Look, Islam is not going away

[tomndebb]

@bldysabba

What you have to do characterise CP’s view as wrong is to provide evidence for the existence of Allah and his supernatural cave communication with Muhammed that would permit us to change the provisional view we hold.

No. All I have to do is note that genuine science plays no part in your fantasy world, where a demiurge “science” makes the spiritual go away without even addressing the issue…

I have made no claim that the Muslim theology or its supporting mythology is true.
I have no need or desire to show that it is true.
All I need to do to make my point is what I have already done: I asked for a citation to a scientific work that demonstrated that various religious or spiritual claims were false. In place of such a citation, I have gotten all sorts of dancing and weaving with claims that science does not have to demonstrate any such thing because it, in some odd fashion, proved that the spiritual realm did not exist and that it did it without ever actually addressing the issue.

I have no problem with science not addressing the issue of the spiritual. That is not the concern of science. I have no problem with a person looking at the world from a materialistic perspective and drawing the conclusion that only the material exists. I have at no time challenged anyone’s belief or philosophical perspective on that point. I have simply noted that science deals with the physical or material and that claims that it has disproven or demonstrated the falsity of the spiritual are silly and not appropriate.

I have already noted that it is possible that the spiritual does not exist. I have no problem with a person looking at the material, being comfortable that that is all there is, and drawing the philosophical conclusion that there is no spiritual reality. However, until an actual act of scientific research demonstrates that the spiritual does not exist, it is not science that has demonstrated the lack of the spiritual. It is a philosophical position that does not require the use of science to establish and it is a position that science cannot actually prove.

A claim that science has demonstrated that there is no spiritual realm is a religious assertion in which an imaginary science plays the role of a god by making something not exist without even addressing the issue.

@bldysabba

I’ll wait.

Please do.

[tomndebb]

@Chief_Pedant

The way science proves that pure bullshit–imagination of things opposed to physical principle–is false is by:

1. Demonstrating a grasp of the physical principles by which the world around us works,
2. Demonstrating that fanciful statements–bullshit–are so inconsistent with one another that the cannot have come from a source of truth which is somehow beyond this physical world, since if they did and were true, they would be consistent with one another,
3. Demonstrating that the conscious process by which these thoughts were generated is tied to this physical world via processes in the brain versus processes outside of the brain (such as a communication from an almighty).

Actually, to the extent that any of that is true, (a tiny bit of it is), it is not science but logic that establishes your point.

@Chief_Pedant

The idea that science cannot falsify a pink unicorn governing the world from a cheese house inside jupiter, or giant large-breasted white women getting pleasured by men with permanent erections is just ridiculous.

Scence has nothing to do with either of the things you think you have “falsified,” (another word about which you appear to have a misunderstanding).
And if you do not recognize that the pink unicorn is invisible, you clearly do not grasp the matter well enough to discuss it.

@Chief_Pedant

It is bullshit, and it false, according to science. Not unexamined; not uninteresting; not outside of science. Just plain false.

You seem to have a desperate need to drop the word “science” into sentences where it is not even required, just to make your point.

@Chief_Pedant

You cannot have science cake and expect to eat your houris too. You only get one or the other, depending on whether you want to accept science or fantasy as your belief structure.

I reject your silly attempt at imposing a false dichotomy regarding science on the world. There is nothing contradictory between science and houris. You believe that death is a materialistic event. Thart is fine for your beliefs. If there is a spiritual realm, however, and an individual continues to exist in the spiritual realm after the death of the material body, then your claim is wrong and science cannot examine the spiritual to determine whether or not it exists. There are many scientists who have continued to hold spiritual beliefs even though they continued to do good science. So your claim is demonstrably false.
I make no claim regarding the reality of a spiritual realm or a life after the death of the body. I simply note that your insistence that your imaginary view of “science” has proven such beliefs wrong are nothing more than your religious belief in a “science” that does not exist.

[Trinopus]

@bldysabba

I have laid out my position at great length in multiple posts. If a claim is not structured in a way that is testable or falsifiable, it is worthless as knowledge, has no truth value and can be rejected out of hand. The burden of evidence for the claim falls on anyone making the claim or anyone demanding that such a claim is to be accorded respect.

