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On October 18 2013 09:40 packrat386 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 09:29 IgnE wrote: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: 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" There's a difference between small contradictions and saying something and then saying its opposite. The guy says he has no religious affiliation after having said God is love :O... which is it?
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On October 18 2013 09:45 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 09:40 packrat386 wrote:On October 18 2013 09:29 IgnE wrote: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: 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" There's a difference between small contradictions and saying something and then saying its opposite. The guy says he has no religious affiliation after having said God is love :O... which is it? That was mostly a joke because I like the quote. I can't claim to speak for sam's religion.
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On October 18 2013 09:39 packrat386 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. 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 You don't understand this... Go read about the burden of proof, you literally cannot prove a negative, it's a thing about science (not logic). Science cannot prove a negative.
Try to prove that something (choose something) doesn't exist. Try to argue the non-existence of ANYTHING that you know doesn't exist. You can't.
It's not me, nor is it a sloppy argument that was made to argue against God. It's essentially a principle of the scientific method.
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On October 18 2013 09:51 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 09:39 packrat386 wrote: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: [quote] 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 You don't understand this... Go read about the burden of proof, you literally cannot prove a negative, it's a thing about science (not logic). Science cannot prove a negative. Try to prove that something (choose something) doesn't exist. Try to argue the non-existence of ANYTHING that you know doesn't exist. You can't. It's not me, nor is it a sloppy argument that was made to argue against God. It's essentially a principle of the scientific method. Sorry I was making a jump that I figured everyone got. In the case that we are talking about empirical proof, you can still have good evidence that something does not exist. Sure, I can't prove that there are no caterpillars in my sock drawer, but if i check my sock drawer many times and find no caterpillars then I was accepting it as reasonable to reject the "caterpillar in my sock drawer" hypothesis.
God is different from the caterpillars because we can't check.
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On October 18 2013 09:56 packrat386 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 09:51 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 09:39 packrat386 wrote: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: [quote] 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 You don't understand this... Go read about the burden of proof, you literally cannot prove a negative, it's a thing about science (not logic). Science cannot prove a negative. Try to prove that something (choose something) doesn't exist. Try to argue the non-existence of ANYTHING that you know doesn't exist. You can't. It's not me, nor is it a sloppy argument that was made to argue against God. It's essentially a principle of the scientific method. Sorry I was making a jump that I figured everyone got. In the case that we are talking about empirical proof, you can still have good evidence that something does not exist. Sure, I can't prove that there are no caterpillars in my sock drawer, but if i check my sock drawer many times and find no caterpillars then I was accepting it as reasonable to reject the "caterpillar in my sock drawer" hypothesis. God is different from the caterpillars because we can't check. Well I gots nothing :p
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On October 18 2013 10:20 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 09:56 packrat386 wrote:On October 18 2013 09:51 Djzapz wrote:On October 18 2013 09:39 packrat386 wrote: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: [quote] 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 You don't understand this... Go read about the burden of proof, you literally cannot prove a negative, it's a thing about science (not logic). Science cannot prove a negative. Try to prove that something (choose something) doesn't exist. Try to argue the non-existence of ANYTHING that you know doesn't exist. You can't. It's not me, nor is it a sloppy argument that was made to argue against God. It's essentially a principle of the scientific method. Sorry I was making a jump that I figured everyone got. In the case that we are talking about empirical proof, you can still have good evidence that something does not exist. Sure, I can't prove that there are no caterpillars in my sock drawer, but if i check my sock drawer many times and find no caterpillars then I was accepting it as reasonable to reject the "caterpillar in my sock drawer" hypothesis. God is different from the caterpillars because we can't check. Well I gots nothing :p Basically, you need to go back through all of my points and replace "proof" with "reasonable evidence" in the case that I'm talking about empiric proof.
My argument is that there is no reason to privilege the hypothesis that God doesn't exist over the hypothesis that God exists because there is no logical proof or "reasonable evidence" that would point me toward either of them.
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On October 18 2013 09:40 packrat386 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 09:29 IgnE wrote: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: 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"
fuck you, beat me to it
dj the point is you are just a reactionary who has let a bunch of idiot fundies turn him off of some very interesting culture documents which are worth taking seriously
i was an atheist from the time i was old enough to understand what religion was. then i got an education and realized things aren't that simple
edit: also let's note that you proselytize with the vigor of anybody. you are in every religion thread repeating new atheist talking points. you obviously care very much about it. it's your religion. don't feel bad, we all have one
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I know one thing for certain, every organized religion + their stories are false, because they claim to have the answer to which no one does. Could there be a god(no I don't mean some white muscular dude with a glorious beard)? possibly. To me religion and atheism are the same. Why have such a bold stance when we know nothing?
edit:
According to wiki : Agnosticism: claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, as well as other religious and metaphysical claims—are unknown
atheism: rejection in the belief of deities.
so what is the position that, jesus is false, the flying spaghetti monster is false but the idea of god itself cannot be rejected so I will just leave that as a question mark.
