Skepticism And Atheism As Default

[Vigile]

Also the gospel portrays multiple witnesses, so hallucination is less likely.

 

 

I wouldn't give any credence to the claim there were any witnesses as there is nothing out there that independently (outside of the gospels themselves) verifies Jesus was anything more than a fictional character. 

 

You don't have testimony from any of those witnesses.  You have someone that wasn't even there themselves, and a generation or more later, telling you they existed. 

 

[bornagainathiest]

 

 

 

 

4.  

After Jesus ascended into heaven no other Christian (except perhaps Paul) has had the opportunity to be skeptical as Thomas was, when it comes to deciding to believe in Jesus' resurrection.  Without Jesus being physically present so that his wounds can be seen, every Christian in the last 2,000 years has had no choice but to accept the resurrection of Jesus by faith.  No skeptical examination of any concrete evidence for his resurrection has been possible - because none is available. 

 

 

For what it's worth, various Catholic saints have claimed to have had direct contact with Jesus' wounds in visions or other sorts of experiences - or this was claimed of them.  I don't know whether that matters for the above discussion.

 

 

Inadmissible, Ficino.

 

Their reports do not constitute first-hand concrete evidence.  

They ask us to accept by faith, that their experiences are of the same order as Thomas'.  But these reports are of exactly the same order as Peter and John's second-hand reports of the risen Jesus to Thomas, before Christ appeared to him in the flesh.

 

That's they key difference here, F.  

(Ok, I know you know this... I'm just explaining for Directionless' sake.)  Only an actual physical meeting with and examination of the wounds the risen Jesus constitutes first-hand concrete evidence.  That is the one and only standard that is acceptable to a skeptic.  And that is why every Christian who has not done exactly what Thomas did is not a skeptic.  Instead, what every Christian (bar a few) has done is to accept Jesus' resurrection by faith - not evidence.

 

That's not skepticism.  That's not being skeptical.  That's not thinking skeptically.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA

 

Well, they are first-hand reports to themselves, and to them, apparently, their own "visions" act as concrete evidence, again to them.  Nevermind that their version of "concrete evidence" cannot be repeated, demonstrated to others or experienced by others.  Of course, these folks who have personal "visions" or "spiritual experiences" could simply be lying through their teeth, confused, mistaken or otherwise duped by their own confirmation biases.

 

I can think of a factual scenario that could even fool a skeptic, as fanciful as it might be:

 

Jesus had an identical twin brother, Harry, who looked just like Jesus (hair length, beard, clothing, everything).  Jesus was crucified on the cross with holes in his hand and feet.  He died.  Later, in an effort to play a practical joke, or seek money from chumps, or [fill in the blank], Harry shows up with holes in his hands and feet claiming to be his brother Jesus and claiming he has risen from the dead.  Skeptical Thomas, seeing this display, changes his mind and believes based on his perception of "concrete evidence", even though that evidence is false.  Of course, those in on the joke/con job do not change their beliefs because they know the evidence is false.

 

Accordingly, "concrete evidence", as interpreted by certain observers, can be misleading.

 

 

Kinda difficult for Harry to stay alive for long with gaping holes in his hands and feet and a spear wound in his side, don't you think, sdelsolray?

 

John 19 : 34.

34 Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. 

 

That flow of blood and water (as best as anatomists can judge from the brief description) indicates a pierced pericardium.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pericardium  So a Roman soldier makes a spear thrust from below Jesus, up thru his ribs and into the region of his heart... and Harry can duplicate this without exsanguinating?  

 

Also, let's not forget that if Harry's going to injure himself to try and fool the gullible followers of his twin brother, he's risking infection and death in those unsanitary times.

 

Oh ...and he'd have to have scourged and beaten in exactly the same way as his identical twin brother.  Thomas had hours to look upon his teacher's body while he was on the cross and afterwards, when he was taken down and buried.  So the pattern of these terrible injuries would be seared into Thomas' mind. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellation_of_Christ

 

Not to mention the horrible scalp wounds from the crown of thorns Jesus wore.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_of_thorns

 

Also, Thomas would have seen crucifixions before then, so he'd know that when nails are driven thru somebody's feet, they shatter bones, tear cartilage and rip muscles apart... making it impossible for a crucified man to walk, if he were to survive his ordeal.

.

.

.

Look, I appreciate your input sdelsolray, but I think you're missing a vital point.

 

Jesus resurrection was a super-natural event that was impossible to replicate naturally.

That's why Christians take it (without concrete evidence and by faith) as a proof of Jesus' divinity and the completion of his mission on Earth.  There's no way that Harry could naturally reproduce the effects of his twin brother's crucifixion.

