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On October 18 2013 06:54 koreasilver wrote:
That's the corniest thing I have seen all week.
Pretty much. Jesus prayed in private, if I pray I follow his example.
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On October 18 2013 06:56 packrat386 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 06:54 koreasilver wrote:
That's the corniest thing I have seen all week. Pretty much. Jesus prayed in private, if I pray I follow his example.
You can pray in private, which every Christian does, and you can also pray as a body of believers (at a worship concert, church, outreach, etc). Jesus also prayed in public situations, like in front of the family of Lazerus before raising him from the dead, and at the Last Supper in front of his disciples. Public prayer is not wrong unless it's for self-righteous reasons (to say 'hey look at me im praying!'), or to do it in a way like the Pharisee who said "thank you that I am not like these sinners."
We ought to pray as a congregation and as a people because believers are part of one body: the body of Christ. We are called to be a fellowship, a community, and to encourage, correct, and edify each other. That also means praying with each other, in private (a couple people) or in a larger setting (church service, concert, etc).
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On October 18 2013 05:03 packrat386 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 04:59 ffreakk wrote:On October 18 2013 04:00 packrat386 wrote:On October 17 2013 17:40 Tobberoth wrote:On October 17 2013 17:38 packrat386 wrote:On October 17 2013 17:33 Tobberoth wrote:On October 17 2013 17:31 packrat386 wrote:On October 17 2013 17:24 Myrkskog wrote:
So when I say that supernatural Mayor McCheese exists. Your default position is to believe me until it is proven that supernatural Mayor McCheese does not exist? I don't know how this object is defined, but assuming that you're going to define it such that it can't be observed and is not logically contradictory, I have no default. Neither belief that it exists nor belief that it doesn't exist is more logical. Belief that it doesn't exist is more logical. You have never seen it, which indicates it doesn't exist. You have no proof to counter that. Since that indication, no matter how weak, is stronger than nothing, it's more logical to go with the stance that it doesn't exist. I thought we had a breakthrough like 2 comments earlier, but I guess not. Not having seen God is not an indicator because I haven't looked in the right place. If I take as a hypothesis that there are socks *in my sock drawer* and then I look around Central Park and see no socks, I can't take that as evidence that there are not socks *in my sock drawer*. The hypothesis in this case is that there is a God *outside the material universe* so I can't gather any evidence about it as long as I am looking within the material universe. Your argument is thus, more or less, that since god doesn't exist, you can't say he doesn't exist. God is in a place we can't look and can't affect us (because if he can affect us, that's all the body of proof we need). Thus, it's identical to him not existing. Like before, the burden on proof is on the people saying he exists. Consider the teapots again. Let's say they are phasic cloaked, meaning they are 100% undetectable and even if we took a spaceship and flew through the teapot, we would notice nothing. What's the point of saying it exists? For all intents and purposes, it does not. So I'm going to assume for here on out that we have accepted the argument that, for any given object, if that object is not logically contradictory and that object cannot be detected by us, then we should not necessarily assume that that object doesn't exist. In the case of God interacting with the material world, all that means is that the interaction has to be very hard to detect. I call this the Minimalist God, and I tried to outline it earlier. Mostly this god would interact with us through prayer because we are really unable to look inside somebodies brain and tell exactly what thing is causing a particular interaction. Another way that this could work is if you accept determinism, and then accept that god created the world knowing what the initial conditions would lead to. This allows "God's Plan" without God ever having to reach in and tinker with our world. Basically, there are plenty of conceptions of a God that still has an impact on the world, without having to have observable material interactions. Take a step back and realise that "proving xxx doesn't exist" is simply an impossible ordeal. Actually its pretty easy to do for many things. Consider the case of the square circle, its impossible to have so it doesn't exist. As for empirics, if I were to tell you that there are purple caterpillars in my sock drawer, it would be easy to collect good evidence that they don't exist. However for God there seem to be no good logical objections (although I'm surprised nobody has brought up the problem of pain), and there seems to be no way for us to gather evidence. So yes, there is no evidence that God doesn't exist, but that's my argument  edit: also its really easy to prove that people in asylums can't fly. If they jump of a roof and they fall and kill themselves then they were wrong. We may be hesitant to test their hypothesis, but that doesn't mean its not testable.
So we are happy to agree that any theist or atheist that makes a knowledge claim bears a burden of proof?
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On October 18 2013 05:03 packrat386 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 04:59 ffreakk wrote:On October 18 2013 04:00 packrat386 wrote:On October 17 2013 17:40 Tobberoth wrote:On October 17 2013 17:38 packrat386 wrote:On October 17 2013 17:33 Tobberoth wrote:On October 17 2013 17:31 packrat386 wrote:On October 17 2013 17:24 Myrkskog wrote:
So when I say that supernatural Mayor McCheese exists. Your default position is to believe me until it is proven that supernatural Mayor McCheese does not exist? I don't know how this object is defined, but assuming that you're going to define it such that it can't be observed and is not logically contradictory, I have no default. Neither belief that it exists nor belief that it doesn't exist is more logical. Belief that it doesn't exist is more logical. You have never seen it, which indicates it doesn't exist. You have no proof to counter that. Since that indication, no matter how weak, is stronger than nothing, it's more logical to go with the stance that it doesn't exist. I thought we had a breakthrough like 2 comments earlier, but I guess not. Not having seen God is not an indicator because I haven't looked in the right place. If I take as a hypothesis that there are socks *in my sock drawer* and then I look around Central Park and see no socks, I can't take that as evidence that there are not socks *in my sock drawer*. The hypothesis in this case is that there is a God *outside the material universe* so I can't gather any evidence about it as long as I am looking within the material universe. Your argument is thus, more or less, that since god doesn't exist, you can't say he doesn't exist. God is in a place we can't look and can't affect us (because if he can affect us, that's all the body of proof we need). Thus, it's identical to him not existing. Like before, the burden on proof is on the people saying he exists. Consider the teapots again. Let's say they are phasic cloaked, meaning they are 100% undetectable and even if we took a spaceship and flew through the teapot, we would notice nothing. What's the point of saying it exists? For all intents and purposes, it does not. So I'm going to assume for here on out that we have accepted the argument that, for any given object, if that object is not logically contradictory and that object cannot be detected by us, then we should not necessarily assume that that object doesn't exist. In the case of God interacting with the material world, all that means is that the interaction has to be very hard to detect. I call this the Minimalist God, and I tried to outline it earlier. Mostly this god would interact with us through prayer because we are really unable to look inside somebodies brain and tell exactly what thing is causing a particular interaction. Another way that this could work is if you accept determinism, and then accept that god created the world knowing what the initial conditions would lead to. This allows "God's Plan" without God ever having to reach in and tinker with our world. Basically, there are plenty of conceptions of a God that still has an impact on the world, without having to have observable material interactions. Take a step back and realise that "proving xxx doesn't exist" is simply an impossible ordeal. Consider the case of the square circle, its impossible to have so it doesn't exist.
