"Agnostic"

[Shrink726]

Complete gibberish.

Well, you certainly got one thing right.

 

[watsup]

There's no point in debate if we don't agree on definitions of evidence, much less if my interlocutor doesn't even adhere to their own stated standard.

Yes, we know that you have constructed walls around your paradigm which no one is allowed to breach. DrewPaul was the same way. When asked where his god of creation came from, he said that was not part of the conversation . I suppose that debate is easy when you get to set all the rules.

Can you conceive of a hypothetical non-contingent God which could be empirically demonstrated with certainty?

I’m an atheist. I can’t conceive of any God, let alone a hypothetical non-contingent God. That includes yours. I am asking you to present a clear and concise explanation of your God instead of spending all your time beating around the bush and trying to knock down the inputs of others. I don’t think you can, which is why you haven’t even tried. Yours is the God of Obfuscation, the god of the extrapolation of words under the guise of philosophy. That’s not a god of actuality, and I think that you know that, too. If you were honest, you would just admit that you are an atheist. If not, then just like the theists and religionists and other agnostics, you have rejected basically every God but are clinging for dear life to your own god of “divine intellect”. Sorry, but we atheists reject thst one, too.

Complete gibberish.

Not at all. Let’s review: You are still hiding in your predetermined paradigm of philosophy. You have shown nothing, certainly not the existence of a God of Divine Intellect. It’s just your particular figment of imagination, and it has no more merit in terms of actuality than any other god ever derived by humans.

Show otherwise. You can’t. You won’t. You’ll just go on the attack again, like you always do when you can’t actually support your claims.

 

[Gozaburo]

Reality rather than a reliance on fantasy. The necessary precondition for the possibility of knowledge is having a brain to think with rather than a fantasy creature to represent thinking.
And again needing a god as a precondition assumes the existence of a god before having any evidence of a god. A bit like seeing a present under a christmas tree and assuming santa without any evidence of a santa.

First of all, I don't grant you that 'reality' is self-evident. You're going to need to define what reality is and how it's interpreted & known in your worldview.

Second, if 'knowing' is grounded in human brain matter, that means truth itself is contingent on humans existing. That's an obvious problem. Did basic truths like the law of identity not hold prior to humans showing up. If all humans died in a nuclear holocaust tomorrow, you're saying A=A would no longer hold?

I think we need to take one more step back and ask the question, why does anyone need a god?

I've already given you my reason. I can put it into a syllogism if you'd like. I'm also waiting for you to give me your definition of what sufficient evidence looks like.

 

[Gozaburo]

Yes, we know that you have constructed walls around your paradigm which no one is allowed to breach. DrewPaul was the same way. When asked where his fox of creation came from, he said that was not part of the conversation . I suppose that debate is easy when you get to set all the rules.

The point of my question is to ensure that we don't adhere to the assumptions/rules of either side of the debate. Both sides need to earn them. This is why definitions are important.

I’m an atheist. I can’t conceive of any God, let alone a hypothetical non-contingent God. That includes yours. I am asking you to present a clear and concise explanation of your God instead of spending all your time beating around the bush and trying to knock down the inputs of others. I don’t think you can, which is why you haven’t even tried. Yours is the God of Obfuscation, the god of the extrapolation of words under the guise of philosophy. That’s not a god of actuality, and I think that you know that, too. If you were honest, you would just admit that you are an atheist. If not, then just like the theists and religionists and other agnostics, you have rejected basically every God but are clinging for dear life to your own god of “divine intellect”. Sorry, but we atheists reject thst one, too.

You are a hard materialist and I've demonstrated to you multiple times in multiple threads that your own worldview cannot even sufficiently account for the very processes (like induction) on which it is built on top of. You don't see these contradictions as problematic because you evidently reject rationality entirely to either pragmatically maintain your dogma or you're just don't have sufficient computing power to grasp the concepts.

Not at all. Let’s review: You are still hiding in your predetermined paradigm of philosophy. You have shown nothing, certainly not the existence of a God of Intellect. It’s just your particular figment of imagination, and it has no more merit in terms of actuality than any other god ever derived by humans.

It's not possible to demonstrate God's existence within the confines of your own worldview, but you can't even provide an account for the logical rules you assume in your own worldview, so this is no surprise. You have a totally incoherent worldview.

