What would it take to make you believe in a supernatural entity?

robindch

Northclare wrote: »

I think Christ was more of a rebel who pissed off certain people who had authority, he brought fear to the local establishment of his time.

It's more subtle than that. He appears to have been one of many fundamentalist messianic preachers who contributed to the radicalization of the jewish population in Palestine and their intolerance of the Roman deities and the Empire's policy of secularism. Bear in mind that the Roman Empire at the time generally allowed local religious beliefs and power structures to operate alongside Roman ones, once Roman rituals were occasionally respected.

First-century jews were outraged that they had to tolerate, let alone respect, what they viewed as false deities, and thereby presented the Romans with the classical political dilemma -- how does a state tolerate with a powerful subgroup which does not tolerate the state.

The dilemma was resolved once christianity assumed control of the Empire. The policy of early-stage-secularism was abandoned and religious oppression, religiously-sanctioned violence and supremacism took over.

Northclare

I think my point is more subtle than yours Robin

robindch

Northclare wrote: »

I think my point is more subtle than yours Robin

Still, it's quite accurate though

Northclare

That's why I thanked you I'm learning a lot here from both atheists and believers alike.

I prefer to do my best to take the good out of this discussion rather than see the bad

cowzerp

You's are all aware Chuck Norris exists.

Northclare

Chuck Chuck into the discussion he will show who is boss LOL

nozzferrahhtoo

How much bossiness would this chucked Chuck chuck if this chucked Chuck did chuck bossiness?

Northclare

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

How much bossiness would this chucked Chuck chuck if this chucked Chuck did chuck bossiness?

Only Chuck has the answer

Northclare

I wonder does Chuck believe in God ?

But does god believe in chuck??

Northclare

God wanted to create the world in 10 days Chuck Norris gave him 6

Dades

Northclare wrote: »

I wonder does Chuck believe in God ?

Chuck is in fact a card-carrying altar chewer.

joseph brand

nozzferrahhtoo: given the likes of Philologos on these fora claim quite consistently and frequently that the evidence for their god(s) abound... leaving me in the interim to ponder the question as to why, given the sheer quantity of evidence available to them... they refuse to present a shred of it with equal frequency and consistency as their claims that it is there. I have my suspicions as to why this might be.

I often wonder if some of those posters are involved in the church. Perhaps there is financial gain in supporting it's teachings here, and irl. They come across as fervent churchies.

Northclare

Where does the church come into this discussion ?

Pwpane

Peregrinus wrote: »

Look, you make a very good point.

In the interests of full disclosure, I’ll say that I knew I could have framed my claim as “a supernatural reality is the fundamental ground for the existence of all things other than itself”. But I thought that was altogether too metaphysical and, if it attracted any response at all, it would be a dispute about how to define “entity” and “supernatural” and “ground”, which was unlikely to be very enlightening. Whereas if I snuck the word “god” into my claim, it would attract more attention, and probably better discussion, from the denizens of this board, who by being here self-identify as being interested in questions about “god”.

So I did and, to be honest, I’m not sorry. I don’t know about others, but I have found the discussion which followed enlightening (in parts!).

I think I’m done, though. Mark and I understand one another by now probably about as well as we are going to, and our posts at this stage are really just repeating themselves. You’re raising questions that I really don’t want to discuss - in this thread, anyway. And, in general, the conversation is starting to spiral off into more-or-less random topics like what “myth” means - interesting, possibly, but a whole other conversation.

It’s Friday afternoon in Australia, which is where I am. Plus, it’s summer. All in all, that makes it a good time to lay metaphysics aside, and head off to start the weekend with a couple of beers.

I'm sorry you're leaving.

Summer in Australia - jealous! I was wondering why all your posts were done in the middle of the night!

Enjoy the sunshine and the beers.

robindch

Northclare wrote: »

I wonder does Chuck believe in God?

Here's Chuck around 15 years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEI6vUZr4dg

And around five years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBs9iWU7WYo

The second video came via http://onkneesforjesus.blogspot.com/, a site written by a chap who says "My life is all about getting on my knees and faithfully servicing Jesus until He comes". It's worth a read

MUSEIST

Proof



Still waiting............................anyone, anything at all

Northclare

I think it will be a while yet before there will be any proof for the Atheists fair play to them they are no pushover.

And great craic

nozzferrahhtoo

Pwpane wrote: »

I'm sorry you're leaving.

You haven't learned the rule yet

Nozz rule says that the chances of someone posting on a thread is inversely proportional to the amount of times they said they were done posting on a thread... plus 1.

