Well that’s a matter of opinion, how critical can scrutiny be if it eschews the best methods we have, and can arrive at any belief / conclusion one wishes.
Except we can examine results, and science uses objective verification and evidence, and in a few hundred years has furnished exponentially more objective facts about reality than religions combined have managed for millennia.
Well of course, but if we are examining claims critically, then it would be oddly incongruous to invest belief in the existence of something that furnished no measurable results, no objective evidence, couldn’t be tested etc etc…
Even we accept critical here as a scale, that seems like some low hanging fruit.
I wouldn’t call subjective belief in the absence of any objective evidence a framework, but lets not quibble about semantics, if it can furnish results that vary wildly, and don’t reflect objective facts, calling it critical thought is a stretch.
False equivalence, we can verify those methods work, what are we using to measure subjective beliefs, that in your own words furnish no measurable results? Subjective beliefs can be held about pretty much anything.
Investing belief in the absence of a reliable conclusion, does not sound like critical thinking to me.
Indeed not, science cannot examine non-existent things of course, or magic. It examines objective reality, if one is going to claim something exists beyond or outside of that, based on an entirely subjective belief, then again this does not sound like critical thinking to me. Though of course no one is obliged to share my view.
By furnishing something no one has claimed is objectively true, so how is it relevant to critically scrutinising the claims of religions?
Non existent and imaginary things for a start.
All beliefs are the affirmation of a claim, and since finding music beautiful is not a claim that it is objectively true it is beautiful, it has no relevance to religious claims, for example that a deity exists.
Religious psychosis is not a standalone diagnosis but rather a manifestation of psychotic symptoms where religious content predominates. It typically involves delusions, strongly held false beliefs, and hallucinations, which are sensory experiences without external stimuli. For example, someone might believe they are a prophet or hear divine voices giving them instructions.
It’s not just frightening. It’s profoundly energy consumptive.
Any time one tries to learn a new way, error messages are thrown up in the brain and an amygdala hijack can take place. To overcome the chances of that, one has to dump energy into avoiding it.
Consider something as simple as driving. Most folks who have been driving for any length of time do so without having to pay particular attention to a great deal of it. However, try driving in a place that uses the other side of the road and all hell breaks loose in your brain. First you have to convince your brain you’re not going to get hit head on, then you have to hyper focus on every aspect of the task. It’s exhausting!
If you will prevent this UK lorry from driving into me head on, I promise to take up Caroline’s offer to volunteer more in the church kitchen during fellowship. Please don’t make me die yet.
They do if your objective is to avoid all personal responsibility or difficult questions or change. In reality although everything you said is true in terms of what people usually perceive, it’s also true that basic self-awareness, curiosity and nuanced reasoning are just skills you can learn like walking or personal hygiene or showing up for a job on time every day. It’s a drag from a certain perspective, but only if you make it one and keep telling yourself you can’t do it or it’s just too much or there can not be any upside to it whatsoever.
I didn’t say you said they were the same thing. The false equivalence was your additional requirement that objective verification was a necessary step with critical thinking/doubt.
I’m not calling your position fallacious because it doesn’t agree with my own position. I’m calling it fallacious because you’re presenting it as an argument in response to my point:
adding the requirement for objective verification is a false equivalence in this context. If you personally feel that objective verification is necessary, that’s up to you, but in the context of the original discussion, objective verification is not required for critical thought, which is my point. Personal preference is fine, but for the purposes of the discussion, the point was just about critical thinking.
claiming that “without objective verification one could believe literally everything” is a false dichotomy also - critical thinking should still apply and that would limit what what one believes.
No. My point was clear - it is an epistemological distinction. I’m not disputing that objective verification is a powerful tool used in methods for understanding objective reality, but I am disputing it applying as a method where for example, measurable results are not possible. Critical thinking and objective evidence/verification are epistemologically distinct.
the fact that a person can employ critical thought without requiring objective scrutiny is not just a matter of opinion, it is fact. Whether or not you personally feel that critical thought without objective scrutiny is valid, ideal, etc. is personal opinion but critical thought can occur without objective scrutiny.
Otherwise, you fall into the trap of turning objective scrutiny into an unassailable belief in its own right. Consider that the concept of objective scrutiny itself should be open to critical thought, and in doing so, one cannot rely on objective scrutiny to critically think about objective scrutiny as that would be circular reasoning.
Which is a false equivalence. Objective verification, as above, can only work when something has measurable results, etc. The concept of religion can’t be objectively scrutinised because it doesn’t fall under repeatability, doesn’t have measurable results, etc. Just like many other things can’t be objectively verified.
That doesn’t mean that critical thought can’t be involved though.
“Rather the point”? Where did that point even come from? If someone is not using critical thought, then that doesn’t apply to the discussion, which is that critical thought can be used - there is no requirement for it to be repressed or ignored.
My initial argument, as per the quote above, was that the claim that “religion requires you to voluntarily repress your critical thinking skills” was a hasty generalisation fallacy.
