Hypothetical: God is disproved
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Clarko95 📚💰📈
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« Reply #50 on: May 24, 2016, 11:46:46 AM »

How would I feel?

A mixture of vague depression and relief. On one hand, I do believe that there is something out there, some kind of higher power or order, but I'm not sure what it is. If it was somehow proven that there is nothing, I'd be pretty messed up for some time. But at the same time, there would be a sense of relief knowing that this is it, there's nothing I need to do to please some entity. My life philosophy is just be a good person who helps others and at least doesn't harm others, so I can stop worrying that maybe that wouldn't be enough.


Would it change my life? No, not really. I'd still believe in simply being a good person.
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« Reply #51 on: May 24, 2016, 03:35:50 PM »


I'm not sure I'm talking about proof dependent on experience, since I think everything we're talking about is based on observation, which is derived from experience.  Beyond that, we're on the same page, but what I said still stands.  I do not think most people would deny that they're "certain"; they would say they're absolutely certain because of their faith, and claim it's not remotely equivocal.  I think this is illogical, and you probably agree.  But if you ask me to take "certain" to mean "less than certain," why are you not applying similar latitude to interpreting the "concrete proof" part of this question as the "very suggestive evidence" you mention?

At this point, I think that the interpretive difference here is kind of pedantic.  My point is that people are reacting with hostility to this question, interpreting it with very little flexibility, and yet you're being very deferential toward those who take "certain" to mean "very slightly uncertain."  That seems inconsistent.

I don't think that when people say they're certain they actually mean they're almost certain. That strikes me as arrogance, to think that I alone can say what people really mean. What I do think is that certain to the person who's had an experience does not mean certain for everyone else. Take the example of me saying that I've witnessed an assault. I can be certain that I've witnessed an argument, but if I told you about this, you would not be certain that this had happened, because, for instance, I might be a liar. So what is certain for an individual is not certain for everyone. I'm saying that a disproof of God could never, by it's very nature, be like the proof that there are infinitely many prime numbers, rather, it would be something like my claim to witnessing a argument.

So seeing as I don't conflate certain with very nearly certain, there is no inconsistency with me not conflating 99.999999% and 100%. That said, we both agree that for the purposes of this question they give the same results.

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Unsurprisingly, I disagree Tongue

The thing is this question is asking those of us who are theists to imagine ourselves as atheists. Now for most theists religion is about more than just a set of abstract beliefs-it, for want of a better word, inserts itself everywhere. Your religion can shape your morals, your politics, your employment, your entertainment, your grieving, your celebrating, how you spend your free time, your engagements with your family and so on. Trying to imagine how your religion being shown as false would change you therefore requires you to accurately evaluate, in a similar way to the Nazi question, thousands of variables- because such a revelation could change everything.

The other point, about cognitive bias, again, I think applies to this scenario, albeit in (obviously) a much more nuanced way than with the nazi example. It's difficult not to see some people downplaying the role of religion in their life, because they don't think it's cool or whatever. Similarly there will be some people who exaggerate the effects of this revelation because they want to present themselves as more pious than they actually are.  We already know, from decades of religious data, that it is a nightmare even getting truthful simple details right (americans massively exaggerate how often they attend church, for instance). I don't see why those same biases wouldn't be at play here, especially as, unlike in those cases, there's simply no way for anyone to call you out, because the whole thing is hypothetical.
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Alcon
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« Reply #52 on: May 24, 2016, 06:00:15 PM »
« Edited: May 24, 2016, 06:05:00 PM by Alcon »

I don't think that when people say they're certain they actually mean they're almost certain. That strikes me as arrogance, to think that I alone can say what people really mean. What I do think is that certain to the person who's had an experience does not mean certain for everyone else. Take the example of me saying that I've witnessed an assault. I can be certain that I've witnessed an argument, but if I told you about this, you would not be certain that this had happened, because, for instance, I might be a liar. So what is certain for an individual is not certain for everyone. I'm saying that a disproof of God could never, by it's very nature, be like the proof that there are infinitely many prime numbers, rather, it would be something like my claim to witnessing a argument.

