Lack of belief in gods.

[Jeremiahcp]

If I may butt in, it seems to me that Thief is saying that the evidence doesn't particularly matter since there is none (that we can access). Without any evidence, all that's left is choice. Which one do you prefer? Preference, rather than evidence, is the criteria.

Thief? The guy who tried to argue that science proves everything has a cause and therefore this proves God? Thief's views shift to fit whatever he is arguing at the moment. As soon as I mentioned dark matter his belief about God shifted from calling God the first cause to calling dark matter God. The guy is not making a choice, he is just arguing for the sake of arguing. He has convinced himself God exist, and will redefine everything in reality to fit that belief. That is what blind faith looks like.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

In other words, you can't assign probability to an intelligence having created something before proving that the intelligence exists in the first place.

Again the deserted island, we can't prove ID, in fact we concede no evidence whatsoever of anyone ever being there, we prove only the existence of a natural mechanism

yet we both conclude that ID is more likely, simply because it cannot be ruled out. That's the only probability I'm giving God, he cannot be ruled out, surely you can;t complain about that!
Nor can it be ruled out that the gambler is cheating- despite so much effort to prevent it

hence the greater power of explanation than chance, because all 3 are so incredibly improbable by chance alone, ID only needs the tiniest possibility to beat the odds.

 

[Thumper]

If a gambler plays 5 royal flushes in a row, you put it down to luck?

No, but we know what the odds are based on number of cards in a deck, odds of any particular card, previous measured outcomes, etc. Probability is mathematical, not mystical. It is based on logic tables, combination, permutation, etc. We don't just make up numbers and try to claim "probability."

 

[Jeremiahcp]

I choose logic.

Personally I suggest reason over logic.

 

[Thumper]

Personally I suggest reason over logic.

That seems logical.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

When it comes to man created words, there is a greater chance of words appearing at the hand of man. With the universe, you can't get to the same position unless you assume that an intelligence capable of creating the universe exists. If you do that, you are guilty of circular reasoning.

No, we only stop short of ruling God out entirely. Like the gambling analogy, we know of no inter-cosmological security Gestapo - enforcing a strict non-intelligent design of universes policy, and even if there were, it cannot be assumed to be foolproof can it?

Just to be clear, my argument is that your analogy is flawed, not that God is an impossibility. Before you can use the analogy, you must first show that God exists, God is able to create the universe, and God has the ability to be the cause without being created by something else. You can claim that, by definition, God is the "uncaused cause", but that would, again, be circular reasoning.

With a word we know that man exists, that man created language, and that man has the capacity to create words. With the universe, you have not done any of this.

we know both intelligence and natural mechanisms exist here and now don't we? And we cannot prove either existing before the universe can we?

And so we can't assume one and ban the other as possible explanations, in fairness we must allow both as possibilities, and that's where our differences really lie-

You must by necessity, utterly banish ID from the playing field, in order to allow chance to accidentally write 'HELP' or play 5 royal flushes in a row, or construct a life supporting universe eventually

I don't need to place any such unwarranted restrictions on chance, you can have your waves, your random card shuffler, your multiverse, ID is still the less improbable explanation in each analogy, where it is merely permitted the slightest chance of being present

 

[Guy Threepwood]

No, but we know what the odds are based on number of cards in a deck, odds of any particular card, previous measured outcomes, etc. Probability is mathematical, not mystical. It is based on logic tables, combination, permutation, etc. We don't just make up numbers and try to claim "probability."

right, so we can calculate the improbability of 5 royal flushes, somebody did earlier on this thread and of course it's ridiculously long odds

it's tricky to calculate the odds of cheating (ID) in this case, the casino will try very hard to prevent that possibility, but we still know it's far far more likely than chance- simply because it can never be ruled out entirely- right?

Can you really be this certain there is no God?

 

[Cephus]

If a gambler plays 5 royal flushes in a row, you put it down to luck?

Or cheating. There is no evidence that some imaginary man in the sky made it happen.

