The Futility of Religion Debates

[global-wolf]

The question of the existence of a god is a topic that comes up repeatedly in the debate hall and proving grounds, and the outcome is the same each time: no side wins over the other, because both sides are based on FAITH. Theists have faith that a god exists, and atheists have faith that there is no god. There is no concrete evidence to support either side, and religion debates always boil down to the unshakable beliefs of the participants.



I would also like to say that the teachings of religious documents (or any sources of religious doctrine) are invalid arguments in debates, because many people are not part of whatever religion the document is from.

 

[Theftz22]

There is no concrete evidence to support either side, and religion debates always boil down to the unshakable beliefs of the participants.

Care to substantiate that massive claim?

 

[Skadorski]

I agree it's impossible for debates around the existence of a god cannot be won.
However, some interesting and insightful points may come up in them that may help (or hurt) the evidence of a religion or belief system.

I would also like to say that the teachings of religious documents (or any sources of religious doctrine) are invalid arguments in debates, because many people are not part of whatever religion the document is from.

I agree with this as long as the debate isn't looking at something from that side. What I mean is, if you were to follow the train of thought of said document (such as the literal translation of the bible).
That is, if that's what you mean.

 

[global-wolf]

Care to substantiate that massive claim?

Care to provide concrete evidence to support either side? Any gods that might exist do not come out and tell us, and if they are hiding themselves from us, we would not know.

My evidence is any religion debate that has ever existed. The debaters's stances pretty much never change.

I agree it's impossible for debates around the existence of a god cannot be won.
However, some interesting and insightful points may come up in them that may help (or hurt) the evidence of a religion or belief system.

Point taken. Though even opposing evidence will not convert a believer.

I agree with this as long as the debate isn't looking at something from that side. What I mean is, if you were to follow the train of thought of said document (such as the literal translation of the bible).
That is, if that's what you mean.

Yeah, I meant that only for topics not directly relating to religion. (if that's what you're asking lol)

 

[Sucumbio]

The question of the existence of a god is a topic that comes up repeatedly in the debate hall and proving grounds, and the outcome is the same each time: no side wins over the other, because both sides are based on FAITH. Theists have faith that a god exists, and atheists have faith that there is no god. There is no concrete evidence to support either side, and religion debates always boil down to the unshakable beliefs of the participants.

Though I tend to agree I will posit that in fact Atheists do not use faith at all, but instead build their entire world-view upon empiricism, which is the opposite of faith. Therefore the argument may follow that while the believer requires faith, the non-believer requires themselves to be faithless.

I would also like to say that the teachings of religious documents (or any sources of religious doctrine) are invalid arguments in debates, because many people are not part of whatever religion the document is from.

I think the source of a citation can be legitimate, regardless of whether or not it also happens to double as a religious text.

For instance: if the debate at hand is "stealing is bad, agree or disagree" it follows that one may cite the Ten Commandments as having taught "thou shalt not steal" from an early point in history so as to prove that a precedent for theft being wrong has been established and therefore is the correct way of thinking.

Or if trying to understand the caste system in India, one cites from the Rigveda a passage about prominence or prosperity.

While I think you would not have missed this as obvious, I would believe what you're saying is that in arguments about God, one should refrain from using sources that are biased towards a specific faith. The difficulty is that arguments about God focus typically on a Judeo-Christian God, and more importantly, the framework of the argument typically encompasses details and so forth that only really apply to said God.

Just about the only debate that I see often on forums that does NOT conform to this pattern is the debate on whether or not "some god" was the "first cause" of the Universe. In this respect, it need not necessarily be THE God that everyone normally is thinking of when making arguments, because it is intrinsically a minimalist debate, attempting to narrow down possibilities - truly, shrinking the Universe backwards through time in size and scope, to it's original "singular" origin, and so it becomes easier to conceive of this frame by eliminating Christian or other concepts that can cloud the issue, and simply speak towards whether or not a entity of some kind did in fact start everything or did they not.

 

[AltF4]

While it's very unlikely to have one side instantly convert the other in the course of a debate, there are plenty of other people watching it. And those people do get swayed by good arguments. I can tell you personally that I get PMs from people on the boards that particularly liked things that I've written, or to let me know that I changed their minds. About every issue, not just religion.

So no, I don't think it's futile at all.

 

[global-wolf]

Though I tend to agree I will posit that in fact Atheists do not use faith at all, but instead build their entire world-view upon empiricism, which is the opposite of faith. Therefore the argument may follow that while the believer requires faith, the non-believer requires themselves to be faithless.

While empiricism does not recognize faith as a source of knowledge, the belief that empiricism is the correct view of the world- that knowledge cannot come from unobservable sources- is in itself a faith. Empiricists must have faith that only evidence that can be sensed can be true sources of knowledge.

I think the source of a citation can be legitimate, regardless of whether or not it also happens to double as a religious text.