So seeing as I don't conflate certain with very nearly certain, there is no inconsistency with me not conflating 99.999999% and 100%. That said, we both agree that for the purposes of this question they give the same results.

I agree with your analysis of the nature of reasonable near-certainty, although I think you're over-thinking the amount of logic most people apply.  I expect if you asked theists, a lot (possibly most) would unequivocally say that they're certain, period, and it's a matter of faith.  At least, a significant proportion would say intellectual certainty of any degree is moot in the presence of faith.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty confident it's very common.

But it doesn't really matter.  My objection was not to you being inconsistent about conflating 99.9999% with 100% and near-certainty with certainty.  My objection was with you reading "certain" to reasonably mean 99.9999%, and yet not reading the topic question to be getting at, as you put it, "very suggestive evidence."  That seems inconsistent to me.

Not to start a separate discussion, but unless you have reason to believe that those with different intuitions/experiences than you are being dishonest, or are unknowingly deluded, why would you remain "near-certain" that your intuitions/experiences are correct if others' are strongly different?  Applying that to the witness example, if my honest friend reported being quite sure he saw something else (as often happens in witness situations), I wouldn't maintain near-certitude about my own perception.  That wouldn't be reasonable.  We know it wouldn't be reasonable, because we know how inaccurate perceptions of concrete events are.  Deferring to one's own religious intuitions seems to be treating metaphysical perception as more accurate than our perception of concrete, manifest events.  That doesn't seem crazy to you?

The thing is this question is asking those of us who are theists to imagine ourselves as atheists. Now for most theists religion is about more than just a set of abstract beliefs-it, for want of a better word, inserts itself everywhere. Your religion can shape your morals, your politics, your employment, your entertainment, your grieving, your celebrating, how you spend your free time, your engagements with your family and so on. Trying to imagine how your religion being shown as false would change you therefore requires you to accurately evaluate, in a similar way to the Nazi question, thousands of variables- because such a revelation could change everything.

It does -- and if I got the impression your only issue was that it's a difficult question to answer because there are a lot of variables, I wouldn't be objecting.  However, you said: "There is a reason everyone in this forum claims they would have voted for the SPD in 1932."  You're right.  However, that reason is about the systematic skews I discussed, not merely that there are a lot of variables.  If the problem were primarily about many variables, as opposed to desirability effects, you'd expect the error to be more randomly distributed (as unskewed errors would usually be).  That's not the case, for the reasons I mentioned.  As such, that example is poor proof that having a lot of variables makes a question "stupid" and unanswerable.

I disagree that having a lot of variables makes a question "stupid" and unanswerable.  There are thousands of variables involved in any probabilistic evaluation of human behavior, and we make them all the time.  Moreover, even if we are wrong about our own theory of mind, it's interesting and useful to parse how we'd expect ourselves to handle a situation.  It tells us a lot about our belief system, our emotions, our morals, everything.

For example: Just last month, my closest friend had a sudden onset of suicidal depression and alcohol abuse.  I spent a lot of time thinking about how I would handle losing him and learning to live with the grief.  It's something I've never been through before, so there were a ton of unknown variables to consider.  But did I have intelligent, useful thoughts about how I might process it emotionally and intellectually?  Definitely.  It's really hard for me to believe that this is somehow impossible to do with something like changing religious belief.  Complicated, multi-variable questions and theory-of-mind thinking are such a ubiquitous part of life.  They're a ubiquitous part of politics, social sciences, and this forum.  It's hard for me to believe the reticence to respond to this question is merely concern about the complexity of the theoretical.

The other point, about cognitive bias, again, I think applies to this scenario, albeit in (obviously) a much more nuanced way than with the nazi example. It's difficult not to see some people downplaying the role of religion in their life, because they don't think it's cool or whatever. Similarly there will be some people who exaggerate the effects of this revelation because they want to present themselves as more pious than they actually are.  We already know, from decades of religious data, that it is a nightmare even getting truthful simple details right (americans massively exaggerate how often they attend church, for instance). I don't see why those same biases wouldn't be at play here, especially as, unlike in those cases, there's simply no way for anyone to call you out, because the whole thing is hypothetical.

