Profiling the atheist

Yeah the stuff you personally label superstitions that are easy to handwave, not that which got widely, culturally labelled as such which make better historical examples requiring actual intellectual rigour to discuss.

Exactly my point.

Both of you are still wrong. The reason you both are is neither of you have the wherewithal to actually demonstrate your beliefs are not superstitions. Until that happens, if it ever happens, they are superstitions. Now man up.

Dear Karmy, show the world a superstition that turned out to be true. Let me rephrase. Show the world a superstition than went from being one to something that is a clearly demonstratable to occur. So far that hasn't been done in the entire history of humankind, that's why the reliance upon science to distinguish superstition from reality.

I can think of quite a number of those. But obviously what comes to mind for me immediately is NDE research. Science appears to be confirming what human beings have suspected for 50,000 years and maybe beyond, that the mind continues to exist when the brain has stopped functioning.

Both of you are still wrong. The reason you both are is neither of you have the wherewithal to actually demonstrate your beliefs are not superstitions. Until that happens, if it ever happens, they are superstitions. Now man up.

Some times I honestly wonder if you're having us on, Steve.

Poor examples. Let's consider ghosts, faeries, vampires, non local consciousness, gods and goddesses... You know.

Scientists report on their experience of lab results and reach a consensus opinion and you hang on every word they say.  Other human beings report on their experience of ghosts, God etc and without any reason at all you jump all over their beliefs and experiences.  You believe that everybody who doesn't believe the same as you is biased but you are not.

Those few you mentioned may not be but I would guess that others here might dissagree. For example I would argue if there's any that I could say you are probably guilty of it would be

But again, it’s not a matter of opinion whether or not someone has a good understanding of logic or evidence, in that this knowledge/understanding can be tested or demonstrated. Someone who makes a logically fallacious statement does not have as good an understanding as the person who recognizes and explains to them the fallacy, for example.

Given that I spent most of my professional career studying and teaching what it means to say that there is evidence for (or against) some idea, my understanding has been tested and has been demonstrated on multiple occasions, including here. What you are referring to are examples where the informal use of the words “evidence” and “proof” do not correspond to my more careful use with respect to science. As far as I can tell, Tymn is making a distinction between “proof” as in slam-dunk evidence and “evidence” as in supporting events or experiences. I almost always see proponents refer to “events or experiences which support an idea” as “evidence” for the idea, but they concede that it is not “proof”, meaning that it is not slam-dunk evidence for the idea. Scientists refer to something else when they use the word “evidence”. They refer to events or experiences “which make an idea more likely to be true (or false)” as evidence. This represents a significant difference. It is counter-intuitive, but “events or experiences which support an idea” often don’t make an idea more likely to be true (https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e789/b9...2bf07a.pdf, http://stats.org.uk/statistical-inferenc...Ha1987.pdf). And “proof” refers either to a very, very, very strong body of evidence or to logical proofs.

Building a proper behavior map is way too much effort to spend on this comment but the one single thing that I would say sums this up the best is this piece of this comment from this thread and it's link:


The two logical problems with this are

1: Stating that it must be of the all or none type is a threshold argument. I.e an argument that states that the thing is not actually the thing until it passes a certain, arbitrary threshold. Such as trying to argue a bale of hay isn't made of hay until it weighs 500kg. Even though it's still made out of the exact same substance at 499kg and lower.

It’s almost the opposite of a threshold argument. That is, it refers to events or experiences which are not quantitatively different from ordinary experiences, but rather qualitatively different. Any “threshold” is distinct, obvious, and cannot be reached by incremental means.

To take your bale of hay example, if a baler produces the smaller rectangular bales, then it is impossible for that baler to produce the large circular bales weighing 500 kg. And nobody would regard it as ordinary were that large circular bale to weigh 499 kg instead.

2: There is no such thing as all or none under empricism, Even within the conditions set by your associated link. Th universe is an open system and it is thus impossible to control all variables and get an all or nothing answer to anything in the universe from within the universe. There can thus be no true "facts" under empiricism.

There are, of course, many examples of all-or-none events under empiricism. Your description of ending up with a black eye, etc. despite a complete lack of physical assailants would be an example of one of these events/experiences. Miracles (true miracles, not the “I survived cancer when I only had a 20% chance of surviving” kind of miracles) are usually of the all-or-none type, as well.

And note that that wasn’t an example of “cannot now believe anything that can’t be replicated and validated by science”. It was an example of “the state of what I think has been replicated and validated by science”. But it wasn’t an example of what I believe. If I only believed what could be replicated and validated by science, I wouldn’t be here suggesting experiments which could be performed in order to demonstrate anomalous results, or performing my own personal experiments.

I've had experiences that fit that criteria and yet, thanks to my refusal to acknowledge the possible reality, I still ended up not believing them and attempted to twist them to somehow, someway, be just in my head. My favorite example is when a spirit I'll call Crimson beat the shit out of me in a projection out of frustration since there seemed to be nothing she or anyone else could do to convince me that they were real people and not in my head because no evidence was ever good enough for me. I ended up with a black eye, bleeding nose, two loose teeth on my lower left jaw, and assorted cuts and bruises all over the left side of my body. All while sitting in a crowded library. Yet after that, despite there being literally nothing else that that could've been, I still wasn't convinced. I still tried to twist it around and tell myself that maybe, somehow, someway, it was all in my head.