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On October 18 2013 11:06 biology]major wrote: I know one thing for certain, every organized religion + their stories are false, because they claim to have the answer to which no one does. Could there be a god(no I don't mean some white muscular dude with a glorious beard)? possibly. To me religion and atheism are the same. Why have such a bold stance when we know nothing? you've got some serious circular logic going on there. "We know nothing because the people who say they know something are wrong because we know nothing".
Edit for your edit: Why is the FSM demonstrably false? You seem pretty sure of that one, but what reason can you present for rejecting him?
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On October 18 2013 11:21 packrat386 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 11:06 biology]major wrote: I know one thing for certain, every organized religion + their stories are false, because they claim to have the answer to which no one does. Could there be a god(no I don't mean some white muscular dude with a glorious beard)? possibly. To me religion and atheism are the same. Why have such a bold stance when we know nothing? you've got some serious circular logic going on there. "We know nothing because the people who say they know something are wrong because we know nothing". Edit for your edit: Why is the FSM demonstrably false? You seem pretty sure of that one, but what reason can you present for rejecting him?
we actually don't know how the world works, and thus making concrete claims about how the world works would have a high chance of being wrong by default. The only reason a specific explanation would be right is due pure luck out of the infinite number of gods/possibilities/explanations
this is my position, and its prolly flawed in many ways but its wat i bereev >_<
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On October 18 2013 10:32 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 09:40 packrat386 wrote:On October 18 2013 09:29 IgnE wrote: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: 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" fuck you, beat me to it dj the point is you are just a reactionary who has let a bunch of idiot fundies turn him off of some very interesting culture documents which are worth taking seriously i was an atheist from the time i was old enough to understand what religion was. then i got an education and realized things aren't that simple edit: also let's note that you proselytize with the vigor of anybody. you are in every religion thread repeating new atheist talking points. you obviously care very much about it. it's your religion. don't feel bad, we all have one "Just a reactionary" "new atheist talking points"... At this point you're just condescending and patronizing, tbh. I guess it's understandable, you feel like my position is unreasonable so you're just attacking me and treating me like I'm an idiot.
And FYI I'm not trying to convince anybody, nor am I particularly interested about this discussion. I'm up for arguments regarding any of my beliefs though, as I'm sure you're aware. This has just turned up in multiple threads on the forums lately and I hopped in. But no, I've given up on trying to convince people for 6-7 years ago.
I suspect the shift in your posting's tone comes from something that I said that insulted you, so whatever it was, sorry. I don't mean to be insulting.
I admit that I have made some mistakes, I have made hasty conclusions and unfair assumptions in this thread, but most of my points deal with real concerns that exist. I remain unconvinced by the arguments made by theists, and I don't believe that that makes me unreasonable. And perhaps some of my arguments deal with the bullshit brought up by fundies but my main point really is just that I don't understand why people are so convinced that it's all true... it seems unreasonable to me. I think it's weird that I'm being attacked for being skeptical of the attempts to explain why reason shouldn't be used here...
Anyways, I'm tired. Cheers.
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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.
You are so silly.
Where this evidence that a square circle doesn't exist? Yes, to your limited knowledge it doesn't exist, impossible to exist even. But what if square circle is simply beyond your understanding? It's there, but you just don't know where to look?
Same for the purple cartepillars. Are you looking at the right places? What if these caterpillars can't be easily perceived by human due to their limited perception (much like how our ear only detect certain frequencies of sound). What if they manifest only when you aren't observing?
That, and you are being very specific with this purple caterpillar, whereas with you are being generous with the heavenly dude, saying that he's only "out there".
I can go on all day, but your "God" argument is very similar to a square circle, to be honest.
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On October 18 2013 12:04 ffreakk 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. You are so silly. Where this evidence that a square circle doesn't exist? Yes, to your limited knowledge it doesn't exist, impossible to exist even. But what if square circle is simply beyond your understanding? It's there, but you just don't know where to look? Same for the purple cartepillars. Are you looking at the right places? What if these caterpillars can't be easily perceived by human due to their limited perception (much like how our ear only detect certain frequencies of sound). What if they manifest only when you aren't observing? That, and you are being very specific with this purple caterpillar, whereas with you are being generous with the heavenly dude, saying that he's only "out there". I can go on all day, but your "God" argument is very similar to a square circle, to be honest.
