I have a question for the atheists of /his/. Oftentimes when I talk to my atheist friends about why they don't believe in a a god they'll say that there is no proof for one's existience. However, by this logic atheism is just as invalid as theism because there's no proof that a diety doesn't exist either. Can any atheists give me a non-meme response here?
>>657465
>there's no proof that a diety (deity*) doesn't exist either
So I could accuse you of murder, and the court would have no choice but to indict you because there's no evidence saying you didn't do it.
I'm an atheist because the idea of god is obviously just a product of human psychology, and it's foolish to consider the existence of every impossible thing that anyone on earth has ever imagined.
God's already been established here: >>637821
Atheists have offered no equivalent evidence that there is no God.
>>657465
Quit trying to be an apologist
You're shit at it
>>657502
>scientific nothing
What
We just don't give a fuck dude, fuck off, when do we get a /rel/ for you freaks.
>>657489
>because there's no evidence saying you didn't do it
You're missing the point here. A court/police force has the ability to find evidence and thus reach a verdict. We do not have any evidence directly for or against the existience of a god, and therefore cannot reach a verdict on its existence.
2/10 for making me reply
>>657513
Scientific nothing means a quantum vacuum, it still has energy and stuff like that. When people say, "science shows we can come from nothing," they mean scientific nothing, not absolute nothing.
>>657519
>This board is dedicated to the discussion of history and the other humanities such as philosophy, religion,
>>657465
Most people who take this position are of the opinion that secular science is the default position to take. That it isn't part of their cultural upbringing to believe so, but an actual objective stance one takes when not influenced by cultural upbringing.
>>657537
Exactly, this is Hiro's fault for being a retard and grouping such a loose range of topics together. History and humanities need to be separate.
>>657525
So if they were somehow incapable of gathering evidence, would they be just in convicting you?
>>657549
Grow up and learn to ignore thread you don't like
believing in god involves positing a whole list of metaphysical perspectives, not reducible to the epistemological, that I just do not agree with. spinozism > your faggoty transcendental shit
>>657525
Why have positive belief be the default stance when you yourself admit there is no evidence?
Far better to have healthy skepticism, and to disdain people like you who insist that others should take their empty claims for granted.
>>657557
More non-history threads being posted means less history threads to talk in
This upsets me because the majority of people advocated a board purely for history
Am I being nice and polite enough for you yet
>>657529
Please provide a source using 'scientific nothing' in this way, otherwise I shall be forced to believe that it is your own idiosyncratic terminology.
Atheism is typically not a positive assertion itself, but a rejection of a positive assertion.The default assumption would be that there is no god, as there is no evidence for god. So when someone asserts that there is a god, and someone else rejects that assertion, there's no reason for the latter to prove themselves.
>>657587
This.
Atheist literally means "without faith."
That's what the term means.
>>657576
Make your own history thread autist
If people want to talk in them they will.
>>657599
>atheists don't have faith in induction
>>657465
Being an atheist just means you have no belief in a deity, not that you have a "belief in the nonexistence of deities." A proper atheist doesn't claim god doesn't exist (provided he also is agnostic, in the sense that he doesn't claim to know 100% that god doesn't exist).
>>657608
If you believe you're a brain in a vat and there is no god, you're still an atheist.
>>657608
It LITERALLY means without faith.
That is the literal root of the word.
>>657599
>The term "atheism" originated from the Greek ἄθεος (atheos), meaning "without god(s)"
>>657587
>The default assumption
This is ridiculous. The default position would be to not make an assumption to begin with. Once an assumption is made you are taking a the side of a dogma. As i've stated already in this thread, this assumption of the atheist that their position is the default is absolutely incorrect.
>>657465
If you went believing everything that has not been proven false you would be a madman, since there is not enough evidence to support that belief, i have no reason for believing.
Also most god propositions are contradictory to each other, they cant all be true, but they can all be false.
>>657465
Agnosticism.
>>657622
So if anyone on earth makes any claim, I am suddenly obligated to believe them unless I go out of my way to try to find out what the fuck they are talking about?
It's just basic burden of proof, come on dude.
>>657622
Not making an assumption and not believing in god are one and the same. In both cases, the person in question does not believe in god. It's the default assumption in the same way that the default assumption is that your bodily processes aren't micromanaged by a metaphysical demon.
>>657622
But taken in the broad sense, if you don't answer the question "Do you believe in a deity" with a yes, then you don't currently believe in a deity, hence atheist even if you are undecided. How doesn't this make sense?
>>657622
Do you have evidence that anime isn't real on some alien world or should I stay open to the possibility that it is real on some alien world?
>>657641
No, you can do whatever you want. Just don't claim that atheism is the default position when your worldview is based on the scientific model. You subscribe to a believe in a dogma, just like everyone else that makes assumptions.
It's like when Americans claim that America has no culture because they believe their way of life to be a default position that one would naturally come to in the absence of culture.
>>657642
It's only the default assumption when your entire understanding of the world is based around a model which concludes that it is the default position.
>>657643
As above. Agnosticism exists, and makes less assumptions than atheism.
>>657700
In the absence of positive evidence for a claim, the only logical positions are skeptical uncertainty, or disbelief, depending on how likely you believe it to be that evidence will be found. Which is to say, agnosticism and atheism. Arguing over whether one should be agnostic or atheist is pointless for this discussion however. The core point remains, unless one is going to attempt to make a logical argument in favor of a deity, and let one's belief rest on that argument, your position is illogical and unproven, and thus the reasonable response is as stated.
>>657700
agnosticism is atheism though. there's two types of atheism, weak atheism, which is simply lacking a belief, and strong atheism, which claims that there is no God.
>>657616
No, that would be apistism. θεός means god.
>>657700
Just because you are a cultist doesn't mean everyone else is a rival cultist.
>>657718
I am not arguing for agnosticism. I do not care that your cultural upbringing and worldview has lead you to the position that god does not exist. I am arguing against the assertion that
>"The default assumption would be that there is no god"
>>657719
This is not true. "There is no god" and "i don't believe in a god" is a positive assertion. Agnosticism is a lack of positive assertion either way.
>>657741
Even if your theistic model was the default, which god?
>>657719
thats wrong, agnosticism is not atheism, and there is no such a thing as weak or strong atheism, there is just theism and atheism, gnosticism and agnosticism.
theism and atheism being the declaration of belief in a god and the rejection of said declaration respectively.
gnosticism and agnosticism the declaration of knowledge and the rejection of the declaration of knowledge respectively.
>>657741
atheism is also the lack of a positive assertion, only the anti-theist say "there is no god" atheist say "i dont believe a god exists".
