The Elevation of Religious Ideas

Of course God COULD exist on some level without any evidence. There was no evidence as to the existence of penguins until people found evidence to the existence of penguins. To reject outright the potential for the existence for things there is no evidence of is stupid. Not to mention how vague the concept of God on any level is.

However, treating the potential existence of things as being "worth your time" is also stupid. I do consider God's existence being not worth my time, so how does that make me not an atheist?

Agnosticism is a semantic nightmare, its a term that seems to mean something new to every person you meet. It also tells you little about how their religious views affect their life. When I say I am an atheist, it lets people know I dont give a rats ass about God. Living by the belief that God doesnt exist, and living by the belief that anything metaphysical has no bearing on your life, essentially results in identical outcomes.

Have a nice day.
I agree with this post for the most part.
If you don't believe there's a chance that god can (or can not exist) then you are stupid, not atheist, theist, etc. You can't prove god doesn't exist, nor can you prove he does, to claim otherwise would be ridiculous. (I'd say illogical, but some people have an aversion to logic.)

What you believe or don't believe is a different question altogether. Trying to pin down what 'atheism' is per se is impossible; however, it's equally impossible to pin down exactly what a christian believes.

Any christian, regardless of denomination, rarely believes exactly what they are told for the reasons they are told. They may claim to believe in christian morals, but that's often only when they happen to intersect what they believe is right. When presented a contradiction, they'll often try and alter their beliefs and/or arguments to back it up.

Make no doubt about it, atheists do this too. The difference I see is that atheists take credit for their own moral code, whereas theists generally pin it on the religion, even when they rarely do anything by the book.
 
You can't prove god doesn't exist
That isn't how science works and it certainly isn't how logic works. Logic says you can't disprove a negative, which means you can never truly prove that something doesn't exist. A proof requires evidence and PROVING something not existing requires evidence as well. If something doesn't exist, there is no evidence. Hence the adage: Absence of Evidence is Evidence of Absence, it's the only way for the scientific process to mitigate this 'glitch' in observation caused by the human condition. The scientific method has no choice but to follow the evidence to make a hypothesis and theory as a unified idea FROM observed fact. Chasing ghosts, fairy tales and other such nonsense is far too taxing (and ultimately fruitless in 99.999% of cases) on a system that simply cannot handle an influx of ACTUAL data to chase down and explain...not to mention that it is illogical to do that, if you subscribe to the idea that in order to exist you must create evidence and therefore must be measurable. If you don't subscribe to that idea, then you have no place in science and almost certainly no place in logic.

Just wanted this set in stone for everyone, because various people including billymills seem to not understand how science actually works.
 
Im going to go off on a small tangent, if you dont mind, to ask a simple question:

How many of you have actually read the Bible, or at least put some effort into learning the stories that are written within it?

All of this conversation about atheism and Christianity, free will, and such are all great topics for stimulating conjecture; don't get me wrong I thoroughly enjoy reading everyone's opinions and thoughts, especially those substantiated with interesting facts I hadn't known before.

However, when I speak to anyone regarding religion and religious ideas, I always present a simple suggestion. Simply read and enjoy and marvel at the 1189 chapters of the Bible for yourself. No need for a religious denomination, nor a commitment to faith or anything. Simply the Bible.

As a piece of literature itself, it is quite mesmerizing in its prose. And whether or not you choose to believe the stories within, you can never argue the masterpiece that is this wondrous book and how it has captivated and changed and influenced the lives of billions of people for centuries.
 

Hipmonlee

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Yeah, we have gotten lost in semantics morm.

I mean, if you said to me "hey is it true that the flying spaghetti monster exists and that each year he throws a huge new years eve party at a bach at Whangamata and that he could have sworn he sent me an invite but it must have just gotten lost in the mail or something because you know how crazy things get for the post around christmastime?"

Then I would say "No, I believe that that is not the case".

Likewise if you asked me "Is it true that God exists exactly the way described in the bible?" Then again my response would be no. But on the other hand, I dont believe that that is actually what most Christians believe anyway..

When we start talking about the existence of any God as believed by anyone or "at any level", then yeah that is pretty fucking vague, and it's not at all a cop out to say so.

When you ask "Does there exist anything outside of the perceivable universe?" Or "was the universe created?" Or generally anything at all to do with metaphysics the most accurate response anyone can give IMO is "how the fuck should I know?" not "Definitely not".