For instance: if the debate at hand is "stealing is bad, agree or disagree" it follows that one may cite the Ten Commandments as having taught "thou shalt not steal" from an early point in history so as to prove that a precedent for theft being wrong has been established and therefore is the correct way of thinking.

Or if trying to understand the caste system in India, one cites from the Rigveda a passage about prominence or prosperity.

While I think you would not have missed this as obvious, I would believe what you're saying is that in arguments about God, one should refrain from using sources that are biased towards a specific faith. The difficulty is that arguments about God focus typically on a Judeo-Christian God, and more importantly, the framework of the argument typically encompasses details and so forth that only really apply to said God.

I do believe that religious texts can be cited as explanations for the behavior of cultures, such as in your India example. However, I don't believe that precedents set from old religious texts can be used in a current issue: for example, the argument that gay marriage should be outlawed because the bible condemns sodomy. In my sentence I am also assuming that the debate is not about a god, because I said in my previous paragraph that god debates are bad. I don't think I explained my point very well, I apologize. I think Red Savarin pointed out something similar in an above post.

Just about the only debate that I see often on forums that does NOT conform to this pattern is the debate on whether or not "some god" was the "first cause" of the Universe. In this respect, it need not necessarily be THE God that everyone normally is thinking of when making arguments, because it is intrinsically a minimalist debate, attempting to narrow down possibilities - truly, shrinking the Universe backwards through time in size and scope, to it's original "singular" origin, and so it becomes easier to conceive of this frame by eliminating Christian or other concepts that can cloud the issue, and simply speak towards whether or not a entity of some kind did in fact start everything or did they not.

Even that debate is based on faith; no side has proof of their side being correct. Though in light of the post after yours, I think that debate probably serves a purpose.

While it's very unlikely to have one side instantly convert the other in the course of a debate, there are plenty of other people watching it. And those people do get swayed by good arguments. I can tell you personally that I get PMs from people on the boards that particularly liked things that I've written, or to let me know that I changed their minds. About every issue, not just religion.

So no, I don't think it's futile at all.

If that is true then I have nothing to say.

 

[Theftz22]

Care to provide concrete evidence to support either side?

Not at the current time at least, you were the one who made the claim. You are the one who must support it.

Any gods that might exist do not come out and tell us, and if they are hiding themselves from us, we would not know.

Your key presupposition here is that if a god does not explicitly tell us that he exists, then we could not know that he exists. But of course that just seems to be false, it's entirely possible for a god to exist and make his existence completely evident without "telling" us that he exists. Maybe by "coming out and telling" us you really just mean providing evidence for his existence. But in that case your statement here is merely a restatement of your prior claim with no further support.

My evidence is any religion debate that has ever existed. The debaters's stances pretty much never change.

Now I know that the people around here don't think too highly of William Lane Craig, but the "testimonial" section of his website is the quickest and easiest place to find evidence to refute this claim, unless you maintain that they are all lying. I apologize for the almost worshipful tone of the following quotes:

When I was in my early teens I struggled with my belief in God, as I never had any good arguments for believing in him; I had, as you said in ‘Reasonable Faith’, a superficial type of belief, but I kept my doubts at bay. The turning point was when, for the first time in my very short life (I was seventeen at the time), someone I loved deeply, died: My Grandfather. All of the doubts that were kept at the back of my mind, were brought to the fore, and I felt a need to have my questions answered.

I came across Dawkin’s, Hitchen’s, and Dennette’s debates online. None of their opponents put up a good fight, and so I found myself leaning on Atheists’ side of the argument. Looking back, I think the death of my Grandfather actually made me quite angry and bitter at life, and I was finding reasons to justify my emotions. I then read Dawkin’s book ‘’The God Delusion’’, and was even more convinced. I was adamant that God did not exist.

As I was perusing the various videos on youtube, I found a debate where Christopher Hitchens was debating you and about five other Theists. I can’t remember what event this was. At the end of the debate I had heard a brief overview of some good reasons to believe in God, and Hitchen’s hadn’t been able to refute any of them. I was stunned! What I thought was a closed book, was re-opened, and I felt rationally compelled to scrutinize my own beliefs.

As I type this, I have watched at least fourteen of your debates, and have been thoroughly convinced of your arguments.

Just wanted to give you a very heartfelt thanks for all you do. Your book, Reasonable Faith, was the catalyst on my journey towards becoming a true Christian. During my first semester of college I took a class on the New Testament, thinking it would be nice to see these books from a purely historical perspective. The textbook we used was written by Bart Ehrman, whom I did not know of at the time. Needless to say, as the semester progressed, my faith became smaller and smaller. I frantically searched for answers for around nine months, but I didn't know where to look. One day I happened across one of your debates on YouTube. I had never seen someone stand up for Christianity with such forceful logic and precision, it was a welcomed relief to say the least. To make a long story short, I have completely turned my spiritual life around to the point where I run a small blog defending Christianity (something I never would have dreamt of before). I now know why I believe the things I believe, which is priceless. There is no doubt that it was the Lord who took me through this journey, but your ministry was the tool He used. I'm sure my story is mirrored in so many other college students who go through this every year, especially in this increasingly secularized environment. You truly are a light in the darkness.