>>657750
I thought Gnosticism was about rebelling against the Demiurge.
>>657741
I should correct myself before this argument goes the wrong direction. Atheism is the BELIEF that there is no god based on one's biased and dogmatic view of the world under a model in which a god is not necessary.
This is a positive assertion. But atheists don't seem to see that their worldview isn't a default, like the foolish american doesn't see that they have culture.
Disregard my last post.
>>657465
I'm an atheist because the whole idea of religion, I find appealing, but I really can't force myself to believe.
It's such a strange idea that there exist these omnipotent beings who deeply love us however if we so much as blink the wrong way we would be sentenced to eternal torment. It just strikes me as strange.
>there's no proof that deity doesn't exist either
>500+ years of observation of the universe and natural laws
>the retelling of the same story but this time in a desert or in the tundra
>god was so fucking lazy that he had man write down his word instead of just dropping an almighty copier from the heaven's version of kinkos
>>657761
Fuck the Demiurge to be honest family.
No, it is not. It is the lack of an assertion, and thus along with agnosticism the logical default positions.
Arguing that the universe requires a deity is an argument for a deity, which is a positive claim.
>>657763
Yeah, because as we all know, dogmatic beliefs are irrational and biased.
>>657525
If you don't know, and can't know, why do you are?
bertrand russel was a KEK
logical positivism has yield no result thus far
>>657775
Marital Fidelity is a spook.
>>657772
They are not necessarily irrational, but they are indeed tainted by culture and preconceived ideas, and are certainly not a pure default view.
Also, I'm not a theist, if that's what you're trying to be smart about.
>>657763
I personally don't see it that way. I see it as the answer to the question "Do you believe in any deities," (to which the answer would be no), not the answer to the question "what do you believe regarding the existence or nonexistence of deities" (to which you'd have to start with "I believe"). I think the definition of atheism lends more toward the former. But that's my perspective.
>>657763
you're wrong, atheism is not a belief, its the lack of a belief in a god proposition.
>>657763
>Atheism is the BELIEF
Kek.
>>657787
I just don't get why you are being insistent about a basic concept as burden of proof.
>>657791
Okay, sure. But there's more to it than just a question and a yes/no answer. You're disregarding the fact that that yes/no answer has reasoning behind it. Reasoning which has been shaped by a worldview. In your case it is, what I can only assume, the worldview of 21st century western secular science.
If you remove that worldview by emptying your mind of preconceived ideas, associations and thought, you would not answer the question. And THAT is the default position, pure agnosticism.
>>657750
I don't understand where you differ with me. from my understanding weak atheism is a synonym for agnostic atheism and strong atheism for gnostic atheism
>>657823
Maybe what we need is different words for the different reasons for saying "no."
>>657823
We could do a Zen Buddhist thing:
>"Do you believe in god?"
>"Wu..."
>>657827
not all agnosticism is atheism, there are also agnostic theist, apart from that i just disagree with calling it weak or strong atheism.
>>657823
Or maybe not even ask, just do a brain scan and determine precisely what they believe.
>>657841
>"Wu..."
I should start using this answer more often.
>>657829
Maybe people should drop the positive assertion of "no" for "I couldn't say". Or maybe people should recognise their preconceived ideas and understand how those ideas make their position fundamentally based on a faith.
And yes, "I don't believe" is a faith when you analyse it deeply enough.
>>657844
I wasn't claiming that all agnosticism is atheism, but most people who identify as "agnostic" are usually agnostic atheists. My fault for not being clear
>>657850
Some may agree or disagree with that.
>>657841
Problem is that 'wu' in Chinese can mean 'without' or 'nothing,' but it can also just mean 'no'
>>657856
i like you.
>>657868
Do you mean bu?
>>657850
please explain how "i dont believe" is a declaration of faith.
>>657880
He's being a retard. He doesn't know the difference between "there is nothing" and "I don't believe. I have no real opinion."
>>657868
How convenient, then in that case it works both ways.
>>657880
Taking "faith" meaning "a confidence in something without evidence", he probably means that "I don't believe" is an assumption on the speaker's part that the other person is likely to be wrong, based on nothing but an inclination (especially regarding metaphysical claims). I don't COMPLETELY agree with him, but I think I see where he's coming from.
>athism
>a (no)
>theism (belief in god)
>>657880
"I don't believe he would do that" = "I have faith that he wouldn't do that"
>>657885
he either is stupid or dishonest. imo
>>657892
But the Chinese word for no is bu.
>>657880
I never said it's a declaration of faith, just that it requires faith to come to that conclusion.
Basically your lack of belief is based on your understanding of the world, which is based on faith. You don't actually know that anything you experience exists or anything outside you exists, you have faith that it exists and you have faith in the scientific model. And all of this faith in your preconceived ideas shapes your worldview, which leads to your belief or disbelief in god based on what makes sense according to your worldview.
If you didn't have this faithful worldview, you wouldn't believe or disbelieve. You'd be wholey open.
>>657885
>"I don't believe. I have no real opinion"
Those two things makes no sense as a single statement. "I don't believe" IS an opinion.
>>657924
I meant "I don't believe" as in I don't believe either way.
>>657899
"i believe" - declaration of faith
"i dont believe" - lack or rejection of declaration of faith.
>>657915
that's going too far down the wormhole for me, m8. Of course you have to assume the universe exists out of necessity. whether I'm real or not, the world affects me as though it's real and can make me feel joy or suffering so I have no reason not to treat it as such. I would argue the scientific method however has been proven, however. through the past few centuries it has been able to get very good results in this world, imaginary or not
>>657915
I see this spinning into the old "You can't really know anything" drain.
At this point we just replace the word "thought" with "faith" since because we can't really ever learn or know any facts, we just apply "faith" for everything we think, see, feel, imagine, etc.
Now conveniently unsubstantiated claims are on the same level as personal experience, rationality, logic, etc because we removed any distinction of truth value, it's all just "faith" and we are all equally guilty of being biased.
>>657952
>has been proven
You have to first believe that the proof is true.
>>657929
"I don't believe either way" is a lack of conclusion, that's a characteristic of Agnosticism. Atheists have come to a conclusion and that conclusion involves either direct disbelief or a belief without the necessity for god.
>>657915
yes we all have our presuppositions like the logical absolutes, but thats another spectrum of discussion, you would be playing with semantics at that point.
what i want you to tell me is how do you reconciliate the lack of faith in something being a declaration of faith.
>>657915
but it doesnt require faith, it requires skepticism.
>>657972
>we are all equally guilty of being biased
Indeed. This was my point. Too often Atheists dismiss their position as being unbiased fact, or a default position. Unless one ceases clinging to anything and everything then they are not free from bias, and they are as influenced by their faith as any other person with any other opinion.
