116
votes
Accepted
Fundamental idea on proving God's existence with science
I think part of the problem is: Science doesn't prove anything. Science, at its core, is simply a method of generating testable hypothesis that explain events, which are valued because of their use ...
- 1,224
106
votes
How can religious faith be epistemically justified?
I will be writing this answer from the frank, blunt perspective of someone who is inclusive and accepting of all peoples and belief systems, but who tries to analyze my own personal pattern-matching.
...
- 1,349
83
votes
Accepted
How can religious faith be epistemically justified?
There are already some excellent answers which cover most of what I want to say, but I can't resist jumping in as well...
I'm going to refer to "me" as an (hopefully) relevant example of someone with ...
- 1,545
71
votes
Accepted
Is the Skeptic's Prayer a valid scientific experiment?
This must be one of the grossest attempts at manipulating one's readership I have ever seen. The proposed "experiment" can never fail because the authors carefully planted 3 escape routes ...
- 7,263
64
votes
Are we all ‘atheist’ or 'agnostic in a pandemic'?
I think you have a false premise.
Your premise seems to be "Devout believers/adherents of the religion Islam believe that humans need not make any effort in their survival in the natural world." I ...
- 556
62
votes
Why are believers criticized so much for being anti-science when so many scientists are ... believers?
There is a difference between belief and theism
I am more familiar with Hitchens's views and arguments than with Harris's ditto, so I will answer from that perspective only.
Hitchens differed ...
- 5,229
59
votes
Accepted
If Pascal's wager can be applied to belief in anything, then what is the fallacy in Pascal's wager?
This is not the only issue with Pascal's Wager, but what is described in the question is called the fallacy of proving too much. It happens when an argument is structured in such a way that the ...
- 43.7k
44
votes
Is Christianity testable?
Is John Lennox's defense of the testability of Christianity sound?
No. It's true that Christianity as a religion contains some testable claims, but the implication – that therefore Christianity is ...
- 843
39
votes
How can religious faith be epistemically justified?
I should know better than to jump into this fray. But I can't help myself since this is something I've wondered about myself. Here are the reasons I've collected over the years. Often times I don't ...
- 926
38
votes
Is religion necessary for the good life?
From a Deontological point of view, I think that ethics are naturally approximated by virtue of reason alone, that is : There is something in us humans that belongs to our nature, and that has this ...
- 2,429
38
votes
Isn't the existence of Hell inherently evil, and isn't God therefore evil in allowing Hell to exist?
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and
the blessed is called "hell."
and
The chief punishment of hell is ...
- 481
35
votes
Is it defensible to claim that religion is a personal relationship with God and therefore contains no claims?
This is a striking example of a question that boils down to the ambiguous meaning of a word. Yes, if you mean religion in the sense intended by your aunt, you can say it need not involve any other ...
- 24.8k
34
votes
Is Andalusi/Rasmussen's proof for the existence of God correct?
As the argument is presented here, as a proof for the existence of God, the possible fallacies are:
Begging the question - assuming the conclusion
When one of the premises is "God is unlimited&...
- 11.7k
33
votes
Accepted
Is Christianity testable?
TL;DR Testable claims are testable, untestable claims are not testable, and it's easy to confuse the two when they appear to be one package.
People who study comparative religion tend to distinguish ...
- 562
31
votes
Are we all ‘atheist’ or 'agnostic in a pandemic'?
There's a good joke about this.
The Mississippi floods, but this guy stays put and says "God will save me". A policeman comes past and says "Better be going" but our guy says "God will save me". The ...
- 2,397
30
votes
Accepted
What is the name behind the concept of believing in God based on this logical deduction?
Sounds like one version of Pascal's Wager, which the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article labels as The Argument From Superdominance, giving this quote from Pascal:
“God is, or He is not.” But ...
- 2,867
27
votes
Is Christianity testable?
We have to start from the neutral observation that while Lennox is deliberately using scientific terminology, and explicitly placing it in a scientific context, he is NOT using the term in the same ...
- 30.4k
26
votes
How can religious faith be epistemically justified?
The problem with the most literal meaning of 'faith': "belief in something without proof" with respect to religion is that it's a philosophical dodge. For example if you (as a religious person) are ...
- 878
23
votes
How can religious faith be epistemically justified?
Because we live in an age in which science, which can be defined as a reason-based epistemic framework that relies on testing and evidence, is, at an unprecedented speed, closing the gap of knowledge ...
- 1,458
22
votes
Why are believers criticized so much for being anti-science when so many scientists are ... believers?
Well there are far fewer scientists than there are believers. Personally, I think believers find religion more relevant to their life than science. The main-stream religions have had millennia in ...
- 48.1k
20
votes
Can God transcend human logic and reasoning?
The problem with the apophatic view is not so much a lack of coherence as a lack of meaning. By definition, it puts itself beyond criticism by placing its subject outside the sphere of human ...
- 24.8k
19
votes
Is Andalusi/Rasmussen's proof for the existence of God correct?
I would submit the broad, provocative claim that no logical proof of existence can be convincing, because "proof" assumes logic, but logic does not in and of itself talk about what actually ...
- 2,481
19
votes
What are examples of moral principles in religions that secular ethical systems find hard to accept or justify and why?
The main discrimination between religious and secular moral reasoning is
not what is right or wrong,
but how to decide what should be considered right or wrong.
Broadly speaking, religious reasoning ...
- 37k
18
votes
Fundamental idea on proving God's existence with science
Attempts to show that God exists by looking at nature such as the Kalam Cosmological Argument can only assert "generic theism", as you rightly point out. If the argument holds, then how ...
- 4,157
18
votes
Are we all ‘atheist’ or 'agnostic in a pandemic'?
There are some religious groups --I'm thinking here of "prosperity" churches --that promote the message that nothing but good things will ever happen to the truly faithful. But these are definitely ...
- 30.4k
18
votes
Can God's existence be established through reason and publicly accessible evidence?
My knowledge of the subject is insufficiently compendious to allow me to give an authoritative answer to your question, but I assume the answer is no, since were it possible to prove the existence of ...
- 24.8k
18
votes
Does it matter if certain professions have a lower rate of theism, and if so, why does it matter?
What reason is there to assume that a more intelligent or better educated person is more likely to have a correct opinion about a disagreement that cannot be settled rationally or by evidence? From ...
- 11.1k
17
votes
Is the Skeptic's Prayer a valid scientific experiment?
It is a test of whether you can be talked into religious belief. In that respect it is rather a pointless test, since billions of people all over the world are ample proof that it is possible to be ...
- 24.8k
16
votes
If Pascal's wager can be applied to belief in anything, then what is the fallacy in Pascal's wager?
I don't think we can categorize it under a single fallacy. Furthermore...why would we want to? We'd have to explain our reasoning anyway.
What we do instead is simply look for the premises of the ...
- 1,905
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