It's true, "by default" or by absence of evidences

[gnostic]

With natural science, no statement, no explanation, no prediction, no theory, no hypothesis, etc, are considered to be TRUE by default. They should all be considered FALSE by default or at the beginning.

They are FALSE until after they have been TESTED and shown to be true.

And science (except for "theoretical physics"), no premise of statement is true, when there is absence of evidences.

(As side note. Theoretical physics works differently to experimental and applied physics, in which they required only logic and mathematical solution (known as "proof"), which are more abstract than science that required empirical methodology. The proof in theoretical physics, don't require testing or empirical evidences, but attempt to reach conclusion through solving mathematical equations or developing mathematical models.

Science in theoretical physics, are only interested in proving their theory, not verifying it, so they more like mathematicians.)

Religious and theistic people, particularly creationists, on the other hand, required acceptance of belief in scriptures, miracles, prophets (and messiahs) and deities, by default, without tests and without evidences. That's the reason why it is call FAITH, not evidence or fact.

Religious people can accept things they believe in to be true, even if there are absence of evidences.

Religion does the opposite of science.

Miracles for instance, are supposed to defy law of nature, like God stopping and restarting the movement of the sun, in one of battles of Joshua, or like Jesus exorcising demons, hence they fall under the category of "supernatural". They accept miracles to be true, even if they have never seen or experience them.

Do you think that statement or claim should be accepted as TRUE by default or when there are absence of evidences?

 

[metis]

Hypotheses, axioms, and theories all have a role to play in science.

 

[gnostic]

Hypotheses, axioms, and theories all have a role to play in science.

They have their roles, yes, but they are not considered to be true, until they have been verified through either tests or evidences.

People who follow religions, accept it as true, by default without they have being verified, and even if there are absence of evidences.

According to some theists, no evidences for divine creation simply because nature exist, equate to God does exist and God did it. I simply not cannot fathom such logic.

 

[RationalSkeptic]

Nothing is true by default and we cannot currently prove or disprove the possibility of a deity existing.

However some things are more likely than others, and I would say that just as Nesse and Bigfoot are likely to not exist deities are as well.

I could be wrong of course, and if shown wrong I will change my mind.

 

[Willamena]

Nothing is false by default. We should hold statements to be free of truth value until one can be assigned.

 

[Godobeyer]

Who programmed the "by default" ?

 

[RationalSkeptic]

Who programmed the "by default" ?

Who assumed that their had to be one if there was a default?

 

[RationalSkeptic]

Nothing is false by default. We should hold statements to be free of truth value until one can be assigned.

Should your answer be held the same way?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Who programmed the "by default" ?

By something that was programmed by something that was programmed by something that was programmed.

 

[Willamena]

Should your answer be held the same way?

Of course, unless the truth value has been assigned.

 

[Windwalker]

With natural science, no statement, no explanation, no prediction, no theory, no hypothesis, etc, are considered to be TRUE by default. They should all be considered FALSE by default or at the beginning.

That's interesting. If someone believes something to be false, then why would they go about creating experiments to test whether or not their hypothesis is true? Wouldn't that seem like a waste of time and money if you believed your idea was false?

They are FALSE until after they have been TESTED and shown to be true.

No, they are simply unproven beliefs. They obviously believe them to be true to some degree or other, just simply not corroborated.

Religious and theistic people, particularly creationists, on the other hand, required acceptance of belief in scriptures, miracles, prophets (and messiahs) and deities, by default, without tests and without evidences. .

You think this is actually true, that "religious and theistic people" require belief in scriptures, miracles, prophets, and the like? Don't you mean fundamentalist Christians, rather than "religious people"? You should be a little more specific here rather than making sweeping and patently false statements like this.

That's the reason why it is call FAITH, not evidence or fact

No, that's not the reason it's called faith. In fact, that's not faith at all but simply accepting beliefs. Faith in a religious context is something considerably deeper than just blind acceptance of propositional truths.

Religious people can accept things they believe in to be true, even if there are absence of evidences.

So do non-religious people. You do it all the time. Don't single out religious people here, unless you have some particular axe to grind and don't care about facts.

