Dawkins, Scientific Atheism is a Fallacy & Intellectually Dishonest?

The irony is neither is the 'godless' hypothesis.

For instance witnessed resurrection if intended to be literal was observable. Which changes this to 'had to be there' situation unless proven untrue somehow.

Science may ignore the 'God' hypothesis however its adherents do not and demand empirical evidence to even consider the possibility.

It would be logically proper since if not falsifiable then its 'unknowable' to science which is the definition of agnostic. "but no god is involved in the reasoning" doesnt make sense.

Why not? You would summarily dismiss someone because of the job they presently do despite he may be a retired philosopher/theologian as well? Of course he can, just because you are not a mathematician by trade does that mean you cant add 2+2 and come up with the correct answer or balance a check book?

Well there is plenty of information about G/gods we know of over 3000 of them throughout history, the supernatural, or that which is not within the boundaries of natural is outside scientific method, hence where theology takes over.

If your point is to prove atheists cant use science methods to analyze G/god you are correct imo, however you are using the term god and religion as a synonym and they are not. You are actually arguing 2 different points as one issue and that is an illegal move.

Nothing has prevented atheists from using scientific method 'if I cant hit it with a hammer it does not exist" mentality from using science which is the wrong tool and wrong measuring stick for the task, hence we have scientists weighing in pontificating their personal beliefs which have nothing to do with scientific method what so ever. see Dawkins et al

The burden of proof lies with everyone with a position.
theists = yes = prove it
atheists = no = prove it

agnostics = I dont know = no dog in the fight

this is very simple, and cant prove a negative blanket is a fallacy you know.

So are you suggesting that atheists subjective world view is the preferred subjective world view?

 

Awesome.

 

but as Max pointed out, the correct position if you do not want to be saddled with 'proving it' is to say you do not know.

 

So, returning to the example. I don't have absolute knowledge who I will meet next at work: a co-worker or an avatar of Harriet. But the former is much more likely. My lack of absolute knowledge does not make all possible scenarios equally likely. Make sense?

Similarly, you do not have absolute knowledge whether you are having a discussion with a human right now or Harriet herself. Nonetheless, you aren't going to treat the two possibilities as equal.

 

Correctly stated. However, it appears a few do not understand that point.

 

It depends on whether it's natural or "super"-natural.

All atoms are on motion. There is a statistical probability that all the air in a room can simultaneously move to one corner. The odds are against it, but it can happen. OTOH, to give odds on what took place before the Big Bang is just silly because there is no basis to formulate a statistic.

 

It does not appear that way at all. What is actually happening is that you are also implying that a lack of perfect knowledge obligates us to suppose that all possibilities should be treated equally. Several counter examples, such as Harriet, show that such a presupposition is completely unwarranted.

 

I'm not sure you understand what Russell's teapot is all about. Here is a quote directly from Bertrand Russell.

"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."

And here is why he considers himself an atheist.

"I ought to call myself an agnostic; but, for all practical purposes, I am an atheist. I do not think the existence of the Christian God any more probable than the existence of the Gods of Olympus or Valhalla. To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely."

 

It is not so simple. The English speaking world has the trend to simplify this problems until it goes out of square. First of all: "theists" are not existing in the way the most people use this word. Example: A Catholic who believes not in god stays to be a Catholic. Indeed it's quite normal that nearly every Christian doubts a shorter or a longer time in the existence of god. That's part of the Christian way. I'm sure it existed Catholics who were in their whole life atheists. So the expression "theist" is an expression of atheist for not-atheists. If Christians call someone "godless" then this has nothing to do with the belief in god. I for example call the Islamists "godless" and this has absolutely nothing to do with any discussion of atheists about atheism vs theism.

