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Ali-Radicali In reply to The-Max765 [2012-12-05 00:53:39 +0000 UTC]

The whole Heaven/Hell paradigm would be an offer you can't refuse (if true, of course). And yeah, both god and his rabid fanbase are douchey. Jesus has a few redeeming qualities, but the so-called christians like to ignore those parts of the bible, the parts that talk about turning the other cheek, loving thine enemies and sharing prosterity with the less fortunate....

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Ali-Radicali In reply to Whacked-Out-Inc [2012-05-12 07:23:57 +0000 UTC]

It's funny: anything good that happens, from finding your car keys to winning the lottery two times in a row is "an act of god". On the bad side of the spectrum, god's never held responsible for traffic accidents or miscarriages, only occasionally for the truly devastating natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes (and even then people tend to say "it would've been a lot worse without god").


If people truly believe in an omnipotent and omnipresent god, then clearly their god could influence anything and everything that happens, thus he bears partial responsibility for everything that does happen.
Add omniscience and the supposed omnibenevolence, and you get a lovely self-contradictory mash of concepts. Why isn't god out there saving humanity? He knows whats gonna happen, he has the power to prevent it, and since he's omnibenevolent, he should WANT to prevent all the bad stuff.

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Whacked-Out-Inc In reply to Ali-Radicali [2012-05-12 15:44:09 +0000 UTC]

The reason he doesn't help us is that he somehow believes that we deserve it, or so it seems. Two morons eat an apple and he decides all of humanity deserves to suffer in life and burn in the afterlife.

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Ali-Radicali In reply to Whacked-Out-Inc [2012-05-13 12:58:02 +0000 UTC]

Yes, because punishing the descendants of a criminal is just and fair, right?

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Whacked-Out-Inc In reply to Ali-Radicali [2012-05-13 23:17:16 +0000 UTC]

Technically that's how Bane from the Batman franchise grew up.
Supposedly he was born in a prison and had to serve the remaining time of his dad or mom when he/she died.
Sound familiar?

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Ali-Radicali In reply to Whacked-Out-Inc [2012-05-14 02:58:16 +0000 UTC]

I'm not a huge batman fan, so I'm only superficially familiar with the the canon. However, I an aware that the newer batman films have certain biblical motifs. For example batman begins can be argued to have very strong parallels with the sodom and gomorrah story. Funnily enough, in that interpretation, the villain of the movie is god, threatening to destroy the city to cleanse the world of its evil.

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Whacked-Out-Inc In reply to Ali-Radicali [2012-05-14 03:14:57 +0000 UTC]

Meh, there probably wasn't an actual relation between Batman Begins and any kind of biblical fairytale. That's a problem some films have. People will make up some kind of crappy resemblance between a really good film and the sociopath's wet dream. It basically ruins a film when some douchebag behind you at the theater is all like "Herp derp, dat be a bible story!".

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Ali-Radicali In reply to Whacked-Out-Inc [2012-05-14 16:09:26 +0000 UTC]

I don't think that's the case at all, the film condemns biblical morality, so it wouldn't have been made by biblethumpers; quite the opposite. It think the makers took the sodom and gomorrah story and reinterpreted the events to reflect a different, more humanistic morality than the biblical one.
I think the makers were pretty deliberate in their humanistic(not necessarily anti-religious) message, but unlike most movies, they were more subtle about it.

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Whacked-Out-Inc In reply to Ali-Radicali [2012-05-15 01:00:09 +0000 UTC]

Frankly, it doesn't matter what the film is about, what the underlying message is, or even who directed it. Morons will find an excuse to say it's a slight resemblance and say it was all based on the bible.
Still, it would be funny to hear what "biblical message" was made up for The Dark Knight.

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Ali-Radicali In reply to a-nameless-one [2012-05-11 16:31:28 +0000 UTC]

Meh. Honestly, while I know how futile reason is against an unreasonable theist, I don't see any other approach that would be more effective. Sure, you could try appealing to amotions or similar fallacious attempts to convince them, but even if that would work, it could still turn out harmful in the end: if someone exposes the fallacy of your reasoning, it's likely to make the theist even more convinced that he has the truth and that atheists are just trying to trick him.