Religion does the opposite of science.

No it doesn't. In some cases, in mystical practices, it does very much the same thing, in a very broad sense of the word. But where it differs it does so in function. It's function is different than that of science. But that differing does not make it the "opposite" of science. That's like saying art is the opposite of science. No it's actually not. I see it as complementary, actually. That you see it as the enemy of science, is more a matter of your ignorance about religion as whole, reducing it down to the laughing-stock version of it you see exemplified by the likes of Ken Ham and Pat Robertson.

Miracles for instance, are supposed to defy law of nature, like God stopping and restarting the movement of the sun, in one of battles of Joshua, or like Jesus exorcising demons, hence they fall under the category of "supernatural". They accept miracles to be true, even if they have never seen or experience them.

People adopt all manner of metaphors, both in religious contexts and without them for the simple utility of them. Because someone just says something like, "I believe in the American Dream", even though it's a myth it still functions as a pointer to an ideal that may guide their choices and values in life. People can "believe" in the story, while not necessarily holding it to be purely factual. In fact, believing it to be factual often shifts the focus away from it's symbolic truths. Literalism betrays a lack of imagination. And a lack of imagination betrays a lack of vision, of creativity, of genius. It betrays an unimaginative mind. That's not a good thing at all.

Do you think that statement or claim should be accepted as TRUE by default or when there are absence of evidences?

True, in what sense of the word?

 

[gnostic]

No, that's not the reason it's called faith. In fact, that's not faith at all but simply accepting beliefs.

Sure, that's what faith mean, when you deal without religious context.

But this is a religious (education) forums, Windwalker, and this thread I had created, deals with religious people on how they communicate their belief as being true, so of course we talking of "religious" faith, so I think it pointless talking of ordinary definition of faith.

Faith in a religious context is something considerably deeper than just blind acceptance of propositional truths.

Religious faith is "deeper" as it is blind acceptance of their belief, even if that belief is impossible or improbable.

If people accept miracles, deities, angels, jinns, demons, spirits, afterlife, heaven and hell, etc, as factually true, even though they don't have fact, then it is blind acceptance of what they have read and believe in.

To me, fact it is only possible for, if you have verifiable evidences, and religious people believing what they want to believe, don't have such evidences.

 

[Windwalker]

Sure, that's what faith mean, when you deal without religious context.

But this is a religious (education) forums, Windwalker, and this thread I had created, deals with religious people on how they communicate their belief as being true, so of course we talking of "religious" faith, so I think it pointless talking of ordinary definition of faith.

You apparently didn't read my response too carefully considering I was pointing out how what you described is not religious faith. It's your notion of what religious faith is based upon you looking at the smallest most unsophisticated fundamentalist brand of religion and saying "all religion is them". My point still stands, you're talking about American Fundamentalism, not "religion" as a whole. To say that reflects the whole is the logic fallacy called hasty generalization.

And thanks for pointing out this is a religious forum, Gnostic. I had no idea that's where I was and where I've been posting for the last several thousand posts over the last several years.

Religious faith is "deeper" as it is blind acceptance of their belief, even if that belief is impossible or improbable.

Who? All religious people, or just that small group of your experience you've sampled and conclude the whole must be them? That is not faith, in the religious sense. That's just wilful ignorance, and it doesn't take someone being religious to make them want to be blind to what challenges their beliefs. The term I use is for that is just simply being in denial which is based on fear of losing their supporting structures they navigate reality with. Are you willing to face that all religious people don't fit your narrow stereotypes? Or will you just repeat as true something you don't have very good supporting evidence for? That's kind of the same thing, don't you think?

If people accept miracles, deities, angels, jinns, demons, spirits, afterlife, heaven and hell, etc, as factually true, even though they don't have fact, then it is blind acceptance of what they have read and believe in.

No, it's a lot more complex than that. Care to see just how deep that rabbit hole goes? But again, the reality of it is you too accept things as true without evidence all the time. Everyone does. What you are seeing is that their system, their framework they use, which is a mythological one which uses mythological metaphors, doesn't fit in a rational framework which uses scientific metaphors to describe the same things.