>>657775
>see Bertrard Russel put on a pedestal in atheist circles
>look up him arguing against cosmological argument
>he bases the core of his judgement on the part of the argument that says "everything has a cause"
>look into the history of cosmological arguments
>literally no famed cosmological arguments in the history of philosophy use such a premise
How the fuck does this bullshit get attention.
>>657585
It's just a way of differentiating between "nothing" when used to mean a quantum vacuum, and "nothing" when used to mean absolute nothing. You can use any terms you like.
>>658004
>How the fuck does this bullshit get attention.
Maybe he put on a tripcode and used lots of anime pictures.
>>658001
So you agree that your point hinges on blurring and/or removing any distinction between real and imaginary concepts and just calling it all "faith"?
>>658014
no mind is pure of preconceived ideas, but even if my position that is "the lack of a belief in god" has presuppositions, like everybody else, it doesnt mean it is a positive claim, or that it needs faith the same way believing in a god does.
you just changed the nature of the word faith and you're discussing semantics from that point on.
>>658015
I mean honestly, the original point I was getting at was that Atheists aren't any better than Theists, because both have opinions that are shaped by culture, and science and religion are never default positions free from bias.
I am very much against people who think their culture is superior and more grounded in objectivity than others.
So yeah, sure.
>>658041
How many gods do you believe in?
Only those gods from superior cultures?
>>658041
Hey, anon, what would you say of "apatheists," those who don't care about the debate?
>>658041
atheist and theist are not the same, because you have to take one extra step from everybody's presuppositions to the belief in a god, making it more unlikely.
I wonder if in the future once most mainstream religions take the path of the roman pantheon and and fall into the "oh those people thought that" category if we will have a majority that fall into a simple belief/non-belief system. sort of a deist/atheist thing.
>>658062
>not caring about the most important philosophical question there is
What can be said of them? Hope they enjoy reality TV shows
>>658074
Its going to be the most likely result imo
>>658077
I agree.
People want proof and there just isn't any. So far no arguments have convinced me, that a god does or doesn't exist. Claiming that just seems dishonest to me.
I was raised christian, but even back then I didn't have real faith. That's why I'm having a hard time accepting the beliefs other people hold.
That whole "muh logic" atheism circlejerk doesn't appeal to me either. All these questions life throws at you are too complicated for me to choose sides. In the end I just sit somewhere in the middle and try not to be a dick about it.
Maybe I will take a leap of faith into some kind of spirtuality someday, but I honestly doubt that. I don't think I will ever find answers to all the questions I have.
All in all, I feel that the only real discussion concerning "God" is whether there was "something" that caused initiation. The nuances of "the-nature-of" are a fundamentally unanswerable unless you sit across a desk from him/her/it and start asking questions.
>>658103
Honestly man, regardless of all the walls and pillars of fact and faith people build to defend and assure their convictions, the most honest and true thing we as a species and individuals can say is "I have no fucking clue".
>>657502
No, you're just retarded and you should kill yourself.
>>657587
The default assertion proven by most world cultures is that there is a god/s.
>>657465
this is older than my dad
![392929_428154590610049_1644384772_n-e1363537507673[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/WtuD8S6.png "392929_428154590610049_1644384772_n-e1363537507673[1].png")
>>658148
Science is a katana for cutting through the veil of ignorance.
>>658177
>>658162
Naturally those people who participated in cultures but didn't believe in a God or Gods aren't going to be visible to us. They started traditions about things they did believe in, not centered around not believing things they didn't.
>>658007
kek
>>658155
What truthful rebuke did you just righteously utter of me, you worthiest of souls? I’ll have you know I failed God to the deepest of the pit in my class of worldly sinners, and I’ve been involved in numerous shameful transgressions on God's forgiveness, and I have over 300 confirmed faults. I am depraved in wicked thoughts and I’m the top coveter in the entire legions of the damned. I am nothing to thee but just another Satan. I will praise you to heaven and back with the most contrite of hearts the likes of which has been seen all too often from the sinner, mark my unworthy lips. You think you can serve away with your words of wisdom to me over the Internet? God bless, brother. As we speak I am contacting my holy communion of saints across heaven and your love is being traced right now so you better prepare for the Theosis, militant. The mercy that sustains the shining little thing you call your soul. You’re God's gift, kid. I can be all things at all times to all men, and I can bow to you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just while kissing your hand. Not only am I extensively corrupted by unnameable vileness, but I have betrayed to the entire covenant of the Orthodox Body of Christ, and I will plead her to her full benevolence to sanctify your virtuous spirit off the face of the lie, you little star. If only you could have known what holy gratitude your little “meek” correction was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have blessed your benign tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re reaping the harvest, you God fearing joy. I will weep thanks all over you and you will drown in it. You've found life, kiddo.
>>657465
It is more comforting to believe in a cosmic plan than it is to believe in chaos and determinism.
>no proof of gods existence
Lmao what is newtons third law
>>657465
Your own pic related is a pretty good explanation for why atheism is the rational stance in the absence of evidence. There's about as much evidence for God as there is for the cosmic teapot.
Nobody believes in the cosmic teapot.
Why should they believe in god?
>>658640
wonder why you even talk about evidence ? do you know what an evidence is ? who talked to you about evidence ?
>>657465
>110 replies
We really do need a separate humanities board.
>>658676
Why are you stuttering?
>>658676
OP was the one that brought up evidence. Bitch to him about it not me.
It takes a special kind of stupid to look at the universe that so dwarfs us and think it was all "made" for humanity.
>>658724
It takes a rare kind of wisdom to think God would have to be a Ameriburger and think big = important, small = meaningless
>>658724
but that isnt realy a argument one way or the other
in fact it would make sense that humans are just another phenomena in the midst of multitudes of systems and events that make up reality, but this only complicates things, and in no way disprooves the existance gods, we could easily imagine a reality where gods are real and humans are just another something within countless trillions of other somethings, including gods etc
one could even posit a reality where the same thing applies to the gods themselves, and in fact there are mythologies that assume this, gods being just another epiphenomena emerging trough processes out of total chaos
>>657465
Because in science (Which is a pretty good way of getting information) you have to have one or multiple falsifiable hypotheses in order to affirm a positive claim since the approach of science is rather fundamentally a skeptical one.
If a falsifiable hypothesis is presented then the claim can be proven to be false by disproving the claim.
However you can't conclusively prove a negative claim with a skeptical mindset in the same way you might not be able to prove that a program is completely bug free if you work in QA.
