Atheism and the existence of peanut butter

[The Architect Of Fate]

What I meant by a category mistake is that disembodied minds (e.g. God) can't be the object of a mundane scientific experiment. By definition of a disembodied mind, one cannot derive some experiment that proves its existence, unlike an embodied mind (e.g. human beings) or an object/particle such as electrons.

But this doesn't preclude using empirical observations as a premise in an argument. In fact, many standard arguments in favor of God's existence are a posteriori arguments. In other words, they start with well-known facts about the universe and attempt to deduce/infer the existence of a god or a first cause. A priori arguments like the ontological argument attempt to derive God's existence by pure logical deduction.

It seems that you're referring above to religious experience. I am not trying to argue from any experience. To me, a religious experience can only be evaluated by its content, and it can only serve to show that some individual had some kind of a connexion with the divine, that is, we should already assume God's existence before attempting to assess a religious experience within a theistic framework.

God's existence is vastly more probable than not given the perceived order in the universe. Upon seeing a car engine, you immediately think of how skillful its designers must be, it's asinine to suggest it was put together without the existence of some intention. In the case of the universe, the analogy is valid, and the fact that complex entities evolved through time doesn't invalidate it, because the very process of evolution could be (is?) part of a divine intention. The basic argument then is that a personal, intentional agent behind the perceived order (regarding the arrangement of matter AND the physical laws) explains the universe's orderly nature better than a non-personal cause. This can be formulated better using bayesian-type arguments, by showing that the probability of order arising under a godless universe is vastly smaller than its counterpart (under theism), but this clearly requires some additional homework.

But the layman doesn't need advanced training in bayesian statistics to believe in God. The simplest fact about us is that we are naturally tilted towards teleology, we explain things by agency and intent. We should trust the sensus divinitatis the same way we trust our senses when investigating the external world. Surprisingly, a leading criticism against the sensus divinitatis is the appeal to religious diversity, which I showed to be an empty objection in the thread.

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Unfalsifiable doesn't imply useless.

Yes, as an explanation for the origin of the universe, any unfalsifiable hypothesis it is functionally and practically useless. Maybe universe-farting pixies did it. I had a divine revelation. You can’t prove me wrong.

Besides, the criterion of falsifiability only makes sense when applied to some scientific theory.

Correct. So, why do you believe in something that can’t be demonstrated?

Indeed if there is no way we distinguish between it being right and it being wrong. Then it's useless in explaining anything. The rest of his babble is theological makebelieve.

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...Upon seeing a car engine, you immediately think of how skillful its designers must be...

The Watchmaker Argument is soooo 19th century.  

(I think it's also the reason so many believers insist that their deity is uncaused and eternal -- a cheap side-step away from a head-on collision with "Who created your even-more-complicated-than-a-human deity, then?")

When I see a car engine I don't think a ghostly wizard conjured it up by magic. Same as when I see stuff in nature I don't presume they're anything like car engines. both of those ideas are silly.