Belief, Disbelief, and Arguing in Public

This video is a response to the discussion over the meaning of belief, disbelief, and claims in the comments of my last video. I have revised my own thinking on this matter. It discusses certainty, and answers (I hope) some of the arguments to my claim that disbelief is just shorthand for belief in the opposite. I argue that beliefs are foundational to rationality (thus not an accusation of naivete!).
Hopefully, this video will clear up some of the misunderstandings engendered by my comments.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• uncertainty
• belief
• disbelief
• claim
• logic
• boolean

[lilmarome]

You rightly say at the beginning that there are 3 positions: True, False or Unknown. I would like to argue that the 2 last ones are atheistic positions because they don’t believe that the claim is True.

Disbelief in a claim can either be: (Unknown) I neither believe that it’s true or false, I haven’t seen any evidence either way. Or: (False) I believe that the claim is false, I haven’t seen any evidence for your position and I even think that I have evidence Against your position.

[lilmarome]

@lilmarome The claim that an atheist would make is not so much that there is no god but that: "there are no evidence for a god, and why believe something that is not supported by evidence?" So I think that the discussion should be about what evidence theists think are valid and what evidence atheists, or even other theists (like for example Ken Miller), have against them.

[joshmeares]

@lilmarome - Good point, and I agree. But isn't the root idea that "We should only believe in things that have evidence" an unprovable (and false) assumption? For example, was the first century philosopher right to reject the Leucippus' atomistic model of the universe? There was no evidence to support it, and it wasn't quite right. But it was quite a lot closer to the truth than the elemental model of the universe.

[lilmarome]

@joshmeares If you don't have evidence for your beliefs than you are not justified in your belief. I someone had said that the earth is round when everyone else believed that it is flat and he didn't have anything to support his claim then he was not justified in his belief even if what he said was true. You need good reasons to believe what you believe or else it's dishonest.

[joshmeares]

@lilmarome - Interesting, so you would say that it is better to be wrong than to be right but unable to prove that you are right. What evidence can you offer? What is your rationale?

I think it is important to note that "evidence", "reasons", and "proof" are three very different things.

[joshmeares]

@lilmarome - I guess it's time for me to concede this point. My argument was initially that "agnostic" is a remarkably useful word for differentiating between people who are in the Unknown category, while "atheist" refers to people with a belief that the claim is False. However, it's not practicable to argue word usage. If atheist is widely taken to mean False or Unknown, then that IS what it means. But I'll take a moment of silence to mourn the loss of precision in the English language :)

[MrSchnuffs]

Hope that made sense, it does in my mind but maybe not on paper.

[MrSchnuffs]

So it follows that A isn't the perpetrator of the crime so far as we know. This doesn't automatically make the B guilty. It makes the answer unknowable. There is no reason to believe that A is guilty, but also no reason to believe that B is guilty either. What I'm trying to show is that in these circumstances it doesn't mean, if A then B. I don't have an adequate justification to believe either scenario, so it's a lack of belief on a single claim(that A is guilty), not the opposite(B is guilty)

[MrSchnuffs]

Good video, but I have a hypothetical analogy which might prove useful to explain the atheist perspective. There are really only two answers to the claim that God exists. he either does or he doesn't. Whether it is unknown at this time, it still amounts to these two answers. So, with that in mind, this is my analogy.

Say there is a murder, and it only could have been done by two suspects, A and B. The police claim that A did it, but haven't gathered evidence to support this.

[Bravowon]

“Interesting, so you would say that it is better to be wrong than to be right but unable to prove that you are right. What evidence can you offer?”, I would concur with his statement. Watch how scientific progress is made by using this simple method. (youtube.com/watch?v=2tcOi9a3-­B0)

Science is ever changing and ever progressing simple because it modestly works within the scope of human limitations. Religion is the arrogant, spoiled brat of understanding that already “knows” everything.

[Bravowon]

As far as proof goes, the only real poof that we can ever know for certain is that 2+2=4 and that a triangle has 3 sides (maths); everything else is reasoned using what limited resources we have at our disposal (a god antenna?? not sure). The common atheist does not believe that the current proposition for god is reasonable. Is that making a claim, well I would say more of a statement; a statement that says (semantics aside) “I accept my human limitations in the pursuit of greater knowledge” .

[Bravowon]

When all is said and done we still need to make that personal choice to accept a creator as our God. It's not a default position and the fact is only determined from the declaration by ones self. While I do believe in respect and admiration, I don't believe in worship in any form. I believe that our struggle for understanding is more noble and admirable than the products of an omnipotent force. Earth in one day, all the cosmos in a second day, seems like not much effort or care at all.

[Bravowon]

(3)”What could God do” If Jesus came back and began preaching the gospel complete with supernatural powers I could not deny you the truth claim that follows even if it's not to my personal taste. Even then we should be prepared to change our minds if we find we have been duped but I think a God on Earth in the 21st century passes the cut-off line for belief. As I said before I don't see the logic for unknown events to be attributed to a supernatural entity, a return would be a specific event.

[Bravowon]

(2)“...they tell me something slightly weird, I can file it away as Unknown.” After this encounter I ask the question, “did you believe what the man told you?” Your answer must be “no”, reason “insufficient data”. I could now reverse your proposal about atheists making a claim and say that by denying this man's claim you are making a statement about the real validity of the proposal. In actual fact your only claim is stating that your “fact determining” criteria has not been reached.

[Bravowon]

“The existence of matter/energy does not require an explanation?” Actually no, it doesn't but we sometimes impatiently, give it one. How many times in human history have we attributed an unexplainable event as having supernatural properties... and been wrong? Millions of times is the answer. Have we not learned our lesson by now? I don't even see the logic in going from “I don't know” to “God did it”. We should have some patience and wait for a real understanding.

[Bravowon]

(1)“So, if you think god doesn't exist a little bit, that would be a low grade belief”. As long as it has passed a reasonable standard for belief then I'm willing to accept it as true with the proviso that if new evidence comes in we must be willing to change our mind. We are working within the relatively narrow confines of human capability. I also think that a probability scale should have a cut-off line and not define everything as degrees of belief; that's counterproductive and non-committal.