On why Atheism is a Shite BELIEF System

[JimC]

But then again billions of people over the ages claim personal communications with God/Jesus/Set/Quetzlcoatl/Apollo/Allah/Baal/Odin/Zarathustra/The Great White Elk/Krishna/Isis/The ghost of their dead grandmother/Fairies at the bottom of the garden/Trolls/Elves/Pixies/Banshees/Kelpies/Republicans/Gingerbread men/Talking wombats/Intelligent grapes/Aliens/Darth Vader/Mr Magoo/Their feminine side/The Borg/The spirits of dead foetuses/Vampires/Satan/Honest realtors/etc. Why should one not accept that "eyewitness testimony" as being true?

And the only true example is the talking wombats...

[Seth]

It's your religious belief that my reasoned opinion is of the same order as your faith, I'll no longer try to discuss with you.

It's not a matter of "same order," it's whether your beliefs are beliefs, and whether you follow them devotedly as a matter of conscience or ethics, which it's pretty clear you do. Nothing precludes a reasoned opinion from being a religious belief or a part of a religious activity.

[Seth]

Why should there be any hypothesis about god existing or not existing? There is no data. If you not expect any data, what is the point of a hypothesis?

Well, there's your problem right there, there isn't "no data" there's thousands of years of data, it's just that you don't happen to think it's very good or useful data. That, my friend, is nothing more than a matter of opinion and is not something one can base a rational conclusion of any kind upon.

[Seth]

The quote I mined was Laplace answering Napoleon about why he hadn't included god in his hypothesis about the working of the solar system, it was not about god.

Indeed, but the point is that while God might not have been "necessary" for Laplace's hypothesis that doesn't mean that God does not exist. It's not "necessary" to resort to God to calculate a sum of numbers, but that says absolutely nothing about Gods existence or God's involvement in bringing things to the point where you have the intellectual capacity to calculate anything.

Laplace makes the same mistake that Dawkins does in trying to convince people that just because they have a simple(er) hypothesis for some phenomenon that this means that the simple(er) explanation is the correct one. But this is the most common canard used to disparage religion, and it's completely irrational and illogical.

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

I can say the same for any branch of science you yourself cannot (or do not) verify by your own hand. Does the Large Hadron Collider actually collide hadrons? You weren't there so you can't say, and I can say that they are all crazy cult leaders in a land full of 'em and be just exactly as correct as you are in your analysis of the anecdotal reports of the followers of Christ. And then there's the "garbled reports from self-interested participants" in the "global warming" scientific community...

What an utterly idiotic comparison. For a start, the activities at CERN are current, and thus not seen through the mists of history (my original comment, of course, applies to a greater or lesser extent to all examples of ancient history, although some have much more detailed, credible and multiple textual sources than the bible; a good example would be the copious literature and history of Rome...).

Are they? Have you been there? Are qualified to say what the hell they are actually doing? I don't think so. You rely upon anecdotal reports from others in which you place trust and confidence with respect to the accuracy of their reporting. That's called "faith" and it's part of your "belief" that CERN even exists.

Secondly, CERN is a collaboration of a large number of highly qualified people from a wide range of nationalities and professions, who share the vast amount of data they generate with an even larger world-wide scientific community, including all possible engineering details of the actual collider. The data is used by fiercely competitive groups, who take a certain pleasure in exposing the potential inaccuracies of rival concerns. All the papers generated are peer reviewed, and published in a wide range of professional journals, then further reported on by science journalists.

Sounds like a religious order to me...

Anyone with the time and expertise can both see the raw data, go on a tour of the collider, and make their own analysis of the material.

Have you done so? And if you have, are you qualified to analyze what they are doing and the data they produce to be sure that it's actually not a giant money-sucking scientific scam?

I suspect not. But you highlight exactly my point by listing all of the sources you use to determine the credibility and truth of the claims of CERN. You give them credence because you hold a set of beliefs about not just their honesty, but in the process by which the data is gathered and disseminated.

