Based on probability, if one had to make a choice, is it more reasonable to be an Atheist or a Theist

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PRmerger said:
If I say it’s possible for God to exist, despite the fact that there were no evidence for God’s existence, would you not call that a faith based assertion?
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No. It’s something I have no problem in saying myself. Only if I went on to say that God DOES NOT exist would it be a faith based assertion. Just as it is when you say He does exist.

I wander through life with an assumption that there are no gods. But your position is not one of assumption. You go a step further, which requires faith. And please, no posts about pilots.

Incidentally, suggesting that one try something other than atheism to find answers is missing the point completely. Religion is meant to find answers. Atheism is not. Science is meant to find answers. Atheism is not. Philosophy is mean to find answers. Atheism is not.

By the way, you can pm me the password if you like and I’ll send you the oath.
 
Bradski said:
That’s an inaccurate parody of DaddyGirl’s position, and I think that you knew that when you wrote it. You’d be foolish to say that science WILL find all the answers.
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No, not ALL the answers. An answer.

The idea that science is going to provide AN answer is…
-faith based
-an example of the Science of the Gaps fallacy
 
Bradski said:
Another equally foolish position would be to suggest that we stop looking for natural answers because some people have determined the answers to be supernatural. Not that I’m suggesting that you are saying that. Although you can stop if you like.
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I find it curious that you would qualify your search with “natural” answers.

Why not simply state, “We should never stop looking for answers, wherever the truth leads us”?

Instead of:
“I will continue to look for natural answers only!’”

Again, I find this fundamentalist approach–this “ONLY” limitation to be so curious.

Why in the world should anyone attach an ONLY limitation?

It’s like saying, “I am going to use this material ONLY to build my bridge!” Come on, man, why not use ALL and EVERYTHING that an help you build that bridge???

All this fundamentalism. I don’t understand.

Natural answers ONLY.
Bible ONLY.
Latin ONLY.
English ONLY.
Faith ONLY.
Jesus was a man ONLY.
Sex is for pleasure ONLY.
In fact, that might be a good question to ask. Let’s assume that everything came from nothing. Should we stop all investigations into how that occurred?
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Not at all.

But that would mean…God. 🙂
 
PRmerger said:
If I say it’s possible for God to exist, despite the fact that there were no evidence for God’s existence, would you not call that a faith based assertion?
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Bradski said:
No.
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Wait a minute…really?

Someone comes up to you and says, “I believe God exists!” You ask, “Do you have any evidence for this?” He responds, “Nope!”

You wouldn’t say that this person is making a faith-based assertion?

Really?
I wander through life with an assumption that there are no gods. But your position is not one of assumption. You go a step further, which requires faith. And please, no posts about pilots.
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Yeah. It’s almost as if…the pilot reference…can’t be…

…

refuted, eh?

To all the lurkers: this is a reference to the fact that I find it curious that atheists eschew faith, while invoking faith…all the time. They demand evidence. “I won’t believe something based on faith alone!”

And yet… each and every time an atheist gets on an airplane he is appealing to faith.

For nary a time has an atheist sought evidence for his pilot’s actual ability to fly a plane. Never has he demanded to see whether she passed her licensing exam. Not a once has he ever checked whether she passed her physics final…

QED.
Incidentally, suggesting that one try something other than atheism to find answers is missing the point completely. Religion is meant to find answers. Atheism is not. Science is meant to find answers. Atheism is not. Philosophy is mean to find answers. Atheism is not.
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Ok. But atheism appeals to science, so…
By the way, you can pm me the password if you like and I’ll send you the oath.
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Or, you can pm me the password and I’ll send you the oath.

 
Bradski said:
Again, no-one is saying that. But let us know when you think we should stop looking.
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It would seem that all of the looking, in the scientific method sense, very likely has to stop 13.8 billion years ago when all space-time, energy and matter came into existence.

