diana

Belief not only can exist without evidence, but it must. If you have valid evidence, you have knowledge. If you have invalid evidence (and don't know it), you have mistaken knowledge or "belief," if you will.

I think we're just using two different definitions of "evidence" here. When I think of "evidence," I think of the information provided for me by my senses, combined with how experience has taught me to interpret that information.

Considering your pink unicorn example, I think you're using a more general definition. Something like, "evidence" consists of ideas our minds are capable of combining, regardless of the plausibility of the outcome.

If you use my definition, I think you'll find no evidence of a Pink Unicorn.

If you use your definition of evidence, however, there is absolutely no discrimination possible, as everything has "evidence."

I disagree. Children convince themselves there are boogeymen in their closets and monsters under their beds. There is no evidence (my definition) of this, but they conjure up the belief from somewhere.

Speaking of children, we may also be crossing wires on the issue of "what experience has taught," as children are capable of convincing themselves of these things--probably based upon scary ideas put in their heads by parents who want them to stay in bed and under the covers after the lights are out. Children who accept these stories lack the experience to apply to the larger picture, They trust their parents implicitly, so accept their words as gospel. They don't understand why their parents would see fit to scare them like that. They aren't completely settled on what sorts of things do and don't exist. So they accept.

Experience, however, eventually teaches them that there aren't boogeymen, and the belief is discarded. This experience consists of an older person's understanding of why their parents would want to frighten them into staying in bed after lights-out, and the fact that weeks, months or years have gone by and they've never seen a single boogeyman.

No, that isn't what I meant to say. I meant to say, Belief in something without evidence of its existence is not rational. It is emotional.

However, I agree with your statement.

I implied that, yes. Only I'd have said "Emotions substitute for evidence for our beliefs."

("Sin" and "evil" are concepts that presuppose the existence of god(s), for which reason I generally avoid using them, except in sarcasm. However, we both know what you mean here, so I'll use them in the interest of continuity.)

You just jumped from "substituting emotions for evidence" to "is it wrong to feel?" Whoa. Slow down.

The issue of whether emotions are "evil" is completely separate from the supposed rationality of substituting emotions for evidence to determine what's worth betting the rent on.

Feel all you like. No one said emotions were bad. The only person who has even implied such a thing is you, just now. I didn't even imply that it was evil to substitute emotions for evidence. I just said it was irrational.

You can combine disembodied concepts in your head until you die, but your ability to imagine something or define it is not evidence (my definition) of its existence.

d

Albert Cipriani

Philosoft says:
A god who solves riddles is the god of the gaps, as I think D said. It’s not the Catholic God. We have to deal with the riddles whether or not we think our concept of God solves them. For example, the pantheists who thought Thor was responsible for thunder and lightening, still had to deal with lightening strikes, as did the infidels.

Philosoft says:
Neither aspiring to nor casting aside transcendent purpose interferes with our pursuit of the truth. You make it sound like in our hot pursuit of truth, feeling warm and fuzzy is proof that truth is outpacing us.

In a marathon race I would accept cups of water from the by-standers. Wouldn’t you? Or are you so stoic or proud that you deem intellectual pleasures beneath you? All truths I know have made me feel good. So the half-truths and intimations of truth that make me feel warm and fuzzy give me reason to believe that I’m closing in on truth, not being left in its dust.

Mageth asks:
Closure is the satiation of our hunger for order through the process of extrapolation. Thus, we see a circle where there is only an incomplete circle, and a meaningful life where there is only a corpse in a coffin.

Ultimate closure is the abstraction of experiential closure. So for example, when we don’t have a clue as to how to see the corpse in the coffin as a meaningful life, we may exercise the theological virtue of Hope and suppose it. Likewise, when we can only infer so many causes, we suppose an ultimate cause.

In short, order is the basis for all aesthetics, abstractions, and justice. We cannot help but seek these things. Yet in our lives we can only find incomplete representations of these things. Closure, then, is that mental process whereby we willingly delude ourselves into believing that these incomplete representations of order are as good as it gets. Extrapolating one step further, God then becomes the ultimate complete representation of order.

If God is, He does not supply order, He is order. Or rather, the existence of what’s orderly necessarily expresses Who is, the being of the Being that existence expresses. From our perspective, our belief in God’s existence supplies closure for us. He does not. Our belief in Him does. And our inescapable hunger for order can be interpreted as our being designed to hunger for Him.

Why do I think you need ultimate closure? You don’t. You only want it. If you needed it like you need water or air, you’d obtain it without choosing it. By necessity, you and it would be thrust together. God is not like that. He says He does not quench the smoldering wick nor break the bruised reed. He simply designed you to desire and enjoy order. If you desire and enjoy it enough, you will CHOOSE to extrapolate transcendental order from experiential order. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic
Albert's Rants

diana

I think "riddles" needlessly minimizes your opponent's position. As I understand him, a belief in a god or gods provides quick and easy answers to the questions we have yet to answer. At least, that's what I meant when I said it. You make it sound as though I think a belief in God explains Stonehenge.