But I've never been to CERN, and I don't know any of those scientists or authors or journalists so I cannot rationally say that what they say is true. I can only assume its true. In other words, I can have high confidence in the truth or existence of something not subject to immediate rigorous proof. That's the definition of belief.

Your beliefs are based on your education and understanding of the world, including your understanding of science and the scientific method. It is your personal experiences that gives you confidence in the propositions of science because you experience the results, and confirmation of those propositions, in your daily life.

Here's the thing you don't understand: Devout theists base their beliefs on the same thing, their personal experiences that give them confidence in the proposition that God exists. The fact that you are not able to access these experiences and do not understand the nature of those experiences does nothing but reduce your confidence in the truth of the claims, but your skepticism, while perfectly valid, has no effect whatsoever on the underlying facts and truths upon which theists base their beliefs. Put simply, you do not accept the claims of theists because you have not had the same sort of experiences that foster their beliefs, just as neither you nor I have had personal experiences with CERN that would validate our beliefs. We all have to rely upon the evidence we see, and each person sees different evidence at different times, and one man's conclusion is not inherently more or less flawed than another person's conclusion unless they have experienced the exact same thing. This is particularly true if God is a sentient being who can choose to interact with one person and not another.

Your skepticism about the beliefs of theists is perfectly rational, but the conclusions that you and other Atheists draw about the character of people who have had different experiences than you are not supported by either the evidence or reason.

Learn to make comparisons which actually make sense, and perhaps you will be taken seriously...

Learn how to open your mind and apply a metaphor or simile to an argument and perhaps you will.

[Seth]

"billions of people....claim"? Where did you pull this shit from?

Well, there are estimated to be a billion Catholics alone on the planet at this moment, not to mention all the other Christian sects, and when you add up all the centuries that have passed since the events in the New Testament, the total is certainly billions.

[Seth]

Buncha quite possibly fictitious piss stained goat herders supposedly claim some improbable bullshit happened. Ignorant morons take this as Absolute Truth, and "prove" their contentions by saying "but you weren't there" or "you can't know that".

I'm not claiming any truth or proof at all, I'm merely pointing out that you cannot claim any untruth or disproof, or even lack of proof. You don't know. It's that simple. This condition of uncertainty justifies skepticism on your part most certainly, but your "analysis" is bigoted and ignorant and cannot be said to be true because you have no proof of the truth of your claims. You're just maligning people based on your own ignorance.

Color me skeptical, but I'll ignore their mushroom induced ravings. I also don't credit reports of Bigfoot or faeries at the bottom of the garden. If that's what passes for religion these days then religion is some pretty small fucking beer, and isn't worth consideration.

Then why do you spend so much time giving it consideration?

People who decide that atheism is somehow comparable with theism based on nonsensical, useless, irrelevant comparisons of "metaphysical evidence" with actual, real, scientific data are as full of shit as the proverbial Christmas Turkey. No wall of philosophical babble will change that, but it it makes you feel better to believe it then have at it, mate. To each their own.

Whose making a comparison? Not me. I'm simply stating that Atheism as practice here and widely elsewhere fits the dictionary definition of a religion. I'm not making a value judgment on that fact. You are.

I'm also pointing out the flaws in your reasoning, not making claims about the truth of anything at all. If scientific reasoning is as flawed as your thinking, there's no reason to believe it reveals the truth about anything. What you're engaged in is not reason at all, it's hateful, bigoted unreason that ought to be beneath contempt for any truly rational person. That's my point.

[Seth]

Because self induced hallucinations and mass delirium are a likely enough hypothesis to easily trump the possibility of it being true... after all, all witnesses haz driving intersts in their witnessing, and patriot as I am, I'd more likely ascribe Joan of Arc's voices to delusion or manipulation than to actual supernatural communication... same for Teresa of Avila's ecsteasies, or the Marial apparitions in Lourdes or Fatima.

