Comment on Can a reasonable person genuinely believe in ghosts?
ageedizzle@piefed.ca 22 hours agoI am familiar with the Gods of the gaps argument. Its not a God of the gaps argument (I’m literally an atheist, if that matters). I don’t know how you can assume that you already know where this book goes wrong without having even read it. Or maybe you got that from my comment? Bur literally no where in my comment did I make any argument, and I certainly didn’t make any Gods of the gaps argument
This is exactly the problem with this topic, people have an understanding of it based on popular debunkers like Neil Degrasse Tyson or whoever and they think thats all there is left to hear on the topic. They just want to be on the side of science (understandable, I do too!) and see these guys are scientific and think thats it, cased closed. They never actually engage with the subject matter. They acquire a repertoire of buzzwords and debunking strategies that allow them to dismiss everything wholesale, then they never dig any deeper so they never realize the ways in which these skeptical responses are insufficient
SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 18 hours ago
With all due respect, you’ve latched onto 1. my introductory literary device for framing the argument, and 2. where I dismiss the book based on my argument, but missed my argument, which I would succinctly state as: By definition, we don’t know anything about the supernatural, but we know the natural world extremely well, and we can explain the way that it behaves fully and completely without supernatural influence. Not only do we lack evidence of the supernatural, the evidence that we do have rules it out.
ageedizzle@piefed.ca 18 hours ago
How can you dismiss a book you’ve never read? You have to admit thats a bit shoddy. Even you’re sure that the book is a crock of shit you won’t know why its a crock of shit (and which rebuttals to apply) until after you’ve finished reading at least part of it.
Regarding the other stuff: I don’t have the time to get into the weeds on the matter with everyone here so I’m considering this comment here to be my official statement.
SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 15 hours ago
If a book claims something that’s fundamentally impossible by the laws of physics, I don’t need to read it to dismiss it.
ageedizzle@piefed.ca 11 hours ago
This is literally the same justification the church gave to Galileo when they refused to look through his telescope. His discoveries violated what they thought to be the laws of physics at the time, so they knew he was wrong and therefore was no need to even look fo themselves.
Linktank@lemmy.today 12 hours ago
You seem like an extremely gullible person.
ageedizzle@piefed.ca 11 hours ago
you seem like an extremely close-minded person