Non-theists demands for 'evidence' bore some people.

[geo]

Intellectual atheists deceive themselves in a belief that our formal system of human logic is endowed with an omniscient infallibility that grants license to proclaim the nature of reality. However, the laws of nature and whatever governs them are NOT laws of logic, nor are they analogous to the laws of logic. . . . .

I personally would never claim that human logic is endowed with "omniscient infallibility." That is an absolutely ridiculous claim.

I also don't know much about Godel's supposed ontological proof. That also sounds fairly ridiculous. I never said everything can be boiled down to a mathematical formula or otherwise explained by science. I think I've said several times that there are plenty of holes in our knowledge and probably always will be. Where science can't give us an answer is never proof that religious belief can.

Ultimately it sounds like you're saying that science is a belief system on par with religious belief. You usually hear this from the Young Earth Creationist or the Intelligent Design brands of faith, so it's interesting that you do bring ID into the discussion.

Yes, it's true that humans regularly engage in the art of bullshit as a means to rationalize belief. But there's one important distinction between real scientific knowledge and pseudo-scientific babble (the domain of ID). Real science produces real world results.

So you can talk all you want, but the real test is what does science say about the real world that can be empirically tested and shown to be true through observation and repeatable experiments.

We have a high degree of confidence, for example, that the moon is about 4.5 billion years old, that it orbits the earth (in 27 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes, 11.6 seconds), and that it has virtually no atmosphere. If you want to know about the moon, you would rely on the scientific method to find out. You wouldn't ask a proponent of Intelligent Design.

What truth about the world has been yielded by the scientific method? It would probably take thousands or even millions of volumes to list them all.

What truth about the world has ever been yielded by the Intelligent Design belief system? Name one thing. You can't because the real world is not even the domain of religious belief just as God is not the domain of science.

And, yet, faith in science is on par with religious belief?

The ID Pretenders rationalize and couch their bullshit in scientific-sounding language, and if you can't tell the difference between the two, it is because you are ignorant about the workings of science or you don't really want objective truth.

There's also a very real difference between the speculative and philosophical stages of scientific inquiry and what Intelligent Design does which is Post Hoc rationalizations of a priori belief. Again, if you can't see the difference, than you're not really looking for objective truth.

[Robert Tulip]

All this shows just how tempting it can be to argue with theists. But I think grizzlyman has made an excellent suggestion here that it is more constructive to focus on positive understanding. My observation is that many atheists have weak understanding of the psychological and social benefits of religion. In The World Until Yesterday, our current non-fiction book, Jared Diamond has a brilliant chapter on religion, exploring the benefits in terms of evolutionary psychology of believing things that are not true. I plan to focus on that chapter and will post comments about it shortly.

One area I find interesting in terms of a positive atheist approach to spirituality is mysticism. The old axiom ‘as above so below’ contains a simple logic as a necessary truth, but it has been rather corrupted by association with magic. Yet this geometric framework helps to explain how the story of Jesus Christ may have developed as an analogy for the sun, as an idealised reflection of heaven on earth. This is an example of a way of explaining religion that is compatible with science, and that leaves aside any obsolete debate about imaginary entities.

Ant makes these comically threadbare defences of theism. Here we find him citing an argument from Susskind that if the universe was completely different from what we observe then perhaps God might exist. That is not a sensible argument. Observation is consistent. Susskind’s hypothesis would require that observation is not consistent. It is not even a starter.

The point of Ockham’s Razor is that science accepts the most economical answer. Intelligent Design is just YEC in fancy dress. Postulating that imaginary entities actually exist is not a sensible starter, especially when these entities do not explain anything real but have a social function of systematically detracting from our ability to understand things cogently.

Ant expresses a sublime and touching faith that “laws of nature …are not… analogous to the laws of logic.” That again is frankly ridiculous, contradicted by scientific observation. The law of logic says a statement cannot be true and false. The law of nature says a statement cannot be true and false. That is not just analogy, it is core to any sensible conversation.

I do enjoy seeing ant flail about with bizarre assertions that seem to have initial plausibility but on analysis prove as silly as this ‘true can be false’ implication.

Intellectual atheists deceive themselves in a belief that our formal system of human logic is endowed with an omniscient infallibility that grants license to proclaim the nature of reality. However, the laws of nature and whatever governs them are NOT laws of logic, nor are they analogous to the laws of logic. It is a rather anthropocentric and haughty claim to assert our system of logic contains enough vigor to state “god does not exist.” The atheist is far too presumptuous to leap from “I have no belief” to “I have no belief AND there is no god.” It is understandable; better to have logic than nothing. The atheist, without god, has nothing other than material determinism and subjective relativity. If it is God, logic, or nothing, the atheist arrives at nothing when logic arrives at its borders, for he has forced himself into nothingness because of his refusal to extend himself beyond his self imprisonment. Leonard Susskind said something very interesting and honest about the “landscape” of nature:

If, for some unforeseen reason, the landscape turns out to be inconsistent – maybe for mathematical reasons, or because it disagrees with observation – I am pretty sure that physicists will go on searching for natural explanations of the world. But I have to say that if that happens, as things stand now we will be in a very awkward position. Without any explanation of nature’s fine-tunings we will be hard pressed to answer the ID critics. One might argue that the hope that a mathematically unique solution will emerge is as faith-based as ID.

