Ideological Turing Test

[BrainGlutton]

@magellan01

But it’s the way atheists like it, because they think that by shooting holes in Christianity they’ve successfully discounted theism more generally.

No, sir. Because “theism more generally” is never and nowhere a problem, it is a matter of interest only to philosophers. It’s not the thing atheists need to fight.

[BrainGlutton]

@jsgoddess

I’m not sure this is true. I essentially “Turing Tested” myself into being convinced I was a true believer rather than someone who was passing by refusing to engage with my doubts when they arose. While my subjective experience was a bit tricky and anxious, it wasn’t the experience of someone who was lying to others. Or at least not exactly that way.

I think belief has a lot of habit in it, and you could eventually habitutally feel X instead of Y so long as you didn’t go poking around in your own psyche all the time.

A centipede was happy quite
Until a frog, in fun,
Said, “Pray, which leg comes after which?”
And so she fell into a ditch
Considering how to run!

[Voyager]

@Bricker

An assigned debate position does not have the Turing test component to it.

Strictly speaking no, but a debater who actually holds position A and who is assigned ~A will lose big unless he or she gives a convincing simulation of someone who does hold ~A and holds it for good and logical reasons. Someone preparing for a debate needs to understand the best reasons and the logic behind the other side, but I think this is less difficult than actually being able to argue the other side.

[Voyager]

@magellan01

One problem I see with this is that, like almost all such debates here on the SDMB, it pits Christianity against Atheism. That includes two different debates:

1. athesim vs theism
2. the validity of Christianity

I’d say 1) is usually atheism vs deism, since it seems that the average non-Christian believer provides a foggy and non-interventionist form of god. This discussion is fairly futile, since the deist position is based more on feelings and the challenge to falsify a deity with no evident characteristics. Christians for the most part make claims, though I’m sure you’ve noticed that the more wishy-washy ones retreat from any Bible verse which is incompatible with their current moralistic or scientific thinking.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@magellan01

But it’s the way atheists like it, because they think that by shooting holes in Christianity they’ve successfully discounted theism more generally. Even though, as anyone who has had a course in logic understands, they haven’t.

Well, I daresay shooting holes in Christianity is shooting holes in theism, if one considers Christianity a form of theism, and I don’t know why one wouldn’t.

Is there a “better” flavour of theism we could shot holes in instead, one that better represents theism?

[BrainGlutton]

@Bryan_Ekers

Well, I daresay shooting holes in Christianity is shooting holes in theism, if one considers Christianity a form of theism, and I don’t know why one wouldn’t.

Is there a “better” flavour of theism we could shot holes in instead, one that better represents theism?

Put it this way: There’s shooting holes in – that is, raising historical or scientific or moral or spiritual objections to – specific claims/doctrines practices of Christianity, or of Islam, or of Judaism. And then there’s shooting holes in Natural Theology, which, despite its definitely Christian origin, can fairly be characterized as the complete set of philosophical (as distinct from emotional*) arguments on which “theism more generally” can be based. And the arguments to be applied in the one case are very different from the other.

• From A History of Western Philosophy (1945), by Bertrand Russell, Chapter XIX, “Rousseau”:

In theology he [Rousseau] made an innovation which has now been accepted by the great majority of Protestant theologians. Before him, every philosopher from Plato onward, if he believed in God, offered intellectual arguments in favor of his belief. The arguments may not, to us, seem very convincing, and we may feel that they would not have seemed cogent to anyone who did not already feel sure of the truth of the conclusion. But the philosopher who advanced the arguments certainly believed them to be logically valid, and such as should cause certainty of God’s existence in any unprejudiced person of sufficient philosophical capacity. Modern Protestants who urge us to believe in God, for the most part, despise the old “proofs,” and base their faith upon some aspect of human nature – emotions of awe or mystery, the sense of right and wrong, the feeling of aspiration, and so on. This way of defending religious belief was invented by Rousseau. It has become so familiar to us that its originality may easily not be appreciated by a modern reader, unless he will take the trouble to compare Rousseau with (say) Descartes or Leibniz.

“Ah, Madame!” Rousseau writes to an aristocratic lady, “sometimes in the privacy of my study, with my hands pressed tight over my eyes or in the darkness of the night, I am of the opinion that there is no God. But look yonder: the rising of the sun, as it scatters the mists that cover the earth, and lays bare the wondrous glittering scene of nature, disperses at the same moment all cloud from my soul. I find my faith again, and my God, and my belief in Him. I admire and adore Him, and prostrate myself in His presence.”

On another occasion he says, “I believe in God as strongly as I believe any other truth, because believing and not believing are the last things in the world that depend on me.” This form of argument has the drawback of being private; the fact that Rousseau cannot help believing something affords no ground for another person to believe the same thing.

