Originally Posted by Tsukatu

This is an explanation of something known as the Burden of Proof, basically a fundamental rule of debate.
Again, this is here primarily for storage purposes, but if you found this and you're interested, feel free to comment or something.

The basic idea is that you don't just do things if you can't find a lack of a reason not to - you need to consider the reasons for doing them first and foremost, and if those are more compelling than inaction, only then do you even begin looking for reasons against.

Here's the process laid out:
* You assert something. The default position is that your assertion is invalid (false). Mind you, that doesn't mean that the opposite of your assertion is true by default (the opposite is also false by default, until it follows this same process), but only that your assertion cannot be trusted to be correct.
* You must provide at least one compelling reason that your assertion is valid. If no one is able to challenge your reasoning, and your assertion and reasoning both hold up to practice (if applicable), then your assertion is valid, and it is completely acceptable to believe it.
* If anyone manages to challenge your reasoning and you're unable to defend it, then that reasoning can't be supported and it is unable to validate your assertion. If your assertion has no more validating reasons, it defaults to false.
* In the more devastating case, if anyone manages to find an inconsistency within your initial assertion itself, with all supporting reason completely aside, that not only defeats all of the supporting reasoning in its entirety and reduces the assertion to its default of false, but also provides a compelling reason to believe that the opposite of the assertion is true.
* If someone is able to assert and support something that entails your assertion is false unconditionally, one of you is in error. If it is true and it entails your assertion being true some of the time, your assertion should be ammended to include that, otherwise it is false.
* If your assertion appears to be consistent and at least one supporting reason is compelling enough to believe it, then it will be accepted as true.

Every scientific idea that has advanced to the level of "theory" has gone through this process. Most people consider the word "theory" to be synonymous with "idea" or "hypothesis," but this is just plain wrong. Having an idea is one thing, but when the scientific community puts forward an effort to falsify that idea and consistently fails, it is only *then* reluctantly promoted to the status of "theory." If you hear a theory and you're not a scientist trying to prove that it's wrong, you'd do damned well to believe it (because in most cases, if not all, it'd be brazen and idiotic not to).

For example:
I assert that I'm posting this on Facebook.
The easiest way to provide compelling reasoning in support is demonstration - this note exists, the website exists, and look where this note is.
If you can defeat that reason, I can probably come up with plenty more. So far as I understand it, though, this reasoning cannot be meaningfully challenged (don't start with the solipsism).
So far as I understand it, the assertion is also self-consistent. If I had said that this note is also a dog, you'd know that that can't be right because a dog is not an abstract noun, and this post is not a physical thing. I would not be correct no matter how much reasoning I can give in support, because the initial assertion is inconsistent.
You can't challenge my reasoning on this assertion, nor can you find any inconsistencies in it, and so you must accept that it's very probably true. You can still take the cop-out position and say that you don't understand the assertion and/or the reasoning, and so you must suspend judgment, but that's silly to do in a trivial case like this.

Now let's assume that we live in XXX-Backwards Logic World where assertions have to be proven false before they're discarded, and the default value of things is true (in other words, guilty until proven innocent).
I say invisible pink unicorns exist. You ask why I think that's true, and I flip you the bird. I ask why you think they don't exist.
You can't give me a compelling reason as to why an invisible pink unicorn can't exist as long as I keep mounting on properties that make them impossible for humans to observe or be affected by them. You will fail miserably to disprove my invisible pink unicorns, and so you must accept the default that the assertion is true. It would be in your best interests to begin acting as though invisible pink unicorns existed as I described them.
And I can do this for a theoretically infinite number of things, and you'd be foolish not to believe them all, because they're all logical according to the XXX-Backwards Logic of XXX-Backwards Logic World.

Originally Posted by iangb

No, I can't prove that God exists - hence the agnosticism. I also see no evidence for God - hence the atheism. Just as you are a 'black swan agnostic atheist' - you don't believe that black swans exist, but you cannot prove it. Another way of putting it (I believe) is 'weak atheist'.

To clarify: this is how I use the terms. I'm fairly sure it is the correct usage, it's just that people often get things mixed up, but I may be wrong...

The term 'agnostic atheist' has two parts (obviously). The first is 'agnosticism vs gnosticism', which deals with how sure you are in your beliefs. A gnostic is sure of his/her beliefs (or absence thereof) for whatever reasons - personal experience, logic, conflicting beliefs, indoctrination etc, whereas an agnostic knows that their beliefs (or lack thereof) are unprovable. The second part - 'theism vs atheism' is more well known: theists believe in a personal God, atheists don't.

For more info on my personal version (if you care that much), there's something here on the matter.

Originally Posted by Archangel

I wonder what you'll think of this ex-atheists attempt to prove according to scientific standards that God exists. Does God Exist?

Originally Posted by Archangel

I wonder what you'll think of this ex-atheists attempt to prove according to scientific standards that God exists. Does God Exist?

Originally Posted by iangb

Winston:

(NB: large parts of this are taken from my notes on a physical module I did no Chaos and Complexity, should anyone care)

The problem is: emergent systems. If you take a look at something like a termite mound, you will find an astounding level of complexity. There are ventelation shafts which prevent the thing from overheating, there are chambers specifically for this and for that... and yet every termite mound is unique - and termites are hardly the smartest of creatures.

It turns out that you can model the creation of basic termite mounds using an incredibly simple set of rules.

1. Always walk randomly.
2. If you find a place where there is a wood chip (what termite mounds are made of), pick it up UNLESS you already are carrying a wood chip - in which case, put that wood chip down.
more on termites
more on emergence in general.

Emergence creates many, many things. Evolution is an emergent process, birds flock emergently (it's possible I just made up the word 'emergently'...) and sand dunes form emergently.

Personally, I don't see a need for your God of the Gaps, because I don't see a need for the universe to have a 'purpose'. This is what we (mainly Peeling) have been trying to show Jakers - there is no need for intelligence to play a part, so why assume it is there?

(In the spirit of a previous post): Yes, I have mildly deterministic leanings.