The Case for Atheism

[frasierc]

I'm not making a claim, and your dogged insistence that I am making a claim, that you know what I believe better than I do myself, is immensely, and I hope unintentionally, arrogant.

You don't have to assume anything in order to come to conclusions about the world. You just have to critically examine all the claims that come in, which I can tell just from the arguments you gave, you aren't doing for your god beliefs. That's the problem here; not any presumption of naturalism from us, just that you're willing to accept your god claims based on bad arguments.

Sorry I didn’t intend to arrogantly tell you what you believe. Apologies for any misunderstanding on that account.

We’re just defining our terms a little differently. I was trying to briefly explain my position from a Bayesian perspective but I’ll give it one last try with a little more detail. If it doesn’t make sense that’s ok but just want to say beforehand I certainly don’t intend to offend you or demean your position. If it still appears that way then maybe we just have to except it’s not possible right now to come to a common understanding of our positions.

You’re arguing you ‘don't have to assume anything in order to come to conclusions about the world. You just have to critically examine all the claims that come in…’

From a Bayesian perspective there’s always a prior belief – no one comes to the data without prior knowledge. These prior beliefs are then tested and updated in the light of the data we observe.

But I agree a lot of people take the position you’ve suggested as they don’t like to assume anything. To convey this position in a Bayesian analysis is to set a flat prior – which assumes you have no prior knowledge and therefore will let the data have 100% of weight in the analysis so that your conclusions are only impacted by the evidence. It’s easy to show empirically that if you use a flat prior you get findings equivalent to an analysis which claims not to make any prior assumptions (e.g. frequentist analysis).

What is a flat prior (all weight in the analysis of evidence given to the data and no or minimal prior assumptions) in the context of our discussion? If you want to make no prior assumptions then mathematically you express this by parametising metaphysical naturalism and theism as equally probably explanations of the world. Whether you hold that assumption to be true or not, if you want your interpretation of the evidence to be determined by the data mathematically you have to make that assumption.

However, if I’m fairly stating your position that the burden of proof is on theism then by definition you don’t have a flat prior (I think you are saying they’re not equally probably explanations of the world). If I’m being true to your position, this is in Bayesian terms technically called an informed prior – which means you have a view about what explanation is more likely. It would be for you to tell me how much more likely you think metaphysical naturalism is compared with theism. But obviously the more likely you think it is- the greater weight is given to this prior belief and less weight to the data when evaluating the evidence.

All I’m saying is try submitting a paper to a peer reviewed journal of a Bayesian analysis which included an informed prior but at the same time stated your interpretation had no prior assumptions and was 100% driven by the data – it wouldn’t get past the peer reviewers.

What I’m saying is there are at least two opposing informed priors about which explanation is a better understanding of the world. This is quite a common situation – so how do Bayesian analyses take this into account when examining the data? Generally, they analyse the data comparing conclusions using different priors. At a minimum they look at the impact of using each of the opposing priors as well as flat priors. Which is to say the burden of proof argument for me is simplistic and in many senses misleading way of interpreting the evidence.

Honestly, looking back over what you presented, it's the same old tripe we see wheeled out over and over; Kalam is so flawed it's barely an argument at all, the argument from fine tuning only becomes an argument if you're already assuming the conclusion, Plantinga doesn't know what he's talking about and your 500 witnesses claim is laughable in so many ways it's not even funny. Worse still, with the exception of the last claim none of your arguments even address your particular god, making them poor justification for your christianity to begin with. And as for the last one... would you be convinced if some other religion had written down in their holy book that five hundred people witnessed their prophet performing a miracle? If not, why would you be convinced of yours? It seems like special pleading, from here. The fact that you didn't even bother to respond to my (admittedly quick, but I can expand if you like) refutations of your other arguments also says a lot.

In short, your position is poorly justified, and I think reflects the fact that you just want to believe in your religion and so went looking for confirmatory arguments regardless of their efficacy. They're easy to tear to shreds, so I guess it's much easier to just demand that everyone who disagrees with you has a bias against your argument, than to critically examine what you're using. But you don't know us, and you don't get to tell us what we believe.

If we can’t really agree about what prior beliefs we’re factoring in and what weight they have in our interpretation of the analysis – then in my view there’s not much common ground to discuss the issues. We end up talking past each other.

I provided very brief responses as I’m sure you’re aware to discuss even one of these issues in any detail takes time. If we can’t really agree on a starting point why would we take the time to argue these points in detail?

Paul never met Jesus, so going to Paul about a claim of what happened to Jesus is pretty insane. And nobody from that time is still alive, that's madness. So we can't really ask anyone, at all. This whole argument is just... just terrible.

You are seriously asking us to believe a miracle claim based on the fact that it was written by a guy who never met the man who performed the miracle, and thus was not there when it supposedly happened, who claimed that a lot of people saw it, despite not actually having done that himself so he wouldn't know, and then claims a further impossible thing. That is the only argument you've made so far that actually points to your god in particular.

We all "presume naturalism," because we won't accept that claim as true.

Maybe you missed my previous comment, I was saying Paul was referring to 500 witnesses – I wasn’t including Paul in that list. If you claimed 500 witnesses had seen an event and that most of them were still alive and that I could contact them – I think that’s a strong claim. If you don’t think that’s strong evidence – that’s entirely your choice its up to us as individuals to assess the evidence and come to our own conclusions.
Paul makes a claim about Jesus resurrection based on a large number of eye witnesses – most of whom were still alive who people could check with. Why would he make such a claim if he was lying? It would be very easy to refute – particularly as many who made claims for Jesus resurrection were killed - yet I don’t see any evidence that his claim was refuted. Do you consider all other eyewitness testimony of historical events beyond a 100 or so years ago invalid?