 

[Shrink726]

I'm also waiting for you to give me your definition of what sufficient evidence looks like.

Simple really. Have god show up somewhere in a public place and do something that shows powers of any sort beyond that which we currently understand.

You know, part the Red Sea, replace an amputated limb, bring back the dead, fly without artificial assistance. Stuff like that.

Otherwise all this god talk is nothing but really and truly meaningless word play.

Of course you can't. So, case closed. Thanks for playing.

 

[Gozaburo]

Simple really. Have god show up somewhere in a public place and do something that shows powers of any sort beyond that which we currently understand.

You know, part the Red Sea, replace an amputated limb, bring back the dead, fly without artificial assistance. Stuff like that.

How would you know that the being performing these tricks isn't just an alien with advanced technology, or even an advanced human? Or a mutant superhero? Or a flying spaghetti monster?

Otherwise all this god talk is nothing but really and truly meaningless word play.

Of course you can't. So, case closed. Thanks for playing.

OR we're demonstrating that the transcendental creator of the universe necessarily cannot be known through sense experience alone.

 

[Shrink726]

How would you know that the being performing these tricks isn't just an alien with advanced technology, or even an advanced human? Or a mutant superhero? Or a flying spaghetti monster?



OR we're demonstrating that the transcendental creator of the universe necessarily cannot be known through sense experience alone.

So predictable. You just adamantly refuse to deal with the [quite simple] basic underlying question - is there such a thing as god or frankly any 'higher power.' Instead you prefer to hide behind cute and perhaps well constructed verbal obfuscations. I feel as if I'm trying to nail jello to the wall. Quite pointless. You refuse to engage on any real level.

 

[PeacefulWarrior]

So predictable. You just adamantly refuse to deal with the [quite simple] basic underlying question - is there such a thing as god or frankly any 'higher power.' Instead you prefer to hide behind cute and perhaps well constructed verbal obfuscations. I feel as if I'm trying to nail jello to the wall. Quite pointless. You refuse to engage on any real level.

Why does this topic enrage you so?

 

[The Mark]

My feeling is that the term "agnostic" essentially has no meaning and, stripped of its semantic sophistry, is intellectually dishonest as it simply states, "I don't know." Well, if we're looking for dispositive proof of the existence or lack of existence of god(s), then there is none to be found, however, we don't live in a universe where patently absurd propositions are accorded possible viability until they are disproven (viz. Are there teams of invisible unicorns pulling chariots around the moons of Jupiter; perhaps Santa Claus travels from Alpha Centuri to earth a few times a year, etc.). No, we routinely dismiss such absurdities because they lack the slightest shred of evidence and are, thus, understandably regarded as absurd.
Regarding belief in god(s) using the term agnostic (i.e. "I'm not sure") places the pope and I in the same category. Neither of us can be sure but my position simply posits that it seems utterly fanciful and absurd in the absence of even the slightest evidence to think that there is any such thing(s). And for those who might challenge that by suggesting that I have no proof of the non-existance of any god, I would suggest that they brush up on simple logic which would inform them that it's impossible (and dishonest) to ask anyone to disprove a null hypothesis. Nope, the entire burden of proof here lies with those who believe to show that there is some basis for their belief. Absent that, the default position has to be that absurd claims lacking in the slightest shred of evidence are, definitionally false until proven otherwise.
The only real question then is whether you 'believe' there is a god(s), in which case you are a theist or believer or whether you don't, in which case you're an atheist. The term 'agnostic' is just some weird combination of intellectual laziness and cowardice.

I call myself agnostic so I don't have to engage in these discussions.

So yeah, laziness.

 

[Gozaburo]

So predictable. You just adamantly refuse to deal with the [quite simple] basic underlying question - is there such a thing as god or frankly any 'higher power.' Instead you prefer to hide behind cute and perhaps well constructed verbal obfuscations. I feel as if I'm trying to nail jello to the wall. Quite pointless. You refuse to engage on any real level.

It's not an obfuscation or a word game. I'm asking you how you would know God according to your own standard of evidence?

