Please allow me to introduce myself...

[Al Stefanelli]

Greetings, Everyone! My name is Al Stefanelli. I'm the Georgia State Director for American Atheists, Inc., and the author of "A Voice Of Reason In An Unreasonable World - The Rise Of Atheism On Planet Earth" I am looking forward to the conversations we'll be having. Nice to meet you all.

[mitchellmckain]

Greetings, Everyone! My name is Al Stefanelli. I'm the Georgia State Director for American Atheists, Inc., and the author of "A Voice Of Reason In An Unreasonable World - The Rise Of Atheism On Planet Earth" I am looking forward to the conversations we'll be having. Nice to meet you all.

Greeting and welcome Al.


The greatest delusion in our world today is the wilfull ignorance that some embrace that other people think differently than they do because there is something wrong with them. Some of this has always been found in religion but there is often an honesty in it that no pretense is made to see the world in an objective manner. Therefore the epitome of this aforementioned delusion is found those who tell themselves and others the great lie that their thinking is an objective point of view and that they only believe what is proven and which they have objective evidence for. Their delusional and hypocritical arrogance is astounding and boundless. And let not these deceivers of all (including themselves) sell you the lie that theirs is what atheism is all about, because it is not. There have always been (time past more than now that atheism has become so popular) humble atheists who are much more frank and honest about the subjectivity of the their judgment that God does not exist. I look forward to a time when both theists and atheists will leave their irrationalities, delusions and hypocrisies behind and learn to accept their differences as part of the natural diversity of life in the world.

[tirtlegrrl]

Greetings, Al,

Pleased to make your acquaintance.

I live in Tallahassee, Florida. How's atheism in the South doing these days?

[Dr Mundo]

There have always been (time past more than now that atheism has become so popular) humble atheists who are much more frank and honest about the subjectivity of the their judgment that God does not exist.

At least on this forum, I have only read atheists posts that admit that all of our judgment is subjective, and not once any one of the atheists here have said God does not exist. I know saying we have no reason to think god exists, and god does not exist are two statements that confuses people on how they are different, but if i can accomplish anything on this forum i want it to be a deeper understanding of what rational atheism is... I think anyone who says God exists is irrational, just like someone who says God doesn't exist is also irrational. for one, we don't even have a definition of god we can all agree on so what would we be talking about.

[Brad]

Greetings and welcome, Al!
I'm sure you'll find the discussions here interesting - and sometimes other adjectives will probably apply.

How did you find your way to this outpost of cyberspace?

Did you know that our fellow Georgian, all-around great guy, and past American Atheists pres, Ed Buckner, was on the podcast a while back?
The episode was called "Grilled Pastor for Two," I think, although I thought Ed had quite a convivial conversation with our resident pastor Scott, and any "grilling" was only very light, with delicate basting and a bit of flavorful spices...

I'm a fellow Atlantan-ish person on a part-time basis meself. I'd imagine we'll meet at some point, and I'll look forward to that.
Meanwhile, best to you on the forum here.

By the way, I just looked more closely at your signature line text. That will make for quite a provocative start for you here, I'd guess. Is provocation what you have in mind?

[mitchellmckain]

I think anyone who says God exists is irrational, just like someone who says God doesn't exist is also irrational. for one, we don't even have a definition of god we can all agree on so what would we be talking about.

No this is not supportable. Rational is not the same thing as provable. Scientists and Mathematicians believe all sorts of things in science and mathematics that is not provable, but they are perfectly rational because rationality is not provability but logical consistency.

Atheists say that there is no God and there is NOTHING irrational about that at all.
Theists say that there is a God and there is NOTHING irrational about that at all.

These are subjective assertions but they are not irrational. What IS irrational is the assertion that one only believes what is provable or what one has objective evidence for because it simply isn't possible to live ones life based on such a miniscule amount of knowledge. Life requires us to makes choices. And faith plays a role when we stick to those choices faithfully as long as there is no definitive evidence to the contrary rather than following the crowd in whatever is popular at the moment.

