From: red sox 777 | #100 None of those accounts could satisfy you, just as Jaffar can reasonably say that the empirical account does not satisfy him. You're really arguing in circles here- something is true if it can be shown empirically, which is why the empirical account matches truth best. Too bad, there's really no easy way out on this one- we cannot handwaive away truth by appealing to common sense, usefulness, or anything like that.
I don't understand what satisfaction has to do with anything. Or what it means to "reasonably say that _______ does not satisfy ___" I'm certainly not "satisfied" by the empirical account because it's inadequate: why else be a scientist?
Once again, I'm not handwaiving away the truth by appealing to usefulness. I'm saying that usefulness is an extreme example of how well certain theories can explain the world. A diet that does not do what it's supposed to do is useless and based on an incorrect model. A diet that DOES work but based on weird logic (like "it works because feng shui" or "It works because of caloric restriction") would either have the explanation NOT explain anything in the end, or have deviations from the actual model that can be tested and the theory further refined.
I think that the empirical account is true because all other accounts of the world had to rely on the empirical account to exist at all. A religious account only exists because someone wrote a holy book or abused a child into believing it. A poetic account only exists because a poet has observed a world. Heck, what I know of the empiricism vs rationalism debate is dumb because the rationalists had to see or hear the course of logic which leads them to doubt empiricism in the process!
Recursive justification hits bottom because we literally have no way other than empiricism to justify anything else.
If you claim that religion has a nonempirical justification, then why are there no Christians in pagan societies that Christians have never met and there was no empirical proof of Christianity, in any way, shape or form? Why are Christian missionaries necessary? Why do religions geographically cluster?
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If you claim that religion has a nonempirical justification, then why are there no Christians in pagan societies that Christians have never met and there was no empirical proof of Christianity, in any way, shape or form?
There are believers with true faith in God everywhere.
Why are Christian missionaries necessary?
They're not necessary per se, but certainly very helpful. Just as science is very helpful. But usefulness is not truth.
Why do religions geographically cluster?
The same reason that all ideas cluster geographically. No one is denying that empiricism is useful.
If God can do anything, then God can travel back in time and create God.
Problem solved!
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision
God is not completely nonempirical. That was not the claim. As should be obvious.
Then how do you know which aspects are empirical and which aspects are nonempirical then?
That was Jaffar's original question: what if we lived in a universe where useful and truth negatively correlated? Which would you prefer? If truth, then useful things would be bad things.
Just because it's possible to string together a bunch of words does not mean those words refer to anything. I claim that it's impossible to construct such a universe. How the hell would such a universe exist? Could you even give an example?
It might not be a good thing.
You're dodging the question.
And by the way, I don't really "care" about the word "truth", because most of the time it's meaningless when used by people such as jaffar and redsox. Give me "useful" over "true" any day, because even if people like jaffar and redsox claim to value the word they call truth, they will value the truth they call useful more.
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Just because it's possible to string together a bunch of words does not mean those words refer to anything. I claim that it's impossible to construct such a universe. How the hell would such a universe exist? Could you even give an example?
Simple enough. Suppose God wants to make it useful for people to disbelieve in him. So he puts tons of empirical evidence out in the universe that makes it useful for people to disbelieve in him. For example, nonbelievers will randomly find gold nuggets in their fireplace, while believers will find lumps of coal. It is useful not to believe in God in this universe, but this belief is false.
And by the way, I don't really "care" about the word "truth",
Now you've finally answered the question. Thank you.
Then how do you know which aspects are empirical and which aspects are nonempirical then?
Nothing is part empirical or nonempirical. Empirical is not an attribute like "blue" or "cold." It's a means for an observer to try to observe something.
Now you've finally answered the question. Thank you.
