seebs

Hmm. It seems to me, Rimstalker, that part of the problem is with the way that many people feel that burden of proof requires *proof*, rather than evidence.

In other words, many people treat all discourse as though it's on the same standard as a murder trial - we must have overwhelming certainty of the positive claim. In fact, all we need to justifiably accept the claim is any evidence at all, with no counterarguments. At that point, if someone wishes to argue *against* the position, an actual argument or evidence must be presented.

Once again, I think the standards for a murder trial have much less to do with "is it reasonable to believe that this crime was committed by this person" and much more to do with an arbitrarily set standard of proof designed, not to be maximally accurate, but to minimize the risk of convicting the innocent.

In a philosophical position, it is unlikely anyone will ever present a comparable level of evidence... but the consequences of failing to affirm a true position can be just as serious as the consequences of affirming a false one. So, instead of trying for certainty, we accept our best possible guess, understanding that it may be a false one.

thebeave

It seems to me that the level of proof or evidence we require (or should require anyway) to come to a decision is directly proportional to the consequences of coming to the wrong conclusion. For example, we can all agree that sending an innocent man to the electric chair is about the most grievous thing one can do, so naturally, a jury is (hopefully) going to be very, very serious and meticulous about examining and properly weighing the evidence (except maybe in Illinois??). On the other hand, if I'm walking to the movies and I ask a stranger if the movie I want to see is sold out and he says yes, I'll likely take his word for it, and turn around and try to see it another day. I'm not going to do a background check on him to see if he is trustworthy or not. Its just not that big a deal, and if I'm wrong and he was a liar or joker, well, then that was a minor inconvenience at worst. On the other hand, if I'm going to hire a stranger to babysit my kid, you better believe I'm going to check him/her out, though! The consequences of blindly trusting someone's word in this case could be devastating.

So, similarly, if religion is pretty much a non-event in your life, and you rarely think about it, or even care one way or another if there is a God, then I guess I can see that you wouldn't think to bother to carefully weigh the evidence or evaluate the messiah's credibility. The consequences of being wrong with your belief is not likely to be significant to you, and will not impact your life.

What gets me though, is the people who's life revolves around religion (nuns and priests, for example). It occupies hours of their time each day, yet, they casually dismiss the scientific evidence and believe the word of the ancient goat hearder scribblings. Much of their one life on this planet is being consumed chasing fairies, essentially. And then they die, and there's nothing afterwards except "nothingness". All those years of worship, praise and devotion were wasted and accomplished nothing.

GunnerJ

Seebs, I think we could go back and forth about the whole burden of proof (and you know what? I'm tired of typing that, so I'll reffer to it as "BP" from now on) thing and everything else forever, but I'm much too lazy, and I'd rather be playing CounterStrike.

Honestly, I've often wondered why I keep going at this, when it seems we agree on so much and disagree on so little. This has been a very interesting and rewarding discussion. After the Ed and Radorth debacles, I grew weak in my argumentative skills, and it's been good to have a worthy opponent. So much of what you said would have been easily called and refuted if you were the type of Christian who heavily prosletyzes and preaches hellfire. The fact that you aren't has forced me to develop new argumentative muscles.

That thing you mentioned about the difference between alive and dead and how it relates to the BP is a good point, I should have considered it more carefully. Truth be told, I have often thought on how the BP is to be used and its limitations. I had already found that the BP is worthless for considering claims of possibility rather than actuallity; in fact, the BP is reversed for claims of possibility. I was looking for a case where there are two clearly opposing claims, and yet neither is the "negative." I had not considered dead and alive. To be fair, though, your conclusion that the default position is to assume that "the world is the same way it used to be, or where it should be right now through normal changes" is equivalent to the negative claim "nothing's changed."

ANYWHO, the pricipal difference we have seems to be that you view the theistic claim as being something philosophical, a matter of pure opinion or feelings, whereas I see it as being a scientific claim, much like the claim that there's a tenth planet in the solar system. I don't know where we can go from such an impass. Nor do I really feel the need to go any farther. I'm not out to deconvert you, because to be honest, I have plenty of respect for you and your opinions as it is.

beyelzu

kassiana,

i have never seen anything supernatural. i have been around pagans who had ceremonies and didnt see anything supernatural. i have read scientific books (in search of shroedinger's cat, a brief historyof time, the universe in a nutshell) that did not include any supernatural elements. through countless tests i can ascertain that there are natural forces in the universe. ie gravity or electromagnetism. that is extremely good proof for me. also, it is good proof for me in that i have seen pagans produce nothing supernatural.

seebs

Fair enough. My model of BP is a fairly recent invention of my own, although it's quite likely other people have had the same one. It's a very pragmatic model; it tries to get away from all the semantics of "positive" and "negative" and focus on the practical reality: If you want someone to change his mind, you have to convince him, and that's all there is to it.



