Warrant vs reasonable doubt

[Metacrock]

this is a diaogue with me and "what's his face" (real screen name) on carm. Just some thoughts on weighing my rational warrant idea against his "reasonable doubt."

http://forums.carm.org/vbb/showthread.p ... ost5849747

"What's his face" on CARM

your warrant to think God might not exist is not as strong as my warrant that he does.

Oh yes it is... Notice I offered just as much justification for my statement as you did for yours.[/quote]

hardly. where are your 200 studies? You don't have a single argument that works by deductive logic or model logic. you don't have any emprical evidence. you have not one single study to back up disbelief in god.

all you really have is suspicion that there may not be a God. you have no actual postiive reasons for thinking there is not. I do have postiive reasons for thinking there is.

*my reasons correlate with personal experience that back doctrine.

*they are lined up with the rationale of deductive reason

*they are backed by empirical data

*they give more than a prima facie reaosn for accepting the co-determiante

* I have 8 tie breakers that the RE argument away from naturalistic brain chemistry alone.

* my RE fit the criteria we use for epistemic judgement

less than proof is ok. it it doesn't have to be proof it need not be proof.

It depends on how less than proof. Can you say how less than proof your argument is exactly, and why? I would accept beyond a reasonable doubt, such as the Earth orbits the Sun, which your case does not reach.

I have 200 empirical studies. you have bogus arguments like "no scientific evidence" taken out by the 200 studies.

calling inconclusive is misleading becuase "conclusive" is in the eye of the beholder.

If, within the case you make "conclusive" is in the eye of the beholder, it's not conclusive.

any impartial observer would have to give it to the one that has either the empirical data or the deductive edge. tie breakers have to count.

most people's reasons for being atheists are personal and emotional and not satisfying for real thinkers.

No Meta, this is horribly wrong. It's all about standards of evidence. Personal and emotional are more in the realm of believers.

no it's backed by several empirical studies and mount of empirical research around the concept of God image and self esteem. not just that one Lesie Francis study.

Originally Posted by Whatsisface View Post

But all of the above is still inconclusive and does not reach the evidential standard of beyond a reasonable doubt as far as God's existence is concerned. This is my rational warrant, and the more you add to your side that's inconclusive, the stronger my warrant becomes.

now you are trying to bring proof in the back door. "Reasonable doubt" is not the limit on warrant. Neither is a reasonable doubt predicated upon a feeling of doubt. I don't think you have a reasonable doubt. you have a strong sense of doubt but how is that reasonable? It can't be backed up by reason. Yes you can give m e reasons but I disprove most of them.

It's going to reduce to a non demonstrable sense that you have in your gut vs. what I think are valid reasons that you deny as valid becuase they dont' jibe with your gut. then you are going to deny that it's intuitive and calim that it's "reason." In reality you can't ground your doubt in reason.

You are one of the few here who actually tries to make a case for the existence of God but surely even you would admit it doesn't take you as far as beyond a reasonable doubt?

what makes a doubt reasonable? I have a feeling we aren't goign to agree. What role does reasonable doubt plain in relation to the warrant.

My feeling is warrant is permissive not compulsive. so I think it comes down t a purely existential matter. No one is trying to make you bleieve if you don't want to, don't. your not wanting to believe cannot be construed as disproof of my warrant for belief.

I asked you this...

You answered with...

Can you see how you have not answered my question?

no. I see a blank space there.

ok try it again:

I asked you this...

Whatshisface:...It depends on how less than proof. Can you say how less than proof your argument is exactly, and why? I would accept beyond a reasonable doubt, such as the Earth orbits the Sun, which your case does not reach.

You answered with...

Metacrock...I have 200 empirical studies. you have bogus arguments like "no scientific evidence" taken out by the 200 studies.

Can you see how you have not answered my question? You have not said how less than proof your argument is and importantly, how you know this.

no not at all. It looks ot me like 200 studies is a lot more proof than no studis and mere suspicion. how much less, 200 studies less. that answers your question.

[met]

Sorry, have to side- somewhat - with your opponent in this context (as best I can tell, since I t's hard to be sure who said what without allbthe formatting....) Even if the opponent accepts all your data unskeptically for the sake of argument, and if they read your book carefully, They could still say your (overall) argument is afflicted by the some of same problems you attribute to them. Most esp, where you argue - iirc- that some induced types of experiences are simply NOT SHOWN to be truly mystical, according to the M- or some other acceptable scale, and also not shown to have long-lasting positive effects. But those things COULD conceivably be demonstrated, and there's no prima facie reason they couldn't. That data just hasn't been collected yet. So you, too, are arguing at that point from a LACK of evidence...

