It's not a threat. It's a fact which I am reporting. If you are a person of reason you will dismember your atheism yourself. — Jake

This is religious preaching and not tolerated on this forum. The rest is just an insult to my intellect and ad hominem that's directly out of line.

Yes, really. Anybody who claims atheism is "merely a lack of belief" doesn't understand atheism. I didn't say stupid, but would say immature, lacking experience, typically lacking a real interest in the subject. — Jake

You seriously aren't following forum guidelines now. This is evangelistic spamming.

Why are you an atheist? — Jake

Stop spamming

Ah, so your lack of belief in a God just magically sprang into existence out of nothing. It's a miracle!! — Jake

You have a belief that people are born into this world, growing up with a belief as a primary starting point and then move over to atheism. Without anyone imposing religion and religious belief onto you, you will not evolve a belief in God or the supernatural. Outside influences always determine your core values. You learn things, you do not learn no things. You learn to follow a religious belief, you do not learn not to follow a religious belief.

Once again the fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of something absent. You imply atheism as something, it is the absence of something.

You do not learn there is not a chair in your room, you either learn there's a chair in your room or you don't have a chair and it's not part of your room or your perception of the room.

The chair doesn't exist, it's absent from both your idea of there being one and your experience of it. You don't learn there's not a chair in your room. Just as you don't learn to have faith in supernatural stuff, that faith is that chair, it's not there and you don't have it. You come in contact with others who claim there to be a chair in your room and it's just irrational in your perspective that there would be a chair in there.

Then there are those, like you, who claim that someone made me not think there's a chair in my room. And also claim that not accepting there to be a chair in that room is responsible for evils in this world. It's absolute nonsense.

Not sure why people are against it? It's just some tips about how to improve an argument and handle a dialectic properly. Weird.

What is this lack of belief based on? What is it's source? How does the atheist arrive at this lack of belief? It didn't just magically pop in to existence out of nowhere, right? — Jake

This is why it seems so hard for theists to grasp the concept of atheism. There's no source, there's just no belief in God or the supernatural. Do you believe in unicorns? If not, what's the source? Why don't you believe in unicorns? Did that lack of belief just pop into your head out of nowhere? Do you see the irrationality of asking that question?

You try so hard to find evil in atheism and this is what at least I find scary about theists way of reasoning. Maybe that's why my argument is about making irrational belief unethical.

Not a threat, a fair warning. I'm alerting you to what is coming so you can avoid it if you wish. Should you choose to avoid the dismemberment of your atheist belief system, feel free to do so, with no complaint from here. It's possible that I'm three times your age and have been doing this since before you were born. If so, I don't wish to be a bully. Anyway, enough about that, you will continue or you won't, and I'm agreeable either way. — Jake

You keep doing it, warnings, threats of "dismembering my atheism". It's anti-intellectual theist preaching and by my understanding, it's against forum rules.

So "gender" is a cultural characteristic - something that is part of the identity of a culture, not an individual, and "gender identity" is one's perception of one's self relative to this cultural characteristic of a particular culture? So, in essence one isn't changing one's "gender" when moving to a culture with a different "gender". They are changing their "gender identity". — Harry Hindu

Yes, biological gender doesn't change, but their perception of their gender identity may change. However, it's more likely that the culture they grew up in become their definition of gender. If someone grows up in a place which has a strict idea about what it means to be a woman, they will view those ideas and characteristics about "woman" as the norm of what it means to be a woman. Even if they move to a new place, they will not be able to easily erase their "programming" and they will view women in the same way. Which is why people who moves to another country with a vastly different culture, will have a hard time mixing well into that culture, it might take years or never at all.

So when someone says that they feel like a woman, they are referring to their gender identity, not their gender. Gender is a social construction and gender identity is not. Gender identity is a personal view. Is this all correct? — Harry Hindu

The perception of gender is the social construct and that social construct informs how we view our gender identity. If a culture has an idea of how a man should be and you are a woman who feels like your identity fits more with the construct of a man in that culture, you might become confused as to why you biologically are a woman, but every aspect of your feelings and psyche points to the idea of a man. When you then come into contact with other people in that culture, they treat you like a woman because that's your biological gender, but you feel awkward like you don't belong in that category, that all the ideals of being a woman don't apply to you.

In that case, you might start thinking about things like a sex change and acting out like a man instead of a woman, because that is what you feel is right for you in that culture. The social construct of how genders should act and behave put your identity into a category that was in conflict with your real biological gender, so you either try to deny your gender identity or you go ahead and accept your own identity where you feel at home.

I think this is like anything really. We have something physical in front of us, but we experience it by perception. Our bodies apply to this as well, we have a perception of it and it has a physical existence. Perception and physical existence don't always play hand in hand.

I think mods should do it so that it's properly done, not users.
But it seems very few want such a pinned post. Don't know why though, seems people don't want to be reminded that their argument might be flawed :chin: :lol:

Atheism is the faith based belief that human reason is a tool of sufficient power to credibly analyze the very largest of questions about the most fundamental nature of everything everywhere (scope of most God claims). — Jake

What? Atheism is just not a belief in God or any supernatural things. That's the only thing it is, what you apply to it after that is your own invention, which is the problem.

If there are no doctrines or teachings within atheism, what in the world are you posting about?

The horrors of the atheist regimes were built upon the faith based belief that there is no higher power that we are accountable to, that is, we are free to make up our own rules. And so they made up a rule that it's ok to slaughter millions if we can claim some greater good down the line. — Jake

Atheism is just a denial of the existence of any supernatural elements or God/Gods. You cannot blame atheism for the ideas that people had which led to these things.

The fundamental difference here is that religion HAS TEACHINGS that becomes a basis for ideas, ATHEISM HAS NO TEACHINGS. This is fundamental.

You are making a causation does not mean correlation fallacy because you don't seem to understand the basic concept of what atheism is and what it is not.

Like most of the atheists I've met online, you have no idea what atheism really is, a faith based belief system. That is, an immature faith based belief system which typically doesn't even know it is a faith based belief system. — Jake

This is your own definition and you call out atheists as being stupid not to understand their own atheism. Really? Are your online encounters with atheists and your own ideas about atheism the definition that is true?

To dispute this, please provide the proof that human reason, the poorly implemented ability of a half insane semi-suicidal species only recently living in caves on one little planet in one of billions of galaxies, is capable of credibly claiming what doesn't exist in all of reality, a realm which we can't currently define in even the most basic manner such as size and shape etc. — Jake

What does this, what so ever, has to do with your attack on atheists and atheism? Atheism is just the absence of belief in any supernatural things or God/Gods. Nothing more, nothing less and what you do with that, if you are an atheist, is by your own responsibility.

This is the same kind of request for proof we would reasonably ask from those quoting Bible verses etc. That is, please prove the qualifications of your chosen authority for the task at hand. Anyone who can't provide proof of the qualifications of their chosen authority is a person of faith. — Jake

What are you talking about? It appears that you don't understand the basic concept of atheism.

This all falls apart when we notice that all 'rational' beliefs can be traced back to unprovable axioms that we take on faith, such as the Principle of Induction.

Religious beliefs can be as rational as non-religious ones. They just use a slightly different set of axioms.

If one insists on ranking beliefs in order of 'worthiness', one will have to do it by looking at the axioms. One way to do that is to observe that some axioms are accepted by all people. The Principle of Induction is one. We might then claim that the only reasonable beliefs are those that are derived from the minimal set of axioms that is believed by all humans. That would rule out religious belief, but it would also rule out many other beliefs that most people are very attached to - such as the belief that there are other consciousnesses (anti-solipsism).

That's why I think it's a doomed and unhelpful exercise to try to categorise beliefs based on 'rationality'.

