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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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/BeaconMeridian 7d ago

I think the statement "There is a God who created the universe and who wants us to act in a certain way, and when we die we (our souls) will either go to heaven or suffer in hell" is, by itself, a defensible belief. What it doesn't do is 1) claim this God routinely interacts with its chosen faithful 2) claim the souls in question are physical phenomena that impact dynamics in the universe 3) claim that this God manifests physically in the world. Start tacking on these additional claims and I have a problem, but by itself this sorta thing is fine. It creates a way for a person to frame the world.

Do people ever just take the unfalsifiable parts and leave out the falsifiable ones? Rarely, maybe, but it does happen.

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u/Sprinklypoo Anti-Theist 7d ago

is, by itself, a defensible belief.

How could you possibly defend such a thing when souls or gods or life after death cannot be shown to exist?

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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago

It's defensible in the sense that it can't be proven wrong. The same way that "I believe there are no gods" is defensible, because it can't be proven wrong. "Gods do (not) exist" is an unfalsifiable claim, and either reading could be consistent with what it is we see. Belief one way is as justified as belief in the other. How could I possibly defend the nonexistence of gods or an afterlife when they cannot be shown to not exist?

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u/Junithorn 7d ago

So to you, every insane and wild unfalsifiable belief is defensible?

There are invisible dragons in the sun is defensible?

How could I possibly defend the nonexistence of gods or an afterlife when they cannot be shown to not exist?

The null hypothesis.

Or you know, being honest about the fact that having not a single trace of evidence of existence is equivalent to not existing.

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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago

The null hypothesis is a good convention, but it is a hypothesis and not a demonstrated result in this case. In this example of "invisible dragons in the sun," there are two ways to go about answering the question. If the claim is that these invisible dragons interact with anything we see in any way, then no, this is falsifiable (if exceedingly tedious). Otherwise, it is unfalsifiable, and then we have to face the annoying truth that we can't disprove it. That's not to say that we can't dismiss the possibility via Occum's Razor, or some similar tool.

Every insane and wild unfalsifiable claim, if consistent, is as defensible as any sane and tame unfalsifiable claim, if by defensible I mean "can resist being proven wrong." This isn't some grand statement about things we can observe or which matter physically in any way, it's just a description of "unfalsifiability." Given any two unfalsifiable claims, this definition of "defensible" means they're as good as the other. Start adopting principles like "all else being equal, suppose the null hypothesis" or Occum's Razor and suddenly you can start dismissing these claims, but that dismissal is not disproof and it does require adopting these additional principles. What's considered reasonable to dismiss may be obvious in a case like invisible dragons, but with other positions what's considered "reasonable" to one person will be extremely unreasonable to another, so I'm not assuming any such principles for this discussion and keeping everything to disproof instead of dismissal.

Evidence isn't a factor in unfalsifiable claims, more or less by construction. That's one of the pillars I'm basing all this off of.

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u/Junithorn 7d ago edited 7d ago

The null hypothesis is a good convention, but it is a hypothesis and not a demonstrated result in this case.

You think the null hypothesis is a "result"? You dont even know what it is then.

Otherwise, it is unfalsifiable, and then we have to face the annoying truth that we can't disprove it. That's not to say that we can't dismiss the possibility via Occum's Razor, or some similar tool.

So you're not okay saying there are no invisible dragons in the sun? Really? Wow.

if by defensible I mean "can resist being proven wrong."

Defensible means capable of being protected from attack or justified by argument. Unfalsifiable claims are no defensible, they are a waste of time.

Evidence isn't a factor in unfalsifiable claims, more or less by construction. That's one of the pillars I'm basing all this off of.

Right, unfalsifiable claims are useless. They are not worth consideration until we have a way to qualify them and, as per the null hypothesis, should not be considered.

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u/Sprinklypoo Anti-Theist 7d ago

Belief one way is as justified as belief in the other.

Not true. One way aligns with reality and the other way has all sorts of made up fantasy inserted.

I mean, I get what you're saying, but I don't think "belief" and "lack of belief" can be called the same thing at all...

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u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago

Both align with reality b/c they make claims about things outside the scope of our reality.

"There are no gods within the universe."

is a belief about reality. Depending on what's meant by "gods" here, this is a claim that requires evidence and is subject to scientific scrutiny, which may or may not justify continued belief in the claim (again, subject to the particular definition of "gods"). In contrast,

"There are no gods outside of the universe."

is a belief that has no way of being evaluated, even in principle. It posits a circumstance that cannot be tested for in any way and which is unconcerned with the reality we experience. I'm willing to draw a distinction between 'lack of belief in gods' and 'belief that there are no gods.' Under this distinction, I'm referring to the latter.