 

[global-wolf]

Not at the current time at least, you were the one who made the claim. You are the one who must support it.

And I did.

Your key presupposition here is that if a god does not explicitly tell us that he exists, then we could not know that he exists. But of course that just seems to be false, it's entirely possible for a god to exist and make his existence completely evident without "telling" us that he exists. Maybe by "coming out and telling" us you really just mean providing evidence for his existence. But in that case your statement here is merely a restatement of your prior claim with no further support.

At the current moment, any gods that could exist are not making their existence completely evident. I did suppose that the only way we could know for sure if a god existed is if it came out and told us; at the moment, there is no evidence presented by humans that proves whether a god exists or not.

Now I know that the people around here don't think too highly of William Lane Craig, but the "testimonial" section of his website is the quickest and easiest place to find evidence to refute this claim, unless you maintain that they are all lying. I apologize for the almost worshipful tone of the following quotes:

I did say debaters, not spectators. But AltF4 already refuted my claim.

 

[Theftz22]

And I did.



At the current moment, any gods that could exist are not making their existence completely evident. I did suppose that the only way we could know for sure if a god existed is if it came out and told us; at the moment, there is no evidence presented by humans that proves whether a god exists or not.]

I'm not asking you to elaborate on what you mean by the claim, I'm asking you to back it up. You've made the claim that there is no evidence for or against the existence of any god. You've got a lot of arguments to refute.

 

[global-wolf]

I'm not asking you to elaborate on what you mean by the claim, I'm asking you to back it up. You've made the claim that there is no evidence for or against the existence of any god. You've got a lot of arguments to refute.

I didn't claim that there was no evidence for or against the existence of any god. I claimed that the evidence provided by either side is not enough to prove that one side is right. Would you ask me now to prove that the evidence is insufficient? I say that the question of the existence of a god, in the light of newer science, has been reduced to the question of the origins of some aspect of the world. In the debates I have read, theists generally say that something could not have sprung out from nothing and that a god has to have created it, while atheists say that something has to have created the god. But regardless of which one of these ideas is actually true (or neither,) we weren't actually around- and there is no lingering evidence that proves either idea, and this is the reason for my claim.

 

[Dre89]

The only people who think religion debates are futile and that it's all about faith are people who aren't educated in philosophy or religion or metaphysics.

No one who has read any sophisticated literature on it could say it's based on faith. Even intelligent theists don't base their beliefs on faith.

 

[Orboknown]

And here comes Dre to the rescue in his inimitable fashion.

The question of the existence of a god is a topic that comes up repeatedly in the debate hall and proving grounds, and the outcome is the same each time: no side wins over the other, because both sides are based on FAITH. Theists have faith that a god exists, and atheists have faith that there is no god. There is no concrete evidence to support either side, and religion debates always boil down to the unshakable beliefs of the participants.

The thing is, Debates aren't about convincing one side or the other what is right or wrong. They are about making one rethink their convictions in light of the opposing argument.

I would also like to say that the teachings of religious documents (or any sources of religious doctrine) are invalid arguments in debates, because many people are not part of whatever religion the document is from.

So the bible cannot be used to back up claims for Christianity? Or the Torah for Judaism? Or the Qur'an for Islam?

 

[global-wolf]

The only people who think religion debates are futile and that it's all about faith are people who aren't educated in philosophy or religion or metaphysics.

No one who has read any sophisticated literature on it could say it's based on faith. Even intelligent theists don't base their beliefs on faith.

What sort of knowledge do people gain through studying philosophy, religion, or metaphysics, or reading sophisticated literature, that convinces all of them that religious beliefs aren't based on faith? I'm not educated in any of those subjects, so please explain.

And here comes Dre to the rescue in his inimitable fashion. The thing is, Debates aren't about convincing one side or the other what is right or wrong. They are about making one rethink their convictions in light of the opposing argument.

My overall message in the OP was to state that people's convictions won't be changed, but it has already been brought up twice that I was incorrect on that point.

I do believe that religious texts can be cited as explanations for the behavior of cultures, such as in your India example. However, I don't believe that precedents set from old religious texts can be used in a current issue: for example, the argument that gay marriage should be outlawed because the bible condemns sodomy. In my sentence I am also assuming that the debate is not about a god, because I said in my previous paragraph that god debates are bad. I don't think I explained my point very well, I apologize. I think Red Savarin pointed out something similar in an above post.

[/collapse]
Basically, religious texts can be used for debates within a religion, but they should not be used in debates where the topic is not an issue that directly relates to religion.

 

[Orboknown]

Basically, religious texts can be used for debates within a religion, but they should not be used in debates where the topic is not an issue that directly relates to religion.

well the question of the exxistence if god is either a theological/religious or a mythological/philisophical argument. correct if im wrong tho.

