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Authority figures are not a fallacy. If there is a certain body of knowledge from which many benefit, then the person who discovered and/or disseminated it is an authority figure in that knowledge. Authority figures not perfect but they can produce/disseminate useful knowledge which itself is imperfect. If it is mostly useful, then despite its imperfection, the knowledge is accepted and applied. Of course, paradim shifts - i.e., the shift in premises based on what's considered "self-evident" - result from and in turn instigate new imperfect knowledge (albeit useful) knowledge. Perfection is never attained, bias is never eliminated, progress often results and occasionally regression results. The way science is being touted by so many today as the source of logic and reason is definitely a regression.
In THAT knowledge. Yes. In OTHER knowledge, their claims should be scrutinized and sanitized of potential bias as much as possible.
Which was whole point as to why it is possible and consistent to reject the religious claims some scientists make. The religious claims don't stand up to the same level of objectivity, and thus, despite any other brilliance the religious scientist might exhibit, those claims should not carry the same authority weight. Ergo, it is the argument from authority fallacy.
Okay, so far you've stated your hypothesis and the means whereby you will test that hypothesis (comparison of conclusions resulting from nonempirical and empirical methods). Of course, in order to resolve this, you will need to have some method of determining whether the empirical method is producing correct results. How is this determined? It must be some other method besides empiricism, since empiricism is the very thing being questioned.
Well of course, I would imagine that for some who would raise this question no amount of testable evidence would suffice, but that isn't my problem.
Anyway, you asked and I answered. As for the moved goal posts, perhaps you have another method for determining the validity of physical laws and properties that you would prefer. Can't wait to read about them.
In THAT knowledge. Yes. In OTHER knowledge, their claims should be scrutinized and sanitized of potential bias as much as possible.
Which was whole point as to why it is possible and consistent to reject the religious claims some scientists make. The religious claims don't stand up to the same level of objectivity, and thus, despite any other brilliance the religious scientist might exhibit, those claims should not carry the same authority weight. Ergo, it is the argument from authority fallacy.
Nobody ever said that an authority in one area is automatically an authority in another area. Nobody. I don't know who you're arguing against in that case.
The point being made is that while many atheists, particularly most of those on this forum, imply or even state that theists are irrational and incapable or closed-minded to rational thought, the fact remains that there are a great many scientists who obviously are open to and use rational thought while finding no discrepancy between that and their devout religious beliefs.
Also, a couple examples I gave - Descartes and Pascal - are authority figures in both science/math AND theistic belief. Apparently, these two great authority figures found that their religious claims do indeed stand up to the same level of objectivity as their scientific/mathematical claims. They understood that each school of thought operated from a different paradigm and that those paradigms did not contradict each other unless someone shifted one of the paradigms to conflict with the other.
The fact is that in our present day you have theists who shift their theological paradigm to conflict with science and you have scientists who shift their paradigm to conflict with theism/metaphysics. Why do they do this? Typically to corroborate an agenda; in other words, they introduce a bias to the paradigm/s for their own purposes. Either way, it's intellectually invalid, but both sides have large groups guilty of this.
I am disappointed in you Dusty . . . I attributed greater perspicacity to you than you apparently deserve . . or do you not consider those of us online as in the set of people you have met?
LOL, I was transposing the statement into "Atheist speak". Nice word "perspicacity", just when I thought vocabulary had gone out of fashion.
It's also for English majors who can't help but notice glaring errors as we read through anything.
Yeah, like my editor. We all have our crosses to bear.
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It is only now you insert the qualifier "some". Originally, it was "atheism made easy for theist".
You asked a serious question, which I felt deserved a serious response. The threads premise, as previously stated, was posted somewhat tongue and cheek.
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I agree, it does make it quite understandable. I agree also that it doesn't excuse it. If anything, atheists who tend to get vitriolic ought to be the last people to do so by virtue of the facts that they were the ones who were the target of similar derisio[n] in the past and that it betrays their complaint.
Turning the other cheek is not a tenet of atheism and I don't think that those atheist are concerned about sympathy, I know that I'm not. Also, we aren't talking about robbery, Inquisition, or burning at the stake so whatever nastiness vented by atheist it is so disproportionately less than what has been put out by theist as not being worthy of discussion.
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The supernatural is outside the realm of nature,
At this point in the debate, all I can say is, "if you say so."
