Koyaanisqatsi

MORE:

And, thus, the demonstration of irrational thought rationally applied. More detrimental effects of cognitive dissonance; the indoctrinated simply replace logic with skewed logic based upon skewed constructs.

The restructured thought process goes like this:[*] Boot up errant cult thinking through inculcation[*] Reinterpret exitence through errant cult thinking[*] Always conclude Goddidit.

That's it. That's precisely how it all works.

Oh, right, sorry, that's it.[*] Allow for the "truth" to be arbitrarily determined, based upon a belief that God is the truth, so everything else is skewed from this construct.

Koy: Yup.

Yes, well, the whole thing hinges on if God exists, which would have to be proved to be the case prior to "God DID it" being a valid explanation.

But then, you can't ever comprehend that, since you're mind has been, apparently, so deliberately skewed.

If I am incorrect in my assessment, then demonstrate it by stating, "Yes, Koy, you are correct. God would have to be proved (not 'believed' or 'accepted,' but proved, as in demonstrated conclusively to be detectable by science thereby directly contradicting what I said before) for 'God DID it' to ever be a valid explanation."

You won't, we know, because you cannot, even though that is the only way in which "God DID it" could ever be a valid explanation.

You may enjoy your inflicted, cognitive mobius strip, but the rest of us are incredibly tired of having to walk you through your circuitous reasoning again and again and again, but since it is abundantly clear from your posts that you aren't capable of self-analysis in this regard, I guess we'll always have to.

joedad

I understand your point, and am only stating that a christgod is a specific god, same as a zeusgod. There are lots of gods, but "god" is not one of them, and this is the point I'm trying to make.

The word originally described a behavior, and it seemed to fit the behavior originally mentioned in this thread quite nicely IMHO.

Maybe christian fundies should be more specific and say "demigodjesusdidit." But whatever the deity, when a person continuously answers questions with "goddidit" or "a goddidit" or "jesusdidit" or "zeusdidit," doesn't that constitute a behavior? Can't we make an observation about that behavior? I am only humbly stating that the underying mechanism is not supernatural.

Finally, what's to be gained by differentiating between "the christgoddidit" and "the zeusgoddidit?" Are you seriously saying that there is a difference? To me that's simply practicing religious provincialism, or perhaps racism. Are not provincialism and racism wholly understandable and explainable? If you disagree, I would welcome hearing your reasoning.

joe

Samhain

A-ha...So that's what you meant by it. I'm sorry, I had trouble understanding your first post, I was thinking of it being off-topic (I guess because it wasn't as clarified as this post is, and it was early in the morning for me then). I understand what you are saying about this as a behavior and I agree, I just guess it went over my head at the time. Thanks for clarifying.

Malaclypse the Younger

Tercel

Obviously the self-referential incoherence that Tercel notes here is an issue. However, it argues only that we must consider the metaphysical establishment of empiricism more carefully and subtly. This is too complex a task for here, but it is worth noting that there are other options than merely discarding science because it is possible to create a self-referentially incoherent statement about it.

It is again worth noting that there are a lot of definitions of science, and many of Tercel's points equivocate these various definitions. As practiced by professional scientists, "science" is just an specialized, more formalized instance of general empiricism, to evaluate very subtle statements with as much rigor as possible.

The question is not whether all ontological propositions are believed with the rigor of professional science. The question is whether (and how strongly) those propositions are believed according to the methodology of empiricism.

Belief under empiricism is neither certain nor binary. Rather, empiricism defines a method for determining strength of belief. Strength of belief is related to both the subtlty of the proposition, the quality of the evidence, the quality of the believer's examination of the evidence and the importance of the belief to the holder.

For instance, I strongly believe that Relativity and QM are accurate descriptions of reality (I strongly believe they are true ontological propositions). I hold this belief because the evidence is strong, I have carefully investigated the evidence, and, because I am interested in physics, the belief is important to me.

Indirection of belief is not contrary to empirical methodology. Of course, the more layers of indirection, the weaker the case. But for many unimportant beliefs, an indirect examination of the evidence may suffice.

For instance, I weakly believe that Julius Caesar existed in the past. Since I have no strong interest in history, I trust the opinion of professional historians. It is important to note, however, that I do not accept the authority of historians. Rather, I merely create an indirect empirical case for weak belief in JC's existence, and I frankly wouldn't care all that much if it turned out that he didn't exist.

I can empirically evaluate the trustworthiness of various experts. I understand their general methodology of drawing logical conclusions from textual and archaeological evidence. I understand the meta-methodology of historical science, such as peer-review. And I can audit specific conclusions to see that, based on the same primary evidence and agreed-upon methodology, I would come to the same or similar conclusion.

Based on this finding, I can then assign a reasonable (i.e. having reasons) strength of belief to unexamined conclusions by historical experts.

Of course, if history were important to me, I would become an expert myself, and draw conclusions based only on the examination of primary evidence to come to stronger conclusions. But history isn't important to me, so I am satisfied with weaker, indirectly empirically established beliefs.

These cases don't indict empirical methodology at all. They merely demonstrate that full professional scientific rigor is not always necessary, an uncontroversial assertion.

I have indirect empirical reasons to believe those statements. They are not established with the rigor of science, but they are established with empirical methodology. None of the beliefs mentioned here are particularly important, and a weakly established indirect belief sufficies. In the cases noted above I have empirical reasons to believe my friends are trustworthy, and it's really unimportant if the beliefs established by their statements are actually false.

