Big Bird and the Belief that All Beliefs are Equally Improbable

antiskeptic wrote: »

1. What is extraordinary about the claim that God exists.

karlitob wrote: »

It’s a self evident point.

If it were self-evident, you wouldn't be reduced to "refuting" it by claiming "It's self-evident!" and then immediately switching to a critique of several entirely different claims.

Have another go?

Any religion itself is extraordinary.
Mainly when you see how many of them came and went.
Current religions will fare the same, it is only a question of time.
Then new religions will come to an existence.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Which, if true, suggests that while any particular religion is extraordinary, religion in general is entirely ordinary.

Countless gods and deities are mostly forgotten. The only followers remaining are historians. I would bet 30 silver pieces that this is in store for current gods too. Since it will take quite some time I have no means to collect when proven right.

smacl wrote: »

Hmmm, there have been many cultures with enforced atheism just as there have been, and still are, many cultures with enforced theism. Exploration and open discussion about existence or non-existence of gods has not been a freedom broadly available to most societies until very recently. It is still not to some.

There have been political regimes that enforced atheism, or attempted to do so; I wouldn’t see those as wholly distinct cultures, though. Indeed, they wouldn’t have to enforce atheism if they didn’t exist within cultures in which theism flourished.

Similarly there have been political regimes which [attempted to] enforce theism, although if we’re honest they more usually attempted to enforce this form of religious practice/expression over other forms of religious practice/expression. It was rarely a straight theism-versus-atheism struggle.

smacl wrote: »

As for real-world extant examples, Buddhism predates Christianity by about six centuries and has no gods. Taoism predates Christianity by about three to four centuries and while some schools include a pantheon of deities, others are purely philosophical and do not.

Oh sure. I am not suggesting that J-C-I monotheism is the oldest or most enduring theist notion; just that it’s pretty old and pretty enduring, and the fact that many notions about what god is have vanished does not mean that all will. (After all, many notions about, say, the fundamentals of matter have vanished, but we don’t conclude from this that all will.)

In this (sometimes meandering) thread we have sometimes skipped fairly glibly between talking about theism/belief in god and talking about religion. As you point out, the two things are not the same, but there is an obvious intersection. Two thoughts about this:

First, to some extent, whether you classify a religion as theist, atheist or capable of being either depends on your notion of “god”. If you think god has to be a person, possessed of intelligence, will, etc, then a lot of religions are atheist, or at least atheism-compatible. Whereas if you think a supernatural life-force or a transcendent reality that accounts for the material universe or something of the kind can be classed as “god”, then some of those religions become theist. So this is a fairly blurry line.

But, secondly, this may not matter for the purpose of this thread. I suggested earlier that all human cultures consider religious questions and propose answers to them and that these answers are continually evolving/being developed. I’ll go further now and say that some of those answers will be theist in nature, no matter how you understand “theos”. Or, at any rate, we have no rational reason (to borrow a phrase from the thread header) to expect that ideas that can be classed as theistic will disappear from the range of ideas that this process generates.

smacl wrote: »

You also have to consider the social ramifications of openly stating you don't subscribe to the dominant local religion. These days, in this country, this isn't the issue it once was but up until a few decades ago publicly stating you were an atheist would likely get you socially ostracised or worse. In some countries and some religions, apostasy is still a criminal offence with very serious penalties. Whatever about rational, it is often pragmatic to say that you believe in a god regardless of whether you actually do.

Surprisingly I was bullied over it in the the greater Dublin area up until 2012. One particular event of note had a 6th class religion teacher convince the class I was evil because I was the only one who supported abortion in 2012.

mr_fegelien wrote: »

Ricky Gervais said something interesting which applies here.

If all the religious and science text books were destroyed in a human mass extinction event and humans only recovered 1000 years into the future, the future society would have science textbooks that mirror ours. They may not rediscover the same scientific principles but it would be there.

Meanwhile the religious textbooks (assuming they have any) will have different Gods. There won't be Jesus, Yahweh, Buddha, Muhammad etc.. these were all stories based on people living in a certain time.

Yeah. But they might be similar ideas about God. God might not be called e.g. Yahweh, but there might still be a conception of an all-knowing, all-powerful, etc. god going by a different name.

Just as atomic particles might not be called electrons, positrons and neutrons, but by entirely different names, and yet might still be understood in ways very simllar to the ways we understand electrons, positrons and neutrons.

