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In Reply to: RE: Faith got's nothing to do with it! posted by the old school on July 10, 2012 at 10:12:29
"Scientists observe, make theories, and then, test those theories in experiments."
Quite right. But it’s instructive to note that no scientific theory can be *proven*--only disproven. Therefore, all scientific knowledge is *provisional*. Nor are scientific laws verifiable.
In one of life’s delicious ironies, it was the rabid atheist, David Hume, who first demonstrated the limits of science. Unfortunately, many who worship at the church of science are ignorant of Hume and succumb to the pretensions of science and scientific overreach.
So, why are scientific laws unverifiable? Hume’s answer was that no finite number of observations, no matter how large, can be used to derive an (unrestricted general conclusion that is logically defensible).
Herewith a few examples, courtesy Dinesh D’Souza, that help to explain Hume’s position: You might insist that all swans are white. To prove this you might make a million confirmations of that fact or ten million. So what? Hume’s point is that you don’t really *know* this. Tomorrow you might see a black swan and there goes your scientific law. Nor is this a frivolous example. For centuries, before Australia was discovered, people in the West had never seen a swan that wasn’t white. Western literature is chalk full of references to “White as a swan.”ť
Now, academics might counter by saying something like, "Well, that’s the great thing about science, it’s self-correcting. Science is always open to revision. Upon discovering Australia, science learned of black swans and adjusted its knowledge base."ťBut to say this is to miss Hume’s point, which is that science was not *justified* in positing such a rule (only white swans) in the first place.
We give a theory the benefit of the doubt until we find out otherwise. There is nothing wrong in all of this as long as we remember that scientific laws are not "laws of nature." They are human laws and they represent a form of best-guessing about our world. What we call laws are nothing more than perceived patterns and sequences. We assume the world works this way until future experiments put the lie to our assumptions.
Again, science cannot *prove* theories; it can only falsify them. When we have subjected a theory to expansive testing and it has not been falsified we can say of it that it’s *provisionally* true. This is not however because the theory has proved to be true, or even because it is likely to be true. Rather, we proceed in this way because, practically speaking, we don’t have a better way to proceed.
By the way, it is no rebuttal to Hume to say, "Okay, admittedly, scientific laws are not 100 percent true, but at least they are 99.999 percent true. They may not be certain but they are very likely to be true." How would you go about verifying this statement? How would you establish, for instance, the likelihood of Newton’s inverse square law? This law cannot be tested except by actually measuring the relationship between all objects in the universe. And as that is impossible, no finite number of tries can generate any conclusion as to how probable Newton’s statement is. Ten million tries cannot establish 99.999 percent certainty or even 50 percent probability because there may be twenty million cases that haven’t been tried where Newton’s law may prove inadequate.
Hume is not arguing that science doesn’t work, but it doesn’t follow that scientific laws are known to be true in all cases. Newton is a wonderful example of what Hume is driving at. (Newton’s laws were, for nearly two centuries, regarded as *absolutely* true.) They worked incredibly well. The industrial revolution was based on Newtonian physics and Newtonian mechanics. Newton’s ideas were validated millions of times each day and his theories led to unprecedented material success. No body of scientific statements has ever been subjected to so much empirical verification.
Yet Einstein’s theories of relativity contradicted Newton’s theories, despite their enormous quantity of empirical verification. This and other such examples led Karl Popper to conclude that no scientific law can, in a positive sense, claim to *prove* anything at all.
But can’t scientific laws be derived from the logical connection between cause and effect?
No, Hume argued, because there is no logical connection between cause and effect. We may see event A and then event B, and we may assume that event A caused event B, but we cannot *know* this for sure. All we have observed is a correlation and no number of observed correlations can add up to a *necessary* connection.
Consider a simple illustration. A child drops a ball on the ground for the first time. To her surprise, it bounces. Then the child’s uncle, an honors graduate of MIT, explains to his niece that dropping a round object like a ball causes it to bounce. He might explain this by employing general terms like "property" and "causation." If these are not meaningless terms, they must refer to something in experience. But now let us consider a deep question that Hume raises: what experience has the uncle had that his niece has not had? The difference, Hume notes, is that the uncle has seen a lot of balls bounce. And every time he has seen someone else do it, the result was the same. This is the basis and the *sole* basis of the uncle’s superior knowledge.
Hume now draws his arresting conclusion: the uncle has no experience *fundamentally* different from the child’s. He has merely repeated the experiment more times. "Because I have seen this happen many times before, therefore it must happen again." But the uncle has not established a *necessary* connection, merely an expectation derived from past experience. How does he know that past experience will repeat itself every time in the future? In truth, he does not know. Hume concluded that the laws of cause and effect cannot be validated. (His conclusion has never been disproved.) Hume is not denying that nature has laws, but he is denying that we *know* what those laws are. When we posit laws, Hume suggests this is merely a grandiose way of saying, "Here is our best *guess* based on previous tries."ť
You might wish to consider this the next time you become overly confident about "existential" observations.
Follow Ups:
"In one of life's delicious ironies, it was the rabid atheist, David Hume, who first demonstrated the limits of science. Unfortunately, many who worship at the church of science are ignorant of Hume and succumb to the pretensions of science and scientific overreach."
But then, it was a man of faith, Kant, who in his attempt to discredit Hume's atheism demonstrated the limits of religion. So I guess we're even.
Frankly, science doesn't give a fig about this limitation. It's a cardinal advantage.
"We assume the world works this way until future experiments put the lie to our assumptions."
Theories are proposed all the time, but most of them are bad ones. They aren't accepted merely because someone has uttered them, except, maybe, by the popular press. A scientific theory must make falsifiable predictions, and these predictions have to be tested through controlled experiment or observation. If a theory doesn't make falsifiable predictions, it isn't science. If a theory that makes falsifiable predictions doesn't actually make successful predictions as demonstrated by observation and experiment, it may be a scientific theory, but it won't be an established one.
Some successful theories have been around for close to 100 years before they were widely accepted. Plate tectonics and anthropogenic global warming would be two examples.
"Yet Einstein's theories of relativity contradicted Newton's theories."
Newton's theories are a limiting case of Relativity. This was one of Einstein's conditions when formulating General Relativity. They are correct in the absence of relative motion and mass or acceleration, which is why they work so well in our slow-moving world.
"When we posit laws, Hume suggests this is merely a grandiose way of saying, 'Here is our best *guess* based on previous tries'."ť
Sure, but that guess can be very good indeed. And when it is good, a theory shows remarkable predictive ability. The "discovery" of the Higgs boson is the most recent example of that. It had not been seen. But everyone expected it was there, because the underlying theory has been so successful.
