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Reality is comprised of mental properties. Mental properties are features that only exist within your consciousness. Some examples of mental properties include colors (red, blue, yellow, etc.), textures, sizes, shapes, weight, tastes, sounds, and anything else that you can observe. Anything that you can observe is represented by an assimilation of mental properties that have no independent existence. We have no reason to believe that there's any feature of observable reality that doesn't depend on consciousness in order to exist. This should make you question your assumption that consciousness emerged from the material world. The material world's very existence depends on consciousness. The better assumption is that consciousness is fundamental and the material world is just a manifestation of consciousness.
Let's take two competing hypothesis:
(Hypothesis #1) the external world is the product of mind
(Hypothesis #2) the external world is the product of mindlessness
Let's examine (Hypothesis #1). What qualities or characteristics would we expect the external world to exhibit if it derived from a mind? Let's see what qualities our minds exhibit:
(1) intellect
(2) creativity/beauty
(3) humor
(4) intelligibility
(5) purposiveness
(6) rationality
(7) orderliness
(8) moral aspects
(9) complexity
(10) cohesiveness
Now let's examine (Hypothesis # 2) what qualities or characteristics would we expect the external world to exhibit if it derived from mindlessness? Let's examine what we could logically expect:
(1) blank
(2) unimaginative, distorted
(3) dull
(4) unintelligible, obscure
(5) aimless
(6) absurd
(7) chaotic, haphazard
(8) unprincipled
(9) plain
(10) disjointed, fragmented
If we take a look at the universe and examine our conscious interactions with the external world, it's much, much more indicative of (Hypothesis #1).
In the most concise way possible, the information-richness inherent in the external world infers the handiwork of mind instead of being the byproduct of mindlessness.
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@Stronn
The claim should be evaluated on its own merits. That's the most rational approach.
"The boy who cried wolf" is disanalogous to claims about the existence of God.
I'm glad we agree that the Big Bang singularity is fantastical yet has evidence to support it, so it warrants acceptance. Is the claim "a prime, eternal consciousness and creator of the universe exists" fantastical?
It is rational to want verifiability but the benchmark for whether a belief is rational doesn't begin with having 'verifiability', it begins with having evidence. This is especially true for non-empirical claims.
It's worth repeating that whichever claim is more rational to believe depends on the preponderance of the underlying evidence. Mere non-belief is the default position, not disbelief. To disbelieve something based on lack of evidence is an argument from ignorance. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
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@Stronn
"The genetic fallacy is a fallacy of irrelevance that is based solely on someone's or something's history, origin, or source rather than its current meaning or context. This overlooks any difference to be found in the present situation, typically transferring the positive or negative esteem from the earlier context. In other words, a claim is ignored in favor of attacking its source."
So is the big bang singularity fantastical?
We shouldn't concern ourselves with verifiability. We should concern ourselves with which claim is more rational to believe. Whichever claim is more rational to believe depends on the preponderance of the underlying evidence. Mere non-belief is the default position, not disbelief. To disbelieve something based on lack of evidence is an argument from ignorance. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
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@secularmerlin
I say "reject to be untrue" because that's not what the atheist experience hosts mean when they say they "reject" the existence of God claims. By "reject" they mean to remain merely non-acceptant.
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@secularmerlin
All you need to do is pick a new word. Pasta is defined by its composition of physical characteristics.
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@3RU7AL
I don't see how doing that would be relevant in avoiding the implication I talked about.
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@secularmerlin
Things are getting heavily conflated..
Accepting *that some state of affairs is true.*
Vs.
Brainstate of acceptance.
One refers to your psychology and the other refers to the propositional content of the belief as the Stanford source pointed out.
I've said many times that I do not care about people's psychology of belief/disbelief. I care about the claims that they accept to be true and the claims they reject to be untrue.
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@secularmerlin
I haven't heard a refutation of my argument that it violates the law of identity but you are free to give your opinion on the matter.
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@secularmerlin
The differences lie in what you're referring to. One means to accept a given state of affairs as true and the other doesn't take into account any given state of affairs aside from the belief/,no belief brainstate.
