Evolution and atheism

[lucaspa]

No, in how you are using the terms, militant atheist=stupid atheist.

Then how are YOU using the term? I showed how the terms were synonymous, please show me where they differ.

And I really don't care what 'your experience' of most atheists is: look around you, and ask yourself what anyone's opinion of Christians must be on such a YEC dominated board? You would do well to take a leaf from Glenn Morton's book and spend a little time putting your own house in order around here.

I do.

Educated Christians like yourself should have better things to do than sit around arrogantly bickering with the atheists.

But militant, arrogant atheists are half the problem in the evolution vs creationism debate. You are half the cultural war that provides the fear motive for the lay creationist. When you tout atheism as epistemologically superior to theism -- by declaring that atheism is not a faith -- you implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) declare that theism is invalid. I can't quell the fears of creationists so they can listen to the science when some atheists are claiming that atheism is not a faith and, therefore, implicitly claiming it as fact.

So ... are you interested in science or in promoting your faith?

"Nor do I think we can afford these stupid culture wars, with people like Phillip Johnson getting upset that his version of God seems threatened because scientists have discovered that life developed over 3.5 billion years ago on the planet and feel that they can explain how that happened through purely natural causes. Nor can we afford the arrogant intolerance of the scientists who claim that their science -- evolution in particular -- demonstrates unequivocally that there is no God. Niles Eldredge, The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism pages 168-169.

[lucaspa]

"2. Faith in a deity is NOT 'blind' faith. There are reasons and evidence. Not scientific evidence, but scientific evidence is only a small subset of evidence."

The phrase "blind faith" is redundant. There is Faith (and it is blind by nature. If your faith is not blind then it is not faith.) and there is Reason.

Let's take this out of religion. In November I walked into a voting booth and voted for the person I believed would be the best President. Did I have any scientific studies? NO! Did I have evidence and reason? YES! But it still comes down to voting my faith in who would be the best President.

"2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs" http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionar...onary&va=faith

Notice 2b and 3. I had a "firm belief" or "strong conviction" about the candidate I voted for. So did you, if you voted. That's a faith, but not "blind". We each had our reasons and evidence, even if we ended up voting for different candidates.

Now, as you noted we can't prove objective reality. Last Tuesdayism could be correct, despite all the observations. So you and I share a "strong conviction" or "firm belief", i.e. faith that there is an objective universe out there.

Please explain what evidence there is for God. AND, what is the reasoning by which you interpret that evidence as pointing to God's existence.

I'm not going to get into an Apologetics debate with you. I'm not out to convert you to theism. I truly don't care if you remain atheist. It's fine by me that you keep that faith. However, you already know what the evidence is; atheism simply denies it. Basically, the evidence is personal experience of deity.

"Sorry, but science rests on 5 articles of faith about the nature of the universe. One of them is that there is an objective reality out there."

No. True, the presence of objective reality has not been proven, but belief in it is not faith, because the repeatability of observations of our world supports the existence of a physical reality.

But as Last Tuesdayism acknowledges, the observations could be wrong. So you and I share a faith that there is an objective universe out there. We share that faith with creationists.

"There is a further element of risk for anyone on a search for the truth. You cannot start in a vacuum. You must begin by trusting some ideas about the universe that have never been proved, may never be proved, and might turn out to be wrong."

My emphasis! Which ideas should we trust? Being that they might be wrong? Basic ones, without which, we cannot know truth.

Didn't you read the rest of the quote? Ferguson told you. You claim to use reason, but how reasonable is it not to read the information all the way thru?

The basic statements are:
1. I exist.
2. I am sane.

You particularly need the last one to accept your sense impressions of an objective universe.

(Not ones that assume an omni-Creator.) Like assuming that there is a physical reality.

Belief in an objective universe is a second or third order statement of faith. The reason modern science took off in Western Europe is that an objective universe follows from a belief in Yahweh (and we can skip the omni's; they are not essential). Judeo-Christianity handed scientists -- all of whom were Christian -- with the basic articles of faith about the universe necessary to do science.

Now, you can get those same articles of faith by a primary act of faith -- simply declare this is your faith about the nature of the universe. So no, you don't require belief in deity to have those articles of faith. It's just that, historically, belief in deity came first.

I'm not even sure it has to be objective, unless you do your reasearch with assistants, and you want your science to apply to others!

This is intersubjectivity, which is the subset of personal experience that science limits itself to. Different from objectivity. But yes, if all this is solely in your mind without an objective existence, then you have nothing to investigate.

[albert]

OK, we have the "stupid atheist" position ("science proves that God doesn't exist"), which I agree is unsupportable.

But you go too far by saying "There are reasons and evidence. Not scientific evidence, but scientific evidence is only a small subset of evidence." This needs justification (and I think is actually unjustifiable).
Empirically obtained evidence is the way you make sure of things. It's how you decide whether to use bricks or straw to build your house, how you decide what medicine your child should take, and what doctor she should see, etc. It's universally shared.
If you want to claim there are additional ways to obtain reliable knowledge, you have to justify them.

I think a reasonable atheist would say that the Christian God lies in the same category with the Egyptian gods, the Shinto gods, etc: they are "optional accessories", not justified by the available empirical evidence, but not excluded either.


By the way, I think you are hitting close to the heart of the matter with your line of questioning. I know we disagree, but at least there is enough we agree on to make for a fruitful debate.

[lucaspa]

But you go too far by saying "There are reasons and evidence. Not scientific evidence, but scientific evidence is only a small subset of evidence." This needs justification (and I think is actually unjustifiable).
Empirically obtained evidence is the way you make sure of things. It's how you decide whether to use bricks or straw to build your house, how you decide what medicine your child should take, and what doctor she should see, etc. It's universally shared.

Notice that last sentence: "universally shared"

Hume (an atheist) showed in the 1700s that ALL evidence is personal experience. Science limits itself to a subset of personal experience called "intersubjective". That means that anyone has the same experience under approximately the same circumstances. "universally shared" as you put it.

If you want to claim there are additional ways to obtain reliable knowledge, you have to justify them.

Now, intersubjective is the MOST reliable knowledge, but that does not mean personal experience that is not intersubjective is unreliable. Let's take one example:
12. Lucas, P.A. Chemotactic response of osteoblast-like cells to TGF-beta. Bone, 10: 459-463, 1990.

Notice that I am SOLE author. MY personal experience. Yet there it is in the scientific peer-reviewed literature. Now, I obviously think that anyone repeatig the experiments will get the same results. BUT, no one has. Right now it is personal, not intersubjective, experience.

17. Grande,D.A., Southerland, S.S., Manji, R., Pate, D.W., Schwartz, R.E., and Lucas, P.A. Repair of articular cartilage defects using mesenchymal stemcells. Tissue Engineering 1:345-353, 1995.

