Is Atheism Unscientific?

swivel · Jan 19, 2009

river-wind said: ↑

My God is a million feet tall, has blue and red hair, 8 noses, and exists solely in a 4th spacial dimension. He chose 2000 years ago to not interact with the 3 dimensions in which we live in any way; not even through observation.

There is, by the power of his active avoidance, no evidence of his existence detectable within the confines of our 3 dimensional universe.
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Existing in a single dimension would not allow the thickness required for one nose, much less 8. Your god does not exist.

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river-wind · Jan 20, 2009

John Connellan said: ↑

Since he exists in the 4th spatial dimension, do you think we will ever have the tools to probe this naturally occurring dimension of our universe? Surely we can design something in the future?
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Hmm. Maybe. We'd have to actually enter the 4th spacial dimension to detect him, so I'm not sure.

swivel said: ↑

Existing in a single dimension would not allow the thickness required for one nose, much less 8. Your god does not exist.
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Given that you don't know the properties of this 4th spacial dimension, I say you're wrong. Did I specify that it was a spacial dimension identical in every way to our own three?

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swivel · Jan 20, 2009

river-wind said: ↑

Hmm. Maybe. We'd have to actually enter the 4th spacial dimension to detect him, so I'm not sure.

Given that you don't know the properties of this 4th spacial dimension, I say you're wrong. Did I specify that it was a spacial dimension identical in every way to our own three?
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Make up your own words, then. The ones you are using already have generally-accepted definitions.

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lightgigantic · Jan 20, 2009

Fraggle

Fraggle Rocker;2141841 said:

If you don't consider our increasingly expansive views
of the entire natural universe--which incidentally, due to the
lightspeed limitation, also happen to give us a view more than ten
billion years into the past--an "entrance into the issues of the...
macrocosm," then I don't understand what you mean by "macrocosm."
Likewise for quarks and leptons, and the word "microcosm." All I can
deduce from your rhetoric is that you're simply not using scientific
language, in which case--as I've noted before--this discussion should
be moved to the Philosophy board.I have dutifully responded to your
request for examples of empirical evidence, i.e., I have been moving my
argument forward in accordance with the scientific method. You, on the
other hand, do little more than repeat the same questions without
moving your argument forward, which is a violation of the scientific
method..... and occasionally toss in some meaningless words like
"charm" and "jazz" which still do nothing to clarify what you're asking
for. Yes, I too have made a few comments that are off topic, after all
this is not a graduate seminar and we're not being downgraded for
failure to always be serious. But I also make substantive comments
which you have not refuted. Calling something "jazz" is not the same
thing as explaining why it does not make my point.You missed my point.
Someone else misused the term "closed system," as though we're defining
the science that is a tool for examining the universe, rather than
defining the universe itself. I felt that was important to clarify.That
is one of your arguments which I have refuted several times, and you
have not offered a proper rebuttal to my refutation.
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two points

First of all, when you start using "science" to justify ontological categories for reality for the sake of disputing others, you are venturing into philosophy. Philosophically speaking, you are using empiricism as the yard stick for determining the validity of all claims.

Secondly, in a philosophical context, the words macrocosm holds greater significance than merely "something big" and microcosm being "something small".
When you talk of quarks, leptons, seeing things billions of years in the past etc, this is all mesocosmic. All that is garnered from an empirical analysis is a sliver of something between the micro and macrocosm. In other words, while increasing research goes into the vastness or smallness of things, exactly where something is or what reality is essentially composed of remains unapproachable. This is not controversial. It is the modus operandi of empiricism, a mesocsomic means of negotiating phenomena. In fact you say this in your own words just a few more lines down.
A prime indicator of mesocosmic language is that it relies exclusively on tacit explanations (as opposed to explicit ones). Leptons, quarks, etc are all tacit terms. IOW any explanation of "where" or "what" something is by empiricism is tacit or relative.

(If you don't believe me, just try and explain a cup of flour in explicit language.

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)

So this isn't a problem.

What is a (philosophical) problem is when you offer a claim about the universe/reality being a closed system on the strength of empiricism.
This is why (in this context) leptons, quarks etc are all simply "jazz".