A claim being not ‘falsifiable’ does not make it somehow different but eqaul to a scientific claim. It means the claim is such gibberish that it does not even rise to the standard of a testable hypothesis.

Okay, as before, if you mean “not testable” by “bullshit,” then, cool, I’m aboard. I don’t like the word, but, then, the more proper word “nonsense” is also a possible source of offense.

Just so long as you don’t meant “false.” Because one you assert “This religious claim is false,” you’re overstepped the boundaries of formal scientific method.

[Trinopus]

@Hank_Beecher

What you are getting whooshed by in this argument is that science can make claims about *belief *in the non-material, since belief is something that is a product of the biology of one of the organs in our physical body. Science tells is that claims originating from, and depending on, a belief in the supernatural are total bullshit.

Um…no, that doesn’t follow. A belief might be totally irrational, and still correct, just by enormous coincidence.

Yes, science can certainly study belief. It’s a proper field of psychology.

But science can’t assure us “There is no God,” solely because belief in God is faith-based. That certainly undermines any claim that there is a God, but it isn’t enough, in itself, for us to conclude that “There is no God.”

(For many years, I had faith that the Four-Color-Map Theorem would be proven. In fact, it was. My faith-based idea turned out to be true.)

[Hank_Beecher]

@Trinopus

Um…no, that doesn’t follow. A belief might be totally irrational, and still correct, just by enormous coincidence.

Yes, science can certainly study belief. It’s a proper field of psychology.

But science can’t assure us “There is no God,” solely because belief in God is faith-based. That certainly undermines any claim that there is a God, but it isn’t enough, in itself, for us to conclude that “There is no God.”

Science assures us that claims based on those beliefs are bullshit, even if they are occasionally true by enormous coincidence. If I tell you that God will send locusts to destroy your crops unless you cut down on the gayness, science does not have to disprove the existence of God to prove, to a very high degree of certainty, that the claim is bullshit. Science dismisses with the claim not directly with the scientific method, but by the application of the body of knowledge accumulated using that method. We have an imperfect, yet developed, refined and tested model of what contributing factors are involved in insect plagues. And the intervention of God or other supernatural factors are, of course, at the absolute bottom of the list of imagined causes, when the list is ordered by amount of evidence supporting the claim. That’s what bullshit is. A claim based not on evidence but on fabrication, imagination, or feelings. And the claim doesn’t become any less bullshit if grasshoppers do actually eat your corn.

(For many years, I had faith that the Four-Color-Map Theorem would be proven. In fact, it was. My faith-based idea turned out to be true.)

That was a hunch. If you had claimed that you knew that it would be proven because Kermit the puppet was a real frog who had communicated to you using ESP, that would have been bullshit, regardless of the outcome.

[Kimstu]

@Hank_Beecher

Science assures us that claims based on those beliefs are bullshit, even if they are occasionally true by enormous coincidence. If I tell you that God will send locusts to destroy your crops unless you cut down on the gayness, science does not have to disprove the existence of God to prove, to a very high degree of certainty, that the claim is bullshit.

Uh, no, that’s not how proof works. Science can predict with a very high degree of confidence that the claim is bullshit, because there is no known causal mechanism operating in accordance with the premises of scientific materialist rationalism via which human same-sex sexual behavior would result in swarming locusts. And science overall has had very good success with limiting its premises to that kind of materialist rationalism and disallowing all supernatural assumptions or explanations.

But that is not the same thing as proving such a claim is bullshit, much less disproving the existence of a deity or other postulated supernatural being. Science, by its very definition, cannot do any such thing (see: “limiting its premises” etc., above).

Which is not in any way a disparagement of science or its reliability, just clarifying the epistemological boundaries of what it can and can’t formally accomplish.

[Hank_Beecher]

@Kimstu

Uh, no, that’s not how proof works. Science can predict with a very high degree of confidence that the claim is bullshit, because there is no known causal mechanism operating in accordance with the premises of scientific materialist rationalism via which human same-sex sexual behavior would result in swarming locusts. And science overall has had very good success with limiting its premises to that kind of materialist rationalism and disallowing all supernatural assumptions or explanations.

