So is your self imposed purposeless universe and your false analogies.Still a bit shallow,
Are you running your air conditioner in your house this summer?
It's making climate change worse
In total there are 41 users online :: 0 registered, 0 hidden and 41 guests (based on users active over the past 60 minutes)
Most users ever online was 789 on Tue Mar 19, 2024 5:08 am
So is your self imposed purposeless universe and your false analogies.Still a bit shallow,
This is really the very typical misunderstanding and ill informed opinions that were disseminated by the new atheists who are absolutely ignorant of the truly great theological discussions over thousands of years regarding faith and reason.With such beliefs, skepticism goes out the window and we're not so interested any more if it's actually true, only how we can rationalize it to make it sound good
I'm basically saying that cherished beliefs don't get scrutinized to the same degree as non-cherished beliefs. Do you disagree with that statement? It seems self-evident to me. By the way, this is my own observation and has nothing to do with Neo Atheism. Please tell me how I am misinformed, but leave your strawmen at home.ant wrote:This is really the very typical misunderstanding and ill informed opinions that were disseminated by the new atheists who are absolutely ignorant of the truly great theological discussions over thousands of years regarding faith and reason.With such beliefs, skepticism goes out the window and we're not so interested any more if it's actually true, only how we can rationalize it to make it sound good
Augustine, Scotus, and Aquinas come to mind for starters. Not once do you hear any of the celebrity atheists mention the thoughts and reasoning of these man related to matters of existence.
I think new atheists that argue skepticism is incompatible with personal matters of faith are stupid and bigoted.
I practice skepticism in my life daily.
If you'd like to measure your quality of life against mine, we can begin by comparing bank accounts, if you want to be shallow about it, and go from there.
Who's first?
You start by asking yourself if this opinion you hold is based on evidence or based on emotion. Are you seeking the truth or are you trying to confirm what you already believe.Interbane wrote:Staying on topic, it's obvious there must be an approach to a list like this. But where could you possibly start? Maybe a second list is required, a list of filtering strategies.
So, here's a list of strategies to sort through the list of "There might be's..."
We select based on emotion.
We start with the most basic statement possible to use as a brute fact.
We prioritize the list based on which statements are more popular.
We prioritize the list based on the age of the claim.
We pick a conclusion that most other statements mesh with, and make everything else fit.
We select the one our parents tell us to and go from there.
We select the one the president tells us to, and go from there.
We circle only the statements we can verify with our own eyes.
We circle only the statements that the most accredited scholars believe are true.
We pick a generic one at random and test it against reality for veracity.
We spread the list out to mankind and have everyone test one.
How do you even begin? What happens after you've begun? Does the strategy change?
I see what you're saying. No matter what, we're going to cherry pick evidence that supports what we already believe. And we're going to rationalize. I think this is unavoidable to some extent. Not sure of a way around that except to try to be aware of one's own biases that will close you off to alternative explanations. It helps to have a spouse who knows you well enough to call "bullshit" when she sees it.Interbane wrote:Sorry geo, I don't think that works. By the time you're auditing your beliefs, you've already built an unseen scaffolding of premises that support this belief. Unless you examine everything underneath, you may be fooled that one belief is based on reason, when it's actually a fallacy. Or there could be a series of premises used, nebulous in the associative part of the brain, that you rationally consider to be evidence. Or you might not know what evidence is. Or, you might mistakenly use heuristics as pieces of evidence. Or you might suffer from a theory-laden observation where you instrinsically assume something you see is evidence(coincidence worshippers).
Interbane wrote: What happens when the discussion is about the nature of evil, and the existence of demons are brought into question?
geo wrote:No matter what, we're going to cherry pick evidence that supports what we already believe. And we're going to rationalize. I think this is unavoidable to some extent. Not sure of a way around that except to try to be aware of one's own biases that will close you off to alternative explanations. It helps to have a spouse who knows you well enough to call "bullshit" when she sees it.
How do you think we get around these human foibles?
Interbane wrote:There's no surefire way around them, but some approaches are better than others. Basically, you have to collect "sets" of facts.
Interbane wrote:The simple laws of physics are a start. For society and for a worldview. I say the laws of physics because they are simple enough and tangible enough for us to test and "abstract" with math and language. We can "bite onto reality" more easily with regards to the simple laws of physics. By all accounts, the simple laws appear not to change, there is a regularity to the universe that we can detect. These sets of facts have to be anchored to a "brute fact" about the world. The universe exists, and it's understandable. The sets of beliefs you can anchor to this core become more and more complex, branching into different types of physics and eventually different fields of science.
I wasn't aware that theists dispute with atheists was about the the laws of physics or facts in nature. There may be disagreement on hypotheses and interpretations of facts as well the question of explanations for things.Interbane wrote: It doesn't serve to have a ton of independent facts without linkage. The strength of each fact is proportional to the size of the entire web it's a part of.
This foundation is necessary, so that your "scaffolding of premises" is intact. You can audit what you currently believe to align with this, as long as your views aren't too woo.