The best strategy IMO is to find common ground in the proposition that reason and evidence are good things, and then slowly sow the seeds of doubt by continually pointing out the logical flaws and contradictions in their beliefs, not to mention the huge lack of confirming evidence. But this only works if the theist is reasonable enough to hear you out and actually think about your arguments, which disturbingly few theists are.

The other approach is ridicule and causing offense, and these are probably the only tools that have any impact whatsoever on the thoroughly indoctrinated irrational believers. It may not convince them directly, but at least it destroys the air of untouchability that surrounds religion.


Also, I'm not pleading for free will here. As a materialist who doesn't believe in spirits or souls, I find it most plausible that everything that makes me "me" happens somewheir ein my brain/body, and is thus subject to the laws of physics/chemistry/nature etc. If neuroscientists say that the best model for our brain doesn't have free will, but rather the illusion of free will, who am I to disagree? And on what basis, my feeling? that would be almost as irrational as theism! So I'm not trying to make the case that free will only works in an atheistic worldview, rather I'm saying that the theistic principle of free will (which is typically the "answer" given to the Problem of Evil) is nonsense, because god's pulling the strings.

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a-nameless-one In reply to Ali-Radicali [2012-05-15 18:10:33 +0000 UTC]

My personal experience has taught me that reasoning with an unreasonable theist is just as futile as reasoning with an unreasonable atheist. Other than the fact that I am an atheist because of my own personal reasons, I see at least from a purely logical standpoint the difference as quite arbitrary. Logically, the entire debate revolves around a single axiom, which atheists agree is an axiom. Hence, the model accepting it and the model rejecting it seem like a contingency rather than a necessity (I'm talking about the average person who is college educated and also happens to believe in god).

Theists are not unreasonable! I do agree that some theists are indeed unreasonable. Many theists have a consistent set of beliefs that simply gives them a different world view. Try having this debate with a mathematics or philosophy professor who happens to be a theist.

I'm sorry, but I fail to see how reason or evidence play in your favor here, unless you can actually prove that god does not exist or that his existence is somehow less likely than the alternative, a quest undertaken by many, though non have succeeded to this day.

This is a quote I find useful to keep in my mind whenever I approach this subject.

“I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.” Thomas Nagel

I do agree with you about the indirect effects that satire creates in society as a whole, and showing religious institutions to be earthly, corrupted and touchable.

I would however note that "hard materialism" requires commitment to quite a few axioms in itself (specifically bridge-laws if I remember correctly), some of which can seem quite absurd when when presented in a certain light. I prefer "token physicalism". John Searle (if not it's Fodor, I always mix them up) is a good read on the subject.

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Ali-Radicali In reply to a-nameless-one [2012-05-15 20:33:22 +0000 UTC]

The difference between theism and athiesm isn't arbitrary, and I fear your equivocating theism/atheism with gnosticism/agnosticism, which is decidedly not the same thing.

Atheism is the lack of belief in a god, it doesn't require any degrees of certainty or definitive proof. The "axiom" of atheism (if you can call it that) is skepticism: the rejection of any positive claim unless sufficient evidence is presented to support it. Now the theist will often jump in to say that you can't find evidence against god either, but that's asinine. Of course it's not possible to "prove" the nonexistence of something which doesn't exist, especially when that something is a poorly-defined as god.

For a skeptic, the default position on anything is disbelief until evidence is presented. For instance, I can't prove the existence or nonexistence of unicorns, but since I have no evidence that unicorns exist, I tentatively reject that claim. That makes me an (agnostic) a-unicornist, which is the only rationally justifiable position IMO, unless you have evidence for or against the existence of unicorns.
With that in mind, why would it be any different for a god? Why would it be unreasonable to reject the god claim until evidence is presented?


I'm not saying all theists are unreasonable about everything all the time, but they are unreasonable when it comes to their belief. They accept things based on evidence which they would dismiss for any other claim (like, say, all the other religions making similar claims), and they fail to apply the basic skepticism that lies at the root of science and reasoning. If you talk to a theistic scientist, chances are they have their religion compartmentalised as far away as possible from their actual science.
Of course there are unreasonable atheists: people who hold the right idea for the wrong reasons. Your quote is a perfect example, as it clearly illustrates a very bad reason not to believe. Nagel talks about what he wants to believe and what kind of universe he'd want to live in, but that's pretty stupid. Just because you desperately want there to (not) be a god, that doesn't have any bearing on whether or not there actually is a god. To quote bertrand russel: When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only: What are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or what you think could have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts.