It's you who's refusing to engage. I'm demonstrating how your empirical approach is incoherent. You want proof, but when I ask how you’d even recognize God by your own standard - via miracles or whatever - you’ve got nothing. If a being parted the sea tomorrow, you’d still shrug and say ‘alien’ or ‘trick.’, or maybe you wouldn't and you would believe it's God, but it actually was an alien. It's an absurd standard for evidence. Your evidence is a dead end because a transcendent God, by definition, isn’t a lab rat for your senses to poke.

So your standard of evidence is bunk. Want to try again?

 

[watsup]

OR we're demonstrating that the transcendental creator of the universe necessarily cannot be known through sense experience alone.

OR you are just making excuses because you don't actually have any evidence for your imaginary (transcental creator) god. i can't count the times that we have seen this same lame excuse from the agnostics, theists, and religionists in this forum. This is the accurate translation: "I don't have any evidence, so I'm just going to claim that it simply "cannot be known". It's basically an admission that you have nothing at all, but then again, we already knew that many pages ago.

It's not an obfuscation or a word game. I'm asking you how you would know God according to your own standard of evidence?

Of course it's a game, because it is a totally dishonest question because you are not asking it in a serious manner in order to gain discussion, but rather just so that you can immediately knock down an answer that is provided. Yes, that is dishonest. It's also dishonest to demand "what evidence you would accept" even before any evidence is given. For the fortieth time--that is not how evidence works.

It's you who's refusing to engage. I'm demonstrating how your empirical approach is incoherent. Y

Not really. All that you are demonstrating is that you are able to transpose philosophy-based words in a way that seems to make a point but really doesn't. I note once again your unwillingess to provide a thoughtful and concise summary of your claims, but you prefer to engage in a steady stream of obfuscatory argumentation again. Why are you unable to provide a quick overview of your claims by starting with your initial claim and then moving through the supposed "coherence" to the end. Who are you trying to fool, us or yourself?

You want proof, but when I ask how you’d even recognize God by your own standard - via miracles or whatever - you’ve got nothing

It's not up to us to preform a standard for the recognition of a God, but for those who propose such an entity to provide their best evidence and allow us to consider it. Do you have an? Of course not. You would rather continue to hide behind your demand for a "standard" that you would reject anyway.

If a being parted the sea tomorrow, you’d still shrug and say ‘alien’ or ‘trick.’, or maybe you wouldn't and you would believe it's God, but it actually was an alien.

Strawman, as is so typical of agnostics, theists, and religionists when they are on the losing side of an argument, and the last phrase is totally ridiculous.

It's an absurd standard for evidence. Your evidence is a dead end because a transcendent God, by definition, isn’t a lab rat for your senses to poke.

Ah yes, hiding behind a "transcendent" God yet again, a God for which no evidence is even possible because it's supposedly beyond our understanding. Still a lame excuse no matter how often you repeat it. Why not just admit that you are just imagining your God of divine intellect and move on? Come to think of it, perhaps you are embarrassed by making such a claim because it has been a couple of weeks or more since you have even mentioned this particular figment of imagination. If your God is transcendent, then how can you know if it has a trait of "divine intellect". Looks like you are nuking your own argument. Thanks.

So your standard of evidence is bunk. Want to try again?

It's not bunk at all. Again, all that you have is attack towards the inputs of others rather than any actual explanation of your claims. Why are you so afraid to try to substantiate them?

 

[Shrink726]

... hiding behind a "transcendent" God yet again, a God for which no evidence is even possible because it's supposedly beyond our understanding.

Bingo!

This is, indeed, the ultimate disingenuousness. They refuse to provide any operational definition of god that could then (or should I say, otherwise) be analyzed and challenged. They have effectively defined the term in such a way as to make any coherent discussion impossible. A true, distilled version of sophistry.

Or, shall I say, complete bullshit.

 

[watsup]

The point of my question is to ensure that we don't adhere to the assumptions/rules of either side of the debate. Both sides need to earn them. This is why definitions are important.

And yet you insist on philosophy-based defintions rather than common defintions because that is how you have built your very carefully constructed paradigm beyond which you refuse to venture. What are you so afraid of ?

You are a hard materialist and I've demonstrated to you multiple times in multiple threads that your own worldview cannot even sufficiently account for the very processes (like induction) on which it is built on top of.

