Calilasseia wrote:

Michael66 wrote:Thanks for your very detailed reply Calilasseia.

It's a habit I consider worth keeping.

Michael66 wrote:I'd like to pick up one thing at a time.

Good. Separation of variables is the first step in any proper analysis.

Michael66 wrote:So let's start at the beginning. You say at the start that an atheist doesn't believe in any supernatural claims that aren't rigorously supported.

Actually, I go further than this. Namely, I contend that an atheist who treats the matter with rigour, dispenses with belief itself, because belief, as practised by supernaturalists, consists of nothing more than uncritical acceptance of unsupported assertions. This, of course, arises as a natural corollary of treating mere assertions with suspicion.

Michael66 wrote:Would you say that further you don't believe in anything that isn't rigorously supported by a scientific test.

Taking my cue from the above, I dispense with belief altogether. If an assertion is bereft of evidential support, I regard it as being discardable in the same casual manner in which it was erected.

However, at this juncture, it is important to note that I regard empirical test as being appropriate for assertions that make claims about observational reality. Assertions that make claims about abstract realms require a different approach. See for example, pure mathematics.

Michael66 wrote:Or do you make the supernatural a special case?

No. Since numerous supernaturalist assertions purport to dictate what we should observe in the real world, I regard assertions falling into this class as amenable to empirical test. When that empirical test says those assertions are plain, flat, wrong, those assertions are discarded. In the case of untestable supernaturalist assertions, these are worthless anyway.

Michael66 wrote:What I'm trying to get at (so there is no hidden agenda) is whether you treat all claims equally or whether your paradigm is introducing a bias into the level of evidence you require.

How tiresomely predictable of you to post this. A familiar supernaturalist approach seen all too often before, namely to suggest that entirely proper discoursive suspicion of their assertions has a malign origin, taking either the specious erection of "bias" accusations you are using, or the simply fatuous "you hate god" apologetics we've seen in the past from other quarters.

Michael66 wrote:My suggestion is that people need stronger evidence to overturn their own paradigm.

Once again, your tiresome erection of the "atheism is a paradigm" assertion fails. Do learn this elementary lesson, namely that not treating blind assertions as fact, is one of the foundational aspects of proper discourse.

Michael66 wrote:If you read through your post I think you may see evidence for that hypothesis.

Oh please, do tell us all about this. I for one am Very ExcitedTM about this. Once again, do tell us all how not treating unsupported assertions as fact is a "paradigm".

Michael66 wrote:Or to put it another way - is everything you believe in sufficiently that you make life decisions supportable and supported, in your mind, by rigorous external evidence and testing?

Oh look, it's that other familiar supernaturalist apologetics, the attempt to re-cast the thoughts of others as "belief". Yawn. Do learn the difference between belief, namely treating unsupported assertions as fact, and inference from insufficient data, which is the process underlying most of our everyday decisions. Of course, the mere fact that there exists some data upon which to make said inference, at a stroke removes this from "belief". As far as everyday decisions are concerned, I usually apply somewhat less effort than I do to substantive decisions, but then that's because I'm a human being. I don't need to resort to quantificational calculus to decide if I want an ice cream on a hot day. Trying to suggest that my not applying the full hammer blow of academic research to such questions as "do I want an ice cream on a hot day?" as I would to questions such as "what is the origin of life?", somehow invalidates my applying due diligence to the latter, is another tiresomely familiar supernaturalist canard.

Michael66 wrote:One final question on that same theme. Does your own experience ever form part of the 'data' you use to decide what you do or don't believe in - or do you only accept non-personal data?

Ah, another attempt to spring an entirely familiar supernaturalist trap. By definition, one has to gather data in order to have material from which to draw inferences. However, I'm aware of the fact that reliably repeatable observations form a more robust basis for said inference. As a corollary, when it comes to important questions, I seek reliably repeatable observations, ideally, observations that can be made by anyone else, regardless of their presuppositions on the matter.

chairman bill wrote:Paradigm, as I understand it, refers to our concepts & thought patterns & how we see the world. I'm happy to extend the term to refer to more than Kuhn's more narrow definition, but even so, I fail to see how atheism constitutes a paradigm. If it does, then so does absence of belief in the Tooth Fairy. We're then left with theists & atheists who lack belief in the Tooth Fairy (as well as those who do believe), but in this case, the absence of belief does not alone constitute a paradigm, because one group believe in god(s) & the other doesn't. So we now have four distinct 'paradigms' (by your logic), namely those theists who believe in the Tooth Fairy, theists who lack belief in the Tooth Fairy, atheists who believe in the Tooth Fairy & atheists who lack belief in the Tooth Fairy. Of course, we then have those theists who are agnostic, and those who are gnostic, as well as equivalent atheists & Tooth Fairy-ists & a-Tooth Fairy-ists. So the paradigms start growing even more. And so it goes, with us ending up with every individual having their own distinct paradigm.

I think you need to either go the whole way with this, or accept that your use of the term is inappropriate in this instance.

May you be blessed by the Invisible Pink Unicorn's (bbhhh) Holy Hooves

Michael66 wrote:

trubble76 wrote:

Michael66 wrote:

trubble76 wrote:If you find your work progresses better when you assume the non-interaction of a deity, why does the same not apply to your non-work life?

I don't assume a non-interaction of a deity - it's simply out of scope.

I'm afraid I cannot tell the difference here, could you explain?

Sure,

Let's revisit our old friend the gravitational constant, G.

I want to do an experiment to find out the force of gravity on Earth and in a space craft in low orbit.