Accordingly, my argument is that repression isn’t required. Whether or not a person employs critical thinking is down to each individual.
consider the following example:
A person claims that all dogs must have hair (religion requires critical thinking to be repressed)
Another person disputes this as a hasty generalisation, and states that hair isn’t required for all dogs, some can be hairless (repression of critical thought is not required)
A third person then says “not very hairless if a dog has hair, which is rather the point” (not very critical if it can return any result one wishes)
Notice the issue here? Person 1 has made a hasty generalisation. Person 2 disputes this as there are instances that don’t fit the generalisation. Person 3 then points out that something can fit within the generalisation.
There’s no dispute that a dog can have hair, and there’s no dispute that someone can have religious belief without using critical thinking. That’s not what the discussion has been about. I have merely argued that religious belief can occur with critical thinking, which means a claim that its repression is required as a generalisation is incorrect.
Religion and critical thought are not mutually exclusive.
As per the example I have given, a person can’t just walk into CERN and fire up the LHC to re-test something. Limitations may be in access to resources (like CERN), costs, or even legal limitations - for example if access to a certain restricted location is required, or access to certain restricted materials are required, a person’s ability to objectively verify something can be outside their control.
I’m not disputing the efficacy of science, but I will keep pointing out that depending on science to support the efficacy of science is circular reasoning.
And yes, scientific results will be more reliable than subjective belief, because science deals with measurable results, so accuracy can be quantified.
The problem is, acknowledging that is acknowledging that a measurement of distance between New York and Washington DC is more reliable than which of the two is the more interesting tourist destination.
This is where the claim that one method is more reliable, etc. is not so straight forward - as per the example I gave before with the scales being more accurate at measuring objects that could be measured by scales, whereas it would be impossible to weigh the planet by turning the scales upside down - reliability is dependent on the (type of) thing itself as much as it is the method used.
It would be fallacious to choose the tool with the most precision and expect it to suit every role just because of how reliable it is within the role it is specifically suited to. Accordingly, choosing objective verification for things that cannot provide objective measurable results is also fallacious, and no matter how reliable it may be, it can’t change this fact.
no, the point is that you saying that is no different to a preacher preaching. Science being reproducible and testable is all well and good (again, not disputing the validity of science), but just accepting that something can be verified and would get the same results isn’t the same as actually verifying the thing and getting the same results, which is my point - people have to accept some/most things without objective verification.
Just because the potential to objectively verify some things is there, doesn’t validate it as a whole. People - even scientists - in part at least, still have to trust the findings of others.
It is true, and I’m not saying it makes the method any less reliable, I’m just highlighting that even science has people accepting some things as true without objective verification, but they can still use critical thinking.
Which is a different point again. I challenged the OP’s suggestion of this in my original comment also. Sure, there are going to be cases where a particular belief is opposed by objectively verifiable facts, but it is not correct to say that all religious belief necessarily requires one to ignore evidence to the contrary.
I’m not disputing instances, I’m only disputing the generalisations.
Peer review doesn’t test or replicate results.
When scientists at CERN discovered the higgs boson, they didn’t have other scientists build their own LHC and conduct their own tests and reproduce the results. They didn’t even have other scientists use the CERN LHC to conduct their own tests.
Peer review doesn’t involve re-testing or replication. It’s just other scientists reading the paper that states the methodologies, the data and the interpretation of the data to produce the findings, and agree. If they disagree with the methodologies used, or how the data has been interpreted, then they can feedback accordingly. Separately, if other scientists want to do their own tests, they may be able to do so, but there would need to be good reasons to do so and as per the higgs boson example, it’s not necessarily something that is possible due to lack of resources/access/materials, etc.
The whole purpose of objective verification is to ensure certainty of the accuracy and validity of results. removal of subjective bias is a byproduct of this, not the end goal.
If a scientist wrote a paper stating that they discovered that fire was actually a formerly unknown chemical element, and wanted to add it to the periodic table of elements, it doesn’t matter how compelling their paper may sound, other scientists would need to verify such results before it would be accepted. The objective verification would not (just) be to remove subjective bias, it would be to validate what would be a paradigm shift in scientific understanding.
Sometimes data is faulty. the methodology may be sound, the findings may be astute, but if the data itself is faulty, the findings would be worthless. Objective verification would be one means of obtaining another set of data and confirming whether it supports the original experiment/study/etc.
Again. Peer reviews do not objectively verify results. They are reviews of the methodology and findings.They don’t re-test or reproduce the data. That may be an option for scientists in some cases, but not an option that is taken up in most cases, otherwise, we would have at least two articles for every experiment and study.
Consider for example, the various papers on the non-uniformity of the heliopause boundary. despite my earlier point about two articles, in this example, there are a number of articles about it, but they are all dependent on two sources of data, which given the subject in question is the non-uniformity of the heliopause boundary, the two sources have different data because they passed through the boundary at different locations.
Those articles will have been peer reviewed, but it would be impossible for the results to be objectively verified given that it would require two or more new probes to be launched and then wait several decades for them to pass through the heliopause boundary and report back a new set of data.
There are no objective measurable results that could be hypothesised with prayer, so the methodology to study prayer will be flawed from the outset.
If someone were to make the claim that prayer would produce a specific result within a specific timeframe, that would be a ludicrous claim to make, and one that could easily be defeated. If one considers the wider belief in prayer, it doesn’t have objectively measurable results, so the default position from an objective perspective is uncertainty - it can’t be proved or disproved.