Repetition does not make it so, nor have you provided any actual examples of your claim. And yet again, you hide behind criticism of the views of others rather than providing a concise and reasoned explanation of your claims. You keep claiming that science cannot be verified because of your induction claim, but refuse to recognize that science is doing just fine in examining and often solving the mysteries that it is presented. The worldview of an atheist is the same as that of a scientist, namely: show me the evidence. Do you have any?

You don't see these contradictions as problematic because you evidently reject rationality entirely to either pragmatically maintain your dogma or you're just don't have sufficient computing power to grasp the concepts.

Maybe I just don't care and don't respect your claims because they are just so much philosophical gibberish that prove exactly nothing. My worldview is just fine, and you have yet to give any examples to show otherwise.

It's not possible to demonstrate God's existence within the confines of your own worldview,

Nor is it possible to demonstrate God's existence within the confineds of your worldview, which is why you have offered ZERO actuality-based evidence for your so-called God of Divine Intelligence, and your insistence that philosophy, per se, can show the existence of a God has not been proven, nor have you really even tried. A God of Philosophical Juxtaposition is no more actual than any other figment of imagination god by any other human.

but you can't even provide an account for the logical rules you assume in your own worldview, so this is no surprise. You have a totally incoherent worldview.

Of course I can. Just like the scientists, my rule as an atheist is "show me the evidence beyond just 'witnessing'". Do you have any?

 

[Shrink726]

Why does this topic enrage you so?

I don't know. I hate self-righteous delusion that then makes an effort to control the levers of our society.

Why do you give a shit?

What's your point?

 

[watsup]

Bingo!

This is, indeed, the ultimate disingenuousness. They refuse to provide any operational definition of god that could then (or should I say, otherwise) be analyzed and challenged. They have effectively defined the term in such a way as to make any coherent discussion possible. A true, distilled version of sophistry.

Or, shall I say, complete bullshit.

Gozaburo wraps it all up in philosophical jibber-jabber as if that proves anything at all, which it does not. All that it proves is that he has spent more time studying philosophy, but the others here who have done the same regularly wipe the floor with him, so he spends his time trying to gaslight those who don't have a strong philosophical background instead of explaining this own claims clearly and concisely. It is a very dishonest manner of "debate".

 

[Gozaburo]

Of course it's a game, because it is a totally dishonest question because you are not asking it in a serious manner in order to gain discussion, but rather just so that you can immediately knock down an answer that is provided. Yes, that is dishonest. It's also dishonest to demand "what evidence you would accept" even before any evidence is given. For the fortieth time--that is not how evidence works.

What is dishonest about it?

Not really. All that you are demonstrating is that you are able to transpose philosophy-based words in a way that seems to make a point but really doesn't. I note once again your unwillingess to provide a thoughtful and concise summary of your claims, but you prefer to engage in a steady stream of obfuscatory argumentation again. Why are you unable to provide a quick overview of your claims by starting with your initial claim and then moving through the supposed "coherence" to the end. Who are you trying to fool, us or yourself?

Caveman tier response lol. Grug not understand big word. You try to confuse Grug. Use small word Grug understand.

It's not up to us to preform a standard for the recognition of a God, but for those who propose such an entity to provide their best evidence and allow us to consider it. Do you have an? Of course not. You would rather continue to hide behind your demand for a "standard" that you would reject anyway.

We could engage in a rational dialogue about God's existence, but you reject rationality so not much to be gleaned from that conversation.

And yet you insist on philosophy-based defintions rather than common defintions because that is how you have built your very carefully constructed paradigm beyond which you refuse to venture. What are you so afraid of ?

OR we could just follow conventional rules for debate.

Repetition does not make it so, nor have you provided any actual examples of your claim. And yet again, you hide behind criticism of the views of others rather than providing a concise and reasoned explanation of your claims. You keep claiming that science cannot be verified because of your induction claim, but refuse to recognize that science is doing just fine in examining and often solving the mysteries that it is presented. The worldview of an atheist is the same as that of a scientist, namely: show me the evidence. Do you have any?

The fact that science is doing fine despite your inability to justify the possibility of induction is proof your worldview is incorrect dude. Lmao.