I think I basically responded to this objection in the portion you're quoting.  Yes, of course Americans overreport church attendance.  That's because of social desirability bias, and because people tend to remember their own actions in more favorable terms than actually occurred.  My point was that I'm asking you to continue a hypothetical situation where the premise is not desirable.  Considering that accepting the premise itself is "undesirable," why are social desirability effects destroying your ability to think through the implication of accepting the premise?  The only problem there would be if people found accepting the premise of the question so "undesirable" that they consciously refused to engage it in even a theoretical sense.

Which is exactly what most people in this thread are doing.

Which is exactly my point.
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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #53 on: May 24, 2016, 06:39:03 PM »

What a strange question. I think it is pretty clear that, regardless of what you think of the Christian tradition, that God as described in Scripture is both the most universal being imaginable (to the extent that we can imagine God) - in the sense that nothing in the universe exists outside of God (and therefore, human beings can no more be in a universe outside of God's presence than fish can be in an ocean outside of the presence of water) and the most personal being imaginable (that whole Jesus thing, for example....). How does one "disprove" the universe - or more specifically, the universe and everything outside of it that we don't and can't know - or the personal subjective experiences of any individual human being? (That's a rhetorical question, BTW.)

The problem with the sort of Western atheists (who inevitably, worship at the altar of Science) who ask questions like this is that they can't accept that a lot - the vast majority, in fact - of what is "out there" is not only unknowable, but that it is perfectly rational behavior for people to speculate about and even believe in things that are not seen. That's what the religious call faith, and that faith is what gives religious individuals and communities a sense of trust, comfort, belonging, confidence, optimism, purpose, as well as cognitive and emotional closure. These are perfectly natural and normal things for human beings to desire: denying the spiritual longings, fears, hopes, and dreams of human beings is essentially denying a major part of human experience.

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TheDeadFlagBlues
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« Reply #54 on: May 24, 2016, 08:15:24 PM »
« Edited: May 24, 2016, 08:19:10 PM by TheDeadFlagBlues »

This thread summarized: man attempts to convince others that, contrary to what their preferences might tell them, that they should actually partake in counterfactual conversations that do not amuse them in the slightest.

Why am I posting in here? I'm not sure but this thread is a sight to behold. The OP basically slapped his dong out on a table to taunt others and some people are defending his taunt. What if a Christian posted a thread titled "Hypothetical: Jesus Christ returns to the Earth and tells Everyone that he's Lord and Savior"? I'm assuming that you wouldn't bother participating! Not because it's "implausible", because this thread is equally implausible, but rather because it wouldn't interest you; it's a question designed to irritate people, not to enlighten them in any way.  I don't think there's any point in dressing this up.
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Alcon
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« Reply #55 on: May 24, 2016, 09:33:33 PM »
« Edited: May 24, 2016, 09:36:32 PM by Alcon »

This thread summarized: man attempts to convince others that, contrary to what their preferences might tell them, that they should actually partake in counterfactual conversations that do not amuse them in the slightest.

That's not what I'm arguing.

Why am I posting in here? I'm not sure but this thread is a sight to behold. The OP basically slapped his dong out on a table to taunt others and some people are defending his taunt. What if a Christian posted a thread titled "Hypothetical: Jesus Christ returns to the Earth and tells Everyone that he's Lord and Savior"? I'm assuming that you wouldn't bother participating! Not because it's "implausible", because this thread is equally implausible, but rather because it wouldn't interest you; it's a question designed to irritate people, not to enlighten them in any way.  I don't think there's any point in dressing this up.

I totally agree this was probably mostly an attempt at taunting, but intentions have nothing to do with the substance of the question.  If the substance of the question doesn't interest people, that's fine.  I've argued the question isn't "stupid" and has potential substantive value, not that everyone has to be interested in that substantive value.

Please go ahead and quote a single place where I have criticized people for not participating in this topic because they don't find the question interesting.  I'll wait.

I also think it's totally reasonable to avoid the topic if you think the OP is baiting.  Again, not what I've been arguing against.
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« Reply #56 on: May 25, 2016, 12:29:00 PM »


I agree with your analysis of the nature of reasonable near-certainty, although I think you're over-thinking the amount of logic most people apply.  I expect if you asked theists, a lot (possibly most) would unequivocally say that they're certain, period, and it's a matter of faith.  At least, a significant proportion would say intellectual certainty of any degree is moot in the presence of faith.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty confident it's very common.

