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Originally Posted by raison_d'etre
Religion and spirituality are alogical
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You made no effort to actually
prove that claim in the OP, you just asserted it. That's rather sloppy.
As I understand it,
anything which makes a truth claim is subjected to logic - or rather to the scientific method. No exception. For some things, it may be
hard to gather enough evidence, but that doesn't make them alogical. It just means we're probably going to be stuck to the null hypothesis.
Many mainstream religions present themselves as
unfalsifiable, i.e. it's impossible to prove them wrong because God is invisible and undetectable by any means. If that's really true, of course, it means their hypothesis is useless. The undetectable is indistinguishable from the non-existent. If you go around believing in anything whose existence cannot be disproved, then you believe in anything you can imagine. God. Russell's teapot. The invisible pink unicorn.
(Though I rarely meet a full religious or spiritual belief that is truly unfalsifiable. They tend to make a lot of verifiable claims, whether on the power of the soul or on the origin of life. Even theists realize that a hypothesis that makes no testable prediction is a useless one.)
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Originally Posted by raison_d'etre
How can a prayer be tested? Most religions have various beliefs about prayer as well. Some prayer is a form of worship and nothing is asked,
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There is still the implied claim that an invisible supreme being hears you when you pray. Though if God never answers in any way, that's unfalsifiable, aka useless.
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Originally Posted by raison_d'etre
others believe that prayer is to give your problems to God, still some believe that prayers are answered in Gods time and way since God knows what is best for us. Many believe that prayer for gain is selfish.
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Yes, religions have had thousands of years to construct explanations for why prayer
does not work. If there was the slightest bit of divine intervention, there should still be a statistically significant effect. Once biases have been eliminated, one should be able to observe that, say, diseased people of faith are statistically more likely to recover. And faithful amputees should have a statistically significant chance of recovery - that is, a non-zero one. But it turns out God's mighty powers are indistinguishable from blind chance and skilled doctors.
(Admittedly He could also
worsen an equal amount of prayees' conditions for ineffable reasons, thus making his actions statistically invisible. But that brings us back to a useless unfalsifiable claim.)
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Originally Posted by raison d'etre
And I thought you could prove a negative? Lack of proof is not proof. evidence is evidence there is not aevidence or anti-evidence. You either have solid evidence or you don't. I challenge anyone to provide solid evidence free of opinion that proves all religion wrong. Heck, just prove Christianity is wrong? I believe in past lives, chakras and life force energy... Prove them wrong. Remember no opinion.
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If any of these make verifiable truth claims, then it should be possible to test them. Indeed, were you rational, you would desire to do so yourself. As for those that present themselves as unfalsifiable, they are worthless.
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Originally Posted by raison d'etre
If I said Gravity didn't exist, the burden of proof would be on me, not you to prove it does.
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Actually it
would be on me. It's just so trivial to do so that you're more likely to face mockery.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by raison d'etre
Let's revisit the room or box example: Let say this time both you and I are standing in an sealed empty room. I make the claim that cats do not exist and are merely an imaginary belief you have. Inside this room there is only us, not cat. So, the evidence would suggest that cats don't exist, right? According to logic they wouldn't exist. This is basically what atheist do, they say because there is no God standing in the room, there is no God. If there is no God, all religions and spiritual paths are bunk. Not all say this, just one example of atheist reasoning.
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Good enough for everyday conversation. If I needed to be accurate, I would say there is no evidence for the existence of cats, the way I say it for gods and magic. I would freely admit that cats
may exist. There just isn't any reason to believe in them any more than in any unfalsifiable belief imaginable. So if you do believe in them, you either have a good reason that you're unable or unwilling to share, or are irrational.
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