I haven't answered the question, because I really do care about truth over usefulness. But I DON'T care about is the abused, molested and malnourished version of the word "truth" that you and Jaffar claim to have access to and that you trot out in front of the public to show that it's perfectly safe while in your employment and see? Look how good care we're taking of it! Now run along now public while you fatten your "truth" on evidence, weaken it on experiment and finally depend on it to live.
Oh and let us borrow your fat, weak, codependent truth when ours does nothing. Funny that. Must be because your truth is more useful rather than more truthful.
Simple enough. Suppose God wants to make it useful for people to disbelieve in him. So he puts tons of empirical evidence out in the universe that makes it useful for people to disbelieve in him. For example, nonbelievers will randomly find gold nuggets in their fireplace, while believers will find lumps of coal. It is useful not to believe in God in this universe, but this belief is false.
Except that it's possible to construct minds which would still find the truth. Minds which prefer coals to gold. Minds who can blackmail god by using this gold to coal ratio. Minds who can self modify to believe in god to receive the gold nuggets in the instant of finding it, or who modifies into a nonbeliever etc.
Nothing is part empirical or nonempirical. Empirical is not an attribute like "blue" or "cold." It's a means for an observer to try to observe something.
Dodging the question again, how do you know which parts of religion are observable in theory and which parts are unobservable in theory?
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Dodging the question again, how do you know which parts of religion are observable in theory and which parts are unobservable in theory?
There's nothing to divide. What part of the sun can be observed by the scientific method and what part by Aristotelian philosophy? There's nothing to divide in the sun, the division is in the mind of the observer.
Edit: I think I understand what you're actually asking for now. You can learn about God through empirical observations and inferences to the extent that empirical evidence will support your conclusions. To go further, you need to go beyond empiricism.
Well, there's no proof that a further exists- if there was we wouldn't be having this discussion, would we? Nor is there empirical evidence for it (which is obvious, because we're talking about an area we already defined as there being no empirical evidence for). Many people call it faith, though I suppose you don't have to as long as we're only talking about empirical evidence.
And that's why it's an open question in our world whether the further exists. Do not try to reframe the issue. Lack of evidence for a position is absolutely not affirmative evidence for the reverse. And the real, relevant, question is: how do you know that the empirical evidence is even accurate?
And that's why it's an open question in our world whether the further exists. Do not try to reframe the issue. Lack of evidence for a position is absolutely not affirmative evidence for the reverse.
why do we accept this position for God but not for other things we can find no evidence for? teapots orbiting the sun, unicorns etc. it seems like most people accept empirical evidence as a condition for belief in every area except religion.
All people accept empirical proof as a condition for belief in everything, including in religion.
Except information on religion (and politics, and nutrition and epistemology and probability...) mostly comes from the person's upbringing, their parents, their genetics and their pastor, only they call it "faith" and claim it has no empirical basis.
And then atheists get sidetracked into a definitions debate about what basis and evidence mean instead of seeing the actual causes of religion.
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why do we accept this position for God but not for other things we can find no evidence for? teapots orbiting the sun, unicorns etc. it seems like most people accept empirical evidence as a condition for belief in every area except religion.
But do they see it as a sufficient condition as well as a necessary one? Does sensory perception of teapots here on earth constitute satisfactory evidence that they truly exist as we see them? Probably not.
As for the difference between God and those other things, you're looking at this from the perspective of someone who sees only empirical evidence as valid. (And even then, there's still a pretty big difference, namely that there's much more empirical evidence for God than those other things, but we can ignore that for the purposes of this discussion.) There is evidence for God that does not exist for unicorns, that isn't empirical.
There's also an argument from simplicity (you don't have to buy it, and it isn't proof of anything, but a reasonable person can buy it). We naturally expect that a universe should have either 0 gods, 1 god, or an infinite number of gods. It would seem very strange, arbitrary, if it had say, 389 gods. Why 389? Why 657? Why 44? But 0, 1, and infinity appear simple and natural. Similarly, it's natural to expect that there is debris orbiting the sun, but probably not teapots.
