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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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I'm using belief in its broadest possible sense. Therefore, things such as expectations (beliefs about the outcome) would fall under that category. The ability to recognize objects, and recognize evidence, are functionally the same; thats why I used one to illustrate the other.
Here's a quick illustration: https://media.nature.com/original/nature-assets/ncomms/2016/161220/ncomm...
Each set contains three recordings. First you are presented with an ambiguous noise (filtered recording) which will be meaningless when you first hear it. Secondly, you are presented with the unfiltered recording of what the voice should say. Lastly, you are presented with the first noise recording again, except this time you are able to perceive the speech-like qualities that you couldn't before.
Without adopting the expectation of what you should be hearing, you will most likely never perceive what the filtered-noise is supposed to be saying. In other words, you are essentially deaf to the evidence of speech, until you adopt a belief of what it should be saying.
BREEZY: "I'm using belief in its broadest possible sense."
Then we have already agreed. A sense that something might be right would fall into the category of an unjustified belief. Yes, you generally need an idea that something might be correct before you can study it. In the absolute broadest sense some form of a belief probably does come first. I think we already covered this.
I think there is just an equivocation error pending. People are seeing "Believe to be true" when you use the word and not just unsubstantiated, unqualified, unjustified assumption. People can in fact believe anything and for any reason at all. Theists have been doing it for centuries.
@ "Each set contains three recordings."
The evidence you cite really has nothing to do with belief. It's like you are pulling stuff way out of left field to justify the set of all things believed. The definition is so vague as to be useless and then you attempt to cite one specific instance that does not support the vagueness of the claim you make.
1. ambiguous noise (filtered recording) which will be meaningless
How do you know? With your definition of belief, I can attach meaning to this recording as well as any other recording. People listen to white noise and believe voices are talking to them.
http://nautil.us/blog/why-we-hear-voices-in-random-noise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzdtX1oxpYU
It's all BS. The whole point of hard science is to not trust your mind or beliefs and look for hard facts that are verifiable and repeatable. (Psychology aside, though it tries very hard to be a hard science.)
RE: Without adopting the expectation of what you should be hearing, you will most likely never perceive what the filtered-noise is supposed to be saying. In other words, you are essentially deaf to the evidence of speech, until you adopt a belief of what it should be saying.
No. You can not draw this conclusion. In the first case the recording is "ambiguous noise ." How in the hell are you to get the original message from Ambiguous noise. Nothing at all can be gleaned from this. ITS AMBIGUOUS. Anything I might hear would be a belief. The later recording is recognizable as speech and so a message can be constructed. So I believe I hear something. Your example is woefully inadequate, and it does not support the assertion you are making. "You can't have evidence until you believe" When you define belief as everything you think, you can make anything fit the model. The assertion "You can't have evidence until you believe" is useless. You can't have evidence until you interpret that evidence. You can't have evidence until you understand the evidence in front of you. You can't have evidence until you see it. It's just a bunch of vague, useless, assertion.
"The whole point of hard science is to not trust your mind or beliefs and look for hard facts that are verifiable and repeatable."
Easier said that done, and unfortunately, confidence doesn't correlate with accuracy. If our brains work a certain way, then thats the way they work. Thinking that the whole point of hard science is to not trust your mind, doesn't imply its ever achieved. I personally rather trust a scientist that embraces their biases, than one who is confident he can be unbiased.
Ambiguous noise is simply the easiest way that I can describe it, however, I put "filtered recording" in parentheses for a reason. It isn't random white noise. The experimenters used low-pass filters to cut frequencies out of the actual recording, among other things, to make the speech "unintelligible" to us. But the recording does say what the unfiltered recording says.
Regardless, it is still a fitting example because evidence is by its very nature ambiguous. It is often the case that any given piece of evidence fails to decide between two competing theories. For example, is a gun and a dead body evidence of a murder or a suicide. Is the sunrise and sunset evidence that the sun is moving or the earth? To people a couple thousand years ago, who believed the earth was the center of the universe, it was evidence in its favor; but to us who believe the sun is what the planets revolve around, the same observation is now evidence for something else. All observations are literally ambiguous white noise, until you impose meaning on it, and thats were beliefs come in.