Consider a person asking their boss for a raise. Someone could claim it demonstrably offers no discernible results when it is subjected to critical scrutiny and objectively tested, but that doesn’t mean that a person asking their a boss for a raise isn’t going to work.
Now I’m not saying that prayer is like that, I’m just giving an example of something that - if subjected to the same degree of tests and measures, would not likely result in any statistically significant results. Of course with raises, one could develop a methodology that focuses on other factors, like an employee’s performance in the workplace, etc. and get statistically significant results where certain factors are picked to distinguish where success is more likely, but with prayer, it’s not so straight forward, and you can’t control the conditions like you can with an employee asking for a raise (i.e., the boss not knowing that the request is part of a scientific study)
I’m not disputing the success or reliability of science, only that objective verification, no matter how successful or reliable, can’t be applied to all things, and that critical thought without objective verification is valid (and more prevalent by far)
As above, if we eschew the best method for weighing things when we want to weigh the planet… a method can only be the best for things that it applies to. If it can’t apply, it’s not an acceptable method at all, letalone not the best. It’s disqualified.
Apples and oranges again. False equivalence as I have been arguing consistently. Different context. Different goal.
That’s subjective bias. You’re biased toward things that can have measurable results and objective evidence.
Subjective belief isn’t the framework. Subjective belief is what is required for some frameworks.
critical thought is just that. Critical thought. It’s a process. Is it harder to involve critical thought in subjective belief? Yes. That’s not in dispute. But it’s possible all the same.
And we can verify they don’t work for other cases, which is the point. Methods are limited in their applicability.
Category error. It’s a question of whether one has involved critical thought in their belief.
It specifically examines the physical, natural reality. In terms of metaphysics, science is more limited or entirely incapable. It cannot be ruled out that there is more to reality than that which science can study.
that’s a different discussion entirely. We’re not talking about claims, we’re talking about belief and critical thinking.
Strawman again. We’re not talking about critically scrutinising the claims of religions. We’re talking about whether religion requires someone to repress critical thinking, and in our specific argument on this point, whether objective verification is a necessary part of critical thought.
In this particular point being made, I was pointing out that one can have critical thought on whether Beethoven’s music is beautiful, even though one cannot objectively evidence or verify such a position. This accordingly demonstrates that critical thought is valid without objective evidence/verification.
Category error and strawman again. The question of existence is something that may or may not be objectively evidenced/verified. We’re not talking about whether something exists or is imaginary or not. We’re talking about critical thinking in relation to belief/religion.
You don’t need to keep bringing up things being imaginary or non-existent. It’s not relevant to the argument.
category error again. A belief is not a claim. If you want to call them an affirmation of a claim, that’s up to you but it doesn’t turn beliefs into claims.
A person can believe that a particular piece of music is beautiful, and by your own words, this would make it an affirmation of a claim.
There’s a distinction between religious belief and religious psychosis.
None of the DSMs past or present have claimed that religious belief is a mental illness, and it would be a misrepresentation of mental health to suggest otherwise.
I’m not surprised by your response at all. Of course a Christian would say that. It still doesn’t change the fact that I have nothing good to say about your religion or the fact that you’re on here debating and haven’t presented anything worth anyone’s time. I don’t know if you get it or not, but I’m not your biggest fan. So anything you say is a waste of my time.
I believe that from my correspondence in this forum, that I have not made any problem out of anyone’s views on religion (for clarity, I should point out I’m distinguishing views from claims). I fully understand how you and others feel about Christianity and other faiths, and I’m not trying to argue against those views.
I get that people have had bad experiences, I get that people here have very valid reasons for the positions they have, and I’m not seeking to challenge that.
I haven’t spoken about my own belief in any way either.
My only issue with your comment above is in regards to mental health. I’m not trying to defend religion by raising my issue. You want to knock it by any other means, that’s fine, but please don’t misrepresent mental health issues in that way. I don’t think it’s fair on people who do have mental health problems, or their families, friends, loved ones, etc.
Since I am not claiming they are the same thing, it can’t be a false equivalence. I am not sure I used the word necessary either.
Since I never claimed they were the same I am unsure why you keep repeating this claim?
A ball is epistemically distinct from soccer, but playing soccer without it would be difficult, one could of course use say a rock, or a melon, but to claim one’s primary goal was a game of soccer if one chose those methods over a football would seem incongruous.
I know objective verification works, as do you, and we know it works more successfully than any other methods, so imagining a belief that is ringfenced from it, and labelling that method as insufficient ignores another distinct possibility, and once again that doesn’t sound like one is examining the claim critically to me.
As it is a fact that some methods are exponentially more successful at examining ideas critically. If for example someone insists prayer works, and tells you to pray on it, one could argue this is a critical examination of the claim, but one could also conduct double blind clinical trials involving prayer, and measure the results.
Now when those results demonstrate prayer has not worked, one could insist that since a deity is involved the tests are fundamentally flawed, but is that critical thinking? Only it seems more like subjective bias to me.
As can a game of soccer using a pea, but this rather misses the point I making. If one wanted to examine any belief critically, one could of course set a standard that it was more likely to pass.
