Atheism and the existence of peanut butter

[The Grand Nudger]

There's evidence for la everywhere precisely like we're told there's evidence for god everywhere. Any other thing as a leg would have worked just as well. Entire regions of the globe never held to any la theory and they're still here today as contemporaries. Sometimes, we're just wrong. Not wrong in a meaningful and important way that frames all future narrative - just wrong. IMO, at east.

This thread, as a great example, is someones la theory. Do you get the impression that this theory is going to help that person learn anything about atheism, atheists, or logic, or are they just constantly pant shittingly wrong for no apparent reason and to no appreciable end?

[Anomalocaris]

no, precisely like evidence in every scientific quest that required major reassessment of what direction the preponderance of evidence pointed to as new discoveries are made, but not at all like evidence for god.  

So called evidence for god may have at one time had a role indistinguishable, in the case of some uninformed people, from that of real evidence in a thoughtful pursuit of truth.   but for ever more they are not.  they are merely ruses to defend an ultimate position from which there can be no retreat, regardless of what better analysis of existing evidence, or shifting of weight of total evidence from new discoveries, might say.   so such “evidence” do not lay any path or point the way towards the truth.   rather they are random rotten timbers picked off the ground to make into barricade of aged timber haphazardly set in place where there is room around a nihilistic last stand.  

evidence of luminiferous ether, on the other hand, is genuinely evidence pointing towards a medium.  But the difference is the existence of the medium is not by any means an ultimate position.  there in fact is no ultimate position.   there is only the next position that evidence points to.   Up until michaelson Morley experient, preponderance of available evidence pointed to the medium.   michaelson morley provided extremely weighty new evidence that dramatically shifted the center of gravity of the total body of evidence.   so preponderance if evident now pointed in a different direction.   
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[The Grand Nudger]

I don't think we'll see eye to eye on this - the existence of lumiferous aether as the absolute and omnipresent medium seems (to me) to have alot in common with gods and ultimate positions. I suppose as history, it's a good example of how an establishment can fuck up by sticking to it's fuckups..and that's something.

[Anomalocaris]

I don't think we'll see eye to eye on this - the existence of lumiferous aether as the absolute and omnipresent medium seems (to me) to have alot in common with gods and ultimate positions. I suppose as history, it's a good example of how an establishment can fuck up by sticking to it's fuckups..and that's something.

luminous ether was not a fuck up.  1. it was a reasonable and falsifiable hypothesis.   2. when it was falsified, position changed, old hypothesis rejected and new ones consistent with now expanded pool of evidence constructed. 

for 1, it may have some commonality with some god “hypothesis” at some times.  but so what?    every scientific hypothesis has that in common with some god “hypothesis”.   

but for 2,  that is what separates wheat from chaff, snd science from wishful thinking.   The people who embraced liminiferous ether embraced 2.   the purveyors of the god “hypothesis” will resist it to the bitter end.

[vulcanlogician]

I agree with Anom here. The reasoning used was (roughly):

1. Light is a wave (backed by evidence).

2. Waves need a medium through which to move (incorrect premise, but backed by every observation made hitherto).

Therefore some kind of medium through which light moves must exist. (Luminiferous ether was the name given to this hypothetical medium).

***

The conclusion is wrong because premise 2 is wrong, but sound logic otherwise. All the premises were backed by evidence.

And the interesting thing is, proving the conclusion wrong is what taught us that premise 2 is wrong. As I said before: the "wrong idea" served as a sounding board for finding the correct idea.

[Jehanne]

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Unless you are on the radio, in which case, they can hear you screaming.

P.S.  This was an electrical engineering joke from the late 70s.

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[polymath257]

I agree with Anom here. The reasoning used was (roughly):

1. Light is a wave (backed by evidence).

2. Waves need a medium through which to move (incorrect premise, but backed by every observation made hitherto).

Therefore some kind of medium through which light moves must exist. (Luminiferous ether was the name given to this hypothetical medium).

***

The conclusion is wrong because premise 2 is wrong, but sound logic otherwise. All the premises were backed by evidence.

And the interesting thing is, proving the conclusion wrong is what taught us that premise 2 is wrong. As I said before: the "wrong idea" served as a sounding board for finding the correct idea.

One thing I am interested in is how such wrong ideas arise, maintain themselves, and die. Often, they seem to almost be essential steps in the process. For example, the whole notion of natural laws that could be understood by humans was developed (in part, not wholly) under theist assumptions of a good deity that created humans to use reason. Eventually, many left behind the theological justifications and now see natural laws as meaningful in and of themselves.

[Anomalocaris]

I agree with Anom here. The reasoning used was (roughly):

1. Light is a wave (backed by evidence).

2. Waves need a medium through which to move (incorrect premise, but backed by every observation made hitherto).

Therefore some kind of medium through which light moves must exist. (Luminiferous ether was the name given to this hypothetical medium).

***

The conclusion is wrong because premise 2 is wrong, but sound logic otherwise. All the premises were backed by evidence.

And the interesting thing is, proving the conclusion wrong is what taught us that premise 2 is wrong. As I said before: the "wrong idea" served as a sounding board for finding the correct idea.

One thing I am interested in is how such wrong ideas arise, maintain themselves, and die. Often, they seem to almost be essential steps in the process. For example, the whole notion of natural laws that could be understood by humans was developed (in part, not wholly) under theist assumptions of a good deity that created humans to use reason. Eventually, many left behind the theological justifications and now see natural laws as meaningful in and of themselves.

I think the Concept that natural law is comprehensible by humans had been in circulation since at least classical Greece, and was developed as an alternative to the common perception that nature operate by the whim of deities.     It was only later that Christians, who found it amongst their long unwanted patrimony from classical pagan civilization, and whose wont is to turn everything into a praise of their vainglorious god, who perverted it into a argument for their baroque all powerful deity.

[The Grand Nudger]

Deity was once conceived of as operating within natural law, and as an expression of natural law, itself. That's why they had fates. It's why christer god can't change his mind.

[Jehanne]

Did anyone get my joke from above? Or, was it just too lame??