 

[global-wolf]

well the question of the exxistence if god is either a theological/religious or a mythological/philisophical argument. correct if im wrong tho.

I don't know what category that would go in lol. I'm also not sure what your post meant, but if it was to question what I thought about using religious texts as evidence for or against the existence of a god, then I don't think they should be. For example, in a debate between a Christian theist and an atheist, the theist could say that because the bible said there was a god, there definitely exists a god. That argument should not have any merit in the minds of people who do not believe in the events of the bible, and is then weightless and annoying (for me anyway.)

 

[Orboknown]

I don't know what category that would go in lol. I'm also not sure what your post meant, but if it was to question what I thought about using religious texts as evidence for or against the existence of a god, then I don't think they should be. For example, in a debate between a Christian theist and an atheist, the theist could say that because the bible said there was a god, there definitely exists a god. That argument should not have any merit in the minds of people who do not believe in the events of the bible, and is then weightless and annoying (for me anyway.)

I can agree with the later part.the faithful vs "nonbelievers" you would need evidence that the other side will accept.
However, you would also consider the argument between two sects of christianity where the bible is basically accepted by both sides of that argument.

 

[global-wolf]

I can agree with the later part.the faithful vs "nonbelievers" you would need evidence that the other side will accept.
However, you would also consider the argument between two sects of christianity where the bible is basically accepted by both sides of that argument.

I would consider that debate as being within a religion, and religious texts are valid sources.

 

[Orboknown]

very well, i can think of no other point then:/ unless you raise something different, ill wait for someone elses input here.

 

[Theftz22]

I didn't claim that there was no evidence for or against the existence of any god. I claimed that the evidence provided by either side is not enough to prove that one side is right.

There is no concrete evidence to support either side

...

Would you ask me now to prove that the evidence is insufficient? I say that the question of the existence of a god, in the light of newer science, has been reduced to the question of the origins of some aspect of the world. In the debates I have read, theists generally say that something could not have sprung out from nothing and that a god has to have created it, while atheists say that something has to have created the god. But regardless of which one of these ideas is actually true (or neither,) we weren't actually around- and there is no lingering evidence that proves either idea, and this is the reason for my claim.

You seem to be referring to the kalam argument. While it is one of the most popular arguments, particularly online, it's certainly not the only one. On the theist side you still have to deal with:

-The Contingency (or Leibnizian) Cosmological Argument
-Fine Tuning Argument
-Moral Argument
-Argument from Consciousness
-Argument from the Resurrection
-Argument from Religious Experience
-Ontological Argument

And on the atheist side you have:

-Argument from Evil
-Argument from Non-Belief
-Impossibility Arguments

As for your "objection" to the kalam, your supposed atheist objection is a rather poor one, as god is typically conceived of as a logically necessary being, such that by definition he couldn't be created. As to whether the theistic side is lacking in evidence, I think so, but it's not as though you've provided any reason to think so.

 

[global-wolf]

...

I don't know what part of what I said that you didn't understand? I meant "concrete" as evidence not based on conjecture.

You seem to be referring to the kalam argument. While it is one of the most popular arguments, particularly online, it's certainly not the only one. On the theist side you still have to deal with:

-The Contingency (or Leibnizian) Cosmological Argument
-Fine Tuning Argument
-Moral Argument
-Argument from Consciousness
-Argument from the Resurrection
-Argument from Religious Experience
-Ontological Argument

And on the atheist side you have:

-Argument from Evil
-Argument from Non-Belief
-Impossibility Arguments

As for your "objection" to the kalam, your supposed atheist objection is a rather poor one, as god is typically conceived of as a logically necessary being, such that by definition he couldn't be created. As to whether the theistic side is lacking in evidence, I think so, but it's not as though you've provided any reason to think so.

I have not heard of those arguments, or at least not any of their names. I'm not very well-read on all the religious arguments, but is there one that provides proof?

 

[Dre89]

GW, I think what you need to understand is the distinction between theology and philosophy of religion. By the sounds of it, you haven't heard of philosophy of religion.

Theology is basically the doctrine of a religion. So things like the Fall of humanity, and Jesus coming down to save us are theological teachings. Theology assumes that the religion is true.

Preaching is basically the art of moulding theology with psychological tricks to motivate believers, or to make the religion appealing to non-believers who don't understand the psychological tricks.

Philosophy of religion is basically the philosophical enquiry into God and religion. It doesn't assume any religion is true, but rather uses logical reasoning to either prove or disprove God or religions. Because it goes both ways, there are atheist philosophers of religion.

People who use PoR to defend God are called apologetics.

A debate between an intelligent atheist and theist will be a debate of PoR.

The problem is, like 95% of religious people (usually the ones who were raised in religious families) don't know what PoR is, and think that just spouting theology somehow defends of proves their faith.

It's contagious. Seeing as atheist arguments are generally reactions to theist arguments, bad theism breeds bad atheism. That's why people like Richard Dawkins are so popular amongst people uneducated in PoR, yet he's despised by educated people, even atheists.