you need a reductio ad absurdum though. can you show that if god exists, god doesn't exist?
the problem has to do with the predicate "exists" and the subject "god" both of which are pretty difficult to rigorously define
On October 18 2013 07:23 Myrkskog wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 05:03 packrat386 wrote:On October 18 2013 04:59 ffreakk wrote:On October 18 2013 04:00 packrat386 wrote:On October 17 2013 17:40 Tobberoth wrote:On October 17 2013 17:38 packrat386 wrote:On October 17 2013 17:33 Tobberoth wrote:On October 17 2013 17:31 packrat386 wrote:On October 17 2013 17:24 Myrkskog wrote:
So when I say that supernatural Mayor McCheese exists. Your default position is to believe me until it is proven that supernatural Mayor McCheese does not exist? I don't know how this object is defined, but assuming that you're going to define it such that it can't be observed and is not logically contradictory, I have no default. Neither belief that it exists nor belief that it doesn't exist is more logical. Belief that it doesn't exist is more logical. You have never seen it, which indicates it doesn't exist. You have no proof to counter that. Since that indication, no matter how weak, is stronger than nothing, it's more logical to go with the stance that it doesn't exist. I thought we had a breakthrough like 2 comments earlier, but I guess not. Not having seen God is not an indicator because I haven't looked in the right place. If I take as a hypothesis that there are socks *in my sock drawer* and then I look around Central Park and see no socks, I can't take that as evidence that there are not socks *in my sock drawer*. The hypothesis in this case is that there is a God *outside the material universe* so I can't gather any evidence about it as long as I am looking within the material universe. Your argument is thus, more or less, that since god doesn't exist, you can't say he doesn't exist. God is in a place we can't look and can't affect us (because if he can affect us, that's all the body of proof we need). Thus, it's identical to him not existing. Like before, the burden on proof is on the people saying he exists. Consider the teapots again. Let's say they are phasic cloaked, meaning they are 100% undetectable and even if we took a spaceship and flew through the teapot, we would notice nothing. What's the point of saying it exists? For all intents and purposes, it does not. So I'm going to assume for here on out that we have accepted the argument that, for any given object, if that object is not logically contradictory and that object cannot be detected by us, then we should not necessarily assume that that object doesn't exist. In the case of God interacting with the material world, all that means is that the interaction has to be very hard to detect. I call this the Minimalist God, and I tried to outline it earlier. Mostly this god would interact with us through prayer because we are really unable to look inside somebodies brain and tell exactly what thing is causing a particular interaction. Another way that this could work is if you accept determinism, and then accept that god created the world knowing what the initial conditions would lead to. This allows "God's Plan" without God ever having to reach in and tinker with our world. Basically, there are plenty of conceptions of a God that still has an impact on the world, without having to have observable material interactions. Take a step back and realise that "proving xxx doesn't exist" is simply an impossible ordeal. Actually its pretty easy to do for many things. Consider the case of the square circle, its impossible to have so it doesn't exist. As for empirics, if I were to tell you that there are purple caterpillars in my sock drawer, it would be easy to collect good evidence that they don't exist. However for God there seem to be no good logical objections (although I'm surprised nobody has brought up the problem of pain), and there seems to be no way for us to gather evidence. So yes, there is no evidence that God doesn't exist, but that's my argument edit: also its really easy to prove that people in asylums can't fly. If they jump of a roof and they fall and kill themselves then they were wrong. We may be hesitant to test their hypothesis, but that doesn't mean its not testable. So we are happy to agree that any theist or atheist that makes a knowledge claim bears a burden of proof?
burden of proof is a red herring when discussing theology, because atheism can only attempt to negate particular theologies not theology tout court.
it's more interesting to think about what possible conceptions one might have of the divinity than to argue about whether "god exists" which is a bit of a meaningless statement
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burden of proof is a red herring when discussing theology, because atheism can only attempt to negate particular theologies not theology tout court.
I don't know what you mean by this.
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He's saying that comparing a flying teapot to the idea of God isn't very useful.
Edit : or that you can't "God doesn't exists" is a false statement, because it can have as many meanings as you want.
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On October 18 2013 08:15 Myrkskog wrote:Show nested quote +
burden of proof is a red herring when discussing theology, because atheism can only attempt to negate particular theologies not theology tout court.
I don't know what you mean by this.
because atheism can only reject a positive theology (i.e. "god is a man in the sky who judges us"). there's no possible way to argue for the claim "for all possible theologies x, x should be rejected." Saying "god doesn't exist" is sort of equivalent to saying "philosophy is wrong" or "art is ugly." it doesn't really make a lot of sense
this is leaving aside the problem of "existence." for example if you look at augustine I'm not sure that he thinks god "exists" either because god is a precondition for the notion of "existence" in the first place (kind of like how for derrida differance is "not a concept but the precondition of conceptuality" or whatever, which is why I think derrida is a theologian and deconstruction is a negative theology despite the fact that he says it isn't. but let's not talk about derrida)
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On October 18 2013 08:26 corumjhaelen wrote:
He's saying that comparing a flying teapot to the idea of God isn't very useful.
Edit : or that you can't "God doesn't exists" is a false statement, because it can have as many meanings as you want.
I find it interesting. I'll take it from the bottom. Atheists often say that the burden of proof is on the theist who must prove that God, or a God exists, as we, as atheists, cannot prove that God doesn't exist. It is impossible to prove a negative.
In every area of life, this is fair and valid. The person who hypothesizes something that seems extraordinary must prove this this. If I say that there are unicorns in my invisible backyard, it is not up to you to come in my backyard and run a bunch of tests to see if there are unicorns. I could then tell you, "you're running the wrong tests to detect unicorns in my backyard!".
But somehow theists have maneuvered around that, and now they're saying, we don't need to prove anything (for touchy feely reasons). They set the standards of evidence extremely, extremely low for the things they believe, and they make up bullshit reasons for this like "God is untestable" and other very convenient supernatural mumbo jumbo. These low standards don't apply to anything else, especially not things they don't believe in.
