Atheism and the existence of peanut butter

[R00tKiT]

"Empirical logic" can only inform us about stuff inside the empirical world, but doesn't apply to the creator of the empirical world..

Question begging.

Please provide demonstrable and falsifiable evidence that there is something beyond the "empirical world". And no, your flawed thinking: "it sure looks designed to me", is not evidence.

Now I need you to be honest, you just pulled this "Question begging" charge right out of there, didn't you? How can pointing out to a category mistake be question begging ?

You say : "please provide demonstrable and falsifiable evidence", which makes me wonder.. why do you apply the falsifiability criterion to things that aren't scientific theories .. how many times do I have to repeat this in these forums, so we can finally have a meaningful discussion..? 

Besides, I promise to send you a check with an amount of money of your choosing, if you manage to prove that unfalsifiable implies false.

If X being falsifiable or unfalsifiable has no bearing on whether X is true or false, why are you asking for falsifiability?
You might say: because otherwise there is no empirical way to prove that X is false. which is a weak objection, because there is no way (empirical or other) to disprove true propositions anyway.

Are there true but unfalsifiable propositions? Yes there are. Take the proposition P: "All books that were written, or will ever be written, have authors".

Is there a way to falsify P? No! Someone may try to point out to random sentences generated by AI or a chatbot, in this case P is preserved by positing the chatbot in question as the author, or the AI automaton, etc. And even if there is no clear way to assign an author to a book or a collection of sentences, one can always posit an unknown/hidden/undetectable author to be behind the book. In short, P is unfalsifiable, and very probably true, even if there is obviously no way to check its truth because.. you know.. your typical atheist would say maybe a book will pop into existence one day..!

Until you adress what's above, I consider that you are guilty of a textbook category mistake: applying scientific criteria to non-scientific propositions.

The same flawed thinking you are guilty of above, "it appears to be designed, therefore it must be", is the same thinking that lead people to believe: famines, lightening, earthquakes and floods were due to gods, because they certainly did appear to be.

It's called the principle of credulity, @Simon Moon. It's not flawed thinking, sane people consider what seems to be so as indeed so, and you.....?

That's why we assume that physical bodies we encounter in the street are actual people, instead of appearances of people. You resorted in your answer to pragmatism to justify the existence of other minds, but pragmatism obviously supports theism, not atheism, as I will explain below.

Not applying the principle of credulity only with the appearance of design is gravely hypocritical.

It is what we are presented with. The best thing we can do, pragmatically speaking, is to accept those things exist. Either that, or we may end up walking into a busy street, or pissing off the wrong person.

And pragmatically speaking, atheism makes no sense at all. It's a horrible, terrific world out there. People get comfort from believing that there is a personal, caring agent who controls anything that exists and answers their prayers, and guarantees a life after physical death. Even if religion is factually false, it's still the most effective natural antidepressant that people will ever come up with. There is a ton of surveys out there establishing positive correlations between happiness and religiosity, and, sadly, between non-religiosity and the risk of suicide.

A word of caution here: I am only arguing for the pragmatic advantages of being religious, since @Simon Moon really dared to get into these uncharted waters.

In Switzerland, Spoerri et al. used census data (3.7 million adults) and death certificates (5,082 suicides), and found that crude suicide rates were highest among those with no religious affiliation.
https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/38332/...dyq141.pdf
Quote: "This was not explained by socio-demographic factors. The effect was evident in all age groups, but substantially greater among older people, and particularly pronounced for suicide by poisoning".

Evidently, @Simon Moon, you should never resort to pragmatism to dimiss teleology or religion. And, as the study above clearly indicates, you can't hand wave this away by pointing out to socio-demographic factors such as poverty or education. 

I admit here of course that a thoughtful atheist can have a purpose in life without resorting to religion. But there is clear evidence of a general statistical trend: non-religiosity is positively correlated with the highest suicide rates. Therefore, pragmatically speaking, it's better to believe in wrong stuff that makes you comfortable than to be an atheist.