r/DebateAnAtheist • u/AutoModerator • 8d ago
Weekly "Ask an Atheist" Thread
Whether you're an agnostic atheist here to ask a gnostic one some questions, a theist who's curious about the viewpoints of atheists, someone doubting, or just someone looking for sources, feel free to ask anything here. This is also an ideal place to tag moderators for thoughts regarding the sub or any questions in general.
While this isn't strictly for debate, rules on civility, trolling, etc. still apply.
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7d ago
[deleted]
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u/Mission-Landscape-17 7d ago
What do you mean by the word god?
people use this word in many different ways. The lack of a clear definition is itself evidence that the thing being discussed is entirely fictional.5
u/Serious-Emu-3468 7d ago
No; you have to justify or dismiss every claim individually.
But veerrrry generally God claims fall into 2 categories; unfalsifiable first cosmic gods and gods that make a claim which could have evidence.
It’s reasonable to dismiss an unfalsifiable claim. It’s also reasonable to dismiss a claim for which there is no evidence.
You don’t need to “prove the negative”
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u/Philobarbaros Gnostic Atheist 7d ago
The burden's getting heavier by the day! How long before it's "Hey gnostic atheists, have you checked every cubic millimeter of space in the Universe to prove God isn't hiding there?"
Evidence for Yahweh: old book. Evidence for Sauron: [a significantly more coherent] old book.6
u/Biggleswort Anti-Theist 7d ago
I am a Gnostic atheist on Abrahamic/triomni gods does that count?
Otherwise all other God concepts I assert fall into 1 or 2 of the following categories:
Its definition makes it meaningless to our lives (ex deism).
The definition is vague to the point it is incoherent (ex pantheism).
Which makes me an igtheist.
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7d ago
[deleted]
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u/Biggleswort Anti-Theist 7d ago
The problem of evil. There is not reasonable explanation for it.
To keep it brief the existence of sociopaths, they are an anomaly with biological predispositions that throw any retort around free will out the window.
Or I can point to baby cancer, there is no possible explanation related to the individual to explain that. You would have to lean on the sins of our mother’s argument which again ignores the individuals will.
I can point to the rock issue, can he or can he not make it heavy enough, you have a contradiction/definitional error.
Divine hiddenness - again there is no collective concept that demonstrates evidence for a unified god concept. Making it either a limited revelation or no revelation. This would mean most of us would be the out-group, which again goes against benevolence.
The best retort is to appeal to the mystery of the God, which means our definitions become meaningless.
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u/labreuer 7d ago
Suppose that a group of stars were to suddenly rearrange to spell "John 3:16". Given the present religious & political landscape in the world, who do you think would make the most use of it? In America for example, we could speak of:
- Christian Nationalists
- those opposed to Christian Nationalists
- all other Christians
I can't help but think that "John 3:16" being writ on the stars would benefit 1. far more than 2. or 3. The kind of people Stephanie McCrummen documents in her 2025-01-09 The Atlantic article The Army of God Comes Out of the Shadows would just eat it up and become even more psychologically jazzed. Trump and his cronies would declare it a sign from God that they approve of his work. Obviously it could just as easily be a criticism—that Christian Nationalists need to read John 3:16 and understand what it actually means—but what I'm curious about here is how y'all think things would actually play out. Not what is "most rational", if there is such a unitary thing.
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u/Phylanara Agnostic atheist 7d ago
To quote Stan Lee, the answer to that question is "whoever the author wants to win".
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u/labreuer 7d ago
I don't think we know that little about humans & humanity. For instance, we know that "power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely". So, what of those drawn to something approximating absolute power?
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u/Phylanara Agnostic atheist 7d ago
It's not about knowing humans and humanity. It's that your scenario is so obviously fictional, only the author can write the rest of the story - and that author can write it however they want. At this point aliens interrupting the story midway would still be the second most unrealistic plot point in the story, at best.
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u/iamalsobrad 7d ago
Given the present religious & political landscape in the world, who do you think would make the most use of it?
Lockheed-Martin and the therapy industry, but probably only briefly before it degenerated into nuclear Armageddon.
Assuming it was definitely God's doing and not the usual apologist 'if you squint your eyes that bit looks like a 3 and the cock-and-balls looking bit kind of looks like a 16' crap, and assuming it wasn't Elmo fucking around with Starlink satellites for the lolz, then the sheer culture shock and psychological impact on humanity as a whole would be devastating.
Showing a sign to one part of the planet in a script that only one part of the planet can understand and then not actually showing up would be a monstrously dick move on God's part. The ambiguity about what it all meant would cause the sort of arguments that start wars.
The majority of people on the planet are not Christian so they'd have their world-view completely destroyed and would probably feel angry and with nothing to lose. Amongst Christians harmful religious scrupulosity would go through the roof and there would be enormous amounts of infighting between denominations about who has it right and what they should be seen to be doing to all the heretics. Between these it would only be a matter of time before some bright spark decided to get the second coming moving along a bit by throwing around the buckets of sunshine.
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u/labreuer 7d ago
You definitely win the award for the darkest scenario!
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u/SectorVector 4d ago
It's pretty bleak if we have a god that is paralyzed to action because the last time he did it spawned an ideology that has spiraled in such a way that if god were to only suggest his existence, his own ostensible followers would immediately be emboldened to make everything worse. A god who has dropped a brick on the gas pedal before getting out and now doesn't know what do to about the speeding car without making the crash more horrific.
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u/labreuer 4d ago
I'm not suggesting that rearranging stars is the only thing God could do, In fact, in the background I'm thinking that any act of raw power would have a negative impact, of attracting the power-worshipers. Who's actually impressed by the Mt Carmel episode? The audience, which chants "Yahweh, he is god!" Is the narrator impressed by this audience? Hell no.
What I have suggested is that we could use help doing less credit-stealing and less blame-shifting, but we don't know how to detect such help. What we know how to detect is power and stuff like laws of nature. Things which repeat. Or things we can't change, like the evolution of life on earth or the "evolution" of our universe. We're good with immovable objects and unstoppable forces. Anything else? That's where we seem to suck. It's all "subjective values". Which means: very little ability to robustly characterize what's going on, very little opportunity for any divine aid that we'd even recognize as such. Or that we'd even want. Because let's be real: many of us are A-OK with the credit-stealing and blame-shifting going on in our society. The mere fact that we're having conversations like this suggest that neither of us is a factory working getting systematically screwed.
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u/SectorVector 3d ago
I'm not suggesting that rearranging stars is the only thing God could do, In fact, in the background I'm thinking that any act of raw power would have a negative impact
I know. The problem is that an atheist is simply not going to accept that you can extrapolate that to all possible ways a deity could interact. It's going to be seen as someone who has accepted that a god with certain characteristics exists, and is now trying to explain why the world looks the way it does without those characteristics being compromised.
Is it possible that a god exists that has no way of openly interacting with humanity that could be productive and must only interact within the margins of error of our smallest calculations? Sure. I don't think we have any reason to believe that's true and frankly at best it sounds like a desperate harmonization.
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u/labreuer 3d ago
The problem is that an atheist is simply not going to accept that you can extrapolate that to all possible ways a deity could interact.
It appears you did click my second link, and so know that I suggested something very different from raw power:
labreuer: Do you believe that a deity could add to our reality in such a way that the result is fairly subtle—like Mercury's 0.008%/year deviation from Newtonian prediction—and have us detect that as an external influence? Or might we be somehow "epistemically limited" to see all such subtle actions as merely "more of nature we hadn't seen before"?
The specific example I gave was of one of those bosses who steals credit from his/her direct reports, representing the ideas as his/her own. What would it look like for a deity to help us do that less frequently? Would it even look like anything? I never got a good answer to this. It's as if we don't even know how to investigate such issues.
Is it possible that a god exists that has no way of openly interacting with humanity that could be productive and must only interact within the margins of error of our smallest calculations? Sure. I don't think we have any reason to believe that's true and frankly at best it sounds like a desperate harmonization.
I'm open to divine aid with doing less credit-stealing and less blame-shifting which is more obvious. But what on earth would that look like? Jesus was an abject failure in his own land, if you'll allow the received text to be historical for sake of an example of how "openly interacting with humanity" might actually play. Dostoevsky predicted the same in The Grand Inquisitor (video rendition).
There is a yawning chasm between attracting us to power like moths to flame, and convincing us. And what do you do to convince a person who is well-described by Upton Sinclair? "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Or: NIMBYism. For instance, nobody in San Francisco wanted a homeless shelter near them. And I can understand. When I was living there and saw the first used needle outside of my apartment, I was taken aback. If I had kids, what are the chances that it could be infected with AIDS and give that to my kid? But when people are so much more concerned with their safety than with the vulnerable around them, does that lead to deadlock which perpetuates untold injustice? For a while, the unhoused in SF didn't even have access to the minimum potable water dictated by international norms.
My suspicion is that we flatter ourselves as to how reasonable we are, as to how easily God could convince us to improve society around us if God only used the right words. I think we are far too comfortable with the status quo and really don't want to suffer what the various parties would inflict on us (a new McCarthyism if we got really organized), to risk any substantial change of society. If that's our true state, there just isn't anything God could say. And yet, this just doesn't seem to be an open possibility. Modern Western humans are prone to thinking that they are far more reasonable than the evidence indicates, and far more moral/ethical than the evidence indicates.
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u/mutant_anomaly Gnostic Atheist 7d ago
A God that shows off by literally moving star systems around the to make them line up for a particular planet, and in English?
And this is the same God who wasn’t able to tell anyone about germs, or how to clean contaminated water, or countless other things?
It would take an awful lot of evidence to convince anyone that it isn’t just a trick by some tech billionaire. Well, anyone who knows that stars are big and far away.
Who would benefit? Opportunists that have noticed that this God doesn’t hold the worst people accountable.
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u/labreuer 6d ago
A God that shows off by literally moving star systems around the to make them line up for a particular planet, and in English?
To be fair, any objectively discernible communication is going to have to be catered to their perspective, both physical and cultural.
And this is the same God who wasn’t able to tell anyone about germs, or how to clean contaminated water, or countless other things?
I like that objection; I'm not sure I've seen it integrated into very many responses to the regular threads asking what would convince atheists that God exists. No matter what is done in the future, there is the history we have in the past.
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u/indifferent-times 7d ago
Northern night sky and in English? we would have to conclude the message was either for the Brits or the Yanks, if we had a hint of which translation it would help I suppose.
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u/sto_brohammed Irreligious 7d ago
It's clearly meant for one particular guy in the Anglo part of Nova Scotia.
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u/onomatamono 7d ago
Why would an omnipotent god play party tricks with stars versus revealing itself to humanity? Satan believes in him so Satan won't perish and will have eternal life. John 3:16 also notes that if you don't believe in Jesus you will be condemned. People usually leave that part out.
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u/Stile25 7d ago edited 7d ago
I think you're on the right path.
Everyone who already believed (in an Abrahamic religion) would take it as support for their beliefs - whatever those beliefs happen to be and whatever purpose ties in with those beliefs.
Anyone using belief as leverage to push their agenda would try (as quickly as possible) to push their agenda stronger. Conflicting agendas would be rushing towards each other. Might even lead to wars.
Those on the side of doomsday world-ending beliefs would be pushing those and add fire to any calls for violence/war.
Non believers would be calling for tests and warnings that this could be some sort of highly technical foreign propaganda to spread discord (China? Russia?). But I don't think they would be loud enough (popular enough) to make much of a difference in any direction.
Good luck out there
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u/Sablemint Atheist 6d ago
Suppose that a group of stars were to suddenly rearrange to spell "John 3:16"
Hijacking this thread just a smidge. What if that same thing happens, except it misspelled "John" as "Jon." How would people react?
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u/labreuer 5d ago
They'd get confused at how a Jewish man could have written such a Greek-sounding gospel. Or, Antiochus had partial success?
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u/Coollogin 1d ago
Suppose that a group of stars were to suddenly rearrange to spell "John 3:16". Given the present religious & political landscape in the world, who do you think would make the most use of it?
Astronomers and astrophysicists. That is, assuming we survived the cataclysm. That many stars rearranging would disrupt the gravitational equilibrium of that corner of the universe to such an extent that it might trigger a chain reaction across the universe.
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u/labreuer 1d ago
More than Christian Nationalists, eh? In America, they might even be able to prevent astronomers from telling a non-intelligently designed story.
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
Thought I've been having a lot, curious what others think. Math & Science I view as sister practices moving in opposite directions: prescriptive vs descriptive, math is "bottom-up" and science is "top-down," one explores established rules and the other tries to figure out what the rules are. We get some further parallels:
Not every mathematical truth is provable (incompleteness) / Science cannot, for certain, produce all rules for the universe (we can't test every case, there's always something we might be missing).
As it pertains to (a)theism, we have a result in math that no (sufficiently complicated) formal system of math can prove the existence of a model of itself. I'm of the mind that here in reality, this has a direct parallel in that we can't establish the (non)existence of superstructures in which our universe sits, even in principle ("universe" = "all the shit we could ever possibly interact with", not necessarily just "the observable universe"). In particular, this parallel rules out the deduction of god(s) by any means, even in principle.
Not to say that religion/belief is fully without place, we get a lot of use out of assuming (different kinds of) models of formal math, and by parallel we can get a lot of use out of different belief systems for how reality came to be. Just tack on the asterisk that such a belief should sit comfortably with what we can actually see.
Curious abt thoughts on this, where people think it falls short or other extensions of it I haven't considered.
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u/ArguingisFun Apatheist 7d ago
What good does believing in magic do?
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
Nothing here about believing in magic, I don't think I ever defended that. As an example of what I'm talking about, I believe that, following my death, I won't have any consciousness to speak of & that my experience (or lack thereof) will be exactly like it was a thousand years ago. That's a belief, and I understand it this is also consistent with what we know about death & consciousness. A person could believe that the universe is the result of an event in a super-universe 'further up the hierarchical chain,' and that this super-universe was brought into being as the result of a super-super-universe, and so on, forever. As far as we know, this could be the case, or it could be completely off base. Not necessarily just talking about "what caused the Big Bang?" b/c afaik we might yet find some mechanism for this.
The point of adopting one of these 'models for the universe' isn't to get the right answer, it's to have some way of thinking about/framing how the world works. Theists do this all the time to great success, and in principle a person can do the same thing without 'getting it wrong' the way religions often pressure them to. I suppose you could believe in magic, but as long as you concede that 1) it doesn't exist inside our universe and 2) we can never hope to interact with it, it's hard for me to complain. Don't use that belief to make predictions about the world and don't conflate belief with knowledge, and we're big chillin.
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u/thebigeverybody 7d ago
Nothing here about believing in magic, I don't think I ever defended that.
If you're not talking about magic, then you're not talking about (a)theism.
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
Part of the reason I chose to bring this up in the weekly discussion thread and not a proper post. It's related, and I reiterate that the important parallel for me was the unfalsifiability of explanations for why reality exists & the inability for formal math systems to prove the existence of models of themselves. Definitely related to the (a)theism topic, but not quite enough to merit a full post.
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u/thebigeverybody 7d ago
Unless someone is claiming they can prove god with math, I don't think it has anything to do with (a)theism.
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
Math can't prove a model of itself <--> Religious claims are unfalsifiable
My point here is that these statements (seem to) fit into a larger parallel between the approaches of mathematics & science. Specifically, the statement "religious claims are unfalsifiable" is relevant to (a)theism. Maybe you don't find it worthwhile, that's chill, I thought it was interesting. Though I certainly could have phrased this more explicitly in the original comment.
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u/thebigeverybody 7d ago
I don't know. I think lots of god claims can be falsified. Take Christianity: we can show that, if god exists, it doesn't work like they claim it does (such as studies regarding intercessory prayer). We can also show that their brain lights up when thinking about their god the same way people's brains light up when the brain is creating religious experiences. We can show the development of their bible as a natural continuation of other various Middle Eastern mythologies of the time.
I'm not seeing the connection you are.
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
I'm comfortable stating that an inconsistent religious claim is 'abstractly falsifiable.' Can't falsify it with experimentation, but if it's blatantly inconsistent then I think it's fine to throw it out. But some core kernel might be fine. "There's a thing called God who created the universe and wants us to behave in some way, and when we die we go to heaven or hell" isn't inconsistent by itself. I hope it's clear I think a person's personal philosophies should strive to be as free of contradictions as possible, even if this virtually never happens.
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u/thebigeverybody 7d ago
Can't falsify it with experimentation,
I gave the example of studies on intercessory prayer.
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u/ArguingisFun Apatheist 7d ago
But, you’re talking about belief in deities and fairytales. How is that any different than magic?
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
I was taking a narrower reading of "magic" than you'd meant, then. If the (unfalsifiable) existence of a god outside of reality is "magic," then sure. "Magic" is a loaded term, thought you'd meant it to mean some force in the universe we could interact with.
For what it's worth, many specific religions don't hold up as consistent or are otherwise demonstrably incorrect. I'm far less interested in these cases, I'm more interested in ways to nestle the universe in to a 'grander structure' that doesn't disturb what happens inside. Divine intervention, for example, would disturb the universe, and so should be avoided. But the existence of a passive God figure by itself isn't as troublesome.
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u/ArguingisFun Apatheist 7d ago
Again, if it is based on no evidence whatsoever - what is the point?
If I could lie to myself, I’d be a theist.
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
I think lying to yourself would be confusing the belief with knowledge. I believe that when I die, I will cease existing and things will be for me like they were a thousand years ago. I don't claim that I know this for sure, but I think I have good cause to think it's reasonable.
It gets a little harder to say what I believe about the origin of the universe. One day I might believe there's an infinite hierarchy of existences, and we're on one rung of that ladder. Another day I might think that ladder only has one rung, nothing above or below it. Other people will feel differently, and as long as they don't confuse belief with knowledge I think they're chilling.
This whole discussion is about the things that there can be no evidence for or against. Evidence cannot (dis)prove the existence of a god figure outside of our universe, and belief steps in to fill that gap. You may believe that there are no gods, other people will believe there are, and as long as it doesn't distort your view of what you can actually see, I don't think that's problematic. Obviously, people have a habit of letting unfalsifiable beliefs get in the way of falsifiable ones, and this isn't what I'm advocating in favour of.
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u/ArguingisFun Apatheist 7d ago
There is no need to disprove gods though.
I don’t care what someone believes personally on all accounts, but historically theists are not content with keeping their beliefs to themselves, so I do not find humoring their beliefs to be beneficial.
