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 Orlanth wrote:

It has a doctrines, fanatics, unifying organisations, preachers, 'saints', a faith based eschatology of sorts - a world without faith in God; there is a form of low church, even ritual, both relating to the atheist state/party system, it is an official faith system for several regimes - all unpleasant ones,

No, there are groups of atheists like that. Atheism is nothing more than the lack of belief in one or more gods. There are no mandated rituals, holy books, "saints" or anything. There are people who are respected in the atheist community, but that doesn't make them equivalent to saints, and even then they're not universally respected in the community.

 insaniak wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

People who don;t believe in God want to be called as not having religious beliefs so that when the problems of the worlds religious beliefs are criticised they can claim to e above or immune.

Speaking as a person who doesn't believe in God, I want to be called as not having religious beliefs because I don't have religious beliefs.

Nothing at all to do with wanting to feel superior to anyone else.

It is a not a matter of superiority, but a mental trap. By convincing oneself that atheism is simply a scientific standpoint, one can point to 'the science' in order to slough off unwanted rival claims as 'unscientific' without further analysis. In a happy future time for atheists with a means to disprove the existence of God, as opposed to be able to say they don't consider the existence of God likely, then one can point to the flat fact of a disproven God and automatically and logically dismiss opposed claims.
Some atheists believe they are at that goal now, they can be so inside their own worldview, which requires faith in the conclusion God does not exist.
Others don't want to go that far, don't presume that God definitely does not exist and therefore that opposed beliefs are necessarily wrong without indiviually looking at those beliefs. Even so a measure of faith exists.

The only way someone can be an atheist and without faith is if you declare yourself as having 'no religion' which you can do at a census, and answer all questions on religion as 'I dont know' or 'I dont care'. That is atheism, and it is without faith. But as soon as you want to have a persistent opinion of your own, a faith choice is exercised.

 insaniak wrote:

Well it is impossible under medical science to be brain dead that long at normal temperatures and return with faculties intact. there s a lot of medicine behind that, brain cells decay very rapidly when there is no oxygen to feed them.

Which proves that something unexpected happens.

How do you get from that to 'God did it'?

Ian McCormack claimed to have met Jesus and Jesus said He was sending him back.

 insaniak wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
..., but there are no atheist churches,

Not actually true.

Partly true.
It would be fair to allow a pass on that. Most atheists will never attend any form of atheist church.
Atheist churches do exist, but they can be dismissed as a fringe activity not indicative of the whole movement, and in some cases to get around a legal loophole, or as satire.

On the other hand there are church like ceremonies in communist countries praising the leader, the party or the nation, almost always have an atheist theology.
While atheist communism is a fair point to bring up when people talk about how getting rid of religion will end many of the words ills. It is to be acknowledged that Lenin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot probably don't speak for most atheists who become atheists by free choice.

Also on the other hand there are atheist versions of most church ceremonies, and this is relevant as that is the primary use of church in the majority of peoples lives. Also the equivalent of house church/Bible groups has a clear parallel in mainstream atheist society.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wolfblade wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

It has a doctrines, fanatics, unifying organisations, preachers, 'saints', a faith based eschatology of sorts - a world without faith in God; there is a form of low church, even ritual, both relating to the atheist state/party system, it is an official faith system for several regimes - all unpleasant ones,

No, there are groups of atheists like that. Atheism is nothing more than the lack of belief in one or more gods. There are no mandated rituals, holy books, "saints" or anything. There are people who are respected in the atheist community, but that doesn't make them equivalent to saints, and even then they're not universally respected in the community.

But it does exist, as you say it applies to groups. There are 'saints' also, people like Aldous Huxley and Christopher Hitchens, the latter especially, and there are many who want to strive to usher in his vision of a post religious world. Indeed Hitchen's focus in the last decade of his life even before his illness was to campaign against religion, a campaign that would intentionally be passed on beyond his death. The parallel is there.

Now compare that back to major religions. There are religious people who don't attend a church or form of communal worship, but still believe, and beliefs vary widely.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
In the scientific method, unprovable claims should not be neither accepted nor rejected, because they are unprovable either way.

In science anything that can't be proven either in the positive or the negative is assumed false.

No, anything that can't be proven either in the postive or the negative is not assumed at all. It is not considered false, it is not considered at all. Falsifiability is one of the main principles of the scientific method. The claim "God exists" is not falsifiable in any possible way, and therefore it would be wrong to assume that its corresponding negative claim "God does not exist" automatically becomes true. The claim will simply have to be rejected without any answer (positive or negative) being provided.

 LordofHats wrote:

The only religious position reachable through the scientific method is agnosticism: "We can't possibly know the answer and therefore we shouldn't care."

hence the terms agnostic theism and agnostic atheism.

Neither of which are pure agnosticism. Rather, they are kinds of theism and atheism. The essential difference is that both the agnostic theist and atheist still come to a conclusion regarding the truth of the claim "God exists", whereas pure agnosticism refrains from making any conclusion regarding the truth of the claim.

