Atheism and the existence of peanut butter

[Foxaèr]

The delusion is in believing, period, not necessarily that the believer is delusional.

[LadyForCamus]

The delusion is in believing, period, not necessarily that the believer is delusional.

In all cases? How did you determine that?

[The Grand Nudger]

I think it would be difficult to maintain the accuracy of that statement through even a handful of examples. It's more likely that you think that believing some things is delusional. Which is, ofc, fine, and there's no need to argue over whether or not they are - but, what I've been asking about, are the things people believe or might believe that don't fall into that category. The example of the sacred tree doesn't seem to be delusional on it's own grounds, you felt compelled to add things to it that you considered to be delusional. We can assume that ghosts and goblins and all that is delusional, even if only for the purpose of conversation - but what..if anything... makes the notion of the sacred delusional?

[Mister Agenda]

And because of that, the god hypothesis cannot be an empirically testable claim. This is a textbook category mistake. Ah.. and a nice attempt to strawman, also.

Yet you keep trying to supply empirical evidence to support the God Hypothesis. Why do you do that?

[Jehanne]

And because of that, the god hypothesis cannot be an empirically testable claim. This is a textbook category mistake. Ah.. and a nice attempt to strawman, also.

Yet you keep trying to supply empirical evidence to support the God Hypothesis. Why do you do that?

And, so, if God healed an adult amputee, such would not be empirically observable?

[R00tKiT]

Why is it that proponents of ID always focus on animals that they find pretty and ignore stuff like Yersinia pestis or HIV?

Yersinia pestis's design is not less impressive than the pretty fish. But because atheists suddenly become blind when it comes to the apparent design of various life forms, presenting good-looking animals is a good way to bring them back to their senses.

Not to mention that posting a picture of a pretty fish is very shallow because mandarindish is known to be foul-smelling and is covered in tiny spines to inject a toxic mucus into anyone who tries to handle and/or eat it in an ocean filled with creatures that can kill you in an instant.

So what? To me, the toxic mucus is yet another impressive display of the power of the designer. 

As ever, the thing you think stands in contradiction to fact.  For better or for worse....and regardless of whether there is a god, and regardless of whether or  not you believe that god belief is natural...whatever that means... it will remain a fact that the strongest predictor of religiousity and even specific beliefs..is whether or not they were held by your parents.  

Be careful there.. you might mistake correlation for causation. Just because my parents' belief are on average correlated with mine doesn't mean it's a decisive factor or cause.

Why would I agree to that?  As far as I can tell, gods aren't capable of doing anything - but, again, if you'd like to point out where god touches the genetics, you're free to do so...and if you would prefer to assert that genetics "takes care of things", instead, then you can no longer point to any need for god in genetics or fish.   

You seem to misunderstand what inference means. You live in a world where we have the following observation : children naturally give functional/teleological explanations to things. 
This observation doesn't entail that God exists, of course. I am not attempting a deductive argument, but an inductive one.

This observation is better explained under theism than under atheism. One would expect children to be god-tilted in a world with god, it's much less likely to happen in a godless world. That's the nature of an inductive argument. And rejecting it means that you don't care much about what we observe in this world, or you are trying to block the conclusion that theism is a better explanation of the world.

If you say that the god hypothesis is not empirically testable, then it isn't testable by the way things appear.  Your fish argument fails, according to you.

The existence of pretty fish is a premise in an inductive, a posterori argument, and in fact, any appearance of design can be used as a premise to infer a designer. But the designer entity itself is not empirically detectable in the same way we can detect the presence of an animal by their footprints. We infer from observating the world that a designer intervened at some point and started the entire thing, without needing to "locate" the designer.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Yet you keep trying to supply empirical evidence to support the God Hypothesis. Why do you do that?

And, so, if God healed an adult amputee, such would not be empirically observable?

I’ve had - literally - in excess of 1000 people pray to regrow my missing eye. If it happened, I’d be the first in at church every Sunday.

Boru

[R00tKiT]

Yet you keep trying to supply empirical evidence to support the God Hypothesis. Why do you do that?

I am using observations in the world as premises in inductive arguments. Think really hard about the words 'premise' and 'inductive'.

To empirically test X isn't possible if X isn't some repeatable or reproducible phenomenon. But it's alway possible to give inductive arguments supporting the existence of X, and use empirical evidence in the premises.

Here is an example: Joan of Arc exist(ed). But there is no empirical test that we can perform in a laboratory leading us to her existence. However, an inductive argument along the lines of: (available historical accounts of various events in France's history and many elements of Joan of Arc's biography are better explained if she existed than not) would clearly be a fine argument.

[The Grand Nudger]

Be careful there.. you might mistake correlation for causation. Just because my parents' belief are on average correlated with mine doesn't mean it's a decisive factor or cause.

I'm unconcerned.  I think that the vast weight of evidence to that effect allays any rational doubt.  

You seem to misunderstand what inference means. You live in a world where we have the following observation : children naturally give functional/teleological explanations to things. 
This observation doesn't entail that God exists, of course. I am not attempting a deductive argument, but an inductive one.

This observation is better explained under theism than under atheism. One would expect children to be god-tilted in a world with god, it's much less likely to happen in a godless world. That's the nature of an inductive argument. And rejecting it means that you don't care much about what we observe in this world, or you are trying to block the conclusion that theism is a better explanation of the world.

I think I'd explain what children do by reference to children, not the presence or absence of fairies.  

The existence of pretty fish is a premise in an inductive, a posterori argument, and in fact, any appearance of design can be used as a premise to infer a designer. But the designer entity itself is not empirically detectable in the same way we can detect the presence of an animal by their footprints. We infer from observating the world that a designer intervened at some point and started the entire thing, without needing to "locate" the designer.

Any claim about anything made with reference to it's appearance is an empirical premise, as empirical premises refer to what we can observe.  

The world either looks designed, or it does not look designed.  You can either use an empirical premise, or deny any possibility of an empirical premise - but to do both simultaneously is self defeating, thus..incoherent. You can side with either, and both have their utility - but this is a fork in the road of a rationally explicable faith. That is what you insist you have, is it not?

[R00tKiT]

Well, that presents you with a problem. If you were walking on a beach and found a watch lying in the sand, would you conclude it was designed?

No you couldn't, because you think every single grain of sand on the beach was also designed.

Simply put, the watch was assembled by people using matter created by a designer. 

And BTW, the word 'design' is an umbrella term. People don't really design anything, they just assemble/transform existent matter using their knowledge of nature.