So if no falsifiable hypothesis is ever presented then the claim can't be proven to be false since the claim has never proven to be correct. In order to argue against that point with the skeptical scientific mindset one would need to create a falsifiable hypothesis that could prove the opposition correct and disprove it.
Since this is demonstrably ridiculous (since the opposition would never accept the hypothesis) it is simpler to dismiss the non-argument out of hand and simply state that the claim is invalid since no falsifiable hypothesis (And as such no evidence or logic) was ever presented for the case.
>>658052
I do not believe in gods. I am an Atheist.
>>658064
An Atheist and a Theist don't share the same worldview with the difference being one believes in god and one doesn't. You've got to start from one's fundamental understanding of the universe, the very basics which people overlook. So it's a lot more complicated than just one extra step.
Besides it's only "more unlikely" from a western secular science worldview. You're again assuming your beliefs are a default universal truth.
You prove positive claims, the negative claims are the null-hypothesis. Under your line of thinking you'd have to believe every single religion simultaneously because "there's no evidence they're wrong", plus a functional infinity of other unsubstantiated beliefs.
>>657503
So was pic related.
>>657465
even the idea proofs and logical argumentation are applicable in these questions is completely retarded, you cant logicaly argue absurdities, they are absurd, logic just passes trough them like a bullet trough fog, and the absurdity is still there, unaffected
>>657465
The burden of proof is yours, OP.
Next time, use a real argument, not a shameful fallacy.
Believcing in god takes faith, atheists do not have faith in god.
>>658007
Damn son.
I fold. Well done.
>>658923
Aren't cosmological arguments based on causation?
>>657465
I believe the Universe was made by a team of magic badgers.
Prove me wrong.
>>657465
The burden of proof lies upon the one making the claim. In this case that would be you as you are asking them why they do not believe.
It's also the most rational stance to disdain from believing in things that haven't been demonstrated to be true as our believes guides our actions. By adhering to unsupported beliefs one cannot thus maximize ones rationality in life.
Besides, the general claim that a god exists is too vague to really be taken seriously as one can define divinity in a vast amount of different ways, making the term "god", when standing by itself next to useless.
>>658946
If magic badgers created the universe then morality would be black and white.
Morality isn't black and white but different shades of grey.
Thus koalas and not badgers created the universe.
I don't mean to sound fedora
I've always sort of hoped that there is some metaphysical ultimate reality or god (not a jealous type like in the Quran or bible more of subtle panentheistic God) or something.
But when I critically examine it the reasons to believe in something, there doesn't seem to be a reasonable reason, that one could possibly know?
The design argument isn't very convincing.
The cosmological argument has several holes in it.
And anyone purporting evidence of what seems to be utterly metaphysical, either miracles or having seen beyond, almost certainly cannot be trusted
So now what?
>>659453
Just play Dungeons and Dragons, you can invent all kinds of badass god who fight and create magic and help heroes and destroy worlds.
If you run a setting for like 30 years you will internalize it so hard that you will essentially live your life according to those principals, like Star Wars or Scientology or Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses.
> atheism is just as invalid as theism
Generally, yes. You can't really prove one or other side statement because of how universal they are in broad sense. That is why agnosticism logically the best position. We doesn't know for sure if god can exist or even what it is.
How does science prove or disprove God's existence? After all, in order to find God you must search for him yourSELF, and no other. You look for proof in others, but faith is derived from YOUR spirit.
>>659487
The difference between atheism and agnosticism is negligible. Sure there are some differences in truth claims, but the effects on your life and moral values are fundamentally the same.
>>659572
Is he somewhere in my colon?
>>659487
(a)gnosticsm doesn't answer the same question as (a)theism. The former is about knowledge and the latter is about belief.
Most atheists are agnostic.
>>659608
Reality doesn't need to be sustained. If someone is against this then you just say that this kind of reality depends of being fictitious and there is no definitive argument to believe that it exist. Why? By definition it can't just exist and you can't just claim that this kind of reality is kind of reality of our world because we doesn't know if God even exist in our world to sustain such metaphysics.
Basically reality is the god anyway and if proof tries to play around this pair of concepts in the end it would be disguised case of circular logic.
>>659642
God's existence is open question logically. I know that you can't really present this position as some kind of agnosticism. I don't know real term for this position.
>>659608
Lol.
That thread consisted of Constantine using Wikipedia tier arguments about Physics while getting BTFO.
If you truly think some thread on /his/ just proved god exists then you are even more bat shit crazy than the average religiontard.
>>658162
That's the established norm of a culture. The default position on the existence of anything is that it doesn't exist until you have some evidence of its existence. Until there is a sign that there is a village over that hill, as far as you are concerned, there is no village over that hill. Obviously those cultures all had a reason to believe in a god or gods, but a reason is not the same as evidence.
What about people who don't believe it's going to rain tomorrow? I think they're just as open to criticism as those who believe that it will rain tomorrow. After all, they have no way of proving that it will not rain tomorrow.
And then there's people who don't believe that the total number of grains of sand on Earth is odd. What proof can they show that it's even?
Why do I have to prove my non belief in something? Do you want me to explain why I don't believe in invisible Flavian's? What, you think that's bullshit I just made up? Prove it faggot.
>>660080
People who make metaphysical assertions about how people should lead their lives and manage their economies and governments based on those matters should be questioned on those matters and expected to provide proof that their claims are valid.
>>657525
We have the ability to test metaphysical claims in the bible and prove them wrong
Can I adopt the position of that I don't give a shit, leave me alone?
>>660108
You're missing my point, I think. Colloquially, when people say that they "don't believe" in God, this is taken as equivalent to saying that they "don't believe it will rain tomorrow". When people say the latter, they really are typically stating a belief that it will not rain tomorrow. But when people say they don't believe in God, often they mean something more like the latter case - they are effectively rejecting the proposition "You believe in God". This doesn't necessarily tie them to an assertion of God's non-existence.
>>657525
This is actually incorrect and not how the justice system works. There are some cases where people are genuinely proven to be innocent of crimes they are accused of, however in the vast majority of cases it is simply a case that there is not enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they committed a crime.
No one is found 'innocent' they are found 'not guilty'.
>>660138
Ah I get you. Yeah, that's something people seem to miss.
I'm certain that the faggots who think that believing in Jesus is some kind of default position must be American. That seems to me to be the only way that someone could be so ignorant of opposing points of views and perspectives.
>>657465
Both claim to know the unknowable. The truly enlightened are those on either spectrum that have a mutual respect and admiration for each others beliefs, though very few exist.