 LordofHats wrote:

Science does not occupy itself with unprovable claims,

Academia occupies itself with unprovable claims all the time; ancient aliens, antivaxers, "cigarettes don't cause cancer," atheism is a faith decision, etc. It's all nonsense, but people keep repeating it so science has to keep dealing with it if it wants to be relevant to people's lives.

Sure, you can find "scientific" studies about virtually everything. However, most of the things published about nonsensical topics like above fall into the realm of pseudoscience.
Also, "cigarettes don't cause cancer" is not an unprovable claim, as it is falsifiable.
If you really belief that serious science occupies itself with unprovable claims, than I challenge you to prove it. Find a study into some unprovable claim that adheres to the scientific method. Good luck.

 LordofHats wrote:

as all unprovable claims are inherently unscientific and contribute nothing to our understanding of the world as we can perceive it.

As opposed to postulating that nothing can be known to be true therefore everything is faith based? No wonder you're not following

Nice whataboutism. You missed your calling in life. You would have been a great Soviet propagandist.

 LordofHats wrote:

Secondly, something can most definitely be that what it rejects.

If the entire basis of a position is "rejection of faith based reasoning, beliefs, and considerations," then no it can't. Pointing out that politics is full of hypocrisy is a terrible example. At best, you might be able to suggest that there are atheists who believe in all kinds of things based in faith (luck, superstitions, etc), which would make them hypocrites maybe, but it wouldn't suddenly make atheism a faith decision.

And you know what the only thing in the world is that is more hypocritical than politics? Religion. Atheism included.

 LordofHats wrote:

Atheists are convinced of the non-existance of a deity.

As far as science is consumed, it is non-existant. Science does not postulate that something "maybe exists don't know maybe maybe not." It is either supported by evidence to be true, or it is not.

That is a very skewed, incorrect understanding of the scientific method. Science does not postulate any claims at all, be they negative or positive, for which it has no proof. In such cases science does not say "it does not exist", just as much as it doesn't say "it does exist" nor does it say "maybe it exists, maybe it doesn't", science simply says nothing at all. Any claim, negative or positive, would be inherently unscientific as it would be impossible to test it and adhere to the scientific method. Certainly, scientists, like any people, would be free to discuss and consider such claims, but they are not the object of actual science. That would be impossible.

 Wolfblade wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

It has a doctrines, fanatics, unifying organisations, preachers, 'saints', a faith based eschatology of sorts - a world without faith in God; there is a form of low church, even ritual, both relating to the atheist state/party system, it is an official faith system for several regimes - all unpleasant ones,

No, there are groups of theists like that. Theism is nothing more than the belief in one or more gods. There are no mandated rituals, holy books, "saints" or anything. There are people who are respected in some religious communities, but that doesn't make them equivalent to saints, and even then they're not universally respected in all communities.

Really. Theism and atheism aren't all that different. Both sides of the same coin.

 Orlanth wrote:



But it does exist, as you say it applies to groups. There are 'saints' also, people like Aldous Huxley and Christopher Hitchens, the latter especially, and there are many who want to strive to usher in his vision of a post religious world. Indeed Hitchen's focus in the last decade of his life even before his illness was to campaign against religion, a campaign that would intentionally be passed on beyond his death. The parallel is there.

Now compare that back to major religions. There are religious people who don't attend a church or form of communal worship, but still believe, and beliefs vary widely.

 Orlanth wrote:

Others don't want to go that far, don't presume that God definitely does not exist and therefore that opposed beliefs are necessarily wrong without indiviually looking at those beliefs. Even so a measure of faith exists.

Why are you presuming atheists don't examine religion? Public atheists tend to scrutinize the hell out of it. I mean, Sam Harris (a noted atheist) based his entire neuroscience degree on the concept.

 Orlanth wrote:

The only way someone can be an atheist and without faith is if you declare yourself as having 'no religion' which you can do at a census, and answer all questions on religion as 'I dont know' or 'I dont care'. That is atheism, and it is without faith. But as soon as you want to have a persistent opinion of your own, a faith choice is exercised.

So your conclusion is that "I don't know." amounts to a faith position in the same sense as "I believe in God."? That's kind of a stretch, and it is where your argument leads.

 Orlanth wrote:
Ian McCormack claimed to have met Jesus and Jesus said He was sending him back.

I claim little green men from Jupiter came to visit me last night.

Does that mean Jupiter has little green men that visits Earth from time to time?

tneva82 wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Ian McCormack claimed to have met Jesus and Jesus said He was sending him back.

I claim little green men from Jupiter came to visit me last night.

Does that mean Jupiter has little green men that visits Earth from time to time?

Well, Jupiter is certainly a powerful god, so I wouldn't put it past him to have legions of little green men.

