Why isn't every economist an Austrian?

[Nielsio]

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Why isn't every scientist an atheist?

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Because science has nothing to do with religion.

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Religion is anti-knowledge:
"X exists but I have no concept/theory of X"

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Science, though, does not rule out that of which it has no knowledge. Science builds a base of theory (or of knowledge, subject to later revision) and proceeds from there. There is nothing in science that says: "What we know, exists; and that which we do not know, does not exist."

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Religion is not knowledge discovery. There is nothing to 'rule out'. It seems you're trying to disprove the position that many people think is atheism: 'god does not exist'. But this is not a logical position. When there is no concept of god, then saying it doesn't exist makes no sense. Existing is a claim about reality. To use the word 'god' and 'existing' in the same sentence makes no sense.

A theist can therefore never be a real scientist. His brain is wired (through mental abuse) fundamentally against knowledge discovery.

Because when you cannot explain ideas, then how are you going to transmit them?

[TomCollins]

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Why isn't every scientist an atheist?

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Because science has nothing to do with religion.

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Religion is anti-knowledge:
"X exists but I have no concept/theory of X"

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Science, though, does not rule out that of which it has no knowledge. Science builds a base of theory (or of knowledge, subject to later revision) and proceeds from there. There is nothing in science that says: "What we know, exists; and that of which we do not know, does not exist."

Scientists or mathematicians might make some case that the existence of God appears unlikely. While arguable, that is essentially different from claiming certainty that God does not exist. Full atheism cannot be supported from the scientific viewpoint, although a low chance of the existence of God might be so argued.

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Be careful, you might end up on ignore if you continue to debate him this well.

[Skidoo]

If you read the T&C of this website carefully, you'll note that competent opposing arguments are symptomatic of passive-aggressive personality disorder and a one-way ticket to Ignoresville.

[John Kilduff]

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Why isn't every scientist an atheist?

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Because science has nothing to do with religion.

[/ QUOTE ]


Religion is anti-knowledge:
"X exists but I have no concept/theory of X"

[/ QUOTE ]

Science, though, does not rule out that of which it has no knowledge. Science builds a base of theory (or of knowledge, subject to later revision) and proceeds from there. There is nothing in science that says: "What we know, exists; and that which we do not know, does not exist."

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Religion is not knowledge discovery. There is nothing to 'rule out'. It seems you're trying to disprove the position that many people think is atheism: 'god does not exist'. But this is not a logical position. When there is no concept of god, then saying it doesn't exist makes no sense. Existing is a claim about reality. To use the word 'god' and 'existing' in the same sentence makes no sense.

A theist can therefore never be a real scientist. His brain is wired (through mental abuse) fundamentally against knowledge discovery.

Because when you cannot explain ideas, then how are you going to transmit them?

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I'm not exactly sure what points you are making here, but I will try to respond as best I can.

That there may be no concept, does not preclude existence. It is quite possible that a detailed concept of God is beyond our capacity, just as Principia Mathematica is beyond an ant's capacity to comprehend.

A scientist may be unlikely to take the position that God exists. Yet he would not take the position that God does not exist to be absolutely certain.

Some beliefs which may appear to have no basis, may appear differently if we have more information. It has been argued that supposing God exists, is like supposing a chocolate cake orbits the Moon, and neither can be disproved. Yet if I were to tell you, in all seriousness, that my uncle's stepson was one of the astronauts that went on an Apollo moon mission, and that he told my uncle, who told me, that they routinely jettisoned any food suspected of contamination, and that among the items jettisoned were: some powdered milk, some freeze-dried apricots, and some freeze-dried desserts - including some freeze-dried squares of chocolate cake - might your estimation of the probability of a chocolate cake orbiting the moon now be changed somewhat?

So:

1) a lack of clear concept does not preclude existence, and

2) a seemingly frivolous supposition may, upon introduction of supporting or suggestive accounts, become more likely than before.

