Atheism Undermines Knowledge

[Esquilax]

How do I figure you're not open to possibilities? You're believing in something for which you have no evidence to the exclusion of things you do, is how. Faith isn't a pathway to truth.

What precisely am I excluding? And how is acknowledging truth not dealing fully with a problem where your willful blindness is?

Willful blindness? I've expressed repeatedly that I will believe in something when there is evidence that it exists, and not a second before. There's nothing blind about that, and if you have a problem with the fact that I'm not yet a theist while holding that belief, take it up with the formulators of all the unconvincing theistic apologetics I've been exposed to over the years.

I have plenty of evidence. Not impossible, illogical evidence that would be empirical, no. Evidence enough for your mind to make a clear and informed decision, yes.

Don't give me that shit about empirical evidence for god being impossible. Do you believe in an interventionist god who does stuff in the world? Then he leaves empirical traces of having done so. If you don't, then why the fuck should anyone care about a god that doesn't exist in the universe?

When dragons will fly. That kind of thing you mean?

Do you see the fantastical requirements you set for yourself? Would you dare to call yourself a realist?

I... wasn't setting requirements. I just observed that, in all of recorded history, nothing that people have claimed was magical or supernatural has ever borne out as anything other than mundane. Thus, on balance, one is justified in expecting a natural solution to any claim that happens to come along.

It's hardly our fault that you and your ilk are determined to force your god into a null hypothesis while still seeing him as an intervening deity; if you're going to make two contradictory claims, don't be surprised when people call bullshit.

You're trying too hard to draw a distinction where none exists. You may well have literalist fundies sewn up there. But us people with real rationalised beliefs remain untouched.

Real rationalized beliefs that more often than not fly directly in the face of the words, printed in black and white, in the book you claim to follow. That's cool, keep calling me a fundie for pointing out how nonsensical it is to call yourself a christian while ignoring whatever you like from the one book of rules you guys have. It makes you seem entirely rational, believe me.

'Yet' lol. So let me get this straight... You think that an object defined as supernatural is possible to detect naturally.

The better question is, why do you feel justified in believing in an object that, by your own admission, you can't possibly detect?

Science of the gaps. I think I have you guys classified.

Well, hold on: you made a claim, namely that science can never explain some things. How the hell did you determine that? This isn't anything of the gaps, it's not plugging a hole in knowledge with science, it's asking a very legitimate question: how are you making a determination that the holes we have in our knowledge are beyond the reach of science?

[fr0d0]

IMO you're looking very silly here Esq. The evidence that you insist upon is empirical. You blind yourself to any other kind, such as logic. How did you back yourself down that alley? You're blaming unconvincing apologists?

Yes the whole point of God setting himself up to require faith kinda defeats the science of the gaps argument.

Yes you want to be a fundie. I'm not going to stop you bro. I think it a kindness that you can't aim criticism at me, but instead choose to pick the easy targets that both of us can dismiss.

[Esquilax]

IMO you're looking very silly here Esq. The evidence that you insist upon is empirical. You blind yourself to any other kind, such as logic. How did you back yourself down that alley? You're blaming unconvincing apologists?

Look, it's pretty simple: I've used logic, like you (claim) to have done, and come to a different conclusion to you. Does that instantly make my position correct and yours wrong? No, but obviously I believe mine to be correct or else I wouldn't hold it. Now, we follow along from that: you admit there can be no empirical evidence for your position, meanwhile mine actually has some data to back it up and support the conclusion I have come to. Now, which of us looks silly: the one who has calibrated his worldview to match the evidence, or the one who holds a worldview in spite of any evidence at all?

See, what you fail to realize is that logic is not evidence, and moreover that logic can be faulty. Logic once held that the Earth was flat, since from the ground we see a flat plain. Logic once held that the sky was a dome, since we see it enclosing the (flat) Earth. What showed us that those things were not true? Oh, right: evidence!