Again, this discussion feels less and less like science every time I
drop back in.
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In short, how the hell did you approach the macrocosm with empiricism?

The reason it is sounding less and less like science is that you are violating the credibility on which it rests.

There are mysteries everywhere; obviously we will never be
able to know everything because our speed of learning is finite.
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There you have it.
A succinct definition of empiricism, the tool of the mesocosm.

Empiricism is limited because our senses are inherently limited.
IOW our sense of sight is limited to garnering a mere sliver of what's on offer, no matter how you amplify it with scientific equipment.

If you want to use empiricism to justify ontological categories, you have just violated the credibility of empiricism.

But that doesn't mean we're not on the right track. It is certainly no
reason to adopt an unsubstantiated belief in the supernatural, which is
to throw up our hands and give up on science because it's all just too
damn difficult. Or because it conflicts with the instinctive,
archetypal beliefs which we were born with and which thousands of
generations of parents reinforced in their children, before they had
science to help.
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What makes you think that all theistic claims are simply the default position of frustration in the face of the limitations of empiricism?
Given that empiricism has no scope for approaching macrocosmic claims (unlike the transcendental disciplines of theism), in what way do you think "science has helped"?

Actually what is an instinct (of illusion) is the drive to comprehend the universe with a product of the universe. IOW, how does one expect to jam everything in their tiny brain and then authoritatively pontificate about the nature of the universe. Its bad enough when (misaligned) theists do it. It’s downright gut wrenching when so called scientists do it too.

I recall an incident about a group of early american colonials trying to wangle the local tribes out of their lands. One of the settlers drew in the sand a big circle and next to it, a little circle. Pointing to the little circle he indicated that this is what the indians knew as compared to the big circle, which is what the white man knew. The indian then drew a big circle around of both circles and indicated that this is what neither the white man or indian knew .....
So tell me fraggle, how big is your circle?

You have not offered any compelling evidence for your
assertion that as we approach, literally, the ends of the natural
universe in both spatial and temporal dimensions, we are nonetheless
still mired in the "mesocosm."
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Italics = gut wrenching assertion

Plain and simple.
It only becomes a mire when you use empiricism as a tool for delineating the absolute limits of the universe.
The ends of the natural universe?
You have empirical evidence of these "ends" or merely more jazz?

You ragged on me for daring to bring
software engineering into this discussion, and here you are bringing in
metallurgy? That's not science, it's engineering. Bronze technology was
invented several centuries before written language, one of the key
technologies that made science possible five thousand years later.
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The metal industry, like practically all industries, was greatly revolutionized by advances in the field of physics.
One such (simple) finding, is the approximate boiling point of water.
I use this as a straight forward example of exactly how empiricism does function.

If it was somehow determined that this piece of empirical information was wrong, it would be difficult to understand how we have been fabricating metals for the past 3000 years.

My challenge to you, is that if it was established that the universe is not a closed system, what practical applications of empiricism (as opposed to cerebral ponderings of empiricism) would be turned on their heads?

You went from a brief discussion of the orbit of planets (which is Mesocosm with a capital "M") and then made a half-hearted suggestion about software engineering being too advanced for measurements to determine.

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Of
course humans are resourceful and we'll find a way to cope with an
illogical universe perturbed by the capricious actions of invisible
gods. But that way will not be very much like science as we've spent
the last 500 years defining it.
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Once again, 500 years of investigating the universe with the senses has not revealed anything that is not beyond the senses?
sounds like a great tragi-comedy

Very funny. No, what I mean is that our
arguments are not in the same plane. From my perspective you are not
respecting the scientific method in the way you conduct your argument.
I'm sure you have an equivalent criticism of my slavish adherence to
it.
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Believe it or not (or maybe it’s more "scientific" to open with "disregard the empirical methodology or abide by it"), I have not disregarded the scientific method.
My point is that empiricism works fine in the mesocsom.
When you use is an authoritative tool for establishing the macro or microcosm, you become a blathering idiot.
It doesn't matter whether one blathers as a scientist or a theist.
This is why empiricism, as a tool for determining the validity of theistic claims is outright slammed by any standard theistic discipline.

