The problem with atheism – No rational connection between the methodology and object

[Myles]

Do you think that this is what religions say - "Well, this is not consistent with the Laws of Nature, so there must be an unobservable, illogical supernatural universe full of beings who capriciously toy with the workings of the natural universe just to assert their superiority." -? And that every person who believes in God thinks that way?




What would be such extraordinary evidence that science would accept?
I mean, how could they even recognize it as evidence, if it is extraordinary?




So much for accepting the extraordinary ...

When I see a man going to Lourdes with one leg and coming back with two, I'll believe in miracles. Let's face it, one miracle is as easy as another.

 

[Myles]

and what happens every time a proper study is conducted? Right god comes out dead even. Look at the 2006 Harvard study.

That's because the Romas and the Jews put Jesus to death. You have the proof but you won't accept it.

 

[snake river rufus]

That's because the Romas and the Jews put Jesus to death. You have the proof but you won't accept it.

A person who never existed was "put to death" and that's why (you claim) god doesn't answer prayers. Sure

 

[Myles]

A person who never existed was "put to death" and that's why (you claim) god doesn't answer prayers. Sure

I'll pray for you, my son. Do you read the word of god in the Holy Bible ?

 

[snake river rufus]

I'll pray for you, my son. Do you read the word of god in the Holy Bible ?

You are not the only person wasting his/her time on prayer. I no longer read the bible- it's not real, factual, or even entertaining. For the record I don't read much other fiction either.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

That's because the Romas and the Jews put Jesus to death. You have the proof but you won't accept it.

"Proof" of what??? We have no proof that Jesus was even an actual historical figure! All we ever had to support it were the writings of Josephus, and that portion of his work was proven to be a forgery in the last half of the 20th century.

All we have "proof" of is that the Christians "put Jesus to life," as it were, by believing in his existence despite the lack of decent evidence.

It's one thing to believe in your own fairytale. It's quite another to base your opinion of an entire ethnic group on the role you imagine that they played in your fairytale. This is one of the myriad things that should make any rational person absolutely LOATHE religion. Throughout the past millennium and a half, there have actually been people--lots of them--who hated and persecuted Jews because, in their fairytale version of history, the Jews killed a person who only existed in that fairytale.

I've got a great idea. Let's make up a new religion, and in our fairytale the Christians murdered Winnie the Pooh. Then we can persecute them.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Wait a minute... thinking back on my favorite Saturday morning kids' shows...the Christians actually DID kill Pee-Wee Herman! Not Paul Reubens, but Pee-Wee, with their intolerance and narrow-mindedness. We loved Pee-Wee. Even though my wife and I were in our 40s, we always looked forward to catching his show and we were really pissed off when it was canceled.

It's time to start persecuting Christians! We've got a really good excuse! They killed Pee-Wee! Spread the word! Put them in ghettoes! It doesn't matter if Pee-Wee is imaginary, he's exactly as real as Jesus!

 

[snake river rufus]

"Proof" of what??? We have no proof that Jesus was even an actual historical figure! All we ever had to support it were the writings of Josephus, and that portion of his work was proven to be a forgery in the last half of the 20th century.

All we have "proof" of is that the Christians "put Jesus to life," as it were, by believing in his existence despite the lack of decent evidence.

It's one thing to believe in your own fairytale. It's quite another to base your opinion of an entire ethnic group on the role you imagine that they played in your fairytale. This is one of the myriad things that should make any rational person absolutely LOATHE religion. Throughout the past millennium and a half, there have actually been people--lots of them--who hated and persecuted Jews because, in their fairytale version of history, the Jews killed a person who only existed in that fairytale.

I've got a great idea. Let's make up a new religion, and in our fairytale the Christians murdered Winnie the Pooh. Then we can persecute them.

Roger that.

 

[lightgigantic]

phlogistician

LG, your prose wanders around various subjects, but is merely allegory.

why?

Your post falls on the first hurdle too, 'In regards to any knowable object...'