There are other and better ways to oppose beliefs that one finds harmful (and only a minority of religious beliefs are harmful anyway). — andrewk

The basic point of the argument is to distinguish belief that we take for truth without evidence or support. What I mean is that this argument is primarily an inductive argument for the most moral way to act around the concept of belief. If irrational and unsupported belief eventually leads to a distortion that is harmful, directly or indirectly, it's not ethical to hold on to that type of belief. Type B and C are beliefs that we primarily know are beliefs.

The difference and the basic moral act is to always move away from type A beliefs and hold onto type B and c, since we then always treat them as beliefs, we know that we don't know they are true, we know that they might be, but we would never act on them as truths.

This applies to more than religion, like for anti-vaxxers beliefs which are supposed, in their eyes, to be for the greater good, but if they had treated their fears as unsupported and in need of verification before they acted on them, they would not be responsible for the return of almost eradicated diseases. They all act on a type A belief.

So in religion, there's nothing wrong with the belief specifically, but the risk is that they influence society with their religious belief; that the consequences, even after their death, is a distortion of truth and reality for other people who then act out with harm.

My point is about how we treat belief, that we don't have a good line drawn in our heads about what beliefs are unsupported and what have support or at least that we know are beliefs. If we always had in mind that it's immoral to keep unsupported belief unchecked and act out by such unsupported belief, we would treat beliefs much more rational and always know them to be beliefs instead of through bias distort our irrational belief into truths. The different types reflect this; type A as belief that we accept as truth without evidence or support and type B and C as a belief that we know is only belief and in need of further support.

Such statements always disqualify any commentator in my eyes. If Stalin and Mao had been ardent Catholics leading explicitly Catholic regimes (or Islamic regimes) I'm guessing you'd be more than happy to offer this as evidence of the evils of religion. Which you will now deny of course, further discrediting your analysis. Seen all such dodging a billion times, bored to tears by it. — Jake

But you treat atheism as something with doctrines and rules to live by, which is a fundamental misunderstanding of what atheism is. You compare it to religion in the way that these regimes took "ideas out of atheism and applied to the terrors they acted out", which is impossible because there are no doctrines or teachings within atheism, as it isn't based on anything like that.

It's such a misunderstanding of atheism that I see time after time. The idea that atheism is some religious doctrine to follow. Communism and Nazism have nothing to do with atheism, that's pure nonsense.

How can you attach atheism to these regimes? In what way did atheism cause them according to you? I'm genuinely interested in how you make that correlation without straw-manning the concept of atheism or applying attributes to atheism that does not exist.

beliefs , even irrational beliefs, are not inherently bad or good, the just are. Even specific ideological beliefs such as Christianity or communism are not inherently bad or good. — Rank Amateur

The argument is about beliefs you think is true, as per my A-C belief types. Type A is irrational belief which you think is true without anything to back it up. Type B and C are beliefs which you know is not proven, but you think they might be true. The difference is that with these beliefs you act with caution, you tell them with the disclaimer "it's only my speculation" or "it's only a hypothesis". Type A, however, is "This is the truth", without anything to back it up with. Such beliefs are not good or bad, but they influence and distort society over a long period of time.

My point is that you can have type B and C beliefs, but never type A, which should be considered unethical as it distorts people's ideas of truth.

Specific actions taken by individuals or groups can be evil, and often ideological beliefs are used as justification for such acts. Rarely on review are these justifications the unique, major or even the real motivation, they are just the best excuse. — Rank Amateur

All belief of type A should be considered unethical, regardless of origin or use.

Without even going into a premise by premise argument, it fails because

If a group of people jointly share a belief, And some of those people do good, and some do bad, it is illogical to assign the bad to the belief.

You point turns into many murderers like chocolate ice cream, therefore chocolate ice cream causes murder. — Rank Amateur

No, I think you misunderstand the conclusion of the argument. What my argument points out is that Type A beliefs should be considered unethical since they distort truth over a period of time. If people believe things and do not care to understand that they are beliefs, they become truths for them, just like with anti-vaxxers going into cognitive bias and claim truth in vaccines causing autism.

It doesn't matter if some do good and some do bad, all belief of type A eventually lead to distortion of truth and may result in bad things happening. There is no reason to have, act or live by type A beliefs.

I think you should read my argument in detail again, this feels a bit straw-manned.

In the 20th century it was explicitly atheist regimes that led the mass murder assault upon humanity. — Jake

No, they were based on irrational beliefs and a form of similar religious followings of their leaders that you can see within religious groups, there was nothing atheistic about any of it. If you look at how they close to deified their leaders and how they followed their irrational belief you will understand that it has nothing to do with atheism. My argument is also focusing on irrational belief as a whole, which means it also includes things like eugenics and fantasies about social structures without any insight into psychology or sociology.

My personal opinion about the idea that it was atheism that caused these mass murders is that its pure nonsense and without any real insight into how these regimes formed, what doctrines they built their society upon and the irrational ideas that they lived under and ruled by. It's often used to disparage atheism whenever someone brings up how religious beliefs has caused harm during thousands of years.

Irrational ideas without foundation in evidence or rational thought will always be the root of any mass murder. I recommend that you actually look into these events during the 20th century, they acted out far closer to religious forms than any atheistic ideas. Charles Manson and his followers are closer in form to how Hitler and the Nazis acted out than any atheistic groups of people.

So, in what way is your comment any counter-argument to my argument? What is irrational belief is irrational regardless of form.

They would have a different gender identity, not biological gender. But gender as it's used in language and culture rarely focus on the biological, except for within medicine and biological applications. So if we are talking about a cultural approach to gender, how it exists within a society, how it is referred to, how it affects social interactions etc. gender in that sense has nothing to do with biology and all about the construct society formed around the biology.

• Biology is empirical.
• How we relate to our own biology is perception.
• How we categorize that perception is an individual construct.
• Categorizing that perception into an individual construct is through comparing individual perception to social norms of perception.

Therefore, gender identity is a social construct.

I think it would be better to break down the actual premises, what is wrong with each etc. Not that you don't like, but actual problems, like what is unclear, is the validity of each in question and why. Inductive arguments do not need to have premises written in categorical statements, but they need to be true. Like as we have been talking about, the first premise is not about definitions of God, but that the concept of God, any definition of God is unsupported by evidence and arguments, therefore God is a belief, regardless of its subjective definition. This is true, it can only be false if God had actually been proven to exist. So, as inductive premises, what are the problems with them?

• No argument or evidence has ever been able to prove the existence of a God or Gods, regardless of definitions for what God is, since God as a concept always refers to a concept outside of conclusions or the evidence at hand. Religious belief is therefore based on pure belief in something that is unsupported by evidence or rational deduction.
  - Updated this with the new premise to include individual definition differences.
  
• Kierkegaard or Pascal presented reasons to believe in God not linked to the existence of God, but either through Pascal's wager, in which it's most logical to believe than not to. Or by Kierkegaard, to believe because of the belief itself is a way of life (in his case Christianity).
  - Are there any problems with how I frame their ideas? Are they not true to what they proposed?
  
• Russel's Teapot analogy points out the importance of burden of proof. If you make a claim or believe in something, you have the responsibility to prove it first. You must do this before claiming it to be true or demand others to disprove your belief or claim. If not, you could possibly invent any belief you want, like teapots in space and conclude it to be true since no one has the means to prove against it.
  - Is this not what Russel proposed?
  
• By Russel’s teapot analogy and according to premise 1-2; religion or other beliefs can be made into whatever people can think of. This opens the door for people with dark and twisted thoughts and ideas to make up any type of belief they want, which could consist of harmful ideas such as murder, rape, torture and other kinds of harm to other people and themselves.
  - Is this not true? If people can make up a belief about whatever they want, by human nature wouldn't someone be able to intentionally or unintentionally create a belief around harming others? As we have plenty of historical examples of?
  
• If there’s a possibility that hateful and dangerous belief-systems will be created, it has a high probability of happening over a long enough timeline.
  -This is a regular probability premise. If there's a possibility of it happening, it will eventually happen if the timeline is long enough.
  
