Do all atheists not beleive in a higher power, do they feel they are the highest

[syntaxmachine]

Sorry, not proof, but rather positive "evidence"/observations etc that can be reasonably interpreted as fitting with some coherent system. The empiricists showed us how inductive evidence never can be "proof", but Popper tried to amend that by introducing the requirement of falsifiability for a statement to belong to the scientific discourse. Hence, we accept induction if it leads to falsifiable hypotheses.

NN

Sounds like a good first approximation for how naturalistic inquiry -- inquiry into the way the world is -- ought to proceed. As I said, I haven't read Popper yet so anything I might have to say will be at a superficial level of discourse (still useful, potentially, but not to those who are already familiar with the work).

One problem: it seems to me that for certain forms of naturalistic inquiry, the falsifiability criterion isn't relevant because it isn't clear what evidence bears on its hypotheses in the first place, meaning that they aren't falsifiable in any obvious sense. For example, does physiological data about neurons bear on hypotheses about computational states of the brain? Nobody knows for sure, but this indeterminacy doesn't stop cognitive scientists from postulating such states to account for human behavior, embedding hypotheses about them in wider explanatory schemes that also aren't clearly falsifiable, for similar reasons.

Such hypotheses -- and the schemes they are a part of -- get adopted/jettisoned for their explanatory scope rather than anything to do with falsification. It isn't clear how Popper's ideas could be made to apply, either, except in an ideal future where we magically know in advance all the sorts of observations that are pertinent to specific claims from specific sciences, and thus may falsify them, and by then we'd already know everything there was to know. (In other words, observations don't come with labels saying: "I am relevant to computational, representational theories of mind, I am relevant to Y, I am relevant to Z . . ." and a position that allows us to definitively affix such labels would require complete knowledge of things.)

Can you comment on this?

[avxo]

Thank you sir, I agree. I have been debating avxo for months and all my whole goal was this whole time is for him to write what you just wrote, that`s it nothing more, that is all I want him to admit but his agenda or biased thoughts do not allow him to write what you just wrote he is to close minded.

Oh the irony... I'm the one who says "there are things we can't answer". You are the one that claims that everything requires an explanation and that you have the explanation, which you magically learn by reading a magical book written by goat herders, who had "divine" revelations through unknowable means.

[tbombz]

Oh the irony... I'm the one who says "there are things we can't answer". You are the one that claims that everything requires an explanation and that you have the explanation, which you magically learn by reading a magical book written by goat herders, who had "divine" revelations through unknowable means.

i think if you were able to think about the idea of god as being completely and totally unrelated to the religions of earth that you would find it very easy to believe such a thing might exist.

[avxo]

What part do you not understand.

The part where you, apparently, seem to feel that the words "before" and "after" have meaning outside of the concept that we understand as time.

You have repeated this a million times, why would you, I never disagreed with this ever.

And yet, you continue to suggest that words like "before" and "after" have meaning outside of the concept that we understand as time.

You keep pointing this out like it is an answer and it is not any answer and does not solve shit by saying something so logical.

That's not why I keep pointing it out. See above.

Who the fuck doesn`t know what you just wrote, a 2 year old knows this shit.wow you feel smart. Stop repeating the obvious.... wooooooooosh

Well, apparently, you don't.

Now back to square one we need an answer still and you can not provide one.

What's the question again?

So this is where your journey ends and since you can not go any further that means you do not know if there is a GOd or there is not, siple as that.

My journey starts with the maxim that we live in a Universe which we can understand and explain, and by then asking the question: "what do we know about the world around us?"

Where we diverge is that I don't concern myself with the supernatural or with assorted fairy-tales from millenia past. Instead I only concern myself with the natural. If you want to worry about the supernatural, then do so, but don't try to pass this off as providing "answers" or being anything other than mystical hocus pocus.

You keep insisting that we need an answer to a burning question - a question that you, inevitably, answer with "goddidit!" But is an answer needed? And if it is, is "goddidit" an answer?

Let's assume, for a second, that the question is valid and that it can and must be answered. What does your answer tell us? NOTHING. It merely adds another layer of abstraction.

Instead of the Universe having no beginning and no end, in the sense that time is a property of the Universe, now your silly deity doesn't have a beginning and an end. Instead of the Universe not requiring a creator, now your silly deity doesn't require a creator. I could go on, but I trust the point is made: Your silly myths answer nothing.

i think if you were able to think about the idea of god as being completely and totally unrelated to the religions of earth that you would find it very easy to believe such a thing might exist.

