It still seems to me at least that your whole article is stating “I cant tell if X exists because it is outside the realm of evidence, reason and logic….”

It’s not. The “whole article” is about judging arguments by their conclusions.

The point about testability (which is only a small part of this post) is that the answer to any untestable question is totally irrelevant. Science and scientific skepticism are epistemologies.

I can’t say any of this more clearly than I have in less than 5000 words (and that would probably still not do it). People actually go to school for years to learn this stuff and continue to learn nuances for most of their lives, yet enthusiastic newbee skeptics reject it simply because it doesn’t fit with what “sounds right” to them or what they’d like the field to be. I won’t argue it anymore.

No, that’s treating the conclusion as the argument.

I don’t like ‘good’ or ‘bad’ skeptic as the distinguishing term.

‘Skilled’ or ‘unskilled’ are more meaningful.

‘Consistent’ and ‘inconsistent’ is also good.

So, if we assume that a theistic skeptic does not have sufficient reasons to justify assent to theism, it is possible that they are actually highly skilled and trained in critical thinking, but are simply inconsistent: In their view, religious beliefs are waived of the requirement to be skeptically justified prior to assent.

Note that it is possible that a theistic skeptic might have good reasons for either why they assent to theism in the first place, or as to why they feel that theism is entitled to a waiver.

I’m yet to come across a theist that has been able to actually give a satisfactory argument to either effect… But that’s the thing. What is to be considered is the argument of the skeptic.

We don’t know how skilled or consistent a given skeptic is towards a given subject until we hear their arguments.

The gist of the article (if I have read it correctly) is that we shouldn’t pre-judge that an argument can be dismissed on the basis of the conclusion alone. We need to consider the argument itself, because it might turn out to be the one that provides an actually sound justification for that conclusion.

I’m not exactly holding my breath or anything as regards theism. But if we’re going to be skilled and consistent skeptics, I think that this is the stance we should adopt.

I cringe a bit when people say that skepticism cannot address the god question, are these people really being skeptical or are they just limiting their skepticism to testable claims.

Why is being skeptical of testable claims praise worthy but skepticism towards untestable claims frowned upon? surely skepticism can address both with varying degrees of certainty? if skepticism absolutely cannot address the russels tea pot (Its 50 50 whether its true) then I might suggest that people are promoting a skewed view of skepticism for some agenda other than what they claim, possibly more to do with public relations that thinking critically

It still seems to me at least that your whole article is stating “I cant tell if X exists because it is outside the realm of evidence, reason and logic….”

I dont understand why you claim that you can be skeptical about real bullshit but theoritical bullshit is off the table. It just doesnt appear to be very skeptical, i mean if you lived your life as a skeptic you surely wouldnt believe theoritical bullshit for no other reason than you cant prove it…..by definition thats not skepticism

Is atheism rational? I can’t answer that. Atheism is a conclusion. Whether it’s a rational conclusion depends on why the individual drew that conclusion.

I met so many atheists at various events for the many of the same reason believers are in church… born in the faith, dated someone who didn’t believe, etc… and then somehow assert the conclusion that simply because they don’t believe in something silly like gods, they have cornered the market on critical thinking. This is a serious problem in our community.

I think I can put us on the page with a few short replies.

1) My choice of the word “sound” may have been poor because I meant “logically sound” or “valid”, which does not involve truth.

2)

This argument, while valid, is not sound.  If someone told me that they believe penguins to be old TV shows, I would conclude that their beliefs are disconnected from reality.  This is what I mean if I say that something is an “irrational” or “unreasonable” belief.  There is room to accept that a person can be rational and still be wrong because their premises are wrong and they do not realize that.  I think this is what you’re saying in general, but we’re perhaps bumping up against semantics here.

It is close to what I am saying, but what I find problematic in the analogy is that I am not just saying that they could be rational because their premises may be “wrong”, but that it is inherently wrong to assume that their premises are wrong without knowing what their premises are. It is perfectly acceptable and even prudent to be skeptical. After all, “Penguins are old TV shows” is an extraordinary claim (in fact, it’s a testable one, so it’s not a good analogy, but let’s pretend that it isn’t.)

Most of the rest of your comment involves discussing premises and logic, but I am not criticizing that practice and where it takes you will vary a lot.

What I am criticizing is the practice of accusing believers of untestable claims of being irrational simply because one thinks their beliefs are silly (which you restated in your comment accurately). But I would also caution that it is arrogant to simply assume that their premises are wrong before you’ve seen/heard them, too. As soon as we do that, we’re closing our minds to the possibility that we might be wrong. And, again, drawing one’s own conclusions is not a problem. It’s insisting that others’ conclusions are irrational simply because they don’t match that is problematic.

Something else I did not say is that there are testable claims that Skeptics regularly refute and rightly so. For example, the claim that vaccines cause autism has been tested and refuted via scientific consensus. A statement that the claim is wrong is empirically supportable. A statement that there are no ghosts or there is no God is not. The most we can say is “I have not seen convincing evidence”.

3) Regarding the value judgement I’d be willing to make about the penguin: that’s not relevant, at least not my personal judgments. I might find his ideas silly, but to assume that they are unreasonable (again, assuming it was untestable) without evidence of his reasoning processes would itself be unreasonable. There are plenty of true things that seem silly. If you can’t think of any, try studying psychology for awhile. People are amazingly self-contradicting!

So, while I might hold the personal belief that his conclusion is silly, my claim to certainty that he is wrong is misguided.