I’m curious if other Christians, and since I’m an evangelical Protestant, if especially other Christian traditions would have different or other answers than me? Maybe @structureoftruth or @Ashwin_s or @Mark10.45 would indulge me. I’m also curious what @gbrooks9 would give as answers to these questions since his views might be considered outside mainstream Christianity. Thanks if you take the time to respond.
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Neither your edited reply nor your last question appear coherent.
Given that this discussion has devolved well beyond the point of any mutual comprehensibility, I see no point in continuing.
I’m not particularly concerned with falsifiability one way or the other. While there is a certain philosophical sense in which falsifiability is important to some propositions, it’s not the be-all and end-all of knowledge. I am looking – as people do, in practical life, most of the time – for evidence regarding what things are true.
So I don’t think about what is “falsifiable” about my present non-belief. Rather, I ask, again and again in many contexts and from many cultures, what is DEMONSTRABLE about the truth of some particular set of religious propositions. As I have indicated previously, I am not interested in sales pitches, e.g., the gospels, as these cannot contain competent evidence regarding the truth of the claims they make. I am interested in seeing those claims addressed directly by ascertaining the present existence and nature of the forces, personalities, or what-have-you, that a particular religion claims are in existence.
So, what particular evidence should we examine? It depends on the claim. But this is usually met, in “sophisticated” Christian theology (which is often more sophisticated-in-means-of-evasion than otherwise sophisticated), by the claim that the god in question is beyond all possible scrutiny except pondering and muttering over old books or having transcendent personal experiences. I wouldn’t give up that easily, and the fact that they have convinces me that they’re pretty sure they can demonstrate nothing at all.
If I didn’t have a small company to run, many other interests that take up my time, and a degree of pessimism on the whole question, I’d want to investigate the problem this way: the supernatural is said to be out of reach, gods inscrutable, all that. But we know very well that the proximal end of the spirit world, if there is one, is right here: the individual human “soul.” We might not be able to stick YHWH, Ineffable Avoider Of Meaningful Scrutiny, on an examining table, but there are lots of people around, each them supposedly harboring an endo-geist, a “soul” in common parlance. I would attempt to establish where neural activity stops and where this “soul” begins. I would look to see what types of actions interrupt or alter its behavior independently of any neural substrate. Once we can establish definitively that the endo-geist exists and the means by which it interacts with things in our physical realm, we have got a grip on the proximal end of the spirit world, and we can then evaluate how to proceed to try to ascertain the existence and nature of other critters which may occupy that world.
(Note: on that, I’m skeptical simply because of the Phineas Gage/Alzheimer’s/TBI issue. It appears that our minds are entirely the product of the neural system and that there is no endo-geist. But further study couldn’t hurt.)
Of course, more substantial penetrations of the physical world by the gods would always be welcome. If 900-foot-tall Jesus starts crushing skyscrapers in Seattle and declaring that his kingdom has come, that will be interesting and well worth study, even if only from an architectural-preservation standpoint. One will have to at least consider the possibility that aliens in possession of extraordinary technology are pulling a prank on us, but it would be awfully persuasive. By the way, when this happens, the “sophisticated” theologians will all insist that that can’t be Jesus because God would never reduce himself in this way.
Unbelief is neither plausible nor implausible. It’s what you’re left with when none of the various salesmen of belief has left you with anything other than that feeling you have after leaving a particularly smarmy used car dealership.
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Ok, that was a lot. Trying to make it shorter: So nothing is falsifiable or demonstrable about unbelief or belief, but… if you took the time to investigate belief then evidence of the supernatural in the present or evidence of the soul would actually make unbelief falsifiable?
And unbelief is more plausible because religious claims make you feel yucky?
It is belief in the God that I was told about when I was a child that I didn’t find plausible as a child. Now as an adult, I find belief in God to be a cultural delusion to justify social norms and morality. When I talk to most believers in God or an afterlife, I see then being luke-warm adherents just to justify their own view of morality.
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So how do find your unbelief now to be more plausible than other alternatives?
I assume that one reason is the one you gave, that religious people don’t actually adhere to an objective standard of morality. Are there other reasons?
Let me know if my rephrase is incorrect.
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As I watch in horror how Christian Nationalists in the US Government are destroying our secular government, I feel even more strongly that religious belief especially US Christian Nationalism is both dangerous and detrimental to me, my family, and society. Non-belief, together with the ideals of the Enlightenment (Secular Humanism) is even more necessary now than at anytime since 9/11. Before 911, I considered religions to be harmless. 911 convinced me that Islam is certainly dangerous. Now four years of Trump convinces me that Evangelical Christian Nationalism is as dangerous as Radical Islam. A secular government and a secular society is our only answers to solving our problems. Religion is a major part of the problem and certainly not part of the solution.
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I would agree with this but not to the extent that it would destroy secular government. I also judge Christian belief based on what the Bible teaches. Christian nationalism then to me is an idol and an aberration of my faith.
Thanks for actually answering the questions. I don’t know if it’s because you grew up in a Christian environment and others who answered didn’t or what, but it’s odd to me others thought my questions were incomprehensible or not applicable to them.
I thought I’d have at least one person who was an atheist reply and rattle off their answers same as I did. Maybe somebody will give a big list.
What is the question?..Is belief or unbelief more reasonable? or is there a side point you are trying to make.
