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Originally Posted by filtherton
I don't think you can claim that a position is reasonable without taking into account the basis for that position. Atheism is a reasonable position when it is held by someone who has a reasonable basis for holding it. It is not a reasonable position if it is held for unreasonable reasons.
All atheism is is the lack of a belief in a deity; any other qualities you give it are nothing more than projection.
And in any case, the question of whether theism is reasonable or not depends on your definition of reason. Show me a nontrivial/noncolloquial definition of "reason" which doesn't include theism in it.
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Indeed, I agree that our positions don't exist in a vacuum and require some kind of basis. I contend that most of us share a common basis for which theism is unreasonable. You can see this basis in action when theists dismiss a religion not their own. I maintain that they fail to apply this critical thinking to their own religion and that this is unreasonable. In my experience, theists agree with this idea, in principle, but rationalize that their religion somehow stands up to this criticism.
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I could have sworn you quoted me in your response to roachboy. Even then, your particular justifications for your atheism still aren't germane.
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I responded to both you and roachboy, in the same post. The forum software would have just automerged two consecutive posts, anyway. You were probably responding to the entire post, regardless of whether it were directed at you or not. These are not exactly private conversations so it's no big deal...
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It would be a straw man if you were PZ Myers, the person who wrote the courtesan's reply, or Dawkins and I happened to be arguing with you about it. But seeing as how you are not PZ Myers or Richard Dawkins, and I'm not trying to claim any sort of comprehensive understanding of the issue at hand, you don't really have a point. In fact, since you seem to be misstating the facts here and then using that misstatement of facts to call me out, the claim might be made that it is you who are employing straw men.
To be clear, anything involving the courtesan's reply is a footnote. I made an offhand remark about it seeming stupid, and then provided clarification about it when you asked, while admitting that I only had secondhand knowledge of it. It's not like I'm being deceptive here. Why do you need this to be a straw man so badly?
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The Courtesan's Reply? I was referring to this:
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Originally Posted by filtherton
From my understanding, Dawkins quotes religious ideas to discredit them, but in doing so fails to show an adequate understanding of their significance. Whether his general criticisms of theism are correct or not, he kind of shoots himself in the foot by overstating the case.
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I don't think you were referring to the Courtesan's Reply when you were saying this...
Furthermore, your assessment of what constitutes a strawman is simply incorrect. Who I am or am not is irrelevant. As long as you are refuting a claim that someone did not make as if they had made it, you are employing a strawman argument.
Finally, I have no fetish for strawmen. You brought it up in post #92 and I've been correcting your use of terms ever since...
While we're on the subject, can you provide a link to the Courtesan's Reply?
A Google search has proved fruitless...
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I have seen a few videos of him. It doesn't make my opinion of him credible. It doesn't have anything to do with the courtesan's reply, or my dismissive opinion of it.
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It makes it more credible. At least you know something about him and can comment on the content of those videos. He does go over the same subject matter over and over again...
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How is an opinion on a movie not falsifiable? Everyone has criteria for what constitutes a good movie, it just isn't necessarily standardized. It might seem like it isn't falsifiable, but try this out:
Think of a movie you hate.
Consider the hypothesis: The movie is good.
Compare the qualities of the movie with the characteristics you use to define a good movie.
Either your hypothesis stands or it is falsified.
It is a pretty common procedure.
Right now my computer says it's 8:37. My microwave says it's 8:38. Who's right? Which statement is falsified?
You seem to be acting under the assumption that subjective statements aren't falsifiable. I think that's a mistake. When it comes down to it, there aren't necessarily any qualitative differences between statements of opinion and statements of fact. In fact, as far as I have been able to tell, opinion is of vital importance in most matters of fact; the data is what it is, but what it means is an altogether different thing, falsifiability be damned.
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I don't think I follow your reasoning here but, regardless, I'm not saying that subjective statements are necessarily non-falsifiable.
I don't quite like my example 'cause its non-falsifiability is rooted in the deliberately undefined term "good." Nevertheless, the statement can't be falsified while the term "good" is so poorly defined and, thus, is not a statement of reality. I think it's fair to say that poorly made statements are also not statements of reality and that's what I was thinking with that last paragraph.
Apparently, my examples suck so I'll go back to the abstract. Statements that are not falsifiable aren't statements on reality. If you make a statment that is impossible to verify, even in principle, are you really talking about something that is real? In a sense, these are nonsensical statements...
Finally, lets get back to the original point, which is that Dawkins isn't saying that all theistic claims are subject to scientific inquiry. He's saying that it can be, in contrast to
Non-overlapping magesteria. My interpretation of his statements on this matter is that religions often make statements on reality that can be verified scientifically. He may have clarified this point in The God Delusion, which would relieve us of my interpretation so let me check on that before I assert this too strongly...
PS. I found the
Courtier's Reply. You'll never guess how!