On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 13:25:49 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Actually, most of the comments where pretty positive.

That's good to hear. :)

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 13:07:51 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Funny thing is, if you called it something "other" than religion, it
> wouldn't be muddy at all. Its only muddy **because** its religion, and
> therefor "protected" from its value, and whether or not it constitutes
> some mix of scam, and/or false advertising, or worse, being questioned.

Yeah, absolutely.  That's the reason I still struggle with deciding if 
such a circumstance requires intervention.

If someone said that their toaster told them not to get blood 
transfusions, they'd be thought to be a little crazy.

But if someone says their God told them not to get blood transfusions, 
then they're thought to be sane.

Just goes to show how deeply ingrained it is in the culture.

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 21:52:03 +0100, andrel wrote:

>> What would you call someone who has faith that there is no god?
> an atheist
>> Maybe not faith but sincerely hopes that there is not one.
> 
> a criminal

I don't know that I'd go that far.  One might look at it as hoping that 
there isn't a god because they don't believe in it, but the 
representations of god that they're familiar with are the vengeful god 
who demands to be worshiped.

Heck, I might even be inclined to hope there's no god, at least not the 
vengeful one that demands tribute/worship, since I don't believe in god, 
if there is, I'm screwed if that's the god that is actually there.

;)

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message

Am 21.01.2014 20:38, schrieb Patrick Elliott:
> On 1/20/2014 5:01 PM, clipka wrote:
>> - We cannot ever, under any circumstances, conclusively test any
>> predictions made by the hypothesis of the existence of the biblical God,
>> disqualifying it as a scientific theory.
>>
>>
>> q.e.d.
>>
> Umm. Why not just replicate the prior tests.. Lets see, it was something
> involving a rug, or seaweed, and them getting wet, while everything else
> didn't, or something like that... Mind, you would need to add controls,
> like, locking the thing in a sealed box, climate controlled box, so that
> normal weather phenomena wouldn't have an effect, come up with, and test
> alternative hypothesis about how it happened, etc., but.. in principle.

Like I said, it all depends on whether the God of the bible can be 
tested for or not, which we can't answer conclusively in the first 
place, even in the framework of the hypothesis that he does exist, 
because that hypothesis predicts that one of the following will happen:

- The rug will get wet, because God answers prayers.

- The rug will not get wet, because God refuses to be put to the test.

If the rug does /not/ get wet, the answer is useless because it doesn't 
disprove God.

If however the rug /does/ get wet, that may be taken as a piece of 
evidence supportive of the hypothesis - or to the contrary be taken as a 
piece of evidence contradicting the hypothesis, depending on whether 
your version of the hypothesis claims that God refuses to be put to the 
test or not.

You /can/ take such a result as a piece of evidence that if the hypothis 
is true, then God does indeed allow to put him to the test, thus 
/shaping/ the theory; but if you use the test for such a purpose, then 
it no longer qualifies as a testable prediction.


I must correct myself however: Such tests would indeed make it possible 
to answer the question of whether the God of the bible, as postulated by 
the hypothesis of his existence, allows to be put to the test or not.

But although I haven't done any such experiments recently, I'm so bold 
as to make a bet that they would come out negative in a vast majority of 
cases, showing that any viable hypothesis postulating the existence of 
the biblical God must also postulate his general refusal to be put to 
the test.

If we come to that conclusion, we must also conclude that the hypothesis 
of the existence of the biblical God is systematically and fundamentally 
untestable, disqualifying it as a formal scientific theory once and for all.


Did I already say "q.e.d."? ;-)

Post a reply to this message

Am 21.01.2014 20:50, schrieb Patrick Elliott:
> On 1/20/2014 5:44 PM, clipka wrote:
>
>> Note that a person's current belief re a surpreme something will
>> typically include that the person itself is entitled to "life, liberty
>> and the pursuit of happiness" or some such. Thus, I consider this

>>
> But, not necessarily that someone else is, if that someone else is
> violating some principle, derived from the idea that a supreme something
> is being violated, somehow.


they have, but others' rights that /they/ think they have.

I consider that a quite important moral rule, and suspect that it can 
/only/ be deducted from agnosticism.



I think I have conflict with the rights others think they have; that, I 
think, is a situation for which there is no universally valid set of 
moral rules, and must instead be arbitrated between the parties involved.



>> mathematical systems, but also to moral ones: No matter how complex your
>> set of rules, there's always at least one remaining problem with it.
>> Therefore I allow my set of moral rules to be incomplete, and its
>> application to be subject to case-by-case decision.
>>
> Would where that true. Unfortunately, most believers in a system that
> [...]

Post a reply to this message

Am 21.01.2014 21:18, schrieb Patrick Elliott:
> On 1/21/2014 7:53 AM, clipka wrote:
>> Am 21.01.2014 08:14, schrieb Stephen:
>>> On 21/01/2014 1:43 AM, clipka wrote:
>>>> I'd consider myself a meta-agnostic: I /think/ I'm unable to know,
>>>> but I
>>>> don't know that either.
>>>
>>> What would you call someone who has faith that there is no god?
>>
>> An atheist.
>>
> The problem hear is the term "faith". If you mean that word in the sense
> that, "I have faith that I have sufficient information to conclude that
> there isn't one.", that is one thing, since its based on evidence. If
> its, "I just have faith there isn't one..", then, that is no more
> coherent a position than the opposite one, and it suffers from the same
> problem - its too easy to switch sides, for purely irrational reasons,
> without having any more evidence, or reason, for making the switch, than
> having chosen the original position.