But that is not the same thing as proving such a claim is bullshit, much less disproving the existence of a deity or other postulated supernatural being. Science, by its very definition, cannot do any such thing (see: “limiting its premises” etc., above).

Which is not in any way a disparagement of science or its reliability, just clarifying the epistemological boundaries of what it can and can’t formally accomplish.

Proving, as it relates to scientific theories, as opposed to logical or mathematical proofs, is always a matter of varied degrees of certainty, based on the available evidence. The theory of evolution has not been proven absolutely true, as has Godel’s incompleteness theorem. But it has been proven to be true as is commonly understood in the context of scientific theories: it has been shown to be the most likely explanation, to a very high degree of certainty, given the vast amounts of available evidence.

[Trinopus]

@Hank_Beecher

. . . And the intervention of God or other supernatural factors are, of course, at the absolute bottom of the list of imagined causes, when the list is ordered by amount of evidence supporting the claim. That’s what bullshit is. . . .

No problem. “At the very bottom of the list of imagined causes” is a valid place to put a specific religious claim about a matter of factual reality.

Placing it off the list entirely – declaring it to be “proven false” – would not be correct. Holding it to be of a very, very, very low order of probability is okay.

[Chief_Pedant]

@tomndebb

I reject your silly attempt at imposing a false dichotomy regarding science on the world. There is nothing contradictory between science and houris. You believe that death is a materialistic event. Thart is fine for your beliefs. If there is a spiritual realm, however, and an individual continues to exist in the spiritual realm after the death of the material body, then your claim is wrong and science cannot examine the spiritual to determine whether or not it exists. There are many scientists who have continued to hold spiritual beliefs even though they continued to do good science. So your claim is demonstrably false.
I make no claim regarding the reality of a spiritual realm or a life after the death of the body. I simply note that your insistence that your imaginary view of “science” has proven such beliefs wrong are nothing more than your religious belief in a “science” that does not exist.

Well, I do think I’ll quit here.

This is easily the dumbest thing I have ever seen you say:
“There is nothing contradictory between science and houris.”

It demonstrates such an abject lack of understanding about science that I don’t know where to start. I guess I’ve tried to start, but you just label it handwaving.

Where you have grown the most confused is this idea of “proving.” You set up some sort of ridiculously silly standard of “proof,” and then want to postulate that science does not “prove” houris–or the afterlife–don’t exist.

That is not how science works, period. That’s the kind of language by which the weak-minded sit around and wonder if their senses exist, and that maybe nothing at all exists, and that maybe the entire world is a figment of their own imagination or perhaps they are figments of the pink unicorn’s imagination.

“Can’t PROVE I’m real! Can’t PROVE I’m not the pink unicorn’s fantasy!”

That sort of reasoning is something–philosophy, or 4th-grade imagination, perhaps–but it’s not science. Never has been.

A scientific proof is a reasonable approach to demonstrating the way the world works. It is, occasionally, even wrong–or at least–incomplete. A Newtonian proof might not fully describe an Einsteinian reality. But the process of scientific proof is nevertheless a certain approach, and that scientific approach disproves houris, pink unicorns and the fanciful imaginations of the supernaturalists.

You can defend the possibility of houris with linguistic machinations that make them sound more plausible to the unscientific. You can find scientists who set aside science and choose to entertain scientifically falsifiable beliefs.

But to leave the impression that science does not outright falsify bullshit imaginations such as houris is so wide of the mark of understanding what science is, does, and says, that I don’t think it’s really possibly to have a conversation about it. Such a conversation among the feeble-minded distills rapidly down to wondering if the thinker even exists. While some might find that interesting, and others might find it reassuring so they can cling to a hope of eternally excellent sexual encounters with giant white virgins who have hairless perineums and don’t pass any stools to sully their netherparts, science comes along and says, “That is completely falsifiable using science.”

The choice, as I mentioned earlier, is to accept science or to accept houris. It is not to accept science and acknowledge the possibility of houris. You must literally lay aside science to accept houris, because science falsifies them in the plainest sense–the same sense in which science falsifies perpetual motion.