As far as this not being the Catholic God, that's demonstrably not so, Albert. The Catholic church only admitted within the last twenty years that Galileo was right. It already had a gap filled, and considered his scientific opposition to their "filling" a serious threat. The threat existed because the Bible had to hurriedly be reinterpreted "poetically" every place it alluded to a flat earth, but also, I think, because every answer science supplies is one less thing we need "God" to explain.

Credit where credit is due, though: PJPII was reasonably quick to acknowledge the truth of evolution.

Yes, we have to deal with what nature deals us, regardless of our beliefs. This is a red herring, though. Philosoft merely said that positing "God did it" as an answer to "Where did all this come from?" keeps us from having to do research and figure it out for ourselves.

In your example, a firm belief that Thor is angry and causing the thunder and lightning makes any research into meteorology unnecessary.

If you ask any question, don't know the answer, and posit God as its cause--and believe it--you don't expend any time or effort testing out alternate theories or asking further questions.

d

Scottyman

I challenge you to prove that a "god" or any "gods" exist. There are many words that exist in the many human languages that over time have proven to not exist. For example the "gods" of Greek Mythology. We laugh at some of their ideas of how the "gods" moved heaven and earth when all can be explained by science today. Is it not possible in your thinking process that a single "god" that many believe in today could just be a mythical holdover from our past and some day in the future the human race will leave such silly notions behind them? In proving your theological beliefs you are not allowed to:

1. Quote the Bible or so called prophets.
2. Use any purported signs (such as weeping Mary statues) that have all proven to be evidence.
3. Use any obscure theological notions that have no scientific backing.
4. Use "faith" to back up your position.

Any proven scientific methods that can give even a slight bit of proof based on true "evidence" is welcome.

The members of this forum will be your judges.

The clock is ticking. You have exactly...........the rest of this millenium to prove your position.

Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick..........

Albert Cipriani

D argues:
Evidently, the “evidence” that psychics provide police to solve their murder mysteries isn’t real evidence cuz that evidence does not conform to D’s definition. I expect D will march on Washington now to free those unjustly convicted murderers and preserve her hobble-gobble of consistency.

Speaking of “conjuring up the belief from somewhere” the queen witch of Salem in the 1990’s, when approached by the clueless police, said she “saw on the screen of my mind” the lobster beds where they should look for the body, and that they’d find it with an anchor tied to it, and that the murderer had fled towards Canada and shaved his moustache. She was correct on all counts.

But D says:
You can call it not rational or you can call it non-regional, just don’t count it out. The Salem witch did what children everywhere do. She formed beliefs out of the thin non-evidentiary (by your definition) air. According to D, such beliefs are prima-facie without evidence. I answer, so what? Shove your precious evidence under the bed where the other non-existent entities of childhood reside.

Your insistence upon the fiction of evidence is as rational as medieval scientists’ insistence upon fish-heads as the origin of flies. Their theory of spontaneous generation depended on that evidence. Just place, as evidence, a fish head in the sun and within a few days fly larva in it will prove the theory correct.

D asserts:
Tell it to the judge who passed a life sentence on the Salem murderer! Man has been combining disembodied concepts in his collective head from day one. And it works! Insane people do the same thing and it doesn’t work. But the methodology is sound in spite of its misuse. That’s why, for example, we don’t arrest all people with driver’s licenses because some of them drive drunk. But you seem to have no use for the methodology just because it doesn’t seem to work so well for kids who used it to believe in non-existent bogeymen.

D asserts:
My, but aren’t you full of it... By that, of course, I mean a fertile mind bursting with unsupported vines of thought. All my atheist friends are highly moral and quite proud of the fact that they are more moral than most theists. They get no argument from me on this count. They do not believe in God and yet they believe in good and evil and act accordingly. If you truly do not believe in evil, on what basis can you like or dislike anybody or anything, including yourself?

D, tossing a smoke-screen canister:
Then you might as well have said that it was “international” instead of “irrational” for all that means to me. If acting irrationally isn’t an evil thing (since, as a “good” atheist, you ironically cannot believe in evil) then is it a good thing? An interesting thing? Could it be a criterion for picking friends? Jeez, you as much as said that substituting emotion for (your notion of) evidence is not a good thing. So I call that evil, and you call "foul," insisting that it’s merely irrational. If our case was before the Salem judge, he’d have had the bailiffs haul you away for abuse of process. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic
Albert's Rants

Jobar

A couple of quibbles, Albert. First a small one:

the pantheists who thought Thor was responsible for thunder and lightening

That's *poly*theists, you mean.

The next one is not at all small.