Now we have the personal experience of 6 people. Because no one isolates adult stem cells like we do, no one has repeated the experiment. In fact, no one has gotten this type of regeneration of articular cartilage with other adult stem cells. Is the data knowledge unreliable a priori? Is our experience a priori wrong? Nope.

Push comes to shove, ALL of us take our personal experience above anyone else's. Let's take 2 examples:
1. To me brussels sprouts taste AWFUL! Absolutely terrible. Can't stand it; I literally throw up trying to eat brussels sprouts. Now, other people like brussels sprouts. ThEIR personal experience says brussels sprouts taste good. No matter what they say, you can't convince me brussels sprouts taste good.
2. Back in 1987 I ran an experiment with mesenchymal cells and cartilage. I got some pretty amazing results -- formation of a whole embryonic chicken foot (the cells came from chicks). I have the photographs I took. Now, I was never able to reproduce that experiment (the "approximately same circumstances" were never repeated) but there is no doubt as to what I experienced ONCE!

I think a reasonable atheist would say that the Christian God lies in the same category with the Egyptian gods, the Shinto gods, etc: they are "optional accessories", not justified by the available empirical evidence, but not excluded either.

Are you talking worship or existence? See, this is where atheists get fuzzy. Are you saying Yahweh and the other deities do not exist, or are you saying there is not evidence to justify worshipping them? Those are 2 separate things, you know.

Now, look carefully at one of the examples you picked: Egyptian gods. Now, who decided that those gods were not correct? THEISTS!! Theists have decided that hundreds of versions of deity are not correct. You should be asking yourself: How did they do that? What basis did they use to decide that? It shows that theists do use critical thinking and that faith is not "blind" faith. If theists used only "blind" faith, all those hundreds of versions of deity would still be around, wouldn't they?

If theists decided that those versions of deity are not correct, why do some still think the Christian version and the Shinto version are accurate?

So, think about this: what is the personal experience of atheists (and agnostics)?

One other thing: let's assume for the sake of argument that the accounts in the Bible are accurate.

Now, would you consider the Hebrews right after getting across the Red Sea to have had "faith"? Look, they just saw the plagues, pillars of fire, and the Red Sea part. Wouldn't you classify that as overwhelming empirical, even intersubjective, evidence? So did those particular people have faith? Or knowledge?

Now, how about the disciple Thomas? He sticks his hands in the nailholes and wound of Yeshu ben Joseph. Did Thomas have faith? Or knowledge?

Another question to think over: why are atheists and agnostics allowed (and I do mean validly allowed) to doubt what to these people was knowledge?

[albert]

You have touched on a lot of areas. All interesting. I don't think we'll be able to maintain a useful discussion on all of them in parallel, so I'll give most space to the ones I think are most important.

Hume (an atheist) showed in the 1700s that ALL evidence is personal experience. Science limits itself to a subset of personal experience called "intersubjective". That means that anyone has the same experience under approximately the same circumstances. "universally shared" as you put it.

Hume (a deist, by the way) is not the last word on these things. He did not show that all experience is private, he asserted it, and his idea has been subjected to devastating criticism, notably by Wittgenstein. Empirical evidence is the primary thing, not sense data or private experience. It is not a coincidence that people saw "apples" for millennia before Hume tried to persuade them to say they saw "green sense data". Try this: put a Granny Smith on the table. Look at it. Are you more certain that you experience green sense data than that you see an apple? The sense data just drop out as irrelevant. The way we normally talk is fine the way it is.

Now, intersubjective is the MOST reliable knowledge, but that does not mean personal experience that is not intersubjective is unreliable. Let's take one example:
12. Lucas, P.A. Chemotactic response of osteoblast-like cells to TGF-beta. Bone, 10: 459-463, 1990.
Notice that I am SOLE author. MY personal experience. Yet there it is in the scientific peer-reviewed literature. Now, I obviously think that anyone repeatig the experiments will get the same results. BUT, no one has. Right now it is personal, not intersubjective, experience.

Even in Hume's view, your research is public knowledge. When philosophers talk about private experience they mean necessarily private experience: mental stuff. Anything you do in your lab is in principle public. After all, it could be on videotape somewhere... The sort of "personal experience" that gets no respect is the "I have a feeling" kind that cannot, even in principle, be checked.

I think a reasonable atheist would say that the Christian God lies in the same category with the Egyptian gods, the Shinto gods, etc: they are "optional accessories", not justified by the available empirical evidence, but not excluded either.

Are you talking worship or existence? See, this is where atheists get fuzzy. Are you saying Yahweh and the other deities do not exist, or are you saying there is not evidence to justify worshipping them? Those are 2 separate things, you know.

I'm talking about exist. No fuzz. And I'm only saying "they don't exist" in the sense that there is negligible evidence for their existence. I'm not making a categorical statement of personal conviction.

Now, look carefully at one of the examples you picked: Egyptian gods. Now, who decided that those gods were not correct? THEISTS!! Theists have decided that hundreds of versions of deity are not correct. You should be asking yourself: How did they do that? What basis did they use to decide that? It shows that theists do use critical thinking and that faith is not "blind" faith. If theists used only "blind" faith, all those hundreds of versions of deity would still be around, wouldn't they?
If theists decided that those versions of deity are not correct, why do some still think the Christian version and the Shinto version are accurate?

That's precisely my point. Everyone, theist or not, is capable of marshalling the empirical evidence to make a critical judgement about Ptah and Amaterasu. However you did it: do the same thing for YHWH!

So, think about this: what is the personal experience of atheists (and agnostics)?

In view of the discrepancy between your idea of "personal experience" and Hume's, I am not sure how to understand this question.

One other thing: let's assume for the sake of argument that the accounts in the Bible are accurate.
Now, would you consider the Hebrews right after getting across the Red Sea to have had "faith"? Look, they just saw the plagues, pillars of fire, and the Red Sea part. Wouldn't you classify that as overwhelming empirical, even intersubjective, evidence? So did those particular people have faith? Or knowledge?

Obviously if we saw amazing enough things happen, we would all believe, and it would be knowledge. I gave an example of what would convince me in another thread.
However the whole point is that having these fantastic stories written in a book is not enough to persuade me that they happened.

Another question to think over: why are atheists and agnostics allowed (and I do mean validly allowed) to doubt what to these people was knowledge?

We are allowed to doubt that what is said to have happened to them actually happened at all, which obviously means doubting that they saw or "knew" it. I don't see what's gained by splitting their supposed knowing from the supposed events that caused them to know.

[lucaspa]

Hume (a deist, by the way) is not the last word on these things.

The site points out what we all know: Hume caved to the Argument from Design because, at that time, he had no choice. However, this does not make him a deist. Rather, Hume was an atheist by emotion but could not find a counter to the AfD. It is significant that 1) Hume destroys all the other "proofs" of deity and 2) does not allow any evidence of miracle that would indicate a personal deity.