You're basically arguing language systems, and people predominantly using languages which fit with their own frameworks. It's not necessarily "blind acceptance", anymore than your system is. They have as much supporting evidence as you do with yours, even if to you their evidence doesn't support it. To them, it does, just as your evidence to you does. It's all metaphor anyway, including science. Are you brave enough to care to deconstruct your own reality right along with theirs?

To me, fact it is only possible for, if you have verifiable evidences, and religious people believing what they want to believe, don't have such evidences.

People don't generally believe stuff without any sort of supporting evidence, be that weak or strong. It has to have some support for it to be useful to them. Even if the supporting evidence is not "solid" to you, it doesn't mean it's not without support.

Let me give you an example if you care to apply some true critical thinking to this. Let's take "miracles" as an example. Bob believes Jesus walked on water. Where's his evidence you ask? He picks up the Bible and says, "It says so in this book". That in fact is evidence, to him. He didn't just make it up. He believes it for a reason. He is supporting it evidentially using the Bible. Just that alone shows he is citing external sources. To him, the Bible is evidence. He may also employ logic arguments for why it would be true. All of which too is evidence to him.

So right there on this point alone, your argument that they are just believing blindly is false. They aren't. They have evidence, even if that evidence to you isn't very good. It's still evidence and not nothing. You may then challenge Bob saying, "It's a book of fiction. How can you believe it?" He would respond, "It's not fiction, but the word of God. God doesn't lie". Again, notice how Bob offers support? Again, this is not just blind acceptance. He justifies it with the evidence of logic that because God wrote the book it is therefore not a fictional account. So here he has both the book itself, and the logic supporting the book as evidence. He's not "just believing it". He's supporting it.

When you say they don't have evidence that is false. What you should be saying is they don't have evidence that measures up to scientific standards. But that's not the same thing as saying they don't actually have anything at all they use to support their beliefs. That's arguing about how we translate reality. They are in reality simply using a different system for translating reality, just as you are using a scientific system (to some degree anyway).

Make no mistake though, you thinking "But I do have the truth! I have the evidence!", is pretty much the same thing they say. You're both doing the same thing. You just assume you have a "surer word" with science than they do with the Bible, and you offer your evidence to support that as they offer theirs. Now I suppose that's where your own faith enters into the picture..... faith that you have the truth, faith that your system speaks of reality as it truly is, faith that you see things as they truly are, faith you're on the right path, and so forth.

 

[gnostic]

When you say they don't have evidence that is false. What you should be saying is they don't have evidence that measures up to scientific standards.

Well, your opening line actually applied to you, becuause you haven't read my OP carefully; you wrote:

You apparently didn't read my response too carefully considering I was pointing out how what you described is not religious faith.

I have actually brought up in the OP, "evidences" in the context of science, or scientific standard, as a comparison against religious faith.

What other "evidence" do you think I was talking about, if not "scientific evidence"?

Did I not write in the OP, to connect evidences with science.

I had set the tone in this thread at the very beginning (meaning, my OP) that "evidence" is "scientific evidence", and "faith" as in "religious faith".

If anyone is generalising, it is you.

People don't generally believe stuff without any sort of supporting evidence, be that weak or strong. It has to have some support for it to be useful to them. Even if the supporting evidence is not "solid" to you, it doesn't mean it's not without support.

Let me give you an example if you care to apply some true critical thinking to this. Let's take "miracles" as an example. Bob believes Jesus walked on water. Where's his evidence you ask? He picks up the Bible and says, "It says so in this book". That in fact is evidence, to him. He didn't just make it up. He believes it for a reason. He is supporting it evidentially using the Bible. Just that alone shows he is citing external sources. To him, the Bible is evidence. He may also employ logic arguments for why it would be true. All of which too is evidence to him.

So right there on this point alone, your argument that they are just believing blindly is false. They aren't. They have evidence, even if that evidence to you isn't very good. It's still evidence and not nothing. You may then challenge Bob saying, "It's a book of fiction. How can you believe it?" He would respond, "It's not fiction, but the word of God. God doesn't lie". Again, notice how Bob offers support? Again, this is not just blind acceptance. He justifies it with the evidence of logic that because God wrote the book it is therefore not a fictional account. So here he has both the book itself, and the logic supporting the book as evidence. He's not "just believing it". He's supporting it.

