Delicious LiveJournal Links for 10-4-2010

[andrewducker]

• Computers take histories better than doctors – why don’t they do it more?
  (tags: computing medicine)
• Facebook fails to learn from other sites, bans breastfeeding icons.
  (tags: breastfeeding facebook censorship)
• Calling a female candidate names does more harm to her standing with voters than criticizing her policy positions
  Her support rebounded after a mild response — calling the discussion "inappropriate" and turning to issues — and after a more direct counterattack that decried "sexist, divisive rhetoric."
  (tags: politics feminism)
• Ally McBeal creator David E. Kelley to write 'Wonder Woman' TV series
  (tags: WonderWoman comics tv)
• 'Lost Girls' Cleared by British Customs Despite Law Banning Sexual Imagery. Hurrah for common sense.
  (tags: alan_moore art comics sex)
• The science of love.
  (tags: love science psychology brain)
• Atheist, Gnostic, Theist, Agnostic. Contains useful diagram, and differentiates between subtle differences of opinion
  (tags: atheism religion philosophy visualization)
• Brilliant behaviour from GCC when it found 'bad' C++ code
  (tags: c++ code compiler funny computers)

Comments

[innerbrat]

I disagree with the claim that theist agnostics are rare. Isn't there even a quote in the Christian Bible that says outright that the existence of God can't be proven?

Or am I thinking of HHGTTG?

[usmu.livejournal.com]

HHGTTG states, with regards to the existence of the babel fish,:

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen it to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.

[usmu.livejournal.com]

The one thing that disappoints me about the atheist/theist distinction in that graph is the use of the word believe. It's a homonym which is a large part of the problem this graph is trying to solve. Atheist "believe" is based on a different paradigm than theist "believe". The fist values evidence, the second faith. This distinction is often not recognized and makes discussion on this subject very difficult and tiresome.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

There always seems to be a massive cluster-fuck about the meaning of terms whenever people start to talk about knowledge about god. It seems like people, in normal conversation, have a meaning of belief meaning "sufficiently sure to base actions on". If someone asks "did Paul go to the shop" I don't say "he said he was, and went in that direction, and came back with shopping bags full of stuff, but I don't have a mathematical proof that it was logically NECESSARY that he went to the shop", I just say "yes".

But when you talk about god, and we LOOK at the definitions, people suddenly seem to switch into expecting a logical certainty of anything you might profess to belief. Are you certain that God doesn't exist? Yes, according to the normal English definition, no according to a strict mathematical definition, and until I know which definition you're about to spring on me, I can't say which answer is appropriate.

[simont]

And even before you get into that quagmire, there's the purely linguistic confusion whereby "don't believe in X" is often interpreted to mean "believe that it doesn't exist" rather than in the literal sense of "do not positively believe that it does exist", so that people who simply don't have an opinion about whether there's a god can be qualified as atheists or don't-knows depending on who's doing the interpreting.

I know somebody who falls foul of this confusion even more, because he uses very strong words like "I reject belief", to mean that he's carefully considered whether the evidence justifies a positive belief in a god and decided it definitely doesn't – but even then, he doesn't profess a positive belief in lack-of-god, just a positive belief that the evidence isn't good enough. But of course people always misinterpret as the former.

Then there are ignostics or non-cognitivists (those who think statements about God are logically meaningless in the first place and can't be said to be either true or false), and doubtless a variety of other positions that fall through the cracks of even a ten-axis diagram let alone two.

A few years ago a discussion of this nature took place on another forum I frequent, and a Christian passing through was amused to observe that atheism seemed to be just as schismatic and divided as Christianity. It was hard to argue with him!

