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Coded Logic
JoinedPosts by Coded Logic
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Reduce people's religosity through transcranial magnetic stimulation...
by Thursday infound this interesting article in the december 2015 issue of the australasian science journal, on whether it might be possible to change a person's beliefs by stimulating their brain via transcranial magnetic stimulation (tms).. "the study by us and uk researchers recruited 38 undergraduate students, with each reporting they held significant religious beliefs and conservative political views.
participants in the experimental condition received tms to the pmfc for a period of 40 seconds, a process that reduces neural activity in this region for up to an hour.
control participants underwent a similar process, but with a low level of tms that has no effect on the functioning of the pmfc.. the researchers found that those who had received tms reported significantly less conviction in their beliefs concerning god, angels and heaven following a reminder of death than those in the non-tms control group.
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Why I'm not agnostic
by Coded Logic ini think the time to be agnostic is when you have evidence on both sides of a claim.
for example, i'm agnostic about the existence of a historical jesus.
i think a reasonable case can be made that jesus was a man who was turned into a legend over a period of a couple of decades.
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Coded Logic
What if using evidence to try to find out of there is a God is like using a metal detector to try to discover a heavy metal band? It is based on a misunderstanding of how reality works.
Then we could never be justified in believing there is a God. Because I know of no method to tell the difference between things which don't exist and things for which there is no evidence. If we can't find out about something with evidence then what can we find out about it with?Imagine for a moment that I propose the existence of a square circle. And when you point out such a thing is not possible I say "Well you're being arrogant because you haven't ruled out that it could exists outside of all geometric planes. How do you know in the future we won't have the necessary mathematics to describe a square circle?"
I think you would find such postulations tedious and blatantly ad hoc. The very notion that I'm having to go outside of geometry to make my square circle work is a huge red flag I don't have good reasons for believing such a thing exists.
The same is true of the God hypothesis. If we have to redefine what existence means or postulate evidence is the wrong tool for the job - then that should be a red flag we are not on a path to knowledge.Philosophy is a great tool for making sure we're using the right epistemological methods and asking the right questions - but untempered by real world data it can only explore the theoretical. Never the actual. And arm chair speculations and ontological arguments are never going to get us to a justified belief in God(s).
Most importantly, it's not my fault if believers can't find a way to verify or falsify their beliefs. It's not my fault they can't think of a set of evidence that would prove the existence of the creator they claim exists. Because it's the person making the claims responsibility to provide evidence - not my responsibility to design tests for them. Onus Probandi: burden of proof / burden of persuasion falls to the person making the claim.
For example, I don't believe in the Multiverse. And simply saying "Well scientist don't have a way to test the theory therefore we are justified in believing it." - is NOT a valid argument. If someone claims the Multiverse is real it is up to THEM to provide the evidence. And if the hypothesis is unverifiable and or unfalsifiable then their belief is unwarranted. -
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Why I'm not agnostic
by Coded Logic ini think the time to be agnostic is when you have evidence on both sides of a claim.
for example, i'm agnostic about the existence of a historical jesus.
i think a reasonable case can be made that jesus was a man who was turned into a legend over a period of a couple of decades.
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Coded Logic
Love is an emotion. Emotions are real brain states that we can detect with measurable accuracy.
Love is also manifested by signs of affection. These too are demonstrable. Love is a real thing. It's been extensively studied. Here's some peer reviewed scientific articles if you're interested on the topic:
http://www.vislab.ucl.ac.uk/pdf/NeuralBasisOfLove.pdf
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Why I'm not agnostic
by Coded Logic ini think the time to be agnostic is when you have evidence on both sides of a claim.
for example, i'm agnostic about the existence of a historical jesus.
i think a reasonable case can be made that jesus was a man who was turned into a legend over a period of a couple of decades.
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Coded Logic
Or it could be an accurate description of a God beyond existence as we understand it.
"Beyond existence" is not something that has been established as being a real thing. And, until such a time as it is shown to be possible that something can exist "beyond existence" - there's no good reason to believe any such claims. Once again, I could just as easily put flying unicorns in the category of "beyond existence". But it still wouldn't mean anyone was justified in believing they're actually real.
You also don't seem to understand that negative theology is a thought experiment. It's not an actual way of describing things. Because we can only explain things in relation to other things. If you don't know what a ship is I might say it's a large boat. If you don't know what a boat is then I would have to explain it in reference to a vessel that floats on water, etc - until I get to something you have experience with or you already understand and then I can explain a ship in reference to that. But we can't explain things solely on what it isn't. If I say there I have a device that's not a computer and it's not alive and it doesn't have any minerals in it - could you then understand what that device is?
