ibidem comments on Open Thread, May 1-14, 2013 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: whpearson 01 May 2013 10:28PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 10 May 2013 02:39:43PM 1 point [-]

This "in the absence of evidence" theme is popping up all over but doesn't seem to be getting anywhere new or useful. I'm going to let it be.

And I'm not momentarily interested in a full-blown argument about the nature of the evidence for and against God. I believe there is evidence of God; you believe there is none, which is practically as good as evidence that there is no God. We can talk over each other about that for hours with no one the wiser. I shouldn't be surprised that any debate about this boils down to the evidence—but the nature of the evidence (remember, we've been over this) means that it's really impossible to firmly establish one side or the other.

Comment author: Desrtopa 10 May 2013 02:55:31PM 2 points [-]

And I'm not momentarily interested in a full-blown argument about the nature of the evidence for and against God. I believe there is evidence of God; you believe there is none, which is practically as good as evidence that there is no God. We can talk over each other about that for hours with no one the wiser. I shouldn't be surprised that any debate about this boils down to the evidence—but the nature of the evidence (remember, we've been over this) means that it's really impossible to firmly establish one side or the other.

Why is that?

If god were really communicating and otherwise acting upon people, as you suggest, there's no reason to suppose this should be indistinguishable from brain glitches, misunderstandings, and exaggerations. I think that the world looks much more like we should anticipate if these things are going on in the absence of any real god than we should expect it to look like if there were a real god. You could ask why I think that. A difference of anticipation is a meaningful disagreement to follow up on.

You might want to check out this post. The idea that we can't acquire evidence that would promote the probability of religious claims is certainly not one we can take for granted.

Comment author: [deleted] 10 May 2013 03:16:45PM 0 points [-]

You could ask why I think that. A difference of anticipation is a meaningful disagreement to follow up on.

No thanks, not today at least. I think we just disagree here.