Is science rational or empirical?

Empirical.

>>1514575
In which case the claim that there is no god is very unscientific, and in fact anti-scientific?

>>1514581
It's not a scientific claim. One can say their is no observable evidence for god though.

>>1514581
There is no evidence in the universe for any god and plenty of reason to believe that belief in gods is a product of human imagination.

So actually it is "scientific" to conclude that there is no god based on physical and anthropological facts.

>>1514593
>it is scientific to conclude

No, it isn't. It is unscientific to conclude. It is scientific to observe and experience and measure. Concluding is not.

>>1514592
>>1514593
To say that there is god is not scientific.
To say that there is no god is not scientific.
The scientific view on god is "we don't know".

>>1514597
>>1514604
Wrong, it's perfectly fine to reach conclusions and create models based on available data, as long as you are free to revise those models if new data is discovered.

>>1514581
Yes, why wouldn't it be?
There is no evidence against nor for the existence of a deity/deities. Therefore it is merely an opinion.

>>1514614
>based on available data
There is ZERO evidence for or against the existence of a deity/deities.
Science is not "this is how i personally interpret things, therefore i have evidence".

>>1514622
I disagree. There are plenty of evidential arguments for atheism, the argument from evil, for example. In order to say these don't constitute evidence you have to show their reasoning is not sound.

>>1514636
>There is ZERO evidence for... the existence of deities

And there you have it. Why even bother with the rest of your sentiment? You don't have to disprove impossible conjectures anyway.

Combined with anthropology, we know exactly why people invent gods, unless you think that everything that humans image needs to actually exist somewhere unless we exhaustively search every molecule.

Like I said, you can conclude there is no gods based on evidence.

>>1514663
>the argument from evil, for example

Thats rational, not empirical. It isn't a scientific argument.

Neither.

>>1514669
In order to scientifically prove X, you must show with tests that X is true.
In order to scientifically disprove X, you must show with tests that X is not true.

X not having been scientifically proven doesn't mean it is scientifically wrong.
For example, genetics weren't scientifically proven until relatively recently, but that doesn't mean that they were scientifically wrong until then.

>>1514636
Well for a vague "deity" in general, you're right. But I think we've found a decent amount of contradictions and holes in logic among the scriptures, apologetic arguments, and traditions in the current religions of man, that it leaves in doubt the question of whether Jesus rose from the dead or Mohammed talked to an angel.

So saying there's no god whatsoever is unscientific. But saying Yahweh from the desert is not worth taking seriously, is not an unreasonable claim to make.

>>1514691
Yahweh hasn't been scientifically disproved. To claim his existence or lack thereof is unscientific.

>>1514682
The deductive (or logical) argument from evil is purely rational, the inductive (or evidential) argument from evil is largely empirical.

There's also plenty of empirical observation that can be used against classical theism. For example, theists believe that humans have souls with causal power outside of physics, yet contemporary neuroscience provides hesvy evidence against this claim.

>>1514697
>yet contemporary neuroscience provides hesvy evidence against this claim

Define soul, so that I can confirm modern neuroscience proved its non existence.
Oh wait, whatever definition of soul you give, the faithful will just decline and say a soul is something else, so you can't disprove it until they define it.

>>1514703
Substance dualism is amply defined, not my problem you are philosophically illiterate.

>>1514696
By that logic no deity ever has been scientifically disproven.

>>1514713
Now thats science!

>>1514696
Nonscientifc ≠ unscientific

>>1514711
Nice insult, poor argument, no evidence.
You are rationally and empirically failing to debate me, though the insult game is strong.

>>1514723
Why would I need to define every word I use? The meaning of "soul" is understood by any english speaker.

Soul is a form of interactionist substance dualism
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/

>>1514735
For many people soul is just their virtue highscore.
For others, soul is some memory stick that their being is saved on, so it can be reinstalled on another body after death, in reincarnation.
Another definition is simply the Ego, the human inside the animal.

There is way more than one common and widespread definition of soul.

Some of you are confusing logical conclusion with scientific evidence. The former is not a fact, since it is not based on evidence. This does however imply that it is the seemingly more "correct" choice.

>>1514696
>hiding behind this again
No one's fully proven gravity, dark matter, or dark energy either; so its unscientific to make claims about them. We just don't know!

Fuck analyzing information, looking for empirical evidence, or reasoning what may/may've happened based on past trends. And fuck weighing possibilities against each other to see which is more reasonable, leaving room for possible revision of future evidence comes up.

>>1514744
Irrelevant. I already defined the term, and these definitions of "soul" are uncommon in the west.