But it doesn't really matter.  My objection was not to you being inconsistent about conflating 99.9999% with 100% and near-certainty with certainty.  My objection was with you reading "certain" to reasonably mean 99.9999%, and yet not reading the topic question to be getting at, as you put it, "very suggestive evidence."  That seems inconsistent to me.

I've been very clear, from my first post in this thread that, for the purposes of this question, near certainty and certainty are the same thing. Nevertheless whether such a 100% proof could exist was being discussed before I posted as a separate discussion, and I also gave my views that such a thing is not possible.

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Yeah, this is a completely different discussion, but I would say that it depends. We obviously need to keep in mind the limitations of our senses, and that they are generally greater than we care to admit. But nevertheless if we have experienced something that we know can not be explained by any other means, then it would be silly to reject it just because others disagree. This is the sort of question that does not lend itself to generalities though. Perhaps as a rule I'd say that we should be very sceptical towards our own experiences, but we should certainly not reject them outright just because others contradict them.

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The thing about the variables is they aren't measures of the same thing, they're each measures of a different thing. What I mean by this is all of the variables I've suggested (take, for example, social life and taste in music) are largely independent. What this means is if you're wrong about one in a positive direction and wrong about one in a negative direction they won't cancel out, you're just wrong in two different ways.

I will concede that answering hypotheticals can tell us a lot about how we are now (Think of trolley problems, for example) But I think that, even there almost universally, the more variables the less useful it is. For instance "Could there have been a revolution in Russia without the First World War?" is a useful historical question "What would Russia have looked like without the First World War?" is not.  This is because the more variables, the harder it is for us to actually grasp and put ourselves inside the situation.

I'm sorry to hear about your friend, and I'm glad that this type of question helped you through what must have been a very difficult time. I, too, when faced with problems (though none as bad as yours) go through in my mind various hypotheticals, and it can be quite cathartic for me, personally. But I would say that it's only cathartic if you want to do it, and, also, when I've tried doing it I've never actually been right about the future.

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See, I don't think this argument works. Yes, there are many people who find the premise undesireable, but I don't see why that makes them unlikely to answer the question. You could fill whole libraries with fiction where the character is in a bad situation. There are an almost infinite number of books where we are asked to judge how the protagonist reacts in a tight spot. The thing is, even where the situation is one we would rather not be in, there are still "right" and "wrong" choices. Those of us who are religious may not wish to imagine a Godless universe, but we'd still like to imagine that we wouldn't collapse into hedonism. Or, vice versa, we would rather not say that our religion was just a fig leaf and did not shape us in any way.
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Alcon
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« Reply #57 on: May 25, 2016, 06:10:18 PM »

I've been very clear, from my first post in this thread that, for the purposes of this question, near certainty and certainty are the same thing. Nevertheless whether such a 100% proof could exist was being discussed before I posted as a separate discussion, and I also gave my views that such a thing is not possible.

Not trying to be a jerk, but that's not really responsive to what I just said.  I didn't accuse you of being inconsistent about certainty and near-certainty being the same.  I said I think it's inconsistent to give a non-literal interpretation to "certain" and then a literal interpretation to "definitive, concrete evidence."

Yeah, this is a completely different discussion, but I would say that it depends. We obviously need to keep in mind the limitations of our senses, and that they are generally greater than we care to admit. But nevertheless if we have experienced something that we know can not be explained by any other means, then it would be silly to reject it just because others disagree. This is the sort of question that does not lend itself to generalities though. Perhaps as a rule I'd say that we should be very sceptical towards our own experiences, but we should certainly not reject them outright just because others contradict them.

I'm not sure it's a completely different discussion, because it goes pretty directly toward whether it's possible for proof to be "concrete" in any meaningful way.  No problem if you want to separate out our conversation on this, though.

