Something that is accepted without evidence should be dismissed without evidence.

Quote from Captain Cook

Something that is accepted without evidence should be dismissed without evidence.

While I do kinda agree with some of your conclusions, I think this argument isn't really that good.
Arguments like the verification principle are pretty bad: trying to base the entire world on naught but empirical evidence provides a pretty shallow existence.
What of poetry?
There appears to be no empirical evidence to show that poetry has any meaning beyond a collection of squiggles on paper: however many of us see deep meaning within poetry, and there are poems which speak to us on a fundamental level, even going so far as to change some peoples lives. However there exists no strict empirical evidence to say that the poetry has any meaning whatsoever beyond a collection of sounds ect.

This type of argument is best articulated in relation to the verification principle, however may still work against yours. I'd like to know Zed's view on this as he knows more on philosophy than me, and hence could probably articulate this better, or explain whether I am correct.


NOW: one of the main problems presented by deism is the fact that the deist god is utterly unverifiable, we cannot seem to provide any proof for it whatsoever: all attempts to do so, without any definition about the nature of God (as is provided by religions describing their specific God) we cannot really come up with any arguments for him.

This is the problem we've been having a bit, trying to use the cosmological argument in relation to a deist god: it simply cannot be done.
The best thing I believe we can say concerning a deist God is that it is simply possible: we can say no more, no less. We rely entirely on the combination of a 50/50 chance of his existence, and upon our own gut instinct.
However the advantages of deism are that by not being constrained by religious texts, God becomes more acceptable in our world: by not sticking to the definition of god as benevolent, we encounter not the problem of evil nor that of the euthyphro dilemma.

It's very much a coin flip when discussing deism in my opinion.

EDIT POST:
I have more in response to Captain Cook.
If anything that is accepted without evidence should be dismissed, shouldn't we dismiss the claim that there is an external world?
We have no evidence of a world beyond our senses, and we accept the belief that there is such a world regardless of this. According to your logic we should dismiss the existence of the external world as "poppycock".

Quote from walker90234

While I do kinda agree with some of your conclusions, I think this argument isn't really that good.
Arguments like the verification principle are pretty bad: trying to base the entire world on naught but empirical evidence provides a pretty shallow existence.
What of poetry?
There appears to be no empirical evidence to show that poetry has any meaning beyond a collection of squiggles on paper: however many of us see deep meaning within poetry, and there are poems which speak to us on a fundamental level, even going so far as to change some peoples lives. However there exists no strict empirical evidence to say that the poetry has any meaning whatsoever beyond a collection of sounds ect.
.

He didn't say anything about empirical evidence. He just said evidence in general.

Evidence can only be empirical or analytic. No other form of evidence exists. Analytic evidence is just when something is true by definition and it doesn't actually give you any new knowledge ("either some cats are black or no cats are black" is analytically true but tells you nothing about the colour of cats).

Quote from walker90234

While I do kinda agree with some of your conclusions, I think this argument isn't really that good.
Arguments like the verification principle are pretty bad: trying to base the entire world on naught but empirical evidence provides a pretty shallow existence.
What of poetry?
There appears to be no empirical evidence to show that poetry has any meaning beyond a collection of squiggles on paper: however many of us see deep meaning within poetry, and there are poems which speak to us on a fundamental level, even going so far as to change some peoples lives. However there exists no strict empirical evidence to say that the poetry has any meaning whatsoever beyond a collection of sounds ect.

This type of argument is best articulated in relation to the verification principle, however may still work against yours. I'd like to know Zed's view on this as he knows more on philosophy than me, and hence could probably articulate this better, or explain whether I am correct.

Glad you asked. I talk about poetry in the thirteenth paragraph.

Quote from not bad

Yep, unproven. Like everything about the evolution theories.

First of I want to question the "natural selection" which means that in the long run the best adapted species are the ones that survive. However, I think that the strongest do not survive but the ones who are at the righ place at the right time do, why is this never mentioned? Ppl brag so much about how the world could easily be created by nothing but doesnt even mention this when they talk about the natural selection.