I disagree, and have explained multiple times that such methods offer exponentially more successful results in understanding reality. This represents objective evidence, thus it is not an appeal to circular reasoning alone. Just a as consensus among elite scientists about evidence in their field is not an appeal to authority, but a consensus among Christian scholars on miracles is.
I don’t believe so, but please explain what you think I falsely equated there?
Indeed, now as critically as you are able, examine the claim that something exists but offers “no measurable results”, as opposed to it not existing at all, and then explain why all such claims aren’t true, to avoid the bias of a closed mind.
That’s not entirely accurate, since many religious claims absolutely can be objectively scrutinised, and many have been and falsified, but religions and the religious design their core beliefs to ringfence them from objective scrutiny, I doubt given they’ve had millennia, that this is an accident. And again of course one category of things that can’t be objectively verified are non existent things, so the question arises, if we are examining the claim critically, how is anyone claiming to know something exists that offers no data to examine? A tangential question, but equally important to critical thought, is how can we believe such claims without bias unless we believe them all?
Consider that all non-existent things offer no measurable data to any kind of objective verification, and that is a result isn’t it, and a very consistent one.
Critical thought isn’t a binary condition, it is clear we can vary how critical we are when scrutinising ideas, the idea that religion discourages critical thought didn’t sound like an absolute to me, maybe I misunderstood the thread author. If religions persuade their adherents to be less questioning or critical in order to safeguard the belief, then to me that suggests they would certainly be discouraging critical thinking.
Indeed, but whether what they’ve done may be considered critical thinking is open to question. Someone tells you they have seen a mermaid, you “search your heart about whether this is true” some people would describe this as critical thinking. 3
Yes, you assume that a repression of critical thinking is an absolute, that critical thinking or not is a binary condition rather than a scale, which isn’t the case. So critical thinking might not mean entirely the same thing to everyone, and how effectively a belief or odea is subjected to critical thought is also going to be interpreted differently.
No it isn’t of course, not if the methodology can justify with confidence that it can police itself, and even were this not the case, the results themselves being unerringly right would also be evidence the methods work.
Indeed, but why would I make the assumption that the method’s failure to return any discernible data from the claim X exists, represents a limitation of that method, when in every single instance that is exactly what would happen if X does not exist; and also in the absence of any reliably consistent method to examine X? So examining the claim X exists critically, does not return the conclusion our best methods are insufficient to examine X.
Not necessarily, unless one first made the unevidenced assumption something “existed” that is beyond it’s methods, based purely on the fact we can imagine such things. There certainly is no fallacy here, lacking belief in a claim does not require evidence or an argument, it is the default position from which we all must start, then as data arrives to allay our doubts, we re-evaluate the claim, if one does this critically then one notes that humans have imagined countless deities, and religions, and they cannot all be right, though they can all be wrong of course, so without any method to demonstrate any objective difference between those deities, and thinking critically, investing belief in one is not an option, unless I do it subjectively, which must involve bias.
Peer review is objective verification, that lay people accept it does not mean science accepts ideas without objective verification, and this has nothing to do with religious claims that a deity exists as this claim can’t offer any measurable results.
What’s more science produces the same results regardless of who is testing it, as long as they adhere to the method, subjective religious beliefs manifestly do not.
One need not ignore contrary evidence to a cherished belief in order to repress, subdue or diminish critical thinking, only treat that belief with bias over other ideas and beliefs. this might be subtle, and since religions are taught to small children, they might not even realise what has been done, even when they reach adulthood.
Typically no, it acts as an initial quality control and credibility check before publication, but it is not the final arbiter of scientific truth. Replication is a crucial, distinct part of the scientific process, verifying that results are not random chance or errors, and building confidence in the findings’ reliability.
In stark contrast to religious claims of course, what exactly verifies these and how can they critically checked?
The other way around I’d say, the result is a product of the removal of subjective bias. This is manifest in the successful results. It would be absurd to imagine removing subjective bias is some sort of irrelevant coincidence, but we can test this by directly comparing the results with method that are solely based on subjective beliefs, and again with religions they are extremely unreliable, returning wildly different conclusions, and often erroneous ones. The creation myth of the bible is contradicted by the scientific theory of evolution, this is not a happy coincidence.
Indeed, and this is in stark contrast to religious claims of course, science would examine all ideas as critically as possible and without subjective bias.
Of course, but the one so reliably leads to the other, it is clear that removing subjective bias is a better method for critically examining claims and ideas, and objectively verifying them.
Addressed above.
Yes there are, it’s efficacy has been objectively tested in at least one clinical study I am aware of, and provided no discernible results.
Which is precisely the point. If someone claims prayer works, and we tested that claim and it fails to offer any discernible results, then this data does not offer objective verification. Of course one could then pronounce the claims for magic (an apropos word here), untestable, but that is not what they’d have done if the results had been favourable, this then is just the suppression of critical thinking the thread implies is all pervasive in religious thinking.
Of course it offers discernible results, that one could easily test against not asking for a raise. Just as when people claim prayer can aid healing, and then we conduct double blind clinical trials, and the results demonstrate no such thing.
I agree, non existent things would never work, and the result would be the same in every single instance we applied it to things that did not exist. I am not aware of anything we can reliably evidence exists that it cannot be applied to though.