So when someone actually believes there's such a thing as "all or nothing" evidence, that's a major red flag that that's someone who doesn't understand empiricism, Who doesn't understand their own bias or that they even have one. And thus someone who is more likely to misrepresent and misinterpret evidence due to that perception.

Don't get me wrong, I think I tick off a few thing on  here to varying degrees, Namely points 9, 17, 19, and 21. Maybe 11 as well. But it would be dangerous for you or anyone else to assume they don't tick off anything at all.


Had you read the article the author was pretty specific about what he was talking about, namely talking to people about afterlife research. That's where his list came from.

Right. He was talking about dogmatic atheism. But the only thing it was a list of was dogmatic viewpoints from an atheist perspective. A list of non-dogmatic atheist perspectives could also be written. That is, dogmatism isn’t specific to atheism.

The fact that you could easily make it into a list for hardcore believers is more damning to atheism, not less.

Why? Nobody’s claiming that dogmatic people aren’t present in any and all ideological groups. The level of dogmatism among non-believers may be lower, in general, than among believers. But that doesn’t mean there are no dogmatic atheists. So that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some atheists which the list would apply to. But so what? 

It's the reason why people joke about atheism being just another religion and people following the "church of scientism". Because those people, despite their claims of rationality, are known to make the exact same arguments as the religious people they criticize. It's why the term skeptic has become associated with people who categorically deny things that go against their, typically, atheistic/materialist worldview. To the point that even people within those spheres don't want to be associated with the word anymore.

But again, you’re talking about people who are atheists who are dogmatic, not about atheists in general. And it’s dogmatism which is regarded as a problem.

Mass atheism, especially organized atheism, is such a new thing that I don't think you can accurately say that. It's like arguing a car that's been out for two weeks is the safest thing in the world because there's no accidents on it yet. Yeah it's technically true, but it's also only been two weeks. I'm going to wait a good 50 years before deciding how atheism actually fares compared to religions.

It’s not such a new thing. Atheism has been around for millennia, and mass or organized religion for centuries (with the separation of religion and rule).

I could very easily see it turning into a Gattca style genetic superiority thing and also creating a scientific elite, something you already see with the increasingly popularization of "Technoracy" a socio-economic model dreamed up back in the 20's if I remember correctly but has a large amount of backing and funding from very powerful and influential people today. A model that almost literally turns scientists into a clergy, cloistering themselves and their knowledge away from the public eye. Basically like Plato's concept of Philosopher Kings on steroids. Or Brave New World. Take your pick.

Well, you have to remember that what the public is presented with as the picture of science, in order for the anti-science crew to misinform, is a straw man which doesn’t have much to do with science as it is actually practiced. I agree that there will probably continue to be public fights among strawmen. 

Linda

Yeah the stuff you personally label superstitions that are easy to handwave, not that which got widely, culturally labelled as such which make better historical examples requiring actual intellectual rigour to discuss.

But again, it’s not a matter of opinion whether or not someone has a good understanding of logic or evidence, in that this knowledge/understanding can be tested or demonstrated. Someone who makes a logically fallacious statement does not have as good an understanding as the person who recognizes and explains to them the fallacy, for example.

Given that I spent most of my professional career studying and teaching what it means to say that there is evidence for (or against) some idea, my understanding has been tested and has been demonstrated on multiple occasions, including here. What you are referring to are examples where the informal use of the words “evidence” and “proof” do not correspond to my more careful use with respect to science. As far as I can tell, Tymn is making a distinction between “proof” as in slam-dunk evidence and “evidence” as in supporting events or experiences. I almost always see proponents refer to “events or experiences which support an idea” as “evidence” for the idea, but they concede that it is not “proof”, meaning that it is not slam-dunk evidence for the idea. Scientists refer to something else when they use the word “evidence”. They refer to events or experiences “which make an idea more likely to be true (or false)” as evidence. This represents a significant difference. It is counter-intuitive, but “events or experiences which support an idea” often don’t make an idea more likely to be true (https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e789/b9...2bf07a.pdf, http://stats.org.uk/statistical-inferenc...Ha1987.pdf). And “proof” refers either to a very, very, very strong body of evidence or to logical proofs.



It’s almost the opposite of a threshold argument. That is, it refers to events or experiences which are not quantitatively different from ordinary experiences, but rather qualitatively different. Any “threshold” is distinct, obvious, and cannot be reached by incremental means.

To take your bale of hay example, if a baler produces the smaller rectangular bales, then it is impossible for that baler to produce the large circular bales weighing 500 kg. And nobody would regard it as ordinary were that large circular bale to weigh 499 kg instead.


