Which Worldview is Supported by Evidence?

[Jester]

Each of us has a worldview.
That is, each of us have a list of beliefs that get us through our day, on which we base our practical and ethical decisions and by which we find some sense of purpose in life.

I have noticed that many claim to have rejected all forms of theism on the grounds that they feel there is little or no evidence supporting it.
Assuming this is the case, which worldview (or weltanschauung) is supported by evidence?
And, of course, what is that evidence?

[Question Everything]

What we need is a Church of the Universe, where we contemplate in awe something truly worthy of such contemplation(the Deists had this view and concidered it god).

What do you think of Yoism? Do you think that it is up to the task?

[LiamOS]

An example of a false dichotomy: "you are with us or you are against us"
EduCrhist: you have to either be a meaningless dust or something else.

Exactly.

Something: 'some indeterminate or unspecified thing'
Else: 'in a different manner or place or at a different time'
Both from Merriam Webster.

Therefore I would conclude that 'something else' 'not this'.

As such, we can reduce EduChris dichotomy to:
'X either has property P or it does not.'

[Adamoriens]

Each of us has a worldview.
That is, each of us have a list of beliefs that get us through our day, on which we base our practical and ethical decisions and by which we find some sense of purpose in life.

I have noticed that many claim to have rejected all forms of theism on the grounds that they feel there is little or no evidence supporting it.
Assuming this is the case, which worldview (or weltanschauung) is supported by evidence?
And, of course, what is that evidence?

Many atheists argue that non-theism is warranted because theism is not [1], and others argue that theism is justified even in the absence of evidence [2]. I hold to the view that basic agnosticism (as evinced by the statement "I do not know") is the only justified conclusion from the observation that no evidence exists for theism [3]. Many atheists will argue that the evidence of non-theism is that all theistic proofs have failed etc. etc. but this is obviously fallacious without the additional expectation that we would expect evidence if theism were true. In short, atheists still require positive evidence. This principle should be guiding all discussion on the atheistic vs. theistic worldviews.

And second, whatever is or isn't "confirmed" regarding this concept, I've not yet received any confirmation of either the existence of the physical universe or the idea that there are no objective ethics, though both of these positions have been taken. As such, I see no reason to criticize any lack of confirmation you may find in other worldviews.

Your argument runs as follows:

1. There is no evidence that the physical universe exists.
2. Therefore evidence cannot be a reliable indicator of the truth of a worldview.
3. By implication, theism cannot be criticized for lacking evidence.

This is obviously problematic. I don't see how you arrived at P2 from P1.

What criteria would suggest instead for evaluating the probability that a given worldview is true?

[LiamOS]

Thank you, Aki, you are so right.

Aww, shucks...

My claim is that conglomerations of meaningless particles of matter, acting strictly according to the laws of physics as understood today, do not have any true agency or volition and therefore no meaningful process of "reasoning" can be adduced. Conglomerations of matter simply operate mechanistically and do not "choose" anything.

Your premises are granted, but I still don't quite understand how you conclude that reasoning cannot be adduced.
Surely in that there are 'laws', and that we have 'intelligence', pattern recognition and such allow us to develop what is essentially 'logic'.

This is a very difficult debate to have without first considering what exactly each thinks they are talking about. I would posit that 'logic' is innate in any determinable system or any probabilistic system due to the definitions of both being circularly dependent on the other. I would also posit that intelligence as we know it is in fact merely a subset of a particular system.

But beyond that, you have misunderstood my point here, which is that we cannot employ logic to invalidate logic--at least not without falling into self-referential incoherence.

Granted. An interesting question to ask however is would it be possible for logic to self-validate in a system where logic fails? (I'm not trying to argue from ignorance so much as question what parameters are necessarily existent for logic to be viable.)

This is in fact why most non-theists choose to believe that we humans are "something more" than mere automatons.

I still don't see how you get from there to here.
If you'd not mind dumbing it down, I'd greatly appreciate it.

You do not fall into circularity because you do not claim that logic and reason can be validated by logic and reason. Logic and reason can only be validated on grounds other than logic and reason if we want to avoid circularity. However, this gets back to the main point of this thread, which is that whatever worldview we adopt, we cannot logically or empirically prove that our worldview is "right" or "correct"; rather, at the most fundamental level we must rely on subjective evalutation.