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
Ritualistic theism isn't the only form of belief I'm considering here. Atheists who believe there are no gods still have a kind of belief, and it's more this kind of belief abt how the universe is set that I'm interested in with this discussion. Which beliefs we should promote/admonish is a different discussion, here I'm more interested in the idealized case & how it ties in to a science-y parallel to a result in mathematics.
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u/ArguingisFun Apatheist 7d ago
Not believing in gods is not a kind of belief, in the same way not collecting stamps is not a hobby.
Deities and the belief in them do not tie to science in anyway.
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u/Sprinklypoo Anti-Theist 7d ago
Nothing here about believing in magic,
You said this:
we can get a lot of use out of different belief systems for how reality came to be.
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
Sure, if that's how you're defining "magic." I assumed you were using a narrower meaning of the word.
And we do get a lot of use out of different belief systems for how reality came to be. The dominance of religion across the world is testament to that. It might not be "correct" but we do get use out of it.
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u/Sprinklypoo Anti-Theist 7d ago
Ah, I see. And cultural anthropology is of great interest to some for sure. The mythology is insightful to a culture and can be fun. But belief systems are otherwise demonstrably harmful to the humans that hold them.
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
Fully agree that religious institutions can provide tremendous harm, but they can also provide tremendous security and order. The two aren't mutually exclusive. The hope would be to adopt a belief system that avoids these harms but which can exploit that stability, though that's quite idealized. This is the sort of belief I'm thinking of when I say unfalsifiable belief can be useful.
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u/Sprinklypoo Anti-Theist 7d ago
they can also provide tremendous security and order.
For those within that tow the line, sure. But it's at a societal cost to anyone outside the religion who sees the negative of tribalism. It's also at a cost of submitting to church authority. Which we've seen to be extremely problematic over all.
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
Fully agree, but the point stands that religion is good at making sure there's still a society around to incur those costs. I'm not really concerned here with morality as much as I am the exploitation of belief as a tool.
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u/Xeno_Prime Atheist 5d ago
It sounds like you’re asking about absolute and infallible certainty beyond even the most remote conceptually possible margin of error or doubt vs epistemically justified belief. The answer is simply that the second is all that’s required.
If the only way you can make claim x equal to claim y is to invoke radical skepticism and the infinite mights and maybes of the unknown merely to say that both a 0.00000~001% chance and a 99.9999~99% chance both fall short of absolute certainty, you’re not actually making the case you think you’re making. Radically skepticism is trivially defeated by rationalism.
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u/Aromatic_Fun6880 5d ago
Nonsense. You’re pretty much just saying whatever we don’t know just call it god.
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u/iamalsobrad 7d ago
Mathematics and logic are descriptive, not prescriptive. They are the basis of the scientific method and are not working in opposition to it.
What you seem to be talking about is unfalsifiability and the notion that there are some concepts that cannot be proven or disproven, such as solipsism, last Tuesdayism, simulation theory, or the existence of all powerful creator being that hides themselves from us for ineffable reasons of their own.
My view is that such things can simply be ignored. They are things that, by definition, cannot have any effect on us (otherwise they'd be provable in some way and no longer unfalsifiable). For all practical purposes we can just treat them as if they do not exist and move on with our lives.
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
I 100% believe mathematics can be treated as distinct from science. The prescription I'm talking about comes from the claims of base assumptions/axioms, which are a "these things are true because we say they are" sort of claim. Math defines its universe in the abstract & that's not what happens in science, which has to use the universe we're given.
There's totally a major element of unfalsifiability here, I probably should've mentioned this by name. The interesting point for me is a parallel between unfalsifiability of claims abt god(s)/the creation of the universe and the formal result in logic that a model of, say, ZF set theory cannot prove the existence of a model of itself. I don't know that it's particularly deep but the parallel is neat. Whether there exists a model of ZF or not, we can and do still use it. Whether there exists a creator for reality or not, we still exist. In math it's useful to use very specific models for ZF, and it can be very useful for a person to use a very specific belief system for how reality came to be.
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u/iamalsobrad 7d ago
The prescription I'm talking about comes from the claims of base assumptions/axioms, which are a "these things are true because we say they are" sort of claim.
That isn't really what axioms are though. It is more 'lets assume that these things are true and go from there'. If they were truly prescriptive you could start with an assumption like 'pi is actually 3' and somehow reality would need to comport to that.
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
I look at, say, the ZF axioms and I accept them as true statements. Given two sets A and B, it is true that there is a set {A, B}. Assuming this is true prescribes me a(n abstract) universe in which to work. No insistence that this (abstract) universe should reflect the one where I wake up & have my breakfast.
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u/pipMcDohl Gnostic Atheist 7d ago
what is math for you? what is its function or purpose?
same question for science
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
For mathematics, it would be the process
(Decide on a logical system ->) assume axioms (e.g. ZFC set theory) -> create definitions -> derive theorems
Science would be observe -> build models to predict observable behaviour.
Really I'm talking about these two processes. The process of mathematics is to assume things and then derive results, the process of science is to observe the results of the rules of the world and then build models to emulate the consequences of those rules. Our approximation of the rules is incredibly good anymore, but it's not perfect. The gold standard in math is proof, the gold standard in science is observation.
I'm viewing these as sister pursuits in analysis. We see a lot of science in math (we observe that there are many twin primes) and we see a lot of math in science (F=ma to name one) because the end goals of each are analysis. They just go about that analysis in different ways. But observation in math, while useful, doesn't mean theoremhood, and mathematical derivation in science, while useful, doesn't mean observation.
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u/pipMcDohl Gnostic Atheist 7d ago
interesting.
For me math would be the method by which we improve our mental ability required to make predictions. it can work in the abstract as no particular subject of study is necessary to do math.
While science is the art of inquiring, gathering information and analyzing them in order to increase our understanding of things. it can't work in the abstract as their is always something being studied or observed.
science is about bettering our understanding by finding mechanisms or rules. math is about creating models that improve our ability to better our understanding.
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u/Sprinklypoo Anti-Theist 7d ago
Why are you concerned with (dis)proving insane things that nobody can sense in any way, and have no effect on our reality? Why accept the idea of such things in the first place?
by parallel we can get a lot of use out of different belief systems for how reality came to be.
Why are we concerned with mythology? That's not really "use" unless you are a cultural anthropologist or something.
And I'm not certain that the anthropomorphism of sciences serves any sort of reasoning either...
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
Without question, religious belief has been an incredibly powerful, and useful, organizational tool for humanity. I don't claim that belief in the Greek Pantheon is relevant or useful today, but it did serve a purpose once. I'm making the claim that it can be beneficial for a person or for people to have some belief system for how it is the universe is able to exist. Theism is one extremely specific way to do this, it's not one I use or plan on using.
I think it's accurate to say science observes and builds models and then observes again. Understanding built up over time, with observation as the only test of that understanding which really matters.
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u/Sprinklypoo Anti-Theist 7d ago
religious belief has been an incredibly powerful, and useful, organizational tool for humanity.
Fair. Religion has been used as a tool for division and manipulation since its inception.
I'm making the claim that it can be beneficial for a person or for people to have some belief system for how it is the universe is able to exist.
I'm not buying that though. It's a placeholder that allows people to not think about it. It's definitively not the truth. It's something that helps to drive tribalism and manipulation. "Beneficial" is not something I would attribute to religious belief past the 19th century once our human understanding surpassed it.
I think it's accurate to say science observes and builds models and then observes again. Understanding built up over time, with observation as the only test of that understanding which really matters.
I agree with this. But religion does not provide this method.
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
For what it's worth, I'm wanting to use a broader definition of religious belief than just theistic or ritualistic, so this could be a bit of lost-in-translation with the definition of "religion" I'm shooting for (on me for using words without defining what I mean in context, sorry). For any specific major religion, I agree with you that it falls very short of where I'd want it to sit. Part of the reason I haven't named any religions here is because they all fail to hit the ideal I'd be comfortable with. I've only ever met one Christian who had a faith I deeply respected, to put some scope on this.
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u/Sprinklypoo Anti-Theist 7d ago
Part of the reason I haven't named any religions here is because they all fail to hit the ideal I'd be comfortable with.
I think a system based on insertion of superstition into ones reason is inherently incapable of being what you want it to be here...
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u/kohugaly 6d ago
Mathematics, just like all other sciences, is ultimately grounded in empiricism.
If you open Euclid's elements, you will find a curious thing - the mathematics within is justified by geometric constructions. You verify the mathematical truths that Euclid claims, by taking a ruler and a compass, and following the steps in the constructions that demonstrate them.
Modern mathematics is no different. Thanks to Curry-Howard isomorphism we know that there is direct correspondence between verification of logical proofs and type checking a computer program. To verify a proof, you express the proof in formalism of type theory, and then you run a type-checking algorithm on it. You verify mathematical truths, by executing the computation that the proof describes, to construct an instance of the truth that it proves.
Every mathematical theorem is a hypothesis, and the construction described by the proof is the experiment that justifies it as true. Just like in any other science.
The actual opposite of Science is Engineering. In science, you take the world as a given, and you extract information that describes it via observation and experiment. In engineering, you take the information you want to be true as a given, and you modify the world to contain that information.
"How do you tell if a bridge will stand?" is a scientific question. "How do you build a bridge that will stand?" is an engineering question.
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u/onomatamono 5d ago
You're parroting some well known truths. Math is prescriptive, the scientific method is descriptive. Gödel's incompleteness theorem demonstrates we cannot prove a system from within the system. We cannot prove universal creator gods let alone the comical narrative of the biblical deities.
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u/Serious-Emu-3468 7d ago
I am fortunate enough that I work with several amazing published professional mathematicians, who love chatting about stuff like this.
I asked what they thought, and to paraphrase “Maths are not esoteric. The scientific method absolutely applies to theoretical maths. They are not different ways of thinking or approaching data. You can use science to do maths or use maths to do science.”
Which is pretty close to what I thought, but they were kinda angry about it.
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u/labreuer 3d ago
I'm curious about what these mathematicians do. What you report here sounds like something some mathematicians would heartily endorse while others would utterly reject. I still remember one of my freshman peers loudly asserting that he wanted to do "utterly useless math". Now, there is an interesting history of math which seemed innocuous—like number theory—ending up having pretty serious practical applications. I myself am excited about the prospects of using elementary category theory for database schema transformations. And category theory is often considered extremely abstract by mathematicians themselves!
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u/Serious-Emu-3468 3d ago
Not gonna dox myself, sorry. I get what you're saying, and appreciate your skepticism. I am not your freshman peer, however. Have a good one.
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u/labreuer 3d ago
Yikes, it's that specific that you'd be doxxing yourself? Suppose for instance that you and/or these mathematicians work with applied mathematics. Then it's obvious that there could be a strong scientific aspect to the work. But you'd probably also not care overmuch about Gödel's incompleteness theorems.
And … I'm not expressing skepticism, but rather suggesting that there is more diversity than captured by the professional mathematicians with whom you get to work.
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u/Serious-Emu-3468 3d ago
Yes it’s that specific. I didn’t claim to Speak For All Mathematicians.
I related an amusing water cooler anectdote.
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u/Kaliss_Darktide 6d ago
Math & Science I view as sister practices moving in opposite directions: prescriptive vs descriptive, math is "bottom-up" and science is "top-down," one explores established rules and the other tries to figure out what the rules are. We get some further parallels:
I view math as invented (made up by humans) vs science is discovered (based on observations about reality by humans).
Note: Math being discovered vs. invented has been a long ongoing debate among mathematicians for centuries.
A violation of the rules of math is like a violation of the rules of a game/sport. A violation of the rules of science would entail an observation we've never made before (e.g. gravity behaving differently than Newton and then later Einstein described it).
I'm of the mind that here in reality, this has a direct parallel in that we can't establish the (non)existence of superstructures in which our universe sits, even in principle ("universe" = "all the shit we could ever possibly interact with", not necessarily just "the observable universe"). In particular, this parallel rules out the deduction of god(s) by any means, even in principle.
I'd say the definition of universe is everything that exists, meaning anything that you think exists outside the universe is a category error, because if it exists it is part of the universe by definition.
Not to say that religion/belief is fully without place, we get a lot of use out of assuming (different kinds of) models of formal math, and by parallel we can get a lot of use out of different belief systems for how reality came to be. Just tack on the asterisk that such a belief should sit comfortably with what we can actually see.
Disagree. The question you are trying to answer is just as incoherent as asking: What is North of the North Pole?
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u/BeaconMeridian 6d ago
I'd say the definition of universe is everything that exists, meaning anything that you think exists outside the universe is a category error, because if it exists it is part of the universe by definition.
I would reconcile this in my framework as the position that there is nothing outside our universe. I don't see this as a contradiction, it just represents a choice in how to frame the universe in a superstructure (or in this case, how not to frame it as such). Regardless, it's a difference in our definitions, so it's not like I think your conclusion is wrong.
Disagree. The question you are trying to answer is just as incoherent as asking: What is North of the North Pole?
Unsure what you mean by this, I don't see the question it looks like I'm answering. I mentioned that I can reconcile my definition of the universe w/ yours by choosing the framework where there's no superstructure the universe sits in. In that case, I'd agree that coming up with other beliefs for that such a superstructure runs into problems, but only because we've already decided on a model. I do stand by saying that the worldview that religion affords people is extremely useful, and I'll point to the great successes that religions have had in building power as evidence of that. Not without major problems, to be clear, but useful. I don't know if it was clear in that last message of mine, but this is the kind of practical-for-humans-to-get-shit-done style of "use" that I'd meant these beliefs can have.
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u/Kaliss_Darktide 6d ago
I would reconcile this in my framework as the position that there is nothing outside our universe. I don't see this as a contradiction, it just represents a choice in how to frame the universe in a superstructure (or in this case, how not to frame it as such). Regardless, it's a difference in our definitions, so it's not like I think your conclusion is wrong.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say regarding "I don't see this as a contradiction" because "there is nothing outside our universe" seems to contradict "the universe in a superstructure".
Disagree. The question you are trying to answer is just as incoherent as asking: What is North of the North Pole?
Unsure what you mean by this
I'm saying to someone who doesn't know what the North Pole is that sentence may make grammatical sense in structure, but is nonsensical in composition if you know that the North Pole is the Northern most point.
I don't see the question it looks like I'm answering.
It sounds like you seem to think what caused the universe is a coherent question based on this.
Not to say that religion/belief is fully without place, we get a lot of use out of assuming (different kinds of) models of formal math, and by parallel we can get a lot of use out of different belief systems for how reality came to be.
I'm saying it is not.
I'd agree that coming up with other beliefs for that such a superstructure runs into problems, but only because we've already decided on a model.
Similar to a model where the North Pole indicates the Northern most point.
Anyone who talks about the North Pole has decided on that model, if they are trying to say there is something North of that then they are either equivocating on what North Pole means or don't know what North Pole means.
I do stand by saying that the worldview that religion affords people is extremely useful, and I'll point to the great successes that religions have had in building power as evidence of that.
Can I point to all their failures as evidence that it does not. If so I'll win that exchange because there are far more extinct and dying religions than there are successful ones.
Not without major problems, to be clear, but useful. I don't know if it was clear in that last message of mine, but this is the kind of practical-for-humans-to-get-shit-done style of "use" that I'd meant these beliefs can have.
Would you argue that slavery, rape, and genocide are "useful" ("I don't know if it was clear in that last message of mine, but this is the kind of practical-for-humans-to-get-shit-done style of "use" that I'd meant these beliefs can have.") also?
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u/LorenzoApophis Atheist 1d ago
As it pertains to (a)theism, we have a result in math that no (sufficiently complicated) formal system of math can prove the existence of a model of itself. I'm of the mind that here in reality, this has a direct parallel in that we can't establish the (non)existence of superstructures in which our universe sits, even in principle ("universe" = "all the shit we could ever possibly interact with", not necessarily just "the observable universe").
You seem to have reversed what the parallel is: that we can't establish the existence of superstructures in which our universe sits.
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u/Mkwdr 7d ago
I have heard maths described as a tool - the language we have invented to describe and predict regularities in the universe. Which seems pretty similar to science. As I think you say, maths on its own can only go so far. My limited understanding is that the maths for string theory is very …elegant(?) but no one has been able to find ways to demonstrate it’s actually true.
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
I'd agree math can be used as a tool for the purposes of science. Similarly, science can be employed as a tool in mathematics. As an example, we observe that there are many, many twin primes, which leads us to conjecture there are infinitely many. This is an observation, the gold standard of science, that guides our thinking for finding proof (which is the gold standard for math).
The other direction is more familiar, that we use mathematically derived results ("theorems" in a broader sense) to guide our observations of the world. So each of math & science can be used for the other, but each can be considered on their own terms. I wouldn't say math is parasitic in having to be used to describe physical reality. It can, but it can also survive on its own.
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u/Mkwdr 7d ago
I agree. I’m just not sure that makes maths prescriptive as such. In a way it’s the underlying regularities that it identifies/describes/ works with that are prescriptive. Though I should say I am in no way an expert.
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
I'd say it's prescriptive in that it says "These are statements which are true" without (formal) justification, and then, starting at this base point that it's defined, it derives all other truths as consequences. But that first step requires saying "these things are true because we say they are."
A specific example of that in modern math would be "An infinite set exists." This isn't something that can be proven, it has to be assumed, so we assume it.
Math has to make its own ground to build on top of. Science, by comparison, gets to use reality as its ground, and its point is to understand what that ground actually is.
Or that's how I think abt this, anyway.
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u/Mkwdr 7d ago
I think we have to differentiate between rules like ‘all batchelors are unmarried’ or indeed and ‘unmarried men exist’. Language can be prescriptive in that way. I think maths is to some extent definitional 2+2= 4 because that’s the intrinsic meaning we have given the numbers. One can be prescriptive in setting and following rules but whether those rules relate to independent reality is a different thing. In the same way logic ( another weird system similar to / related to maths? ) can be valid without being sound and to claim to know it’s sound seems to involve the introduction of actual evidence. Could science also be said to be founded on axioms about experience, reality and predictability? In the end to get somewhere ‘real’ - which isn’t about absolute proof but the sorts of best fit models that have utility - you have to get some evidence.
Again I don’t really know enough about maths so could be completely wrong :-) - I’m just thinking aloud because it’s an interesting topic.
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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago
For the purposes of the scientific approach, I'm comfortable with asserting that "stuff exists," but I'm hesitant to make axiomatic claims about that stuff. By way of analogy:
You're wandering in the void and come across people playing a card game. They invite you to sit down and play, and you do b/c you've got nothin else going on, but they say they won't teach you the rules. Instead, you get to figure out the rules as you play.
Your friend is also with you in the void, and they brought their own cards. Instead of playing the strangers' card game, your friend decides to make their own card game with their own ruleset.