It is not that science is never wrong. It is not that we understand the world completely. It is that scientifically, houris are proved false, and until such time as the science around the way the world works is fundamentally altered to include what is currently the supernatural, science will continue to scientifically falsify post mortem giant white women with really nice breasts who are perennially satisfied by the permanent erections of the newly dead.

[Chief_Pedant]

@Trinopus

No problem. “At the very bottom of the list of imagined causes” is a valid place to put a specific religious claim about a matter of factual reality.

Placing it off the list entirely – declaring it to be “proven false” – would not be correct. Holding it to be of a very, very, very low order of probability is okay.

Could you give me your best guesstimate on the likelihood that, as a dead Muslim believer I get to use my permanent erection to eternally diddle 90 foot tall white virgins with nice breasts who don’t defecate and don’t have any nasty pubic hair while I am surrounded by a covey of eternally young boys?

How short of “proof” is the residual unlikelihood?

How would that lack of “proof” compare with, say, the lack of proof for an undiscovered planet between us and Mars?

Also, I’m outta here for now. Busy week ahead, assuming the mods defending the possibility of houris don’t ban me anyway for all the cold water.

(And yet what that der trihs guy gets by with mocking…perhaps some things are more spankable.)

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

@Chief_Pedant

The choice, as I mentioned earlier, is to accept science or to accept houris. It is not to accept science and acknowledge the possibility of houris. You must literally lay aside science to accept houris, because science falsifies them in the plainest sense–the same sense in which science falsifies perpetual motion.

…Do you know what the term “unfalsifiable” means? It doesn’t mean “science has proven it wrong” (beyond in the more general sense, that philosophy has shown that unfalsifiable concepts are, on the whole, a complete waste of time), it means “science is fundamentally incapable of proving it wrong”.

The concept of a soul is unfalsifiable. This makes it both fundamentally outside the realm of what science can prove to be false, and on the whole a complete waste of time. But to say that science has proven it false is nonsense. It hasn’t.

Now, a more nuanced version of this argument would be to appeal to the fundamental waste-of-timeyness of unfalsifiable claims, and to point out that accepting the scientific method as the best way to resolve claims in every part of your life except for the single most important one is ridiculous, and that applying the scientific method to unfalsifiable claims necessarily leads to “this is a complete waste of time and there’s no reason to believe it exists, therefore skepticism should apply”. I find that quite compelling, personally.

But the way you’re saying it? I’m sorry, you’re just wrong. You don’t understand science, and you don’t understand falsifiability.

[Chief_Pedant]

@Kimstu

Uh, no, that’s not how proof works. Science can predict with a very high degree of confidence that the claim is bullshit, because there is no known causal mechanism operating in accordance with the premises of scientific materialist rationalism via which human same-sex sexual behavior would result in swarming locusts. And science overall has had very good success with limiting its premises to that kind of materialist rationalism and disallowing all supernatural assumptions or explanations.

But that is not the same thing as proving such a claim is bullshit, much less disproving the existence of a deity or other postulated supernatural being. Science, by its very definition, cannot do any such thing (see: “limiting its premises” etc., above).

Which is not in any way a disparagement of science or its reliability, just clarifying the epistemological boundaries of what it can and can’t formally accomplish.

OK…one last thing b/c I have 5 more minutes and b/c you are such a favorite poster of mine.

Moving the linguistic bar of what “proof” is to some vapid epistemologic terminus does not change what science says. Risible, even.

Science says the boundary of justifiable belief does not include magic of any kind. That is, having established that the basis for which a belief is justified has to do with the degree with which it complies with our understanding of the world, that which is outside said epistemologic boundary is not a justifiable belief. False, even.

When philosophers come along and opine that a non (scientifically) justifiable belief is not tantamount for “proof,” they are simply creating a completely alternate meaning of “proof” which science does not accept. It’s a linguistic machination that lends no credence whatsoever to what is being postulated.

Science quite literally disproves magic. To argue that some sort of “epistemologic boundary” exists which transcends that scientific approach in any manner such that the magical belief has an enhanced possibility of being correct is philosophic masturbation which has absolutely nothing to do with scientific proof.

