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[LordExumius]

I'd label it as an excuse for circular arguments, myself.

"Why do you know/believe/have faith in this?"
"Because it's impossible to function as a human being without making the assumption."

Little more accurate there. I have faith the world around me exists, ferex, even though I can't really justify that belief without resorting to fallacious or inadequate arguments. An unjustifiable or unjustified belief isn't anything unusual -- it can be called an axiom in the case of the former, hypothesis (or educated guess, if you'd prefer) in the case of the latter, but they're both examples of faith, or unjustified belief. It's kind of endemic even in the areligious. We as a species base pretty much everything around a baseline few, and then add more to taste or situation. Religious faith is just a particular sort that's got some old baggage that tends to cause problems. Also doesn't help that some of its general axioms tend to overlap with some other, not religiously based, axioms that we've been getting a lot more actual use from. Helps cause some of the issues, heh.

Though I'd agree with those last two fun things I get a lot of mileage out willful ignorance, primarily regarding existential or societal issues. Way too much that, if I didn't pointedly ignore, the only rational action would be suicide.

The thing is, though, that up until now, no one has given you or told you anything tangible to make you believe the existence around us is a false one. Therefore, the burden of proof lies with whoever is assertng this. However with religion, there are alternative, tangible answers for some of the questions it posits, none of which were correctly answered by religion itself. What created the universe? The Big Bang. How did humans get here? Evolution. There are scientific answers that have been proved  through scientific method. What you are using is known as the un-falsifiable claim. That because it can't be disproved, that makes it okay to believe it. This is patently ridiculous in many ways, not the least of which is that it would mean would have to entertain every little possibility that a child comes up with. An argument's already been made about the Celestial Tea Pot: you can't prove it isn't there, so we should all worship it! I understand where you're coming from, though. It's been human nature for the past few millions of years to seek answers, and if we don't find answers, we make up our own. But please enlighten me: what axioms based in unjustifiable claims have been useful at all?

Though personally, I don't think the idea of a god should even be considered scientifically, Occam's Razor and all that.

[malloc]

Though personally, I don't think the idea of a god should even be considered scientifically, Occam's Razor and all that.

You are forgetting the idea of a god is all about not thinking too hard about it. It has to be some magical constant, or the idea falls apart when exposed to scrutiny.
But I love the idea of a scientific peer review of a god! Problem is that we would probably have no god/s then. It's very hard to fit a (or any) god into our modern understanding of the world.

[Drunken]

I feel like some people, especially in the western christian world, and most obviously in the US, have a knee-jerk reaction to faith because of the proliferation of christian (and in some cases jewish and islamic) dogma. Because these large organised religions are outdated, and based on principles of controlling the masses, they are seen as stupid, counter productive and dishonest. They are all these things, but there is a huge diverse range of spiritual existence and the organised middle east based religions are just a tiny narrow slice of it. I had this same knee jerk reaction when I was younger: "christianity is stupid therefore there is no god and all religion is wrong, let us be athiest". As I have matured, I have decided that this is just as ignorant and presumptive as the thing we are trying to get away from. The bottom line for me has become: "what belief system enables me to better understand the world, and to be happy with my part in it". You might think that the answer to this was science, and although I love science, I feel that it has some gaps that require shortcuts to integrate into a normal human existence. Death is a big one for example. Here is one of the most powerful forces in human society, we fear death, we do things every day to avoid it. Our knowledge of consciousness is not sufficient to describe or investigate scientifically what it is like to die. A detailed physiological description of death and how it works on a biological level has no value as a psychological tool to make us feel better about it. What does a scientist tell a dying man to make him feel the peace and serenity that we all desire to feel at death? 'I am sorry' seems to be the standard. This is ineffective. Death is not the only thing, we base our moral framework on spiritual conscience. Science does not describe any specific values or morals without first having specific goals, and even then most of us see some of the results of reasoned scientific morality to be abhorrent. For example one of the dominant driving forces in religious morality was the need for the species to procreate and continue to exist. A rational treatment of this goal would lead to rape being a force for good. Quantifying all the vague feelings of morality and values we have is not really possible, and yet I for one am not willing to give the up morality in favour of expedience. At any rate you need a values system to decide on a goal, without which rationality is unable to measure success or progress.

