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Re: Prominent Scientists and their religiosity

Posted: Tue May 22, 2012 8:08 am
by Doulos
Hello Doulos, welcome to Booktalk. You are quite wrong in your assertion. Bertrand Russell's teapot has no empirical evidence for or against it, yet the overwhelming scientific consensus is that it does not exist. Scientifically, we are right to assert that this teapot does not exist because the burden of proof rests with those who make extraordinary claims about the existence of imaginary things. Same for God.
Thank you Robert,

Good point on Russel and the burden of proof. I would point out however that Christianity has always held out extraordinary proof to support its extraordinary claims (I see your Bertrand Russel and raise you one David Hume :) ). Whether this proof is accepted or not is a different question.

Once again though, popular opinion does not determine existance. Existance is not dependant upon opinion.

I might also question your assertion that there is 'overwhelming scientific consensus' that God does not exist. There may be overwhelming scientific consensus for an evolutionary understanding of existence, but this is not the same as the assertion that God does not exist.

Re: Prominent Scientists and their religiosity

Posted: Tue May 22, 2012 8:31 am
by Doulos
From DWill
I don't disagree with everything you say. I think we'd be crazy to value rationality above all other abilities, for example. But this idea that people who don't believe in God must therefore have no appreciation of the (as far as we know) unique capacity of humans to feel and express love or experience the wonder of the world is just plain false.
I would agree with you entirely here. Like any group of people, Christians often assert beyond what can be supported by evidence (in this case Biblical). The Bible does assert that 'God is love,' but it is also clear that God, "causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." (Mt 5:45) This latter passage is followed immediately by a connection of this concept to love.

From my own experience coming from Atheism/Agnosticism to belief in Christ, I would say that it has renewed and hightened the capacity to feel and express love.

Yet it is what you're implying.
So I'm not implying 'that' :wink:
If atheists give scientific explanations for the development of life and assume correctly that we and monkeys have common ancestors, those are not meaning-of-life statements. It seems that you might be cherry-picking one or two atheists--who, I don't know--who might have said that the scientific facts place limits on the meaning with which we can invest life. In other words, straw man, as far as atheists as a class are concerned
I'm not entirely clear what you mean by 'meaning-of-life statements.' Could you please elaborate?

I don't think evolution is contrary to what is taught in the Bible (unless one ascribes to literal 6 day creation). As others in this post have admirably pointed out, the latter is not accepted even by all Christians, and this for reasons of Biblical proof.
Can you explain to me why meaning needs to reside in a power outside of ourselves? Even if the universe has no meaning, why does that make meaning impossible for me?
You have two excellent questions here, so I'll take them in turn.

Meaning does not need to reside in a power outside of ourselves. Neither does there scientifically 'need' to be a God, which is where Christians and Muslims often feel challenged by evolution. The question is not whether there 'needs' to be, but whether there IS a power outside of ourselves. And if so, does he/she deserve our worship and obedience.

Meaning is not impossible in a meaningless universe. I was simply seeking to demonstrate that existance with God offers a 'greater' potential meaning than without. This was in response to Dexter's May 20th post.

Thanks for the good questions DWill. If I've missed any of your nuances, please let me know and I'll try to answer them as best I can.

Re: Prominent Scientists and their religiosity

Posted: Tue May 22, 2012 8:33 am
by Doulos
@ Chris Connor
This is a really great question.
Yes it was :)

Re: Prominent Scientists and their religiosity

Posted: Tue May 22, 2012 9:06 am
by Dexter
Doulos wrote: Good point on Russel and the burden of proof. I would point out however that Christianity has always held out extraordinary proof to support its extraordinary claims (I see your Bertrand Russel and raise you one David Hume :) ). Whether this proof is accepted or not is a different question.
What is this extraordinary proof?

Re: Prominent Scientists and their religiosity

Posted: Tue May 22, 2012 10:27 am
by Interbane
@ Interbane,
I was just enjoying the opportunity to explore a line of thought.

The main point from my own perspective is that people (whether believers or agnostics/atheists) have difficulty accepting things outside their own thought paradigm. To villify the opposition is thus often a reflection of our own inability to understand opposing viewpoints, and not necessarily a product of the other person being 'wrong.'
That is all too true. You touch on something else as well - the devil is in the details. A person may have explored every part of his belief system in detail, but still missed a critical link that would expose the entire system as false. Those nuggets of contradiction are often surrounded by an impenetrable shell of fuzzy wording, bias, and equivocation.


From my own experience coming from Atheism/Agnosticism to belief in Christ, I would say that it has renewed and hightened the capacity to feel and express love.
Did you have any beliefs before, as an atheist/agnostic? Such as humanism or some sort of pantheism? Most people make the mistake of believing that atheism is a positive belief system(not positive as in value, positive as in content). But it is simply lack of belief in god. It doesn't define a person any further. What defines a person further are the beliefs that fill that hole. Most atheists without realizing it ascribe to humanist principles, or some other secular morality, perhaps based on naturalistic algorithms. :shock:

Going from no belief system to one such as Christianity could indeed help you to love more. But Christianity isn't the only belief system that can nurture that side of us. There are secular belief systems that can accomplish the same. However, there is a 'warm fuzzy' from believing in an overseeing intelligence that is only duplicated by other superstitious beliefs, such as that your ancestors are watching over you from the heavens.
Every person has some areas of fallacious reasoning. It comes with being human.