Agnosticism is really the only rational one, just live your life and try to be a good person. God, if he exists does indeed favor those who do good to his brothers and sisters. Christianity has laid down the foundations for most western societies today, there's no denying that. But, I'm not going to believe for a second a Pagan style of worship for example isn't equally capable of dominating the globe and creating a functioning and flourishing civilization.
>tfw you're an agnostic and you don't have to prove anything to anyone because neither a god nor a lack of one can't be proven
>>657465
>"you are wrong because you can't prove a negative"
>he thinks this constitutes an argument
holy shit what's with the deluge of contrarian christians? by your own religion's criteria, you're going to hell because you don't truly believe, you're just reacting to le ebil adeist normies. you don't actually persuade anyone of anything, you just shit up boards with your cancer.
7/10 - i'm mad.
>>661019
I think their position (I'm not a Christian and I agree a large chunk of purported Christians posting here are essentially RPing) would be more like:
>You are wrong in your implied assumption of epistemic superiority because you can provide no more proof than I can
There are ways to get at that stance and erode it down somewhat, but there is a kernel of truth in it.
Can you be certain about everything you ever known?
>>661019
I'm not a Christian and this isn't an argument
I'm not an atheist, I'm ignostic, but the idea of falsifiability plays a role. It's not the mere lack of evidence, it's the inability to define God in a way where existence can be meaningfully discussed. It leaves the question up to personal preference/intuition, which is fine, but my personal preference/intuition is that it's no concern.
>>657465
You can't have evidence that something doesn't exist. We do have evidence that you can't have a being with the properties of God, at least within the realm familiar to science. That's it.
>>658890
>>657525
If it isn't falsifiable and you have no theoretical basis for it then it's utter bullshit.
>>657587
The default would be to neither believe in god (be a theist) or not believe in god (be an atheist) but rather to find the concept of god/no-god bizarre and alien.
>>657587
Atheism is a positive assertion. To say "there is no god" is to validate the categories of god/no-god. It is a post-christian position to have.
>>661556
>there is no god
>this is atheism
>when will this meme die
>>661236
>at least within the realm familiar to science
Indeed, that is it.
>>657465
>everyone relies on "evidence" of something metaphysical to determine proof
I just don't believe the basic premise - it's a simple true/false situation for me.
>Theism - A concluded world-view in which a god is required
>Atheism - A concluded world-view in which a god is not required
>Agnosticism - An inconclusive world-view in which a god could be or could not be required
Is this a reasonable summary?
>>661587
The definitions - in effect, the boundaries between 'agnosticism' and 'atheism' are somewhat in flux. 'Atheist' has had several meanings over the centuries. The biggest possible waste of your time (in discussions which are already usually futile) is to get bogged down in debating the 'true' or 'most useful' definition of the respective labels. Just say what you think - it's actually quicker in the long run, even though "I'm an X" feels more efficient.
>>661638
From my observation and contribution within this thread it is my view there have been too many conflicts based on what Atheism is, hindering discussion. There seems to be a general belief by some that Atheism is a pure position without a world-view influencing it. And when you have this idea there's going to be confusion when one person is arguing from one world-view and another person with a different world-view is arguing from what he considers an objective position without a world-view influencing it. You're basically not going to get a proper discussion out of that. That's my opinion, at least.
>>661703
To make it a little more clear and relate it back to my previous post and the OP. Atheists have a world-view in which a god is not required, therefore to them the burden of proof is on the theists to prove that god exists. Where as Theists, such as the OP, have a concluded world-view in which a god is absolutely required, so to them the burden of proof is on the atheist making the assertion that a god doesn't exist.
Neither are necessarily more correct in their world-view than the other. One believes in their religious dogma, the other believes in their secular scientific dogma.
The conflict arises in people being unable to look outside of themselves and understand two different world-views.
>>661558
This.
A-theist = non-theist.
It doesn't mean you assert there is no god. That would be gnostic atheism, which is part of atheism, but almost noone does this.
Atheism doesn't claim anything, it just means you do not subscribe to theism.
>>661767
Why is the agnostic spectrum larger in Atheism than in Theism?
If you either believe or you don't, why is there a spectrum at all?
>>661236
> You can't have evidence that something doesn't exist.
Nice opinion. Do you have any evidence that there can't be evidence that something doesn't exist?
>>661551
If you roll a die, and don't show me the number, and say its a six, I don't have to believe you.
That doesn't mean I find the concept of a six vs other numbers bizarre, or that I claim it is definitely not a six.
Just that I have no idea what you actually rolled.
>>661824
Its about certainty. Most atheists, just by numbers, do not claim complete certainty (agnostic).
But most theists do claim that they know for sure (gnostic). Some don't. Some say they think there is a god, but can't be 100% certain (agnostic theists).
>>661236
>You can't have evidence that something doesn't exist.
So if someone tells me "There's a banana in that drawer", and I open the drawer, and the drawer is empty, I have... no evidence that the banana in question doesn't exist?
That doesn't seem right.
>>661831
Default position is ignorance. Do you believe in delrevirgermento for example? You can't really say that you do or you don't because you doesn't even understand meaning of the term.
>>661829
It follows from not being omniscient. If you are omniscient, then you can definitely tell if something does not exist.
If you can see just a subset of the things that exist, you can't exclude the possibility that what you are trying to disprove exists somewhere and you just have not found it.
Like getting m&m's from a bag. You can tell what colors you have already drawn, but not what colors are not in the bag.
Assuming what you look for is a coherent concept and not a square circle or something.
>>661831
I don't think that's a very good analogy.
A better one would be that somebody rolls a die of an undetermined number of sides, and then tells you it rolled a 500. You, having preconceived ideas, do not believe that there are 500 sided dice and conclude that this couldn't be the case.
The default position would be to make no conclusion about the dice or the number, and find the prospect of having preconceived ideas about dice to be strange.
>>661853
>Do you believe in delrevirgermento
It's certainly false to say that I believe in it. The statement "I do not believe in delrevirgermento" is, equally certainly, true. The colloquial interpretation of that statement as a proposition "I believe delrevirgermento does not exist" need not be inferred.
>>661846
But if Theism is the belief in a god, and Atheism is the lack of belief in a god, then how can agnosticism, being uncertainty, be related to Theism. When you either believe or don't believe. One doesn't believe with doubt, that doesn't make sense.
>>661853
Technicly correct, of course.
But this is more about concepts or assertions that would be claimed by others. They would explain to you what they think is real, but the default response to that is "i don't believe this until you can demostrate it by reasoned argument and/or evidence".
If the assertion is bad or unprovable/unfalsifiable, that makes things easier.
>>661847
> That doesn't seem right.
Because it isn't. Retards just oversimplify certain logical statements out of their context. What you really can't do is to have conclusive evidence that something logically possible doesn't exist in very broad and universal sense of the word. You can't really prove that aliens doesn't exist for example.