I'm lucky enough that some clever chaps who were around before me worked out the relationship between the interval of a pendulum swing and the force of gravity at that spot. It's t=4pie [sqrt[[l/g]].

So I take my pendulum and I measure the length of it (l). I then time 10 intervals (1 interval = 1 swing in both directions) and so I work out my interval t (I might repeat this a few times and take the mean, and perhaps the standard deviation if I'm interested in exploring potential error).

I then re-arrange my equation a little so that I can work out g (the force of gravity at the point of the pendulum) so that g = l / (sqr( t /4pie). Try it - I was amazed how close you can get. We were doing an experiment on the relationship of pendulum swing time to pendulum length as a demo for primary school children. I took their data and calculated the force of gravity on Earth to within 1% of the real value).

I then get on a prototype of Richard Branson's earth orbiter and repeat the experiment. My pendulum is now swinging slower, and I calculate a new force of gravity.

I write that up saying what I'd done and reporting the different force of gravity on Earth and on the Virgin orbiter.

But have you noticed I haven't talked about the universal gravitation constant, G? There's no need - it's not within the scope of my experiment. I don't need to know it, or even know there is one. We now know g depends on G, but the scope of the experiment can simply ignore G and still be a valid experiment.

I don't assume G doesn't exist. It simple is out of scope of my experiment.

You keep saying the phrase "within the scope", surely you believe that your god is within the scope of everything, don't you?

Remember, the scope of what is in my experiment is what I can adjust and/or measure. Outside of those parameters I can only speculate and I'm not really doing science then.

Why does a scientific approach not help you in parenthood, for example? You see the power of science as a tool, yet you limit your use of this tool, why is that?

I believe love is a better approach to personal parenthood. (I'm trying very hard not to be rude about the scientific status psychology here).

Hope that helps a little.

Michael66 wrote:Hi all

I thought it would be clearer to have a thread with the OP actually clarifying what my position is, as it's a little hard to glean from picking one bit of discussion.

Here it is .....

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/nonth ... 40544.html

Pax +

trubble76 wrote:

Michael66 wrote:Hi all

I thought it would be clearer to have a thread with the OP actually clarifying what my position is, as it's a little hard to glean from picking one bit of discussion.

Here it is .....

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/nonth ... 40544.html

Pax +

Would you like me to move my post to that thread, or would you prefer to answer it here?

... I don’t believe in a flying spaghetti monster ...

Animavore wrote:Atheism is what you are left with when you get rid of the prior. It's a post.

Michael66 wrote:

Animavore wrote:Atheism is what you are left with when you get rid of the prior. It's a post.

I would disagree there Animavore. I would say if you remove any prior you are left with a naive position. Most atheists, I would say, do have a prior - and that prior is that the certainty of any god existing is close to zero [snip]

Animavore wrote:
Of course we've been through all this and I doubt it's going to penetrate your prior that atheism is a prior.

trubble76 wrote:It seems to me that you are simply asserting that atheists have the "priors" that you suggest.

Person A: I believe in an invisible superhero who loves us all, even the ones it kills.

Person B: I don't see any reason to believe you, I remain unconvinced.

Person A: Ah you must be prejudiced by your prior-held paradigms.

Person B: What? Just because I don't believe you?

Person A: Yes.


Does that sum it up? Everyone that doesn't share your faith is labouring under some sort of atheistic delusion?

Surely the scientist in you recognises that the burden of proof lies with the person making the claims. Yet you seem to be suggesting that the fault lies with the atheist for disbelieving the absurd assertions of theists.

Let me ask you this, imagine a group of people devoid of priors, how do you think they would react to unsupported claims about magical entities who are supposedly made out of love but rejoice in death and punishment, who care a lot about what we do with our dangly bits but are powerless to prevent suffering? Do you think they would withhold belief until some fairly solid evidence was presented or would they jump right in?

Michael66 wrote:

Animavore wrote:Atheism is what you are left with when you get rid of the prior. It's a post.

I would disagree there Animavore. I would say if you remove any prior you are left with a naive position. Most atheists, I would say, do have a prior - and that prior is that the certainty of any god existing is close to zero (if we put everything in a positive construct, where 0 is a perceived impossibility that a proposition is true and 1 is a perceived certainty that a proposition is true). A naive position would have a certainty of 0.5 - that is there is no prior evidence or knowledge to presume that any proposition is more likely to be true or not.

So, I would contend, the atheist carries this 'prior' of close to zero into any review of evidence, argument, or experience that contends a god, or gods, exists. Remember that in Bayesian thought the previous 'post' automatically becomes the new 'prior' when examining new evidence or claims.

Here I am not saying the atheist is wrong, or that they don't have a good case for saying the certainty of the existence of god(s) it is close to zero. I'm simply suggesting that they have these priors, and that shapes the model of reality (their paradigm) they take use when encountering new data, claims or experiences.

I'm a little surprised it was a contentious point.

Pax +

Michael

Michael66 wrote:... I would say if you remove any prior you are left with a naive position. Most atheists, I would say, do have a prior - and that prior is that the certainty of any god existing is close to zero (if we put everything in a positive construct, where 0 is a perceived impossibility that a proposition is true and 1 is a perceived certainty that a proposition is true).

Michael66 wrote:People may disagree with Richard Dawkins, but here is an article he wrote on "Why There Almost Certainly Is No God".

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-d ... 32164.html

So, in this thread and I am using a working definition as someone who takes RD's position of "There Almost Certainly Is No God" (e.g. adopting a Bayesian prior of close to zero when examining new evidence for a claim "God exists"). Their model of reality, their paradigm, is one that starts from that premise of RD's.

Accepting some people may not apply that definition of an atheist to themselves.

Pax +