<snip>

The rejection of reason in favor of the heart was not, to my mind, an advance. In fact, no one thought of this device so long as reason appeared to be on the side of religious belief. In Rousseau’s environment, reason, as represented by Voltaire, was opposed to religion, therefore away with reason! Moreover, reason was abstruse and difficult; the savage, even when he has dined, cannot understand the ontological argument, and yet the savage is the repository of all necessary wisdom. Rousseau’s savage – who was not the savage known to anthropologists – was a good husband and a kind father; he was destitute of greed, and had a religion of natural kindliness. He was a convenient person, but if he could follow the good Vicar’s reasons for believing in God he must have had more philosophy than his innocent naivete would lead one to expect.

Apart from the fictitious character of Rousseau’s “natural man,” there are two objections to the practice of basing beliefs as to objective fact upon the emotions of the heart. One is that there is no reason whatever to suppose that such beliefs will be true; the other is, that the resulting beliefs will be private, since the heart says different things to different people. Some savages are persuaded by the “natural light” that it is their duty to eat people, and even Voltaire’s savages, who are led by the voice of reason to hold that one should only eat Jesuits, are not wholly satisfactory. To Buddhists, the light of nature does not reveal the existence of God, but does proclaim that it is wrong to eat the flesh of animals. But even if the heart said the same thing to all men, that could afford no evidence for the existence of anything outside our own emotions. However ardently I, or all mankind, may desire something, however necessary it may be to human happiness, there is no ground for supposing this something to exist. There is no law of nature guaranteeing that mankind should be happy. Everybody can see that this is true of our life here on earth, but by a curious twist our sufferings in this life are made into an argument for a better life hereafter. We should not employ such an argument in any other connection. If you had bought ten dozen eggs from a man, and the first dozen were all rotten, you would not infer that the remaining nine dozen must be of surpassing excellence; yet that is the kind of reasoning that “the heart” encourages as a consolation for our sufferings here below.

For my part, I prefer the ontological argument, the cosmological argument, and the rest of the old stock-in-trade, to the sentimental illogicality that has sprung from Rousseau. The old arguments at least were honest: if valid, they proved their point; if invalid, it was open to any critic to prove them so. But the new theology of the heart dispenses with argument; it cannot be refuted, because it does not profess to prove its points. At bottom, the only reason offered for its acceptance is that it allows us to indulge in pleasant dreams. This is an unworthy reason, and if I had to choose between Thomas Aquinas and Rousseau, I should unhestitatingly choose the saint.

[magellan01]

@BrainGlutton

No, sir. Because “theism more generally” is never and nowhere a problem, it is a matter of interest only to philosophers. It’s not the thing atheists need to fight.

And this attitude is where the problem stems from.

[BrainGlutton]

@magellan01

And this attitude is where the problem stems from.

:dubious: The problems presented by religions were around long before atheists came out of the closet, and none of the atheists’ doing, and you fucking know it.

[magellan01]

@Voyager

I’d say 1) is usually atheism vs deism, since it seems that the average non-Christian believer provides a foggy and non-interventionist form of god. This discussion is fairly futile, since the deist position is based more on feelings and the challenge to falsify a deity with no evident characteristics. Christians for the most part make claims, though I’m sure you’ve noticed that the more wishy-washy ones retreat from any Bible verse which is incompatible with their current moralistic or scientific thinking.

And the claims that are challenged go to invalidate Christianity, and thats a fine exercise and debate to have. But even if that atheist wins the debate, that outcome does not shore up the argument for atheism. Again the things get conflated:

1. Christianity: valid or not?
2. Theism/Atheism: valid or not?

You might consider them “wishy-washy”, but what some atheists do is get in a huff when a Christian does hold as doctrinaire line as Billy Graham. They want atheism to win the day, but they go about it by attacking some literal interpretation of ONE strain of religion.

[magellan01]

@BrainGlutton

:dubious: The problems presented by religions were around long before atheists came out of the closet, and none of the atheists’ doing, and you fucking know it.

Try rereading without frothing and try to follow the line of reasoning laid out. If you can do that you’d realize that what you write here is meaningless.

I am not optimistic.

[BrainGlutton]

@magellan01

Try rereading without frothing and try to follow the line of reasoning laid out. If you can do that you’d realize that what you write here is meaningless.

I am not optimistic.

Your argument was:

@magellan01

One problem I see with this is that, like almost all such debates here on the SDMB, it pits Christianity against Atheism. That includes two different debates:

1. athesim vs theism
2. the validity of Christianity

It makes for a sloppy exercise. But it’s the way atheists like it, because they think that by shooting holes in Christianity they’ve successfully discounted theism more generally.

On which I have properly called bullshit.