.... so he said he was done..... once..... so there is a 1 / once + 1 chance he will post again. Which is 1 / 1+1..... 1/2 which is 50:50

Peregrinus

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Its not circular, because thats not what I'm saying. If something exists, but is in no way observable, but still has an effect on us, but that effect is in no way observable, then how exactly can you say that an effect is happening, that something is causing it and that the effect actually matters? You can't without contradicting yourself (because, in order to claim that something is there, that it is causing an effect and that the effect is meaningful, you need to be able to measure the effect).

Yes, but the God-claim postulates an effect - the phenomenon of existence - which is readily observable. I say the phenomenon of existence is observable, and it matters.

And you say:

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Well you yourself said that god (as some sort of fundamental ground) is non-empirical. If something is non-empirical (non observable) then it has no effect on anything else observable. Several times now you have presented this contradiction as if it is meaningful. If god, regardless of what god actually is, had an effect on something observable, then god becomes observable. Which contradicts you earlier claim that god only exists in the same way a concept exists. You need to figure out this contradiction.

Just for the record, I think it was actually you who said that the postulated god was non-empirical. In post #91 you object that my postulate is “untestable”, that “the possibility of it’s being true is completely unmeasurable”, that “there is absolutely no possible way to tell if it is true or not”. Plainly, if the postulated god were empirically observable, you couldn’t make these statements.

But you now say that if something not directly observable has an effect which is observable, then it is itself empirically observable (indirectly empirically observable, I think). Presumably your fundamental assumption (that everything which exists is empirically observable) embraces both direct observation and indirect observation.

Very well. The phenomenon of existence is empirically observable. Accepting for the moment what you say above, to follows that the cause of the phenomenon of existence (if there is a cause) is indirectly empirically observable.

Yet science, supposedly the supreme and paramount technique for the study of the empirically observable, is unable to examine my postulate. My postulate is, as you rightly point out, unfalsifiable. indeed, even a more basic postulate, that there is a cause for the phenomenon of existence, is unfalsifiable. Science cannot say if the empirically-observable phenomenon of existence is caused or, if it is, what the cause is.

Why is this? I think we have run up against another of the fundamental assumptions of science - that the empirically-observable universe exists (as opposed to being, e.g., illusory). Existence is axiomatic; science does not look behind it. (Science obviously looks into the existence of particular things, but into the existence of existence itself, no.)

When we take these two assumptions together, we find (some of) the boundaries of science. “Does truth exist?” is not a scientific question, since truth is an abstract concept, not empirically observable. “Do prime numbers exist?” is likewise not a scientific question. And, even if it were, “why do prime numbers exist?” certainly is not.

By the same reasoning, “what causes existence?” is not a scientific question. But you can’t say that the answer to the question makes no difference to us, since it is or may be what causes us to exist, which plainly makes a profound difference.

Peregrinus

Thanks for this, nozz. It’s extremely helpful.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I can not really speak for how others make their choice in this regard but I certainly know how I do it and perhaps it will help extend your post from the point where you say "That’s about as far as my thinking goes at present.".

It sounds to be like you essentially have a continuum of belief in your mind almost like a number series line. A new proposition enters in at point 0 and evidence for the proposition moves it towards the positive and evidence against towards the negative.

With you so far, but with a qualification. While belief must be influenced by evidence, and must be consistent with any evidence which is irrefutable, evidence is not the only factor which influences it.

I think this is true for all of us, however committed we are to “evidence-based belief”. Think about how we make ethical judgments, for example. Certainly, we are influenced by evidence. In relation to the morality of, say, the death penalty, we might look at sociological evidence about how effective the death penalty is, or is not, as a deterrent, or statistical evidence about racial bias in the application of the death penalty in practice. But we use this evidence not to decide the moral question, but to inform more basic but unevidenced beliefs about, e.g. the value of the individual human life, the proper balance of interests between the individual and society, etc, etc.

In relation to a scientific question (“does the earth orbit around the sun?”) our beliefs should be largely driven by the evidence. But in relation to questions for which there will simply be no conclusive scientific evidence (“is the unborn human foetus deserving of moral respect and legal protection?) our beliefs are ultimately going to be driven by something else. It’s important to try and identify what that is.

So when you say . . .

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Rather than just arbitrarily choose what to believe or not out of the vast array of unsubstantiated claims in the world . . .

. . . I say, hang on a second. If “unsubstantiated” means “unsubstantiated by science” or “unsubstantiated by empirical evidence”, then I’m going to challenge your assumptions that beliefs have necessarily been chosen “arbitrarily”.

