The Lost One
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Post by The Lost One on Apr 12, 2017 12:17:56 GMT
One supposes this would only be the case if one was emotionally attached to verifiable facts. However it can be argued that the esteem in which empiricism - the 'strictest' form of such - is held by many is not, at base, emotional - more practical. Up to a point. Yes it is practically better to rely on medical science rather than wait for God to heal you (assuming you care about living of course). But is the person who says there has never been a virgin birth any better off from a practical basis from the person who says there was one once? Sure but that's only an issue if you're trying to convince others you have it right and they have it wrong. What the blogger seems to be complaining about is believing these things yourself. At any rate, a Muslim would not say a miraculous virgin birth is not possible at all, only that it did not happen in the instance claimed by Christians. Sure but the examples of religious views the blogger mentioned as "post-truth" were all claims of miracles. True, but I assume the blogger was talking of empirical verification rather than appeals to authority. Ok let's say for instance God restores the limbs of 1 person in 50 billion. That means in the history of human civilization, 2 or 3 people have had their limbs restored. What are the chances a sufficient number of independent, unbiased witnesses would observe and record these 2 or 3 occurrences? If someone claimed their limbs had been restored you would think them a liar or mad, whether you believed in rare miracles or no miracles at all. Really the only difference is the religious person would think the claimant almost certainly fraudulent while the non-religious person would think them certainly fraudulent. Or let's go back to the Christian claim of the virgin birth. They are claiming just one woman in the 50-60 billion women who have ever lived gave birth without a man providing sperm. Pointing out billions of women who are not virgin births does not invalidate their claim because their claim is what made this woman special is she was not like these other billions. Again any woman claiming to have given birth without sperm would be considered a liar, mad or having been inseminated without her knowledge both by the Christian and the atheist. Compare this to Trump, where the data on Mexican migration is readily available to any who look into it and he just blatantly lies about it. And people believe him without verifying whether they are right to do so. The difference between "post truth" claims and claims of rare miracles is it's possible to falsify the former but not the latter. The adherents of the former are wilfully ignorant, the adherents of the latter are wilfully faithful. And that I think is a key difference.
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Post by FilmFlaneur on Apr 12, 2017 14:10:13 GMT
From this strict example, the answer is that, well, one who would be depending on a virgin birth would be practically less well off than one who is not. For the rest of us, one supposes the practical question is whether living a life through empiricism, rather than faith, makes one better off (as in being most able to function) generally. I would argue that, overall, one would get on better, especially in a modern society, by accepting and acting on the validity of all that is evidenced and proved, than relying on the unsubstantiated to survive. Of course most religious people manage on a mixture, but few rely on God to supply the morning commute, or to ask for their raise. Fair enough. Although it may be noted that most faiths don't just stick with unassuming personal belief; missionary work and (sometimes aggressive) proselytizing have a long, obvious, and often regrettable history. As miracles can consist of anything which goes against natural law, then the opposite could be allowed: an entire world of cripples healed. It would be disingenuous to argue from the viewpoint of the weakest example. (Incidentally why would a miracle have to be rare, rather than just constantly unnatural? That something is entirely unexpected but suddenly common could be just as 'miraculous'.) But, as it appears that God has enough problems with just regenerating one limb, let alone a world's worth (and even Jesus had to stick with just a handful of cured lepers done and not whole communities of them), you may have a point lol Agreed. But is something a valid claim, in and of itself, just because it can be made? The point would still stand that 'post truths', like the claims of religion, depend on an emotional appeal over verified fact; whether verification is possible in any magical event is, I think moot, although it is certainly useful. (There could for instance the 'miracle of the verified miracle' - something a lot of atheists are still waiting for!). And by verification there is another issue: there's a difference between verifying that a remarkable event has happened and verifying an attribution to the working of God. Christian claims and defence around the floating of Noah's Ark (mentioned in the blog) are predicated just as much around the practical likelihood of a successful, sustained construction endeavour by zealots after suitable inspiration, as it is around any miracle of weeks of rain flooding the world. This while our example of a virgin human birth is not impossible, just " very, very, very unlikely" - see the argument and example cited by several scientists here www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2007/12/can_a_virgin_give_birth.html But still no one mentions God. (And of course parthenogenetic reproduction, not unknown in nature generally, could occur very rarely among human females, ultimately remain verifiable yet simply remain unnoticed, since, well, its just not looked for.)