 

[global-wolf]

GW, I think what you need to understand is the distinction between theology and philosophy of religion. By the sounds of it, you haven't heard of philosophy of religion.

Theology is basically the doctrine of a religion. So things like the Fall of humanity, and Jesus coming down to save us are theological teachings. Theology assumes that the religion is true.

Preaching is basically the art of moulding theology with psychological tricks to motivate believers, or to make the religion appealing to non-believers who don't understand the psychological tricks.

Philosophy of religion is basically the philosophical enquiry into God and religion. It doesn't assume any religion is true, but rather uses logical reasoning to either prove or disprove God or religions. Because it goes both ways, there are atheist philosophers of religion.

People who use PoR to defend God are called apologetics.

A debate between an intelligent atheist and theist will be a debate of PoR.

The problem is, like 95% of religious people (usually the ones who were raised in religious families) don't know what PoR is, and think that just spouting theology somehow defends of proves their faith.

It's contagious. Seeing as atheist arguments are generally reactions to theist arguments, bad theism breeds bad atheism. That's why people like Richard Dawkins are so popular amongst people uneducated in PoR, yet he's despised by educated people, even atheists.

Perhaps I don't have a good idea of what philosophy of religion is. I just read a little bit about it on wikipedia and it's not quite like what I thought it was. Looking back, the religious arguments I remember seem to be based more on theology.

I still think the support of any philosophy takes faith. However, religion seems like a better debate topic to me now (if theological/bad reasoning isn't used, and I still wish people would just avoid the topic. asdf)

 

[Dre89]

The support of any belief takes philosophy, in the sense that any belief requires reason. Things like science are based off philosophical assumptions, such as other minds existing, inductive logic being a good way to conclude truths, that the world is contingent etc. It's just that these truths are self-evident so they're rarely contested by anyone.

You could say that even basic philosophical assumptions require faith, in that you can't use reason to prove that reason is valid. But then of course if the statement 'reason is based on faith' is true, then that statement itself is logically valid, meaning that too is a statement of reason.

 

[Aesir]

The support of any belief takes philosophy, in the sense that any belief requires reason. Things like science are based off philosophical assumptions, such as other minds existing, inductive logic being a good way to conclude truths, that the world is contingent etc. It's just that these truths are self-evident so they're rarely contested by anyone.

You could say that even basic philosophical assumptions require faith, in that you can't use reason to prove that reason is valid. But then of course if the statement 'reason is based on faith' is true, then that statement itself is logically valid, meaning that too is a statement of reason.

Just cutting in to say this, so would you argue there are certain degree's of faith? IE faith that the sun will rise as opposed to faith elves living in my closet? (I know how obscure that sounds but humor me.)

 

[Dre89]

Yeah I'd argue there's certain degrees of faith.

When it comes to a belief, faith basically fills in the gap left by reasoning. The beliefs that are more reasonable require less faith because reason fills up more of the jar. That's why believing the sun will rise tomorrow requires less faith than the belief that I can walk through walls.

This is also why the idea of coming to religious belief through faith is erroneous, because it suggests one can remove reasoning from the belief, which is impossible. If that were the case, it would technically be less reasonable to believe in a religion than to believe I can fly to the moon.

 

[rvkevin]

When it comes to a belief, faith basically fills in the gap left by reasoning.

This is nonsensical to me. We say that we are highly confident that the sun will rise tomorrow. We are highly confident this ticket won't win the lottery. These statements portray confidence intervals that are determined by strict mathematical rules. A confidence level does not leave a gap of reason that can be filled in with anything. At most, you can say that any outcome with a probability other than zero can give someone hope, but this doesn't have anything to do with a gap left by reason. Given this, what do you mean when you use the term "faith"?

 

[Dre89]

What I mean is that we can't know anything with absolute certainity, particularly inductive propositions. It's conceivable that the sun may not rise tomorrow, but the probability of that occuring is so minute the belief that it will rise requires very little faith.

We never talk about having faith in these things because the faith element is so minute it's virtually non-existant. We do talk about faith with regards to religion because in some instances faith is perceived to be one of, or the dominant factor.

Does that clear it up?

 

[rvkevin]

What I mean is that we can't know anything with absolute certainity, particularly inductive propositions. It's conceivable that the sun may not rise tomorrow, but the probability of that occurring is so minute the belief that it will rise requires very little faith.

Does that clear it up?

No, I still don't see how this at all could be called faith. Let's say we are flipping fair coins. I can accurately say that I am 50% confident that the coin will land on heads. According to you, this statement requires a lot of faith since there is a relatively large chance that it won't land on heads. However, the statement includes the fact that it will be wrong 50% of the time. It is based solely on reason, there is no "gap" present. I don't understand what meaning of faith could be in such a situation. To me, seems like a completely new definition of faith that I can't find in a dictionary.

 

[Dre89]

That's a good point.

I guess I meant when you are asserting a positive truth in the world, like an empirical or metaphysical fact.

