Absence of evidence = Evidence of absence?

[skadistic]

I only read a small part of all that. Its not just the absence of evidence but also a good look to what is "proof" in gods favour.

If you understand why man has created many many gods over the 'god knows how many' years, add that to debunked myths and dogmas, evidence against, not just absencec of evidence out wieghts faith big time.

Thats a messed up sentence. Enjoy grammer nazies

 

[Perfection]

I only read a small part of all that. Its not just the absence of evidence but also a good look to what is "proof" in gods favour.

If you understand why man has created many many gods over the 'god knows how many' years, add that to debunked myths and dogmas, evidence against, not just absencec of evidence out wieghts faith big time.

Thats a messed up sentence. Enjoy grammer nazies

Who are you talking too?

 

[warpus]

Conversely, someone once said "If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us wings". Well, that's clearly false, because He created a universe where we could fly. So, He wanted the possibility for flight to exist. OTOH, we are forbidden by reality from travelling back in time. So, it seems that such activity is actively denied by the Creator.

Some things are possible in this Universe and some aren't - and this would be true in any Universe you can imagine.. there are always going to be limits. It doesn't necessarily imply the existence of a creator.

Anyway, I don't actually believe in God, I just think you're not looking at a big enough picture when refutting Bozo.

IMO he's extending the big picture to include things which have no basis.

You have an absense of evidence that I eat food. You do not see me eat food, so does that mean it's evidence that I don't eat food? Believe me, I like my ramen, and I was just eating some chips and salsa earlier.

This argument is often used essentially stating that:

We see no evidence for something, therefore it does not exist.

There is evidence that you eat food - you just didn't look for it hard enough.

We know that in order for people to live they have to eat - or at least be fed nutrients through a tube. Since you are most likely a human - we can assume that you eat food - or rather.. we can say that it's very likely that you eat food.

man himself who able to observe the universe is evidence of God. I find it amazing to see a bunch of scientist using their brains trying to figure out how their brain work and walk away with a big question mark. So human science which it a tool to understand the universe is also direct evidence of God.

So God exists because we are observers? I don't see how that makes any sense.

 

[nihilistic]

And really the difference between scientific irrelvance and non-existance is splitting hairs.

It's not splitting hairs. Hairs have a definite thickness, and can acctually be split in the real world with a reasonable rate of success. The difference between scientific irrelevance and non-existance is much smaller than that, but still nevertheless important.

Science is the exercise of logic on the principle of empiricism, and is thus bound to empiricism always. Science can tell that based on empiricism, the probability of an event is 0 or nearly 0, but not impossible. If you try an experiment one billion times and the results all agree, is there any guarantee that the one billion and first try will yield the same result? Empiricism dictates the proability to be near 0 but there is always a possibility of it happening. Science cannot exclude possibilities, since it deals with probabilities. Philosophy and mathematics are fields that deal more with possibililties.

 

[Perfection]

Yeah, but philosophy and mathematics suck at telling us what reality is so really, if it ain't scientificly relevant it ain't real to me!

 

[nihilistic]

Yeah, but philosophy and mathematics suck at telling us what reality is so really, if it ain't scientificly relevant it ain't real to me!

Yes, I agree to that. I was just trying to point out that while you are arguing about this under a scientific view, Bozo is doing it largely in a philosophical view. A clear indication of that is even in his first post here:

How about of there was a form of radiation which we were unable to detect by any known means. Would it be 'scientific' to therefore conclude that this type of radiation doesnt exist? Doesnt seem like it to me.

You see, Bozo was confused about this science versus philosophy thing too, because, if that "form of radiation" is undetecable by any means, then it is indeed irrelevant to science, as it cannot affect anything in the physical world. Replace the text "form of radiation" by the text "ghost" and you'd see how ridiculous his argument is. But if you also replace "scentific" by "philosophical", then you can make the same argument about anything: radiation, ghosts, unicorns, spagetti monsters, etc.

 

[Birdjaguar]

This argument is often used essentially stating that:

We see no evidence for something, therefore it does not exist.
Meaning: We know everything, and the future will not yield new discoveries.

Finally this was posted. I was worried no one would see the relevance of it.

 

[Birdjaguar]

However, as we do live in an empirical world, absence of evidence do indicate evidence of irrelevance of existance. One good example is the old scientific debate over the existence of ether. After numerous experiments demonstrated that ether, if existent, does not make a difference. It is important to note that scientists did not prove hat ether did not exist, they only proved that ether is irrelevant to physics.

This pretty much extends to the scientific view of theology, that even if gods, goddesses, or any other supernatural beings exist, they are also irrelevant.

We live in an empirical culture. The world is not empirical by nature. Humans have imposed an empirical framework over the world to help explain it for human purposes. That framework can only explain what what lies within the ability of its tools to see and analyze. Everything else appears as irrelevant. You are bound by the limitations of your tools. Keep in mind:

"If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

 

[Spartan117]

"If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

great quote

idea of god came from human's lack of understanding of the world around them...just be cause humans dont yet understand teh world around them doesnt mean there is some sort of higher power created it...hmm.. fire dont know what that is it must be the fire god who did it...universe hmm.. dont know too much about it so a god must have created it

by the way math is alot more accurate and believable then science is....

 

[Birdjaguar]

idea of god came from human's lack of understanding of the world around them...

An unfounded hypothesis.

by the way math is alot more accurate and believable then science is....

Never tell that to your girlfriend.