Having decided that some kind of spiritual life is desirable, I then moved on to the question of what the details of this should be. One of the first axioms that I decided to have faith in was that each person should decide this for themselves, and that the communication of belief systems should only be done for the purposes of exploration and comparison. So the biggest sin in my personal faith is telling others what to believe. I mention this because I believe it is universal and the only exception to its own rule. I will also not go into details about the complex belief system I subsequently developed, unless someone requests it because they are curious, but I will go into some of the development process to illustrate and give examples about the process of spiritual exploration.

Deism. The idea of a higher power is a powerful one, and can be a useful one. It is certainly not necessary, but many people find it simplifies things. While logic clearly dictates that the christian god can not exist without contradiction, it does not do the same for a higher power in general. Your 'god' may not necessarily have to be benevolent, or omnipotent, or any of the other things that the stupid religions claim, but this doesn't mean there is no higher power. George Carlin put it well when he said he worships the sun, because it is a huge life giving force that sustains and nurtures all of us. The sun is a higher power, even to an atheist scientist, higher - check, power - check. But George Carlin also went on to say that he doesn't pray to the sun because the sun can't hear and isn't listening. He claimed instead to pray to Joe Pesci, who he said had a higher success rate at fulfilling prayers than any of the gods he had previously tested. For me the question became "What could I apply the name 'god' to that would give me some psychological or emotional wellbeing". I came up with many answers to this question, and in the end couldn't decide so I now worship three separate gods, each one a subset of one of the others.

Afterlife/heaven/reincarnation. The best strategy here is to think about what you want to happen to you after death, and then just believe that will happen. Be careful though that you choose something deep and meaningful, as you may have trouble believing in or even caring about frivolous crap like dozens of virgins or mountains of gold later in life. The idea of spiritual enlightenment is very powerful, some kind of ascension to a higher plane of existence. I particularly like this one as it appeals also to knowledge and reason, a place where you recieve great knowledge and understanding is both comforting and also objectively worthwhile. I didn't actually go for this one myself but you can change your mind if you come up with something you like better. I would also like to point out that I find the idea of hell and the devil totally retarded. Sure as a method of controlling guillible populations with an atrophied sense of morality it could be useful, but to voluntarily believe in that crap seems pretty dumb. Still if it gives you comfort to believe that the people you don't like will be punished after death go right ahead.

Purpose. This is the big one, your existence needs a purpose. This purpose will also define most of your moral framework as it defines what you should and shouldn't do to achieve it. It is also the easiest one in many cases to think up though, as most people already have some idea of what they think their life is about, and are waiting only for permission to integrate it into their spiritual framework. You can have more than one, you can change it as often as you like. It can be as simple as growing nice tomatoes your garden or as epic as creating a utopian world where all people live in peace and harmony.

Ritual. Rituals are nice, try and make some random ritual behaviour up. They help keep the circadian rhythm regular and give the psyche something solid and predictable to build around.

So that is my bit on Theology. I hope it was useful/interesting to someone. The main point is that faith is the baby and religion is the bathwater.

[Leafsnail]

Afterlife/heaven/reincarnation. The best strategy here is to think about what you want to happen to you after death, and then just believe that will happen.

So... self delusion?  Is this a healthy way to deal with uncertainty?

[Drunken]

Afterlife/heaven/reincarnation. The best strategy here is to think about what you want to happen to you after death, and then just believe that will happen.

So... self delusion?  Is this a healthy way to deal with uncertainty?

You have to acknowledge the difference between blind faith (self delusion) and aware faith, which is where you know you made it up, you know it isn't necessarily true, but you just believe it because it feels good to believe it. Yes I think it is healthy. But not as a general way to deal with uncertainty, only in this specific case. Most cases of uncertainty can be made certain through investigation and analysis. With death this is not the case. Secondly everyone has some superstitions about death, it is hardwired into our brain on a very deep level. You yourself have some sort of instinctive fear of death, and a vague concept of what it might be like to die. Some people may deny it, but that denial is self delusion. I am proposing that we acknowledge our instinctive need to believe, and then consciously control it, thus denying it control over us.