That would mean, logically speaking, that WHATEVER is responsible for something coming into existence where previously there was nothing (in the STEM sense) has to be immaterial, eternal and non-spatial, along with having the wherewithal to bring stuff into being. Sounds like something that science – limited as it is by its own method to physical ‘observables’ – has reached its looky-looky limits. The “light is better over here” warrant has reached the point where you’d have to be drunk to think these particular keys are still to be found there. Time to open the discussion up just a tad, no? Start using other lights perhaps?

By the way, no one is claiming all looking should just stop. The looking for some – in fact, lots of – answers can proceed apace. It’s just that it might be time to focus scientific inquiry on the kinds of questions that can logically be answered by science strictly investigating the workings of matter, energy, space and time and opening the field a bit to the bigger questions instead of continuing to put methodological objections and barriers in the way of other approaches.

Ever heard of metaphysics?
 
Peter_Plato said:
If atheism doesn’t even rise to the level of looking for answers, but merely engages in naysaying (i.e., sometimes phrased as ‘atheism is merely a lack of belief,’) it seems a rather useless preoccupation to be an atheist.

I’ve always thought that self-proclaimed “atheists” are amateurs at the craft. They aim their skepticism outwardly at those they disagree with, but never seem to target their own beliefs, which remain unperturbed, safely ensconced in their brains free from any hint of skepticism or doubt because… well, “only those beliefs I don’t currently hold leave room for doubt.”

On the other hand, atheists serve as appropriate (though, increasingly less competent) foils for theism in that they keep theists on their toes regarding the development of sound apologia. This has been quite obvious over the past few decades as more and more defenders of theism have brought forth better explicated defenses of faith while the so-called “arguments” for atheism have languished in the hands of what are, at best, mediocre thinkers.
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Yes i agree. I think in holding contrary thoughts to the society around you, which is aggressively opposing your views then one is forced to continually reflect, justify and explain the views that are held.

In the past atheism came off looking more logical and reasoned because the practitioners of atheism (in general) thought more about their beliefs (Do atheists believe).

This ‘atheistic victory’ of 20 years ago has caused a change in the balance of ‘default’ understandings of God and forced a popular renaissance in theism which looks more logical and reasoned now than the atheism camp.
 
Peter_Plato said:
It would seem that all of the looking, in the scientific method sense, very likely has to stop 13.8 billion years ago when all space-time, energy and matter came into existence.
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So the goalposts are fixed? Really?

What your position must apparently be is that this particular universe was created specifically for us at a particular time (as we understand it) and no other scenario will be entertained.

But what would happen is that should a discovery be made that refuted that view, you would be out there with a shovel, digging those posts up and moving them waaay back over there.

What has actually happened, in fact has been happeneing since Day One, is that the goalposts have been in constant motion. Now you think that we have reached a point where they surely do not need to be moved any further back.

What would happen if you backed your faith on no more answers? That we would never discover what was behind the start of this universe? You’d admit that you were wrong? Yeah, fat chance. It would be out with that shovel again.
 
Bradski said:
So the goalposts are fixed? Really?

What your position must apparently be is that this particular universe was created specifically for us at a particular time (as we understand it) and no other scenario will be entertained.

But what would happen is that should a discovery be made that refuted that view, you would be out there with a shovel, digging those posts up and moving them waaay back over there.

What has actually happened, in fact has been happeneing since Day One, is that the goalposts have been in constant motion. Now you think that we have reached a point where they surely do not need to be moved any further back.

What would happen if you backed your faith on no more answers? That we would never discover what was behind the start of this universe? You’d admit that you were wrong? Yeah, fat chance. It would be out with that shovel again.
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Interesting that you accuse me of moving goalposts when in actuality it is the methodology of science which fixes them by its own determination. I am just saying science should be self-consistent.