I'm not arguing for "rejecting outright" one's own personal perceptions.  I'm arguing that it makes no sense to dismiss or nearly completely discount perceptions of other people's perceptions.  That is, if we perceive other reasonable, honest people as having different and highly variable intuitions and perceptions (as they do), it makes no sense to affirm our direct observations.  If two sane, honest people viewed the same crime, and had two different, strongly-held perceptions about what happened, would it make sense for one to believe their perception is more likely?  Sure, because there's always the (small) chance that the other person is dishonest or deluded and you don't know it.  However, does it make sense to affirm your own perception with certitude, dismissing your perception of their perception?  That seems obviously unreasonable to me.

The thing about the variables is they aren't measures of the same thing, they're each measures of a different thing. What I mean by this is all of the variables I've suggested (take, for example, social life and taste in music) are largely independent. What this means is if you're wrong about one in a positive direction and wrong about one in a negative direction they won't cancel out, you're just wrong in two different ways.

Again, you're forgetting that I was responding particularly to your analogy about Nazi Germany, under the belief that you were invoking that particular analogy because there was a systematic bias to answers on that question.  I think that was a totally fair interpretation, considering the original quote: There is a reason everyone in this forum claims they would have voted for the SPD in 1932.  If you were just talking about layering a lot of independent variables, why would you be using an example that’s clearly about systemic skew?  

 
I will concede that answering hypotheticals can tell us a lot about how we are now (Think of trolley problems, for example) But I think that, even there almost universally, the more variables the less useful it is. For instance "Could there have been a revolution in Russia without the First World War?" is a useful historical question "What would Russia have looked like without the First World War?" is not.  This is because the more variables, the harder it is for us to actually grasp and put ourselves inside the situation.

I agree that having a lot of independent variables makes this harder to answer.  I don’t think the independent variables are enough that it’s a “stupid” question, especially since it also offers the potential for moral reasoning that involves a lot fewer independent variables than predicting behavior or emotional reactions.  It’s cool if other people don’t find that feasible or worthwhile, but again, my objection is to the hostile reaction that forwarding the question has received.  

I'm sorry to hear about your friend, and I'm glad that this type of question helped you through what must have been a very difficult time. I, too, when faced with problems (though none as bad as yours) go through in my mind various hypotheticals, and it can be quite cathartic for me, personally. But I would say that it's only cathartic if you want to do it, and, also, when I've tried doing it I've never actually been right about the future.

I’m not disagreeing, but I’m surprised to hear that.  You’ve never been right (or at least insightful) about theory-of-mind analysis of yourself, enough to justify doing it?  I’m also surprised by the disinterest in reasoning through moral conclusions that require premises you don’t believe in.  Unlike what DFB claims, I don’t have a problem with it, but I’m surprised.

(And thanks – hell of a month, but things are fine.  Antidepressants can work magic when you stop abusing alcohol and let them work!)

See, I don't think this argument works. Yes, there are many people who find the premise undesireable, but I don't see why that makes them unlikely to answer the question. You could fill whole libraries with fiction where the character is in a bad situation. There are an almost infinite number of books where we are asked to judge how the protagonist reacts in a tight spot.

Sorry, just to be clear, I don’t actually think the main reason people are dodging this question is because it requires them to accept undesirable premises.  Although that is definitely something people do – I can dig up some research, but people are very bad at reasoning through the implications when they don’t like a foundational premise.  Our brains try to shut that down.  However, I honestly think the reason people are dodging the question here is because they think it’s gotcha bait (which is fair).

I was saying that the only major desirability bias I could see would be not wanting to accept the question's premise.  That doesn't imply I think the the main reason people are rejecting the question is desirability bias Smiley.

The thing is, even where the situation is one we would rather not be in, there are still "right" and "wrong" choices. Those of us who are religious may not wish to imagine a Godless universe, but we'd still like to imagine that we wouldn't collapse into hedonism. Or, vice versa, we would rather not say that our religion was just a fig leaf and did not shape us in any way.

That’s the sort of stuff I think is worth exploring here!  (Again, not arguing people have to be interested in doing so; I just don’t think the question is “stupid.”)
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« Reply #58 on: May 27, 2016, 09:07:30 AM »


Not trying to be a jerk, but that's not really responsive to what I just said.  I didn't accuse you of being inconsistent about certainty and near-certainty being the same.  I said I think it's inconsistent to give a non-literal interpretation to "certain" and then a literal interpretation to "definitive, concrete evidence."