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You can't prove blue with music, you can't prove 2+2 by quoting Shakespeare, you can't prove George Washington existed by dropping an apple to demonstrate gravity. Likewise, you can't prove the natural by the supernatural, nor can you prove the supernatural by the natural. "Super" = above; "supernatural" is "above the natural". It is outside the realm.
Stick to English, logic isn't your strong suit.
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Oh, I know, you made that clear with your OP, despite your later backpedaling to claim it was for "some" theists.
No backpedaling whatsoever, absent your faulty syllogism, I thought I would respond to your reasonable post with a reasoned response. This thread was designed to address specific individuals and the history of conversations with those individuals. The fact that you wandered into a dialogue which you were previously absent from, left you without the historical context of the thread's intent so I thought you were owned some explanation. But rest assured that such an explanation will not be forthcoming for some of your fellow theist, or you for that matter depending on how the tone of the conversation progresses.
Descartes and Pascal - are authority figures in both science/math AND theistic belief.
And set in motion the whole rational process that would free man kind from the burden of religious mythology.
The fact that many otherwise rational and intelligent people cling to the mythology of their socialization is understandable. The promise of religion is a powerful opiate.
And set in motion the whole rational process that would free man kind from the burden of religious mythology.
Mythology is only a "burden" when it is taken literally. Mythology is one of the greatest achievements of mankind and will always be with us. If you don't believe me, read some Joseph Campbell.
Anyway, Reason can also be just as oppressive, if not more so, than any religion. In the French Revolution a group of radical Atheist called "The Cult of Reason" went on a campaign of terror to massacre thousands of people and wipe all religion from society and replace it with "reason, logic and the scientific method". In just six months, they killed around ten thousand people who refused to give up their religion all in the name of creating a "rational society".
And then there is the Rational, completely logical thing called the Eugenics Movement. Darwinism in action, the rational conclusion to evolutionist thinking: If our society refuses to allow natural selection to take place with it's law and order, than, in order to maintain the integrity of the gene pool and continue the process, human beings should self police and not allow the unfit (the mentally handicapped, the criminals, people with mental illness) to have offspring, even if it means forcing them to be sterilized.
It is perfectly Rational, completely logical, and 100% F****** up.
So as we see, Rationalism, Reason, and militant anti-theism can be just as bad for society as religion can be.
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The fact that many otherwise rational and intelligent people cling to the mythology of their socialization is understandable. The promise of religion is a powerful opiate.
*yawn* I already gave my unrefutable reasons why religion is not an opiate and is in fact allot more than "wishful thinking". Here they are again (someday, I will encounter a anti-theist who can come up with something other than the same formulaic statements and predictable, dogmatic statements. Maybe hoping for independent thought from anti-theist is just wishful thinking on my part)
As for the whole "Wishful thinking" or "promising opiate" idea, that is bogus and is a straw man used by Anti-Theist/Rationalist for three reasons:
1) it is not easy following a religion. If religion was just "God gives you X,Y and Z while never asking anything of you" I could see, but religion has allot more life rules then none religion does. Behavior, ritual, giving things up (personal sacrifice) etc. All of these things make being a religious person difficult. If it was all about "wishful thinking" none of these things would be necessary or exist
2) the bad guy(s). Yes, we believe in divinity, but it is not just the "imaginary friend(s) that make you feel better" that so many antitheist call it, but there are also plenty of enemies. Demons, Satan, Mara, etc all exist in religion. If it was all about "wishful thinking", then why the heck would we "wish" for an evil like that to exist? "Imaginary friends" I can understand, but who would create "imaginary enemies" if the whole point of religion was just "to feel good"? How the heck does it "feel good" to have a satan?
Do you know who the Gnostic satan is? The creator of all the universe. We were created for the sole purpose of suffering and dying for our sadistic creators amusement. That is why evil exist in the world: because the creator is evil and we were born into his prison/torture chamber.
Now...who the hell would want to believe in that as a "happy nursery story"?
I would love, LOVE to be able to simply say "the things that go bump in the night do not exist", but that is a luxury I do not have. I have some unsettling memories of my youth and playing around with a certain book I should not have been playing around with (the Goetia) and I still wonder if it will, someday, bite in the behind (there are things that have VERY long memories, are very patient, and don't like getting played with...). If one has the absolute luxury of not believing in those things, than one is better of. If only I had a blanket of logic to hide under at night.
There is a reason why we once feared the dark, and some of us have not forgotten.