 

And that's why Thomas' skeptical, evidence-based decision to believe is totally different from the evidence-free, faith-based decisions of every other Christian for the last two thousand years.

.

.

.

I do accept your point that concrete evidence can be misleadingly misinterpreted.

But I'm sorry, I don't think your example of Harry stands up to scrutiny.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[1AcceptingAThiest1]

Directionless i dont think your logic is illogical i think your on to something here.

 

I know some Atheists will put themself in a non intellectual commitment in terms of having to defend their belief of lack of belief, When you disbelieve one thing, you assume something else is true about why to dont beleive said claim. The part they DO believe is the part that needs to be defended but Atheist try to put themself in a Tank with rocket launchers thinking they dont have to get out and fight. If i dont beleive the internet exists or the the president is real, then that lack of beleif is Fueled BY a belief that i DO hold that justified the lack of beleif in the first point, again the part they DO beleive needs to be defended since it accompanies the foundation and the backbone and reason of the lack of belief of whatever it is

[Vigile]

Directionless i dont think your logic is illogical i think your on to something here.

 

I know some Atheists will put themself in a non intellectual commitment in terms of having to defend their belief of lack of belief, When you disbelieve one thing, you assume something else is true about why to dont beleive said claim. The part they DO believe is the part that needs to be defended but Atheist try to put themself in a Tank with rocket launchers thinking they dont have to get out and fight. If i dont beleive the internet exists or the the president is real, then that lack of beleif is Fueled BY a belief that i DO hold that justified the lack of beleif in the first point, again the part they DO beleive needs to be defended since it accompanies the foundation and the backbone and reason of the lack of belief of whatever it is

 

*steaming pile of shit dropped right in the middle of a decent conversation*

[1AcceptingAThiest1]

*Steaming pile of gibberish halted right in the middle of a converstion he was afraid to pursue*

[1AcceptingAThiest1]

 

Also the gospel portrays multiple witnesses, so hallucination is less likely.

 

 

I wouldn't give any credence to the claim there were any witnesses as there is nothing out there that independently (outside of the gospels themselves) verifies Jesus was anything more than a fictional character. 

 

You don't have testimony from any of those witnesses.  You have someone that wasn't even there themselves, and a generation or more later, telling you they existed. 

 

 

there are no personal contemporaries of the big bang either, personal eye witnesses aint got squat to do with if something is false or not. Eyewitnesses do help with truth especially if there are multiple, the problem is the witnesses arent acepted by the scientific community

[mymistake]

 

 

Also the gospel portrays multiple witnesses, so hallucination is less likely.

 

 

I wouldn't give any credence to the claim there were any witnesses as there is nothing out there that independently (outside of the gospels themselves) verifies Jesus was anything more than a fictional character. 

 

You don't have testimony from any of those witnesses.  You have someone that wasn't even there themselves, and a generation or more later, telling you they existed. 

 

 

there are no personal contemporaries of the big bang either, personal eye witnesses aint got squat to do with if something is false or not. Eyewitnesses do help with truth especially if there are multiple, the problem is the witnesses arent acepted by the scientific community

 

 

 

Eyewitness testimony is often wrong.

[ExCBooster]

 

There's really two parts here, to my thinking: one part is to do with beliefs, claims, contradictory claims, and evidence. The second, is to do with logic, and how to distinguish contradictory claims.

 

As for the first, people are acculturated into a variety of beliefs, including religious ones. These are beliefs held without logical cause. It may not be valid or true, but they believe it. In a different time, in Europe, people believed that geese came from barnacles, or that maggots arose on their own from rotting meat, because they were acculturated - taught by their culture - to believe this. Not all of these beliefs are false, but they certainly can be. So, if you want to be able to tell true from false beliefs, you still need to test them, as we did with the geese and maggots. Dealing only with religious beliefs, it's pretty easy to observe that not everyone believes the same thing, and that this diversity comes from cultural background (CIA World Factbook online, under the "people and society" tab). Given that people generally believe what they are raised to believe, or what is common in their culture, religion is a culturally-transmitted belief. It's not logic, it's culture. The catch, of course, is that with so many contradictory religious claims, how is it possible to determine which are false, and which are true? It's not right to give unequal weight or special treatment to a belief, just because it's the one you were raised on, or acculturated to. Any monotheist, for example, is a much harder atheist than any sceptic, because, by definition, they reject, out of hand, the existence of ALL Gods but their own. This is still failing to hold one's acculturated beliefs to due scrutiny. Just because your culture taught you a belief, this doesn't make it true. If you reject, out of hand, other Gods, then why not your own God? To fail to even inquire is to give undue special treatment to a belief that could well be as false as goose barnacles.