Gozaburo wraps it all up in philosophical jibber-jabber as if that proves anything at all, which it does not. All that it proves is that he has spent more time studying philosophy, but the others here who have done the same regularly wipe the floor with him, so he spends his time trying to gaslight those who don't have a strong philosophical background instead of explaining this own claims clearly and concisely. It is a very dishonest manner of "debate".

Cope.

 

[watsup]

What is dishonest about it?

Caveman tier response lol. Grug not understand big word. You try to confuse Grug. Use small word Grug understand.

We could engage in a rational dialogue about God's existence, but you reject rationality so not much to be gleaned from that conversation.

OR we could just follow conventional rules for debate.

he fact that science is doing fine despite your inability to justify the possibility of induction is proof your worldview is incorrect dude. Lmao.

Cope.

More gaslighting instead of providing the clear and concise explanation of your claims. What are you so afraid of? You don't really think that you have provided actuality-based evidence for a God of Divine Intellect, right? Truth is, you haven't even tried, so you continue to hide behind the criticism of others. Why do you refuse to answer the questions that we ask while demanding that we answer yours. Yet another lame tactic that is used so often by the agnostics, theists, and religionists here. Let us know when you have some evidence or an explanation for your claims. I suppose we will be waiting a very long time.

 

[Gozaburo]

Bingo!

This is, indeed, the ultimate disingenuousness. They refuse to provide any operational definition of god that could then (or should I say, otherwise) be analyzed and challenged. They have effectively defined the term in such a way as to make any coherent discussion impossible. A true, distilled version of sophistry.

Or, shall I say, complete bullshit.

What is an 'operational definition'? I attempted to engage in a dialogue with you but you ran away when it was demonstrated your standard of evidence was garbage. Would you like me to present a standard of evidence which I would consider to be valid and go from there?

 

[watsup]

What is an 'operational definition'? I attempted to engage in a dialogue with you but you ran away when it was demonstrated your standard of evidence was garbage. Would you like me to present a standard of evidence which I would consider to be valid and go from there?

More gaslighting. It's all Gozaburo has anymore. He certainly can't seem to provide a clear and concise explanation of his claims.

 

[Shrink726]

More gaslighting. It's all Gozaburo has anymore. He certainly can't seem to provide a clear and concise explanation of his claims.

Nor any clear operational definition of his god or god of knowledge or whatever the hell he is talking about.

The old "it's beyond our ability to comprehend" is a frequently used canard to derail any real discussion because they know that would result in a crushing defeat.

At this point I have no idea what he's even trying to communicate (other than the fact that he sees himself as a really bright guy, albeit in a smug, quite condescending way).

 

[watsup]

Would you like me to present a standard of evidence which I would consider to be valid and go from there?

Would you like to present some evidence that we can evaluate, and go from there?

 

[Gozaburo]

Nor any clear operational definition of his god or god of knowledge or whatever the hell he is talking about.

The old "it's beyond our ability to comprehend" is a frequently used canard to derail any real discussion because they know that would result in a crushing defeat.

At this point I have no idea what he's even trying to communicate (other than the fact that he sees himself as a really bright guy, albeit in a smug, quite condescending way).

Here's the gist:

All worldviews presuppose a number of invariant, immaterial, universal - 'unchanging things' - like the laws of logic, meaning in words, numbers, uniformity in nature, etc. For example, when you engage in the Scientific Method, you presuppose the possibility of inductive reasoning (assuming uniformity in nature, that the future will represent the path) to justify conclusions. The problem is that uniformity in nature itself (and by extension, induction) cannot be empirically observed or demonstrated, which presents a massive problem for the Scientific Method/hard Empiricist tradition as a whole: it can't even justify its own foundation.

How does one determine that human reason, unaided by any other powers, can actually accomplish what it sets out to do - that is - to know reality and what is true? In other words, within the sphere of human reason alone, can we ever determine whether knowledge exists? Since everyone presupposes something, a precommitment in using logic, reason, evidence, arguments, etc., there is no one who is presuppositionally neutral when it comes to factual questions and experience. Consequently, the use of reason, logic, evidence, arguments, etc. is not something proven by experience or reason. It is that by which one proceeds to prove everything else. What we find in such an analysis is that rather than proving facts, one inevitably begs the question.

