'Rational'

Polymath257 said:

Why would that be required? I can know there is no elephant in my room without being omniscient. I can know that pixies don't exist on Earth without being omniscient.

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The key part as far as God is concerned compared to the elephant in the room is that the room is a closed space and an elephant is a huge animal that can be seen with your eye.
That’s a lot different than saying there is no God because we aren’t talking about a room but the Universe, things seen and unseen. You would have to claim you know 100% of these things in the Universe. You don’t so to say there is no God is irrational.

ElishaElijah said:

The key part as far as God is concerned compared to the elephant in the room is that the room is a closed space and an elephant is a huge animal that can be seen with your eye.
That’s a lot different than saying there is no God because we aren’t talking about a room but the Universe, things seen and unseen. You would have to claim you know 100% of these things in the Universe. You don’t so to say there is no God is irrational.

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But the claim is that God is everywhere, so should be detectable in this room if it exists.

Polymath257 said:

That *is* the observation.



Again, they are important because they help us live our lives, not because they are true. That they help us live our lives *is* an observation.




I am willing to adopt a system that allows for values to be true if you give a way of resolving disputes. So, if two people disagree about a value, is there a way that the dispute can be resolved at least to the point that we know one of them is wrong?



Again, not true. In math, for example, we have deduction from accepted axioms. And there is a conflict resolution process when two mathematicians disagree about a proof.



And I have not made that claim. I made the claim that only things that are *potentially* testable through observation can be true about the real world (as opposed, for example, to math and logic).



Yes. And if you want to propose other values and demonstrate their utility, please do so.



Rationality is *defined* according to those specific norms. If you want to adopt other norms, you have gone beyond the term 'rational'.



So, you use a different definition of 'science' than scientists do and then say that what you do is science.

Nice.


That is the current *definition* of the term science. A process that uses the scientific method.

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Well, I can't show you utility because there is nothing to see. You conflate understanding with seeing.
1. perceive with the eyes; discern visually.
2. discern or deduce after reflection or from information; understand.

I see a cat and that is not the same as I see utility or a definition. Can you understand, that you can't see that? Can you understand when you are not using your brain to see, but to understand. And do you know how to describe the differences? Or are you all seeing and nothing else. If so, get your brain scanned, because then you are special.

Polymath257 said:

But the claim is that God is everywhere, so should be detectable in this room if it exists.

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Do you have a way to test the unseen or spiritual realm to say?

Great thread. I skipped from the first/ second page to here, so sorry if this has been covered.

Some have made the distinction between "reasonable" and "correct." I think this is the crux of the issue. There are reasonable beliefs that may turn out to be incorrect. Luminiferous aether has been mentioned: great example.

I also think that William Paley's argument from design, the "watchmaker argument" that we atheists have heard ad nauseum, was reasonable at the time Paley formulated it. There was no theory of evolution yet. It's quite reasonable then, to look at a living organism and conclude design. Even Darwin was convinced by the argument when he read Paley as a student.

You need something like a theory of evolution to refute Paley's design argument. There are other counterpoints to design (ie. how horrible, ugly, and chaotic some things are) but without evolution to put the final nail in the coffin, it's perfectly reasonable to hold the conclusion of design.

Now, those who persist with the argument today are less reasonable than Paley was in his time. There is too much support for the view that life needn't be designed. So today, holding Paley's watchmaker argument up is rather unreasonable.

Plain theistic belief is not something we can definitely disprove. Your mileage may vary from religion to religion whether it is reasonable that this or that god exists. But, speaking broadly, in principle, theism can be reasonable. Deism is more reasonable than Christian fundamentalism, for example. But is atheism more reasonable than deism? I think atheism is the stronger of the two... but I'd hardly call deism devoid of reason.

Rival said:

@Polymath257 @Debater Slayer you may have misunderstood what I meant by spirit. I mean what God is 'made of' for lack of a better term. Spirit isn't physical, it isn't composed of carbon and oxygen, it can't be weighed or measured. This is not observable in the usual sense.

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So how can you/I/we determine (in a rational way) that God exists?
Which good reason/reliable method have you used to conclude God exists (in a way that you would consider rational)?

Rival said:

I'm hearing many arguments being called irrational simply because one party does not agree with them. I just noticed this and had to comment because I find it odd. There are many arguments I find rational but wrong. It confused me as to how folks on RF in particular are using this word.

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It happened to me with certain posters; I just stopped replying to them

IMO and IME:
Those who shout the hardest "it's irrational..." are themselves irrational.

This shows clearly when they totally miss the point of what the other tries to convey and just shout "irrational".

Missing the point on itself is understandable, as on soc. media we don't physically see the other and unless we are clairvoyant there is bound to be lots of misunderstanding on RF (soc. media).

Knowing this fact, how easily misunderstanding occurs on soc. media, it's highly irrational to call the other irrational.

Besides this, it's showing off their "bad" communication skills also. A rational person would know that calling the other irrational only worsens rational conversation.