But we can say between theists and atheist exists a spectrum of belief in god (without being able to say concrete who is an atheist). But here is the next skewed moment: Is someone an agnostics who believes 50% in the existence of god and 50% in the not-existence of god? Answer: "No!" Why? Because an Agnostics not knows this too. Agnosticism is not a belief at all. Agnosticism is a philosophy. It is the philosophy, which found out, that we are not able to know whether god exists or god exists not. So who is an Agnostics is able to believe in god and he is also able to believe god is not existing (different persons the same time or the same persons in different times). To say "I am an Agnostics" says only something about the structure how to see this problems and says nothing about any form of belief. But for the most people in the English speaking world "agnosticism" and "atheism" seem to be synonyms. Very strange, because "not to be able to know" is not the same as to believe god is not existing. A real Agnostics never could say "God is not existing" but he could say "I believe in god".

 

I used a text where someone wrote something about the tea-pot problem - not this text here. Anyway I don't see any sense to compare the belief in god with "a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit" [around the sun] between Earth and Mars. In general we are able to find this teapot with methods of natural science. And we are (or will be) also able to find out whether an object in this size and mass is not there. But with methods of natural science we are not and will be never able to solve the spiritual problems in context with the existence of god. It's really stupid and crazy to think the methods of natural science (and/or the philosophy empirism) are the only methods for all problems in the world. I'm for example quite sure latest in some centuries someone will find a teapot in this orbit, because human beings have humor. This "hypothesis" has nothing to do with the methods of natural science.

 

Which is why God will never be a part of science.

 

Here is your science.....
http://www.crystalinks.com/holographic.html

 

my personal opinion is that he is an idiot because its physical we most certainly can prove there is no tea pot orbiting the earth if that is in fact the case.

There is nothing supernatural about a tea pot. LOL Write him a letter and tell him to go back to the drawing board.

 

which is why so many people chuckle when atheists using their credentials as a scientist and the scientific method to pontificate their personal belief there is no God.

 

I don't know what you like to say here. Natural science uses for example the paradigma "There is only one truth". And mathematics for example is not a science at all. And what is science without scientists?

 

remove the physical assigns from math and people would be saying it was garbage and unprovable despite the fact math works very well.

 

He's been dead for almost 40 years. No, we don't have the technology to reliably find something that small in such a large space. Whether or not it is supernatural doesn't matter in the slightest. What matters is that it is unfalsifiable. We can spend years looking for it and the excuse can always be, "Well, maybe we missed it." The whole point is that theists need to go back to the drawing board with their fallacious, "Well, you can't prove God doesn't exist, so we have to treat the propositions of his existence and non-existences as equally likely" argument.

 

Ok fine, change it to magic unicorns or invisible dragons and it still is the same.

 

thats the problem I have with atheists generally they spout error as truth and fact.


Tracking Debris

The Department of Defense maintains a highly accurate satellite catalog on objects in Earth orbit that are larger than a softball.

I guess he had a damn small tea pot

Its true you cant prove God doesnt exist they are correct, its legitimate when atheists belief God does not exist without proof, the pots calling the kettles black again

 

I would have to say I dont know since I have no proof either way.

 

Russell's teapot orbits the sun. Not the Earth. Earth's orbit =/= Sun's orbit. The earth is not the sun. Do you have a source that says the DoD maintains a highly accurate satellite catalog of objects in the Sun's orbit larger than a softball? Of course not. Are you aware of the fact that if the teapot was in such an orbit that it was always on the opposite side of the sun from the earth, we'd have no way of knowing? That's the point.

It is a tea pot sized tea pot.

And you still don't comprehend the point of falsifiability. Or the previous post. I'll try repeating and see if you will address it this time:

The whole point is that theists need to go back to the drawing board with their fallacious, "Well, you can't prove God doesn't exist, so we have to treat the propositions of his existence and non-existences as equally likely" argument.

 

So it is possible for an invisible dragon to be orbiting around the sun?

 

the sun, ok so that could be 5 light years from here LOL

Like I said before the correct answer is 'I dont know' and like I also said because its physical its provable with science,

You fail to understand the difference between natural and supernatural, but you are not alone, virtually all atheists fail that step in the process.

Theists however have an equally valid argument, you put your dog in the fight and you cant.

 

I dont know do you?