The carbon 14 method of dating: No evidence that is works AND it's said to ONLY work on EXTREMELY OLD objects... hmm... nothing suspicous there. Another example of its greatness is that scientists has dated the earth to be 4 billion years old but stars to be 16 billion.

"We have fossils"
Me: What is a fossil?
Answear: Nothing more than STONE.

Then we come scenarios which is impssible to explain withouth a God. For instance: DNA cannot be created without protein, RNA not be created without DNA and protein not created without RNA - what came first?

I agree with some of your thoughts, but your giving wrong examples. for example i don't think humans ever evolved from apes, but they were made by god the same way they are now. But I do think that animals might have evolved from older ansectors.

lets make an unproven religious theories thread

Ok...This is getting a little insulting for everyone.
I have not bothered to read the whole 13 pages of people raging at each other, I am an active atheist but I feel the need to respect others beliefs.
So, I am just going to give you my beliefs (Big Bang and Evolution) and the evidence for them.

WARNING: NONE OF THESE THEORIES CONFLICT WITH GOD

Evolution:
This is a moderately easy thing to follow. The concept is that creatures evolve over a long period of time via micro and macro evolution. Micro evolution is undisputed, but Macro Evolution is said to be "Impossible" mostly because of people's lack of understanding of it.
Micro Evolution is very well demonstrated in germs and bacteria. It is the "survival of the fittest" idea. Basically, lets say that bacteria are born with 3 dots for the sake of explaining this easily. Antibodies are perfectly capable of destroying these 3 dot germs. BUT if a random mutation sparks (as they often do) then maybe a germ will be born with 2 spots instead. It will lead a normal life, until antibodies come and wash away the germs.
But, the antibodies won't work on the 2 dot germ.
This means that the mutation has wiped the slate clean so the 2 dot germ can multiply. This is a reason why antibodies aren't used so commonly, as if you use them you could unwittingly make a super-virus that is capable of withstanding them.
Everyone, including Creationists, believe in this.
Macro-Evolution is less widely believed, again, because people aren't very well informed about it.
It is based around a higher form of micro evolution pretty much. It means that, if the 2 dot germ becomes a 1 dot germ, then the 1 dot germ can slowly become more complicated, for example a germ with one part becoming a germ with 2.
This can go on for an extended length of time, until massive changes in life-forms are done.
These are evolution basics.

The Big Bang:
This is not believed NEARLY as much as Evolution, but it has evidence. It is way more complicated though. Scientists are still working out the kinks of it, but it goes something like this.
A massive void of gravity and other such particles expands suddenly. It doesn't explode and it doesn't come out of nothing, as it is commonly misconceived.
The expansion is sudden, but the particles fuse together. How? Cue the Higgs Boson. The Higgs Field is complicated, but basically the theory is that there is a large field of particles all over the universe. Certain things in it react with others, blah blah blah.
Its a long story.
Anyway. This all happened 14.7 BILLION years ago.
So skip forward a couple-of-billion-years. Stars have been formed via the particles fusing and they complete their life cycles. Large chunks of exploded rocks from said stars orbit around neighboring stars. Fast forward another few billion years, EARTH. Chunks have crunched together and are slowly building up.
It cools, we get water from comets blah blah blah blah.
There, an easy guide.


Now, the Evidence.
Evolution:
The evidence for Evolution is very, very strong. Firstly there are germs for the Micro-Evolution (as discussed).
We then have dozens of transitional fossils, showing the evolution of humans through time. Then we have the other transitional fossils, the dating fits, we have done experiments.
The list goes on.

The Big Bang Evidence:
Now this is more complicated, so I am going to leave you with two.
The fact that the universe is expanding.
Cosmic Background Radiation. Cosmic background radiation is the energy left behind from the initial expansion.

Hope I helped.
:D

Quote from walker90234

While I do kinda agree with some of your conclusions, I think this argument isn't really that good.
Arguments like the verification principle are pretty bad: trying to base the entire world on naught but empirical evidence provides a pretty shallow existence.
What of poetry?
There appears to be no empirical evidence to show that poetry has any meaning beyond a collection of squiggles on paper: however many of us see deep meaning within poetry, and there are poems which speak to us on a fundamental level, even going so far as to change some peoples lives. However there exists no strict empirical evidence to say that the poetry has any meaning whatsoever beyond a collection of sounds ect.