But yeah, this is what I meant when I said agnosticism is a semantic trainwreck. We arent covering any real ground with this conversation, just trying to clarify meanings of terms, which have no functional effect on anything. This is why I hate philosophy.

I have only ever read the puffin illustrated bible storybook or something like that..

Have a nice day.
 
Morality requires religious belief. Without an absolute morality that demands fealty to a power greater than yourself all you will have left is a burning desire to control other people, for there is no built-in mechanism to stop you. There is no check on the individual's self-absorbed, ever-shifting concept of right and wrong. Humanity is incredibly cunning and opportunistic, it's why we became apex predator long ago. Without that understanding, without the discipline to harness that instinctive drive, all that is left is a self-satisfied narcissism with an endless hunger to perfect everything around it.
Haven't read the whole thread yet, but need to address this. Are you actually telling me people who don't follow a religion are immoral? Because that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Morality is a part of the human psyche, just as much as emotion is. Religion is completely independant of morality. It is a built-in trait that ALL humans have, not just those with religous views.

Now, myself being a moral nihilist, I don't like the concept of "good" or "evil". My morals may not agree with yours, but that doesn't make mine any more wrong than yours. So the fact that you would even suggest the fact that anyone not following a religion don't have morals is like saying anyone with a genetic disorder isn't human. Morality is a basic part of human nature, that is a fact.
 

Chou Toshio

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^ While I do agree that how people define morals for themselves and act on them is (unfortunately) at the mercy of personal identity and creed, to state that morality itself is subjective and individual is absolutely ludicrous.

While we humans are powerless to actually define it, morality as a concept has to be an ultimate truth, black and white, good and evil, the same for all people everywhere and always.

If not, than Hitler could just say that he's entitled to his own sense of morals (that Jews are lower than worms) and his morals are no worse than yours.

This is why we have the rule of law, which is society's best interpretation at defining ethics, and procedures.

They're not perfect (which is why laws are constantly under scrutiny), but without uniform application, they would be meaningless (just like non-uniform ethics is similarly, near meaningless).
 
That isn't how science works and it certainly isn't how logic works. Logic says you can't disprove a negative, which means you can never truly prove that something doesn't exist. A proof requires evidence and PROVING something not existing requires evidence as well.
What the fuck are you talking about. Are you confirming what I said or not?

If something doesn't exist, there is no evidence. Hence the adage: Absence of Evidence is Evidence of Absence, it's the only way for the scientific process to mitigate this 'glitch' in observation caused by the human condition. The scientific method has no choice but to follow the evidence to make a hypothesis and theory as a unified idea FROM observed fact. Chasing ghosts, fairy tales and other such nonsense is far too taxing (and ultimately fruitless in 99.999% of cases) on a system that simply cannot handle an influx of ACTUAL data to chase down and explain...not to mention that it is illogical to do that, if you subscribe to the idea that in order to exist you must create evidence and therefore must be measurable. If you don't subscribe to that idea, then you have no place in science and almost certainly no place in logic.

Just wanted this set in stone for everyone, because various people including billymills seem to not understand how science actually works.
Where the fuck did I start talking about scientific method at all? I'm well aware of how the scientific method works, and why it would claim that ghosts, fairy tails, and by extension god, do not exist. I understand Occam's Razor perfectly fine. None of this explains how you can possibly prove that god does not exist.

I was trying to make the point that logical thinking (understanding that god can not be proven or disproven) is separate from what you believe and how you believe it. Scientific method may be a great method (the best we have) but it is still less conclusive than logic itself.

Proving something scientifically requires evidence and is never 100% certain. Proving something logically requires an air-tight sound argument, likely based a priori. I was referring to the second case.


Either way, couldn't you disprove a negative by proving the positive?
 
^ While I do agree that how people define morals for themselves and act on them is (unfortunately) at the mercy of personal identity and creed, to state that morality itself is subjective and individual is absolutely ludicrous.

While we humans are powerless to actually define it, morality as a concept has to be an ultimate truth, black and white, good and evil, the same for all people everywhere and always.

If not, than Hitler could just say that he's entitled to his own sense of morals (that Jews are lower than worms) and his morals are no worse than yours.

This is why we have the rule of law, which is society's best interpretation at defining ethics, and procedures.


