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[Svafa]

That is the same logic as saying God can't be proven wrong because he is omnipotent and omnipresent.

Technically, God couldn't be proven wrong because of his omniscience.  Omnipotence and omnipresence have nothing to do with right or wrong, but with power and location.

Seriously your going down to saying that traveling to Pluto on a spaceship and looking at it with your own eyes still might not exists. That's the same as saying the sun doesn't exist. It has no merit and even some hardcore religious people would say it's nonsense.

It is nonsense.  It is intended as nonsense; a skeptical nonsense that asks on what terms we know a thing to be true.  You claim it has no merit.  On what do you stake your claim?

You can give an easy answer and not think about it.  The intent would be that you think about it, and perhaps discover a more difficult answer.  I'm not seeking to encourage a response, but to encourage thinking.

[Svafa]

A lot of the questions you bring up I would regard more philosophical than theological. And I agree that there are valid philosophical issues that are beyond science; either beyond current science, or beyond science in principle.

I posted in my first response in this thread, and will state it again, I am primarily a philosopher.  It's what I study, it's what I have a degree in.

I would argue that Theology and Philosophy, if not the same substance, are very close kin.

[Phmcw]

@svafa I must say I am disappointed. I hope you can bring more to the debate than a variation of the "brain in a Jar" argument with a degree of philosophy.

Yes sure, nothing is certain everything is possible and such.
But it's missing the point since the scientific theory would stay valid within the realm of the "simulation".
And that it would change nothing for you.

[chaoticag]

Ah, a philosopher. Regardless of whether or not you want to prove whether or not pluto exists, its position does have day to day significance, even if minimal. Detection begets prediction.

[Svafa]

@svafa I must say I am disappointed. I hope you can bring more to the debate than a variation of the "brain in a Jar" argument with a degree of philosophy.

Yes sure, nothing is certain everything is possible and such.
But it's missing the point since the scientific theory would stay valid within the realm of the "simulation".
And that it would change nothing for you.

You're under the mistaken assumption that I'm attempting to discredit either side.

I'm primarily asking why.  I'm also trying to promote some fairness where it seems to fall short, but this is also another form of the question why (why does a particular form of verification not work for both sides?).

These arguments and debates cannot prove anything, nor will they convert anyone.  To attempt to do so is commendable, I suppose, but fruitless nonetheless.  So, I do not bother with attempting to do so, but rather attempt to ask questions concerning the fundamental assumptions of those arguing (sometimes I get distracted).  There's nothing to "win" here but a better understanding of oneself. :/

Regardless of whether or not you want to prove whether or not pluto exists, its position does have day to day significance, even if minimal. Detection begets prediction.

Could we not replace "pluto" from the above with "god" and label this "fixed"?  If not, why not?

[Micro102]

On what do you stake your claim?

On that you stake nothing on your own opinions. It is a ridiculous excuse, you can touch something, you can look at something, you can do anything that could prove it exists, but it still might not? That is just rewinding everything back to the beginning which each side tried to end the argument by saying "well nothing is provable so I cannot be disproved"

[Siquo]

Apparently I need to work on my rhetorics (or coherent forming of thoughts into words). 5 posts from RedKing, and Dreiche suddenly sees the light, while I've been going on for pages and pages... Futile.

So, nothing to add here except agreement with RedKing and Svafa.

[dreiche2]

Ahh, now here you're getting into normative application of knowledge, which is a whole 'nother ball of wax.

Yes, however, to clarify, I am not of the opinion that one can derive normative statements or morality from science, quite the opposite (which is yet again another difference to religion, which often entails normative statements, as you say yourself). Science doesn't tell you what to do or what is right or wrong in a moral sense. I was rather pointing out that facts in the context of which moral decisions are made should be evaluated according to science.

In your example:

There are also potential normative applications of science which could be highly questionable. For instance, common sense and epidemiology would tell us that the most effective way to deal with HIV (or any transmissible disease without a sufficient non-human reservoir) would be to ruthlessly quarantine all infected individuals and wait for the human vector population to die out. From a cold, hard, logical point of view, that's the most sensible solution. But our sense of morality (informed in no small part by religion) discourages that.

If eradicating HIV is your goal and your only goal, then yes, epidemiology would say this would be the best means to achieve that goal. But science doesn't tell you which goal to pick, or whether you should value the happiness of some over that of others. And of course, morality does not need to be based on religion.