Evidently, the “evidence” that psychics provide police to solve their murder mysteries isn’t real evidence cuz that evidence does not conform to D’s definition. I expect D will march on Washington now to free those unjustly convicted murderers and preserve her hobble-gobble of consistency.

Speaking of “conjuring up the belief from somewhere” the queen witch of Salem in the 1990’s, when approached by the clueless police, said she “saw on the screen of my mind” the lobster beds where they should look for the body, and that they’d find it with an anchor tied to it, and that the murderer had fled towards Canada and shaved his moustache. She was correct on all counts.

You should realize that in a room full of hard core skeptics, any mention of 'psychics' will be met with a hail of derision. None of us considers psychics any more than charlatans; if you think you have proof of a genuine psychic, I strongly suggest you immediately get in touch with James Randi, who has a million dollar prize awaiting that psychic. I strongly suggest also that you do not volunteer any of your own money to provide your psychic with travel or hotel expenses in hopes of a cut of that prize; it's a bloody poor investment.

Albert Cipriani

Fair enough, Jobar.

I think psychics are mostly charlatans, too. And I think Catholics are mostly apostates and most Christians are at best mostly glorified social workers. So where does that leave us?

Does it leave you that far out on the illogical limb that you stand willing to put your faith in a negative? You will believe the universal negative that there are NO psychics that are not charlatans because James Randi’s prize has yet to be claimed? A bit of an overreaching reaction, I’d say. – Albert the Traditional Catholic
Albert's Rants

diana

Greetings, my traditional friend. When I'm having a pleasant discussion with a polite person and they suddenly get spun up for no apparent reason, I assume I hit a nerve. So...thanks for the encouragement.

I suppose you could go with the general definition that "sin" and "evil" just mean "wrong" and "bad," but I've never met a perfect synonym. When I hear these words, possibly by virtue of my deeply religious upbringing, I assume they are meant with their inherent religious connotations.

From Merriam-Webster Online:
When a Xn uses this word, I naturally assume he intends 2a and/or 2b. "Evil" is, of course, "sinful"--so the same assumption of God's existence applies. This is why I made the "assertions" I did.

1990 Salem murderer? What are you on about?

Not true. Their observations and experiments were flawed in that they failed to isolate the rotting flesh. It is precisely due to people who insisted on evidence--real, demonstrable, hard evidence--that you don't bump into spontaneous generation adherents every day.

So...if the concepts are proven correct, we label the dreamer "insightful," but if they turn out to be wrong, we label the person "insane." Right?

Please provide an example of one such disembodied concept. I want to make sure I understand your point.

I don't see the relevance of this last sentence to the disembodied concepts you were just discussing. What's why, for example, we don't arrest...etc?

Does that help? (I'll leave you to look up "international," as it isn't applicable to this discussion.)

I wasn't talking about acting irrationally, either. I said that basing beliefs on emotions is irrational. I need more to depend upon for what I'm willing to label "knowledge" than "it just feels right."

I've not said that emotions are bad, nor have I implied it. But I do think that using them as evidence of anything other than themselves is unsupportable. If you want to believe in God, that's fine. That's your desire. But to construe that desire to believe into an actual belief of God's existence is an unsupportable leap, as is using it to bolster an argument that God must exist because you can imagine him.

Yes, I did say that. I've tried to explain why I don't use the words "evil" and "sinful."

What I don't understand is why you reacted to violently to my preference for more common terms than those you selected, which presuppose the existence of a god.

Or maybe I do. Picking fights about unimportant things is the debating equivolent of bombers dropping chaff so the enemy's radar becomes confused, so he forgets what his target was.

d

Philosoft

It seems endemic to the human brain to engage in gap-filling. There are numerous examples in the studies of sensation, perception and memory of "connect-the-dots" mental behavior, so to speak. I'm not too interested in what the Catholic Church assures me is the "correct" way to consider the God-concept, as they have had many years to refine their story. My ideas about the God-concept are based on what science suggests is the strongest reason for such a thing to develop.

If the Truth makes us feel better about ourselves, great. I certainly wouldn't object to this. But if we merely deem what makes us feel good, the Truth, then we have a problem.



Implausible. At best.

You seem to underestimate severely the ability of the brain to facilitate actions and beliefs that make the individual feel good, independent of the truth of the beliefs.

Hawkingfan

And yet, you will believe in a universal positive that there really are psychics based on heresay and antedotes. A bit of an overreaching reaction, I'd say.
Why hasn't this witch applied to Randi, especially since she is such a shoe-in for the prize? Do you think if Randi asked her to be tested, she would gladly accept and pass?
It is much more reasonable to believe that there are no psychics based on the thousands that have claimed they are, were TESTED, and failed, than to believe that there really are psychics who have never been properly tested and only have antedotes to tell, cheap magic tricks to perform, or scams designed to fool innocent people.