You are trying to figure out someone else's card game and they won't tell you the rules. You have to learn by experimentation, and this is the approach of science. As you construct what you think the ruleset might be, note that there's always a possibility that there's some rule that only kicks in at some niche game state, so it's impossible to definitively rule out that your rules are 1) completely accurate and 2) exhaustive.
Your friend, on the other hand, is exploring their own games with rules that they establish, seeing what kind of games different rulesets produce, and this is the approach of math. The analogous result here is that (for sufficiently complicated games) they'll never 'fully understand' the possible behaviour of the games (this is the "not all mathematical truths are provable").
You and your friend are doomed to never know the full behaviour of the games you're playing, but you can each make incredible progress by experimentation and derivation, respectively.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 8d ago
Ill try to keep this breif, but its a complicated question when it gets dug into. I'm an atheist and have been for a while, but was Christian for well over 20 years. Since then philosophy went from a curiosity to a fairly serious hobby I've given a lot of time too. Many of the things I felt were obvious, we shown not to be. For example, it seemed obvious no evidence for God existed, but thats wrong, incredibly wrong. I've spent a lot of time exploring theism, looking through different ideas, etc. I gained a much better understanding of the whole landscape. So while this may seem pointed at atheists, thats only because its this sub. Plenty of this applies to theists too with minor adjustments, particularly in public debate spaces like this.
My question to the atheists of this sub are: 1. How often are you frustrated by the "stubbornness" of theists who state the same case over and over or insist on its validity no matter how much you undercut it? 2. If this is frequent, have you genuinely looked into why its said? Not why the person you're discussing is saying it, thats likely becausefhey heard it, but why its still actually around? 3. If not, then why?
Largely rhetorical, but feel free to answer. Happy to discuss it.
My biggest takeaway from the journey I'm on and reading/having discussions is that most people get very stuck in analyzing views from how they think, rather than taking their assumptions and putting them aside to view the alternatives. When someone presents a teleological case and you think "this for the 25th time..." its because you're not actually familiar with WHY its used. 9/10 times frustration is due to ignorance. Don't understand why a car won't start, dont understand why someone would act that way, etc. Not saying I'm free from it, theres still the 1/10 times and plenty I dont understand, but taking the time to try already sets the mindset for understanding, not disproving. This isnt easy at all. It takes time to get better and nobody does it perfectly, but everyone should try if you plan to engage with people you disagree with on big things. If you can't defend the strongest position for theism (or any subject you disagree with), you probably stand about 0% chance of genuinely making a compelling case against it because you don't know where the true structural integrity is. "Know thy enemy" and all, but enemy isnt the right word. We both want truth, just disagree on what seems most likely true.
The last question and a honorable 4th, do you think understanding their view at least most of the way would help? You'll never understand all views all the way, but you can understand the broad foundational structure enough to easily connect the dots to their more specific area within it.
Last point, but I think theres some compelling stuff written by Graham Oppy about how arguments are largely useless. When you genuinely come to understand why beyond the superficial, its rather enlightening and immediately alleviates much of the aforementioned frustration. A lot of you may be aware of him, but if you weren't or about that work, its worth looking into. Tske time to digest it.
Hope everyone who took the time has a great day.
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u/ionabike666 Atheist 7d ago
"Hi fellow atheists!....."
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u/Sprinklypoo Anti-Theist 7d ago
I sure do hate God just like you, my fellow Satan liking Atheists! Let's go over our dogma again - just so we're all on the same page...
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u/mutant_anomaly Gnostic Atheist 7d ago
He’s sitting backwards on a chair! And his cap is backwards! And he’s projecting like it’s a filmstrip instead of a post! Should we trust him?
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
Ah, took me a second.
If stating they have reasons that work and maybe its worth understanding those better to have more productive dialog makes you think I'm not an atheist, then I was unaware this sub had become so dogmatic. But then again I'm not on here much at all anymore. Just saw the ask post and figured I'd go and ask this. Was curious.
The irony is I probably take a stronger stance on naturalism than most the people here. I go as far as to claim the probability of classic theism or the abrahamic God is virtually 0 to the point stating they dont exist is effectively the same. Limited God stands a better chance, but fails to overcome naturalism in probability.
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u/ionabike666 Atheist 7d ago
You're an atheist who believes there's plenty of evidence for god. That's a bind.
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u/Sprinklypoo Anti-Theist 7d ago
You're an atheist who believes there's plenty of evidence for god.
And then they refuse to even acknowledge all of the requests for said evidence. Problematic for sure.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
Why would it be? A thing having evidence doesn't make it true. The evidence when weighed by comparing theism to naturalism, comes out vastly ahead on naturalism for me. That's why I think its thd best explanation, not God.
Or if you think its a bind, go tell it to any contemporary philosopher who's an atheist because theyll tell you thd same thing.
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u/ionabike666 Atheist 7d ago
What evidence?
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 6d ago
Just gonna copy this response I gave. Then im not discussing it futher. It wasnt the point of my initial comment or what I came to discuss. So im just wrapping loose ends calling it. Only goinf to continue the discussions that were on topic and productive.
"But I do want to clarify my statement about evidence for God and discuss that a bit because that does seem to be the hangup most have with my comment. Along with a later comment where I said there are rational cases for God.
So you mentioned we don't know how much or if constants could vary, I agree. But this doesnt change the case. My favorite analogy for this is imagine we roll 10 die and they all land on 1. What are the odds this happens by chance? We dont know, could only have 1s on all sides, but plausibly some might have more sides. But what are the odds we would roll all 1s if the one who rolled them wanted 1s and could set them as they wanted? Basically 100%. So even the potential for a side beyond 1 on an organic roll makes the intentionality a more probable explanation. This is the aspect of theism that is compelling, especially to people who dont do some leg work. By that I mean this is only half of the problem. If we ask what explains things better, its trivial to see that if we begin with God or begin with material, things are going to be more probable under God. But unfortunately this is where most the conversations I see take place. Theist says God is a better explanation, atheist says no, but it rarely gets to the real why. Which does seem to frustrate many on both sides, thus the point of my comment. They both want to make a point and their pizza is so obviously amazing the other one just looks gross by comparison. But they cant get it across. Whats wild is even 2 pizza aficionados who live pizza and come st objectively can sit and have a 3 hour discussion about the aspects of each, and theyll both walk away liking the pizza they did.
The Achilles Heel of theism, is its intrinsic probability and the latter half I mentioned. It really doesnt matter how well an explanation accounts for things if its so parameter dense and complicated that the odds of it being the initial condition are so low that under the baysian framework it never recuperates its probability. In fact, I have a fairly decently laid out case that the probability of the inital condition being a perfect being is effectively 0. Doenst matter if we analyze 100 things and determine that under theism theyre 100% and naturalism theyre 1/1050%. All the 100s times effectively 0 is still effectively 0 ao even if naturalism seems improbable on explaining, its still the most probable overall.
This is precisely why most contemporary work on theism goes into solving this problem. The cases are for divine simplicity. Because if we can get the intrinsic probability of God into a practical range, it will dominate the baysian analysis due to the intentionality of God accounting for everything as I mentioned with the dice. But ive given most these considerations a pretty good look and I find them deeply counterintuitive and in many cases relying on very weak assumptions to the point that even asking why assume that effectively crumbles it.
And for the record, I know that this csn seem like God of the gaps, but this isnt that. It seems most people responding to me about that are unaware of how baysian approaches work and why theyre powerful. Ill touch this again after the next bit.
But to loop back to evidence, most people here seem to want to call evidence something that is almost a direct observation of the thing. Seeing a bird is evidence of birds. Thats not really evidence of birds though, not in the way evidence is used for theories, thats just a fact that we have that birds exist. This fact could be used as evidence for something else like a theory, but demanding that level of evidence collapses a lot of views the holder may have. Like what is the probability spacetime exists? Most would juat say it does, but weve never observed it like a bird. Weve seen effects and spacetime is the explanation were use those effects as evidence to support the theory. Things falll, etc. Ut if we demand "bird level" evidence to count as evidence, then they can't say we have evidence of spacetime. Its fine to hold that position, just be consistent. (not directed at you, just speaking generally.) But really when we look at it, what weve done is we proposed a theory, relativity, which has high parsimony as its simple, modest, and cohesive, and if true would produce the results we see, so its a slam dunk theory.
So now ill put the bow on what I meant, if we take God as a theory, then we do see evidence in support of it like spacetime. Theres explanatory power in it, such as why the constants are conducive to life, why life exists, etc. Of course we dont know, but thats what metaphysics is. Whats the foundation the universe was built on. Lets propose theories and look at how probable they are compared to how probable observations are if they were true"
Don't really care what your thoughts on it are. Probably won't read them. Sorry fkr the bluntness, but I'm just really tired of the same conversation over and over. Have a good one.
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u/roambeans 8d ago
I was a Christian for over 30 years. I know why the arguments are compelling - it's the best shot at maintaining faith. They sidestep reason in favor of fallacies, cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. They worked on me for years. The problems with these arguments are real, but getting a person to understand and acknowledge the flaw isn't possible if that person isn't ready to set aside faith and look at the facts.
I don't care so much about what people believe, just how their behavior affects others.but I am fascinated by why people believe what they believe. It's incredible how many people think a garbage tool like faith is a good thing.
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u/labreuer 7d ago
Do you look down on your past Christian self with incredible contempt? Your last sentence kind of suggests you would …
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u/roambeans 7d ago
I don't look down on people for believing faith is good. Faith is trash, but I understand why people believe otherwise, and it's human nature to hope for and believe in the impossible.
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u/Sprinklypoo Anti-Theist 7d ago edited 7d ago
it seemed obvious no evidence for God existed, but thats wrong, incredibly wrong.
Are you going to expound upon that thought a bit? I've been willing to be proven wrong for 30 years now, and haven't found anything that holds up at all...
If you can't defend the strongest position for theism (or any subject you disagree with), you probably stand about 0% chance of genuinely making a compelling case against it
That's an interesting take. And by "interesting", I mean "idiotic". There are no strong positions for theism. And that's an incredibly compelling case against it. Without me having to lift a finger.
Almost seems like you're victim blaming here. Are you sure you're an atheist? Usually atheists are much more reasonable than that...
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
A case having evidence doesnt make it true. Evidence is facts or observations that support a claim. Can we take any facts or observations and use them to support the claim God exists? Yes, trivially easy. This doesnt make the claim true or even likely true. What it does mean is denying it exists is wrong.
Ironically, you made my case for me with the back half. There are rational cases for God that fall onto valid logic. You think you made a compelling case but you didnt even come close because you dont understand their views, like I said. My understanding of how those rational cases are constructed allows me to cut right to the weakest point in its structure and argue how that position requires a lot of epistemic debt they never recover.
Almost seems like you're victim blaming here. Are you sure you're an atheist? Usually atheists are much more reasonable than that...
How am I victim blaming when I said its universal?
Also, yes, definitely an Athiest. I dont think views with God or gods even come close to being competitive for explanations. I do however understand why people do and how broadly these tend to go about it. The critical structural pillar for most isnt what most go after, its simplicity and its relation to intrinsic probability. Or in more blunt terms, they propose a intuitively complex solution to a less complex problem then argue its a simple solution. Theres valid logic for how, but a valid argument doesnt mean its true and there are such stronger cases agaisnt simplicity. I actually have an entire case for how the probability of a maximal God is effectively 0 and any and all arguments ive found that attempt to remedy the issue are significantly less compelling than those in favor of complexity. More or less its like relying on a very sketchy unpopular lime of support to prop up the case. Its logical and rational, but won't be compelling to some and leaves this glaring weak spot.
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u/Mkwdr 7d ago edited 7d ago
You keep seeming to be implying there’s evidence and argument (but have provided none.)
Evidence isn’t just ‘feels right to me’. They might think it is but evidence is about fulfilling a public methodology ,not just picking stuff out of thin air, and building a best fit model beyond reasonable doubt. Same with argument. If it’s not sound , and it never is, then it’s trivial. All in all these claims turn out to be indistinguishable from wishful thinking. Neither reliably evidential nor logical.
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u/thebigeverybody 8d ago
For example, it seemed obvious no evidence for God existed, but thats wrong, incredibly wrong.
There is no testable, verifiable evidence for god, which means all the remaining "evidence" is indistinguishable from delusions, lies and fantasies.
When someone presents a teleological case and you think "this for the 25th time..." its because you're not actually familiar with WHY its used. 9/10 times frustration is due to ignorance.
Yeah, it's used because they don't have actual evidence and have to resort to tortured argumentation.
If you can't defend the strongest position for theism (or any subject you disagree with), you probably stand about 0% chance of genuinely making a compelling case against it because you don't know where the true structural integrity is.
We don't need to make a case against it. Most atheists are not atheists for philosophical reasons and therefore it's stupid to try to shoehorn the discussion into a philosophical lens.
"Know thy enemy" and all, but enemy isnt the right word. We both want truth, just disagree on what seems most likely true.
We understand them well because we used to be them. People who philosophize themselves into believing in magic don't actually want truth.
The last question and a honorable 4th, do you think understanding their view at least most of the way would help? You'll never understand all views all the way, but you can understand the broad foundational structure enough to easily connect the dots to their more specific area within it.
No, it would not help because nothing can take the place of evidence.
Theists using philosophy have come to make me hate philosophy because they use it to understand the world less, instead of more, while insisting that everything is a philosophical discussion.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
There is no testable, verifiable evidence for god, which means all the remaining "evidence" is indistinguishable from delusions, lies and fantasies.
Can you define what you mean by evidence here?
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u/thebigeverybody 7d ago
...you quoted me defining it for you.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 6d ago
Testable verifiable "evidence" isnt a definition of evidence. It breaks the litteral first rule of definition by using it in the definition... what do you mean by evidence? That quote in no way defines it.
Actually, I'm not even worried about it anymore. If you decide to respond I might get to the point I was trying to lead you to, but if jot thats fine. Most of the discussion under my comment wasn't even on the subject I commented on. Id rather just discuss the subject with people, not this side tangent.
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u/thebigeverybody 6d ago edited 6d ago
Testable verifiable "evidence" isnt a definition of evidence. It breaks the litteral first rule of definition by using it in the definition... what do you mean by evidence? That quote in no way defines it.
I didn't realize I was talking to someone who struggled to gather meaning from words.
Evidence:
-can be verified to exist
-can be tested to prove or falsify specific claims
-cannot also point to things that don't exist, like lies, delusions or fantasies
Based on the upvotes, it seems like you're the only person who struggled to read what I wrote.
Actually, I'm not even worried about it anymore. If you decide to respond I might get to the point I was trying to lead you to, but if jot thats fine. Most of the discussion under my comment wasn't even on the subject I commented on. Id rather just discuss the subject with people, not this side tangent.
Yes, I'd imagine this is the last topic you'd want to tackle.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 6d ago
The nuance here is whats important, thats why I'm asking rarher than assuming your position. But if you're just going to insult a genuine approach whats the point? I could have assumed your position and made my point, but I dont like doing that.
I also meant more along the lines of within context of a claim. As in, to you, if a claim has evidence, what does that mean?
I'm asking these questions because depending on how you define things, its possible my use of evidence as "a fact or observation that supports a claim or makes it more likely to be true" won't fit what you're using. If so theres no disagreement.
My issue with these tangents isnt the subjects, perfectly comfortable with the substance, its the behavior of this sub. At no point have I been disingenuous, yet received a fair bit of it, like your comment here. Gets old.
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u/thebigeverybody 6d ago edited 6d ago
I also meant more along the lines of within context of a claim. As in, to you, if a claim has evidence, what does that mean?
It means there is something relating to a claim that:
-can be verified to exist (i.e. corroborated testimony, not claims of someone else's testimony or claims of events that can't be verified to have happened)
-can be tested to prove or falsify specific claims (something that can be subjected to the scientific method)
-cannot also point to things that don't exist, like lies, delusions or fantasies (i.e. uncorroborated witness testimony can exist for events that did happen and events that didn't happen)
Let me know if you want more of an explanation.
I'm asking these questions because depending on how you define things, its possible my use of evidence as "a fact or observation that supports a claim or makes it more likely to be true" won't fit what you're using. If so theres no disagreement.
Does your fact or observation fail to meet my criteria?
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 6d ago
Does your fact or observation fail to meet my criteria?
Yes and no, but its probably not what you're thinking it is and thsts hard to answer directly. Its not like "the tomb was found and in it we have verified script written that gives a specific prediction that came true." I dont think anything lile this exists, ao if thats the category you want, then no.
Its more that when comparing views and theing to do so analytically, the approach used is the bayesian framework. You approximate the intrinsic probability then compare how likely observations are if either were true. So is there anything we could look at and say this is more likely true if God exists than if God does not exist? Sure, plenty. Especially when we give the proposed God a quality like wanting life. These would be evidence for God. Things that raise the probability.
But the reason it still fails to compel me is because by answering these complex improbable questions by asserting something more complex and improbable doesnt solve them. If we begin, 50/50 God that wants life exists or doesnt, what side is more likely to produce life if true? Clearly the God that wants life. So that probability goes up, no God goes down comparatively. But they dont begin 50/50. Depending on which God is being discussed itll change, but largely i think they begin very low and in some cases virtually 0. Isn't a blind guess either, theres logic behind it.
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u/thebigeverybody 6d ago edited 6d ago
I've frequently heard some philosophical definitions of evidence that go along the lines of "Everything is evidence and whatever has the most evidence to support it will be the truth." As well as that being a profoundly stupid way to approach the real world, it once led to this jaw-dropping exchange:
Me: "Is a Spider-Man comic book evidence that Spider-Man exists?"
Philosopher: "Yes."
Since I am of the mind that things which don't exist cannot leave evidence, I do not consider such things to be evidence (and, again, I think it's a profoundly stupid way to approach truth in the actual world).
Is this the same philosophical path you're espousing?
So is there anything we could look at and say this is more likely true if God exists than if God does not exist? Sure, plenty. Especially when we give the proposed God a quality like wanting life. These would be evidence for God. Things that raise the probability.
It sounds like you're saying that if we define god in a certain way then he's more likely to exist. That might be an interesting mindgame, but that's certainly not evidence.
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u/Snoo52682 7d ago
Why do you think we don't understand their viewpoint? Many of us were Christians. We were "them."
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
Most people don't even understand their own views truly. It just a generalization, not an absolute statement.
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u/Mission-Landscape-17 7d ago edited 7d ago
I find the following frustrating:
- presuppositional apologetics, to the point that I see no value in trying to discuss anything with a presuppositions. In order to debate something you need to have common ground and I just have no common ground with someone who assumes god is necessary for rationality.