As Einstein put it, "God is subtle, but He is never malicious."
"But then, it was a man of faith, Kant, who in his attempt to discredit Hume's atheism demonstrated the limits of religion."
A cynic might say that by establishing the impossibility of proving God's existence Kant is merely pointing out the obvious. Be that as it may, this is a jab at reason, not religion. Religion is based on faith, not proof. Faith doesn’t require proof. Religious believers didn’t need Kant to prove that reason is incapable of grasping the infinite—they already knew it.
Much more interesting for philosophers and psychologists is the way in which Kant went about demonstrating reason’s severe limitations (when it comes to perceiving reality). You might say that Kant neutered reason by pointing out what has been termed the Enlightenment Fallacy. So we are far from even.
Dinesh D’Souza describes the Fallacy of the Enlightenment as the arrogant assumption that there is only one limit to what human beings can know – reality itself.
Kant's argument is that we have no basis to assume that our perception of reality ever resembles reality itself. There are things in themselves -- what Kant called the “noumenon”-- and of them we can know (nothing). What we can know is our *experience* of those things, what Kant called the “phenomenon.”
You have a dog at home and you know what it is like to see, feel, smell and pet it. This is your phenomenal experience of the dog. But what is it like to *be* a dog? We humans will never know. The dog as a “thing in itself” is hermetically concealed from us. Thus from Kant we have the disturbing realization that human knowledge is limited not merely by how much reality there is out there, but also by the *limited* sensory apparatus of perception we bring to that reality.
Kant isn’t arguing against the validity of perception or science or reason. He is simply showing their significant limits. These limits cannot be erased by the passage of time or by further investigation and experimentation. Rather, the limits on reason are intrinsic to the kind of beings that humans are, and to the kind of apparatus that we possess for perceiving reality.
"There is thus no *valid* reason whatsoever for saying that the limits of our scientific or theoretical knowledge are identical with the limits of reality," notes Frederick Copleston, in his great work on Kant.
D’Souza explains this clearly and concisely:
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=25681
He also provides an expanded explanation:
http://books.google.com/books?id=vVXf2PV8pyQC&pg=PA168&lpg=PA168&dq=but+there+is+one+subject+on+which+the+atheist+requires+no+evidence+d'souza&source=bl&ots=GELDtj-kVy&sig=F3hh8inZNo1Vde-SV6E-J0vBHG0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=U9YCUJWjNsmZqAHa8pmzDA&ved=0CEoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=but%20there%20is%20one%20subject%20on%20which%20the%20atheist%20requires%20no%20evidence%20d'souza&f=false
“Newton's theories are a limiting case of Relativity. This was one of Einstein's conditions when formulating General Relativity. They are correct in the absence of relative motion and mass or acceleration, which is why they work so well in our slow-moving world.”
I think what you’re trying to say is that Einstein's relativity theories and Newton's theories differ in their predictions only if velocities are comparable to that of light, or gravitational fields are much larger than those encountered on the Earth.
Einstein’s theory demonstrates that Newton's Three Laws of Motion are only approximately correct, breaking down when velocities approach that of light and that Newton's Law of Gravitation was also only approximately correct, breaking down in the presence of very strong gravitational fields.
But this merely reinforces Hume’s point. To wit: because Newtonian physics worked so well in our “slow-moving world,” science was quick to credit it with working *everywhere*. And yet Einstein proved that Newtonian physics is fundamentally flawed at a deeper level and so science was not *justified* in proclaiming this universal application in the first place.
Thanks for posting the link and the reference to the book.
In addition to the limitations of human senses, there are limitations to human reason itself, at least for those committed materialists who believe that reason is the product of mind and that mind is the product of the matter between our ears.
Logic is the fundamental expression of reason, and Kurt Goedel has proven using only logic that logic itself can not apprehend the infinity of the ordinary numbers, let alone more complex Infinities.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
"Thanks for posting the link and the reference to the book."
You're welcome, Tony.
Perhaps you will enjoy this link as well. It’s an article in which David Bentley Hart gives the "New Atheism" movement a good thrashing. His reduction of Christopher Hitchens’ criticisms of religion to flawed syllogisms is hilarious.
Snippet: On matters of simple historical and textual fact, moreover, Hitchens’ book is so extraordinarily crowded with errors that one soon gives up counting them. Just to skim a few off the surface: He speaks of the ethos of Dietrich Bonhoeffer as “an admirable but nebulous humanism,” which is roughly on a par with saying that Gandhi was an apostle of the ruthless conquest and spoliation of weaker peoples. He conflates the histories of the first and fourth crusades. He repeats as fact the long discredited myth that Christians destroyed the works of Aristotle and Lucretius, or systematically burned the books of pagan antiquity, which is the very opposite of what did happen. He speaks of the traditional hostility of “religion” (whatever that may be) to medicine, despite the monastic origins of the modern hospital and the involvement of Christian missions in medical research and medical care from the fourth century to the present. He tells us that countless lives were lost in the early centuries of the Church over disputes regarding which gospels were legitimate (the actual number of lives lost is zero). He asserts that Myles Coverdale and John Wycliffe were burned alive at the stake, although both men died of natural causes. He knows that the last twelve verses of Mark 16 are a late addition to the text, but he imagines this means that the entire account of the Resurrection is as well. He informs us that it is well known that Augustine was fond of the myth of the Wandering Jew, though Augustine died eight centuries before the legend was invented. And so on and so on (and so on).
In the end, though, all of this might be tolerated if Hitchens’ book exhibited some rough semblance of a rational argument. After all, there really is a great deal to despise in the history of religion, even if Hitchens gets almost all the particular details extravagantly wrong. To be perfectly honest, however, I cannot tell what Hitchens’ central argument is. It is not even clear what he understands religion to be. For instance, he denounces female circumcision, commendably enough, but what—pray tell—has that got to do with religion? Clitoridectomy is a widespread cultural tradition of sub-Saharan Africa, but it belongs to no particular creed. Even more oddly, he takes indignant note of the plight of young Indian brides brutalized and occasionally murdered on account of insufficient dowries. We all, no doubt, share his horror, but what the hell is his point?
"A cynic might say that by establishing the impossibility of proving God's existence Kant is merely pointing out the obvious. Be that as it may, this is a jab at reason, not religion. Religion is based on faith, not proof. Faith doesn't require proof. Religious believers didn't need Kant to prove that reason is incapable of grasping the infinite—they already knew it."