The claim the method does not apply might as easily be seen as bias, an attempt to ringfence that belief from objective scrutiny, especially as subjective belief can as I said above, return any result one wants, and in terms of religions has done so for millennia, with humans imaging countless deities.
Now that’s an amusing false equivalence, as we know both apples and oranges exist, whereas we don’t know that anything “exists” beyond or outside of objective reality. FWIW I am not equating deities people imagine exist with objective reality at all, on the contrary it is clear the belief cannot be objectively verified in any way, where we likely disagree is the notion you seem to be offering, that the inability to objectively verify this existence is a flaw or limitation of those methods, rather then the possibility such things do not or cannot exist. If I examine the claim such things “exist” critically, then I must remain disbelieving.
I am also dubious that religion, at least in general, encourage adherents to subject their beliefs to critical thinking, it certainly was frowned upon from my own memory, but then this was a while ago. Maybe things have changed?
That was a claim - which is why I added the clarification to make that distinction.
If someone says they hate religion, or think it’s immoral, or any other expression of opinion, I have either not addressed it, or in some cases, I have empathised with the reason people have expressed such views.
If a claim is made that I consider to be incorrect, then I have responded on that basis and presented an argument to support that.
That is the distinction - this is a debate forum after all, and to the best of my ability, I am operating within the parameters of the forum, and trying to be respectful and mindful of other views in doing so.
My profile says I am a theist, and I have acknowledged that my profile says that I am a theist in previous discussions, yes. The registration prompted the question and I chose the relevant option. But I have not spoken about my belief in any way. I have simply acknowledged an accurate label, that is all.
My intention here is not to sound manipulative or deceptive in any way. When I say I haven’t spoken about my belief, I mean I haven’t answered any questions about what my specific religious beliefs are, etc. because I am not here to try and promote any particular belief system. I respect the purpose of the forum and site, and my engagement in debate is about facts and logic, not a mission to convert or convince people to shift from atheism.
I hope too that my responses when other theists have posted content further highlight this. I have challenged the logic and claimed facts raised in support of theism.
Mine says I’m an Atheist, it tells people exactly what they need to know. It says I don’t believe in the existence of gods. It even hints that I more than likely don’t believe in an after life.
Yours says Theist. Which means you believe in one or more god. That you most likely believe in an afterlife. That you most like visit a church or take part in religious activities. It’s a label that says a lot. You can deny that all you want, but at least ONE of us is being honest.
You didn’t use the word necessary, but in response to my argument challenging a generalisation, you rebutted my point by asking whether theists “subject their belief to critical doubt, and demand objective verification”
Therefore you were adding “and demand objective verification” to the requirements for the argument against the generalisation, making it a false equivalence.
To put it another way:
The original claim I was opposing was:
“Religion requires you to voluntarily repress your critical thinking skills.”
There’s no mention of objective verification or anything similar in this claim.
I was arguing against this specific claim being a generalisation.
If you want to make the claim “Religion requires you to ignore the absence of objective evidence” or “Religion requires that you don’t obtain objective verification”, you are more than welcome to do so, and I have no dispute with such claims.
But if you add it as a requirement for critical thinking skills, that is where we would be in disagreement. Hence my rebuttal calling it a false equivalency, because you added it as a requirement “and demand objective verification” as though it was necessary (a word you didn’t directly use but the wording framed it as being necessary).
If you’re saying it’s not necessary and just optional, that’s fine too, I don’t have any argument against objective verification not being used in relation to religion. I was only arguing against critical thinking needing to be repressed as the original commenter stated.
This is another false equivalency. Critical thinking can and does occur without objective verification. I have already given examples of this. A game of football/soccer can’t occur without a ball - a ball is necessary.
If you said a ball is epistemically distinct from sports, but playing football/soccer, golf, basketball, etc. without it would be difficult - that would be an equivalent analogy.
The difference being, football/soccer is a game played with a ball. Science is a system which has objective verification. Yes you can play football with something substituting the ball, and yes you can practice science without objective verification, but in both cases they’re not going to be good.
However there are other sports where a ball isn’t applicable. A ball would be useless in darts. Objective verification is useless in some frameworks also, like religion.
As before, I’m not disputing that the scientific method is ideal for what it does, but in the wider scope, a statement like this implies cherry picking. The scientific method is exponentially more successful at examining scientific ideas critically, but it only works for scientific ideas and equivalent frameworks where they may be some overlap. If one were to apply the scientific method to other frameworks, it wouldn’t be successful at all. Therefore any claim to the success of a method must be framework dependent.
Just as one can say that using scales is exponentially more successful at weighing things - it’s possibly true for things that can be weighed, but if you were using scales to determine the solubility of different things, it would be useless. There are a greater number of things that scales would be useless at that than they would be good at, so removing the framework dependence will only skew the results downwards and invalidate any claim of overall success.
It’s not about choosing a favourable/biased standard, it’s about possibility. Objective verification doesn’t fit, so requiring it is a category error. You can’t weigh the planet with scales.
You’re not addressing the point I made though. If Objective scrutiny (O) is required for Critical thought (C), we have: C requires O.
But Objective scrutiny should also be subject to critical thought, otherwise, how can we be certain of the value of Objective scrutiny? To simply accept Objective scrutiny without critical thought would be illogical.
