It’s a non-falsifiable truth claim.
What is the difference between a baseless truth claim and a baseless assertion, exactly?
I didn’t use the term “baseless truth claim.”
I used the term “non-falsifiable truth claim,” so as to draw attention to the fact that the claim in question is non-falsifiable, and as such, is perfectly compatible with science.
And I called it a baseless truth-claim so as to draw attention to it being the same as a baseless assertion.
Or can you explain the difference?
On the off chance that you truly do not comprehend the difference between the two:
“Baseless” describes a claim not based in the facts at hand.
“Non-falsifiable” describes a claim that can’t be falsified.
Whether a religious claim is baseless or not has zero relevance for the question at hand (“Is Religion and Science Compatible?”), so bringing it up adds nothing to the discussion.
Whether a religious claim is non-falsifiable or not, however, is absolutely relevant for the question at hand, since if the answer is “yes,” it lets us know that at least that one religious claim is indeed compatible with science.
So, would you say that the baseless truth claim “God is the fundamental ground for the existence of all things that exist” is falsifiable, or non-falsifiable?
I was responding directly to the idea that the odds are astronomical of this event happening, as you provided this as an analogy. I thought it an interesting idea. After all, if some quantum theories are correct and there are infinite universes, there would be one that does everything, including making 747s.
I’m not sure exactly what you’re reading from this that I get this response. I don’t know that it requires further examination, but I don’t think what I was trying to say made it across. In trying to answer the question proposed by this thread, I’m making the following claims:
Science involves using the Scientific Method, which requires that we operate on assumptions, try to find evidence to test those assumptions, and keep an open mind about the possibility that any of the assumptions are wrong. Once we have solid evidence that something meets all our assumptions and it all works together, we move forward with the theory that we’ve ‘proved’ the theory.
Therefore, Science’s basic requirement is that we keep an open mind and search for answers based on what we think is true so far.
Religion attempts to provide a framework for the WHY of the universe, including in most cases a creation explanation. Many, many things get pulled into this search for meaning and so religion is a pretty broad term.
In the end, if the parts of the religion you cling to and find vitally important are evidence-verifiable, and your take on religion is that should that evidence arrive, you’ll refuse to consider it, then you’re in conflict with science. On the other hand, if your belief in religion is something you’re not convinced of and you think it’s acceptable to still be considering evidence, you’re not in conflict with science at all.
Thus, the idea of how convinced are you.
If no evidence will ever sway you to change your mind, then you’re in conflict with science. Otherwise, I think it’s pretty compatible. Hence the vast numbers of scientists who consider themselves religious.
I hear/read something like this a lot (science answers ‘how’ and religion answers ‘why’). But does religion, any religion, really answer ‘why’? Why are we here? Why did God create the universe? Why is there a God? I’ve never seen where a religion attempts to answer these questions… although I admit I don’t know everything religion has attempted to answer.
Many religions do indeed attempt to answer these questions, and others like them.
No, what I mean is the majority of atheists I know (again, those who wear their atheist belief as a badge, as opposed to those who hem and haw and decide maybe they are atheist but they’re not too sure) believe that there could never exist a universe where any evidence could be produced to sway them to the belief that any form of Deity exists. If they found themselves suddenly surrounded with fire that didn’t burn them, a giant being descended from a cloud, declared that it was God and had created the universe, and proved many miracles right in front of them, they would refuse to believe any evidence presented and keep looking for another possibility.
In other words, they have 100% conviction that their version is right and no evidence otherwise could ever change their mind. They might not like the word faith to describe that, but I think it’s pretty accurate.
That’s kind of my point. There is a lot of gray area in the terms atheist, deist, agnostic, and most of it has to do with how convinced are you?
Conjecture. An opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information.
All statements in life are conjecture. Why bother living at all? Whether there is or isn’t a God, what’s the point of life? The point is, all we can truly know with complete conviction is our own existence. It’s possible Solipsism is the truth and no one else exists, it’s all a dream. But living with that as your working theory is kind of pointless, so why bother? So we live assuming that that’s not the case. But it doesn’t mean that the rest of our beliefs aren’t conjecture based entirely on what we think is happening delivered via our senses.
Where the hell do you find these atheists you speak of? I don’t know of any atheists that think that way.
I doubt the majority of atheists you know believe what you claim they do, nor do they wear “atheist belief” as a badge.
How is it “kind of your point”? My statement is in direct opposition to yours. Being a deist is in regards to a specific belief one has and not in regards to the probability he puts on a creator existing.
Only you’re taking the meaning of “incomplete information” so far, you’ve made the definition of conjecture: “every claim except for ‘I think therefore I am’”, which is not the way anyone defines conjecture but you. I’m sure the dictionary you cherry-picked that definition from did not mean “incomplete information” to be defined as you’re defining it.
I am talking about the odds against an event taking place in the manner specified in this universe.
That is an incredibly generous description of religion. Given that one of the worlds biggest is on a murder binge at the moment, and given that there are a remarkable number if filthy rich ministers/preachers/priests leading their flocks into the realm of “don’t question, just believe” Billions of people believing, giving money, and their lives to religion does not give it any evidentiary weight.
Name any number of parts of any religions that has evidence to back it up. Note I am not asking for trivia I would love to hear your evidence for gods/miracles/supernatural claims.
Science, not knowing how the universe began MAKES NO CLAIMS. Religion, not knowing how the universe began makes many varied claims, none of which have evidence for their claims. So in this case you don’t have a lack of evidence for both, you have a lack of evidence for religious claims only.