• There is no such thing as personal belief since you do not exist in a vacuum, detached from the rest of society and other people. As long as you interact with other people and the world, you will project your personal belief into other people’s world-view and influence their choices. The only way to not affect other people is to isolate yourself, but as soon as you interact you are projecting your ideas into the world.
  - Based on basic conclusions in psychology, out of observations about human psychology and how people interact in social groups. That we influence and change other people's mind through what we believe can be seen all around us. If this premise wasn't true, we wouldn't, for example, be able to control people's consumption through commercials.
  
• Epistemic responsibility put a responsibility on the ones who make choices without sufficient evidence. To choose to believe in something that you have no rational reasoning behind or no evidence for, is to accept something as true, without evidence or rational reasoning behind. This, based on premise 6, can lead to you projecting beliefs into others world-view and influence other people's choices and ideas based on a belief that you have not falsified, hold to scrutiny, proved or rationally reasoned behind.
  - This is primarily just the definition of Epistemic responsibility and how it relates to the previous premises. It might be that this should be included in the conclusion than as a premise though?
  
• Belief can be categorized into three parts:
  A) Belief without rational cause, a belief that is without evidence, accepted as truth and acted upon by the believer.
  B) Belief with rational cause, a belief that has rational reasoning and logic and which has gone through falsifiable reasoning as much as possible, acted upon with caution because it is never considered to be true.
  C) Scientific belief, i.e Hypothesis, an educated guess based on observations, previous evidence, careful induction, partly researched, but never accepted or acted upon as true before proven into a scientific theory.
  - This is a breakdown of different belief types, I don't see how the definitions are wrong about each belief type?

They were categorical questions asked in the context of a piece of argumentation. — tim wood

I think you are avoiding the questions themselves. It feels like you focus too much on the semantics here and don't look linguistic pragmatic of the text. But let's rephrase them as an actual argument:

• Personal beliefs are unable to be contained as it influences both how you communicate and your behavior.
• During a lifetime, a person's beliefs will eventually influence others and/or even be communicated directly.
• Personal belief can be both rational or irrational, but follow the same pattern of an idea without full support in truth.

Therefore, regardless of the belief, it will eventually influence other people even if it wasn't intentional.

Psychology our measure of truth? That's a whole other discussion. — tim wood

Psychology is an empirical science and science is a better measurement for truth than anything else. The truth, in this case, is that the above argument is based on logic in behavior, it's basic psychology. You can pretty much take that argument and try and falsify it with as many scientists in the field as you can and I doubt it will break. But even so, you need to counter it with something more than just dismissal.

But you're missing my point - consistently. Argumentation is an exercise in both content and form, and there are rules. You're breaking them in a consistent manner in support of your conclusion. The kindest term for that is sophistry. As to any psychological insight that might be in your questions, sure. But that wasn't what you're asking. In short, I answered the questions you asked. If you want to ask different questions, fire away. — tim wood

You answered no to them and therefore you deny basic psychology. You are therefore essentially denying results in science and it would require much more than just "no". It seems you want to have a dialectic about my argument, but I cannot just go by a "no", should I just take your word for it when I have support for the claim? The premises of the above argument are true, with support in science. How is that sophistry?

In this topic, a care with language is preferred to a lack of care. As it happens - as you would know if you looked - there are a variety of definitions of God. — tim wood

You mention this, but my counter to that is that they don't, it's a normal counter to argue that God is so undefined it can't be used like this, but God is always a sentient creator at least, and further down the road it gets more attributes depending on the religion. Even in pantheons, there's always the first one, the creator. In some cases, there's an event, but no first cause arguments focus on those religions since they would imply an event as the first cause and therefore render the argument not usable (but probably more true) for trying to prove God. There are no real ways to define God in any other way that isn't a sentient being. If you remove that definition, it could just be a rock and it would be irrational to even name it God. God is pretty defined by everyone who uses the word, of course, different as well, but not in its prime definition, a sentient being, a creator. And even if a religion has Gods appearing after an event that was the creation, it has even less deductive arguments or proof for their existence. However you turn it , God is pretty defined as a sentient being, a creator.

But I get your point and it might need to be rephrased since the premise obviously stirred up confusion.

If you have any evidence that supports any one of them over any other, please refer to it. What I did notice in my brief survey is that none use the word "responsible." So then instead of your "which is responsible for the creation," I would substitute, "who is worshiped as the creator of the universe." Really the important word is "as." This concept of God is God "as." And the as-clause is just what is attributed as accident to the concept God. Inasmuch as the substance, or essence, of God is unthinkable, God accumulates accidents. But no being, real or otherwise is equal to, the same as, a partial listing of its accidents. If "God" could be considered as you consider him, then your argument might itself have more bite, more substance, but He can't be, and thus yours can't either. — tim wood

If definitions of God is anything other than a supernatural sentient being, why call it God? That opens up to calling anything God, my coffee cup is God. But the premise points to no evidence or argument in support of God, so even if your definition is different it is still valid since there are no arguments that can conclude with "God". All arguments or attempts at proving God ends up with a result where the one doing the argument slaps the word "God" on top of their conclusion, they are all flawed. Therefore however you define "God", the premise about there not being any argument or evidence for God still holds up. In order to prove that premise false, you need to actually prove that there is support for God and not that it's a coffee cup.

So, the premise is about evidence for God and there are none, why is that false? Since however you turn it, using God as a definition about something, whatever it is, is a belief that is unsupported. I.e the premise points to belief in God without proof. If this is not true as a premise, why is it false? Because people define God so differently? No, God is always a belief, there is nothing that supports God as real.

So would the premise work better if it's phrased like this:
Old
No argument has ever been able to prove the existence of God or gods through evidence. Religious belief is therefore based on belief in something that is unsupported by evidence or rational deduction.
New
No argument or evidence has ever been able to prove the existence of a God or Gods, regardless of definitions for what God is, since God as a concept always refers to a concept outside of conclusions or the evidence at hand. Religious belief is therefore based on pure belief in something that is unsupported by evidence or rational deduction.

What that might leave is a concept of God that works - is at the least self-consistent. I have that, and nothing in the least bit supernatural about it. And because there is no touchstone for the concept of God, mine, being functional - if not as satisfying; I never claimed it was globally satisfying - has fair claim to being correct, or no less correct than others. — tim wood

But here's the problem, calling something that actually exists, a dead object or just plain causality or whatever as God is distorting everything to such a degree that no one can ever talk about God in any way or form since everyone has their own definition of what God is. If I started using definitions that we have in language, to refer to other things, like calling a plane - a car, a chair - a plant, a person - a dog, I would distort communication because of personal preferences of language. Like Wittgenstein pointed out: the meaning of a word is out of its use in language. If you start calling God something else than a supernatural sentient being, you are breaking the definition as it's used in language. But it's also according to my new version of the premise a definition that doesn't have a correlation with what you apply it to. Let's say that you call causation or entropy God, that is unnecessary since causation is causation and entropy is entropy. Is my friend God if I call him God instead of Bob? Can I use that as a counter-argument to someone using God in an argument? You can't use God in the argument because I define Bob as God, therefore your premise is false? It ends up as an absurd critique of the actual point of the premise and I would assume that Wittgenstein would have agreed with me on this.

You're making categorical statements and arguments. And one problem with categorical statements is that they're either all right or all wrong, no "neither-nor." So while if you tempered your arguments to the probable or the existential or the "some" or the "sometimes" and worked with that, your arguments would merit consideration. But expressed in universal terms, the argument does not merit consideration because the premises are false. — tim wood

But you are still defining my argument as a deductive argument, when it is an ethical inductive argument about how we ought to act around the concept of beliefs.

Inductive arguments do not demand categorical statements in the same way as deductive arguments. They still need to have valid premises and from what I gather you don't think the first premise is valid because you have your own definition of God, which per Wittgenstein, breaks meaning out of language.
If textbook definitions, common definition, common use in language etc. define God as a supernatural sentient being, possibly a creator, that is the meaning and definition. Otherwise, Bob is God.

