[Mertax]

Hopefully my tone isn't misinterpreted because I genuinely appreciate the openness in your approach and thoughtfulness throughout this thread. I'm just curious to get your thoughts, admittedly some of these questions are rhetorical.

What experiments have you performed to prove the "null hypothesis"? How do you respond to those who claim they've experimented on their faith and found sufficient evidence to assert their belief?

Isn't "taking the null hypothesis" at some level still making a choice of belief? Doesn't that assumption introduce some amount of skepticism and bias into the measurement? What if the proof requires some amount of willful credulity? What if it's designed to be bestowed 'line upon line' and 'precept upon precept' after 'asking in faith' 'believing that' you will 'receive'.

I've found that starting this particular hypothesis under the premise that there is a God who has crafted a plan that requires the use of your agency to regain His spirit and influence in your life tends to yield better results.

[tenacious_tuna]

> Hopefully my tone isn't misinterpreted

No worries :) I love these kinds of conversations.

I'll give a personal anecdote before I start slingin' scientific/philosophical language: My de-conversion started when, as a teenager, I asked myself if I only believed in Christianity (instead of, say, Islam or Buddhism or Hinduism) because I was raised in the church--and that if I'd been raised in some other religion, I would instead believe that. (I'll use this example to better frame the null hypothesis question later, but it's useful to keep in mind as I explain.)

> What experiments have you performed to prove the "null hypothesis"?

This is a minor misunderstanding of what a "null hypothesis" is and how we interact with it. A null hypothesis is basically the assumed-default of the world, based on the fewest assumptions. Any theory you may be investigating may be an alternative hypothesis, but the way you go about collecting data is less about proving an alternative and more about disproving the null.

To be maximally pedantic, science is about constructing models that most accurately model the real world. If the data contradicts a model, then it clearly isn't reliable, and we make adjustments to the model--so we would never "prove" any hypothesis, null or otherwise, we would just find that the data more and more supports a specific hypothesis (over some others).

This philosophical block of text from Wikipedia explains why we frame the null in this way pretty well:

  A negative claim is the opposite of an affirmative or positive claim.
  It asserts the non-existence or exclusion of something.
  The difference with a positive claim is that it takes only a single
  example to demonstrate such a positive assertion ("there is a chair
  in this room," requires pointing to a single chair), while the inability
  to give examples demonstrates that the speaker has not yet found or
  noticed examples rather than demonstrates that no examples exist

[from 1]

So when applied to our god claim, it looks something like this: I see people making saying things like

  (a) god has had influence on our past (in dictating his laws to people, performing miracles, the resurrection etc)

  (b) god has influence in the present (he can communicate with people, either directly into their mind or by influencing the world around us; enabling certain outcomes to occur, like getting a specific job or having a good surgery outcome)

While (a) is a little hard to test 'cuz I don't have a time machine and the historical record is opaque at best, (b) is a series of positive claims that can be observed and tested against the null of god not existing or not having any influence over our reality.

Were I to invert the null, and assume that there is a god, it's possible I could construct my experiments poorly: suppose I pray that I'll get a raise at my job, and the next week my manager tells me I'm getting a raise. Is this evidence that god exists and is influencing my life? Perhaps my boss was just motivated out of my work performance over the past few months. If I'm assuming that god exists, I could easily count this as evidence without that being the case.

Suppose the opposite happens, and I don't get my raise: What does this have to say about our god question? It might be that my raise "doesn't fit god's plan", and he had his own reasons not to grant my request--the typical explanation I hear from believers. It could also be simply that I did not meet my boss's expectations for deserving a raise and it was unreasonable for me to expect one, godly influence or no.

If you loop this over a lifetime of experiences, it's very probable that you'll run into a series of events where god seems to be at work, i.e. you pray for things and they happen, or you have some fortunate luck occur, or whatnot, that you're happy to attribute as evidence to god existing--even if there's perfectly mundane explanations for each of these occurrences. You could be wrong that there is a god, yet merrily believing such because of this poor logic chain. Broadly this is "confirmation bias," [2] or "only counting the hits." You see this with things like when you buy a new car: suddenly you start seeing that car everywhere. In reality, nothing has changed in terms of the percentage-distribution of cars in your local area: you're just now more predisposed to notice the kind of car you have than you were before, so it "feels" like there are now more of them.

