Any Theists on AF, I Challenge You to a Debate on the Existence of God

[fr0d0]

I give up for good now. But thanks for the debate

The very last point I will make is that you seem to be confusing belief with claims of knowledge. To say you believe something is true, or don't believe it is true, is not a knowledge statement. It's an evaluation of probability, and whether a claim is convincing to you by whatever standards you use.

Thanks for a interesting convo

Faith to me is acting upon knowledge of information. The probability of existence is 50/50. My understanding puts my logical proofs over 50, so I have to believe. Your logical proofs put it below 50, so you have to disbelieve. Both points of view reflect accurately the understanding of the information received.

I assume that both of us have perfect standards of assimilating information. You think my method is false, where I think I've shown how that judgement is flawed. You seem to be sticking to that notion but I don't know why.

[Whateverist]

So does mine (look to facts). Why I submit to organised religion is so that I don't introduce personal failings. How do you know your world view isn't selfish?

Well there it is then. Here is where we part company. I entirely rely on myself, recognizing that submitting to the correct expert would at least require that I be able to identify such. Since my judgement is essential in any case, I embrace it. I refuse to leave to chance that I will throw in with the right authority. By relying on my own judgement I can at least hope to get better at it over time. If instead I put my faith in an external authority I can only get better at justifying my initial choice which I would always know to have been unjustified.

[robvalue]

That's a good point. You can demonstrate that a proposed natural-supernatural-natural cause and effect chain is false beyond reasonable doubt. This is because the supernatural step in the middle is redundant from the scientific point of view. The claim can be reduced to prayers do X.

But you cannot prove that supernatural causation has occurred. I suppose that's the difference. Take the prayer again, say you tested the claims and it did show a strong correlation between prayer and the prayers being "answered". All you have shown is that there is reason to believe the prayers are somehow causing an effect.

The fact that the person making the claim described the supernatural process in the middle does not mean that the experiment has demonstrated that supernatural process to be true. There could be another natural process that took place that no one is aware of, which explains it. Or it could be any number of supernatural causations. You cannot possibly distinguish between these supernatural causations, or distinguish them from no causation at all.

Simply put, you cannot set up an experiment where you do supernatural action X and then measure natural response Y. If you could do supernatural action X, it wouldn't be supernatural. By its very definition, it's a useless term to science.

Say we found out ghosts are real. We haven't proved the supernatural exists, we've proved that ghosts are natural and that we were wrong to call them supernatural.

As soon as you demonstrate how the supernatural cause works, it ceases to be supernatural.

OK enough now, I'm boring myself!

[fr0d0]

IMO it's not fair to say that we can't prove or disprove supernatural claims. Supernatural claims often explain the natural world, and those explainations can be tested.

For example, most Christians believe that prayers are granted when God is willing, and they believe certain things about God's will. So people have tested prayers, and the prayers always fail to have any effect. Christians excuse the failure of these prayers, by saying that God's will is hard to know, but then they treat the Bible like a legal agreement with God. It's cherry picking.

I don't know how you can claim to know Gods will and therefore claim to know that prayer has failed.

the bible is incredibly complex and most reference not including caveat is prejudice. Christians often cherry pick, yes. We all project our own desires onto things, often subconsciously. No exceptions.

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So does mine (look to facts). Why I submit to organised religion is so that I don't introduce personal failings. How do you know your world view isn't selfish?

Well there it is then. Here is where we part company. I entirely rely on myself, recognizing that submitting to the correct expert would at least require that I be able to identify such. Since my judgement is essential in any case, I embrace it. I refuse to leave to chance that I will throw in with the right authority. By relying on my own judgement I can at least hope to get better at it over time. If instead I put my faith in an external authority I can only get better at justifying my initial choice which I would always know to have been unjustified.

I don't see how you can't ultimately defer to your own judgement. I think you're being overly dismissive. Are you saying that you would never bow to superior advice? That's what I'm saying... we take the best advice we can rather than bullishly forcing our own, possibly selfish interests above all others.

[Whateverist]

Without trying to appear arrogant I just don't seek advice. I prefer to think things through from first principles. If a thing makes any sense at all that sense should be discernible by me as well as by anyone else. I'm simply not in such a hurry to be right that I will jump to the conclusions of others .. any others.

Of course for matters concerning my phone plan, taxes and any number of other practical problems good advice is invaluable. But for the big questions all you have is yourself. It is like speakers for a sound system. If you can't hear the difference, it doesn't make a difference.

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But it is time for second sleep so who knows? It may all appear differently to me tomorrow.

[Mudhammam]

I don't see how you can't ultimately defer to your own judgement.

And that is like... a judgement you made?

[Nope]

I am not trying to be disrespectful in what has been a pretty friendly discussion but I still don't understand why fr0d0's arguments couldn't be used to prove that any mythological creatures were real? Couldn't I use the same line of reasoning to prove that Loki and Thor are real?

[watchamadoodle]

That's a good point. You can demonstrate that a proposed natural-supernatural-natural cause and effect chain is false beyond reasonable doubt. This is because the supernatural step in the middle is redundant from the scientific point of view. The claim can be reduced to prayers do X.

But you cannot prove that supernatural causation has occurred. I suppose that's the difference. Take the prayer again, say you tested the claims and it did show a strong correlation between prayer and the prayers being "answered". All you have shown is that there is reason to believe the prayers are somehow causing an effect.

The fact that the person making the claim described the supernatural process in the middle does not mean that the experiment has demonstrated that supernatural process to be true. There could be another natural process that took place that no one is aware of, which explains it. Or it could be any number of supernatural causations. You cannot possibly distinguish between these supernatural causations, or distinguish them from no causation at all.

Simply put, you cannot set up an experiment where you do supernatural action X and then measure natural response Y. If you could do supernatural action X, it wouldn't be supernatural. By its very definition, it's a useless term to science.

Say we found out ghosts are real. We haven't proved the supernatural exists, we've proved that ghosts are natural and that we were wrong to call them supernatural.

As soon as you demonstrate how the supernatural cause works, it ceases to be supernatural.

OK enough now, I'm boring myself!

Those are good points. It even makes me wonder if we can falsify supernatural claims as you mentioned. If a natural state leads predictably to a future natural state through a supernatural mechanism, is that mechanism really supernatural? Maybe the supernatural mechanism needs to have free will to cooperate or not - otherwise it becomes a force of nature like gravity? So that would mean we can't be certain we falsified the supernatural claims through experiments - maybe the supernatural decided to hide during the experiment?

Something I've wondered about is statistics. The collapse of probability waves in quantum mechanics is supposed to be random. If God was using this to steer nature according to his will, would we be able to detect this by comparing a series of events with expected probabilities densities? We wouldn't know for certain, but we might be suspicious. (I probably am using the wrong lingo, but hopefully it makes sense.)

[Tonus]

It can, depending on how you construct your reality. If lightning and thunder are the only thing you need to experience in order to believe in Thor, then you can believe in Thor. If the legends tell that he revealed himself to men, it will either negatively affect your belief, or may even serve to strengthen it if you come up with a good enough rationalization. From there, you simply need to tweak your reality to fit in an ever-present Thor who nonetheless is never around.

[fr0d0]

I agree. It's only when you look further into the justifications of Thor and Loki that their possibility of existence fails. That's what a good concept is: possible.