All people accept empirical proof as a condition for belief in everything, including in religion.
The claim in this topic has been that empirical proof cannot exist, because empirical evidence is not sufficient to constitute proof, so I'd say your statement is false.
Except information on religion (and politics, and nutrition and epistemology and probability...) mostly comes from the person's upbringing, their parents, their genetics and their pastor, only they call it "faith" and claim it has no empirical basis.
Religion should be based on a choice, ideally. Everything should be based on choices, actually.....never on environmental influences.
There is evidence for God that does not exist for unicorns, that isn't empirical.
I've asked for this before and you've been uncooperative. It's never too late to change.
We naturally expect that a universe should have either 0 gods, 1 god, or an infinite number of gods. It would seem very strange, arbitrary, if it had say, 389 gods. Why 389? Why 657? Why 44? But 0, 1, and infinity appear simple and natural.
There is a mathematical way of quantifying complexity actually, called Kolmogorov complexity, and 1 god is far more complex than no gods.
The claim in this topic has been that empirical proof cannot exist, because empirical evidence is not sufficient to constitute proof, so I'd say your statement is false.
What a great way of countering a statement. Just by contradicting it and not actually citing any specific objections.
Religion should be based on a choice, ideally. Everything should be based on choices, actually.....never on environmental influences.
What does this mean? What the hell is the difference between a choice and an environmental influence and why is choice desirable? Furthermore, you haven't actually acknowledged my argument that religion actually IS based on empirical observation: That is, people conclude that aspects of religion are true not because they received unquestionable nonempirical proof from the heavens, but that they received unreliaible empirical influences from their upbringing.
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What a great way of countering a statement. Just by contradicting it and not actually citing any specific objections.
Considering the statement was that "no one would contradict this statement," it's pretty easy to refute it just by contradicting it myself!
What does this mean? What the hell is the difference between a choice and an environmental influence and why is choice desirable?
This is a subjective value judgment, and I say that choice is better. You're free to disagree; this is quite subjective.
Furthermore, you haven't actually acknowledged my argument that religion actually IS based on empirical observation: That is, people conclude that aspects of religion are true not because they received unquestionable nonempirical proof from the heavens, but that they received unreliaible empirical influences from their upbringing.
Yes, so? What is wrong with having some empirical support? If it's sufficient to derive faith from non-empirical sources, then surely adding some inconclusive empirical support will not hurt our cause. It's not a case of either-or here.
I've asked for this before and you've been uncooperative. It's never too late to change.
You don't consider anything other than empirical evidence as convincing, so that would be pointless. It may not even be possible even if you were open-minded about this (Kierkegaard thinks it is literally impossible to explain one's faith in God to others, because explanation in language must be based on reason, while faith is based on direct influence from God).
Considering the statement was that "no one would contradict this statement," it's pretty easy to refute it just by contradicting it myself!
No. My statement wasn't a predictive statement regarding what someone would tell me, it's a predictive statement on what they actually think and how they actually make conclusions. My claim wasn't that everyone says they use empiricism, and in fact I went ahead and said that the religious would most emphatically NOT agree with my assessment.
This is a subjective value judgment, and I say that choice is better. You're free to disagree; this is quite subjective.
Why is it a subjective value judgment, and why is it that subjective value judgments allow you to not specify why you believe in it?
You don't consider anything other than empirical evidence as convincing, so that would be pointless.
You just said that there is much more empirical evidence for god than for unicorns. Were you just exaggerating or did you just forget that the evidence existed when typing up this sentence?
Furthermore, merely because I say that I find it unconvincing doesn't mean that I actually do. There are obviously ways to hijack my brain so that I do find it convincing. If there's a reason for me to abandon empiricism then yeah, away it goes. So why don't you go ahead and try? \
(Kierkegaard thinks it is literally impossible to explain one's faith in God to others, because explanation in language must be based on reason, while faith is based on direct influence from God).