[Dr Mundo]

No this is not supportable. Rational is not the same thing as provable. Scientists and Mathematicians believe all sorts of things in science and mathematics that is not provable, but they are perfectly rational because rationality is not provability but logical consistency.

Atheists say that there is no God and there is NOTHING irrational about that at all.
Theists say that there is a God and there is NOTHING irrational about that at all.

to me a rational response would be one with evidence to justify the claim. If you are making a claim that has not been justifyed with substantial evidence, than that would be an irrational claim. could you give me a description of something being irrational, and why it's irrational. I just don't see how anyone could claim that God doesn't exist and still think they are making a rational argument. Rational: having or exercising reason, sound judgment, or good sense: a calm and rational negotiator. what sound argument/judgment could you make for the non existence of such an undefined thing as God. should i use a different word? is this a semantic argument you have with me, or is it that you think my concept is wrong. does anyone else feel the same way? am i wrong about this?

These are subjective assertions but they are not irrational. What IS irrational is the assertion that one only believes what is provable or what one has objective evidence for because it simply isn't possible to live ones life based on such a miniscule amount of knowledge. Life requires us to makes choices. And faith plays a role when we stick to those choices faithfully as long as there is no definitive evidence to the contrary rather than following the crowd in whatever is popular at the moment.

I think the biggest problem i have with faith is my definition of it. it is something i would try to avoid at all costs. faith: strong or unshakeable belief in something, esp without proof or evidence. that's the way i think of it, i would like no part in using such a system. If you can show me that i don't have sound evidence or reason in anything i couldn't continue using it in the same way. how could I? so did you really mean that it is irrational to only believe something once we have sound reason or evidence for it?

Thanks for trying to help me understand, i hope we aren't just getting tied up in semantic differences. if it is with the concepts, then that would lead to a much more interesting conversation. both the Definitions i got were from http://dictionary.reference.com/

[mitchellmckain]

to me a rational response would be one with evidence to justify the claim. If you are making a claim that has not been justifyed with substantial evidence, than that would be an irrational claim.

But that reduces "irrational" to meaninglessness because then everyone including mathematician and scientist are irrational in nearly everythng they do. Everyone relies on premises for which they have no objective evidence.

could you give me a description of something being irrational, and why it's irrational.

Well if rationality consists of logical consistency then what would be irrational is something that is not logically consistent. We usually include by extention a consistency with what is objectively established -- i.e what we do have objective evidence for. Thus a belief that the world is flat is not rational because it is not consistent with the objective evidence.

I just don't see how anyone could claim that God doesn't exist and still think they are making a rational argument.

An argument is one thing (and I said nothing about any argument) and an assertion is something else. If there is no objective evidence either way then it is not possible that an assertion either way can be inconsistent with the objective evidence.

Rational: having or exercising reason, sound judgment, or good sense: a calm and rational negotiator.

Making consistent use of reason is not restricted to what can be established objectively. Subjective judgements can also make consistent use of reason. They simply are not based on evidence which can be estabished objectively. If someone has a personal encounter with aliens then they can rationaly conclude that these aliens exist even though they have no means of establishing the truth of the matter to anyone else. Just because you don't have objective evidence for something does not mean that you do not have very good reasons for believing it. It only means that you cannot reasonably expect anyone else to believe your claims.

what sound argument/judgment could you make for the non existence of such an undefined thing as God. should i use a different word? is this a semantic argument you have with me, or is it that you think my concept is wrong. does anyone else feel the same way? am i wrong about this?

Again you have shifted from statements to arguments. But even so, one can make arguments that perfectly rational either way, where they tend to go wrong is when they claim objective validity. One of the most common arguments that atheists make is one of probability. I would not claim that the argument is irrational but only that such judgements of probability are quite subjective. Likewise many of the so called proofs for the existence of God line of with the subjective reasons that some people do believe in God -- for example, you hear quite often people saying that they look at the world and cannot believe it is all an accident. However when they attempt to make an objective argument of this in the teleological argument then it fails miserably.