So, to me it seems that those who shout "irrational" are just conveying "I don't understand you", hence an irrational reply of the shouter. He should just say "I don't understand you"; that would be the rational thing to do in these situations

RestlessSoul said:

Theories derived from empirical evidence are not by definition falsifiable, if new evidence can be interpreted in a manner which appears to confirm the theory. Popper thought this was the case with psychoanalysis and Marxism, the central principles of which were so general that any evidence could be interpreted to support or confirm the theories. Thus while these theories were empirically derived, and supported by volumes of carefully researched evidence and well reasoned argument, they remained unfalsifiable and therefore unscientific. But not, crucially, without value or merit.

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First, the theories could not be empirically derived and at the same time not qualify as being empirical. Do you mean to say that theories were formed solely through induction such that they did not qualify as an empirical theory according to Popper?

Second, we have two separate phenomena. We have the issue of whether or not a theory qualifies as empirical on the one hand, and on the other, we have the effects on a group of people who hold a theory as valid regardless the theory's empirical status.

The latter is simply an empirical study of belief, akin to the placebo effect.

vulcanlogician said:

...
I think atheism is the stronger of the two... but I'd hardly call deism devoid of reason.

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And I don't think that it matters what you think, if I can think differently. So which one is correct?

AppieB said:

So how can you/I/we determine (in a rational way) that God exists?
Which good reason/reliable method have you used to conclude God exists (in a way that you would consider rational)?

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If you can show me good reason as you can show me a black cat, I will listen to you. Otherwise I will just think that a good reason is different that you think.
The same with method, conclude, exist, consider and rational. We are playing words games in our heads. I just know that.

wellwisher said:

Science assumes nothing happens; affect without a cause.

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200 years ago, maybe.

Ciao

- viole

viole said:

200 years ago, maybe.

Ciao

- viole

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Well, I don't know what science is, because there is no universal objective observation of it:
Philosophy of science - Wikipedia

So me it is a social construct with some inbuilt biases for which other biases are possible. And yes, I believe in objective reality and no, I am not a solipsist.

Rival said:

Spirit is by definition not physical matter and cannot be investigated with the same means.

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Like Schwarzy would say: if it bleeds, it can be killed.

Anything that has a measurable effect on the world, is amenable of scientific inquiry. Typical examples are answers to prayer. They might be spiritual, whatever that means, but must necessarily change something less spiritual if we want to determine whether God answered them.

Same with all other claims of evidence for the spiritual world. Unless that evidence reduces to simple opinions.

Ciao

- viole

mikkel_the_dane said:

Well, I don't know what science is, because there is no universal objective observation of it:
Philosophy of science - Wikipedia

So me it is a social construct with some inbuilt biases for which other biases are possible. And yes, I believe in objective reality and no, I am not a solipsist.

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Well, those biases and social constructs seem to work. In general.

Ciao

- viole

viole said:

Well, those biases and social constructs seem to work. In general.

Ciao

- viole

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Yeah, but other biases would work differently.

ElishaElijah said:

Do you have a way to test the unseen or spiritual realm to say?

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The point is that if something is undetectable it is not possible to honestly say that it exists at all.

MikeF said:

First, the theories could not be empirically derived and at the same time not qualify as being empirical. Do you mean to say that theories were formed solely through induction such that they did not qualify as an empirical theory according to Popper?

Second, we have two separate phenomena. We have the issue of whether or not a theory qualifies as empirical on the one hand, and on the other, we have the effects on a group of people who hold a theory as valid regardless the theory's empirical status.

The latter is simply an empirical study of belief, akin to the placebo effect.

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That's the whole point of falsification as a means of demarcation; that a large body of empirical evidence can be marshalled to confirm a theory, is not enough to qualify said theory as scientific. As for induction, David Hume's problem with induction was not to do with quality or quantity of empirical evidence in support of a theory, but the manner in which a given theory may genuinely be said to derive support from that evidence - a matter of interpretation, as it were. The principle of falsification was intended to resolve or at least address these issues.

LuisDantas said:

The point is that if something is undetectable it is not possible to honestly say that it exists at all.

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God is not undetectable, to some He is to others He is not.
But to say there is no God because you haven’t detected God is irrational.

LuisDantas said:

The point is that if something is undetectable it is not possible to honestly say that it exists at all.

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Or in some cases that it doesn't. It is an unknown and for metaphysics that is where all the fun starts.

RestlessSoul said:

That's the whole point of falsification as a means of demarcation; that a large body of empirical evidence can be marshalled to confirm a theory, is not enough to qualify said theory as scientific. As for induction, David Hume's problem with induction was not to do with quality or quantity of empirical evidence in support of a theory, but the manner in which a given theory may genuinely be said to derive support from that evidence - a matter of interpretation, as it were. The principle of falsification was intended to resolve or at least address these issues.

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One is reminded of this:

"When the Catholic Church objected to Galilean mechanics, it had the better arguments by the standards of seventeenth-century science. Their conservatism in their position was scientifically backed: Galilei’s telescopes were unreliable for celestial observations, and many well-established phenomena (no fixed star parallax, invariance of laws of motion) could not yet be explained in the heliocentric system. With hindsight, Galilei managed to achieve groundbreaking scientific progress just because he deliberately violated rules of scientific reasoning. Hence Feyerabend’s dictum “Anything goes”: no methodology whatsoever is able to capture the creative and often irrational ways by which science deepens our understanding of the world. Good scientific reasoning cannot be captured by rational method, as Carnap, Hempel and Popper postulated."

Scientific Objectivity (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)