I think you're overestimating what they knew back then. His was an increasingly rational era but it was still an era in which an educated man could believe in miracles, in Adam and Eve and the flood. In which, with a few exceptions, the Bible could be taken as literal truth. Newton's clockwork neither explained neither the creation of the universe, nor of man. Christianity was still a falsifiable scientific hypothesis -- not something that could only be demonstrated by faith alone, but something that could achieve concrete and demonstrable results.
IMO, Kant's was a Pyrrhic victory at best. Science continues, its limitations notwithstanding. But there is no longer a material peg upon which to hang belief.
"I think what you're trying to say is that Einstein's relativity theories and Newton's theories differ in their predictions only if velocities are comparable to that of light, or gravitational fields are much larger than those encountered on the Earth.
"Einstein's theory demonstrates that Newton's Three Laws of Motion are only approximately correct, breaking down when velocities approach that of light and that Newton's Law of Gravitation was also only approximately correct, breaking down in the presence of very strong gravitational fields."
Actually, I'm saying much more than that. Newton's theories are quite literally a limiting case of General Relativity, the case in which objects are at rest to one another and spacetime isn't curved (no mass or acceleration). *They aren't a mere approximation,* though they can and do serve as one in our slow-moving, low mass world. This difference, between an pproximation and a special case that wasn't, initially, known to be one, is anything but insignificant. The requirement that Newton's Laws emerge from the new theory was of great importance to Einstein in formulating General Relativity, just as Kepler's Laws were of importance to Newton, Coulomb's Law was of importance to Maxwell, etc.
"Kant's argument is that we have no basis to assume that our perception of reality ever resembles reality itself. There are things in themselves -- what Kant called the 'noumenon'-- and of them we can know (nothing). What we can know is our *experience* of those things, what Kant called the 'phenomenon'."
"You have a dog at home and you know what it is like to see, feel, smell and pet it. This is your phenomenal experience of the dog. But what is it like to *be* a dog? We humans will never know. The dog as a "thing in itself" is hermetically concealed from us. Thus from Kant we have the disturbing realization that human knowledge is limited not merely by how much reality there is out there, but also by the *limited* sensory apparatus of perception we bring to that reality."
Kant's system was already known, by some, to be flawed in his own lifetime, indeed, he made an egregious error right at the start of the Critique of Pure Reason when he ignored the possibility of non-Euclidean geometry -- a mistake that Gauss, who had developed the geometry of curved surfaces, recognized.
As it happens, I do not think that there is any scientific reason to recognize a distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal worlds. They are one and the same. There is much that we cannot observe -- events outside our light cone, for example, or quantum worlds not our own -- but that doesn't break down on what are essentially Platonic lines.
If there is anything out there that is entirely metaphysical, it can't interact in any way with us, it is of no interest to science, or to any rational being. It is not a falsifiable hypothesis and there is no scientific reason to suppose that it exists: to do so would be to create an unnecessary multiplication of entities, and so violate Occam's Razor.
"But this merely reinforces Hume's point. To wit: because Newtonian physics worked so well in our 'slow-moving world,' science was quick to credit it with working *everywhere*. And yet Einstein proved that Newtonian physics is fundamentally flawed at a deeper level and so science was not *justified* in proclaiming this universal application in the first place."
Modern science never claims to be finished: all theories are provisional. That is part of its very essence. Individuals may believe that a scientific theory is universally true, but insofar as they do, they are not being philosophically rigorous. They are conflating a high probability of truth with truth. This is something that comes naturally to us, a necessity of life. When a tiger attacks, we can't hesitate to contemplate the possibility that our theory of tigers is wrong, and that they're actually cuddly and nice. Ancestors who did that were rapidly removed from the gene pool. So we tend to believe in one thing or another, even when the evidence is vague.
In any case, while Hume was correct, that limitation doesn't harm science. Which is interesting in and of itself. If the scientific method didn't, overall, get us closer to the truth, science wouldn't work. It has so far, so the scientific evidence is that we're getting closer to the truth. It is only a matter of probability, of course, but the probability that we aren't is vanishingly small.
"As it happens, I do not think that there is any scientific reason to recognize a distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal worlds. They are one and the same."
You are fee to assume that, but you can never *know* that to be the case. Moreover, your choosing to believe it does not make it factual. You believe it because it dovetails with your zeitgeist. As D’Souza points out, no one has ever refuted Kant’s claim.
The absence of refutation elevates Kant's claim to the realm of possibility, but not the realm of probability.
You speak in terms of knowing. The truth of propositions in mathematics, to the incomplete extent that propositions made within an axiomatic system can be proved to be true or false, is knowable. Ditto for a logical system, which is merely mathematics in different clothing. But other than that, there is no reason to believe that anything can be known with certainty. To demand that it be so known is to make a straw man argument, and to use that demand to support an unfalsifiable proposition like Kant's is to engage in flying spaghetti monsterism.
Since Kant's proposition can't be tested logically, it falls, to the extent that it can be tested, within the realm of empirical science, and it is on that basis that I reject it, without ever being able to disprove it.
The most productive falsifiable theories that we have today all point in the direction of the supposed noumenal and phenomenal worlds as being one and the same. I came years ago to believe that physics and mathematics (of which logic and thought are applications) are one and the same. The fact that physics so often comes out of already discovered mathematics, e.g., non-Euclidean geometry and group theory, and that we're regularly able to find mathematical descriptions for physical phenomena, e.g., calculus, points to that. So does the fact that our thoughts and feelings increasingly are found to correspond to a physical entity operating according to physical laws, the brain. It is in a way unsurprising that we can understand some of what makes the world tick, since it would seem that we are, in effect, part of the physical universe modeling itself.
"Since Kant's proposition can't be tested logically, it falls, to the extent that it can be tested, within the realm of empirical science, and it is on that basis that I reject it, without ever being able to disprove it."
So to in order to be consistent, I take it that you would also reject String Theory? Watching an episode of NOVA on PBS the other evening there was a fascinating discussion about ST. Professor Weinberg and two other physicists noted that a theory that cannot provide a testable prediction (ST cannot) is not science; it's philosophy, and therefore we should not accept it in a scientific sense.
An astute observation. However, falsifiability doesn't require that a theory be falsifiable *with the equipment or understanding we have now.* It need only be falsifiable in principle. There's no reason to suppose that string theory won't be falsifiable once our understanding of the math improves to the point at which we can use it to make predictions about the physical world.
Another example might be the various quantum interpretations. The many-worlds and Copenhagen interpretations make identical predictions. And we can't observe other quantum worlds. There are those who say that, since they can't even in principle be observed, the distinction isn't a matter of science. I'm skeptical of that, personally. The theory that is simplest is the one favored by science, and it seems to me that the Copenhagen interpretation introduces unnecessary multiplication of entities. But it is said.