But you don't know, and you cannot prove your hypothesis even in the slightest,

Yes he can.

No he can't. He can only make assumptions based on his knowledge and understanding. He has absolutely no way to prove that Joan of Arc was not speaking directly to God.

Just because you don't accept his evidence is no repudiation.

Ipse dixit, quod erat demonstrandum!

Just because you don't accept the evidence of theists is no repudiation.

Get it yet?

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

...billions of people over the ages claim personal communications with God/Jesus. Why should one not accept that "eyewitness testimony" as being true?

The billions is utter bullshit, of course. Only a small minority of christians unequivocally claim that god speaks to them...

You know all the Christians on the planet that have ever existed in history? Wow! How God-like.

Leaving that to one side, it is not credible evidence for a number of quite obvious reasons:

1. Hearing voices is a well known psychiatric condition; the condition is taken seriously, but the putative objective existence of the sources of the voices is not.

Fallacy. Because hearing voices is a well known psychiatric condition does not prove that all voices are the product of psychiatric illness.

2. Personal experience that others cannot experience or observe may be interesting, and valuable in its own right, but it is not evidence in any real sense of the word; it would not be accepted in a court of law.

This isn't a court of law, and you reject it as evidence because it falls outside of your experience, which, being severely limited, causes you NOT to be an authority on the subject.

3. People lie, people fantasise, people have wish fulfilment issues. Without additional supplementary evidence, such possibilities always remain.

Fallacy. Just because some people fantasize or lie doesn't mean that everyone does.

4. People from other religions may have similar experiences, where their own religious figures speak to them. Typically, the tenets of competing religions are mutually exclusive - a christian could not accept the existence of the panoply of hindu gods, a hindu could not accept that the only way to salvation is via Jesus. Accepting a personal revelation in any one religious tradition as valid evidence privileges it above all the others. Either you accept them all as valid, which leads to clear logical inconsistencies, or you reject them all as sources of credible evidence.

False dilemma fallacy. It's not true that it's an either/or situation. Perhaps, for example, God manifests to hindus in a different way than he does to Christians. Inconsistencies between beliefs is no proof of the non-existence of God, nor do such inconsistencies define God.

Better luck next time.

[JimC]

What a lot of extraordinary bullshit from Seth. Placing a logical equivalence between the nature of the reliability of the information emerging from CERN, and the reliability of biblical texts...

The information emerging from institutions like CERN is part of a greater whole, part of which involves predicting natural processes to breathtaking levels of accuracy, allowing modern technology to be relied upon to function as specified. If one aspect of it were a lie, spread by a cabal of twisted scientists, the inconsistencies with the whole body of scientific and engineering knowledge would be rapidly discovered. Nothing in religious texts such as the bible shows any tinge of consistency, reliability, repeatability or a rational connection with observable reality. No more philosophical bullshit, Seth; stop comparing apples with oranges...

[surreptitious57]

The scientific method is the most accurate methodology with regard to observing how the Universe and everything within it functions
It is based on objective observation that reduces as much as possible any subjective interpretation. And it is compounded too by peer
review. So together these are the mechanisms routinely employed to guarantee as high a degree of objectivity as is humanly possible

As far as religion goes I have no problem in principle with any one who believes in God but it exists primarily because of fear of death
I am not religious for not only do I not believe but also because I am not afraid of death. For when I die I will be in a permanent state
of non consciousness for the rest of eternity. I will be free from all suffering also. Since over coming my fear of death last year I have
been as free as it is possible to be while still being alive. When I die I will be truly free. So for me personally there is no need for God
And if it turns out he does exist then so be it for by then it will make no difference. I am an apatheist so it matters not to me anyway

[piscator]

[piscator]

The scientific method is the most accurate methodology with regard to observing how the Universe and everything within it functions
It is based on objective observation that reduces as much as possible any subjective interpretation. And it is compounded too by peer
review. So together these are the mechanisms routinely employed to guarantee as high a degree of objectivity as is humanly possible

qft

I'll add a few qualifiers, like "Ideally" and "So far", when I plagiarize you.

