Unprovable beliefs

I believe there isn't a god.

I believe that the blue sky at day is just a projection created by the government using previously unseen technology, and eventually it will run out of power and never again will the sky appear to be blue.

edited 25th Sep '12 2:24:28 PM by Collen

I believe that intelligent life exists outside of Earth. With the fact that our universe is so unfathomably large, there has to be something else out there.

I don't think unprovable means what you think it means. If we find extraterrestrial life, that will prove the belief "extraterrestrial life exists"; ergo that belief is hypothetically provable. "God exists" is likewise provable; there is no reason we couldn't scientifically verify the existence of a god if one existed (we just haven't, ergo one probably doesn't). Unprovable means that, even if true, there is no way that the statement could be verified.

I believe that pies are transcendental.

I believe that epistemology is a crap shoot. Foundationalism basically means faith. Coherentism is a little better, but from what little I understand of Gödel's incompleteness theorems it is on shaky ground too.

I believe that the other tropers on this forum are the people they claim to be, and are not Spy accounts created by the C.I.A. to get me divulge information.

@Mura In a way everything is unprovable.

edited 7th Oct '12 5:22:58 PM by DeviantBraeburn

Sometimes I wonder about stuff like whether or not morality exists, or justice, or if there's any meaning to life, or if what we call love and friendship are really just our own selfish desires that we satiate through interacting with other people, who we would abandon if we lost all gain from our relationships, even if they aren't to blame. None of those things can be proven, after all.

Then I realize that I'm not sure if something can equal itself, or if a line is the shortest distance between two points, or if two separate real numbers form a real number when added together. I usually feel better after that.

I am the only consciousness that actually exists. All of you are nothing more than apparitions upon the movie screen of my own experience. The whole Universe is a product of my perception; I am the Only One.

No. You are a delusional non-being from a nonexistent universe whose rules allow un-things to be sentient.

@Mura: How would you verify the existence of a God/gods? I can't really think of an experiment or test for that.

Depends on the kind. If they're Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, Transhumans, or an Artificial Intelligence, why wouldn't they be?

I believe that in the end nothing is unknowable, but I admit that at least part of my believing that is me wanting it to be true, so I'm not sure if I even completely believe it or not.

Related to that concept I also believe there isn't a God or any kind of supernatural occurrence in general and there isn't anything science can't explain, just things we can't explain yet. I do acknowledge however that at the moment there is no way to DISPROVE the existence of God, and that it is ultimately harder to disprove God's existence since there's always a possibility of not having enough data. However I also think that in this case the burden of proof lies upon theists to prove the existence of God and not on atheists to disprove it since theists made the original claim, and so for the time being it makes sense to act as though a God (or Goddess or gods or spirits or anything supernatural really) does not exist since no definitive proof has been given either way and because current data provides a seemingly workable system for our universe that doesn't require the supernatural.

I also believe that death is inherently bad and life is inherently good, with the (possible) exception of cancer where it's a role reversal. In that situation I'm wrestling on whether the cells dying counts because they're singular symbiotic organisms that make up a larger whole instead of completely independent organisms like say a cat. I'm also unsure about where things like white blood cells fall under because of this. I'm fairly certain bacteria, including harmful bacteria, should be allowed to live if we can manage it though since they're technically independent, foreign organisms. I think we are right to get rid of them for the time being because we must ensure our own survival but also think it's an evil act, so we're being Necessarily Evil for the moment. I also consider this true when consuming food, whether derived from plants or animals, since they're all once-living organisms (and since I count killing plants as also evil I consider people who are vegetarians explicitly for moral reasons to be somewhat hypocritical; health reasons are fine).

I think it's possibly more accurate to say that I'm certain that life is inherently good and death is inherently bad for me specifically and that it is provable, since I understand my perspective on the matter and can explain it thoroughly, and it's an ultimately subjective matter in this case. I'm still trying to figure out if it's possible to prove my belief when it comes to life and death in general, though for the time being I operate on the assumption that it is and center my moral beliefs and actions around the idea, adopting an ideal of complete no-exceptions pacifism for all life except for matters of gaining sustenance.

edited 14th Oct '12 3:34:31 AM by MrZAP

Most theists (in my experience) will tell you that if God were to make His existence provable, then nobody would have to faith in Him... I don't entirely understand the reasoning behind that, but there you have it.

And anyway, I don't see why theists are obligated to try to prove His existence.

To paraphrase Discworld here, believing in God after he's made his existence clear would be like believing in the milkman.

It's just a matter of burden of proof. If you make a claim that something exists, it is up to you to prove that it does exist, not on the unbelievers to prove that it doesn't. And since I feel proof and evidence should be necessary for all such matters then I feel that they should strive to prove their claims. I understand their reasoning about why they don't have to (though I find it horribly logically fallacious, which is annoying, but whatever), but that doesn't change the fact that it makes sense to me that they should. To me it's a matter of Empiricism, and the difficulty arises when one takes into account that religion is by nature NOT empirical, and that it's followers by consequence of that fact aren't either.

I always thought that since we can't prove it, and we can't disprove it, there isn't a burden on anyone to do so. If we can, but haven't, then I can see an argument over who the burden to (dis)prove lies on, but the whole thing of religion is beyond our current science. I don't see how presuming an unproven thing is wrong is in any way more logical than presuming its right. Neither are logical; for pure empiricism shouldn't you not presume anything? If its unproven, believing either which way is valid, and dismissing something as untrue without disproving it is wrong. Not believing it is fine, but assuming it is factually wrong without proof is fallacious. All in all, believe what you will, and acknowledge its a belief, and that presuming true or false without proof is wrong, but believing either way is fine. On topic, I believe that the universe will Big Crunch itself, but it won't be identical to the preceding one, and therefore not a cyclical chain of events.

I believe that we should show the Fire Nation that we believe in our beliefs as much as they believe in theirs.

edited 14th Oct '12 4:56:13 PM by kay4today

I believe that God exists.

I believe that the big bang happened.

Obviously, God must have been the...

Big Banger.

DO HO HO HO HO HO I'm going to hell for this.

I believe that if someone were to travel faster than the speed of light, they'd attain negative mass and drift away into a Fluffy Cloud Heaven that surrounds the universe in its shell, and just keep on floating, only able to suffer as the paradise drifts away out of sight with nothing left but a wafting smell of marshmallows.

That would suck.

... Maybe... xD

That's an... interesting point of view.

Well, not exactly unprovable but... at death your mind separates from your body and puts you in a permanent Dream state, so basically your subconscious shapes your afterlife.

^ That means my afterlife is gonna be the trippiest, weirdest, most What Do You Mean, It Wasn't Made on Drugs? ever. That's because my subconscious when dreaming makes the weirdest most colorful dreams ever (soundtrack included!) that Japanese animation couldn't possibly imagine.

That would be awesome.