Atheism's Burden of Proof

[Silmarien]

Based on current evidence, naturalism is the only rationally justifiable position to have.

There are plenty of unexamined issues underlying the idea of a "rationally justifiable position." Does rationality even exist, and if so, what is it and by what grounds is a specific belief rational or irrational? Are we justified in prioritizing rationality at all?

I'm actually at a point where naturalism would not be a rationally justified position at all. It's far too self-serving when it comes to determining which questions are worth asking and which ones must not be breached. If people are happy playing by those rules, so be it. Knock yourselves out, but stop insisting that nobody else is rationally justified--it's a tad bit imperialistic.

The flaw in your argument is that nobody is arguing that we know everything there is to know about the natural world. If we discover something new about the natural world that we didn't know before, that doesn't disprove naturalism, it would be incorporated into it.

Precisely. I don't see how this is a flaw in my argument, since this actually is part of my argument. Anything that can be studied scientifically can be incorporated into a naturalistic worldview. You keep on saying that if we discover supernaturally occurring "supernatural phenomena," we will have disproved naturalism, but you haven't explained how we could even test such things in general.

There's nothing wrong with the fact that naturalism is unfalsifiable. All metaphysical stances are unfalsifiable--they're by definition outside of the reach of science. You can claim that people are only justified in believing things that have been scientifically demonstrated, but that's an ideological stance, not a scientific one.

Occam's razor disagrees with you. We have no reason whatsoever to believe in the supernatural, and we have no reason to believe its existence is required for anything. We know the natural exists, and we know the natural works. You are needlessly and unjustifiably bringing a whole extra realm of existence into the equation for no reason whatsoever.

I would not apply Occam's Razor to metaphysics, since while you would use it to show that it's only rational to believe in the natural world exists, others would use it to argue that it's not rational to believe in the natural world at all. The simplest solution, after all, is probably non-dualism--awareness is all that exists and all of reality as we perceive it is a manifestation. You can write off solipsism as unfalsifiable, but absolute idealists have similar tactics that they can use against you.

I was trying to figure out what you meant by "supernaturalism," because I think these discussions get sidetracked because neither side really understands how the other is using these words. I'm not particularly interested in ghosts, NDEs, ESP, and other traditionally supernatural phenomena, so while I'm probably more agnostic about it than you are, that's really not what I'm thinking of when I question naturalism. I'm mostly thinking about the various strains of Platonism and Aristotelianism, so if you think we have "no reason whatsoever" for disagreeing with you, you obviously don't know what our reasons actually are. There are plenty of contemporary Thomists in particular who could clear that problem up easily enough. We may be Medievalists, but we're not obscurantists.

 

[Silmarien]

There needs to be a coherent, positive definition of the 'supernatural' before anyone can even consider what evidence for it would look like. I have never heard one.

If you want to understand non-naturalism, I think the best option is to drop Western thought entirely and start studying Vedanta instead. It's a very sophisticated system and there's no cultural baggage to bring to it, unlike with Christian theology. If one person is asking "what is the nature of being?" and the other asking for evidence, there are obviously going to be stumbling blocks to meaningful conversation.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Question: You use the word "we" above. Does "we" exclude me?

To me, "we" includes both me and you, and others, without prejudice.

I have strong reason to know God exists. So am I part of "we" or not?

Suppose your neighbor told you that they have a levitating basketball in their house. (btw, trivial fact, this is possible to do in a few ways)

Now, would you say you don't believe them?

I think this is a very interesting question.

Suppose though instead of an inanimate object, inert, instead they said this to you:

"We have an neon purple bird that shows up sometimes, not often, and it's hard to say what it is, because it looks a little like an owl and somewhat like a falcon."

Would you specifically disbelieve them?

If so, why?

Unlike the basketball, you can't simply come over and see, because the bird is not always going to choose to make itself seen, obviously.

There's no need to engage in hypotheticals. We have a whole bunch of actual fantastical claims of real humans.

Take alien abductees for example. Enough of them alive today. You can go and talk to them. They pass lie detector tests, so they really do believe that they were abducted and had weird sex experiments performed on them.

I'll go ahead and assume that you don't believe their claims.
So why don't you believe them?