If nigel's only reason for unbelief is the fact that he doesn't like the implications of theistic belief, he's an atheist for unreasonable reasons. Don't get me wrong, it's fine to point out to the christian that the implications of his faith are grossly immoral and reflect very poorly on god's character, but this is an argument against biblical morality, or an argument against the supposed omnibenevolence of god, not an argument against his existence......

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a-nameless-one In reply to Ali-Radicali [2012-05-16 07:58:16 +0000 UTC]

I really don't wish to enter this specific argument again...

Suffice to say, that you did not provide an actual definition for belief. I doubt that we will find one that we can both agree on, and in my eyes you believe in much more than you think you do. You are not truly Skeptic (or you would have been a solipsist), you do not doubt your ability to reason, for example. You invoke materialism in order to defend it in a circular manner, casting out most theists a priori by definition, for deities are rarely considered material beings.

We can go a few more rounds on this, if you wish but I fail to see the real point. My arguments will not sway you.

Materialism is an axiomatic position. Is it justifiable, yes! just like theism. Is it provable, hell no! just like theism.

Seriously?! You employ the scientific reasoning and skepticism that Christian theists invented against them, sounds a bit shaky to me. Should we start the list of theists you just called 'unreasonable', here's a very partial list of theistic scientists we had in the modern age: Newton, Galileo, Kepler, Leibniz, Descartes, Lagrange, Copernicus, Heisenberg, Planck, Schrodinger, Marconi, Aaron Ciechanover, Charles Hard Townes, William Daniel Phillips

I despise arguments from authority, but to say that all of the above "fail to apply the basic skepticism that lies at the root of science and reasoning." to their beliefs is insulting and ignorant, not to mention that small trivial things such as: the heliocentric model, classical mechanics, calculus and the theory of relativity were explicitly motivated and inspired by the religious beliefs of their creators.

Hence, I reject your claim that " If you talk to a theistic scientist, chances are they have their religion compartmentalised as far away as possible from their actual science.". I know this to be untrue in mathematics and philosophy, first hand. Unfortunately, I do not now many physics professors.

It is you who is ignoring the evidence here, it's called history. Read their documented notes.

You quote Russell who is was indeed witty and brilliant, but you might want to try reading the religious Wittgenstein, who dispelled many of Russell's hopes about language and logic.

P.S.
On a technical note, in order to reject a claim (logically) you need to refute it, that is provide a counter example or show a contradiction. You can prove the non-existence of many things, for example you can prove the non-existence of a finite amount of primes, or the fact that two non-isomorphic fields with two elements cannot exist.

And in a less mathematical field, check Turing's "halting problem" if you're not familiar with it, it's exactly a proof of non-existence in computer science. Therefore, I reject your claim that you can't prove non-existence.

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Ali-Radicali In reply to a-nameless-one [2012-05-16 23:12:55 +0000 UTC]

Belief: a brain-state wherin you (tentatively) accept a claim as true.
I never said I don't believe anything lol, and I certainly didn't say skeptics don't believe anything. If you think true skepticism is solipsism, you have some serious misconceptions.
Again, a skeptic is someone who (tentatively) rejects any claim unless presented with sufficient evidence to support belief. I believe I exist, and I believe I have good reasons to support that belief. I also believe you exist. Can I be sure? Not to the degree of certainty a mathematical proof provides, no, but given the evidence of our conversation thusfar, the fact that you have a deviantart acoount etc. I think it's reasonable for me to believe you exist too. Of course, you could be an elaborate hoax to trick me, and that would make my belief wrong, but with the information I have, it's reasonable to believe you are in fact a real person.