"Beyond existence" is just an Ad Hoc response you made up to try and rescue a failed hypothesis. There's a huge difference between following the evidence where it leads vs making up new terms so you can try and lead the evidence where you want it to go. -
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Why I'm not agnostic
by Coded Logic ini think the time to be agnostic is when you have evidence on both sides of a claim.
for example, i'm agnostic about the existence of a historical jesus.
i think a reasonable case can be made that jesus was a man who was turned into a legend over a period of a couple of decades.
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Coded Logic
If God fails to be a being about whom it makes sense to make empirical statements then what?
Then we're not justified in believing in it.
It doesn't make sense to make empirical statements about things which don't exist - like flying unicorns - because there are no empirical statements that can be made.
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Why I'm not agnostic
by Coded Logic ini think the time to be agnostic is when you have evidence on both sides of a claim.
for example, i'm agnostic about the existence of a historical jesus.
i think a reasonable case can be made that jesus was a man who was turned into a legend over a period of a couple of decades.
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Coded Logic
"God" is a manmade construct. Either it is an accurate description of some existent being or it is not.
If you're asking "could there be something out there of which we could not comprehend and cannot be described in anyway" then you're NOT talking about God. You're talking about something very much different.
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Why I'm not agnostic
by Coded Logic ini think the time to be agnostic is when you have evidence on both sides of a claim.
for example, i'm agnostic about the existence of a historical jesus.
i think a reasonable case can be made that jesus was a man who was turned into a legend over a period of a couple of decades.
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Coded Logic
But what about a God beyond being? Not in the category of beings whose existence can be determined one way or another.
-SBFHow do we tell the difference between beings whose existence cannot be determined from beings that don't exist at all?
I could just as well put unicorns, bigfoot, or pyramid building aliens in the category of 'beings whose existence cannot be determined'. Because things for which there is no evidence and things which don't exist are, for all intents and purposes, identical.
I am open to their existence pending evidence. But in the meantime the only rational position is disbelief. Why do people have such a hard time with this?
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Why I'm not agnostic
by Coded Logic ini think the time to be agnostic is when you have evidence on both sides of a claim.
for example, i'm agnostic about the existence of a historical jesus.
i think a reasonable case can be made that jesus was a man who was turned into a legend over a period of a couple of decades.
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Coded Logic
I agree Crofty. "Atheist" isn't really a label I use to identify myself. Because I prefer to use labels that stand for what I do believe. Not what I don't believe.
It's all been said before, but I think it bears repeating. Atheism is not a philosophy or worldview. It has no dogma, no tenants, no leader and no holy books. It's a single position on a single issue.
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Why I'm not agnostic
by Coded Logic ini think the time to be agnostic is when you have evidence on both sides of a claim.
for example, i'm agnostic about the existence of a historical jesus.
i think a reasonable case can be made that jesus was a man who was turned into a legend over a period of a couple of decades.
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Coded Logic
I think the time to be agnostic is when you have evidence on both sides of a claim. For example, I'm agnostic about the existence of a historical Jesus. I think a reasonable case can be made that Jesus was a man who was turned into a legend over a period of a couple of decades. But I also I think Dr. Carrier makes a great argument that Jesus could have started out as a celestial deity who was then euhemerized by the early Christians (much like Romulus was by the Romans). Having no way to rule out either of these plausible positions - I'm agnostic.
But when you have no good evidence for a proposition I think "atheism" is the most reasonable position. For example, I'm not "agnostic" about the existence of flying unicorns. I believe they don't exist. As I believe bigfoot doesn't exist. As I believe that aliens had no helping hand in building the pyramids.
Of course I can't prove a negative. I can't "prove" flying unicorns don't exist, or that bigfoot doesn't exist, or that aliens didn't help build the pyramids. But it's not necessary for me to disprove their existence to be rationally justified in my disbelief. Because the default position when addressing any claim is disbelief. It takes some prior experience or knowledge or new evidence to move us from disbelief to belief.
The absolute lowest bar for agnosticism is having some way of establishing a claim is possible - either through president or something of parallel comparison. For a God or Gods, it has not been established it's possible that they can exist. Much less plausible that they do exist. Thus atheism.
Or, to put all this into one pithy little soundbite; having no good reason to believe something is at least one good reason not to believe it.
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Good NYT article on gravitational waves discovery
by done4good inhttp://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/science/ligo-gravitational-waves-black-holes-einstein.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=homepage&clicksource=story-heading&module=photo-spot-region®ion=top-news&wt.nav=top-news&_r=0.
probably the biggest find since the higgs.. d4g.
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Coded Logic
And not just a new discovery either! Astrophysicist will now have a new tool in which they can observe the universe. One of the most interesting aspects is it will allow us to observe black holes up close and personal in a way we never could before.
It's like inventing the telescope or radio astronomy. It's really going to expand the kind of information we can gather.