I am interested in your opinion of my more general point, about faith still having a place as a social and psychological tool. Did you quote that line as an example of how my whole position is wrong, or were you generally in agreement and just wanted to question the specifics of what I was suggesting having faith in?

[LordExumius]

Personally I'm more happy I don't live in ignorance, but if people need religion or any form of faith because it gets them through the day, then that's fine, I suppose. Just don't shove it down my throat.

[MagmaMcFry]

This is a very intelligent approach to faith.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Death is a big one for example. Here is one of the most powerful forces in human society, we fear death, we do things every day to avoid it. Our knowledge of consciousness is not sufficient to describe or investigate scientifically what it is like to die. A detailed physiological description of death and how it works on a biological level has no value as a psychological tool to make us feel better about it. What does a scientist tell a dying man to make him feel the peace and serenity that we all desire to feel at death? 'I am sorry' seems to be the standard. This is ineffective.

It isn't about making anyone feel better, it's about what is true. And not everyone wants to feel peace and serenity when they die, quit imposing your feelings on everyone else.

Death is not the only thing, we base our moral framework on spiritual conscience.

Our moral frameworks are based upon societal conscience, spirituality has nothing to do with it. Murder is bad because a society where murder is acceptable will not see any population growth and everyone will be trying to avoid being murdered instead of being productive. Theft is bad because a society where theft is acceptable will fall into chaos as people steal resources from one another instead of voluntarily exchanging them under one system or another.

Science does not describe any specific values or morals without first having specific goals, and even then most of us see some of the results of reasoned scientific morality to be abhorrent. For example one of the dominant driving forces in religious morality was the need for the species to procreate and continue to exist. A rational treatment of this goal would lead to rape being a force for good.

What the fuck are you even no it wouldn't. Hell, the Abrahamic religions are the ones that condoned rape, under the law prescribed in the Bible rapists are required to pay a small fine to the victim's father and then marry the victim forever.

You want a rational treatment of positive population growth?
A. We want more people.

B. People are willing to have sex without coercion.

C. People having sex will give us more people.

D. Problem never existed in the first place.

Quantifying all the vague feelings of morality and values we have is not really possible, and yet I for one am not willing to give the up morality in favour of expedience. At any rate you need a values system to decide on a goal, without which rationality is unable to measure success or progress.

I am capable of quantifying all my morality and values. That you are apparently not does not make it impossible.

Purpose. This is the big one, your existence needs a purpose.

Wrong. Our existence does not have an objective purpose, nor does it require one. We exist independent of desire and reasoning for our existence. That is in itself enough.

You have to acknowledge the difference between blind faith (self delusion) and aware faith, which is where you know you made it up, you know it isn't necessarily true, but you just believe it because it feels good to believe it. Yes I think it is healthy.

Those are both forms of self-delusion, and they aren't healthy. They leave one unwilling to search for actual answers in favor of manufactured ones.

Secondly everyone has some superstitions about death, it is hardwired into our brain on a very deep level. You yourself have some sort of instinctive fear of death, and a vague concept of what it might be like to die. Some people may deny it, but that denial is self delusion. I am proposing that we acknowledge our instinctive need to believe, and then consciously control it, thus denying it control over us.

There you go projecting again. Not everyone has superstitions about death. Plenty of people accept the scientific model of life and death without tacking on unreal ideas to it.

Claiming an instinctive fear of death is inaccurate. Being afraid of death and possessing a will to live are two different things. Almost everyone has the latter, but only people who do not accept their mortality have the former.

[Il Palazzo]

What does a scientist tell a dying man to make him feel the peace and serenity that we all desire to feel at death?

Paraphrasing Neil deGrasse Tyson: "Your body will be returned to the earth, so that flora and fauna can dine upon it, just as you have dined upon flora and fauna during your lifetime."
I don't see why people need more serenity than this notion of interconnectedness, of almost reincarnation-like circle of life.
It should go without saying, that this quote treats a person and their body as the same thing.(i.e.there's no soul)

I had seen one person expressing Drunken's kind of approach to faith(a Christian one at that) once before. It was Father George Coyne in an interview with Dawkins. It's probably the only approach that I can appreciate.
Here is the interview.