However, getting back to string theory -- I think it can be argued that a scientific theory gains credence not just on the basis of experiment or observation, though this is the ultimate arbiter. Any physicist will tell you that some theories are beautiful. They are so elegant and powerful that they almost have to be true. I have often been able to provisionally dismiss a new theory because it was inelegant.
As far as I know, philosophy of science hasn't progressed to the point at which it can explain or appreciate this phenomenon (although this may be more a reflection of my ignorance of the philosophy of science than anything else). I believe that Kant was, as so often, ahead of the curve when he said in the Critique of Practical Judgment, "That which is beautiful is that which has subjective purposiveness for cognition." I believe that we've evolved a nose for truth, and the most capable theorists use this more than many, who think that science is a dry matter of experiment, explanation, and experiment, believe.
It's also true that some successful theories are implicit in what is already known, e.g., Maxwell's equations can be derived from Special Relativity and Coulomb's Law, and Einstein himself famously (and mind-bogglingly) hit upon SR after performing a thought experiment in which he visualized himself riding a wave of light.
Sylvester James Gates, Jr. is a leading proponent of String Theory and of course knows *much* more about the subject than you or I. He wants ST to become a credible theory in the worst way. You might say he has a vested interest in seeing it succeed. And yet I’m struck by the candor, honesty and modesty he brings to the debate. Would that more scientists were this comfortable and intellectually honest when discussing their pet theories.
Gates: The well-known physicist and Nobel laureate Sheldon Glashow once supposedly described string theory as the theory of everything that predicts nothing. At the end of the day, if string theory does not provide us with a testable prediction—whether it be in the context of elementary particle physics or cosmology and black hole physics—then nobody should believe it.
Gates: String theory is often criticized as having had no experimental input or output, so the analogy to a religion has been noted by a number of people. In a sense that's right; it is kind of a church to which I belong. We have our own popes and House of Cardinals. But ultimately science is also an act of faith—faith that we will be capable of understanding the way the universe is put together.
NOVA: But what are the reasons for believing that string theory is correct?
Gates: The power of science is an acceptance and openness to the notion that we are fallible and must therefore be corrected by nature herself. Many other human belief systems start off with the assumption that the answer is already known. In science, it's precisely the opposite; we start out admitting to not knowing the answer. So as we struggle with our marriages of space and time, our addition of extra dimensions, our paradigm shifts from little billiard balls to little pieces of spaghetti, these exercises are all subjected to a single question: Is it there in the laboratory? Can you find its evidence? Until that happens, I am of the opinion that you should be skeptical about string theory.
Going for a walk and then dinner.
And yet, I think his frustration is quite common among physicists who are working on string theory. Physics is an empirical science, and theories rise and fall on experiment.
A theory, however elegant, must be falsifiable to be considered science. String theory is undoubtedly that, but until experiments can be proposed and conducted its position will be a tenuous one. Not, however, a completely tenuous one, since it a) is an outgrowth of current, very successful falsifiable theories and b) has been handed to us by mathematics -- a gift of God, so to speak.
I do think he's wrong about faith. IMO, the best science can do is treat its own results scientifically, that is, as provisional. So far, it has been remarkably successful. That's a matter of observation, with the utility of the scientific method itself the falsifiable hypothesis. But it could all stop working tomorrow. Boulders could float away. Water could burst into flame. Science can't say that won't happen, but, since it hasn't, the hypothesis that it will is provisionally judged a failed one.
My point here (yeah, I know, I know, I'm getting to it) is that the acceptance of fallibility extends to all scientific results, and is IMO one of the main advantages that science has over other ways of looking at phenomena, such as philosophical system building or religious belief. Both trap themselves by assuming that our knowledge is complete when it isn't.
"Water could burst into flame."
Well I read the following headline yesterday in the Register-Guard:
"Women burned after igniting oxygen".
And I didn't think that was possible either, maybe the hold of science is starting to slip...
Rick
LOL, either that, or the scientific knowledge of headline writers . . .
I agree with almost all of this. BTW, Hume was certainly NOT a big fan of religion which is based on faith, not on experience. Of course, all scientific theories are tentative and provisional. Future tests or future experience may well lead a scientist to change his view. Religious faith is not based on experience, but on faith in an unchanging truth. People of "faith" look upon their unchanging belief in the correctness of received religious wisdom as a virtue. Of course, it's a huge vice from the standpoint of the scientific mind!
AgreeI am not sure of Regmac's point here. Faith is certainly no counter to science nor does Hume's point defend believing in nonsense (which is all religious faith).
Religious faith ultimately becomes the giant teapot in the sky. You may believe int he giant teapot or spaghetti monster and you may get 1 million other people to ALSO believe in the spaghetti monster/teapot and you may wear nice robes and worship the teapot on Sunday and you may read books on teapots and spaghetti monsters and science may not be able to disprove that there is a teapot or spaghetti monster but we can say measure the mass of one object and another and "gravity" and be assured that a ball with a given internal quantity of air at a given velocity will strike another given piece of mass and be able to repeat the "bounce height" associated with that velocity and weight and predict within a small margin of error that that ball will always bounce with that height always.
Observational science in Regmac's example of doves is poor because it is not based on "numbers" the same way physics is.
Some scientific fields are "better or stronger" than other scientific fields. Physics is a cut above everything else - Chemistry and bology are there. Science that relies on statistics like "I saw 5000 white doves and everyone in the village I live in has only seen white does means that there are only white doves in the entire world is a MAJOR step down because it relies on the observation of few people in one area of the world. To me that is NOT science - that is observation.
Observational based science is a different animal. You could say the same with the bouncing ball - I always see a ball bounce therefore a ball will always bounce. That holds true for the whole village of people. One day they see a guy throw a ball in the lake - and it doesn't bound. They go back to the drawing board. But that is not what physicists do. They measure it mathematically and Know why it bounces one way on cement another way on water, in a vacuum, on the moon, etc. The math is absolute anywhere in the universe all the time no matter what.
Hume is playing an old philosopher's game. You park a car in the parking lot to go to your office. You have done so for 10 strait years. When you leave your work the car is always there.
Someone asks you where is you car? You say - it's in parking sport B where I left it this morning. You have no reason to think otherwise for that is where you left it the 3000 other times in a row. But on that particular day your car was stolen. oops.