[I make it a policy to not answer buffoons, and I have avoided replying to you for this very reason, but this bit was just too good to pass up. So here we go.]

No, I really wouldn't. I need to know what it is I must "believe" might exist. I have seen no cogent, rational and consistent definition of the term "god". And "something completely and totally unrelated to the religions of earth" doesn't really define what this thing might be. There's nothing to even consider.

[tbombz]

[I make it a policy to not answer buffoons, and I have avoided replying to you for this very reason, but this bit was just too good to pass up. So here we go.]

No, I really wouldn't. I need to know what it is I must "believe" might exist. I have seen no cogent, rational and consistent definition of the term "god". And "something completely and totally unrelated to the religions of earth" doesn't really define what this thing might be. There's nothing to even consider.

whatever "God" is, if it is anything at all, is necessarily something beyond complete comprehension, thus making your desire for a definition of the term an unquenchable thirst. however, most agree that when the term "God" is used that the basic platform of the idea Is an "intelligent, creating force".

I think you are still very much lost in the realm of correlating "god" with the religions of the earth and what those religions say on the subject.

[tbombz]

My journey starts with the maxim that we live in a Universe which we can understand and explain, and by then asking the question: "what do we know about the world around us?"

1) we can not understand or explain the universe

2) what we "know" is limited to what we personally experience, and what we personally experience is limited to our fallible and primitive cognitive capabilities.

[Kahn.N.Singh]

fallible and primitive cognitive capabilities

What a strange loop (i.e., recursive self-reference)!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the very face of 'fallible and primitive cognitive capabilities' (to view the rest would result in unpleasant traumas and haunt your dreams):

[avxo]

1) we can not understand or explain the universe

It must suck for you to live in a mystical, magical world, one that you feel is beyond your understanding. Not all of us see things that way.

2) what we "know" is limited to what we personally experience, and what we personally experience is limited to our fallible and primitive cognitive capabilities.

...

It's a pity that you, and those who share your worldview, benefit from the advancements we make by working to expand out understanding of the world you can't understand.

[TrueBB93]

The human soul needs God. It's something deep down, you cannot deny it.

Interesting thing, a man like richard Dawkins is known for his athiest beliefs. There was an interview he was doing and the guy interviewing ask him something which he couldn't remember the answere to. As he was saying "uh hh... Hm.... Uh.., let me see... He couldn't help but say Oh God as he was having trouble answereing. Why would an athiest say "oh God?" because its a natural thing to do, the idea of God is something that can't be denied inside your soul even though some people thinks its cool and pretend to not care, inside they do.

[syntaxmachine]

So much quality content to respond to in this thread, I'm blown. Best god/religion thread I've ever witnessed on getbig!

The moment you realise you are just an animal, you are able to understand yourself better, try and focus on your gut instincts and understand what makes others tick.

It is uncontroversial that ignoring instinct, intuition, and other commonalities of our genetic endowment has led to significant progress via the use of what rationality we have in the realm of science, a place where such factors are irrelevant.

No-one knows the answers.

We can all only speculate and guess.

That said, there are liable to be objective differences in our theories' ability to accurately describe reality, and thus presumably norms for proper theory construction. That we must speculate does not leave all of our theories in the same boat as far as quality is concerned (especially not the ones we generally call 'scientific' versus the ones we generally call 'religious').

[Skeletor]

The human soul needs God. It's something deep down, you cannot deny it.

Interesting thing, a man like richard Dawkins is known for his athiest beliefs. There was an interview he was doing and the guy interviewing ask him something which he couldn't remember the answere to. As he was saying "uh hh... Hm.... Uh.., let me see... He couldn't help but say Oh God as he was having trouble answereing. Why would an athiest say "oh God?" because its a natural thing to do, the idea of God is something that can't be denied inside your soul even though some people thinks its cool and pretend to not care, inside they do.

It is not a "natural thing" that "cannot be denied" or a subconscious or hidden belief, just years of indoctrination and frequent usage/hearing of the same phrases ("Jesus!" "OMG" etc), same way if he pauses for reply and he says "umm" instead of "ooob". At any rate it is a figure of speech, no different than "son of a bitch" or "FILT".

[SF1900]

Its funny seeing TDONGZ get owned in every single debate like this lol.