They're not perfect (which is why laws are constantly under scrutiny), but without uniform application, they would be meaningless (just like non-uniform ethics is similarly, near meaningless).
Wow, this thread is a clusterfuck

If rule of law is the best interpretation of ethics, than Hitler did nothing wrong as he never broke any laws. Ghandi and MLK on the other hand, fuck them.

But the modern interpretation of religious ideas isn't so much focused on religion as it is focused on ideas that transcend the people who believe in them. It is for this reason, that in America, an atheist could be a conscientious objector on the grounds of pacifism (Seegar v. US), but not on grounds of being against war for economic or political reasons. While that is a moot point today (without a draft), and to answer the OP, a vegan in prison could probably get similar treatment to a Jew in prison over meals (due to the sincerity and strength of their beliefs). It would just take a lawyer to make that argument because I'm sure most prisons wouldn't just agree to the idea over night (and I'm sure somewhere in case law history a Jew/Muslim won a court case to get kosher food in prison)

And @ Deck Knight or any one else trying to make the asinine argument for religion being necessary for morality, I would ask why Atheists & Agnostics are the most under represented people in prisons?
 

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I believe that the bible is being misused. Modern christianity is completely different from what it was intended to be.

The bible. Here we have a book that contains stories of water being split, ghosts, talking mountaintops, flaming bushes and asexual reproduction in humans. I think (and this is just my interpretation, I'm not saying that I think I'm right) that the bible was meant to be a storybook. At the time of its creation christianity was a moral compass, a way of teaching people morality and "the right thing to do," shaping civilizations into societies with laws and standards of behaviour. There was no belief in god, no heaven or hell, just sins. Christianity wasn't a faith, but a moral code. The bible was the handbook of this code, teaching people through stories in much the same way little timmy learns in his bedtime storybook that calling people names is bad. God wasn't an invisible man in the sky with divine powers, but an inspiration. He's an ideal role model, and you'd strive to be like him.

Christianity changed though. When it became mainstream, it was some kind of authority standing, very close to the government. Suddenly god and the bible became real, heaven and hell existed, and people became very scared. Suddenly, there was an all powerful being watching their every move, with a promise of either heaven, the eternal paradise or hell, the punishment for disobeying god.

In reality, people were being controlled by fear. It can be argued that a shaman is the true leader of a tribe, exclusively able to contact the gods and know their wishes. By extension, his word is law. A priest is no different. Everyone was terrified of going to hell, and did whatever they told them to do.

Creationism is a culprit here. It pushed evolution out of classrooms, and furthered the belief in god. The story of the bible was apparently real. There's a double standard here, seen in other "religions" like scientology. A Religion does not want to coexist with its alternatives. It needs to crush the opposition to flourish, and creationism is a perfect example of this.

Part of the reason that I don't believe in god is that he can't be proven to exist. That is, he doesn't do anything. In the bible, god had an active prescence, interacting with people in various ways, performing miracles and such. He must have retired or something.

Oh, and about the religion = morality thing, humans are social creatures. We group together and form societies, and morality develops from our interpersonal behaviour. We all act a certain way to fit to a standard of behaviour, and we all expect some degree of conformity. If your parents have sound morals and teach them to you, religion isn't needed at all.

Politically, religion is our bane. It divides us, fuels hate and compels us to wage war against each other. Unless we develop some kind of panreligious movement, world peace is impossible with religion present.
 

az

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You're also classifying all atheists as the same. Atheism is (and was stated a million times) the absence of religion. There are many kinds of atheists, from those who claim there is no god to those that hold no belief to the existence of a god (the so called agnostics). To claim that all of atheism is a "self-reliant narcissism" is absurd.
just wanted to point out that this isn't true!

it is a minconception that atheism and agnosticism over lap -- atheism is the conviction that there is no god, as strong a commitment as to say that you are convinced that there is one, where as agnosticism accepts that ultimate knowledge pertaining to the answers of these questions is impossible to grasp

edit: oops, been handled!
 
I believe that the bible is being misused. Modern christianity is completely different from what it was intended to be.

And you know what it was intended to be...?

The bible. Here we have a book that contains stories of water being split, ghosts, talking mountaintops, flaming bushes and asexual reproduction in humans. I think (and this is just my interpretation, I'm not saying that I think I'm right) that the bible was meant to be a storybook. At the time of its creation christianity was a moral compass, a way of teaching people morality and "the right thing to do," shaping civilizations into societies with laws and standards of behaviour. There was no belief in god, no heaven or hell, just sins. Christianity wasn't a faith, but a moral code. The bible was the handbook of this code, teaching people through stories in much the same way little timmy learns in his bedtime storybook that calling people names is bad. God wasn't an invisible man in the sky with divine powers, but an inspiration. He's an ideal role model, and you'd strive to be like him.