To elucidate how religion could be different in that example: The divine scripture in question might say that disease is caused by possession of demons (factual statement) and can be cured with fire (factual statement), or that the possessed shall be killed as they are tainted with evil (moral statement). The problem is, if any of that were true, then this would be the right way to proceed. So how should facts be evaluated?

The reason why I bring these normative issues into the discussion is that I think it is rather easy to say "everyone can believe in whatever they want" as long as it's a personal matter (and so far I agree), but in practice that is not what religions are about. And then, one needs a way of evaluating what is, if not true, then at least the best approximations of truth, and blanket statements such as "The existence of London is as uncertain as the existence of demons" are suddenly not as easily made anymore.

Svafa: You can question the nature of knowledge as much as you like. But assume you're on a plane on fire, and you can either pick the parachute that has been designed 'by science', or the parachute of faith (i.e. you hope there is benevolent god that will slow you down on impact): Which option would you chose, and why?

Apparently I need to work on my rhetorics (or coherent forming of thoughts into words). 5 posts from RedKing, and Dreiche suddenly sees the light, while I've been going on for pages and pages... Futile.

Please elaborate? See, the thing is, I'm actually someone with a differentiated opinion. If you hadn't been making extreme generalizations all the time, I might as well have agreed with you on certain things (and as you should have noticed, it's not like I didn't also disagree with some of your opponents, either).

[Phmcw]

@Svafa because it would be useless. I mean god has no observable action on uranus that we know of.

Or god is a big rock in space.

Well all this is philosophical nonsense and the main reason why philosophy is more and more discarded.
This is a obvious dead end. If you don't trust anything you cannot deduce anything. Then it got no interest. And it's useless to think about it.

[dreiche2]

Siquo, to clarify, I would be interested to hear in which points I now argue differently than before, in your opinion, now that I've "seen the light".

[Siquo]

Dreiche, I said that when I read you say

I just realized however that this does not apply to science: In principle, I can be a scientist and not believe in anything whatsoever.

Then I banged my head against the wall, wondering what I was doing wrong, I had the feeling I had been mentioning that for a long time. (Edit: on the other hand it might have been drowned in the 100s of other things I was saying).

Phmcw: God has observable actions, on people themselves even, who claim they directly experience it. No, it's neither predictable nor repeatable, but if only predictable things would exist, we'd have no women either.

Edit: Dreiche, you ninja'd me, but I was JUST about to answer that

[Svafa]

Svafa: You can question the nature of knowledge as much as you like. But assume you're on a plane on fire, and you can either pick the parachute that has been designed 'by science', or the parachute of faith (i.e. you hope there is benevolent god that will slow you down on impact): Which option would you chose, and why?

The parachute, obviously.  It's not that I'm skeptical of the existence of Pluto, the moon, London, atoms, or scientific theory.

More of the extreme examples were simply my own ponderings on why we're so willing to accept one "absurd" claim and not another.  If we're willing to accept the existence of one thing we've only ever heard of through hearsay, then why not another?

I believe I know the reason, or at least a large part of the reason: one of these things is safer than the other.  Whether or not Pluto exists makes little difference; it's safe to believe in Pluto.  Whether or not a God exists makes a great deal of difference in how we think, act, and live; it's dangerous to believe in a God.

From a practical standpoint that makes sense and I can see the reasoning behind it.  But from a logical sense, the impact of the matter shouldn't affect the truth of it.  That is, if hearsay is enough to prove the existence of Pluto, then hearsay should be enough to prove the existence of any other thing.

I know someone is going to quote that and jump all over me for it...  Here is what I am not saying.  I am not saying that the existence of Pluto is based solely on hearsay, nor that its existence is in question.

Anyway, I'm rambling and it's time to head home.

[G-Flex]

There are also potential normative applications of science which could be highly questionable. For instance, common sense and epidemiology would tell us that the most effective way to deal with HIV (or any transmissible disease without a sufficient non-human reservoir) would be to ruthlessly quarantine all infected individuals and wait for the human vector population to die out. From a cold, hard, logical point of view, that's the most sensible solution. But our sense of morality (informed in no small part by religion) discourages that.

I'd just like to elaborate on how wrong this is, because, as has been mentioned, that's not the only goal.