 

[Falvlun]

You cannot choose reality. Reality exists regardless of your choices. All you can do is acknowledge reality as it is. You don't get to decide what you want reality to be. Only crazy people think that's possible. And in the absence of evidence that gods actually exist, the only rational thing to do is reject such claims, at least provisionally, until actual, objective, demonstrable evidence comes to pass.

You cannot "prefer" unicorns into existence. They either exist or they do not. Your preferences have zero bearing on whether they are real or not. Gods are no different.

Our choices don't create reality (that we know of) but we can choose how we interact with it. To some extent, we can also choose how we interpret it, when it is ambiguous. As long as gods aren't proven to not exist, it's not particularly irrational to interpret reality with them.

 

[Falvlun]

That's kind of a crazy way of interpreting reality. Just believe whatever makes you feel better?

Or, perhaps, what feels real.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Or cheating. There is no evidence that some imaginary man in the sky made it happen.

There is no evidence of cheating (ID) to produce the 5 royal flushes, but you still conclude this over chance- because the result is evidence enough in itself

 

[Cephus]

Our choices don't create reality (that we know of) but we can choose how we interact with it. To some extent, we can also choose how we interpret it, when it is ambiguous. As long as gods aren't proven to not exist, it's not particularly irrational to interpret reality with them.

No, no you can't. You can't arbitrarily decide that you can fly. Reality is what reality is. If you choose to look at reality in a way that reality actually isn't, that's not a choice, you're just wrong. It is not rational to believe things, simply because they haven't been proven false. It is only rational to believe things that have actually been proven true.

Religion is not rational.

 

[Cephus]

There is no evidence of cheating (ID) to produce the 5 royal flushes, but you still conclude this over chance- because the result is evidence enough in itself

No, I said "or". I didn't say it was cheating, I suggested that as another option. The only real answer we have in this situation is that we don't know.

 

[Falvlun]

No, no you can't. You can't arbitrarily decide that you can fly. Reality is what reality is. If you choose to look at reality in a way that reality actually isn't, that's not a choice, you're just wrong. It is not rational to believe things, simply because they haven't been proven false. It is only rational to believe things that have actually been proven true.

Religion is not rational.

It's not ambiguous that we can't fly. That's been definitively settled. Obviously we can't just arbitrarily believe whatever we want about reality. But if there's no evidence against a belief, and various reasons to believe it, then why not?

We believe a lot of things that haven't been proven true. If you think about, there's not a whole lot we know for certain. We have to extrapolate and fill in the gaps sometimes.

 

[Cephus]

It's not ambiguous that we can't fly. That's been definitively settled. Obviously we can't just arbitrarily believe whatever we want about reality. But if there's no evidence against a belief, and various reasons to believe it, then why not?

We believe a lot of things that haven't been proven true. If you think about, there's not a whole lot we know for certain. We have to extrapolate and fill in the gaps sometimes.

The question isn't "why not", it's "why?" Because all you're doing is picking an arbitrary belief about reality that makes you feel good, for no other reason than it makes you feel good. The only way we can determine what is actually true is to withhold belief in everything until there is actually good evidence that it is. That doesn't mean absolute proof, but you have to have something that you can point to that suggests that a belief is correct. Religion has none of that.

 

[Falvlun]

The question isn't "why not", it's "why?" Because all you're doing is picking an arbitrary belief about reality that makes you feel good, for no other reason than it makes you feel good. The only way we can determine what is actually true is to withhold belief in everything until there is actually good evidence that it is. That doesn't mean absolute proof, but you have to have something that you can point to that suggests that a belief is correct. Religion has none of that.

I don't see why with-holding belief is the only way to determine if something is true. For instance, a believer might be more motivated to find evidence than a non-believer. Furthermore, belief might be nuetral in the truth-finding business: You can always change your beliefs once new information is provided

While "feeling good" may be a primary reason for various religious beliefs, I don't think it's fair to say that it's the only reason. But "feeling good" in itself could be evidence of the correctness of religious belief. (Or, at the very least, the correctness of my point that it's not harmful to believe in the absence of evidence against.)

