(March 6, 2012 at 5:08 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: But what all religions have in common is a belief in forms of reality other than the one governed by the laws of physics.

This does not alleviate the burden of proof in anyway, it actually adds to the baggage because now you've got two huge claims "a god exists" and "alternate realities exist". Lumping them both together does not make the task of fulfilling your obligation to resolve the epistemic dispute any easier Chad.

Quote:I do not believe this general claim is particularly extraordinary based on the examples I provided.

Depends how you define "God" doesn't it. If you claim you believe your personal god is nothing more than a mental construct, an imaginary friend, I'll take that at face-value and not demand extraordinary evidence. Claims about a creator, judge and punisher of the entire cosmos however are going to require a lot more than just convincing arguments on your part. A lot more.

Quote:I maintain that a general epistemology includes other ways of knowing besides scientific inquiry.

Such as?

Quote:Mathematics, as I have stated above, is a form of human knowledge independent of empirical verification.

That's generalising it quite a bit, the basis of maths is to count physical objects, seek out real-world patterns and organise them into sets. Mathematics can potentially be and feature elements and calculations independent of direct observation thanks to abstraction, but maths not completely removed from empiricism otherwise it would have no beneficial use in our day-to-day lives.

Quote:There must be ultimate and inviolate rules from which proximate rules derive. Presumably, mathematics was true before matter and energy came into being.

No. Mathematics is one of the languages or tools we developed to help us describe and understand reality a little better. It is not a physical entity, its simply a mental construct. It did not exist independent of minds before the big bang, that's absurd. While indispensable its not perfect because it breaks down and ceases to have any meaning when you try to investigate singularities. No, I do not accept "Mathematical realism" as you call it.

Quote:The possibility of deity can only be considered if we believe in some kind of underlying order that informs the particular order in which we find ourselves.

We perceive an "order" by looking for patterns, that's how we comprehend and understand things, by arranging the nonsense into something more 'intelligible' and meaningful to us. There is no inherent order in this chaotic ever-changing non-stationary reality.

Quote:Subjective experience provides at least one example of something most people consider real that cannot be objectively observed or subject to empirical falsification.

Personal experiences? I don't doubt the person experienced something. They may think its real, except no one else has any good reason to believe or think any of their "anecdotal evidence" is real. They have to appreciate that its simply unrealistic to want their audience to listen to their claims when they put forward such baseless personal testimonies that can't be verified or investigated by anyone else to see if they've misinterpreted or deliberately left out certain details in their stories.

"There is no inherent order in this chaotic ever-changing non-stationary reality." -Welsh.

Sincere question, is this opinion held by pretty much every atheist here or do some believe that the physical universe is governed by consistent laws? It seems to go contrary to the basic assumption of scientific inquiry.

(March 6, 2012 at 6:56 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: "There is no inherent order in this chaotic ever-changing non-stationary reality." -Welsh.

Sincere question, is this opinion held by pretty much every atheist here or do some believe that the physical universe is governed by consistent laws? It seems to go contrary to the basic assumption of scientific inquiry.

Obviously the Universe is governed by laws. We have laws of physics don't we?

(March 6, 2012 at 6:27 pm)Welsh cake Wrote: It [math] did not exist independent of minds before the big bang, that's absurd.

Anyone can imagine an alternate universe with different physical constants. No one can imagine a physical universe where logic and math do not work, that would be absurd, literally.

You have to be kidding me. You can't imagine magical universe? Here I thought you already had. Imagining the absurd has long been big business for us.

Right. If it has to follow logic and math, jesus could not have been part-god, part-man, nor could he have died and come back to life, then flown up to heaven. No walking on water or earlier water partings, either.

If heaven is logical, it doesn't exist.

(March 5, 2012 at 10:10 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Not always. Some have simply never believed, their parents have never believed, etc etc etc.

I said "become". I was originally going to say "converted to atheism". Maybe I should have said that, it would've been clearer.

Quote:Rhythym wrote

Then use your imagination to create a scenario in which I am only attempting to help you be a better buddhist. If you really wish to go deep into the realm of introspection, then you should be devouring every bit of information we have regarding how unreliable (and downright malicious) our own introspective flights of fancy can become. If you want to develop a talent, you need to know the shortcomings of the toolkit.

Hmm, thanks for the advice. You make a good point in how unreliable introspection can be. I admit some fault there and I appreciate your P.O.V. As I try to follow the buddhist way, I am looking for emotional balance and peace more than anything. In meditation I try to compose myself, find inner focus and concentration. It is really a matter of feeling more than intellect for me, yet of course Buddhist philosophy deeply interests me too. If devoting myself to this "religion" makes me a little more wiser, mature, and caring for others, than that is good enough for me.

Thanks for the website on Parker's Astrology. I have a good friend who got me interested in it and I found it interesting and sometimes very uncanny and true! My theory is something which Carl Sagan might agree with. We are all essentially, everything in this world, made out of stardust. So maybe astrology has some validity. But then again, maybe not! LOL Just imagining things!

Quote:AthiestAtheist wrote

My question is what evidence is required to make you not believe in a God? I would have thought that the fact that every religious text in the world is full of holes would have been enough, but I guess not.

This is a very good point! I find that when many people have their mind set on something, they will not budge even with the most blatant evidence to discredit their belief. And I am not just talking about God, but virtually anything. This is especially true in politics as well, (another sensitive issue unfortunately). I think people's minds can be changed, but I don't know exactly what it takes. Maybe just time and experience. Stubborness is one of the most pernicious character flaws of mankind. There is also social conditioning, mental habits, personal safety and comfort zones to take into consideration.

Yep, you're imagining things. Astrology does weave a rich and complicated tapestry out of our imaginings, and if you were going to go off in flights of fantasy, stars are a pretty solid object to fantasize about. You can do your own experiment, if you have some folks amenable to the idea of astrology. Work up a single natal chart for some well known figure in history. Hand it to your friends without the sign or dates and see who sees themselves in the natal chart. Cut out the horoscopes from the newspaper (omit the signs) and put them in a shoebox or bag. Do this for a few weeks. Once you have, go back through them and have those same people attempt to select their sign, or your signs horoscopes. You'll all fail both tests.

(March 2, 2012 at 10:32 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: What kind of evidence or proof would it take for you to believe in deity? A miracle? An artifact? the name of Jesus engraved on a chromosome?

Some say belief in deity is not scientific in the sense of not being falsifiable. But can't something be true even if it isn't falsifiable. For example, in the movie Contact, the boyfriend of the Jodie Foster character says, "prove that I love you." That appears to be an example of the kinds of statements that can be true but not be disprovable and in the same class as the "Hard Problem" of David Chalmers. How can you prove that other people are self-aware? If a computer passed the Turing test could you prove that it was or was not conscious? Etc.

Would you please define 'deity' in this context? What is it exactly that you want to know what it would take to convince us of?