 

The second part, then, is how to resolve this problem of contradictory beliefs, and that's where logic, and the default scepticism come in. In logic, for reasons we've already gone over, the default position IS to disbelieve any claim, until sufficient evidence and argument is produced FOR it. There's actually a LOT of things that any given person doesn't believe in, for exactly this reason. I could make some wild claim right now - that a pack of feral circus clowns held my car hostage on the way home from work (they gummed up the windshield with cream pies) and that's why I was late - and, if you DON'T default to disbelief, there's no way to dispense with ANY belief, argument, or claim, no matter how outrageous. It's one of the axioms of logic to default to disbelief, until proven true. Otherwise, there's an infinity of crazy things you have to investigate, one by one, and take seriously. On that note, why aren't you Zoroastrian, or one of the myriad other religions you could believe in, if you don't default to disbelief?

Why are the feral circus clowns a wild claim? Why is the default to disbelieve your claim until you give evidence?

What if I my claim is "your claim about circus clowns is false"? Do I need to give evidence for my claim or is the default to believe my claim and disbelieve yours?

 

What is a default claim, a reasonable claim, and a wild claim? The only way I know to define those is relative to each person's current understanding. A person who currently believes the world is flat would need evidence to believe the world is round because that might seem wild.

 

As for current understanding, belief doesn't make something true. Intuition doesn't make something true. People who believe the Earth is flat (and people have had a pretty good idea it was round, since the Greeks) didn't try to sail around it, or make satellites that orbit it. Finding truth gives you power in the most literal possible sense. Any claim is false, until proven true. Any one at all. So, unless someone presents evidence and an argument (pictures of the car with cream pie residue all up in the windshield wipers, for example) don't give it credence. But, I'm sure even you think that some claims are false. Here's why:

 

It's simply not possible to believe literally everything you hear - especially since many claims are mutually contradictory. This is important, if the claims are mutually contradictory and high-stakes. About the clowns, it doesn't really matter if I'm lying. Nobody's going to be hurt, if I am. But, there are other, high-stakes claims: for example, you can't believe that disease is caused only by having too much blood, or bad smells or night air at the same time as you believe that disease is caused by tiny critters that infect you. It's one or the other. Looking into these claims, and testing them was important, because finding the right one, the truth, helps save billions of lives. Child survival rates are the highest ever.

 

When the stakes are putatively "life eternal," it stands to reason that any religion must be held to scrutiny. You can't be all religions at the same time, especially the monotheistic ones - they're not tolerant of other Gods, by definition. If you picked the wrong God, you're toast. So, it makes no sense to sit back, and just latch onto one religion, without really testing it. That's why Pascal's Wager doesn't hold up: it's not as if the choice is YOUR God or None. It's ALL other Gods, and possibilities. It's a false choice. The real choice is between ALL religions, and Christianity. Heck, Christianities - even within Christianity, there are sects that believe other Christians are going to Hell. There are simply too many mutually contradictory, and high-stakes claims to just allow acculturation to decide for you. You must use logic to sort them out, and logic defaults to "false until proven true." I have yet to see any sort of sufficient proof, especially unique sufficient proof (miracle claims, feelings, and experiences all other religions have in spades, too). That's why I am not Christian. Ignorance and false belief kill people, even religious beliefs. With regards to the germs and religion: Measles outbreak. Polio vaccination workers attacked. Yes, the religious people in these cases truly believe that what they were doing is right. It doesn't make it so, and it doesn't make the beliefs true.

 

(Spoiler: it's the tiny critters. The links above also show why any scientist who disproves a Theory becomes a rock-star in the field. Like Einstein, for example. His Theories of Relativity replaced the earlier "best fit" Theories about time, gravitation, mass, and space. Theories in science are the highest possible level of knowledge. Universal gravitation is a theory. Germs are a theory. A scientific Law is the mathematical formulas that go along with and allow people to use Theories to predict results. Theories allow the prediction of results, not just an explaination. So, if you had me, say, injected with live flu virus, Germ Theory predicts that I'd get the flu. Give me weakened or dead flu virus, and my immune system would learn that flu, and I wouldn't be able to catch that strain. It's Germ Theory and the Theory of Natural Selection that are used together to protect us all from disease like, say, Smallpox. It couldn't mutate fast enough to keep up with immunizations, so it died out like a chump. Things that mutate fast, like HIV, are a lot trickier to kill off like that. Theories aren't explainations, they're tools we use to predict what will happen, and set up conditions to give us the desired results. In the case of Germ Theory and Natural Selection, the extirpation of Smallpox. Natural Selection also predicts that bacteria that survive antibiotics will slowly become resistant to them, hence the race to get new antibiotics. So, if you're given a course of antibiotics, for the love of crud, follow directions, and finish it, as perscribed.)