As to inductive argument, you might care to read the definition you provided. Inductive arguments are suggestive, deductive conclusive. I read you as arguing for conclusive conclusions. If you want to make a good substantive argument, then you have no choice but to do the work. If a problematic argument, then you have to change your language. — tim wood

But my conclusion is a "should" conclusion. It's an "ought to" conclusion. It doesn't say that people "must". I conclude a result of the premises in support of the actual inductive conclusion that was to prove reasons on why not to accept an irrational belief of any kind and instead focus on evidence and proving ideas and beliefs you have. The actual conclusion is suggestive:

Therefore, religious or other types of belief that are of type A, should be considered unethical and criticized. The moral obligation should be to always uphold epistemic responsibility (Premise 7) and prioritize belief type B and C as ethical while condemn type A as unethical. This applies to all people for any belief of type A; religious, personal and in institutions, research and politics. — Christoffer

Yeah, I've seen it. I wonder what the level of tolerance is for this? Discussions need a lot of room so that people dare to keep doing it, but how far?

Evangelists: Those who must convince everyone that their religion, ideology, political persuasion, or philosophical theory is the only one worth having.

Is a definition of what's not welcome on the forum, not sure if it applies and I don't want to be pushing in that direction, but some overview might be needed?

Downvotes weren't actually an option, just upvotes. The main issue was that there was a cumulative total on a user's profile and an option on the members list to list members by the total number of votes they received creating a hierarchy of users, and most people didn't want to live in my shadow. — Michael

Understandable, but what if you removed the ability to list by rank or see how many votes?
I mean that if the rank score is invisible to everyone, including yourself and then, let's say 10 votes, gives you a "sign" beside your name on posts that say something like "Reliable Poster", then at 15, it switches to "Respected Poster", then at 25 it says "Quality Poster" and at 50, "Platinum member" and at 100, "Gold member" and a star of approval.

And a post describing the different levels with an explanation about what it means.

That way there's no real hierarchy, only personal stats and it might even give the incentive to behave better in order to earn a better status. Instead of competition, it's about your own effort put into the posts you write.

(of course, we can have funnier levels, like "Sokrates Master" as the highest or something :grin: )

I'm not sure he will understand further. The argument is stuck for him and he doesn't falsify it with our counter-arguments. So instead spamming the same thing over and over ignoring certain parts. It's almost troll-level reasoning right now.

I've assumed that time exists in some form before the Big Bang. But if that assumption is false; time has a start anyway and my argument still holds. — Devans99

No, it doesn't hold because you assume a creator, God, which is pre-Big Bang. Your argument for such a creator falls flat if you start time at Big Bang since your conclusion refers to something before it.

But we are doing statistics and probability here so correlation maybe causation depending on how much correlation there is and there is a lot. — Devans99

I was talking about you slapping a sentient creator God on top of your numbers and Big bang, which has no correlation or causation at all. You cannot just end each sentence with "...and therefore God". It's as invalid as philosophical arguments come.

I'm a deist and that means I believe in science only; God has to be logically possible; not some magic invention of conventional religion. So God is not some mythical creature with the omnipotence, omnipresence etc... he is a real, viable being. So God is not in any way akin to a unicorn when it comes to calculation of probabilities. — Devans99

God does not have to be logically possible, because a sentient God is as magical as anything else you describe. It does not correlate with your argument at all. You basically just decide that God has to be logically possible, it's not, it's speculation, assumption, and fantasy, just as unicorns. You are also describing God as a "he" which means you are acting out pure belief here, you are far from someone who only believes in science. Your way of arguing and your claim to believe in science only is a big oxymoron.

Based on logic; if it happens naturally it will happen infinite times (given infinite time). — Devans99

You defined the unnatural. How can you define the unnatural when first you don't have a strong case for what and what isn't natural? Second, how can you define unnatural as only happening in singular?
You have nothing to back any of this up, it's basically gone into Deepak Chopra territory now.
It's not based on logic, you apply logic on top of a false premise and claim truth.

But if the constants were set during the big bang, they must of been set by something intelligent and that intelligent entity would require a fine tuned environment. That must of been fine tuned by someone else and so on it regresses until we find God. — Devans99

No, they don't have to be set by something intelligent. You cannot apply such assumption onto your argument.

You are just spamming the same thing over and over. Your arguments have been countered already. Go read the arguments from the list of names I provided, apply some effort to your argument because you are running in circles right now, you don't give any thought to the counter-arguments you get and you are speaking nonsense. Do some research, try and do some falsifications and read up on cognitive biases.

Your argument has been countered and is invalid, not just by me. Try again (for real instead)

My argument does not rely on dimensions. It uses the loosest possible definition of time (I don't assume eternalism or presentism). All it relies on is the presence of 'stuff' (matter/energy). — Devans99

Nothing which you can by any confirmation, apply to before Big Bang. You don't even know which dimensions if at all or if by more, existed before Big Bang. Period.

I argue that the Big Bang was not natural or time is finite. Both of those are strongly suggestive of a sentient God. Pretty conclusively so when fine-tuning and other evidence is also taken into account. — Devans99

Causation ≠ Correlation. You cannot apply God to that and you cannot decide if Big Bang was natural or not. Your fantasy correlations do not apply.

Fine-tuning is not evidence, you need to reply to all those who pointed out flaws before concluding anything like that. I listed names, stop just spamming the same thing over and over, you are not doing philosophy now, you are preaching nonsense. Stop ignoring things.

Its a shockingly efficient design if you ask me; the stars provide the energy, the planets provide the living surfaces. Gravity has to be strong to enable nuclear fusion and hence energy for live. And we have to have radiation else energy would not reach the places life lives. It's inevitable that not all parts of the universe would support life whatever universe design you use. — Devans99

You are not a physicist, that much is clear. Because you don't seem to understand what he is talking about and you don't seem to understand the scale of the universe. You need to study physics.

And the fact that even the atom holds together is a miracle of fine-tuning - how likely is that in an arbitrary (non-fine tuned) universe? I think 99.999% of universes would just have particles endlessly bouncing off each other (no adhesion); nothing close to the amazing complexity of matter we have in our universe (see the periodic table and the compounds... all that diversity from just elections and quarks... and that diversity in matter is required to support life). — Devans99

You do know that humans naturally seek patterns in almost anything? You are doing it right now, this is the biggest flaw with the fine-tuning argument. It relies on the psychological effect of just finding a pattern where you see it and you cannot support the fine-tuning argument with that bias. You need to actually prove it and without so, you cannot use it as evidence.

Fantasy rants about how perfect you think things are in nature do not apply as validity to the argument. It's the "finding Jesus in a sandwich"-kind of idea for philosophy, but with a lack of knowledge in physics instead of a lack of knowledge about toasters.

You can calculate the probability of a 'unicorn standing in your back garden' as virtually zero. How has that got anything to do with the probability of 'is there a creator'? Unicorns are magical creatures and magic does not exist. Creators are not magical creatures. — Devans99

Are you seriously not understanding the analogy? This is religious apologetic nonsense you are pulling. God is as real as a unicorn and your argument is as valid as calculating the probability of a unicorn. Leave your beliefs behind when you are trying to prove God, they don't apply here.

If I choose to define my creator as my God that is my prerogative. — Devans99

It doesn't matter what you believe, no one cares, you cannot apply it to your conclusion.

Natural things come in a multiplicity, unnatural things are singular. — Devans99

Based on what? Your beliefs?

The laws of physics do not 'evolve' - there is no selection mechanism. So these constants had to be set a precise values initially in order for life to occur. — Devans99

The laws of physics most likely (by scientific findings) came to be during Big Bang. You cannot conclude that these constants existed before Big Bang and you cannot conclude that they were set intentionally.

Stop making assumptions every time you write, you don't know anything about this. You have a serious cognitive bias and you see patterns and think they prove the things you believe. It's nonsense.