 

[Spartan117]

An unfounded hypothesis.

so people when born have knowledge that there is a god?

it comes from not being able to explain something, originally-my opinion

 

[Birdjaguar]

so people when born have knowledge that there is a god?

it comes from not being able to explain something, originally-my opinion

BTW, I wasn't saying you were wrong, just that there was no science or math to support your theory. My unfounded hypothesis goes like this:

I would say that people are born with an innate longing to belong, to understand and to feel complete. Those forces drive much of our behavior and manifest themselves in many ways. Organized religion, sports team afiliation and nationalism are all ways we find to belong. God is a way some people organize the universe so it makes sense. A sensible universe helps us understand.

 

[Urederra]

I just copy down again Hume's ideas about the design argument

[size=+2]The Design Argument[/size]

One of the oldest and most popular arguments for the existence of God is the design argument – that all the order and 'purpose' in the world bespeaks a divine origin. Hume gave the classic criticism of the design argument in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and though the issue is far from dead, many are convinced that Hume killed the argument for good. Here are some of his points:

1. For the design argument to be feasible, it must be true that order and purpose are observed only when they result from design. But order is observed regularly, resulting from presumably mindless processes like snowflake or crystal generation. Design accounts for only a tiny part of our experience with order and 'purpose'.
2. Furthermore, the design argument is based on an incomplete analogy: because of our experience with objects, we can recognise human-designed ones, comparing for example a pile of stones and a brick wall. But in order to point to a designed Universe, we would need to have an experience of a range of different universes. As we only experience one, the analogy cannot be applied.
3. Even if the design argument is completely successful, it could not (in and of itself) establish a robust theism; one could easily reach the conclusion that the universe's configuration is the result of some morally ambiguous, possibly unintelligent agent or agents whose method bears only a remote similarity to human design.
4. If a well-ordered natural world requires a special designer, then God's mind (being so well-ordered) also requires a special designer. And then this designer would likewise need a designer, and so on ad infinitum. We could respond by resting content with an inexplicably self-ordered divine mind; but then why not rest content with an inexplicably self-ordered natural world?
5. Often, what appears to be purpose, where it looks like object X has feature F in order to secure some outcome O, is better explained by a filtering process: that is, object X wouldn't be around did it not possess feature F, and outcome O is only interesting to us as a human projection of goals onto nature. This mechanical explanation of teleology anticipated natural selection. (see also Anthropic principle)

 

[Spartan117]

BTW, I wasn't saying you were wrong, just that there was no science or math to support your theory. My unfounded hypothesis goes like this:

I would say that people are born with an innate longing to belong, to understand and to feel complete. Those forces drive much of our behavior and manifest themselves in many ways. Organized religion, sports team afiliation and nationalism are all ways we find to belong. God is a way some people organize the universe so it makes sense. A sensible universe helps us understand.

agreed that humans wanting to belong, humans want to know questions such as, who am i, what am i doing here, how am i here,...and humans had to attempt to explain this, via idea of god--again my opinion

i think by making a simple conclusion tahts this "x" is made by god is sort of like using a scapegoat...therefore not making a sensible universe and leaving more questions to be answered

"Never tell that to your girlfriend. "

and i guess my girlfriend just gonna have to deal with it , until she leaves me of course

 

[Mise]

I just copy down again Hume's ideas about the design argument

Don't worry, I read it

 

[nihilistic]

We live in an empirical culture. The world is not empirical by nature. Humans have imposed an empirical framework over the world to help explain it for human purposes. That framework can only explain what what lies within the ability of its tools to see and analyze. Everything else appears as irrelevant. You are bound by the limitations of your tools. Keep in mind:

"If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

Yes, yes. It is somewhat implemented by us too. But, do you have a better idea? Is there any other way of gaining usable knowledge about our world other than empiricism? Not really.

 

[nihilistic]

by the way math is alot more accurate and believable then science is....

That is because math doesn't deal with the physical world. Well, you can relate the physical world to it and observe that the physical world operates strictly according to mathematics/physics, but mathematics itself does not need a physical world to be relevant. Math is relevant whenever thought is logical and meaningful, as math is merely an extension of logic. If math is flawed, well, there won't be a point to rational thought either.

 

[Urederra]

Don't worry, I read it

Thanks for the feedback, I thought that, for some reason, they were posted with the modifier [colour=transparent] and nobody could read it.

 

[El_Machinae]

1. Under ID, snowflakes are designed. So, this argument is attacking a strawman.
2. We can also imagine alternate universes, which don't seem to exist. Through imagination, we can experience alternates.
3. I agree with completely. Even if we were created doesn't meant the creator cares ...
4. Is seemingly correct. I don't find it satisfying, but I can't put my finger on why.
5. Assumes we can discern purpose. There's no need to assume we can discern purpose for the purpose to be there. The filtering process is also likely, but does not refute design.

The greatest of these is 3. And it's been true since Anselm. There's no reason to assume the creator cares.

 

[warpus]

We live in an empirical culture. The world is not empirical by nature. Humans have imposed an empirical framework over the world to help explain it for human purposes. That framework can only explain what what lies within the ability of its tools to see and analyze. Everything else appears as irrelevant. You are bound by the limitations of your tools.

Of course we are! As we progress technologically we gain access to more accurate tools to help us observe the Universe in more and more detail. This helps us understand whether the theories we've devised are correct or not.

What do you propose? That we make random uneducated guesses about the Universe instead?

1. Under ID, snowflakes are designed. So, this argument is attacking a strawman.

They are? An Intelligent designer is sitting in the sky and creating snowflakes?

I've never heard an ID supporter ever make that claim.