>>661866
I believe that I'll wake up tomorrow. I don't claim certainty that I will.
Gnosticism (which just relates to god usually) here would be I claim 100% certainty that I will wake up to the exclusion of all other possibilities (i claim its impossible that i donÄt wake up).
Agnostic atheist would live his life believing there is a god, but not claim infallibility on that.
>>661866
> One doesn't believe with doubt
You can doubt but believe despite of it.
>>661859
If you tell me its a six-sided die, and everything else about the "experiment", except what you rolled, thats about what theists do mostly. Most theists will happily explain to you in detail what they mean by god and why they believe.
Without any explanation about the claim, you would of course be correct. You'd not know either way because, like, how.
>>660980
God can be proven by direct action of God. If even in theory he can't prove that he exist, well he isn't really God. Just another limited being.
>>657465
Atheism like theism is neverending, so the existence of god will forever be in question/
>>661882
You may not make the claim to other people, but belief itself is the personal certainty of something. If you're not certain or confident in something you don't believe, you just consider it a possibility.
>>657465
Because I don't care.
It must be impossible for you to imagine someone doesn't care about God, eh? Even scary perhaps?
>>657631
Underrated postà
>>661911
Why we even should care about God? If he has a problem he definitely can solve it himself without our help.
>>661892
Right, but that's what I was getting at with my analogy. Theists will tell you that they figuratively rolled a 500, but in your personal understanding of science you believe that a die with 500 sides is physically impossible and isn't manufactured. You have a preconceived idea about the universe in which what the Theist claims can't be true. So it isn't a default position, because your position isn't concluded without bias. To not believe there is a god is to have a world-view in which god doesn't need to exist. Without that world-view you'd neither believe nor lack the belief in, you'd have a truly default position.
Without the preconceived ideas about the dice you wouldn't make a conclusion. Your world-view isn't a default.
>>657767
>God had man write his word
This in itself should warrant far more skepticism than it does. It's not like there's some bullshit rule that God can't write or some dumb shit. He wrote the ten commandments. So why is it that a bunch of people formed God's scripture centuries after Jesus walked the Earth? Probably the same reason most things are written: to pass on the point of the writer himself, which, since God didn't drop a damn book down on his own accord, is probably not the same as Gods word.
Reminder that the Bible was written by a bunch of isolated, sexually deprived, uncultured (but well read), bigoted monks living amongst awful conditions in remote hermitages.
>>657465
Assuming you don't like court logic, what about occam's razor.
The historical inconsistencies of even the slimmest parts of the bible are, well, biblical.
Why would I believe all this bullshit when it is always asserted by a book or a bunch of guys conspiring to get their way, but the moment it's questioned the facade breaks down.
>>661905
The word certainty for gnosticism means something like mathematical certainty. Literally 100%. Nothing less. I don't have that certainty in any of my beliefs.
I'd be open to new evidence on any of them. I am convinced to a moral certainty that I will wake up, but not to a mathematical one. I live my life as if i will wake up tomorrow. I'd not ever claim that I KNOW i will wake up. Can't read the future.
Being gnostic is being mathematically certain. 100%. Gnostic theists claim to KNOW there is a god.
Agnostic theists are convinced to a very high certainty, and live their life as if there is a deity. But they do not claim to know. There are not many of those.
>>661939
God doesn't need to be biblical god.
I think Jedi might be a cool religion to convert, thoughts?
>>661926
uhh. I don't know whether the world needs a god or not to exist. I'd not claim that. So far it seems it doesn't, but we don't know shit about anything. For now, a god is not required for anything we can observe. For those things we can't observe, I have no information to judge them on. Theists say they do somehow.
And I never claimed, and neither do most atheists, that the idea of a god can't be true. If there was a god, anything and everything would be possible, so its coherent in principle. Just that there is nothing that would point in that direction. And psychology pointing the exact other way. Not conclusively of course, not claiming mathematical certainty. Just that there is nothing convincing presented so far, so no belief is warranted.
This has nothing to do with my personal anything.
When people say they're agnostic, they mean they'll never be able to prove or disprove an intelligent force beyond our comprehension.
They don't mean they still consider the possibility of Christianity being true, or the Christian trinity being God.
>>661977
>For now, a god is not required for anything we can observe
That is a positive assertion, for which a Theist would assert the opposite. You've established based on your understanding of the universe that there is no convincing evidence for god, so it's a bit more than just a lack of belief in god. It is a belief in a model of the universe without a god.
>>662000
That is not a positive assertion :D
I knew nothing about gods or theism.
Theists explained to me their idea, and I found it unconvincing. I made no other assertions beyond that, and returned to my default position of not knowing how exactly the world works. So I remain, as i was before I met theists, a non-theist.
>>662036
Firstly, the concept of god can be concluded by oneself without the need for a Theist put the idea in your head.
Secondly, If you didn't have preconceived ideas about the universe you wouldn't have found the concept of god to be either convincing or unconvincing. Your preconceived ideas are the positive assertion which leads to an obvious conclusion. It's not just a simple matter of everyone having a default view of the universe and the concept of god being added to that. God is the basis of some people's world-view. Just as scientific theory and materiality is the basis of your world view.
Again, remove your preconceived ideas and you'll have a true default position. Anything other than that is a positive assertion.
>>662000
>>662036
Let me correct that, the "sofar not required" is of course a positive assertion, but that is a slightly different topic.
Why I think that is the case has nothing to do with the default position. I could disbelieve all of science and all of theism and make a new religion about magic pidgeons that requires neither.
Why I think its sofar not required(just to clarify, not to discuss it): there is no god mechanism mentioned in any scientific field, they all work without. If theists could demonstrate something that requries a deity to explain it, there would be nobel prizes for that, because they would have proven god as a real part of our universe. So far, no religion managed that, and all specific claims have been shown to be invalid hypotheses or not based in rationality and intellectual honesty.
>>662057
“If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?”
― Sam Harris
If people admit their worldview is based neither in rationality not evidence, sure, they can have a "different" worldview. That makes their worldview irrational and unsubstantiated, and if they're not OK with being called that, they are free to provide good reasons for their belief any time they choose.
Until then, I'm not really prepared to call irrational beliefs a "worldview". You can make up all kinds of shit if you don't want to prove it, even that you don't have to prove it. Doesn't make it any less absurd.
>>662093
But again, you're talking from the opinion a certain world-view. What is "rational" and counts as "evidence" is dictated by your preconceived ideas and asserted model of what is true.
A Vedantic philosopher could have just as well made that same quote from their own bias of what counts as evidence and logic.