The atheist has his faith. The theist has his. Kurt Godel devised a mathematical proof for the existence of God. This is not to say that god exists based on Godel’s mathematical logic-based prowess. However, it does exemplify that our system of logic, in its current state, is malleable enough to guide humanity in directions not yet empirically demonstrable.

[Interbane]

Intellectual atheists deceive themselves in a belief that our formal system of human logic is endowed with an omniscient infallibility that grants license to proclaim the nature of reality.

Which intellectual atheists? I'd say I'm an intellectual atheist, but what you claim I believe is not what I believe.

The atheist, without god, has nothing other than material determinism and subjective relativity.

What alternative is present for those who "have god"? What is the alternative to material determinism and subjective relativity? How do you know that's not all you have as well, but you mistakenly believe there is something more?

Leonard Susskind said something very interesting and honest about the “landscape” of nature:

Susskind's comments regarding the uniformity of nature calls into question Hume's problem of induction. If the sun rises every day, we can use inductive reasoning to predict that it will indeed rise again tomorrow. The uniformity of nature is based on induction. Nature hasn't wavered from it's path at any point we can see.

The only relevance Susskind's comment has to the current discussion is to show that even at our very best, our knowledge is fallible. But we've already agreed on that point. Or so I'd thought.

The atheist has his faith.
The theist has his.

Yet each are different in both kind and intensity. The atheist has faith that the sun will rise tomorrow. The theist has faith that it won't. You gauge which is justified.

Kurt Godel devised a mathematical proof for the existence of God.

It was a proof based on modal logic, not math.

However, it does exemplify that our system of logic, in its current state, is malleable enough to guide humanity in directions not yet empirically demonstrable.

That's assuming Godel's proof is without fault. The premises make assumptions that must be taken on faith.

[ant]

Wow.., all of the heavyweights came out on this one.

I need to get back to cleaning carpets for the remainder of the day.
Very quickly though, I wasn't making an ID argument. Why a couple of you jumped all over it is beyond me.
Evidently Strawman beatings are popular here.
Those who kicked the stuffing out of their strawman missed my point entirely.

Also, Godel's proof was logic based. That is true.
However, no one that I know of here claimed it established evidence for the existence of God. I believe I made that clear.
Again, I assert that logic does not point us away from a supreme being, as some self professed "logic driven" atheists are eager to claim either implicitly or explicitly.

[Robert Tulip]

But ant, you make such interesting comments!

And now, on Intelligent Design, you said "Leonard Susskind said something very interesting and honest... "we will be hard pressed to answer the ID critics. ... the hope that a mathematically unique solution will emerge is as faith-based as ID.""

Forgive me if your strategic retreat from this supposedly 'interesting and honest' statement looks slightly disingenuous.

[grizzlyman]

Excellent points. My view is that all supernatural claims originated as allegory, as symbolic ways of explaining real experiences and observations. But over time the psychological and social processes of religion led to the allegories wrongly being interpreted as literal truth, and then institutions grew on the basis of this false literalism.

Churches have found that false myths can be effective ways to mobilise community. This gives these myths an unwarranted social power, but does not mean that a simple rejection of the myths as completely false will work. We should respect the possibility that the outer myth conceals a hidden valid meaning.

Two excellent points in your quote; 'symbolic' and 'simple rejection as false not working'.
My book takes that view a step further. It outlines the development of spiritual belief from natural through mythology to the flawed supernatural understanding of today. The premise rationally shows how Miracle stories are socially true while the 'supernatural' events they contain are false. I translate several of the stories back to original meaning and include a 200+ 'words toolkit' that enables readers to interpret the original meaning (generic) of any miracle story that may pique their interest. Available with a free read of the intro at: http://www.miraclescam.com

[geo]

All this shows just how tempting it can be to argue with theists. But I think grizzlyman has made an excellent suggestion here that it is more constructive to focus on positive understanding. My observation is that many atheists have weak understanding of the psychological and social benefits of religion. In The World Until Yesterday, our current non-fiction book, Jared Diamond has a brilliant chapter on religion, exploring the benefits in terms of evolutionary psychology of believing things that are not true. I plan to focus on that chapter and will post comments about it shortly.

I know, I laugh at myself every time I jump into the fray. It's like someone sets a block up and I just can't help but try to knock it down.

I agree that many atheists don't have a full understanding of the psychological and social benefits of religion. Or, at least, they don't place much importance on those benefits. Unfortunately, the converse is true as well. Dyed-in-the-wool believers tend not to place much value on science. It seems strange since the two areas address completely different—nonoverlapping, if you will—domains. Admittedly, I do find the assertion that science is "just a position of faith" to be fairly appalling because it is wrong on multiple levels. But I also have to recognize, as Grizzly says, that it does little good to try to bridge that gap.

[DWill]

The atheist is far too presumptuous to leap from “I have no belief” to “I have no belief AND there is no god.”

This is a key statement. No presumption is involved, though, as it would be impossible for anyone not to have belief yet to believe there is or could be a God. This would indicate an irrational mind. When I say I don't believe in God, I am also saying that God does not exist. There is no way around this except by cowardly diplomacy. I am fairly certain I'm right, too, but this doesn't mean that I will swear by my feeling of certainty. The only thing to object to with any basis is the assertiveness of atheists who want to tell others that their belief in God is all wrong.

Let's also specify that by "God" we mean the common theistic idea of the personal and supervising deity. Otherwise, if we let in all the Einsteinian or pantheistic notions, the argument becomes mush.