Except that faith is a state of mind, and there is no reason that language must be based on reason. Why would anything Kierkegaard say have any basis in reality when there are ways of testing faith and that his claim that language is "based on reason" is transparently false?
(For example, there are many sequences of words and phrases which do not correspond to any aspect of reality or conceptspace or thingspace.)
Yes, so? What is wrong with having some empirical support?
What's "wrong" with it is that it's sufficient to explain a religious person's behavior using this empirical "support". You already said that the simplest explanation would be zero gods, one or infinite. Why would you conclude that there's a "further" when the evidence explains the religion without the need for any actual gods? You're barking up the wrong tree.
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You're messing with me! You're messing with me, aren't you!? You're making fun of me, aren't you!? Aren't you!? You definitely are! I'll murder you!
No. My statement wasn't a predictive statement regarding what someone would tell me, it's a predictive statement on what they actually think and how they actually make conclusions. My claim wasn't that everyone says they use empiricism, and in fact I went ahead and said that the religious would most emphatically NOT agree with my assessment.
So you made an unsupported assertion, and I denied your assertion.
You just said that there is much more empirical evidence for god than for unicorns. Were you just exaggerating or did you just forget that the evidence existed when typing up this sentence?
My reply was about the non-empirical evidence. As for the empirical evidence, it was not a central or important aspect of the discussion, and would take up large amounts of time and energy. I am not here to debate the existence of God with you, just to point out the insufficiency of your reasoning on empiricism.
Furthermore, merely because I say that I find it unconvincing doesn't mean that I actually do. There are obviously ways to hijack my brain so that I do find it convincing. If there's a reason for me to abandon empiricism then yeah, away it goes. So why don't you go ahead and try?
I'll take you to believe whatever you say. I'm not going to waste time trying to figure out what you actually think, or worse, trying to tell you that you think something you say you don't.
Except that faith is a state of mind, and there is no reason that language must be based on reason. Why would anything Kierkegaard say have any basis in reality when there are ways of testing faith and that his claim that language is "based on reason" is transparently false?
(For example, there are many sequences of words and phrases which do not correspond to any aspect of reality or conceptspace or thingspace.)
There is no way of testing faith. If you think there is, then it's not the same faith we're talking about here. As for language, would you agree that explanatory language that can convince someone of something is based on reason? Language that makes an argument. Such language cannot communicate faith to a third party.
What's "wrong" with it is that it's sufficient to explain a religious person's behavior using this empirical "support". You already said that the simplest explanation would be zero gods, one or infinite. Why would you conclude that there's a "further" when the evidence explains the religion without the need for any actual gods? You're barking up the wrong tree.
It really doesn't matter what "religious" people think or do, even if it's as you say. That's just an ad hominem argument.
So you made an unsupported assertion, and I denied your assertion.
...What? My assertion is supported by the lack of a single religion, by the marked influence of social factors in the spread of religion, by lack of any empirical support for most of the religious aspects of holy books.
Furthermore, it's abundantly clear that you're not interested in actually understanding my assertion, as you would have asked for a clarification or for support instead of merely contradicting me.
As for the empirical evidence, it was not a central or important aspect of the discussion, and would take up large amounts of time and energy. I am not here to debate the existence of God with you, just to point out the insufficiency of your reasoning on empiricism
I still don't understand what's insufficient about my arguments presented.
As far as I know my argument boils down to:
1) Everything in the world comes down to some sort of empirical observation. We were born with eyes and ears for a reason. 2) Any argument which attempts to refute this ends up having to make the same predictions that empiricism would in the first place. No one who has suggested empiricism is wrong has decided to walk off a cliff in defiance of it. 3) Science is one of the clear winners when it comes to empirically verifying things. I would bet on properly practiced science over almost any other method.
Now this doesn't represent my complete view, there are some exceptions and limitations that apply that I haven't mentioned, but I doubt they would come up because neither you nor jaffar have the requisite knowledge to know about them, but those points are what I think are the essence of my position. Obviously there may be some problems with those points as phrased as I haven't thought of which stem from not thinking those points out clearly, but it's a start.
