"Skeptics," Science, Spirituality and Religion

Except that agnosticism has nothing to do with belief, and thus should not appear on a scale with theism and atheism. Agnosticism deals with knowledge (here's a hint "gnosis"). Atheism/theism deals with belief. And those positions are binary. You are either an atheist or a theist. There is no in between. If you are "undecided", then you don't actively belief, which makes you default to atheism (lack of belief in a deity).

 

No.....my definition of GOD is the Universe, Multiverse and all within.

This is NOT a deity but the natural reality.

GOD for me is NOT a deity.

AA

 

Then what exactly is the point behind calling it god?

 

A much better in logic and sensibility point than you defining GOD as some all powerful entity when absolutely ZERO EVIDENCE OR PROOF exists.

AA

 

What skeptics? I am skeptical, but I do have spirituality. One can be shrewd and not be completely nihilistic can't the? Skepticism is healthy to some degree right?

 

I don't define God. Religions do, and I reject their claims for lack of proof.

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I don't define God. Religions do, and I reject their claims for lack of proof.

 

thats not true.

that is true (or you are neither)

Among the gnostics, gnosis was first and foremost a matter of self-knowledge, which was considered the path leading to the goal of enlightenment as the hidden knowledge of the various pre-Judeo-Christian pagan mystery religions.[16]

Knowledge that first relieved the individual of their cultural religious indoctrination and then reconciled them to their personal deity.[16]

Through such self-knowledge and personal purification (virtuous living) the adept is led to direct knowledge of God via themselves as inner reflection or will.

Later, Valentinius (Valentinus), taught that gnosis was the privileged Gnosis kardias "knowledge of the heart" or "insight" about the spiritual nature of the cosmos that brought about salvation to the pneumatics— the name given to those believed to have reached the final goal of sanctity.


Usage of the word gnostic absolutely concerns and applies directly to beliefs. If someone believes 'any' degree of theist or you believe 'any' degree of atheist, then you have a gnostic condition, 'not' an [A]gnostic condition. the word presumes rational choices lead to personal knowledge, not some mathematical multiverse construct which has nothing to do with a spiritual nature.

Earlier I said xnor and should have said a logical nor.

The only possible way agnostic can be true is:

'belief' in athiest is 0 and
'belief' in theist is 0.

It binary and any condition somewhere in between is false, I have proven that many times using formal logic.

So you were 100% correct when you said it was binary you just did not carry it far enough to include a tristate condition. So while you are correct that the word derives from knowledge it assumes rational thought leads to beliefs, therefore it applies directly to beliefs, it requires a compound condition, proven to be too complicated for most people to wrap their minds around.

 

and before I sign out, one final morsel, all knowledge is 'technically' beliefs. Its impossible to prove anything beyond 'any' doubt which is why you hear the term 'reasonable' doubt in courts.

 

So you admit that agnosticism has its root in the Greek word "gnosis" meaning "knowledge" but still try to falsely claim it is about belief? It's bull(*)(*)(*)(*). The Gnostics have (*)(*)(*)(*) all to do with this conversation.

You can believe in atheism. Atheism is a lack of belief. Atheism = 0, Theism = 1.

 

I can prove conclusively that the world existed yesterday! And I just did.

 

Doesn't it also assume that only rational thought leads to beliefs?

 

What if you believe in Gods? Are we now out of binary logic.

 

A little bit of well-poisoning right off the bat here with the 'so-called' comment, but I will take a stab at this nonetheless.

As always in these types of discussions, the definitions must be clearly stated. If not, people end up talking past each other by using different shades of definitions. So lets start with your idea of 'skeptics':

In science, everything starts with observations. Someone makes an observation about something, then develops a hypothesis which could explain that observation. Then they go about making additional observations which can either support or disprove the hypothesis. The more observations made which support the hypothesis, the stronger it gets. It can only take one observation to disprove a hypothesis, at which point a new hypothesis must be made. Persons who support the hypothesis are called 'proponents'. Persons who do not support the hypothesis are called 'skeptics'.

Notice I intentionally did not include the term 'believer'. A 'believer' is someone who supports a conclusion with insufficient evidence to support it. A 'denier' is the opposite: someone who discounts evidence which disproves a hypothesis. There are no 'believers' or 'deniers' in science.

So a 'skeptic' about spirituality or religion is NOT someone who thinks 'the bulk of humanity is mentally ill'. They are merely someone who thinks that there is insufficient evidence to support your hypothesis (whatever that is).

It is not necessary to be a 'scientist' to practice the scientific method. Also, it is not unusual for people to be 'well-reasoned' in one topic and completely irrational in another.

This would be a good time for you to clearly define what you mean by 'spiritual'. In my experience, asking 20 different people gets you 20 different definitions of what this word means. It seems from your context that you mean 'spiritual' as 'unexplainable'. As others have pointed out in this thread your idea of probability is completely misguided. But the larger point to be made here is that you have made an observation! Your experience is a direct observation of something. Congratulations! You are on the road to science.

As I said, your experience definitely counts as an observation. But here is the problem: You take your observation and jump to a conclusion. You don't even come up with a hypothesis and try to find other observations or test to prove or disprove your hypothesis. You just jump to the conclusion as being correct and even get angry at others who posit a differing hypothesis to explain your observation. This makes you a 'believer' and not a 'proponent'.

Science really doesn't deal with 'facts' per se. Facts are for maths and formal logic. Science deals with observations and hypotheses. If a hypothesis is strong enough it becomes a Theory. 'Fact' can be used as a synonym for 'observation', but that's really not how you are using it here. So let's reword your statement:

"I seek an explanation that will be consistent with both scientific [theory] and the [observations] of my and other people's [unexplained] experiences"

Again, congratulations! You are doing science! All you have to do now is make additional, repeatable observations to support your hypothesis and you are on your way. Just don't assume a conclusion before you have that additional data.

