Empirically, whatever is not part of the current best explanation doesn't exist. So unicorns, invisible teapots and gods all do not exist, except as purely mental concepts. — Echarmion
Our assertions about the gods are more than blind guesses. They are culturally engineered facts. In other words, we know that gods exist because we invented them. — Bitter Crank
"Science saying something" is scientists saying something. And scientists definitely say that completely implausible, incoherent, etc. things don't exist when there's no evidence for them. They don't remain agnostic on everything. — Terrapin Station
Imho, the divisive nature of thought causes us to assume that a god would be a "thing", something unique and separate from everything else that thus requires a definition, a boundary line between "god" and "non-god". And then of course we begin to argue over the competing definitions.
A better model for god may be the example of space which is everywhere in everything from the smallest to largest scales, but not a separate "thing". Space transcends simplistic dualistic paradigms like "exists vs. doesn't exist" and I suspect the phenomena we label god does as well.
The nature of thought, the way it works, is likely causing to ask a bad question from which we will never derive a good answer. — Jake
The moment that you present a reasonable basis for your experience being of God is the moment that I'll accept your claim that you had an experience of God, rather than an experience which you merely take to have been of God. And God, properly speaking, is not a thing of this world, from what I know of the world, because that name is supposed to have an actual referent, not a fictional or imaginary referent. And there is no actual referent, to the best of my knowledge. — S
As with countless other problems in philosophy, this problem stems from someone not speaking properly, and in this case it is you. — S
Throw out your Tao and replace with philosophy of the linguistic turn. — S
↪Frank Apisa
Yes, they're all guesses but the value of these guesses come in degrees depending on what your worldview/philosophy is. For instance if you're an empiricist then you will agree that there is very little or even no evidence that godly beings exist. On the other hand if you're of spiritual bent then you'll lean towards believing in the divine.
In short, even if any and all claims about gods are guesses these guesses lead to strong conclusions depending on how you view reality is. — TheMadFool
↪Rank Amateur
But that isn't the purpose of the analogy! I'm not even disputing what you're saying about space teapots and God, I'm disputing the logical relevance. My point has been from the beginning that there's a good analogy to get out of a space teapot and God in terms of the evidence, and in terms of the burden of proof. I don't give a fig about your bad analogy which misses the point. There is no reasonable basis to believe in either, which is very much the point. Saying so of God is like saying so of a space teapot. And that isn't to say that we know as much about teapots as we do about God, it is only to say that the evidence for a space teapot is about as severely lacking as it is for God, and that it is insufficient grounds for concluding in favour. And Russell's point with the teapot was about fallacious attempts to shift the burden of proof. The burden of proof is on the theist and the teapotist, not on me. — S
As far as I can tell, you don't believe science has any limitations. — T Clark
↪Frank Apisa
I agree with you on the significance of that distinction. — S
↪Frank Apisa
Yes, it falls on both, I agree. What I find annoying is when a theist thinks that they can just wade into a discussion like this and start attacking strong atheists when they're just as bad if not worse. The only trick that the theist might exploit here is to withhold any assertion representative of their belief. That is intellectually dishonest. They don't want to face up to intellectual scrutiny, but they're more than happy to jump right in to scrutinising strong atheism, whilst conveniently setting aside the much more defendable types of atheism or agnosticism or whatever you want to call it. — S
The burden of proof is on the theist and the teapotist, not on me. — S
Testimony is fine as long as it's not just testimony. There needs to be "physical" empirical evidence, including evidence both that the people who originally testified had solid physical empirical evidence backing the testimony and then a chain of evidence that people who bought the testimony had some sort of evidence aside from only testimony to justify buying it. For example, having evidence that so and so won't testify to something unless they had solid physical evidence to support the testimony, even then the person removed from the physical evidence there didn't actually witness the initial physical evidence themselves. — Terrapin Station
The only thing any scientist would say about anything that lacks empirical evidence is that is lacks empirical evidence, that is it, that is the only judgment real science would make. Any other judgment you all make about the lack of empirical evidence for anything is not scientific, it either philosophy or theology. — Rank Amateur
Not only that, only 100 years ago before Hubble 99% of the universe didn't exist. Hundreds of billions of galaxies, they didn't exist, poof, gone!
Absence of evidence is evidence of an absence of evidence. — Jake
You seem to have a superiority complex. — S
It is the height of foolishness to attempt me to defend reason. — S
How can I defend reason, except with reason or unreason? — S
But both ARE JUST GUESSES. They are not "conclusions"...they are guesses. — Frank Apisa
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