 Orlanth wrote:
It has a doctrines, fanatics, unifying organisations, preachers, 'saints', a faith based eschatology of sorts - a world without faith in God; there is a form of low church, even ritual, both relating to the atheist state/party system, it is an official faith system for several regimes - all unpleasant ones,

Only because you use incredibly broad definitions for those things. By your definitions having a favorite football team is a "religious choice". There are doctrines (football strategy and analysis), fanatics (fans), unifying organizations (lots), preachers (experts on the team), saints (legendary players with retired numbers in the hall of fame), a faith based eschatology of sorts (this year we win the super bowl!), there a form of low church, even ritual (dressing up in team colors on game days, etc). The only thing missing is making it an official faith system for unpleasant dictatorships, but there are plenty of religions that aren't official faith systems in any dictatorships.

Nothing was 'made to fit' it is a straight up calculation. It is also a straight up multiplier. If someone wanted to fit 1949 as the answer they would have needed to add a whole lot of junk because when you multiply a large number by seven you get gaps.

If it's so easy and obvious then people should have figured it out before 1948. You'll of course handwave this problem away with "god sealed the prophecy" as if that means anything, but the obvious answer here is that the prophecy doesn't clearly refer to 1948 and nobody figured it out until after 1948 because they didn't know what date they needed to interpret the prophecy to refer to.

Ian McCormack. Do a google on him. I have discussed him with you on another thread.

I did a google search on him. Secular sources are missing, as are details on the medical side of the event. And his own website claims some kind of conspiracy to withhold his medical records and prevent him from talking to the doctors who were present, which rather conveniently leaves his account as the only available one.

And of course if you look at his account you see a key flaw in the story: when he was "revived" the doctor was looking for signs of life. That's something you do when you aren't 100% sure that a person is dead, it's completely incompatible with your claim that he was "brain dead" and coming back from that point was impossible. The obvious interpretation of the events is that he was stung severely and almost died, but never reached the point of brain death. The doctors considered his survival unlikely and thought he was probably dead, but hadn't quite given up and confirmed his death yet. It's a "you're lucky to be alive" case, not an example of coming back from death.

A story of this kind is normally endorsed explicity by Christian sources is not indicative of a lack of authenticity. You have seen what happens when people in secular medicine say they believe in a story. Taking example Dr Gallagher and calls to end his career.

It's not indicative of a lack of authenticity when Christian sources endorse it. It is indicative of a lack of authenticity when only Christian sources endorse it.

And no, you don't get to handwave away this problem with "secular medicine can't endorse it or they get fired". That's yet another example of you making your beliefs immune to being disproved. If a secular doctor endorses a miracle story it's proof of god. If a secular doctor says "no, this isn't credible" then they're just afraid of losing their job, it doesn't mean their opinion about the story is valid. So nothing that doctor says is allowed to be evidence against your god. This should be a huge red flag.

It certainly exists and is heavily documented. It remains unproven because that is the way God wants it. It is flatly rejected by some because that is how they want it.

Do you not see how this is a contradiction? Evidence for god exists and god sends people (like Ian McCormack) back to be an example and lead others to god, but god simultaneously doesn't want there to be proof of god. That makes no sense at all! But the real situation here is pretty obvious: you're happy to claim evidence as proof of god, and the "god wants it to be unproven" excuse only comes up when people point out flaws in your evidence. It's an excuse to handwave away criticism, not a consistent theory about god.

Source please on your critic.

Also the old chronology long rejected the Biblical source for aligning the timeline, and resulted in the three hundred year dark age gap to make sense. Rohl and others showed that including the Bible as a historical source gave a more plausible timeline. It was not implied that Biblical archeology didn't occur in separation, but a rejection of the Bible was a factor as to why the old chronology persisted as long as it did. Rohl opened a door, there are several variants because ancient sources from across the middle east understandably do not all agree and there are gaps in the timeline.

A source was provided earlier. Kenneth Kitchen is the guy who came up with the generally-accepted chronology that Rohl was trying to disprove. He is a mainstream historian and respected in the field. He is a strong critic of Rohl. He is also a devout Christian who openly endorses the use of the bible as a historical source and writes articles promoting the idea. Your idea of Rohl bringing the bible to atheist historians is laughably wrong.

It is a common excuse: 'there is no evidence', really how would you know. Do you know all? There is no calculation or equation which comes up with the solution God = 0, so there is no scientific premise to dismiss evidence as it emerges, and some of the evidence is quite profound.

How do you know there is no evidence that Peregrine is god and will burn you in eternity if you don't immediately send Peregrine all of your money (Peregrine takes paypal)? Do you know all? Better send Peregrine all that money just to be sure.

The truth here is that atheists do look at the evidence, and even look at new evidence as it emerges. But that evidence is inevitably weak and unconvincing at best, and almost always yet another repetition of the same old evidence that has been presented countless times before. At some point, even if you're open to the possibility of new evidence appearing, you have to conclude "there is no evidence". It's what we do with everything besides religion, so why should your preferred god have a special snowflake exception to the rule?