What you're doing is describing a law, like saying that a bachelor can't be married.

 

[rvkevin]

That's a good point.

I guess I meant when you are asserting a positive truth in the world, like an empirical or metaphysical fact.

What you're doing is describing a law, like saying that a bachelor can't be married.

But the statement about the coin is a truth statement about the world, specifically about the coin. I am saying that 50% of the time the coin will land heads and 50% of the time the coin will land tails. This could be true or false, but our understanding of it is empirical in nature and requires no faith. Perhaps the coin example is too sterilized. Lets say you are given a die and are asked to figure out its probability distribution. You don't know if this is a fair die or if it has been loaded. You can then go through the same analysis as you can do with the coin and determine the probability distribution within a certain degree of accuracy (depending on the amount of trials you run). This is done with mathematical precision so there is no room left for "faith". The same could be applied to the sun example, except that the trials are a lot harder to record.

 

[Dre89]

The sun example is different because you are saying that the sun will actually rise, and the amount of faith required depends on the probability of it rising.

It would be similar to your other examples if the proposition was 'The sun has an X% chance of rising tomorrow'.

That's essentially why your examples are exempt from my definition, because faith technically is about expectation and probability. The amount of faith required correlates to the probability of the event occuring.

So your examples are in a different category because they are actually stating the probabilities.

Saying "I believe the coin will land on heads" and having 50% faith in that proposition isn't much different to your coin example, because by mentioning the probability, the only significant difference is that you're stating your degree of faith of that event occruing in the proposition.


More importantly, faith only applies when you commit to one event occuring (eg. the coin landing on heads) over others, whereas the coin example depicts two hypothetical conflicting events occuring.

 

[GofG]

This is the empirical, decision-theory bayesian way to solve this problem. The only axiom we need to have is "the more evidence there is for a theory, the larger the probability for that theory being true". Start from scratch:

Consider a hypothetical space containing all of the (infinite) possible theories which explain why the world is the way that it is. Each of these theories has equal (and infinitesimally small) probability. Similar theories are closer together; dissimilar theories are farther apart.

If we have the theory, "The universe is the way that it is because a race of technologically superior beings are running an emulated universe with the variables for the laws of physics tuned to be ours", and then discovered that at the sub-quark level the wave-particles have little serial numbers which say "This discrete particle #(3^^^3)-27 is property of Emulation Softhardware, Inc, to be used in Universe Emulator #918298172, by the Bijnak race in their experiment on how sentient life evolves in a universe where the laws of physics are such: [very accurate description of how reality works]", then this evidence would increase the probability of our theory heavily, and decrease the probability of almost every other theory. This transfer of probability is lossless: the total probability of all theories will always be 1.

Before we had that evidence, though, could we have evaluated our theory? Technically, yes, we could have compared its slightly-above-zero probability with the slightly-above-zero probability of every other theory, but this math is beyond us from a computational standpoint. Not only that, but the human brain has several adaptations which aided us strongly in reproducing in the ancestral environment which makes thinking about theories in this way very, very difficult, and any product of such thinking is highly dubious.

---

I have to deviate from the topic to explain, in a very technical manner, the phenomenon of positive reinforcement bias. The following is an experiment conducted on a group of students. They were told a string of three numbers, "2, 4, 6", and told that there was some hidden rule by which such strings of three numbers were generated. They could write their own strings of 3 numbers down, and get feedback on whether or not their string conformed to the rule. They were then to guess the rule.

Here is how one student's thinking went:

1. 4, 6, 2 --- Testing 'string is digits 2, 4, 6, at random' --- NO
2. 4, 6, 8 --- Testing 'string is n, n+2, n+4' --- YES
3. 6, 8, 10 --- Testing 'string is n, n+2, n+4' --- YES
4. 21, 23, 25 --- Testing 'string is n, n+2, n+4' --- YES

At which point the student declared the rule to be 'string is n, n+2, n+4'. Sounds logical, right?

The actual rule was 'string is in ascending order'. The student only ever made tests which would come out positive if their theory is correct, and negative if their theory is not correct. This is positive reinforcement bias.

The first test reduced the probability of 'string is random 2,4,6' (and all theories which allowed 4,6,2 as a string) to 0, and split the probability it had before up between all probabilities which did not allow 4,6,2 as a string (including 'string is n,n+2,n+4', along with many other billions of theories). Each of these theories gained a very small amount of probability. The next two tests probably ruled out *some* theories (for instance, the theory of 'strings can only be 2,4,6' or the theory of 'strings are 3 random even numbers'), and the selected theory of 'n,n+2,n+4' did gain some probability, but not much. And every time 'n,n+2,n+4' gained probability, so did 'ascending order', such that they both had equal probability and more testing was needed to distinguish between them. But because the student didn't even think of 'ascending order', he didn't realize this. He had already.... privileged the hypothesis. A superhuman thinking machine would be able to think of all of the possibilities, and would have noticed that all of the tests ran promoted many, many hypotheses, not just the selected hypothesis, and continued running experiments. But as humans, we are unable to do this, and we should not try.