When you say they don't have evidence that is false. What you should be saying is they don't have evidence that measures up to scientific standards. But that's not the same thing as saying they don't actually have anything at all they use to support their beliefs. That's arguing about how we translate reality. They are in reality simply using a different system for translating reality, just as you are using a scientific system (to some degree anyway).

Make no mistake though, you thinking "But I do have the truth! I have the evidence!", is pretty much the same thing they say. You're both doing the same thing. You just assume you have a "surer word" with science than they do with the Bible, and you offer your evidence to support that as they offer theirs. Now I suppose that's where your own faith enters into the picture..... faith that you have the truth, faith that your system speaks of reality as it truly is, faith that you see things as they truly are, faith you're on the right path, and so forth.

The example with Bob's argument is not evidence; it just Bob citing his source of where his belief in the miracles originally come from.

Clearly, your example of Bob is an attempt on relying on literary evidences, not scientific evidences. But I can deal with this (literary evidence), and what you have give me, is not an evidence in your example.

Bob is only stating that he got his belief from the gospels, and I am fine with that. But that not literary evidence.

Literary evidences would be Bob citing other sources, preferably contemporary or near contemporary to when the gospels were written, but independent to the gospels themselves. Bob would be comparing independent and external sources against that of the gospels. Only then, would your example have (literary) evidences.

I'd view evidence as something that you can compare and verify with. This would be true for scientific evidences as they would be with literary evidences.

If we can get back to evidences of the scientific kind, and back on topic.

Evidences, in science, are all about verification and refuting any particular statement within a hypothesis or theory.

If I were to cite the original paper of theory, that paper is not evidence for the theory...which is basically what you are doing with Bob's example. I would only be expressing my view regarding the paper. Evidences would be, if I was to test the theory myself (as one example), OR if I was to cite evidences, data and test results by scientists (like peer review) independent of the paper's author.

Meaning, the original scientific paper cannot be evidence for itself, just as the gospels cannot be the evidences on themselves.

Do you get what I am saying here?

If I was to give you an example of Charles Darwin. He traveled oceans on the HMS Beagle in the 1830s, recording everything he had observed in his journey, before writing his books on Natural Selection, starting with On Origin of Species, in 1859.

On Origin of Species itself is not evidence for Natural Selection, but his travel journal is evidence of everything that he managed to record. Other evidences would be samples he collected in his journey, and from fossils at the university he worked at or the museum. Other evidences would be, for other biologists to travel to the locations he visited and observed the wildlife for themselves, like Galápagos Islands for instance.

I often used the tortoises on different islands of Galápagos as example for Natural Selection. The terrains, climates, and availability of food on two islands, next to each other, show one breed of tortoises (small, dome-shaped shells, with short necks and legs) to be very different to the other breed of the next island (large saddle-shape shells, with long necks and legs).

Observing for yourselves would be evidences.

Can anonyone verify the same with Jesus' miracles that were independent of the gospels?

I don't think so. Without verification, there is no evidence with religious faith.

 

[Windwalker]

Well, your opening line actually applied to you, becuause you haven't read my OP carefully; you wrote:

I have actually brought up in the OP, "evidences" in the context of science, or scientific standard, as a comparison against religious faith.

What other "evidence" do you think I was talking about, if not "scientific evidence"?

I did read your OP, and what I objected to was your blanket statement that reads thusly, "Religious and theistic people, particularly creationists, on the other hand, required acceptance of belief in scriptures, miracles, prophets (and messiahs) and deities, by default, without tests and without evidences. That's the reason why it is call FAITH, not evidence or fact."

Aside from the blatant stereotypical misrepresentation of religion you commit here, and the fact you do not understand what religious faith actually is, your statement here is false that what they cite as support for their beliefs is not evidence to them. You are not saying there is scientific evidence on the one hand and comparing to other types of evidence. That is not what the OP is about. You are saying it is no evidence at all, but rather nothing more than wishful thinking and fantasy. "We have Science! They have 'faith', ha hah ha.". Something like that. Perhaps I'm wrong, but your word choices here seem to ooze of bias and narrow perspective, as well as error.