This type of argument is best articulated in relation to the verification principle, however may still work against yours. I'd like to know Zed's view on this as he knows more on philosophy than me, and hence could probably articulate this better, or explain whether I am correct.

The verification principle doesn't really have much to do with dismissing that which is accepted without evidence. If something doesn't pass the principle, then that statement is meaningless, NOT incorrect. When Hitchens says "that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence", he isn't saying that god goes against the principle. If he were saying that, his statement in itself would be going against it. If he was saying that, then there wouldn't be any need to dismiss a religious persons beliefs based on their lack of evidence, he would be dismissing both a religious persons and a non-religious persons statements as meaningless.

I'm not arguing against the verification principle here, I'm saying that such principles as the one Hitchens said aren't the same as the verification principle. They don't assess what's meaningful (as the verification principle does), only what's true. There's a difference. Such a principle isn't used to determine meaning in poems, they're used to assess the objective truth of a statement. God can be seen as "meaningful" to people, but it still fails the test that the argument of "dismissing without evidence" lays down for it, and as such it's objectively false but still remains meaningful.

NOW: one of the main problems presented by deism is the fact that the deist god is utterly unverifiable, we cannot seem to provide any proof for it whatsoever: all attempts to do so, without any definition about the nature of God (as is provided by religions describing their specific God) we cannot really come up with any arguments for him.

That is true, but that's not to say that it will be the same case in the future.

This is the problem we've been having a bit, trying to use the cosmological argument in relation to a deist god: it simply cannot be done.

The cosmological is a terribly flawed argument anyway, much more obviously flawed than any other argument that I've seen (even moreso than the ontological argument). The argument from design, however, I feel is much less flawed. If there's one argument that supports the deistic one and is not so easily refuted, it's that there seems to be order in the universe, a universe that's highly improbable. Obviously, this argument is refuted by chance and the fact that if it didn't happen we wouldn't be discussing it, not to mention other options such as multiverse theory. Universal constants, on the other hand, seem like a much more reasonable argument in favour of a deistic god, even if they too can be refuted. My point being, the cosmological argument is one of the weaker arguments in favour of a deistic creator.

The best thing I believe we can say concerning a deist God is that it is simply possible: we can say no more, no less. We rely entirely on the combination of a 50/50 chance of his existence, and upon our own gut instinct.
However the advantages of deism are that by not being constrained by religious texts, God becomes more acceptable in our world: by not sticking to the definition of god as benevolent, we encounter not the problem of evil nor that of the euthyphro dilemma.

It's very much a coin flip when discussing deism in my opinion.

I disagree. I agreed for a short time (maybe a week), until discussing this idea in the other thread that I made. I'll quote myself towards the end of the thread after admitting defeat and agreeing with the opposition (Exilement and all those):
"So I take it the main argument against the 50/50 idea is that before the big bang is unknown, including the nature of the everything and its laws (in fact there really isn't a "before" the big bang because time didn't exist then), and therefore we can't conclude anything about its cause (if there is one)? And at the very least we can say that there could be infinite possibilities as to where this came from, and therefore god is one of many, many options?"

EDIT POST:
I have more in response to Captain Cook.
If anything that is accepted without evidence should be dismissed, shouldn't we dismiss the claim that there is an external world?
We have no evidence of a world beyond our senses, and we accept the belief that there is such a world regardless of this. According to your logic we should dismiss the existence of the external world as "poppycock".

I have a real issue with non-realists, that being the fact that a belief so fundamental to our understanding of the world and the universe cannot exist if what they claim is true. This meaning, if we accept the sort of solipsism that they proclaim, we have no basis to discover anything about the world we inhabit (or do not inhabit), and as such nothing is of any significance. More importantly, whether or not what we all perceive exists or not is of no importance. It's an assumption that we make because it doesn't affect anything in any way no matter how you look at it.