I think you have your dates a little off. The new testament was not written until many decades after Jesus did his ministry and was crucified. By this point the apostles had begun to spread Christianity, in particular the message of Jesus. You say that there was no belief in God, or heaven and hell, but they believed in that stuff for centuries before the new testament was even written. The Jewish faith, which was the predecessor of Christianity, believed in the same God.

Christianity changed though. When it became mainstream, it was some kind of authority standing, very close to the government. Suddenly god and the bible became real, heaven and hell existed, and people became very scared. Suddenly, there was an all powerful being watching their every move, with a promise of either heaven, the eternal paradise or hell, the punishment for disobeying god.

God and the Bible had always been real, before to the Jews, and now to the Christians. It didn't just suddenly become reality, people have had reverence towards God for generations upon generations; he did not just suddenly pop into peoples minds when it went "mainstream".

In reality, people were being controlled by fear. It can be argued that a shaman is the true leader of a tribe, exclusively able to contact the gods and know their wishes. By extension, his word is law. A priest is no different. Everyone was terrified of going to hell, and did whatever they told them to do.

No, maybe in your reality.

Creationism is a culprit here. It pushed evolution out of classrooms, and furthered the belief in god. The story of the bible was apparently real. There's a double standard here, seen in other "religions" like scientology. A Religion does not want to coexist with its alternatives. It needs to crush the opposition to flourish, and creationism is a perfect example of this.

Creationism pushed evolution out of the classroom? People have believed that the bible fact since the book was written, way before any classrooms...

Part of the reason that I don't believe in god is that he can't be proven to exist. That is, he doesn't do anything. In the bible, god had an active prescence, interacting with people in various ways, performing miracles and such. He must have retired or something.

Yes, God did retire. We actually had him crucified, so...umm...no more miracles.

Oh, and about the religion = morality thing, humans are social creatures. We group together and form societies, and morality develops from our interpersonal behaviour. We all act a certain way to fit to a standard of behaviour, and we all expect some degree of conformity. If your parents have sound morals and teach them to you, religion isn't needed at all.

I do not believe that it is human nature to be conform to a standard of behavior. I think that there is an inherent selfishness that exists within every single person. Everything that a human would naturally do is driven by the question, what is in it for me? Why did we group together and for societies? It was not to for a standard of behavior, but simply because it was more beneficial to live in groups. Religion attempts to undo that selfish nature. Relgion does not equal morality, but it comes pretty damn near.

Politically, religion is our bane. It divides us, fuels hate and compels us to wage war against each other. Unless we develop some kind of panreligious movement, world peace is impossible with religion present.

Religion is not perfect, because man is not perfect. World peace is impossible because of the same part of the human condition I mentioned above; selfishness. It is not religions fault that people fight for it. I, for example, am a very avid Catholic, yet hold absolutely no grudge or anger towards other religions; I particularly enjoy participating in interfaith events. The church itself has tried to teach the importance of being at peace with people of different faiths, in particular to accept other religions in so much as they lead souls to the Christ. You can read up on this further in the document Nostra Aetate in the Vatican 2 documents. It's quite interesting actually...
 
That isn't how science works and it certainly isn't how logic works. Logic says you can't disprove a negative, which means you can never truly prove that something doesn't exist.
This isn't true, if a being has a definition that is self inconsistent or is inconsistent with certain things that we can observe then we can use this to prove that that being doesn't exist.

just wanted to point out that this isn't true!

it is a minconception that atheism and agnosticism over lap -- atheism is the conviction that there is no god, as strong a commitment as to say that you are convinced that there is one, where as agnosticism accepts that ultimate knowledge pertaining to the answers of these questions is impossible to grasp

edit: oops, been handled!
The way I have always heard it (and the way that seems the most logical) is that there are 4 kinds of people gnostic theist, agnostic theists, gnostic atheists and agnostic atheists. Gnostic theists claim that they know god exists, agnostic theists claim that they can' know for sure if god exists but believe in him any way, gnostic atheists claim to know that god does not exist, agnostic atheist do not claim to know for sure whether or not god exists and don't believe in him.
 