I do not assume that 'there can only be these constants if someone intended for life' - I assigned it a 75% probability that fine-tuning implies a creator. A very conservative estimate, some people put in much higher than that. — Devans99

You cannot calculate the probability at all as have been stated numerous times with numerous counter-arguments. You're just acting out biases and fallacies constantly and you do not actually counter any of the counter-arguments you get. You pick and choose then you say the same thing over and over.

You need to apply yourself to the dialectic, this is actually getting ridiculous.

This is one form of philosophy, the systematic kind. There are disputes on whether or not this approach is the "one true" philosophy. I personally much prefer the systematic approach, but I don't know that it's the only valid one. — Echarmion

At least it demands true arguments without fallacies and biases, everything else is just speculation, regardless of validity as in it's the same as a shepherd seeing a dog that looks like a sheep on a hill far away. He concludes there is a sheep in front of him, when out of his sight, behind the hill the dog stands on there is a real sheep, making his conclusion true, but not correct as an argument.

Systematic and analytical philosophy demands valid premises, that's why I regard continental as thought-provoking, but invalid to make true conclusions from if they cannot be validated through proper arguments.

I define... — Devans99

That's the problem right there.

Because I've established... — Devans99

Not if you began with "I define".

Assumptions assumptions assumptions.

There are no flaws in the fine-tuning argument. — Devans99

You might read the counter-arguments by Mark Colyvan, Jay Garfield, Graham Priest, William H. Jefferys, Elliott Sober, Robert L. Park, Victor Stenger.

Prove their points wrong, I've already given mine. Just saying it has no flaws is uneducated and wrong about the argument. Those people found plenty of flaws, but you are right because... you say so?

But my argument addresses what happens in the case of both:

- Can get something from nothing
- Can't get something from nothing

IE 100% of cases. Did you read the OP?

If quantum fluctuations cause a matter increase on average then we get infinite density with infinite time so it can't be quantum fluctuations that caused the Big Bang. — Devans99

You still don't know the properties of things or the properties themselves before Big Bang. So you cannot conclude anything since you are talking about something probably (based on science) outside of spacetime itself. If you cannot define the dimensions, things or properties themselves, you cannot conclude anything, this is fact. You don't know more than the scientific consensus and the scientific theories around, so why argue that you do?

But what properties do we need to know? My argument makes no assumptions at all about the properties of the universe pre Big Bang. Maybe you did not read the OP. The point is if you make no assumptions about the state of the universe pre-big bang, you can still reason about it. — Devans99

You make an assumption about how it happened, i.e there was a sentient creator, God, that's a pretty big assumption about pre-Big Bang, right? The reasoning you do assumes a sentient God as a property of something you cannot possibly know about at this time and you use that as a value to calculate. Why can't you see this flaw in your reasoning?

A natural creation implies multiple creations, so the creator must be unnatural; IE a zero percent probability of naturally occurring, IE God. Plus fine tuning for life of the universe/multiverse is impossible without an intelligent creator. — Devans99

You still haven't defined natural and unnatural post your own assumption i.e...

I define... — Devans99

...and even if you validate it as unnatural, it doesn't mean it's God, that is an assumption.

And the fine-tuning argument is still not as valid as you accept it to be. Can you please do some falsification on it? Instead of just Texas Sharp-Shooting everything in your reasoning?

Here's a quote from physicist Robert L. Park:

If the universe was designed for life, it must be said that it is a shockingly inefficient design. There are vast reaches of the universe in which life as we know it is clearly impossible: gravitational forces would be crushing, or radiation levels are too high for complex molecules to exist, or temperatures would make the formation of stable chemical bonds impossible... Fine-tuned for life? It would make more sense to ask why God designed a universe so inhospitable to life. — Robert L. Park

Then you can go through more falsifying by looking into the names I mentioned above on the matter. Problem is that you accept the fine-tuning argument, therefore you have the assumption of God in your head while making your own argument. That's why it's flawed.

I made conservative estimates on the percentages. It is a systematic and mathematically correct way to carry out a probability meta-analysis. At least I'm making an effect instead of throwing my hands up. 'I don't know' is not an informative answer. — Devans99

Your calculations do not have anything to do with a sentient God, period. Stop doing a causation/correlation fallacy and make assumptions out of that to conclude nothing that has support in the premises. You are actually not listening to any of the counter-arguments you get, you just decide which assumptions and arguments are correct, then do your calculation based on what you think is correct and conclude that it has a probability without any connection to anything other than your assumptions.

I can not calculate the probability of a unicorn standing in my backyard, but I can calculate the probability of a horse. How is this not crystal clear?

Point to exactly where I am using 'belief' in my argument please. I believe in logic and maths and nothing else. 1+1=2 applies before and after the big bang so yes, maths and logic can make statements about what happened before the Big Bang (as long as no axioms about the pre-Big Bang period are used). — Devans99

God, a sentient God, it is not a math number or quantifiable, it is your belief it is your unicorn. You are trying to calculate the probability of the existence of a unicorn by applying valid math on made up probability values about a unicorn that you assumed to exist before the calculation of probability. It's pure nonsense. It's not 1+1=2, it's 1+1=[UNICORN]

But the question 'Is there a creator?' does exist within logic and is fair game. — Devans99

"Is there a creator?" is a vague question that through logic conclude it to be a sentient God, without nothing more than math.

I have defined these terms; again:

- Natural events have a non-zero probability of occurring naturally given sufficient time
- Unnatural events have a zero probability of occurring naturally however much time — Devans99

Even with this reasoning, how can you conclude Big Bang to be unnatural if you don't know the things, properties or properties themselves of what was before Big Bang? How can you define if Big Bang was natural or unnatural when you don't have any data since science has no data on the event themselves?

So we can use these definitions to reason about the pre-Big Bang universe. — Devans99

No, we can't, because you cannot define whether or not it was natural or unnatural at the same time as your definition of natural and unnatural is your own. So you cannot connect it to anything pre-Big Bang.

Fine tuning is not a fallacy; there are about 20 physical constants that if changed would result in no life in the universe. — Devans99

What does that prove? How can you not just turn that around and say that because the universe evolved these 20 physical constants it enabled life to evolve? There's no connection between any intention of fine-tuning and the natural evolution from these constants to life. You apply the assumption that there can only be these constants if someone intended for life, which is only an assumption and therefore a fallacy. How can you possibly connect the constants to the intention of life? False cause fallacy if I ever saw one. Also, there are 22 known constants, not 20.

I have not in my argument made any assumptions about the pre-Big Bang period. I have not even assumed gravity, the standard model, cause and effect. So as there are no assumptions about the pre-Big Bang period it is OK to reason about it. — Devans99

A sentient God as a creator is your assumption. Valid conclusions end just after Big Bang, since that's where we are at in science, beyond that is speculation and if you are trying to conclude anything with "sentient God the creator" you are making assumptions about what was before Big Bang. This is crystal clear.

Where then would you suggest I start with a probability analysis if it is not 50%/50% ? — Devans99

You cannot, because you cannot measure the probability of something that is made up, like a unicorn. If we can prove that there are signs of a unicorn, we can calculate probabilities of them existing. But we cannot use probability to calculate nothing. Since we don't have any idea what came before Big Bang, and since there are no arguments that show signs of any sentience responsible for the universe, we have no properties to calculate. It is essentially like creating a probability calculation for the probability of a unicorn or a teapot in space by saying there's a 50/50 chance there is a teapot in space and a unicorn in my backyard just because I believe there to be one there and one in space. Then demand people to accept my logical calculation out of 50/50 without even explaining how it relates to either teapots or unicorns in any logical and verified way.