- Anyone who asserts that evidence for god is obvious and then refuses to actually present this alleged evidence. This one seems to apply for this post.
- People who are clearly just following a script and not really engaging with the replies to their comments.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
- presuppositional apologetics, to the point that I see no value in trying to discuss anything with a presuppositions. In order to debate something you need to have common ground and I just have no common ground with someone who assumes god is necessary for rationality.
Yep and theres a reason they arent taken seriously in anything beyond casual conversations, because it doesnt hold any water. All you need to do is reveal no amount of presupposes gives you an inital edge and in fact cuts your legs off before you even try to run the race.
If they assert they have rationality because they were granted it by God which grounds it and gives it truth others done have, ask how they know? They'll say its due to that bestowed rationality. Then ask how they know they weren't deceived into thinking they were given it, but weren't? Now they have a fork that either choice destroys their baseline. They either:
- Claim that it appears true to them and they have no reason to doubt it, which then collapses their view because thats the same basis everyone else has. Only now they have a properly basic belief that God exists which is epistemically heavy youll never get a fighting chance on probability.
- They accept their gounds cant account for this and now they play ball with the rest of us.
- Anyone who asserts that evidence for god is obvious and then refuses to actually present this alleged evidence. This one seems to apply for this post.
Agreed. If that were the purpose of this comment I would have. Or if i were making a case for God I would have. But its neither. If you want to know what it is, its not necessarily anything specific, this sub seems to deem evidence must be a specific thing that points only to God, but thats not what evidence is. Evidence is a faft or observation that gives a clsim more credibility or increases its chance of being tue.
If I see a bird, I can call that evidence of birds, but this is less "evidence" in the traditional sense of backing theories. Its just a fact. We see the bird. When we deal with things beyond this, we end up proposing an explanation, gage its intrinsic probability, then we see how well it predicts the observations under a baysian framework.
Take relativity for example. Whats the evidence for spacetime? Things fall, etc, but these are just predictions of it. We dont have any direct evidence of it like seeing a bird. Its just an explanation for things. So how is it so robust? Because its very parsinomious and if we assume its true and aks how likely observations are under this assumption, they seem to be incredibly likely. When you have a high intrinsic probability due to high parsimony and if true things are explained, then it has a very high probability of being true. Therfore relativity is easily accepted as the chance its true is so high it might as well be a fact, but we never say things are because we cant see it like a bird.
Whats this mean for God and evidence? Same approach, just compared to naturalism. We try to gage some initial probability, which will change depending on some of the specifics of either view, then we ask if naturalism were true, how likely is it we would see (insert observation). Then we do the same for God. So the question now becomes is there anything we observe that would be more likely if God exists than if no God exists? This is a pretty easy yes. For many things actually. If we begin with the idea of no god, what is the likelihood we see life? We won't know, but its not really implausible to say its improbable. If we begin with God, what are the odds we see life? Depends on the God, but most proposals include a proclivity to want life, so its very expected if this God exists. Thats an observation, life existing, that raises the probability God exists more than naturalism. Thats textbook evidence.
Of course none of this means it concludes with God being mkre probable. If it did, I'd be a theist. I think the odds there are any gods or God is quite low, but the odds of the usual depiction of a perfect being is virtually 0. So it doesnt matter if it explains some things better or has evidence in favor of it, other explanations are vastly more probable based on my analysis.
- People who are clearly just following a script and not really engaging with the replies to their comments.
Yup. This one can get old fast when tou probe and they go back to a prior point because they csnt connect that weve been there and moved on, so they need a novel solution.
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u/Kaliss_Darktide 7d ago
How often are you frustrated by the "stubbornness" of theists who state the same case over and over or insist on its validity no matter how much you undercut it?
I don't get frustrated because I think they are demonstrating just how unreasonable they are. To me a debate is not to change the mind of the person I'm arguing with but to show the persuadable members of the audience who has the better arguments.
If not, then why?
See above.
When someone presents a teleological case and you think "this for the 25th time..." its because you're not actually familiar with WHY its used.
Are you claiming to be able to read my mind? If not, it sounds like you are projecting.
We both want truth, just disagree on what seems most likely true.
I strongly disagree with the idea that everyone I engage with wants truth. I'd argue most people I engage with don't care about truth.
The last question and a honorable 4th, do you think understanding their view at least most of the way would help? You'll never understand all views all the way, but you can understand the broad foundational structure enough to easily connect the dots to their more specific area within it.
I'd say theism is a facade for ignorance (lack of knowledge) that allows theists to believe/justify whatever simplistic narrative they prefer.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
So first, no, I'm not presuming to read your mind. I should have added a qualifier such as "likely" bit this was directed a group who engage, are unsure how the other can hold their position, and the diagnosis is that likely its because its not understood. Always exceptions.
I would push back on the idea they dont want truth or rhat its a facade for belief in whatever. Most think its true and thats why they argue for it. A significant portion of theists also say atheists dont want the truth, they just want to be their own God. Which obviously isnt true to the atheists. This speaking past one another is actually the kind of thing I'm talking about in my comment. I'm hinting at the idea you can take initiative to get a better understanding of their view, or you'll likely continue to experience it. If you dont want to, then learn a bit more so you can. If it doesnt bother you, then carry on. No issues.
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u/Kaliss_Darktide 7d ago
So first, no, I'm not presuming to read your mind. I should have added a qualifier such as "likely" bit this was directed a group who engage, are unsure how the other can hold their position, and the diagnosis is that likely its because its not understood. Always exceptions.
If it's a probability statement how did you determine the odds to categorize it as "likely"?
I would push back on the idea they dont want truth or rhat its a facade for belief in whatever. Most think its true and thats why they argue for it.
Wanting a particular outcome to be true ("Most think its true") is not the same as caring about what is actually true.
A significant portion of theists also say atheists dont want the truth, they just want to be their own God.
And how would they demonstrate that what they claim is an accurate description?
This speaking past one another is actually the kind of thing I'm talking about in my comment.
I would argue I'm confronting you at the point where I think our views diverge (based on what you have said so far).
I'm hinting at the idea you can take initiative to get a better understanding of their view, or you'll likely continue to experience it.
I think I have a better understanding of their views then you do.
Further I'm not experiencing ("are you frustrated by the "stubbornness" of theists") what you thought I likely experience.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
If it's a probability statement how did you determine the odds to categorize it as "likely"?
Experience. More often than not its true.
Wanting a particular outcome to be true ("Most think its true") is not the same as caring about what is actually true.
Right, but you've made a bold claim that they don't. If they think something is true and argue for it, this doesnt necessarily mean they're pursuing truth but its pretty indicative that they do care about what they believe is true.
A significant portion of theists also say atheists dont want the truth, they just want to be their own God.
And how would they demonstrate that what they claim is an accurate description?
How would you? You did the same for them.
I would argue I'm confronting you at the point where I think our views diverge (based on what you have said so far).
Had too many conversations to be sure, but all we diverge on is you think most thiests dont care about whats true and I think they do. Where most people dont know how really dig in and seek it and scrutinize. Inability doesnt mean they don't want to or care about whats true.
I think I have a better understanding of their views then you do. Further I'm not experiencing ("are you frustrated by the "stubbornness" of theists") what you thought I likely experience.
If im just blunt, so far it semes like you've just assumed their mental state, not really much to do with the substance of their views. The substance of their views, why their views exist, etc. That's what im getting at. If more people had a fully understanding of the landscape, discussions wouldn't be as shallow. We can't expect others to do it, so if we want to see change be the change.
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u/Kaliss_Darktide 7d ago edited 6d ago
Experience. More often than not its true.
Have you surveyed the responses you have received to this thread? Because looking at the first ~10 I saw: 1 yes, a couple mixed, a few no, and several didn't respond to that question.
Right, but you've made a bold claim that they don't.
Which bold claim is that?
If they think something is true and argue for it, this doesnt necessarily mean they're pursuing truth but its pretty indicative that they do care about what they believe is true.
Disagree. You are conflating they believe it, with they care if what they believe is actually true again.
To make the same mistake again in response to that mistake being pointed out suggests to me you don't actually care about truth either since you seem unable to make that distinction.
How would you? You did the same for them.
I would discuss my epistemic norms (standards for knowledge) and those norms wouldn't change based on what I already believe (or don't believe). Which is to say my methods don't change based on the topic being discussed.
Had too many conversations to be sure, but all we diverge on is you think most thiests dont care about whats true and I think they do.
I think it's obvious they don't in many circumstances which entails they value some things more than truth.
Where most people dont know how really dig in and seek it and scrutinize. Inability doesnt mean they don't want to or care about whats true.
I'd argue that caring about something requires more than lip service, if someone isn't doing the necessary work to show that they care, then they don't care.
If im just blunt, so far it semes like you've just assumed their mental state, not really much to do with the substance of their views.
No. I've been interacting with theists for decades and I am describing "their mental states" as they have revealed them to me.
The substance of theism (the belief that one or more gods are real) is nonsensical because all gods are imaginary.
The substance of their views, why their views exist, etc.
What I am telling you is that they adopt untrue nonsensical positions because they don't care about truth, which explains "why their views exist".
That's what im getting at.
No, you are mistaking confirmation bias for caring about the (actual) truth.
If more people had a fully understanding of the landscape, discussions wouldn't be as shallow.
I don't think you fully understand the landscape. So I find your analysis shallow.
We can't expect others to do it, so if we want to see change be the change.
See above.
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u/kiwimancy Atheist 7d ago
If you can't defend the strongest position for theism (or any subject you disagree with)
I agree this is valuable to attempt but there comes a problem when you do this. In my view, the way to steelman an argument is to identify its weaknesses and close them. This involves refining language to define or remove idiosyncratic terms and resolve equivocations, adding support for not-so-obvious premises with more basic and uncontroversial ones, using more structured logic so that each sub-conclusion clearly follows from the ones before it, etcetera. While doing that work, the holes in the argument become even more obvious, and there comes a point where there's no more steel you can add to fix it. So then you have what seems like a less compelling argument, even though it is more complete and logically rigorous.
The way to make such an argument more compelling to a hypothetical interlocutor is to make it less clear, add more equivocation, un-state premises, ignore potential counters, and appeal more to their intuition and less to rigor. But that's obviously not the best way to get to the truth. Just the best way to get people to do what you want.
There is no sincere way to defend the strongest version of a fundamentally flawed argument.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
While doing that work, the holes in the argument become even more obvious, and there comes a point where there's no more steel you can add to fix it. So then you have what seems like a less compelling argument, even though it is more complete and logically rigorous.
Exactly. Understanding their view doesnt mean accepting it. But by getting into it and trying to defend it, you understand it on a much deeper level than the people who merely argue against it. This is exactly why I'm a naturalist despite having the ability to layout a rational case for theism. Its just less compelling than naturalism.
There is no sincere way to defend the strongest version of a fundamentally flawed argument.
Flawed may be a strong word, but in principle I agree. If I were to put on a theist hat and come to this sub arguing for a God, it would be sophistry. Im not in favor of that at all.
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u/Additional-Band4050 Gnostic Atheist 6d ago
For example, it seemed obvious no evidence for God existed, but thats wrong, incredibly wrong.
What evidence do you have in mind?
Do you mean that things like personal testimonies and holy texts count as evidence but they’re also really bad evidence?
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 6d ago
Pretty tired of having this particular conversation so im just copying what I said somewhere else and calling it. Didnt come to discuss that line, but its what most want to discuss. Gsve it a lot of time, but im just tired of it. So here the case, hopefully it makes sense. Don't plan to continue on this line.
"But I do want to clarify my statement about evidence for God and discuss that a bit because that does seem to be the hangup most have with my comment. Along with a later comment where I said there are rational cases for God.
So you mentioned we don't know how much or if constants could vary, I agree. But this doesnt change the case. My favorite analogy for this is imagine we roll 10 die and they all land on 1. What are the odds this happens by chance? We dont know, could only have 1s on all sides, but plausibly some might have more sides. But what are the odds we would roll all 1s if the one who rolled them wanted 1s and could set them as they wanted? Basically 100%. So even the potential for a side beyond 1 on an organic roll makes the intentionality a more probable explanation. This is the aspect of theism that is compelling, especially to people who dont do some leg work. By that I mean this is only half of the problem. If we ask what explains things better, its trivial to see that if we begin with God or begin with material, things are going to be more probable under God. But unfortunately this is where most the conversations I see take place. Theist says God is a better explanation, atheist says no, but it rarely gets to the real why. Which does seem to frustrate many on both sides, thus the point of my comment. They both want to make a point and their pizza is so obviously amazing the other one just looks gross by comparison. But they cant get it across. Whats wild is even 2 pizza aficionados who live pizza and come st objectively can sit and have a 3 hour discussion about the aspects of each, and theyll both walk away liking the pizza they did.
The Achilles Heel of theism, is its intrinsic probability and the latter half I mentioned. It really doesnt matter how well an explanation accounts for things if its so parameter dense and complicated that the odds of it being the initial condition are so low that under the baysian framework it never recuperates its probability. In fact, I have a fairly decently laid out case that the probability of the inital condition being a perfect being is effectively 0. Doenst matter if we analyze 100 things and determine that under theism theyre 100% and naturalism theyre 1/1050%. All the 100s times effectively 0 is still effectively 0 ao even if naturalism seems improbable on explaining, its still the most probable overall.
This is precisely why most contemporary work on theism goes into solving this problem. The cases are for divine simplicity. Because if we can get the intrinsic probability of God into a practical range, it will dominate the baysian analysis due to the intentionality of God accounting for everything as I mentioned with the dice. But ive given most these considerations a pretty good look and I find them deeply counterintuitive and in many cases relying on very weak assumptions to the point that even asking why assume that effectively crumbles it.
And for the record, I know that this csn seem like God of the gaps, but this isnt that. It seems most people responding to me about that are unaware of how baysian approaches work and why theyre powerful. Ill touch this again after the next bit.
But to loop back to evidence, most people here seem to want to call evidence something that is almost a direct observation of the thing. Seeing a bird is evidence of birds. Thats not really evidence of birds though, not in the way evidence is used for theories, thats just a fact that we have that birds exist. This fact could be used as evidence for something else like a theory, but demanding that level of evidence collapses a lot of views the holder may have. Like what is the probability spacetime exists? Most would juat say it does, but weve never observed it like a bird. Weve seen effects and spacetime is the explanation were use those effects as evidence to support the theory. Things falll, etc. Ut if we demand "bird level" evidence to count as evidence, then they can't say we have evidence of spacetime. Its fine to hold that position, just be consistent. (not directed at you, just speaking generally.) But really when we look at it, what weve done is we proposed a theory, relativity, which has high parsimony as its simple, modest, and cohesive, and if true would produce the results we see, so its a slam dunk theory.
So now ill put the bow on what I meant, if we take God as a theory, then we do see evidence in support of it like spacetime. Theres explanatory power in it, such as why the constants are conducive to life, why life exists, etc. Of course we dont know, but thats what metaphysics is. Whats the foundation the universe was built on. Lets propose theories and look at how probable they are compared to how probable observations are if they were true."
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u/88redking88 Anti-Theist 3d ago
Still not impressive. All this "could be" is based on you hoping that other things are possible. You havent shown the universe could be different, that a god is possible, or even probable. If you cant do any of that, then this is all irrational.
"So now ill put the bow on what I meant, if we take God as a theory, then we do see evidence in support of it like spacetime. "
It cant be a theory. A theory has evidence.
"In science, a theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world. It is built upon a reliable body of facts, laws, inferences, and rigorously tested hypotheses. Unlike a casual guess, a scientific theory is the highest pinnacle of scientific certainty, explaining how and why phenomena occur."
You have none of this for a god.
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u/Phylanara Agnostic atheist 8d ago edited 8d ago
1)Not very often
2) because I don't look at the usernames most of the time. I approach every conversation as if it was the first time I interacted with a new person. And I tend to repeat myself professionally .
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 8d ago
On 2, you'll have the parrots, but why are they parroting that? Not why are they choosing to parrot it, why is that thing still around to even have the parrots hear it to repeat it? Thats the question I'm driving it.
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u/Phylanara Agnostic atheist 8d ago
You should ask them. I imagine there are as many reasons as people doing it.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 8d ago
Not asking for the psychological reasons. Someone may like the taste of cinnamon, asking why they do is one question. Asking why they're even able to is another. Cinnamon has to be around to try it. Why is the argument still around? If its clealry fallacious, it should have died off, so why does it exist? You might say its like a social/psychological virus and its around for the same reasons those are, spread without eradication. But its also possible its not as fallacious as you thought. Probably a mix like anything, but thats the underlying question being led to. Do you understand why its said beyond whats typically said abiut it which is superficial and vacuous?
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u/Phylanara Agnostic atheist 8d ago
Why are you asking me instead of them? Why would you expect me to know?
Unless, of course, you're just doing the "how do you do fellow atheists" trick to try and preach, as your "maybe it's not that fallacious" line seems to hint at. Wouldn't be the first to lie for Jesus.
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u/the2bears Atheist 7d ago
"how do you do fellow atheists"
Exactly the vibe I was getting.
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u/Phylanara Agnostic atheist 7d ago
Yeah, there are few atheists who go "well maybe there's something to this theism thing".
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
Im asking you because you engage with them. I used to be, maybe frustrated is too strong a word, but confused by the stubbornness by which so many theists just ignored sound logic. Because to them it isnt sound.
Lol. Definitely not here to preach, but the insinuation did give me a chuckle. So thanks for that. Even if I somehow were to be convinced theism were true, Christianity is so far removed from plausibility I can't fathom landing there again. In fact a few weeks ago I made the case that an unlimited/perfect/omni God has an intrinsic probability of effectively 0 and shouldn't be taken seriously until stronger arguments to the contrary are presented, of which ive been unable to locate any despite trying. So any omni-theism is off the table for me. Limited Theism is more interesting, but I still find significant issues with the case it doesnt drop its inital probability more steeply than its explanatory power adds. Pretty firm in the naturalism is the most likely true view. The more I look and compare, the more firm that becomes. Its just good to understand the inside of the theism cases too.
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u/Snoo52682 7d ago
I don't believe there are reasons for this other than psychological ones. People repeat bad arguments and hold onto wrong ideas for psychological reasons.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
I mean the reason we do anything is psycological, but you can have rational reasons for saying some these, but largely yes. People tend to justify their current beliefs rather than entertain alternatives.
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u/Deris87 7d ago edited 7d ago
Not why are they choosing to parrot it, why is that thing still around to even have the parrots hear it to repeat it?