This in no way invalidates science in any way shape or form. There is a "reasonable" expectation that the car would be there based on all information available. Real scientists and philosophers however are OPEN to the possibility that the car would not be there - they would say "that based on all previous information there is a very high likely hood that your car would be in the lot BUT there is a chance that your car could be stolen based on the number of car thefts in the city and the type of car you own that there is say a 1/148,873 chance that your car could be stolen when you leave your office. They may also be able to calculate the chance of your car not starting, being hit by lightning etc.
With God - science is even open to the possibility that there is what we could describe as a God. Atheists, and I can speaker for most of us, are open to the possibility of their being a God/Alien even if we believe in Evolution. The mathematical odds are staggeringly low but I suppose it's possible through evolution in the furthest reaches of the universe that a creature evolved at a rate of speed millions of times faster than us.
If that creature evolved faster and longer then they could be far far higher up the evolutionary tree than we are. That entity could be so advanced that it could create a life form in a Petri dish and shipped it out to planet earth and poof here we are. There this satisfies evolution and satisfies there being a possible God. But that's all it is - a nice concoction by me as a mental exercise to support God (ahem Ridley Scott did it in Prometheus and Star Trek TNG had a two-parter explaining life in the universe.
Good science is what you basket you should put your eggs into - some of the observational stat based "ahem" science is far weaker and and I'd keep a few eggs back just in case.
No eggs should be place in religion. Largely because religion won't accept ONE egg as a "better put one in just in case" - no you have to put ALL your eggs into it or you go to eternal damnation - you are not allowed to even THINK of the POSSIBILITY that there is not God. If you think it for just ONE second the holy ghost will know and it is 100% unforgivable offense. Jeez.This is why even Richard Dakwins says he is a 6.9 out of 7 on the Atheist scale. He believes there is a "chance" - and he believes that because he can't prove otherwise.
Personally speaking - any God that could be so sophisticated to create "everything" would have to be a lot more sophisticated than the CARTOON that is the God of religious textbooks. Something that sophisticated could not be the utter nasty mean genocidal cruel bafoon depicted in religious books.
Edits: 07/11/12
Hi RGA:
"Observational science in Regmac's example of doves is poor because it is not based on "numbers" the same way physics is."
Swans, not doves. And as I pointed out it's Mr. D'Souza's example.
"The math is absolute anywhere in the universe all the time no matter what."
Perhaps you will find this link interesting. Snippet: "In conclusion, a set of over-arching mathematical laws cannot exist as there are areas which cannot be explained. Just because a study is a science does not mean it will have laws, and laws that are present can change. The laws of mathematics are changeable, and the resolution is CONfirmed (negated)." (TFIC)
D'Souza's example is not what science is - therefore it is knocked down as a strawman argument. Observation is a PART of science - but it is not science itself. D'Souza clearly doesn't get the difference.
He has problems with statistical prediction - and that's fine because there is a problem with that to a degree - I agree.
Although to defend stats - There are many things in life that we can "practically" use to make our life easier and that have been proven to "work" - it would be idiotic in some cases not to trust in the stats.
For instance the odds of winning the Lotto is very low - it is not a good idea to rely on the lottery for your retirement plan. Yes the odd guy who does rely on it has won but statistically speaking the odds are not in your favor so don't do it.
Yes some fields of mathematics and physics could change - not all of math however. Most of it is ironclad. 2+2 is never going to equal 3,756 because someone eventually confirms or dumps string theory
"D'Souza's example is not what science is - therefore it is knocked down as a strawman argument. Observation is a PART of science - but it is not science itself. D'Souza clearly doesn't get the difference."
D’Souza is laying out the skeptical case here not because he wants to endorse without reservations Hume’s (or Popper’s) philosophy. Rather, his goal is to overthrow Hume’s argument against miracles using Hume’s own empirical and skeptical philosophy.
D’Souza makes the case that miracles are possible by obliterating the strongest argument against them. (In doing so it should be pointed out that D’Souza is not defending the veracity of a particular miracle.) Rather, he’s simply stating that miracles should not be dismissed in advance as unscientific or incredible. Like all Christians he concede that miracles are improbable -- that's why we use the term *miracle* -- but improbable events can and do happen, and the same is true of miracles.
The strongest argument against miracles was advanced by Hume in his book "Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding." Hume’s argument is widely cited by atheists; Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens both invoke it to justify their wholesale rejection of miracles. Hume argued that:
1. A miracle is a violation of the known laws of nature.
2. We know these laws through repeated and constant experience.
3. The testimony of those who report miracles contradicts the operation of known scientific laws.
4. Consequently, no one can rationally believe in miracles.
Hume’s case against miracles has been enormously influential, but it can be effectively answered. To answer it, we must turn to the work of Hume himself. Ironically, his writings show why human knowledge is so limited and unreliable that we can never completely dismiss the possibility of miracles. In formulating his objection to miracles, poor Hume seems to have forgotten to read his own book. D’Souza’s refutation demonstrates that:
1. A miracle is a violation of the known laws of nature.
2. Scientific laws are on Hume’s own account empirically unverifiable.
3. Thus, violations of the known laws of nature are quite possible.
4. Therefore, miracles are possible.
To see Hume’s influence, we must turn to his modern-day followers, who typically call themselves logical positivists. Atheists and "brights" don't use this term, but if you examine their presuppositions you will see that they are based on logical positivism. A logical positivist thinks that science operates in the verifiable domain of laws and facts, while morality operates in the subjective and unverifiable domain of choices and values. The logical positivist is confident that scientific knowledge is the best kind of knowledge, and whatever contradicts the claims of science must be rejected as irrational. These people are all around us today. Many of them are extremely well educated and speak with an air of certitude, so even people who do not agree with what they say have a hard time answering them.
For the logical positivist, there are two kinds of statements: analytic statements and synthetic statements. An analytic statement is one whose truth or falsity can be established by examining the statement itself. If I say, "My neighbor is a bachelor with a beautiful young wife"; you know right away that I am not telling the truth. For Hume, mathematics provides a classic example of analytic truths. Mathematical axioms are true by definition; they are, one may say, inherently true.
A synthetic statement can be verified only by checking the facts. If I say, "My neighbor weighs three hundred pounds and enjoys reading books by Richard Dawkins," you cannot tell from the statement itself whether it is true. You have to visit my neighbor’s house and ask him.
Hume argued that analytic statements are true a priori, i.e., by definition. Synthetic statements, on the other hand, are true a posteriori, i.e., by considering the evidence. For Hume, the physical sciences provide the standard model of synthetic truths. Through the scientific method-hypothesis, experimentation, verification, and criticism we can discover synthetic truths about the world.