Oh, VERY good!

I just think the problem here is that this makes it clear that "negative" requires a lot of fancy footwork. Better, IMHO, to ignore it entirely, and just accept the practical reality.

Some theism is a scientific claim. Mine isn't. Basically, the God I believe in is not "in" the physical universe, and is capable of intentionally busting experiments just to keep faith on the table.

Thus... I see it as a question more similar in most ways to "do you think it is wrong to have sex outside of marriage" or "do you think it is just that people should suffer". I don't expect any testable outcomes, I don't think God can be used as a "new power source"... It's not the kind of claim I associate with science. In my model of the world, it's clearly about personal beliefs, and should not be treated the way claims about the physical world are.

This model has the substantial advantage that it is, once again, a pragmatic one. In reality, people don't convert or deconvert over "physical evidence"; they convert or deconvert over personal experience and discourse. That makes it look like a philosophical issue.

I have particularly enjoyed this just because I was able to have an entire discussion about the implications of burden of proof without ONE person announcing that the Bible says that God's existance is obvious from the nature of the world. I get SO sick of that.

seebs

Sounds great, breaks down in practice.

Hmm. So, what exactly is the evidence backing this belief?

Obviously, beliefs about issues like this can have HUGE effects if we make a mistake in them.

So, where's the evidence? Where do we get the implicit idea of "right" and "wrong" we're using?

Well, it seems to me you need just as much evidence to make that claim as they need to make their claim.

I think, rather, the amount of consideration you give an issue should reflect its importance - but that, having given it that much consideration, you should by default go with the "best answer", even if there's not enough evidence to support any conclusion with certainty.

Of course, a great deal of consideration on the nature of a justice system led to the idea of a higher standard than "seems most likely" for criminal guilt, as well it should have (IMHO), so for that particular thing, by *policy*, we use a higher standard.

Kassiana

Bey, if you'd just said, "I see no evidence of the supernatural," I wouldn't have minded. But you went further than that and claimed that there WAS no supernatural, a positive claim.

Sorry you don't see it, Rim, but I do. If you want to argue about it further, you may, but I think it was pretty obvious that just like saying "There is no flour in this kitchen" or "there is no cat in this pet store," Bey made a positive claim that there was no supernatural. He didn't say, "I see no evidence for the supernatural, therefore I don't believe it exists." I would have accepted that, because it isn't a universal claim. But he didn't.

If I sound a bit irritated, it's probably due to Bey's earlier posts, which I interpret as attacks on me and my religion for no reason.

I can certainly accept that atheists don't see evidence for the supernatural. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, though, any more than not seeing evidence for birds in my life doesn't prove I don't have any. So claiming "Kass doesn't have any birds," a positive claim, is different.

Whatever. I think I've made my case here and don't intend to return to this thread.

Shake

Here is a story from New Jersey which would seem to imply that some people feel that overt theists, anyways, can't be trusted as jurors.

Sabine Grant

Kassiana : I agree with you that the lack of evidence of the existence of the supernatural does not mean that it does not exist. We cannot pertain to have discovered or percieved all things. That would be an arrogant claim considering that mankind is in the constant process of discovering the universe itself.

When I lived in Africa, I was the witness of facts which defy scientific explanations. In that sense what I saw was supernatural because it cannot be explained by any rational reason. I have also found that my presenting those facts would result in " you made it up" type of response or " you are a crack head". In other words, there is no way your presentation or mine could have any credibility when facing skeptical minds. Every mean will be used to demean any validity to the existence of the supernatural including our experiences.

I hope you will be back to this thread to balance the diversity of opinions expressed here.

Sabine Grant

I really do not think that the OP meant to doubt the ability of a theist to be a juror. The author took the time to clarifify what he meant and it is becoming annoying how his intent in being deviated into a theist hunt......