[syntaxmachine]

We'll figure it all out, and when we do, I believe we'll find that there is no god.

My journey starts with the maxim that we live in a Universe which we can understand and explain, and by then asking the question: "what do we know about the world around us?"

The core belief of the Enlightenment -- that human reason can conquer all -- is still surprisingly common among atheists today. Sorry my fellow secularist neeguls, but there is a sound argument indicating that we as a species cannot come to understand all that is understandable of the universe: all creatures in nature are evolved with finite cognitive capacities such that certain aspects of the universe are incomprehensible to them (e.g., rats cannot comprehend numbers, cats cannot comprehend spacetime curvatures); human beings are evolved creatures; therefore, there are aspects of the universe human beings cannot comprehend (save definite evidence that we are perfectly evolved, akin to our being angels -- something that is rather unlikely, to say the least).

Saying "the entity that you describe as your god is inconsistent with the facts of reality and therefore cannot exist" involves no belief.

Well, if you're merely saying it then perhaps no belief is involved (e.g., if you're an actor playing a part), but generally when one asserts something, belief is taken to play a role. And that makes sense, does it not? It's odd to say you are asserting a proposition you don't believe; assertion is the laying down of that proposition as true.

Avxo, do you think much hinges upon casting the term 'atheist' in terms of belief or not? I think one possible consequence (due to 'belief' apparently having a subtly different connotation in these sorts of discussions) is that doing so leads to claims that 'atheism is only a belief,' 'atheism is just a belief system like any other,' and so forth. So your method of not defining it as such may be preferable for tactical reasons as well as for convenience' sake.

*Warning, vague and probably idle speculation almost nobody is going to care about ahead*

Now for some vague, but hopefully not idle, speculation. Casting atheism in terms of belief is harmless, 'belief' properly construed. On our best science, beliefs (if real) need to be explained in terms of computational, representational (C-R) theories of mind; beliefs in such a scheme are computational states of the brain. Atheism can be construed as a metabelief (belief about belief) of the form, 'Deity D does not exist,' where 'D' is a variable that a concept of a deity can serve as a value of once the owner of the C-R belief system acquires it. Since on C-R theories beliefs are causally efficacious, we are allowed to say that this metabelief generates other beliefs in the C-R system in appropriate contexts (e.g., if an atheist anthropologist discovers a lost tribe and is able to extract from their ramblings a coherent notion of god 'g,' he will subsequently acquire the belief 'Deity g does not exist' -- assuming his C-R system and related performance systems function properly).

[syntaxmachine]

The human soul needs God. It's something deep down, you cannot deny it.

'Souls' are explanatorily empty posits of either commonsense, outdated naturalistic inquiry, or both. Commonsense is mostly irrelevant for establishing correct theories, and outdated inquiry doesn't have much purpose outside of sating historical curiosity.

If you're speaking metaphorically, then consider this: there are a variety of things which apparently come naturally to human beings, including sexism, racism, and a variety of forms of brutal violence. Clearly, a form of thought's being natural doesn't make it good, nor establish its truth. So a natural tendency towards god concepts (supernatural concepts, or whatever) doesn't necessarily do much -- if anything -- to establish their truth.

Why would an athiest say "oh God?" because its a natural thing to do, the idea of God is something that can't be denied inside your soul even though some people thinks its cool and pretend to not care, inside they do.

The word 'god' has come to be influential in Western civilization; its historical importance and regularity of use are historical contingencies that don't establish its denotatum (more or less, the thing the word is supposed to refer to) as real (assuming there is a single denotatum for this word, which there clearly isn't).

It is an expression in English, meaning that it isn't natural to say it since our nature was forged by evolution before English existed; further, in many languages no equivalent of the word exists, since the majority of speakers across the species' history have not been enslaved by Christian memes.

Your attempt at universalizing your rather parochial and culture-specific belief in 'god' (whatever you mean by that) has been an utter failure.

[Griffith]

It is uncontroversial that ignoring instinct, intuition, and other commonalities of our genetic endowment has led to significant progress via the use of what rationality we have in the realm of science, a place where such factors are irrelevant.

Maybe in terms of science but in terms of everyday life, no. Intuition and gut feeling is very important, can help you read people and situations better and help you make quicker decisions on the spot.