Materialism isn't an axiom or a dogma that leads to circular reasoning, it's simply a working hypothesis: “Things that affect our reality are detectable in our reality” In other words, if we notice a phenomenon, we should be able to find a cause for it. The minute materialistic forces cannot explain a phenomenon, that's the time when it's reasonable to start looking for immaterial causes. To say that scientists are dogmatic fools for not looking for immaterial causes for natural processes from the start is entirely backward. What evidence is there that such a thing as an immaterial cause exists? How would you know? Given that we have no evidence that immaterial causes exist, would it not be massively unskeptical to assume these things exist anyway?
Skepticism doesn't dismiss the supernatural out of hand. It simply hasn't found a single shred of evidence in support of it. There is a million-dollar prize for anyone who can demonstrate any supernatural effect or talent, and so far no-one has claimed it. I wonder why.


Materialism, as I explained before, is not an axiomatic position, it is a working hypothesis. And one which, quite frankly, has all the evidence in the world of science to support it, considering the vast, vast amount of phenomena we HAVE been able to explain with it. If you want to argue that theism and materialism are just as valid, tell me one phenomenon that cannot ever be explained by materialistic science. And no, the fact that we don't have an answer for everything right now is not a good justification to believe that we won't find that answer later on.

Fallacy upon fallacy. You say you despise arguments from authority, but what you're engaging in is precisely that. You list a bunch of famous religious scientists as if that were an argument for theism. Just because these people have made great breakthroughs in science doesn't mean they are infallible. It doesn't mean they cannot be wrong, especially when they're talking about something that lies outside their field of expertise. Darwin's theory of evolution by means of natural selection was groundbreaking science, but it doesn't make his racism and sexism any less objectionable or above criticism.

Furthermore, trying to tie their science to their religion is also fallacious unless you provide a mechanism by which religion promotes scientific thinking, or statistics to support your claim. If you don't or can't, you're simply engaging in a sharpshooter's fallacy.
The fact of the matter is that historically, most people were theists of one kind or another. The fact that they were religious is simply a byproduct of their culture. To claim that Newton's christianity caused his incredible breakthroughs in physics seems as absurd to me as claiming his being British was the cause. Or being called Isaac.
He was a Briton and a Christian and an Isaac, but to claim either one of these things as a cause for Newton's genius is silly unless you provide statistics or reasoning to back it up.



When I say that theists fail to apply the basic skepticism that lies at the root of science and reasoning to their beliefs, I mean their theism specifically (in case that wasn't obvious). I have no doubt that they apply thir skepticism to their science, and probably to their day-to-day lives too, just like most theists. It's only when they're asked to consider the validity of their theology that you see them fail to uphold the standards of evidence. The easiest way to demonstrate this is to ask a (smart) theist to tell you why all the other religions are wrong.

Wow. You've just cited the two fields of science that have the very least to do with the real world among any sciences. Yes, it would be wrong to exclude these fields from science altogether, and that's not what I'm arguing here, but whereas other fields of science observe natural phenomena and try to find explanations for them, both philosophy and mathematics are basically providing us the toolset with which to observe/analyse/emulate the “real world”. Mathematics is a way to represent real-world processes in an abstract space. It reflects reality, but it isn't reality. Mathematics is the only field of science that deals with absolute proofs and absolute truths, because it is the only field of science where we humans get to make all the rules. A mathematical proof follows from applying axioms, but mathematics(and by extension perhaps computer sciences and theoretical physics) is the only field of science where axioms are tolerated .
If you are a mathematician, that would explain a lot of your misconceptions about skepticism and science. Otherwise, I can only assume that you're being deliberately dishonest, as I find it hard to imagine someone knowing about axioms and proofs but not realising that that standard of evidence only applies to mathematics.
So yes, I'm not surprised that mathematicians and philosophers would have less cognitive dissonance between their field of study and their theism, but that's only because their field of study is a lot more divorced from practical reality than material sciences like Chemistry or Geology.


The fact that Wittgenstein was religious, and the fact that Russell was honest enough to concede his philosphical argument to him, doesn't mean that Wittgenstein is also right in his religion. Again, this is a hollw argument from authority: unless their philosophical argument was about theism, the fact that Wittgenstein outsmarted Russel in the field of language and philosophy is irrelevant to the truth of theism.

About proofs: your examples only apply to mathematics. Turing's halting problem was proven by mathematically modeling the computer program, so it's a mathematical proof.

