Atheism and the existence of peanut butter

[The Architect Of Fate]

Yersinia pestis's design is not less impressive than the pretty fish.

It may be impressive, but it is not intelligent or it would be very cruel.

But because atheists suddenly become blind when it comes to the apparent design of various life forms, presenting good-looking animals is a good way to bring them back to their senses.

This shows again how you don't know anything about what you are talking about. Atheists are very well aware of the design of nature and life. It doesn't mean that if atheists don't believe in the intelligent design that they don't see the design. Nature is designed by forces that influence it, like sand dunes are designed by winds, and life is designed by natural selection.

To educate yourself read the book "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins.

Weird who decides what's more impressive. I mean the fish is pretty but I highly doubt it could wipe out most of Europe's population. Impressive doesn't mean pretty. Termites are ugly as hell but try telling me their mounds aren't impressive

[brewer]

Look, there's a guy standing right there, and birds and trees. It's so real and beautiful, and I can tell that the horsey loves me, obviously designed. I believe!

[Mister Agenda]

Yet you keep trying to supply empirical evidence to support the God Hypothesis. Why do you do that?

I am using observations in the world as premises in inductive arguments. Think really hard about the words 'premise' and 'inductive'.

To empirically test X isn't possible if X isn't some repeatable or reproducible phenomenon. But it's alway possible to give inductive arguments supporting the existence of X, and use empirical evidence in the premises.

Here is an example: Joan of Arc exist(ed). But there is no empirical test that we can perform in a laboratory leading us to her existence. However, an inductive argument along the lines of: (available historical accounts of various events in France's history and many elements of Joan of Arc's biography are better explained if she existed than not) would clearly be a fine argument.

Inductive arguments are based on empirical evidence, exactly as you show in your Joan of Arc example, which IS a fine argument, based on empirical evidence (don't look now, but history is an evidence-based account of the past). 'Look, a pretty fish, therefore God' is also an inductive argument based on emprical evidence (pretty fish). There's no requirement that the evidence be testable in a lab, only that the evidence actually support the conclusion you're arguing for.

[polymath257]

If a mundane (inside the world) explanation is possible, why would a non-mundane one be required? It's like saying that angels are guiding the planets in such a way that it *looks* like there is gravity.

Because the world in itself warrants a cause. Angels guiding planets isn't exactly the same as the designer of the universe. Angels didn't cause the existence of planets, they are a simple substitute (or a complement) to natural laws. God, on the other hand, is posited as a lawgiver.

OK, so how do you prove that such a lawgiver actually exists? Or, for that matter, make the existence of such a lawgiver more likely than the non-existence?

You make a number of assumptions that have not been demonstrated:

1. That a natural law requires a law giver

2. That humans are qualified to recognize design without further testing

3. That an infinite regress is impossible

4. That, even if there is/was a lawgiver for natural laws, that there is only one such

5. That causality makes sense outside of the universe

6. That everything that begins to exist (meaning there was a time when it did not exist) needs to have a cause (applied unevenly, I might add)

7. That having a start means that a thing 'begins to exist' in the sense of the last claim

8. That postulating a lawgiver means that such a lawgiver must actually exist

I can go on, but how about we address these?

[R00tKiT]

Well, we have three surviving letters of Joan’s, so that’s a pretty convincing empirical test.

That's not what would be called a test. You may want to review how designing experiments and hypothesis testing are actually done. 

If fish or anything else look designed...you've offered an empirical means of testing the claim. 

What do you mean by "testing the claim"? Testing has a very precise and scientific meaning in statistics. Namely, it entails the possibility of rejecting the claim if the test has certain outcomes or if a properly formulated null hypothesis is rejected. But in the case of a personal entity that purportedly doesn't follow any physical law, there is no way to rule out its existence. Deism may not be falsifiable, and this is not a problem since falsifiability only apply to scientific theories about the universe.

And I assume you know the famous rule of thumb: absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

How did an immaterial “thing” design and create a physical world? I mean, this is your god after all. Since he was the The Cause. what was his mechanism of action?

Nobody can answer that, @LadyForCamus . I can't even tell how the microchip inside my computer was designed in detail.

But not knowing the mechanism of action doesn't prevent us from knowing the physical world was designed. I don't need to study nanoelectronics to know that my computer was designed.

But Kloro doesn’t seem able to grasp that, just as historiography is an empirical science, he is unable to grasp that calling apparent design ‘evidence’ is an empirical argument.

I am going to be charitable and assume you didn't read the whole thread. I explained pages ago what a posterori arguments mean. What you have trouble grasping, on the other hand, is the difference between an empirical argument and empirical test/experiment.

It may be impressive, but it is not intelligent or it would be very cruel.

And what is your criteria for a design to qualify as intelligent? A word of warning here: efficiency is not a concern for a designer with infinite resources. Efficiency is only meaningful when we deal with scarce resources. A deity purportedly creates resources ex nihilo.

This shows again how you don't know anything about what you are talking about. Atheists are very well aware of the design of nature and life. It doesn't mean that if atheists don't believe in the intelligent design that they don't see the design. 

If you are aware of the design, you should believe in a designer, otherwise you are dishonest. That's it.

It's useful here to recall a fundamental law of rationality, known as the principle of credulity: "one takes what seems to be so as indeed so". To put it more forcefully, when you go out and see appearances of people around you, you don't conduct experiments to check that pedestrians are not disguised aliens, you accept the appearances and work on the assumption that they are actually people. 

Similarly, when you see the appearance of design, you should accept it as design, and work under this assumption.

To educate yourself read the book "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins.

Recommending a book authored by a militant atheist, how convenient. Dawkins sucks really bad at the philosophy of religion, btw, according to professional reviews of his books written by practicing philosophers.

