this test again. But that’s a sort of god I wouldn’t say I "know" doesn’t exist, merely one I think is both rather improbable to exist, and not necessarily a god in the strict sense of the word, merely a very powerful sentient lifeform with abilities transcending our understanding of physics.
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Post by creature386 on Feb 27, 2019 4:39:12 GMT 5
I know a slightly more logical definition of supernatural entities: Minds who cannot be broken down into further components, like atoms. They just are. Of course, this is not much better, as it relies on the idea that consciousness is something inherently magical and the question how a bodiless mind is supposed to exist (we know none that can) is never answered.
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Post by theropod on Feb 27, 2019 19:31:41 GMT 5
^Well, if it can not be detected by any means or have any detectable effects on the universe, that throws up the philosophical question of whether it really exists. At any rate, it would be an unfalsifiable hypothesis without any evidence for it.
If it can be detected though, wouldn’t that just mean we’d have to revise our understanding of physics, rather than accept such a phenomenon as supernatural?
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Post by theropod on Feb 27, 2019 19:45:43 GMT 5
So, yes, I think there is some degree of circular reasoning due to the absurdity of the concept that is under discussion. Still, I think the image is not accurate, the "any evidence of god isn’t evidence" part isn’t based on circular reasoning, but on parsimony; god simply isn’t the best explanation for any of that supposed evidence.
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Post by creature386 on Feb 27, 2019 20:09:42 GMT 5
If it can be detected though, wouldn’t that just mean we’d have to revise our understanding of physics, rather than accept such a phenomenon as supernatural? The thing is, physics is a quantitative science. It kinda rests on the philosophical premise of atomism ("atoms and the void"). The supernatural, as I defined it, cannot be quantified. No mathematical description is possible. These postulated minds would have contra-causal free will and could behave in just about any way. |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Feb 27, 2019 20:24:43 GMT 5
To be honest I just interpreted that as a strawman on his part meant to mock atheists. But I couldn't really tell what his point was with that. It would be interesting to know specifically what he considers to be "evidence of god".
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Post by theropod on Feb 27, 2019 21:42:36 GMT 5
^Yes, it is a strawman, although I do have to admit in some situations I have philosophical reasons for not believing in god that are circular (only reasons for believing in god would be circular as well). But I think that’s a problem of philosophy, not science.
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Post by theropod on Feb 27, 2019 21:51:30 GMT 5
If it can be detected though, wouldn’t that just mean we’d have to revise our understanding of physics, rather than accept such a phenomenon as supernatural? The thing is, physics is a quantitative science. It kinda rests on the philosophical premise of atomism ("atoms and the void"). The supernatural, as I defined it, cannot be quantified. No mathematical description is possible. These postulated minds would have contra-causal free will and could behave in just about any way. But if something can be detected, it is inherently measurable, meaning quantifiable in some way. Subatomic particles exist, and are detectable. There are also things far too complex to describe mathematically (such as the human brain), yet we do know they exist and work, we merely cannot predict how. There are even things we cannot observe directly, but that have effects clearly implying their presence (such as dark matter). Something that by definition cannot be detected at all however is inherently unfalsifiable, also impossible to find any evidence for because no real, observable evidence is linked to it more closely than to any other imaginary construct (in that case, parsimony wins out, and god is highly unparsimonious). But if such a supposed non-atomic mind really existed, and could be detected, yes, it would challenge our understanding of physics (but that has happened before), but it would not exist outside of physics alltogether, much less be any more worthy of being prayed to than any other real person or thing. |
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Post by creature386 on Feb 27, 2019 22:47:45 GMT 5
That's true, though I can honestly not think of any scientific way to detect such a mind.
Non-material minds would phase through everything (including light) and would have no mass to interact with gravity. There is only one way we could interact with them: If one such mind decided to make a material avatar (what Jesus is in Christianity).
Ultimately, all our knowledge on the existence of such minds would hinge on our trust we have in the avatar. Even if it broke the laws of physics as we understand them, it would only prove that there is something odd about it, not that any of its extravagant claims are true.
For another option, the minds could implement information about them in our brains in a way so that we believe them. Even then, they could implement false information.
So yeah, there is no way such minds could be proven even in theory, let alone in a scientific way.
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