Something being logically possible tells you nothing about whether or not it exists, only that you're formulated a premise that is not contradictory or otherwise invalid. You are operating under the idea that a logically possible (debatable though that is) premise is true, and if you want to give that view any kind of weight you need to demonstrate it, because there are a multitude of other logically possible rationalizations to compete with the one you've picked. Since you're sticking with this idea that there can be no empirical evidence for your claim, you've kind of logicked yourself out of the running, there.

Yes the whole point of God setting himself up to require faith kinda defeats the science of the gaps argument.

Once again, faith is obstinate gullibility, not evidence.

Yes you want to be a fundie. I'm not going to stop you bro. I think it a kindness that you can't aim criticism at me, but instead choose to pick the easy targets that both of us can dismiss.

I just think it's ironic that you can't see you're a part of the groups I'm criticizing...

[Neo-Scholastic]

...science should test everything. You don't think it should be honest about it's conclusions?

The conclusions of science follow from its first principles. If progress is to be made, first you must be honest about the presuppositions from which you reason.

The regularity of nature is taken as given, though it need not be. Likewise, you must also presuppose that different individual things and events can be isolated within the continuous stream of seamless reality. You also presuppose that once differentiated, individual things grouped by common characteristics will behave in the same way. Science cannot work without these and other similar presuppositions. At the same time, science cannot prove the validity of its first principles.

Too many people seem to think that science is our only source of knowledge about the world. If that were the case it would be acceptable to take these presuppositions as properly basic. Fortunately the world is much richer than scientific knowledge. No scientific and mathematical analysis of Bach's music could capture its magic. The awe and beauty of Bach's music is nothing if not supernatural. So if you want to see the magic, that's it.

[Creed of Heresy]

Actually the reason for Bach's music being so beautiful and finely resonating is largely because of the precision of the notes, precision and order that is rarely ever matched nowadays, with high levels of complexity. In truth, you CAN use scientific analysis to explain why it's so beautiful. The human ear finds certain wavelengths to be pleasing, especially for certain durations and at certain decibels. Bach and Mozart and Beethoven knew how to score their music into those sweet spots, not by a small margin, but by ALL the margins, filling the ranges of wavelengths that the human ear most enjoys to the fullest without contracting or dilating within or beyond them in a way that would degrade the experience.

There is a scientific explanation to everything, even creativity. It doesn't take away from the wonder and beauty that human imagination and creativity can manage; indeed when you look at just how specific and narrow the field of focus really must be, and how easily the margin of error can be tripped, you gain even MORE appreciation for the success and talent of skilled artists.

[KichigaiNeko]

and +1 Creed!

[Creed of Heresy]

Don't mention it, Kichi. ^_^

[KichigaiNeko]

The fuck I won't!! Well done darlin'!

[Neo-Scholastic]

There is a scientific explanation to everything,...

Then use the scientific method to explain why the scientific method works.

[Anomalocaris]

Scientific method works because at a level observable to us, the diversity and the rate of change of the diversity of basic constituets of the universe is sufficiently small, and the methods of the constituents of the universe remain sufficiently slow changing compare to the rate of evolution and execution of our thought process such that our thought process can distill rules needed to model it.

Not because these diveristies and rate of change in principle has to be so slow changing, only because it could, and therefore somewhere it would. Where it wouldn't, scientific method can't be formulated because as actually applied it won't work. But there you also can't exist for the same basic reason, Which is just fine, but we wouldn't eist either, which would be a pity.. Where you don't exist, You also wouldn't exist to demonstrate the fact that it works by asking on the Internet why it should work. This is why you can only find yourself playing out your stupidity where scientific method works.

And don't worry if that goes over your head. Very little of any depth wouldn't go over your head if you could actually recycled aristotle's notional causes in the 21st century. You might as well recycle the notion that air, water, fire, and earth being the elementary building blocks of the universe, you ludicrous self important moron.