They have themselves convinced that those super-low standards of evidence are good because they're good enough for them, but none of them are internally consistent, thus the notion of "faith", which essentially means "fuck it, I'll believe anyway".
On October 18 2013 08:56 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 08:15 Myrkskog wrote:
burden of proof is a red herring when discussing theology, because atheism can only attempt to negate particular theologies not theology tout court.
I don't know what you mean by this. because atheism can only reject a positive theology (i.e. "god is a man in the sky who judges us"). there's no possible way to argue for the claim "for all possible theologies x, x should be rejected." Saying "god doesn't exist" is sort of equivalent to saying "philosophy is wrong" or "art is ugly." it doesn't really make a lot of sense this is leaving aside the problem of "existence." for example if you look at augustine I'm not sure that he thinks god "exists" either because god is a precondition for the notion of "existence" in the first place (kind of like how for derrida differance is "not a concept but the precondition of conceptuality" or whatever, which is why I think derrida is a theologian and deconstruction is a negative theology despite the fact that he says it isn't. but let's not talk about derrida)
Well first, "atheism" doesn't "do" anything, atheists do. And atheists, like myself, don't believe in any theologies because of a lack of evidence. We're not necessarily rejecting them all up front, nor do we need to reject them actively. You yourself reject all theologies besides one. The difference between you and I is ONE religion. You've rejected tens, if not hundreds of thousands of other theologies.
We don't need to go about disproving all of them to not believe in them just like scientists are not currently disproving the existence of unicorns. Without any positive evidence to work on, it's not necessarily unfair to assume that the claims are not true. Of course, should a piece of evidence turn up, it'll be looked at.
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that doesn't address my point, if you're talking to me via talking to corum explaining what i mean
edit: yes many people do what you say. i've no interest in defending ignorant idiots who talk about god, that's not the point. i'm just defending the activity of theology
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On October 18 2013 09:04 sam!zdat wrote:
that doesn't address my point, if you're talking to me via talking to corum explaining what i mean
edit: yes many people do what you say. i've no interest in defending ignorant idiots who talk about god, that's not the point. i'm just defending the activity of theology
I've edited my post and answered directly.
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I'm going to live that to you sam, I think you'll handle it better than me, it is your point am i'm not always sure I follow you after all.
Edit : and I'm an atheist anyway :p
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On October 18 2013 09:02 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 02:45 koreasilver wrote:On October 18 2013 01:28 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 01:22 Tobberoth wrote:On October 18 2013 00:43 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 00:37 Tobberoth wrote:On October 18 2013 00:35 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 00:30 Tobberoth wrote:On October 18 2013 00:18 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 00:09 koreasilver wrote:
What does anyone even accomplish with all this speculative nonsense on whether there is/can be a God? You're just assuaging your insecurities and grasping at straws. This is mostly pointed to the religious apologia. Trying to safeguard faith by endlessly retreating into the limits of rationality is pathetic. Stop being a hypocrite would you? I could say the same thing about the threads that are created for Christians to confirm each other's views, the anti-evolution conferences and the various other conferences where people go to confirm their faith and oppose scientific theories, and some functions of churches that just aim to convince the people that their religion is true. We're all curious, we're all 'insecure' sometimes because we're smart enough to ask questions. If 'retreating' is pathetic, then you guys are incredibly pathetic, with your large institutions which have the sole purpose of dealing with your insecurities. (I don't believe that, but it follows your argument). You retreat to the limits of faith and human perception, we retreat to the presumed, potential limits of rationality. You calling this 'pathetic' shows your personal insecurities a lot more than our attempt to have a (sometimes) intellectual discussion about this. True insecurity is not in the argument but in the refusal to have it. Man up. He was pointing at religious apologetics... it makes little sense when you follow that up "with your large institutions". My point is I see nothing pathetic about 'speculative nonsense on whether there is/can be a God', and calling us pathetic is bullshit. I don't see what the part about religious apologetics changes about that. I'm just saying, you debate his post by pointing a sword towards christians when he did the exact same thing. You're not actually saying he's dumb for arguing against discussion, you're saying he's a hypocrite because christians do the same thing, even though that was exactly his point. I think you missed his point tbh, he specifically said the retreat to reason was pathetic. I didn't point a sword toward christians, he pointed a sword toward the people who rely on reason, and I said it's unfair, christians are guilty of the same thing, and that same thing is not 'pathetic' in the first place. That said, I entirely reject the idea that his point was balanced. It wasn't. It was targeted. Wasn't that exactly what he said? That Christians do it? Safeguard faith by retreating? Maybe I'm wrong. learn2read I don't even know how my post could have been more explicit. Your past couple of posts "replying" to me is like the definition of putting up a scarecrow and valiantly beating it up. Please... I wasn't even wrong about what you meant you lazy bastard. I admitted that I could be wrong on the off chance that I was misreading you and it turns out I wasn't. Show nested quote +I am pretty sure that's he's saying arguing the existence or rationality of a God is pathetic - especially natural apologetics. That being said I would say his comment is indirectly a barb at those arguing against the existence of God using rational skepticism. Koreasilver is clearly religious, and if I have understood his posts correctly, he thinks natural apologetics are pathetic, so either he has some other justification for his belief in God that he thinks supercedes rationality or he doesn't think explanations are necessary.
Am I right? That's what I always thought, that's what Tobberoth didn't understand, and Koreasilver told me to learn to read even though you and I have the same understanding of what he wrote, and he didn't contest that. He then tried to justify his faith through a sloppy explanation of why God escapes rationality. So I was told to "learn to read" even though he knows I understand everything. He even accused me of a strawman logical fallacy despite the fact that I understood everything he said. Koreasilver is intellectually dishonest to the max. Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 08:26 corumjhaelen wrote:
He's saying that comparing a flying teapot to the idea of God isn't very useful.
Edit : or that you can't "God doesn't exists" is a false statement, because it can have as many meanings as you want. I find it interesting. I'll take it from the bottom. Atheists often say that the burden of proof is on the theist who must prove that God, or a God exists, as we, as atheists, cannot prove that God doesn't exist. It is impossible to prove a negative. In every area of life, this is fair and valid. The person who hypothesizes something that seems extraordinary must prove this this. If I say that there are unicorns in my invisible backyard, it is not up to you to come in my backyard and run a bunch of tests to see if there are unicorns. I could then tell you, "you're running the wrong tests to detect unicorns in my backyard!". But somehow theists have maneuvered around that, and now they're saying, we don't need to prove anything (for touchy feely reasons). They set the standards of evidence extremely, extremely low for the things they believe, and they make up bullshit reasons for this like "God is untestable" and other very convenient supernatural mumbo jumbo. These low standards don't apply to anything else, especially not things they don't believe in. They have themselves convinced that those super-low standards of evidence are good because they're good enough for them, but none of them are internally consistent, thus the notion of "faith", which essentially means "fuck it, I'll believe anyway".