I’ve already pointed to Euclidean geometry. I have no empirical evidence that the square of the hypotenuse of a Euclidean right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of squares of the other two sides. (How could I? Euclidean forms are ideals; they do not exist in material form.) My belief that this is so is not arbitrary; it rests on a rigorous proof which is logical and rational. But it’s also not scientific; it does not proceed from empirical observations. It proceeds, in fact, from a concept in my head (“right-angled triangle”) and from a set of assumed but unevidenced axioms about other, equally ideal, entities.

Similarly, my beliefs about points in Cartesian plains, my beliefs about set theory, etc, are not arbitrary, and not scientific.

Now, not every field of enquiry that is not-science is quite as rigorously logical and rational as pure mathematics. But example of pure maths does illustrate that “non-scientific reasons” =/= “arbitrary reasons”. And my ethical beliefs, or my view on history, or literature, or philosophy (or yours, for that matter) may not be supported with the kind of certainty that science and some branches of mathematics can offer, but that doesn’t entitle you to assume that they are arbitrarily chosen. To make a judgment like that, you first of all have to know how they are chosen, which I suppose is a large part of what this enquiry is all about.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

. . . I choose instead of view the continuum as a credibility continuum with all new ideas coming in at the bottom and moving up as evidence supports them. If the evidence is against them or entirely absent then I simply leave them at the bottom of the continuum. Essentially rejected and dismissed, but always ready to to move up the scale if given reason to do so.... which to me is the very definition of "open mindedness". The willingness to move things on the continuum when given reason to do so, rather than maintaining their position because you like where they are.

Since there is no negative direction on my continuum of belief this essentially means that ideas that are actually proved false, or have at least evidence suggesting they are false are considered to be on a par/level with unsubstantiated claims. I effectively treat claims with literally no substantiation at all the same way I do claims that are shown to be false. Not to say they ARE 100% synonymous/equivalent, I just treat them the same.

But, if by “substantiated” you mean “substantiated by scientific/empirically observable evidence”, doesn’t this approach rather break down in relation to postulated beliefs of a kind which are unlikely to be substantiated in that way? It seems to me that it would tend to the dismissal of, e.g. all ethical propositions, if you demand scientific or quasi-scientific substantiation. But in fact nobody lives like this; we adopt ethical stances all the time in relation to our own actions, and for the purpose of passing judgment about other people’s actions.

For this approach to be viable, it seems to me that you must have some idea, in relation to any particular question, how it might be substantiated in a way that would satisfy you, and then you would have to consider whether and to what extent it was substantiated in that way, dismissing it only if you found it to be unsubstantiated in the way that you think it ought to be substantiated.

Right. Now we are into a reflexive situation, since your view about how, e.g., ethical propositions should be substantiated, what kind of substantiation you ought to be looking for, is itself a belief which you must have some basis - acknowledged or unacknowledged - for adopting.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

. . . Treating my belief continuum in this fashion means the context then shifts slightly and belief or not in god is no longer a "choice". I simply have no choice to make or capability to make one. There is no reason on offer... whatsoever.... to move the god concept up the scale from the zero point. It is not an option for me to take. Those people like yourself who have chosen to believe in it anyway, for reasons unknown to us... and possibly even to yourself, simply have no position on my scale.

I think you are making a choice, nozz. You’re making a choice about what kind of substantiation to look for in relation to something like the “god-claim”. And I think, if you’re to understand yourself, you should acknowledge that choice and examine what lies behind it and influences it.

There’s an obvious possibility that someone could choose to look for substantiation of a kind that won’t be forthcoming as a mechanism for justifying the dismissal of a proposition that, for other (unexamined and unacknowledged) reasons, he needs or wants to dismiss. (I’m not suggesting that this is so in your case.) And it’s equally obvious that it’s equally possible that somebody might choose to accept substantiation which is highly subjective (“inner conviction”; “it makes sense to me”) in order to justify accepting a proposition that, for other reasons, he needs or wants to accept.

I realize that I’m posing a problem, here, and not necessarily offering a solution. But I think that unless we start by acknowledging this issue then we’re simply deluding ourselves about the beliefs we hold or the beliefs we reject, and our reasons for doing so.

My instinct is that the way forward on this is not to examine how we arrive at scientific beliefs. I think we understand that pretty well already. But propositions of faith (religious or non-religious) are not scientific propositions, and - whether we admit it or not - we form our views on these in quite different ways.