I think the biggest problem i have with faith is my definition of it. it is something i would try to avoid at all costs. faith: strong or unshakeable belief in something, esp without proof or evidence. that's the way i think of it, i would like no part in using such a system.

If by "unshakeable" you mean that you will ignore any contrary evidence then that is "blind faith" and I want no part of that either. Otherwise the fact is that people have an unshakeable confidence in things because they work for them even though they know that they cannot prove it. A famous example is a belief in the consistency of mathematics. Nobody doubts this and nearly everyone has a firm belief in its consistency, but it has proven that it impossible to prove that mathematics is consistent.

If you can show me that i don't have sound evidence or reason in anything i couldn't continue using it in the same way. how could I?

Logic only goes from premises to conclusions. Thus where can logic start from? It must start with things that are simply accepted and which are not themselves the conclusions of any logical argument. Thus I can indeed show you that you do accept things without objective evidence or rational argument. But that does not mean that you do not have any good reasons or evidence -- only that these are not objective or provable.

so did you really mean that it is irrational to only believe something once we have sound reason or evidence for it?

No I certainly do not mean this. On the contrary, I refute it if by sound reason or evidence you mean something which can be established objectively.

[Dr Mundo]

But that reduces "irrational" to meaninglessness because then everyone including mathematician and scientist are irrational in nearly everythng they do. Everyone relies on premises for which they have no objective evidence.

scientists jobs are based around the premise that claims can only be made with sufficient evidence, so i am really not sure what you mean. mathematicians work with numbers and formulas to evaluate certain math functions which have structure to them they don't normally deviate from. the word isn't meaningless to me. when it comes to the word objective, its a word that has been abused and misused here on these forums, so what do you mean by objective evidence?

Well if rationality consists of logical consistency then what would be irrational is something that is not logically consistent. We usually include by extention a consistency with what is objectively established -- i.e what we do have objective evidence for. Thus a belief that the world is flat is not rational because it is not consistent with the objective evidence

well i agree with you on that. but i'm still confused because that's the point i was trying to make.

An argument is one thing (and I said nothing about any argument) and an assertion is something else. If there is no objective evidence either way then it is not possible that an assertion either way can be inconsistent with the objective evidence.

well you said

Atheists say that there is no God and there is NOTHING irrational about that at all.
Theists say that there is a God and there is NOTHING irrational about that at all.

that is an argument for the case that it is not irrational to claim these things about God. and the underlined part is what confuses me the most. it is possible that i say God does not exist and i could be consistent with reality, but without being able to show conclusive evidence I would not be justified in making such a claim. so while i may be consistent with reality, if i couldn't show why, i would only be right by coincidence not because of a reasonable understanding of the evidence. that's not what a reasonable person should do in my opinion, so if anyone says they know there are no gods i would argue my point to them also.

Making consistent use of reason is not restricted to what can be established objectively. Subjective judgements can also make consistent use of reason.

yeah i'm with ya mitch, subjective judgements can be reasonable. I would argue that point with you too.

They simply are not based on evidence which can be estabished objectively. If someone has a personal encounter with aliens then they can rationaly conclude that these aliens exist even though they have no means of establishing the truth of the matter to anyone else. Just because you don't have objective evidence for something does not mean that you do not have very good reasons for believing it. It only means that you cannot reasonably expect anyone else to believe your claims.

people can be wrong about certain things, let me tell you a story from my personal experience. when i was younger i woke up from a nap to the sound of a HUGE beetles' wings flapping against its hard shell as it flew over head, I saw the silhouette fly over me and behind the baseboard of my bed set, the bed set was rather large and had lots of room for the giant beetle to hide. i told my mom about it and was kinda scared to go back in my room because we couldnt find where it went. a few days later while doing homework or something i heard the train coming, it would get close enough to the house that you could feel a slight vibration, well that vibration caused the light fixture in my room to shake a bit, it sounded just like what i had heard the other night that i mistook for the bug. So i thought maybe i imagined seeing the bug it was kinda dark, and it woke me from a nap, we never found it again, i had no evidence of the bug other than what my mind told me i saw and heard. it makes sense now why i thought that. It is possible that others might just have had an experience where they mistook something for something else. perhaps a dream they felt was real idk, there are a lot of natural explinations for things that we know it COULD be, why assume supernatual things when we have never been able to verify any of it?