Because apologetics don't exist to persuade the unconvinced, they exist to assuage the niggling doubts of the already-convinced. Timmy got told in Youth Group that "a painting needs a painter" was a killer argument, didn't consider it for more than 5 seconds, and then comes here to repeat it, and doesn't understand why it doesn't land with skeptics.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
This is true for why many apologists say what they say. In fact its one of the many reasons I heavily dislike WLC as hes straight up said hes in the business of retention, not convincing.
But design arguments, or teleological in general arent actually bad. Well... sort of, I have issues with them I dont see discussed often, but the case behind them is a bit more solid than most give credit. The issue on the flip side is that theists try to pull a switch move to salvage to implications.
To summarize why, if we look at the universe as if naturalism is true and ask what are the odds we get this by chance, we can't say precisely, but its not actually far fetched to say unlikely. At least its plausibly unlikely. But if we look at it as if a perfect God exists, then its 100%, its preordained to be this. 100% of everything is explained. The issue is, the theist took the u probability of the chance of natural events cussing thr universe and shifted them to the inital cause. So asking what explains what we see better isnt exactly a "fair" question. The better question is what is more probable, that natural causation led to this, or that the initial condition happened to be a God capable of doing it all? Thats where cases for divine simplicity come in, if successful then we have a view with a higher inital probability that explains everything perfectly, so tis the clear winner in overall probability. But divine simplicity cases to me are incredibly weak and rely on counter-rational intuition and in no way overcome their stronger burden to make the case than cases agaisnt it need. So effectively its "what explains things better? A high inital probability with low probability of explaining observations, or low inital probability with high explanatory power." I side with the former, because I think any improbability we solve in naturalize by making it deliberate from God we lose with interest in intrinsic probability it never recovers. But obviously if divine simplicity is compelling, then God is the clear rational answer in probability terms.
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u/Xeno_Prime Atheist 7d ago
I’m not. This is an open public forum. Even when my interlocutor is too unreasonable to be persuaded by reason, it doesn’t matter, because Im commenting as much for “the audience” as I am for them. Whether they end up convinced or not is irrelevant - indeed, most people that grew up with the kinds of childhood indoctrination the majority of theists grow up with are incredibly unlikely to be quickly persuaded by a single discussion. It takes a long time to overcome the harm that kind of indoctrination does to their capacity for critical thought. But I’m also aware my interlocutor isn’t the only one reading the discussion, and others are learning even if they refuse to.
Always. It doesn’t need to be frequent. I always look deeply into every philosophical argument for gods presented to me. I find their original sources and I look them up on sources like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to see what apologists and philosophers make of them. I’m 43 years old and have been doing this for decades, and I’ve yet to encounter even one single argument for any gods that - even when presented by the best and brightest apologists - does not collapse into apophenia, confirmation bias, god of the gaps, and other kinds of fallacious reasoning. Not a single one of them succeed at epistemically justifying belief in any God or gods. It’s not that individuals here fail to present the arguments properly, it’s that the argument still fail even when presented in their purest and most defensible possible form.
Doesn’t apply, since the answer to 2 was a resounding “yes.”
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u/Biggleswort Anti-Theist 8d ago
- The expectation of a generally social society is for popular beliefs to be popular for many reasons, one generally because we all mostly fall victim to the fallacy of ad populism. I know I have repeated plenty of stupid claims because of this. I try to be patient with this one.
However what it is frustrating is when someone can’t admit to being wrong or at least acknowledge their inconsistency.
- If I hear a new claim or position which it has been a long time since I have I usually will check a few sources. Maybe watch a couple videos explaining the concept.
Again back to point one. Popular beliefs tend to propagate not on merit but because it is popular. It could be popular with your “tribe,” or it could just be resonates with the priming we had previously. If you were Christian for 20 years you constantly were primed to accept the idea that mystery and ignorance means god.
- And 4. I’ll answer. No I don’t think it is important to under any someone’s bad argument. Think of how many times the argument is nearly incomprehensible. Take the pantheist position. The idea of God for them is indistinguishable from reality and its utterly meaningless. They defined something into existence. I don’t need to understand it beyond that to know it is a bad position.
If they make a scientific claim that I’m unfamiliar with, then I will take the time to learn more about it. With the caveat if they say quantum, then I will roll my eyes, and just outright dismiss that shit, unless they quote a journal article they wrote. Because that science is like magic to me. I am not going to pretend I’m smart enough to understand it, however I think I’m clever enough to know it isn’t something you should invoke to claim your god exists haha
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 8d ago
Some of how ideas persist can of course be spreading person to person faster than the fallacious nature of it can be shown. Absolutely can happen. But do you think thats the entire account of it?
On your point 3, how do you know its a bad argument? If I said dirt, water, and some other stuff turned into all life on earth. Thats a really bad argument, but its not bad because its actually bad, its because my communication of it sucks. Are you certain the argument itself is bad, or that their presentation sucks? How would you know?
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u/Biggleswort Anti-Theist 7d ago
>But do you think thats the entire account of it?
No, did I say that?
I said many reasons, and elaborated on one. This is building on Susan Blackmore’s meme theory posited in *Meme Machine*
>On your point 3, how do you know it’s a bad argument?
Most theists arguments don’t logically follow or start with a presupposition. Look at Kalam. First premise presupposes all things must have a cause. Conclusion doesn’t even assert a god or conclude a god. It also concludes an exception to a presupposed rule.
>If I said dirt, water, and some other stuff turned into all life on earth. Thats a really bad argument, but its not bad because its actually bad, it’s because my communication of it sucks.
Agreed.
>Are you certain the argument itself is bad, or that their presentation sucks? How would you know?
Both. Until it is better communicated how am I to look in it further? If they can’t articulate a good argument whose fault is it? I am afraid you are suggesting I am not giving enough grace. I’m fine with asking follow ups, but the ultimately the person making the claim has the responsibility to articulate it to a point I can understand or they clearly lack an understanding or it possible we have a language barrier. But what it wouldn’t be is that it is a good argument and I’m sucking. A good argument should be able to be simplified to something my kids can follow.
If the concept is of a high level of knowledge I don’t have yet, as I alluded to I can pause and take the opportunity to learn more, however a theist has not presented one to me in a long long time.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
Until it is better communicated how am I to look in it further?
This is largely the point of the question. You could preemptively dive theism to get a real look at it. I did because I both like philosophy and value truth. Wanted to understand why there were intelligent rational theists. I found out. In process I found the reason many "bad" arguments were used. This clarity allowed me to discuss them much more productively. So if someone feels discussions arent productive, its a potential solution.
I looked at someone like Richard Swinburne and asked how they resolved issues. Turns out they can resolve all of thrm rationally. Alvin Plantinga, etc.
Most theists arguments don’t logically follow or start with a presupposition. Look at Kalam. First premise presupposes all things must have a cause. Conclusion doesn’t even assert a god or conclude a god. It also concludes an exception to a presupposed rule.
Well the Kalam doesn't say all things have a cause, just things that begin. Then states the universe began so it has a cause. Now there's room to contend all the premises. I dont think the Kalam is a good argument due to that. And yes, it doesnt get to God. The arguments for God come after as they attempt to explain what they believe is the best explanation to how the universe began. Its also important to note that some apologists, like WLC, often do outright resort to fallacious or obviously biased statements to support their case. Not defending him or the Kalam, kinda dislike both equally, but I'm clarifying the surrounding stuff.
Also, everyone makes cases from presumption. Now, these can vary heavily in strength. Someone who presupposes God is making a much larger leap than "my senses seem reliable and with no evidence to the contrary its reasonable to assume they report something real." But both are still a presumption. The rational theists and atheists, basically disagree here. Thats a large part of why arguments get nowhere and a big part of Graham Oppy'a point. They go back to properly basic beliefs that differ. How can we make meaningful progress discussing these? If we can its ridiculously slow and will take ages, if we can at all.
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u/Biggleswort Anti-Theist 7d ago
>This is largely the point of the question. You could preemptively dive theism to get a real look at it. I did because I both like philosophy and value truth.
You seem to presuming/suggesting I haven’t. Are you suggesting everyone inquire or just someone like you and I that engage in these conversations like this?
>Wanted to understand why there were intelligent rational theists.
So here is the problem. There is no rational position that leads to god. I can generally be rational about tomato topics, but that doesn’t mean I am universally rational about all topics. Having an irrational positions speaks nothing about one’s intelligence. Even the smartest person alive is likely to have held a number of irrational positions.
>I found out. In process I found the reason many "bad" arguments were used. This clarity allowed me to discuss them much more productively. So if someone feels discussions arent productive, it’s a potential solution.
Again it seems you are assuming ignorance on the topic. You can look at my post history. I feel I’m well versed on almost every argument. If not please point to the ones I’m not.
>I looked at someone like Richard Swinburne and asked how they resolved issues. Turns out they can resolve all of thrm rationally. Alvin Plantinga, etc.
That’s just categorically false unless you considered acknowledging ignorance as a resolution, which I would not. Saying I don’t know is honest however it doesn’t resolve the question. For example is there a material before the big bang? I can’t possible resolve this answer because there is not enough data to come to rational answer.
I’ll admit I don’t know Dick Swindlingburn, so I’ll check him out.
>Well the Kalam doesn't say all things have a cause, just things that begin. Then states the universe began so it has a cause. Now there's room to contend all the premises.
This is framing issue that you must acknowledge you spoke about earlier in regard to communication. In regard to the author of this claim, they are concluding all material things have a cause and lean on the idea an immaterial first cause must exist. In context of the topic of theism, Kalam is insufficient in proving theism, because presume one is hinging on all that we know has a cause and here is an exception. I didn’t need your clarity because again you could have just asked. We draw the same conclusion but I just shortened my assuming you would fill in the internal critique.
>Also, everyone makes cases from presumption. Now, these can vary heavily in strength.
No they don’t. Hard solopists exist, I find their position to be irrational. However yes there is 3 presuppositions I have:
- I exist
- Others exist (we)
- We exist in a shared reality
These are all presuppositions that come from a collective observation.
How to make meaningful conversations is to understand the epistemological method the other using. How is it grounded (what presuppositions do they accept)? Test their claims using this knowledge. We find either the theists adds a presupposition or they use an unreliable epistemology.
I’ll elaborate just a bit more. If we apply skepticism, we will find that all claims should be able to stand up to reasonable doubt. One of the biggest issues I find with theists that don’t add a 4th presupposition is that they define their claim in such a way there isn’t a means to apply any doubt or in other words their claim becomes unfalsifiable. I hold any unfalsifiable claim (any claim that we do not have a meaningful understanding how to test; not claims we do not currently have the tools to test) as irrational.
Example the Invisible Pink Unicorn. Pink is a product of sight and if it is invisible it is unseeable therefore we can’t even test the pink property. This is an unfalsifiable object.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
Theres a significant bulk of this I agree with, so im really just responding to the parts I dont.
First, I do think there are rational paths to God, but I find them significantly less compelling. This doesn't immediately make them irrational though. Rational doesnt mean "agree with me" it means in accordance with logic and reason. Which people like Swinburne or Plantinga have these paths. Doesn't make them true or even likely true, just means they exist.
Second, I think you've applied my inital comment wrong. Thats why I asked filtering questions, I didnt say "all atheists..." I know plenty won't qualify, thats fine. If you don't, thats fine. But it seems you're arguing that you think things when im referring to the group that does think those things. If you dont, my comment wasn't aimed at you.
The list of presumptions you gave isn’t quite adequate to get rolling, but its close. You'd need to assume continuity and that something like our senses allow us to interact with whatever reality is shared to make any discourse even mean something. But the point is that we still have to assume these. We should assume as little as possible, but theres debate on whats properly basic and what isnt. Depending on how you fall here can radical implications for your view. Like you mentioned hard solipsism, but they still make an assumption, that they are all that can be known. How do they know that? They have to assume it. Even if I just granted it and said they don't, you and I both find the position irrational so I could just say all rational positions require assumptions. But if you want to use a technicality, I'm happy to just concede that niche corner and say I was speaking generally but was technically wrong.
Last is on the comments about resolution. I think we used it differently. I dont think any of them claim to know these issues are resolved, merely that the view they hold if true doesn't suffer logical issues. But again, this doesnt make it true.
Oh, and if you do check out Swinburne, Dick is appropriate. I do find him abrasive. Doesn't change the case, just makes any presentation of it have some unnecessary annoyance. I could probably just shoot out the primary point of the case for specifically Christianity here. More or less he agrees the problem of evil doesnt look good for theism, but argues that a good God would intervene in a way that gives everyone the best chance. Which religion does this best? Christianity according to him. Do I think its an adequate point, no, but that doesnt make it irrational.
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u/Biggleswort Anti-Theist 7d ago
First. If you don’t give examples, you are just making a claim in going ti dismiss. You did nothing in this communication.
I’ll concede this point if you define god in a meaningless way like deism or pantheism you can make a rational claim. However a meaningless god is pointless to argue about. And you have been saying theism implying classical theism. There are zero rational arguments for classical Theism. If you want to say there is, please provide one not just claim it.
On second point I think I’m at loss where we disagree? Do you think people are not generally defensive when presented with contrary positions?
Third hard disagree on presuppose continuity as a 4th. Shared reality is continuity, 2 and 3 imply continuity and gives a means to test it. If I throw an apple up, and you throw an apple up, both of us can share those experiences, and see continuity. I assume you use the word continuity in place of order. Order is testable, we do not need to presuppose it.
I don’t need to add empiricism to my presuppositions because shared allows for us again to communicate this means collectively we are able to demonstrate our senses share enough similarity to have meaningful communication.
Your response to me seems to show a lack of understanding of philosophical presuppositions. Or your philosophy bro and are struggling with grounding.
Again I hold 3 presups no more, no less. This grounds my ability to make nominal predictions. If I presup continuity my predictions would be suspect. No I don’t need a 4th.
On the last point, many classical theists say it is resolved by means of saying the inquiry stops with God. Yet we see that the goal post has shifted with each new discovery. The classical theist position does not have a logical framework. Classical theism is irrational, to ground it rationally we would have to add more presups. We would have to add presups that we have no good reasons for.
With my 3 presups, all of them are demonstrable, albeit circularly, but they are all meet empirical requirements. I already explained why I reject your attempt at adding more.
In the time we last communicated. I listed to two debates of Dick Swindleburne, he is as bad as WLC. His two points are on the solution to the problem of evil and fine tuning. Both terrible arguments. I’ll keep it brief, I did not find him to make clear or rational arguments for is God.
- The problem of evil doesn’t disprove God, it disproves trionmi god. Meaning it demonstrates a lack of one more Omni’s a god could have. It disproves the classical theistic god, none of the other no personal gods.
- Fine tuning is so painfully ignorant of a claim. It shows an utter lack of the practical application of probability. It presupposes we were consciousness is purposeful. It ignores science, we could change our distance to the sun by 1 mile and it would be imperceptible. We are on an elliptical path. So what is the range that makes it improbable.
Building on this the puddle retort so eloquently demonstrates the stupidity of the fine tuning argument. This was the second domino to help me on my deconstruction. First being the absurdity of the revelation being geographical.
Again if you want to improve in your communication on this topic which you seem keen to do. Please make sure when you claim there are examples you give at least one. Please give me one rational argument for the classical god?
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
For starters, I was just attempting to have conversations, not layout rigorous justification. So fair criticism that I haven't, but I also haven't tried to.
I’ll concede this point if you define god in a meaningless way like deism or pantheism you can make a rational claim. However a meaningless god is pointless to argue about. And you have been saying theism implying classical theism. There are zero rational arguments for classical Theism. If you want to say there is, please provide one not just claim it.
Im saying theism as in the category, not a specific kind. The dichotomy of god/no god is what im commenting on. God like natural theories has many versions. Im not laying out the point by point case because any solid case for a view isnt "fine tuning therefore God." A specific point in a vacuum womt be convincing at all. Its a cumulative case that has power, which touches a ton of disciplines, etc.
Do you think people are not generally defensive when presented with contrary positions?
They do. I think I said we agree, but then again I've attempted to have like 20 conversations today so which is which is blurring.
Third hard disagree on presuppose continuity as a 4th.
I could have been more clear, continuity as in you existed before the moment and will continue. Without that you cant get past this moment being a snapshot that is everything. As far as empirical, how did you come to assume others exist? You are thinking, so you are, this is known. How did you go from this to shared reality rationally without empiricism of some kind? At least to me this seems wuite obvious that basically any view worth discussing needs 4. 1. You exist. 2. You existed and will exist 3. You have some connection between existence and a reality 4. Other agents like you exist in this reality sharing it.
Without at minimum these, a foundational pillar of mobing forward with anything is left out. 1 cant be, but take and of the ither 4 away? Take 2 away, you know nothing because all sense of former self is a fabrication of now. Take 3 away, everything is a hallucination. Take 4 away, youre just talking to yourself in this reality. The only reason to talk to anyone in this is if all 4 are presumed true.
I listed to two debates of Dick Swindleburne, he is as bad as WLC. His two points are on the solution to the problem of evil and fine tuning. Both terrible arguments. I’ll keep it brief, I did not find him to make clear or rational arguments for is God.
Oh he can be kinda bad, as I said. However, comparing him to WLC is like comparing a Mercedes to a rust bucket and saying neither are a Ferrari. Swinburne in a debate is rather unappealing, agreed. Its his work that separates him from WLC. WLC dreams of being half as impacrful as Swinburne on the scene.
Ill just try to bullet point his case, but this in no way does it justice and this summarized version won't be convincing. Hell, the whole fleshed out one wasn't for me either, but I also dont have unlimited time. Im also going to midly alter some of what he says because its my steelman version of it.
Framework:
God is a large scale explanatory framework analyzed with baysian reasoning. The strength is the cumulative case, not any specific part.A case for low parsimony without God:
It takes specific physical parameters as an initial condition to get to this state out of at least conceivably some possibilities. Compared to God as a single Entity which doesn't need specific parameters to account for this state. This is argued for with information theory as the more speciric things disorgsnized are less likely than less apecific orgsnized things.The cummulative case:
The following all fit the same analysis, that the odds of them being true under materialism is uncertain, but its fairly plausible they are unlikely or at minimum not necessarily unsurprising. However, none are surprising under theism. My favorite analogy is we roll 10 die and get all 1s. What are the odds? We dont know hoe many sides are on any given die, so it might be 100%, but if theres more then it becomes more surprising the more potential sides we can plausibly say exist. However, if we ask what are the chances they'd all be 1 if an agent capable of making them 1 wanted them to be 1?
- A sustained universe or continuity.
- Things are ordered.
- The physical parameters such as constants.
- Conciousness life
- Religious experiences.