[malloc]

I don't see why people need more serenity than this notion of interconnectedness, of almost reincarnation-like circle of life.

Even more mind boggling, most of the matter that you are made up of originates from fusion processes in the first stars. Me, you, us, we are all literally made from stars.

We can even expand this reincarnation outlook of life, we are all literally connected chemically. All the matter that make up your body, only make up your body at most a few years. The atoms will eventually be replaced and travel on to make up some other piece of matter.

[Durin Stronginthearm]

You have to acknowledge the difference between blind faith (self delusion) and aware faith, which is where you know you made it up, you know it isn't necessarily true, but you just believe it because it feels good to believe it. Yes I think it is healthy. But not as a general way to deal with uncertainty, only in this specific case.

Have you ever read Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut? There is a fictional religion in that, Bokononism, along similar lines to what you're talking about here.

The primary tenet of Bokononism is to "Live by the foma (harmless untruths) that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy."

[kaijyuu]

The thing is, though, that up until now, no one has given you or told you anything tangible to make you believe the existence around us is a false one. Therefore, the burden of proof lies with whoever is assertng this. However with religion, there are alternative, tangible answers for some of the questions it posits, none of which were correctly answered by religion itself. What created the universe? The Big Bang. How did humans get here? Evolution. There are scientific answers that have been proved  through scientific method. What you are using is known as the un-falsifiable claim. That because it can't be disproved, that makes it okay to believe it. This is patently ridiculous in many ways, not the least of which is that it would mean would have to entertain every little possibility that a child comes up with. An argument's already been made about the Celestial Tea Pot: you can't prove it isn't there, so we should all worship it! I understand where you're coming from, though. It's been human nature for the past few millions of years to seek answers, and if we don't find answers, we make up our own. But please enlighten me: what axioms based in unjustifiable claims have been useful at all?

Though personally, I don't think the idea of a god should even be considered scientifically, Occam's Razor and all that.

*cracks knuckles*

Things that give cause to doubt the reality of the world around us.
Are you a lucid dreamer? If not, then you have existed in a world you know is not real, while believing it to be real. Only once you exited the dream did you realize the falsehood of that reality. There is nothing to suggest this cannot apply to what you are doing right now. In addition to that, assuming we ever invent Matrix esque virtual reality, there will be yet another situation where we cannot distinguish "real" from "fake."

To claim that the world around us is self evident is a circular argument. Asking for "tangible" evidence for solipsism is like asking for religious evidence for atheism. You cannot defend empiricism with empiricism, any more than you can defend god with god.

Burden of proof.
It lies on whoever is making an assertion. It is NOT on whoever's making a "positive" assertion, as a "positive" assertion has no meaningful definition (I can flip around any argument from "positive" to "negative," and vice versa, but just changing around the wording). So long as one is making a claim that they have knowledge of something, it is their responsibility to provide evidence for it. It doesn't matter what that knowledge is or what it applies to.

The natural existing with or without the supernatural.
The natural (empirical reality) can exist with or without the supernatural. It can be entirely self contained with nothing outside it... and it might not. All of science can fit into any of the infinite religions that allow for it (nothing science can ever prove will go against Deism, for example).

The fallacy here is thinking that disproving one religious theory disproves all. You can tear Christianity to shreds, but that has no effect on Hinduism. You can tear all the world's religions to shreds, even, but there are infinite other possibilities that are unaffected.

The unfalsifiable.
By definition, these things cannot be proven false. So claiming that by being unfalsifiable, they are false, is a fallacy I don't think I have to explain.

But the consequence of this is yes, you do have to entertain any random thought that is logically consistent. Welcome to reality. You're not on the African savannah anymore where survival is the only thing you need to care about. However, that doesn't mean you have to believe everything that comes to mind... since the unfalsifiable cannot be proven one way or the other, it by extension has no effect on the world around you. It does nothing "tangible," or empirical. So, whatever conclusion you make, yes or no, true or false, makes no difference to your life here. If it did, it would no longer be unfalsifiable.