---

So when we take into account our new evidence of the serial numbers on the sub-quark particles, this takes all the probability from ALL hypotheses which can be tagged with 'non-intelligent designer' and moves it to ALL hypotheses which can be tagged with 'intelligent designer'. (Hypotheses which have statements such as 'evidence of intelligence is likely to be randomly, not intelligently, generated' remain unaffected either way). A larger chunk of probability goes to theories which talk about an emulated universe. The theories which could have predicted in advanced the exact wording of the serial number's disclaimer get the largest chunk of probability.

Now let's connect this to positive reinforcement bias. Confirmation bias is the phenomenon of humans only looking at evidence which supports the selected hypothesis; do not confuse this for positive reinforcement bias, which is that even a human who is being completely impartial towards a selected hypothesis will still tend to perform experiments in which a positive outcome affirms the hypothesis and a negative outcome opposes the hypothesis, and we don't throw the hypothesis out until an experiment which should have come out 'yes' comes out 'no'. The problem with this is, it tends to have a narrowing effect on our field-of-vision of the possible hypotheses. When we find some evidence which supports the hypothesis, we zoom-in closer on that hypothesis without noticing if the evidence supports other hypotheses which we are panning our camera away from.

Experiments of the other variety, for instance testing the hypothesis 'n,n+2,n+4' with '9,5,6' and getting an affirmative 'no', tend to have a broadening effect on our field-of-vision. We are MUCH more likely to find evidence which, rather than affirming our current hypothesis, affirms other hypotheses without hurting our current hypothesis.

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Now it's time to talk about Christianity.

• There isn't nearly enough evidence to locate Christianity in the space of all hypotheses. A single book riddled with errors, supported by a mountain of positive reinforcement bias, is not good enough.
• When Christians are presented with evidence which opposes their particular selected hypothesis in the Christianity neighborhood of hypotheses, they switch to a nearby hypothesis which was carefully constructed to avoid losing any probability over the new evidence. No additional probability is given to this new hypothesis, because there is no opposing hypothesis for the probability to come from, and we have Conservation of Probability (it always has to total up to 1, you can't make it out of nothing).
• In order for Christians to actually get evidence for their beliefs which moves probability from other hypotheses into theirs, they must take a prediction about reality that their hypothesis makes (such as the Rapture) which other hypotheses do not make, and see if it comes true, and if it does then some probability gets moved out of the theories which did not predict the Rapture and into the theories that did. Retroactively fitting Christianity (shuffling around theory-space) to match the experimental outcome of previous tests does not count.
• Atheism is similar. It is impossible to get hard evidence for the non-existence of something, that is, evidence which will move a significantly large amount of probability from the collection of theories 'x exists, and [excuse] for why [evidence] seems to say otherwise' to the theory 'x does not exist'.

Nothing to do with faith. This is how reality works. Period. Any discussions of the veracity of religion really aught to be conducted in this context.

I will write generalized bayes' law representations of all of the theoretical calculations in this post on request. Also, expect more clarification and more writing of a similar nature when I get my pink name.

further reading:

• Positive Reinforcement Bias
• God of the Gaps
• Privileging the Hypothesis
• Locating the Hypothesis

Disclaimer: I made this post after seeing the phrase "insufficient evidence" used subjectively. Insufficient evidence is a very, very well-defined term. It doesn't mean, "I'd like more evidence before I personally believe this". It means "There is not enough evidence to believe this", and the amount of evidence required is empirical and well-defined.

 

[GofG]

On evidence:

When in the context of a single hypothesis, there are four kinds of evidence we might come across.

• Hard evidence for: Our hypothesis makes a prediction, prediction comes true
• Soft evidence for: Our hypothesis does not make a prediction, prediction does not come true
• Hard evidence against: Our hypothesis makes a prediction, opposite comes true
• Soft evidence against: A competing hypothesis makes a prediction which comes true which our hypothesis did not make.

Due to the nature of anti-religious beliefs, it is impossible to get hard evidence FOR atheism which is also hard evidence AGAINST religion, since religion is so vague a concept that it can be used to explain almost any outcome of any experiment. Most people give up here and say, "religion is nonfalsifiable! the argument is useless!" but they are wrong.

edit: all this nonsense about philosophy of religion is useless. bring it down a level, decompartmentalize religion from any other hypothesis, and just do the bayesian math.

 

[Dre89]

Soz but this doesn't work for philosophy of religion. The main reason is like most people not educated in it, this only accounts for physical arguments.

A physical argument is based on science, or something particular in the world. An example is the intelligent design argument, if the world had no order whatsoever, that argument wouldn't hold.

Metaphysical arguments for God say that God is necessary for simply anything to exist. So it doesn't matter what exists, as long as something exists God is conditionally necessary, because only God could do it.

Both theists and atheists make positive metaphysical assumptions, none of which are addressed by you. I can explain some of them if you want.