Ethics is probably useful here, since we all have to take ethical decisions and, ultimately, this means endorsing or rejecting values which cannot be scientifically sustained or refuted. It’s an absolute article of faith for everyone on this board - including myself - that atheist and agnostics are just as capable of ethical reflection and ethical behaviour as theists are. So I think it’s worth examining how your “I demand substantiation before I will accept” methodology plays out when someone puts an ethical proposition to you for consideration.

Consider these two propositions:

1: “The human individual, at every stage of its existence, has a moral entitlement to our respect for its humanity, dignity and individuality”.

2: “A woman has a right to privacy and autonomy which precludes our interfering with her decisions about her own pregnancy”.

You can see, obviously, how these two propositions would be in tension, if not in actual conflict, with one another in relation to abortion. My purpose here is not to have an argument about abortion, but to explore how you (or anyone) would address these propositions, accept or reject them, and prioritise them if they had to be prioritized. If you look for scientific or quasi-scientific substantiation for either of them, you won’t find it. So, unless your “substantiation or it isn’t true” methodology is going to look further than that, it’s going to let you down here.

So, what kind of substantiation to we look for? And why is that the right kind of substantiation to look for?

Or, do we actually use the “substantiation or it isn’t true” methodology to evaluate these propositions? Or do we evaluate them by some different method and, if so, what?

nozzferrahhtoo

The majority of your reply is related to ethical concerns. The difference here would be we are talking now about opinion, not really belief. The post I made above was about beliefs about actual facts about the world and all reality. Such as "does god exist". I think it important to distinguish between belief about facts... and opinion.

Morality and Ethics I feel are just opinions about how we should operate in this world. As you say such things can, and should, be constrained by evidence but also as you say there is more to it than that as there are subjective elements and goals in forming those beliefs such as, for example, increasing the most amount of well being for the most amount of people. Things like science and evidence can have a lot to add and say on ethical and moral concerns.

I would see the conversation about belief and opinion to be different. At least to me because I am aware there are those among us who think that there is an objective ethical and moral standard and that we are not merely forming opinions on the subject, but discovering actual truths about that standard in much the same way as people uncover facts like water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. To them things being "right" or "wrong" are just as objective and just as discoverable.

So in short my post above was about belief in actual objective things.... like whether a god or a supernatural realm actually exist, or not. By shifting the conversation to ethical and moral opinion there may be a danger of talking past me and missing the intention of my post.

So while I may base ethical opinion on facts that are on the continuum I mentioned, I would not be placing ethical opinion on that continuum. Just like I can establish facts about what sugar is, what sweetness is, how taste works, how the brain processes signals from the taste buds and sends them to the brain and more.... and place all these facts on the continuum.... I still recognize that "Coke tastes good" is an opinion and so not really something that one goes about substantiating.

Peregrinus wrote: »

You’re making a choice about what kind of substantiation to look for in relation to something like the “god-claim”.

Not in the slightest. I leave telling me what the evidence is or should be up to the person making a claim. So no choice involved on my part at all. I do however tend to tell people what I expect in terms of offering evidence. I feel evidence is a procedure not a thing and the procedure is a simple three step one as follows:

1) State clearly and precisely what you are claiming.
2) State clearly and precisely what you think supports the claim.
3) State clearly and precisely how you feel the things listed in 2 support the thing claimed in 1.

After that I place no further constraints or expectations and remain open to consider anything and everything placed before me which I will then either accept or reject... for reasons that I will likely go into at nauseating length rather than just accept or dismiss anything out of hand. So no, any imagined bias on my part towards the evidence that is not likely to be found is just that... imagined. I am open to viewing and considering anything put before me.

The issue for me is that no matter how open and free of expectations I am in relation to waiting for evidence, argument, data or reasons to lend even a modicum of credence to the idea there is a god entity or a supernatural realm.... literally none is forthcoming at all. Much less from these fora. I simply can not reject or accept that which is not offered to me. If you yourself think there is a god then you do so on a basis that is entirely opaque to me. Consider for example the actual topic of this thread, the existence of a supernatural realm or a god, and read all your posts on that thread. Not one line of anything you have written deals with actually establishing the existence of either on any level at all.

So in short I would see the question you finished your post with as being off topic for this thread, and off topic for the post you are replying to. Not that I wish to dodge the question entirely, I would be happy to discuss that final question with you on a thread related to it. My refusal to do it here is due only to my interest in highlighting the difference between substantiating actual facts... such as the one the very title of this thread is about.... which is what my last post was about.... and forming opinions BASED on substantiated facts.... which is what I think the realm of morality and ethics is doing.

vibe666

Northclare wrote: »

I think it will be a while yet before there will be any proof for the Atheists fair play to them they are no pushover.