But for philosophy in general, there is no such need. "I don't know" is a valid answer. — Echarmion

Isn't that dependent on the type of claim and argument? A deduction must be true, an induction must be a probability, but both need valid premises. Otherwise, it's just ranting from a chaotic mind and everything comes down to "this is my opinion", "this is that person's opinion".
Philosophy should be about dialectics, pointing out flaws in others arguments and reading objections to your own in order to fine-tune the argument towards a valid deductive or inductive conclusion.

Maybe I'm just leaning towards analytical philosophy more than continental? Continental is interesting and thought-provoking and I like it, but when doing a dialectic it rarely holds up if not supported by actual evidence and science.

So given a toss of a fair coin, which would you assume:

- It comes up tails 100%
- It comes up heads 100%
- It comes up heads/tails 50%/50% — Devans99

I know a coin, I know each side, I know what happens when I flip it and gravity pulls it to the ground. Therefore I can define the probability of a coin toss as 50/50.

God exist or God does not exist is not 50/50 since we don't have a coin, we don't have sides, we don't have the gravity or the flip.

Exactly, you start with I don't know; ie not 100% yes, not 100% no' but equidistant between the opposites 50%/50%. — Devans99

You cannot create a fantasy and apply a probability to it. I cannot say "I think there might be a unicorn" and based solely on that idea conclude there to be a 50/50 chance of it existing. That's total nonsense.

I have a nitpick here: burden of proof is a legal concept. The scientific equivalent would be a null hypothesis, or more generally parsimony. In general philosophy there is only the soundness of arguments. — Echarmion

Burden of proof applies to deduction, no? If the conclusion is to be considered true it needs full support without fallacies or biases. An induction argument requires probability. But if the argument is a true conclusion that there is a probability of a specific number, it's a deductive argument about the probability. If the proof of this deduction is premises which themselves are speculation, undefined or based on incomplete/faulty arguments, the deduction cannot be valid.

But Null hypothesis also works for the claim of a sentient God. It's a null hypothesis, but you cannot calculate a probability of that null hypothesis based on flawed data and you need to adress your claim as a null hypothesis.

I'm using logic and maths. You are using waffle. — Devans99

No, you are using your belief as groundwork for your conclusion. Logic and math cannot prove anything before Big Bang, you need physics to do that and no physicist would ever say they are certain or have a probability of any kind of truth about what is before Big Bang since they have insufficient data to calculate this.

• God doesn't exist within logic and math as a quantifiable entity.
• If you define God with a property of "sentience" it is a defined God.
• Using math and logic to calculate the probability of something defined, requires data to support the definition before the probability of the defined can be calculated.
• There is no data to support the definition of God as "sentient".

Therefore math and logic cannot prove anything related to a sentient god. It can only provide probabilities based on the laws of physics since scientific theories are proven true and can be applied within the calculated probabilities.

• Natural and unnatural are concepts without proved scientific definitions and can't be used to calculate what is and what isn't natural.
• The fine-tuning argument is a fallacy that assumes the conclusion before the argument, it has no scientific validity.
• Properties of anything and definitions of the properties themselves are unknown about what came before the Big Bang, physicists have at this time no data to support anything and no conclusions to give.

Therefore nothing can be proved about what came before Big Bang and anything concluded about
pre-Big Bang is only speculation and assumptions only.

There's your waffle.

No, you are missing the point; any natural starting point for the Big Bang (with infinite time) implies infinite Big Bangs. So the Big Bang was not natural. — Devans99

You are still concluding it to be unnatural without being able to apply data on what is natural or not about it. I.e begging the question.

How on earth could a non-sentient creator create something like spacetime? It clearly requires intelligence. — Devans99

How can you draw that conclusion? You answer a question about something you have no idea about, where's the logic here? You make assumptions based on your belief here.
Begging the question

Plus all the signs of fine-tuning for life in the universe — Devans99

A flawed argument cannot support another flawed argument to enforce an assumed conclusion. It's like fallacy inception.

I do not assume causality to work before Big Bang. If causality does not apply before the Big Bang, that falls under the 'Can get something from nothing' axiom. — Devans99

No, because'Can get something from nothing' still implies that you can define exactly what was before. Can you disprove that the Big Bang wasn't a quantum probability within infinite time, therefore 100% probable to occur instantly? You can't disprove or disprove anything without data on what was before Big Bang. "Nothing" cannot be applied to the reasoning either since you need to define what "nothing" is based on nothing more than assumptions of how to define what was before Big Bang.

So my argument is free from 'cause and effect' as an axiom. — Devans99

No, because you don't know the properties of pre-Big Bag so you cannot define anything at all.

I think my argument is still sufficiently general to cover this; can you be more specific? — Devans99

No, it isn't. The specifics and my point is that every kind of definition of what was before Big Bang is pure speculation and even the properties of pre-Big Bang cannot be quantified into any kind of logic if you don't have knowledge and data of pre-Big Bang.

Your argument is equivalent of a scientist saying that he is certain of what was pre-Big Bang, no serious scientist would ever make such a claim before we have proper data and math to cover it, so why would you be certain of anything and how could you use that uncertainty as a premise in your argument? It's seriously flawed.

I understand the analogy and agree with it; the Christian God is very unlikely because we have evidence that (for example) omnipotence is very unlikely. I am not arguing for a Christian God. — Devans99

Then move on to John Wisdom's gardener analogy.
Then answer this:
If you have such an undefined definition of what God is that it could be considered "whatever", then the metaphorical interdimensional stone could be the God you are arguing for, then why call it God at all if not to apply you own belief to an object of no sentience?
Then:
If you have God as undefined, but sentient, you have defined it with at least one property, that of sentience, which has no support in the argument you are making. Therefore, you assume it to have sentience out of your belief and will that this is true, not out of any evidence for it.

There is no evidence at all if the evidence is an assumption based on flawed reasoning.

Your math sucks. I have a 1st class in math. — Devans99

Are you using yourself as the authority in an appeal to authority fallacy?
Nice narcissism there. You apply your own invented probability number and use it based on how you want it to work in the equation.

Yes but my point is; in the absence of evidence/data you assume a normal distribution. Your statistics sucks as well. — Devans99

You are drawing a true conclusion out of a probability value based on your own invented values of each points probability. With some points being "Big Bang 50%"; of what? God? It's flawed. Probability needs data on the outcome so that it can be quantified. Since we don't know anything about pre-Big Bang, you have no data to put into your calculation. Therefore you cannot calculate any type of probability for God.

It was 3 years ago. Maybe jamalrob will be open to a new vote now that we're a much bigger community with many more members. — Michael

I think it's possible to have a vote system again. Maybe just skip the "downvote" since that's seriously able to be abused. Voting someone up can only be done once and you can remove that vote if you want, but never downvote. Then if someone votes on someone as being a good dialectical sparring partner but then realize that person is misbehaving, later on, he/she can just remove the vote.

Through that, no one can just downvote someone because they don't like what they say, they can only vote positive on someone they think is behaving properly and if they change their mind, just remove the vote. The numbers apply to a "respected" scale, meaning, it's not about who is "the best at philosophy", but if you reach over a certain number of votes you become "respected" or "quality poster".

Might that work? Or are there any problems I'm not seeing with this?

The history of philosophy is not a straight line though. There is no equivalent to the scientific method that just builds on previous observations for philosophy as a whole. — Echarmion

Aren't we considering "how we make an argument" something that has been refined over the years? With a growing list of fallacies and biases to guide us past the flaws of human reasoning? Those things have been built upon past understandings of how to compose arguments.

This is an internet forum. Not everyone here has any formal education in philosophy. I don't. So not everyone will be able to follow complex terminology or logical constructions. I don't know if my arguments are in line with "current methods", but I think that I can nevertheless construct a rational argument if I try. — Echarmion

Yes, and I don't either, but I've been seriously autodidacting how to do arguments, how to try and avoid fallacies and biases. Even if no one has formal education, it's I think at least at a minimum required to understand basic philosophy on a philosophy forum. The guidelines even state that you need to apply proper arguments. And while I'm not saying I manage to be perfect in this sense, especially compared to those with academic philosophical training, I at least try and follow how things need to be done and if someone has a problem with how I write something or rationalize I try and listen in order to understand and evolve my argument, like a dialectic is supposed to.