He did not show that all experience is private, he asserted it,

You didn't document this. Your website doesn't help. What you need is A Treatise of Human Nature, 1739. And we are saying PERSONAL, not private. Obviously, not all experience is PRIVATE. Intersubjective experience isn't. But "private" and intersubjective are subset of personal. If evidence is not what we personally experience, what it is?

Empirical evidence is the primary thing, not sense data or private experience.

Just where do we get "empirical evidence" except thru our senses?

It is not a coincidence that people saw "apples" for millennia before Hume tried to persuade them to say they saw "green sense data". Try this: put a Granny Smith on the table. Look at it. Are you more certain that you experience green sense data than that you see an apple? The sense data just drop out as irrelevant. The way we normally talk is fine the way it is.

I experience light waves hitting my retina and then forming an image in my mind. That's sense data and experience. I then compare that image, in my mind, with other images and hypothesize that the sense data corresponds to what is labeled an "apple". I test that hypothesis, very quickly, and conclude that it is strongly supported and accept it as (provisionally) true. You see, "apple" is just the name we apply to that object that we experience thru our senses.

Even in Hume's view, your research is public knowledge. When philosophers talk about private experience they mean necessarily private experience: mental stuff. Anything you do in your lab is in principle public. After all, it could be on videotape somewhere.

Videotaping doesn't make experience intersubjective. Note my example of the 35 mm slides I have of the chick mesenchymal stem cells. A "still" videotape. What makes the experience "personal" is that not EVERYONE (in this case including me) could get the same results under approximately the same circumstances. The videotape documents that I saw what I claim I saw, but it does NOT say you could go into the lab, follow my Methods section, and get the same results I did. It does not make the experience "public". The only thing that does that is you repeating the experiment.

The sort of "personal experience" that gets no respect is the "I have a feeling" kind that cannot, even in principle, be checked.

Untrue. Right now there are Serbian guards being tried at the Hague because several women said "I have a feeling that I was raped by these men." Even in principle, it cannot be checked. The women were prisoners in a POW camp. The semen and trauma had long since passed before the women were able to file charges. So, even in principle, there is no physical evidence that can corroborate their "feeling" that they were raped.

Now, I had a "feeling", meaning visual sense data, of cells that had migrated thru a filter. I counted them. My "feeling had respect. Let me give you another example of "feeling" in the scientific literature:
N Honkamp, A Amendola, S Hurwitz, CL Saltzman, Retrospective review of eighteen patients who underwent transtibial amputation for intractable pain. J. Bone Joint Surg. 83-A 1479-1483, Oct. 2001.

In this paper, we have the "feeling" that 18 patients had following voluntary amputation of a foot. It's ALL in their heads -- the severity of the pain and whether they felt phantom limb pain. Also how "happy" they were with their lives following voluntary amputation. Based on their "feelings", the authors recommend voluntary foot amputation in certain circumstances!! Now, if "I had a feeling" that cannot in principle be checked has NO respect, as you claim, these authors could not get their study published in the premier orthopaedic journal OR recommend that surgeons can go around cutting people's feet off!

That's precisely my point. Everyone, theist or not, is capable of marshalling the empirical evidence to make a critical judgement about Ptah and Amaterasu. However you did it: do the same thing for YHWH!

You are beggin several questions:
1. Are you sure the evidence was empirical? Let me give you a clue, science iis as incapable of falsifying Ptah and Amaterasu as it is of falsifying Yahweh!
2. Since theists know and apply the method -- of which you confess ignorance -- then they have tried it on Yahweh. And apparently failed to falsify that version of deity.

In view of the discrepancy between your idea of "personal experience" and Hume's, I am not sure how to understand this question.

Since you have never given the discrepancy between "personal experience" as I use and Hume uses it, I don't know how to understand your response.

Obviously if we saw amazing enough things happen, we would all believe, and it would be knowledge. I gave an example of what would convince me in another thread.
However the whole point is that having these fantastic stories written in a book is not enough to persuade me that they happened.

Yes, they don't convince you. But WHY???!!! You have the answer in the paragraph, just think about it and put it together.

Your post said this:
"Everyone else sees it too, and hears what it says. Scientists try to analyze what it is but fail completely: although everyone, including them, can see it, no photons can be detected coming from its position in space. Although we see and hear it clearly, no neuronal firings in our brains can be correlated with its appearance. "

Now, why would "no photons coming from its position in space" and particularly, "no neuronal firings in our brains can be correlated with its appearance". That last seems a strange qualifier. After all, if you are going to ""hear" and "see" the angel, then the corresponding neurons in your brain are going to HAVE to fire. Also, I don't think there would be any problem to have a material being -- angel -- appear instantaneously when you were about to sin as being accepted as a "miracle". After all, where did the matter come from? Why would a material angel be any less of a miracle than an immaterial angel?

BTW, this is Hume's answer to your "miracle":
"An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding".

"no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish ... When anyone tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself whether it be more probable that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or what the fact which he realtes should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other, and according to the superiority which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculus than the event which he relates, then, and not thill then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion."

However, later in the same essay Hume discusses what to do when there are several witnesses. He discusses 3 examples where the witnesses are numerous, educated, arguably objective (even opposed to the idea of miracles), and of known integrity. Nevertheless, Hume concludes: "Where shall we find such a number of circumstances, agreeing to the corroboration of one fact [miracle]? And what have we to oppose to such
a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute impossibility or miraculous nature of the events which they relate? And this surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, will alone be regarded as sufficient refutation."

This is where Hume displays his atheism. He is so entrenched that even your criteria of "everyone" seeing an hearing the angel would not be enough to convince Hume. :)

We are allowed to doubt that what is said to have happened to them actually happened at all, which obviously means doubting that they saw or "knew" it. I don't see what's gained by splitting their supposed knowing from the supposed events that caused them to know.

But you just said that we "know" from empirical evidence! So, if we have the empirical evidence in front of us so that WE experience it, then we KNOW.

So, you are doubting that they actually experienced the events that are written down. WHY DO YOU DOUBT the accounts? Why CAN you doubt that they saw what they say they saw? What is your LEGITIMATE reason to do so?

[albert]

This is very interesting and thought-provoking. I'm sorry I can't respond to all the things you said. In the best tradition of scientific communication, here is an abstract:

The impression I am getting is that you are unusually sceptical about everyday stuff like apples on tables, but unusually credulous about more dubious things like miracle stories from the distant past.

He did not show that all experience is private, he asserted it, and his idea has been subjected to devastating criticism...

You didn't document this. Your website doesn't help. What you need is A Treatise of Human Nature, 1739. And we are saying PERSONAL, not private. Obviously, not all experience is PRIVATE.

Hume's book is available online. You can download it and search it. You will not find any reference to "personal experience". You will find repeated reference to "impressions" (which I call by the more modern term "sense-data"), which are a form of private experience, and which he identifies as the source of all knowledge (impressions -> ideas -> knowledge). I won't bore you with quotations: you can get a pretty good summary just by scanning the table of contents.

