You would if it were the case that if evolution were false, young earth creationism would then be true.
Of course, that is not the false dichotomy. The only thing that could unseat evolution would be some sort of scientific revolution, perhaps something like proof of panspermia by another extra-solar species.
Fair questions, I will probably start a separate thread regarding this.
I wouldn’t put consciousness without matter in the same category as the tooth fairy…with all the claims of out of body experiences or near death experiences, even if you don’t believe them the fact that so many people have first hand experiences with it gives it a much more worthy investigation than the tooth fairy.
Did you ever consider other beliefs systems?
Isn’t true though that a certain spirituality, if proven to be true, could play a pivotal role to someone’s life? It seems you decided all belief systems only played a role in the world and not an individual’s life(in the sense of the spirituality actually doing what it claims, not other humans making the lifestyle work a certain way), is that right?
Hi! I’m a Raelian first and a atheist second.
certainly. I’m convinced they are scams.
I absolutely would, as anecdotal claims could be made about anything, and if you accept that standard you’d have no rational justification for denying any such claim, including tooth fairies of course.
Even if so called near death experiences did not involve subjective anecdotal claims, all they’d establish is that a brain remains alive after the heart stops, we already know this is true from objective scientific evidence.
You’re missing the point, tge asserti9n wasn’t suggesting the beliefd are exactky identical, only that neither can be supported by any objectively verifiable evidence.
The number of people alone, making an unevidenced anecdotal claim, does not lend the claim any credence, you’re bordering on an argumentum ad populum fallacy.
For clarity, no one is disputing the idea that a brain keeps working and storing memories during a heart attack, while the heart has stopped, and don’t forget these cases involve patients whose brains would be receiving oxygenated blood through medical resuscitation.
They werent dead, clinical death is a medical term for when the heart stops, it difders from legal death, which is the irreversible cessation of all brain activity.
None of this remotely represents objective evidence that we can survive the physical death of our brains, and even that would not in and of itself be objective evidence for a deity, and of course even then all your work would be before you as a theist, to properly evidence a specific deity.
At the moment all I see is an “empty bag” so to speak.
Pivotal how, and even if they could, how is this objective evidence for the belief itself?
Moreover if different beliefs produce this effect, this suggest the veracity of the belief is irrekevant to its effect.
Any belief could alter an individual’s course in life, for good or ill. We act in response to beliefs, but that doesn’t mean the beliefs are justified. The followers of Jim Jones and David Koresh acted on their beliefs, were changed by them, were in fact killed by them. That doesn’t make them valid.
And before someone should think that these beliefs only affect and play a pivotal role for the believers, let’s mention the sarin attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995. That brand of “spirituality” definitely pivoted a lot of lives for the worse. In particular for those who had nothing to do with the cult.
I think answering @Sheldon ’s terminal question in post #5 will put you a step closer to answering your own questions here.
We’d also need to nail down an authoritative definition of “spirituality,” which hasn’t ever happened.
Absolutely. Even the Branch Davidian and Jonestown mass suicides all had relatives, innocent children, etc. in the mix. And exacted a toll on the wider society for having to bear witness to it all if nothing else. Maybe some kid who died in one of those cults would have cured cancer for all we know. Nothing happens in a vacuum.
I was sexually and physically abused as a child. I thought infinite punishment for those crimes was wrong, even as I was suffering the torment.
I understand your point about neither having verifiable evidence and that’s why you put them in the same category.
I’m bringing up a different point to consider-- that one is more worthy of investigation than another. There are no mass sightings of the tooth fairy. But there are thousands upon thousands of testimonies in regards to out of body experiences, particularly near death experiences where people across countries and culture experience and/or see the same thing. (I’ll do a separate thread on this)
If we lived in the same neighborhood and half the people swore they saw a ghost on Main St, that may sound as silly as there’s the cookie monster at the bank…but I’m not gonna check out the bank for the cookie monster. Nobody’s talking about that. But if otherwise very rational and well-adjusted people are swearing they saw a ghost on Main St., that’s the claim more worthy of investigation.
That’s why I personally don’t put consciousness without matter in the same category as the tooth fairy. The latter is far more worthy of a closer look–just because there isn’t verifiable evidence yet, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist …and the testimonies keep coming.
Yep, testimonies about the supernatural were relied upon for instance, during witch trials. People were executed based on them.
I wonder how much of a second look you would be willing to afford all that testimony if you were the one accused of witchcraft.
Or of any deity, only claims, hence my point, and you have now use that argumentum ad populum fallacy I warned you about in my previous response.
There it is, a bare appeal to numbers, look up argumentum aad populum, and you will see this is fallacious.
They’re not dead, just in cardiac arrest, as i explained above, please read my previous response in its entirety.
Even were this bare claim factually correct, and I am fairly dubious, it is not evidence of an afterlife, and can be explained as an entirely natural phenomenon.
There is no objective evidence that human consciousnesses can exist in the absense of a functioning human brain.
You’re missing the point again, see my previous response about why I compared the two claims.
Yes, because you don’t understand what the comparison was explaining, don’t understand that argumentum ad populum appeals are irrational, and don’t seem to know or care whether subjective claims can be objectively verified.
And when can we expect that to happen, or for you to offer something beyond bare assertions?
There are at least two considerations here. Firstly, based on science, there are no known physical mechanisms for which ghosts in the popular sense can exist. Therefore, there are no reasons to make the a priori assumption that there is something supernatural going on. Secondly, what could be worthy of investigation instead would be to check if there are any other rational and naturalistic (physical as well as psychological) mechanisms at play here.
Or, to quote Terry Pratchett: “I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.”
Note, carefully, the word “near”. It’s there for a reason.
No one has died and lived to tell of it.
Yes, and it has been demonstrated that people who undergo this effect (of believing they were out of their body), can’t collect even a single bit of information about the real world from a remote location during this effect. In short: it is all in their head, not unlike a dream. It isn’t magic, it is a silly grasp at straws for people who are desperate to believe in magic. And if you don’t like the term magic, I’m sorry; but that is what religious belief is: it is a belief in magic, it is magical thinking.
Argumentum ad populum is accepting a claim as good or true because a large population believe in the claim. I never said NDE’s/consciousness w/out matter claims are either true or good. I simply said they were more worthy of investigation in comparison to the tooth fairy.
I already conceded your point that both are unverified subjective claims and so they both fall into that category. That doesn’t mean either one claim can’t fall into other categories.
They don’t necessarily need to be dead, as the description “near death” makes clear. The Institute of Near Death Studies defines an NDE as someone clinically dead, in a life-threatening emergency (i.e. cardiac arrest) or experiencing a scenario likely to result in death.
Science can explain the brain functioning, but not why everyone is having the same experiences which I’ll bring up in another thread along with why consciousness without matter is worthy of investigation since this is already going off topic. I’ve got the gist of why you’re an atheist and it’s been helpful. Thank you for responding.