And, more importantly perhaps, what would have to happen before you would accept their claims? What would they have to do?

 

[DogmaHunter]

Darwin claimed that his findings, and the general work of science, is "provisional truth," a kind of middle-ground idea that science really is stumbling upon some 'reality,' but that our understanding of that reality is partial and always open to improvement. I would agree with Darwin on this.

That's a corner stone of science in general.
Everything is tentative / provisional.

It's called intellectual honesty.... to be open to change your mind in light of new data, if that new data requires a re-evaluation of current ideas, theories, etc.

Something that makes perfect sense in context of the data that is at our disposal TODAY, might be overturned / proven wrong or incomplete by NEW data tomorrow.

However, in contrast to you, I'm not a big fan of Pragmatism...even though I do tend to be a Representational Realist in my epistemology.

Honestly, this is why I get...what's the word.... I'll use "frustrated", by lack of a better one...
This is why I get frustrated when discussing science with some "philosopher" or "philosophy minded person". All those labels.... labels, labels, labels...

"Representational Realist". I mean seriously................
Why all that jargon for things so freaking simple.... you either have evidence to support your views or you have not.
A claim is either demonstrable / supportable or it is not.

All that labeling doesn't contribute anything at all. It's just blablabla.

 

[DogmaHunter]

"Only the natural world exists" is not a more neutral claim than "The natural world is not all that exists." I would say that the former is actually the more radical of the two ideas.

How about:

"The natural world is the only one that seems to exist"

or

"The natural world is the only that demonstrably exists"


Which, I would dare say, are the statements that a "naturalist" would actually really subscribe to.

 

[Halbhh]

There's no need to engage in hypotheticals. We have a whole bunch of actual fantastical claims of real humans.

Take alien abductees for example. Enough of them alive today. You can go and talk to them. They pass lie detector tests, so they really do believe that they were abducted and had weird sex experiments performed on them.

I'll go ahead and assume that you don't believe their claims.
So why don't you believe them?

And, more importantly perhaps, what would have to happen before you would accept their claims? What would they have to do?

Without personally knowing any individual person making such a claim, and not having experienced it yet, I'm merely agnostic on alien abductions.

But, if it was someone I knew and could talk with, I could investigate more by interviewing them.

Even for a distant person over the internet, if I could just examine many dozens of paragraphs of thoughts of such a person on a variety of subjects, that would give me a chance to get a better than random guessing sense of whether they are sane/realistic. I'm old enough and have talked at length with sufficient numbers of people to have some good feeling for whether a person is realistic or instead realism...impoverished (such as Trump for instance).

Consider though the logical situation: if an idea is around, some will claim it even if they don't have a basis. But, it can be factually true (or false), and get some variety of claimants. So, you'd need more than just a handful of interviews to prove or to falsify, unless you can find a truly impressive witness, such as for example a long time professional airline pilot of good competence would be for atmospheric claims, etc.

When some few professional pilots claimed that they saw lightning flashing upwards into space (!?) from the tops of some of the highest thunderclouds, and this could not be easily observed on demand, then scientists had to investigate at length, and didn't give up after initially finding nothing. They looked, and did not find.

But they did not give up, and they tried again. They eventually did find these flashes!.... "Sprites"

As it is, only a tiny percentage of people think alien abductions are real, whereas in contrast an outright majority of people say they believe in God. (note that I don't take it for granted that if someone says they believe in God that I can be sure that they actually do! We have reason to believe some don't even while saying they do, and that in contrast some others clearly do; It's sorta like how only some people claiming they respect the U.S. Constitution actually respect it.)

 

[2PhiloVoid]

That's a corner stone of science in general.
Everything is tentative / provisional.

It's called intellectual honesty.... to be open to change your mind in light of new data, if that new data requires a re-evaluation of current ideas, theories, etc.

Something that makes perfect sense in context of the data that is at our disposal TODAY, might be overturned / proven wrong or incomplete by NEW data tomorrow.



Honestly, this is why I get...what's the word.... I'll use "frustrated", by lack of a better one...
This is why I get frustrated when discussing science with some "philosopher" or "philosophy minded person". All those labels.... labels, labels, labels...