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@secularmerlin
Yes, "consciousness" is defined as the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings. There is no physical component indicated.
"Pasta" is defined as "a dish originally from Italy consisting of dough made from durum wheat and water, extruded or stamped into various shapes and typically cooked in boiling water." There are physical components indicated by its definition.
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@secularmerlin
I extend the same arguments I made earlier to your newly provided defintion.
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@secularmerlin
”
“Atheism” is typically defined in terms of “theism”. Theism, in turn, is best understood as a proposition—something that is either true or false. It is often defined as “the belief that God exists”, but here “belief” means “something believed”. It refers to the propositional content of belief, not to the attitude or psychological state of believing. This is why it makes sense to say that theism is true or false and to argue for or against theism. If, however, “atheism” is defined in terms of theism and theism is the proposition that God exists and not the psychological condition of believing that there is a God, then it follows that atheism is not the absence of the psychological condition of believing that God exists (more on this below). The “a-” in “atheism” must be understood as negation instead of absence, as “not” instead of “without”. Therefore, in philosophy at least, atheism should be construed as the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, the proposition that there are no gods)."
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@secularmerlin
A definition being vague does not affect its veracity but the problem is that you haven't provided a defintion at all, not even a vague one.
Consciousness does not derive its meaning from a composition of physical properties like pasta does.
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@secularmerlin
You are conflating the psychological brainstates of belief and disbelief with believing or disbeliving claims again. Please don't become Mopac.
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@secularmerlin
I feel I've made my position quite clear on this and don't feel the need to continue discussing the silly non-physical pasta monster concept that you've repeatedly avoided defining despite my requests.
Yes, due to non-physical pasta violating the law of identity, I believe it does not exist. I explained the differences between belief and disbelief in one of my posts above.
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@secularmerlin
"I believe it is true that there are no god(s)" then qualifies as a belief. It is after all the acceptance that something is true."
Correct.
If someone claims "God exists" and you disbelieve them, you are mentally rejecting that to be untrue. Note that this, by itself, is not accepting that "God does not exist" is true. The "God does not exist is true" part is *logically entailed* by their disbelief in the "God exists" claim.
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@secularmerlin
I already have. The word "pasta" derives its meaning from its composition of physical properties. The word "pasta", therefore, cannot also refer to a non-physical object as it would be a violation of the law of identity, one of the three fundamental laws of logic.
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@secularmerlin
Is it accepting that something is true or exists? If no, it's not a belief.
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@secularmerlin
Okay, the word "pasta" refers to something comprised of physical properties. Therefore, something that is not comprised of physical properties cannot also be "pasta."
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@secularmerlin
Because belief means to accept that something is true or exists. Disbelief means mentally rejecting something to be untrue or false. Disbelief *logically entails* the affirmed negation of the claim.
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@secularmerlin
If it's not physical then it isn't pasta. Either way, the proposition fails. I continue to await your defintion.
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@3RU7AL
No, because "consciousness" doesn't assign any physical attributes like "pasta" does.
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@3RU7AL
If all is determined by physics and chemistry then as soon as you explain how physics and chemistry can rationally accept beliefs I'll concede the point.
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But you don't see any distinction between non-belief and dis-belief so by misunderstanding what disbelief means I can see where you're coming from.
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@secularmerlin
Well if you disbelieve two options where one option must be correct then you're guaranteed to be wrong.
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@secularmerlin
The pasta monster violates the law of identity as a physical but non-physical entity.
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@3RU7AL
What are the distinctly different practical implications between (A) an intelligent creator and (B) a mindless creator and (C) no creator at all?
(1) a designed universe with a beginning
(2) a non-designed universe with a beginning
(3) a non-designed universe with no beginning
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Did all things originate from an eternal consciousness or not? That's about as simple as the distinction between theism and atheism gets.
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@secularmerlin
When you are ready to provide a defintion of the pasta monster we'll be able to proceed.
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@Ramshutu
Something can only be "better" relative to some goal. Without God, humanity can't have inherent goals. This means that whatever goals we come up with are imaginary and can't be objectively better or worse than any other goal.