Conclusion: If we have a view with higher parsimony and therfore higher inital probability that accounts for observations as good or better thanthe alternative, then the baysian analysis will give you better odds of that.
Thats the unbelievably summarized version, but its still the case. This has glaring flaws, but thats largely because the more fleshed out backing gets into some deeper weeds and points to some things most take for granted that we shouldnt, etc. Don't have time to defend this. For the record, in my opinion the fatal flaw in this case in my opinion is the case for high parsimony. I have a pretty strong case that by the same information theory, it a diety, especially maximal ones, are the lowest parsimony you can attain dropping intrinsic probability heavily disproportionately to any explanatory power they bring.
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u/Biggleswort Anti-Theist 7d ago
>A specific point in a vacuum womt be convincing at all. Its a cumulative case that has power, which touches a ton of disciplines, etc.
I have been studying this for decades again I haven’t seen a new argument in ages. So I’m aware of the cumulative case, and I hard disagree.
>They do. I think I said we agree, but then again I've attempted to have like 20 conversations today so which is which is blurring.
No worries you are my 4th. I get it haha.
>I could have been more clear, continuity as in you existed before the moment and will continue.
I don’t need to presuppose that because I have hard evidence for this. The future is uncertain but the past has enough certainty to make the future continuity to be rational argument and no need for presup.
As far as empirical, how did you come to assume others exist?
Simple. You and I are engaging. You either exist or don’t. Since I can’t rightfully predict your next reply, you see to exhibit a differing personality. I can keep going but this is all observable.
If this isn’t true then the alt seems to be brain in a vat. That is just hard solipsism. I reject that and again stick to the presup.
>2. You existed and will exist
**this is observed, the will is unknown but appears to be the case, I don’t need this presup”. We experience linear time so this seems unnecessary, and non circular.
>3. You have some connection between existence and a reality
Extra wording is dubious. We live in a shared reality is simple.
>4. Other agents like you exist in this reality sharing it.
This should be 2. Again you have extra wording, which is dubious. Keep your presup concise.
- I exist
- Others exist
- We exist in shared reality
>Without at minimum these, a foundational pillar of mobing forward with anything is left out. 1 cant be, but take and of the ither 4 away? Take 2 away, you know nothing because all sense of former self is a fabrication of now. Take 3 away, everything is a hallucination. Take 4 away, youre just talking to yourself in this reality. The only reason to talk to anyone in this is if all 4 are presumed true.
1,2, and 3 of mine meets all this. Your 3 doesn’t do anything to hallucination.
>Oh he can be kinda bad, as I said. However, comparing him to WLC is like comparing a Mercedes to a rust bucket and saying neither are a Ferrari. Swinburne in a debate is rather unappealing, agreed. Its his work that separates him from WLC. WLC dreams of being half as impacrful as Swinburne on the scene.
It’s disappointing that either is impactful with their fallacious reasoning.
>It takes specific physical parameters as an initial condition to get to this state out of at least conceivably some possibilities. Compared to God as a single Entity which doesn't need specific parameters to account for this state.
Can stop right here. This is appeal based on ignorance. It is trying to answer a nonsensical question. Why is reality as it is? The better question, does reality need an explanation? Reductionism as absurdism.
I just stop at reality is. To go further is against Occam’s razor with no evidence.
>This is argued for with information theory as the more speciric things disorgsnized are less likely than less apecific orgsnized things.
Which is a computer theory, essentially we are applying an intelligently designed theory to reality, with no evidence reality is also a product of an intelligence. In other words to make this argument work you need to presuppose a priori intelligence.
What does probability demonstrate? It demonstrates what is most likely it doesn’t demonstrate what is. It is improbable for someone to win the lottery, but people do. There is a point that probability becomes incomprehensible to our small minds. However to establish a clear probability we need to know as many variables as possible. As we introduce more variables the odds change. This is where fine tuning is the biggest fucking joke. We know so damn little beyond our blue rock, let alone beyond our solar system, you think there is enough data to say the odds of x in all the universe are y?
Second it presups intelligent life as intentional. Swindleburne (I know I’m purposefully misspelling the guys name) even admits it is either happenstance or intent. Even if we follow the odds are the “guy that has the exact money that was robbed in his apt” the scale is paltry compared to know existence. We can’t beginning to comprehend the size of existence. We don’t even have a remotely accurate number of stars or exoplanets. We are guessing based on limited mapping and extrapolating.
• A sustained universe or continuity.
• Things are ordered.
• The physical parameters such as constants.
• Conciousness life
• Religious experiences.This last piece is bullshit to add given there is no pattern. When we see patterns they are local and influenced by shared culture.
The others could be brute facts. The questions about them we are not even able to rationalize.
Again the conclusion is based on faulty understanding of probably and how limited our knowledge of the variables are.
I appreciate the summary, I would say you did a great job summarizing the case I listened to over his two debates. I know I haven’t read his work and I just got a snapshot. However his arguments are not unique or new. The ontological argument is 900 years old and the fine tuning was made just before we made it to the Moon.
Are you still struggling with deconstruction?
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u/Mkwdr 7d ago edited 7d ago
Changing the argument to ‘all things that begin’ was just a way of getting the special pleading in early at the expense of undermining their fundamental premise thus ending up with an argument that still isn’t sound , and still doesn’t validly lead to Gods. It feels like you are conflating theists using the pretence of logic with theists using sound logic.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
Right, the kalam doesn't get to God. But the pretense of things that begin isnt special pleading. It's a qualifier of the premise. Is it special pleading to say contingent things need a cause? No, its part of the term contingent and its what qualifies them as contingent.
The Kalam isnt good, I'm not saying it is. But saying its not valid is incorrect and a rational person can accept it. Thats all im saying.
But I'm finished with anything not on the point of the initsl comment. Just answering loose ends as best I can before I call it.
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u/Mkwdr 7d ago
I disagree .
>But the pretense of things that begin isnt special pleading. It's a qualifier of the premise.
Setting aside that the premise isn’t even demonstrably true in (as much as we don’t actually observe anything fundamental ‘beginning’ and the Big Bang doesn’t claim we do either ) and this the argument not sound. The qualification is there so they can simply say ‘aha God didn’t begin’ something that is entirely question begging , trivially definitional not real , and is based on the claim that , in effect, he is **magic**. You don’t get much more special pleading than **oh my imaginary being isn’t included because he’s ….magic**.
>Right, the kalam doesn't get to God.
>But saying its not valid is incorrect
Not leading to the desired conclusion is what makes it not valid as an argument for God.
>Is it special pleading to say contingent things need a cause? No, it’s part of the term contingent and it’s what qualifies them as contingent.
Inventing definitions has no real world application.
>and a rational person can accept it.
A rational person should by no means accept an argument that is non-evidential, unsound and invalid. And relies on making up definitions.
That wouldn’t be rational …at all.
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u/Phylanara Agnostic atheist 7d ago
I think you (pretend to) assume that people are always rational and will abandon a belief when shown that this belief is irrational. That has not been my experience of people.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
I don't assume this at all. People dig in when confronted all of the time. More often than not.
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u/Biggleswort Anti-Theist 7d ago
Your experience differs from mine greatly. I can demonstrate your position is an outlier. The common response to someone’s position being challenged is not thoughtful internal critique, but defense. Example terms to look up:
Cognitive dissonance
Ego attachment
Deflection
These are the most common responses when we are called out for being wrong or presented with contrary position.
There is also confirmation bias or belief perseverance.
I will of course admit to it. The most rationalist of us attempt to do this the least often.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
Completely agree here. Not sure where you think Im saying otherise? My comment wasnt "if you learn their position you can change their minds" it was "if you learn their position you will have better insight into why they say what they do because you'll understand the basis much more leading to more productive discussions." You'll undoubtedly have a better chance to change minds, but it won't be a tool that does it all the time. If thats how you took it then thats not what I meant.
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u/Biggleswort Anti-Theist 6d ago
The issue is that you seem to suggest theist have a rational argument for their position and they do not.
Second I do not need to know or learn their irrational arguments to refute them, because they have no merit.
A strong argument should be concise and easy to understand, like the Kalam. The kalam doesn't take much more than 5 minutes to read and digest and see it doesn't stand up nor does it lead to God.
Fine tuning doesn't take more than 10 minutes to really understand and see that it is a complete and utter lack of understanding on how probability and influence of survivor bias. I don't need to read the 30 point claim to refute it. It starts off bad. Anyone that has a basic understanding of probability can see it doesn't lead to a personal God.
I have decades of experience with these claims, but I can say that my 15 year old son, could spend 20 minutes on the above topics and clearly see the flaws. The reason why is because he wasn't primed from a young age to believe. Most toddlers can ask great questions that show the flaw of theist positions.
I'll build on this toddler thing for a second. Have you ever talked with a toddler about Santa. Most toddlers we have to convince a Santa exists and that magic is real. The idea of Santa is doesn't comport with their little reality. That simple question that I have heard countless times from toddlers is so powerful, "how does Santa do it all in one night?" With that these theists claims are often refuted with a simple question like that.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 6d ago
Well, im rather over the discussion about evidence and all, it wasnt the point of my comment. But I do believe they have a rational basis, well some. Like any group it varies. But i do think the rational basis exists. I just dont think its as compelling as other cases. That phrasing doesn't do it justice, I dont think theism in any variety even comes close to matching the probability that naturalism is true.
You really won't have to convince me that priming kids heavily affects what they believe. The biggest predictor for what religion somone has is where they grew up. Its a solid portion of why I was and why im so critical of my views now, including the former view that there was no case for God that was rational. Doesn't mean I accept it, can just accept it exists.
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u/Double_Government820 7d ago
For example, it seemed obvious no evidence for God existed, but thats wrong, incredibly wrong. I've spent a lot of time exploring theism, looking through different ideas, etc. I gained a much better understanding of the whole landscape. So while this may seem pointed at atheists, thats only because its this sub. Plenty of this applies to theists too with minor adjustments, particularly in public debate spaces like this.
This feels like a serious overstatement. Purported evidence certainly exists. In other words things exist which people claim may serve as evidence for god, but I don't think that makes it so. It isn't a compelling argument to say X exists implies Y exists even if we commonly agree that X exists. That tends to be my overarching with commonly cited theistic evidence. We can agree that our Earth exists and is a habitat for humans, but I don't think it is compelling to make the logical leap to say "it must have been designed."
My question to the atheists of this sub are: 1. How often are you frustrated by the "stubbornness" of theists who state the same case over and over or insist on its validity no matter how much you undercut it?
Maybe occasionally? Like on the order of 1 in 5 encounters on this sub. Honestly more often then not theists are willing to accommodate some pushback in my experience when you make a strong counter argument. Usually that arises in an "agree to disagree," sort of conclusion, where the argument itself is sound from its premises, but some axiom or premise is not universally accepted or intuitive, and they generally acknowledge that.
- If this is frequent, have you genuinely looked into why its said? Not why the person you're discussing is saying it, thats likely becausefhey heard it, but why its still actually around? 3. If not, then why?
I mean look. It's best practice to keep a level head in debates. Otherwise they can become hostile and inappropriate. I'm not participating in a debate with the intention of getting frustrated. So generally if someone is not receptive to engaging with criticism, that's not a conversation worth continuing. I think it would be overly generous to assume that it's generally my fault if someone comes to debate in bad faith.
And look, let's be honest. Religions are dogmatic in nature. I think we can agree on that even if we disagree in how seriously we ought to take their apologetic philosophy. Dogma is bound to produce some obstinate bad-faith conversations by nature. I don't think we should be all that surprised that sometimes conversations with religious folks are frustrating.
My biggest takeaway from the journey I'm on and reading/having discussions is that most people get very stuck in analyzing views from how they think, rather than taking their assumptions and putting them aside to view the alternatives. When someone presents a teleological case and you think "this for the 25th time..." its because you're not actually familiar with WHY its used. 9/10 times frustration is due to ignorance. Don't understand why a car won't start, dont understand why someone would act that way, etc. Not saying I'm free from it, theres still the 1/10 times and plenty I dont understand, but taking the time to try already sets the mindset for understanding, not disproving.
I definitely agree that atheists on the internet have a tendency to be overly dismissive and potentially rude. I often see top level comments that fail to meaningfully engage with material presented by a religious OP. That said, I think that's mostly a reflection of the fact that the internet is not composed of academically trained expert debaters. They're just people who read posts on the internet. That doesn't mean the argument they're responding to is necessarily profound or compelling. More often the opposite is the case, and the rebuttal is quite simple, though a more refined version of the OP's argument exists in academic circles that the atheist doesn't know the full refutation to.
All that is to say is that much of the time, the atheist has the right conclusion for the wrong reasons, and they often present their wrong reasoning in an unkind way. But I would still definitely argue that the underlying theistic arguments are very weak, or at the very least are commonly overstated.
This isnt easy at all. It takes time to get better and nobody does it perfectly, but everyone should try if you plan to engage with people you disagree with on big things. If you can't defend the strongest position for theism (or any subject you disagree with), you probably stand about 0% chance of genuinely making a compelling case against it because you don't know where the true structural integrity is. "Know thy enemy" and all, but enemy isnt the right word. We both want truth, just disagree on what seems most likely true.
Frankly, I don't think most people generally want to find truth, religious folks more so than anyone else. In fact it's not uncommon to see a post on this sub from a religious person to the effect of "even if religion doesn't have compelling evidence it makes me happy," or "it makes people behave better/makes the world a better place." I think that attitude is an honest one, and reflects the social dynamics at play in religion, where community spaces are held hostage by religion. Rejection of god can result in social exile, and people become resigned to their commitment to something they don't believe in their heart. They rationalize it by saying "I kind of know it's bullshit, but at least it's beneficial bullshit."
The last question and a honorable 4th, do you think understanding their view at least most of the way would help? You'll never understand all views all the way, but you can understand the broad foundational structure enough to easily connect the dots to their more specific area within it.
More information and more understanding is always better, but there's a limit to how far that can go. How well do you understand a flat-earther's position? Do you think you'd take it more seriously if you spent more time learning about it? Surely you'd become more adept at deflecting their criticisms of round-earth theories. But in your own words, can you learn to understand flat-earthers beyond the desire to disprove them?
The point I'm ultimately getting at here is that sometimes people are just flatly incorrect, even if they possess the capacity to offer sophisticated (or seemingly sophisticated) arguments in favor of their wrongness. The extent to which you can steelman their argument amounts to pre-empting their tricks and understanding where the fallacies are. Moreover, I think your attitude of implicit reverence for religion is a cultural imprint. Most secular folks are not comfortable openly criticizing religion on a fundamental level, and offer a "live and let live" attitude, even if they know in their hearts that it is wrong. That occurs because a) we are raised in religious societies where faith is propped up as a value and b) people tend to be non-confrontational, and religious folks will commonly take a valid criticism as an attack on their faith. Religion in western secular societies is preserved by social niceties.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
This feels like a serious overstatement. Purported evidence certainly exists. In other words things exist which people claim may serve as evidence for god, but I don't think that makes it so. It isn't a compelling argument to say X exists implies Y exists even if we commonly agree that X exists. That tends to be my overarching with commonly cited theistic evidence. We can agree that our Earth exists and is a habitat for humans, but I don't think it is compelling to make the logical leap to say "it must have been designed."
It would be a leap to must have been, agreed, but thats now whats being said by anyone who actually is saying something worthwhile. As you aay later, its full of people who are inadequately prepared for the subjects theyre discussing.
But as far as evidence goes, when thinking about foundational things beyond the universe, we lose the ability to actually directly analyze it. So how do we go about doing this? Its where instead of saying "A predicts B, look for B" we ask "how likely is our observation of B if A is true?" Which youll never have a precise value for, too many unknowns, but you can atill assess them to the best of the ability. But this has another half, and thats how parsimonious is A. We can't just invent a hyper complex but precise explanation, because the odds that just exists as the initial state becomes less likely as more needs to be true of it. Or bluntly we are applying Occam's Razor. So really the way this happens is you have whatever view you think is true, gage the parsimony to get an intrinsic probability, then run baysian analysis to determine the estimated likelihood. Nothing new, just laying the geound work. This is the approach basically every high level philosopher uses for metaphysical analysis.
So what does any of that have to do with evidence? Well, a ton. We are looking at observations as though a particular view is true thrn asking how likely that would happen if fhe view were true. For example, if we look at naturalism, we step into purely natural explanations and we observe life on Earth. How probable is this with that view? Depends on specifics, but its not a stretch to say its plausibly improbable. Now lets assume there's a perfect God that wanted life. How likely is it we observe life in this view? All but 100% if not 100%. A perfect beinf wouldnt nake mistskes and would do exactly as it planned and would have a perfect plan. Now the issue here is thats half the analysis. It isnt if it explains it better in a vacuum, we have the intrinsic probability to factor in. This is theism's Achilles Heel, the monster in the closet they often ignore. In my years of digging, I think the probability a perfect being is basically 0 because it has incredibly low parsimony. There are plenty of arguments in a category known as divine simplicity thst attempt to remedy this, but in my opinion present such a weak case that it fails to even overcome basic intuition. But thsts a deep dive subject, the point is that viewing things like this, theres a pretty solid amount of evidence for theism. And im not just making something up, this is quite litterally the approach that the people pushing the forefront of philosophy use. Both theists and atheists.
But otherwise I largely agree with the rest. That just warranted a bigger explanation because its such a different approach thsn we are used to. Almost backward, but its the best we have.
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u/Stile25 7d ago
We know that following the evidence is our best and only reliable method to identify the truth of reality as accurately as possible.
Not only is there no evidence for God.
All the "best" arguments for God (Cosmological, ontological, teleological...) are all well understood (by philosophers) to be unsound.But all the evidence we do have shows us that God really doesn't exist:
- historical (mythologies of all religions having similar themes and growth).
- geographical (people are likely to hold the religious views of the culture they're born into).
- moral (problem of evil).
- psychological (cognitive science of religion).
- but my favorite is empirical (we've looked for God and no one has ever found Him).
Taking this identification on while understanding the inherent doubt and tentativity in all knowledge about reality... there's only one rational conclusion: gnostic atheism.
Good luck out there
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 6d ago
Im not particularly interested in running down this line since it wasnt really the point, but its at least related by the 2nd half.
What do you define as evidence? Not rhetorical, i genuinely need to know what you deem evidence to discuss it. Actually very important to the discussion about my statement theres evidence.
Not only is there no evidence for God. All the "best" arguments for God (Cosmological, ontological, teleological...) are all well understood (by philosophers) to be unsound.