And great craic

it's hard to argue with logic and reason.

the problem is, (i imagine for the most part) atheists will tend to follow science based facts and as such, we have nothing invested in 'being right', much the way science itself works.

we don't care if what we currently believe to be true is right or wrong, only that there is enough proof to back up any claim that is made before we can all agree that it is right.

if something we currently believe turns out to be wrong, then we change our opinions accordingly and carry on, knowing a little bit more than we did before and we can only gain by moving forward this way.

if someone comes up with some credible proof that supernatural beings exist, then great, it's something new to study and find out more about, which is great.

by contrast, any kind of belief in the supernatural demands that supernatural entities (in whatever form) exist, regardless of what the facts point to, or you end up at a similar level to that of a die hard harry potter fanatic who dresses up in a hat and cloak to go to conventions and believes that wizards and spells are real and that their application to hogwarts is going to arrive any day.

Mark Hamill

Peregrinus wrote: »

Yes, but the God-claim postulates an effect - the phenomenon of existence - which is readily observable. I say the phenomenon of existence is observable, and it matters.

It matters because that is how we observe very nearly every single phenomena in science, by observing its effect on other phenomena. If we can observe gods effect (existence, through physics and examining things related to the beginning of existence - ie the Big Bang) then we can observe god, which you earlier claimed we can't/.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Just for the record, I think it was actually you who said that the postulated god was non-empirical. In post #91 you object that my postulate is “untestable”, that “the possibility of it’s being true is completely unmeasurable”, that “there is absolutely no possible way to tell if it is true or not”. Plainly, if the postulated god were empirically observable, you couldn’t make these statements.

And these statements are inherently true because of the nature of the god claim you made, and which you backed up in a later post where you asserted that god was a fundamental ground like a concept. Are you know saying that god is empirical?

Peregrinus wrote: »

But you now say that if something not directly observable has an effect which is observable, then it is itself empirically observable (indirectly empirically observable, I think). Presumably your fundamental assumption (that everything which exists is empirically observable) embraces both direct observation and indirect observation.

Almost all observation is indirect observation. Hell, observation with your eyes is actually indirect observation (you are not "seeing" the things you are looking at, you are "seeing" the light reflected off objects at different wavelengths)

Peregrinus wrote: »

Yet science, supposedly the supreme and paramount technique for the study of the empirically observable, is unable to examine my postulate. My postulate is, as you rightly point out, unfalsifiable. indeed, even a more basic postulate, that there is a cause for the phenomenon of existence, is unfalsifiable. Science cannot say if the empirically-observable phenomenon of existence is caused or, if it is, what the cause is.

Why is this? I think we have run up against another of the fundamental assumptions of science - that the empirically-observable universe exists (as opposed to being, e.g., illusory). Existence is axiomatic; science does not look behind it. (Science obviously looks into the existence of particular things, but into the existence of existence itself, no.)

And again you attack and denounce science because it can't examine your logically flawed claims? You need to make a sensible claim in order for science to examine it. Your claim fails the first hurdle for any type of technique for studying claims, not falsifiability but the hurdle of not being inherently broken logic. The initial claim is completely arbitrary and entirely unsupported by any logic (hence you can replace "god" with literally anything and still make as much sense) and when coupled with your conclusion, ends up as circular logic.
Even besides all this, you have yet to define existence. Without a definition, what exactly is science supposed to test. Is existence the state of having matter, or having an effect on our universe? Science can test and measure both of those.

Peregrinus wrote: »

When we take these two assumptions together, we find (some of) the boundaries of science. “Does truth exist?” is not a scientific question, since truth is an abstract concept, not empirically observable.

Define truth, then we can discuss if its scientifically examinable. If truth is the measure of how much a concept relates the the physical reality it supposes to represent, then it is encompassed by the fundamental assumption of science.

Peregrinus wrote: »

“Do prime numbers exist?” is likewise not a scientific question. And, even if it were, “why do prime numbers exist?” certainly is not.

Why is "do prime numbers exist" not a scientific question? Given that they exist in an abstract system, simply defining "prime number" and then testing for their existence (ie making and testing a conjecture) is scientific. As for why, well why does there have to be a why beyond the conditions (in the arbitrarily defined system that humans created) were right for them to exist?

Peregrinus wrote: »

By the same reasoning, “what causes existence?” is not a scientific question. But you can’t say that the answer to the question makes no difference to us, since it is or may be what causes us to exist, which plainly makes a profound difference.

Why is that not a scientific question? How is that not just a poor pseudo-philosophical rewording of how did the Big Bang happen?