A good friend of mine takes one of the most down-to-earth positions I've heard on the whole tangle. He says he thinks the idea of a God is silly. He concedes that it might conceivably turn out to be true – but insists that even if it were true, it would still be silly. :-)

[simont]

If someone asks "did Paul go to the shop" I don't say "he said he was, and went in that direction, and came back with shopping bags full of stuff, but I don't have a mathematical proof that it was logically NECESSARY that he went to the shop"

Actually, I'm not convinced. That strikes me as exactly the sort of thing you'd say ;-)

[andrewducker]

I feel that way about Free Will. I vary between "I'll answer the question if you tell me what you mean by 'Free Will'." and "The whole idea is silly."

[simont]

Oh god, don't even start. Free will is an order of magnitude worse than God for these discussions!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Well, ok, but the point remains that I still think I would be CORRECT to say "yes", and would say the other thing mainly to implicitely criticise people who are innapropriately pedantic about this sort of thing only in some contexts[1]. (Or for some other rationalisation.)

[1] Surely it's better pedantry to subtly critise inferior pedants, than to critise normal people? :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yes, indeed, although I'm not sure it's purely linguistic, the relationship between not-belief and beleif-not is perhaps inherently complicated.

atheism seemed to be just as schismatic and divided as Christianity

Well, it probably IS, especially if you include every non-religious belief under that umbrella, but on the other hand, when it comes to this sort of thing, it seems like pretty much everyone[1] beliefs approximately the same things, either "i'm pretty sure there's no god" or "I don't think there's a god, but i'm not sure", but just has violently different words for it.

[1] But not everyone

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's because the one of the naked kid who's got to be at least four is just fucking freaky.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

This is a common idea people have, but speaking as a theist, I'm not sure how true it is. I am a Christian because it evidentially stands up, and I'm not alone in that reasoning.

Dawkins et al constantly send out the message that all theists believe in the sense of blind faith (which Dawkins defines essentially as a belief in the absence of or even in the face of actual evidence), but Dawkins knows virtually nothing of what theists (or at least Christians) actually believe and why.

A good source of finding out some of the externally verifiable reasons why Christians believe can be found here.

[usmu.livejournal.com]

I am a Christian because it evidentially stands up

The problem with standing up evidentially is that it doesn't actually proves that what you assume is correct. It would evidentially stand up that I'm the reason the sun rises every morning because I wish it to be so if every evening before I go to bed I command the sun to rise the next morning.

The only way for something to stand up evidentially and be true is when you can actually prove what you're saying is true. According to the scientific method this means it should be repeatedly demonstrable and not falsifiable. In case of competing theories the simples one is accepted to be true by way of Ockham's razor.


Dawkins knows virtually nothing of what theists (or at least Christians) actually believe and why.

Unless why is an explanation along the lines of the scientific method, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter why I believe I make the sun rise in the morning as it's verifiablely not true. Even if it stands up evidentially.

I can't speak for Dawkins, though you seem to severely underestimate him, but having been raised roman catholic (altar boy), spending a couple of years in evangelical circles and having studied philosophy at university, I'm both aware of quite a lot of theist beliefs and the underlying arguments.

I've found several for me problematic aspects of theist beliefs:


1.) Dogmas

Every belief system has at least one and usually quite a bit more dogmas The most basic one is the dogma that god exists. The fact that this might evidentially hold up is not actually enough to prove it is true as demonstrated above.

As it has not been demonstrated that his existence is fact any conclusion based on the notion that god exists is a faith based belief for the time being. It can become fact when god's existence is scientifically proven. This isn't but can become fact goes for every dogma I've encountered.


2.) Category mistakes

A category mistake happens when you compare objects or notions that do not belong to the same type of things. You can't draw any conclusions with regards to motorized vehicles by looking at bikes.

Philosophy and Science are two separate fields of inquiry that are not completely interchangeable. You can do philosophy in a scientific manner, but not science in philosophical manner. The scientific method prohibits this, as most philosophy is not demonstratively true.

As any (a)theist believe is of a philosophical nature, it can be supported or discredited by science, but in turn can not validate or invalidate science. Like I said above: it doesn't matter why I think I make the sun rise, it's not true.