You have to understand that in this case the "convenient supernatural mumbjo jumbo" is a fundamental objection to your principle that the person offering the hypothesis must necessarily provide the proof. Unless they claim to KNOW that there are unicorns in your backyard (belief =/= knowledge, which is another important distinction that you keep glossing over) then my objection (and probably corum and sam) is that it is no more reasonable to assume that the hypothesis is true or false in the absence of evidence or logical objections.
Think about it this way. You believe that God does not exist, do you therefore have to go through a similar burden of proof to justify your belief? And if so, why not? I personally find the idea that there is not a God to be extraordinary (or at least I can pretend to for the sake of argument) so do you now have to prove it?
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On October 18 2013 06:54 koreasilver wrote:
That's the corniest thing I have seen all week.
You are just a cynical old man koreasilver.
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On October 18 2013 09:02 Djzapz wrote:
Well first, "atheism" doesn't "do" anything, atheists do.
atheism does a great deal. it makes people behave in certain ways in which they would not behave were they not. all ideas "do" something.
And atheists, like myself, don't believe in any theologies because of a lack of evidence.
you believe that "god does not exist." that is a theology.
You yourself reject all theologies besides one.
how did you possibly come to this conclusion. i don't have any allegiance to any particular religion. nor do i know anything about god
it's not necessarily unfair to assume that the claims are not true
i'm not defending any claims i'm defending the question
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On October 18 2013 09:11 packrat386 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 09:02 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 02:45 koreasilver wrote:On October 18 2013 01:28 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 01:22 Tobberoth wrote:On October 18 2013 00:43 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 00:37 Tobberoth wrote:On October 18 2013 00:35 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 00:30 Tobberoth wrote:On October 18 2013 00:18 Djzapz wrote:
[quote]
Stop being a hypocrite would you? I could say the same thing about the threads that are created for Christians to confirm each other's views, the anti-evolution conferences and the various other conferences where people go to confirm their faith and oppose scientific theories, and some functions of churches that just aim to convince the people that their religion is true. We're all curious, we're all 'insecure' sometimes because we're smart enough to ask questions. If 'retreating' is pathetic, then you guys are incredibly pathetic, with your large institutions which have the sole purpose of dealing with your insecurities. (I don't believe that, but it follows your argument).
You retreat to the limits of faith and human perception, we retreat to the presumed, potential limits of rationality. You calling this 'pathetic' shows your personal insecurities a lot more than our attempt to have a (sometimes) intellectual discussion about this.
True insecurity is not in the argument but in the refusal to have it. Man up. He was pointing at religious apologetics... it makes little sense when you follow that up "with your large institutions". My point is I see nothing pathetic about 'speculative nonsense on whether there is/can be a God', and calling us pathetic is bullshit. I don't see what the part about religious apologetics changes about that. I'm just saying, you debate his post by pointing a sword towards christians when he did the exact same thing. You're not actually saying he's dumb for arguing against discussion, you're saying he's a hypocrite because christians do the same thing, even though that was exactly his point. I think you missed his point tbh, he specifically said the retreat to reason was pathetic. I didn't point a sword toward christians, he pointed a sword toward the people who rely on reason, and I said it's unfair, christians are guilty of the same thing, and that same thing is not 'pathetic' in the first place. That said, I entirely reject the idea that his point was balanced. It wasn't. It was targeted. Wasn't that exactly what he said? That Christians do it? Safeguard faith by retreating? Maybe I'm wrong. learn2read I don't even know how my post could have been more explicit. Your past couple of posts "replying" to me is like the definition of putting up a scarecrow and valiantly beating it up. Please... I wasn't even wrong about what you meant you lazy bastard. I admitted that I could be wrong on the off chance that I was misreading you and it turns out I wasn't. I am pretty sure that's he's saying arguing the existence or rationality of a God is pathetic - especially natural apologetics. That being said I would say his comment is indirectly a barb at those arguing against the existence of God using rational skepticism. Koreasilver is clearly religious, and if I have understood his posts correctly, he thinks natural apologetics are pathetic, so either he has some other justification for his belief in God that he thinks supercedes rationality or he doesn't think explanations are necessary.
Am I right? That's what I always thought, that's what Tobberoth didn't understand, and Koreasilver told me to learn to read even though you and I have the same understanding of what he wrote, and he didn't contest that. He then tried to justify his faith through a sloppy explanation of why God escapes rationality. So I was told to "learn to read" even though he knows I understand everything. He even accused me of a strawman logical fallacy despite the fact that I understood everything he said. Koreasilver is intellectually dishonest to the max. On October 18 2013 08:26 corumjhaelen wrote:
He's saying that comparing a flying teapot to the idea of God isn't very useful.
Edit : or that you can't "God doesn't exists" is a false statement, because it can have as many meanings as you want. I find it interesting. I'll take it from the bottom. Atheists often say that the burden of proof is on the theist who must prove that God, or a God exists, as we, as atheists, cannot prove that God doesn't exist. It is impossible to prove a negative. In every area of life, this is fair and valid. The person who hypothesizes something that seems extraordinary must prove this this. If I say that there are unicorns in my invisible backyard, it is not up to you to come in my backyard and run a bunch of tests to see if there are unicorns. I could then tell you, "you're running the wrong tests to detect unicorns in my backyard!". But somehow theists have maneuvered around that, and now they're saying, we don't need to prove anything (for touchy feely reasons). They set the standards of evidence extremely, extremely low for the things they believe, and they make up bullshit reasons for this like "God is untestable" and other very convenient supernatural mumbo jumbo. These low standards don't apply to anything else, especially not things they don't believe in. They have themselves convinced that those super-low standards of evidence are good because they're good enough for them, but none of them are internally consistent, thus the notion of "faith", which essentially means "fuck it, I'll believe anyway". You have to understand that in this case the "convenient supernatural mumbjo jumbo" is a fundamental objection to your principle that the person offering the hypothesis must necessarily provide the proof. Unless they claim to KNOW that there are unicorns in your backyard (belief =/= knowledge, which is another important distinction that you keep glossing over) then my objection (and probably corum and sam) is that it is no more reasonable to assume that the hypothesis is true or false in the absence of evidence or logical objections. Think about it this way. You believe that God does not exist, do you therefore have to go through a similar burden of proof to justify your belief? And if so, why not? I personally find the idea that there is not a God to be extraordinary (or at least I can pretend to for the sake of argument) so do you now have to prove it?