Hipmonlee

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Just to quickly summarise the point of my previous few posts: because there is no functional difference in the behaviour of an agnostic atheist and a gnostic atheist (or whatever terms you want to use), then making the distinction is pointless.

Have a nice day.
 
Yeah, we have gotten lost in semantics morm.
I hate when people say stuff like this, which is precisely why I laid down exactly what is what about how the methodology works. I'm not saying it's the case here, but honestly it does piss me off a great deal when people back peddle and use this smokescreen to create a stalemate.

I think there is a great deal of functional difference between agnostics and atheists. Agnostics have ill defined boundaries of what is acceptable and what isn't acceptable as an explanation of evidences and occurrences around them. It allows for wiggle room which is surprisingly potent. Agnostics are effectively atheists in a shallow day to day functional sense, you are somewhat right, but when it comes down to it they tend to be intellectually unable to make the final leap or decision based on what is presented to them. It's like sitting on the fence in an argument, you contribute effectively nothing.


latios said:
This isn't true, if a being has a definition that is self inconsistent or is inconsistent with certain things that we can observe then we can use this to prove that that being doesn't exist.
then it is not a part of nature and can therefore not be studied by science; however if it is able to manipulate ANYTHING within nature (from our emotions to the creations of the cosmos) the it must have properties that leave behind evidences.

Billy: I was referring to that specific quote, nothing more, correcting you when you were incorrect in the assertion that something cannot be disproven. I was confirming that a negative cannot be disproven but also pointing out that an idea doesn't gain validity simply because it cannot be disproved. In fact, if it contains elements that are not measurable then it is unreasonable to assert that it is real. I guess you misunderstood the purpose of the post entirely. In a thread swarming with all kinds of metaphysics potential I think it's important to lay down what is and isn't a correct process for understanding data (or lack of data) in the world. Fair?
 

Hipmonlee

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No actually, semantics is exactly what this is about. It isnt about intellectual inability or shallowness and it definitely isnt about backpedaling. What I said at the start is exactly what I am saying now. It is about the definition of the phrase "God does not exist". Which is exactly what semantics is.

The fact that you described my thoughts as "still believing" indicates to me that we havent actually got a difference of opinion, just a difference in the way we describe our opinions. Because I have no belief about the metaphysical whatsoever. To me if any one one of us has a belief it appears to be you, because to say "God does not exist" is a statement about the nature of something metaphysical, which you have and can have no evidence to support. On the other hand, I dont believe we actually have a significant difference of opinion about the nature of the metaphysical, just a difference in the way we use language to describe that opinion.

I have no wiggle room and my boundaries are clear. What is physical I form opinions on and I allow to affect my behaviour. What is metaphysical I dont bother about.

Hence semantics. Which is inevitable in a discussion of this nature, I said so at the outset. We could go in depth into the concept of existence, but what would be the point? We arent going to learn anything, at best we could form a clearer basis for discussion between us, but the topic of discussion is something neither of us are interested in beyond the extent we have already taken it.

Have a nice day.
 
just wanted to point out that this isn't true!

it is a minconception that atheism and agnosticism over lap -- atheism is the conviction that there is no god, as strong a commitment as to say that you are convinced that there is one, where as agnosticism accepts that ultimate knowledge pertaining to the answers of these questions is impossible to grasp

edit: oops, been handled!
The literal a-theist just means anyone who does not have a positive belief. Agnostics therefore operate as a subset of atheism in this wider literal sense. The term 'atheist' has been largely co-opted by the general debate on religion and most people generally associate it with the positive belief of nonexistence of God, when in the more accurate literal sense this is only a small part.

Im going to go off on a small tangent, if you dont mind, to ask a simple question:

How many of you have actually read the Bible, or at least put some effort into learning the stories that are written within it?

All of this conversation about atheism and Christianity, free will, and such are all great topics for stimulating conjecture; don't get me wrong I thoroughly enjoy reading everyone's opinions and thoughts, especially those substantiated with interesting facts I hadn't known before.

However, when I speak to anyone regarding religion and religious ideas, I always present a simple suggestion. Simply read and enjoy and marvel at the 1189 chapters of the Bible for yourself. No need for a religious denomination, nor a commitment to faith or anything. Simply the Bible.