To expose this blatant error for instance, I would cite myself as a theist of sorts (panentheism), as well as "religious", but I absolutely do not fit what you say here about required beliefs about scriptures, miracles, prophets, and the like. That's just nonsense and pure rubbish. If you make ignorant and false blanket statements, like you did, expect to be called out on it.

Did I not write in the OP, to connect evidences with science.

I had set the tone in this thread at the very beginning (meaning, my OP) that "evidence" is "scientific evidence", and "faith" as in "religious faith".

If anyone is generalising, it is you.

I'm only going by your own words. You are not comparing scientific evidence with mythological proofs. You are calling them non-evidence. And that is false.

Let me share something about evidences you seem unaware of. It may help you to appreciate what I am saying here and understand the context for it. You will see in his example of this how the gentleman who was attempting to refute Galileo does a perfectly reasonable job of reason and logic and evidence for his position. It was in fact evidence, but Galileo "out-contextualized" him because of the tools he had. It's not that Galileo had evidence and the other man did not!

The hermeneutics of any worldspace is closed and perfectly evidential for that worldspace. No new interpretation will step outside the worldspace. Rather, a developmental supersession will suddenly, via emergence, disclose new depths and wider perceptions that themselves pass judgment on yesterday’s relative blindness. It is transformation that negates the old translations, and not anything the translations themselves could see from within their own horizons (and bad interpretations within those relatively true horizons can be, and are, soundly rejected by the evidence that the eyes of that structure can see, and see quite clearly, as far as it goes).

Likewise, Reason also imagines that its evidence is simply the evidence, obvious and incontrovertible per se (i.e., its type of evidence is likewise stamped with “unchallengeableness”). Bad interpretations within its rational horizon (which also means within its structural worldspace) will be soundly rebuffed from within that horizon by the community of those whose eyes can see the depths disclosed by rationality. Interpretations from the transrational structures will not be rebuffed: they will simply not be seen in the first place, and thus will be met with the standard “What, are you crazy?” (which is not a rebuff but a retreat).

But the evidence disclosed by rationality will indeed be able to outcontextualize, and thus outtrump, the evidence disclosed within the horizons and structures of mythic awareness (just as mythic masterfully outtrumped and outcontextualized magic). It is not that a greater and absolute truth (no epoch lives, or can live, simply on falsehoods). And this is what the Age of Enlightenment brought to bear upon the Age of Myth: a new horizon of evidence that outcontextualized the old.

And outcontextualize, it did indeed. We tend to forget the evidence that the mythic worldspace took to be perfectly obvious. Here is one of the widely accepted “refutations” of Galileo’s discovery of the moons of Jupiter: “ There are seven windows given to animals in the domicile of the head, through with the air is admitted to the tabernacle of the body, to enlighten, to warm and to nourish it. What are these parts of the microcosm? Two nostrils, two eyes, two ears, and a mouth. So in the heavens, as in a macrocosmos, there are two favorable stars, two unpropitious, two luminaries, and Mercury undecided and indifferent. From this and many other similarities in nature, such as the seven metals, etc., which it were tedious to enumerate, we gather that the number of planets is necessarily seven.”

That is an excellent and very accurate description of the insides of the mythological worldspace, where syncretic wholes define the nature of interconnectivity in the Kosmos as disclosed at that depth. Rationality can explain the interconnectivity from a deeper dimension, and thus marshal more types of evidence, but rationality is not itself operating from the final Archimedean point of all possible worlds.

~Ken Wilber, SES, pgs 386,387​

I'll let you digest that and respond after you've had some time to consider it.

 

[Orbit]

They have their roles, yes, but they are not considered to be true, until they have been verified through either tests or evidences.

People who follow religions, accept it as true, by default without they have being verified, and even if there are absence of evidences.

According to some theists, no evidences for divine creation simply because nature exist, equate to God does exist and God did it. I simply not cannot fathom such logic.