 

[Cephus]

I don't see why with-holding belief is the only way to determine if something is true. For instance, a believer might be more motivated to find evidence than a non-believer. Furthermore, belief might be nuetral in the truth-finding business: You can always change your beliefs once new information is provided

But they're not. In fact, believers are quite happy to just throw up their hands and believe anyhow, denying that any evidence could possibly exist and rejecting any and all evidence to the contrary.

While "feeling good" may be a primary reason for various religious beliefs, I don't think it's fair to say that it's the only reason. But "feeling good" in itself could be evidence of the correctness of religious belief. (Or, at the very least, the correctness of my point that it's not harmful to believe in the absence of evidence against.)

Feeling good and being factually correct are not the same thing, in fact they are often diametrically opposite. We see the same pathology in believers that we do in delusional people. They believe what they want to believe because it makes them feel good to believe it. People who jab heroin into their veins do the same thing. Are we going to argue that heroin use is "correct" now?

 

[leibowde84]

Again the deserted island, we can't prove ID, in fact we concede no evidence whatsoever of anyone ever being there, we prove only the existence of a natural mechanism

yet we both conclude that ID is more likely, simply because it cannot be ruled out. That's the only probability I'm giving God, he cannot be ruled out, surely you can;t complain about that!
Nor can it be ruled out that the gambler is cheating- despite so much effort to prevent it

hence the greater power of explanation than chance, because all 3 are so incredibly improbable by chance alone, ID only needs the tiniest possibility to beat the odds.

Even on a deserted island, there could have been a castaway. Point is, there are people in the world who could have wrote it. Since it is a deserted island though (which, honestly I didn't know ... must have missed that), the probability of it being a person would be reduced.

But, point is, there are people in the world who could have written the word. Same with the famous watch scenario. There are people who have designed watches. We know this to be true.

With the universe, however, we have no knowledge of any supernatural intelligence that could have designed it. It is merely an assumption that something like that could exist. That is the difference. There is no probability that an intelligence designed the universe until we know that there is an intelligence capable of doing it in the first place. First that has to be proven before any probability can be assigned to it.

Even with the cards analogy, we know that any player is capable of cheating. We've gotten that far already, so a probability can be assigned.

Again, I'm not saying that it is impossible. I'm just saying that you are jumping the gun on assigning any probability to an intelligence that, for all we know, doesn't even exist.

 

[Falvlun]

But they're not. In fact, believers are quite happy to just throw up their hands and believe anyhow, denying that any evidence could possibly exist and rejecting any and all evidence to the contrary.

Rejecting evidence to the contrary is problematic, as I already noted. We can't deny reality that is evidenced.

However, it has not been my experience that believers claim there to be no evidence for god. They are usually happy to give multiple reasons and arguments and evidence for their belief.

Feeling good and being factually correct are not the same thing, in fact they are often diametrically opposite.

I didn't say they were the same thing. I said it could be evidence that it is correct.

And no, there is nothing oppositional about feeling good and being factually correct. I often feel good when I am factually correct.

We see the same pathology in believers that we do in delusional people. They believe what they want to believe because it makes them feel good to believe it. People who jab heroin into their veins do the same thing. Are we going to argue that heroin use is "correct" now?

Heroin has objective evidence of being harmful, so no. You can't believe that heroin is good because we have evidence that it is bad.

What harm comes from believing that god exists, without any definite evidence of his non-existence?

 

[Thumper]

right, so we can calculate the improbability of 5 royal flushes, somebody did earlier on this thread and of course it's ridiculously long odds

it's tricky to calculate the odds of cheating (ID) in this case, the casino will try very hard to prevent that possibility, but we still know it's far far more likely than chance- simply because it can never be ruled out entirely- right?

Can you really be this certain there is no God?

Which one?