Though you may think so, the 21st century western secular science model of reality isn't a default position. You're starting from one base point and asserting your ideas from there, where as somebody else will start from another base point and assert completely different ideas from that base.
4chan exists, that is how I know there is no god
Christianity is killing this board
>>662190
>mfw everyone thought /pol/ would be the end of /his, little they knew it would be /rel/
>>662190
Point out the direct Christian beliefs in this thread.
>>662127
If you don't think logic or reason is a given, good luck trying to explain your "alternative view" without using either.
First step of every cult, every sharlatan, every manipulator: teach people to deny reality.
Logic and reason are not arbitrary. Everyone uses them. Except some people don't like the answers and add their favourite beliefs as a dogmatic exception.
Matter of fact, why don't you try explaining any alternative to logic or reason right now, without falling back on either one. How about it?
>>662220
Logic and reason are relative to what is already established as a base point to what is logical and reasonable.
For example if you are to make the base assumption that what you experience with your sense organs is absolute reality, then you can determine what logic and reason is based on that reality, and from there determine what else logical and reasonable.
If you believe that what you experience with your sense organs is illusion, then you find a base separate from that illusion to determine your logic and reason alternative, and from there determine what is to be understood as absolute truth.
This base assumption is separate from logic and reason, because it can have no logical conclusion or reasoning behind it, only faith.
>>662220
Also you want me to explain a logic and reason alternative without falling back on logic and reason, yet what you actually want me to do is to explain a logic and reason alternative using logic and reason. Which is not very logical or reasonable.
If you want a logic and reason alternative separate from logic and reason, then be quiet.
>>662220
>Everyone uses them.
What a charitable view of mankind
>>662301
>For example if you are to make the base assumption that what you experience with your sense organs is absolute reality,
>solepsistic pseudotrap
You don't. You just assume it until proven otherwise. As everyone else does. Because if you don't, you can't make any conclusions about anything at all. That is the absence of any worldview entirely.
Lets assume you're dreaming or in a matrix-style scenario. What do you do. You navigate the world as if its real, using reason and logic to find out its rules. Until given reason to believe otherwise. Because you have literally zero other choice.
Solepcism solved.
>>662315
I meant more like everyone wants to adhere to them and be consistent and logical in their worldview. Thats a goal for most people. Obviously people fail at that hard, a lot, but the point is they still assume its what their worldview is based on and want to be coherent and logical in principle, even most faithbased people. Like >>662278 here tries to make sense of his intuitions by using reason and logic, but falls for falacies that can be demonstrated. That makes most people uncomfortable and they either use irrational tricks like denial or try to adjust their views accordingly.
Those who don't are per definition irrational at their core and their views are meaningless.
>>662357
One naturally has faith in it, of course. Until one reaches the point of enough philosophical thought to question it. Then one can choose to either accept it or embark on their attempt to test it. Which is what is done in many Eastern cultures, until they have an experience separate from it which to many is as convincing a reality as our experience is a reality to us.
You're again applying standard secular logic and reason and determining anything outside of this as an absence, rather than the alternative to logic and reason which you were asking for previously.
>>662377
>Those who don't are per definition irrational at their core and their views are meaningless
*According to the world-view of a secularist
>>662398
Not faith, zero faith. You use the only input you have to determine what system is behind it. If you have reason to believe that the input is incoherent or otherwise inaccurate, you try to correct for the error. Like having glasses for bad eyes, or medicine if you think you see demons that are otherwise not confirmable by other means.
Eastern cultures mainly use meditation to get insights into how your own conciousness works. Any and all of their insights are thereby confined to the insides of their head. Making assumptions about the real world from expiriences you have inside your own mind is an entirely illogical proposition. You have to verify those independantly. Same as any hypothesis you can come up with by thinking directly about stuff without meditation. Neurology does a good job there without any supernatural nonsense, and without having to undermine logic and rationality to stay coherent.
For more on meditation and how it relates to modern science I can suggest "Spirituality without Religion".
Yes, alchemy had some insights into how things work, that doesn't mean its just an alternative view of chemistry.
Believing in reincarnation or kharma as real and an actual occurance in the universe simply from what you feel while meditating or on LSD or near death is delusion, and not "alternative reason".
Not that anything you said has to do with the solepsism thing you threw up before that. Eastern meditation techniques are something else entirely, and as unrelated to basic logic as most of the things you said so far.
Listen, its been fun, but i'm out. Relativism doesn't work. True and False are not arbitrary, and neither is morality. There is no reason to deny reality and basic logical consistency or otherwise blur the line between gibberish and actual knowledge.
>>661767
What about this line?
>>661236
>You can't have evidence that something doesn't exist.
>>662506
>You use the only input you have to determine what system is behind it
Then you have faith in that input, which is similar to:
>Making assumptions about the real world from expiriences you have inside your own mind
You're also applying an incorrect understanding of Eastern philosophy, namely Hinduism. You're disregarding the principle of Maya.
>Any and all of their insights are thereby confined to the insides of their head
Is again applying secular world-view understanding to a non-secular practice.
Nobody is denying reality, just defining what reality is differently based on their world-view. Which is the argument I keep repeating.
I've enjoyed our time together.
>>661847
That someone asserts that there is no banana in that drawer.
They give no falsifiable hypothesis for its existence.
In the act of opening the drawer you have posed a hypothesis that would prove the existence of the banana.
It is either there or it isn't.
If the banana is there then you have proved the positive claim that it exists even if that someone never provided the hypothesis or proof.
If the banana is not there then you have disproven your own hypothesis for the positive claim that there is a banana in that drawer.
At no point have you had to prove a negative claim (Evidence that something doesn't exist).
However the someone who proposed that the banana existed in the drawer can continue making excuses for why your hypothesis yielded no results and is incorrect, forcing your to redraft your hypothesis ad absurdum or until the only hypothesis left would be unfalsifiable and would yield equal evidence as to the existence or non-existence of the banana (Invisible, untasteable, unsmellable, weightless and intangible for instance).
Now for the argument of god imagine there are a lot of drawers and the assertion is simply that a banana is inside one of them.
>>657465
Its a default stance if you are using scientific methods. Its the closest we can get to gather information as objectively as possible.
To understand why people use this logic you must understand scientific methodology and acquisition of data. I recommend reading some methodology books.
There are no proofs of anything. Then there is probability. Most often it is about what is more probable and reliable while acquiring data. Its not about logic, philosophers could make irrational thought rational so you need empiricism otherwise there would be no way or no point in even trying to understand anything. The method is based on replication that anyone can test himself otherwise it is discarted as nonsensical as there is no way of proving you didnt make it up. Also if things are not possible to test or observe somehow, it is deemed as probably non existent until proven otherwise. It makes sense if you think about it. Proving a negative is impossible really, you can say that its non existence is a proof but its just its absence therefore it is deemed non existent until proven otherwise. The same way as innocent until proven guilty. You cant really go the other round.