3) logical fallacies

There are two major fallacies I keep encountering: the pars pro toto and the circular reasoning. To start with the latter: a lot of theist explanations of god's existence of other beliefs have the underlying assumption that god exists. AS this remains unproven it can't be used as an argument to prove either itself or something else.

The pars pro toto is a similar problem: you can't prove the existence of the whole by the existence of the parts of which it exists. Say I have the following items laying in front of me: a harddrive, a fan, a cpu and a graphics card. Can I prove that a computer exists? No because they have to be put together in a particular way and I have no evidence that that is or has been done.

Might I recommend Daniel Dennet's Breaking the Spell, Religion as a Natural Phenomenon as an expansion of some of the things I've said here?

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Hi usmu.

In my response to you I wanted to indicate that your assertion that atheists value evidence while theists value faith is in fact false. Now I have done that you seem to be trying to school me at some length to (presumably) demonstrate that my belief that Christianity is true (or theism in general) is incorrect.

While it would be sort of fun to get in to a lengthy debate with you about that here, that's not something I really want to do. My comments about Dawkins are not the uninformed comments of someone who knows little about him, I'm quite sure I've read, listened to, TALKED to Dawkins a lot more than anyone I know (IRL).

As it happens I have almost all of Dawkins books on my bookshelf, as well as Breaking the Spell, quite a lot of philosophy, apologetics books, arguments by physicists (e.g. Stenger, etc), and so on. I have spent most of my life with atheist beliefs, but have become convinced that the Christian position is the more reasonable and likely one.

[innerbrat]

Yes, thank you. I do know my Hitchhiker's.

[usmu.livejournal.com]

The problem seems to be that we're talking about a different form of evidence. The point I was trying to make, apparently rather poorly, is that evidence as presented by theists, does not comply with the standard set by the scientific method. The main reasons as to why I've stated above.

This does not invalidate theism as such, but does not validate it either. Because of that theist thought reverts to being faith based by default. And it will be as long as scientific research, as proposed by Dennet in Breaking the Spell, is not carried out. I've not seen much willingness in that way.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Well, there are a few different things going on here, and I'm not sure what perspective you're coming from. Are you coming from the perspective that the only 'real' truths are those that can be determined by the scientific method?

It should be very clear that the only choices for determining truth in the world are not what can be determined by the scientific method or a sort of 'faith'.

I don't think that the only truths that can be ascertained (or rather - inferred as the best explanation) are those that can be experimentally verified.

[andrewducker]

For instance, "Did Julius Ceasar rule Rome?" is not experimentally verifiable.

[andrewducker]

What about other kinds of knowledge, like historical?

For instance, "Did Julius Ceasar rule Rome?" is not experimentally verifiable.

[usmu.livejournal.com]

There are two kinds of science, what I like to call hard science and soft science. Hard sciences, like chemistry and such, deal with experimentally verifiable truths. Soft sciences like philosophy, history, sociology deal with circumstantial evidence. This because we either we can't, or don't want (usually because of ethical reasons) to verify them experimentally.

As always with circumstantial evidence, the more coherent evidence from various identifiable sources, the more plausible and less faith based something becomes. It will never be as certain as an experimentally verifiable fact.

This gives us a hierarchy of truth values. An experimentally verifiable fact is always stronger than a circumstantial fact. Circumstantial facts with more independent, coherent sources are stronger than circumstantial facts with less independent coherent sources. Subject to examination of credibility of course. With existence of a hierarchy of truth values it seems only natural to examine facts to the highest level of truth value possible.

Theists claims are of an experimentally verifiable nature. Whether something actually exists at this point in time can be checked with an experiment. As such theist claims have not been checked to the best of our knowledge and I think they should be.

[usmu.livejournal.com]

There are two kinds of science, what I like to call hard science and soft science. Hard sciences, like chemistry and such, deal with experimentally verifiable truths. Soft sciences like philosophy, history, sociology deal with circumstantial evidence. This because we either we can't, or don't want (usually because of ethical reasons) to verify them experimentally.