So if you want to blanketly say "no" to the unfalsifiable (except empiricism, of course), that's fine. Saves a lot of trouble entertaining idle thoughts. But no claim of knowledge can be made without fallacy.

Inductive arguments.
Inductive arguments can only be made with evidence to support them. Without evidence, you can make no claim based on any inductive argument, be it occam's razor or whatever. They are, after all, simply educated guesses with varying degrees of certainly (some getting ridiculously close to 100% but never quite making it).

Any inductive argument made on the unfalsifiable is an immediate fallacy, as there is no evidence to support it. If there was, it wouldn't be unfalsifiable. If you literally have no knowledge relating to a celestial teapot (which you actually do since that's a horrible analogy, but nevermind) you literally cannot make a claim one way or another beyond simple hypothesis, with no hypothesis being more well founded than another.





I think that's everything. In the future, don't defend empiricism with empirical arguments, because that is just as ridiculous and defending a religion with religious arguments. If you do that, you're just proving your opponent right about your unresolved cognitive dissonance.

[Moghjubar]

Speaking of unfalsifiable, since every religion is unfalsifiable and therefore all of the gods / spirits / etc may exist, we should convert to every religion at once!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqJpZOljjG8

[Drunken]

metalslime
I felt like there was some frustration and maybe even defensiveness in your post. I am sorry if I have caused offence, I was merely stating an opinion. I can't help feeling like you are telling me I shouldn't believe what I believe because you believe something else which you hold to be self evident and superior. If faith is such an illegitimate concept, how do you justify your own faith that your subjective perception of the world is the only correct one?

Death is a big one for example...

It isn't about making anyone feel better, it's about what is true. And not everyone wants to feel peace and serenity when they die, quit imposing your feelings on everyone else.

So what is true? I hadn't realised that someone out there knew what it was like to die, forgive my naive assumptions. I am very excited to hear the truth, please supply it as soon as is convenient. Making people feel better about uncertainty is in my opinion an acceptable way to deal with not knowing the truth in the interim while you investigate it. Luckily I won't need an interim solution once you reply with the truth.

Death is not the only thing, we base our moral framework on spiritual conscience.

Our moral frameworks are based upon societal conscience, spirituality has nothing to do with it.

I am not sure what the difference is between moral framework and societal conscience. They seem to be roughly synonymous. Saying morality has nothing to do with spirituality is just denial of a huge body of evidence. In theory it does seem possible to design a system of morality that is not based on any form of spirituality but this is not the norm. Catholic cultures generally dissaprove of abortion, many islamic cultures disaprove of women showing their heads or driving cars. I could list examples of morality influenced by religion for many many pages, and I find very few examples of moral rules that have not occurred in and been implemented as a result of religious texts.

Science does not describe any specific values or morals without first having specific goals, and even then most of us see some of the results of reasoned scientific morality to be abhorrent. For example one of the dominant driving forces in religious morality was the need for the species to procreate and continue to exist. A rational treatment of this goal would lead to rape being a force for good.

What the fuck are you even no it wouldn't. Hell, the Abrahamic religions are the ones that condoned rape, under the law prescribed in the Bible rapists are required to pay a small fine to the victim's father and then marry the victim forever.

You want a rational treatment of positive population growth?
A. We want more people.

B. People are willing to have sex without coercion.

C. People having sex will give us more people.

D. Problem never existed in the first place.

I will admit the rape example was a bad one. You didn't however address the main point of the quote, which was that Science does not describe any specific values or morals without first having specific goals. Your counter argument seems to be mostly semantic. "D. Problem never existed in the first place." Actually it did, for thousands of years. Now we have overpopulation, perhaps legalising murder is a better example. It would be expedient to reduce population numbers.

Quantifying all the vague feelings of morality and values we have is not really possible, and yet I for one am not willing to give the up morality in favour of expedience. At any rate you need a values system to decide on a goal, without which rationality is unable to measure success or progress.

I am capable of quantifying all my morality and values. That you are apparently not does not make it impossible.

