Describing Christianity - Page 15

On October 17 2013 13:17 Myrkskog wrote:


The rational thing to do is to not believe the claim that god was the cause until there is evidence.

On October 17 2013 15:18 packrat386 wrote:


As a scientist why would I reject something in absence of evidence to the contrary? I have a hypothesis that God exists, and yet no experiment that I can run would prove or disprove this claim. Science doesn't tell me to reject my hypothesis.

On October 17 2013 15:22 IgnE wrote:


Usually you have some reasons for why you chose one hypothesis rather than another. Do we really have to go down the teapot road?

On October 17 2013 14:19 IgnE wrote:


What happens if you understand a good bit of it and still find it silly?

On October 17 2013 15:27 packrat386 wrote:


I know the teapot example, but i come to a different conclusion about it than Russel does. My argument is first and foremost that you shouldn't reject the hypothesis that the teapot (or God) exists, which is something even Russel would arguably argee with. The teapot example is in the context of attempting to convert or argue that God does exist vs simply allowing for belief.

Second, the implications for believing in God are larger than the implications for believing in the teapot. Whether or not the teapot exists has no bearing on my life, but God seems to have a rather large effect. Perhaps I might err on the side of trying to have a connection with something beyond me (i.e pascal's wager).

Lastly, the teapot is a bad example because we have observed teapots and we have observed space and we have generally come to the conclusion that space is teapot free. However in the case of God, its not like we have checked outside the material universe and often found it to be lacking gods.

On October 17 2013 16:26 -NegativeZero- wrote:

Pascal's Wager has been thoroughly disproven - it presents the illusion of a simple binary choice (god vs. no god), in which case it might actually make a small amount of sense, but in fact there are an infinite number of possible religions/gods (and an infinite number of possible realities in which there is no god) so the chances of picking the correct one are almost 0.

On October 17 2013 16:19 Myrkskog wrote:


You are muddling the wording and changing the arguments around randomly...

When someone says that they have an interaction with god when they pray, they are not saying that they have a hypothesis that the experience they had was MAYBE an interaction with God. They are saying that it WAS interacted with God, which is apparently enough evidence for you to justify a belief in this god.

I am not saying that we should completely dismiss the hypothesis that it may be possible that it is a god that has caused the experience, I am saying that we should not believe their claim that it IS God that caused this interaction until there is justification.

Even in an extreme example, such that someone has had a measurable experience that we can't explain, the default answer is still we don't know, even if that person claims it was God.



How large a role something plays in how you choose to live your life is completely up to you and does nothing to answer the question of whether or not that thing is actually true. God only has as larger effect on your life than a teapot because you give God more meaning than a teapot. If I believed that the supernatural Mayor McCheese was the only thing keeping me from killing my wife, it doesn't say anything as to whether or not supernatural Mayor McCheese actually exists.

And you are aware that Pascal's wager is widely considered the absolute worst argument for God? It is laughable to the point where even the most hardline Christian apologists think that it is crap.



You can't just check a little bit of space and then declare that the teapot does not exist. That would be like if someone said, "hey there are bears in the mountains", and you went out for a day, didn't see one and said that the mountains are bear free.

On October 17 2013 16:30 packrat386 wrote:
3: We have checked a LOT of space and found relatively little teapots. Also, even if there is still a lot of space that we haven't checked, in the case of the teapot we at least have a body of evidence from which to draw conclusions. In the case of God we have no such body of evidence. Also, it is this body of evidence that makes the teapot argument seem so ridiculous.

On October 17 2013 16:37 Tobberoth wrote:

That's not the point of the teapot argument though. He could just as well have said "an invisible undetectable teapot". The point is that if you make a claim that can't be proven, people have zero reason to believe you, so it's up to you to supply the proof.

On October 17 2013 16:40 packrat386 wrote:

I'm not trying to convert anyone so the argument that I ought to be providing proof is nonsensical. I have argued noqhere that God exists, nor will I. My argument is that God could exist, and yet you all have the gall to concede that argument in your post and then say that I'm somehow wrong. Also, that is a better example. If someone tells me that there is an invisible undetectable teapot somewhere in space, I wouldn't say that s/he is "obviously" wrong.

