It seems that many theists consider that the attempt to cast doubt on what the scientific method has thus far allowed us to uncover lends credence to their theism. The most recent iteration of this is @Sherlock-Holmes.
This makes little, if any sense to me. I don’t understand how one could make a leap to “god did it” from “life hasn’t been created in a lab” or some such.
Are they that answer-needy that any gap in knowledge/understanding absolutely must be filled in with something? Why so much seeming discomfort with ignorance? Is it fear that drives it?
Why does the most frequent argument for god/s consist of casting aspersions elsewhere?
Magic has excellent explanatory power (you can basically “explain” anything with magic); and zero predictive power. Science little or no explanatory power, but its exceptionally useful for predicting the future.
Those who want (subjective) explanations are attracted to one; those who want to be able to predict the future are attracted to the other.
The usual suspects have to lie about science, because science destroys the sad pre-scientific mythological assertions they cling to. They also have to lie about those presenting the science.
I’ve been seeing this level of duplicity, driven ultimately by banality, for 14 years.
I’m convinced religion is all about fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of death, fear of not having a magical, invisible friend to turn to. It can be a great comfort to think there is some great plan for you, and random awful shit happens for some mysterious reason that you’ll understand after you die.
It also logically fallacious, as an argument belief or assertion does not logically gain any credence or validity from the lack of an alternative, it is a very common and irrational argument many religious apologists present. As I hope everyone now knows this is called an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.
I’d also add that if there were parity in any way between unevidenced subjective religious beliefs and scientific facts, why don’t religious people design and build a plane based solely on prayer and faith, and we can compare the two methods to see which one flies the best?
As you point out, even were this risible comparison true it would not be an open door for unevidenced superstition, and the fact @Sherlock-Holmes is dedicating so much energy to this fallacious argument, while tellingly not presenting any evidence for his deity can only infer one thing, he is holding an empty bag, and knows it.
If you disagree with something I said then quote me verbatim and I’m happy to discuss. The reliance on paraphrasing (with the clear intent of misrepresentation) is a tired tactic too often used by anti-theists.
I am still waiting for you to define what you think the word fact means, as I seriously doubt it means what you think it does, judging from that, but an irrefutable scientific fact is never immutable.
This:
If they were scientifically justified then there would be a scientific consensus reflecting that.
This:
Though it could just be very poorly worded, as you seem fond of sweeping assertions.
Very wise, since I gave him three, and he hasn’t answered them at all. I’ve also posted several questions asked about unevidenced claims he’s made, some of them longstanding that he has evaded, still waiting for any reply at all.
We weren’t talking about not answering, we were talking about the dangers (or perhaps I should say the attraction) of paraphrasing rather than verbatim quotes.
If you had a firmer grasp of language you’d understand you just created a straw man, as @CyberLN didn’t say you’d said it, she was offering a generic hypothetical based on the type of apologetics a lot of religious apologists use on here, and merely pointed to you being the latest to use such apologetics.
Nice try, but everyone can see that the quote if clearly from another thread, and your claim is months old. Still no answer as well, quelle surprise.
This is stooping to a new low. So in your fairytale world of scientism those who challenge consensus are wrong, cannot be right, are not “justified” to do so, at least that’s what you words above seem to equate to.
You have far more in common with those who persecuted Galileo than you do with Galileo, God the irony!
Perhaps but he is attacking an argument I did not make, he is responding to something I said by attacking an argument I did not make, this is known as a strawman fallacy FYI.