[bornagainathiest]

 

 

Also the gospel portrays multiple witnesses, so hallucination is less likely.

 

 

I wouldn't give any credence to the claim there were any witnesses as there is nothing out there that independently (outside of the gospels themselves) verifies Jesus was anything more than a fictional character. 

 

You don't have testimony from any of those witnesses.  You have someone that wasn't even there themselves, and a generation or more later, telling you they existed. 

 

 

there are no personal contemporaries of the big bang either, personal eye witnesses aint got squat to do with if something is false or not. Eyewitnesses do help with truth especially if there are multiple, the problem is the witnesses arent acepted by the scientific community

 

 

1AAT1,

 

There are no personal contemporaries of the Sun and the Moon, as they exist NOW.

We see the Moon as it was 3/4 of a second in the past and the Sun as it was about eight (8) minutes ago.  The rest of the universe we see as it was much, much further back in time.  Aside from events on the Earth, there is NO contemporary information about the entire universe, my friend.  We are forced to go without any contemporary information about it and to assume that it still exists out there.

 

But do you really doubt that the stars and other galaxies exist - because you have no contemporary information about them?

 

I explained all this to you here... http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/63950-cosmology-101-for-1acceptingatheist1/page-2#.VAXJDsVdVWo ...in post # 35.  But you clearly didn't understand it or you just ignored it.  Ironically enough, I started that thread because at that time you were using an argument that depended on the Big Bang as evidence for a Creator God.  

 

Are you now saying that your earlier argument was wrong... because there were nobody was there to witness the Big Bang?  

 

Which is it, 1AAT1?  

Are you arguing for the Big bang to make your case for a Divine Creator?

Or are you now arguing against the Big Bang because nobody was there to witness it?

 

Please help us out here.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA

[directionless]

Directionless i dont think your logic is illogical i think your on to something here.

 

I know some Atheists will put themself in a non intellectual commitment in terms of having to defend their belief of lack of belief, When you disbelieve one thing, you assume something else is true about why to dont beleive said claim. The part they DO believe is the part that needs to be defended but Atheist try to put themself in a Tank with rocket launchers thinking they dont have to get out and fight. If i dont beleive the internet exists or the the president is real, then that lack of beleif is Fueled BY a belief that i DO hold that justified the lack of beleif in the first point, again the part they DO beleive needs to be defended since it accompanies the foundation and the backbone and reason of the lack of belief of whatever it is

That is a good description IMO.

 

Christians say: I don't need to give reasons for my position because I have faith.

Atheists say: I don't need to give reasons for my position because atheism is not a belief.

 

I would tell the Christian that you have reasons for faith - childhood indoctrination?

I would tell the atheist that you do believe things. Maybe you believe that putting incense on the altar to Zeus is very unlikely to accomplish anything. That is a belief. When you are confronted with an altar to Zeus, you are forced to assign probabilities to different models of reality and make the choice with the highest expected utility (using the abstractions from decision theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_theory))

 

I'm going to give up, because I've made my arguments as well as I can and they don't seem to be convincing anybody. I've read the opposing arguments and they aren't convincing me either.

 

On a practical level I think we mostly agree with each other.

[Vigile]

*Steaming pile of gibberish halted right in the middle of a converstion he was afraid to pursue*

 

No brother, I can more than refute every single thing you've written here.  It's been done to death around here and clearly if you can't see your errors, my pointing them out to you won't do you any good. 

 

[Vigile]

 

 

Also the gospel portrays multiple witnesses, so hallucination is less likely.

 

 

I wouldn't give any credence to the claim there were any witnesses as there is nothing out there that independently (outside of the gospels themselves) verifies Jesus was anything more than a fictional character. 

 

You don't have testimony from any of those witnesses.  You have someone that wasn't even there themselves, and a generation or more later, telling you they existed. 

 

 

there are no personal contemporaries of the big bang either, personal eye witnesses aint got squat to do with if something is false or not. Eyewitnesses do help with truth especially if there are multiple, the problem is the witnesses arent acepted by the scientific community

 

 

Damn! Really?  It's too bad we have mathematical proof and can make testable, observable predictions from it though.  Can't say the same about Jesus. 

 

[Vigile]

Christians say: I don't need to give reasons for my position because I have faith.

Atheists say: I don't need to give reasons for my position because atheism is not a belief.

 

 

Not quite.  Atheist say they don't need to offer proof because they aren't making a claim. 

 

Do you require people to offer proof for why they don't believe tiny invisible elephants live under their beds?  What proof would you possible want from someone who doesn't believe this?  You don't believe this, do you?  What proof do you offer? 