Intersubjective experience isn't [private]. But "private" and intersubjective are subset of personal. If evidence is not what we personally experience, what it is? Just where do we get "empirical evidence" except thru our senses?

Of course we get it through our senses. But where Hume (and others, like Berkeley) went wrong is in thinking that only the sense data are "true", and that one should be sceptical of inferences from them to an external world. It's silly to get hung up on experiences: what's the difference between saying "I have an experience of seeing an apple" and "there's an apple!" ?
I think you are about to illustrate this...

I experience light waves hitting my retina and then forming an image in my mind. That's sense data and experience. I then compare that image, in my mind, with other images and hypothesize that the sense data corresponds to what is labeled an "apple". I test that hypothesis, very quickly, and conclude that it is strongly supported and accept it as (provisionally) true. You see, "apple" is just the name we apply to that object that we experience thru our senses.

You worship science! Apparently you somehow think that the summary you gave of the current scientific picture of human cognition is more true than "I see an apple". I'm quite surprised. If you think that apples on tables are things about which we should be sceptical and only claim "provisional knowledge" then you are far more sceptical than an atheist and you certainly shouldn't claim even provisional knowledge of anything less well established, like the existence of the other side of the moon, the Roman Empire, or God.

That's precisely my point. Everyone, theist or not, is capable of marshalling the empirical evidence to make a critical judgement about Ptah and Amaterasu. However you did it: do the same thing for YHWH!

You are beggin several questions:
1. Are you sure the evidence was empirical? Let me give you a clue, science iis as incapable of falsifying Ptah and Amaterasu as it is of falsifying Yahweh!
2. Since theists know and apply the method -- of which you confess ignorance -- then they have tried it on Yahweh. And apparently failed to falsify that version of deity.

1. I was very careful not to claim that the existence of these beings had been falsified, just that the available empirical evidence is strongly against their existence.
2. I'm not sure what you mean by "the method". If you think the available empirical evidence favors the existence of the Christian God, while disfavoring the existence of all other Gods, then we have to proceed to a more detailed discussion of that evidence, and how you find such a striking pattern in it.

Now, why would "no photons coming from its position in space" and particularly, "no neuronal firings in our brains can be correlated with its appearance". That last seems a strange qualifier.

I explained why in a later post in the same thread. The answer is in an abbreviated form below.

After all, if you are going to ""hear" and "see" the angel, then the corresponding neurons in your brain are going to HAVE to fire.

Again, it seems you worship science. Why do they have to? Because our theory says so? The whole point is that the scenario I was describing is one that would convince a sceptic of the supernatural, so it involves a violation of the laws of science. You don't seem to believe that such a thing is possible!

We are allowed to doubt that what is said to have happened to them actually happened at all, which obviously means doubting that they saw or "knew" it. I don't see what's gained by splitting their supposed knowing from the supposed events that caused them to know.

But you just said that we "know" from empirical evidence! So, if we have the empirical evidence in front of us so that WE experience it, then we KNOW.

Yes, of course. IF we experience it then we know. Unfortunately all we get is a written story saying that some other people experienced it.

So, you are doubting that they actually experienced the events that are written down. WHY DO YOU DOUBT the accounts? Why CAN you doubt that they saw what they say they saw? What is your LEGITIMATE reason to do so?

I doubt the accounts for the same reason you (I guess) doubt the authenticity of the story of the tablets of Moroni given to Joseph Smith, and all the other miracles claimed by non-Christian faiths: because they are extraordinary claims, requiring extraordinary evidence, and a written account claiming that they happened is not strong enough evidence.
Remember, for a claim of something so utterly contrary to all experience, the burden of proof is on the claimant to produce strong enough evidence to bolster the claim. If you think a written account from thousands of years ago is enough, why don't you also accept the miracle stories about Asclepius?

[Kulindrichnus]

Now, look carefully at one of the examples you picked: Egyptian gods. Now, who decided that those gods were not correct? THEISTS!! Theists have decided that hundreds of versions of deity are not correct. You should be asking yourself: How did they do that? What basis did they use to decide that? It shows that theists do use critical thinking and that faith is not "blind" faith. If theists used only "blind" faith, all those hundreds of versions of deity would still be around, wouldn't they?

The passage of time has discarded the Egyptian Gods. Reasoned thinking by anyone, including theists, has nothing to do with it: nobody actively decided anything about them.

You spend a lot of time boorishly shouting about the ability of theists to use critical thinking and reasoning and so on. Nobody doubts this. You would be better employed using such critical thinking not so much in the self-referential support of your own hobbyhorses but for some sort of purpose on this board. Especially as Albert seems to have the measure of your argument, which looks increasingly to be heading to a stalemate for you.

K

[albert]

The passage of time has discarded the Egyptian Gods. Reasoned thinking by anyone, including theists, has nothing to do with it: nobody actively decided anything about them.

Historically speaking you are right. But one can still ask how we (theists and non-theists) would justify our shared belief that Ra and his crew were never anything more than a myth.

You spend a lot of time boorishly shouting about the ability of theists to use critical thinking and reasoning and so on. Nobody doubts this. You would be better employed using such critical thinking not so much in the self-referential support of your own hobbyhorses but for some sort of purpose on this board. Especially as Albert seems to have the measure of your argument, which looks increasingly to be heading to a stalemate for you.

I don't think lucaspa is being boorish. I am very interested in his combination of strong scientific training and strong Christian faith. The chance to explore how such ideas work together is a great feature of TWeb, in fact its the main reason I am here. I hope we'll get to something more illuminating than a stalemate.

[lucaspa]

The passage of time has discarded the Egyptian Gods. Reasoned thinking by anyone, including theists, has nothing to do with it: nobody actively decided anything about them.

Time itself is not an answer. The Egyptian gods were worshipped for at least 2,000 years. Why aren't they still worshipped? Because people stopped doing it? Why? Because they decided that version of deity was wrong.

You spend a lot of time boorishly shouting about the ability of theists to use critical thinking and reasoning and so on. Nobody doubts this. You would be better employed using such critical thinking not so much in the self-referential support of your own hobbyhorses but for some sort of purpose on this board. Especially as Albert seems to have the measure of your argument, which looks increasingly to be heading to a stalemate for you.

Ad hominen. I started the thread as a reassurance to creationists that evolution does not = atheism. However, my statement that atheism is a faith has kicked up a firestorm from you and others.

[Kulindrichnus]

Time itself is not an answer. The Egyptian gods were worshipped for at least 2,000 years. Why aren't they still worshipped? Because people stopped doing it? Why? Because they decided that version of deity was wrong.

