Question about "faith"

[Gwaithmir]

I miss you guys. ❤️

* Smooch * 

[John 6IX Breezy]

Do you for instance think that our existence is ordinary?

You're using a subjective description that offers nothing beyond bias. That bias is not inconsequential, given that the purpose of the spiderman-like quote is to ask for extraordinary evidence. Claims, no matter how extraordinary you feel they are, simply require evidence. There is no higher threshold for evidence, and if there was, your inability to measure when evidence reaches that threshold makes it useless.

I understand biases are difficult to uproot; but the term adds no value and takes away objectivity.

[possibletarian]

Do you for instance think that our existence is ordinary?

You're using a subjective description that offers nothing beyond bias. That bias is not inconsequential, given that the purpose of the spiderman-like quote is to ask for extraordinary evidence. Claims, no matter how extraordinary you feel they are, simply require evidence. There is no higher threshold for evidence, and if there was, your inability to measure when evidence reaches that threshold makes it useless.

I understand biases are difficult to uproot; but the term adds no value and takes away objectivity.

I understand how brainwashing can be hard to uproot, but how did you reach the conclusion that existence was special enough to require magical beings.. a subjective opinion ?

[possibletarian]

John, tell me this, given as you seem to feel that any evidence is enough for any claim, would you say that a drunken man claiming that aliens abducted him one night and told him they were in fact the gods of the scripture, would you take this as an equal competing view to your god or would you ask for more evidence, or simply dismiss it ?

[John 6IX Breezy]

My views on evidence are that it is underdeterministic and theory-dependent. By underdeterministic I mean that any individual bit of data is insufficient to draw any specific conclusion. This goes hand-in-hand with the idea that science doesn't prove it disproves.

And by theory-dependent I mean that all data requires interpretation; data only becomes evidence through the theory by which it is interpreted. Data is objective; evidence is subjective.

As an example, a bloody knife and a dead body, underdetermine any conclusion about whether a murder or a suicide occurred. They become evidence for either depending on which theory you interpret with.

As far as the alien question, the drunken man is free to take any piece of data he has, and interpret it through the abduction lens. And if I have any disagreement with him, my job is to falsify his claim, not to ask him for more evidence.

[Rahn127]

John,

Your mind is an exquisite example to behold. It truly is. To have lived as long as you have while at some point having to cross traffic is amazing.

[possibletarian]

My views on evidence are that it is underdeterministic and theory-dependent. By underdeterministic I mean that any individual bit of data is insufficient to draw any specific conclusion. This goes hand-in-hand with the idea that science doesn't prove it disproves.

And by theory-dependent I mean that all data requires interpretation; data only becomes evidence through the theory by which it is interpreted. Data is objective; evidence is subjective.

As an example, a bloody knife and a dead body, underdetermine any conclusion about whether a murder or a suicide occurred. They become evidence for either depending on which theory you interpret with.

As far as the alien question, the drunken man is free to take any piece of data he has, and interpret it through the abduction lens. And if I have any disagreement with him, my job is to falsify his claim, not to ask him for more evidence.

But John the aliens have since departed, there is nothing to disprove or test.. do you believe him ? do you for instance give it as much credence as a theistic belief given that science cannot help you here ?

Perhaps let's try it a different way, how confident are you that your god exists ?

1-10, 10 being 99%+ sure

And how confident are you that other gods do not exist ?

[Simon Moon]

Magical, invisible, unprovable universe creating beings extraordinary enough for you  ?

No; provide a way to measure extraordinariness. If you cannot measure it, then it is not science.

Provide a method to falsify your god.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Provide a method to falsify your god.

My denomination claims that God created man as mortal, having no soul or spirit independent from the body. At death the person merely decomposes.

If you falsify this proposition, by showing man does indeed have a soul, it would refute the existence of my particular God. I would have to join Hinduism or Islam, or any other religion with a soul-predicting God. Or at the very least reinterpret my churches beliefs to account for the information.

[Silver]

Religious faith does to the theistic mind what hallucinetic drugs do to any mind.