If the existence if the soul is needed for classical theism, and if the effects of the soul operate im the natural world, then science can indeed provide evidence against the existence of a soul, and thus of classical theism.

>>1514752
>>1514759
Thats not what science means. Thats now what empirical means. Read a fucking book.

>>1514765
The whole argument was about whether there's evidence for or against theism, read the fucking thread.

>>1514581
The existence of God, as we understand God in the West, can only be known metaphysically, not scientifically.

>>1514774
Yes, and there is no evidence. You are trying to sell rational reasoning as empirical observations.

>>1514759

How can science provide evidence for this comment?

>>1514777
You can't "know" anything metaphysically, though.

>>1514789
Define knowing. Do you mean rationally, or empirically?

>>1514780
No, I'm not. It seems you have completely ignored all the points I've made and started arguing in circles.

>>1514789
Hume pls

>>1514786
Elaborate

>>1514752
The comparison seems to be bad.
There is no evidence for or against the existence of YAHWEH. Meanwhile the things you listed are theories, which have some evidence combined with logical conclusion to get the best understanding of them, with the things we have on hand.
see
>>1514747

>>1514794

Your comments, they don't exist.

>>1514765
>it's unscientific to make claims about anything that's not met my definition of fully proven/disproven, damn however strongly the evidence leans one way or another
I'm done here.

>>1514801
It's just Christian culturewar sandbagging, like every fucking thread on this misbegotten board.

>>1514800
I can't parse anything from this post.

>>1514801
There is this thing, the scientific principle. And there is this thing, empiricism.
Learn them. Your pseudo science isn't actual science, as defined by science.

>>1514797
There's plenty of evidence against the existence of Yahweh, just as there's plenty of evidence most of the Hebrew Scriptures were fabricated at a much later date. You just won't accept any evidence because you want to cling onto a utopian "we can't ever fully prove/disprove anything" nonsense. Even if the claims of something have strongly been proven wrong in multiple areas, that still doesn't weaken it's argument?

In fact you're so biased in favor of holding this view, you'd be a liar to call your beliefs founded on empiricism. Grow up.

>>1514829
He seems to be an agnostic "you can't know nuthin" faggot.

>>1514791
I imagine this is your post...

>I already defined the term
Why is your definition more valid than any other? Also it is a rational one, since if souls don't exist, they can't be observed or measured or experienced, thus there can't be a factual real definition of them.
>these definitions of "soul" are uncommon in the west
Who restricted the debate to the west? This is something randomly imposed by you, to suit your argument.
>If the existence if the soul is needed for classical theism
Who says its needed? Also you are reasoning rationally. There can in fact exist a theology without soul, I can make one right now.
>and if the effects of the soul operate im the natural world
Who says they do? They don't in my religion.
>then science can indeed provide evidence against the existence of a soul
Can it? Do link me to actual empirical proof against the concept of a soul.
>and thus of classical theism.
Riding the rational horse, utterly unscientific. Prove scientifically that the lack of soul means theism is impossible. Further, prove that a deity is impossible if theism is proven wrong.

Basically you say A thus B thus C thus D, where A, B and C are rational arguments, and you claim D to be an empirical observation. This is not how science work, and you would do well to hang yourself, as to prove empirically that there is no afterlife to yourself.

>>1514835
You mean a scientist?

>>1514839
Scientists aren't epistemological nihilists. Stop embarrassing yourself.

>>1514843
Science is strict, cold, neutral empiricism.
Your feelings to the contrary are not scientific.

>>1514847
None of this implies "you can't know nothing", which is a self defeating view, by the way. Sad.

>>1514854
I didn't imply "you can't know nothing", I said you can't know things unless you prove them by repeated experiment and observation. Empirical proof, rather than reasoning logically.

And gods can't be proven to not exist in ways other than logic, which is not scientific.

>>1514836
>Why is your definition more valid than any other?

Irrelevant. My definition is part of an argument. If you say "but if we define soul as having hair in the head..." means nothing to my argument.
Also it is a rational one, since if souls don't exist, they can't be observed or measured or experienced, thus there can't be a factual real definition of them.

Doesn't follow.

>There can in fact exist a theology without soul, I can make one right now.

Irrelevant.

>Who says they do? They don't in my religion.

Irrelevant again. They do in many religions, thus it is in principle possible to find evidence against these religions.

>Can it? Do link me to actual empirical proof against the concept of a soul.

First, you can't "prove" things outside of mathematics and logic. You don't seem to understand how evidence and epistemic justification works.

E is evidence against H if and only if Prob(H/E) < Prob(H)

Now, there's plenty of evidence in neuroscience against interactionist substance dualism, such as the Libet's experiments.