@ Easier said that done
That's why there are peer reviews, publications and duplication of experiments. If it was easy we could all be scientists.
@ It is often the case that any given piece of evidence fails to decide between two competing theories.
Theories are not compiled on a single piece of evidence, that would be prejudicial and frankly moronic. A theory is the best explanation of a body of knowledge. If you think you have a better explanation then you present it. If your explanation is at least as valid as the first, typically both explanations survive as theories. ie. Einstein's gravity vs Newtonian Gravity. Euclidean Geometry vs Non-Euclidean geometry. As we grow and learn, new information comes to light. The new information; however, still has to adequately explain all the old stuff. (The very reason String Theory is not actually a theory yet.) No single piece of evidence has ever swayed a theory to my knowledge.
The point was not what evidence does to a theory; the point was what a theory does to our perception and recognition of evidence.
Theories do not effect evidence at all. Newtonian gravity to Einstein's gravity proves that. When a better theory comes along it is adopted. Any new theory must explain everything the old theory explains ---- AND MORE. If it can not do that, we just don't need it.
Scientific theories explain natural phenomena based on objective evidence, of course objective evidence alters our perception, but if better evidence comes along then the theory adopts that. The idea a theory like evolution could be completely reversed now after all the evidence of 160 from every field of scientific study converges on the same basic facts is absurd.
Sadly when people like yourself start with bias that favours an a priori belief they can't demonstrate any objective evidence for, they are blind to all objective reason, as your posts consistently show you to be John. If it were not the case then it would be reasonable to infer that your denial of scientific facts would not be limited to only one that just happens to refute the superstitious claim made by the creation myth of your religion. The fact you have refused to even answer whether this is the case speaks volumes. As is your refusal to acknowledge any request fro objective evidence for creationism, and even refusing to say whether you are a YEC or not.
This kind of dishonest evasion can only be read for what it is John, and all your grandiose claims can't hide this. You need to stop thinking you;re dealing with fools, this is your first mistake, your second is to put far too much stock in your own ability, no one with so little humility can ever hope to be remotely objective. Einstein Newton and Darwin were not geniuses because they had unwavering belief in themselves, but because their work was validated by a method, and that method is science and it is objective.
@ʝօɦn 6IX ɮʀɛɛʐy
"The point was not what evidence does to a theory; the point was what a theory does to our perception and recognition of evidence."
Theories offer valid explanations and truth. Faith invents stuff.
"The ability to recognize objects, and recognize evidence, are functionally the same; "
So the ability to recognise say a ball or a tea cup is functionally the same as recognising and understanding vastly complex scientific data?
I do hope I've misunderstood you. Evidence in its "broadest" sense then is meaningless here, and I have a strong suspicion that's why you're trying this wriggle.
The analogy is a red herring straw man if ever I saw one.
"evidence that shows belief must come first,"
Wow!
Hey man just remember that these guys have hard hearts and that all u can do is offer the gospel and evidence. If they refuse it now, it could either not be their time for conversion or they rnt ever going to. God's in control. [Scratch that if u don't believe in predestination....lol]
@Steeee Re: "If they refuse it now, it could either not be their time for conversion or they rnt ever going to."
Ummm, yeaaaah.... About that.... It took me a vast majority of my life to finally pull away from the religious nonsense. Why in the great goobly-goop name of our sacred Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer would I ever consider being sucked back into that horrendous con game? Besides, we have cookies here on The Dark Side... (Or so I was told. Still trying to find the damn things, to be honest.)
@ Steee
"all u can do is offer the gospel and evidence."
The synoptic gospels are discredited sources. Happy to discuss with you.
I am fascinated to learn what other evidence you offer?
Do they send you apologists to a special school to learn how to pretend to be caring while being condescending and arrogant?
If you have any objective evidence that your deity is any more real than Zeus or Thor or all the rest, then demonstrate it. Otherwise please spare us your condescending talk of readiness, I might just as easily point out someone desperate to believe in superstitious hokum isn't ready to view reality with objectivity or without the crutch of their superstitious beliefs.