The goal to eliminate that sort of disease goes hand-in-hand with several other goals, and applying ruthless quarantining and such would compromise those goals.

This just goes to show that when people criticize "cold, logical thinking" it's usually because they don't know how the logic involved actually works.

It's also rather absurd to say that ethics have nothing to do with logic. Ethics and morality need not even be informed by religion (this is a common mistake people make). Proper ethics are logically-sound and work towards foreseeable goals and conclusions.

@Svafa because it would be useless. I mean god has no observable action on uranus that we know of.

Or god is a big rock in space.

Well all this is philosophical nonsense and the main reason why philosophy is more and more discarded.
This is a obvious dead end. If you don't trust anything you cannot deduce anything. Then it got no interest. And it's useless to think about it.

The thing about philosophy is that it's very easy to be taken seriously if you say you are one, even if what you're saying is ill-reasoned. It's not philosophy that's bad, it's abuse of philosophy.


I see a lot of bitching back and forth about whether or not you can "prove" Pluto, or God, or what have you. This is ridiculous. Science (and life) is never about absolutely proving anything, except possibly in cases where you're working from axioms in an a priori manner (such as a geometrical proof).

The reason to think Pluto exists isn't "I saw it with my eyes". If I had never heard of Pluto before, and it came to me in a vision, I shouldn't necessarily trust that vision, nor should other people.

The reason to not trust God to exist simply because I (or someone else) "saw" him is that the alternative explanations are too numerous and far more likely. We know that the human mind has a tendency to come up with some pretty weird shit in dreams, hallucinations, and other altered states, and sometimes even when we think we're pretty lucid, and these things always turn out to not be easily reproducible or applicable to the world around us. Yes, a lot of people have claimed to see God; a lot of people have also claimed to see things that are mutually-exclusive with God, as well as various forms of god(s). It's all about which explanation seems more applicable to the real world. Saying "God exists and told me A, B, and C" because you saw him doing so in a religious experience is easily explained by factors we already know of, without introducing God, is going to be mutually contradictory with what all kinds of OTHER people think God said to them (or what God is), is in no way verifiable, and is in fact no more applicable to your own life or anyone else's than whatever dreams you had last night.

Science (and empirical, functional thought in general) isn't about "proving" things one way or the other, it's about observing patterns and coming up with functional models for how the world around us works in order to predict and plan events.

More of the extreme examples were simply my own ponderings on why we're so willing to accept one "absurd" claim and not another.  If we're willing to accept the existence of one thing we've only ever heard of through hearsay, then why not another?

How about the fact that it's been independently confirmed time and time again by different people in a non-contradictory and non-controversial manner? If this "hearsay" were wrong, then evidence to that point would be obvious and all around us, because it would be trivial to acquire it. It's extraordinarily unlikely that an object which should be easily-observed could just be made up on the spot by countless independent people and organizations without anybody actually noticing. That's what it's about: Confidence in the information being presented, and weighing the options. I think Pluto exists because it's easily observed, countless people have done so independently of each other and agree about it, and highly conclusive evidence to the contrary would be easy to acquire.

Pluto is easily falsifiable. God is not.

[Siquo]

I know someone is going to quote that and jump all over me for it... 

Oh believe me, they are. Brace yourself 

[dreiche2]

The parachute, obviously.  It's not that I'm skeptical of the existence of Pluto, the moon, London, atoms, or scientific theory.

More of the extreme examples were simply my own ponderings on why we're so willing to accept one "absurd" claim and not another.  If we're willing to accept the existence of one thing we've only ever heard of through hearsay, then why not another?

Yes, and I see where you are coming from. And philosophers are after all arguing about the nature of knowledge etc. (I think that is what epistemology is about). The bottom line for me is that, yes, there is no absolute truth nor certain knowledge, but that doesn't mean that there cannot be something like 'pragmatic' truth. And it's such pragmatic truth that matters in the end, and it is in this context that science and religions need to be evaluated.

Siquo:

I actually enjoyed the discussion with Svafa and RedKing (as made apparent by the fact that I didn't stay out of it as promised - I'm going to pay dearly for this...). You know why?

1. Because it felt like it was going somewhere.
2. Because the angry guy was missing (don't mean you).
3. Because Svafa would take the god damn (excuse me) parachute! You would have argued that you logically cannot decide in between the reality of the options, or argued about infinite layers of parachute and not-parachute, etc. ...