I would answer the thread question as I would the “half glass full or empty” question. Depends on your perspective, whether you are pouring or drinking (credit to my daughter). I would have an easier time proving the existence of God than I would proving non-existence simply because you cannot “prove” something doesn’t exist, there is no evidence one way or the other, so maybe it does. I could say that there is no evidence, but I cannot say with any truth or confidence that there will never be evidence.
A non-believer would say the same of proving the existence of God, that there is no evidence, but I disagree because I myself am evidence of the existence of God. I know from experience that God has interacted with me at some Spiritual level. Similarly, there is much more evidence (to me) that belief in God is “reasonable”…but an atheist would argue strongly against and say that unbelief is more reasonable due to lack of their own personal evidence. From their perspective they are correct, because they find no evidence to support the existence of God.
So, my answer is neither. Both are “reasonable” and rest completely on the personal perspective of the individual considering the question. Obviously for me, I believe.
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Yikes. I hope that nothing in my writing is responsible for that interpretation. I’ll try to clear it up for you.
Any set of propositions about the supernatural that is demonstrable is of interest to me. Propositions about the supernatural that are not demonstrable, by competent evidence, are of no interest to me. I am not particularly concerned with “falsifiability” as such; but propositions which are non-falsifiable even in principle (e.g., gods are inscrutable, hence no investigation can be successfully mounted) are not actually meaningful statements about reality and may therefore be disregarded. I am concerned with what is demonstrable more than with what is falsifiable.
Unbelief in the paranormal is not a proposition, but merely the failure to have been convinced by any particular attempt to demonstrate the paranormal. As a non-proposition, consisting only of the absence of other belief, it is neither falsifiable nor nonfalsifiable. It’s not in the class of things to which falsifiability applies. Affirmative rejection of a particular proposition may be falsifiable. But, again, I am more concerned with demonstrability than falsifiability.
Seeing as I had just explained how unbelief, being no proposition at all, is not plausible or implausible, I don’t know how you’d get there, either. Nor did I say that religious claims make me feel yucky, or anything that would suggest that. I did suggest that the sales tactics of religions are generally smarmy. Now, one might try to convince someone of a true proposition by using smarmy methods, but experience teaches that when a person’s principal arguments are horrid, he is usually wrong not just in his process of arguing, but in his conclusions as well.
As I think I have made very clear, I think that empirical investigation into the claims of religion would be worthwhile, and would be the only worthwhile method of proceeding. Old texts are useless for the purpose of establishing the occurrence of distant paranormal events, but if the gods are here now, then some aspect of their existence must be demonstrable (or, if it is not, their existence must be regarded, as Huxley said, as having all the relevance to us that questions of lunar politics do). Scrutiny-evasive positions such as are often advanced by “sophisticated” theology leave me cold, as that which cannot be demonstrated even in principle cannot be “true” in any sense which is of any use to anyone.
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I grew up Catholic, went to parochial schools until the 8th grade. Was a “cultural catholic” most of my life. But I was never a believer in any of the dogma, doctrine. Bible to me was always a fiction, an awful fiction. Became a fervent secularist after reading The God Delusion and 911. Now I consider it my duty and responsibility to work as hard as I can to return US Government and American Society to its secular roots.
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So how do you think I am doing as far as adhering to an objective standard or morality? Putting you on the spot. 
You don’t have to answer I’d you want but I’m curious.
Do you think a Christian like @swamidass who runs this forum so it stays peaceful could run the government and remain secular? Or any similar Christian?
We agree on many things…I also believe that religion, the institution that men use to control other men in the name of God, is a bad thing.
However, the “church” as explained by Jesus in the bible is a very different entity from what man has created, and I am finding room to believe in God and in the Word of God without the nonsense of “religious” traditions. I can tell that you are not interested, so I won’t sell you anything, but I wanted to point out that we have similar views on the church system as a whole.
Frankly I think your biblical morals suck. You hid behind your bible while avocating harming others.
Swamidass like other notable Christians like Dr. Francis Collins use their Christian faith to help others. I want to congratulate Dr. Francis Collins for his Templeton Prize at the National Academy of Sciences. He has used science and his faith to advocate for science for the benefit of mankind and against the Christian Nationalists in the US Government who continue to bash science and use their faith to harm people and society.
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I tend to look at something like religion and human engagement with religion as a gestalt … it all needs to hang together, or we need to find out why it doesn’t.
The Old Testament and the New Testament don’t actually hang together very well… and the more emphatic Young Earth Creationists become in refusing to use allegory or figurative interpretations … the more of a mess the Bible becomes.
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Regarding genocide or the flood is what you’re perhaps referring to? Isn’t that an objective standard if I’m appealing to the Bible itself and not my own standard of morality?
It’s an external, subjective standard: the opinions of your god. You’re claiming that your god’s opinions carry more weight than did the views of thousands of children who screamed out and begged for mercy as the Israelites slit their throats, one by one.
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Ok. Let me see if I can do better to explain for you and @Tim @Mark10.45 and @John_Harshman who seem to be saying that unbelief is not a proposition. That’s a logical fallacy; it’s begging the question. You haven’t shown that unbelief is more plausible than belief (besides @Mark10.45 somewhat in the opposite direction of the argument) by addressing topics like how life began and consciousness arose. You could add in any I have on my list of why I think belief is more plausible.
It’s external and objective. Yes God can judge. But if a child was crying out for mercy I have no reason to think a child would not be spared. That’s exactly why God wanted the Israelites to incorporate children of other nations among them into the nation. So that he could also show them mercy.
In the tale of the Midianites, you have every reason to think that. Children were initially spared, and then specific instructions were given to kill them.
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