You didn't establish what was 'knowable' before going off to use an analogy.

you have serious doubts whether atheism establishes god as knowable or not?
I mean surely in 4000+ posts you have seen (and probably even mentioned some yourself) a few means that atheists use to determine how there is no proof for god

You also seem to imply from the title of your post that atheism is an active viewpoint.

ditto above

 

[lightgigantic]

Snake River Rufus

“
Originally Posted by snake river rufus
and what happens every time a proper study is conducted? Right god comes out dead even. Look at the 2006 Harvard study.
”
Yes, there have been a number of studies that tried to show a connection between prayer and recovery. All failed.

Myles

When I see a man going to Lourdes with one leg and coming back with two, I'll believe in miracles. Let's face it, one miracle is as easy as another.

you would expect different results from an irrational methodology?

 

[lightgigantic]

Nasor

“

Imagine a being that is physically and cognitively much more powerful than we are. There is no way in the world that we can study them through a controlled experiment.
”
Sure you can. Just randomly divide the people in hospitals into two large groups. Have people pray to a deity asking for one group to get better. Compare the results between the two groups. If the group that is prayed for recovers/survives better with any statistical significance, you have evidence that your deity exists and answers prayers. If there isn't any difference then you have evidence that either your deity doesn't exist, or it doesn't answer prays asking for people in hospitals to be healed. However it turns out, congratulations - you have performed a controlled experiment that has given you more information about our proposed deity.

god is cognitively superior to us ... not a prayer machine or something

Maybe your issue is more with the necessity of suffering in the material world. There are other threads that deal with that ....

 

[Myles]

"Proof" of what??? We have no proof that Jesus was even an actual historical figure! All we ever had to support it were the writings of Josephus, and that portion of his work was proven to be a forgery in the last half of the 20th century.

All we have "proof" of is that the Christians "put Jesus to life," as it were, by believing in his existence despite the lack of decent evidence.

It's one thing to believe in your own fairytale. It's quite another to base your opinion of an entire ethnic group on the role you imagine that they played in your fairytale. This is one of the myriad things that should make any rational person absolutely LOATHE religion. Throughout the past millennium and a half, there have actually been people--lots of them--who hated and persecuted Jews because, in their fairytale version of history, the Jews killed a person who only existed in that fairytale.

I've got a great idea. Let's make up a new religion, and in our fairytale the Christians murdered Winnie the Pooh. Then we can persecute them.

Repent before it is too late.Believe and you will be spared the torments of the Lake of Fire.,

All Praise the Son of God !

 

[lightgigantic]

Snake River Rufus

LG, are you really claiming that it is rational to believe in the superstitous and /or supernatural?

I am claiming that the atheistic methodology for determining god as an "object" is irrational since it obviously only works in paradigms for examining things inferior to us.

 

[lightgigantic]

Fraggle

You need to go back for your second year of university classes. Your understanding of science and the scientific method is woefully incomplete. (Or if you're impatient a quick read of the Wikipedia article on "Experiments" will fill in some of the gaps while you're waiting for the fall quarter to start.)

The controlled experiment is only one type of experiment. There is also the field experiment, in which control is limited.

so there is an element of control, yes?

Then there is the natural experiment (less reverentially called the quasi-experiment), in which one must settle for observing the variables of the system under study and the only "control" is the diligent search for instances of the system that maximize the scope of combinations of values.

so there is an element of control, yes?

Furthermore, observational studies can be used in lieu of experimentation, and a thorough study of the scientific method will turn up several other acceptable methods for testing a hypothesis when experimentation is impossible.

all of which involve having a controllable element ....

Astronomy is arguably the oldest science. Yet its "experiments" are clearly not controlled and much of its body of knowledge is derived from passive observation. Nonetheless its theories are among the most trusted tenets of human knowledge. Even the most ardent religionists accept as "fact" (a poor choice of words but more on that in a moment) that the moon will be full this coming November 13. No one questions the wisdom of the government engineers who spend millions of our tax dollars preparing for the launch of a rocket to another planet based on astronomical predictions of the date when it will be closest to earth, not even those who vehemently question the cost-effectiveness of the space program and would be expected to raise every conceivable objection.