[1AcceptingAThiest1]

 

 

 

 

Also the gospel portrays multiple witnesses, so hallucination is less likely.

 

 

I wouldn't give any credence to the claim there were any witnesses as there is nothing out there that independently (outside of the gospels themselves) verifies Jesus was anything more than a fictional character. 

 

You don't have testimony from any of those witnesses.  You have someone that wasn't even there themselves, and a generation or more later, telling you they existed. 
 

 

there are no personal contemporaries of the big bang either, personal eye witnesses aint got squat to do with if something is false or not. Eyewitnesses do help with truth especially if there are multiple, the problem is the witnesses arent acepted by the scientific community

 

 

1AAT1,

 

There are no personal contemporaries of the Sun and the Moon, as they exist NOW.

We see the Moon as it was 3/4 of a second in the past and the Sun as it was about eight (8) minutes ago.  The rest of the universe we see as it was much, much further back in time.  Aside from events on the Earth, there is NO contemporary information about the entire universe, my friend.  We are forced to go without any contemporary information about it and to assume that it still exists out there.

 

But do you really doubt that the stars and other galaxies exist - because you have no contemporary information about them?

 

I explained all this to you here... http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/63950-cosmology-101-for-1acceptingatheist1/page-2#.VAXJDsVdVWo ...in post # 35.  But you clearly didn't understand it or you just ignored it.  Ironically enough, I started that thread because at that time you were using an argument that depended on the Big Bang as

 

BAA

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which is it, 1AAT1?  

Are you arguing for the Big bang to make your case for a Divine Creator?

Or are you now arguing against the Big Bang because nobody was there to witness it?

Neither whatever scientifc theory science uses is man made and is fallible

 

Are you now saying that your earlier argument was wrong... because there were nobody was there to witness the Big Bang? 

there are no personal contemporaries of the big bang either, personal eye witnesses aint got squat to do with if something is false or not.

I agree with you, my resposne was to Vigile who claimed jsut because there were no contemporaries of jesus that proved he didnt exist which is a fallacy.

[directionless]

Thanks for the detailed response, ExCBooter. I agree with the details of what you are saying. I think we are disagreeing for no reason - or for hair-splitting reasons.

 

I'll try to make some responses below.

 

There's really two parts here, to my thinking: one part is to do with beliefs, claims, contradictory claims, and evidence. The second, is to do with logic, and how to distinguish contradictory claims.

 

As for the first, people are acculturated into a variety of beliefs, including religious ones. These are beliefs held without logical cause. It may not be valid or true, but they believe it. In a different time, in Europe, people believed that geese came from barnacles, or that maggots arose on their own from rotting meat, because they were acculturated - taught by their culture - to believe this. Not all of these beliefs are false, but they certainly can be. So, if you want to be able to tell true from false beliefs, you still need to test them, as we did with the geese and maggots.

I think you are creating an unfair distinction between the silly superstitious people of yesterday versus the rational scientific people of today. Yesterday is not that different from today. We have gradually developed more sophisticated models of reality that work better. There has been no fundamental change.

 

I read a book about the philosophy of science detailing how "the scientific method" and so forth are more fuzzy than we admit.

 

Dealing only with religious beliefs, it's pretty easy to observe that not everyone believes the same thing, and that this diversity comes from cultural background (CIA World Factbook online, under the "people and society" tab). Given that people generally believe what they are raised to believe, or what is common in their culture, religion is a culturally-transmitted belief. It's not logic, it's culture. The catch, of course, is that with so many contradictory religious claims, how is it possible to determine which are false, and which are true? It's not right to give unequal weight or special treatment to a belief, just because it's the one you were raised on, or acculturated to. Any monotheist, for example, is a much harder atheist than any sceptic, because, by definition, they reject, out of hand, the existence of ALL Gods but their own. This is still failing to hold one's acculturated beliefs to due scrutiny. Just because your culture taught you a belief, this doesn't make it true. If you reject, out of hand, other Gods, then why not your own God? To fail to even inquire is to give undue special treatment to a belief that could well be as false as goose barnacles.

no disagreement from me

 

The second part, then, is how to resolve this problem of contradictory beliefs, and that's where logic, and the default scepticism come in. In logic, for reasons we've already gone over, the default position IS to disbelieve any claim, until sufficient evidence and argument is produced FOR it. There's actually a LOT of things that any given person doesn't believe in, for exactly this reason. I could make some wild claim right now - that a pack of feral circus clowns held my car hostage on the way home from work (they gummed up the windshield with cream pies) and that's why I was late - and, if you DON'T default to disbelief, there's no way to dispense with ANY belief, argument, or claim, no matter how outrageous. It's one of the axioms of logic to default to disbelief, until proven true. Otherwise, there's an infinity of crazy things you have to investigate, one by one, and take seriously. On that note, why aren't you Zoroastrian, or one of the myriad other religions you could believe in, if you don't default to disbelief?