As a piece of literature itself, it is quite mesmerizing in its prose. And whether or not you choose to believe the stories within, you can never argue the masterpiece that is this wondrous book and how it has captivated and changed and influenced the lives of billions of people for centuries.
I actually really like the Biblical mythos, in the same sense as I like the Greek and Roman mythologies. I particularly like the (varying) concepts of angels.

That isn't how science works and it certainly isn't how logic works. Logic says you can't disprove a negative, which means you can never truly prove that something doesn't exist.
This is not actually true, it's a common thing cited by science supporters but it's actually a mistake.

If it were impossible to prove a negative, then it would be exactly as impossible to prove a positive. All positive statements have an equivalent negative statement.

e.g. "My watch has some gold in it." is a positive, but proving it is exactly the same as proving the negative "My watch does not have no gold in it."

Science is actually about avoiding unfalsifiable statements (which are not the same as negatives). The statement 'God exists' is an example of an unfalsifiable statement, because any evidence found to disprove God can be explained away as God hiding himself. Similarly, the Russelian Teapot's existence is unfalsifiable by definition.

Science believes in falsifiability. Any falsifiable statement can be disproved, but not proved. The pursuit of scientific experimentation is collecting data to falsify (or attempt to falsify) an existing theory. The more data is collected that does not falsify a particular claim, the more confidence we have in it, but there's no guarantee it's actually correct.

The upshot of the Russel's Teapot thought experiment is that those who make unfalsifiable statements bear the onus of providing proof or evidence of it. You should not ask the listener to falsify a statement that, by your construction, is unfalsifiable.
 
@kitten bukkake, You seem to be confusing science with logic and the manner in which a scientist "proves" something with the manner that a logician or mathematician proves something. you are using the terms incorrectly when you say "a negative cannot be disproven" as stated this is clearly false. the statement "2+2 does not equal 4" is a negative and yet it can indeed be disproven. In general if you can prove a proposition then you can disprove its negative. What I think that you really mean is "we cannot use science to disprove a statement that is not falsifiable" this would be correct and unfalsifiability is a quality that applies to many peoples concepts of god. You are also correct when you say that the fact that a proposition cannot be disproven does not add credence to it, however I don't know who you thought you were arguing with when you said this. What billymills said, and what I would agree with, is that although it may be unreasonable to claim that god exists, because we lack a logical proof that he does not exist it is also unreasonable to claim with certainty that he doe not exist. Accepting something as possible does not imply that you are giving any credence to it, it simply means that you don't know for sure that it is false.
 
science employs logic and is derived from philosophy.

Mathematical proofs are different. If you have something that is incorrect in noncompatible, you gain evidence that it is incorrect via various mathematical methods. So saying 1+1 = 3 is falsifiable as there is evidence to the contrary as well as definitives within math. They are completely different, you are approaching the dissection of what I said from a completely sideways angle.

I go where the evidence is. If there is no evidence then there is no need to even create a hypothesis to explain it. Pretty cut and dry. There are literally trillions of ideas out there that have no evidence. They are not reasonable simply because they are ideas or simply because I can't show you a discrete piece of evidence to refute it. Hiding behind the "you can't prove me wrong so I'm right" argument is juvenile. Saying "there is a possibility of X because you can't prove it wrong" is just as silly. These ideas are not reasonable if they don't have evidence.

The way the process should work is this:

1. observation made/evidence gathered
2. hypothesis made to explain it
3. testing

NOT:

1. idea created
2. evidence reverse engineered or missing entirely
3. authority through nonfalsifiability
 
Billy: I was referring to that specific quote, nothing more, correcting you when you were incorrect in the assertion that something cannot be disproven. I was confirming that a negative cannot be disproven but also pointing out that an idea doesn't gain validity simply because it cannot be disproved. In fact, if it contains elements that are not measurable then it is unreasonable to assert that it is real. I guess you misunderstood the purpose of the post entirely. In a thread swarming with all kinds of metaphysics potential I think it's important to lay down what is and isn't a correct process for understanding data (or lack of data) in the world. Fair?
Fair if I were attempting to talk about science whatsoever. I was taking the logical approach, which means you can not prove non-existence through empirical means. You can prove that something is not true in finitely many cases. (For instance, you can prove that there is no ukulele on Hipmonlee's desk and even no ukulele in his house.) But you can not prove the infinite case.

If you want to talk about correct processes for interpreting empirical results, attack someone who's talking about incorrect processes, not someone who is talking about metaphysical indeterminability.
 