Basically anything that involves measurement involves control. I thought the eg about the sun (and as it compares to god) in the OP made that clear

So it is a fallacy to state that we feel that we know something only after performing controlled experiments. We "know" just as well as you do that the sun will come up tomorrow morning.

ditto above

If you're working up to an assault on science-based refusal to believe in gods and other supernatural phenomena, this is based on a different component of the scientific method, not precisely the requirement for experimentation.

The fundamental principle of science is that the natural universe is a closed system, whose behavior can be predicted by theories derived from empirical observation of its present and past behavior.

if you can say it in your own words, you should be able to read it in others

It's important to recognize that this principle is not taken on faith, but rather that the scientific method is recursive. This principle has been tested exhaustively for five hundred years, and more casually for many centuries before that, and it has never been disproved. Our understanding of the natural universe has grown steadily and mightily since the Enlightenment; its mysteries continue to yield to the scientific method. There has never been a phenomenon which required us to say, "Well, this is not consistent with the Laws of Nature, so there must be an unobservable, illogical supernatural universe full of beings who capriciously toy with the workings of the natural universe just to assert their superiority."

there are however two points that cannot be empirically determined, even in principle (as mentioned in the OP)

This is the basis for scientific atheism. At this point in history the assertion that there is a supernatural universe inhabited by supernatural creatures qualifies as an extraordinary assertion. The Rule of Laplace (another component of the scientific method) insists that it must be accompanied by extraordinary evidence, before anyone is obligated to treat it with respect.

so given this statement

The fundamental principle of science is that the natural universe is a closed system, whose behavior can be predicted by theories derived from empirical observation of its present and past behavior

and the information presented in the OP (namely the inherent limitations of that methodology), certain problems ensue ... namely how can we determine the nature of something that is cognitively and physically greater than ourselves

To date the only evidence is hearsay, dreams and other revelations that defy corroboration, and preprogrammed instincts manifested in the archetypes of mythology that comprise a portion of the collective unconscious.

so how would this solve the problem of studying something cognitively and physically superior to ourselves?

 

[iceaura]

.. namely how can we determine the nature of something that is cognitively and physically greater than ourselves

How do dogs do it, with people?

Empty question anyway - if we can't determine anything about its nature or even establish its existence, asserting that it is "cognitively and physically greater than ourselves" is obviously just talking.

 

[James R]

lightgigantic:

In regards to any knowable object, it is commonly understood that because of the way something exists it can be known in a certain way.
For example heat and cold. Due to its nature, it is perceived in certain ways (i.e. with thermometers). If you want to know what time it is, you can stare at a thermometer all day ...yet you will not be enlightened.

Notice, however, that many of the most useful scientific instruments (thermometers included) work by extending our "natural" perception, often from one mode to another. Thus, a thermometer, for example, can translate heat concepts from the realm of feeling to sight. A microscope allows us to see things that were previously invisible.

Imagine a being that is physically and cognitively much more powerful than we are. There is no way in the world that we can study them through a controlled experiment.

Astronomers, for example, have to cope with that problem all the time. So do historians. And yet, we still know about the universe and about history.

Another is it’s not possible for one to have experienced one’s own conception, therefore one cannot speak with absolute certainty where one came from. When something is the source of something else (in the biological sense) it sets up an epistemological relationship (a relationship of knowability). If I produce something, I know what I produce, but the product cannot know.

Another wonder of the scientific method is that we have been able to deduce the operation of processes that apply generally, such as evolution. One does not need to know the details of one's own conception in order to deduce how humans in general are conceived.

There is something tragically comic about going out in the universe wielding the controlled experiment as the primary means of knowing and coming back reporting there is nothing out there but things we can control.

It's a good thing that scientists have other tools at their disposal, then.

The whole point of spirituality is to give you another method of knowing, not those things that are inferior to you and can be controlled by you, but a method that allows you to study things that are greater than you.

How can spirituality give you reliable knowledge?