Of coure, if my best friend in the world were to ask me to invest in his business, I would expect a prospectus and a signed legal document.

Very difficult is an understatement.

The qualities of "invisible" and "not of this world" are "very difficult" to distinguish from "nonexistant".

Not only can they not be investigated with the rigor of science, they cannot be investigated with empirical methodology.

Empirical methodology rests on two assumptions: The primary evidence must be directly perceivable, at least in principle. For instance, with QM, there is nothing in principle that prevents me from replicating any particular experiment any time I choose, or merely going down to the lab and watching the experiment. There is no esoteric or private primary data in empirical reasoning.

Secondly, to draw any reasonable conclusions about empricism, we must depend on the empirical conclusion that the world appears singular and consistent. If we were to draw the conclusion that the world is not singular and consistent, empirical methodology would not be useful.

Certainly. But when the content of the claim is not replicable, we must consider the claim itself the primary factual data. In other words, we cannot accept the content of the claim as fact, only the existence of the claim. And empiricism tells us that it is more probable to believe the claims are merely inventions (fiction, error or fabrication) than representative of objective truth.

I have. And I still believe it's fiction. After almost 40 years of examination of the evidence, I strongly believe that the christian god does not exist, that no supernatural entity exists, and that supernaturalism is completely unnecessary for explaining the world.

But don't take my word for it. Tercel's advice is sound: Read the work, apply your critical thinking skills, and draw your own conclusions.

This is not evidence for the objective existence of a god, because it doesn't rule out the alternative explanation of the nonexistence of god and that prayer might be merely psychologically appealing for some. Indeed, the mixed results of prayer definitely points to a subjective phenomonon, rather than an objective one.

They all fall down. The "healing" rate for cancer at Lourdes, for instance, is approximately the same as the ordinary rate of spontaneous remission. There appears to be no correlation between "going to Lourdes" and "healing of cancer". But again, don't take my word for it, investigate it yourself with empirical methodology, and enough rigor to satisfy yourself.

And all of them contain suspect premises or faulty logic. See for yourself: <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/arguments.html" target="_blank">Arguments for the Existence of a God</a>.

It seems that arguments and "evidence" for a god not only do not achieve scientific rigor (which I personally would require for such an important belief) but cannot be established by empirical methodology in general, however indirect. And it is not at all clear whether we can usefully know (or rationally believe) things without empirical methodology.

It should be noted that this statement contradicts the implied meaning of previous statement. To "look into claims" and "evidence" presupposes an empirical methodology. But it seems that the previous assertion claims that the existence of a god cannot be known by an empirical methodology.

While I agree with the second statement (look for yourself), Tercel himself appears to say that this methodology will conclude that there is no reason to believe in the existence of a god, which is itself a reason to disbelieve in the existence of a god.

It is worth noting that there are some self-identified christians that would contradict that statement, and no way for a nonchristian to determine whom to believe.

The question, however, is whether "god did it" is an "explanation" at all, as it seems to embody no useful knowledge: You have given us no way to distinguish "god did it" from "I don't know".

[ March 15, 2002: Message edited by: Malaclypse the Younger ]</p>

MJones

While I agree with most of these suggestions (any good skeptic should and would investigate as much material as possible), I have a problem with the attempt at praying honestly. Keenanvin stated he was atheist; Try as he might, he cannot pray honestly. Even if he has the answer as to which god to pray to, he would have no belief in that god. One can't pray honestly to a god one does not believe in. Even if we allow that that god does indeed exist, what would he pray for, and what answer would be acceptable as proof of that god's existence? If he prays for rain, how soon after praying does it have to rain for that to be proof? Or if prays for something more personal, like the ability to "Feel His Presence", any good Christian is going to attribute any strange sensation to that presence, while any good atheist (like Keenanvin) will probably attribute it to gas.

In summation, prayer is a lousy method of investigation.

Dirty Dog

Keenanvin

Wow.. * shrugs* well thank you all.. it was quite enlightening. Yup I do enjoy posts like this, it is what keeps me coming back for more ~ Kv

John Page

If it works for Nike, why shouldn't it work for God.

Half seriously, though, its much more likely to get peoples attention to the product than "Atheism just doesn't". Why are intellectuals so bad at implementation....

Koyaanisqatsi

Because "implementation" implies dishonesty and/or intent to mislead, most likely.

Theli

Hello Tercel... :-)
True. For a personal belief anything is possible. But if you are getting into an argument and tries to defend your standpoint by saying "It's my belief", or "I believe this" you aren't making a very good point.
A personal belief is useless in a discussion if it can't be presented to the other party in a logic sense. It's my impression that people belive just what they wan't to believe.
And religions use this. Of course people would rather believe fantastic stories about demons, angels, gods, prophecies and miracles. Fear and wonder.

But isn't "reason" a form of logic? And doesn't science operate from practical logic?

If he's invisible (undetectable) and exists in another world, then how do YOU "know" that he exists?

Testimonial data is practicly useless. Especially if it fomform to a person own will/beliefs. Historical data is very weak aswell if it doesn't leave any mark (proof) behind. If it doesn't then it's also testimonial data.

If you speak of your own feeling to someone then ofcourse you would feel different. It doesn't matter if that person/conscious being exists or not. If you think someone is listening, it will still feel the same as if someone actually were there.

No, it's not a correct explaination. If god existed then "God DID IT" would be a correct claim, but it's too flat and simple to be an explaination.

[ March 19, 2002: Message edited by: Theli ]</p>