Therefore, two questions arise:
(1) what are the necessary preconditions of intelligibility, science, logic, experience, and morality that must be presupposed to ground and justify the use of reason, logic, evidence, arguments, etc., and
(2) can human reason, when isolated solely within its own space of reason, ever determine whether its processes are legitimate such that we can know anything at all without falling into vicious circular reasoning?

My summarized argument goes something like this:

The problem is that man, locked within his own sphere of reason, cannot appeal to what is in question (i.e. reason, logic, and arguments) to establish that reason, logic, and arguments are valid and work. This would be to engage in the fallacy of circular reasoning and question begging. Universals (like logic, existence, reason etc.) are all contingent on one another and so necessarily cannot be used to justify the other since they exist in an interdependent web. Without existence, logical laws do not exist, without logical laws, you cannot reason, and so on. Since universals are contingent and cannot ground themselves and since man cannot derive knowledge autonomously in his own sphere of reason, the only way to ground these invariant universals - as far as I can see - is in the self-existent, invariant, mind of God.

 

[Mithrae]

Post 1 of 3 on uncertainty, probability and confidence

Simply not true. We have discussed the “miracle” of the legs before and found that there is indeed solid evidence that it was fraudulent.

If you're referring to the false claims about the available evidence on convicted fraudster Brian Dunning's "Skeptoid" website then... no, that's not in any way "solid" and those false claims don't even attempt to show that it was fraudulent, merely attempted to invalidate the positive evidence by claiming that there's no record of the four medical workers' sworn testimonies (whereas in the source material linked I had tracked down copies of and Google Translated each of their testimonies).

Four named and locally-known medical workers at the shrine provided formal sworn testimony within three years of the event that they had amputated Pellicer's leg, he was known as a one-legged beggar for the next two years, and then he was known as a two-legged recipient of a miracle.

If you want to “believe” that which science says is impossible, to “regrow” legs,

You invoke your idea of science like a True Believer Regrowing a limb requires no necessary violation of any 'laws' of nature, and in fact there are a number of animals that can regrow lost limbs in the normal course of things. Science is descriptive, but you're trying to turn it into something metaphysical, not only a prescriptive (something that forces things to happen) but a proscriptive 'force' that actively prevents any alternative from occurring. Regrowth of whole limbs evidently never has and never will happen in the natural course of things for humans... which is precisely why its occurrence if it did occur would be a miracle. There is no grounds for accepting your metaphysical, quasi-religious notion of what "science says," so I'll just base my views on the actual available evidence.

I don’t plan on wasting my time in such an endeavor.

Of course you won't, because it doesn't fit with your binary thinking. I didn't choose these examples (particularly the weak John example) because they are watertight proofs of anything, I chose them precisely because they highlight the problems and biases inherent in the binary thinking which I illustrated in my first post in the thread. It's entirely possible that those four medical workers conspired or were coerced by some larger conspiracy to promote a fraudulent 'miracle,' but even you (to your credit I suppose?) are not willing to explicitly claim that scenario is 100% certain.

It is quite literally a conspiracy theory to explain away the significant even if not conclusive evidence for a miracle, and your only real contrary 'evidence' is a quasi-religious notion of what "science says."

How likely do you think this speculative, explain-away-the-evidence conspiracy theory for this 'miracle of Calanda' actually is?

 

[Mithrae]

Post 2 of 3 on uncertainty, probability and confidence

And your percentages are simply numbers pulled out of the air.

They're certainly vague ranges and sometimes quite arbitrary, I'll give you that. But as highlighted in the post above, my point all along has been that the alternative is even more arbitrary to the point of both introducing major biases and being patently wrong in many cases: Refusing to guestimate and justify and refine degrees (or percentages) of confidence in a proposition doesn't mean you're avoiding doing so, it means that the degrees of confidence you are implicitly holding are either a 1 or a 0, 'believe' or 'don't believe.' Consequently rather than trying to weigh or critically evaluate all available evidence and scenarios under consideration, one inclined towards one side or the other whether 'believe' or 'don't believe' burdens themselves with a bias towards stacking up favourable evidence on their preferred side and downplaying the evidence on the other... and usually without any clear criteria of what is needed to "cross the line" and swap one's position between one side or the other.

