Philosophy Now Forum

Conde: If we want to get empirical, we can count how is the distribution of atheists vs. theists in prisons. I thought it was more or less the same as it is in the general population (around 97% to 3%), but in the USA it seems that criminal theists hold a bigger percentage. Don't take my word for it...

You know of course that a tooth fairy is meant only in fun That just means that you are a Tooth Fairy atheist. I bet you are also a Santa Claus atheist. It really doesn't matter, I could give you a list of hundreds of divine entities in which humans have seriously believed (although they were no be...

Uwot's contention that testing of hypothesis only makes sense if it pertains to the real, material world and otherwise is metaphysics is of course a self defeating argument. Because hypothesis are set up in the material world they can only address responses in the material world EVEN IF dealing wit...

What a pitiful, self-indulgent whimper. If it bothers you that you cannot defend your beliefs against moderate philosophical scrutiny, you are a fool to air them on a forum that has philosophy in the title. The charge that my arguments amount to no more than "no, you are wrong" is cowardl...

You have a primary and a null (alternate) hypothesis, which are both equally valid and can both be determined with the desired level of statistical confidence. As Ginkgo has pointed out: it's not that simple. Who says theists have no meaningful evidence of God? They have historically accurate accou...

From what I see, Conde, we are both consistent in the way we reason. Just out of curiosity, have you ever had any background, influence, upbringing etc. in your life that could leave open some room in your mind that there is at least some probability that God could actually exist? Or, do you simply...

The problem is that when the null hypothesis does then job there is no need to consider any alternatives. It does the job too well. If physics relied exclusively on the null hypothesis then we would have never moved from Newton to Einstein to quantum mechanics. The inadequacy of the null hypothesis...

To be perfectly honest I couldn't disagree more. As far as a null hypothesis is concerned you are promoting- if not one, then it must be the other. That's not how physics works. Social science tries to encapsulate the complexity of empiricism and one cannot ignore the role of the individual in term...

Excuse me butting in Arising, but it's me old mucker Immanuel Can talking bollocks again. Take the universe, for example. Scientists tell us it's infinite. No they don't. That the universe is infinite is an hypothesis, as is that it is finite. There are scientists of either persuasion that are tryi...

In the interest of fairness, let me point out that no one in this forum is entitled to put forth unproven assumptions (often based on personal bias and preconceived notions) and then try to develop a logical argument from that. I must disagree. Since actually the very nature of a forum is to offer ...

Hi Conde, Couldn't find this quote in this thread, so I don't know who you are addressing. In case it is meant for me then I can suggest an answer that seems reasonable to me on a personal level. Please see material below. Are all religions good? "Members of all faiths are equal before God. Go...

James, QMan, Welcome back. Interestingly, the bible conveys that, concerning our sins, God has said he will eventually forget them (to be able to have us around I guess :) ). Oh? Can you provide a quote, please? Based on my reading of the Bible, in particular the Gospels, there are many whose sins ...

Theism is the belief in a benevolent, omnipresent figure who distributes blessings around the world. So, if I believe in a god that is not benevolent, nor omnipresent, am I an atheist? If 2 people believed in 2 different, mutually exclusive, benevolent, omnipresent figures who distributed blessings...

James, Thanks for your response, mate. I don't really have anything to rejoin with, what you write is fair enough, except that I would only suggest that just as my idea of a Source splitting into the duality of God/Devil for the purpose of forcing its own evolution is speculative, so is your idea o...

Harry Baird: In fact, this does not represent a problem to my assertion, the very fact that infinity never elapses counts *in favour* of my view. Basically, I'm applying the same very simple probabilistic analysis to your view of heaven that I applied above to IC's view of the Garden: if p is the pr...