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No, anything that can't be proven either in the postive or the negative is not assumed at all.

Science is evidence based. If there is no evidence, then science cannot consider it real and proclaiming something as real will not force science to accept it absent evidence. To then turn that around on science and proclaim their position faith based is obtuse and disingenuous.

Falsifiability is one of the main principles of the scientific method.

It's also a very poorly understood concept among laymen. God can be taken as a falsifiable concept given that (Christianity for example), posits a lot of things about God. Young Earth Creationism is falsifiable. The power of prayer is falsifiable. Demonic possession is falsifiable. The reality is that science eventually accepts a sufficient absence of evidence as evidence of absence. This is not a required conclusion, but it's one that can be reached scientifically; "there is no evidence of God or any of the powers he's supposed to have,and we've been testing it for a couple hundred years now, therefore there is no God."

Neither of which are pure agnosticism.

No true agnostic etc etc.

Find a study into some unprovable claim that adheres to the scientific method. Good luck.

You missed the point.

 LordofHats wrote:
You would have been a great Soviet propagandist.

For all you know I already am! Bum dum BUM!

How many people 'sent back by Jesus' are resurrected a day or longer after being declared dead and being left stone cold on the slab overnight? When they are absolutely clearly deceased? These are always cases of them being close to death or having just lost life signs. I've heard of cases where people have been put in body bags, especially at disasters with multiple casualties or in places with lower standards of healthcare, and they've 'come back to life'. Now what's the most logical explanation, that they were sent back from heaven by Jesus or that people made a mistake?

Reviving people with CPR who have just suffered heart failure is just that, reviving them. The heart is just an organ beating due to electrical impulse, if you can get that started and beating consistently before oxygen deprivation causes brain death, you can bring someone clinically dead 'back to life'. It's not magic or a miracle, despite the odds being against you.

But anyone with basic medical training has the potential to achieve this. They're not resurrected dead bodies.

You don't even need basic medical training. Just a CPR card

Modern auto-defibrillator machines actually talk you through the procedure. They are available all over the place in the UK.

They do talk you through, but defibrillators are for restoring the rhythm of the heart. If the heart has stopped and you're flatlining, a defibrillator won't jump start it like in the movies, you need to do CPR.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
How many people 'sent back by Jesus' are resurrected a day or longer after being declared dead and being left stone cold on the slab overnight? When they are absolutely clearly deceased? These are always cases of them being close to death or having just lost life signs. I've heard of cases where people have been put in body bags, especially at disasters with multiple casualties or in places with lower standards of healthcare, and they've 'come back to life'. Now what's the most logical explanation, that they were sent back from heaven by Jesus or that people made a mistake?

Reviving people with CPR who have just suffered heart failure is just that, reviving them. The heart is just an organ beating due to electrical impulse, if you can get that started and beating consistently before oxygen deprivation causes brain death, you can bring someone clinically dead 'back to life'. It's not magic or a miracle, despite the odds being against you.

But anyone with basic medical training has the potential to achieve this. They're not resurrected dead bodies.

McCormack wasn't receiving CPR though.

There are lots of NDE experiences as you describe them, count them as NDE experiences, not resurrections. If someone comes back during CPR and says they met God and came back the interesting point s the NDE testimony, not the fact they came back.

 Orlanth wrote:


McCormack wasn't receiving CPR though.

That doesn't mean that resuscitation is impossible without divine intervention. It doesn't take a large charge or massive amount of energy to restart the heart, so it is possible his body could do it on its own without needing some miraculous intervention by a divine being who is also, apparently, happy to not do this for millions of other people who die every day.

Maybe if you roll a d6, you'll get psychic shriek, or maybe suffer perils of the wrap.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No, anything that can't be proven either in the postive or the negative is not assumed at all.

Science is evidence based. If there is no evidence, then science cannot consider it real and proclaiming something as real will not force science to accept it absent evidence.

True. But neither would they reject it in the absence of evidence to make such a claim. Again, science would not claim anything at all.

 LordofHats wrote:
To then turn that around on science and proclaim their position faith based is obtuse and disingenuous.

And that is where you go wrong. I could not proclaim the position of science to be faith based, because in this case science will have no position.
I proclaim the position of atheism to be faith based. If you are equating atheism with science, then that is very, very disturbing.

 LordofHats wrote:

Falsifiability is one of the main principles of the scientific method.

It's also a very poorly understood concept among laymen. God can be taken as a falsifiable concept given that (Christianity for example), posits a lot of things about God. Young Earth Creationism is falsifiable. The power of prayer is falsifiable. Demonic possession is falsifiable. The reality is that science eventually accepts a sufficient absence of evidence as evidence of absence. This is not a required conclusion, but it's one that can be reached scientifically; "there is no evidence of God or any of the powers he's supposed to have,and we've been testing it for a couple hundred years now, therefore there is no God."

