Evidence for Beliefs

Evidence of the supernatural is not about 'healing' or 'providing' as (J)esus Christ did/has. Today, Supernatural is about 'killing' 'robbing' 'controlling'.

Do you have evidence to today's Supernatural ?

(J)esus Christ, Whom came into His World, healed, raised the dead, gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf... and He was loved for these, but at the same time, He was hated and called a 'devil' because of these.

Today, humans whom man and woman procreate and whom God gives 'life' and 'soul' to, kills, steals and destroys and if done 'supernaturally', is called a god.

 

As you know, since you are an accomplished philosopher, definitions in philosophy come and go. And nothing is written in stone (other than "know thyself" written in the stone at Delphi in Greece).

 

Definitions are paramount.. and not just partisan code words, or 'dog whistle' terms that only carry ambiguity.

'Religion!' ..is one such term. What does it mean? I find it used as a pejorative to promote a groupthink narrative:

"Christians have religion.. atheists have science!"

..as if Christians or theists cannot reason scientifically, or atheists do not have beliefs.

It seems to me, from an objective, rational POV, that everyone has a 'religion'.. a world view or belief/opinion about the nature of life, man, and the universe. Why label a particular worldview 'religious!', and another, 'science!', if the goal is not to perjure the one and elevate the other as somehow 'settled science!'?

The objective dichotomy is there.

There is a God..
There is no God..

Both are religious or philosophical beliefs, with no proof from scientific methodology. They are opinions about the nature of the universe.

But to state such a thing elicits howls of 'blasphemy!' 'Atheists only have science, it is Christians who are religious!'

But this seems to be mere fear of a term, and a subtle (dog whistle?) attempt to marginalize one worldview, while pretending superiority of another, using only terminology. No facts, arguments, or reason is necessary.

This is illustrated constantly in the forums, as atheists indignantly deny they have beliefs. But what else can you call these philosophical opinions about the nature of the universe?

IMO, it is the Snowflake Effect.. wanting to be special and/or superior to stupid, superstitious religious people who only have beliefs. But they cannot recognize that this is just the age old practice of religious bigotry, to frame or define YOUR beliefs as True, and everyone else as Wrong.

 

Why?

Some people are color blind and cant see red, does not mean its not there or that its not red.

Anything that science cannot explain 'in nature' has a high probability of being supernature.

science is a religion for those who worship it as the highest authority.

 

Laughable nonsense.

 

To be fair, it seems to me you are also getting at what should be, rather than just what is. In my more level-headed moments, I agree that the considerations should be more pragmatic -- and I may be one of the poorest examples of such sound reasoning on this forum. And I also agree that there's sometimes a pragmatic "backdrop," if you will, to the non-pragmatic discussions. I've had hours-long conversations with theists when it seems we don't actually disagree on much more than semantics, meaning there is often no pragmatic difference.

I also think that too many fellow atheists are so focused on the "burden of proof" concept that they try avoiding (publicly, anyway) making claims of their own and try to force everything on theists. I get tired of hearing people say, "I'm not saying that God doesn't exist" when I've heard those some people claim exactly that when surrounded by likeminded people.

 

I'm happy to discuss both what is and what should be. I just don't accidentally mixing them up.

I don't necessarily think that's a bad idea. You're allowed to believe whatever you want. The burden of proof is important when you're bringing your beliefs onto others and useful when you're just discussing interesting phenomena or thinking about them yourself, but not mandatory. That's because the burden of proof is concerned with figuring out if stuff is true, and one is allowed to believe false things.

The way you mention "I'm not saying that God doesn't exist" can be interpreted two ways. Do you mean that they are unwilling to ever claim that God doesn't exist, or just not to claim it in the particular discussion? The former is arguably a bit sneaky (although I wouldn't argue disallowed, and maybe not sneaky in all situations), whereas I think the latter is imperative in many discussions, even regarding religion.

I think the best or most important argument against for example "God hates homosexuals" is not "nah, there is no god, so it must be false" as much as "you couldn't possibly have reliable access to that kind of information". If someone has made the latter counterargument, it would be dishonest to attack the former instead.

Someone might argue that a specific religious claim is wrong without having to present a competing theory. I don't know what's in my neighbour's fridge, but if someone said there was an elephant in there, I'd still have good cause to say that person is wrong. To expect someone to justify their alternative claim seems to me a red herring, plausibly designed to derail the conversation rather than resolve the issues.

That being said, it depends on what discussion you're having. If your discussion is "what is the truth about the nature and history of the world?", then yeah, maybe the best approach is to choose among the alternatives according to their justifications (and thus, all justifications should be shown). However, if the question is "how should we run society?" "when are we justified in acting?" or in particular "is the particular policy X justified?" then defending some opposing view is arguably beside the point. Interestingly, that distinction isn't always clear even when a discussion starts.

 

Well, it depends on how you look at things. Science is observational. If you find something in nature and can verify that it is there with scientific rigour, then science has shown that it is there.

In a way, I think there is a dichotomy between people who think that science is a subject in school which is mostly concerned with learning lists or facts (and mostly particularly dry ones), and people who think that science is a set of methods for viewing the world and avoiding falsehood, closely related to the way humans look at the world instinctively.

If we consider the latter, then things that science fails to pick up on is often things we have no justification for actually believing (although there are some exceptions to that).

Science has no problem talking about red, even to those who cannot see it.

 

The earth moves constantly. Nothing supernatural about it.