Two words: cognitive dissonance.

(Also, science operates under methodological naturalism, not an assertion iof philosophical naturalism. Science doesn't start with YG's strawman assertion of "Only naturalism exists", it starts from the premise of "Naturalism is the set of tools that has been shown to work innumberable times before, so until there is something outside of naturalism that can be shown to work, there is no reason to employ or assume the existence of anything supernatural".)

It's not really surprising that those who complain so much of 'scientism' don't know a damn thing about how science works.

(March 2, 2015 at 2:38 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: (Also, science operates under methodological naturalism, not an assertion iof philosophical naturalism. Science doesn't start with YG's strawman assertion of "Only naturalism exists", it starts from the premise of "Naturalism is the set of tools that has been shown to work innumberable times before, so until there is something outside of naturalism that can be shown to work, there is no reason to employ or assume the existence of anything supernatural".)

It's not really surprising that those who complain so much of 'scientism' don't know a damn thing about how science works.

To be honest, I don't think most of them could tell the difference between the two assertions.

(March 2, 2015 at 2:40 pm)Faith No More Wrote:

(March 2, 2015 at 2:38 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: (Also, science operates under methodological naturalism, not an assertion iof philosophical naturalism. Science doesn't start with YG's strawman assertion of "Only naturalism exists", it starts from the premise of "Naturalism is the set of tools that has been shown to work innumberable times before, so until there is something outside of naturalism that can be shown to work, there is no reason to employ or assume the existence of anything supernatural".)

It's not really surprising that those who complain so much of 'scientism' don't know a damn thing about how science works.

To be honest, I don't think most of them could tell the difference between the two assertions.

If there shrieks of "Atheists claim to know there is no god" are any indication, you're most likely correct.

(March 2, 2015 at 2:35 pm)Faith No More Wrote:

(March 2, 2015 at 2:14 pm)YGninja Wrote: Relying on science as an explicator for all things also necessarily relies on human cognition to be able to explain all things, and such a position is self defeating, as you assume infinite cognition - a supernatural property.

That part in bold is where you fail severely. You seem to think that because you claim a divine source for your beliefs that you are exempt from this problem, but the truth is that all we have to go on is human cognition. Even claims of god need to be interpreted through this lens, and when we examine these supernatural claims, all we are left with is the problem of the fallibility of human cognition.

That is why there must be a process in place to evaluate the truth value of a claim. What we have come up with and has repeatedly demonstrated its validity over and over and over again is science. The fact that a process that has proven itself on many, many occasions shows your claims to have no merit is not the fault of the process.

Religious people need to steer away from the fallibility of human cognition argument, because it only weakens their position.

Its not the same with God, because i do not claim to even have the potential to understand the mechanics of God and his acts. However, if you want to attribute everything to naturalism, you are claiming the potential to understand everything. This is because You can only - in working effect - distinguish something natural from supernatural by quantifying it. If you don't believe you will ever be able to quantify it, what grounds do you assert naturalism? Assertion of naturalism heavily implies that the thing is quantifiable, quantifiability is dependent on human cognition.

Everything I say I encourage people to go away and check, and I'm happy to be called out and corrected if I am wrong. I'm sure most atheists on here feel the same way.

Fundamentalists on the other hand want you to just believe everything they say at face value, and not to go check it anywhere else. Religion relies on ignorance, delusion and a lack of critical thinking being shined on it.

Because of all the things they used to attribute to gods, that turned out to have natural explanations. It's been consistent enough that we can safely guess natural causes for everything until we find a good reason to think otherwise.

(March 2, 2015 at 2:48 pm)Chad32 Wrote: Because of all the things they used to attribute to gods, that turned out to have natural explanations. It's been consistent enough that we can safely guess natural causes for everything until we find a good reason to think otherwise.

Are you able to tell me what percentage of things that exist, we can explain naturalistically?

(March 2, 2015 at 2:51 pm)YGninja Wrote: Are you able to tell me what percentage of things that exist, we can explain naturalistically?

Where are you trying to go, with this question?

Everything we have ever had an explanation for, has been explained naturally. Do we have a good ways to go? Yes? Will we find out by praying for answers? No.