On this basis Hume delivered his famous dismissal of metaphysics, which he did not consider any kind of truth at all. Consider the central religious claims that "there is life after death" or "God made the universe.”ť Hume’s point is that these statements are neither true by definition, nor can they be verified by checking the facts. Consequently, he argued, these statements are not even untrue--they are meaningless. Hume wrote, "If we take in our hand any volume-of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance-let us ask, does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quality or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matters of fact or experience? No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."
This is sometimes known as Hume’s principle of empirical verifiability. It allows only two kinds of truths: those that are true by definition and those that are true by empirical confirmation. Right away, however, we see a problem. Let us apply Hume’s criteria to Hume’s own doctrine: Is the principle of verifiability true by definition? No. Well, is there a way to confirm it empirically? Again, no. Consequently, taking Hume’s advice, we should commit his principle to the flames because it is not merely false, it is also incoherent.
There is another problem with Hume’s reasoning, less obvious but equally serious. It took the genius of Immanuel Kant to point out an error that had completely escaped Hume’s attention. Contrary to Hume's assertions, mathematical truths are not analytic. Consider the mathematical proposition in Euclidean geometry that "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.”ťThis seems self-evidently true, and yet it cannot be confirmed simply by examining the sentence. There is nothing in the definition of the terms that makes it true, So how do we know it is true? We have to check. It is only when we make two points on a piece of paper and then draw a line through them that we can observe that the shortest distance between them is a straight line. Kant demonstrated that many other mathematical propositions are of this sort.
D’Souza draws Kant’s correction of Hume to our attention not to suggest that these mathematical axioms are wrong, but merely to show that their veracity can be established only *synthetically.* We can proceed only by looking at the data. So mathematical laws are, in general, like scientific laws. We can verify them only by examining the world around us. When we observe the world around us, however, we make a disconcerting discovery first noted by Hume himself.
Scientific laws are *not* verifiable. They cannot be empirically validated. Science is based on the law of cause and effect and that law cannot be validated in experience either. D’Souza notes that Hume’s argument was a bombshell. So far-reaching were its implications that very few people grasped them, and to this day Hume’s ghost continues to haunt the corridors of modern science. D’Souza says it is quite amusing to see “brights” and other highly educated types continue to make claims about science that were exploded two centuries ago by Hume.
So, why are scientific laws unverifiable? Again, Hume’s answer was that no finite number of observations, no matter how large, can be used to derive an unrestricted general conclusion that is logically defensible. {Swan example and bouncing balls}
We give a theory the benefit of the doubt until we find out otherwise. There is nothing wrong in all of this as long as we remember that scientific laws are not “laws of nature.”ťThey are *human* laws and they represent a form of best-guessing about our world. What we call laws are nothing more than perceived patterns and sequences. We assume the world works this way until future experiments put the lie to our assumptions.
(Again, D’Souza is laying out the skeptical case here not because he wants to endorse without reservations Hume’s (or Popper’s) philosophy. Rather, his goal is to overthrow Hume’s argument against miracles using Hume’s own empirical and skeptical philosophy.)
Hume insists that miracles violate the known laws of nature, but Hume’s own skeptical philosophy has shown that there are no known laws of nature. Miracles can be dismissed only if scientific laws are *necessarily* true--if they admit of no exceptions. But Hume has demonstrated that for no empirical proposition whatsoever do we know this to be the case. Miracles can be deemed unscientific only if our knowledge of causation is so extensive that we can confidently dismiss divine causation, and therefore we cannot dismiss the possibility of divine causation in exceptional cases.
When we speak of miracles we could mean either an extremely rare event that is nevertheless scientifically possible, or we could mean an event that contravenes the established laws of nature. Consider the question of whether the dead can come back to life. We may consider this unlikely in the extreme because no one we know has seen it happen. All medical attempts to revive the dead (D’Souza is referring to someone who has been dead for quite some time) have failed so far. But it does not follow that for a dead person to return to life is a violation of the laws of nature. Can anyone say with certainty that in the future medical advances will not reach a point at which clinically dead people can be restored to life? Of course not. So the scientific proposition that dead people cannot come back to life is a *practical* truth -- useful for everyday purposes -- but it is not a *necessary* truth.
But if we might see dead people return to life in the future, then it is possible that dead people have, on one or more occasions, been restored to life in the past. D’Souza is not making the claim that this has happened. He is merely suggesting that if it might happen one day, then it could have happened before. (Logical possibility cannot be confined to future events.) If it happened in the past, it would be a miracle. If it happens in the future, we’ll call it scientific progress. Either way, it’s possible, not because nature’s laws are necessarily overthrown, but because we have no *complete* knowledge of what those laws are.
Miracles can also be viewed as actual suspensions of the laws of nature, and here too there is nothing in science or logic that says that these things cannot happen. Who says that these laws are immutable? Where is the *evidence* for such a sweeping conclusion? Obviously, if God exists, miracles are possible. For God there are clearly no constraints outside the natural realm. Even modern physics concedes that beyond the natural world the laws of nature do not apply. There is nothing “miraculous”ť about heaven or hell for the simple reason that there are no laws of nature that operate outside our universe.
But even within nature, God cannot be restricted. Like the author of a novel, God is in complete control of the plot. How can He be bound by rules and storylines that He devised? If God abruptly interrupts the “logic”ť of events there will most assuredly be much disruption and confusion. So what? Isn’t that the point of miracles, to disrupt the normal chain of events by drawing our attention to something outside the narrative? If God made the universe He also made the laws of nature and He can alter them, on occasion, if He chooses.
All of this is an attempt to justify a God and to discredit science. It's garbage wrapped up in a nice mental exercise only if one makes a concession to "Again, Hume's answer was that no finite number of observations, no matter how large, can be used to derive an unrestricted general conclusion that is logically defensible."
It is not logically indefensible. You can't say that I reject the above and that means God is real.
You still can't prove that there is a God - or that "miracles" are in fact miracles or aren't flukes or can't be explained in other ways.
I am not up on philosophy having only taken 3 courses in it - but I was dating my philosophy professor who is also published. None of them believe in God (at least not the bible Gods) - the notion is laughable.
Your example of the dead returning to life - that has happened numerous times where someone has been deemed "dead" by medical doctors and then got up. It's no miracle - it's misdiagnosis - and or in some cases the person was very cold and and they could not read a pulse.
You can't argue the idiotic notion that because the Bible says God can create miracles - if I see a miracle - then God exists. No! Miracles could happen with no God. And since EVERY religion has a God that creates miracles how do you KNOW it's YOUR God that created the miracle and not the other guy's God.