That said, there are liable to be objective differences in our theories' ability to accurately describe reality, and thus presumably norms for proper theory construction. That we must speculate does not leave all of our theories in the same boat as far as quality is concerned (especially not the ones we generally call 'scientific' versus the ones we generally call 'religious').

Yes, but all these concepts and 'theories' are created by human minds....and 'reality' is subjective.

Whose to say whose theories are 'better'?

As I said earlier, no-one knows, to say otherwise is the height of arrogance.

[Mr Nobody]

What's the bottom line, I'm not reading all this.

[dj181]

What's the bottom line, I'm not reading all this.

well, this tune kinda gives a glimpse into it all

"you invent the future that you want to face......."

meaning that it's up to each man to discover his own "truth"

[Mr Nobody]

well, this tune kinda gives a glimpse into it all

"you invent the future that you want to face......."

meaning that it's up to each man to discover his own "truth"

Let me check it.

[syntaxmachine]

whatever "God" is, if it is anything at all, is necessarily something beyond complete comprehension

Only if you stipulate as much. There's nothing inherent about the word that makes concepts associated with it impossible to comprehend in full, nor anything about the notion of an intelligent creator that is necessarily beyond our cognitive reach.

thus making your desire for a definition of the term an unquenchable thirst.

It might seem strange, but there is no difficulty in defining the incomprehensible. If God is incomprehensible, we can still associate any manner of descriptive content with the term and use that as its definition, e.g., 'the creator of the universe.'

Thinking of it in formal terms makes the point clearer. Suppose our definition of 'God' is x(Cx) (where C=the property of having created the universe and 'x(φx)' reads 'the x such that x is φ'). We can comprehend the formula just fine; we just won't be able to comprehend the value of the variable (the thing that is true of x, or, that fits into x's slot in the formula, if you will).

however, most agree that when the term "God" is used that the basic platform of the idea Is an "intelligent, creating force".

That seems right.

[avxo]

The core belief of the Enlightenment -- that human reason can conquer all -- is still surprisingly common among atheists today. Sorry my fellow secularist neeguls, but there is a sound argument indicating that we as a species cannot come to understand all that is understandable of the universe: all creatures in nature are evolved with finite cognitive capacities such that certain aspects of the universe are incomprehensible to them (e.g., rats cannot comprehend numbers, cats cannot comprehend spacetime curvatures); human beings are evolved creatures; therefore, there are aspects of the universe human beings cannot comprehend (save definite evidence that we are perfectly evolved, akin to our being angels -- something that is rather unlikely, to say the least).

It's an argument and it may be valid (i.e. if the premises are true, then through a series of accurate logical steps we show that the conclusion must, necessarily, also be true) but it's not sound. A sound argument is one that is valid and one whose premises are true. You haven't shown that a major premise in your argument is true.

With that said, I don't think your argument about finite cognitive capacities holds much water, although I don't know that I can conclusively prove this. I think that reason (a definitive characteristic of our species if not the definitive characteristic) is a powerful tool, which has proven extremely successful at explaining many things that were previously thought unexplainable. Additionally, keep in mind that we don't just start from scratch every time, but rely on the knowledge accumulated by the generations and generations that came before us.

Can I prove that logic can prove everything in the Universe? No, but (a) I think a very strong argument can be made that it can and (b) I don't have to do so anyways.

Well, if you're merely saying it then perhaps no belief is involved (e.g., if you're an actor playing a part), but generally when one asserts something, belief is taken to play a role. And that makes sense, does it not? It's odd to say you are asserting a proposition you don't believe; assertion is the laying down of that proposition as true.

I think that the word belief has been tainted with religious connotations and implicates faith. My take on this is that when someone cannot necessarily prove something, it is still possible to believe it without involving faith. I'll give you an example:

My parents love me. Assuming that there was a concrete, logical definition of love, I might still be unable to logically prove this fact. Yet I believe that they do, without any faith involved.

Avxo, do you think much hinges upon casting the term 'atheist' in terms of belief or not? I think one possible consequence (due to 'belief' apparently having a subtly different connotation in these sorts of discussions) is that doing so leads to claims that 'atheism is only a belief,' 'atheism is just a belief system like any other,' and so forth. So your method of not defining it as such may be preferable for tactical reasons as well as for convenience' sake.

Correct. As I said above I think that the term "belief" can be misconstrued and leads to statements like those you describe.