I'm mostly interested in the second part of what you said. First you say that I "believe that God doesn't exist" and yes I would agree, but at the base of it, it was more correct to say that I "don't believe that God exists" because, in my youth, I had not heard of it.
The thing is, If I wanted to PROVE that God doesn't exist, I simply could not because proving a negative is impossible. As such, atheists deflect the burden of proof onto the people who say there's a God. Like I said, that's how it is everywhere. And I mean in every single other area of human knowledge or just interaction.
YOUR belief that there are no invisible unicorns in my backyard, and I trust that you believe that, doesn't require that you prove that there aren't. You know they aren't there, so you don't think I'm credible when I say there are.
That's the entire thing about burden of proof. You make an extraordinary POSITIVE claim, you need to provide evidence for it. That's how it works with everything. Except God. And just so we're clear about your counter-argument that you think my claim that there's no God is extraordinary, yes - I can't prove a negative though. All I've got is a complete and utter lack of evidence of the existence of a God.
We could go on an on about how you perhaps view life and the universe as evidence of a God, and I can't actually say with perfect certainty that you're wrong. See, perhaps we were created, and perhaps I'm wrong. I mean, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence - and so it may be true that God perhaps is untestable or undetectable - but I see no compelling reason to believe that. In fact, severe flaws can be found in the various theologies.
So perhaps there's a God, but if there is, then why is the scripture of such and such religion so factually incorrect? Why does the Bible say everything was created some thousands of years ago according to some creationists, when we have mountains of evidence showing otherwise. Those things, in my mind, at least damage the credibility of some religions. And again that doesn't mean that there's no creator or there's no God, but man, you gotta admit that neither side have much to go off of. All you've got is stories and personal experiences and some grandiose interpretation of the complexity of stuff, and all I've got is an openly flawed but modest natural explanation to stand on, and the lack of good evidence on your side.
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On October 18 2013 09:24 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 09:02 Djzapz wrote:
Well first, "atheism" doesn't "do" anything, atheists do.
atheism does a great deal. it makes people behave in certain ways in which they would not behave were they not. all ideas "do" something. Show nested quote +
And atheists, like myself, don't believe in any theologies because of a lack of evidence.
you believe that "god does not exist." that is a theology. how did you possibly come to this conclusion. i don't have any allegiance to any particular religion. nor do i know anything about god
i'm not defending any claims i'm defending the question
You are contradicting yourself sam:
On September 27 2013 02:53 sam!zdat wrote:
god is love
edit: and god really IS love, no matter what dr. Hoenikker says
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On October 18 2013 09:28 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 09:11 packrat386 wrote:On October 18 2013 09:02 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 02:45 koreasilver wrote:On October 18 2013 01:28 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 01:22 Tobberoth wrote:On October 18 2013 00:43 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 00:37 Tobberoth wrote:On October 18 2013 00:35 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 00:30 Tobberoth wrote:
[quote]
He was pointing at religious apologetics... it makes little sense when you follow that up "with your large institutions". My point is I see nothing pathetic about 'speculative nonsense on whether there is/can be a God', and calling us pathetic is bullshit. I don't see what the part about religious apologetics changes about that. I'm just saying, you debate his post by pointing a sword towards christians when he did the exact same thing. You're not actually saying he's dumb for arguing against discussion, you're saying he's a hypocrite because christians do the same thing, even though that was exactly his point. I think you missed his point tbh, he specifically said the retreat to reason was pathetic. I didn't point a sword toward christians, he pointed a sword toward the people who rely on reason, and I said it's unfair, christians are guilty of the same thing, and that same thing is not 'pathetic' in the first place. That said, I entirely reject the idea that his point was balanced. It wasn't. It was targeted. Wasn't that exactly what he said? That Christians do it? Safeguard faith by retreating? Maybe I'm wrong. learn2read I don't even know how my post could have been more explicit. Your past couple of posts "replying" to me is like the definition of putting up a scarecrow and valiantly beating it up. Please... I wasn't even wrong about what you meant you lazy bastard. I admitted that I could be wrong on the off chance that I was misreading you and it turns out I wasn't. I am pretty sure that's he's saying arguing the existence or rationality of a God is pathetic - especially natural apologetics. That being said I would say his comment is indirectly a barb at those arguing against the existence of God using rational skepticism. Koreasilver is clearly religious, and if I have understood his posts correctly, he thinks natural apologetics are pathetic, so either he has some other justification for his belief in God that he thinks supercedes rationality or he doesn't think explanations are necessary.
Am I right? That's what I always thought, that's what Tobberoth didn't understand, and Koreasilver told me to learn to read even though you and I have the same understanding of what he wrote, and he didn't contest that. He then tried to justify his faith through a sloppy explanation of why God escapes rationality. So I was told to "learn to read" even though he knows I understand everything. He even accused me of a strawman logical fallacy despite the fact that I understood everything he said. Koreasilver is intellectually dishonest to the max. On October 18 2013 08:26 corumjhaelen wrote:
He's saying that comparing a flying teapot to the idea of God isn't very useful.