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The Lost One
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Post by The Lost One on Apr 12, 2017 15:35:20 GMT
From this strict example, the answer is that, well, one who would be depending on a virgin birth would be practically less well off than one who is not. Who is depending on a virgin birth? But what makes one "better off" is largely subjective. For some people, their faith is a large part of what makes life worth living. No argument here. I don't see much wrong in suggesting to others they embrace your belief as one of many options. But yes many are a lot more aggressive than that. It doesn't but few people, religious or otherwise claim miracles are commonplace. If they were, it would be impossible to verify scientific laws. Since it's evident natural laws do exist, we have to concede that miracles are either very rare or don't happen. (An alternative view is George Berkeley's who claimed that the natural laws themselves are miracles. But this is an unfalsifiable claim which people can take or leave and makes no practical difference whether you believe or not). Not at all. There is I think no good reason why we should necessarily accept their claim. We just can't falsify it. Which is what makes it different from post-truth claims. Even if, as I conceded, faith claims are still problematic in themselves, they are not comparable to post-truth claims. Emotional appeals come in three guises though: 1. Those that agree with verifiable facts 2. Those that disagree with verifiable facts 3. Those that neither agree nor disagree with verifiable facts Post truth claims all fall into Camp 2. Admittedly so do some religious claims, but a great deal (such as the virgin birth claim) are within Camp 3. I think we can all agree Camp 1 is good and Camp 2 is bad. Camp 3 I think really depends on the individual. No arguments there.
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Post by cupcakes on Apr 12, 2017 19:27:11 GMT
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Post by scienceisgod on Apr 12, 2017 20:09:19 GMT
The alt-right is about the least religious political faction out there. This is all nonsense.
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The Lost One
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Post by The Lost One on Apr 12, 2017 22:12:44 GMT
"humans don't have virgin births", My point was you can't falsify virgin birth claims so long as the claimant says: a) they are extremely rare b) the birth in question was a special case outside the ordinary way of things While as you can falsify many of Trump's claims if you bother to look.
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Post by cupcakes on Apr 13, 2017 4:40:56 GMT
tpfkar I don't know how a and b do anything but further weaken the position. But the bottom line is that the claims in those appeals are falsified by virtue of the fact that there exist no processes that yield them. Trump's lies are usually about things that are at least physically conceivable. the Earth can be any shape you want it
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The Lost One
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Post by The Lost One on Apr 13, 2017 7:37:38 GMT
tpfkar I don't know how a and b do anything but further weaken the position. But the bottom line is that the claims in those appeals are falsified by virtue of the fact that there exist no processes that yield them. Trump's lies are usually about things that are at least physically conceivable. the Earth can be any shape you want itBut the fact that one has to appeal to different means to dismiss them, shows they are different phenomena, no?
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Post by FilmFlaneur on Apr 13, 2017 15:42:56 GMT
Who is depending on a virgin birth? Whomsoever is making the case for such an event being possible as a miracle i.e. one must depend on, at least, the chance of miracles can be depended on, enough to make positive assertions about them. ... what makes one "better off" is largely subjective. For some people, their faith is a large part of what makes life worth living. Indeed, but this does not alter the observation that to function effectively in a modern society, nearly all of us need to - and do - work with the validity of all that is evidenced and proved rather than purely trusting in the workings of the supernatural. It is quite possible, as many no doubt do to trust in God and the working of the public transport system say; but few if any, trust in god mercy and intercession alone to get them to work unaided. Which immediately raises two questions: at what percentage does the number of 'miracles' have to reach before we can consider the laws of science effectively overthrown, as you suggest? (And, come to that, how would we measure ,or know, when this point has been reached?. I remember, for instance, being assured by a faithists that "God's miracles happen every day!" - which already presupposes quite a few down the years.) Secondly, since a miracle can be anything which is unnatural and magical, and not usually bounded, then why can there not be the 'Miracle-of-commonplace-miracles-which-still-left-scientific-laws verifiable'? To limit miracles is like trying to hold sea water in your hand; some magic can always escape into greater magic; it is hard to confine anything which, away from logic and natural law, can be everything one wishes to discover. I think this is true - although it ought to be said that it is not necessarily true that a miracle cannot be falsified by definition since it has never happened that we know and, well, because for one thing it would a miracle itself if one was. Also, I am not sure where any piece of 'post-truth' news, information definitely has to be false to qualify. It could perhaps be just misleadingly inaccurate, or 'most likely' false. The notion that the item appears to fill an emotional, rather than a strictly empirical need is just as much a defining aspect as strict veracity. 'Bad' here is a subjective judgement. It is also arguable that type-2 might actually make some people feel better, hence the popularity of it; and could even make them act (for the wrong reasons) in the right way. For instance it might be the news that being kind to old people makes one live longer.