A person who accepts a 'trustworthy' person's opinion has certainly made a justifiable choice, even by the standards of pure reason. The very nature of being 'trustworthy' is the accumulated record of 'wise' decisions/choices. To go with the statistically superior choice would be entirely justifiable.
How do you know it's justified? Unless you've taken each and every decision this trustworthy person has made, and critically analyzed them for veracity, you don't know what his record is. I've learned the hard way that some people who we see as trustworthy are instead very good liars, even family and friends. You may frown at those words, but they are unfortunately true. How can you justify something a person told you, if his record has only ever been cross checked heuristically?

A vast majority of what we believe, we aren't justified in believing. We must accept that, and continue to learn our entire lives. If a trustworthy person makes a claim, the claim must still be verified if it's to be trusted. In the same way that world reknowned scientists must have their work peer reviewed(even a scientist that has produced only truthful results - he's statistically at 100%) People are fallible. That fact will not go away, and claims supported only by a person's reputation cannot be justified because of this fallibility.

Re: Prominent Scientists and their religiosity

Posted: Tue May 22, 2012 6:57 pm
by Doulos
Hi Dexter,

The gospel accounts are that 'extraordinary evidence.'

Divine birth
Miracles
Fulfilled prophesies
Claims of divinity
Death and resurrection
Meeting his disciples after resurrection
Raising to heaven

It is precisely the fact that these claims are 'extraordinary' that they are questioned. Kind of a catch 22... we want extraordinary proof, but we doubt it precisely because it is extraordinary.

Re: Prominent Scientists and their religiosity

Posted: Tue May 22, 2012 7:17 pm
by Dexter
Doulos wrote:Hi Dexter,

The gospel accounts are that 'extraordinary evidence.'

Divine birth
Miracles
Fulfilled prophesies
Claims of divinity
Death and resurrection
Meeting his disciples after resurrection
Raising to heaven

It is precisely the fact that these claims are 'extraordinary' that they are questioned. Kind of a catch 22... we want extraordinary proof, but we doubt it precisely because it is extraordinary.
Uh, the claims are also the proof? I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. As they are extraordinary claims, without actual evidence the most obvious explanation is that they are made-up stories. If you were to read the stories of 100 other religions -- or how about one other religion -- would you believe them all?

Re: Prominent Scientists and their religiosity

Posted: Tue May 22, 2012 10:12 pm
by Interbane
The gospel accounts are that 'extraordinary evidence.'
The claims aren't also the evidence. The evidence are things like the shroud of Turin, and corroborating references from third parties such as Josephus. There is remarkably little evidence, unfortunately.



It is precisely the fact that these claims are 'extraordinary' that they are questioned. Kind of a catch 22... we want extraordinary proof, but we doubt it precisely because it is extraordinary.
There is a reason that phrase is used.

We've played with the universe a bit, and have come to weasel out some of the rules by which it operates. Much of the knowledge we know is based on induction. For example, how many people do you know that have come back to life after an extended period of death? Medically, it is next to impossible. Perhaps after frozen in ice for a period of time. We know that brain cells start dying very soon after death, and the brain is needed for us to live. There is a tremendous amount of evidence that this happens to any and every human.

Every person who has remained dead and every test with experimental evidence sets an inductive precedent. In order for the extraordinary claim of the resurrection to have justification, you'd need not only ontologically positive evidence that the event happened, you'd also need sufficient evidence to outweigh the contrary precedent. That is why extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence - due to all the contrary evidence that already exists.

Note that nowhere in here I say resurrection is definitely impossible. It's possible there is a black swan. But there is far too much evidence showing that such things do not happen. What would you have us do, simply ignore all that evidence? You have to realize that's a bit absurd.

Should a special case be made exempting Christianity from the precedent? If God were ever to influence events on Earth, of course he would do so when his son is alive, and especially to him. It's no wonder we haven't seen anything similar since. Right?

What of all the other religions that make equally extraordinary claims backed up by their own brand of convincing rationalization? What of all non-religious extraordinary claims? How many millions are there, passed off as the Truth? From succubi to bigfoot to eavesdropping Thetans? Well, Scientologists likely think their belief qualifies as a religion, I'm not sure...

Sometimes I feel like an oppressed customer where everyone is trying to sell me one belief or another. Each make the claim with genuine certainty, and all are intelligent enough to be convincing. But there is no way to determine which are true and which aren't true. Every salesman just wants you to believe, either based on their word, or based on words in a book. They expect me to throw out all the knowledge I have of how things work, and make an exception for their belief. They each could go on for hours about how all the other competing beliefs are false. It's like the current state of our Politics, but with a thousand politicians in the running.

Even a TRUE extraordinary claim would require extraordinary evidence. How else can we sort the wheat from the chaff? If you have any ideas, please share them.

Re: Prominent Scientists and their religiosity

Posted: Tue May 22, 2012 11:10 pm
by Robert Tulip
Interbane wrote:
The gospel accounts are that 'extraordinary evidence.'
There is remarkably little evidence, unfortunately.
None. It is all made up.
Even a TRUE extraordinary claim would require extraordinary evidence. How else can we sort the wheat from the chaff? If you have any ideas, please share them.
One true extraordinary claim is that Jesus Christ did not exist. The evidence for this is very strong. It requires people to comprehensively reassess their assumptions about history and psychology.

Re: Prominent Scientists and their religiosity

Posted: Wed May 23, 2012 12:44 am
by Chris OConnor
The gospel accounts are that 'extraordinary evidence.'
What is the extraordinary evidence that the gospel accounts are not fiction?

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/presum ... -question/