The concept of God (in christianity at least) is than of an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent entity. The fact that it is supposed to be omnipotent makes it not falsifiable. The second reason of why it is not falsifiable is because we have no way of observing or otherwise detecting "God" in any way. If it can not be subjected to empirical analysis then it is not be falsifiable. That also goes for the "power of prayer", research into which is nothing but time-wasting pseudoscience which no serious scientist should occupy himself with. The fact that a claim such as Young Earth Creationism is falsifiable (at least some creationist claims are, others are not) is irrelevant to the question "does God exist?".
And no, science does not accept absence of evidence as evidence of absence. That would lead to ridiculous scenarios: Is there a tree falling in the forest right now? Well, we have no way of detecting that, but since there is no evidence for the fact that there is a tree falling in the forest right now, I am pretty certain that there is indeed no tree falling in the forest right now. No scientist would ever say that, as the claim: "There is no tree falling in the forest right now" has no evidence whatsoever and is not practically falsifiable. Claiming that something is true because it has never been proven false (or equally, claiming that something is false because it has never been proven true) is an argument from ignorance and is a fallacy.

To counter your claim:
"there is no evidence of God or any of the powers he's supposed to have,and we've been testing it for a couple hundred years now, therefore there is no God."
I say:
"There is a God, but he is deliberately preventing you from detecting Him. He can do this because he is omnipotent."
Do you now see how completely unscientific both claims are? If God has the powers he is supposed to have, he would not be detactable by empirical research. If he is not empirically detectable, then he is not falsifiable. If the claim "There is a God" is not falsifiable and thus can not be proven or disproven, then the claim "There is no God" can never be scientifically reached, since proving the negative claim would require disproving the positive claim. Therefore, since the claim can not be proven or disproven, it is unscientific.

 LordofHats wrote:

Neither of which are pure agnosticism.

No true agnostic etc etc.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No, anything that can't be proven either in the postive or the negative is not assumed at all.

Science is evidence based. If there is no evidence, then science cannot consider it real and proclaiming something as real will not force science to accept it absent evidence.

True. But neither would they reject it in the absence of evidence to make such a claim. Again, science would not claim anything at all.

 LordofHats wrote:
To then turn that around on science and proclaim their position faith based is obtuse and disingenuous.

And that is where you go wrong. I could not proclaim the position of science to be faith based, because in this case science will have no position.
I proclaim the position of atheism to be faith based. If you are equating atheism with science, then that is very, very disturbing.

Actually, in the case of god, science takes the position of something along the lines of "to the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence to support the claim that a god exists, therefore (to the best of our knowledge), there is no god"

 Wolfblade wrote:


Actually, in the case of god, science takes the position of something along the lines of "to the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence to support the claim that a god exists, therefore (to the best of our knowledge), there is no god"

Atheism claims that. Science does not, science has no opinion.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:


Actually, in the case of god, science takes the position of something along the lines of "to the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence to support the claim that a god exists, therefore (to the best of our knowledge), there is no god"

Atheism claims that. Science does not, science has no opinion.

Science DOES have an opinion. It's "based on the best available evidence, I hypothesize X, until further evidence appears to confirm/deny this". This applies to all things. Even gravity is a "theory", even though it's more or less fact.

 Wolfblade wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No, anything that can't be proven either in the postive or the negative is not assumed at all.

Science is evidence based. If there is no evidence, then science cannot consider it real and proclaiming something as real will not force science to accept it absent evidence.

True. But neither would they reject it in the absence of evidence to make such a claim. Again, science would not claim anything at all.

 LordofHats wrote:
To then turn that around on science and proclaim their position faith based is obtuse and disingenuous.

And that is where you go wrong. I could not proclaim the position of science to be faith based, because in this case science will have no position.
I proclaim the position of atheism to be faith based. If you are equating atheism with science, then that is very, very disturbing.

Actually, in the case of god, science takes the position of something along the lines of "to the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence to support the claim that a god exists, therefore (to the best of our knowledge), there is no god"

No, it does not. Such a claim would violate the scientific method. Specifically, the basic principles that in order to make any claim, you require empirical or measurable evidence. If it is not possible to obtain this evidence, it is impossible to falsify the claim, if it is impossible to falsify the claim it is impossible to meaningfully test the claim, and therefore the claim is unscientific.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:


Actually, in the case of god, science takes the position of something along the lines of "to the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence to support the claim that a god exists, therefore (to the best of our knowledge), there is no god"

Atheism claims that. Science does not, science has no opinion.

Science DOES have an opinion. It's "based on the best available evidence, I hypothesize X, until further evidence appears to confirm/deny this". This applies to all things. Even gravity is a "theory", even though it's more or less fact.

True. But a hypothesis does need to be falsifiable.

Bit late, but the experience of god you described... it really reminded me of a client we had at a place I used to work at. He was suffering from schizophrenia, with delusions that god was speaking to him. Made it quite hard to help him, since "god" often told him not to take his medication. You might want to get that checked out...