>Riding the rational horse, utterly unscientific. Prove scientifically that the lack of soul means theism is impossible. Further, prove that a deity is impossible if theism is proven wrong.

Souls are a tenet of classical theism, I don't need to "scientifically prove" that souls are needed for theism, no more than I need to prove that bachelors are not married, as this is true by definition.

>>1514861
So, according to you, all deduction, all logic, all math is unjustified. What a dumb and self defeating epistemology.

>>1514898
>according to you

According to every philosophy in the enlightenment period and after it?
Rationality and empiricism, and that science is empirical rather than rational, are agreed on terms.

>>1514861

Prove that the statement "You can't know things unless you prove them by repeated experiment and observation." is true through experiment and observation.

>>1514893
>Irrelevant. My definition is part of an argument.
So if your argument were good (it isnt) it would only prove that your definition of soul is wrong, thus any religion that uses your definition of soul must also be wrong, thus a god can't empirically exist?
Too many jumps, lad, from subjective opinion, to rational reasoning, to claims of empirical proof.

And the rest of your post is barking "irrelevant, irrelevant".
You claim disproving the soul disproves the deity. I said this is wrong, and you call it irrelevant?
How is it irrelevant, when it renders your whole post garbage?

>>1514912
Virtually no philosopher agrees with you. You are claiming that a priori knowledge is impossible, good luck finding philosophers that hold this view.

>>1514921
>scientifically prove science

Circular logic. Besides, the definition of science isn't scientific. It is logical. Science isn't a thing that can be observed or measured, it is a guideline on how to observe and measure.

>>1514927
>Virtually no philosopher agrees with you

Literally Google.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism

>>1514921
Ideas in the past that were "known to be true" were shown to not be true after it was observed via experimentation. Conjectures that were not known to be true were later found to be known to be true after experimentation. Ideas that cannot be experimentally observed remain unknown.

>>1514923
>>1514923

Your points were irrelevant becuase you are playing a semantic game of trying to define words into meaninglessness. My point was simple: you can find, and there indeed is, evidence against theism, understood as "classical theism". What you are trying to do is say "but what if we define theism as X", which completely misses the point. It's like someome saying "Let's define God as the sun, therefoe God exists". Meaningless and pointless.

>>1514928
You made a claim about the nature of knowledge that contradicts itself. I'm amused you can't see this.

>>1514946
Classical theism doesn't mean "christianity as practiced in my country".
It doesn't imply anything about the soul as a concept, for one. It doesn't exclude rebirth as I mentioned.
Basically your post is irrelevant, since it seeks to prove mine wrong, and it doesn't address it at all.

>>1514953
You straw manned me, got told, and are now not even addressing my counter argument, rather just sitting on the side and mocking.

I accept your surrender.

>>1514931
Empiricism isn't the rejection of a priori knowledge

>>1514944

Looks like someone hasn't read about the problem of induction

>>1514972
Looks like someone is going to bring instincts into the conversation, even though we are talking about very complex and abstract knowledge like religion and science.

>>1514965

I didn't strawman anything. You claimed, word by word, "You can't know things unless you prove them by repeated experiment and observation." This is a self defeating view.

>>1514984
What "instincts"? What are you talking about?

>>1514991
I don't see how it is.
The scientific principle isn't "known" in that way. It is a logical conclusion, an assumption, a belief even.
You are comparing the knowledge of the weight of a bottle of water or the distance between two points to the "knowledge" of a definition that was invented and entirely made up. The scientific principle doesn't exist. It isn't real. We made it up, and we use it to define what does exist, and what is real.

>>1514999
Your innate knowledge.
Anyway, 5 seconds in Google, again.

>>1514999
>>1515001
Forgot my pasted wall of text:

Empiricists, and some rationalists, attack the Innate Knowledge thesis in two main ways. First, they offer accounts of how sense experience or intuition and deduction provide the knowledge that is claimed to be innate. Second, they directly criticize the Innate Knowledge thesis itself. The classic statement of this second line of attack is presented in Locke 1690. Locke raises the issue of just what innate knowledge is. Particular instances of knowledge are supposed to be in our minds as part of our rational make-up, but how are they “in our minds”? If the implication is that we all consciously have this knowledge, it is plainly false. Propositions often given as examples of innate knowledge, even such plausible candidates as the principle that the same thing cannot both be and not be, are not consciously accepted by children and those with severe cognitive limitations. If the point of calling such principles “innate” is not to imply that they are or have been consciously accepted by all rational beings, then it is hard to see what the point is. “No proposition can be said to be in the mind, which it never yet knew, which it never yet was conscious of”. Proponents of innate knowledge might respond that some knowledge is innate in that we have the capacity to have it. That claim, while true, is of little interest, however. “If the capacity of knowing, be the natural impression contended for, all the truths a man ever comes to know, will, by this account, be every one of them, innate; and this great point will amount to no more, but only an improper way of speaking; which whilst it pretends to assert the contrary, says nothing different from those, who deny innate principles. (cont)

>>1515000
How do you know that science produces knowledge?