As always with circumstantial evidence, the more coherent evidence from various identifiable sources, the more plausible and less faith based something becomes. It will never be as certain as an experimentally verifiable fact.

This gives us a hierarchy of truth values. An experimentally verifiable fact is always stronger than a circumstantial fact. Circumstantial facts with more independent, coherent sources are stronger than circumstantial facts with less independent coherent sources. Subject to examination of credibility of course. With existence of a hierarchy of truth values it seems only natural to examine facts to the highest level of truth value possible.

As we have a large number of independent sources who confirm that there was a person named Julius Caesar who ruled Rome at a certain time and there are no (credible) sources or experimentally verifiable facts that contradict this, we can assume that this is indeed true. True to the best of our knowledge.

[andrewducker]

And it's this kind of knowledge which I believe that robhu is referring to. He believes that there is sufficient historical evidence to justify his belief.

[usmu.livejournal.com]

That's why I said I think we're talking about different kind of evidence. For me the evidence presented by theist is either very circumstantial, inherently flawed and/or contradicted or undermined by experimentally verified fact. Even more so theists claims are of an experimentally verifiable nature. Whether something actually exists at this point in time can be checked. As such theist claims have not been checked to the best of our knowledge and I think they should be.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Yes.

Not just historical. There are different fields and types of information (both externally objective and internally subjective / existential) and evidence which considered together make me think it is extremely likely that there is a god (and that it is the Christian God).

This thread could easily become a discussion / debate about the particular evidence I find persuasive, and while that is something I WOULD like to talk about, I'd rather avoid it because it's a significant time sink and if I'm going to sink that time in I want to spend it making a series of blog posts rather than replies to comments.

What I'm really interested in doing here is responding to the idea that atheists have evidence and theists have faith (by which we mean the lack of evidence). This is a (ridiculous really) caricature. For example some of the greatest philosophers and scientists (e.g. Plantinga, Collins (head of human genome project, NIH, ...), etc..) are theists (in this case Christians specifically), and as the experts of their field they find that the evidence/discoveries from that field fit more closely with the theist/Christian worldview than others (e.g. an atheistic worldview).

To be very clear about the above paragraph (as it is so often misread), I am not saying "Someone who is a Christian has done well in science and they think Christianity is true so as they're an authority Christianity is true". This is not an argument by authority. What I'm trying to do here is show that the caricature that theists essentially turn their brains off and just leap in to the dark does not match what actually happens. These people have thought about which worldview is most probable a lot more than any of us, and I am quite sure (having read what they have to say on the subject) have looked in to it in a lot more depth than any of us here.

If anyone is interested in seeing the type of arguments that one can make that are not based on 'just having faith' (which btw no one has EVER told me to do in my whole life) then they might find this debate (MP3 / video) between philosopher William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens quite interesting.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

I've replied to andrewducker as this thread has forked in two.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

If you have the time I'd be interested in what you think of the arguments put forward by the theist in the debate I linked to in the other thread.

[usmu.livejournal.com]

I've never tried to establish that theist turn off their brains. Instead I've tried to show that the founding blocks of their thinking are faith based. There might be reasons to believe in those founding blocks, but that does not make them objectively true. To make a quick and dirty analogy: you can take either blue, yellow or a combination of blue and yellow lego bricks to build a house according to the same floor plan, but that doesn't mean the result is the same.

I look forward to your series of blog posts, if you chose to write them.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I still don't think I understand what you mean by "faith based" (and I don't understand your analogy, sorry). If faith based essentially means "not empirically verifiable in a laboratory" then yes, but only a tiny fraction of the beliefs that people have are of that sort (and of course having read anything on the history of science or the philosophy of science will lead one to not want to draw a line in the sand about what 'science' has concluded today even about non-metaphysical matters (on those lines, the recent discussion between Roger Penrose and Alister McGrath about Hawking and Mlodinow's new book makes for excellent listening)).

