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Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method

14 points by mathgenius 8y ago

aurizon 8y ago
LOL, as if anything at all from the mouths if the ilk of Templeton has any merit at all. We all know that religion is a false and coercive method of social control of people to get their money and wage your wars. Prove me wrong!
- monochromatic 8y ago
  Freeman Dyson won this prize too. Is he also now suspect?
- __d 8y ago
  He appears to be talking (in this article at least) more about spirituality than religion. I think it's hard to dispute his basic point: you cannot prove a negative (or as he phrased it, "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"). I do find it kinda odd to hear those who profess to a spiritual belief ragging on those who profess a belief in the contrary though. Neither of them has evidence.
  - aurizon 8y ago
    spirituality flip religion. Both schemes to coerce people
- rafaelvasco 8y ago
  Problem is not with religion, the problem is with people. Yes, religion can be absurd, evil, coercive. But everything has its bright side. Being an atheist as a means to protest against religion is nothing but a short-sighted attitude. Yes, there is a God, I'm certain of that. But people are all wrong about the nature of God. The problem is that people are looking for proof. They'll never find it. The proof is in our minds. That is the gateway. The Matrix movie revealed it all almost 20 years ago. The signs are all about us. One must only open their minds.
  - aurizon 8y ago
    People conceive of ways to gain control of people's actions and funds = religion, pure and simple. The god concept is part of the control web
Stefan-H 8y ago
"Okay, you can have a hypothesis, you have to have some evidence against or for that." I view atheism as the null hypothesis, for which you don't need any evidence. It is the de-facto stance for when there is no evidence to suggest another hypothesis. edit: "And so an agnostic would say, look, I have no evidence for God or any kind of god (What god, first of all? The Maori gods, or the Jewish or Christian or Muslim God? Which god is that?) But on the other hand, an agnostic would acknowledge no right to make a final statement about something he or she doesn’t know about." Is this person also agnostic when it comes to Russell's teapot? I'm pretty sure that they would make the statement that there is not in fact a teapot circling the earth, just like there is not a god in heaven. His argument about the agnostic person not being able to make a final decision is a slide into solipsism.
- m_mueller 8y ago
  I see it a bit differently, it's basically an undecidable problem (at least for now). Intelligent design == simulation hypothesis vs. pure accident and the anthropological principle. Which one of these is the null hypothesis is a matter of perspective / cultural background. What clearly does not hold are idiotic things like biblical literalism. But the big bang theory opens more questions than it answers.
  - gcommer 8y ago
    Not to repeat the the entire previous thread about this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19445855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19445855) but this is just a semantic wordplay: on any other similar existence questions (is there a teapot orbiting the sun?) we'd gladly conflate "undecidable" with "false" as the difference between those cases is a negligible probability. But when you mix in such a culturally sensitive topic like religion, suddenly we have to carefully distinguish these two cases. It's an unfair inconsistency that is used to propagate religious thinking.
    - m_mueller 8y ago
      How do you assign probability to those two hypothesis? I'm genuinely curious.
ramy_d 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins Dawkins is known as an outspoken atheist. In interviews, he has called himself an agnostic about many matters of religious faith, instead endorsing reason.[citation needed] He is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. Why wasn't he awarded a Templeton prize?
pushcx 8y ago
Yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19445855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19445855
rendall 8y ago
Speaking as an atheistically-inclined agnostic, I think the New Atheists can be rather "motte & bailey"* with their arguments. The atheist bailey is the assertion "there is no higher being, no after life, and no spirituality", which is a scientifically indefensible stance, as the article states. It could be true, but this assertion is a religious statement of faith. Atheist discourse is largely centered here. The motte is the statement "Belief in a higher power or the after life is not supported by empirical evidence", which is scientifically defensible. When critics of atheism point out that any assertion about something which cannot be invalidated is non-empirical, even religious (e.g. "There is no after life" or "God does not exist in any form"), (some) atheists respond "'No God' is simply the null hypothesis! We just don't see evidence for it!" When the challenge is gone, atheists go on to write essays about how religious ideas are wrong and "There is no God" is clearly correct, and anyone who holds any doubt about this whatsoever is irrational at best. *I tried and failed to find a link to a discussion of the metaphor and fallacy of "motte & bailey" that was both concise, correct and politically neutral; suffice to say that it is a kind of strategic ambiguity. If it's new to you, I'll just quote the relevant passage from the Slate Star Codex blog: "[In a] medieval castle…there would be a field of desirable and economically productive land called a bailey, and a big ugly tower in the middle called the motte. If you were a medieval lord, you would do most of your economic activity in the bailey and get rich. If an enemy approached, you would retreat to the motte and rain down arrows on the enemy until they gave up and went away. Then you would go back to the bailey, which is the place you wanted to be all along. "So the motte-and-bailey doctrine is when you make a bold, controversial statement. Then when somebody challenges you, you claim you were just making an obvious, uncontroversial statement, so you are clearly right and they are silly for challenging you. Then when the argument is over you go back to making the bold, controversial statement."
binjo 8y ago
Booked this guy for Jesus because he's on the path to finding truth!