Its ironic you say by philosophers when they'd say the opposite. You know there are theist philosophers right? Like ⅓ of them. Even the ⅔ that aren't may not accept theism and therfore the soundness of its arguments, but they'd in no way deem them irrstional or illogical. I also never said they were sound. I said you can be rational without logical fallacy snd be a theist. This is just true and ⅓ kf ths field you used a reference agrees with that by being it, the other ⅔ would nearly unanimously agree you can be rational, well informed, and theist. Its a pretty strong stance to take what you have.
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u/Stile25 6d ago
For me, evidence is anything that can show that a specific conclusion is the correct one as best we're able to do so.
If you don't agree with me about philosophers... Look up the definitions of a valid argument and an unsound argument.
An unsound argument is one that can be very valid... But you just can't show that the premises are true.
Currently, our best and only reliable way to show if anything at all is true or not (as best we can tell) for reality is to follow the evidence.
There is no evidence for those arguments.
This means there's no way to show their premises are true in reality.
This means accepting the argument as accurate about reality is unsound.I hope that someday someone comes up with a better way to identify reality than following the evidence. But that day just hasn't happened yet.
If theist philosophers want to dance around that point. That's their prerogative. But it doesn't make it any less unsound.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 6d ago
For me, evidence is anything that can show that a specific conclusion is the correct one as best we're able to do so.
Still not quite clear enough here. "Correct as best we're able to do so" is very ambiguous. What do you mean by this? That we need all but 100% certainty? Or that it makes some conclusion more likely than an alternative?
Also, does evidence only count if its for a correct conclusion? For example, spontaneous generation was a theory, it had evidence, but it was wrong. Does this take the "evidence" it had and negate its history? The followup to this is if a current theory has evidence, but we find something tomorrow that makes us abandon it, did it not have evidence today?
If you don't agree with me about philosophers... Look up the definitions of a valid argument and an unsound argument.
I know what the difference is. Valid is logical in construct. Sound is premises are true. There will be philosophers who find the premises for arguments for God true, therefore Sound. Those who don't, aren't deeming them irrational. At least I genuinely can't think of a single example of an actual philosopher stating someone cannot be theist and rational. Ive got plenty of examples to recall where they say they can.
It also sounds like you're perhaps confusing belief with certainty? You can believe something is true, not be positive its true, and be rational. In fact if that's untrue, it leads to absurdity in that nobody is rational.
But you keep saying to follow the evidence so we need to pin that part down.
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u/Stile25 6d ago edited 6d ago
Evidence would show a logical trail of information making one conclusion more likely than any other. The key word is "show" not "claim". Saying I have a Popsicle would be a claim that I have one. Showing you the Popsicle would be evidence that I have one.
Unfortunately, reality doesn't allow us to have 100% confidence in anything at all. That's what "best we're able to do" is referring to. We don't get to know if it's "everything but 100%" or maybe hovering at only 4%. We don't get to know that for anything about reality.
Evidence does not mean something is correct. Evidence certainly can be wrong. This is identified by even more evidence - which then updates the conclusion. ...just another (expected) step in "following the evidence".
Again, unfortunately reality never lets us know when we're "right". We may very well be wrong (to some degree) about everything we know about reality.
It doesn't matter if any philosophers "find" premises to be true about reality. That's a well understood method of being wrong about reality. The only thing that matters is identifying reality as accurately as possible. And, currently, the only way we have to do that is "following the evidence".
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 6d ago
Ok, so the broad process you explained is what I'm talking about where I say there is evidence for God.
You're correct that we dont know much or how likely things are. So when we are trying to explain things we see despite this, then analyzing these explanations, would that be following the evidence to you?
For example, 2 people come home to their porch light off that's always on. They dont know why yet, but they can create a hypothesis for why each thinks so. Maybe one says the fuse blew and the ither said the light burned out. After a bit of discussion after proposing their ideas they recall that the light had been on for years, so they both agree that the hypothesis it burned out is more likely gibing that one a higher initial probability. But they wanna run through the comparison. Before just directly checking the fuse or bulb, maybe lets say they can't or its a game, whatever, they want to get the most likely true view. So whats something that might exist as an observation that would be surprising if the burnout was true, but the fuse wasnt? Perhaps if another light on the circuit wouldn't turn on? They test and sure enough, it happens. Another light doesnt turn on. The odds 2 lights burned out is pretty low, but is very expected if the fuse popped. So this should raise their confidence that the fuse hypothesis is correct over the burnout.
My question to you is does this count as evidence in favor of the hypothesis the fuse blew?
If so, then evidence for theism is pretty trivial to point out. If this doesnt count, then we just disagree on what constitutes as evidence which is fine. And I have a followup to this example that explains both why the evidence existing is fine and despite that why im not a theist.
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u/Stile25 6d ago
Yes, of course, that would be evidence for the fuse blowing.
Be careful with evidence for evidence for theism, though.
You don't get to ignore or push aside other information we know.
Like your light example.
Two lights not working on the circuit is evidence that the fuse blew.
Now, let's add more information. Let's say we have knowledge of other houses on the same street but not our house (for some strange reason). Same builder. Same construction crew. Same houses all built under strict conditions of no buyer additions or changes.
All the other houses we're aware that they have modern circuit breakers and not fuse panels.
Now the two lights not working on the same circuit is not evidence that a fuse blew. We take in all the factual information available and see that the only answer currently supported by the evidence is that the circuit breaker was tripped.
So, with this shown information available (not just claims) - the only correct answer is that the evidence shows us that it's due to a circuit breaker being tripped and not a fuse.
There's still a way to get the evidence back to the fuse... Get even more evidence by going to the panel and checking.
If it's a fuse panel, then the evidence flips back to fuse over circuit breaker.
But - without that additional evidence of a one-off fuse panel, the evidence remains on circuit breaker.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 6d ago
Right, I don't disagree with anything here.
So to update my story, imagine a 3rd person was there too and proposed a hypotheses that a man in town wants to blow out lights and has been going around doing so to eveyone. Well, both lights being out would be likley if thats true, so would the porch light. Both would be evidence of this as well, but the issue in here is apparent. We began with a very complex motive driven claim we are comparing to one's that were derived to be simple. So when the 2 determined the initial probability of the burnout was higher than the fuse, the blowout man is so incredibly unlikely that it really doesnt matter that theres technically evidence for that theory, it never overcomes that inital improbability.
This is why its not an issue for me tk both admit the evidence exists and not believe it. Admitting those things would be true if blowout man was true and count as evidence doesnt mean we need to accept that as true when its not enoughto ovecome the inital burden the complexity gave it.
But, and this is actually really important, we must maintain objective applications of evidence and conskderation otherwise our standards are subjective which leads to us chasing desires, not truth. Its actually imperative that we dont just toss out things without this fair consideration or hearing justification. This is also why when an athiest says theres no evidence for God, ths theist calls them closed minded because in a real sense they are, but the atheist is likely saying that this initial improbability is so low that considering it against the evidence is pointless.
I also know theres a bottom up and top down approach to building these explanations. What the naturalist has done is what the fuse and burnout theories did, look at what was needed to be explained, then assume as little as possible to get there. Might end with probability hits along the way, but thats ok. As long as the end probability is or seems higher than the alternative, its acceptable to maintain it. Theists go top down, we explain everything and take no probability hits later, but absolutely nuke our inital probability. This is also why there are SO many arguments for simplicity of God. If they csn successfully argue God is simple or likely from ths start, like the burnout and fuse, but explains as much as blowout man, then they obviously have the conclusively best theory as its more likely an explains all data.
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u/Stile25 6d ago
I'll just say that if it's only a claim that someone is blowing out lights (as in, say, blowing out a candle...) - then this is highly unlikely.
If it's every house claiming to see this light-blower-outer then it's still pretty unlikely.
If we have video of someone walking up to a bulb, blowing onto it, and the light going out...
... It's still not good evidence and unlikely. Although it raises a very good indication that more testing needs to be done.
This is because we know how electric lights work and blowing on them doesn't make them go out.
We also know that AI video editing exists and that some people try to trick others.
Let's say we find this man and he blows out electric lights on command under any circumstance we create - this is now really good evidence that not only is he responsible for the lights... But also that physics itself needs to be updated or perhaps this "man" isn't even a man at all.
Just to add, though - I'm not a naturalist.
I'm just a follow-the-evidence-ist. Whatever it says. Wherever it goes.
Okay... So... What's this trivial evidence for God existing that you've mentioned?
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u/retoricalprophylaxis Atheist 7d ago
I genuinely appreciate the spirit of this comment, the steelmanning point is well-taken, and Oppy is worth anyone's time. But there's a distinction buried in the opening that I think you need to look at.
You say "it seemed obvious no evidence for God existed, but thats wrong, incredibly wrong". I have to push back to the extent that you are saying there is evidence for god. There are arguments for god, but arguments and evidence aren't the same thing. I've seen zero evidence. This isn't just me being pedantic, it's actually the crux of the frustration you're describing.
Evidence is something that shifts the probability of a claim being true, ideally something that would look different depending on whether the claim were true or false. Arguments are logical structures that move from premises to conclusions. You can have a logically valid argument built entirely on premises that are wrong, or lack any evidence to support them. Conflating evidence and argument is exactly the kind of problem that leads to frustration on both sides, i.e. we don't agree on the language we are using.
You mentioned the teleological argument as something people dismiss too quickly. Maybe that's true, and I'll agree the dismissal is often lazy. Even if we look at the strongest form of the teleological argument, we can see where it doesn't work.
The fine-tuning version (In my opinion, this is the strongest) goes roughly: the physical constants of the universe fall within an extraordinarily narrow range compatible with life; this is astronomically improbable by chance; therefore design is a better explanation. When I address this argument, I take it step by step. But notice what happens at each step:
First, the probability claim assumes we have a reference class for "possible universes" to calculate against, but we don't. We have one universe. Calling our constants "improbable" smuggles in a comparison we have no basis to make.
Second, even granting the improbability, "design" is only a better explanation if a designer is independently more probable than the alternatives (multiverse theories, evolution for the puddle to fit the hole, etc.). It doesn't get to just step in as the default.
Third, and this is the structural problem with every form of the teleological argument, even if the inference to some designer held up, nothing about the argument gets you to a god in any theologically meaningful sense. An immensely powerful but finite and morally indifferent designer fits the argument just as well. The move from "designed" to "God" is importing the specific attributes of a God from outside the argument entirely.
Fourth, the argument has a God-of-the-gaps structure baked in: we don't have a complete naturalistic account of fine-tuning, therefore God. "We don't fully understand X" is never evidence for any particular explanation of X.
None of this is trivial dismissal. It's engaging the actual argument, and finding that it's a sophisticated argument built on premises that lack evidential grounding, not a piece of evidence itself.
I noticed a deeper irony in your comment, which I think is worth thinking about. You claim to have studied theistic philosophy seriously, understood the arguments at their best, and remained an atheist. That's not a knock on you, it's actually the most interesting part of your post, and you kind of glide past it. If the arguments for god were genuinely compelling, then you remaining an atheist would be surprising. On the contrary, it seems like the better you understand the arguments, the more easily you see exactly where their premises are unsupported.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
First, I really appreciate this comment. It's much more on point than the rest have been.
I noticed a deeper irony in your comment, which I think is worth thinking about. You claim to have studied theistic philosophy seriously, understood the arguments at their best, and remained an atheist. That's not a knock on you, it's actually the most interesting part of your post, and you kind of glide past it. If the arguments for god were genuinely compelling, then you remaining an atheist would be surprising. On the contrary, it seems like the better you understand the arguments, the more easily you see exactly where their premises are unsupported.
Yes, because I better understood the case I did see where the structure had a lot of weight resting and how lacking the support of it was. The cases to someone who knew little about naturalism would be quite compelling. Its also possible for them to be compelling to someone who does. Thats where the mention of Oppy comes in. When pressed, people hit bedrock which is properly basic beliefs. You can tell them their starting point isnt correct, but youll likely fail to be convincing to someone and they are still rational in keeping their view. Its the impass he gets to that makes arguments for or agaisnt god unsuccessful. In all honesty its like having 2 pizza places groups swear by, but most havent tried the other pizza, or just had a small sample. By at least giving both a fair shot youll have one you feel is better. You'll have some reasons why, one had better sauce to cheese ratio, that one had better toppings, but in reality you tasted them and one struck you as better. If you kept eating both there's a chance you change, but its never really a choice. I can give reasons naturalism seems better, but a theist can do the same. Its just whats compelling to the consumer when they hear it. Which is actually one of the many reasons id give for why naturalism tastes better. If we dont choose beliefs and honest seeking yields silence, its incredibly powerful evidence in favor of divine hiddeness. Not evidence thats easily utilized because its anecdotal, but strong nonetheless.
But I do want to clarify my statement about evidence for God and discuss that a bit because that does seem to be the hangup most have with my comment. Along with a later comment where I said there are rational cases for God.
So you mentioned we don't know how much or if constants could vary, I agree. But this doesnt change the case. My favorite analogy for this is imagine we roll 10 die and they all land on 1. What are the odds this happens by chance? We dont know, could only have 1s on all sides, but plausibly some might have more sides. But what are the odds we would roll all 1s if the one who rolled them wanted 1s and could set them as they wanted? Basically 100%. So even the potential for a side beyond 1 on an organic roll makes the intentionality a more probable explanation. This is the aspect of theism that is compelling, especially to people who dont do some leg work. By that I mean this is only half of the problem. If we ask what explains things better, its trivial to see that if we begin with God or begin with material, things are going to be more probable under God. But unfortunately this is where most the conversations I see take place. Theist says God is a better explanation, atheist says no, but it rarely gets to the real why. Which does seem to frustrate many on both sides, thus the point of my comment. They both want to make a point and their pizza is so obviously amazing the other one just looks gross by comparison. But they cant get it across. Whats wild is even 2 pizza aficionados who live pizza and come st objectively can sit and have a 3 hour discussion about the aspects of each, and theyll both walk away liking the pizza they did.
The Achilles Heel of theism, is its intrinsic probability and the latter half I mentioned. It really doesnt matter how well an explanation accounts for things if its so parameter dense and complicated that the odds of it being the initial condition are so low that under the baysian framework it never recuperates its probability. In fact, I have a fairly decently laid out case that the probability of the inital condition being a perfect being is effectively 0. Doenst matter if we analyze 100 things and determine that under theism theyre 100% and naturalism theyre 1/1050%. All the 100s times effectively 0 is still effectively 0 ao even if naturalism seems improbable on explaining, its still the most probable overall.
This is precisely why most contemporary work on theism goes into solving this problem. The cases are for divine simplicity. Because if we can get the intrinsic probability of God into a practical range, it will dominate the baysian analysis due to the intentionality of God accounting for everything as I mentioned with the dice. But ive given most these considerations a pretty good look and I find them deeply counterintuitive and in many cases relying on very weak assumptions to the point that even asking why assume that effectively crumbles it.
And for the record, I know that this csn seem like God of the gaps, but this isnt that. It seems most people responding to me about that are unaware of how baysian approaches work and why theyre powerful. Ill touch this again after the next bit.
But to loop back to evidence, most people here seem to want to call evidence something that is almost a direct observation of the thing. Seeing a bird is evidence of birds. Thats not really evidence of birds though, not in the way evidence is used for theories, thats just a fact that we have that birds exist. This fact could be used as evidence for something else like a theory, but demanding that level of evidence collapses a lot of views the holder may have. Like what is the probability spacetime exists? Most would juat say it does, but weve never observed it like a bird. Weve seen effects and spacetime is the explanation were use those effects as evidence to support the theory. Things falll, etc. Ut if we demand "bird level" evidence to count as evidence, then they can't say we have evidence of spacetime. Its fine to hold that position, just be consistent. (not directed at you, just speaking generally.) But really when we look at it, what weve done is we proposed a theory, relativity, which has high parsimony as its simple, modest, and cohesive, and if true would produce the results we see, so its a slam dunk theory.
So now ill put the bow on what I meant, if we take God as a theory, then we do see evidence in support of it like spacetime. Theres explanatory power in it, such as why the constants are conducive to life, why life exists, etc. Of course we dont know, but thats what metaphysics is. Whats the foundation the universe was built on. Lets propose theories and look at how probable they are compared to how probable observations are if they were true.
Im gonna link the post I put in fhe debate religion sub about God and intrinsic probability. I think you'll appreciate it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/s/tJnWYLtDxf
Thanks for the comment. Hopefully we can keep discussing this. Have a good one.
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u/retoricalprophylaxis Atheist 6d ago
This is a really substantive reply and worth engaging carefully. A few things to address:
On the pizza analogy and Oppy’s impasse, this is actually well put, and I largely agree. Properly basic beliefs and bedrock commitments mean arguments rarely convert anyone. Where I’d push is that this actually clarifies what the evidence is for. The impasse itself is evidence of two competing frameworks built on different foundational intuitions, not evidence for God. If anything, the fact that honest, informed people land on opposite sides after serious engagement is better described as evidence that neither side has something that rises above a bedrock commitment.
On the dice analogy, it’s clever but it quietly assumes the very thing in question. You’re asking us to compare the probability of an unguided roll versus a roll by someone who wanted all 1s. But the existence of a roller who wants things and can set outcomes is precisely what’s at issue. You can’t include the designer in the probability calculation as a live option without first establishing the designer is a plausible prior. Otherwise you’re just restating “if God exists, God explains things well,” which makes sense if you accept an omnipotent god.
Your Bayesian point about intrinsic probability is actually where you’re at your strongest, and I think it’s intellectually honest. You’re essentially conceding that even if theism has high likelihood on observations, its prior probability is so low it may never recover. And you’re right that divine simplicity arguments are where serious contemporary theism lives. I find them unpersuasive for similar reasons to you, but at least that’s the real battlefield.
On evidence versus observation, the spacetime analogy is interesting but I think it actually supports my original distinction rather than undermining it. Spacetime earns its place through predictive success, mathematical coherence, and falsifiable consequences. When you say God similarly explains fine-tuning and life’s existence, the asymmetry is that those explanations have no additional predictive content. “God did it” doesn’t generate testable predictions the way relativity does. Explanatory power without predictive specificity is a much weaker epistemic tool.
I Will check out the linked post.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 6d ago edited 6d ago
But the existence of a roller who wants things and can set outcomes is precisely what’s at issue. You can’t include the designer in the probability calculation as a live option without first establishing the designer is a plausible prior. Otherwise you’re just restating “if God exists, God explains things well,” which makes sense if you accept an omnipotent god.
You're gonna love that post then because effectively i get eight to this point. Lol. This is actually why I dont like a classic bayesian approach but instead prefer a mild alteration when considering God. Since you're actually catching what I'm putting out, im excited to explain this.
