Nonnie,
Why would you think that? Perhaps you harbor some unwarranted assumptions about non-believers, one you might want to reexamine. For the record, I consider myself a humanist, romantic, idealist, poet, writer and comedian. To answer a latter query, I'm also quite comfortable in my beliefs, and the reason I argue is that I can bring those into sharper focus, learn, put my thoughts in writing (which I quite enjoy), and potentially help others come to a more human-friendly outlook on life (as opposed to what I view as defeatist, anti-human attitudes which, among other things, place more emphasis on empty promises of future bliss, while encouraging putting the importance of our lives here, where it counts, on the backburner). But this topic isn't really about me, is it? <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">
Luke,
You may be interested in an essay I wrote, <a href="http://users.rcn.com/rostmd/winace/critical_thinking/unfalsifiable_claims.htm">Refuting Unfalsifiable Claims</a>. You appear to be making the following two (rather questionable) assumptions:
<b>(1) Claims that <u>can't be debunked beyond all possible doubt</u> are reasonable to accept, as reasonably as disbelieving them.</b> This is, IMO, indefensible once you get down to specifics. Like the epicycles I mentioned, an infinite number of explanations--themselves unfalsifiable--can be tacked on to <i>any</i> claim, rationalizing away damaging evidence and making it effectively immune to debunking. A murderer could claim demons killed his wife, and planted fake fingerprints, for example. That couldn't technically be "proven" false; merely exceedingly improbable, given the much more likely story, which fit every bit of evidence naturally and coherently, allowed us to make independent predictions--like the location of a murder weapon--and was far more in tune with our general experience. Carl Sagan, author of <a href="http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=3U6i9DJByy&isbn=0345409469&itm=1">The Demon-Haunted World</a> (perhaps the finest book on skepticism ever written), has an excellent thought experiment there--<i>The Dragon in My Garage</i>--that makes the case much stronger than I could. You can read that for free <a href="http://www.users.qwest.net/~jcosta3/article_dragon.htm">here</a>.
<b>(2) God(s) <u>can't</u> be disproven.</b> It is my position that, at least as far as <i>most gods that could have any bearing on our lives</i> are concerned, they've long been disproven beyond a reasonable doubt, using the exact same standards that you'd apply when evaluating claims of Loch Ness monster sightings or werewolf attacks. This is where the theologian would invoke an endless assortment of ad hoc rationalizations: theodicies ("great suffering and a loving God are compatible because..."); explanations for how Hell/Heaven admissions based on a person's ideology, not merirt is compatible with justice (usually denying that reasonable disbelief is even possible, an empirical claim that is, on the face of it, self-evidently false); and so on. But like epicycles, these are unverifiable--and usually transparently silly--attempts that assume their conclusion as true from the outset, instead of conceding that <i>it need not be taken as true in the first place</i>, and could make <b>much</b> more sense that way.
I acknowledge that some people can't enjoy life without the expectation of an afterlife. Neither do I expect them to abandon their beliefs based on anything I write, so it's all good. Those that <i>don't</i> absolutely need that reassurance are, IMO, far more likely to be well-adjusted, strong and humanistic people in general, so if one of them revises their views based on anything I wrote, that's all good, too. And finally, whether it's a comforting thought or not--which is quite debatable in itself, given how many people in the common religions are destined for everlasting torment because of crimes like being born in the wrong religious tradition--<b>if</b> it's true, if it's true, so we might as well accept that, live with it as best we can, and not waste time on wild goose chases (or, for that matter, waste time on the much worse, frivolous Jerks for Jesus behavior like the current gay-hating, atheist-marginalizing bozos in Congress do, or like Muslim theocrats are loathe to do). We accept that cancer kills, for example, and don't bother staging elaborate ceremonies to trick people into thinking someone who died from it is retiring to Cuba, as much as it might be more comforting to believe the latter.
--Allan
Why would you think that? Perhaps you harbor some unwarranted assumptions about non-believers, one you might want to reexamine. For the record, I consider myself a humanist, romantic, idealist, poet, writer and comedian. To answer a latter query, I'm also quite comfortable in my beliefs, and the reason I argue is that I can bring those into sharper focus, learn, put my thoughts in writing (which I quite enjoy), and potentially help others come to a more human-friendly outlook on life (as opposed to what I view as defeatist, anti-human attitudes which, among other things, place more emphasis on empty promises of future bliss, while encouraging putting the importance of our lives here, where it counts, on the backburner). But this topic isn't really about me, is it? <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">
Luke,
You may be interested in an essay I wrote, <a href="http://users.rcn.com/rostmd/winace/critical_thinking/unfalsifiable_claims.htm">Refuting Unfalsifiable Claims</a>. You appear to be making the following two (rather questionable) assumptions:
<b>(1) Claims that <u>can't be debunked beyond all possible doubt</u> are reasonable to accept, as reasonably as disbelieving them.</b> This is, IMO, indefensible once you get down to specifics. Like the epicycles I mentioned, an infinite number of explanations--themselves unfalsifiable--can be tacked on to <i>any</i> claim, rationalizing away damaging evidence and making it effectively immune to debunking. A murderer could claim demons killed his wife, and planted fake fingerprints, for example. That couldn't technically be "proven" false; merely exceedingly improbable, given the much more likely story, which fit every bit of evidence naturally and coherently, allowed us to make independent predictions--like the location of a murder weapon--and was far more in tune with our general experience. Carl Sagan, author of <a href="http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=3U6i9DJByy&isbn=0345409469&itm=1">The Demon-Haunted World</a> (perhaps the finest book on skepticism ever written), has an excellent thought experiment there--<i>The Dragon in My Garage</i>--that makes the case much stronger than I could. You can read that for free <a href="http://www.users.qwest.net/~jcosta3/article_dragon.htm">here</a>.
<b>(2) God(s) <u>can't</u> be disproven.</b> It is my position that, at least as far as <i>most gods that could have any bearing on our lives</i> are concerned, they've long been disproven beyond a reasonable doubt, using the exact same standards that you'd apply when evaluating claims of Loch Ness monster sightings or werewolf attacks. This is where the theologian would invoke an endless assortment of ad hoc rationalizations: theodicies ("great suffering and a loving God are compatible because..."); explanations for how Hell/Heaven admissions based on a person's ideology, not merirt is compatible with justice (usually denying that reasonable disbelief is even possible, an empirical claim that is, on the face of it, self-evidently false); and so on. But like epicycles, these are unverifiable--and usually transparently silly--attempts that assume their conclusion as true from the outset, instead of conceding that <i>it need not be taken as true in the first place</i>, and could make <b>much</b> more sense that way.
I acknowledge that some people can't enjoy life without the expectation of an afterlife. Neither do I expect them to abandon their beliefs based on anything I write, so it's all good. Those that <i>don't</i> absolutely need that reassurance are, IMO, far more likely to be well-adjusted, strong and humanistic people in general, so if one of them revises their views based on anything I wrote, that's all good, too. And finally, whether it's a comforting thought or not--which is quite debatable in itself, given how many people in the common religions are destined for everlasting torment because of crimes like being born in the wrong religious tradition--<b>if</b> it's true, if it's true, so we might as well accept that, live with it as best we can, and not waste time on wild goose chases (or, for that matter, waste time on the much worse, frivolous Jerks for Jesus behavior like the current gay-hating, atheist-marginalizing bozos in Congress do, or like Muslim theocrats are loathe to do). We accept that cancer kills, for example, and don't bother staging elaborate ceremonies to trick people into thinking someone who died from it is retiring to Cuba, as much as it might be more comforting to believe the latter.
--Allan