Oh it can be and we've done it. For many years I was
a guru in the field of software measurement. It's just that America is
run by cowboys and cowboys don't like to measure anything because it's
no fun.
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hehe
sounds like big circle syndrome

Every science started out as "soft." As a metrician, I see the
transition beginning at the point where the first measurements are
taken, even if qualitative. Maslow's Hierarchy is a way of
qualitatively measuring one dimension (or perhaps five) of a person's
feelings.
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Sure.
Empiricism is all about feeling yourself around in the dark and catch a glimmer of light here and there. In that sense, maybe soft science is like striking a few sparks.
Whatever the case, soft science certainly can't cut the mustard like hard science.
How many controversies or (authoritative) differing paradigm views are there on the boiling point of water?
How many are there in the field of analysing the human disposition?
It’s one thing to find an idea that you like.
It’s another to find an idea that everyone agrees to.

No, I haven't wondered about that. I've had enough elementary
courses in biology and chemistry to understand it. When you die your
synapses degrade irreparably within a few minutes so there is no
infrastructure upon which to "have an effect."
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So I guess there is more to life than the chemicals that bear an effect on it, eh?

I can tell you're not a
computer programmer. Your grasp of deep levels of structural
decomposition is as tenuous as your grasp of extremely large
numbers.
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It doesn't require a PHD, just common sense.

If a person has no life, all the reductionist chemical analysis in the world will be of no avail. In other words "life" (or the retention of functioning synapses, if you like) cannot be materially reduced. Just as the universe remains unassailable at the macrocosm, life remains unassailable at the microcosm. You seem to hint this by the use of the word "irreparable".

Confusing the issue of life and the chemicals that life utilizes is one way that material reductionists kid themselves. Better that they stick to issues of the mesocosm and do something practical.

You continue to repeat that like a broken record, even though I
have provided evidence.No. If the universe is not "closed," it simply
means that supernatural forces are able to affect it. Those forces will
leave evidence and we will be able to examine it using "standard
empirical inquiry." The point is that there is no evidence. Or to be
precise, there is always evidence that transcends the observational
technology of the era, and as the technology improves the evidence
continues to move just out of reach.
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Hence the folly of analysing theistic claims/disciplines (which deal with issues of the macro/microcosm) in terms of empiricism (which deals with issues of the mesocosm).
Or even if you want to leave religion out of it, better that you keep the size of your circles in perspective and understand that calling upon empiricism to certify the closed/open state of the universe is simply a naive bluff at best or a front for one's instincts/ideology at worst.

Notice how gods, like space
aliens, never show up on the quad of a state university?
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hehe
sounds like a good sequel to the empirical tragicomedy of 500 years of inquiry with the mind and senses has not revealed anything beyond the mind and senses

They used to
turn people into pillars of salt; now they manifest themselves by
casting provocative images on potato chips.
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Prime example of blathering.

Empirically determining the constraints and time frame for the “appearance” of an omnipotent, omniscient personality is fraught with difficulties. Certainly no reason why god can’t appear in a potato chip, don’t you think? And it also certainly doesn't mean that there is no means to investigate claims of god either.

I know you have no patience for spiritual discussion so I will keep this brief.

Given this statement about the nature of God’s appearance

BG 4.8 To deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I Myself appear, millennium after millennium.

Exactly what did god in the potato chip accomplish?

Fraggle Rocker · Jan 21, 2009

lightgigantic said: ↑

First of all, when you start using "science" to justify ontological categories for reality. . . .
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If you're going to start arguing over what "reality" is, then this discussion and science are finished with each other. It should be moved to the Philosophy board.

Secondly, in a philosophical context, the words macrocosm holds greater significance than merely "something big" and microcosm being "something small".
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Okay, you've gotten my attention and stalled my departure to go look for a discussion with some science in it. But... I've read your post twice and I still don't see where you've told us what a "macrocosm" and "microcosm" are, in your own idiolect of English, or perhaps in the inscrutable jargon of the philosopher. I repeat, if the "macrocosm" is not simply the entire universe, a word whose very definition is "everything that exists," and the "microcosm" is not at the very opposite end of the scale of measurement, a view of the infrastructure of subatomic particles deconstructed to the point of unraveling into pure mathematics with no physical attributes at all... then what do those words mean? You don't seem to agree with the dictionaries on this.