This is simply wishful thinking on your part Lucaspa. Reapeating something over and over again does not make it true. Native Egyptian religion was replaced at higher social levels through a cultural reorientation during the greco-roman period associated with a rule which, whilst to a degree naturalized, was nevertheless foreign and brought with it foreign religions. It was thus already in decline- in favour of Greek/roman polytheism, btw- long before the arrival of eary Christianity, and later Islam, in Egypt. The changes were not part of an evolution from one mode of religious thought (native polytheism) to another (judae-christianity/islam) but rather the replacement of one with the other through foreign influx at higher levels of society and simple necessity at gradually lower levels.

Had Egyptian theists shown any inclination to replace polytheism (part of what you think 'wrong') with monotheism (party of the system you subscribe to and must consider, conservatively at least, 'less wrong') as a consequence of reasoning and rationalisation, then the priesthood at Karnak would have been overjoyed when Akhenaten explained the revelatory good thinking (as you would see it) of Atenism to them. They weren't; atenism was implicitly enforced upon all egyptian theists other than the only ones to benefit from it, i.e. Akhenaten and his court. At the end of the amarna period atenism was replaced by the old religion just as abruptly as it had displaced it. Nobody stopped to agonise or philosophise over these changes (I can't think of any substantial historical evidences for opposition to the abandonment of atenism at all).

You are failing to see religions as more than an abstract philosophy of the unknown (which is all you ever seem concerned with here). They also function as social structures which allow people to rise through society and hope for betterment. On this basis people will work with whatever the religious preferences of higher social levels might be, regardless of their own ideas, and I venture to suggest that an ambitious greco-roman egyptian did not sit in his mud hut agonising about whether he ought to stay true to his deities or go out and better himself instead. You are looking at atiquity entirely through the eyes of a well-fed, well-educated and quite arrogant Western Christian and you are imposing upon it an interpretation which suits your own biases and has nothing to do with historical facts. Normally that is a modus operandi reserved for YECs and I don't see how your arguments here are any better than the flood-geology is for the YECs.

However, my statement that atheism is a faith has kicked up a firestorm from you and others.

Don't flatter yourself. I have no interest in a worthless argument about that old theistic chestnut-- it seems to me that your entire slant on Christianity is not so much a faith in Christ as a faith in the principle that atheism is a faith. It is always entertaining when Christians adopt the very angry, agressive and entirely irrelevant 'atheism is a faith too' argument as a central plank of their own thinking. Every time you bring it up on this board you demonstrate the weakness of your position. I don't need to define my philosophy by reference to the weaknesses of yours, Lucaspa, and nor does any atheist here. You do. On this basis it doesn't matter whether atheism is a faith or not; because if it is, you are doing a very good job of showing it as a less interdependent faith than Christianity. I invite you to continue.

K

[lucaspa]

In the best tradition of scientific communication, here is an abstract:

The impression I am getting is that you are unusually sceptical about everyday stuff like apples on tables, but unusually credulous about more dubious things like miracle stories from the distant past.

I am not skeptical about the existence of the apple. I am skeptical of your claim about how we KNOW about the apple. 2 very different things.

We know about the apple thru our experience of the apple. In this case, our visual sense experience. We SEE the apple. More precisely, our eyes collect photons reflected from an object and form an image in our brain. We then assign the word "apple" to that image, having been taught that everyone sees the same thing and have agreed on the label of this particular intersubjective sense impression.

I'm agreeing with Hume and others (including Wittgenstein as it turns out) that all our knowledge comes from personal experience. The experiences we have as individuals.

Hume's book is available online. You can download it and search it. You will not find any reference to "personal experience". You will find repeated reference to "impressions" (which I call by the more modern term "sense-data"), which are a form of private experience, and which he identifies as the source of all knowledge (impressions -> ideas -> knowledge).

EXACTLY! Thank you for supporting my point.

Of course we get it through our senses. But where Hume (and others, like Berkeley) went wrong is in thinking that only the sense data are "true", and that one should be sceptical of inferences from them to an external world. It's silly to get hung up on experiences: what's the difference between saying "I have an experience of seeing an apple" and "there's an apple!" ?

The second sentence -- there's an apple -- is based upon the first. However, what Hume said was that our THOUGHTS are less reliable than our "impressions"
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/mickelse.../hume.htm#N_9_

"All our perceptions may be divided into two classes: ideas or thoughts and impressions. Ideas are the less lively perceptions, of which we are conscious when we reflect on our sensations. By the term "impression" Hume means all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will.(8) Nothing, at first view, he says, seems more unbounded than thought; but a nearer examination shows that it is really confined within very narrow limits, and that it amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us by the senses and experience. All the materials of our thinking are derived either from our outward or inward sentiment; the mixture and composition of these belongs alone to the mind and will.(9) Or, in other terms, all our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of our impressions or more lively ones. ..."A blind man can form no notion of colors; a deaf man of sounds."(10)"

So, the idea of "apple" is less reliable than the visual experience that you have. According to Hume.

You worship science!

LOL! How can I, when I am advocating the validity of experiences that lie outside the domain of science!

Apparently you somehow think that the summary you gave of the current scientific picture of human cognition is more true than "I see an apple".

I'm detailing HOW we "see" an apple. You have confused the word "apple" with the sensory input. I'm separating the two.

I'm quite surprised. If you think that apples on tables are things about which we should be sceptical and only claim "provisional knowledge"

Excuse me, but exactly where did I say we should "only claim provisional knowledge"?

BTW, science does work on "provisional knowledge". Sorry to disappoint you, but remember that a characteristic of science is that it is tentative. Gould describes "facts" as "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withold provisional assent." SJ Gould, Science and Creationism, ed. by Ashley Montagu, 1984.

I'm being more assertive than that. Because of the shared beliefs you and I have in an objective univeres, I'm saying the apple exists. I'm saying our knowledge of that existence is based on our sensory experience. YOU were the one that said sensory experience was NOT the basis of knowledge. Remember? Now you seem to have done a 180 degree turn and are now saying what I said to begin with. we know the apple is there.

1. I was very careful not to claim that the existence of these beings had been falsified, just that the available empirical evidence is strongly against their existence.

Ah, but THEISTS have decided these beings have been falsified. SCIENCE can't decide, but THEISTS did. When they abandoned worship of them.

Now, I think it past time you defined "empirical evidence". You place a great deal of stock in it, but are using it in ways different than I've seen the term used.

2. I'm not sure what you mean by "the method".

Whatever method theists use. As you admit, you don't know what it is.

If you think the available empirical evidence favors the existence of the Christian God, while disfavoring the existence of all other Gods, then we have to proceed to a more detailed discussion of that evidence, and how you find such a striking pattern in it.

You missed the point Albert. THEISTS looked at the evidence (whether it is empirical or otherwise, since I'm not sure what you mean by "empirical") and decided that other versions of deity were false. The same theists who are skeptical enough to falsify other versions of deity would also be skeptical enough to apply the same methodology (of which you are ignorant) to Yahweh but have decided that Yahweh is not falsified.