Steeeee
What evidence do you have that your God is real?
The bible is the claim, not the evidence.
@Steeeee
"Hey man just remember that these guys have hard hearts and that all u can do is offer the gospel and evidence. If they refuse it now, it could either not be their time for conversion or they rnt ever going to. God's in control. [Scratch that if u don't believe in predestination....lol]"
Is that your proof of a god?
" Only atheists set the same objective standard for all deities on here."
You and SFT seem to be ignoring this fact, and of course the thread OP it's predicated on. You disbelieve SFT's deity and he yours, based on what evidence? Then you produce the evidence that you use to deny all the other deities of course, both of you. At the moment you are both making the same subjective claims and calling it evidence, so which of you is write, and which wrong, and why?
@ʝօɦn 6IX ɮʀɛɛʐy
"Your beliefs filter and transform information; its as if you are blind to evidence until you shift your perspective."
It is a good thing I was not drinking or eating anything because I would have had milk coming out of my nose. John, oh john, do you not realize that that theme is used by about every theist arguing for the existence of a deity? It is the old "if you just opened your hearts and believed".
What do you know, I guess God is a psychologist too.
Christians use the verse He who finds a wife finds a good thing to convince all straight Christians that have a desire to get married that they will get married. Christians in the church literally use this as evidence that God will provide you a mate if you're a single straight Christian. There is no evidence that this verse works which is why I didn't believe in it even as a Christian.
They're all telling you you're laughably wrong. They usually give up when you ignore their objections, if they don't you insult them.
Your claims have no basis in science until they are validated by the scientific method. It's that simple John.
Judging from his posts, I think it's universities who have improve the quality of their intake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution
"Nearly all (around 97%) of the scientific community accepts evolution as the dominant scientific theory of biological diversity. Scientific associations have strongly rebutted and refuted the challenges to evolution proposed by intelligent design proponents."
Of course that 3% has no experts in evolution, and their objections are religion based, same as John's, and of course they lie about that same as John. and of course none of them can get their denials published in any worthy scientific journal, same as John.
The US National Academy of Sciences is the elite scientific academy that only the most accomplished, best educated, and best regarded scientists in the US are admitted to, and guess what, 100% acceptance of the scientific fact of evolution.
I've got a question for Breezy, though he's dodged these questions so far:
Given that T-rex died out at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 65m years ago. How old does Breezy believe the earth and the universe are? How old does he believe the human species is?
I'm guessing that as usual no answer will ever be forthcoming.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ....... Don't get him started!!!! (Down the rabbit hole we go!)
And when bias or belief comes first; we get crap-ola like Creationism. A hypothesis is not necessarily belief but as long as you use the term "belief" very loosely ... (as in having an idea that something might possibly be true.) I would call your assertion valid.
If a being is said to be omnipotent and omnipresent, and yet is not detectable in a single place, I can safely conclude it does not exist.
I don't even need to draw a conclusion. There is no it to consider until someone evidences it in some objective way.
SAPPORO: RE: "If a being is said to be omnipotent and omnipresent, and yet is not detectable in a single place, I can safely conclude it does not exist."
and ...... what difference would that belief make anyway?? "You believe God will guide you across a busy street so you do not use the light and you end up dead." Amazing how all these people with all these beliefs in spirits and gods, still look both ways before crossing a street. What ever happened to pray and just trust in god? HINT: It does not, nor has trust in God ever worked.
So John, and SFT, you;re both making grandiose claims for evidence your deity is real, which of you is wrong, and why?
You both love to denigrate atheism, yet don't ever offer any defence for your atheism / disbelief of all the other deities you arbitrarily deny.
The way Breezy is using the word belief is so general that it just means "have a thought" or "have an idea." Obviously you have to think the the thought might be true to entertain it/ Hence belief. It is an unjustified and perhaps falsifiable belief but belief never the less. There is really no sense arguing with him.. It's a bit like saying language comes first or even breathing comes first. It's a useless idea.
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