Some people believe that gods do not exist. (One can call this position "atheism" or "strong atheism" or "anti-theist perversion," anything you want. But we aren't going to argue terminology in this thread. Clarity is good, so you can explain what you personally mean by "atheist," but you shouldn't suggest that other usages are inferior.)
This thread is to make a list of arguments, of reasons to believe that theism is false.
And we can discuss the soundness of those arguments.
I'll start:
1. The Parable of the Pawnbroker.
(I'll just post titles here, so as not to take too much space at the top of each thread.)
2. Presumptive Falsity of Outrageous Claims.
Feel free to add to this list.
Justify the belief that gods do not exist.
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Re: Justify the belief that gods do not exist.
Post #81Occam's razor should be used with regard to choosing the best explanations, in this context it appears useless to me. It simply doesn't work as a justification for this kind of claims. For example, it certainly seems unparsimonius to propose that there are one or more pedestrians walking at my home street right at this moment, as opposed to suggesting that there are no pedestrians. The latter certainly makes fewer assumptions. But it would be odd to say that therefore I'm somehow prima facie justified in believing that there are no pedestrians there at this moment. At least it cannot provide anything more than a very weak justification in this context.Jashwell wrote: [Replying to post 75 by instantc]
... I would say that it's certainly unparsimonious to propose a God and that this is a satisfactory reason for believing one does not exist ...
Occam's razor, or parsimony, is in no way logically deductive - this would be an appeal to Occam's razor, a fallacy. But it is a reasonable justification.
Re: Justify the belief that gods do not exist.
Post #82[Replying to post 81 by instantc]
Some formulations of Occam's razor:
"in the absence of certainty—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better"
"used in opposition to supposedly “superfluous ontological apparatus�"
"Plurality must never be posited without necessity"
"entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity"
"We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances."
In other words, in order to explain something, you should only assume what is necessary.
If you'd never heard of the concept of pedestrians, and used pedestrians to explain a noise you heard that could have been the wind, that would be unparsimonius. If you had heard of pedestrians, and it wasn't a windy day - it'd be more parsimonius to suspect pedestrians than to suspect that the wind had only blown in exactly the right place to make the sound and nowhere else.
If we have two explanations - one says "The brain performs all of X" and two says "A soul performs all of X" - then the first is the better option because we know it exists. (There are all sorts of different effects brain differences have on persons that would require enumerable assumptions on behalf of souls to explain)
Occam's razor is used to choose between explanations, not to give awareness of reality. (which your example seems to assume it does)
Some formulations of Occam's razor:
"in the absence of certainty—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better"
"used in opposition to supposedly “superfluous ontological apparatus�"
"Plurality must never be posited without necessity"
"entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity"
"We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances."
In other words, in order to explain something, you should only assume what is necessary.
If you'd never heard of the concept of pedestrians, and used pedestrians to explain a noise you heard that could have been the wind, that would be unparsimonius. If you had heard of pedestrians, and it wasn't a windy day - it'd be more parsimonius to suspect pedestrians than to suspect that the wind had only blown in exactly the right place to make the sound and nowhere else.
If we have two explanations - one says "The brain performs all of X" and two says "A soul performs all of X" - then the first is the better option because we know it exists. (There are all sorts of different effects brain differences have on persons that would require enumerable assumptions on behalf of souls to explain)
Occam's razor is used to choose between explanations, not to give awareness of reality. (which your example seems to assume it does)
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Re: Justify the belief that gods do not exist.
Post #83Such as cracks in the moon, or Christians being immue from certain poison and so on.instantc wrote: What kind of evidence would it leave?
Because everything that have an effect in nature, can in principle be detectable scientifically.Why would you expect a personal being living outside of your reach to have such agendas that you could find out about them?
Re: Justify the belief that gods do not exist.
Post #84That's exactly what I said in my post, isn't it? We are in agreement. My example was one of how not to use the razor. You cannot use it to determine whether there are pedestrians on a street or whether there is God. You can use it to determine whether pedestrians or God are a better or a worse explanations for given parameters.Jashwell wrote: Occam's razor is used to choose between explanations, not to give awareness of reality. (which your example seems to assume it does)
Re: Justify the belief that gods do not exist.
Post #85I cannot tell if you are being serious or not. So you suggest that there is no God (a personal creator of the universe) due to the fact that Christians are not immune to rat poison?
I don't find the truth of this claim to be apparent, so you'd have to justify this claim to me.Bust Nak wrote:Because everything that have an effect in nature, can in principle be detectable scientifically.Why would you expect a personal being living outside of your reach to have such agendas that you could find out about them?
Last edited by instantc on Wed Aug 13, 2014 7:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Justify the belief that gods do not exist.