The most important thing is to remain skeptical but never give in to one answers over the another. Its very hard to acquire proper understanding or data when people are trying to prove their way instead of trying to find out what is more probable.
>>657761
Gnosticsm the religious movement was. However just because a movement uses a certain word doesn't mean that they have monopoly on it.
>>663394
Here's the catch: it's in a drawer that's locked and you've lost the key. The key is called 'faith'
>>664017
Faith doesn't give rise to the ability to make new measurements or create new ideas that can underly a falsifiable hypothesis.
It is the ability to ignore that your position is completely unjustified and to delude yourself into believing that it is.
In other words it's giving up and joining the person with the banana claim in their assertions.
May as well dose up on your homeopathy meds while you're at it because clearly you don't have any reason to doubt their efficacy.
>>664017
Can you give a verifiable distinction between faith and delusion?
If you have nothing that would convince another reasonable person that your view is correct, why would hold on to that belief yourself?
There could be an intelligent creator but the chances of the gods of any specific religion being real are overwhelming low.
>>657465
Its simple, given the lack of evidence there is a probability that either God does exist or God doesn't exist, and given the way that their mind is constructed they are predisposed towards pursuing the possibility that God doesn't exist rather then the possibility that he does.
In other words, they're just made that way, as are you made your way, and no amount of arguing or "evidence" (if such a word is appropriate) will change that.
>>667120
For all intents and purposes, faith and delusion are one of the same; both the Westboros and Dawkinians are equally delusional for the fact they take their philosophies to the illogical extreme and use them as arguments to split apart society in a way that would ultimately be detrimental to it.
Note that this can come from any branch of belief.
>>657465
This will sound like an insult but it is not meant as such: it's like unicorns. I assume there are none because I see no evidence for it's existence.
However, men considered the platypus a oax, but this fella turned out to be real.
So, I'm open to revision and I can't honestly be a militant atheist. I mostly keep quiet, and I think that would be right for a lot of people.
>>658004
>>literally no famed cosmological arguments in the history of philosophy use such a premise
What?
>everything with a beginning as a cause
>the universe has a beginning
>therefore the universe has a cause
This one was spammed here quite a bit. Dunno about the source, but I learned it here.
>>657465
But that's not how it works.
You get proof before you believe something, you don't do it the other way around because it can quickly lead to you believing in something that is wicked.
Like the Nazis believed that the world would be better if they killed a bunch of "undesirables". There was no proof that it would be the case, but they believed without needing the proof, a convincing madman was enough.
>>657631
/thread
should've ended right there, jesus christ.
>>657465
Contrary to what everyone seems to believe for some reason, absence of evidence actually is evidence of absence.
Keynes once quipped that public figures who think they are expressing their original thoughts are usually echoing the words of some dead economist. The same might be said of the dead Kant in respect to science. While his thought provides a comprehensive modern framework for science, most practicing scientists have never read him and large swaths of the philosophy of science ignore or reject what they take to be muddled Kantianism.
Bertrand Russell and E.G. Moore were especially hostile to Kant, convicting him of logical errors and supposing that transcendental idealism rested on a mistaken faith in the inviolability of Euclidean Geometry, which Kant presented as the very model of the "synthetic a priori." These dubious charges stuck all the way through logical positivism and continue in the analytic tradition. Certainly Popper's demarcation criteria seem to reject Kantian approaches, or at least so Popper claimed.
Today, however, it seems that more philosophers of science may be open to Kant. Henry Allison offers detailed refutations of the above calumnies, and Kuhn was explicitly influenced by Kant in his anti-Popperian demarcation by "paradigms." He claimed that reading Kant while studying physics utterly altered his naive realism, though those are not his words.
As to the bigger picture. Bacon first described the emerging rift between the rationalists, "the spiders," who weave webs of theory (coherence theory, we might say) and the new empirical naturalists, "the busy ants," who gather bits of data (correspondence theory, roughly). The rift grew into Leibnizian mathematical rationalism and Humean skepticism. It was Kant's great project to merge and mutually limit the two on a firm metaphysical basis, in part to secure the basis of Newtonian physics.
His unique amalgam of coherence and correspondence theory is in many ways, and intentionally, a kind of philosophical version of the hypothetic-deductive framework of science, an expansion of knowledge by rational (conceptual) methods and experimental (intuitional) confirmation. And indeed science does undertake continuous active synthesis based on a priori assumptions of necessity and universality. Even the "experiment" is somewhat Kantian, in that it is hardly passive reception of sense data... the experiential confirmation in "common sense" is quite artificial and actively constructed.
Most working scientists tend to believe they are following analytical rules and discovering "correspondences" with hard "reality." So they look askance at Kantian idealism, regarding it as akin to Berkeleyan empirical idealism or some sort of structuralism. Such assurance was, of course, shaken by statistical mechanics in thermodynamics and then quantum mechanics. But such "shaking" may only register with a few...how many physicists, after all, have time to read Kant? Yet when pressed on theoretical issues many physicists will admit they are constructing models and cannot speak about the "ultimate reality," mere speculative metaphysics, unaware that they are defaulting to a near Kantian position.
Meanwhile, cosmology today seems to be weaving "theoretical webs" well outside any Kantian remit, moving far beyond experimental range and tumbling headlong into the Antinomies. In CPR B511, for example, we see hints of Copenhagen in "you never come face to face with anything unconditioned...." or "...neither a simple appearance [i.e., final particle] nor an infinite composition [i.e., material universe] can ever come before you." One might say Kant attempted to work out a physics that included the observer.
Of course, this is very general and it is easy to contrive this sort of cozy compatibility. I don't know enough about Kant yet to know where he might be in serious conflict with scientific practices, especially in theory of evolution... or perhaps in the evolution and "selection" of theories, where Hegel's criticism of Kant begins. I hope other will offer more specific references to Kant in current philosophy of science, since I'd like to know as well.
>>657465
You are baiting, right? That's why you used that image?
>>657465
Pic related. There's just no reason to believe in any specific God. Take the Ecumenical councils for example, men got together and decided upon Christian doctrines, all denominations claim what was decided is infallible. That's right, men are infallible in matters concerning the word of God, not the Apostles mind you, just the men that came in the centuries later who couldn't even be said to have known Jesus. To believe in Christian doctrines is to believe that men cannot be wrong about God, Jesus and their teachings.
