Tags for this video have been changed from 'faith, sprituality, evidence, theism' to 'faith, spirituality, evidence, theism' - edited by mauz15

is it Just to inflict one's disbelief on believers.

If I "inflict" my disbelief that el chupacabra exists, work towards finding a non supernatural answer (and solution), this would result in helping people keep their livestock alive. I would say this is justifiable infliction of disbelief.

Alternatively if I were to tie someone up and beat the supernatural out of them I would consider that to be unjust.

The cake is a lie...

Eh... the consistency of physical laws is a proposition one must necessarily take on faith. The first person I'm aware of who pointed this out was skeptic and atheist David Hume.

It's called the Problem of Induction in philosophy. One can never prove by observation that the universe will remain consistent, because this begs the question by assuming the conclusion--that past consistency is a guide to future consistency.

Likewise, the video overstates the objectivity of science; philosophy and sociology of science show that a strong subjective element is not only present in science, but in principle ineradicable.

However, these cannot be used by naive Evangelicals to bolster their claims. The self-criticism and intellectual openness of science show it to be a far more reliable way to discover facts, and a far healthier way to resolve disputes about the world.

I love this guy's animations. The flower band with atom flags a-waving is so cute, in a quirky, geeky, sciency way.

>> ^HadouKen24:
Eh... the consistency of physical laws is a proposition one must necessarily take on faith.

No. That is a metaphysical and not a scientific argument. No scientist worth their salt would ever take the consistency of a law as faith if the law was inconsistent with their observations. That of course is the essence of the scientific method.

If nature is found to be inconsistent then that would open up a new field of science. The scientific community would not try to distort the evidence of such a thing and cling blindly to their antequated beliefs.

>> ^HadouKen24:
Eh... the consistency of physical laws is a proposition one must necessarily take on faith.

While Hume's argument was philosophically true when it was made, it is a groundless assertion that physical law will cease to be consistent. The scientific history of consistency which we have observed since the time of his life is evidence of consistency.

We now have mountains of evidence that physical laws have continued to be consistent, while the probability that they will remain so is not 100%, it does not follow that the position is groundless, and therefor requiring faith.

Given the available evidence we can safely claim that it is astronomically unlikely that physical laws will arbitrarily cease to be consistent. They could, just as my life might be a complicated computer simulation, or I'm living on an alien wild life preserve, or the earth will stop spinning at noon today, but these are not likely, only possible, belief in any of these would require faith, assuming their falsehood does not.

I don't know that I agree with his assertion that evolution is fact (2:48), mainly because the simple term "evolution" is far too broad to be regarded as confirmed fact.

Micro-evolution can be observed, so in that case I would be more comfortable with a labeling as "fact". However, macro-evolution is not observable (at least not that I know of). It's an extrapolation of micro-evolution to attempt to explain how life and species were formed. There is a lot of evidence for it, but I wouldn't call the entire theory "fact".

It's sorta like gravity. The "theory" of gravity was created to explain the "fact" that objects tend to fall towards the ground.

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^HadouKen24:
Eh... the consistency of physical laws is a proposition one must necessarily take on faith.
While Hume's argument was philosophically true when it was made, it is a groundless assertion that physical law will cease to be consistent. The scientific history of consistency which we have observed since the time of his life is evidence of consistency.
We now have mountains of evidence that physical laws have continued to be consistent, while the probability that they will remain so is not 100%, it does not follow that the position is groundless, and therefor requiring faith.
Given the available evidence we can safely claim that it is astronomically unlikely that physical laws will arbitrarily cease to be consistent. They could, just as my life might be a complicated computer simulation, or I'm living on an alien wild life preserve, or the earth will stop spinning at noon today, but these are not likely, only possible, belief in any of these would require faith, assuming their falsehood does not.





Assuming the falsehood of something does indeed require faith - faith in that the assumption is true. the only way you could say that you do not need faith would be if in fact you knew for certain. since you don't you require an (active) belief.

Assuming the falsehood of something does indeed require faith - faith in that the assumption is true. the only way you could say that you do not need faith would be if in fact you knew for certain. since you don't you require an (active) belief.


It is faith if there is no evidence for it. Believing in gods requires faith because there is no evidence that they exist.

However, our observations that physical laws have been consistent in the past give evidence in support of the prediction that physical laws will continue to be consistent. That is not faith, because it is based on evidence. No one can know that they will remain consistent, but they can predict it based on the data we have collected thus far.