14 points by mathgenius 8y ago

LOL, as if anything at all from the mouths if the ilk of Templeton has any merit at all. We all know that religion is a false and coercive method of social control of people to get their money and wage your wars. Prove me wrong!

monochromatic 8y ago
Freeman Dyson won this prize too. Is he also now suspect?
__d 8y ago
He appears to be talking (in this article at least) more about spirituality than religion. I think it's hard to dispute his basic point: you cannot prove a negative (or as he phrased it, "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"). I do find it kinda odd to hear those who profess to a spiritual belief ragging on those who profess a belief in the contrary though. Neither of them has evidence.
- aurizon 8y ago
  spirituality flip religion. Both schemes to coerce people
rafaelvasco 8y ago
Problem is not with religion, the problem is with people. Yes, religion can be absurd, evil, coercive. But everything has its bright side. Being an atheist as a means to protest against religion is nothing but a short-sighted attitude. Yes, there is a God, I'm certain of that. But people are all wrong about the nature of God. The problem is that people are looking for proof. They'll never find it. The proof is in our minds. That is the gateway. The Matrix movie revealed it all almost 20 years ago. The signs are all about us. One must only open their minds.
- aurizon 8y ago
  People conceive of ways to gain control of people's actions and funds = religion, pure and simple. The god concept is part of the control web

Stefan-H 8y ago

"Okay, you can have a hypothesis, you have to have some evidence against or for that." I view atheism as the null hypothesis, for which you don't need any evidence. It is the de-facto stance for when there is no evidence to suggest another hypothesis. edit: "And so an agnostic would say, look, I have no evidence for God or any kind of god (What god, first of all? The Maori gods, or the Jewish or Christian or Muslim God? Which god is that?) But on the other hand, an agnostic would acknowledge no right to make a final statement about something he or she doesn’t know about." Is this person also agnostic when it comes to Russell's teapot? I'm pretty sure that they would make the statement that there is not in fact a teapot circling the earth, just like there is not a god in heaven. His argument about the agnostic person not being able to make a final decision is a slide into solipsism.

m_mueller 8y ago
I see it a bit differently, it's basically an undecidable problem (at least for now). Intelligent design == simulation hypothesis vs. pure accident and the anthropological principle. Which one of these is the null hypothesis is a matter of perspective / cultural background. What clearly does not hold are idiotic things like biblical literalism. But the big bang theory opens more questions than it answers.
- gcommer 8y ago
  Not to repeat the the entire previous thread about this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19445855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19445855) but this is just a semantic wordplay: on any other similar existence questions (is there a teapot orbiting the sun?) we'd gladly conflate "undecidable" with "false" as the difference between those cases is a negligible probability. But when you mix in such a culturally sensitive topic like religion, suddenly we have to carefully distinguish these two cases. It's an unfair inconsistency that is used to propagate religious thinking.
  - m_mueller 8y ago
    How do you assign probability to those two hypothesis? I'm genuinely curious.

ramy_d 8y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins Dawkins is known as an outspoken atheist. In interviews, he has called himself an agnostic about many matters of religious faith, instead endorsing reason.[citation needed] He is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. Why wasn't he awarded a Templeton prize?

pushcx 8y ago

Yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19445855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19445855

rendall 8y ago

Speaking as an atheistically-inclined agnostic, I think the New Atheists can be rather "motte & bailey"* with their arguments. The atheist bailey is the assertion "there is no higher being, no after life, and no spirituality", which is a scientifically indefensible stance, as the article states. It could be true, but this assertion is a religious statement of faith. Atheist discourse is largely centered here. The motte is the statement "Belief in a higher power or the after life is not supported by empirical evidence", which is scientifically defensible. When critics of atheism point out that any assertion about something which cannot be invalidated is non-empirical, even religious (e.g. "There is no after life" or "God does not exist in any form"), (some) atheists respond "'No God' is simply the null hypothesis! We just don't see evidence for it!" When the challenge is gone, atheists go on to write essays about how religious ideas are wrong and "There is no God" is clearly correct, and anyone who holds any doubt about this whatsoever is irrational at best. *I tried and failed to find a link to a discussion of the metaphor and fallacy of "motte & bailey" that was both concise, correct and politically neutral; suffice to say that it is a kind of strategic ambiguity. If it's new to you, I'll just quote the relevant passage from the Slate Star Codex blog: "[In a] medieval castle…there would be a field of desirable and economically productive land called a bailey, and a big ugly tower in the middle called the motte. If you were a medieval lord, you would do most of your economic activity in the bailey and get rich. If an enemy approached, you would retreat to the motte and rain down arrows on the enemy until they gave up and went away. Then you would go back to the bailey, which is the place you wanted to be all along. "So the motte-and-bailey doctrine is when you make a bold, controversial statement. Then when somebody challenges you, you claim you were just making an obvious, uncontroversial statement, so you are clearly right and they are silly for challenging you. Then when the argument is over you go back to making the bold, controversial statement."

binjo 8y ago

Booked this guy for Jesus because he's on the path to finding truth!