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@Ramshutu
God's existence is a prerequisite for moral realism, so "better" can't be meaningful.
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@Harikrish
Indeed, you've sown racism and you've reaped as a racist.
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@secularmerlin
My definition of God is a prime, eternal consciousness and creator of the universe. If that's true, it's enough to demonstrate that atheism is false. Whether a claim is "vague" is largely subjective and has nothing to do with its veracity.
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@Stronn
I don't think the number of false claims on a particular subject is indicative of whether a particular claim on that subject is true or false. That's a variation of the genetic fallacy.
What makes a claim "fantastical"?
You're conflating "proof" with "evidence." Again, the word "evidence" just means information indicating whether something is true.
What's interesting is that the example of the 10ft tall gold statue of Zeus is more likely false than true, yet your view is that this negative claim should be harder to justify than the positive claim.
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@Stronn
The level of difficulty is claim-specific. It's not inherently more difficult to provide information that something does not exist. The ratio of true to false claims is irrelevant since (1) claims are case-specific and (2) claims aren't randomly selected.
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@secularmerlin
The focus isn't to "prove conclusively" anything. The focus is whether belief or disbelief in God is more rational.
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@secularmerlin
Then I await your definition.
You are getting caught up in the psychological brainstate of belief/disbelief when I just explained I don't care about that.
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Is it true that the more educated you become, the less inclined you are to believe that God exists? What is your level of education and do you believe that God exists?
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@keithprosser
Interesting point. It all depends on the basis of comparison. If your basis of comparison is reality, then no. If your basis of comparison is a fictional world, then yes.
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@secularmerlin
So was that your definition of the flying spaghetti monster?
You're conflating the psychological brainstate of believing or disbelieving something with believing or disbelieving a claim. I don't care about psychological brainstates. I only care when people believe or disbelieve a claim.
Again, no, I'm not talking about knowledge, just belief or disbelief.
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@secularmerlin
No, in the case of disbelief they just believe the claim is untrue after hearing it.
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@secularmerlin
Define "the flying spaghetti monster." Are you talking about a flying monster made of spaghetti or "The Flying Spaghetti Monster" which is different than the former?
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@keithprosser
To make it short and sweet, you either believe the claim is untrue after hearing it or you don't believe it's untrue after hearing it. If you believe it's untrue, this is referred to as disbelieving it. If you don't believe the claim is untrue, but still don't believe it, then you neither believe nor disbelieve it. This is called mere non-belief.
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@Stronn
I agreed with your first paragraph.
The default position is mere non-belief, not disbelief. When proof isn't available we should base our belief or disbelief of the claim off of evidence, not simply default to disbelief. It is irrational to disbelieve an existence claim just because there's no evidence for or against it. The word "evidence" refers to information indicating whether something is true.
By 'burden of proof' I'm referring to an obligation to show that your view is true. Any time you disbelieve a claim, no matter how outrageous the claim is, you have a burden of proof. There's a reason you found the claim to be outrageous in the first place. The evidence against the claim seems much greater than the evidence that supports the claim.
"If I claim X exists, all I have to do is show you X, or evidence of X. But if I claim X does not exist, I have to show you that in the entire universe nowhere is there an X."
I agree with your first sentence but disagree with your second sentence. If you claim X does not exist, all you have to do is show evidence that X does not exist.
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@Stronn
That isn't necessarily true. "Lacking belief" encompasses several different positions, one of which is disbelief. So you can "lack belief" in God due to your disbelief in the claim, and technically this is a case of lacking belief where you'd have a burden of proof.
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@secularmerlin
Well it begs the question as to what you mean by "reject." If "rejecting" a claim doesn't mean the mere non-acceptance of a claim, what exactly does it mean?
I'm clarifying what the intended meaning of "reject" is since it's a semantics game that atheist experience is playing.
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@bsh1
That would just incentivize people to stop working. Why put in the work to earn $40,000 when I can sit on my ass, make $0, and have the gov. give me $40,000?
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