I've sort of lost the thread here, I'm not entirely sure what I'm being accused of Tongue  What I was trying to get at was that, for me, the discussion about the question in the OP and the discussion about whether a undeniable 100% proof/disproof of God were possible were entirely separate.

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I don't disagree with this. I would say that most "religious experiences" don't really lend themselves to this type of contradiction though. With mental, interior experiences there are no other witnesses.

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Perhaps I confused you by conflating two separate examples. Looking back I definitely did use the SPD example to show the problem with hypotheticals with one option more socially desirable than an other. But I did also use other examples like "What would happen if the Nazis had won
World War II?" as examples of the problems of lots of variables.

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Well, and maybe this is part of the disagreement, I don't read this as a moral question. I see it as simply a fact based one. "How ought you react to losing your religion?" actually strikes me as a much more interesting and much more answerable question. Regarding variables, I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I think there simply are too many variables. What I would say though is that there are more variables the more embedded religion is in someone's life, which I think renders the question answerable only to the people whose answers aren't particularly interesting.

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I said it was never accurate, not that it was never justified Tongue Again, as I mentioned above, I don't see the question as moral, so I wouldn't describe it like that.

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Glad to hear it Smiley

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OK, I get you. I don't think that is the only desirability bias, I'd say there are many, although unlike in the SPD example they aren't pointing in the same way and vary from person to the person depending on their own experiences with religion.

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Agreed, which, I'd say, is what makes the "How ought you react to losing your religion?" a much more interesting question Smiley

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Alcon
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« Reply #59 on: May 29, 2016, 06:28:45 AM »

Hey, sorry, but I'm swamped by work things and don't want to reply while out of my mind.  Will ASAP!
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« Reply #60 on: May 30, 2016, 02:34:40 PM »

Hey, sorry, but I'm swamped by work things and don't want to reply while out of my mind.  Will ASAP!

Take as long as you need, I'm looking forward to continuing the discussion when you can Smiley
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« Reply #61 on: June 03, 2016, 11:28:39 AM »

I doubt that God exists, but I don't think there's any way to definitively prove that.
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anvi
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« Reply #62 on: June 17, 2016, 08:40:52 AM »

For me, this happened more than a quarter century ago.  I felt a mixture of anxiety and liberation, but I don't think in the end it changed me all that much. 
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RINO Tom
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« Reply #63 on: June 19, 2016, 05:21:51 PM »

Already happened.  No one cares, because faith triumphs proof. A person's ability to believe is more powerful than their ability to understand or comprehend. IMO.

Oh, it did, huh?
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #64 on: June 25, 2016, 12:17:55 AM »

This thread actually has three pages?
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #65 on: June 25, 2016, 01:40:27 AM »

OK, sure, let's do it.

It is conceptually impossible for science to be able to say anything about God's existence or lack thereof. How in the world will you go about defining God in a way that's empirically operative? What kind of testable implications can you draw from a "God existence hypothesis"? It might come to a shock to a few of you, but the number of questions science can actually answer is actually extremely small.
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« Reply #66 on: June 25, 2016, 10:24:36 AM »

OK, sure, let's do it.

It is conceptually impossible for science to be able to say anything about God's existence or lack thereof. How in the world will you go about defining God in a way that's empirically operative? What kind of testable implications can you draw from a "God existence hypothesis"? It might come to a shock to a few of you, but the number of questions science can actually answer is actually extremely small.

This.  It reminds me of a lecture on Cantor's theorem (essentially proving the set of all problems is much greater than the set of programs that can solve them).  Science has a specific scope - it can only deal with things which are measurable and with which one can make falsifiable predictions.  Attributes like holiness, omnipotence, etc. cannot be measured or determined in any way via the scientific method.  By its very original name (natural philosophy), science deals with natural phenomena; it cannot disprove the existence of supernatural phenomena because it is outside the scope of science.  Nonetheless, science can cast doubt on a set of supernatural beliefs by undermining said belief system's conceptions of the origins of the universe or the origin of humanity, but that's far different than "disproving God."
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Alcon
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« Reply #67 on: June 26, 2016, 06:25:04 PM »

Hey, sorry, but I'm swamped by work things and don't want to reply while out of my mind.  Will ASAP!

