GeoffP:
Did you miss my post #38? Or do you think it doesn't deserve/require a response? Or don't you have a response? Or do you just need more time to formulate one? Or ...?
I forgot it. Because of Satan.
GeoffP:
It doesn't much matter at what level God is operating. If there's no way to distinguish his actions from what we'd expect in the normal course of events as determined by entirely naturalistic processes, then there seems to be no need to posit the existence of God as an extra hypothesis. Occam's razor.
It does matter at what scale God is meant to operate. Conventionally, we select means differences at a 5% threshold, adjusted via Bonferroni or FDR, or Scheffe for differences among factors or factor combinations within a single term. Now, even the untippable cow of the 5% threshold is, frankly, unsupported. So what kind of confidence interval is God operating at? Where should my
z-score lie? 5%? 10%? 0.1% What kind of difference does God have to operate at in the above example to "git 'er dun"? Or who should God be helping? Maybe the people who didn't get helped were wicked in some way. Maybe it's not part of "the plan".
What kind of phenomenon is needed for 'God' to work 'His' magic on the earth? Butterfly wing flapping in California? Well, probably not. So you have issues of scale, issues of incidence, issues of intent. The OT has a lot of cities being blasted, although I think only two were purportedly from direct action. The Quran calls God the 'best of Plotters'. The Bible says 'do not put your God to the test'. I'm not sure what it is that one should expect to find. But as you say, I wouldn't posit God as an extra hypothesis, based on the the above. I think such issues are just outside natural investigation. If people want to believe in some deity, I can't really say yea or nay excepting under possibly certain circumstances. Most of those - or at least the one I envisage - are negative: for example, if I found a reliably supported and suitably aged scrawl on a temple that read "tee hee, my name's Joshua and I made it all up, from XX date to XX date" then sure, I could accept that as a scientific refutation of the Abrahamic god.
Occam's Razor is a tool for application to logical problems. Deities are supernatural. Better the twain don't meet.
Returning to the previous example I gave, if your claim is that being prayed for helps sick people because God answers those prayers, then it is relatively straightforward to test whether prayed-for people have statistically better health outcomes than non-prayed-for people.
The same approach is applicable to just about any claimed influence of God in the world.
Well, that wouldn't be my claim, actually. I don't know that God actually
would answer prayers in the affirmative; why do we expect that 'He' would? Opposing football teams all pray for help, or probably do. Armies invoke God as they battle it out. Which side should God take? One could pray to a divine being. Is that being then expected to say yes or no? Why or why not? There's a lot of incidental baggage with that. Even prayer for health; how would we know that there was no 'greater plan' for all of this? Theists can claim it, and it exists outside natural evidence.
Don't you find it strange that God just happens to decide to answer or not answer prayers in such a way that the outcomes are indistinguishable from what we'd expect if there was no God?
It doesn't really enter into it for me.
I agree with you that theists always have the ad hoc escape clause of "God moves in mysterious ways". That does nothing to prove God, of course. What it does is to make God non-falsifiable.
It is an attempt to exempt God from the usual standards of scientific proof and disproof.
Possible, even probable. But even if theists
are doing this, does that mean it isn't also so; that God, as a supernatural entity or concept
is exempt from the usual standards of scientific proof and disproof? I'm conflicted about Occam here, because it's meant to be for naturalistic issues, no? All other things being equal in genomics, Occam is still a fair tool, but things are
never so equal. So I guess I have mixed feelings about Occam also. Yes, I know that may seem heretical.
In other words "Believe in God despite a complete lack of evidence for his existence. Replace Reason with Faith. Just Believe, and don't worry that you're believing in something without any evidentiary grounds for your belief. Trust The Church (or whoever tells you to Believe in God)."
:shrug: Well, that's certainly one way to look at it. But barring specific examples like the one I gave above, how can we use the tools of reason to investigate the supernatural? Or
anatural, if you'd rather. We might also differ in interpretation, as I'm finding: a couple individuals that I recently argued with seemed to accept no position at all that would refute deities using even extreme naturalistic evidence.
It seems to me that we're almost on the same race track here, except when it comes to the last hurdle.
Why do you think its a good idea to believe in a God for whom there is no reliable evidence?
I don't. I think it is an idea. I doubt I can attach any kind of coefficient to it, so it's neither good nor bad for the moment.
Is it that you claim there is some kind of evidence that you regard as convincing, other than evidence that a scientist would find convincing?