This is true. The merits of ones approach would be an interesting subject for another thread.

You are putting words in my mouth here. By making the move to subjectivity you avoid the problems of incoherence and circularity. However, you also lose the ability to criticize theism as being necessarily inferior to non-theism (not that you have tried to do so--I am just pointing this out as a logical result of your admission that reason and logic cannot validate themselves in any worldview).

I apologise; that was not my intention.

In making the move to subjectivity, I still try to avoid subjectivity by relying on as few basic premises as possible. In the case of inductive logic, for example, I consider it to work delightfully in the circumstances in which it is derived, but not necessarily so elsewhere. This is mathematically and logically demonstrable.(Consider proving by induction a formula which you then apply to all numbers.)
This is one of my key reasons for not accepting cosmological and ontological arguments or arguments from contingency.

I feel that Theism inherently makes larger leaps with more vague and questionable premises than I strive to. That said, the same could probably said about Non-Theism in general, but I believe that Non-Theism is inherent from being as sceptical as possible in every conceivable way.

I have made no attempt to do argue that a non-meaningless universe automatically validates logic and reason; instead, I have argued that if we have any hope at all of justifying logic and reason, we must accept a worldview which is potentially capable of accounting for logic and reason.

Well, one would first have to have reason to believe that it could possibly be capable of explaining that. Without that, why not simply believe that logic works and is valid for no reason?
What in your eyes constitutes an 'explanation'?

It appears to me that both you and Bernee51 do in fact believe yourselves to be something more than meaningless startdust operating strictly according to the laws of physics as understood today.

I can't speak for anybody else here, so I'll speak for myself:

I do not believe that existence is meaningless; I am incapable of such a belief until the concept of 'meaning' is adequately defined.
Practically speaking, I fall under the 'meaningless stardust' category.

If I am right about this, then that should count as evidence; but if I'm wrong, then please clarify your respective positions.

Perhaps, but one would certainly question your sample size.

Not sure I understand your point here. I'm not making the claim that logic and reason do or do not represent "objective reality," whatever that is. Instead, I claim that it is logically absurd to employ logic to invalidate logic. If logic is invalid, how can it "logically" invalidate anything?

The only way it can do so is to be invalid.

Please state how and why you feel this statement is relevant to this argument? To me it is entirely disconnected from anything I have argued.

Well, the concept of meaning is being thrown around a lot, so I think it would be appropriate to have a viable, applicable definition of meaning to work with.

[McCulloch]

According to Apostel, a worldview is an ontology, or a descriptive model of the world. It should comprise these six elements:

1. An explanation of the world
2. A futurology, answering the question "where are we heading?"
3. Values, answers to ethical questions: "What should we do?"
4. A praxeology, or methodology, or theory of action.: "How should we attain our goals?"
5. An epistemology, or theory of knowledge. "What is true and false?"
6. An etiology. A constructed world-view should contain an account of its own "building blocks," its origins and construction.

Based on these criterion, can a worldview be built, based on evidence? Or must speculation be used? Is it better to have a speculative worldview, or an incomplete one? Humanism only partially or fully addresses these questions. Christianity also addresses these questions, with a different set of completeness variables.

[Abraxas]

...I fail to understand how "I do not believe in god" brings with it incoherent assumptions whereas "I believe in god" does not...

Non-theism posits that there is no adequate warrant for believing theism to be true. So the non-theist is faced with the reality that she is either meaningless stardust, or else she is something more.

There is a third option, that "meaning" is itself undefined and so you may as well be asking are you zxplacsic or not zxplacsic. Certain faiths may claim they are zxplacsicful or that they are zxplacsic but it could be the word has no corresponding truth value. This is like "have you stopped beating your wife", a loaded set of premises assuming facts not in evidence.

But since meaningless stardust is really in no position to claim that logic and reason are any more likely to lead to truth than anything else,

Why not? Explain and evidence this connection between logic and reason and this "meaning" of yours and all of their relationship to truth.

this option is hardly ever chosen. Most non-theists do believe that they are something more than meaningless stardust--they assume this on faith. However, there is no non-circular scientific evidence to suggest that we are anything more than meaningless stardust.