Vast numbers of scientists who consider themselves religious is remarkably small compared to the general population. I don’t know any atheists who would not accept evidence for god(s). The problem is the evidence, someone in this thread suggested being surrounded by a fire that does not burn you while giants descend from the clouds telling you of their divinity…this would not convince me of anything in and of itself. I would seriously question my sanity and who put what drugs in my food because that is a vastly more likely reason for seeing something like that than god. Why? once again, Because the idea that the universe is to complex to have formed from the laws of physics (including any we don’t yet understand) and therefore must have been created by an even more complex being who formed himself(?) out of nothing is totally fucking bonkers. If you want to convince me there is a god then you would have to provide evidence of some form that could not be easily be attributed to another cause, And it would have to be something that could be examined, if it falls outside of testable parameters then you are left with a question that still does NOT point to a deity.
So far, you haven’t pointed out any significant distinction between “baseless” and “non-falsifiable”.
Perhaps there is a distinction. For example, a consistent mathematical system like some form of number theory is not falsifiable, but someone might say it’s not baseless. It’s basically a set of consistent definitions; whether or not they’re useful for describing some aspect of the real world is up to scientists. Some might blanch at that being called “baseless”.
As a logical positivist*, I don’t draw a distinction. But I would like to point out an aspect of empiricism: there may be things that are true that cannot be empirically determined. For example, let’s pretend that the universe is a simulation run on some computer. If we’re to believe Turing, all computers have the same theoretical capabilities (ignoring time & space limitations), so we couldn’t determine what kind of computer our simulation is running on. Sure, we could figure out the math is done using IEEE 64bit format – but that could be software-emulated on a PDP8.
So, sure, there are things that could be true, and we scientific types wouldn’t be interested in discussing them much, other than shooting the bull. They could be true, but they don’t matter: they don’t change what we experience.
Of course, the logical positivists do say that if it can’t be tested empirically, it doesn’t even mean anything to say it, and they may have a good point. My problem when people talk about God is that they can’t define God, so none of us really know what we’re talking about. That doesn’t mean it’s not true, but usually, when people don’t know what they’re talking about, truth isn’t likely to be close at hand.
(*I think i’m a logical positivist, but I’ve read articles that say “No, those LP guys are all wrong, and xxx” and say what sounds to me like the same thing.)
Your experience is a skewed sample. Try meeting atheists on this forum, for example. The majority are of the type who do not believe rather than the type who believe not. The majority are unconvinced by the evidence that any deity needs to exist. Most happen to believe that the evidence contradicts most of the major religions.
Even the people I’ve known who say “I believe there is no deity” based “deity” on those of the major religions, and questioned the definition of a less specific deity.
Those are, in fact, “agnostics”. Agnostics believe that there is no possible way that evidence could prove the existence of God. While I have to admit they have a good philosophical case, I suspect that I would believe in God if belief in God were imprinted in humankind, and if God had used a less sloppy mechanism than a book and a church to get out The Word.
In that case, I might have doubts, but I would tend to believe. My doubts would be philosophical and conjectural.
Oddly, though, most people tend to use those words wrong, so we’re stuck with the popular misconceptions.
In any case, a very useful question in figuring out where you stand is “What evidence would convince you that you’re wrong?”
If I died and was presented in front of St. Peter, I’d admit that I probably was wrong. I bet I could be more easily convinced. I still doubt I’d have much respect for any deity that would condemn anyone to eternal torment; hopefully either that would be explained, or better yet, explained as a big misconception sorry about that. I mean, I’d try like hell to worship to save my soul, but I doubt I could fool God.
Most people who believe don’t do so for scientific reasons. Instead, it’s some sort of personal communion, or “it works for me in my life” and I have to respect that, as long as they don’t assume that their confidence is a good argument to me. A lot of religious people do heed the evidence when it contradicts a literal interpretation of the Bible, but retain their faith in other aspects. That’s OK with me.
One of the worst aspects to being an atheist is being convinced that you’ll never get a chance to say “See? I TOLD YOU SO!” It’s a burden we must bear. Sigh.
… You mean apart from pointing out that those two words mean two very different things? “Baseless” meaning “not based in the facts at hand,” and “non-falsifiable” meaning “impossible to falsify”?
I’ve been away from this thread for a few days, and it’s gotten quite long, so maybe I’m not being fair, but it seems to me that, in all this long thread, and in many other similar threads here on the SDMB, religion is being treated very unscientifically. By which I mean, people are saying things about religion—what it is, what it does, what religious people are like—that are not based on careful study or dispassionate research or evidence that goes beyond the anecdotal. To take an example, just because it’s the most recent and near-to-hand, not because I want to single this particular statement out:
How many “filthy rich” religious leaders—both in absolute terms and as a percentage of all religious leaders? What definition of “filthy rich” are you using? What, exactly, are they “leading their flocks into,” and to what degree is that typical of religion as a whole or of their particular religious traditions? In what sense, if any, is it correct to say that a religion itself (I assume you mean Islam) is “on a murder binge,” and what is the evidence for this?
OK, granted. There are baseless statements that are falsifiable. I’d venture that there are no non-falsifiable statements that are based in the facts at hand. (If I’m wrong, then I don’t know what we mean by that.)
In any case, if your claim isn’t baseless, what facts are it based on?
If you’re just objecting to my semantics (equating non-falsifiable with baseless) then OK, you’re right: baseless is a superset, and I shouldn’t have lumped your claim in with falsifiable, baseless claims.
Indeed.
Thank you.
Will be internetless for a few weeks, so bowing out of the discussion for now.