[Seth]

What a lot of extraordinary bullshit from Seth. Placing a logical equivalence between the nature of the reliability of the information emerging from CERN, and the reliability of biblical texts...

I made no such logical equivalence. I was providing an analogy.

The information emerging from institutions like CERN is part of a greater whole, part of which involves predicting natural processes to breathtaking levels of accuracy, allowing modern technology to be relied upon to function as specified. If one aspect of it were a lie, spread by a cabal of twisted scientists, the inconsistencies with the whole body of scientific and engineering knowledge would be rapidly discovered. Nothing in religious texts such as the bible shows any tinge of consistency, reliability, repeatability or a rational connection with observable reality. No more philosophical bullshit, Seth; stop comparing apples with oranges...

Still don't get the point do you? The question is not whether science is reliable, it's whether YOU can rationally state that some claim of science is true without actually doing the experiment yourself. You cannot. You have to rely on anecdotal evidence from others who have, according to them, done the experiment. As we know from some "cold fusion" claims, some people claim something about science without having done the work. They lie about it. Imagine that. But that's not even the point.

You reject theistic claims as being inconsistent, unreliable, not repeatable and rationally unconnected with observable reality. But you have exactly zero critically robust evidence that demonstrates this claim according to your own demands for scientific proof.

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But you are making claims about theistic claims that are not founded in either reason or science because you have absolutely no evidence that supports your claims. None. You are rejecting theistic claims based on your religious belief that the entire universe is and can only be described by your understanding of the scientific method. You label anything that looks to be outside of the realm of scientific knowledge and understanding to be "supernatural," but that's just a word that translates to "I don't understand what's happening and I don't believe it's true, therefore it must be supernatural."

The problem with your reasoning is that by your own arguments, conclusions must be drawn based on an examination of the evidence and subjecting that evidence to analysis to determine its probative value in supporting the claims made. And yet you are drawing all sorts of conclusions about theistic claims in the absence of any evidence whatsoever, by your own admission.

You violate your own ethical structure, to which you attempt to hold others, by concluding that theistic claims are false because there is no objective scientific evidence that meets your standards to support those claims. But you cannot rationally draw that conclusion in the absence of any evidence of the falsity of the theistic claims. Once again, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

This has nothing whatever to do with the truth or falsity of theistic claims, this is about your ability to reason and think logically within the parameters that you yourself set as the metric for proper scientific investigation.

If you have no objective scientific evidence that a theistic claim is not true, you cannot rationally conclude that the claim is not true. I'm just holding you to your own standards.

[Seth]

The scientific method is the most accurate methodology with regard to observing how the Universe and everything within it functions

...so far as you or anyone else is presently aware of. That's a very important limitation.

It is based on objective observation that reduces as much as possible any subjective interpretation.

Yes.

And it is compounded too by peer review. So together these are the mechanisms routinely employed to guarantee as high a degree of objectivity as is humanly possible

Yes. But that does not mean that something that is not testable or falsifiable or repeatable under scientific protocols does not exist or did not occur. It's important to understand this distinction.

As far as religion goes I have no problem in principle with any one who believes in God but it exists primarily because of fear of death
I am not religious for not only do I not believe but also because I am not afraid of death. For when I die I will be in a permanent state
of non consciousness for the rest of eternity. I will be free from all suffering also. Since over coming my fear of death last year I have
been as free as it is possible to be while still being alive. When I die I will be truly free. So for me personally there is no need for God
And if it turns out he does exist then so be it for by then it will make no difference. I am an apatheist so it matters not to me anyway

Sorry, but you are expounding a religious belief based in faith-based reasoning because you have no objective scientific evidence that what you think is going to happen is what actually happens.