Take as long as you need, I'm looking forward to continuing the discussion when you can Smiley

Totally accidentally dropped this off my to-do list.  Still on the docket.  sorry...
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Alcon
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« Reply #68 on: July 10, 2016, 07:09:26 PM »
« Edited: July 10, 2016, 07:12:11 PM by Alcon »

I've sort of lost the thread here, I'm not entirely sure what I'm being accused of Tongue  What I was trying to get at was that, for me, the discussion about the question in the OP and the discussion about whether a undeniable 100% proof/disproof of God were possible were entirely separate.

Just to put it simply: you complained that this thread was ridiculous on the grounds it suggested it was possible to have "definitive, concrete evidence."  However, you argued that we should presume the term "certain" actually means "less than certain," and that certitude is an entirely individual matter.  It seems like you're being inexplicably flexible with the definition of "certain" considering how inflexible you were with "definitive, concrete."

I don't disagree with this. I would say that most "religious experiences" don't really lend themselves to this type of contradiction though. With mental, interior experiences there are no other witnesses.

Why does it matter to the analogy if there aren't other witnesses?  The point is two apparently sane, honest people are reporting mutually contradictory things, and you're arguing they'd both be reasonable to be certain their perception was correct, even though they accept the other person is likely just as sane and honest as they are.

Here, just to prove the point that the lack of a witness doesn't matter to the analogy: imagine that two sane, honest people, who reasonably trusted each other's sanity and honesty, thought they saw the same mutual friend at the exact same time, except in two totally different locations.  Would it be reasonable for them to say, "Well, you're sane and honest and I assume your perception is reasonable, but I'm going to ignore that and remain certain that I saw the guy and my perception couldn't have been mistaken"?  No, obviously not.  And if they did assume that certainty was warranted, we know they would be being unreasonable -- because we have evidence about the accuracy of recalled perceptions.

And my analogy involved a concrete issue -- not a metaphysical one, where one assumes a little more uncertainty about our perceptions is probably warranted.

Perhaps I confused you by conflating two separate examples. Looking back I definitely did use the SPD example to show the problem with hypotheticals with one option more socially desirable than an other. But I did also use other examples like "What would happen if the Nazis had won
World War II?" as examples of the problems of lots of variables.

Err, dude, in the SPD paragraph you stated "bookies exist for a reason."  That makes absolutely no sense if your SPD point was an entirely separate point from your WW2 outcome point, unless you mean to tell me that cognitive bias was the reason bookies exist, as opposed to unpredictability.  Are you sure you weren't conflating your own arguments a little?

Regarding variables, I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I think there simply are too many variables. What I would say though is that there are more variables the more embedded religion is in someone's life, which I think renders the question answerable only to the people whose answers aren't particularly interesting.

Really, do you think I was only able to consider the emotional and social implications of my friend's death because his involvement in my life is "not particularly interesting"?  Or do you just think it is so difficult to be at all accurate about these thoughts and predictions as to render the thinking pointless?

(This isn't a "gotcha" question at all.  I'm not offended or anything.  That just strikes me as a surprising assertion.)

I said it was never accurate, not that it was never justified Tongue Again, as I mentioned above, I don't see the question as moral, so I wouldn't describe it like that.

You don't see the question "How do you live your life?" as at all impacted by changes in your moral belief system?
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Bojack Horseman
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« Reply #69 on: July 10, 2016, 11:27:08 PM »

Told you so.
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bore
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« Reply #70 on: July 20, 2016, 09:19:51 AM »

My turn to delay. I've been away for the last few weeks so have only been able to respond now Smiley

Just to put it simply: you complained that this thread was ridiculous on the grounds it suggested it was possible to have "definitive, concrete evidence."  However, you argued that we should presume the term "certain" actually means "less than certain," and that certitude is an entirely individual matter.  It seems like you're being inexplicably flexible with the definition of "certain" considering how inflexible you were with "definitive, concrete."