Over time,it could still go either way, and to the extent that various kinds of induced experiences turned out to be equivalently mystical in terms of validity measurements and verifiable effects, your argument in the book would tend to lose force, and to the extent they did not, it would gain force.

But the jury is still out, your opponent could claim, and their counter-case may yet strengthen. So I think it's reasonable for him or her to refuse to change their mind yet. We don't have to change our minds merely based on a (current ) lack of evidence.


(Yknow. I hate to have to disagree with you but.....)

[Metacrock]

Sorry, have to side- somewhat - with your opponent in this context (as best I can tell, since I t's hard to be sure who said what without allbthe formatting....) Even if the opponent accepts all your data unskeptically for the sake of argument, and if they read your book carefully, They could still say your (overall) argument is afflicted by the some of same problems you attribute to them.

no they cant' there's no basis for saying that.

Most esp, where you argue - iirc- that some induced types of experiences are simply NOT SHOWN to be truly mystical, according to the M- or some other acceptable scale, and also not shown to have long-lasting positive effects. But those things COULD conceivably be demonstrated, and there's no prima facie reason they couldn't. That data just hasn't been collected yet. So you, too, are arguing at that point from a LACK of evidence...

that is simple not true. it only applies to the negative. The positions experiences all do fit the mystical.

Over time,it could still go either way, and to the extent that various kinds of induced experiences turned out to be equivalently mystical in terms of validity measurements and verifiable effects, your argument in the book would tend to lose force, and to the extent they did not, it would gain force.

no it can't. see chapter seven tie breakers. end of the chapter

But the jury is still out, your opponent could claim, and their counter-case may yet strengthen. So I think it's reasonable for him or her to refuse to change their mind yet. We don't have to change our minds merely based on a (current ) lack of evidence.


(Yknow. I hate to have to disagree with you but.....)

look at the shaby bull shit they try to pull. he starts out saying the studies don't say what I claim they do. so redefine the claims by showing the materila form teh book and the page numbers and dare him to look at those pages. so they never talk about that again but talk about how I can't prove it's God all the usual bs tehy say and they actual fursted liek "yiou just wont listen'" but they still have not answered a single answer that I brought to it

then the start asking me again how my arguments work and what they prove, proving once again they don't understand them, they have never read them. I've talked about that stuff endlessly and they talk like they never heard it before.

http://forums.carm.org/vbb/showthread.p ... -i-m-wrong

[met]

Yah, agree that his questions above are vague and fidgety. So I will press the case more effectually for them...

Don't you think if, someday, white-labcoated psyche researchers managed to show that lab-induced "mystical" experiences were also effective to produce long term, positive, transformational results, your argument would be in sone trouble? I can't think of how you claimed that couldn't happen in the future. Just hasn't yet.

... so, with some irony, does your argument also potentially carry the seeds of its own demise? By showing atheists just what they would need to accomplish to refute it, by leaving that open. (even tho that research gonna take a while to complete, obviously) ... Or, did I miss something?

[Metacrock]

Yah, agree that his questions above are vague and fidgety. So I will press the case more effectually for them...

Don't you think if, someday, white-labcoated psyche researchers managed to show that lab-induced "mystical" experiences were also effective to produce long term, positive, transformational results, your argument would be in sone trouble? I can't think of how you claimed that couldn't happen in the future. Just hasn't yet.

the feeling would be that way. But logically speaking the receptor argument means that it's like the epistemological fallacy to actually think we can decide it. How can we ever says X is purely naturalistic and not they way God did it? then you have to find the tie breaker: why ask if God did it? I don't think that just producing it in a lab (if they can) really proves that it's not God that did it, it doesn't answer the tie breakers I use in chapter seven (end).

I wont give them away, the lurkers can buy the book.

... so, with some irony, does your argument also potentially carry the seeds of its own demise? By showing atheists just what they would need to accomplish to refute it, by leaving that open. (even tho that research gonna take a while to complete, obviously) ... Or, did I miss something?

If so does that mean it's falsifiable? Being falsifiable is a good thing, it means it's also provable.