Can you be very explicit (and concise) about what you mean by "faith based"? Dawkins is fairly explicit and succinct about what he means by faith based, he means "without reason or evidence" and even "in opposition to reason and evidence". Most atheists IME seem to use that definition, and it's very clear that the reason that many theists are theists is not 'faith based' according to that definition.

We all have a worldview, the real question is whether that worldview is reasonable, and I think that placing a requirement that only things that are verifiable in the lab are included in that worldview is an unreasonable burden.

I would like to make those posts, and I hope to, but it could be a very long time before I do so (I am unfortunately very busy, and recently married!). The debate between Craig and Hitchens is excellent, and will give you a MUCH better view of the sort of reasons Christians have for thinking that their worldview is the better one.

[usmu.livejournal.com]

It might take a while, no access at home and I have to get some work done eventually, but I'll have a look and get back to you. I have added you as a friend btw. Hope you don't mind

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Hey, no problem :-)

I went along to a lecture by William Lane Craig in Cambridge (where I live), listened to a lot of his debates, and read some of his books (they layman ones, not the academic ones) before I properly grokked his arguments. I wouldn't expect you'll be blown away initially by what he says, but I think you'll see that the types of arguments he makes are not those which you probably at the moment expect to be the sorts of arguments theists make.

I listen to about 1 hours worth of debates each day now (on my mp3 player) between a theist and atheist (or as with the recent McGrath / Penrose thing, a discussion on a relevant issue). This fits in well for me because I do about an hours driving a day.

I've added you back :-)

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Oh - and I think the mp3 debate format is useful because you get counter arguments to what the other guy said from (usually) very highly regarded / trained / smart theists/atheists. So, while it's only one thing in the armoury of working out which perspective is right, it is I think a very handy one (particularly if you're time starved).

[andrewducker]

I have to admit to a loathing for mp3 debates/podcasts. I can deal with text vastly faster than people talk, and I lose track of purely spoken information quite quickly.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can understand that.

I linked to his website earlier. In particular the Popular articles on the existence and nature of God section may be of interest. There are also scholarly articles, and Craig (being a significant philosopher) has many articles in signficant peer reviewed journals / academic books published by CUP etc.

Some of the debates he has been in are in transcript form, although there are A LOT more that aren't (I've probably listened to about 60 or 70 debates with him in).

[robhu.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you're tracking the whole thread, but you might find these resources interesting.

[usmu.livejournal.com]

My definition of faith based: based on a claim accepted as true without being proved to be so to the highest possible level of truth value. This in correspondence with the hierarchy set out above.

prerequisite notion: Any idea that is inconsistent with a proved idea of a higher truth level can not be part of a valid argument.


As to my analogy: whether or not certain assumptions are true (blue blocks) or not (yellow blocks) is irrelevant, you can reason and construct very logical ideas with them (the floor plan). The resulting notions though are not the same though truth wise. As with my example of me making the sun rise: the underlying assumption is that I can command the sun. Which is nonsense. The reasoning is logically sound though. I hope that makes a bit more sense.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

It sounds to me as if you think that anything that is not experimentally verifiable is a faith based belief. That is a very odd use of the word faith.

I won't comment here any more, as you've created a post on your blog that is probably a better place for the discussion.

[darkoshi]

I was trying to figure out where I fit in that agnostic graph. I suppose I'm in the upper left, yet I feel that my position is malleable. I don't currently believe in God(s), because I haven't experienced anything to cause me to believe in them. If I were to experience something (I wouldn't need scientific proof, but just some kind of special experience, whatever that might be), then I might begin to believe.
If I did begin to believe, then I'd be in the upper right part, because I think I'd still be agnostic about it - just because I believe something doesn't mean I'm certain about it being true.

[andrewducker]

Agreed, on both points. I think the vast majority of people would changed their mind if offered evidence.