You can't have it both ways (any more than creationists can have it both ways about the dogmatism of science). That is, you can't say "theists looked critically at the available evidence and decided versions of deity were wrong but suddenly lost that critical ability when it comes to Christianity."

Now, let's get back to the "miracle stories of the past". I am skeptical, but there are several considerations.
1. Unless those miracles left evidence in the present, I can't use science to falsify them. Thus, I can use science to falsify the "miraculous" creation of species in their present form. I can use science to falsify the "miraculous" flooding of the entire earth. However, what evidence do we have today that would falsify the Parting of the Red Sea, for instance? Or the raising of Lazarus?
2. Since what we are looking at is whether miracles happened, we can't dismiss them out of hand because they are miracles. That's dishonest. We have to have some independent reason for rejecting them; a reason other than that they are "miracles".
3. We do have the facts of the existence of Israel and the existence of Christianity. I have yet to see a comprehensive explanation of how those entities came into existence without the miracles. Perhaps such an explanation exists and I have missed it in my search.

So, what are we left with? Unlike instantaneous creation or the Flood, we cannot falsify the miracles. We are left with their possibility AND accounts we have no a priori reason to throw out. Now, we can't throw them out. Are we required to view the accounts as accurate? No. That's why I said I was perfectly happy for you to be atheist and this isn't about your conversion to theism. The statement that kicked off this whole discussion was that atheism is a faith. I'm not asking you to change faiths. I'm talking about 1) how atheism is a faith and 2) the rational and reasonable justification for holding atheism (yes, there is one).

Yes, of course. IF we experience it then we know. Unfortunately all we get is a written story saying that some other people experienced it.

That's all you get. It's not all everyone gets. Many people have experience of deity today, within their lives. Experiences that convince them of the existence of deity, and even of Yahweh, without reference to the written story. This is one hint for the reasonable justification for atheism.

I doubt the accounts for the same reason you (I guess) doubt the authenticity of the story of the tablets of Moroni given to Joseph Smith, and all the other miracles claimed by non-Christian faiths: because they are extraordinary claims, requiring extraordinary evidence, and a written account claiming that they happened is not strong enough evidence.

Not for the same reasons.
1. There is no such thing as "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". That is a made up criteria to get rid of data you don't like. What is "extraordinary"? Well, there is no set criteria, is there? It comes down to whatever it is you don't want to accept.
2. I have seen written accounts of "extraordinary claims" that I do accept. For instance, isn't the claim that an object can exist in 2 places at the same time "extraordinary" (at least that it violates all previous experience of everyone)? Yet here is a written account -- 10. J Winters, Quantum cat tricks. Discover, 17(10): 26, Oct. 1996. Atom in spin up and spin down can be separated and be in 2 places at the same time. -- and I accept it.
3. In the case of Joseph Smith, it is because the account is by one man but this man gave 3 contradictory stories of how he got the tablets. Now, when anyone changes his story twice, I doubt it. Now, we can get into the specific reasons I doubt other religions.

BUT, the bottom line is going to be: those religions contradict my personal experience.

Now, before you blow a gasket, I am NOT saying you are compelled to accept the stories in the Bible or any other holy book. Let me phrase it clearer: you are not compelled to accept them. My internally consistent reason? Because those accounts are not your experience. You dont have any experience of the Red Sea parting, or watching a man being raised from the dead. In fact, you can't have those experiences. You weren't there. Your experiences are different, and you trust your experience ahead of the experiences of someone else. Another hint for the justification for atheism.

However, again being internally consistent, you are compelled to accept that special creation and young earth are wrong because that is based upon experiences you can have. You can do the geology and biology yourself and experience the same facts in the same way that show that special creation and young earth are wrong. That you don't do so is based on other considerations. You can do so if you put in the time and effort.

Again, it seems you worship science. Why do they have to?

OK, point taken. The neurons don't have to fire. However, since the images we form in our mind are due to neurons firing, it would seem that even a "miracle" of something not there would have to be formed by neurons firing. After all, isn't that what happens in our dreams? We "see" things that do not exist in objective reality (sending photons to our eyes) but exist as neurons firing in our brains.

The whole point is that the scenario I was describing is one that would convince a sceptic of the supernatural, so it involves a violation of the laws of science.

However, let's turn this around: why, in order to be evidence, CAN'T the neurons fire as YOU claimed? Why would you not accept the evidence IF there were neuronal firing at the appearance of the angel? Wouldn't it be SUFFICIENT violation of the "laws of science" if a material angel appeared everytime you were going to sin? Or even ONE time when you were going to sin?

Do you see your own science worship here? You accept supernatural ONLY if it involves massive violation of the "laws of science". BTW, what is the definition of a "scientific law"? And who says you have to have violation of "the laws of science" in order for there to be supernatural?

Remember, for a claim of something so utterly contrary to all experience, the burden of proof is on the claimant to produce strong enough evidence to bolster the claim.

There is no such "burden of proof" as one-sided as you portray. Every claim has the SAME burden of proof and it is bi-lateral. Therefore, the burden of proof is just as high to show that the claims are false. What we have here is the logical fallacy known as "shifting the burden of proof" http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/itl/graphi...th.html#burden

[albert]

1) About sense-data, knowledge, etc.
You emphasize strongly that Hume distinguished between the apple and the impressio of an apple, and said that we infer the apple from our impression of it. I agree that Hume said that.
Wittgenstein (later philosophy) was strongly opposed to Hume's use of this distinction. I share his position. It is a very interesting topic, but perhaps it belongs in Philosophy 201. Can we put it aside for the moment?

2) About God and the supernatural.

You can't have it both ways (any more than creationists can have it both ways about the dogmatism of science). That is, you can't say "theists looked critically at the available evidence and decided versions of deity were wrong but suddenly lost that critical ability when it comes to Christianity."

That is why I am so interested in having this discussion with you. To me (and I think most other non-theists) it looks as if that is exactly what has happened! But I also realize that many theists are intelligent thoughtful people, so I am struggling to understand how I and they can see the same empirical evidence and come to such different conclusions.

Remember, for a claim of something so utterly contrary to all experience, the burden of proof is on the claimant to produce strong enough evidence to bolster the claim.

There is no such "burden of proof" as one-sided as you portray. Every claim has the SAME burden of proof and it is bi-lateral. Therefore, the burden of proof is just as high to show that the claims are false.

1. There is no such thing as "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". That is a made up criteria to get rid of data you don't like. What is "extraordinary"? Well, there is no set criteria, is there? It comes down to whatever it is you don't want to accept.