Notice, I didn’t say science SHOULD stop looking where it has set its own limits, I said science very likely “has to stop” as a direct consequence of its own methodology and discoveries. Now if you want to insist it should keep going despite what it itself concludes, delving into areas that have nothing to do with science and its method 'just ‘cuz,’ well you are free to insist that. I was hoping for a slightly more reasonable position from someone who claims to belong to a group of rational rats, as opposed, I suppose, to a congregation of forever credulous Muridae.
 
Bradski said:
What your position must apparently be is that this particular universe was created specifically for us at a particular time (as we understand it) and no other scenario will be entertained.
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My position is that we will very likely find that this universe was, indeed, created specifically to bring about living beings – not specifically “for us,” but NOT leaving “us” out of the cohort or the reasons behind the existence of the universe.

You can “entertain” all the scenarios you want AND I will continue to be entertained by them, in fact. So, no don’t stop entertaining other scenarios. Comedy has a role in all of this looking for meaning. Sometimes we need to stop and have a laugh while muttering “Whatever were we (including the rational rats among us) thinking?”
 
Peter_Plato said:
I said science very likely “has to stop” as a direct consequence of its own methodology and discoveries.
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Why the scare quotes? Are you a little reticent about making a definitive statement? ‘Very likely’? What on earth? C’mon, Peter, nail something to the bloody mast, can’t you?

There are no goalposts in science. So there is nothing to move. There is no end point. There is no try line. There is no point at which we say we can stop now. We seemed to have reached the end. Nothing more to see here. Please move on.

But there are goalposts for you. So say so. Here and no further. Draw the line. Anything past this point and I am wrong. Have the courage of your convictions. Refuse to move them!

But fat chance of that. Because to do so admits to a possibility of being wrong. and you couldn’t admit that to yourself, let alone me. It’s the intransigence that gets me every time.
 
Nixbits said:
How do you define an ‘individual’ such that it cannot be equated to ‘a set of electrochemical interactions’ (and the physical matter in which these interactions occur)?
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I don’t know what you mean by this. Please explain.

A person is an intangible entity with rights not attributed to non-human organisms. How do you explain the difference?

I
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[/QUOTE]
 
Nixbits said:
In other words you are suggesting that a person doesn’t exist!
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You seem to be reducing a person to a biological organism which has no intangible attributes.
How do you explain our** awareness**
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of our thoughts and feelings?
I don’t. What has that got to do with the existence of anything non-physical?
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Everything! Can you locate the source of awareness and self-control?
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PRmerger said:
Egg-zactly.

Don’t be so intransigent then, luv! 🙂
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Maybe you can point me to something I have said to the contrary. As opposed to the recent post when I quite cleary stated that religion as well as philosophy and science are means by which we can find answers.
 
Bradski said:
Why the scare quotes? Are you a little reticent about making a definitive statement? ‘Very likely’? What on earth? C’mon, Peter, nail something to the bloody mast, can’t you?
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They weren’t scare quotes, Brad. They were directly quoting the exact words that I used in my post your referenced. To wit:
Peter_Plato said:
It would seem that all of the looking, in the scientific method sense, very likely has to stop 13.8 billion years ago when all space-time, energy and matter came into existence.
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Bradski said:
There are no goalposts in science. So there is nothing to move. There is no end point. There is no try line. There is no point at which we say we can stop now. We seemed to have reached the end. Nothing more to see here. Please move on.
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Tell that to the science advocates who keep yelling at the IDers, “That’s not science!” As if science does have goalposts, end points, no try lines, definite points at which we say we can stop now, we seem to have reached the end, nothing more to see here and please move on.

Come on, Brad, you can’t have it both ways. If science is limited by its method, then… IT. IS. LIMITED. BY. ITS. METHOD.

Meaning that Brad cannot claim to ID advocates that what they are doing is not science and then turn around with his next breath and claim science has NO LIMITS as to what it can investigate. Hello?
 
Bradski said:
As opposed to the recent post when I quite cleary stated that religion as well as philosophy and science are means by which we can find answers.
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Wait…wha???

You acknowledge that religion can be a viable option for providing answers?



#makingprogress
 
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