(this isnt meant as a personal attack, just honestly worried)

 Orlanth wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:


Actually, in the case of god, science takes the position of something along the lines of "to the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence to support the claim that a god exists, therefore (to the best of our knowledge), there is no god"

Atheism claims that. Science does not, science has no opinion.

No, science claims it. The evidence you've provided is not enough to pass muster by the basic standards of science.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

No, it does not. Such a claim would violate the scientific method. Specifically, the basic principles that in order to make any claim, you require empirical or measurable evidence. If it is not possible to obtain this evidence, it is impossible to falsify the claim, if it is impossible to falsify the claim it is impossible to meaningfully test the claim, and therefore the claim is unscientific.

But science isn't the one trying to provide evidence here. The burden of proof is on the theists to prove god exists. And because none of their "evidence" passes scientific muster, to the best of our knowledge, there is no god. What you're talking about is a scientific experiment/hypothesis which is a different story.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No, it does not. Such a claim would violate the scientific method. Specifically, the basic principles that in order to make any claim, you require empirical or measurable evidence. If it is not possible to obtain this evidence, it is impossible to falsify the claim, if it is impossible to falsify the claim it is impossible to meaningfully test the claim, and therefore the claim is unscientific.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
Science DOES have an opinion. It's "based on the best available evidence, I hypothesize X, until further evidence appears to confirm/deny this". This applies to all things. Even gravity is a "theory", even though it's more or less fact.

True. But a hypothesis does need to be falsifiable.

A hypothesis has a requirement to be able to be proven incorrect. Lack of evidence to support the hypothesis is entirely satisfactory to prove a hypothesis incorrect. It is in fact how most things are proven incorrect; when there is no statistical differential between the thing under test and the cosmic background of whatever you are measuring. In relation to religious claims, it is possible to find copious amounts of lack of evidence to support them and in many cases find evidence which directly contradicts those claims.

I would also just like to correct the comment earlier that scientific theories are "more or less fact" - scientific theories are explanations for how things happen which when you put in information about the starting conditions, will correctly predict what will happen next. They are not "facts" as such...

In relation to all the philosophical to-and-fro... while I am sure it is great to debate this kind of stuff while stoned, it has essentially zero relevance in the real world (as has been said a number of times).

Ultimately returning to the original point of the thread; there is zero actual scientifically valid evidence to support the existance of demons (except for in fiction, obviously ). Anyone who is in any kind of professional role where they are responsible for the care of others should in no way be acting as if demons exist, or neglecting to properly diagnose and care for people.


Edit: Quotes

 Wolfblade wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:


Actually, in the case of god, science takes the position of something along the lines of "to the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence to support the claim that a god exists, therefore (to the best of our knowledge), there is no god"

Atheism claims that. Science does not, science has no opinion.

No, science claims it. The evidence you've provided is not enough to pass muster by the basic standards of science.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

No, it does not. Such a claim would violate the scientific method. Specifically, the basic principles that in order to make any claim, you require empirical or measurable evidence. If it is not possible to obtain this evidence, it is impossible to falsify the claim, if it is impossible to falsify the claim it is impossible to meaningfully test the claim, and therefore the claim is unscientific.

But science isn't the one trying to provide evidence here. The burden of proof is on the theists to prove god exists. And because none of their "evidence" passes scientific muster, to the best of our knowledge, there is no god. What you're talking about is a scientific experiment/hypothesis which is a different story.

The burden of proof is on all those who make a claim, not just on positive ones. If a positive claim fails to be proven, it does not automatically follow that the negative claim is true. The negative claim still needs to be proven (this is usually done by disproving the positive claim). Else, it would lead to absurd scenarios. To bring up the tree-in-the-forest-anecdote again: Say that person A claims that there definitely is a tree falling in a forest right now. Person B asks him to prove this claim. Person A is obviously unable to do so. Person B then concludes: There is definitely no tree falling in a forest right now.
You see the issue with this line of reasoning? The lack of proof for positive claim A says nothing about the truthfullness of negative claim B which is equally lacking in proof. We can not conclude "to the best of our knowledge, there is no tree falling in a forest right" or "to the best of our knowledge, there is no God". Such a claim is not to the best of our knowledge at all, it is in fact completely outside of our knowledge.

 Orlanth wrote:

Atheism claims that. Science does not, science has no opinion.

When did atheism become a thing which can make a claim?

If you are equating atheism with science, then that is very, very disturbing.

I've qualified several times in this thread (and the last one that went down this route) that not all atheism is reached via science. Some people just find the notion of faith absurd, and that's just kind of it. "Pics or it didn't happen" irl.

If it can not be subjected to empirical analysis then it is not be falsifiable.