So if we are to apply critical thought to objective scrutiny, we have C confirming O, but if C also requires O, you have circular reasoning because C can’t confirm O if C requires O to confirm O.
You’re drawing a comparison between objective verification being successful at things for which it is successful at, with the fact there are different religions. This is not a suitable comparison as they are not equivalent premises. You’re trying to equate a method to a diversity of belief when they belong in different categories.
As before, this isn’t about claims, it is about belief. If someone makes a claim they have the burden of proof. If someone has a belief, it is up to that individual to engage in critical thought.
There is also a difference between measurable results and results - just because something can’t be quantified (measured) doesn’t mean the results don’t apply.
Someone could say a song is beautiful, but offers no measurable results - how do you quantify beauty? Sure, people may be able to make relative comparisons, but consider someone grading a whole range of songs on their “beauty”. It’s one thing to pick out favourites, and pick out disliked songs, but there is no measure by which another, unheard song, could be graded before listening to it.
In the absence of measurable results, does that mean that the beauty of a song doesn’t exist?
Note: I understand that music/beauty are not religion. This example only serves to demonstrate that there can be something that is not objectively verifiable, cannot produce measurable results, yet still exists.
That is not to say that entities described by religions must exist, but it does demonstrate that existence is not contingent on measurable results, if such existence is not necessarily physical/natural/tangible.
I accept that specific events described by religions can be objectively scrutinised to the degree that evidence can be found or not found in relation to an event. If a religion for example says the moon was sundered in two, and someone looks up at the moon and sees the moon is whole, that specific claim would appear to be falsified (but then if it is claimed that the moon was made whole afterwards, it would fall back to unfalsified)
I accept that is the problem of claims for religious events - objective scrutiny can only apply natural tests to such events, whereas the claims would be - in accordance with it being a religious event - “supernatural” and so the absence of evidence, or the presence of contradictory evidence can be handwaved away by religion because of the supernatural involvement.
I understand that you would have the view on that basis that critical thought alone would be ineffective if objective scrutiny is dismissed/ignored, but in such cases, I would argue that such a handwaving is not sufficient for critical thought.
One should not be satisfied with “(entity) has absolute power so they can do anything, therefore my belief is valid” - that’s not critical thought. Objective scrutiny is out, so something has to substitute it. I’m not excusing religion as having a “pass” because it involves the supernatural, I’m saying that critical thought has more work to do, its employment in relation to beliefs is much more difficult, but not impossible.
I agree, and as per my response to the previous point, I accept and acknowledge that critical thought is much more difficult and offers far less certainty in terms of results than one would get from measured results. To that end, I would consider critical thought a necessary ongoing process, whereas with objective scrutiny, one can be satisfied with the measurable results unless something new challenges them.
If your position is that the outcome of critical thinking in relation to religion is not up to the same standard as critical thinking and objective verification, then I would agree on that point too.
My only argument was with it being an absolute - the generalisation that religion requires the repression of critical thought.
My position is that:
Yes, I agree that there is an absence of critical thought for a lot of people, especially in terms of religion. Many people have “blind faith”.
I do not agree that critical thought and religion are mutually exclusive, or that one cannot employ critical thought in relation to religious belief
I do not agree that critical thought needs to be reduced to have religious belief either. To the contrary, if one is to employ critical thought effectively, it would need to be to a higher level in order to compensate for the absence of objective verification
In view of the point above, despite critical thought needing to be a higher level, I agree that the outcome is still going to be less certain than something objectively verifiable.
I hope that clarifies my position and possibly brings us closer in alignment on our positions?
I would disagree vehemently that this is critical thinking.
If your view is that religion does not require the absolute repression of critical thinking, then we’re in agreement on this particular point. I accept we may disagree on other points, but this was my primary objection to the initial comment.
I accept we may disagree on whether critical thinking is required to be limited - I think we agree on the point that objective verification can’t be used with critical thought in terms of religion, so if you consider that a limitation of critical thought, I am not disagreeing on that point - the only distinction I make is that it can’t be used because it doesn’t fit/apply, not that religion requires it to be ignored when it would otherwise apply… but the end result is, it reduces the effectiveness of critical thought.
My argument then as above is that a person employing critical thought will need to compensate for this limitation, not simply employ it to the same level as though objective verification was there, but not using it. (for example, if someone is going to the south pole, and for some reason, they weren’t able to bring a coat, it would be silly of them to accept they need to keep warm (use critical thinking) but because they can’t bring a coat (objective verification) they’ll just go without - they would freeze to death. So instead of a coat, they would need to take other measures to keep warm - they can’t just do what they would have done if they had a coat. This may mean staying in an enclosed, heated area for example)
Consider atoms. Up until a certain point, every possible test would have failed to return any discernible data from the claim that atoms exist, and it would represent a limitation of the available tools (methods for detecting things), when in every single instance, that is exactly what would happen if atoms did not exist, and also in the absence of any reliably consistent method to examine atoms.
Atoms do exist, and they have existed from the early stages of the universe. It has only been in relatively recent times that we have known they exist. Before that point, the methods for detecting things were insufficient to detect atoms.