In reality nobody believes any model of reality 100%. The practical decision making of a zealous Pentecostal and a devout Muslim and a strong atheist are often indistinguishable. That is because all three of them believe that metaphysical naturalism is the most useful model of reality for making most decisions.

 

It is perfectly reasonable to say that I have 50% belief in metaphysical naturalism, 5% faith in Wicca, 10% faith in Catholicism, ... I can insert these subjective probabilities into a matrix and calculate the choice with the highest expected utility.

 

As for current understanding, belief doesn't make something true. Intuition doesn't make something true. People who believe the Earth is flat (and people have had a pretty good idea it was round, since the Greeks) didn't try to sail around it, or make satellites that orbit it. Finding truth gives you power in the most literal possible sense. Any claim is false, until proven true. Any one at all. So, unless someone presents evidence and an argument (pictures of the car with cream pie residue all up in the windshield wipers, for example) don't give it credence. But, I'm sure even you think that some claims are false. Here's why:

o.k. I agree with that, but I think it applies to disbelief too. A person who disbelieves in ghosts should give some reasons just as the person who believes. Maybe the disbeliever has investigated the evidence presented by believers and found that it usually falls apart. Therefore the disbeliever assumes further investigation is a waste of time.

 

It's simply not possible to believe literally everything you hear - especially since many claims are mutually contradictory. This is important, if the claims are mutually contradictory and high-stakes. About the clowns, it doesn't really matter if I'm lying. Nobody's going to be hurt, if I am. But, there are other, high-stakes claims: for example, you can't believe that disease is caused only by having too much blood, or bad smells or night air at the same time as you believe that disease is caused by tiny critters that infect you. It's one or the other. Looking into these claims, and testing them was important, because finding the right one, the truth, helps save billions of lives. Child survival rates are the highest ever.

 

When the stakes are putatively "life eternal," it stands to reason that any religion must be held to scrutiny. You can't be all religions at the same time, especially the monotheistic ones - they're not tolerant of other Gods, by definition. If you picked the wrong God, you're toast. So, it makes no sense to sit back, and just latch onto one religion, without really testing it. That's why Pascal's Wager doesn't hold up: it's not as if the choice is YOUR God or None. It's ALL other Gods, and possibilities. It's a false choice. The real choice is between ALL religions, and Christianity. Heck, Christianities - even within Christianity, there are sects that believe other Christians are going to Hell. There are simply too many mutually contradictory, and high-stakes claims to just allow acculturation to decide for you. You must use logic to sort them out, and logic defaults to "false until proven true." I have yet to see any sort of sufficient proof, especially unique sufficient proof (miracle claims, feelings, and experiences all other religions have in spades, too). That's why I am not Christian. Ignorance and false belief kill people, even religious beliefs. With regards to the germs and religion: Measles outbreak. Polio vaccination workers attacked. Yes, the religious people in these cases truly believe that what they were doing is right. It doesn't make it so, and it doesn't make the beliefs true.

The models of reality only matter when a person is making a decision. It is perfectly reasonable to have several contradictory models of reality as factors in my decision making. Islam and Christianity are contradictory, but if I was trying to decide about donating money to charity they would both yield the same decision. Therefore if I believed 10% Islam and 5% Christianity then I could use 15% for the probability that charity will please a higher power.

 

Sorry, I know my responses aren't detailed enough to do justice to all the points you raised.

 

(I better get some work done. )

[1AcceptingAThiest1]

 

Christians say: I don't need to give reasons for my position because I have faith.

Atheists say: I don't need to give reasons for my position because atheism is not a belief.

 

 

Not quite.  Atheist say they don't need to offer proof because they aren't making a claim. 

 

Do you require people to offer proof for why they don't believe tiny invisible elephants live under their beds?  What proof would you possible want from someone who doesn't believe this?  You don't believe this, do you?  What proof do you offer? 

 

exactly you hide in a corner hoping your stance or position is not open of attack or examination, that is a nutral agnostic stance not an atheistic one, if you want to be agnostic fine but dont be full atheist acting like an agnostic. Furthermore as i stated before its not enitrely nuetral, when you lack beleif in something, you have a BELIEF that something is TRUE that caused you to have that LACK of beleif about something else

[florduh]

when you lack beleif in something, you have a BELIEF that something is TRUE that caused you to have that LACK of beleif about something else

 

No. Just, no. The lack of belief that people have concerning Jehovah, Allah, Osiris or Xenu despite the fact that people have written extensively about all these characters is due to the evidence not supporting the claim. No alternative belief is needed to dismiss any extraordinary claim made without reasonable evidence.