Is there not? All we know of meaning is that it is at minimum a psychological condition, one for which we do have evidence. If we find and create our own meaning instead of having it asigned to us by a cosmic caretaker, I fail to see why theism is necessary.

You seem to be operating on a number of unsupported assumtions here:

1. Meaning has some kind of actual value.
2. The above actual value is somehow related to determining truth conditions using logic and reason.
3. This meaning cannot be verified scientifically, presently, which inherently implies it is not an internal psychological phenomenon (as that can be verified presently).

All of this is beside the point, and that is you are attempting to bundle two unrelated premises and sell them together, that being that God exists and meaning exists. God does not inherently imply meaning, though depending on your definition it could be a source of it. Likewise an absence of God does not imply an absence of meaning. The theist in your position then, is left with two assumptions, that God exists and that meaning exists, whereas even the atheist as you describe them is left only with one, that meaning exists. More unsupported assumptions is generally considered to be less well supported than reducing the number of assumptions to a minimum.

So the non-theist must either take it on faith that science will one day demonstrate conclusively either that she is meaningless stardust, or that science will one day demonstrate how she might be something more.

Or they could accept meaning as a non-objective value, or accept it as something psychological that the individual can already verify within themselves, etc.

Now suppose science were someday able to demonstrate conclusively that we are nothing but meaningless stardust. This amounts to incoherence because in this case meaningless stardust will have reasoned itself into a position which vacates the reasoning process by which its conclusion was reached.

Again, I would like some support for the implicit idea that logic and reason being used to determine the truth is somehow linked to meaning.

So to avoid this incoherence, the non-theist must take on faith that she is something more than meaningless stardust--she must take it on faith that her powers of logic and reason have some sort of validity.

Not really, they are largely testable. That you are using a computer screen at this moment is a testiment to a vast number of instances of logic and reason working, in creating the screen, the computer, the internet, the electricity, the materials, etc.

Furthermore, she must take on faith that science may one day provide some supporting evidence for her ineradicable belief that she is something more than meaningless stardust

Why would they be required to accept it as scientifically testable again, just because they don't accept God? I don't recall any sort of atheist dogma that holds everything in the universe is discoverable by science, indeed, I can think of a few examples of things many models hold explicitly impossible, such as when a specific uranium atom will decay exactly or both the momentum and position of an electron.

--and she must also believe that it is more likely than not that this evidence will not point to Deity (because to think otherwise would be to admit that theism is a warranted belief after all).

Not inherently, as they could regard such a finding in and of itself unlikely, or could simply be holding an atheistic stance based on available data at the time, subject to reevaluation should new information arise.

But if our reason and logic are validated by scientific evidence as interpreted by reason and logic (apart from any deity) this will simply entail the circularity of reason and logic validating itself.

And what of being verified by collective experience? Select any product you see of science around you and see if it works. I shall do the same. Then Joey and Aki can too. Not precisely scientific, certainly not a logical proof, and yet solid grounds for concluding your television or computer, or whichever device you select works.

So non-theism is either self-referentially incoherent, or else it is hopelessly circular. Therefore, theism remains the only viable option, and as such it is a warranted belief.

I do hope I've shown this is wrong in almost every way such a claim of this nature can be shown to be wrong.

[bernee51]

Just to clear a few things up:

Non-theism posits that there is no adequate warrant for believing theism to be true. So the non-theist is faced with the reality that she is either meaningless stardust, or else she is something more.

This is not a false dichotomy. It is logically equivalent to 'A or not A'.

Thank you, Aki, you are so right. If "A" or "Not A" is a false dichotomy, then we're all going to have a lot of trouble with any logical argument.

Or so you say...

What I see you missing is the obvious - it is not a case of A or not A.

As I have show, I consider myself - and all sentient beings - to be both meaningless stardust and something more.

How this is achieved can be seen in parts of my responses to Jester in this thread.

If you would like it clarified " feel free to ask.

Bernee51, will you now retract your claim and apologize for your snide comments about "Christian apologists"?

Wow " do those big bold blue letters make you feel good...

If you took offence at my so called snide remark, I apologize. But would also ask why you identified with them enough to take offence.

Clearly, I do not retract what is an accurate assessment of your initial statement.

...The greatest error in EduChris post is the following:

But since meaningless stardust is really in no position to claim that logic and reason are any more likely to lead to truth than anything else, this option is hardly ever chosen.

