h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There can't really be an objective demonstration of anything. Go with subjective; then you don't have to justify your beliefs, just how you modify them in light of new data.

From observation, it's not possible to say whether there is no god or merely a god which doesn't interfere; in which case you might as well go your own way.

Any god that puts massaging His ego above trying to help other people isn't worthy of my praise .

I just don't see a hypothetical deity as being at all relevant. I don't need instructions from on high. I find solace in other people. I establish morality from observation, tolerance and a sense of justice. And I like bacon.

So, Queex, would I be right to assume from your answer that you *aren't* sure (whether there's a God or not)? And, if so, wouldn't that make you an agnostic, not an atheist?

Lin Chung (level 10 Kensai)

"Who cares, wins"

I *am* sure. I just don't have to justify why I'm sure under a Bayesian approach .

OK, I'll be more specific: doesn't the concept of surety have an objective component? Isn't being sure an absolute (objective) state? ...

Lin Chung (level 10 Kensai)

"Who cares, wins"

No, surety is having a zero uncertainty associated with your beliefs (or infinite precision, if you prefer).

And you differentiate between them ... how?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I'm not making any statement about objective reality, just about my subjective one. In my subjective reality, there is no God. I'm not stopping anyone else from having one, though. Or even criticising them for that.

Are you open to the _possiblity_ that there might some day be evidence which changes your mind?

For me, I'm a kind of pantheist I guess. I just looked it up in the dictionary and it encompasses both tolerance of other forms of worship and worship of deities in all pantheons, which fits Wicca fairly well.

My certainty is a flexible kind of thing. I know what I feel, and I know what seems 'right' when I hear it. That's about it, really. By 'feel' I mean both when I walk around in the world, talk to trees or whatever, and when I deliberately attempt to contact a deity or deities of some kind. It might just be physical effects of my own mental state, but it definitely feels like something, and the theological explanation I know fits it as well as anything else.

<>

Ah. ... Fair enough!

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Ah, excellent. It's good to see someone differentiating between their own reality and the reality of others. Well said, Queex.

Self-Paradoxical

Yup. Sufficnent evidence would convince me. But I'm not holding my breath; none has turned up yet.

I wouldn't recommend holding your breath. I'm just happy to know that if evidence did come along you wouldn't start irrationally dismissing it. Not that I particularly want you to convert to anything, I just want to make sure you're not going to get stuck in your beliefs when changing them a bit might suit you better. From what I've seen of the world, closed-minded people can both cause and experience a lot of unhappiness

The only thing I really want to convert people to is open-mindedness. What they do after that is their concern - after all, Wicca does usually teach that preaching to people is rude.

well it is rude, I think. That's why I often do it. although my preaching more often involves doughnuts than god/God/gods/Gods/god\God/gods\Gods/god\gods/god\Gods/God\Gods/God\gods/Bob.

my oh my. I'll just abbreviate that then...

16gBob. I like that.


But really, the only thing that bothers me is people stuck in paradigms. That really bothers me. A whole lot. Darn. Poot. Heck.

As long as no-one starts calling the scientific method a belief system I'm happy.

It is a belief system - just quite a lot different to religious ones.

Indeed.

No No No No No!

The scientific method is a complicated toolbox for extracting information from the chaotic world we perceive. It does not make any statements about the world. It is not a body of knowledge. It is not a belief system.

The body of scientific knowledge can become a belief system if someone stops applying the scientific method to it. It happens depressingly often. You should continually apply the scientific method to your scientific beliefs if you wish them to remain coherent.

By the same token, you can apply the method to a religious standpoint, and generally end up with the groovy liberal branches of various religions.

The scientific method is a means of sensibly updating your beliefs in the light of new experiences. Beliefs you form with it could be said to be 'scientific' in that they are flexible, subject to change, and continually validated. Beliefs formed without scientific method could be said to be 'religious' in that they require no justification and are answerable to no contradictory evidence.

I have to disagree with you on that, Queex.

The scientific method can be said to be its own "religion" from a certain point of view. You said that the scientific method is different from religion in that religion makes certain assumptions and requires no justification.

You said <>

You're saying that the scientific method isn't a belief system and it doesn't make any statements about the world because it constantly updates itself and it uses justifications. You forget though, that there is one very large assumption that science does make, for which it has never come up with a valid justification: The fact that it doesn't follow any religious beliefs(God\Gods, Evolution vs. Creationism, etc.). In the same way that Atheism is a belief system, so too is the scientific method, if only for its lack of beliefs rather than its beliefs.

Self-Paradoxical

<>

Oh, Queex, you need help. Lucky we're here for you, eh? Having said that, I agree with the literal sense of your words. The scientific *method* is not a belief system, it's a method (surprisingly enough).

However, if you apply the scientific method without mercy, you end up in the land - the Real World? - of our friend Self-Paradoxical, where nothing at all is certain. Thus the beliefs that science dishes up for us all are just that. They cannot be objectively confirmed, or not by humans anyway.

And yet, we shouldn't (IMO) dismiss what science tells us because it's not certain. A high probability is good enough, if only because it's the best we have. And the scientific model has proved correct many many times, over centuries. *That's* an impressive record.

<>

Now that's a perspective I haven't seen expressed before. According to you, Queex, does the scientific method result in objectivity, certainty, or both?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"