There is no way of testing faith. If you think there is, then it's not the same faith we're talking about here. As for language, would you agree that explanatory language that can convince someone of something is based on reason? Language that makes an argument. Such language cannot communicate faith to a third party.
You just defined your way out of that. Like, if there's no way of testing faith, then obviously no language can express it, because the very expression is something testable.
Which also makes you without faith. Because there's no way to test for it, so how do we tell that you're a believer? How do YOU tell if you're a believer?
It really doesn't matter what "religious" people think or do, even if it's as you say. That's just an ad hominem argument.
I don't even understand what about my argument is ad hominem. I'm saying that it's sufficient to explain all possible causes to there being a god, on top of
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1) Everything in the world comes down to some sort of empirical observation. We were born with eyes and ears for a reason. 2) Any argument which attempts to refute this ends up having to make the same predictions that empiricism would in the first place. No one who has suggested empiricism is wrong has decided to walk off a cliff in defiance of it. 3) Science is one of the clear winners when it comes to empirically verifying things. I would bet on properly practiced science over almost any other method.
We do not agree on #1. We were born with eyes and ears.....that isn't proof that those things will always tell us the truth. What is the reason that we were given those things, indeed?
#2 is also flawed. First off, other approaches do not have to make predictions that can be tested empirically- that should be clear unless you cannot stop yourself from equating empirically useful with true. Second, I submit that many people have done similar things to walking off a cliff, in defiance of all empirical knowledge they have. Who's to say they are wrong?
Science is pretty good, yeah. Or at least physics is.
Because there's no way to test for it, so how do we tell that you're a believer? How do YOU tell if you're a believer?
You cannot know for sure if anyone else has faith. You and God alone know if you yourself have faith.
I don't even understand what about my argument is ad hominem. I'm saying that it's sufficient to explain all possible causes to there being a god, on top of
If you are correct (not saying you are), that means that you have sufficient material to explain people's belief in God, not the existence of God. If you connect these two, you are making the ad hominem argument.
You cannot know for sure if anyone else has faith. You and God alone know if you yourself have faith.
What I object to is this "for sure" thing. Like, what the heck does it mean to be "for sure"...? How do you know that all of your senses aren't completely wrong then?
If you are correct (not saying you are), that means that you have sufficient material to explain people's belief in God, not the existence of God. If you connect these two, you are making the ad hominem argument.
I'm not getting it. Assuming we accept occam's razor, that argument has nothing to do with god or anything like that.
We do not agree on #1. We were born with eyes and ears.....that isn't proof that those things will always tell us the truth. What is the reason that we were given those things, indeed?
Yes well, even if they don't you still won't not trust them. Go ahead, walk off that cliff. There's no sure proof that exists right?
First off, other approaches do not have to make predictions that can be tested empirically- that should be clear unless you cannot stop yourself from equating empirically useful with true.
...Why NOT? Seriously, why can't empirically useful be true? In fact, why even bother having the word true when empirically useful already serves all the functionalities of the word true, except for this new little area you've defined for yourself that is true but not empirically useful?
Who's to say they are wrong?
The splatter on the ground. Oh wait, those can't say much of anything can they. The point isn't that they don't exist (people have surely ran into dangerous situations due to hallucinations or bad epistemology). The point is that sophisticated arguers who like making distinctions between "empirically useful" and "truth" like you wouldn't.
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I'm not getting it. Assuming we accept occam's razor, that argument has nothing to do with god or anything like that.
It's irrelevant to say that we can explain the existence of religion through environmental factors. Because whether or not these people believe in God, and why they believe or don't believe in God, is not indicative of the truth of God. If you're trying to say that there is a connection, and that these people believe based on bad reasons, and try to deny the existence of God based on that, then that's an ad hominem argument.