[Crossless2.0]

Maybe you missed my previous comment, I was saying Paul was referring to 500 witnesses – I wasn’t including Paul in that list. If you claimed 500 witnesses had seen an event and that most of them were still alive and that I could contact them – I think that’s a strong claim. If you don’t think that’s strong evidence – that’s entirely your choice its up to us as individuals to assess the evidence and come to our own conclusions.
Paul makes a claim about Jesus resurrection based on a large number of eye witnesses – most of whom were still alive who people could check with. Why would he make such a claim if he was lying? It would be very easy to refute – particularly as many who made claims for Jesus resurrection were killed - yet I don’t see any evidence that his claim was refuted. Do you consider all other eyewitness testimony of historical events beyond a 100 or so years ago invalid?

This particular claim grinds my gears no end. Corinth is approximately 800 miles from Jerusalem. How "easy" would it have been for someone to make the journey decades after the alleged events to find these anonymous witnesses? And assuming the traveler could find someone willing to say, "Why, yes, I saw Jesus resurrected 20+ years ago," what reason would our visitor have for taking the claim seriously? Not everyone in the ancient world was that dim and uncritically accepting of mere claims.

[Tonus]

If you claimed 500 witnesses had seen an event and that most of them were still alive and that I could contact them – I think that’s a strong claim.

It's only a strong claim if it can be verified, and there is no indication that he identified any of the 500. How easy would it have been, during the time he is supposed to have written this, to locate and interview enough of these witnesses so as to corroborate any of their accounts?

[pocaracas]

if only it were this easy!!

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[JesusHChrist]

Maybe you missed my previous comment, I was saying Paul was referring to 500 witnesses – I wasn’t including Paul in that list. If you claimed 500 witnesses had seen an event and that most of them were still alive and that I could contact them – I think that’s a strong claim.
If you don’t think that’s strong evidence – that’s entirely your choice its up to us as individuals to assess the evidence and come to our own conclusions.
Paul makes a claim about Jesus resurrection based on a large number of eye witnesses – most of whom were still alive who people could check with. Why would he make such a claim if he was lying? It would be very easy to refute – particularly as many who made claims for Jesus resurrection were killed - yet I don’t see any evidence that his claim was refuted. Do you consider all other eyewitness testimony of historical events beyond a 100 or so years ago invalid?

The facts:

1. Paul claims 500 witnesses saw the alleged event.
2. Paul has an agenda and bias to promote this claim.
3. None of these witnesses are identified.
4. None of these witnesses wrote anything down; at least nothing that survived. Nor did anybody they might have told, think to write anything. Not a word.
5. AFAIK, nobody other than Paul makes this claim. 500 is a lot of witnesses and yet they didn't tell anyone else, who could have written it down? Nothing?
6. Eye witness testimony is always suspect. When it involves supernatural doin's; even more so. Do you believe Vespasian cured the blind with his spit? Eye witnesses were there man!

The 500 witness claim is not strong. It is incredibly weak. Without corroborating support, the claim is nothing but words on paper.

[Whateverist]

Indeed, there may be truly strange things "out there", we just haven't needed them in service of an explanation as of yet. It's a bridge we'll have to cross if/when we come to it.

What would it take to qualify as a supernatural explanation? So long as the explanation doesn't connect whatever it is we're supposedly explaining to the natural world, how has anything been explained?

I guess "the supernatural" is supposed to be understood as a black box. But if the best we can do is assign a phenomenon to a particular black box, I just don't feel like the 'explanation' has enlightened me at all.

Murky stuff.

[Bibliofagus]

I believe Tolkien claimed he translated The Lord of the Rings from an older manuscript. Would this mean the Nazgul were real? Or that there even was something for him to translate?

[pocaracas]

I see your 500 and raise you 30 000:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun

Much like Paul's account, the only surviving account of the event is in a local newspaper a few days later, a second hand account claiming that at least 30 thousand people were at the site.

None of the 30 000+ people present thought of bringing a camera... nor of writing down what they actually saw, as an extra witness to an extraordinary event.


Make me believe this much more recent event as miraculous and you'll have moved one step closer to making me believe in that far ancient event... good luck!

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I believe Tolkien claimed he translated The Lord of the Rings from an older manuscript. Would this mean the Nazgul were real? Or that there even was something for him to translate?

Oh.... the red book of westmarch.
Lost it is...

[Whateverist]

The pope at that time must have really rolled a fat one to have witnessed the miracle of the sun all the way from his gardens in the Vatican.

[Mister Agenda]

Thanks for the response. I would happily respond to your questions and requests for further clarification but it just seems to me we're arguing past each other.

So I'm not sure whether we'll gain any further clarity if we can't really agree on a pretty foundational assumption. You've argued I have the burden of proof - I disagree. Its difficult to proceed from there.

Simply asserting your claim to be true without providing any evidence makes it pretty difficult to have a discussion. I can't understand the logic of you wanting me to present evidence for my claim whilst not being willing to do that for your claim.

Its been great fun discussing these issues but I think we've ended up just arguing in circles. l

What's our claim, again?