As I mentioned before, taking that tack leads to a bunch of people sitting around wondering if they are really feeling their noses when they pick them.

Probably worked fine in the dark ages for controlling the masses, but in the light of science it becomes kind of silly. Ridiculous, even.

Language is a funny thing. I suggest not allowing the manipulation of it to tempt you into believing there’s no proof of anything, anywhere.

That’s the only conclusion of the “non-falsifiable” drivel repeated ad naseam in the above posts.

But it’s a linguistic trick. Not science. Not even good epistemology, if you want your cancer cured.

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

@Chief_Pedant

Science says the boundary of justifiable belief does not include magic of any kind.

Define magic.

[Trinopus]

@Chief_Pedant

Could you give me your best guesstimate on the likelihood that, as a dead Muslim believer I get to use my permanent erection to eternally diddle 90 foot tall white virgins with nice breasts who don’t defecate and don’t have any nasty pubic hair while I am surrounded by a covey of eternally young boys?

It is greater than zero, and has certainly not been “disproven” by science.

How short of “proof” is the residual unlikelihood? . . .

Anything short of proof is…short of proof. You seem to have this weird re-definition of the word, and consider an intuitive dismissal to be “proof.” It isn’t.

[bldysabba]

@tomndebb

I have simply noted that science deals with the physical or material and that claims that it has disproven or demonstrated the falsity of the spiritual are silly and not appropriate.
…

However, until an actual act of scientific research demonstrates that the spiritual does not exist, it is not science that has demonstrated the lack of the spiritual. It is a philosophical position that does not require the use of science to establish and it is a position that science cannot actually prove.

You are ignoring the fact that to science, any claim is false until shown by the scientific method to be (provisionally) true. Nobody needs to go around disproving every claim that is made. Those claims are false by default, until shown to true.

If you want to claim that this epistemological approach is not valid for looking at ‘spiritual’ claims and thus claim that CP is incorrect, you need to also establish the value of your epistemological approach as being anywhere close to the value of the scientific method.

[Monty]

@bldysabba

You are ignoring the fact that to science, any claim is false until shown by the scientific method to be (provisionally) true.

You are confused about both the meaning of “fact” and the meaning of “science”.

[bldysabba]

@Monty

You are confused about both the meaning of “fact” and the meaning of “science”.

No, I am not.

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

A caveats:

Any claim is assumed false. It doesn’t mean it is false, it just means that we necessarily take the skeptical position.

But yeah, what bldysabba is offering is pretty close to the aforementioned “more nuanced version”.

[Kimstu]

@Chief_Pedant

Moving the linguistic bar of what “proof” is to some vapid epistemologic terminus does not change what science says.

That bar ain’t moved for a very long time, pal. That’s where the technical definition of “proof” has always been, ever since Aristotle and Euclid in their various ways established the principles of logical deduction.

Put simply, it is not possible to logically disprove something that is not covered by your premises. The premises of science rule out all supernatural hypotheses right from the get-go: they undertake to explain only rationally explicable material phenomena.

That means that if there are any other sorts of phenomena out there, science can neither predict nor explain them.

Mind you, that doesn’t in any way make it rationally credible to claim that there are any other sorts of phenomena out there (and I personally don’t believe that there are any: rational materialism may not possess theoretical epistemic completeness but it’s plenty good enough for all the phenomena I’ve ever encountered).

But saying that I don’t believe something and that there isn’t a shred of scientifically credible evidence to indicate that it exists or ever could exist is simply not the same thing as actually disproving its existence.

And, so what? Just because I can’t actually disprove something doesn’t mean that I am in any way required to believe in it. Stand down, everybody, the barbarians are not actually at the gates. :rolleyes:

[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]

Science quite literally disproves magic.

[/quote]

Wrong. Science has disproved all known rationally and empirically testable claims for the existence of magic, so far. But those two statements are not the same thing.

[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]
To argue that some sort of “epistemologic boundary” exists which transcends that scientific approach in any manner such that the magical belief has an enhanced possibility of being correct is philosophic masturbation which has absolutely nothing to do with scientific proof.