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Post by cupcakes on Apr 13, 2017 16:01:28 GMT
tpfkar I guess to me the means are markedly worse. It is conceivably possible that anyone could tap the phones of someone else. It's not conceivable that a turtle, once bathed in green ooze, became an intelligent humanoid. Virgin birth in mammals just isn't a "thing". miraculous
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The Lost One
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Post by The Lost One on Apr 13, 2017 16:09:37 GMT
is quite possible, as many no doubt do to trust in God and the working of the public transport system say; but few if any, trust in god mercy and intercession alone to get them to work unaided. "Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel" and all that. I dunno, but we're clearly not at that point. The problem with that is any emotional claim becomes post-truth then, even if it is 100% verified as true. Fair point. But forgetting our qualitative assessment for the time being, I think we can agree that these 3 types of claims are at least somewhat different from one another whilst all being emotional in nature.
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The Lost One
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Post by The Lost One on Apr 13, 2017 16:12:11 GMT
tpfkar I guess to me the means are markedly worse. It is conceivably possible that anyone could tap the phones of someone else. It's not conceivable that a turtle, once bathed in green ooze, became an intelligent humanoid. Virgin birth in mammals just isn't a "thing". miraculousWell fair enough. All I'm really arguing here is they are different. Whether you think faith claims are worse than post-truth claims is your call.
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Post by cupcakes on Apr 13, 2017 16:21:24 GMT
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The Lost One
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Post by The Lost One on Apr 13, 2017 16:38:33 GMT
Ok. I was kinda taking Popper's definition of falsifiability as a given but I don't think it's all that important to what I was trying to say so fair enough.
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Post by cupcakes on Apr 13, 2017 16:46:01 GMT
tpfkar In that realm I think not falsifiable is another strike against something, right? Jockomo
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The Lost One
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Post by The Lost One on Apr 13, 2017 17:14:01 GMT
tpfkar In that realm I think not falsifiable is another strike against something, right? JockomoAs regards Popper he thought no unfalsifiable claim should be admitted into science but he wasn't against such speculation as long as it was not considered scientific. Others have combined Popperianism with logical positivism to say that unfalsifiable claims are incoherent and therefore cannot be speculated upon. So for Popper believing an unfalsifiable claim is unscientific while as believing a falsified falsifiable claim is just plain wrong. For the Popperian Logical Positivist, an unfalsifiable claim is nonsense while a falsified falsifiable claim is wrong. So if you're of the latter camp then you could argue an unfalsifiable claim is worse depending on whether you think incoherency a worse crime than falsehood.
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Post by cupcakes on Apr 13, 2017 17:23:36 GMT
tpfkar It's not incoherency, it's just that "you weren't there, and there's no video, so it's not falsifiable" is wrong, or at least useless. For me "demonstrated to be not possible" is at least the equivalent of falsifying it. any shape at all
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Post by Terrapin Station on Apr 13, 2017 17:25:47 GMT
Killing religion, the note upon which this blogger ends his piece is probably not possible, even if desirable. But it does raise questions as how religion, and religious belief, stand in the brave new era of post-truth (defined here as an adjective relating to circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than emotional appeals). When nothing that religion has to say can be considered 'objective fact' but its emotional appeal does frequently shape public opinion, is it therefore just another version of 'post truth'?
"the situation whereby facts no longer provide people with a reality that they all can agree on" Oy vey. When in history did everyone agree on anything?
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The Lost One
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Post by The Lost One on Apr 13, 2017 17:30:24 GMT
tpfkar It's not incoherency, it's just that "you weren't there, and there's no video, so it's not falsifiable" is wrong, or at least useless. For me "demonstrated to be not possible" is at least the equivalent of falsifying it. any shape at allHas it been demonstrated though?
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Post by cupcakes on Apr 13, 2017 17:36:42 GMT
tpfkar Sure, they've tried. And done it with other animals. But do you think bathing turtles in green ooze to transform them into intelligent humanoids is at a higher standing than Trump's self-serving assertions, or is actually even worth considering? who's the guy who had to die
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