David Hume is one of the forebears of the post-structural movement which has done so many things for the patchouli movement in this country.
This is stupid. The scientific method cannot be used to answer a non-science question. I also cannot use science to prove that lying or spousal abuse are morally wrong. Yet I have strong opinions about that! I guess I should be agnostic on the question of spousal abuse, since the scientific method can never answer whether something is morally correct or not.
That's irrelevant to atheism and science both. Neither one requires absolute knowledge in order to be a solid position. How about changing the last line to "As far as I know, no divine being exists." Again and again we've pointed out that is all atheism requires. Absolute knowledge is a red herring. As benztown said, your original argument is different to what your post claims it was. You argued that you cannot take a rational scientific approach and be an atheist. Can you arrive at an answer by one method and end up with an answer that is compatible with another method? Benztown has pointed out that applying the scientific method to certain things should result in atheism as a rebuttal to your idea that you cannot be an atheist and consider your approach scientific. No one ever proposed that every atheist gets there this way.
It must have been in the other thread that this discussion started in, but AB has issues with certain famous atheists claiming that science supports their opinion.
Okay. Here, I'll rephrase American Brummie's point so that it actually makes sense and perhaps most of us can agree. The scientific method can be used to reject most claims about gods that have ever been made, because most of those claims touch upon the natural world. However, if we re-define "god" to mean something that by definition cannot be supported nor contradicted by evidence, then it becomes inappropriate to say that you have used the scientific method to reject that claim. Because the scientific method cannot be used to draw conclusions about unanswerable philosophical questions, we must use other means (logic, emotion, instinct, culture, etc). So when an atheist says, "Science supports my position," he is talking about the rejection of specific god claims. He is not talking about American Brummie's philosophical god whose properties defy evidence or knowledge. Is that fair?
No, moral questions are just not testable. It doesn't matter if they are right or wrong. Scientists can say spousal abuse leads to death, psychological damage, lower mental health rates, physical or mental damage to children, and a thousand other things that we then contextualize as bad. But science cannot in and of itself become an answer to a moral question. The context of scientific studies can lead us to remarkable conclusions. Let's run an experiment. 1) You survey 1,000 random, representatively-sampled people and ask them if war is bad, or any other moral question surrounding warfare. 2) I'll take two samples of European states from 1700-1750: those states who fought in the war of Spanish Succession and those who did not. Then I will compare GDP growth in those states and test whether or not warring states outperformed or underperformed states that did not go to war. 3) You and I will both submit our results to an academic journal. The winner is whomever gets published. Go.
I see where you're coming from, but let me add a couple of things: 1) I think we were talking about the scientific method in a very broad sense. 2) AB didn't talk about some abstract philosophical god. The only times he got more specific, he mentioned YHWH and Persephone. 3) Postulating a god who doesn't have any causal relationship with our universe or some other explanatory function would be rather meaningless. So while science couldn't address this kind of god, his existence would be indistinguishable from his nonexistence (both in theory and in practice). Which means that if the word "existence" is to mean anything, this god wouldn't exist. 4) Usually when people talk about god, they do see an explanatory function there, which immediately means that they're making scientific claims. And even if they define god in a manner that prevents current science from investigating him*, science is not only about testability, but also about variability, as David Deutsch eloquently described in the video I posted yesterday. Since any god is highly variable as an explanatory function, disbelief is warranted in any case...unless of course he starts producing evidence... * It is of course ironic that parallel to our ever growing knowledge, god is more and more reduced in scope. In other words, the god narrative is constantly updated in order to fit reality. He's moved from one gap in our knowledge to the next. That's not exactly something that builds confidence...
What science does is to take away the philosophical need for a god as an explanation for the world we live in. And without that, the god concept is dead in the water. Of course we can't 100% disprove it, but the scientific method tells us that we should withhold belief. Everything else would either force us to be inconsistent in how we come to our beliefs (i.e. [reject] belief in claims without a proper reason) or it would lead to us holding incompatible beliefs at the same time. Neither is reasonable.
I'm tempted to reply... Let me just say that I agree, you don't need to take the same skeptical stance when you buy toothpaste as when you debate about the ultimate nature of the world we live in. But the more significant a belief is, the more intellectual honesty and rationalism we should demand.
I give up. You're either trolling or simply unable to understand the difference between absolute knowledge and justified beliefs.
No need to reply. I think we discussed it at length and I understand your argument and I respect your point of view. I just posted a summary of my position for the benefit of those lurkers on this thread who won't take the trouble to read our debate on the other thread.
Okay, you've really lost me. I know that moral questions aren't testable. That's exactly my point. You earlier said that the question of whether a deity might exist is not testable. So, just as science cannot provide an answer to a moral question, it also can't provide an answer to any other philosophical question, including the existence of deities -- when and only when they are defined as being immune to support or contradiction by evidence. If we start to give a deity more specific properties, especially properties that affect the natural world, then we can start using to science to draw conclusions about the likelihood that such gods exist. But if we're going to define the concept of "deity" to mean something that is beyond evidence or unknowable, then we're as much outside the realm of science as we are when we talk about morality or the purpose of life or the existence of free will or any other purely philosophical question. See, this is why people took issue with your definitions. You gave 3 definitions of the word "belief," but didn't specify which one you're using. You've suggested that a divine being is an unknowable question, but then claimed that science can't provide knowledge as to whether Persephone existed. Do you mean that science can't provide definitive knowledge about anything, ever? If so, congratulations. You've demonstrated some understanding of what science does.
Maybe it's just me being semantic, but could you provide me the three different definitions of "belief?"
They were in your link. I know you think you don't like arguing semantics, but ironically enough you don't seem to understand what that actually is. Arguing semantics is when people disagree over the meaning of a given term. What people on this thread have asked you to do is define how you're using certain terms, so that we might all agree upon a given definition and then argue the point instead of arguing semantics. It's like when somebody says so-and-so was the best footballer of all time. And somebody else disagrees. The two people can bring up all the stats and link to all the clips they want, but if they don't agree on what it actually means to be the best footballer of all time, then it's all pointless. Then they're not really arguing over who was better; they're arguing over the definition of "best." That's arguing semantics. I prefer not to do that, though you seem determined to do so.
Again: why is le dieu horloger not a real God? There is a Simpsons episode in which Lisa Simpson sets up a science experiment to monitor the effects of cola on the decay of a lost tooth. To her surprise, a tiny sentient species develops and thrives on said tooth. In this scenario, does Lisa Simpson not exist?
She affects their lives doesn't she? If something has 0 effect on anything whatsoever but you want to propose that thing exists, fine, but what is the difference, to benztown or anyone else, between your explanation and one without that extra non-explanatory force?
His argument was that a God that does not directly influence the universe (beyond its creation?) does not exist. If I have a neighbor I never see nor interact with, then for all intents and purposes, he or she might as well not exist. But that isn't the same as him or her actually not existing.
I understand his argument as the god in that example is indistinguishable from a god that does not exist. There are indirect ways of observing your neighbor that make this a poor example. benz has repeatedly pointed to indirect observation as a valid form of evidence. So if you were to come up with that for this god example you would satisfy the criteria of having an effect.
I don't see the distinction. If you limit the scope of reality to the things you can directly (or indirectly) interact with, than my absent neighbor is no more real than any clockmaker God.