And no, intelligent theists don't resort to claiming religion is non-falisfiable. You should read philosophy of religion before you make straw-mans like that.

 

[BOB SAGET!]

Soz but this doesn't work for philosophy of religion. The main reason is like most people not educated in it, this only accounts for physical arguments.

A physical argument is based on science, or something particular in the world. An example is the intelligent design argument, if the world had no order whatsoever, that argument wouldn't hold.

Metaphysical arguments for God say that God is necessary for simply anything to exist. So it doesn't matter what exists, as long as something exists God is conditionally necessary, because only God could do it.

Both theists and atheists make positive metaphysical assumptions, none of which are addressed by you. I can explain some of them if you want.

And no, intelligent theists don't resort to claiming religion is non-falisfiable. You should read philosophy of religion before you make straw-mans like that.

Athiesm is not a positive positition. It's a lack of belief based on a lack of evidence...

 

[Dre89]

Athiesm is not a positive positition. It's a lack of belief based on a lack of evidence...

You honestly think I've never heard that before?

It's an empirically negative position, because it is a lack of empirical evidence.

However, atheism and theism both make metaphysical assumptions, it's just that most people don't realise it because they're not educated in metaphysics.

Reasonable belief is based on empirical experience, and also necessity. We don't believe in unicorns because they haven't been experienced, and they're not necessary for anything. If we see a person, we may have not experienced their parents, but we know by necessity that their parents must have existed at some point before them.

If you demand empirical evidence for God, then you've deemed him metaphysically unecessary. As I'm about to show, any metaphysical proposition is positive.

It's possible to make an empirically negative proposition. Not believing empirical object X exists is negative, because you don't have to believe something exists in its place.

Metaphysical propositions are always positive, because something is always the first cause (or ultimate reality if you're an infinite regress theorist). Saying "X is not the first cause" is still technically a positive assumption, because you're still saying that something else is, you're just not specifying what.

Regardless of whether you're an atheist or theist, you must beleive one of the following-

The first cause/ultimate reality consists entirely of metaphysically necessary properties.

The first cause/ultimate reality consists of metaphysically necessary properties, but can also have contingent properties.

The first cause/ ultimate reality consists of entirely contingent properties.

Then there's also the distinction between believing the FC/UR must exist as one unified entity (such as a God, or the singularity in big bang theory) or consists of multiple different entities (such as polytheism, or infinite regress theories).

If you believe in the possibility of multiple entities co existing as the FC/UR, then you have to establish whether any of these are self-necessary/metaphysically necessary, or whether the existence of each entity depends on the existence of other entities.

That's just to name a few. You have to select one from every category, all of which are positive.

This is before you even get to physics, or observable phenomena in the world. None of this stuff says any theory of physics is right or wrong, because then it wouldn't be metaphysics.

 

[AltF4]

I fail to see why I must take a stand on these topics, Dre. Especially when it's clear that I don't know the answer with any degree of certainty. Why must I be forced to make a positive claim about something?

It seems perfectly reasonable to defer judgment to a time when we can be more educated about having a real answer. As opposed to jumping to a conclusion simply because we have introduced the problem.

 

[Dre89]

I fail to see why I must take a stand on these topics, Dre. Especially when it's clear that I don't know the answer with any degree of certainty. Why must I be forced to make a positive claim about something?

It seems perfectly reasonable to defer judgment to a time when we can be more educated about having a real answer. As opposed to jumping to a conclusion simply because we have introduced the problem.

No one is saying you have to.

The point is you have, you just haven't realised it. By demanding empirical evidence for God (which I'm pretty sure is your position).

A true agnostic would be literally 50/50 on whether God exists or not, because they would be totally uncertain about God's necessity.

Most people who claim to be negative atheists or agnostics do believe God is not metaphysicaly necessary.

It's nearly impossible to avoid making a positive metaphysical assumption without conscious effort to avoid it, even then it may be impossible.

The classic example are physicists like Laurence Krauss who think that a physics model in which there is no physical first cause somehow removes the need for God. This assumes-

Contingentalism
Multiple enitites co existing as the first cause
I'm not sure whether he believes the most ontologically prior entities (time, space etc.) are self-necessary or not, but one must be chosen.

Remember I'm not saying the physics is wrong. It could be right, and require a God, or it could be right, and someone could justify all the necessary positive metaphysical assumptions for atheism it entails.


And this isn't a multiple choice test. It's not like all the assumptions are equally logically viable. To me, most of them aren't.

For example, if you're a contingentalist who believes in multiple entities co existing as the FC/UR, you have to answer to Plato's Third Man Argument, which basically outlines the fallacy of this metaphysical position. That's just one example.

This is basically what I'm writing my honours thesis on. I'm just as critical of theists as I am of atheists.

 

[AltF4]

I don't quite understand the hang up on a so called "first cause". But I suppose that's a different debate. One I'd rather enjoy having, too, if the thread were to be made.