There are eyewitness accounts, reported in the Bible, of various miracles performed by Jesus. That alone makes them more likely to have occurred than if they had never been reported at all. The reliability of those accounts may of course be questioned and may be doubted by many. Yet the existence of those accounts makes the matter less like the original chocolate cake proposition, and more like the chocolate cake proposition after the introduction of the anecdotal account of occurrences which took place aboard the Apollo mission. Of course, there are differences too, but the point is that a seemingly frivolous proposition cannot be ruled out completely and that our estimation of it may change after the introduction of new information.

A scientist may be very doubtful of the existence of God but he cannot be certain that God does not exist, without violating his own rigorous approach to logic and analysis. This is all the more clear as the conception of God is taken to broad instead of narrow. Since our capacity to think and imagine is limited, a very broad idea of the nature of God may make more sense than a narrow conception.

I'm don't know what you meant by claiming that "(theist's) brain is wired (through mental abuse) fundamentally against knowledge discovery", so I can't really respond to that. If you'd care to expound I will try to address that matter as well. Hopefully you have found my post interesting and worth thinking about, and as always, thanks for reading and responding to my posts (which goes for everyone on this board as well).

[Nielsio]

I'll show you in a more practical way where the problem lies:


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There are eyewitness accounts, reported in the Bible, of various miracles performed by Jesus.

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* There is no such thing as THE bible. There are books that are called 'bible', but there are thousands of different versions. These books are stories in the form of allegories (mythological symbols, etc).
* The word 'miracle' means absolutely nothing. You're speaking in tongues here and I can only assume that you're trying to mess with my head.
* Jesus is a mythological character. Why would you possibly treat these stories as historical fact? Is there any reason to do so? It's completely full of mythological symbols. It does NOT try to describe and understand reality. To try to describe and understand reality you need scientific theories , concepts, logic, consistency. But NOTHING of the sort happens.


To conclude: you are trying to [censored] with my head. What you're doing has nothing to do with knowledge discovery.

People have done the same with you in the past, in order for you to act like this. But you now have a choice. Either you start communicating in a logical fashion: explaining things in an understandable fashion. Or you keep on talking to people as if you're trying to understand reality but in fact you're trying to obscure it.

[troymclur]

Why is it that ACist always come off as arrogant and cold-hearted?

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Worrying about how we subsidize the unproductive is like worrying about what's going to happen to the poor tapeworm living in my intestines after the surgery.

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Maybe they are not psychologically and/or emotionally mature enough to accept it.

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Oh, right [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[ShakeZula06]

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Why is it that ACist always come off as arrogant and cold-hearted?


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lol, compared to the people that come and troll politics and without even seriously considering the idea dismiss ACism, we're not arrogant. And as for the cold hearted part, why are we cold hearted? Because we reject the idea that others should decide where our money goes, or what charity or welfare situation is worth spending our money? Or the part where I reject the idea of ANYONE being forced to have his possessions distributed by force? It's a double edged sword, you see us as cold-hearted because we reject forced charity, we see you as cold hearted because you are in the business of forcing your preferences on others.

[troymclur]

t'was a joke. calm down, duderino.

[ShakeZula06]

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t'was a joke. calm down, duderino.

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heh, people ask that seriously all the time here so can't tell.

[ianlippert]

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This is an interesting article by Bryan Caplan on why he does not subscribe to the Austrian school of thought, FWIW.

(Link found on newly updated Wikipedia page - thanks boro)


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This was a very good article and I think goes a long way to answering the OP. Basically the good parts of Austrian theory have already been incorporated into mainstream economics. From that article it seemed that the disagreements landed on some fairly theoretical grounds.

Most people on this board who dont like austrian theory wouldnt like what a lot of mainstream economics has to say. Minimum wage causes unemployment, taxation causes a dead weightloss, Keynsianism doesnt work.

The problem is that universities are filled with professors that know very little about modern economics, but have no problem writing about the great depression or karl marx. I think this goes a long way to confusing the average person who relies on academics to form their understanding of the world.