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Jim Walsh uses Seanad debate to say atheists have faith

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Comments

  • #102
    PopePalpatine
    Registered Users Posts: 11,970 ✭✭✭✭PopePalpatine


    robindch wrote: »
    You can hardly blame them -- it's catholic dogma:

    Only a Sith deals in absolutes, which kinda explains Benny the 16th. :pac:


  • #103
    keane2097
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,775 ✭✭✭✭keane2097


    The whole argument is based on the idea that evidence is only useful if you believe that past observation is an indicator of future events which is inherently a matter of faith.

    No matter if the same thing happens 9999999999999 times the same way, the idea that that says anything at all about how it will happen the next time is something you can only ever "believe".

    We take it on faith that we're rational in the first place, it's obvious that asserting that the evidence suggests no gods is based on the belief that we're capable of understanding evidence in the first place.


  • #104
    GCU Flexible Demeanour
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,257 ✭✭✭GCU Flexible Demeanour


    gaynorvader wrote: »
    What experience can you name where evidence is of no use in deciding how to approach it?
    Whether you should get married. Whether you should have children. What you should spend your time trying to achieve. Whether you should stop and help a complete stranger. Whether €350,000 is too much to pay for a house. Whether railway company shares are a good pension fund investment. Whether Ireland will default on its debt next year.

    And plenty more.


  • #105
    gaynorvader
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,630 ✭✭✭gaynorvader


    GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »
    Whether you should get married.

    Have you been in long term relationships in the past? Did you enjoy them? Is the person you wish to get married to someone you enjoy spending time with? Can you afford to?
    GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »
    Whether you should have children.
    Do you want children? Does your partner want children? Can you afford Children?
    GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »
    What you should spend your time trying to achieve. Whether you should stop and help a complete stranger. Whether €350,000 is too much to pay for a house. Whether railway company shares are a good pension fund investment. Whether Ireland will default on its debt next year.

    And plenty more.

    And so on...everything you make a choice there relies on you analysing what evidence you have. Either how you feel, how your partner says they feel, how you've noticed your partner acting/feeling, how the complete stranger looks/acts, how much you earn, the details of the loan, how railway company shares have performed in the past, if there is a future for railway shares based on any evidence you gather, has Ireland defaulted on its debt in the past, has any country, what led to this happening, what were the fallouts (last one isn't so much a decision).


  • #106
    GCU Flexible Demeanour
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,257 ✭✭✭GCU Flexible Demeanour


    gaynorvader wrote: »
    ... everything you make a choice there relies on you analysing what evidence you have.
    No, everything there requires you to make assumptions about a future that you know nothing about.


  • #107
    gaynorvader
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,630 ✭✭✭gaynorvader


    GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »
    No, everything there requires you to make assumptions about a future that you know nothing about.

    Yes, but you still draw on the evidence to make your decision.


  • #108
    swampgas
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,579 ✭✭✭swampgas


    GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »
    No, everything there requires you to make assumptions about a future that you know nothing about.

    But isn't this rather irrelevant? If the past were no guide to the future (i.e. if the universe didn't operate according to consistent and predictable rules) then most likely we wouldn't be here to discuss it. (See the Anthropic Principle for similar arguments).

    Doesn't it make sense (from a practical point of view anyway) to simply take the general consistency and predictability of the world around us as a convenient axiom and work from there?

    You seem to be arguing that evidence of past behaviour is of no value, and that anything in the future is unknowable.

    Assuming the universe to be consistent and predictable, and that the laws of physics will be pretty much the same tomorrow as they are today, is a completely reasonable thing to do, even if it is (at some minimal and abstract level) an act of "faith". Or is that the point you're trying to make?


  • #109
    keane2097
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,775 ✭✭✭✭keane2097


    swampgas wrote: »
    But isn't this rather irrelevant? If the past were no guide to the future (i.e. if the universe didn't operate according to consistent and predictable rules) then most likely we wouldn't be here to discuss it. (See the Anthropic Principle for similar arguments).

    Doesn't it make sense (from a practical point of view anyway) to simply take the general consistency and predictability of the world around us as a convenient axiom and work from there?

    You seem to be arguing that evidence of past behaviour is of no value, and that anything in the future is unknowable.

    Assuming the universe to be consistent and predictable, and that the laws of physics will be pretty much the same tomorrow as they are today, is a completely reasonable thing to do, even if it is (at some minimal and abstract level) an act of "faith". Or is that the point you're trying to make?

    Seems like it to me.


  • #110
    Brian Shanahan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,232 ✭✭✭Brian Shanahan


    keane2097 wrote: »
    The whole argument is based on the idea that evidence is only useful if you believe that past observation is an indicator of future events which is inherently a matter of faith.

    No matter if the same thing happens 9999999999999 times the same way, the idea that that says anything at all about how it will happen the next time is something you can only ever "believe".

    We take it on faith that we're rational in the first place, it's obvious that asserting that the evidence suggests no gods is based on the belief that we're capable of understanding evidence in the first place.

    Whose rear did you pull this drivel from? Because it is literally the worst case of diahorrea I've seen in many a year.


  • #111
    GCU Flexible Demeanour
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,257 ✭✭✭GCU Flexible Demeanour


    gaynorvader wrote: »
    Yes, but you still draw on the evidence to make your decision.
    That broadens the meaning of the word "evidence" to include every bias and misconception that we've collected along the way.
    swampgas wrote: »
    Assuming the universe to be consistent and predictable, and that the laws of physics will be pretty much the same tomorrow as they are today, is a completely reasonable thing to do, even if it is (at some minimal and abstract level) an act of "faith". Or is that the point you're trying to make?
    That's a large part of what I'm saying and (going back over the previous posts) I'm saying we're pretty much forced into makes those assumptions as, otherwise, we'd be frozen with indecision.

    However, I'm also suggesting that very many decisions that we have to make are about things that aren't as consistent and predictable as physics.

    The length of time that it takes to boil an egg is very likely to be consistent and predictable. But the world we actually live in doesn't revolve around the boiling of eggs. It revolves around what we might call social things like deciding what career to pursue, who to spend time with, what to put our money into to secure a comfortable future. Those matters aren't especially tractable by reason and "evidence".

    The point of raising social things is to draw attention to the limits of reason and evidence, in a very practical sense. It's not just a quibble around the boiling of an egg involving an implicit act of faith as to the nature of reality. It's also pointing out that, in very important ways that have a very real impact on us, the future is unknown.

    Hence, in a similarly real and important way, significant decisions about things that really matter to us oblige us to hold beliefs.


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  • #112
    gaynorvader
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,630 ✭✭✭gaynorvader


    GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »
    That broadens the meaning of the word "evidence" to include every bias and misconception that we've collected along the way.{...}

    Sure, why not? Clearly you know everything anyway.


  • #113
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Brian Shanahan wrote: »
    Whose rear did you pull this drivel from?
    keane2097 wrote: »
    What's your ****ing problem?
    Children - you'll be going to bed early without dessert if there's any more lip out of either of you.


  • #114
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    keane2097 wrote: »
    [...] moderating the exchange as if we were equally culpable seems quite unfair to me.
    Both you and Brian are equally guilty of breaking the forum charter.

    If you believe that any poster has broken the word or the spirit of the charter, then please report the post by clicking on the warning triangle icon in the panel on the left of the post and it'll be reviewed by a moderator and actioned if necessary. If you're unhappy about the way the forum is being moderated, then the right place for that discussion is the feedback forum.


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