When you talk of quarks, leptons, seeing things billions of years in the past etc, this is all mesocosmic.
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You have still failed to tell me what one must be talking about, in order to finally be on the subject of the micro- and macrocosmic.

All that is garnered from an empirical analysis is a sliver of something between the micro and macrocosm. In other words, while increasing research goes into the vastness or smallness of things, exactly where something is or what reality is essentially composed of remains unapproachable.
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Is that supposed to be a real sentence or did you just throw words together at random? Just putting nouns and verbs are in the right places to form a grammatically correct English sentence does not automatically impart it with meaning. The phrase "the composition of reality" sounds like it was taken from the table of contents of The Magazine Of Fantasy And Science Fiction, to which I've had a lifetime subscription for 45 years. I continue to accept your word that you're trying to say something profound, but I sure don't see what it has to do with science. Especially when you toss around words that are obviously fundamental to an understanding of the topic, without helping us out with definitions. Did I just miss reading the post in which you defined macrocosm and microcosm? If so, please forgive me.

This is not controversial. It is the modus operandi of empiricism, a mesocsomic means of negotiating phenomena.
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"Negotiating phenomena"??? That sounds like a phrase from a federal RFP. "Pick a gerund from column A and a plural noun from column B." You're talking to the Linguistics Moderator here. Please try to make sense.

A prime indicator of mesocosmic language is that it relies exclusively on tacit explanations (as opposed to explicit ones).
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You expound at length on the mesocosm, but not on the macro- and microcosms. What are they? What would macrocosmic or microcosmic language sound like, in contrast with the mesocosmic language you accuse me of being incapable of surmounting?

. . . . our sense of sight is limited to garnering a mere sliver of what's on offer, no matter how you amplify it with scientific equipment.
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"Amplify or supplement"? I think you're simply dead wrong on that. Even if you're not, your statement belies an unfamiliarity with (or at least an unexplained disrespect for) the perfectly valid scientific technique of sampling.

What makes you think that all theistic claims are simply the default position of frustration in the face of the limitations of empiricism?
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You're misquoting me although perhaps it's easy to get lost in my longwinded sentences. I asserted that some theistic claims fall into that category. The fundamental assertion which I have posted at least a dozen times on this forum is that theism is nothing more or less than an instinctive behavior, and as such it has no more inherent philosophical validity than other instinctive behaviors such as subordinating to the pack's alpha or killing intruders on the pack's hunting and gathering territory.

Given that empiricism has no scope for approaching macrocosmic claims. . . .
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There you go again, talking like I'm supposed to know what you mean by "macrocosmic" since it doesn't match the definition I've used all my life.

Once again, 500 years of investigating the universe with the senses has not revealed anything that is not beyond the senses?
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You insist that just because we use our senses to read our instruments, that the conditions that the instruments have measured are not "beyond our senses." Your use of the language is a bit disingenous.

When you use is an authoritative tool for establishing the macro or microcosm, you become a blathering idiot.
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I would be content if you would spend a couple of sentences "blathering" your personal definitions of "microcosm" and "macrocosm."

So I guess there is more to life than the chemicals that bear an effect on it, eh?
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Well duh. Life is the organization of the components, not the components. A corpse without life may look just like a living body, but it's as different from one as the pile of lumber and nails is different from the house that stood in its place before the tornado hit it.

Hence the folly of analysing theistic claims/disciplines (which deal with issues of the macro/microcosm) in terms of empiricism (which deals with issues of the mesocosm).
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You finally give a clue. The "macrocosm" apparently is the supernatural, if its the province of theism. It's good fun to talk about the supernatural, and in fact the metaphors that underly the fun can be very useful. But until some evidence is discovered for the existence of the supernatural in reality rather than in metaphor, such talk is not scientific talk, and it belongs on the Philosophy board.

