Christian and Skeptic??

I'm surprised this subject has not come up before in THIS section.

I hope we can keep it calm, for it is an important issue. Religion is immensely important in the world today. But l feel this is one of the issues that will (if nothing else) prove to people like Interesting Ian, Janice, mayday, and 1inChrist that "sceptics/skeptiks" are not blind followers of Randi, and DO disagree on some things.

It's hard not to offend people who believe strongly, be they psychics or "sceptical" Christians since so much emotional committment is invested in belief and faith.

So, is faith in Jesus (with only anecdotal evidence) different from belief in Spiritualism/Hinduism/Islam etc. (with only anecdotal evidence)?
 
Strawman: I never claimed this was skepticism.

Nope. Can't see the difference between this:
"Skepticism means that if you have no evidence for or against a hypothesis, you are supposed to believe it is false."

and this:

I simply think that in the absence of any supporting evidence what you have left is not skepticism but faith.

So I have a hypothesis. I have no supporting evidence. I also have no opposing evidence. You tell me that as a good skeptic, I better not assume the hypothesis is true. Then you tell me that you never claimed skepticism means that I'm supposed to assume the hypothesis is false.

I guess I'm a little confused about your stance on skepticism and hypotheses in the absence of evidence.
 
TLN said:
You mean like getting up after being dead for three days?
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Is this the part where you peer into my mind and start arguing with what you've telepathically discovered there?

Yeah, like getting up after being dead for three days. You might be inclined to put this on your personal list of things I'm supposed to believe, therefore you assume I believe them. However, it's not on my personal list. I see later that you make the statement that it's at the core of Christianity. That's a fair statement, and I've heard theologians say it too. But it's still not a universal belief.

In fact, I've known at least one priest who dismissed the whole "Jesus = divine" and "Jesus did miracles" thing.
 
rppa said:
Strawman: I never claimed this was skepticism.

Nope. Can't see the difference between this:
"Skepticism means that if you have no evidence for or against a hypothesis, you are supposed to believe it is false."

and this:

I simply think that in the absence of any supporting evidence what you have left is not skepticism but faith.
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Then you might want to work on your reading comprehension.

I didn't say in the absence of supporting evidence any particular proposition defaults to being false. You're injecting that strawman into my words. I can't help you there.

I only said that in the absence of supporting evidence what you have is faith, not that what you have faith in is automatically false.

rppa said:
So I have a hypothesis. I have no supporting evidence. I also have no opposing evidence. You tell me that as a good skeptic, I better not assume the hypothesis is true. Then you tell me that you never claimed skepticism means that I'm supposed to assume the hypothesis is false.

I guess I'm a little confused about your stance on skepticism and hypotheses in the absence of evidence.
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It's simple: you don't assume it's true or false until you have adequate evidence. A complete absence of evidence doesn't mean it's automatically false. I never claimed that. You invented it and inserted into my mouth.
 
TLN said:
My taste in art is an opinion.

Whether Jesus rose from the dead or not is not an opinion. He either did or he didn't.

Since there's no supporting evidence, we don't know. Therefore, if you want to be of the position that he did then you're exercising faith. And again, that's fine, but it's just not skeptical.
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Too many posts happened while I was writing my original reply - damn, I feel slow today! :) Ok, since others have made the points I would have, I'm just going to do small posts to specific things I think I can add value to.

I don't believe that anyone suggested that exercising faith was a skeptical act, did they? I know I didn't.
 
TLN said:
I didn't say in the absence of supporting evidence any particular proposition defaults to being false.

No, but what you are saying is that choosing to believe it is true makes one a bad skeptic. In your exact words, "that's not skepticism".

Hypothesis: There exists intelligent life on some other planet in this galaxy.

We don't know if this is true. We're looking for signals. We haven't found any yet.

Ask a bunch of skeptics, and they will have an opinion on this. They will either vote "yes" or "no" on their agreement with that hypothesis.

In your view, are you a bad skeptic if you vote "yes" on this? After all, there's no evidence. So if you vote "yes", "that's not skepticism, it's faith". Is that a fair assessment of your position?

I only said that in the absence of supporting evidence what you have is faith, not that what you have faith in is automatically false.

So a good skeptic has no opinion on the SETI question? If they form an opinion, they're hypocrites who are going against the scientific method?

So what do you think, is there intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy?
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The Mighty Thor said:
So, is faith in Jesus (with only anecdotal evidence) different from belief in Spiritualism/Hinduism/Islam etc. (with only anecdotal evidence)?
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Not in my book - they're equally justifiable (or not, depending onr your POV, of course.) I know that much of Christianity (the institution) would condemn me for saying that... but pbbbbt! to them, anyway! :)
 
The Mighty Thor said:
I hope we can keep it calm, for it is an important issue. Religion is immensely important in the world today. But l feel this is one of the issues that will (if nothing else) prove to people like Interesting Ian, Janice, mayday, and 1inChrist that "sceptics/skeptiks" are not blind followers of Randi, and DO disagree on some things.