The default position is uncertainty. We don’t have a means to prove things don’t exist, we can only point to the absence of evidence for the existence of a thing to reject the claim that something exists, but just because something can be in the same category as non-existent things doesn’t mean the thing itself is non-existent. Atoms were once in that category, yet they existed/exist.
If someone makes the assumption that something exists based purely on the fact they can imagine such things, that would be illogical, and that is not being disputed here.
I accept that in terms of religion, some religions at least must have been formed on this basis - given that of the entirety of the various different religious beliefs, there is a degree of mutual exclusivity (conflicting accounts, entities, etc.) - one can reasonably state that elements must have emerged solely from imagination for some religions.
But then, as per my oft repeated Bob drinking tea in China example, we have a number of statements (religions) from which some must be false, but we can’t say which.
Note: Unlike the Bob drinking tea in China example, in order for “religion” to be an exhaustive choice, one must also add atheism to the mix, so in terms of religion alone, it is not fully an equivalent example. I am only referencing the aspect that the false/incorrect statement cannot be known even though there must be one, compared to religions where there must be false religions or elements of religions, when two or more elements are incompatible, but that also does not discount all of them being false/incorrect.
Peer review is inter-subjective verification, limited to the methodology and findings, not necessarily the data.
Not always. Depending on what is being studied, data can vary, or even disagree. A study can identify a statistical significance, whereas another study may not. If one considers medical studies for example, you can test x people and y people get a particular side effect, whereas another study can perform the same test on x people and z people get a particular side effect.
Bias is going to be present, even with critical thinking. I accept that critical thinking should seek to overcome bias, but bias is natural with all things - science included, so critical thinking is important with all things.
Critical thinking is up to each individual. It’s great that science can have quality checks and in some cases, science can be applied and demonstrate real-time benefits, but sometimes all we have is critical thought and I agree it’s important that people think critically.
results gained by subjective bias can still be successful. Someone can want something to be true, and it can end up true, even if they didn’t do the best job as trying to disprove it.
I’m not saying it’s coincidental or irrelevant, just that the end goal is to prove the results are valid. In science, this means by doing everything conceivably possible to disprove something, even if doing so means accepting a hypothesis is wrong, if it fails a test. By doing this, subjective bias is reduced accordingly - but it’s a byproduct - a relevant, linked byproduct, not a coincidence.
That’s a false equivalence though. It’s apples and oranges. Not a test that would be accepted under the scientific method certainly - too many variables are different, too much subjective bias in the methodology, and no reasonable way to quantify the data.
But as I say, I’m not considering the removal of subjective bias irrelevant or a coincidence, so it’s a moot point.
Science doesn’t. Scientists do, and scientists do have subjective bias. The scientific method is a method which if followed correctly, will mitigate subjective bias and increase the validity of results, but there have been a number of occasions where scientists have not followed the scientific method correctly - either unintentionally or intentionally.
It’s important to note that scientists are still human.
Without knowing the methodology used, it would be difficult to comment on that, but I can only imagine that it tested a particular application in a particular manner.
I mean you could get a thousand people from across a whole range of job roles to ask their boss for a raise, and maybe only a handful get a raise - not statistically significant by any means. But there are many factors involved in getting a raise - the type of job for one. Some roles have set wages for the role itself, so there would be no point asking for a raise in the first place. Some roles will have opportunities for an employee to be more valuable to the employer and if the circumstances and timing are right, they could be successful. Even in terms of categories, the likelihood of success in asking for a raise is going to be dependent on the employee, the company, the boss, and the employee’s role. There will be numerous variables within each of those categories too.
One can consider that prayer would have many more variables, including unknown and unknowable variables.
In terms of claims regarding prayers, effectiveness should not be claimed, regardless of one’s beliefs. If someone were to suggest prayer has any sort of guarantee, that’s already demonstrably wrong, so any test that is dependent on results is already going to be unfair because it could only address a claim that prayers are guaranteed to work, and there’s already enough evidence that no such guarantee exists without conducting any tests.
That’s the circular reasoning fallacy right there. You throw in an extra condition “anything we can reliably evidence”, but you’re basing things that can be reliably evidenced on whether they can be objectively verified or not.
I’ve already given examples like whether a particular Beethoven song is beautiful - we can’t objectively verify such a question, and reliable evidence wouldn’t apply either because views would be subjective.
But this doesn’t mean that a Beethoven song can’t be beautiful.
It can return any result one wants, sure. But that would be occurring without critical thought, which is the point of the discussion. If a person imagines a giant invisible pink unicorn as the creator of all existence, that could be a result of their own choosing. But if they apply critical thought, they will recognise it was just something that they imagined, and there is no other reason - no personal experience, no evidence, nothing of any kind to support it being true. It’s literally something they just made up. And thinking critically, a person can just as easily dismiss the idea. If they choose not to, that would be because they chose not to think critically.
Not all things can be dismissed so readily, but critical thinking can still apply.
I do accept and acknowledge that the possibility that such things do not or cannot exist is a reasonable one. There are infinite non-existent things and as you point out, none of those infinite things can be objectively verified in any way.
The distinction however is that some things that don’t exist would be objectively verifiable if they did exist, so it is not their non-existent state that makes them not objectively verifiable. Going back again to my Bob drinking tea in China example, it is something that is objectively verifiable, one statement exists and one statement does not exist - we don’t know which, but both statements are objectively verifiable.