Unsurprisingly, I don't agree with this representation Tongue. I complained the thread was ridiculous, and it's true, I did also say that God can not be disproved or proved in the way that a statement like "There is a cat sitting on that mat" can be, but that is not why I think the thread is ridiculous. As I said in my very first post:
Of course this is all quite arcane. Whether such a proof or disproof that is comprehensible to humans is not really important to this question, because plenty of things exist but are inconceivable to us and plenty of things that can't exist are conceivable. The real problem with this question is it's like all counter-factuals. The dead body of Jesus of Nazareth being found tomorrow in a grave in palestine is just as silly a counter factual despite being unarguably possible and definitely conceivable.


So I don't see the problem with saying that a 100% proof is impossible while also saying that I can quite happily take the thread in the spirit that it was intended, as a 99.999% proof, and still say the question is a bad one.


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As I was trying to get at (not very successfully, obviously), by phrasing it as an aside rather than as a rejoinder, I don't disagree with you here. What I was saying was that when it comes to religious experiences they are not contradicted by other experiences in quite the same way as more concrete perceptions. If I receive a message from God which says that no one must wear red clothes from now on, you can't see that I did not actually receive that message, you contradict it by receiving a message saying that everyone must wear red clothes.


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To repost the relevant paragraph:

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I guess there is a little bit of a conflation (with the  "when it comes to something as personal as our most important convictions we're even worse at it."), but even so I think it's clear overall that I was making two different points there. Namely that we are bad at predicting generally, especially when we want something to happen, and we also tend to be swayed by what is socially desirable. In other words when it comes to predictions we tend to go with what we want to be true and what others want us to want to be true. But even when we have no preference either way we're not very good at it.

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I think a lot of our disagreement comes down to our interpretations of the question. I am, in most things I do, very (perhaps overly) literally minded. I see this question, as, in the truest sense of the word, amoral. A good answer is one that is accurate or at least (in the case of some of the more constrained hypotheticals) plausible, and a good question is one that has good answers. I don't see any way that an answer to this question can be accurate. That is not to say that you can not discover something about yourself in the answering process, so maybe thinking about what you think you might do if you lost might (or might not) reveal something about what it currently is, but it won't reveal anything about what it would be like if you did happen to lose it.

So I think that the only people who could factually answer the question about what it would be like to lose their religion didn't have much of one in the first place, which is what I mean by it not being of particular interest. Regarding your friend, thinking about the difficult hypothetical obviously helped you untangle how you felt about him at the moment, and was clearly very helpful to you. But, and thankfully, we don't know if your actual thoughts about how you would cope without him were accurate. So I'd distinguish here, again, between something being accurate and something being helpful. And I'd say that hypotheticals can often be helpful in terms of the thoughts they trigger but are very rarely accurate.
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You can't derive an ought from an is Tongue How do you live your life is a factual question, and how that would change if you changed your beliefs, or got a new car, or became ill, or whatever else, are also factual questions.
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Alcon
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« Reply #71 on: July 29, 2016, 08:30:47 AM »

Wish I had seen this sooner.  At this point, I'll probably have to reply in a few weeks -- sorry.  I'll drop you a PM when I'm done.
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Enduro
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« Reply #72 on: July 29, 2016, 04:07:51 PM »

First off, there is no way to prove or disprove God's existence except by dying.

Anyway, I'll answer this highly illogical hypothetical. Probably spend a few months in denial, then wonder around looking for purpose. That's honestly what I think I'd do.
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RINO Tom
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« Reply #73 on: July 31, 2016, 03:14:29 PM »

How would I feel?

A mixture of vague depression and relief. On one hand, I do believe that there is something out there, some kind of higher power or order, but I'm not sure what it is. If it was somehow proven that there is nothing, I'd be pretty messed up for some time. But at the same time, there would be a sense of relief knowing that this is it, there's nothing I need to do to please some entity. My life philosophy is just be a good person who helps others and at least doesn't harm others, so I can stop worrying that maybe that wouldn't be enough.


Would it change my life? No, not really. I'd still believe in simply being a good person.

Described my stance perfectly.
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Tartarus Sauce
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« Reply #74 on: August 04, 2016, 04:26:21 AM »

Literally wouldn't affect me at all since I already live my life under the assumption there isn't any.
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