Science does not "prove things to be true". It rejects or fails to reject a hypothesis after testing. Failing to reject is not the same as accepting. The result stands until new data become available to refine it by testing further. Science is an ongoing process.

 

[gnostic]

Science does not "prove things to be true". It rejects or fails to reject a hypothesis after testing. Failing to reject is not the same as accepting. The result stands until new data become available to refine it by testing further. Science is an ongoing process.

It make more sense if a statement made is, by default, FALSE.

So if there are no evidences for or against the statement (absence of evidences), it should not be accepted as being TRUE. The statement should remain FALSE.

And "proving", "proven", "disprove" and "proof" are more of mathematical terms than scientific ones.

Among science (referring to natural science, applied science and physical science, excepting theoretical physics), they preferred to use terms, like "verify", "refute", "falsify", "testing" or "experimentation", and "evidence".

In social science, like politics and laws, they have the tendency to use "proof" and "evidence" interchangeably, as if they were synonymous.

I did not use the word "prove" in the OP.

 

[gnostic]

~Ken Wilber, SES, pgs 386,387​

I'll let you digest that and respond after you've had some time to consider it.

Ken Wilber? The philosopher on eastern mysticism?

You want me to take anything that Wilber say or write about, seriously?

Look, windwalker. You may believe who and what you want, but don't expect me to accept anything that come from Wilber without heavy dose of skepticism or dubiousness.

 

[Windwalker]

Ken Wilber? The philosopher on eastern mysticism?

You want me to take anything that Wilber say or write about, seriously?

Look, windwalker. You may believe who and what you want, but don't expect me to accept anything that come from Wilber without heavy dose of skepticism or dubiousness.

Why wouldn't you? Look, dude... He's not a "philosopher on Eastern mysticism", BTW. The fact you say that, says you don't know much, if anything about him. But beyond that, what about what he is saying you don't accept, other than attempting to 'dis' his name? Deal with the content, not the person. That's a logic fallacy, you should know. Ad hominem. You couldn't deal with what I said in it's content, so no wonder you go after a "name". Lack of substance to bring to the discussion. Ad hominem is the dying gasp of a lost argument.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

With natural science, no statement, no explanation, no prediction, no theory, no hypothesis, etc, are considered to be TRUE by default. They should all be considered FALSE by default or at the beginning.

They are FALSE until after they have been TESTED and shown to be true.

And science (except for "theoretical physics"), no premise of statement is true, when there is absence of evidences.

(As side note. Theoretical physics works differently to experimental and applied physics, in which they required only logic and mathematical solution (known as "proof"), which are more abstract than science that required empirical methodology. The proof in theoretical physics, don't require testing or empirical evidences, but attempt to reach conclusion through solving mathematical equations or developing mathematical models.

Science in theoretical physics, are only interested in proving their theory, not verifying it, so they more like mathematicians.)

Religious and theistic people, particularly creationists, on the other hand, required acceptance of belief in scriptures, miracles, prophets (and messiahs) and deities, by default, without tests and without evidences. That's the reason why it is call FAITH, not evidence or fact.

Religious people can accept things they believe in to be true, even if there are absence of evidences.

Religion does the opposite of science.

Miracles for instance, are supposed to defy law of nature, like God stopping and restarting the movement of the sun, in one of battles of Joshua, or like Jesus exorcising demons, hence they fall under the category of "supernatural". They accept miracles to be true, even if they have never seen or experience them.

Do you think that statement or claim should be accepted as TRUE by default or when there are absence of evidences?

While it is true that some religious traditions do require belief and faith in all the scripture...it does not follow that this is the be all and end of the purpose of the religion...there are consequences of religious practice and one of those consequences may be a transformation of their being and mind to a state is beyond human knowledge...ie...not conceptual and thus beyond the purview of science.

In a way you are correct, religion is the opposite of science in that scientific knowledge is conceptual....which in turn implies mind state of duality....a knower and the known, whereas when a religious aspirant becomes Self realized, there is a mind state of non-duality. Note that being in a mind state of non-duality does not prevent the soul from reverting to the dualistic state at any moment as required.