First - The entire logic of the Christian or Muslim God being perfect and in total control of everything is an entirely separate issue to whatever perceptual or real holes science has.
God is perfect. Therefore everything a perfect entity creates must also be perfect. God must therefore create himself. Man is God, a Cat is God, a stone is God, the Devil is God, Windows operating systems is God - all must be perfect. Fail.
God is there - he operates outside of all scientific laws - fine - prove it.
Throwing up a bunch of Hume and D'souza isn't evidence.
If one knows that God exists it is not a question of belief or proof.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
v
Kindly explain to us how seeing the sun rise myriads of times gives any logical reason at all for supposing it will rise tomorrow? Isn't the belief it will simply a result of a custom or habit of our minds?
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"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
It's not just that the sun always rises, it's also all the scientific knowledge that explains WHY the sun always rises. And, yes, the sun MIGHT NOT rise some day. All of science is subject to change. Religious dogma, based on faith, is NOT subject to change.
People like Thomas Kuhn have shown that science proceeds pretty much the same way that religion operates. With few exceptions scientists do not change their views. They retire or die and are replaced by a newer generation of scientists. How is this any different than religion?
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
"People like Thomas Kuhn have shown that science proceeds pretty much the same way that religion operates. With few exceptions scientists do not change their views. They retire or die and are replaced by a newer generation of scientists. How is this any different than religion?"
If science proceeded the same way religion does, cars wouldn't move, or prayer would work. Since neither is the case, I think we can assume that there's a difference between them. It is certainly a difference that Kuhn himself recognized.
Even if it were true that all old fart scientists held on to outmoded theories while all young scientists jumped on the new and improved ones as they came along, it would have little bearing on science, which is so constructed as to transcend human nature. It's amazing what experiment and observation can do to separate the wheat from the chaff. Two bishops can argue until doomsday about how many angels can fit on the head a pin: two scientists can argue about it only until one of them trots out a microscope and tries putting angels on it.
The idiotic Governor of Texas actually prayed that God would end a recent drought!!! Yes, with NO result!!!
Two results.
If the drought ended - he would get votes from the religious nutters for the fact that he has the ear of God.
If it doesn't work - then he can say "I Prayed" but the answer was "No"
When you play this religion "prayer" card you can't lose. Which is why so VERY MANY religious leaders can afford top of the line stereo equipment while I have to save. They're all getting very wealthy "Selling God"
I've been tempted to start my own religion. I can come up with something better than Scientology and it's easier to make money than doing any real work.
Zimmerman, who is being tried for murder, just said in an interview that his action was "God's will". This is the kind of idiotic thinking that has led, unfortunately, to countless horrors.
That's the problem with the bible and books like it. You can read it literally - if you do you better stone gay people to death and women are less important than the family cow.
You can read it as a fable or a mythical book - but if you read it that way then you just admitted that it's a fable and a MYTH!
So you have these guys making money standing at the front saying this bit is REAL and this bit is Fable - huh? And that changes depending which decade it was read in. But you should trust the priest because "God talks to him" but no one ever sees that or can prove that that conversation happened.
A lot of dead Iraqis because Bush was told by God in a dream to bomb children - Guess God was oops wrong. Or Bush heard it wrong. No he either hears things and should be locked in a mental institution or he lied to the American people to get the votes to make a profit. Haliburton ammo sales increased and made them all richer. Who cares about some kids getting bombed and young black Americans lost their legs - Bush got his leather seats in his car and some zeroes in his bank account.
"good people do good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
Mind boggling.
Why don't people notice that it doesn't work?
How do you know that prayer doesn't work? Did you ever consider that it might have to be used appropriately before it could be expected to work?
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
If we accept mere possibility as our criterion of acceptance, then we end up accepting an infinite number of things, inasmuch as everything is possible. So as with any other theory, I'd have to see some positive evidence of the efficacy of prayer before I'd accept it. But I haven't seen any. The relatives of atheists and believers leave the hospital in equal numbers. A pope, who is undoubtedly the recipient of many prayers, may live a month in office, the dictator of an atheistic Communist state 50 years.
Somebody actually did a controlled study of the efficacy of prayer not long ago. Not surprisingly, they found none.
"Somebody actually did a controlled study of the efficacy of prayer not long ago. Not surprisingly, they found none."
Hector Avalos notes that the problem with this and any so-called controlled experiment regarding prayer is that there can be no such thing as a controlled experiment concerning prayer. You can never divide people into groups that received prayer and those that did not. The main reason is that there is no way to know that someone did not receive prayer. How would anyone know that some distant relative was not praying for a member of the group that has been identified as having received no prayer? How does one control for prayers said on behalf of all the sick people in the world? How does one assess the degree of faith in patients that are too sick to be interviewed or in the persons performing the prayers? It’s naďve to assume that "pure groups" were attained in the study you cite or any other. Since control groups are not possible, such purported "scientific" experiments are not possible regardless of the outcome.
Well, yeah, there could be a monk in Tibet who is praying for the entire world. Good thing for us that monk doesn't die, because without his prayers the world will end.
It seems to me that Mr. Avalos is trying much too hard. If he wants to show that prayer is efficacious, he'll have to conduct a controlled experiment that shows that it is, because merely pointing to shortcomings in an experiment is not, in science, sufficient to credit a theory.
“It seems to me that Mr. Avalos is trying much too hard. If he wants to show that prayer is efficacious, he'll have to conduct a controlled experiment that shows that it is, because merely pointing to shortcomings in an experiment is not, in science, sufficient to credit a theory.”
You have misunderstood. Mr. Avalos is taking the *skeptical* side of the debate as to the healing power of prayer. Nevertheless, his criticism that any such study can never control for which group gets prayer and therefore renders said study flawed (a priori), strikes me as sound.
Audiophiles can't even agree on a valid methodology for blind testing gear, and you expect believers and unbelievers to reach agreeable terms for a controlled test -- or for a third party to provide a solution -- as to the efficacy (or not) of prayer?! I've got a bridge to Brooklyn I'd like to sell you. ~:)
First there is only one god according to each religion.
A Christian prays and will get some things and not get them - but so too will a Muslim.
Muslims are convinced 100% that they are 100% right and they're God grants them their wishes through prayer. Indeed, so convinced are they that they pray many times a day.
Christians believe the same - and the other 100+ religions believe the same.
Put yourself in the non-believers shoes and looking at all of these religions for the first time and you read the EXACT same stories.