You may ask (and apologies if I'm straw-manning), "What if God's actions are simply indistinguishable from the mundane chance?" In science we would say that said effect would be "statistically insignificant"--if you cannot reasonable separate the effect of some thing from random chance, then it's unreasonable to conclude that the "some thing" has influence on what you're observing.

You see this in medical trials with what's called "the placebo effect" [3], where doctors will run a study where some group of people get actual (new) medicine and some group get sugar pills, and yet another group will get nothing; there are many, many cases where the sugar-pill group (the "placebo" group) display effects _different_ than the "control" group who got nothing. If the results of the group who got real medicine are similar in magnitude to those who got the sugar pills, then it'd be unreasonable to conclude that the medicine is having a real effect, since that effect can also be demonstrated by not-real-medicine.

To your questions:

> Doesn't that assumption introduce some amount of skepticism and bias into the measurement?

You're absolutely correct :) Some atheists also use the 'skeptic' label, as it more widely describes their approach to life beyond just their religious beliefs. Bias I would question--would a similar bias not be introduced by assuming there were a god? (I'd argue I've demonstrated quite a significant bias would be introduced.)

If you remember my anecdote from the beginning, I had the question of if I only believed Christianity because I was raised in it, vs these other religions. One way to frame the experiment would be to assume Christianity was correct, and begin collecting evidence: but this would leave me open to the "confirmation bias" of attributing events to a god who may not actually exist. Defaulting to the null hypothesis of there not being any god, and requiring myself to be convinced otherwise, allows me to be much more sure that *were* such an existence to be demonstrated, that it would indeed be true with regard to reality.

> How do you respond to those who claim they've experimented on their faith and found sufficient evidence to assert their belief?

Generally I ask them to walk me through their beliefs and their experiments, in the vein of Street Epistemology. I highly, highly, highly recommend watching a few of Anthony Magnabosco's videos [4] on the subject. He does an amazing job of taking a calm, reasoned, conversational approach and demonstrates many of the techniques and tools I've cited and talked about, with a variety of people on a variety of claims--though typically claims about God. In the interest of full disclosure, Anthony is an atheist, but these conversations are much more of a Socratic dialogue exploring beliefs than they are a debate.

Returning to your question, I have not yet had a conversation with a believer whose evidence I found convincing, typically due to flaws in their reasoning akin to the above. A few months ago I even read several books one such believer recommended to me ("Mere Christianity," "The Problem of Pain," and "Should We Fire God?") on the basis that those books were part of what helped build their faith, and I only came out the other side even more disillusioned about their ability to rationally engage with the subject.

> I've found that starting this particular hypothesis under the premise that there is a God who has crafted a plan that requires the use of your agency to regain His spirit...

This is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, with regard to confirmation bias: If I begin looking for signs that there is the Christian god, and I allow myself to count what would otherwise be mere coincidences (or possibly very likely outcomes that I mistakenly though unlikely), I would merrily begin finding this evidence: not because it's good evidence, but because my premise is flawed. Suppose alternatively there is a god, but it's the god of Islam, or of Judaism? A lot of that evidence could support the Christian premise, but still not lead me to the correct conclusion if I'm starting from the Christian default.

I currently see no reason to believe that there is any god with such a plan requiring me to suspend my reasoning--and I would charge that any god that required me to suspend my reasoning in order to be led to believing in him (especially if that belief is demanded, lest I be punished eternally) is a god of poor moral standing.

> What if the proof requires some amount of willful credulity?

Then it's a remarkably ineffective proof :)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy)#P...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo

[4]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2EgJjQRsYE&list=PLh10RgQgGu...

[hi75u]

Thanks for laying all of this out. I'll say up front that I believe in God (member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) so you know where I'm coming from. You obviously understand this stuff at a high level, and I won't claim to. I had a question about experimenting with proving (personally, at least) God's existence based on what you've explained.

>(b) god has influence in the present (he can communicate with people, either directly into their mind or by influencing the world around us; enabling certain outcomes to occur, like getting a specific job or having a good surgery outcome)

Your example experiments after this point talk about proving God exists through outcomes. I agree that experiments in this realm based on outcomes are bad. As you said, outcomes can have many different, non-divine causes; and it is impossible to observe the actual source. But what about the first point "he can communicate with people, either directly into their mind..."? What if you designed an experiment that tested whether God exists by testing if He can communicate with you? What about something like Clayton Christensen's experiment[1]? His experiment is more about a religious text than God Himself, but could something like that provide a framework for disproving the null at least?