Edit : or that you can't "God doesn't exists" is a false statement, because it can have as many meanings as you want. I find it interesting. I'll take it from the bottom. Atheists often say that the burden of proof is on the theist who must prove that God, or a God exists, as we, as atheists, cannot prove that God doesn't exist. It is impossible to prove a negative. In every area of life, this is fair and valid. The person who hypothesizes something that seems extraordinary must prove this this. If I say that there are unicorns in my invisible backyard, it is not up to you to come in my backyard and run a bunch of tests to see if there are unicorns. I could then tell you, "you're running the wrong tests to detect unicorns in my backyard!". But somehow theists have maneuvered around that, and now they're saying, we don't need to prove anything (for touchy feely reasons). They set the standards of evidence extremely, extremely low for the things they believe, and they make up bullshit reasons for this like "God is untestable" and other very convenient supernatural mumbo jumbo. These low standards don't apply to anything else, especially not things they don't believe in. They have themselves convinced that those super-low standards of evidence are good because they're good enough for them, but none of them are internally consistent, thus the notion of "faith", which essentially means "fuck it, I'll believe anyway". You have to understand that in this case the "convenient supernatural mumbjo jumbo" is a fundamental objection to your principle that the person offering the hypothesis must necessarily provide the proof. Unless they claim to KNOW that there are unicorns in your backyard (belief =/= knowledge, which is another important distinction that you keep glossing over) then my objection (and probably corum and sam) is that it is no more reasonable to assume that the hypothesis is true or false in the absence of evidence or logical objections. Think about it this way. You believe that God does not exist, do you therefore have to go through a similar burden of proof to justify your belief? And if so, why not? I personally find the idea that there is not a God to be extraordinary (or at least I can pretend to for the sake of argument) so do you now have to prove it? I'm mostly interested in the second part of what you said. First you say that I "believe that God doesn't exist" and yes I would agree, but at the base of it, it was more correct to say that I "don't believe that God exists" because, in my youth, I had not heard of it. The thing is, If I wanted to PROVE that God doesn't exist, I simply could not because proving a negative is impossible. As such, atheists deflect the burden of proof onto the people who say there's a God. Like I said, that's how it is everywhere. And I mean in every single other area of human knowledge or just interaction. YOUR belief that there are no invisible unicorns in my backyard, and I trust that you believe that, doesn't require that you prove that there aren't. You know they aren't there, so you don't think I'm credible when I say there are. That's the entire thing about burden of proof. You make an extraordinary POSITIVE claim, you need to provide evidence for it. That's how it works with everything. Except God. And just so we're clear about your counter-argument that you think my claim that there's no God is extraordinary, yes - I can't prove a negative though. All I've got is a complete and utter lack of evidence of the existence of a God. We could go on an on about how you perhaps view life and the universe as evidence of a God, and I can't actually say with perfect certainty that you're wrong. See, perhaps we were created, and perhaps I'm wrong. I mean, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence - and so it may be true that God perhaps is untestable or undetectable - but I see no compelling reason to believe that. In fact, severe flaws can be found in the various theologies. So perhaps there's a God, but if there is, then why is the scripture of such and such religion so factually incorrect? Why does the Bible say everything was created some thousands of years ago according to some creationists, when we have mountains of evidence showing otherwise. Those things, in my mind, at least damage the credibility of some religions. And again that doesn't mean that there's no creator or there's no God, but man, you gotta admit that neither side have much to go off of. All you've got is stories and personal experiences and some grandiose interpretation of the complexity of stuff, and all I've got is an openly flawed but modest natural explanation to stand on, and the lack of good evidence on your side.
I really think you should just admit that you misread koreasilver's post and then erected a strawman to knock down with gusto. He was clearly talking about religious people retreating to reason, e.g. asserting a natural theology.
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On October 18 2013 09:24 sam!zdat wrote:
atheism does a great deal. it makes people behave in certain ways in which they would not behave were they not. all ideas "do" something.
That's thin. I guess you can
you believe that "god does not exist." that is a theology.
That's just fucking with the semantics on your part and I don't really care for it but I don't buy that whole argument that atheism is a theology. I agree that for some people it's rather dogmatic and shitty, but when I was a baby, or even when I was a 10 year old kid, I was an atheist because I never believed. I didn't disbelieve either, I just did not believe because it hadn't occurred to me, it hadn't been brought up to me that people believed in God. When I was around 12, I learned that there were people who believed in sky dudes who made magic stuff, and it seemed silly to me. Was that me inventing a religion or was it perhaps just a lack of belief in something I was never convinced of?
Perhaps I would agree that the active belief in the non-existence of God is dogmatic, and borders on theology. As it is, I'm just a guy looking for answers, and I admittedly haven't found a good one. The big bang, while it's an imperfect theory, clearly has roots in reality, as does evolution. The religions, however, haven't gotten to me - and with reason. They make arguments that are unacceptable in any area other than religion. Is it unreasonable of me to remain unconvinced?
how did you possibly come to this conclusion. i don't have any allegiance to any particular religion. nor do i know anything about god
Ok
i'm not defending any claims i'm defending the question
Ok
On October 18 2013 09:32 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 09:28 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 09:11 packrat386 wrote:On October 18 2013 09:02 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 02:45 koreasilver wrote:On October 18 2013 01:28 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 01:22 Tobberoth wrote:On October 18 2013 00:43 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 00:37 Tobberoth wrote:On October 18 2013 00:35 Djzapz wrote:
[quote]
My point is I see nothing pathetic about 'speculative nonsense on whether there is/can be a God', and calling us pathetic is bullshit. I don't see what the part about religious apologetics changes about that. I'm just saying, you debate his post by pointing a sword towards christians when he did the exact same thing. You're not actually saying he's dumb for arguing against discussion, you're saying he's a hypocrite because christians do the same thing, even though that was exactly his point. I think you missed his point tbh, he specifically said the retreat to reason was pathetic. I didn't point a sword toward christians, he pointed a sword toward the people who rely on reason, and I said it's unfair, christians are guilty of the same thing, and that same thing is not 'pathetic' in the first place. That said, I entirely reject the idea that his point was balanced. It wasn't. It was targeted. Wasn't that exactly what he said? That Christians do it? Safeguard faith by retreating? Maybe I'm wrong. learn2read I don't even know how my post could have been more explicit. Your past couple of posts "replying" to me is like the definition of putting up a scarecrow and valiantly beating it up. Please... I wasn't even wrong about what you meant you lazy bastard. I admitted that I could be wrong on the off chance that I was misreading you and it turns out I wasn't. I am pretty sure that's he's saying arguing the existence or rationality of a God is pathetic - especially natural apologetics. That being said I would say his comment is indirectly a barb at those arguing against the existence of God using rational skepticism. Koreasilver is clearly religious, and if I have understood his posts correctly, he thinks natural apologetics are pathetic, so either he has some other justification for his belief in God that he thinks supercedes rationality or he doesn't think explanations are necessary.
Am I right? That's what I always thought, that's what Tobberoth didn't understand, and Koreasilver told me to learn to read even though you and I have the same understanding of what he wrote, and he didn't contest that. He then tried to justify his faith through a sloppy explanation of why God escapes rationality. So I was told to "learn to read" even though he knows I understand everything. He even accused me of a strawman logical fallacy despite the fact that I understood everything he said. Koreasilver is intellectually dishonest to the max. On October 18 2013 08:26 corumjhaelen wrote:
He's saying that comparing a flying teapot to the idea of God isn't very useful.