No.
If so, what is that evidence? Personal gut feeling?
Tsk. I hope you're not poking at pigeon holes here.
It depends what you value in life, and that's a somewhat individual thing. I guess some people can live with the cognitive dissonance that goes with having certain ideas about what counts of evidence in science and other ideas about what counts when it comes to religion. Personally, I have issues with that. How about you?
Well, when we actually can test it, I'd be happy to look into it. Could be quite exciting, really. Unfortunately, I don't think we
can test it. I don't worry about it too much, except when it intrudes into the social or educational sphere. You want to believe there's a sky-daddy? OK. You want to believe there isn't one? OK. So what?
Then we're reduced to arguing about whether religion is a net positive or negative influence on people and/or societies. And that is a question that doesn't turn on whether there is a God or not.
This is a practical concern. I don't think we're 'reduced' to it, because I don't think there's any way to investigate.
When it comes to individuals, maybe it doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things whether they want to spend their time parasailing or praying or writing symphonies. But in terms of net human happiness, some activities seem to me to be more useful than others. So, I guess I'm arguing for a general increase in happiness, which is probably not the same thing as an increase in "efficiency". I'm far from convinced that religion is a net positive for happiness; worse - I fear it is a net negative.
In all honesty it may well be. It hasn't had a good record so far. Can we separate the concept of religion from its consequences?
I think the notion of Hell is a tremendous drain on the human psyche. Maybe not yours, but then I think you probably don't really believe in Hell.
I have no way to know if it's real or not. Well, actually my understanding is that it's a miscomprehension of Gehenna, which was just a field in Israel. So, not, I guess. Hell is certainly a drain on the human psyche - but then again, wouldn't many people fly off the moral compass without it hanging over their heads? I can only imagine how much worse things could be without some kind of mortal fear around.
Such tests have been done. It's just an ordinary scientific test, best done with a double-blind, randomised protocol. Select random groups of people. Group A is the control group - nobody prays from them. Group B is the test group - people pray for their good fortune (or whatever). Obviously, some reasonable time limit must be imposed so we don't have to wait an indeterminate amount of time for God to respond (or not). Compare the outcomes of Group A with Group B. Apply normal statistical methods.
I went over that above. What distribution does God act over? Binary? Ordinal? Quantitative? At what significance level? For who?
I don't understand this question. Philosophical distinction between what and what else? Why is there a supposition? Why is that fundamental? What's the point of what?
I don't even remember what the point was. Probably related to testing.
I'd like to think that people are reasonable beings. You don't think that's the case?
Good Myuu,
no, they're not reasonable or rational beings! Have you
seen some of the discussions on this site?? In details, here and there and
when it suits them, sure. But essentially human beings are overglorified monkeys. Monkeys like to eat, crap, mate, and get mad: and at least one of those things is about emotion. No, I don't find people particularly reasonable, with select exceptions at select times.
It might be very important to win the "war", either way. If our aim is to maximise human happiness and minimise suffering, then we need to ask whether religiosity is likely to help or hinder that aim. And we need to ask the same question about science, of course.
True, true. Hard to argue against that. I'll admit to this basic humanity, if no other: I don't see the need to eradicate religion, so long as it pulls its socks up and loses all power to compel, utterly. It must be made accountable and representative to its history.
I've heard that argument about science before. Don't know. Do you fancy subsistence farming?
Coming back to the point of this thread, on your view we can have our cake and eat it too, keeping both science and religion as separate areas of human activity. But even if you're right and science has no business stepping on religion's turf, we still need to evaluate whether religion is a net positive to society. It's the only rational thing to do.
I'd like to think that people are complex enough to handle duality. You don't think that's the case?
I'm aware that my own biases are showing clearly here. You might argue that maximising happiness is not a worthy goal (i.e. utilitarianism is bad), or at least not the foremost goal we ought to pursue.
Now, now: I don't think I said that. I believe, in my ignorance, I thought happy people with God at least no more ethically low than unhappy people without. Or are you arguing for happiness over the long-term here?
You might also argue that rationality itself is not all it's cracked up to be.
I don't think I said that either.
In both cases, I can only say that you're likely to have an uphill battle convincing me if you want to make these arguments. But who knows? I have changed my mind about a number of things in the past. These ones are fairly fundamental to who I am right now, though.
Well, as I'm arguing neither, shall I now induct you into the Cult of Geoff? First month is free.
Well.
Half off, anyway.