Clearly extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Clearly the burden of proof is not symmetric. I can't summarise the whole of common sense and experience for you in order to define "extraordinary". Just consider some simple examples.
1) I make friends with your aged mother and tell her that if she gives me her $1000 savings, I can invest it and turn it into $100,000 which will pay for the long-term care she will need in her twilight years. Is it up to her to prove that I can't do it? Is it equally plausible that I can and that I can't? Where does the burden of proof lie?
2) A guy you meet in an airport says that he can levitate. As a child he flew up to 747s at 30000 feet and looked in the windows. He says if you climb on his back he'll take you wherever you want to go. But he'll have to jump off from a high place to get started. What do you think? Is it up to you to prove that he can't do it? Where does the burden of proof lie?
3) You are sent a paper to review. The author claims to have cloned a human being 10 years ago. Now he has a 10 year old child with exactly the same genes as himself. What do you think? Is it up to you to prove that he didn't do it? Where does the burden of proof lie?

PS: I am not saying that the bible is as outlandish as these examples, I just want to settle the question of principle: that the degree of implausibility determines where the burden of proof lies.

2. I have seen written accounts of "extraordinary claims" that I do accept. For instance, isn't the claim that an object can exist in 2 places at the same time "extraordinary" (at least that it violates all previous experience of everyone)? Yet here is a written account -- 10. J Winters, Quantum cat tricks. Discover, 17(10): 26, Oct. 1996. Atom in spin up and spin down can be separated and be in 2 places at the same time. -- and I accept it.

It is reasonable to accept this written claim because you know that anything published by "Discover" has come from mainstream science, which is a strongly self-correcting enterprise where extraordinary claims are carefully checked, people redo each others experiments, etc. The same cannot be said for "News of the World", the book of Mormon, the Iliad, or the Bible.

BUT, the bottom line is going to be: those religions contradict my personal experience.

By "personal experience" do you mean
(a) private religious experiences that some people have and others don't. There is not much basis for persuasion here.
(b) experiences like "seeing an apple" where it is possible to check publicly whether what you are seeing is really an apple or not.

Do you see your own science worship here? You accept supernatural ONLY if it involves massive violation of the "laws of science". BTW, what is the definition of a "scientific law"? And who says you have to have violation of "the laws of science" in order for there to be supernatural?

Er, I thought that was the definition of "supernatural". I'm open to other definitions. You tell me what you think "supernatural" means, i.e. how we can tell what is supernatural and what isn't.

[kofh2u]

1) About sense-data, knowledge, etc.
You emphasize strongly that Hume distinguished between the apple and the impressio of an apple, and said that we infer the apple from our impression of it. I agree that Hume said that.
Wittgenstein (later philosophy) was strongly opposed to Hume's use of this distinction. I share his position. It is a very interesting topic, but perhaps it belongs in Philosophy 201. Can we put it aside for the moment?

2) About God and the supernatural.


That is why I am so interested in having this discussion with you. To me (and I think most other non-theists) it looks as if that is exactly what has happened! But I also realize that many theists are intelligent thoughtful people, so I am struggling to understand how I and they can see the same empirical evidence and come to such different conclusions.






Clearly extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Clearly the burden of proof is not symmetric. I can't summarise the whole of common sense and experience for you in order to define "extraordinary". Just consider some simple examples.
1) I make friends with your aged mother and tell her that if she gives me her $1000 savings, I can invest it and turn it into $100,000 which will pay for the long-term care she will need in her twilight years. Is it up to her to prove that I can't do it? Is it equally plausible that I can and that I can't? Where does the burden of proof lie?
2) A guy you meet in an airport says that he can levitate. As a child he flew up to 747s at 30000 feet and looked in the windows. He says if you climb on his back he'll take you wherever you want to go. But he'll have to jump off from a high place to get started. What do you think? Is it up to you to prove that he can't do it? Where does the burden of proof lie?
3) You are sent a paper to review. The author claims to have cloned a human being 10 years ago. Now he has a 10 year old child with exactly the same genes as himself. What do you think? Is it up to you to prove that he didn't do it? Where does the burden of proof lie?

PS: I am not saying that the bible is as outlandish as these examples, I just want to settle the question of principle: that the degree of implausibility determines where the burden of proof lies.



It is reasonable to accept this written claim because you know that anything published by "Discover" has come from mainstream science, which is a strongly self-correcting enterprise where extraordinary claims are carefully checked, people redo each others experiments, etc. The same cannot be said for "News of the World", the book of Mormon, the Iliad, or the Bible.


By "personal experience" do you mean
(a) private religious experiences that some people have and others don't. There is not much basis for persuasion here.
(b) experiences like "seeing an apple" where it is possible to check publicly whether what you are seeing is really an apple or not.



Er, I thought that was the definition of "supernatural". I'm open to other definitions. You tell me what you think "supernatural" means, i.e. how we can tell what is supernatural and what isn't.

I assume you distinguish between a non-theist and atheist?

Considering the former, it might be supposed that a deginition for "God" might be wide enough to embrace people who are agnistic or just unable to accept ant
ropomorphic concepts of God, concepts which are voiced by most religious people.

In the latter case, atheistism suggests that such a definition is impossible, that they themselves recognize nothing that could be defined so as to represent a concept of God.

In both cases, I ask, how does the idea of divinity relate to death. Do mortals die and if, IF, some entity does not die, holds out the possibility of "living" without end, transcends death, do we have anacceptable definition, if not a complementary "entity" which identies with the definition.

I would follow this first step of making definitions available to the discussion by asking, "If one believes in his/her own survival, are they "worshipping" such a defined God, one that doesn't die?





Carl Jung:
Whatever experiences are universal, that is, are repeated, relatively unchanged in every generation, become a part of each individual's personality. Indeed, it makes sense, that the primitive past of human beings becomes the primary base of a person's psyche, directing and influencing current behavior. The Collective Unconscious, then, is the all controlling deposit of ancestral experiences. Including a person's
present personality and the past, with all his own childhood and early
years as well as with the history of the entire species.

[lucaspa]

1) About sense-data, knowledge, etc.
You emphasize strongly that Hume distinguished between the apple and the impressio of an apple, and said that we infer the apple from our impression of it. I agree that Hume said that.
Wittgenstein (later philosophy) was strongly opposed to Hume's use of this distinction. I share his position. It is a very interesting topic, but perhaps it belongs in Philosophy 201. Can we put it aside for the moment?

Wait a minute. I think you are misstating my position and Hume's. Hume's position was that the "impression" of the apple was our sense data of the apple. "That is, for any idea we select, we can trace the component parts of that idea to some external sensation or internal feeling. This claim places Hume squarely in the empiricist tradition, and throughout Book 1 he uses this principle as a test for determining the content of an idea under consideration." http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/h/humeepis.htm.

I"ve been doing a bit of research on Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein seems to agree with Hume that all our language is ultimately dependent on sensations of the "world".
""The world, as Wittgenstein uses it, is not a group of things, but of facts about those things(1.1). " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractat...-Philosophicus

What are "facts"? Well, they turn out to be the same external sensations of Hume!

So, this is very important. As an empiricist, how do you know about the world? From your sensations -- both external and internal.