The problem with real science is that you cannot refute certain positive claims without absolute knowledge. You cannot “disprove” the existence of unicorns unless you have an up-to-date awareness of everything anywhere in the universe. Otherwise, while you'd be justified in believing no unicorns exist, the possibility that you might have missed a unicorn somewhere in the vast cosmos prevents you from saying you know no unicorns exist.
In a mathematics, you don't have this problem, you don't need absolute knowledge to know what can and cannot occur in abstract mathematical space: after all, everything you want to know is defined by axioms.

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a-nameless-one In reply to Ali-Radicali [2012-05-17 05:14:35 +0000 UTC]

Thank you for taking the time to write this wall of text.

I challenge you: please provide a thought experiment that would refute materialism without invoking materialism in order to do so.

Our views in reality are probably really close, but from a philosophical standpoint, I see you as the atheist equivalent of a theist.

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Ali-Radicali In reply to a-nameless-one [2012-05-17 12:11:26 +0000 UTC]

I'd rather you provide a definition of materialism first, as I'm sure there are ways to define materialism that would be dogmatic and thus unacceptable to me.

My position could probably more accurately be described as methodological naturalism: the scientific method confines itself to natural explanations without assuming the existence or non-existence of the supernatural. Methodological naturalism is thus "a self-imposed convention of science." It is a "ground rule" that "requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify.

Sure, it's possible that all sorts of ghosts and goblins, spirits and ghouls are floating invisibly in the aether, but until we can demonstrate their influence on physical reality, there simply isn't any point in holding such a belief: if they don't affect physical reality to an extent whereby we can measure their influence, what point is there in even considering these insignificant phantoms?

As soon as ghosts demonstrate an influence on the physical world, they fall under the domain of science and can be studied (and perhaps explained in "materialistic" terms.) Until then, why bother fantasising about them as a valid explanation.


I disbelieve in the supernatural, but I don't reject the possibility outright. I simply have yet to see a demonstration of the supernatural, or any evidence that such a thing could affect our reality, and as such I see no merit in trying to explain things in supernatural terms.

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a-nameless-one In reply to Ali-Radicali [2012-05-17 14:38:08 +0000 UTC]

Let's take it from here, define the minimal conditions required for the acceptance of supernatural phenomena.

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Ali-Radicali In reply to a-nameless-one [2012-05-17 20:57:10 +0000 UTC]

The problem is, as soon as you can detect a phenomenon in any way, it ceases to be supernatural. If you can detect something, it is measurable in some materialistic way and therefore falls under the domain of science.

I'm perfectly willing to believe that there might, possibly, be some undiscovered forces of nature of mental capacities or something like that, but the minute you have good reason to suspect such a thing is the minute it becomes anything other than idle speculation. And don't you think scientists would be lining up around the block to witness such a phenomenon?

So let's say spirits do exist, and after we die we float about like dismbodied ghosts. Let's say we invent a technology that allows us to detect these souls. Would that upset my worldview? Certainly, it would change how I regard life and other living beings and it would change my notion of an afterlife. However, what wouldn't change is my skepticism and inquisitive nature. If we can detect souls, they must have a connection to the material world, and that is what ought to be researched at that point.


Look, the point is, i don't know how a non-materialistic phenomenon could ever be experienced, let alone measured, so until you can describe such a phenomenn, I'm trying to describe something which I can't even imagine.

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a-nameless-one In reply to Ali-Radicali [2012-05-17 21:22:30 +0000 UTC]

I actually agree with you here, I see this as circular reasoning: in order for something to be "sufficiently" demonstrated it needs to be material, thus making materialism irrefutable. I guess It's a matter of perspective here.

I would say that most of the world believes in immaterial things, but you choose to reject their "evidence" as unsatisfactory (and with just cause if you ask me). For example, many people claim that personal revelation to be all the proof they need for god's existence. You reject this because you can't build a revelation detector. I would say that this demonstrates your conviction as a materialist, while you would say that it demonstrates your adherence to the scientific method of inquiry.

What I can't seem to fathom is why atheists are so afraid of saying "I believe in X", "I assume unprovable facts about the world", etc.. You can only deduce tautologies from zero axioms (and even that's not really true). So why are axioms and beliefs such taboo words for you?