The problem though, is that some don't even apply the basics and discuss just like they would on say, Facebook or other forums. Philosophy, at least in my opinion, requires at least to apply yourself to the basics of it and especially listen to counter-arguments properly, instead of spamming the same thing over and over again.

Sometimes an argument just goes in circles between a few people saying the same thing over and over, other people shake their heads and leaves the discussion to those people and the thread just dies. Just because people aren't even applying anything close to a dialectic.

I think there should be an addition to the top of the forum beside guidelines, which have some tips on how to form an argument, a list of fallacies and biases and a note on the importance of reading and understanding someone's counter-argument before answering. It would be helpful for everyone who has little to no knowledge of philosophy when registering on this forum.

Then where did the stone come from? — Devans99

You are missing the point, I'm saying that there might be something outside of spacetime that isn't a sentient creator. A starting point or a point that always was; that is dead as a stone and just as irrational as calling a real stone, creator or God. The essential thing is that you assume causality to work before Big Bang, but we have nothing that proves or disproves if there even was causality before. This assumption makes any causality/first-cause-argument flawed. It's ignorant of scientific theories and ignorant of rationality and logic.

concludes that the cause of any such stone must be non-natural. Its a very simple argument: if creation was natural and time was infinite then there would be infinite creations; there is only one creation. That rules out stones. That means a creator. — Devans99

The stone was a metaphorical idea of an interdimensional stone that does not apply to our universe physical laws. Have you ever conceptualized a tesseract? Now imagine beyond that level of complexity with unknown properties of something that we might not even define as matter, but still not sentient.

The "time has a start" argument assumes causality to be exactly the same after Big Bang as before it. It's an assumption not proved by the argument. That's it. You need to provide real scientific data on what was before Big Bang in order to support a conclusion that demands causality and laws of nature functioning as spacetime before Big Bang. If not, it could just as well be circular; space reaches a stretching point and inflate/collapse into a small point and then explodes again into Big Bang, infinite iterations without a starting point, circular. The point being, you cannot assume things when making a conclusion, therefore you are only doing assumptions and guesses, i.e fallacies.

No because we have evidence that teapots do not fly and you are allowing for that in your probability estimate the full calculation is: — Devans99

No, you don't, please read Russel's analogy and understand it before posting. It's frustrating when you don't understand the fallacies your making or haven't read why the fallacies are fallacies and why they render your arguments wrong.

1. What is the probability of an object flying?
2. Start at 50% for an unknown boolean proposition for which we have admitted no evidence
3. First piece of evidence: object is a teapot
4. Revised probability calculation: 50% x 0% = 0% — Devans99

How is that even a logical calculation? You're just making these calculations up. Stop the pseudoscience nonsense.

Was the big bang natural or non-natural event? Without taking any further evidence, you would start at 50% yes, 50% no. — Devans99

No, you have no probability of either since you have no idea how to define the framing of the question since you don't know what was before. Probability needs data and you have none.

Then we look at the very unnatural way that space is expanding; this is no ordinary explosion; there is something unnnatural about it. — Devans99

What? You cannot define it as unnatural based on not understanding physics or know anything about the questions unanswered. You are doing assumptions all over the place to fit your narrative.

Then we further consider then universe had very close to zero entropy at the Big Bang... highly unnatural. — Devans99

How so? You need to know what came before and what's beyond our current dimensions, you need to solve the unification theory, you need to know how entropy behaves at heat death, you need to know what enabled zero entropy. You cannot brand it as unnatural in the way you do just because you believe it to be.

So actually the chances the Big Bang were unnatural, IE a creator, are probably much higher than 50% — Devans99

No, it doesn't. You don't even care to apply yourself, you are making fallacies all over the place.

I'm listening to your counterarguments its just they are not convincing... — Devans99

And you are not even making sense. There's no logic to your calculations, there's no rational understanding of how to verify or falsify your argument and you are writing fallacy after fallacy.

Do you truly understand burden of proof? Do you truly understand begging the question? Do you truly understand false cause? I can go on.

You are not even trying to take these fallacies into consideration, you are just spamming the same thing over and over. Apply verification/falsification, actual logic and apply more effort into understanding the counter-arguments before writing. And stop the tu quoque fallacy and apply yourself.

What was the reason? I understand that this could be abused and get out of hand, but maybe a form that would is different would work. But if there are good reasons/experiences not to, I understand.

They conclude that there is a creator and that is my basic definition of God. If you can point out any specific example of a fallacy in my argument, I'd be happy to discuss it. — Devans99

None of them conclude there to be a creator. They could just as well point to an interdimensional stone that hit another interdimensional stone and the blast resulted in our four-dimensional spacetime through Big Bang. It's been stated over and over throughout many threads of discussion why it's flawed to assume the truth of the conclusion when doing the premises, that's begging the question. And all the post-rationalization when burden of proof is asked for falls under any of the others I mentioned.

The truth is, you cannot conclude there to be a creator/God out of any such arguments since that is about attaching an assumption to that conclusion that has no relation to the actual premises. No flawed logic or ambiguity fallacy can save arguments from that fact.

If you want to prove the existence of God you can only use those argument's conclusions as part of the premises for a new argument. The problem with this is that there are no new arguments that hold up to the current knowledge in science and/or logical calculations so there is no way to present an argument with premises that makes logic and rational sense to the conclusion that there is a creator/God. They all fall flat which is stated over and over when they pop up on this forum. You cannot state that the existence of God is true, at closest you can state probability, but even there your numbers are way off.

I have estimated the probability that each piece of evidence on its own points of a creator of the universe: — Devans99

You're just making these numbers up. You estimate without any real logic applied.

You start at 50% probability for the question 'is there a creator/god? - IE because no evidence for/against has been considered yet. The first step of the calculation then is: — Devans99

How can you even calculate this probability? Based on what? Is there a 50% probability that there is a teapot flying in space, just because it's unable to be confirmed? This is not how you calculate probability in any logical or reasonable way. Your other numbers are also pulled out of thin air based on your own belief, not any rational calculation.

And you can't stack up probability like that either, it's flawed math, Gambler's fallacy. Especially when some of the points don't even point to any probability of a creator/God, like Big Bang. How is that a 50% probability of the existence of a creator/God?

Apply a little more reason to all of this, it makes no sense whatsoever. Look into the fallacies and biases, look over your math. You're just spamming posts with the same calculation without really listening to the counter-arguments.

Yes, as evidenced by the many mistakes people, including very smart people, have made in the history of philosophy. — Echarmion

In history, it's understandable that there's been flawed thinking because as science evolved, so did how we do rational and reasonable arguments. The thing that I don't understand is why so many who discuss philosophy won't adhere to current methods of dialectics. It's like they ignore the last 150 years of development in how to do a rational argument and when they hear counter-arguments they don't evolve their argument, just point out that they are right because [insert fallacy here].

Human minds are not perfect reasoning machines. — Echarmion

Fallacy and bias-knowledge is extremely low within the general public and that's understandable, but on a philosophy forum, it's mind-boggling.

Mods should put a pin to the top of this forum with a list of fallacies and biases and prompt people to keep them in mind.

There is quite a lot of evidence for God: — Devans99

No evidence of any of these concludes that there is a God. That's an assumption made before the conclusion.Begging the question, Burden of proof, false cause, Texas sharpshooter, ambiguity, anecdotal, post-rationalize special pleading, composition/division - are all fallacies that needs to be avoided throughout all arguments. You can't ignore them. While confirmation bias, dunning-kruger, belief bias, the backfire effect, fundamental attribution error, anchoring are all biases to avoid.

There is no evidence against God that I'm aware of. — Devans99

Burden of proof applies to the one making the claim. Read Russel and stop ignoring counter-arguments.