If you have a logical proof that my conception of God cannot exist I would love to hear it. I really enjoy discussing philosophical proofs and so far nobody has offered any.
As for the square circle, of course this requires us to accept some basic tenets of math and logic as axiomatic. If you want to deny those then go ahead, but the world stops making sense fast.
As for purple caterpillars, if you specify that they are undetectable then yeah, they fall into the same category as god. They are equally likely and equally difficult to reject as a hypothesis.
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On October 18 2013 12:04 ffreakk 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. You are so silly. Where this evidence that a square circle doesn't exist? Yes, to your limited knowledge it doesn't exist, impossible to exist even. But what if square circle is simply beyond your understanding? It's there, but you just don't know where to look? Same for the purple cartepillars. Are you looking at the right places? What if these caterpillars can't be easily perceived by human due to their limited perception (much like how our ear only detect certain frequencies of sound). What if they manifest only when you aren't observing? That, and you are being very specific with this purple caterpillar, whereas with you are being generous with the heavenly dude, saying that he's only "out there". I can go on all day, but your "God" argument is very similar to a square circle, to be honest.
No. Not really. You seem to like mixing a lot of non-analogous things.
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Seems like we are back to same old "i believe whatever i want". I should've known better.
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I'm going to have to strenuously disagree that Derrida was doing negative theology. Regardless of all my disagreements with Marion, at least Marion understood this and went at lengths to defend negative theology against Derrida. I think all the theologians that have tried to appropriate Derrida to set up their supposedly-nonmetaphysical-but-still-negative-anyway theologies just misread Derrida horribly. I'm gonna have to be a stickler about this because I really think this is where people go haywire over Derrida. Hagglund does a great deal in elucidating this in his Radical Atheism book.
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On October 18 2013 12:19 packrat386 wrote: If you have a logical proof that my conception of God cannot exist I would love to hear it. I really enjoy discussing philosophical proofs and so far nobody has offered any.
As for the square circle, of course this requires us to accept some basic tenets of math and logic as axiomatic. If you want to deny those then go ahead, but the world stops making sense fast.
As for purple caterpillars, if you specify that they are undetectable then yeah, they fall into the same category as god. They are equally likely and equally difficult to reject as a hypothesis.
Well at least we can agree that your god is indistinguishable from an undetectable purple caterpillar.
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and:
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. So... creationist evolution, a.k.a. intelligent design is a healthy exercise? So is all the slippery sloppy "oh well you can't prove God doesn't exist...?" What? Are you still misreading what I was saying in that small post? I was simply saying that people that try to safeguard their faith by abusing the limits of knowledge and reason is misguided. Nothing against reason itself, just its application in some particular frameworks. God have mercy.
So unless you were still misunderstanding me, I'm more radically atheist than you at the end of it. I'm going to bed before I suffer an aneurysm. At this rate when I wake up tomorrow samzdat will become an apologist for neoliberal capitalism and I'll start worshiping Platinga and Milbank.
edit: And never did I say my problem was a retreat into reason itself, I was having a problem with people retreating to the limits of reason by proposing things like a God-of-the-gaps kind of thing. Which I state explicitly in that post.
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On October 18 2013 14:06 koreasilver wrote:and: Show nested quote +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. So... creationist evolution, a.k.a. intelligent design is a healthy exercise? So is all the slippery sloppy "oh well you can't prove God doesn't exist...?" What? Are you still misreading what I was saying in that small post? I was simply saying that people that try to safeguard their faith by abusing the limits of knowledge and reason is misguided. Nothing against reason itself, just its application in some particular frameworks. God have mercy. So unless you were still misunderstanding me, I'm more radically atheist than you at the end of it. I'm going to bed before I suffer an aneurysm. At this rate when I wake up tomorrow samzdat will become an apologist for neoliberal capitalism and I'll start worshiping Platinga and Milbank. Fair enough.
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On October 18 2013 13:56 Myrkskog wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 12:19 packrat386 wrote: If you have a logical proof that my conception of God cannot exist I would love to hear it. I really enjoy discussing philosophical proofs and so far nobody has offered any.
As for the square circle, of course this requires us to accept some basic tenets of math and logic as axiomatic. If you want to deny those then go ahead, but the world stops making sense fast.
As for purple caterpillars, if you specify that they are undetectable then yeah, they fall into the same category as god. They are equally likely and equally difficult to reject as a hypothesis. Well at least we can agree that your god is indistinguishable from an undetectable purple caterpillar. Indistinguishable, no. Equally believable, yes.
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