Conversely attempts to guestimate and justify and refine degrees of confidence needn't be entirely arbitrary, by any stretch of the imagination. If one supposes (hopefully for justifiable reasons) that the scenario A is twice as likely as all the main scenarios constituting not-A, then mathematically one should have roughly 66% confidence in A, or a bit less in deference to unknown/other scenarios. Or in the case I outlined in that post, where A and not-A are perfectly equivalent variables due to A being nonspecific and irreducible, we should necessarily have equal 50/50 confidence in either one. That's known as the principle of indifference incidentally, and we all use it more or less intuitively; if I gave you a 12-sided die you wouldn't need to roll it thousands of times and tally the result to work out the probability of rolling a 4. It can be generalized as for any set of N equivalent, mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive variables the probability of one outcome (or for more complex real-world examples, our Bayesian level of confidence in one scenario) is 1/N.

If you've got a murder victim and four main suspects, absent any more specific evidence a rational person would view each suspect as ~20-30% "likely" to be the killer. It's not precise or perfect of course, but it's obviously not "pulling numbers out of the air." These guestimates are somewhat vague or arbitrary because our knowledge is somewhat vague or arbitrary - more on that in my post below.

As far as I can tell the most common reason that "no onus, no evidence, no belief" atheists are uncomfortable with that style of thinking is that they share with many religious folk a preference for absolutes ("no evidence!") and discomfort with nuance, uncertainty or lack of clarity, preferring the clear dividing lines of belief or nonbelief.

 

[Mithrae]

Post 3 of 3 on uncertainty, probability and confidence

Yes, that is exactly what I was saying, but you were the one who was using percentages where they were totally not appropriate. As to miracles, there are only two possibilities: either they happened or they didn’t. It is either 100% or 0%, and there is no in between.

See above as to whether percentages are appropriate. But this "two possibilities" line is another, related issue in how people use or think about 'probability.' I'd highlight four schools of thought, frequentist probability which seeks statistical results from a large sample size, propensity probability which seeks actual causes or propensities to yield certain outcomes, what we might call "actual" probability that you're using that instead of causes discusses only actual outcomes, and Bayesian probability which seeks to quantify our state of knowledge, uncertainty or confidence in a proposition.

Of these, "actual" probability seems on face value to be the most no-nonsense, 'real' assessment but it's definitely the least useful approach; the 'answer' will always be the same, either 100% or 0%, and in most cases we don't know which it is. Propensity probability is a more useful version of the same, particularly useful in cases where we have considerable knowledge about objects/phenomena that are not especially common or regular. Frequentist probably is excellent in cases where it's practical to survey large sample sizes with statistically significant conclusions about positive results. But fairly obviously these conditions don't always apply; certainly not in questions about the nature of reality itself, but even for very rare events/phenomena. For example having "zero confirmed miracles" might have no statistically significant difference from having "two confirmed miracles," so trying to apply some kind of frequentist approach to probability would be misguided and likely circular in that case.

Obviously my own approach is trying to quantify our state of knowledge or confidence in a given conclusion, which I think is the only suitable approach in most of these discussions. Incidentally this is also the kind of probability we see when weather reports predict a 60% chance of rain, or when IPCC reports indicate "very high confidence" that temperatures will increase by X degrees, though obviously more formally and carefully evaluated in those scientific cases. Of course it's the case of miracles or any other past or future events "either they happened or they didn't," but that tautology doesn't provide any useful information: A useful statement would be "We can be ~99.9% confident that this reported miracle was a hoax" or "It seems 'quite unlikely,' ~10-40%, that this hoax alternative is true." Statements like these are often at least somewhat vague or arbitrary, but that's because our knowledge is often vague or arbitrary.

I don't know how well it holds up after all these years, but I raised a thread on this topic back in 2017 on another forum:

Probability and rare or paranormal events - Debating Christianity and Religion

debatingchristianity.com

Ultimately the point is - as I've been saying all along - that a binary belief/nonbelief approach is not only inadequate, but actively detrimental in that it introduces limitations and unnecessary biases into our thinking. There's nothing weird or inappropriate about a more Bayesian approach trying (however informally and imprecisely) to guestimate, justify and refine our state of knowledge or uncertainty: Quite the opposite, it seems to me that is the only really rational approach to take!