In terms of things that cannot be objectively verified, if we’re talking about things objectively existing but not objectively verifiable (supernatural, etc.) then the question of existence will always be uncertain/unknowable/unfalsifiable, from a scientific (natural, physical) perspective, and again, the consideration that no such things exist is a reasonable one.
I can’t/won’t speak for any specific belief systems, but if people have free will, it is their choice and responsibility to employ critical thought. Whether or not people do or not is up to them, irrespective of what an organisation may or may not influence or compel them to do/not do.
I’m not speaking in defence of any systems or institutions, just arguing against a generalisation.
I am trying to engage in discussion objectively. I want my arguments to stand or fall on their own merit. That one can view the words I have written and disregard “me” as the one saying them. If an argument has been made, the person who made the argument - from a logic perspective - is irrelevant. If the point is valid, it’s valid. If the point is wrong, it’s wrong. That doesn’t change because of the person who wrote it.
I have not lied about having the theism label. I understand that some people here have given details of their atheism, and I expect there are some who have not.
My intent is to come across as objective as I can be. I accept that I will have biases, and that I won’t be perfect in removing them, but I just want to engage in reasonable debate/discussion using facts and logic to the best of my ability.
I get that my label will bring pre-conceptions about who I am, why I’m here, and what my intentions are. I hope that given time, people will at least have an understanding of who I actually am, not the pre-conceptions.
But I also get that the positions I take in discussions and debates could well mean that people may not like me or see any value in what I say.
At least I can try to be respectful, reasonable, and offer an alternative view, which is better than having an echo chamber where everyone is in agreement.
I am not trying to say anything, I never said it was necessary, it is obviously a personal choice whether to examine beliefs as critically as possible.
Quelle surprise, what are you claiming I falsely equated this time?
Just as soccer can occur without ball, but it’s nowhere near as successful.
That depends how concerned you are with how successful a game you can have, the same as thinking objective scrutiny not offering any measurable data for a deity is because magic exists, will be determined by “how critically one examines such a belief”.
Equivalent to what? What precisely are you claiming I equated, falsely?
As good, and yes this is precisely my point, just as eschewing the best methods that return the most success, might get a belief past that personal standard for “critical” thinking.
You said this several times, I pointed out that this would apply to all non-existent things, every time, so rather than repeating the claim you might explain why if we are thinking critically, we would not simply withhold belief from such claims?
I think it is, and nor are those mutually exclusive of course.
That’s an opinion based on the assumption that anything exists beyond or outside of objective reality, if exist is even the right word here.
Of course, and given methods that use it have had exponentially greater successes at understanding reality than methods that don’t, critical thinking indicates that the more subjective bias one can remove, the more reliable the results.
One category returns relentlessly reliable results, and the other returns wildly varying and unreliable results.
As before all beliefs are the affirmation of a claim.
Indeed, I am not sure what that has to do with my point though, and lest we forget you have are making claims about why religious beliefs are justified in the absence of any objective evidence, but they can’t all be justified, so what separates sone deity humans imagine to be real, from any other, in any objective way, otherwise one can believe whatever one wishes. I have no problem with that of course, but it is dubious to then claim to be subjecting those beliefs to critical scrutiny.
Except the example is a false equivalence as no one is claiming the preference is anything but a personal taste, whereas religions are claiming a deity exists, and not just in the human imagination. When I say I find some music beautiful, it needs no objective verification as it is a subjective claim about personal taste. This is not the case when someone claims a deity exists. Unless you are claiming your deity exists only in your imagination?
Except I have not used handwaving, as I have relentlessly explained that it is an objective fact that methods using objective verification produce relentlessly reliable results, while subjective religious beliefs do not.
And of course, your belief that something exists beyond objective reality, has as yet been just a bare claim, and yet you insist this justifies the claim that methods using objective verification are insufficient, rather than there simply being nothing for them to examine, in your own words, providing no measurable results.
I shall leave aside all other objections and ask how you know there is anything to test beyond that?
Well you seem to have missed out a critical examination that provides a much simpler conclusion than abandoning a method we know is the best we have. However lets put a pin in that and come back to it, in the meantime what will this critical method involve that you think can replace it?
Given they are as old as human history and have had countless millennia, and returned nothing beyond subjective choices, I am dubious, but you already hold the belief, so one assumes you already have this method, especially as you are disputing the idea that religions diminish critical thinking.
Then why invest belief, is the question that seems to keep recurring here?
Well you admit it is less efficacious here, and I can only repeat, to what end would one employ a less reliable method, if not to preserve a belief one might otherwise discard?
I am now getting a mixed message?
As would I, since it involves a purely subjective result, with no objective verification.
Well perhaps if you offered some insights into the critical scrutiny you used to arrive at belief, this might be helpful here?
I’ve not said objective verification is required, or necesaary, this would depend what you wish to achieve.
For example it is so far just a bare claim that things exist that are beyond or outside of objective reality, and so the claim this is beyond or outside the ability of objective verification is likewise a bare claim.
So I see no basis there for treating god claims any differently to any other claims. Or altering my level of critical thinking just because the claims or beliefs offer no data to examine. To me this is a sound reason to withhold credulity.
