Where is the weight of evidence?

Question

Those who would debunk spiritual beliefs keep saying 'prove it'. However, every culture has their own spiritual beliefs. Are the minority who say their is no spirituality so egotistical as to assume that they are right and the majority of people throughout history are wrong?

Is science a new cult then, based on a philosophy that denies the existence of anything that can not be physically experienced or tested?

Excuse me I meant to say scientism is the new cult, not science.

Answer 1

Science cannot be compared to religion because one of the fundamental difference: Scientific theories are falsifiable in principle. This means that all scientific theories have to be formulated in such a way as to be possible to be disproven by evidence. This is unheard of in religion, which is purely dogmatic. Karl Popper had more to say about this.

Having said that, there are many people, scientists and laymen, who are very arrogant about their scientific beliefs and can be quite dogmatic about them. They are guilty of the same sins as many of the religious fanatics. However, this doesn't affect the difference between science and religion, but is only a commentary on human nature.

Answer 2

Your argument is known as argumentum ad populum, "appeal to the majority" or "appeal to the people", that is, you pretend to use as an argument the common belief of the majority, in other words, it's a fallacy that leads to an invalid conclusion from the logical point of view. Do you think that the earth would be flat is everyone thought it was? If you think your proposition is correct, you need to provide valid (and verifiable) arguments that lead to a valid conclusions.

If someone makes an asseveration, they should either provide arguments that back ups the proposition and to prove the validity of the arguments (sometimes with evidences, sometimes as axioms). People would either accept the proposition or point out the flaws in the arguments or the conclusion. That's how logic works. If you feel you can make an asseveration that isn't either an axiom nor a backed up asseveration, that's called "faith" and by "faith" we understand someone believes in something without evidence, and when you believe in something without evidence, you can be completely wrong.

What makes science different to religion is that it allows revision, actually, in science, perpetual revision and questioning is required, when new data comes up, any theory, affected by such data, should be tested, modified and even rejected if it's the case. Now religions, with a few exceptions, are based on dogmas. When new data comes up contradicting the religion, this data is commonly either ignored or discredited.

Now scientism, even if I haven't met anyone who claimed to belong to a scientism cult (I've only heard of the term in pejoratives contexts), I'd say that, if it's a dogma, it suffers from the same problem as religion, it doesn't allow revision and questioning.

Bye

Answer 3

Well, since religion is based upon faith, that really can be no "proof" of the spiritual. There are only religious texts, and to believe those you must have faith. So, that would lead one to believe that the burden of proof must lie in the hands of those that would say religion is false. Truely, though, I would say that even though religion is faith based that they also should seek proof as well. Use science to prove things. For example, open up the Bible and you read that the Earth is young, use science to prove that this is true, and once the evidence shows it so, begin finding proof that it is not. Those that do not believe religion need to do the same, set a hypothisis and then prove it correct, and then go about proving it wrong.

Only by being objectionable can one really find truth. As long as either side is holding to the beliefs they have and saying "I'm right, and you are wrong," nothing will change. You can not change what a person believes, but you can give and recieve information. With information people can change their own beliefs.

Answer 4

The burden of evidence lies on the one making a positive claim. Each person espousing spiritual beliefs has the burden of providing evidence that those beliefs are true. Until such evidence is produced, I will not claim to know that the beliefs are true, nor will I claim to know they are false. I will simply not believe in them. That's the default.
Lack of evidence doesn't prove that the thing doesn't exist, it just means that you shouldn't claim that the thing exists.

There are those who misunderstand science and claim that whatever science doesn't show to be true is false. But there are people who misuse anything.

It's wrong to say that if something hasn't been demonstrated to be true the thing doesn't exist. But the people who take the lack of evidence either way as an argument for believing in things are wrong. Perhaps there really is an invisible pink unicorn or a flying spaghetti monster, but until evidence for either exists the reasonable position is not to believe in either.

Answer 5

Argumentum ad populum: Because lots of people are religious, religion must have merit. Invalid reasoning.

Straw man: Atheists believe anything that can't be observed doesn't exist. Invalid reasoning.

Truth: Atheists simply don't believe in gods, for many reasons, and partly because gods look just like folk tales and myths when you don't already believe in them. We don't care that nearly everyone else believes in gods, because nearly everyone can believe lots of silly things (e.g. demons cause disease, non-white people should be slaves, et cetera).

There is no evidence for God. I see no reason to believe in her, and in order to believe in something as fantastical as God, I'm going to need some pretty good evidence. It's a pretty extraordinary claim, after all.

The big problem with accusing people of "scientism" is that the accusation is usually a defense of something completely ridiculous (besides the other problems I mentioned earlier). It's just an effort to get around actually having to apply the same standards of rigor and critique to supernatural claims that you'd apply to anything else. You wouldn't even buy a car without looking at its repair history, just taking on faith that the dealer is being honest with you, but you'll accept supernatural claims because someone tells you to. You do this even when large portions of these supernatural claims can be shown to be utterly false.

Betting on the supernatural is like betting on the Cubs to win the World Series. You can say that I can't prove they won't win it, but supernatural claims, like the Cubs, have a history of losing.

Yes, that's slightly inductive (in the non-mathematical sense), but it's a good heuristic that keeps you from buying snake oil.

Answer 6

well science cant prove anything and God cannot be proven. However, The majority of christians deny the theory of evolution because the bible says otherwise. Who are you to judge people as egotistical. If you look at Historical facts because facts do exist everything points to the bible being a bunch of old fairy tales.

Answer 7

Science is not a cult ( you should look up the meaning of cult)
Science is fact...religion is theory....follow whatever one you want...just don't try to shove YOUR followings down my throat.

Cheers!

Answer 8

The beliefs of the majority have no effect of reality.

e.g. "The world is flat", Geocentric theory, etc.