My journey from rabidly- Irish-Catholic-obnoxious- little prig to atheist took 20 years. It began when I actually read the bible and began to notice some of the more fatuous catholic beliefs for the nonsense they are. EG the virgin birth, infallibility the pope and the unshakeable belief masturbation is a mortal sin. I mean,it’s one of the few things in life at which I have truly excelled.
All religions and are definitely man made. Imo, without exception, every religion reflects the people who invent it and the individuals who practice it.
As for ‘an urge to the divine’, I’m not convinced this is 100% man made. I say this because some form of religious belief is virtually universal. It certainly meets some important human needs.*** I also suspect religion may have some evolutionary value, but I can’t prove it.
One of my favourite graffito: “Religion: Man’s attempt to communicate with the weather” (anon)
***such as; addressing the fear of death, giving the illusions of a meaning of life and of control, over life. Traditionally, religion has given a sense of community and the protection that can entail. Even today, there are countries in which religious belief can be a matter of life and death . I don’t just mean Saudi Arabia and other small Arab countries. Other countries include parts of Africa and India.
Is Falsifiability a scientific theory ? It is a term that is used voraciously by atheists when discussing a First Cause- Creator - God and it is used as some kind of litmus test for evidential debate .
TheFlyingPig Is Falsifiability a scientific theory ?
It’s a scientific term, a scientific theory is a broad explanation of a naturally occurring phenomenon. Something is considered unfalsifiable if there is no way to falsify it, even were it to be false. In scientific parlance such ideas are described as not even wrong, because an idea that can be shown to be wrong expands our knowledge, whereas unfalsifiable ideas do not, and are therefore meaningless. Like claiming each of us is shadowed by an invisible fairy, undetectable in any empirical way.
it is used as some kind of litmus test for evidential debate .
Well again an unfalsifiable claim cannot be falsified even if it is false, thus it teaches us nothing, it is a meaningless claim. Of course this doesn’t mean that rationally the claim ** we are each of us shadowed by an invisible fairy** is false.
When I was first wrapping my head around this (I had been raised the opposite, to have “faith” and this was evidence) I just simply approached it as proving myself “wrong” first (again, right/wrong, black/white thinking).
This is only an application to my life. So if I want to invest- I pick a product/company I like, then I come at it as a “bad investment” choice. If I can’t find sufficient reason or evidence, then I proceed.
The opposite of that is choosing the company you “like” and then finding all the reasons or evidence of it being a “good” investment.
Confirmation bias kicks in and you ignore or filter out what could make it bad.
Nor does it mean that there is not an invisible old guy with a white beard, who made everything, sitting in the sky with a list of things you musn’t do. THAT is why I’m an agnostic atheist ; I simply do not know.
This is for me a critical aspect in the most bizarre claims. Such as the one above . It is up to the person making the claim to provide proof. Not up to me to disprove a claim.***
So today my position is: You believe in god(s)?How nice for you. You want me to share your beliefs? No problem. I will be thrilled to do so.----the instant you prove to me your god exist—I maintain that god cannot be argued into or out of existence.
Russell specifically applied his analogy in the context of religion.[1] He wrote that if he were to assert, without offering proof, that a teapot, too small to be seen by telescopes, orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, he could not expect anyone to believe him solely because his assertion could not be proven wrong.
Russell’s teapot is still invoked in discussions concerning the existence of God, and has had influence in various fields and media.
So Is the claim of Science is that it is the only method for acquiring knowledge of the world and Falsifiability is part of the scientific process to weed out what science cannot quantify ?
You are mistaken. Science makes no such claim. Do you have another way we can consider? If you can provide us with a methodology that is as good as or better than the scientific method, we will all be more than happy to use is. What-cha-got?
The idea of “falsifiability” prevents people from making unfounded and un-grounded claims. ( Claims without facts or evidence backing them up.) Popper used the “All swans are white” analogy. Find one black swan and the statement is false. We know black swans exist so “All swans are white” can be rejected. If an idea can not be rejected, it is merely an assertion. “All unicorns are white.” is an un-falsifiable claim. We have no example of “unicorn.” If we refer to the imaginary cartoon, well they can be any color you like. The claim is nonsense without the attribute of falsifiability.
Think of falsifiability as test-ability. There must be a way to validate the claim. Once a claim is made, by what means can we demonstrate that claim to be correct or incorrect? We have found no better or reliable method to date, than the scientific method.