Peregrinus wrote: »

If it were self-evident, you wouldn't be reduced to "refuting" it by claiming "It's self-evident!" and then immediately switching to a critique of several entirely different claims.

Have another go?

It’s self-evident

-Ends

karlitob wrote: »

It’s self-evident

-Ends

Like I say, you're supposed to be defending reason here.

If you can't mount a rational defence of your position, you might be better off saying nothing. Just sayin'.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Like I say, you're supposed to be defending reason here.

If you can't mount a rational defence of your position, you might be better off saying nothing. Just sayin'.

If we are going to pretend that we are defending reason here, then maybe the onus is on antiskeptic to explain how the claim for the existence of god is ordinary first?

Peregrinus wrote: »

Yeah. But they might be similar ideas about God. God might not be called e.g. Yahweh, but there might still be a conception of an all-knowing, all-powerful, etc. god going by a different name.

Just as atomic particles might not be called electrons, positrons and neutrons, but by entirely different names, and yet might still be understood in ways very simllar to the ways we understand electrons, positrons and neutrons.

Atomic particles are inanimate objects. Their name comes from us. However the the results of any tests done in the future would be the same as the same tests done now (or in the past), so the facts derived about them would be the same.

God, if one exists, is not inanimate. God names himself in the bible as several things, like elohim and yahweh etc. If the same god exists in the future, then the same names should appear. If they don't (and I'm betting they wouldn't) then that is because we created the names.

Peregrinus wrote: »

It absolutely is a "particular god". This concept requires that there be only one god, that he be the creator of the universe, and that there be no other gods. It doesn't require him to have any particular name, but so what? If I believe in this god and call him Joe, and you believe in this god and call him Bill, we'lll both agree that we believe in the same god; we just refer to him by different names. And I might believe that you are wrong to call him Bill or you might believe that I am wrong to call him Joe, or we might both believe that his name is unimportant. But none of that will change the fact that we believe in the same god; a statement we couldn't make if the concept were not a particular concept of god.

But we don't believe in this particular god. Your Joe and my Bill have inherently non-compatible concepts inherently attached to them. E.g. your Joe says pork is a sin, my Bill says pork isn't. Multiply that by every religious rule and how even you yourself have argued that multiple people self-labeling as the same religion doesn't mean you can say anything about what they should or shouldn't believe in.
There is no "particular god". Many many people have died in agreements over that fact (and in disagreement over whose particular god is the real or best one).

I'd wager that once you separate out the big contradictions, not even 10% of all christians could charitably be said to believe in the same particular god.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Antiskeptic was responding to Mr Fegelein's characterisation, in post #1 in this thread, of belief in God an as "extraordinary claim". He doesn't make any counterclaim that belief in God is ordinary; he just asks why it's extraordinary. Mr Fegelein doesn't respond, but Karlitobob does; he says that "it's self-evident" that belief in God is an extraordinary claim, and he has since repeated that but refused to elaborate on it.

So, the only claim advanced about this on either side is that belief in god is extraordinary and, despite request, the reasoning offered in support this claim so far is precisely nil, though the claim is repeated. Apparently we are supposed to take it on faith. Which is notable, in a thread which is supposed to be about the rationality of belief. Can you criticise the rationality of other people's beliefs if you can't or won't give a rational account of your own beliefs?

So questioning it doesn't count as a contradiction? Sure, fine, whatever. To at least move the discussion along:

If the existence of god is not extraordinary, then it is ordinary. Which would make "a unique god who is the creator of all things that exist (other than himself) and who is not a part of the created universe" ordinary. That looks like a contradiction to me. If god is unique, then he is not common. If he is not part of the universe then he is not normal. If he created the universe then he is special.
Like, this is so obvious as to be self-evident, wouldn't you say?

Mark Hamill wrote: »

So questioning it doesn't count as a contradiction? Sure, fine, whatever. To at least move the discussion along:

If the existence of god is not extraordinary, then it is ordinary. Which would make "a unique god who is the creator of all things that exist (other than himself) and who is not a part of the created universe" ordinary. That looks like a contradiction to me. If god is unique, then he is not common. If he is not part of the universe then he is not normal. If he created the universe then he is special.
Like, this is so obvious as to be self-evident, wouldn't you say?

The issue is not whether the existenc of god is ordinary or extraordinary; it's whether the claim that god exists is extraordinary or ordinary.

