My skepticism destroyed my faith. I was very religious as a youth, then in high school, looking back, I can see that I had started to acquire a skeptical manner of thinking. By my second year of college, my faith collapsed.
I’m surprised by the numbers of people here who consider themselves skeptics and faithful. It seems to me, they’re incompatible, and I suspect that there’s some cognitive dissonance going on in their heads. After all, isn’t the very definition of skepticism not to believe something without evidence? And the definition of faith is “belief without evidence”?
No. You challenged him to provide a specific example of an argument for disbelief that didn’t hold up, claiming that you could think of a single one. I cited the fallacious “unprovable negatives” argument as an example of an argument for disbelief that doesn’t survive close scrutiny–and I would further point out that even many disbelievers consider this an inadequate argument.
Would you please join me in this thread ? I have to get to work so my replies might be a little delayed, but I would love to get some of your input in the thread.
Has the “can’t prove a negative” concept ever in the history of skepticism been used as an argument against belief? I can’t imagine that anyone would do that, because it’s not at all evidence for disbelief, it’s simply an answer to why atheists don’t prove there is no god.
A very insightful OP - I often wonder why those who would never believe in astrology don’t use the same principles for religion. Skepticism, or rather increased knowledge, did away with mine. I always just assumed that the Bible was written by Moses and was mostly true. When I discovered when it was really written, it all fell apart. I had the advantage of being Jewish and already rejecting the religious faith of the majority of America - though where I grew up we were in the majority.
As time went on and I learned more I believed even less. The latest shock was learning that the great Davidic kingdom did not exist, which was something I always thought was true even after I became an atheist.
For myself, skepticism blew my Evangelical faith right out of the water. I went so far as to become a weak atheist. I am not a sceptic, but I am a skeptic. I am perfectly willing to accept the input of my senses and if I ever determine them to be misleading and distorting I will immediately stop buying alcohol and save myself the money and calories.
My skepticism allows me to read the Bible (or any other spiritual) book and look for the truths hidden (or suggested) within, not the falsehoods lieing upon the surface meanings of the texts. I am Christian in so far as I believe the character called Christ in the new testament shows a good and useful way to live your life, more so than any other major religious character I have learnt about (though Ghandi comes close as a model for a good life).
Belief without proof, maybe; but I don’t know anyone who actually has faith who’d define it as belief without evidence.
Think of what it means to have faith in a person. Before you’d marry a person, or let them borrow your car, or let them perform open-heart surgery on you, you’d have to have a certain amount of faith in them, faith that they’d be up to the job, that you could trust them, that they wouldn’t betray you or let you down. But you’d be an idjit to do so without any evidence—although certainly there are people who don’t use enough skepticism in their choice of spouses, friends, etc.
Perhaps more it’s like “belief in what cannot be disproven”. In other words, belief in the untestable. Such a definition, in my oppinion, would be incompatible with “scepticism” in any rational form. However, some philosophers of metaphysics insist that “other ways of knowing” render their experiences just as valid as those of materialist sceptics, though certainly of a different sort. Intrinsic to this argument that acknowledgement of the material as “real” is an act of faith in itself. Speaking pragmatically, unless one is to slip hopelessly into solopsism, I fail to see what use there is in assuming otherwise.
Since the faithful cannot test their assertions in any demonstrable way to “materialists”, I fail to see how this argument isn’t a hopeless tautology. “Believe me, my faith is real.” Well, no, I won’t believe you. That would be putting faith in what you say. IOW, no argument for faith can be supported without faith as a first principle, a sort of pseudo-axiom, or an axiom that is only such for a segment of the population endowed with the ability to believe. For those without that ability, that faith is tenable is not self-evident. Hence, I see no defensible way to reconcile faith with sceptisism unless one is to allow that the world perhaps isn’t real. That argument, IMO, deserves no further consideration, but obviously I am in a minority in that regard.
I think people simply apply certain faith-based precepts to a variety of logical problems, and hence can reason through those problems logically from that basis. Perhaps they simply cannot take seriously the notion their precepts might be delusory in nature, except to assert that all precepts may be equally delusory. It’s a clever rhetorical trick, even playable on oneself, it seems. So long as such assumptions remain beyond the realm of the testable, the argument will never cease.
