I would like to see shminux challenge addressed here.
Sure, see that thread.
Let’s pick another faith based case—or even the atheist position (which I would argue is just as much about faith as the religious persons). I agree with the position that rationality leads not to no belief (in god or some other position) but an agnostic position.
Ok, I think you’re asking me to ground my atheism-belief, like why am I not agnostic?
Since I don’t think that you think I should be agnostic about e.g. Helios, I would ask you to first clarify your question by putting forth a specific hypothesis that you think I should be agnostic rather than atheist about.
I do not see that it is my position to suggest or argue that you be anything. I would suggest the “burden of proof” why X does y will always belong with X.
If atheism is the faith position you want to defend or challenge with your power of specifics that is fine with me. It would be engaging shminux’s suggestion rather than sidestepping it.
I am not defending or refuting anything here but will point out that atheism is a statement about something not existing. Proving something does not exist is a highly problematic exercise.
for any hypothesis H, it’s on average equally “problematic” to believe its probability is 1% as it is to believe its probability is 99%.
This is obviously true because there’s an isomorphism between hypotheses and their negations, and “for any hypothesis” includes both. (There might also be other, less obvious reasons why it’s true.)
But the set of hypotheses “X does not exist” doesn’t contain both sides of the isomorphism, so the obvious argument doesn’t carry through.
And I don’t think the conclusion is true, either, though I wouldn’t want to say much more without being specific about what set of entities we’re considering. (All logically possible ones? Physically possible? Entities that people claim to have communicated with? Of course it’s not your job to do this, the parent was underspecified.)
But the set of hypotheses “X does not exist” doesn’t contain both sides of the isomorphism, so the obvious argument doesn’t carry through.
I figured anyone who thinks proving non-existence is extra hard also probably lacks a sufficiently thought-out concept of “existence” to convincingly make that claim :)
But ok, to engage more with the parent: My atheism takes the form “For all God-concepts I’ve heard of, my attempt to make them specific has either yielded something wrong like Helios, or meaningless like belief-in-belief or perhaps a bad word choice like ‘God is probability’”.
If the set of all God-concepts I’ve heard were empty, I wouldn’t have the need to say I’m an atheist. That’s why the burden of proof is actually on the God-concept-proposers.
I am not defending or refuting anything here but will point out that atheism is a statement about something not existing. Proving something does not exist is a highly problematic exercise.
This feels like a framing problem. For me to think that my room isn’t full of apples, I don’t need to prove it isn’t full of apples, I just need to assign significantly higher probability to apples not bursting out of my windows.
Sure, see that thread.
Ok, I think you’re asking me to ground my atheism-belief, like why am I not agnostic?
Since I don’t think that you think I should be agnostic about e.g. Helios, I would ask you to first clarify your question by putting forth a specific hypothesis that you think I should be agnostic rather than atheist about.
I do not see that it is my position to suggest or argue that you be anything. I would suggest the “burden of proof” why X does y will always belong with X.
If atheism is the faith position you want to defend or challenge with your power of specifics that is fine with me. It would be engaging shminux’s suggestion rather than sidestepping it.
I am not defending or refuting anything here but will point out that atheism is a statement about something not existing. Proving something does not exist is a highly problematic exercise.
No, for any hypothesis H, it’s on average equally “problematic” to believe its probability is 1% as it is to believe its probability is 99%.
This doesn’t quite engage with the parent.
This is obviously true because there’s an isomorphism between hypotheses and their negations, and “for any hypothesis” includes both. (There might also be other, less obvious reasons why it’s true.)
But the set of hypotheses “X does not exist” doesn’t contain both sides of the isomorphism, so the obvious argument doesn’t carry through.
And I don’t think the conclusion is true, either, though I wouldn’t want to say much more without being specific about what set of entities we’re considering. (All logically possible ones? Physically possible? Entities that people claim to have communicated with? Of course it’s not your job to do this, the parent was underspecified.)
I figured anyone who thinks proving non-existence is extra hard also probably lacks a sufficiently thought-out concept of “existence” to convincingly make that claim :)
But ok, to engage more with the parent: My atheism takes the form “For all God-concepts I’ve heard of, my attempt to make them specific has either yielded something wrong like Helios, or meaningless like belief-in-belief or perhaps a bad word choice like ‘God is probability’”.
If the set of all God-concepts I’ve heard were empty, I wouldn’t have the need to say I’m an atheist. That’s why the burden of proof is actually on the God-concept-proposers.
This feels like a framing problem. For me to think that my room isn’t full of apples, I don’t need to prove it isn’t full of apples, I just need to assign significantly higher probability to apples not bursting out of my windows.