Post #86[Replying to post 84 by instantc]
Explanations of the mind are better explained without a soul. It's entirely unreasonable to believe in a soul - it is ad hoc.
(The non-existence of mind-body duality is a reasonable belief and prevents the existence of a God)
Explanations of the mind are better explained without a soul. It's entirely unreasonable to believe in a soul - it is ad hoc.
(The non-existence of mind-body duality is a reasonable belief and prevents the existence of a God)
Re: Justify the belief that gods do not exist.
Post #87I agree that the razor favors materialism over dualism, but it does not justify the belief that there is no soul. Just because it is unreasonable to believe in A does not mean that it is reasonable to believe in not-A. It is unreasonable, I would suggest, to believe in anything without a proper reason, but the lack of such reason does not constitute evidence against the claim.Jashwell wrote: [Replying to post 84 by instantc]
Explanations of the mind are better explained without a soul. It's entirely unreasonable to believe in a soul - it is ad hoc.
For example, suppose I tell you that I am now waving either one or two fingers in the air, you have no way of determining which it is. It is unreasonable therefore for you to believe that I am waving two fingers, but that does not mean that it is reasonable to believe that I am waving only one finger. Nor does the fact that one finger theory makes fewer assumptions constitute any justification for believing in the other option.
Re: Justify the belief that gods do not exist.
Post #88[Replying to post 87 by instantc]
It is very much reasonable to believe there is no such thing as a soul, as the brain sufficiently explains the mind.
The number of fingers doesn't translate to the simplicity of the proposition. (Nor are they explanations).
You see a man holding a bloody knife (with some blood on his hands), another on the ground with a knife wound in, DNA tests show the blood is the same as the victim.
Is it reasonable to think the man did it? Yes. Are there other explanations? Yes. Why don't we believe them instead? Parsimony.
It is very much reasonable to believe there is no such thing as a soul, as the brain sufficiently explains the mind.
The number of fingers doesn't translate to the simplicity of the proposition. (Nor are they explanations).
You see a man holding a bloody knife (with some blood on his hands), another on the ground with a knife wound in, DNA tests show the blood is the same as the victim.
Is it reasonable to think the man did it? Yes. Are there other explanations? Yes. Why don't we believe them instead? Parsimony.
Re: Justify the belief that gods do not exist.
Post #89If the brain can sufficiently account for the mind, then it is unreasonable to believe in dualism in the absence of any further arguments, but that does not constitute evidence against the existence of souls, that's complete nonsense. Not believing in A is not the same thing as believing in not A. Besides, this is completely unrelated to the present thread. We are not determining whether God is a better or worse explanation for some given parameters, we are determining whether the belief that God does not exist is justified.Jashwell wrote: [Replying to post 87 by instantc]
It is very much reasonable to believe there is no such thing as a soul, as the brain sufficiently explains the mind.
This is compeltely unrelated. In your example we have positive evidence suggesting that the man is guilty. You haven't yet given positive evidence for God's non-existence.Jashwell wrote:You see a man holding a bloody knife (with some blood on his hands), another on the ground with a knife wound in, DNA tests show the blood is the same as the victim.
Is it reasonable to think the man did it? Yes. Are there other explanations? Yes. Why don't we believe them instead? Parsimony.
Re: Justify the belief that gods do not exist.
Post #90[Replying to post 89 by instantc]
Unrelated? Positive evidence?
Aliens could've abducted the victim and other man, used the knife to stab the victim, placed the knife in the hands of the man, used blood they'd previously extracted from the victim to cover the man's hands, and then put them back down.
It's a shame we don't have any way to determine whether that is more reasonable, or whether the idea that the man simply stabbed the victim is more reasonable.
Brains can't account for minds if souls alone do. It's one or the other. Brains are more reasonable.
Not to mention the number of ad hoc hypotheses needed to justify:
Brain Damage
Mental Illness
Split Brain Patients
Effect of Drugs on Mental State
Correlation between Mind State and Brain Waves
Evolutionary Biology (the redundancy of a brain given souls)
Unrelated? Positive evidence?
Aliens could've abducted the victim and other man, used the knife to stab the victim, placed the knife in the hands of the man, used blood they'd previously extracted from the victim to cover the man's hands, and then put them back down.
It's a shame we don't have any way to determine whether that is more reasonable, or whether the idea that the man simply stabbed the victim is more reasonable.
Brains can't account for minds if souls alone do. It's one or the other. Brains are more reasonable.
Not to mention the number of ad hoc hypotheses needed to justify:
Brain Damage
Mental Illness
Split Brain Patients
Effect of Drugs on Mental State
Correlation between Mind State and Brain Waves
Evolutionary Biology (the redundancy of a brain given souls)