Not the way the New Testament writers used the term. The frequently appealed to testimonies and evidence (e.g. for the Resurrection), and urged their readers to examine the facts. I know that some Dopers would disagree (misguidedly, IMO) about the quality of the evidence, but that’s beside the point. The NT writers didn’t treat their accounts as something that “cannot be disproven.”
And I’ve read about the claim that the Davidic kingdom never existed. I don’t think that claim holds up very well, but that’s grist for another thread. Suffice to say that (as I stated earlier) examining such claims has strengthened my faith, rather than weakened it.
Probably the best known cite for this is The Bible Unearthed . There is evidence that David did exist: he did not command a large kingdom. Also, many of the buildings ascribed to Solomon were actually built later.
I believe I read that the new Biblical commentary used by Reform Judaism has abandoned the claim of the great Davidic Kingdom.
This presupposes testimony (second-hand, at best) amounts to evidence sufficient to constitute proof, the sort of remarkable demonstration of remarkable claims we sceptics are exhorted to demand from the witness bearing such amazing news. I would argue that, to a sceptic, this notion simply can’t be supported.
I find the illogic of atheists to be mildly amusing sometimes, and slightly irritating other times. Every argument against the existence of god I have EVER seen put forth required the arguers to accept an extraordinarily narrow definition of god, in order for it to be disproved. This comes back to the problem of defining god to begin with. God is made up of all the definitions. Definitions by their very nature are limitations, whereas God is without limit. Even calling God God is a bit of a stretch IMO, but it’s the most useful way to do it IMO. I find that in American secular society we create extremely narrow definitions for religion, and what can be conceivably called religion. These are almost always based upon using Christianity and Judaism as a model. “Is the thing being discussed reminiscent of Judeo-Christianity enough to be considered a religion?”. To me that’s a very narrow minded way of looking at things. Dogmatic atheism is in NO WAY more logical or skeptical than any other dogma. As God to me is not limited to some old bearded man living in the clouds, or any of those other manifestations, it would be very difficult for anyone to disprove the existence of God, in fact it is not possible, for my argument would be simply that the usage of words at all, is the use of aspects of god in order to disprove the existance of god.
And so you did, but I am not sure why, and if you truly used the same principles you would use for an area in which you did not have so much at stake.
Not all skepticism is created equal. I’ve seen conspiracy theorists justify their position by being “skeptical” of the standard explanations for something.
First, I trust you accept that an atheist should not be required to posit a definition of god, right? Any definition we put forth could be called a strawgod definition, and probably rightly so. And by a narrow definition, perhaps you mean one that might involve actually being able to test if this god exists? If your definition of god is the universe, well, fine, but that isn’t very useful. How exactly does the universe want us to live? If you believe in a deistic god, who started things off 14 billion years ago and disappeared, that’s not too useful either. Now, if you say that God cannot be grasped by man, but has a few properties we understand, and interacted with man here, here and here, then we can talk.
In my neck of the woods, at least, there are plenty of people who subscribe to non-Judeo-Christian religions. Improves the level of tolerance around here a heck of a lot. I’ve never heard anyone claim that Hinduism, for instance, is not a religion.
I’ve never heard an atheist make this claim. An intolerant Christian, maybe.
What’s dogmatic atheism by the way? Claiming to be able to prove God doesn’t exist? As I mentioned in the thread drgnrdr07 started, we might be able to do that for only very specific definitions of god, but few if any atheists claim they can do it in general. So this dogmatic atheism thing is just hooey. I think religious people bring it up again and again to avoid actually thinking about what atheists really are saying.
But, let’s talk about the god you do believe in. What does he or it want of us? What should we do? What is good to him and what is evil? Did he give the 10 commandments? The Kosher laws? Did he say we should all visit Mecca before we die? Meditate? Believe in Jesus for our salvation?
Not against theism, really only against the type of theism that believes in a good and just god. Many religions believe in capricious gods, and don’t have this problem.
The argument in the link includes the god works in mysterious ways argument. Fine - but if I do something naughty, and say god told me to, you can’t argue I’m wrong from first principles. Look at the various terrible things God ordered Moses and Joshua to do.
But even if you don’t consider the problem of evil an issue for religion - and I don’t - it is certainly not an issue for atheism. An atheist is not surprised when bad things happen. So it is somewhat irrelevant.