[The Grand Nudger]

If fish or anything else look designed...you've offered an empirical means of testing the claim. 

What do you mean by "testing the claim"? Testing has a very precise and scientific meaning in statistics. Namely, it entails the possibility of rejecting the claim if the test has certain outcomes or if a properly formulated null hypothesis is rejected. But in the case of a personal entity that purportedly doesn't follow any physical law, there is no way to rule out its existence. Deism may not be falsifiable, and this is not a problem since falsifiability only apply to scientific theories about the universe.

And I assume you know the famous rule of thumb: absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

 Empirical-

based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.

How things appear..is what...?


It's interesting that you've retreated to deism..because you don't believe in deism. Or do you? Have you abandoned islam? Do you now believe, in retrospect, that islam is demonstrably false but that deism is not defeated by those observations which establish as much?

You're wrong, btw, absence of evidence is evidence of absence. The rule, poorly misappropriated by yourself to lose an argument, is that absence of evidence is not proof of absence.

[R00tKiT]

It's interesting that you've retreated to deism..because you don't believe in deism.

Lol. Theism is a subset of deism. I am a theist, and therefore a deist......

 Or do you?  Have you abandoned islam?  Do you now believe, in retrospect, that islam is demonstrably false but that deism is not defeated by those observations which establish as much?

I didn't mention Islam/theism because it may be falsifiable. Islam is based on many core texts and sayings of the prophet, and so can be falsified if one verse or saying is somehow falsified.

You're wrong, btw, absence of evidence is evidence of absence.  The rule, poorly misappropriated by yourself to lose an argument, is that absence of evidence is not proof of absence.

Okay, then. Let's apply your wrong rule : I see no footprints of Nudger in my house, Nudger doesn't exist.

And this rule or aphorism is actually cited in the literature in the terms I used.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7647644/

https://wiki.c2.com/?AbsenceOfEvidenceIs...eOfAbsence

[The Grand Nudger]

It's interesting that you've retreated to deism..because you don't believe in deism.

Lol. Theism is a subset of deism. I am a theist, and therefore a deist......

Oh, are you?  I guess that means that you believe in a god who set things in motion and doesn't intervene.  No magic books, no "intelligent design".........

Please..at least try to be less of a disingenuous cretin?  Unless your theistic beliefs don't deserve as much, in which case, by all means, shit on islam all day?

I didn't mention Islam/theism because it may be falsifiable. Islam is based on many core texts and sayings of the prophet, and so can be falsified if one verse or saying is somehow falsified.

Falsifiable by reference to what?  Does it make empirical claims which either you..as an issue of personal skill..cannot back up...or which, as a matter of fact in mere reality, cannot be backed up?

Okay, then. Let's apply your wrong rule : I see no footprints of Nudger in my house, Nudger doesn't exist.

And this rule or aphorism is actually cited in the literature in the terms I used.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7647644/

https://wiki.c2.com/?AbsenceOfEvidenceIs...eOfAbsence

Oh, idk, you're talking to me as though I exist.  Seems like my feet may have left tracks on your mind. You do have a point, though you probably don't realize what it is,....are you certain that the thing you call nudger, and all of the specifics you would assert as contained within that header..actually do exist?

I can tell you with certainty that this claim would be doomed in equal measure and for all of the same reasons as your theistic god claim is doomed. Would you like to know more? I feel like I need to point out that, at this point, you're arguing against this fictional character nudgers insistence that you agree with yourself. Are you fucking insane..or just confused?

[R00tKiT]

Oh, are you?  I guess that means that you believe in a god who set things in motion and doesn't intervene.  No magic books, no "intelligent design".........

I think we don't really agree on the definitions.

Deism: belief in a creator who may or may not intervene in the universe. Simply put, any kind of belief in a creature.

Theism: belief in a creator who intervenes in the universe.

It's clear that theism belongs to deism. There are of course definitions of deism (which exclude any divine intervention) that clash with theism. Under these definitions, I am not a deist, OFC.

Oh, idk, you're talking to me as though I exist.  Seems like my feet may have left tracks on your mind.  You do have a point, though you probably don't realize what it is,....are you certain that the thing you call nudger, and all of the specifics you would assert as contained within that header..actually do exist?

Nice dodging, Nudger. You're a very funny person.

Are you going to defend your rule "absence of evidence is evidence of absence"...... or just stop being disingenuous yourself..?

[The Grand Nudger]

Oh, are you?  I guess that means that you believe in a god who set things in motion and doesn't intervene.  No magic books, no "intelligent design".........

I think we don't really agree on the definitions.

Deism: belief in a creator who may or may not intervene in the universe. Simply put, any kind of belief in a creature.

Theism: belief in a creator who intervenes in the universe.

It's clear that theism belongs to deism. There are of course definitions of deism (which exclude any divine intervention) that clash with theism. Under these definitions, I am not a deist, OFC.

Well..you butchered the difference, so insomuch as you think that a deistic and theistic god are the same thing you're wrong.  

But that doesn't concern me all that much at present.  Are you now of the position that your stupid fucking god may not have intervened?

Buh-bye islam......

Nice dodging, Nudger. You're a very funny person.

Are you going to defend your rule "absence of evidence is evidence of absence"...... or just stop being disingenuous yourself..?

Am I a funny person, though?   That seems to imply that I'm a person, who exists.  What do you mean defend?  I'm pointing out as a matter of fact that absence of evidence is evidence of absence, though..as rightly pointed out by many other people, not you..., who didn't make the specifically idiotic claim that you did...it's not proof of absence.  Do you disagree?  

I say there's no real evidence that you ever sucked my dick...but is that evidence that you never sucked my dick? You tell me. I await your soaring rejection of the notion that you have no evidence that you've never put your lips, on my penis.

Yum...yum...yum.