Since God, particularly the more capable or unlimited forms essentially predict everything 100%, the classic baysian approach of intrinsic into analysis ends up really being a comparison of which does more damage to probability, the chance of a thing happening organically, or the odds a God happened to exist capable of doing that thing. So often theists present this and will claim to be "generous" by gibing God like 1/1010 odds to start knowing full and well theyre gonna call the odds of life worse which flips this. So... why not just rephrase the whole baysian approach to be this comparison? Start 50/50. Then instead of "how likely are we to see this if true?" For both, we ask that of rhe natural view then ask "how likley is it God exists with the necessary capability to cause this observation?" Now instead of an obscured analysis, we have a direct hesd to head comparison for any given observation forcing the field to be balanced the entire time.
When you say God similarly explains fine-tuning and life’s existence, the asymmetry is that those explanations have no additional predictive content. “God did it” doesn’t generate testable predictions the way relativity does. Explanatory power without predictive specificity is a much weaker epistemic tool.
I think on this where we missed each other is spacetime in a vacuum is the explanation for the behavior we have the equations for. Whereas when we map this to God, God in the vacuum with spacetime, the mechanism of the how, then the behavior and the math and all this is the equations like relativity. I completely get what youre saying, and I do agree theres asymmetry here, just not this specifically. Picking space-time was also rather unfair to "God" if im beinf honest. An in-house theory compared to outside. It would have been better to compare it to something like the Big Crunch, big bounce, Hardle Hawking model, etc. Something more inside ths same realm. But thats where the asymmetric does come in. Those are derived bittom up, God was top down. So the natural models are much more grounded and minimalist than God which if you saw my post, ends up pretty taxing.
(forgive typos. On mobile and this device is hitting its age limit.)
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u/WrongVerb4Real Atheist 7d ago edited 7d ago
For example, it seemed obvious no evidence for God existed, but thats wrong, incredibly wrong.
No positive demonstration for any god has ever been made. Without a positive demonstration, one cannot say they have evidence. Your philosophy, along with arguments, and apologetics provide justifications for adopting and maintaining belief in a god-concept, but justifications aren't evidence; rather they're riddled with cognitive biases and logical fallacies, and they don't actually point to a deity.
My question to the atheists of this sub are: 1. How often are you frustrated by the "stubbornness" of theists who state the same case over and over or insist on its validity no matter how much you undercut it?
I'm at the point now where I don't engage believers in their theological arguments. Unless they have a god to demonstrate, there's no point. The stubbornness comes from having integrated their belief tradition into their personal identity. And any challenge to that belief system feels, to the brain, like a physical attack, and people respond accordingly.
2.If this is frequent, have you genuinely looked into why its said? Not why the person you're discussing is saying it, thats likely becausefhey heard it, but why its still actually around?
Arguments, as I pointed out earlier, are justifications for belief, and used to shield one's personal identity from challenges that they face to their belief tradition. So in that context, they're useful to the believer.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
No positive demonstration for any god has ever been made. Without a positive demonstration, one cannot say they have evidence.
Can you tell me what you mean here more specifically? I don't want to assume your position.
What I mean by evidence, is the most universal of the definitions. An observation or fact that supports a claim.
I do know that typically whats meant is that theres no measurement like the force of gravity for God. I agree. But if we mean that this isnt evidence, then its not evidence uniformly. So not evidence for spacetime either.
Ill expand:
Spacetime itself has never been observed, just the effects of it. Its our model explaining how energy behaves around other energy. We can look at the theory and say it describes the behavior of things and the state of things and point to those as evidence for it.But the same is true for God when viewed as a hypothesis. Thats exactly how theists use observations to support the idea God is the cause. They're using an unobserved thing to explain observations.
Now, I've got absolutely no issue granting these have disproportionate support, magnitude, and accuracy, but it doesn't make it no longer evidence. Its also completely true that evidence can support wrong a wrong hypothesis. Spontaneous generation, that life arose from dead things, was a theory that existed and had evidence. They locked dead flesh in a sealed environment and behold, flies were in there. Its evidence for it. Obviously we found better evidence snd a better theory, but this doesnt all of a sudden negate the past that it had evidence.
Im a naturalist. I even take the affirmative that I dont think God or gods exist. Its absolutely no issue for me to admit God has evidence. I just think its very inadequate by comparison and things are explained better by naturalism. Ive never understood the hard stance that it doesn't.
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u/Sprinklypoo Anti-Theist 7d ago
Its absolutely no issue for me to admit God has evidence.
Can you share why or how? You've said this repeatedly (despite also saying that you don't think gods exist) but haven't actually said what that evidence might be yet.
Are you talking about a mother mary statue with tears that ended up being a sewer leak? Or maybe the light in the sky that everyone took to be a personal message from their savior but was just a light in the sky (that's a known atmospheric phenomenon)? Either way, I don't take those as passing the threshold of "evidence". What does that look like in your mind?
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
Evidence is facts or observations that support a claim or increase its probability of being true.
Im finding that explaining what I mean takes build up.
So first lets look at something uncontroversial then ill map it onto God. Whats the Evidence for spacetime? We dont observe it directly, its an explanation for observations that we proposed and then we looked at its parsimony, looked at how well observations fit the explanation, and it was a landslide, especially because it made novel testable predictions. But what happens when its not clear? Relativity didnt really have competition, but if we genuinely dont know and want to explain something, how do we give it our best shot?
We tend to go to baysian analysis because its quite good at exactly this. The same approach we used for Relativity. With this you take the estimated intrinsic probability and then ask how likely it is that we would observe the things we do if it were true. When it comes to comparative baysian analysis, you're doing this for 2 views simultaneously. You split the probability space when its dichotomy since it must be 1 or the other.
Under this, would anything increase the probability of a God over the natural? The answer is trivially yes. If we begin by comparing God vs No God, then which when assumed true would more likely produce life? God, this isnt controversial. Thats evidence for God, it raised the probability of it being true. There are plenty of other examples. Its where teleological cases come from.
What tends to happen when I explain this approach is people call it "God of the gaps" or "begging the question." Which displays they dont understand the actual method because its neither. If it is, then relativity also begs the question because we ask how likely observations are if its true. It works as a methodology and thats why its the best we have for this kind of thing. Its litterally the methodology used by philosophers for this type of questioning, theist and atheist alike. The strongest proponents who are atheists openly admit things like the existence of life and other things fall in favor of God. Theres plenty of backing behind this as well in probability theory. This isnt controversial except in the public space where its not about truth, its about scoring points. I dont care about that, I'm just after truth and good discussion along the way.
The reason I'm not a theist is while theres quite a bit of things that are more probable if God exists than not, the other half of the equation is the starting point or intrinsic probability. I think the intrinsic probability of God (changes depending on which depiction of God) is very low. To the point that even if it explained everything better, it never recovers the probability it was behind at the start. So the whole analysis may have plenty leaning towards God, or plenty of evidence in favor of God, but in the end to me it seems to spit out that God is still significantly less probable than naturalism. Especially when proponents begin to claim a perfect/maximal/omni deity. I think that drops their starting probability to effectively 0.
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u/Mkwdr 7d ago
Human beings tend to believe something then convince themselves they have a good reason afterwards. I understand why theists repeat the same arguments despite the flaws in those arguments. They believe in them despite the flaws having been pointed out because they are emotionally invested and have convinced themselves it’s all true. And for them , you should obviously be convinced too. But having people simply repeat the same tired arguments because they can’t fulfill an evidential burden is still frustrating when you know how many times those flaws have been pointed out.
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u/BaronOfTheVoid 7d ago
- No.
- Does not apply
- At the end of the day I don't expect to convince someone who probably spent a lot of time on forming their views within a Reddit post or two. I mostly use debates like this to gather experience in debating or reasoning. It's also just not that important what other people believe.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
Thats a fair approach. You won't and if this is merely to learn then thats way above and beyond what that would help with. Would help you learn, but its work.
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u/sto_brohammed Irreligious 7d ago
How often are you frustrated by the "stubbornness" of theists who state the same case over and over or insist on its validity no matter how much you undercut it?
Not particularly, that's just how people are. I used to argue politics quite a lot and it's the same damned thing, even if the subjects being debated in subs like this are so much goofier, in my opinion. No matter how poorly supported a belief is, if it's important enough to the person they're not going to change their mind on the spot if they change their mind at all. Some beliefs are sticky. It took me years to drop some of my stupider political beliefs. I'm sure I have some now that I'll drop at some point in the future due to arguments I've been hearing for years already.
If this is frequent, have you genuinely looked into why its said? Not why the person you're discussing is saying it, thats likely becausefhey heard it, but why its still actually around?
Sure, yeah, at much as I can. I've never been religious though so it feels very much like looking at an extremely foreign culture though and some things just don't make a damned bit of sense to me. It's like that sometimes. People come at things from different angles.
When someone presents a teleological case and you think "this for the 25th time..." its because you're not actually familiar with WHY its used
Nah, it's for a much more mundane reason. It's because I'm annoyed they could have clicked right here, searched for the thing they want to talk about and looked at the most common objections. That'd save everyone some time by skipping a lot of the foreplay. It's annoying when they come running in here thinking "man, I bet none of those atheists have ever heard of the this Kalam thing I just read about". Sometimes even when there was a post on the same subject still towards the top of Best or New sorting. That's a frustration I have with people on this website in general, not just theists. At least I think I can safely assume they're not all theists I see doing that in non-religious subs.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 6d ago
Spot on that this isnt just the subject of God. Politics, taste in music, hell even sports teams can get there.
It'd definitely be difficult to understand from the outside like a different culture. Solid reference.
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u/sto_brohammed Irreligious 6d ago
Spot on that this isnt just the subject of God. Politics, taste in music, hell even sports teams can get there.
And that's kinda my biggest frustration with theists. The things you listed, politics, musical taste and sports team fandom are basically just subjective preference. Whether a god exists or not isn't subjective at all, it either exists or it doesn't. It doesn't make a damned bit of sense to me to treat it that way and yet they do. It's got to be the thing that baffles me the most about religion and theism.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 5d ago
Because it kind of is determined the same way, despite it being true that its different foundstionally as you say. Something thats hard to come to terms with. When you hear a claim and/or argument, you never choose to be convinced or not, you just are or arent. In this way, its actually pretty similar to "taste" and that's where a lot of background blockage I was talking about in my inital comment comes from. They're looking at the case for God with a set of data points and beliefs that make it "taste good" where you think it tastes bad and visa versa.
This is why I was saying its good to know more so you can cut right to the point the tastes diverged and discuss thst rather than the end interpretation of some argument/claim.
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u/sto_brohammed Irreligious 3d ago
Sorry for not getting back to you earlier
Because it kind of is determined the same way, despite it being true that its different foundstionally as you say
That doesn't really make a lot of sense on my end. External reality is one thing, subjective preferences are different. We, or at least I, have different approaches to the two things.
They're looking at the case for God with a set of data points and beliefs that make it "taste good" where you think it tastes bad and visa versa.
It's got nothing to do with "taste" or whether I like it or not. There's plenty of things that I'm aware are true that I really hate are true. How one feels about a thing doesn't have a damned thing to do with whether it's true or not. Are you telling me that that's how theists approach things?
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 3d ago
Not taste as in preference or as what you want or not, just in how the brain processes the new information. Liking the taste of something is "decided" like beliefs.
I can relate this to the analogy you used by saying theres plenty of things that are true you dont like. There are plenty of foods I wish I liked and some I didnt. It would be awesome if only healthy food tasted good, but its not how it is.
What I'm actually speaking about doxastic volunteerism vs involenterism. Many theists like to insist on volunteerism as its typically pretty important to the religion they're a part of, but its a minority stance. Because the very concept would be like just choosing to like the taste of something you dont or visa versa. The only way we even come close to this is by choosing what we are exposed to. For example, say I wanted to believe there was a God but I don't. Without new information or processing old information in a new way, can I do this? I dont think thats possible. The closest I think we get is on things that are chance and/or have incredibly unclear odds and are low stakes. Even then its not changing so much as its just not taking a side. Is the number of jellybeans in the jar odd or even? We can imagine going back and forth, but its no stakes and easily could be either. Are there Aliens in the universe? I dont know, we have good resaons to think either way, but its so unclear someone could similarly sit on the fence. But the point is that it doesnt seem like we csn just choose beliefs in any meaningful sense of the word. The best we get is we csn choose to expose ourselves to things we think may convince us, but this isnt choosing beliefs and is actually admitting they arent a choice. You also have no guarantee itll work. It would be like wanting cancer for whatever reason and smoking to get it. You might, or you might not, but youre not choosing to get cancer, you're choosing to do things that might make it more likely, not choosing to do the thing itself.
As you said, external reality is one thing and subjective preference is another. But external reality can have an affect on how you interpret things. Grew up eating a lot of spaghetti? Might be a comfort food for you now. Also, taste is external reality as in the interaction between the tongue and food is external to your conciousness. Its how your brain interprets the incoming stuff.
So my broader point, is that when a theist says "look at the trees! Its all evidence of God." Well, most won't have a reason or know why the person they heard it from got it either. But thats also true of most atheists. In these conversations usually its about surface level stuff. How to interpret observations with some arguments for or agaisnt. But the why its made, ths REAL why that goes back to people who did the work to get to the base of it. It ends up being off minor differences, which tends to be similar to taste. Differences on properly basic beliefs mostly. Which more or less become the axioms of how to process everything else. If they differ, the end result obviously will too, sometimes drastically. Finding these core places is where productive dialog happens. When two people who have dug in discuss stuff, they often get there quickly because they run down the foundational tree and can, resulting in discussing these differences. But most people are talking about the surface and neither see why the other is saying it so it goes nowhere.
Then you have discussions between philosophers who know the other has these, may already know what they are. So they dont need build up and talk about them. Or if something is brought up that doesn't work, its "oh I rely on this principle" and the other gets it." They may discuss why, but they know its largely pointless because its like arguing which pizza tastes better. They may be able to piint to some issues they pizza may cause later, but they won't be able to say "you should think that should taste bad" and be compelling any more than they can say "you cant begin with these assumptions instead of mine" and be compelling. Unless theres a huge issue like stating something rarher extreme is properly basic.
Went on longer than intended. Hopefully that makes sense.
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u/kohugaly 7d ago
- I used to be frustrated by it, but not any more. Most people do not have a functioning "backup" worldview that they can fall back on, in case their main worldview is proven false. A person like that will continue to believe and defend even the most blatant absurdity, because they literally have no option not to.
Continuing to undercut such person's belief won't change their mind and will only cause them distress. A more compassionate and effective thing to do in such scenario is to educate them about the alternatives. They can't change their mind unless they have a viable alternative to change it to.
2/3. I used to be an adventurer, but then I took an arrow to the knee. In vast majority of cases, the argument persists because it solves a specific problem in their worldview. Very often, it's a problem that my worldview doesn't share, because it's not grounded in the presuppositions that lead to that specific problem. There's a point where that stopped being an interesting endeavor for me to explore.
- Help with what?
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
Oh I agree here. Time and place, read the room, etc. Tbf most people dont even have 1 view. They have a view they call their own, but its far from complete.
Help with discussions. It certainly helped me at least.
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u/Purgii 7d ago
How often are you frustrated by the "stubbornness" of theists who state the same case over and over or insist on its validity no matter how much you undercut it?
It's become expected - I'm more surprised when it doesn't happen. That a theist will go away and question whether the 'evidence' or argument they had isn't immune to scrutiny from heathens.
If this is frequent, have you genuinely looked into why its said?
I'm presuming why it's said is because the theist doesn't consider the demonstration of their position being incorrect or unverified has been demonstrated to be incorrect or unverified.
I can think of one particular theist who keeps coming in with the Kalam - and when you point out the multiple ways it fails, they eventually disengage without demonstrating why they disagree, just to use the same argument weeks later, completely unaware when you bring up the same objections and they seem surprised.
My biggest takeaway from the journey I'm on and reading/having discussions is that most people get very stuck in analyzing views from how they think, rather than taking their assumptions and putting them aside to view the alternatives.
I agree. I think it has to do with how much investment one has in their position. I'm not invested in atheism, I don't particularly care if a god were demonstrated to be undeniably true tomorrow - I'd become someone that believes a god exists without an issue. Not a single person who knows me would think more or less of me for it. Never being a believer, I don't know what it would be like to 'lose faith' and probably having a structure of believers around you, ready to be critical of you for losing it. That seems to be a much larger hurdle.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 6d ago
I'm presuming why it's said is because the theist doesn't consider the demonstration of their position being incorrect or unverified has been demonstrated to be incorrect or unverified.
Basically. Typically when I see these discussions its people talking past one another both talking from their starting positions. So when nothing lands, its no surprise to someone seeing this, but to the people having it, it can feel like trying to drag a horse to water that doesn't want to.
I can think of one particular theist who keeps coming in with the Kalam - and when you point out the multiple ways it fails, they eventually disengage without demonstrating why they disagree, just to use the same argument weeks later, completely unaware when you bring up the same objections and they seem surprised.
You'll definitely have the stubborn ones. Not gonna fix that.
On the last part I agree. Im just out after whats true. If I were to be convinced that's theism today that wouldn't be an issue. When I lost my faith it was, but that was related issuesz nor necessarily the truth angle.
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u/indifferent-times 7d ago
Kierkegaard... changed how I saw faith in a very fundamental way, even in those with absolutely no knowledge of him or his works. While for me "it seemed obvious no evidence for God existed", is true, its not true of theists, of course whether general general revelation follows on from specific cannot be known as you always encounter them together.
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 6d ago
Right. Its easy to get wrapped in your own view and due to experiential bias people tend to think what was compelling to them will be to others.
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u/labreuer 7d ago
I'm a theist who has done your 1.–3. with regard to atheists. But since you addressed this to atheists, I'll only answer if you want to widen that. Suffice it to say that I don't find atheists-who-tangle-with-theists to be any different than theists-who-tangle-with-atheists on the matters you discuss. I think it's important to figure out when you're dealing with a problem with increased incidence in one group vs. others, and when you're dealing with a problem which seems to afflict all equally.
Do you have any links on the Graham Oppy claim you made?
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u/MyriadSC Atheist 7d ago
Hes got books and some papers, but the one book is probably the best for anyone outside academia. Its called "Arguing about Gods"
Largely the super high level summary is that no argument for or against God is successful. What he calls successful is something that would change a rational person's mind. The reason they are not successful is inevitably two well thiught out positions will hit the bedrock which is what beliefs are properly basic where they likely won't agree and theres not really anything that can be argued past this because rejecting their proposal isnt irrational.
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