Fair if I were attempting to talk about science whatsoever. I was taking the logical approach, which means you can not prove non-existence through empirical means. You can prove that something is not true in finitely many cases. (For instance, you can prove that there is no ukulele on Hipmonlee's desk and even no ukulele in his house.) But you can not prove the infinite case.

If you want to talk about correct processes for interpreting empirical results, attack someone who's talking about incorrect processes, not someone who is talking about metaphysical indeterminability.
What is the infinite case of the ukelele? I don't understand what you're getting at there.
 
He means that it is always possible that Hipmonlee could respond by declaring that even if I were to come to his house and see that there is no ukelele on his desk I would not be -able- to see it because it's an invisible ukelele. It's an unfalsifiable claim. This is just it; by definition, an unfalsifiable claim is NOT FALSIFIABLE, ie you CANNOT DISPROVE IT. Because it cannot be disproved, it cannot be proved either. This makes it a fantastic, magical and (at the very least) utterly silly claim. This does not make it wrong.

It is entirely possible that there is indeed a ukelele there which is made of cleverly composed neutrinos which don't interact with anything so we can't detect them but happen to be arranged in the exact shape of a ukelele. We cannot prove this. It is an utterly absurd claim. However to say that there is with 100% certainty not a random combination of these particles in this pattern is disingenuous. We are not gods of knowledge with an absolute grasp on certainties, and therefore we cannot make a 100% claim about this. The chance of this is perhaps 1 in 10 to the googol googol googol googol googol^googol^googol times googol power, but that chance is still real in the end. I want to make this clear.

However, that said, this chance would is unreasonably small to appeal to (at the least). Asserting this invisible ukelele in the positive is absolutely ridiculous. Although the chance of its existence is a very real number, it is a very really small one. Therefore, in the interest of practicality in our logic and reasoning, we can approximate this probability to "so improbable that it's virtually impossible." Similar probabilities can be made for the assertion that when an object is dropped all the air molecules nearby will gather under it to lift it upward, or that in the sky is a magic deity who watches every atom and controls everything despite the random nature of quantum mechanics.

Kitten, I'd like to point out that implausible =/= impossible. While your view of science and atheism is a practical one, you're confusing pragmatism for certainty when you seem to imply that "you can't disprove x therefore it's right" indicates absolute certainty that it's wrong, and I think that this is where the misunderstanding between you and the people you're arguing with is.

Agnostic atheism (It seems no one really paid any attention to the gnosticism/theism diagram that Lati0s provided, which is the system I go by in classifying people's positions on this matter) is the practical form of acknowledging agnosticism. A gnostic theist claims to be able to prove with 100% certainty that there is a deity, while a gnostic atheist claims with the same certainty there is not. If you are only -reasonably sure-, that is anywhere less than 100% certain on the matter, I'd argue that you should be classified as an agnostic atheist as well as if you are undecided on the matter but reject all claims thus far or you are anywhere in between.

While one can be an agnostic atheist, the way I argued for its definition it does not mean that the person automatically snaps to conform to this rigid "I can't make any comment in any context" position; there are varying degrees of this position (and I'll clarify that I don't mean to imply that all of them are perfectly rational). Agnosticism and atheism definitely overlap because they don't address the same question (see lati0s's diagram).

Comments or objections or pointing and laughing - go right ahead.
 
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like it would be very easy to disprove that statement.
The point here is not to disprove it, but to prove it. Regardless of the object chosen, you can not prove that it does not exist at some place. For a ukulele, it's possible to prove it exists at some location, but that's beside the point.

For instance, substitute pink unicorn in place of ukulele. Even though everyone 'knows' there is no pink unicorn, it's impossible to prove that it doesn't exist in at least, somewhere.


EDIT: I wanted to say invisible pink unicorn, then remembered the logical contradiction. Unfortunately I only changed it in one spot. Fixed.
 
The existence of an invisible pink unicorn can be disproved because invisible and pink are contradictory properties. It's easy to disprove something that logically can't exist. But more generally, I get your point.

And your ukulele example is taking the reverse of the statement. A "nothing anywhere" is a lot different than a "something somewhere" claim.

I'm not sure there is a difference between falsifiable and unfalsifiable claims theoretically. It seems the only difference is one of practicality - since we're constrained by time, resources, etc. we couldn't realistically be able to check every solar system in the universe in search of a giant orbiting teapot, but that doesn't mean we logically couldn't.
 

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