Think about it; if god exists, then his existence is certainly ordinary - as in, it's part of the order of things. And if he doesn't exist, then the question whether
his existence is ordinary or extraordinary is literally a meaningless question.

So, no: the issue here is whether belief in god is an extraordinary belief, or to assert that god exists is an extraordinary assertion. It's certainly not extraordinary in the colloquial sense; it's widespread across all cultures that we know of, and at all time that we know of. It's about as ordinary as a belief or assertion can be. So we're obviously looking at some other sense of "extraordinary". And I think the onus is on those who wish to advance this claim (Mr Fegelein, who first made the claim in this thread, clearly doesn't want to) is to start by eplaining what the claim means. When we describe a belief or assertion as "extraordinary", what exactly do we mean?

Peregrinus wrote: »

The issue is not whether the existenc of god is ordinary or extraordinary; it's whether the claim that god exists is extraordinary or ordinary.

If a being who is "a unique god who is the creator of all things that exist (other than himself) and who is not a part of the created universe" is extraordinary, then any claims about their existence is also extraordinary, as they would require an otherwise ordinary human being in the position to determine that a being is truly " a unique god who is the creator... etc.".

Peregrinus wrote: »

Think about it; if god exists, then his existence is certainly ordinary - as in, it's part of the order of things.

If god exists then by being a "a unique god who is the creator of all things that exist (other than himself) and who is not a part of the created universe" he is therefore unique, not part of the same order of things as we are (by virtue of being outside the universe) and singularly able to create our universe.


You seem to be trying to use a personal definition of extraordinary so obtuse that it would render the word unusable in any situation. Your usage would amount to saying that Jeff Bezo's isn't extraordinarily rich simply because his wealth exists.

Peregrinus wrote: »

I don't think it's a separate tangent at all. There's a clear difference between (a) believing in different things and (b) having differing beliefs about the same thing. You may believe that Donald Trump wears Man Tan Lurid Tartrazine no. 27; I may believe that he wears Clarins Jaundice Special Glow for Boys; regardless of which (if either) of us is correct, these are both beliefs that we hold about the same Donald Trump.

And in such a facetious example, I would agree.
But in an example where I believed that Bill says we should execute people for working heavy machinery before 7.30am and you believe that Joe says we celebrate such people for having a good work ethic, our two concepts of the the gods we believe in are so different that it makes no sense to try and claim we just have semantic differences about the same god.

Can we agree that eastern and western religions are fundamentally different?
By that, I mean Buddhism and Taoism as eastern and Judeo Christianity and its Islam offshoot as western.

I think that religions for the most part were not created as a means to explain things which people could not understand at that moment but rather as a control mechanism or oppression tool. How else can we call the idea of rules set in stone which must be obeyed with the promise of reward after we die?

antiskeptic wrote: »

It has been pointed out to you that belief in God is quite ordinary. That is demonstrable by sheer weight of numbers of people making that claim.

Extraordinary (in the other sense: shocked, suprised and amazed: thats extraordinary!) would only apply to someone who didn't already know God exists. You for instance. Me, being quite used to God existing wouldn't count his existance in the shocked/surprised/amazed category anymore.

Whilst you are entitled to speak for yourself, you can't really impose your own view, as to the extrordinariness of the claim, on everyone else.

Especially since so many people make the claim. Indeed, the majority of the world's population do.

Again you’ve yet to respond to the points I raised that you requested - twice.

Extra-ordinary means beyond ordinary.

You claim because lots of people believe in god it’s not an extraordinary claim. My point is that the claim that your god rose from the dead - just like similar claims of zombies - requires extraordinary evidence.


Your central point in the last thread was on your interpretation of the word evidence.

This thread seems to be your interpretation of the word extraordinary.

If I claimed that a magical pink unicorn created the world in 2 days by spouting the universe from its magical horn and then ate fairy dust for another 5. And that you have to make your children go to a state school where the patron is a priest of this religion and be taught that that’s how universe was created.

You’d say ‘well I know this unicorn lad has a few million followers - albeit because it was original developed by nomadic illiterate goat herders 2000 years ago and we only believe in it because we happen to be born here - but the creation of the universe from his mad horn is an extraordinary claim. I’m sure that there is ‘evidence’ - irrefutable extraordinary evidence - which should be more than the claims of so called believers - before I send my child to this school.

Instead of engaging on the evidence though, believers just say - well, what is extraordinary and besides, it’s a personal Relationship I have anyway.