[mymistake]

 

exactly you hide in a corner hoping your stance or position is not open of attack or examination, that is a nutral agnostic stance not an atheistic one, if you want to be agnostic fine but dont be full atheist acting like an agnostic. Furthermore as i stated before its not enitrely nuetral, when you lack beleif in something, you have a BELIEF that something is TRUE that caused you to have that LACK of beleif about something else

 

 

You should learn what atheist and agnostic actually mean.  You are misusing the terms.

 

Atheism means without belief in gods.

 

Agnostic means without claims of knowledge.

 

 

You don't get to change the meanings of words in order to advance your personal agenda.

[Vigile]

 

 

Neither whatever scientifc theory science uses is man made and is fallible

 

The grammar and incoherent thought process alone tells us we're dealing with an edumacated brainaic here.  I'm sure you got a lot to teach us A. 

 

I agree with you, my resposne was to Vigile who claimed jsut because there were no contemporaries of jesus that proved he didnt exist which is a fallacy.

 

 

Whoa, and reading comprehension skills to boot. 

 

I double dog dare you to quote me stating proof that jesus never existed. 

[bornagainathiest]

 

 

 

 

 

Also the gospel portrays multiple witnesses, so hallucination is less likely.

 

 

I wouldn't give any credence to the claim there were any witnesses as there is nothing out there that independently (outside of the gospels themselves) verifies Jesus was anything more than a fictional character. 

 

You don't have testimony from any of those witnesses.  You have someone that wasn't even there themselves, and a generation or more later, telling you they existed. 

 

 

there are no personal contemporaries of the big bang either, personal eye witnesses aint got squat to do with if something is false or not. Eyewitnesses do help with truth especially if there are multiple, the problem is the witnesses arent acepted by the scientific community

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which is it, 1AAT1?  

Are you arguing for the Big bang to make your case for a Divine Creator?

Or are you now arguing against the Big Bang because nobody was there to witness it?

Neither whatever scientifc theory science uses is man made and is fallible

 

ALL scientific theories are man made and fallible, 1AAT1.

That's why science is never the complete, perfect and absolute truth of anything.  That's why we are forced to make assumptions about the universe and reality.  (Like the Sun existing NOW, even though we see it as it was eight minutes ago.)

 

ALL eyewitness accounts made by humans (including the Bible) are likewise, fallible.

If you won't accept something because it's man made and fallible, then please tell us what you will accept?

 

Are you now saying that your earlier argument was wrong... because there were nobody was there to witness the Big Bang? 

there are no personal contemporaries of the big bang either, personal eye witnesses aint got squat to do with if something is false or not.

I agree with you, my resposne was to Vigile who claimed jsut because there were no contemporaries of jesus that proved he didnt exist which is a fallacy.

 

 

If we agree that there are no personal contemporaries of the Big Bang and if we agree that all science is man made and fallible, where does this leave you re: the Big Bang?

 

Do you support the scientific evidence for it or not?

 

I ask again because you supported it weeks ago and now seem to be arguing against it, because nobody has ever observed it.

 

Where are you on this issue, 1AAT1?

 

BAA

[Vigile]

 

 

Christians say: I don't need to give reasons for my position because I have faith.

Atheists say: I don't need to give reasons for my position because atheism is not a belief.

 

 

Not quite.  Atheist say they don't need to offer proof because they aren't making a claim. 

 

Do you require people to offer proof for why they don't believe tiny invisible elephants live under their beds?  What proof would you possible want from someone who doesn't believe this?  You don't believe this, do you?  What proof do you offer? 

 

exactly you hide in a corner hoping your stance or position is not open of attack or examination, that is a nutral agnostic stance not an atheistic one, if you want to be agnostic fine but dont be full atheist acting like an agnostic. Furthermore as i stated before its not enitrely nuetral, when you lack beleif in something, you have a BELIEF that something is TRUE that caused you to have that LACK of beleif about something else

 

 

You twisted yourself into a pretzel to spin me into your world of belief there.  If you came up with all that on your own, I'm impressed given your obvious lack of education.  Nevertheless, you're wrong that lack of belief implies belief.  I have a pretty good grasp of the English language and am fairly certain there are no cosmic loopholes here. 

 

[directionless]

 

Christians say: I don't need to give reasons for my position because I have faith.

Atheists say: I don't need to give reasons for my position because atheism is not a belief.

 

Not quite.  Atheist say they don't need to offer proof because they aren't making a claim. 