John Connellan · Jan 21, 2009

Originally Posted by Fraggle Rocker
Unfortunately the watchmaker model invokes the fallacy of recursion: Since the universe by definition is "everything that exists," the gods are part of it and the model doesn't answer the question of where they came from.
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Enmos said: ↑

I think the biggest mystery of all is why some people can't see this
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Not much of a mystery, most of these people believe in a different definition of the universe: everything except the God which created the universe

Enmos · Jan 21, 2009

John Connellan said: ↑

Not much of a mystery, most of these people believe in a different definition of the universe: everything except the God which created the universe
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Well that's quite a self-serving definition and, frankly, based on nothing.

John Connellan · Jan 21, 2009

Enmos said: ↑

Well that's quite a self-serving definition and, frankly, based on nothing.
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Exactly. Isn't all faith based on nothing?
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Enmos · Jan 21, 2009

John Connellan said: ↑

Exactly. Isn't all faith based on nothing?
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I wouldn't say nothing but nothing realistic nonetheless
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swivel · Jan 21, 2009

I have an all-out man-crush on Fraggle Rocker.

Enmos · Jan 21, 2009

swivel said: ↑

I have an all-out man-crush on Fraggle Rocker.
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Eww !
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swivel · Jan 21, 2009

Enmos said: ↑

Eww !
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I think his brain is hawt.

Enmos · Jan 21, 2009

swivel said: ↑

I think his brain is hawt.
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Yea, Fraggle's cool
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clusteringflux · Jan 21, 2009

To the OP.

In most fields, improbability + recognizable specification = intelligence. I'm not sure why biology should be any different.

DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software we've ever created. - Bill Gates
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Fraggle Rocker · Jan 22, 2009

Enmos said: ↑

Yea, Fraggle's cool.
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I appreciate the kind words, but I'd rather be right than cool. Well at least in this instance anyway.
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And since I'm having trouble understanding Light's jargon, I don't know if I'm actually responding to his assertions.

Saquist · Jan 22, 2009

swivel said: ↑

I disagree. If you are willing to state specific things about your god, science can disprove it. If you are not willing to state specific things about your god, you believe in nothing.

Gods live in the gaps, and the gaps in human understanding that are left are paper-thin. This is why they are becoming ephemeral wisps of imaginative gossamer. They dare not stick their heads out into the discussion for fear of having their noggins lopped off like the Greek, Roman, and Norse gods of old.

Even so, with the chicken-shit gods we are presented with now, they still rest on a paradox. They are infinitely old and they created the universe. Since this combination is impossible, even for the all-powerful, we are assured that no such higher power exists.
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You could say the same for the leap of faith between micro evolution to macro evolution I guess theory is the gap and paper thin wisps of imagination in the realm of science.

Fortunantly faith doesn't fill in anything of my knowledge of God...but to you your own theory.

wizard · Jan 22, 2009

because millions of tiny mutations cannot result in a large overall change
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Enmos · Jan 22, 2009

Fraggle Rocker said: ↑

I appreciate the kind words, but I'd rather be right than cool. Well at least in this instance anyway.
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And since I'm having trouble understanding Light's jargon, I don't know if I'm actually responding to his assertions.
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By 'cool' I mean 'alright'. You're alright. And since I only know you from your posts it can only mean that I think your posts are great
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swivel · Jan 22, 2009

wizard said: ↑

because millions of tiny mutations cannot result in a large overall change
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I don't see the problem either.

People like Saquist don't get it. Evolution is not a theory, it is observational fact. Natural Selection is the theory which currently explains these observations the best. (so well, in fact, that some are pushing to begin referring to Natural Selection as Law)

The myth of lacking transient fossils is just that: a myth. The way they see it, every transient fossil found is TWO MORE missing on either side of it. I don't think they would believe their eyes if we had the remains of every organism that ever lived strewn across the cosmos.

Saquist · Jan 22, 2009

wizard said: ↑

because millions of tiny mutations cannot result in a large overall change
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Roll them eyes all you want to...
but you have to prove it first.

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