This is fascinating, please tell me in detail about your moral framework and the scientific/rational reasons behind each part of it. You can use pm if you feel that it is outside the scope of this thread but I think it could be argued that it is relevant. Again though I think you missed my main point, the same as the previous part, rephrased: you need a values system to decide on a goal, without which rationality is unable to measure success or progress. Once you have decided that X is good and Y is bad, then you can rationally decide on strategies to maximise X and minimise Y, but the decision that one is good and the other is bad is a moral one. Rationality is inherently objective and can therefore not make any value judgements without a frame of reference.

Purpose. This is the big one, your existence needs a purpose.

Wrong. Our existence does not have an objective purpose, nor does it require one. We exist independent of desire and reasoning for our existence. That is in itself enough.

Again a semantic argument. I thought it was clear what I meant but I am often guilty of ambiguity in text so I apologise for it.Let me try again:
Purpose. This is the big one, people feel the need for a purpose.

You have to acknowledge the difference between blind faith (self delusion) and aware faith, which is where you know you made it up, you know it isn't necessarily true, but you just believe it because it feels good to believe it. Yes I think it is healthy.

Those are both forms of self-delusion, and they aren't healthy. They leave one unwilling to search for actual answers in favor of manufactured ones.

No, one is self delusion the other is pretending. I play computer games, are you implying that when I play eve online I am deluding myself that I am actually flying space ships? Sure synthesising faith is a little stronger than your every day pretending, but it is only different in magnitude. It is called the willing suspension of disbelief sometimes. Also with regard to searching for actual answers: A) I was talking about things that are unknowable and unverifiable, I consider it a waste of time to search for actual answers to these. B) Even if I were proposing inventing beliefs about things that may one day be definitively answered (I guess I was, it is theoretically possible that one day we may understand neurology well enough to answer some of these issues), there is no part of believing something that necessarily precludes me from learning more about it. I read about the neurochemistry of death for example, the breakdown of bodily functions, I am fascinated by medicine. If a new study came out that quantified in perfect detail the entire subjective experience of dying I would avidly read it and incorporate it into my beliefs. Maybe you are unable to accept new information once you have formed a belief, and are projecting. My beliefs change on an hourly basis. They have to I get bored with them after a while.

Secondly everyone has some superstitions about death, it is hardwired into our brain on a very deep level. You yourself have some sort of instinctive fear of death, and a vague concept of what it might be like to die. Some people may deny it, but that denial is self delusion. I am proposing that we acknowledge our instinctive need to believe, and then consciously control it, thus denying it control over us.

There you go projecting again. Not everyone has superstitions about death. Plenty of people accept the scientific model of life and death without tacking on unreal ideas to it.

Claiming an instinctive fear of death is inaccurate. Being afraid of death and possessing a will to live are two different things. Almost everyone has the latter, but only people who do not accept their mortality have the former.

This is a hard one to tackle. I maintain that everyone is in fact afraid of death. Well the vast majority. Coming to terms with the scientific explanation of death does no change that for most people. You can test if you are afraid of death, just put yourself in a dangerous situation and see if you feel fear. Bungee jumping is one way to do this without any actual risk. If you feel fear, that is usually the fear of death. I also think that it is true that most people have superstitions about death, though this is harder to demonstrate. These superstitions are usually subconscious so they are often not evident. The fact that people are afraid of death is some evidence though, as there is no scientific or rational reason for this fear. Death is inevitable and therefore to fear it, especially if it is really only a nullification of consciousness, is not rational. I think it is widely accepted that people are afraid of death. If you can cite evidence to the contrary I would love to see it.

Speaking of unfalsifiable, since every religion is unfalsifiable and therefore all of the gods / spirits / etc may exist, we should convert to every religion at once!

I tried that once, it was a lot of fun but not really sustainable and very confusing

[Cthulhu]

That might work for you, but I can't make stuff up and pretend it's real because it makes me feel good.

As for solipsism, the question of whether or not reality is a perfect illusion is about as valuable as the question of whether or not there's an invisible, intangible leprechaun on my shoulder.  If it looks like an apple, feels like an apple, tastes like an apple, and has the same nutritional content as an apple, it's an apple.  There's no meaningful difference between an apple and an illusion that functions identically to an apple.