Edit : or that you can't "God doesn't exists" is a false statement, because it can have as many meanings as you want. I find it interesting. I'll take it from the bottom. Atheists often say that the burden of proof is on the theist who must prove that God, or a God exists, as we, as atheists, cannot prove that God doesn't exist. It is impossible to prove a negative. In every area of life, this is fair and valid. The person who hypothesizes something that seems extraordinary must prove this this. If I say that there are unicorns in my invisible backyard, it is not up to you to come in my backyard and run a bunch of tests to see if there are unicorns. I could then tell you, "you're running the wrong tests to detect unicorns in my backyard!". But somehow theists have maneuvered around that, and now they're saying, we don't need to prove anything (for touchy feely reasons). They set the standards of evidence extremely, extremely low for the things they believe, and they make up bullshit reasons for this like "God is untestable" and other very convenient supernatural mumbo jumbo. These low standards don't apply to anything else, especially not things they don't believe in. They have themselves convinced that those super-low standards of evidence are good because they're good enough for them, but none of them are internally consistent, thus the notion of "faith", which essentially means "fuck it, I'll believe anyway". You have to understand that in this case the "convenient supernatural mumbjo jumbo" is a fundamental objection to your principle that the person offering the hypothesis must necessarily provide the proof. Unless they claim to KNOW that there are unicorns in your backyard (belief =/= knowledge, which is another important distinction that you keep glossing over) then my objection (and probably corum and sam) is that it is no more reasonable to assume that the hypothesis is true or false in the absence of evidence or logical objections. Think about it this way. You believe that God does not exist, do you therefore have to go through a similar burden of proof to justify your belief? And if so, why not? I personally find the idea that there is not a God to be extraordinary (or at least I can pretend to for the sake of argument) so do you now have to prove it? I'm mostly interested in the second part of what you said. First you say that I "believe that God doesn't exist" and yes I would agree, but at the base of it, it was more correct to say that I "don't believe that God exists" because, in my youth, I had not heard of it. The thing is, If I wanted to PROVE that God doesn't exist, I simply could not because proving a negative is impossible. As such, atheists deflect the burden of proof onto the people who say there's a God. Like I said, that's how it is everywhere. And I mean in every single other area of human knowledge or just interaction. YOUR belief that there are no invisible unicorns in my backyard, and I trust that you believe that, doesn't require that you prove that there aren't. You know they aren't there, so you don't think I'm credible when I say there are. That's the entire thing about burden of proof. You make an extraordinary POSITIVE claim, you need to provide evidence for it. That's how it works with everything. Except God. And just so we're clear about your counter-argument that you think my claim that there's no God is extraordinary, yes - I can't prove a negative though. All I've got is a complete and utter lack of evidence of the existence of a God. We could go on an on about how you perhaps view life and the universe as evidence of a God, and I can't actually say with perfect certainty that you're wrong. See, perhaps we were created, and perhaps I'm wrong. I mean, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence - and so it may be true that God perhaps is untestable or undetectable - but I see no compelling reason to believe that. In fact, severe flaws can be found in the various theologies. So perhaps there's a God, but if there is, then why is the scripture of such and such religion so factually incorrect? Why does the Bible say everything was created some thousands of years ago according to some creationists, when we have mountains of evidence showing otherwise. Those things, in my mind, at least damage the credibility of some religions. And again that doesn't mean that there's no creator or there's no God, but man, you gotta admit that neither side have much to go off of. All you've got is stories and personal experiences and some grandiose interpretation of the complexity of stuff, and all I've got is an openly flawed but modest natural explanation to stand on, and the lack of good evidence on your side. I really think you should just admit that you misread koreasilver's post and then erected a strawman to knock down with gusto. He was clearly talking about religious people retreating to reason, e.g. asserting a natural theology.
Fair enough then, I'll blame English being my second language on that one. I swear that I read a bunch of times.
It was a honest mistakes despite the fact that I had a thick skull on that one. It sucks to have to concede that I've misread a Koreasilver post because I'll never live that down. The guy posts complete insult posts toward a bunch of people all the time, and that's how he responds to arguments. I even admitted to being possibly wrong, and he just told me to learn to read... I tried to be modest and he continued his shit posting...
Sigh. Anyway, sorry, my mistake. The THESIS of what I was saying holds regardless. It is NOT PATHETIC for religious people to retreat to reason. If nothing else, it is a healthy exercise. It is not pathetic to have broader horizons.
I concede sometimes, I admit that I'm wrong - it's fine with people with Shiori who post good stuff and are generally good forumgoers, but it sucks with people like KS who's disrespectful as shit with frightening consistency.
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On October 18 2013 09:28 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 09:11 packrat386 wrote:On October 18 2013 09:02 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 02:45 koreasilver wrote:On October 18 2013 01:28 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 01:22 Tobberoth wrote:On October 18 2013 00:43 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 00:37 Tobberoth wrote:On October 18 2013 00:35 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 00:30 Tobberoth wrote:
[quote]
He was pointing at religious apologetics... it makes little sense when you follow that up "with your large institutions". My point is I see nothing pathetic about 'speculative nonsense on whether there is/can be a God', and calling us pathetic is bullshit. I don't see what the part about religious apologetics changes about that. I'm just saying, you debate his post by pointing a sword towards christians when he did the exact same thing. You're not actually saying he's dumb for arguing against discussion, you're saying he's a hypocrite because christians do the same thing, even though that was exactly his point. I think you missed his point tbh, he specifically said the retreat to reason was pathetic. I didn't point a sword toward christians, he pointed a sword toward the people who rely on reason, and I said it's unfair, christians are guilty of the same thing, and that same thing is not 'pathetic' in the first place. That said, I entirely reject the idea that his point was balanced. It wasn't. It was targeted. Wasn't that exactly what he said? That Christians do it? Safeguard faith by retreating? Maybe I'm wrong. learn2read I don't even know how my post could have been more explicit. Your past couple of posts "replying" to me is like the definition of putting up a scarecrow and valiantly beating it up. Please... I wasn't even wrong about what you meant you lazy bastard. I admitted that I could be wrong on the off chance that I was misreading you and it turns out I wasn't. I am pretty sure that's he's saying arguing the existence or rationality of a God is pathetic - especially natural apologetics. That being said I would say his comment is indirectly a barb at those arguing against the existence of God using rational skepticism. Koreasilver is clearly religious, and if I have understood his posts correctly, he thinks natural apologetics are pathetic, so either he has some other justification for his belief in God that he thinks supercedes rationality or he doesn't think explanations are necessary.