[Dr Mundo]

Again you have shifted from statements to arguments. But even so, one can make arguments that perfectly rational either way, where they tend to go wrong is when they claim objective validity. One of the most common arguments that atheists make is one of probability. I would not claim that the argument is irrational but only that such judgements of probability are quite subjective. Likewise many of the so called proofs for the existence of God line of with the subjective reasons that some people do believe in God -- for example, you hear quite often people saying that they look at the world and cannot believe it is all an accident. However when they attempt to make an objective argument of this in the teleological argument then it fails miserably.

sorry i thought we were talking about arguments, why make a statement when you can't back it up with sound arguments? what is objective validity, who is claiming it and being wrong about it. are you saying i fall into that category? probability as in its most probable that god doesn't exist? if an atheist makes that statement i still consider it unjustified because we don't really have all the possible information to make such a claim, It is very very simple, we just do not have solid, sound, reasonable, verifiable, (what ever word you want to use) evidence for the existence or non existence of god. so how could we possibly have any type of positive belief or assertion about this thing. also "established objectively"? i don't want to use subjective or objective here again, all those talks with tony about the two words make them such an obstacle to get around now, so lets define them for us, i don't know if you are with tony on this or with the ones arguing with him? if you must use it then go for it but let me know what you mean by it first so i don't confuse you statements.

If by "unshakeable" you mean that you will ignore any contrary evidence then that is "blind faith" and I want no part of that either. Otherwise the fact is that people have an unshakeable confidence in things because they work for them even though they know that they cannot prove it. A famous example is a belief in the consistency of mathematics. Nobody doubts this and nearly everyone has a firm belief in its consistency, but it has proven that it impossible to prove that mathematics is consistent.

if someone has "____" in a thing they work with everyday i wouldn't call it faith. we already have a word for it and that word is trust. so yes i do trust things. but not by faith. mathematics is consistent within a structured frame, once you start to use more abstract functions then you can get two different answers or sometimes more, like when solving with the quadratic formula, you will still get the same sets of answers though if you do it again. so it is consistent. what inconsistencies are you referring too?

Logic only goes from premises to conclusions. Thus where can logic start from? It must start with things that are simply accepted and which are not themselves the conclusions of any logical argument. Thus I can indeed show you that you do accept things without objective evidence or rational argument. But that does not mean that you do not have any good reasons or evidence -- only that these are not objective or provable.

ok i would like for you to show me then, i actually like this part in conversations, i have changed my mind on lots of things because someone has shown me how my premises were false or faulty. so show me/teach me what ever but i am interested in what you have to say about this.

so did you really mean that it is irrational to only believe something once we have sound reason or evidence for it?

No I certainly do not mean this. On the contrary, I refute it if by sound reason or evidence you mean something which can be established objectively.

ok this quote is what you wrong to me on your first response "What IS irrational is the assertion that one only believes what is provable or what one has objective evidence for because it simply isn't possible to live ones life based on such a miniscule amount of knowledge" this is why i got the impression that you meant that it is irrational to only believe something once we have sound reason or evidence for it. sounds an awful lot like that to me, i guess i don't understand your point sorry, could you break it down for me please. if i seemed overly nice to you in these posts its because i have seen you appear to get upset on the forums and instead of getting upset i guess i'm trying to walk on eggshells so we can continue the discussion because it means a lot to me.

[JustJim]

Dr. Mundo,

Just curious... Does your keyboard have no shift key?



Jim

[Dr Mundo]

Dr. Mundo,

Just curious... Does your keyboard have no shift key?



