Religion or Atheism? An open forum.

[MMI]

Ok - I'll try to offer something "testable":

1. A little girl, bright-eyed and vivacious, and a lump of meat and bone.

2. A finely balanced and highly complex cosmos, and a chaotic mass of gas and energy swirling in a lifeless void.

3. The miracles of the saints or inexplicable and random unnatural events

Believers will say that God gives life, created all things and is able to work miracles, of which there is much documentary evidence, by himself or through others.

I know what you will say, but you will not be able to justify any assertion that non-belief is a more rational consequence than faith. All you can do is say you consider it to be such: opinion not fact.

As for testabilty, you can test your own existence, but only to your own satisfaction, not to mine. Furthermore, you cannot test my existence because you do not know if I am a real entity or a figment of your own imagination. If you can't tell the difference between reality and imagination, you are hopelessly ill equipped to distinguish between supernatural and natural events.

I would be grateful, therefore if you would stop demanding proof of the unprovable, knowing that it cannot be provided, while hiding behind the argument that it is not possible to prove a negative when your own belief is questioned. Admit that your position is based on instinct alone, just as believers admit their position is based on faith. once we can do that, we might be able to make progress.

I'm impressed that you have studied Einstein: he's far too complicated for me - to be honest, I don't even understand the implications of e=mc^2. What does Einstein say about the causes of the Big Bang? What evidence did he produce?

You don't have to answer that: I notice you admit you take on trust the scientific explanations of people who have a vested interest in working out how the Big Bang happened, and as that is no different from believing the pronouncements of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope, the Dalai Lama, or the leading rabbis or mullahs, you position has no better validity than the position of the faithful.

Your criticism of the faithful for unquestioning belief is looking pretty thin by now, so it doesn't seem to matter that you distinguish between "justification" (as I used the term in connection with capitalism) and "evidence" as you use it in your demand for evidence of the supernatural. If there is a difference, I contend that justification is a stricter requirement than evidence tending to support. But I think you missed my point (or ignored it). I was suggesting that a negative belief is, nevertheless, a belief.

Your response is that capitalism is a demonstrable phenomenon: my answer to that is, capitalism is, in fact, no more than the absence of any other economic system: it is, in fact, economic anarchy.

(I perceive a weakness in this analogy: capitalism has produced a workable economy, not the chaos I predicted for a natural cosmos produced by a Big Bang (but consider the economic meltdown around the western nations since 2008). But before you ask me to deal with that, you must show that my rejection of capitalism without any reason to do so is a sensible position to take, just like, as you said, "I don't believe [in god], therefore, no evidence needed."

It seems to me that you are still behaving like the soccer team which says to the gridiron team lined up against it: "We play the 'real football', so you must play by our rules. Your rules are not valid because we say so."

When we have resolved whether matters of faith are best considered in terms of evidence or belief, then we can consider them and "test" the faith of the believers against the denials of the non-believers.

[Thorne]

1. A little girl, bright-eyed and vivacious, and a lump of meat and bone.

Actually, I have two young granddaughters, both bright-eyed and vivacious. They are wonderful, beautiful, and made of matter which was once buried deep inside of stars. Ultimately, however, like all of us, they will one day be nothing but meat and bones, no life remaining in them. I hope that day will be a very, very long time coming, but I see nothing "testable" about their existence as relates to gods.

2. A finely balanced and highly complex cosmos, and a chaotic mass of gas and energy swirling in a lifeless void.

Finely balanced? Perhaps. There is some evidence which shows that certain universal constants are at just the values necessary to build this universe. So what? How many times did the universe come into existence without those values so tuned, leaving barren and empty space to await the birth of another universe, with slightly different values? Again, nothing testable to show evidence of gods.

3. The miracles of the saints or inexplicable and random unnatural events

Ever noticed how, as science has learned more and more about the universe the numbers of "miracles" have declined? Don't you wonder why that is? But at least this would be testable. Except that, to my admittedly uncertain knowledge, every 'miracle' which has been tested has been shown to be coincidence, placebo effects, mass hysteria or fraud. Not one has been shown to defy the laws of nature.

Believers will say that God gives life, created all things and is able to work miracles, of which there is much documentary evidence, by himself or through others.

There is much anecdotal evidence, certainly. But testable? Not so much.

I know what you will say, but you will not be able to justify any assertion that non-belief is a more rational consequence than faith. All you can do is say you consider it to be such: opinion not fact.

I agree, it is my opinion. Based upon evidence, not wishful thinking.

As for testabilty, you can test your own existence, but only to your own satisfaction, not to mine. Furthermore, you cannot test my existence because you do not know if I am a real entity or a figment of your own imagination. If you can't tell the difference between reality and imagination, you are hopelessly ill equipped to distinguish between supernatural and natural events.

I'm not going to argue psychological hocus-pocus. I don't know enough about it, in the first place. But in effect I agree: we do have to be able to distinguish between reality and imagination. Which is why I am an atheist.

I would be grateful, therefore if you would stop demanding proof of the unprovable, knowing that it cannot be provided, while hiding behind the argument that it is not possible to prove a negative when your own belief is questioned.

I'm not demanding proof, just testable evidence. As for proving a negative, we are talking about proving that something does not exist. One can provide evidence that makes it unlikely that something exists, and even evidence which makes it probably that something does not exist. But absolute proof? Can't be done.

Admit that your position is based on instinct alone, just as believers admit their position is based on faith.

Not sure what you mean by "instinct" here. My position is based on my understanding of the evidence.

I'm impressed that you have studied Einstein: he's far too complicated for me - to be honest, I don't even understand the implications of e=mc^2.

Sadly, he's far too complicated for me, though I do understand at least SOME of the implications of his famous equation.

What does Einstein say about the causes of the Big Bang? What evidence did he produce?

I don't know that Einstein had anything to say about the cause of the Big Bang. I have heard many hypotheses about possible causes, each more fantastic than the last, but to my knowledge there is no evidence for any of them. I don't know that we will ever be able to delve that far back into time so as to answer that question. It is just as fair to claim that God caused it as anything else. There is no evidence for any of the speculations.

you position has no better validity than the position of the faithful.

Except, again, that my position is based on testable evidence. Their positions are, generally, contradictory and based upon... What?

I was suggesting that a negative belief is, nevertheless, a belief.

I understand that. But I still claim that a negative belief is not the same as a LACK of belief.

Your response is that capitalism is a demonstrable phenomenon: my answer to that is, capitalism is, in fact, no more than the absence of any other economic system: it is, in fact, economic anarchy.

I'm not an economist, but isn't it true that we can measure the effects of capitalism? And that a capitalist economy can co-exist with other economies around the world? We can measure the effects of all of these economies, and even the effects of interactions between these economies.

But before you ask me to deal with that, you must show that my rejection of capitalism without any reason to do so is a sensible position to take, just like, as you said, "I don't believe [in god], therefore, no evidence needed."

I must have misunderstood. You're rejecting it without reason? I don't think that's sensible at all! You cannot claim it does not exist, as there is ample evidence for it. You can, perhaps, make the case that it is a failed system, providing evidence for that position, but you cannot provide evidence that it does not exist! Even if it didn't exist you could not provide any such evidence.

When we have resolved whether matters of faith are best considered in terms of evidence or belief, then we can consider them and "test" the faith of the believers against the denials of the non-believers.

Of course matters of faith can only be considered in terms of belief! If we could find evidence to justify and test them, then they would no longer be matters of faith but of reality. It's why we no longer consider the Earth to be the center of the universe. We've tested it and found reality.