I get your point, I think you get mine. Can we stop here?

I would very much suggest brushing up on your history of science to see how people like Copernicus, Leibniz and Einstein were guided by their faith and beliefs in the process of their scientific research.

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Ali-Radicali In reply to a-nameless-one [2012-05-17 23:27:55 +0000 UTC]

Fine, i guess we mostly agree, and where we don't, I guess we have to agree to disagree.

Minor points of disagreement: personal revelation can't be disproven.... yet. Since our thinking processes are material, it's not unthinkable that a "brain-scan" could be made in the future, which could accurately analyse electrical charges and chemicals in the brain and assess what caused an "unexplanable" experience.
I don't reject testimonial evidence in principle, I reject it because the testimonies tend to be really lame/mundane (I prayed and my headache went away) or explanable errors in sensory perception or in the brain.

I avoid the use of the word belief in these sorts of debates because theism has already muddied the waters of the word's definition. If I were to use it to describe my tentative acceptance of abiogenesis for example, it would only invite the dishonest theist to say something like "see, you're a believer just like me". Belief and faith are two seperate things: belief is acceptance of a claim as true (with variable levels of conviction possible). Faith is belief without justification. Now someone's faith is also their belief, but not all beliefs are faith. When i believe things, I (try to) do so based on as much evidence as possible.

And again, I see materialism less as an axiom or assumption, and more as a practicality. I don't know what the immaterial is like, what kind of properties it has, how it wouuld manifest etc. I can spend the rest of my days aimlessly pondering such concepts, or I can choose to study the things I can actually study, and worry about phantoms and ghosts when I see them (in which case materialism!).

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a-nameless-one In reply to Ali-Radicali [2012-05-18 00:17:33 +0000 UTC]

In any case, thanks for the discussion.

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Ali-Radicali In reply to darktoys [2012-05-12 11:43:14 +0000 UTC]

Thank you!

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Ali-Radicali In reply to Greatkingrat88 [2012-05-12 11:44:05 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, god is like the ultimate mob boss: worship or get tortured for ever. Sounds like an offer you can't refuse (if you believe it, that is).

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Greatkingrat88 In reply to Ali-Radicali [2012-05-12 15:28:06 +0000 UTC]

Such a releif that there is so little reason to believe he exists, then.

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Ali-Radicali In reply to Supyloco [2012-05-11 01:09:43 +0000 UTC]

Infinite punishment is certainly an immoral tenet, but I don't see how I could cram everything that's wrong with religion into a single piece.

Also, it's not such a great argument against theists, because they don't think they're going there, in fact they probably think they're saving you from it.

But yeah, what a douchy and stupid idea to have people "waste" their lives in ignorance only to give them the proof as you're delivering your sentence. Why would a god hide himself from your existence only to pop up to condemn you to hell? What a loving fellow!

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Supyloco In reply to Ali-Radicali [2012-05-17 02:14:58 +0000 UTC]

Yeah it's the assumption that you'll be saved and you need to save the heathen. But look I could call my self an ApaDeist. I really honestly don't care whether God exists or not. I just don't believe the bible's bullshit. But my point is that yes, they are wasting their lives to live the life for the men of 3000 years ago. But they don't even do it. On Sunday I went to Red Lobster because it looked good. But I see Christians go and I find it massively hypocritical. Unless you're okay with gays.

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Ali-Radicali In reply to Supyloco [2012-05-17 12:14:41 +0000 UTC]

Ah yes, but the old testament doesn't count anymore!(despite being part of the infallible word of an unchanging omniscient god)

The contradictions are just maddeningly obvious..... except to the believer.

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Supyloco In reply to Ali-Radicali [2012-05-17 20:39:30 +0000 UTC]

But the old book does count. But that's not even the biggest problem. They talk about how it doesn't count yet hate gay people.

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Ali-Radicali In reply to Supyloco [2012-05-17 22:09:05 +0000 UTC]

But try to catch them stoning a guy for wearing a cotton/poly blend. Hypocrisy and cherry-picking.

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Supyloco In reply to Ali-Radicali [2012-05-17 22:23:38 +0000 UTC]

Yes

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