Jim

Sorry, it must be somewhat bothersome if you had to make a post about it. I will correct that from here on out. I want all of my posts to be informative and at the very least pleasant to read. So is it just the "i" vs "I" or beginning of each sentence you would like me to work on? Well never mind i will just use correct punctuation from now on. Thanks, and again sorry.

[mitchellmckain]

But that reduces "irrational" to meaninglessness because then everyone including mathematician and scientist are irrational in nearly everythng they do. Everyone relies on premises for which they have no objective evidence.

scientists jobs are based around the premise that claims can only be made with sufficient evidence, so i am really not sure what you mean. mathematicians work with numbers and formulas to evaluate certain math functions which have structure to them they don't normally deviate from.

That is incorrect. I am a physicist and the job of a scientist is based on no such thing. You are also misinformed about what it is that mathematicians do also. Both use methods that are based on premises which cannot be proven.

so what do you mean by objective evidence?

I mean evidence which can be established by means that is independent of what one may want or believe. Such is the methodology of science that it requires its results to be obtainable by a written proceedure that people can follow and get the same result regardless of what they may want or believe.

Well if rationality consists of logical consistency then what would be irrational is something that is not logically consistent. We usually include by extention a consistency with what is objectively established -- i.e what we do have objective evidence for. Thus a belief that the world is flat is not rational because it is not consistent with the objective evidence

well i agree with you on that. but i'm still confused because that's the point i was trying to make.

No it is not. "Consistent with the evidence" is NOT the same thing as "supported by the evidence". Niether the existence nor the non-existence of God is supported by any objective evidence and that means that BOTH propositions are consistent with the evidence, because neither proposition is contradicted by any objective evidence.

An argument is one thing (and I said nothing about any argument) and an assertion is something else. If there is no objective evidence either way then it is not possible that an assertion either way can be inconsistent with the objective evidence.

well you said

Atheists say that there is no God and there is NOTHING irrational about that at all.
Theists say that there is a God and there is NOTHING irrational about that at all.

that is an argument for the case that it is not irrational to claim these things about God.

??? The argument for the truth of the two statements in italics is what you underlined.

it is possible that i say God does not exist and i could be consistent with reality, but without being able to show conclusive evidence I would not be justified in making such a claim.

Incorrect. Knowledge of something does not depend on being able to prove it. That is something completely seperate and different. I can know something because I have experienced it myself, but having no way to transimit that experience directly to someone else I have no way to prove anything.

so while i may be consistent with reality, if i couldn't show why, i would only be right by coincidence not because of a reasonable understanding of the evidence.

There is subjective evidence and there is objective evidence. Subjective evidence may be sufficient reasons for you to know something but only objective evidence is sufficient to convince others of it.

They simply are not based on evidence which can be estabished objectively. If someone has a personal encounter with aliens then they can rationaly conclude that these aliens exist even though they have no means of establishing the truth of the matter to anyone else. Just because you don't have objective evidence for something does not mean that you do not have very good reasons for believing it. It only means that you cannot reasonably expect anyone else to believe your claims.

people can be wrong about certain things, let me tell you a story from my personal experience.

That is irrelevant. Being wrong and being irrational are two completely different things. Let me give YOU and example. General relativity is theoretical framework by which you can describe many different things that we have absolutely no reason to believe are real. The set of things which can be describe by this theoretical framework is not a mutually consistent set. Thus we can derive wormholes (also known as einstein podolsky rosen bridges) as a solution to Einstien's field equations in that theoretical framework. So we can hardly call such a thing irrational. But that doesn't mean that such things really do exist.

Being rational does not equate to being true, correct or real. Even if we extend rationality from logical consistency to a consistency with what can be objectively established, it is not enough to determine what is true in regards to the vast majority of knowledge that we rely upon in the living of our lives. There is no getting around the fact that we have to take chances and make choices and just see what works for us.

[Dr Mundo]

That is incorrect. I am a physicist and the job of a scientist is based on no such thing. You are also misinformed about what it is that mathematicians do also. Both use methods that are based on premises which cannot be proven.

Some examples please?