It's irrelevant to say that we can explain the existence of religion through environmental factors. Because whether or not these people believe in God, and why they believe or don't believe in God, is not indicative of the truth of God.
First of all, you're right and I wish to retract the implication that merely because people have no reason to believe in God it means he doesn't exist.
Second of all I would like to say that my argument is that the belief of ANY group of people, including you, is not any evidence that God exists. The strength of their belief does not constitute an argument for god, especially in view of the simpler explanations of neuroscience or the sheer complexity of a deity that doesn't contradict empirical observation.
Also it's not really relevant to whether God exists or not, but if you were honest you'd still have to explain why a lot of people were deluded into believing an obvious falsity. It's not good to leave dangling threads or holes in your model.
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You're messing with me! You're messing with me, aren't you!? You're making fun of me, aren't you!? Aren't you!? You definitely are! I'll murder you!
Second of all I would like to say that my argument is that the belief of ANY group of people, including you, is not any evidence that God exists. The strength of their belief does not constitute an argument for god
That is correct. But no one is saying that you should believe in God because they believe in God.
Also it's not really relevant to whether God exists or not, but if you were honest you'd still have to explain why a lot of people were deluded into believing an obvious falsity. It's not good to leave dangling threads or holes in your model.
That's not hard. People believe in God because he created them. People believe in false gods because the true message is corrupted by the effects of time, by evil/sin, and by Satan. People believe in no god (also false, but much rarer) for much the same reasons.
That is correct. But no one is saying that you should believe in God because they believe in God.
Uhhhhhhhhhhh................. you might want to rephrase that.
People believe in God because he created them.
Well most people believe in their mothers too but they don't have to go about talking to me about them! In fact, when I talk to them about it they tend to get all indignant and defensive WTF
People believe in false gods because the true message is corrupted by the effects of time, by evil/sin, and by Satan.
I don't understand how you can claim that 0, 1 or infinite gods exist and then say that Satan exists too. Like, Satan is just about as complex as god in terms of Kolmogorov complexity and I'm pretty sure you'd be just as unwilling to speculate on empirical effects of Satan on the world as you are of God.
Do you recognize that so long as you adhere to the 0,1, infinity thing, that the presence of a Satan and a God at the same time tilts the probability of Christianity in particular down, because it postulates more than one God?
People believe in no god (also false, but much rarer) for much the same reasons.
So how can we locate those effects then?
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You're messing with me! You're messing with me, aren't you!? You're making fun of me, aren't you!? Aren't you!? You definitely are! I'll murder you!
Do you recognize that so long as you adhere to the 0,1, infinity thing, that the presence of a Satan and a God at the same time tilts the probability of Christianity in particular down, because it postulates more than one God?
No, because Satan is not in any way a god. He is purely a creation of God, just like anyone else. And in fact, no one on this board has attempted to force you to believe in God, newbie. If you make ridiculous claims like "we can prove that God does not exist," well.......
As for empirical evidence of God, we have:
- The laws of physics - The existence of a finite beginning to the universe - The natural beauty of the earth and universe - The many miracles performed by Jesus and the prophets - The many prophecies made in the Bible that came true - Subjective evidence that God is transformative of people's lives.
- The laws of physics - The existence of a finite beginning to the universe - The natural beauty of the earth and universe
Aren't evidence of God as they can arise naturally, and the miracles performed are absolutely unconfirmed in the present age, with no documentation other than the bible to support their occurrence.
The prophecies, I haven't heard of. Which prophecies exactly?
And the subjective stuff I cannot consider evidence, at least in the empirical sense.
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Just because they could arise without God doesn't mean they would, or that it is likely that they would. But anyways, I don't really want to get into a discussion of specifics on this, as I've been saying this whole time. It's not really relevant to the subject matter of this topic anyway. All empirical evidence can do, even if you accept that it maps to truth and not just usefulness, is to change the probability in your mind of things.