To me (and I think most other non-theists) it looks as if that is exactly what has happened! But I also realize that many theists are intelligent thoughtful people, so I am struggling to understand how I and they can see the same empirical evidence and come to such different conclusions.

Because you DO NOT "see the same empirical evidence". Theists have different evidence. They have sensations -- personal experience -- of deity. You don't.

Clearly extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Clearly the burden of proof is not symmetric. I can't summarise the whole of common sense and experience for you in order to define "extraordinary".

IOW, you simply don't have a definition of "extraordinary". Yes, both sides have a burden of proof. So, we are back to what I said: extraordinary is a red herring to dismiss evidence you don't want to accept.

1) I make friends with your aged mother and tell her that if she gives me her $1000 savings, I can invest it and turn it into $100,000 which will pay for the long-term care she will need in her twilight years. Is it up to her to prove that I can't do it? Is it equally plausible that I can and that I can't? Where does the burden of proof lie?

Is this part of science? OK, the claim is that you can turn $1,000 into $100,000. Well, that's not such an extraordinary claim. After all, any mutual funds can do that over time. Shoot, a simple savings account will do that if there is enough time! You are asking my mother to make a judgement call on your abilities. Is there one correct answer? After all, there are investment bankers who do this on a regular basis.

2) A guy you meet in an airport says that he can levitate. As a child he flew up to 747s at 30000 feet and looked in the windows. He says if you climb on his back he'll take you wherever you want to go. But he'll have to jump off from a high place to get started. What do you think? Is it up to you to prove that he can't do it? Where does the burden of proof lie?

Both sides. Known data on human physiology and physics indicate that the claim is false. That's why you are so skeptical: known contradictory data that falsifies the claim. So, you are ALREADY meeting a burden of proof; you just aren't doing it explicitly. There is also the little problem that , at 30,000 feet, the person dies for lack of oxygen and freezes to death outside. :) Again, evidence meeting your burden to falsify.

[quote]3) You are sent a paper to review. The author claims to have cloned a human being 10 years ago. Now he has a 10 year old child with exactly the same genes as himself. What do you think? Is it up to you to prove that he didn't do it? Where does the burden of proof lie?[/quote
This is easy, since I do review papers. YES, it is up to me to falsify the paper. Now, part of the way I do that is look at the data provided -- his share of the burden of proof. The paper will have a description of the methods usesd and I can check that these methods will indeed give the results he claims, and the results or data. I can see if the data matches the claims. That the individual is claiming doing human cloning 10 years ago has nothing to do with anything.

I just want to settle the question of principle: that the degree of implausibility determines where the burden of proof lies.

http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/itl/graphi...th.html#burden
"Burden of Proof refers to the sense you have, in any dispute, of how much each side needs to prove in order to win your agreement. Sometimes, this burden of proof is an established rule: in the United States, for example, the criminal court system operates on the rule that a person is innocent until proven guilty, which means that the prosecution carries all of the burden of proof; if the defendant is not proven guilty, then he or she should not be convicted of a crime, even if the defense cannot or does not prove him or her innocent of that crime. "
Note that there is no hard and fast rule. It is a "sense". And you can establish it by rule and change the rule. After all, in France it's still guilty until proven innocent.
"In most arguments, however, it is usually the side that supports altering or rejecting the status quo--the current beliefs, practices, and information--which has most of the burden of proof. The more controversial the matter, generally speaking, the more evenly is the burden of proof shared by all sides; "

Now, let me show how it works in science:
"1. Tachyons: can we rule them out.

The special theory of relativity has been tested to unprecedented accuracy, and appears unassailable. Yet tachyons are a problem. Though they are allowed by the theory, they bring with them all sorts of unpalatable properties. Physicists would like to rule them out once and for all, but lack a convincing nonexistence proof. Until they construct one, we cannot be sure that a tachyon won't suddenly be discovered.

3. Time travel: just a fanstasy?

The investigation of exotic spacetimes that seem to permit travel into the past will remain an active field of research. So far, the loophole in the known laws of physics that permits time travel is very small indeed. Realistic time-travel scenarios are not known at the time of writing. But as with tachyons, in the absence of a no-go proof, the possibility has to stay on the agenda. So long as it does, paradoxes will haunt us.'' Paul Davies, About Time, 1994.

It is reasonable to accept this written claim because you know that anything published by "Discover" has come from mainstream science, which is a strongly self-correcting enterprise where extraordinary claims are carefully checked, people redo each others experiments, etc.

1. We were not discussing whether it was reasonable, but whether we trusted what we read.
2. In Discover's case, the criteria you set out for trustability are not met. Discover does NOT always publish from mainstream science and often publishes initial, tentative data that is overturned by later studies. Also, experiments are NOT redone exactly. What was done with that paper is exactly what I described for reviewing a research paper. Since having an object in two places at the same time meets your criteria of "extraordinary" and you say the review process is inadequate for "extraordinary" claims, you have just undermined all of science. Congratulations! You have destroyed your prinicipal prop -- empirical science -- of your beliefs.

By "personal experience" do you mean
(a) private religious experiences that some people have and others don't. There is not much basis for persuasion here.
(b) experiences like "seeing an apple" where it is possible to check publicly whether what you are seeing is really an apple or not.

1. By "personal experience" I mean both (a) private experiences that some people have and others don't and (b) experiences like seeing the apple. My experience of brussels sprouts is an example of personal experience that is not repeatable by everyone. (b) is a subset of (a). Remember when I talked about "intersubjective"? (a) is the wider set of personal experiences. (b) is the subset of personal experiences that are the same for everyone under approximately the same set of circumstances -- intersubjective.
2. I never said it had to be "persuasive" to you. Remember, no one is trying to convert you to theism. Yes, private religious experience is not persuasive to you. But why not? I submit because your private experience is of no experience (which others don't have). So, what happens? You place YOUR private experience above the private experiences of anyone else and decide, as your favored hypothesis, that deity does not exist. It's the same as theists putting their private experiences before yours or me putting my private experience of the taste of brussels sprouts over the experience of anyone else.

Er, I thought that was the definition of "supernatural".

That's because atheism depends on god-of-the-gaps theology.
"A Law of Nature then is the rule and Law, according to which God resolved that certain Motions should always, that is, in all Cases be performed. Every Law does immediately depend upon the Will of God." Gravesande, Mathematical Elements of Natural Philosophy, I, 2-3, 1726, quoted in CC Gillespie, Genesis and Geology, 1959.

"But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this -- we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws" Whewell: Bridgewater Treatise.

"The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is stated, fixed, or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once." Butler: Analogy of Revealed Religion.

Now, I did not find the last 2 quotes in their original publications. Guess where I found them?

i.e. how we can tell what is supernatural and what isn't.

Ah, here is the rub. "supernatural" depends on how we hypothesize that deity works. If we hypothesize that deity sustains the universe such that no material process can happen without deity -- as Butler does -- then we can't detect supernatural by means of science.