Lots of things can't be subjected to empirical analysis and remain falsifiable. History engages in questions of falsifiability all the time, though as a field it rarely uses the term. Falsifiability is applicable to pretty much any field that can root itself in rudimentary logic (which is pretty much every field).

That also goes for the "power of prayer", research into which is nothing but time-wasting pseudoscience which no serious scientist should occupy himself with.

And yet, scientists do occupy themselves with researching the effects of prayer on the human psyche (its good stuff actually. Mind over matter ).

And no, science does not accept absence of evidence as evidence of absence.

It is one of the foundational laws of logic. A statement is true = the inverse is also true. Science accepts the value of positive evidence, it also accepts the contrary of negative evidence.

"There is a God, but he is deliberately preventing you from detecting Him. He can do this because he is omnipotent."

The statement "there is no God" is completely falsifiable. It's proven wrong the moment God shows up and says "here I am" (knowing our luck it'll be the Left Behind version of Revelation, which is gonna suck). "There is a God" on the other hand is not, because you can't test for something that isn't evident. That's the entire point of the Teapot. Russel's Teapot was pointing out the inanity of equating science with belief and compelling science to "prove it." The point was that science regularly engages the unscientific because the unscientific regularly tries to pass itself as science or equate science to itself. Russel never would have postulated the Teapot analogy otherwise. To tell someone that atheism is faith based is a burden of proof fallacy. Someone does not need to prove non-existence of something that does not evidently exist. That it evidently doesn't exist is sufficient to conclude it doesn't until such time that evidence of existence appears, and science and people with a strong confidence in it are not compelled to hold their breath for eternity waiting for a postulate to appear. It takes faith to believe that something does exist in lack of evidence or in spite of it in the case of Young Earth Creationism. While accepting evidence as the foremost means of defining what is real and what isn't can be deemed a subjective judgement philosophically, that does not make it faith.

If agnostic (a)theism would have been pure agnosticism it would have been called agnosticism.

That fallaciously presumes that atheism and theism are polar opposites with agnosticism as a middle ground. Theism and Atheism both state a proposed truth. Agnosticism states varying degrees of uncertainty that truth in the matter at hand is knowable/meaningful. The reality is that atheism and theism are opposites with agnosticism a distinct abstract that can fall into either or neither.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

The burden of proof is on all those who make a claim, not just on positive ones. If a positive claim fails to be proven, it does not automatically follow that the negative claim is true. The negative claim still needs to be proven (this is usually done by disproving the positive claim). Else, it would lead to absurd scenarios. To bring up the tree-in-the-forest-anecdote again: Say that person A claims that there definitely is a tree falling in a forest right now. Person B asks him to prove this claim. Person A is obviously unable to do so. Person B then concludes: There is definitely no tree falling in a forest right now.
You see the issue with this line of reasoning? The lack of proof for positive claim A says nothing about the truthfullness of negative claim B which is equally lacking in proof. We can not conclude "to the best of our knowledge, there is no tree falling in a forest right" or "to the best of our knowledge, there is no God". Such a claim is not to the best of our knowledge at all, it is in fact completely outside of our knowledge.

Except that science isn't making athe claim, theists are. It's the lack of evidence provided by theists of their claim god exists IS enough for science to say "to the best of our knowledge, god doesn't exist" As SilverMK2 said:

 SilverMK2 wrote:


A hypothesis has a requirement to be able to be proven incorrect. Lack of evidence to support the hypothesis is entirely satisfactory to prove a hypothesis incorrect.

But here, when failing to prove a positive, your fallback is to assume nothing, or assume a naturally occurring phenomena. Most natural phenomena I can think of has a scientific, reasoned explanation. When people claim the existence of God, they do so through various suggestions, all of which can be alternatively explained on the basis of demonstrable things in nature.

It's not as if miracles, NDEs and the like are utterly inexplicable in science and nature. Some claim they are proof of God, something for which they have no reason to posit as an explanation other than they really want their holy book to be true. Whereas most phenomena, have explanations based on repeatable, tested observations of the real world. We don't need to scratch around for a deity to explain any phenomena I can think of, because there's always a more credible explanation drawing on previous examples demonstrated and observed. This 'it's either God or we don't know' is just nonsense.

If the evidence for God doesn't exist, then the opposite conclusion is valid. Either that or the only way God can exist with the evidence we have, is if he has absolutely no input into anything in nature or people's lives. Which I suppose could be the case but I'm sure that isn't what theists want us to accept.

 Wolfblade wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:


Actually, in the case of god, science takes the position of something along the lines of "to the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence to support the claim that a god exists, therefore (to the best of our knowledge), there is no god"

Atheism claims that. Science does not, science has no opinion.

No, science claims it. The evidence you've provided is not enough to pass muster by the basic standards of science.

Were that to be true there would be no Chrisians in science. However they are, and they and many others believe based on the evidence.
You, Peregrine and others reject the evidence because you decide it doesn't fit your standards of evidence. Others might take the opposite point of view, and those people will include those in science.
I can and will back up this statement.