>>1515005
For nobody, I think, ever denied, that the mind was capable of knowing several truths”. Locke thus challenges defenders of the Innate Knowledge thesis to present an account of innate knowledge that allows their position to be both true and interesting. A narrow interpretation of innateness faces counterexamples of rational individuals who do not meet its conditions. A generous interpretation implies that all our knowledge, even that clearly provided by experience, is innate.

t. Stanford University staff

>>1515008
Because "know" is defined as what science produces.

>>1515005
How is this related to the problem of induction?

>>1515012
Why do you hold such "definition" of knowledge. Your epistemology is incredibly flimsy.

>>1515027
How is being empirical a flimsy epistemology?
I'd bet my testicles that you follow the same one in your life, when you aren't losing internet arguments.

>>1515016
The problem of induction is not a problem at all in our context.
I said that scientifically we can't prove the existence or non existence of a deity.
If anything, the problem of induction supports me, and it supports the "agnostic nihilists" as you called me.

>>1515034
>losing

Cute. Anyone who is trained in epistemology would see from a mile away how weak your views are.

And what you are proposing is not mere empiricism, you hold some absolutist form of empiricism in which only a posteriori knowledge exists. I know of no person who holds this view, neither I hold it myself.

>>1515045
Let me link you to the same Wikipedia article I did again, since you clearly didn't read it or any of its sources.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism

It's rational and empirical faggot.

>>1515057
Most things that are rational are not empirical.

>>1515052
What are you trying to prove with that link? Again, there's a difference between empiricism, and your hard empiricism, which seems to be closer of that of logical positivism, which is a long debunked view.

>>1515063
Everything is rational and empirical. Talking about of purity of thought is retarded.

>>1515069
You are being irrational.

>>1515073
Tell me something that is either completely emirical or completely rational.

>>1515075
Metaphysics? You know, what we are discussing this whole thread?

>>1515085
To make judge about existence you need at least some basis for reality which is perception. You can question it, but only if you already know about it.

>>1515107
How does that disprove metaphysics being entirely rational, and not empirical, thus making you wrong?

>>1515114
Because your first knowledge about existence comes through perception.

>>1515136
No, you don't perceive existence. You reason it. Read Rene Descartes' famous work.

>>1515191
I'm going at first experience. You are not born into the world with those thoughts, you rationalise it after trying to make sense what qualia is.

>>1514573
Empirical. The very fact it can be used to assist the irrational dismisses it as anything worthy of the praise it does get in modern society. At best it can be a tool for convenience, but to the wise it can be an example, but it's at the mercy of man's intent when utilized as a tool. It's a slave, not worthy of the praise imo.

That's not to say that the observations don't offer insight, now what doesn't when examined? But what the wise see in relation to science, is that you're looking into something that's already in accord. Something that's already disciplined and law abiding. Doesn't compromise. But it's something that can't help man in his inability to live in that same accordance, aside from the synonymous example of how accordance creates harmonious definition. But what they're looking at when they peer into the physical, It doesn't disobey. Man on the other hand does. A simple thing like pride can not only enforce error by assumption, but inhibit others from progress. When someone is proud and in error and not knowing it? They'll spread their corrupt doctrine fervently.

Our condition is unique in relation to the observation of the physical universe though. Despite what the arrogant claim, science won't really help us. Not without giving reign to a dictator in the form of pills or technological implants, in which we would become a slave to something that was once at our mercy. Why struggle to live disciplined, when you can just throw a pill down or install some sort of implants and have it do the work for us? The convenience. The flesh loves bondage though...I wouldn't be surprised if hell on earth is a world filled with a dependency on something artificial. I mean we have done this with our food, I guess it's safe to say that deep in the mind of the arrogant and discontent, is a morbid desire to be further trapped in bondage. I think the flesh truly is just corrupt.

>>1515426
>typing this luddite screed on a computer, in a home furnished by machine-made tools and furniture, in a society build by engineers and chemists

>>1514669
>you can conclude there is no gods based on evidence.

Black swan mufucka

>>1515451
>luddite

I said science is at the mercy of man's intent. Man can have proper intent. But given man's track record....is it so far fetched to believe that man won't eventually shoot himself in the foot so to speak, with his intent in relation to technology?

I don't think it is..