It's hard not to offend people who believe strongly, be they psychics or "sceptical" Christians since so much emotional committment is invested in belief and faith.
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By the way, I completely agree with this. For the record, I'm not offended by people challenging my beliefs. (Although I have to admit that I was a bit stung by TLN's labeling me a hypocrite simply because I think that one can have a belief in God and still be a skeptic. Perhaps I'm over sensitive to that particular label.)
 
Unless all of you are the second wave of David Hume, you are all hypocrites, according to what some people have said...

We all believe in some things. And we are all skeptical about other things. Well, I take that back. There are some who don't believe in anything, and some very rare souls who believe in everything.

I think to be a christian and a skeptic can work, because skepticism is reason based while faith is a personal, feeling, what experiences you have basis. However, you can also believe in a God by means of like the 4 augustine arguments or whatever, or the watch, earth being a machine, wierd guy who broke his pocket watch theory. There are a lot of basises for why one believes in God, but the biggest part is a type of faith that just comes, comes so strongly you can't get it out of your mind. And, once you feel it, once you know it, and I'm talking really really feel it, not just when you're a kid or something, no matter how reasonable skeptics sounds they all just seem like a bunch of stoics trying to "win". There's nothing that can break that bond.

I hope this helps, giving my point of view. I'm not really trying to start anything with this, cause its really just my opinion.
 
TLN said:

It's simple: you don't assume it's true or false until you have adequate evidence.
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If by simple you mean "oversimplified," then you are correct.

I do not believe that skepticism demands any sort of belief in the complete absence of evidence. It does not demand a belief in truth, it does not demand a belief in falsity, and it doesn't demand a psychologically almost impossible agnosia.

Furthermore, skepticism requires that one evaluate all the available evidence. Contrary to some of the idiots on this forum, anecdotes and personal experience are indeed evidence -- but they're extremely poor evidence for a number of reasons that your psychology professor could bore to you sleep with. For this reason, scientists generally prefer to ignore anedotes or personal experiences and concentrate on more reliable, "scientific" evidence. But when personal anecdotes are the best available evidence, what then?

The discovery of Dramamine is a case in point. It originated as a drug to fight something else -- I forget what exactly -- and it didn't work especialy well in clinical trials. But one of the clinical patients had suffered all her life from chronic motion sickness, and noticed (and mentioned) that the only time riding in the car didn't bother her was when she was coming home from the clinic.

That's an anedote, that is. I'm not a homeopath, so I won't leap upon it as "proof" that Dramamine treats motion sickness. But it's certainly suggestive. The doctor in charge of the clinicals started running some other tests to see if it worked as an anti-motion sickness drug, based on the anecdotal evidence he already had. The anecdote wasn't much, but it was the best he had, and it would have to work until he had better evidence (which he, of course, eventually got).

If someone has "personal awareness" of God, whatever that means, then that's also an anecdote. But it's also the best evidence they have, and so until and unless better evidence comes up -- evidence to disprove their personal awareness, skepticism demands that they respect that evidence.

The example of SETI has already come up. We have no evidence whatsoever regarding intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. But there are certainly arguments that can be made, both pro and con. And the person who wrote the SETI@home program presumably has an opinon, or he wouldn't have gone to all that trouble.

In the event that they have no evidence whatsoever, then skepticism demands nothing. Because there is no evidence to respect, there is no basis for demanding anything -- not belief, not disbelief, and not agnosia.
 
jmercer said:
Not in my book - they're equally justifiable (or not, depending onr your POV, of course.) I know that much of Christianity (the institution) would condemn me for saying that... but pbbbbt! to them, anyway! :)
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Well there is the problem that Jesus is supposed to have said that the only way to the Father is through the Son who is the Way, the Truth and the Light, and the other exclusionary passages in the NT.

Also, do the Christians here (there are so many interpretations) believe in the reality of Satan and of Angels? Most Christian credos include:

Conceived by Spirit
Born of Mary, a Virgin
Son of God
Jesus was crucified, died, was buried, and rose on the third day.

e.g. The Apostle's Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into hell. [See Calvin]

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy *catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.

Amen.

*The word "catholic" refers not to the Roman Catholic Church, but to the universal church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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How much of that do Christians need to believe to be Christians?
 
"Skeptic" has probably as many definitions as there are members of this forum, and then some. So do "God" and "Christian". Personally I don't care whether anyone thinks I am a "skeptic" or not, so I don't fret over the title.

That having being said, I have repeatedly witnessed on these forums an almost agonizing striving of religious members to retain the title of "skeptic" in parallel with (or in spite of) their religious beliefs, as if they are somehow subconsciously aware that the two are incompatible. I am being patronizing here, but I can't help but seeing this as a first step in their realizing that God doesn't exist. I can only hope they walk all the way to the end of this difficult path.
 