"Representational Realist". I mean seriously................
Why all that jargon for things so freaking simple.... you either have evidence to support your views or you have not.
A claim is either demonstrable / supportable or it is not.

All that labeling doesn't contribute anything at all. It's just blablabla.

One more "label" for you to ponder: Naive Realism.

 

[Silmarien]

How about:

"The natural world is the only one that seems to exist"

or

"The natural world is the only that demonstrably exists"


Which, I would dare say, are the statements that a "naturalist" would actually really subscribe to.

That would be like defining theism as the claim that "Human existence makes the most sense in a theistic context." Many theists believe this, but that doesn't make it the definition of theism.

Metaphysical naturalism is a philosophical claim; there's nothing wishy-washy about it. And I don't know why you have the word "naturalist" in scare quotes--it's a real thing.

 

[Silmarien]

One more "label" for you to ponder: Naive Realism.

To be fair, I had to ask you about "Representational Realist" too, and I'm pretty comfortable with philosophical labels.

 

[DogmaHunter]

One more "label" for you to ponder: Naive Realism.

I'm just saying. Every single discussion I've had with such "philosophy" fans, just seems to turn out into such intellectual masturbation.

It just ends up in semantic drivel where it's all about labels and none about content.
More often then not, it just seems like excuses to me. As if slapping some labels around makes it okay to believe unsupportable nonsense.

 

[DogmaHunter]

That would be like defining theism as the claim that "Human existence makes the most sense in a theistic context." Many theists believe this, but that doesn't make it the definition of theism.

Metaphysical naturalism is a philosophical claim; there's nothing wishy-washy about it. And I don't know why you have the word "naturalist" in scare quotes--it's a real thing.

There's nothing "metaphysical" about recognizing / acknowledging that, at least currently, only the natural demonstrably exists.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I'm just saying. Every single discussion I've had with such "philosophy" fans, just seems to turn out into such intellectual masturbation.

It just ends up in semantic drivel where it's all about labels and none about content.
More often then not, it just seems like excuses to me. As if slapping some labels around makes it okay to believe unsupportable nonsense.

I actually don't intend to "throw" labels around. However, being that hardly anyone here is typically interested to hear or seriously consider what a Christian apologist or even a mainstream philosopher has to say, I'm at pains to want to provide explanations for each and every point I might have. Besides, I wouldn't want to enable anyone to be be lazy and prevent him/her from development good study habits, like looking up new terms they may not have encountered before.

 

[DogmaHunter]

I actually don't intend to "throw" labels around. However, being that hardly anyone hear is typically interested to hear or seriously consider what a Christian apologist or even a mainstream philosopher has to say, I'm at pains to want to provide explanations for each and every point I might have. Besides, I wouldn't want to enable be to be lazy and prevent them from development good study habits, like looking up new terms they may not have encountered before.

Or, you could just make the point directly.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Or, you could just make the point directly.

How pointedly do you think I should be able to make it? One sentence? Two sentences? Unfortunately, these terms, like both Naive Realism and Representational Realism, involve distinctions that not only deserve explanation, but also require discussion, maybe even debate. In this case, you're basically a Naive Realist, and I'm a Representational Realist. The former refers to someone who assumes that our senses and brains basically interpret the world as it 'really' is. The later refers to someone, like Immanuel Kant, who thinks that the material world is indeed real, but that what the human mind is actually doing when engaging its surroundings is producing an individual approximate 'model' of what is going on out 'there' in the real world.

And that's the basic difference. So, someone as intelligent as you probably can see how this could be problematic to issues of science, as well as to religion.

 

[DogmaHunter]

In this case, you're basically a Naive Realist, and I'm a Representational Realist. The former refers to someone who assumes that our senses and brains basically interpret the world as it 'really' is.

I don't assume that at all.
I'm fully aware that our senses, and especially our brains, are extremely prone to failure, bias, hallucination, etc.

I'm also fully aware that there are loads of things in reality that our senses simply can not pick up at all. Like radiation, magnetic fields, light outside the visible spectrum, etc.

The later refers to someone, like Immanuel Kant, who thinks that the material world is indeed real, but that what the human mind is actually doing when engaging its surroundings is producing an individual approximate 'model' of what is going on out 'there' in the real world.