That seems to depend a bit on your definition and on whom you ask.
There are things called ‘psychological truths’ and ‘self knowledge’
Scientists tend to dismiss the so-called soft/social sciences, including my own discipline, Social Anthropology.
The anthropologist’s quest is for meaning.That is gained by field work. To earn a doctorate, an anthropologist goes somewhere,usually a foreign country,and “just hangs around” for about a year and observes… A thesis is then written for a Phd.
May such observations and their insights be called scientific? Probably not. May they then be claimed to be knowledge? It is often impossible to falsify such findings. Yet I claim the Social Sciences add to knowledge of the human condition.
What about the discipline of history, especially ancient history.? It does not use scientific method and does not usually produce testable claims.
Historians rarely make truth claims, using terms such as likely or probable.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve been reading Bart Ehrman on the bible and the history of Christianity. This year, I’ve watched a few lectures by Richard Carrier . I think both provide valuable insights,and are probably right in a broad sense.
In brief, to answer the question the way I see it: Science is the best method we have in practical matters .However, it is of little use in explaining the human condition or in answering metaphysical questions, which are crucial to human beings; EG Why am I here? Is there a god? Is there an afterlife? What is truth? Do I have free will? What is goodness? What is evil? How should I live as a moral human being? Is it wrong to harm others and so on—???
An atheist, I’m also unable to accept ‘god did it’ as an answer to any question whatsoever.
Heeeeey…! The Pilot of Pork Poo has finally managed to propel his way to our pleasantly posh pad of public parlance. Welcome, O’ Hovering Ham! Pray tell, what diswine words of wisdom might you have to impart upon we the godless masses? Or will you still be distributing the same tripe as before? Our tails are curlicued with anticipation.
It is a fundamental requirement of the scientific process, any claim assertion or idea that is unfalsifiable is considered unscientific by science. Since, as I said, there is no way to know if it is false even if it is false.
However its validity also has an epistemological use, unless you’re prepared to believe all unfalsifiable claim prima facie, and without evidence. This of course would make life pretty much unbearable or impossible. Believing one or just some unfalsifiable claims is of course inherently biased.
The point is that claiming a belief is valid until someone proves it is not, is an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, and therefore irrational or illogical by definition. If the claim is unfalsifiable then this simply removes the best objective methods we have for validating claims, assertions, ideas or beliefs, which are science and logic.
Those two methods can be objectively shown to produce the most consistent results in validating claims, assertions, ideas or beliefs. So it is reasonable to make an inference about whether we believe something if those methods can’t validate them. I’d argue that at least from an epistemological viewpoint it might be unreasonable to make a contrary claim.
Hence my question, do you believe invisible garden fairies exist, that are undetectable in any empirical or objective way?
Science has certainly promoted itself as the toll keeper as to what is verified as “believable” and promotes itself as the authoritative worldview to the exclusion of other viewpoints on what constitutes Knowledge with Falsifiability as one of the key methods for interrogating belief claims . So where does Science get off on making itself the only arbiter in what constitutes Knowledge . Does Science subject itself to the Falsifiability test .
Wow, The FlyingPig, it didn’t take long for you to be the prig you were in the old forum.
Science is just one thing, a methodology. It is not a “thing” or a conspiracy. It is just a tool that assists us in a better understanding of this universe.
I am sorry (for you) that science has dismantled a great number of biblical claims. But that is because those claims are bullshit, science is a reliable process, while religion is on exceptionally shaky legs.
Neither of those ludicrous claims is true. Science’s ability to validating ideas can be objectively demonstrated in its results.
Another piece of sophistry, as I already explained how and why science uses falsifiability. As usual you simply ignore facts or distort them.
Sigh, another ridiculous lie, science is a method, it dictates nothing, the method has been created and modified to produce the most consistent results in successfully understanding the reality of the physical world and universe.
Jesus wept, science isn’t a claim, it is a method for examining them, all claims must be falsifiable before science can examine them, and this has been explained already, as has the reason.
Why are you attacking science, it won’t remotely validate any god claim.
What objective evidence can you demonstrate for any deity?
. Watching TV etc
The Pilot of Pork Poo has finally managed to propel his way to our pleasantly posh pad of public parlance. Welcome, O’ Hovering Ham! Pray tell, what diswine words of wisdom might you have to impart upon we the godless masses? Or will you still be distributing the same tripe as before? Our tails are curlicued with anticipation.