My friend was nearing death and the doctors said he was done for - then we prayed to God and a week later he was cured - WOW - that means our God heard the prayer and saved him. Blah blah blah - every religion has these exact same stories. So that either means all the Gods are up there or that their body happened to be misdiagnosed by the doctor and wasn't as severe as thought, or was something entirely different with the same symptoms.
Then there is the old "I was dieing and I saw a white light" routine which has been proven biologically to be an oxygen based lacking in the brain at the optic nerve that creates that light - it's a shared experience because it is biological/medically proven. Further the lack of oxygen to the brain creates hallucinations.
Prayer is a matter of placaebo. In many instances belief can overcome. For instance doctors have used sugar pills and told patients that they were powerful drugs that would take pain away. The belief in the doctor and the belief in the pills made their pain go away - no for everyone but it was illustration that "belief" in something could actually reduce pain.
I don't see why belief in prayer could not do exactly the same thing. So in fact I can see that "belief" in prayer could be beneficial for certain people.
I prayed to God to not make me an Atheist. For some reason He said no.
But then, all studies are flawed. Who's to say that a freak wind or an unknown phenomenon didn't influence Galileo's experiment on the leaning tower of Pisa?
Fortunately, as Einstein said, God is subtle, but He is never malicious. When we have adhered to scientific method, it has so far led us in the right direction, overall. This despite many famous scientific errors, and even the occasional malicious hoax like Piltsdown Man.
I don't think most believers have a genuine desire for objective testing, whether it be of the efficacy of prayer, or of audio. This is true of both sides, in the case of audio: the guys at Hydrogen Audio seem to me as biased as the most hard-core subjectivist. But I don't get the sense that the same thing is true in the case of religion. Believers want to believe, and so they do. All you have to do is look at the fact that religious beliefs differ widely from place to place to see that they're mostly fiction, accepted as truth. Unlike many atheists, I don't actually believe that religion is without benefit, or truth. It's just that religious truths are moral truths (as understood by a given society) that are represented symbolically, in the language of the subconcious, rather than literal ones. Religion is a tool for the social control of behavior, and it has been a crucially important and successful one.
"Religious dogma, based on faith, is NOT subject to change."
Now that is an illusion. Who is your authority for that assertion?
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"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
just listen to the tea party fools who claim that the bible (really, just the JEWISH old testament) is 100% accurate and it's truths are unchanging. WHERE have you been living for the last 30 + years?
Well, I have a passing interest in the history of religions, and certainly do not take fundamentalism as the paradigm for religion.
But of course, fundamentalism is a relatively new phenomenon--in Christianity, anyway.
But let's face it, all religions have histories, and have changed over time.
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"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
The Catholic church, like all fundamentalist religions that I know of, claims that it is infallible in many crucial beliefs and rituals. IMO, there is no more reason to believe in any religion as there is a reason to believe in the tooth fairy or the flying spaghetti monster. And, NO, an atheist's view that there is no god, is NOT based on faith. Like all beliefs, it's based on experience, and is subject to change given new experience. As Bill Maher, an atheist, puts it: I don't believe in Jesus Christ, but if he came down and started performing miracles, then I would say: "look, there is Jesus, and he is performing miracles. WOW! I was clearly wrong, and I now believe." If religions did not try to impose their "infallible" views on the rest of us, I would not care what nonsense they believed in. Unfortunately, the history of man is filled with many disasters that religions have caused.
Religions are dragged forward by secular society. Take gay rights which is occurring now. Religions basically are being PUSHED to do the right thing as they were pushed to give women the vote and African Americans equality. They are pushed by non religious (largely Atheists or those who consider themselves non-religious) to follow a more tolerant path.
I just met an Anglican priest on the ferry the other day - not only was she a she but she is a Lesbian and not just a Lesbian but a married Lesbian.
So the Anglican church seems to have re-evaluated some things. Then again why not - it's about money collecting so if you open up to the gays that's a whopping 5-10% of the world population you can market your church to.
Guys like Dawkins couldn't care less what people believe in. The problem he had and others is when people are killing people in the name of their God when there is no evidence. The thinking is that if you stop their "wrong" and "un-proven" belief system then maybe they won't fly plane's into building in the hope that they will get 72 virgins for doing so.
If those guys were not so totally convinced by getting 72 virgins and being in God's good books and they were taught to believe in stuff that could be proved then those towers would still be there and the religious nutter retaliation that followed would not have followed and the entire war would not have started and tens of thousands of people would be alive and arguably the financial state of the US and the rest of the world would be FAR better and people would still have their homes.
All because people are believing in something that has absolute no basis to be believed in any way shape or form - not remotely.
It's like the cable debate but people argue to the death that spending $2,000 on a cable is stupid when evidence illustrates it sounds no different than $5 cables - but so what - the worst that someone spending the $2k cables on will do to the world is umm "help the economy."
Believing you get 72 virgins in death or that God has a plan for you (so if you kill 50 people - it's not my fault it was God's plan for me to kill 50 people) is just slightly more important than the guy who spent $2k on cables (and at least he is happy in his belief and hasn't killed anyone).
Ultimately the problem with all religions is that they demand supreme acceptance of their "truth" and then discount everyone else's religion as being WRONG.
So one guy with zero proof will rip the other guy with zero proof. And no on this forum they're trying to rip science which is the only thing that actually has any evidence whatsoever.
As a non believer I am asked to not believe Scientology because it's Craaaazy - I am asked not to believe in Mormonism because it's Caraaazy
But I am asked to believe in Christianity because it's
"The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree."
Yes that's not caraaaazy? I am supposed to throw all science under the bus and believe the above? Yeah ok.
Infallibility implies a certain unchangeability in doctrine, and in many cases, this has been very difficult to prove historically.
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"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
"Kindly explain to us how seeing the sun rise myriads of times gives any logical reason at all for supposing it will rise tomorrow?"
It doesn't. (That's Hume's point.) One more time: Hume’s position is that no finite number of observations, no matter how large, can be used to derive an (unrestricted general conclusion that is logically defensible).
"Isn't the belief it will simply a result of a custom or habit of our minds?"
Precisely. Just as I highlighted with the example of the little girl and her uncle observing a ball bounce. Actually, Hume's famous example involves billiard balls.
How could an infinite number of observations of the sun rising prove that it would rise tomorrow? How "can [they] be used to derive an (unrestricted general conclusion that is logically defensible)?"
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"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
Many think that Kant answered Hume's objections. I tend to side with Hume and his generally skeptical views. However, even Hume admitted that, IN PRACTICE (you know, in the actual decisions we make in daily life), we DO act as if cause and effect was a law of nature. Yes, scientific laws are only good until they are disproven. Religious belief remains "true" even if disproven!!!
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