To me, "faith" is a great deal more than a mere hunch, and therefore 
quite a way from changing sides; in my book, it is a strong conviction 
that needs quite a lot of evidence to be eroded, and just one baby step 
short of knowledge.

I claim that knowledge can only apply to truth, and given that I don't 
know whether the [non-] existence of a God is truth, I must interpret 
any statement saying "I know that God does [not] exist" as "I have faith 
that God does [not] exist".


Note that theism and atheism aren't black-and-white; there's quite a 
wide spectrum between the two, and it's full of people.

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 22 Jan 2014 00:53:43 +0100, clipka wrote:

> To me, "faith" is a great deal more than a mere hunch, and therefore
> quite a way from changing sides; in my book, it is a strong conviction
> that needs quite a lot of evidence to be eroded, and just one baby step
> short of knowledge.

That seems to be a bit of an oxymoron - it's something you "know" (and I 
had that discussion with Darren a couple years ago - about something in 
my life that I "knew" but I couldn't prove.  Short version:  strong 
belief != knowledge) and need evidence to erode it, but there's no hard 
evidence needed to have it in the first place.

I had to ponder this idea that, no, I don't "know" that I would have died 
if I had gone home my normal way that night.  I had a very strong belief, 
based on no evidence at all.  I was spooked because of a long couple of 
days at work, it was late, I was tired.  Tired enough that I was 
hallucinating that my normal route home had physically changed.  Which, 
of course, it hadn't.

Jim

-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message

On 1/21/2014 4:21 PM, clipka wrote:


>
>  ...
>
> Did I already say "q.e.d."? ;-)
>

Wait, wait, wait! Is the cat still in the box, or not, with a dead 
parrot. Or, err.. what? lol

-- 
Commander Vimes: "You take a bunch of people who don't seem any 
different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get 
this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem."

Post a reply to this message

On 1/21/2014 4:36 PM, clipka wrote:
> Am 21.01.2014 20:50, schrieb Patrick Elliott:
>> On 1/20/2014 5:44 PM, clipka wrote:
>>
>>> Note that a person's current belief re a surpreme something will
>>> typically include that the person itself is entitled to "life, liberty
>>> and the pursuit of happiness" or some such. Thus, I consider this

>>>
>> But, not necessarily that someone else is, if that someone else is
>> violating some principle, derived from the idea that a supreme something
>> is being violated, somehow.
>

> they have, but others' rights that /they/ think they have.
>
Hmm. Pretty sure its a valid concept to disrespect the right that 
someone else thinks they have, to say.. shoot me, or like.. a lot of 
other things. Seems to me that there is just.. a tiny flaw in the logic 
some place. ;)


-- 
Commander Vimes: "You take a bunch of people who don't seem any 
different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get 
this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem."

Post a reply to this message

On 1/21/2014 1:54 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 13:07:51 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> Funny thing is, if you called it something "other" than religion, it
>> wouldn't be muddy at all. Its only muddy **because** its religion, and
>> therefor "protected" from its value, and whether or not it constitutes
>> some mix of scam, and/or false advertising, or worse, being questioned.
>
> Yeah, absolutely.  That's the reason I still struggle with deciding if
> such a circumstance requires intervention.
>
> If someone said that their toaster told them not to get blood
> transfusions, they'd be thought to be a little crazy.
>
> But if someone says their God told them not to get blood transfusions,
> then they're thought to be sane.
>
> Just goes to show how deeply ingrained it is in the culture.
>
> Jim
>
And, well, it gets a bit worse than that, because its not the toaster 
telling them this, its someone else, who told them that the toaster 
thought it was the case. So.. technically, they may not be "insane" 
themselves, but they are never the less following an idea that really 
truly is insane.

However, taken in that context, there is also a precedent for deciding 
that the overall well being of society is not served by allowing people 
to do something, simply because someone else convinced them that it is 
OK. And, in such a case, it shouldn't, logically, matter if it was their 
priest, who convinced them, or their coworker/boss/etc. IT may absolve 
them of some, though not necessarily all, of the responsibility for 
doing it anyway, but it also doesn't lend them undue protection, just 
because they assumed that this other, second party, had valid authority 
to tell them it was OK.

That its religion still makes it messy, since they can simply turn 
around and say that they "prayed" about it, and god, (aka their own 
head), told them it was right, but.. the problem is that, invariably, 
most of the people trying to make such arguments, when/if things get bad 
enough, resort to more reasonable methods. A good example being people 
who starve their kids, or fail to get them medical help, until they are 
on the verge of death, then *suddenly* decide that prayer isn't working, 
and they need assistance. They get by with this anyway, sadly, with some 
families having higher infant mortality rates in states that allow it, 
(Oregon being one that seems to be unwilling to put a stop to it, or 
prosecute over it), than third world countries.

But, if they suspected that, in that case, medicine "could work", but 
opted for prayer instead, then they can't, in principle, turn around and 
argue that god told them not to use the former, and stick with the 
latter. Sadly, principles go right out the window, along with logic, 
reason, and the value of human life, (as apposed to the value of 
'salvation'), when religion is involved.

-- 
Commander Vimes: "You take a bunch of people who don't seem any 
different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get 
this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem."

Post a reply to this message