The first error is to claim that concluding that our existence is meaningless renders the conclusion that logic cannot be reasoned to be useful...

My claim is that conglomerations of meaningless particles of matter, acting strictly according to the laws of physics as understood today, do not have any true agency or volition and therefore no meaningful process of "reasoning" can be adduced. Conglomerations of matter simply operate mechanistically and do not "choose" anything.

Such a statement relies on a totally flatland view of existence. We, sentient beings, are in part meaningless particles of matter - a holon in and of itself " and other layers which make up the whole.

Again I refer you to some of my responses to Jester. I am happy to clarify should you find it difficult to get your head around.

May you be happy, kind, loving and peaceful

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 57:

What I see you missing is the obvious - it is not a case of A or not A.

As I have show, I consider myself - and all sentient beings - to be both meaningless stardust and something more.

If I may...

To the universe, I am meaningless stardust. To me I am "something more".

Am I doin' it right?

Such a statement relies on a totally flatland view of existence. We, sentient beings, are in part meaningless particles of matter - a holon in and of itself " and other layers which make up the whole.

Or, we are "meaningless particles of matter" formed into "meaning seeking sentient beings".

Or, since our existence is dependent on "meaningless stardust", we can say such dust "means" quite a good bit, if only to ourselves.

I've never bought into the "stardust" or "something more" argument simply because it does set up a false dichotomy - it declares our very constituent parts, of which "we" would be "meaningless", to be of such little import.

Either way, the option of "meaningless matter" and "meaningful existence" is, to my understanding, a confusing of the physical with the metaphysical.

Meaning is what we as individuals determine it to be. No theist has exclusive claim to it, no matter how much they carry on.

[Sirami]

Each of us has a worldview.
That is, each of us have a list of beliefs that get us through our day, on which we base our practical and ethical decisions and by which we find some sense of purpose in life.

I have noticed that many claim to have rejected all forms of theism on the grounds that they feel there is little or no evidence supporting it.
Assuming this is the case, which worldview (or weltanschauung) is supported by evidence?
And, of course, what is that evidence?

Honestly, the strongest logical world view is this:
I exist.

And it stops there.

[Sirami]

According to Apostel, a worldview is an ontology, or a descriptive model of the world. It should comprise these six elements:

1. An explanation of the world
2. A futurology, answering the question "where are we heading?"
3. Values, answers to ethical questions: "What should we do?"
4. A praxeology, or methodology, or theory of action.: "How should we attain our goals?"
5. An epistemology, or theory of knowledge. "What is true and false?"
6. An etiology. A constructed world-view should contain an account of its own "building blocks," its origins and construction.

Based on these criterion, can a worldview be built, based on evidence? Or must speculation be used? Is it better to have a speculative worldview, or an incomplete one? Humanism only partially or fully addresses these questions. Christianity also addresses these questions, with a different set of completeness variables.

Ahah! Then I do have a world view!

Ethics:
Keep in mind that I had this view before I knew what its name was. I actually don't like the name. I think it's snide.
Enlightened self-interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightened_self-interest

It's a world view that accepts the selfish nature of humanity. It focuses on working together with other people to make everybody happy, so that the individual self can be happy (my chances of being happy increase as the happiness of those around me increase).

Explanation of the world:
The universe exists. Objectively, there is no meaning to anything. Meaning is a subjective concept. Objectively purpose does not extend beyond physics.

I'm a Soft-Determinist.

What is true and false:
There is no way to know truth with 100% certainty, as we must rely on tools that are fallible to receive any information at all. That doesn't make it pointless to try, however. The only objective truth is what "is". Any subjective concepts "truth" does not extend beyond the conceiver. This is why we try to persuade one another to believe different things. If we persuade another to accept our subjective concepts (such as morality) we are making it "true" for them conceptually as well.

Being a practitioner of "enlightened self-interest" (I still hate that name), I try to discourage concepts, beliefs, and actions that lead to the suffering of others.

Where did everything come from?

I don't know. If it was random chance, the chances of everything turning out as they are would be 100% (which doesn't tell us anything). If there was a creator, well, let's just say that the universe is very big and in just about everything observable: size matters a lot! Because the universe is so big, I doubt that a creator of the universe would care too much about this planet.