If you accept that nothing exists outside of our minds, then you also have to dismiss other logical arguments and empirical facts that exist within the external world that may or may not exist. I guess what I'm trying to say is, the argument that we can dismiss claims that have no evidence in favour of them is an argument based entirely within the external world and its logic, you can't then remove that statement from that world and apply it to the world it inhabits. If there is no external world, the principle ceases to exist. It's kind of 'reductio ad absurdum', in my opinion, to use an argument to disprove the world it exists in. In the same way, it's a reductive fallacy to apply the statement to itself, which is commonly used as an argument against the verification principle.

The idea that the external world does not exist was based on a stupid mistake to begin with. The argument presented by Berkeley was that when you look at a tree you do not see the tree - you see your mind's interpretation of the light which has bounced off the tree. The colours are not in the tree itself - they are in your mind. In fact, all the things which you believe to be true about the tree are just in your mind. So the entire tree is in your mind. So the universe is just only a mental thing with no physical substance. The conclusion there is as ridiculous a jump as to say that a person who you bear in mind is actually living in your brain. (Russell, 1912)

More directly replying to Walker's "If anything that is accepted without evidence should be dismissed, shouldn't we dismiss the claim that there is an external world?" question, "evidence" is what we sense in the physical world. It doesn't make sense to ask for evidence that evidence can be reliable.

Lol not bad, I might now be an atheist, but your pretty wrong on that first one of how the strongest don't survive, and that only the luckiest do
The ones that can adapt survive. adapting to environments is what lets species live, and they do this be genetic evolution. through long periods of time. and the fittest for the environment through their adaption will survive. not just luckiest.

And also. How can you say that fossils are just stone? their skeletons.
a dead mans skeleton would be considered "just a couple o' dem odd shaped stones" by your logic.

the others idc about. lol

Cmon dude. don't be so ignorant to facts

Quote from R.D

Cmon dude. don't be so ignorant to facts

He's pretty fucking ignorant, I know that better than anyone, but you're getting facts wrong too.

Quote from R.D

How can you say that fossils are just stone? their skeletons.
a dead mans skeleton would be considered "just a couple o' dem odd shaped stones" by your logic.

Petrified fossils are made of stone. It's irrelevant to what iRakodai was trying to say, but saying "fossils are stones" isn't technically incorrect like you're implying here.

Quote from Zed

The idea that the external world does not exist was based on a stupid mistake to begin with. The argument presented by Berkeley was that when you look at a tree you do not see the tree - you see your mind's interpretation of the light which has bounced off the tree. The colours are not in the tree itself - they are in your mind. In fact, all the things which you believe to be true about the tree are just in your mind. So the entire tree is in your mind. So the universe is just only a mental thing with no physical substance. The conclusion there is as ridiculous a jump as to say that a person who you bear in mind is actually living in your brain. (Russell, 1912)

More directly replying to Walker's "If anything that is accepted without evidence should be dismissed, shouldn't we dismiss the claim that there is an external world?" question, "evidence" is what we sense in the physical world. It doesn't make sense to ask for evidence that evidence can be reliable.

I don't see how you can argue with solipsism though?
You say it's a ridiculous jump, but why is it such a ridiculous jump? I don't agree with idealism on the grounds that it's pointless and achieves nothing, we may as well base our lives on the assumption that there is an external world, but why is it more probable that there is one?

Why is it a ridiculous jump from saying "we interpret the external world internally" to "everything is internal", considering there's no reason to assume the external world is any more viable than internal creation?

It's a ridiculous jump to say that one fact implies the other. I'll grant that it's possible we're just brains in a vat dreaming shit up, but you can't conclude that the entire world is in our minds from the fact that perceptions are just our mind's interpretations of sense data.

I also question whether or not "everything is mental substance" is a literally meaningful statement. I'm not sure what it means to say that nothing physically exists when the criteria for physical existence are that we can sense it.

I can agree with the second part, I've never really thought about it.

But in regards to the first part, I've never really thought of idealism as inferring no external world purely from a separation between our mind and the external world. There's more to in that. The inference comes when you combine no direct link to the external world with believing that the only certainty lies within direct experience. If there's a third party interpreter for the external world and our internal minds, then we are not directly experiencing any of the external world.

I'm going to be honest here... I have no fucking idea if any of that made sense.

[edit]
I guess that what I just said still doesn't imply the lack of an external world though, does it? It only implies that nothing can be known with 100% certainty about this external world.