Intergalactic Summit

It is able to be validated, just not in a naturalistic, scientific way: That's why I repeatedly said that there are other ways than natural science to validate claims and better be, for if not, science itself breaks down, as it can't possibly validate it's own axioms.

See, if I claim that dragons exist I don't need to claim that they are in your hangar or that they are natural phenomena. Dragons do exist: In literature, mythology, imagination... all of these modes of existence are non-naturalistic - at least not in the sense of natural science. And there is good reason to assume that there are dragons in literature, mythology and imagination - but that's not the field of natural science, but of literature studies, comparative mythology or whatever else is appropriate. Similarly there are philosophical reasons and theological reasons to assume the existence of the divine.

The real question here is, why do you suppose that all claims to existence are naturalistic claims?

Ahh but literature, mythology, and imagination are natural phenomena, unless you believe that humans are somehow not natural. Dragons don't actually exist outside of the popular imagination, but they do exist within the minds of people. That is naturalistic. God does not seem to exist outside of that same imagination. You are not asking me to believe that people imagine God, they obviously can. You are asking me to actually believe in the phenomena of God. This would be akin to saying that 'because dragons exist in the imagination dragons are real.' Well, yes, maybe. But I suppose that depends on how you define real.

You state that you have philosophical and theological reasons to believe in the Divine, but you have yet to actually explain what those reasons are, and thus have not actually answered my question. Why do you as a person chose to believe in the existence of the divine? Why do you see the Divine as something more then a product of culture, like dragons?



Because I see no reason to believe otherwise.

To elaborate:
I have experiences, thoughts, memories. Once you reconstruct reality past solipsism, you are forced to acknowledge that there does exist a world outside of your head. Science is dedicated to understanding that world as much as possible. Could there be another world? Could I be a brain in a vat? Could I simply be the mouthpiece of some higher, extra-dimensional human who controls me like a chesspiece for fun in her spare time? Yes. All these things are possible, but I have not seen evidence for them. I can thus choose to live my life doubting everything, and believing anything could happen at any moment, or I can focus my beliefs on what I actually have evidence for. Of course I don't have perfect knowledge. I acknowledge the possibility of God existing, but given that I have seen no evidence of God, I chose not to believe in it for the same reason I don't believe there is a dragon in my hanger. It seem doesn't provide a deeper insight into the world I live in, It doesn't reveal another world that I interact with, it provides no tangible benefits to my life.

Hence do we return again, how do you benefit from the belief in the Divine?
In short, why do you believe what you believe? I know why I believe what I do, and I'm perfectly willing to defend those beliefs, because I have evidence that correlates with them. If someone presents me with new evidence, I update my beliefs to fit that evidence.

At the end of the day, you can chose to believe things for which we have evidence (like setting your foot down will produce locomotion instead of a nuclear explosion of death) or you can chose to believe things without evidence. You claim to have good reasons to believe things without evidence.

What are they?

I have a few problems with these two sections of the argument.

b) Bayesian inference does away with this, we have a better method of determining how one should update belief then the method you are using.

c) the problem with the method you are using is that it runs into the paradox of the creating creator. It goes like this. If God created the universe, then who or what created God? And for that matter what made the things that created God? If your argument is that God self created then there is no reason to believe the universe couldn't also self create thus removing an extra step via occam's razor.

You are essentially saying, 'I have to assume either theism or atheism because reality must be one way or the other' fair enough, that is a valid logical move. However, there is a mechanical way of deciding to believe one way or the other.

P(A|B) = P(B|A) P(A) / P(B|A) P(A) + P(B|¬A)

Its called Bayes Theorem, and it is a method for updating our beliefs in the face of evidence. It is a plan to use probability, to decide how best we should believe. What's more? Everyone already does this on a biological level. Human brains are bayesian engines, we make bayesian inferences on a day to day basis. Its why we are fairly confident the next step we take won't result in firey nuclear doom. By understanding this, you will literally improve your ability to think.

Bayes theorem states:

P(A|B) = P(B|A) P(A) / P(B|A) P(A) + P(B|¬A)

So to explain this,

B = The Evidence that God exists
A = The probability that God exists.

P(B|A) This is the probability of God existing, given the evidence of God's existence. Of course, we don't have any evidence. We have never observed something to exist for which we could not find some evidence, and in fact it goes against our entire notion of how reality works for something to exist but be entirely non-interactive with reality. even WIPs like Neutrinos and Tachyons have some interaction with reality, they are detectable in some fashion. The idea of a completely inaccessibly God is therefore functionally equivalent to the idea of no God. we must put the probability as being very low. Infinitesimally low. We will be generous and call this probability 1%. and there really is absolutely no reason besides old books and culture to argue otherwise. You may disagree with me on this, but there really is no way around this fact. There is simply no evidence for God.