[1] https://claytonchristensen.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Wh...; page 3 starting at paragraph 2

[tenacious_tuna]

> You obviously understand this stuff at a high level, and I won't claim to.

I'm flattered, but I merely consider myself a talented amateur who perhaps enjoys this subject of discussion more than is reasonable, and thus have spend an inordinate amount of time on it.

> What about something like Clayton Christensen's experiment[1]?

A critically important point in science, especially dealing with psychological matters, is knowing that the human brain for all its power is an incredibly fallible tool: it's memory is subpar [1] and it's willingness to identify patterns dangerously strong [2]. To this end, we have to design our experiments knowing that our brains will see causality where there may be none, and mis-remember data according to both our hopes and our doubts.

A second point is that an effective experiment must be (a) convincing to those who see it (with regard to the proposed conclusions) and (b) repeatable, such that those who doubt can run the experiment themselves, observe the results, and test their alternative explanations. I've seen many a scientist simultaneously sad that their hoped-for explanation was not supported by an experiment, or that their results were shown to be incorrect by another in their field adapting their experiment, but that same scientist was intensely glad for the fact that their model of the world was now more accurate.

Broadly in Street Epistemology, a methodology that lead to belief in multiple contradictory beliefs across a population is not a useful methodology for determining truth: this is an extension of the "Outsider Faith Test" I discuss somewhere up this thread. But, generally, if person A can use a methodology to conclude god A exists, and person B can use the same methodology to confirm belief in god B, then the methodology is not useful to discern realities. With more concrete examples, I've seen people claim to be filled with some emotion or spirit during Pagan rituals, or followers of the Hindu gods feel like they were having conversations with their gods, or Christians report being filled with spirit while singing hymns in their cathedrals. Since these are all effectively the same methodology--strong emotion during a worship based experience--it's reasonable to doubt that "strong emotion during a worship based experience" is a useful indicator in the existence of a specific god.

My explanation, perhaps typical of a non-believer, is that human psychology is predisposed to having these experiences, akin to the feeling of something being behind you as you ascend the dark basement stairs, or a feeling of wonder as you see how tiny your town is from a neighboring mountain: while these experiences evoke incredibly strong emotions, they aren't indicators of some supernatural power.

> His experiment is more about a religious text than God Himself, but could something like that provide a framework for disproving the null at least?

If Clayton's experiment were about disproving the null, it would have to be designed around showing the null hypothesis "there is no god" to be false. As it stands, his experiment just shows that he can have a strong emotional reaction to a text he reads late at night while praying that he has some reaction to the text he's reading. To properly disprove the null of "there is no god", or more specifically "this feeling was not caused by a god" he would have to demonstrate that either (a) the god explanation has the strongest relationship over any alternatives, or (b) that no other explanations apply. This would involve things like disproving the experience "just being within his head", or caused by his usual feelings around that time of night, or that they were reproducible in a devout atheist, or similar.

This is broadly the issue when citing individual, personal experience as evidence: it is most often collected by those with an existing bias to the results, e.g. believers hoping to have their beliefs confirmed, and it certainly can't stand up to scientific rigor (repeatable with results observable from other parties, in ways that dispel other possible explanations).

For my part, I experience incredibly intense emotions when I'm listening to recordings of communications between Air Traffic Controllers and pilots in emergency situations; in fact, in the past several years those recordings are the only thing that have moved me to actual tears. Waves of emotion about how lonely it must be to be such a pilot, even as you hear ATC routing other traffic around you, or the professional strain in the ATC's voice as they're routing search-and-rescue craft to the scene, or the intense relief when the pilot confirms they're OK after a landing. Is it reasonable for me to conclude that it's in these moments that god chooses to visit me, and fill me with concern for the pilot or gratitude for the ATC or calm over some future trip I'm to take? Or just to acknowledge that when I listen to these recordings, alone in a hotel room while traveling after a long day, I'm likely more predisposed to these emotions than I am normally?

For Clayton's part:

  During my adult life I have been blessed to witness or participate in many miracles – events that the scriptures term “gifts of the Spirit.”  I have healed the sick by the power of the God.

Were he such a fantastic healer, driven by the power of God, why is he not sweeping the nation, curing all the otherwise-incurably sick? Surely this would be a stunning display of God's power, consistently demonstrable by Clayton and attributable solely to his god?