[/quote]

Calm down. Nobody’s claiming that magical beliefs have “an enhanced possibility of being correct” just because they’re neither provable nor falsifiable according to rational-materialist scientific principles.

[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]

As I mentioned before, taking that tack leads to a bunch of people sitting around wondering if they are really feeling their noses when they pick them. […]

Language is a funny thing. I suggest not allowing the manipulation of it to tempt you into believing there’s no proof of anything, anywhere.
That’s the only conclusion of the “non-falsifiable” drivel repeated ad naseam in the above posts.

[/quote]

Your dire predictions about the potentially tragic consequences if people give in to the “temptation” of straying from your doctrine don’t scare me. I, for one, am perfectly capable of understanding the epistemic framework of scientific rational materialism well enough that I can simultaneously recognize the theoretical unfalsifiability of supernatural hypotheses and also comfortably accept the physical reality of my own nose.

That understanding does not require me (or even “tempt” me, preacherman :dubious: ) to submit to some kind of indiscriminate all-pervading relativism in which “there’s no proof of anything, anywhere”.

[Chief_Pedant]

@Kimstu

That bar ain’t moved for a very long time, pal. That’s where the technical definition of “proof” has always been, ever since Aristotle and Euclid in their various ways established the principles of logical deduction.

Perhaps YOUR bar hasn’t moved. LOL.

Science has moved the bar pretty fur from when I was chatting up “What is truth” with Ari et al. A technical definition of “proof” from 2000 years ago is hardly the starting point to demonstrate the non-zero possibility of dead guys with permanent erections pleasuring large-breasted giant white virgins.

That’s why science is able to say with confidence that houris and Cinderellla, and any other imaginary white girls that seem like they’d be really fun to boink <fill in your favorite imaginary phenomenon here> are bullshit.

Since you are an order of magnitude smarter than I, I’m not sure you will personally get confused about what to believe, but unfortunately the masses do, which is why I am so startled to see the Science Advisor and other mods here so passionately protecting these particular giant white women with nice breasts and hairless perineums as a non-falsifiable phenomenon.

See, if we just chat up epistemology in the abstract without any examination of how the world actually works, we are left with the same notion around “proof” that we have for constructs like math. And it’s easy to create those kinds of paradigms, come up with a formal definition for what “proof” is, and then (a la tomndebb here) make the linguistic transition from a schema for abstract epistemology to what science is able to bring to the table regarding proof.

More importantly, what science is able to bring to the table regarding bullshit, because it is a silly and nonconstructive road to distort the limitations of language and philosophic paradigms into the practical question of whether or not houris have a chance of existing–even a ghost of a chance.

Science says that chance is zero, just like it’s zero for the Minions, or Peter Pan, or Jinns. It doesn’t say it’s “non-provable” where lack of proof attaches any meaning whatsoever to the probability of existence.

The premises of science rule out all hypotheses right from the get-go, not because they undertake to explain only the material world, but because science can easily demonstrate that the imaginary world of make-believe is false. It can, for example, demonstrate how thinking occurs, how consciousness is tied to a physical substrate of the brain, how altering the brain creates perturbations for thoughts, and how a dead brain no longer generates any of what thought is.

Scientifically, that’s proof. By trying to extend the meaning of “proof” back to when we were chatting up the world in Greece as means of owning the word is an exercise in linguistic machinations that make an argument sound philosophically robust but leave it scientifically devoid of meaning.

Such an approach does not elevate the possibility for the existence of houris above zero unless you (philosophically) indulge yourself in deciding all premises with which to begin any proof construct are suspect. As I said earlier, it is at that point you don’t know if you are picking your own nose or not–and were you to present to my ED, I’d do you the courtesy of admitting you for delusional behavior on the scientific grounds that there is proof your brain isn’t working right (even if you had some philosopher on your side).

As to whether or not the barbarians are at the gate, that will depend on the success of Boko Haram, who are at other gates, knocking to get it. Should they be able to more generally undermine western education, we’ll all get the equivalent of SDMB mod lectures against mocking houris.