I mean evidence which can be established by means that is independent of what one may want or believe. Such is the methodology of science that it requires its results to be obtainable by a written proceedure that people can follow and get the same result regardless of what they may want or believe.

O.k. good that would be the way i would use that word too, so we can safely assume that's what we each mean when using that word.

No it is not. "Consistent with the evidence" is NOT the same thing as "supported by the evidence". Niether the existence nor the non-existence of God is supported by any objective evidence and that means that BOTH propositions are consistent with the evidence, because neither proposition is contradicted by any objective evidence.

If we do not have any objective evidence either way why in the world would we be making any type of positive claim about it?

If there is no objective evidence either way then it is not possible that an assertion either way can be inconsistent with the objective evidence.

let me start over with this one. Here you said we do not have objective evidence either way, so my response is then why make any assertion about it, and think it somehow reflects reality?

Incorrect. Knowledge of something does not depend on being able to prove it. That is something completely seperate and different. I can know something because I have experienced it myself, but having no way to transimit that experience directly to someone else I have no way to prove anything.

Argg again I feel like this is a problem I have with getting my argument across. I may be really bad at this, but here is my idea. instead of calling that knowledge wouldn't a better way to put that be you believe it happened? because if you knew it happened you could prove it. couldn't you be wrong about that experience? maybe you thought something happened that was different than what actually happened? you would be less likely wrong if you had some sort of confirming evidence that it did happen.

There is subjective evidence and there is objective evidence. Subjective evidence may be sufficient reasons for you to know something but only objective evidence is sufficient to convince others of it.

Sorry but If you would, could you also let me know how you are using the term Subjective evidence? With objective evidence we could run test to try to get the same conclusion, are you saying with Subjective evidence you can not?

That is irrelevant. Being wrong and being irrational are two completely different things.

I know they are, this was just an illustration of how i thought i knew something and where i was wrong, this is just to show that personal experience may not always be the best indicator of what is really going on.

Let me give YOU and example. General relativity is theoretical framework by which you can describe many different things that we have absolutely no reason to believe are real. The set of things which can be describe by this theoretical framework is not a mutually consistent set. Thus we can derive wormholes (also known as einstein podolsky rosen bridges) as a solution to Einstien's field equations in that theoretical framework. So we can hardly call such a thing irrational. But that doesn't mean that such things really do exist.

Correct, but then describing attributes of wormholes as factual would be irrational until we can actually show it to be the case. right?

Being rational does not equate to being true, correct or real. Even if we extend rationality from logical consistency to a consistency with what can be objectively established, it is not enough to determine what is true in regards to the vast majority of knowledge that we rely upon in the living of our lives. There is no getting around the fact that we have to take chances and make choices and just see what works for us.

Sometimes it seems like you agree with what I do, but at other times it seems deeper than just a semantic disagreement, would you suggest i use an other word other than Rational/Irrational to describe what one would say about the existence/non-existence of God? I would like to hear from Mitch and others as to what word they think would be best suited for this, If i'm wrong or using the wrong word i would defiantly like to correct that.

[JustJim]

Dr. Mundo,

Just curious... Does your keyboard have no shift key?



Jim

Sorry, it must be somewhat bothersome if you had to make a post about it. I will correct that from here on out. I want all of my posts to be informative and at the very least pleasant to read. So is it just the "i" vs "I" or beginning of each sentence you would like me to work on? Well never mind i will just use correct punctuation from now on. Thanks, and again sorry.

Not bothersome at all, Dr Mundo! Very noticeable, yes, but not at all bothersome! I was just going for a little levity. Sorry it bombed....

When I was in Vietnam, I often used teletype machines to communicate with our home base unit and other units in Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Hawaii, Texas, and all the way up to NSA at Ft. Meade in Maryland. It was kinda nice that there was no upper/lowercase on those keyboards. Everything was uppercase, so we never had to worry about capitalization. But if you were to do that here, by turning on caps-lock, it'd be considered yelling and screaming at everyone.

Please don't make any changes because of me noticing it. It sorta gives you a uniqueness here that's hard to come by on a keyboard.

Jim