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What is scientism?

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Dexter

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Re: What is scientism?

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ant wrote:Just one comment and one question:
Yes, I am staying clear of 100%
.

Comment - that is wise of you

Question - so you're an agnostic, right?
I've said that most atheists would consider themselves agnostic if you mean they agree that you can't prove a negative. I assume you are also agnostic about all Gods minus one.
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johnson1010
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Re: What is scientism?

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It is arbitrary, and is just a humble admission from Dexter that he doesn't know everything there is to know.

It is no slight against him, nor a detriment to his argument that he admits as much.

Yes, i think he would take "agnostic" as a descriptor, just as i would. I am confident you've read this on this site by now, but i describe myself as an agnostic atheist, meaning, There has been no compelling evidence put in front of me for god, so i don't believe. As opposed to a Gnostic atheist, who would not accept any evidence for god.

You've seen this before, so why are you making noise about agnostic vs atheist?

i posted here with some more commentary which seems relevant.

http://www.booktalk.org/post104446.html#p104446
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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ant

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Re: What is scientism?

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I assume you are also agnostic about all Gods minus one.
I'm not certain whether or not a human being is capable of having a personal relationship with a universal intelligence. It simply may be beyond our knowledge capabilities.

I know atheists think man's intelligence packs enough punch to explain and understand everything in existence. And perhaps you feel almost certain of that as well - that is 99.99999% certain, which is still saying a whole lot.

We might not live long enough to get the answer. I'm not out to prove God's existence. I'm also not in a position to claim that I'm 99.99999% certain God is just like the god of thunder, or the god of lightning, or the god of corn, etc. etc. It seems like we are all past categorizing like that.

You seem to be certain an intelligence that might just be beyond your comprehension should be shelved with any other god. Good for you. Nothing wrong with being confident .
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ant

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Re: What is scientism?

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It is arbitrary, and is just a humble admission from Dexter that he doesn't know everything there is to know.
Actually, he's not really saying he doesn't know everything these is to know.
He's actually saying he's 99.99999% certain he knows just about all there is to know that would determine beyond a reasonable doubt an omnipotent being does not, or can not exist.

Now, let's all work on curing the common cold.
Last edited by ant on Fri Apr 20, 2012 12:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: What is scientism?

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You seem to be certain an intelligence that might just be beyond your comprehension should be shelved with any other god. Good for you. Nothing wrong with being confident .
I doubt he's trying to defend a calculation to 5 decimal places about his certainty. You may recall a conversation we had about confidence where i brought up something along these lines that saying you are certain, coloquially, really amounts to admitting a high degree of confidence to the point that it may as well be 100% certain, based on all that you know of the subject.

You are trying to bring in that off the cuff 99.99999 as some kind of mark against him. It was obvious to me at least that it was no assertion of having done the sums.

As far as higher intelligences go, i have little doubt there are intelligences in the vast reaches of space which make us look like ants in comparison. Not accurately described as mystical gods, though perhaps scientific gods which have created life themselves, biological and mechanical.

How can i have confidence in something like that while having confidence there is no god? Because god is magic and has no relevant examples in anything in our experience. Aliens would be natural and organic, and simply an extension of the kinds of things we know to be possible based on referential observations here on earth. Then, given the size of the universe and the opportunities it represents, it gives me great satisfaction to announce a 99.999999 repeating confidence level that there are such beings out there!

Mark it in your records, Ant. That's to the sixth decimal place!
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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Dexter

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Re: What is scientism?

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ant wrote:
It is arbitrary, and is just a humble admission from Dexter that he doesn't know everything there is to know.
Actually, he's not really saying he doesn't know everything these is to know.
He's actually saying he's 99.99999% certain he knows just about all there is to know that would determine beyond a reasonable doubt an omnipotent being does not, or can not exist.

Now, let's all work on curing the common cold.
I am saying I am nearly certain about the nonexistence of any entity described by religion. As I assume you are about every religion, perhaps excepting one.

As for an omnipotent being in general, I suppose logic would require putting a slight larger probability on it.

You're still trying to put the burden of proof on skeptics, when other people are making up stories about creation and the nature of God.
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Re: What is scientism?

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You're still trying to put the burden of proof on skeptics, when other people are making up stories about creation and the nature of God.
That's not quite true.
I do admit to being anxious to ask you to carry the burden of proof the second your near certainty turns to certainty.
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Interbane

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Re: What is scientism?

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That's not quite true.
I do admit to being anxious to ask you to carry the burden of proof the second your near certainty turns to certainty.
The difference between certainty and near-certainty does nothing for the burden of proof. Near certainty is sufficient, if the claim that's made is ontologically positive.

When a god such as the christian one is described as he is in the bible, the lack of evidence is evidence of lack. Depending on how thorough someone has gone through the supposed evidence, near certainty is justified.

For a deity(different than the christian god), agnostic is a justified position.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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Re: What is scientism?

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,
the lack of evidence is evidence of lack.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

For a deity(different than the christian god), agnostic is a justified position
.


I've never objected to the above
Last edited by ant on Fri Apr 20, 2012 2:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What is scientism?

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It's true you cannot disprove all possible gods. They are infinite, after all. Just coming up with all the different possible gods is impossible, much less disproving all of them.

It is in this sense that i admit my confidence that there is no god is not one hundred percent certainty.

But in so far as a god has been described to me, and given qualifiers about what that god does, how that god acts, the things that god likes, loves, hates, will do, for whom and under what circumstances, those descriptions have always failed to meet the qualification "not wrong". They have proven emphatically false, and the claims made are incompatable with nature. And when that happens, i take the side of nature. Physics has never let me down.

The god which permits those with even faith so much as a mustard seed to pray a mountain into movement however, seems as non-existant as a teapot-wielding pink unicorn in orbit around the flying spaghetti monster.

So i don't say that i am certain there is no god. I say, tell me about your god, and i will tell you why he doesn't exist.
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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