[Voyager]

@magellan01

And the claims that are challenged go to invalidate Christianity, and thats a fine exercise and debate to have. But even if that atheist wins the debate, that outcome does not shore up the argument for atheism. Again the things get conflated:

1. Christianity: valid or not?
2. Theism/Atheism: valid or not?

You might consider them “wishy-washy”, but what some atheists do is get in a huff when a Christian does hold as doctrinaire line as Billy Graham. They want atheism to win the day, but they go about it by attacking some literal interpretation of ONE strain of religion.

Well, I thought Christianity was nonsense long before I became an atheist - I’m Jewish.
You must be of the mistaken impression that atheism is a positive claim. Attempting to prove that none of the thousands, millions, or billions of conceivable deities exist is a bit of a wasted effort, don’t you think? The reason we talk about Christianity is that Christians and atheists both believe the Zeus, Thor, Siva and Amon-ra don’t exist, so there isn’t much point in discussing them.

BTW, if you think we only attack one literal type of religion, you’re not paying attention. I’ve often asked the non-literal types what their algorithm is for determining what parts of the Bible are true, which are false, which are stories, and which are literature. Never have gotten a clear answer.

[marshmallow]

Playing devil’s advocate without letting the other side know is one definition of trolling.

[David42]

@Bryan_Ekers

The value of this, I don’t know offhand. I’d kinda rather give a theist my “eighth-day” challenge, in which I produce a copy of Genesis identical in all respects to a conventional bible but with creation taking seven days and God resting on the eighth, and ask the believer which version I should choose, and why.

I don’t want to hijack but do want to say that I’d love to debate this issue. If its not already a thread, and you wanna start one, since it is your proposition, I would engage the question.

[David42]

@marshmallow

Playing devil’s advocate without letting the other side know is one definition of trolling.

I never considered motivation relevant to debate. It might be a fitting definition for other websites where the point is not debate, but here, not so important.

If it were say, a specific forum for people who enjoy a certain aspect of life, for instance, say a place to discuss the various qualities of wines, coming in to argue about how wine is bad for you is the kind of trolling I think that definition is about.

I’m not trying to remark on the rules here, as I am still new, but am saying that I don’t understand how that kind of trolling is relevant here other than thread hijacks.

But if it is customary or a rule here to announce you are playing devil’s advocate, I’d certainly comply.

[magellan01]

@BrainGlutton

Your argument was:

On which I have properly called bullshit.

I’m not surprised you might have missed it, but that was my opinion of your comment. I’m also not surprised that you would view a fair and sensible debate so unkindly.

To each their own.

[magellan01]

@Voyager

Well, I thought Christianity was nonsense long before I became an atheist - I’m Jewish.
You must be of the mistaken impression that atheism is a positive claim. Attempting to prove that none of the thousands, millions, or billions of conceivable deities exist is a bit of a wasted effort, don’t you think? The reason we talk about Christianity is that Christians and atheists both believe the Zeus, Thor, Siva and Amon-ra don’t exist, so there isn’t much point in discussing them.

First, I’m not mistaken. Strong atheism, as was mentioned in the OP, is a positive claim. UNlike weak atheism. Second, I think it’s perfectly fine to have a discussion about the validity of Christianity. My point was that very often that debate gets conflated with the existence of God. Or “god”, if you prefer.

That was my point. Conflating the two is a cowardly and weak way to have the debate about God. Not to mention illogical. Even if one could prove Christianity is a thorough sham, that means that one particular religion is invalidated, not all religions. Never mind a pure, basic theist position.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@magellan01

And the claims that are challenged go to invalidate Christianity, and thats a fine exercise and debate to have. But even if that atheist wins the debate, that outcome does not shore up the argument for atheism. Again the things get conflated:

1. Christianity: valid or not?
2. Theism/Atheism: valid or not?

You might consider them “wishy-washy”, but what some atheists do is get in a huff when a Christian does hold as doctrinaire line as Billy Graham. They want atheism to win the day, but they go about it by attacking some literal interpretation of ONE strain of religion.

I must be missing the point of why this is a problem. One can have a generic debate on theism and a specific debate on a particular strain of theism. The latter is easier to grasp by an audience who is more familiar with Graham than with the general concepts of theism, and if the atheist can demonstrate that Graham, who represents a fairly popular and well-known strain of theism (at least in the U.S.), has a position that has no objective merit, then all strains of theism are weakened as well unless one can objectively prove that Shinto (for example) has more objective merit than Graham’s Evangelism.

Proving Christianity invalid seems to go quite a long way to proving theism invalid. Followers of any competing strain of theism are welcome to step up and demonstrate why their strain is more valid than Christianity, if they can.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@David42

I don’t want to hijack but do want to say that I’d love to debate this issue. If its not already a thread, and you wanna start one, since it is your proposition, I would engage the question.

Sure, I’ll type it up, start it in GD.

[Bryan_Ekers]

Done, for what it’s worth. I have my doubts the thread will attract much interest.