There are, of course, many examples of all-or-none events under empiricism. Your description of ending up with a black eye, etc. despite a complete lack of physical assailants would be an example of one of these events/experiences. Miracles (true miracles, not the “I survived cancer when I only had a 20% chance of surviving” kind of miracles) are usually of the all-or-none type, as well.

And note that that wasn’t an example of “cannot now believe anything that can’t be replicated and validated by science”. It was an example of “the state of what I think has been replicated and validated by science”. But it wasn’t an example of what I believe. If I only believed what could be replicated and validated by science, I wouldn’t be here suggesting experiments which could be performed in order to demonstrate anomalous results, or performing my own personal experiments.


Right. He was talking about dogmatic atheism. But the only thing it was a list of was dogmatic viewpoints from an atheist perspective. A list of non-dogmatic atheist perspectives could also be written. That is, dogmatism isn’t specific to atheism.


Why? Nobody’s claiming that dogmatic people aren’t present in any and all ideological groups. The level of dogmatism among non-believers may be lower, in general, than among believers. But that doesn’t mean there are no dogmatic atheists. So that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some atheists which the list would apply to. But so what? 


But again, you’re talking about people who are atheists who are dogmatic, not about atheists in general. And it’s dogmatism which is regarded as a problem.


It’s not such a new thing. Atheism has been around for millennia, and mass or organized religion for centuries (with the separation of religion and rule).

Well, you have to remember that what the public is presented with as the picture of science, in order for the anti-science crew to misinform, is a straw man which doesn’t have much to do with science as it is actually practiced. I agree that there will probably continue to be public fights among strawmen. 

Linda

At times I think persons that have little or no affinity for science think scientists get together and through popular vote create factual evidence. If that is how they think scientists come to firm positions it's no wonder they don't understand proof is in the strict scientific sense.

Scientists report on their experience of lab results and reach a consensus opinion and you hang on every word they say.  Other human beings report on their experience of ghosts, God etc and without any reason at all you jump all over their beliefs and experiences.  You believe that everybody who doesn't believe the same as you is biased but you are not.

I implore you to prove what you believe is true, but I don't think you'll ever do that. You seem happy playing victim like so many others. You're playing a bit loose using this word "experience". Do scientists use hallucinogens? Do they contemplate their bellybuttons? No. They observe, hypothesize, then build machines to discover what's going on with nature. Then formulated a theory. None of you do that, instead you rely upon experiences to determine reality with temerity. So prove skeptics wrong. I for one would be happy if you did.

Some times I honestly wonder if you're having us on, Steve.

I really think that in his own mind, he believes he is offering a powerful argument, congratulating himself on his strong, reasoned responses. Go figure.

I suggested an article in the Scientific American a few posts back and he would do well to read it because it is a fairly reasoned argument from a science writer who would certainly place himself in the atheist/materialist camp. Towards the end of the article, John Horgan has this to say:

Brilliant scientists believe in lots of things for which there is no evidence, like multiverses and superstrings and God. I'm a psi skeptic, because I think if psi was real, someone would surely have provided irrefutable proof of it by now. 

And there's the rub. He chooses the phrase "irrefutable proof" because it is safe. The rest of the article is about how brilliant scientists became persuaded by evidence suggesting psi but such evidence, to his thinking, never amounts to "irrefutable proof". Of course it doesn't. It never will until he dies and finds the proof first-hand. 

But I ask myself why the article is necessary in the first place. Are we so conditioned to relying on the approval of scientists that it only becomes acceptable to believe if we have their blessing? Surely that is the definition of scientism.

But I ask myself why the article is necessary in the first place. Are we so conditioned to relying on the approval of scientists that it only becomes acceptable to believe if we have their blessing? Surely that is the definition of scientism.

A bit of synchronicity ... this was in my Facebook News Feed when I looked, moments ago. Yet another example of our need for validation from scientists (sorry about the caps).

SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS HAVE PARANORMAL EXPERIENCES TOO

I really think that in his own mind, he believes he is offering a powerful argument, congratulating himself on his strong, reasoned responses. Go figure.

I suggested an article in the Scientific American a few posts back and he would do well to read it because it is a fairly reasoned argument from a science writer who would certainly place himself in the atheist/materialist camp. Towards the end of the article, John Horgan has this to say:


And there's the rub. He chooses the phrase "irrefutable proof" because it is safe. The rest of the article is about how brilliant scientists became persuaded by evidence suggesting psi but such evidence, to his thinking, never amounts to "irrefutable proof". Of course it doesn't. It never will until he dies and finds the proof first-hand. 

But I ask myself why the article is necessary in the first place. Are we so conditioned to relying on the approval of scientists that it only becomes acceptable to believe if we have their blessing? Surely that is the definition of scientism.

Yes, I wonder why he had to say "irrefutable proof?"

Is that not the classic movement of the goalposts. As regards Steve001, I really don't know what to make of his opinions and statements (sincerity wise)  but of course he is entitled to them. I do wish he would stop calling you Karmy, it's very childish and rather boring, sort of like playground taunting. Surely he's above that...aren't you @Steve ? How about calling him Dave if you don't want to use Kamarling ?