Now for some vague, but hopefully not idle, speculation. Casting atheism in terms of belief is harmless, 'belief' properly construed. On our best science, beliefs (if real) need to be explained in terms of computational, representational (C-R) theories of mind; beliefs in such a scheme are computational states of the brain. Atheism can be construed as a metabelief (belief about belief) of the form, 'Deity D does not exist,' where 'D' is a variable that a concept of a deity can serve as a value of once the owner of the C-R belief system acquires it. Since on C-R theories beliefs are causally efficacious, we are allowed to say that this metabelief generates other beliefs in the C-R system in appropriate contexts (e.g., if an atheist anthropologist discovers a lost tribe and is able to extract from their ramblings a coherent notion of god 'g,' he will subsequently acquire the belief 'Deity g does not exist' -- assuming his C-R system and related performance systems function properly).

I think that this is, actually, helpful, although I don't know how clear it is. I also am not sure how to make it much clearer and at 2:30 I'm not super-inclined to try

The word 'god' has come to be influential in Western civilization; its historical importance and regularity of use are historical contingencies that don't establish its denotatum (more or less, the thing the word is supposed to refer to) as real (assuming there is a single denotatum for this word, which there clearly isn't).

It is an expression in English, meaning that it isn't natural to say it since our nature was forged by evolution before English existed; further, in many languages no equivalent of the word exists, since the majority of speakers across the species' history have not been enslaved by Christian memes.

Your attempt at universalizing your rather parochial and culture-specific belief in 'god' (whatever you mean by that) has been an utter failure.

I don't think I could have put it better myself.

It is not a "natural thing" that "cannot be denied" or a subconscious or hidden belief, just years of indoctrination and frequent usage/hearing of the same phrases ("Jesus!" "OMG" etc), same way if he pauses for reply and he says "umm" instead of "ooob". At any rate it is a figure of speech, no different than "son of a bitch" or "FILT".

Right. Taking a figure of speech and pretending that uttering it implies some deep, religious truth is just... well... god damn stupid!

[Griffith]

What's the bottom line, I'm not reading all this.

Bottom line:

No-one actually knows anything but think they do.

[Mr Nobody]

Bottom line:

No-one actually knows anything but think they do.

Exactly all speculation.

[syntaxmachine]

It's an argument and it may be valid (i.e. if the premises are true, then through a series of accurate logical steps we show that the conclusion must, necessarily, also be true) but it's not sound. A sound argument is one that is valid and one whose premises are true. You haven't shown that a major premise in your argument is true.

There's no one way do to this: I can either cast the argument in inductive terms and thus we can call it 'cogent' rather than 'sound,' or I can cast it in deductive terms and imbue certain of the premises with probability and thus retain the 'sound' label (since I don't wish to say that it is 100% certain that our finite cognitive capacity cannot capture all the facts of the universe). These seem to me different paths towards the same truth.

Inductive version

1. 100% of known evolved creatures have finite cognitive capacities such that certain aspects of the world are incomprehensible to them.
2. Human beings are evolved creatures.
3. Therefore, human beings have finite cognitive capacities such that certain aspects of the world are incomprehensible to them.

Deductive version

1. If human beings are evolved creatures, then probably they have limited cognitive capacities such that  certain aspects of the world are incomprehensible to them, since this is the case for all other evolved creatures.
2. Human beings are evolved creatures.
3. Therefore, human beings probably have finite cognitive capacities such that certain aspects of the world are incomprehensible to them.

I think that this is, actually, helpful, although I don't know how clear it is. I also am not sure how to make it much clearer and at 2:30 I'm not super-inclined to try 

Me neither. 

Can I prove that logic can prove everything in the Universe? No, but (a) I think a very strong argument can be made that it can and (b) I don't have to do so anyways.

Well, if anybody ever makes the argument then I'll be glad to see it.

[Kwon_2]

[avxo]

Inductive version

1. 100% of known evolved creatures have finite cognitive capacities such that certain aspects of the world are incomprehensible to them.

I don't buy this.

Deductive version

1. If human beings are evolved creatures, then probably they have limited cognitive capacities such that  certain aspects of the world are incomprehensible to them, since this is the case for all other evolved creatures.

Even with the "probably" I still don't buy this. It's true that certain aspects of the world are incomprehensible to some creatures - even to most creatures. But I do not know that this applies to humans. Our entire history points to this being false.

We can talk probability if you want, but in a completely unscientific hand-wave manner, I'd peg this at less than 1%.