And that's the basic difference. So, someone as intelligent as you probably can see how this could be problematic to issues of science, as well as to religion.

The scientific method is in fact literally geared towards minimizing this expected and known bias and failure of senses / brain.
This is why scientists double check their results through peer review. This is why they build experiments in controlled conditions. This is why they require (objective and independend) evidence.

 

[Silmarien]

There's nothing "metaphysical" about recognizing / acknowledging that, at least currently, only the natural demonstrably exists.

Metaphysics is the study of the nature of existence. Discussion concerning the claim that only the natural exists is by definition metaphysical.

Though a lot of the debate turns around unspoken ethical assumptions too, since there is a moral dimension to the question of what makes a belief justified or unjustified.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Metaphysics is the study of the nature of existence. Discussion concerning the claim that only the natural exists is by definition metaphysical.

But I'm not making any such claims. I'm just saying: clearly only the natural demonstrably exists. I'm not saying that "only the natural exists". I'm saying that we only know about the natural.

I'm sorry if you can't comprehend the difference.

Though a lot of the debate turns around unspoken ethical assumptions too, since there is a moral dimension to the question of what makes a belief justified or unjustified.

I don't see what morality has to do with the acknowledgement that we only know about the natural.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I don't assume that at all.
I'm fully aware that our senses, and especially our brains, are extremely prone to failure, bias, hallucination, etc.

I'm also fully aware that there are loads of things in reality that our senses simply can not pick up at all. Like radiation, magnetic fields, light outside the visible spectrum, etc.


The scientific method is in fact literally geared towards minimizing this expected and known bias and failure of senses / brain.
This is why scientists double check their results through peer review. This is why they build experiments in controlled conditions. This is why they require (objective and independend) evidence.

It sounds like you and I are almost on the same page as far as the practice of science goes. However, did you happen to see the video I posted above (post #189). The implication in that video is that modern science has generally, even if not completely, been a bit sloppy with it's overall housekeeping and procedural methods in "ensuring" that human bias and lack of verification is reduced. So, I don't know that we can fully trust that scientists, being the human beings they are, are really and fully doing what they must to be honest, unbiased, and/or willing to double check their findings before calling it all "fact."

Being that this is likely the case, even with peer-review, I don't think science can exclude religious thought. And this very thing is one of the aspects which also reflects the implications of Representational Realism.

(p.s. notice, though, I'm not saying that science is dealing in 'non-realism' or 'anti-realism,' which are both terms for a third option beyond either Naive Realism and Representational Realism.)

 

[DogmaHunter]

It sounds like you and I are almost on the same page as far as the practice of science goes. However, did you happen to see the video I posted above (post #189).

No. I don't have sound here.

The implication in that video is that modern science has generally, even if not completely, been a bit sloppy with it's overall housekeeping and procedural methods in "ensuring" that human bias and lack of verification is reduced. So, I don't know that we can fully trust that scientists, being the human beings they are, are really and fully doing what they must to be honest, unbiased, and/or willing to double check their findings before calling it all "fact."

That's quite a claim. A claim for which I have not seen any evidence.

Having said that, bad science will not amount to anything. It will not result in working new technologies, for example.

Science is very results based.
We can know that atomic theory is rather accurate, because nukes explode.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

No. I don't have sound here.

How convenient...I mean, inconvenient.

That's quite a claim. A claim for which I have not seen any evidence.

It's in the video. So, find a place where you can get sound ...

Having said that, bad science will not amount to anything. It will not result in working new technologies, for example.

Science is very results based.
We can know that atomic theory is rather accurate, because nukes explode.

Yeah, and I agree with this. But, science still doesn't rule out religion. If you think it does, then I can't see how you'd really be a Representational Realist, because unlike Kant, you don't concede to the point that the scientia of the mind can't really get at 'God' all by its little lonesome. In that case, you really would trend toward Naive Realism (also known as Direct Realism).

As I said previously:

Being that this is likely the case, even with peer-review, I don't think science can exclude religious thought. And this very thing is one of the aspects which also reflects the implications of Representational Realism.

(p.s. notice, though, I'm not saying that science is dealing in 'non-realism' or 'anti-realism,' which are both terms for a third option beyond either Naive Realism and Representational Realism.)