I think anyone holding to both skepticism and religion must admit they are being rather inconsistent. Yes, skepticism is applied with bias by, I'd argue, most people. That does not make doing so ok. Making it a philosophical issue does not change this. At the end of the day belief in the Christian God requires a WANT to believe. From my viewpoint, even if I wanted to believe in God, I would also have to acknowledge that that's all it was, a want, because I cannot quantify it one way or the other. A simple question to ask is, why do you believe? What brought about your belief? What justifies your belief to yourself? Citing your belief as a personal matter or experience is not an escape from evaluating and being skeptical about your reasons for believing.

If you argue that God exists in the gaps, then you belief simply because you want too. I don't see how you could say otherwise.

Most here seem to be saying that the God question cannot be answered as of yet and I would agree. But then you move on to say you believe anyway. Again that's fine, but its inconsistent with being skeptical I'd argue. The skeptical statement would be, I don't know. You may have had some personal experience, or have a personal feeling that it is true, but then you must achknowledge these for what they are. They are merely things you use to fuel your belief, but you cannot quantify them, and you know it.

Take the scientist example. Yes, a scientist can have a belief in God and still think logically and be a good scientist. But I'd argue strongly that this is the case because God is not a variable within science. God plays no part in that scientists method of scientific inquiry. He merely has a wish of what he wants to be the case, that there is in fact a God. Now he can certainly do that, but its inconsistent. He must admit there is no solid reason beyond his own wanting, for his belief in God.

My personal statement has been that I don't posit a God of any kind, because I've never had too. I think that is appropriately skeptical as well as open-minded. Well aside from my own bias of course :D.
 
El Greco said:
That having being said, I have repeatedly witnessed on these forums an almost agonizing striving...
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Really? It amazes me, the emotional sensitivity of some people to what to me are just black and white words on screen.

Here's an alternate hypothesis for you: like jmercer, it ticked me off to be labelled a hypocrite. I don't think I'm a hypocrite. I'm trying to explain why the two belief systems do not require hypocrisy to hold.

But nary an agony to be found. Not even a little twinge.
 
Yeah, nothing has screwed up people's heads over God more than institutionalized dogma, that's for sure. :)

For the record, even though I'm a Catholic and go to mass, I do not agree with a lot of the dogma- but that's a problem I have with the church, not God. A lot of the crap written by just about all the mainstream religions was created to ensure that they wouldn't lose any of their believers.

Sad, but I believe true...
 
rppa said:
Really? It amazes me, the emotional sensitivity of some people to what to me are just black and white words on screen.

Here's an alternate hypothesis for you: like jmercer, it ticked me off to be labelled a hypocrite. I don't think I'm a hypocrite. I'm trying to explain why the two belief systems do not require hypocrisy to hold.

But nary an agony to be found. Not even a little twinge.
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But isn't the sceptical position that there is no evidence to prove that mediums communicate with the dead (two-way) therefore, until proof is given, mediums who avoid the Randi Challenge are either deluded or frauds? In other words, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Why should religious claims be exempt from Hume's test?

If the answer is: there was only one Jesus, and it all happened 2000 years ago so can't be tested, then one might say that belief in Odin and Thor are also justifiable.
 
rppa said:
Really? It amazes me, the emotional sensitivity of some people to what to me are just black and white words on screen.

Here's an alternate hypothesis for you: like jmercer, it ticked me off to be labelled a hypocrite. I don't think I'm a hypocrite. I'm trying to explain why the two belief systems do not require hypocrisy to hold.

But nary an agony to be found. Not even a little twinge.
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What to you are just black and white words on screen actually do hide emotions behind. Everyone, including you, are -at least some of the times- able to discern them. Some better than others.

I haven't followed your posts so you were not one of the posters I had in mind. The ones I have in mind are a few persons who are religious and at the same time more vocal than most here in touting their skepticism. Any long time poster will know who I'm talking about.
 
The Mighty Thor said:
But isn't the sceptical position that there is no evidence to prove that mediums communicate with the dead (two-way) therefore, until proof is given, mediums who avoid the Randi Challenge are either deluded or frauds? In other words, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
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No, the skeptical position is that all mediums who have claimed to communicate with the dead and have been examined in detail have proven to be frauds -- therefore, all mediums are assumed to be frauds.

In other words, frauds like the Fox Sisters and Lamar Keene have "queered the pitch" for everyone else. There is evidence to support the claim that all mediums are frauds; there is no evidence at all to support the claim that some mediums are frauds and some aren't, or even that there are some nonfraudulent mediums.
 
new drkitten said:
I do not believe that skepticism demands any sort of belief in the complete absence of evidence.
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Skepticism demands evidence.

Christians have none (at least, nothing particualrly compelling, even from the lesser standards of the social sciences).

Where am I losing everyone?
 
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