The problem is that a lot of atheists here have been conditioned by the dogma that claims atheism = science, when in fact science is neutral and while one can draw a personal conclusion to become an atheist based on the body of scientific knowledge, one can also believe in God and have the same dataset. Furthermore contrary to a common atheist dogma, it is possible to have the scientific data first then choose to believe in God afterwards.

At this point you might try to say that is because I and other have a religious belief whereas you claim not to and are working solely on scientific thinking. However this is evidently not the case. or two reasons.

1. The dismissal of opposed evidence is absolute, often attributed before attempting to review such evidence.
2. The dismissal of opposed evidence that is reviewed is often not at the same standard of evidence that is accepted. For example the entire field of human psychology works on observation and human experience. So is testimonial evidence for God. Psychological evidence is accepted, wheras testimony, even when triple checked is rejected as anecdotal, for no better reason than because it points in a direction you are not comfortable with.

he pivotal reason I can categorically say it is true that the atheist zeitgeist is working on faith and not science is in relation to thr OP and Dr Gallagher.
Many atheists have wanted his career ended. The reasons have all been very similar but crouched in different terms. Some want him gone because he accompanied the exorcists, citing that in their opinion scientific obsevation was of itself a conflict of interests. Most wanted him gone because of the conclusion he drew after twenty years of study. Most also justified their excuses by making claims against dr Gallagher which are easy to disprove by reading the source material provided.

Now let me ask you this question. If Dr Gallagher has said that after twenty years following exorcists he concluded that it was all a load of bunkum. What would your reaction be?
Would be still be malpracticing, would he still be a danger to his patients? I doubt Dakka would claim that. Suddenly following exorcists for twenty years isn't a conflict of interests its good science.
The bottom line is that a man of science, which is fair label of a doctor of psychiatry, observing a religious phenomena gave credence to the religious work he witnessed.
Science is neutral. Yet to many here Dr Gallagher is a heretic, he went off script and came to a conclusion that atheists could not and would not accept. This misses the main point of scientific discovery: science doesn't have a script.

Atheist faith condemns Dr Gallagher because he is a fly in the ointment of those who like to believe science points exclusively to atheism. Atheist faith condemns Dr Gallagher because as he publishes peer reviewed evidence it is (one more) piece of scientifically presented evidence that shows that the divine can be believed in by rational scientific minded people. Though even in this thread atheists still repeat the mantra 'there is no evidence for God', on a thread when a professional psychiatrist, in a long study of the occult finds evidence otherwise.

I will not in any likelihood convince you that evidence in the existence of God is valid. That wasn't the point of defending it, and it is plain as day to me from observation that many here have a dogged faith in atheism. I don't condemn that, I condemn the hypocrisy that accompanies it.

Frankly as with many forms of fundamentalism you cant see the problem, there is a cult mentality. It surfaces strongly when so many post with bile against God, first intro post on every religion thread. It surfaced strongly when a man of science is pilloried for having an opinion that atheists do not like; excuses are made to justify their persecution that do not fit the known facts, and are often diametrically opposed to them.
Furthermore while people complain and think I am being evasive unless I reply to each any every post directed at me, and I do try and reply to most. They are quick to ignore that they have actually made these claims about Dr Gallagher, when asked how they could justify their condemnation in review of the evidence presented in Dr Gallagher's articles. With one exception, who just got very angry, because it was OK for them to claim that Dr Gallagher should have his career ruined without any justification, yet when I called him out on that it was somehow my fault.

I am a man of faith, I dont deny it. But I also think though what I believe, and it isn't spoonfed to me.
I can accept that you and others, perhaps even Peregrine, came upon their atheist beliefs honestly, but their own interpretation of the evidence. However you are no more the arbitrator of truth than I. Evidence you accept I might reject and vice versa. Neither is an automatically superior position, and nobody has exclusive claim to science.

Many atheists however have been conditioned into thinking that that are indeed pure scientific thinkers. It is a dangerous dogma as people aren't like that, we are emotive animals. This is why no evidence for God that I or anyone else even a psychiatrist with twenty years on the job will ever be good enough. It will always be rejected, notably often rejected prior to review. You don't even know you are doing it. It was perfectly normal to many on Dakka that because Dr Gallagher had religious views he had to go, it was automatic conditional thinking, and it explains why the excuses to terminate his career came thick and fast and prior to any scrutiny of the facts. Even those atheists who didn't condemn Dr Gallagher did not respond to the persecution calls and say 'not in my name'.

Faith filled atheism is not a problem, Faith filled atheists who have deluded themselves into thinking they are purely scientific an reasoned, they are potentially dangerous, the conditioning is subconscious, the condemnation of threats to the world view therefore becomes extreme and automatic. As evidenced on the thread many many times.

Poor Dr Gallagher, if this is what he gets from Dakka on eleven pages, what will he get from the legions of pseudo-scientific atheists in his New York community.