I've assigned a probability that each of the above means the existence of God and then combined the probabilities: — Devans99

You cannot combine probabilities like that and how do you even calculate these probabilities, you are just pulling numbers out of the air to support your conclusion. I don't know how many fallacies this includes, but at least the Gambler's fallacy.

I think you are trying too hard to prove your conclusion without actually doing proper arguments for them.

The classic "born in the wrong body" idea of a trans person, for example, is built out of our social expectations regrading bodies and gender/sex. If one body's didn't matter to gender/sex, there would be no need for someone to switch identities because of their sense of body. A person with a penis and dysphoria, for example, could go through a body changes, have SRS, yet have no need to become "female." — TheWillowOfDarkness

This is why I think the discussion is important. I have a feeling that a lot of sex changes, surgeries etc. comes down to social constructs and norms about "what is normal". Even today, even in the most progressive nations of the world, the woman/male norm of identity is still so strict within the collective mind that even if all laws about your gender identity says that you can be whatever you want and judging you is considered close to hate speech, the individual who's confused about their gender will still be confused.

Laws and general public acceptance of people who view themselves like this are not enough to welcome people into the norm of society. And when media keep trying to include them as a normal part of society, it airs much more like broadcasted freakshows than inclusion. Like the parent with outdated norms who try to act normal when meeting their son's new boyfriend.

The last 20 years have been a great push to improve societies inclusion in order to make better norms that respect everyone. But there's been a backlash in the form of conservatives fighting back. It's as it is always when political movements move faster than expected; the backfire is more complicated because the norms of society move slower. I don't think that there's any question that the fast progressive movement of many nations around the world due to internet and social media has caused a large backlash from conservative views and that's why we've had growing populist, racist, anti-LGBT and hate crime problems.

It's also not healthy that we have an entire narcissistic selfie-generation who goes so far as to do plastic surgery in order to look like a snapchat-filter (true case). This focus on the body, perfection (according to media and porn preferences) is seriously damaging on kids, teens and especially those with a confusion of their gender.

I don't think there's any point to debate whether or not these things and issues exist, they do. The question is what to do about them, how to improve society in order to keep mental health issues down. Because those issues are on the rise due to all this pressure everyone has on them and especially if you don't "normally" fit in with societies norms, you are in serious risk of depression and harm.

Maybe this forum needs a scoring system? Don't know how that would look like, but if someone is writing proper posts, answers with respect to the argument and keep their fallacies down you could invisibly "like" their post. Even if that post is against your point, most people in here know when they get proper feedback/counterargument and when they get a nutcase on their tail.

With that, those with a higher score shows as "respected member" or "quality member" or something. I guess we could make a whole argument-discussion out of such a system, but it would help distinguish between those who time after time just rant nonsense and those who come here for a proper philosophical discussion.

For example, someone who tries over and over again to present a valid argument against someone else, but keeps begging the question over and over again, without realising it, and even when this is identified and explained over and over again, and even though there is information available on the internet which explains this fallacy, the person is inescapably stuck in the pattern of behaviour of committing the fallacy over and over again. Maybe they even understand the fallacy, and could tell you what it is upon request. — S

Maybe because too many don't even have a basic understanding of philosophy or dialectic procedures? I do however find that for a forum that is open to all and that features discussions on religion and politics, it never really goes off into mindless-rant-closed-threads-directions. That's a positive thing I guess.

Personally, I find there to be a bit too much religious apologist-rants. Some believer who read Aquinas or Kalam-arguments only and then rants of without any logical reasoning at all. "First cause"-arguments keep popping up like weed and it doesn't matter how much you point out fallacies and flaws, they keep going, even though the likelihood of them "proving Gods existence" after thousands of years of philosophy, in an age of strict scientific methods, is close to zero, especially on a philosophy forum without any papers published at all.

I know there's nothing to be done about that, but it's clogging the system and you need to wade through them to reach other discussions.

Is there a way to block some sections off? Like, if I don't want to see threads posted in "Philosophy of religion" at the top? Also, all the "first cause" arguments should go into that section, Metaphysics/Epistemology is at the moment a dumping ground for first cause-arguments.

Another thing is that I think new members shouldn't be able to post subjects until they have at least 20-30 posts. I've seen this on other forums and it works great, it settles them into the forum and keeps trolls out.

the problem with "no-seeum" argument is an incredibly long line of
times they were wrong.

Until we find such a thing as a virus there is no reason to believe one exists -
Until we find such a thing as an atom there is no reason to believe one exists -
Until we find such a thing as a quark there is no reason to believe one exists
— Rank Amateur

Except no one believed any of them until they were conceived as viable hypotheses and when observed and tested, confirmed as true. You also Texas Sharpshot-picked things that were proven, while there's an even longer list of things that we today laugh at that people believed.

You cannot hypothesis God since no argument for any kind of God leads to a notion of specifically God as the end of that hypothesis. All of those had a clear hypothesis, but everything about God arguments is wild assumptions and individual concepts.

Burden of proof applies always. An argument that uses the "if you cannot disprove it, it's real" is a flawed argument and it's why Russel had such an impact on science to force it to stick to truths and not fantasies or pseudoscience.

Your post reads like a conspiracy theory rant, specifically because it's the argument they use. The conclusion of what you say; would mean we can just give up any kind of attempt at discussing the world and universe since everyone can neatly stick to their own world-view and beliefs. I see no room for such nonsense in philosophy.

Perhaps you might say that a criticism against anarcho-communism is that communism requires a state, and so the anarcho-communist is committed to a practical, if not theoretical, contradiction. I think much the same thing about anarcho-capitalists. — Moliere

Yes, anarcho-communism is a contradiction for me, it feels like communism is slapped onto anarchy in order to not frame it as pure anarchy, but it makes little sense. Anarcho-capitalists are down in the Ayn Rand objectivism, it's essentially Bioshock's Rapture.

That depends on what you believe people will be like without a state. — Moliere

I am too nihilistic to believe that a pure anarchy society can function in any way. It will most likely become an Ayn Rand nightmare. But it also has its roots in the sociological and psychological observations that groups of 12 are the maximum in which people can behave as a functional anarchy system, beyond that people start grouping together, form tribalism and if there is no over-arching authority someone will start calling the shots, demanding things from the other groups etc.

I think that sub-definitions of political forms doesn't really change the over-arching map. A scale of authority to liberal, collectivism to individualism is the most basic map we can define by and within it, we get those corners which makes sense according to the first scales. Central economy and capitalism forms naturally under them and slapping together different parts trying to create some combination are usually why they never work and become failed sub-category political movements. It's the "eat the cake and have it too" of politics. The only way to do that is to embrace Objectivism and take the cake, eat it and by gunpoint demand that the one who owned it makes more.

I disagree with you here. Without a state, even a minimal state, to back up private property claims you do not have private property. You may have warlords or gangsters, but you don't have a court system to enforce contracts over private property. — Moliere

True, but in anarchy, you are free to claim anything for yourself, but if you don't support the community you will be left alone and if you force yourself onto the community, they will bond together to get rid of you. Think a small village thousands of years ago with no attachment to any kingdom. Some African tribes used this anarchy type; where families came together to organize bigger things for the community, but no one was enforced by anyone other than other tribe-members, like when someone stopped helping within the community. Communism requires a state and authority, anarchy is anarchy.

In Objectivism, there is no community other than everyone's individually created one. If you want to find a place you need to take it or be a slave to masters. The only way to be happy is to embrace your own situation, become your own master, own your own slaves and create your own rules and laws within your property. It's essentially the kind of anarchy people usually think of because if society falls and we end up with nothing but survival, it's the kind of chaos and society that Mad Max represents, it's not anarchy, it's Ayn Rand. That's why the game Bioshock perfectly captures this; a society that bloomed because of Objectivism, but eventually fell due to its irrationality as a system in which power struggles between the powerful boils over and then end up with the type of Mad Max society people often mistake for anarchy.