On October 17 2013 16:44 Tobberoth wrote:

I didn't say you're wrong. I was just correcting the discussion since it moved away from the general theme, people could be confused if they read your post and didn't know the point of the actual teapot argument.

Like you said, the teapot argument doesn't mean god can't exist and people who say he could are wrong. It only shows that if people claim god exists, the burden of proof is on them, no one has to prove that god doesn't exist because it makes more sense to start with a clean slate and not believe him until proven wrong than the other way around. I have no reason to believe in an invisible teapot in space, and by that same token, I have no reason to believe in God. That said, both the invisible teapot and God COULD exist.

On October 17 2013 16:51 packrat386 wrote:


So when i said I came to a different conclusion from Russel, I have to admit that I was making a stronger claim than just that, just not one that had come up earlier. In the case of God since we have no set of data to compare it with, it seems to me that there is no reason why it makes any more "sense" to start with a clean slate in that sense. I think that Russel does a good job of setting up an argument that sounds convincing, but doesn't really make the point that he has in mind.

The reason it seems more reasonable to reject the teapot than accept it is precisely because of the fact that we have a body of evidence in which we have observed some space and not seen teapots in it. Yes, we can't conclusively prove it, but we do have some reason to infer that it is less likely than the alternative. Thus we have the gut reaction of wanting to believe that there is no teapot. However in the case of God we have no such body of evidence thus no reason to believe that God is less likely than an alternative.

The only reason therefore to reject the God hypothesis is from the argument that complicated systems are inherently less likely than simple ones. However in the case of universes, we once again have no evidence to support this claim, and any claims based on smaller subsets of the universe would be a massive extrapolation. Thus it seems like there is no reason for us to err on the side of simpler systems.

The reason that I don't really care for that detail is that I think the teapot is hardly the best argument against either the existence or belief in God. A far better response is that ones own belief is equally justified as the person who is trying to convince you, and thus you have no reason to change your mind.

On October 17 2013 17:02 Tobberoth wrote:

You're still missing the point of the teapot argument. The point of the argument is that when "God exists" is brought up, "Prove he does" makes sense, "Prove he doesn't" does not. The body of evidence against the teapot is completely irrelevant, we have no body of evidence what so ever that there isn't an invisible teapot between the sun and mars. In fact, space might be filled with invisible teapots. The teapot is just an arbitrary example, you could just say God A and God B instead. Anyone can make up anything, but if they have no basis, they have no case, no one has to prove them wrong. You simply apply that general logic to god, and you have the reasoning why the burden on proof is always on the person claiming something.

I have no reason to believe in invisible teapots. I have no reason to believe in Vishnu. I have no reason to believe in the christian God. I have no reason to believe in any God. The lack of body of evidence is exactly why.

On October 17 2013 17:08 packrat386 wrote:

The lack of evidence implies nothing because its a different kind of lack of evidence. In the case of the teapot its that we looked and there were teapots. In the case of God(s) we couldn't look. Thus empirics can come to no conclusion about the situation.

Your argument is based on the premise that we ought to prefer the "simpler" cases in which we have to assume the least things. However there is no reason to believe that this premise is true. The premise also doesn't pass its own test, because it would be a "simpler" system if each outcome was equally likely. Basically, this whole thing requires occam's razor, for which you can provide no proof.

Edit: Just wanted to say that I did read your edit. You still rely on the idea that the simpler system is more likely without a justification for that claim.

On October 17 2013 17:19 Tobberoth wrote:

The justification is right there in my post: If you assume everything exists, your existance becomes ridiculous. We accept that something we have no reason to believe exist doesn't exist because it's practical.

On October 17 2013 17:21 packrat386 wrote:

Nobody assumes that everything exists. After you reject those things that are illogical (a square circle) and those for which there exists evidence against (zombies in my closet) you aren't left with so many things that our existence is ridiculous.