P(A) Is the probability that God exists prior to considering evidence. This is called your prior probability. We don't know if God exists or not, so we will put this at 50%

P(B|¬A) is the probability of God not existing, given the same evidence (can the evidence be explained by any other means then God?) in this case our probability is 99%. So far everything science has poked at has been explainable eventually. We understand how stars and electricity and gravity and heat and wave action, and neurology and brain chemistry all work, and none of it provided evidence of God. Science has worked admirably in the past at explaining the universe in a naturalistic fashion, and therefore the probability of something that exists without being in any way interactive is very very low.

I have a little calculator tool if you don't trust my numbers

Doing the math, our outcome probability for P(A|B), that being the probability that God exists and there is no evidence for him, is 0.507%

I'm really sorry, but the odds are against you here. Sure, you can believe that God exists an is entirely non-interactive, and ride that .5% like a lifeboat, but what's the point then? Sure, you can say that nothing in science puts any doubt on their beliefs, But with all the forces in the universe basically able to be explained by science, what's left for God to do? Why is God required at all anymore?

And there's the little birdie and the gameboard is thoroughly soiled.
At least one "prophecy" came through, but I suspect that was simple foresight.

Mutterings of dresses validates the entirety of your theology? And this theology has a dominating grip on us? Hardly. True power and dominance does not come from merely being a pest to others. It comes from having clear control over yourself, your actions, and your path. I assure you that by posting here, Saede is following her path, as I am mine. If your theology truly had such a devastating hold on us, this amusing conversation would not be conducted here. It would be conducted among the stars, where we would dance together along clashing vectors of will and spirit.

It's already been said here. The theology you support, or at least the one that yours derived from, danced once before. The Jove did not bow to your dominance, and neither do the free Matari. You and yours still sway to a tired, old tempo. How long is it before your God grows weary? How long is it before those that walk the path of Amarrian theology and its derivatives must sit down and look for a new direction?

Hopefully not long at all. I pray that you sit and look skyward towards tomorrow.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what passes for a theist's argument once everything else they brought to the table was razed to the ground. Not particularly surprising, but don't deride her too much. I'm guessing it's not pleasant to know everything your life is based on turns out to be about as ephemeral as fog.

I know Bayesian probability calculus. There are problems with baysian statistics though, especially with assigning the prior probability. You did entirely arbitrarily put the prior probability at 50% and there is no physical sampling mechanism to justify any allocation of that probability, as God isn't claimed to be physical.

Also, your assignments of the probabilities of God not existing and God existing are entirely based on your decision to put total value on evidence. Putting the probability of god existing infinitesimally low isn't justified, unless you're embracing a naturalistic worldview - and that's presupposing that god doesn't exist. It's begging the question. This is also why you put the bayesian evidential interpretation of possibility to work here, because you presuppose that evidence is what we need to look at to make the decision.

As such, your argument only is acceptable if one already embraces ontological and epistemological naturalism, which both imply the nonexistence of God. As such you demonstrated only a tautology: If we assume that no transcendent, super- or non-natural (in the naturalistic sense) phenomena exist, God, being such a phenomenon, doesn't exist.

So, while I trust that you can calculate, I reject your premises as they already entail that God doesn't exist. You don't give an argument for the nonexistence of the divine, but you simply assume it and then show that this assumption leads to not changing that assumption.

So, if I claim the negative of your claim, I'm justified in that claim without giving proof, according to you. If that's so, I simply claim that god is not nonexistent and then I do "not have to prove [that] negative, not because it's impossible to prove a negative, but because the alternative is that any claim you can make suddenly becomes viable until that claim has been disproved."

Ah... no? And that goes both ways. Indeed if one searches for the truth one has to check all the claims that are possible if one can't prove a particular one and they all are viable as long as they are not disproved. Laziness is no excuse in the search for truth.

The claim, by the way that "They are the result of natural process, as are claims of the 'divine', and the axioms that you choose." is necessarily inconsistent as it depends on the axioms you choose. The second incompleteness theorem indicates that any (sufficiently complex) axiomatic system that is demonstrating it's own consistency is, in fact, inconsistent. So... well, every reasonable person can draw the inference here.

You don't see the difference between claiming to be god and the claim that god exists? No? Well you would, if you were god.

No, hence every claim can be formulated as either positive or negative claim, depending on what you prefer.