>> ^HadouKen24:Assuming the falsehood of something does indeed require faith - faith in that the assumption is true. the only way you could say that you do not need faith would be if in fact you knew for certain. since you don't you require an (active) belief.

Just as the common and scientific definitions of theory are used to confuse the issue, I think you are treating operational and the philosophical certainty as if they are the same thing, they are not.

When you enter a room at night, you do not have philosophical certainty that flipping the light switch will illuminate the room, but you do not, in practice question the value of flipping the switch every time, because your experience provides you operational certainty that that is what happens when the switch is flipped.

If you had faith that the switch will illuminate you would then continue to flip the switch until the light comes on, but you don't have faith, merely operational certainty, and when it fails (bulb dead, breaker blown, power outage) you do not cling to the assertion that it should work, you abandon your operational certainty, and find the problem.

My acceptance of scientific knowledge is the same. If something did work better for finding out what is true I would use that, but as long as science is working I'll use it until/unless it fails, or is superseded, no faith required.

>> ^Psychologic:
Assuming the falsehood of something does indeed require faith - faith in that the assumption is true. the only way you could say that you do not need faith would be if in fact you knew for certain. since you don't you require an (active) belief.

It is faith if there is no evidence for it. Believing in gods requires faith because there is no evidence that they exist.
However, our observations that physical laws have been consistent in the past give evidence in support of the prediction that physical laws will continue to be consistent. That is not faith, because it is based on evidence. No one can know that they will remain consistent, but they can predict it based on the data we have collected thus far.



predictions are not something independent of human mental states. one has to believe a prediction. if you say you predict this and this will happen it de facto means you believe it will happen.

you seem to be consistently avoiding the crucial link in the chain - the thinking human being.

predictions are not something independent of human mental states. one has to believe a prediction. if you say you predict this and this will happen it de facto means you believe it will happen.
you seem to be consistently avoiding the crucial link in the chain - the thinking human being.


There are a number of assumptions in that statement that prevent me from responding without first asking you something.

What is your definition of evidence with regards to human perception?


If your premise is that perception itself cannot be proven then there is no room for evidence, and since the distinction between science and faith is based on the availability of evidence then a belief that perception cannot be proven would lead to the conclusion that there is no distinction between a provable and a non-provable event.

I'm not sure I completely understand what you mean.
If you're referring to solipsism, which is still a real philosophical problem, then no, I wasn't taking a solipsist stance.


I'm basically arguing for the classical view of knowledge as
"justified true belief"

if there were a society of robots with complex algorithms to do experiments there still would be science in the crude and vulgar sense. if the robots could be constantly experimenting ones (programmed to experiment, gather various types of matter, try to combine them etc.) they could for instance "discover" and create various new chemical compounds but they wouldn't have knowledge - scientific or otherwise.

these robots would need to have some sort of ingenious matter scanning technology to pull this of but that's beside the point.

I suppose the easiest way I can describe whether a given idea is science rather than faith is by answering the question "is there evidence that supports the idea". If part of an explanation doesn't have any supporting evidence then you would have to either take it on faith or say it is unknown.

I think somewhere along the way we're assuming a different definition for a word, I'm just not sure which one.



if you say you predict this and this will happen it de facto means you believe it will happen.

Belief by itself is not faith if it is supported by evidence.

Try this example: A bag contains 10,000 red marbles and one blue marble. I can predict that if I reach in and grab one marble that it will be a red one. It doesn't mean that I think grabbing the blue marble is impossible, just highly unlikely. I can predict that the one I grab will be red with a fair degree of confidence.

I suppose you could argue that I have faith that the marble I choose wouldn't be green (or even a marble for that matter), but I would still disagree by saying that the chance of that event is even less than choosing the blue one and therefore doesn't affect the likelihood of choosing a red marble. A lack of belief in something due to a lack of evidence is not the same as believing something is untrue due to lack of evidence.

So where do you see the faith in that example?

I would argue that an example of faith would be a belief that there is a green marble, despite any evidence for that claim. It doesn't mean the belief is untrue, it just means it is unsupported. The evidence is the important part, not the belief itself. If I say "I have no reason to believe there is a green marble in the bag" then that is not faith (to me at least). I have evidence that points to there being no green marble (filling the bag myself), but I do not have any that points to one existing.