[1a]: https://www.ncsc.org/trends/monthly-trends-articles/2017/the...

[1b]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

[hi75u]

>Were he such a fantastic healer, driven by the power of God, why is he not sweeping the nation, curing all the otherwise-incurably sick?

A) He's dead[1] B) Jesus did this, and, as you can imagine, people weren't willing to see this as "attributable solely to his god". Even I can think of other explanations (e.g., fraud) if a person were going around the country loudly proclaiming themselves to be using God's power to heal anyone and everyone.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/25/business/clayton-christen...

[hi75u]

Thanks for taking the time to respond! I wasn't sure you'd see it since I got to this thread late. Glad to be engaged in a respectful discussion on a contentious topic that is dear to me.

>This is broadly the issue when citing individual, personal experience as evidence: it is most often collected by those with an existing bias to the results

Yes, I agree here. Maybe I bungled it, but I was not attempting to prove God exists through this one person's experience. Just examining it as an example of a repeatable experiment.

>reproducible in a devout atheist I would disagree here. A devout atheist presumably has a very strong bias against finding out God exists or interpreting an experience as something supernatural. So maybe "reproducible in a [dispassionate, neutral party]"?

>To this end, we have to design our experiments knowing that our brains will see causality where there may be none, and mis-remember data according to both our hopes and our doubts.

I just wonder if this is an excuse people use for never trying it out at the individual level. A person can say in their heads or out loud "God, are you there?" and observe the results. Of course, there's the question of how long one needs to go through with this. But scientists are often patient and willing to go to great lengths to prove something[1][2]. I don't blame anyone who is not willing to go through with the effort in something they see as pointless as long as they don't take the failure of one or two attempts as proof that God does not exist. E.g., Higgs et al. in a parallel universe quitting before decades passing and before having a multi-billion dollar machine doesn't prove that the Higgs boson doesn't exist.

Maybe my experiment as stated isn't it, but I think there can be a convincing and repeatable experiment along those lines. Millions of people have repeated it and experienced something convincing (to them) (I'm not trying to use "Millions of people" as proof that all of us are right or anything. Just that it can be/has been repeated). But, for sure, it is unknown whether the millions of people and I interpreted the outcome according to their hopes. I think that's why it's worth it for every individual to try for themselves.

>his experiment just shows that he can have a strong emotional reaction to a text he reads late at night while praying that he has some reaction to the text he's reading.

It is true that even very real spiritual experiences can be explained in other ways. So, you're right, the experience still has to be accepted by the observer as from God. Because I believe in an omniscient God who knows you personally, I think you'll experience exactly what you need to experience exactly when you need to experience it. I won't claim it will be irrefutable proof, but maybe it'll be enough to make you want to keep digging.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_field_theory

[Mertax]

Thanks for the response. With that explanation I better understand the “null hypothesis” and how you would attempt to “disprove the null”. This makes me believe it could be done in a way where an omniscient and merciful God would knowingly discern such efforts as earnest and sincere. Perhaps answers could be found this way. I think this is an acceptable methodology that could be applied by a sincere truth seeker and still achieve the same outcome I experience, with admittedly a less biased premise.

A conversion in this way would certainly come with an increased accountability and is perhaps why it’s more difficult to come by. Being convinced absolutely and not willing to adhere comes with more dire consequences if one is to believe scriptural record—which admittedly sounds a bit foreboding but may be more merciful than one might assume at first glance. There are even scriptural accounts of similar things being done successfully (see Paul’s experience on his road to Damascus, or if you’re willing to venture into my brand of Christianity see Alma’s experience in chapter 36 of the Book of Mormon).

However, I do think the premise of God helps me understand and open new avenues of thought. Personally, I started from the assumption that an Omniscient being, capable of designing the very reality we perceive and live in, can probably come up with a way to “test” and “prove” us in a way that protects our ability to make our own choices yet extends enough grace to satisfy the demands of justice. If I were obligated to believe because I could not refute the evidence, I don’t know how effective that would be of a test to prove I’ve become what I’m supposed to be. Personally I think this Plan works whether you get behind a belief system or not.

I have very much appreciated the insights you’ve shared. You are right, I could be wrong, and have become heavily indoctrinated with a healthy dose of confirmation bias. But for me at least, I’ve found something that I receive great benefit and perspective from. I recognize it won't be that for everyone.

[tenacious_tuna]

You are most welcome! Thank you for your questions :)