 

To Do actual science the observations have to be objective. That I think rules out observation as having any validity in either the pro or anti religious hypothesis.

 

If by 'objective', you mean 'not presupposing an explanation', I agree and said as much. If you mean something else by 'objective' you will have to explain it. An observation can either be accurate or not. Peer review and repeatability will determine this.

What is a 'religious' hypothesis? How does that differ from a regular hypothesis?

Also, what is the purpose of the modifier 'actual' in front of the word science?

In short, there is no reason that a person experience cannot be a data point (observation).

 

Because to be perfectly blunt there can be no such thing in science as a religious hypothesis. Religion is a matter of faith and not fact. There can not be science in matters of religion except perhaps studying chemical reactions in the brain and perhaps socialogical studies about the basis of mythologies.

And I put actual in front of science because most on this forum think anything is science as long as it has some pretense at objectivity. And that is the reason why personal experience as far as I know has nothing to do with actual science.

And What does peer review have to do with observation. Maybe you need to define what you mean by science.

 

I've been wanting to add to this.

Religious people who can't recognize that their religious stories are fantastical are obviously not thinking straight. It seems like a real no-brainer that an average secular person would have a hard time believing them.

They are either people who are very secure in a religious culture, or they are over zealous 'born again' christians. The people wrapped up in a religious culture really annoy me. The born again's I can forgive, but I'm not going to get in a long discussion with them. They have too much God in their eyes to see anything I'd say anyway.

I believe its possible to be agnostic/atheist and not feel antagonistic towards religious people. As for me I see lots of wisdom in religion, but it tends to get lost by those who get too obsessed with scripture or who try to prove their religion is objectively true. Belief and faith are an internal phenomenon, its true to them because they strongly feel it is, not because of objective facts.

 

What the heck is a 'religious' hypothesis? AFAIK there are only hypotheses. Adding the word 'religious' in front of it is largely meaningless.

Hypothesis: a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.

As long as the 'further investigation' occurs and a conclusion is not jumped to it fits the definition.

In this sense if you mean 'religion' as a synonym for 'belief', then I agree. As I said in my first post, Belief and Denial are really not part of science.

Thank you for asking that. So often these discussions are derailed by differing definitions. I am always happy to clarify.

Generally (in this thread) when I have said 'science' what I really mean is the utilization of the scientific method.

The scientific method is an ongoing process, which usually begins with observations about the natural world. Human beings are naturally inquisitive, so they often come up with questions about things they see or hear and often develop ideas (hypotheses) about why things are the way they are. The best hypotheses lead to predictions that can be tested in various ways, including making further observations about nature. In general, the strongest tests of hypotheses come from carefully controlled and replicated experiments that gather empirical data. Depending on how well the tests match the predictions, the original hypothesis may require refinement, alteration, expansion or even rejection. If a particular hypothesis becomes very well supported a general theory may be developed.

There is no reason why any personal experience cannot be a starting point for this process of "observations about the natural world" ... the key of course is the follow up. That is where the idea of peer review comes in. I don't mean to imply that the original experience or observation would be peer reviewed. It couldn't, of course.

If someone says "I had an experience and I think it is evidence of an all powerful invisible unicorn in the sky" ... I say "great, let me know how you are going to follow up on that including predictions that can be made and tested in various ways and measurements that can be repeated and observed by others"

If someone says "I had an experience ... therefore god", that is belief and NOT science.

If someone says "I had an experience ... therefore god... therefore you should do (whatever)", we are going to have a problem.

 

Not to be too picky but your idea of science went out somewhere in the nineteenth century. Physics, chemistry etc etc haven't relied on observations of the natural world since the dinosaurs died out. I am of course being slightly facetious but really physics has been math since I was in college which was a coons age ago. That's not to say that they don't try to verify with experiments but even those have about zero to do with observations of the " natural " world.

 

I'm not sure what makes you think it's my idea or that it is from "somewhere in the nineteenth century". I provided a link right in the text. The original source is here. It's from Professor Theodore Garland from the Department of Biology, University of California, Riverside, 20 Mar 2015.

 

I gave the examples why that definition no longer makes sense.

 

A religious hypothesis is a hypothesis about religion which as I said is nonsense because religion is a matter of faith and thus any hypothesis about religion is untestable and unprovable..

Oh, and just for fun here is a definition widely used

"A scientific hypothesis is the initial building block in the scientific method. Many describe it as an “educated guess,” based on prior knowledge and observation. While this is true, the definition can be expanded."

And there are also spiitual hypothesis, mathematical hypothesis, physics hypothesis, etc.

 

I get the impression there is a possibility you may have some level of formal education with regard to topics people attempt to discuss here. You wont find any opponents capable of arguing with you on an academic level here, only those who claim to be super geniuses while posting foolish puppy chow of the masses and demanding respect. Not an environment to further ones education.

Your opponents accept only physical proof, of a deity to accept the existence of the same despite claiming they are capable of love which of course is 180 degree contradiction. To them religion only exists if a deity is involved and as far as they are concerned lack of belief [in a deity] is not a belief.

"a hypothesis about religion which as I said is nonsense because religion is a matter of faith"

LOL

There you go, enjoy the ride, for the most part I burned out spending all my time correcting all their errors and going nowhere.

 

That is because you failed to correct anything but instead only showed you own errors such as insisting on contradictions where there are none

 

The need to constantly talk about a person's self appraisal of their own intelligence despite no evidence to indicate the truth of that appraisal is usually an indication of a mental deficiency.

P.S. The only person who claims to be a super genius is yourself. The Rest of us are just of above average brilliance..