3) Judgement. All religious have some kind of judgement. Karma, Revelation, etc. In none religion, if the police aren't washing you, there is really no reason why not to do it, if you can get away with it. In religion, there is ALWAYS something watching you, be it your own karma or outside divinity (in Gnosticism it's a little of both in the sense that GOD is within) Now, if it all was "wishful thinking", then who the heck would ever want to "wish" to be held accountable for all of their actions? Wouldn't it be easier to say there is no judgement and go ahead and do what ever one can get away with?
So as we can see, the whole "wishful thinking" thing fails.
This is really too easy. Bottom line is this: take away literalism from the table, and the tenents and beliefs of religion is something that can neither be proven or disproven. I believe in Genesis!...I believe it to be a metaphor for evolution. The tree of knowledge represents our transition from animal to sentience. The Garden is our time as primitive, barely sentient hunter gathers (just picking things from the garden) and the punishment of God (in this case a metaphor for nature and existince it's self) for taking the fruit is the burden of sentience and higher thoughts. No longer animals romping naked in the forest, we are now a civilization and can never go back to that animal innocence.
Later, when Adam and Eve are forced from the garden and have to till the soil, this is obviously a metaphor for agriculture and the death of the hunter-gatherer way of living. What follows after that? War, which is on a much larger scale after agriculture and cities and towns were developed which is represented by Cain slaying Abel.
Now, HOW THE HECK CAN ANY SCIENCE OR ANTI-THEISM REFUTE THE ABOVE? What, does agriculture not exist? Were we not hunter-gatherers? Does the word "metaphor" not exist in the dictionary?
But, maybe one just does not like metaphor and Myth...AND THAT IS JUST FINE. I am not a believer in the "one religion is the true religion" idea (unlike the anti-theist, who believe Atheism is the only true way of looking at the world much like the fundy thinks about Christianity) and I believe that all religions, and Atheism, are equally valid. However, I do not like people, be they Christian Fundies or anti-theist Dawkin's Witnesses, insisting with this crusading zeal that their way of thinking is the only way of thinking and that every one else is wrong and "irrational" or is "going to hell."
Nobody ever said that an authority in one area is automatically an authority in another area. Nobody. I don't know who you're arguing against in that case.
The point being made is that while many atheists, particularly most of those on this forum, imply or even state that theists are irrational and incapable or closed-minded to rational thought, the fact remains that there are a great many scientists who obviously are open to and use rational thought while finding no discrepancy between that and their devout religious beliefs.
Also, a couple examples I gave - Descartes and Pascal - are authority figures in both science/math AND theistic belief. Apparently, these two great authority figures found that their religious claims do indeed stand up to the same level of objectivity as their scientific/mathematical claims. They understood that each school of thought operated from a different paradigm and that those paradigms did not contradict each other unless someone shifted one of the paradigms to conflict with the other.
The fact is that in our present day you have theists who shift their theological paradigm to conflict with science and you have scientists who shift their paradigm to conflict with theism/metaphysics. Why do they do this? Typically to corroborate an agenda; in other words, they introduce a bias to the paradigm/s for their own purposes. Either way, it's intellectually invalid, but both sides have large groups guilty of this.
Descartes and Pascal - are authority figures in both science/math AND theistic belief.
Not entirely true. While yes, Descartes was a mathematician, he was not good at science, neither was he that skilled at philosophy. He did , however, come up with one of the better known logical blunders "Cojito ergo sum" or,
"I think therefore I am" a logical non sequitor, a more logical statement would be "I think therefore there is a thought" The existence of a thought does not necessarily entail the existence of a physical body.
Nobody ever said that an authority in one area is automatically an authority in another area. Nobody. I don't know who you're arguing against in that case.
I'm arguing against you when you wrote:
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I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that just because someone is brilliant at one thing he is not precluded from being brilliant at other things, even when those things inlcude scientific subjects and spiritual subjects.
Pascal and Descartes were brilliant mathemeticians whom I would want handling my finances, and they were devout Christians and brilliant Christian apologists (and brilliant philosophers) as well.
If belief in the supernatural flies in the face of logic, as the OP suggests, and science is the only conduit to truth, then why are some of the most brilliant scientists also Christian or religious people?
Descartes and Pascal - are authority figures in both science/math AND theistic belief.
No, but Francis Collins, the head of the Human Genome Project and professor of genetics and one of the leading genetic researchers of our time, is a devote Christian (former Atheist) and a proponent of a theistic understanding of evolution as a part of a Creator's design.
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