 

[lightgigantic]

How do dogs do it, with people?

so if you asked an american dog who was, say, the president of the USA, they could give an accurate answer?
I mean seriously, you don't see how cognitive horizons of a dog make for a mostly incomplete picture of human affairs?

Empty question anyway - if we can't determine anything about its nature or even establish its existence, asserting that it is "cognitively and physically greater than ourselves" is obviously just talking.

the issue is that you can't establish that with the controlled experiment... so its kind of like calling upon a thermometer to tell us what time it is.

 

[phlogistician]

phlogistician

why?

Because it's all allegeorical?

you have serious doubts whether atheism establishes god as knowable or not?

It's not the job of atheists or atheism to do that. Atheists simply do not believe in god. It's not a quest to prove the contrary viewpoint to theism, as too many theists see it, it's just a null position on the subject.

I mean surely in 4000+ posts you have seen (and probably even mentioned some yourself) a few means that atheists use to determine how there is no proof for god

Like I said, atheism isn't a quest for proof of anything. It seems you don't understand what atheism is, and hence your rambling and badly thought out posts.

 

[lightgigantic]

JamesR

“
Originally Posted by lightgigantic
In regards to any knowable object, it is commonly understood that because of the way something exists it can be known in a certain way.
For example heat and cold. Due to its nature, it is perceived in certain ways (i.e. with thermometers). If you want to know what time it is, you can stare at a thermometer all day ...yet you will not be enlightened.
”
Notice, however, that many of the most useful scientific instruments (thermometers included) work by extending our "natural" perception, often from one mode to another. Thus, a thermometer, for example, can translate heat concepts from the realm of feeling to sight. A microscope allows us to see things that were previously invisible.

Well thats how empiricism "works" isn't it?
What else do you expect?
That claims of love be clarified with a tape measure?
:bugeye:

“
Imagine a being that is physically and cognitively much more powerful than we are. There is no way in the world that we can study them through a controlled experiment.
”
Astronomers, for example, have to cope with that problem all the time. So do historians. And yet, we still know about the universe and about history.

Astronomers cope with the problem of studying objects cognitively greater than themselves?

“
Another is it’s not possible for one to have experienced one’s own conception, therefore one cannot speak with absolute certainty where one came from. When something is the source of something else (in the biological sense) it sets up an epistemological relationship (a relationship of knowability). If I produce something, I know what I produce, but the product cannot know.
”
Another wonder of the scientific method is that we have been able to deduce the operation of processes that apply generally, such as evolution. One does not need to know the details of one's own conception in order to deduce how humans in general are conceived.

and also an examination of the past 50 years of say, deductions about the age of the universe, tends to confirm the level of certainty in such fields

“
There is something tragically comic about going out in the universe wielding the controlled experiment as the primary means of knowing and coming back reporting there is nothing out there but things we can control.
”
It's a good thing that scientists have other tools at their disposal, then.

none of which can hope to approach a subject that is physically and cognitively greater than themselves

“
The whole point of spirituality is to give you another method of knowing, not those things that are inferior to you and can be controlled by you, but a method that allows you to study things that are greater than you.
”
How can spirituality give you reliable knowledge?

if you think that the words "reliable" and "empirical" are synonymous, this will not go anywhere

 

[lightgigantic]

phlogistician

why?
”
Because it's all allegeorical?

and?
I mean using allegory is a valuable tool in communication and making an issue comprehensible, don't you think?

“
you have serious doubts whether atheism establishes god as knowable or not?
”
It's not the job of atheists or atheism to do that.

I know.
Yet for some reason they take it upon themselves

Atheists simply do not believe in god. It's not a quest to prove the contrary viewpoint to theism, as too many theists see it, it's just a null position on the subject.

yet here you are, to inform the world

“

I mean surely in 4000+ posts you have seen (and probably even mentioned some yourself) a few means that atheists use to determine how there is no proof for god
”
Like I said, atheism isn't a quest for proof of anything. It seems you don't understand what atheism is, and hence your rambling and badly thought out posts.

tell me once again how god doesn't exist.