 

Do you require people to offer proof for why they don't believe tiny invisible elephants live under their beds?  What proof would you possible want from someone who doesn't believe this?  You don't believe this, do you?  What proof do you offer?

 

IMO we can't talk about beliefs absent a choice of some kind.

 

Let's say I warn you against eating peanuts in bed. I go on to explain that I used to eat peanuts in bed until I became aware that tiny invisible elephants were beginning to live under my bed - apparently due to my messy habit.

 

Now you must decide how much weight to give to my advice when you are considering eating peanuts in bed.

 

You've never heard of tiny invisible elephants. That leads you to believe that tiny invisible elephants don't exist. How can it be that only one person has seen them? How did I detect them if they are invisible? Did they leave tiny foot prints under my bed? On the other hand, you see from my body language that I am sincerely concerned. You realize that some people have mental issues, so you decide that must explain the mystery.

 

Hopefully you see what I mean. There are reasons we don't believe in tiny elephants, and we have alternative beliefs that arise - namely it's likely that a person reporting tiny invisible elephants has a mental illness or is not being honest.

 

EDIT: Also you don't need to be a hard believer or a hard disbeliever in the tiny elephants. You might assign a probability like .001%. You might decide not to eat peanuts in bed because you know that the mess might attract mice and you also don't want to attract tiny elephants - just in case they exist. That is how I make decisions. Like I would not go out of my way to insult Jesus and God - just in case they are real in some way. On the other hand, I don't invest much in trying to please Jesus and God, because the probability seems low to me. I try to find compromises.

[Vigile]

"Now you must decide how much weight to give to my advice when you are considering eating peanuts in bed."

 

 

Yes, I agree.  And in this case it would be none.  Default.  It's automatic as I don't accept extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence. 

 

That leads you to believe that tiny invisible elephants don't exist.

 

No, I never believed they existed and you bringing up the idea doesn't change anything beyond the fact that I now have to vocalize my unbelief for YOUR satisfaction. 

 

I understand this is nuanced, but it's an important nuance. 

[Neverlandrut]

The default position is always non-belief. No one is born believing in god, they are taught and conditioned to believe in god. It's hard for many to look at atheism as a default position because theism is so prevalent, and in many cases, it seems like a reaction against theism which gives the illusion that theism is the default. The increase in the cultural acceptance of outspoken atheism is relatively new in human history. Of course, there are varying levels of positions and opinions that can be called atheism. Some believe that god positively does not exist. Others are simply unconvinced. They don't "believe" anything on the subject. It's simply the state of not accepting the claim. Like someone said earlier, it's the difference between "not guilty" and "innocent" in law. They aren't the same. A criminal defense attorney does not have to prove innocence, he merely has to show that the prosecution has insufficient evidence to conclude guilt. A verdict of not guilty means that there is not enough evidence to be sure of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. A not guilty verdict leaves open the possibility that the defendant may have, in fact, committed the crime. Now, there can be overlap. If the defense can prove innocence, then the defendant is obviously not guilty of the crime, but proof of innocence is not required.

 

It also helps to understand the idea of the null hypothesis in statistics. It is defined as the default assumption that there is no relationship between two sets of data (very loosely speaking). Once this assumption is made, an "alternative hypothesis" is established; this is the idea that gets tested. If there is not enough data to accept the alternative hypothesis, then the only thing you can do is accept the null hypothesis. If there is enough data to establish a relationship, then you "reject the null hypothesis."

 

In the god claim, it would go something like this:

 

Either god does exists

Or god does not exist

 

These are the only two logical options. There is no "god half way exists, or 2/3 exists." Logically, it is one or the other, a true dichotomy.

 

Alternative hypothesis: god exists

Null hypothesis: god does not exist.

 

Without enough data to establish god's existence, we logically must accept the null hypothesis. This does not mean that we accept the lack of data as proof god does not exist. It simply means that we lack sufficient data to conclude otherwise.

[1AcceptingAThiest1]

bornagain,

as mentioned again personal eye witnesses aint got squat to do with if something is false or not.

So i one does not need to see or observed the big bang to show that it is false or true. This goes for any claim not just the big bang, that is why i am not directly supporting the big bang im merely asserting that ANY CLAIM doesnt need an eye witness to be true, again i was simply RESPONDING to Vigile's falalcy logic when he told me jesus didnt have a contemporary so belief in him was invalid, i shwoed that was faulty reasoning by saying big bang doesnt have contemporaries but it doesnt mean it isnt true

 

Florudh

If someone lack beleif in God they msot likely believe in science reason and logic. That is what i mean by if you lack beleif in x then you BELIEVE in something else to support the lack of belief in X because what you DO BELEIVE caused you to come to that conclusion. Conclusions are claims and need to be defended