Am I right? That's what I always thought, that's what Tobberoth didn't understand, and Koreasilver told me to learn to read even though you and I have the same understanding of what he wrote, and he didn't contest that. He then tried to justify his faith through a sloppy explanation of why God escapes rationality. So I was told to "learn to read" even though he knows I understand everything. He even accused me of a strawman logical fallacy despite the fact that I understood everything he said. Koreasilver is intellectually dishonest to the max. On October 18 2013 08:26 corumjhaelen wrote:
He's saying that comparing a flying teapot to the idea of God isn't very useful.
Edit : or that you can't "God doesn't exists" is a false statement, because it can have as many meanings as you want. I find it interesting. I'll take it from the bottom. Atheists often say that the burden of proof is on the theist who must prove that God, or a God exists, as we, as atheists, cannot prove that God doesn't exist. It is impossible to prove a negative. In every area of life, this is fair and valid. The person who hypothesizes something that seems extraordinary must prove this this. If I say that there are unicorns in my invisible backyard, it is not up to you to come in my backyard and run a bunch of tests to see if there are unicorns. I could then tell you, "you're running the wrong tests to detect unicorns in my backyard!". But somehow theists have maneuvered around that, and now they're saying, we don't need to prove anything (for touchy feely reasons). They set the standards of evidence extremely, extremely low for the things they believe, and they make up bullshit reasons for this like "God is untestable" and other very convenient supernatural mumbo jumbo. These low standards don't apply to anything else, especially not things they don't believe in. They have themselves convinced that those super-low standards of evidence are good because they're good enough for them, but none of them are internally consistent, thus the notion of "faith", which essentially means "fuck it, I'll believe anyway". You have to understand that in this case the "convenient supernatural mumbjo jumbo" is a fundamental objection to your principle that the person offering the hypothesis must necessarily provide the proof. Unless they claim to KNOW that there are unicorns in your backyard (belief =/= knowledge, which is another important distinction that you keep glossing over) then my objection (and probably corum and sam) is that it is no more reasonable to assume that the hypothesis is true or false in the absence of evidence or logical objections. Think about it this way. You believe that God does not exist, do you therefore have to go through a similar burden of proof to justify your belief? And if so, why not? I personally find the idea that there is not a God to be extraordinary (or at least I can pretend to for the sake of argument) so do you now have to prove it? I'm mostly interested in the second part of what you said. First you say that I "believe that God doesn't exist" and yes I would agree, but at the base of it, it was more correct to say that I "don't believe that God exists" because, in my youth, I had not heard of it. The thing is, If I wanted to PROVE that God doesn't exist, I simply could not because proving a negative is impossible. As such, atheists deflect the burden of proof onto the people who say there's a God. Like I said, that's how it is everywhere. And I mean in every single other area of human knowledge or just interaction. YOUR belief that there are no invisible unicorns in my backyard, and I trust that you believe that, doesn't require that you prove that there aren't. You know they aren't there, so you don't think I'm credible when I say there are. That's the entire thing about burden of proof. You make an extraordinary POSITIVE claim, you need to provide evidence for it. That's how it works with everything. Except God. And just so we're clear about your counter-argument that you think my claim that there's no God is extraordinary, yes - I can't prove a negative though. All I've got is a complete and utter lack of evidence of the existence of a God. We could go on an on about how you perhaps view life and the universe as evidence of a God, and I can't actually say with perfect certainty that you're wrong. See, perhaps we were created, and perhaps I'm wrong. I mean, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence - and so it may be true that God perhaps is untestable or undetectable - but I see no compelling reason to believe that. In fact, severe flaws can be found in the various theologies. So perhaps there's a God, but if there is, then why is the scripture of such and such religion so factually incorrect? Why does the Bible say everything was created some thousands of years ago according to some creationists, when we have mountains of evidence showing otherwise. Those things, in my mind, at least damage the credibility of some religions. And again that doesn't mean that there's no creator or there's no God, but man, you gotta admit that neither side have much to go off of. All you've got is stories and personal experiences and some grandiose interpretation of the complexity of stuff, and all I've got is an openly flawed but modest natural explanation to stand on, and the lack of good evidence on your side.
The idea that you can't prove a negative is horrendously overused. Please take the following proof that there is no God as an example of why you are wrong
A: God is all-loving, omnipotent, and all knowing
B: God exists
C: An all-loving, omnipotent being would prevent any pain that it knew about
D: Pain exists in the world
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion: Taken together the statements form a contradiction, therefore reject Premise B that God exists.
There are objections to this proof (I have some myself), but it goes to show that you actually CAN prove what you call a negative statement.
Also, you have once against glossed over the point that belief is not a knowledge claim. Faith is necessarily belief without knowledge (if you KNEW God existed then it wouldn't be faith). Therefore Christians aren't making a poisitive claim about the existence of god. The only discussion is whether they ought to reject their belief.
The reason God is different is because most of the things whose existence we discuss are things that we can see. If I tell you "zombies exist" the subtext of what I'm saying is that zombies exist in the material world. Therefore anytime we view the material world and don't see zombies we can count that as evidence against my theory. However God exists in a realm that is outside observation, so the fact that there is "no evidence" means something completely different.
I'm not trying to defend anyone who claims that they NOW with certainty that God exists, but given that we have no definitive proof for either side, I choose not to privilege either the positive or negative hypothesis. This is because I reject Russel's premise that we should privilege negative hypotheses because I find it problematic.
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On October 18 2013 09:29 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 09:24 sam!zdat wrote:On October 18 2013 09:02 Djzapz wrote:
Well first, "atheism" doesn't "do" anything, atheists do.
atheism does a great deal. it makes people behave in certain ways in which they would not behave were they not. all ideas "do" something.
And atheists, like myself, don't believe in any theologies because of a lack of evidence.
you believe that "god does not exist." that is a theology.
You yourself reject all theologies besides one.
how did you possibly come to this conclusion. i don't have any allegiance to any particular religion. nor do i know anything about god
it's not necessarily unfair to assume that the claims are not true
i'm not defending any claims i'm defending the question You are contradicting yourself sam: Show nested quote +On September 27 2013 02:53 sam!zdat wrote:
god is love
edit: and god really IS love, no matter what dr. Hoenikker says
"Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes"
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EPT
