A Question for Theists and Non-Theists

[Willamena]

The existence of god being apparent to me.

Ah! That's why they call god "Father."

 

[Ouroboros]

Ah! That's why they call god "Father."

But it could be a mother too, or a second dad in some states.

 

[Cephus]

The fact that a creator is not necessary isn't a compelling reason for me to stop believing in god. I understand that it is a compelling reason for you. I have no arguments against that conclusion and no desire to debate it.

But that's not the way rational people operate. You haven't presented a compelling reason to believe in a god to begin with. You don't just start believing in anything and everything and stop when you find a reason to, you don't believe in anything and only start believing when you have good, rational, critically-evaluated evidence that it's actually so.

If you have no objective evidence, you shouldn't believe in the first place.

If there happened to be a creator that was not divine, however, this would most definitely be a compelling reason for me to stop believing in god. Which is why I stated that in my first post.

What do you mean by "divine" and how would you demonstrate divinity? See, this is another massive, massive problem that's shared by pretty much all theists. They simply define their deities into existence. They claim there's a god, then they assign all kinds of characteristics, wants and desires to this supposed deity without ever demonstrating that it's so. How do you know that your deity is "divine"? How did you come by this information? Where did you get this data? How did you verify it? In reality, it's just what makes you feel good, you're not really concerned if it's true or not, so long as you get that emotional buzz.

To say, "It wasn't god, it just happened on its own." is nowhere near as good an argument as "It wasn't god, it was those guys..." I'm sure you can at least agree with that.

I'm saying you can fill in the blank with anything, using your way of thinking. "It wasn't god, it was unicorns!" "It wasn't god, it was leprechauns!" It works for anything. Whereas you're interested in getting an emotional high from your beliefs, whether they're true or not, I'm interested in the truth. If we don't know how something happened, then we should admit we don't know. Not knowing is not license to just make something up.

 

[Sir Doom]

But that's not the way rational people operate.

I never claimed such a designation.

You haven't presented a compelling reason to believe in a god to begin with.

And that was not the question, so I don't see why I should or would.

You don't just start believing in anything and everything and stop when you find a reason to,

You're right. I don't.

you don't believe in anything and only start believing when you have good, rational, critically-evaluated evidence that it's actually so.

I disagree. You believe something when you let that belief determine your actions. There can be no more objective evidence of a belief's existence and influence. Critical evaluation is a huge variable from one person to the next, from one field to the next.

If you have no objective evidence, you shouldn't believe in the first place.

And what should I do with subjective evidence? Throw it out?

What do you mean by "divine" and how would you demonstrate divinity?

I answered this for someone else earlier. In my fallible, human, subjective and mostly arbitrary opinion the first thing that a being must do to demonstrate to me personally that it is divine is to express a desire to be considered as divine.

I think it would be incredibly rude to treat a higher being as a god just because it is advanced and created us. That's a bit presumptuous. So if said creator does not have any designs on a worship/worshipee relationship, then the question of whether or not there is a god is immediately settled as a resounding, "NO." in my opinion.

See, this is another massive, massive problem that's shared by pretty much all theists.

Except me, apparently.

They simply define their deities into existence.

No, what I did was provide a clear avenue to a rational adoption of atheism. This is the point of the thread. For theists to provide their criteria for adopting atheism, and atheists to provide their criteria for adopting theism. That's what I did.

They claim there's a god,

All I did was answer the question as directed.

then they assign all kinds of characteristics, wants and desires to this supposed deity without ever demonstrating that it's so.

I used the innocuous term divine to mean worthy of worship and added the additional qualifier that it created life on Earth. I don't expect everyone to view divinity in the same way as I do, but this is what I'm talking about when I say god. Thus, this is what I am talking about when I answer the question.

How do you know that your deity is "divine"?

If there is some other definition for divine besides 'of deity' then I am using it improperly and welcome your terminology correction which I assume will be forthcoming.

How did you come by this information?

I weighed the options and chose the one I liked the most.

Where did you get this data?

I made it up.

How did you verify it?

I haven't.

In reality, it's just what makes you feel good, you're not really concerned if it's true or not, so long as you get that emotional buzz.

I can do both.

I'm saying you can fill in the blank with anything, using your way of thinking.

My way of thinking is that everyone fills in the blank with anything.

"It wasn't god, it was unicorns!" "It wasn't god, it was leprechauns!" It works for anything.

Yeah. It WORKS for everything.

Whereas you're interested in getting an emotional high from your beliefs, whether they're true or not, I'm interested in the truth.

We are both interested in both.

If we don't know how something happened, then we should admit we don't know. Not knowing is not license to just make something up.

Not knowing something creates a DUTY to make something up. First, you observe a phenomena, then you formulate a hypothesis. THEN you test it. Unless you use some other scientific method I'm unaware of.

In any case, I am a theist who has provided what I consider a rational means by which I would abandon my theistic beliefs and become an atheist. I have no idea why you have a beef with that. J/k I do know.

 

[Jiggerj]

What would it take for you to change your mind?

For Non-Theists what would it take for you to start believing in God?

Have to make this clear. I'm speaking only of the biblical god of the three monotheistic religions. In order to believe in this entity I would need to see an amputee ( a devout Christian, Muslim, or Jew, doesn't matter which) miraculously grow an arm back. Or a leg.

 

[Jiggerj]

Does it really even matter, one way or the other?

Would the terrorists have flown the planes into the World Trade Center if they didn't believe in a god and a reward in heaven?

So, yes, it really does matter.

Atheists can do bad things for many reasons.
The religious can do bad things for many reasons, PLUS one more reason (believing they are doing so in the service of their god). An atheist simply cannot do bad things in the name of a god.

 

[Cephus]

And what should I do with subjective evidence? Throw it out?

Instead of having 100 1-sentence responses, I'm trying to cut this down to only the major points as I see them. If there's something specific you want me to address that I cut, please let me know.

No, this is really where your response gets somewhat interesting. The problem with most subjective experiences, and I can't judge your specific experience so I'm speaking in generalities, the hundreds of experiences I've had related to me over the past 30 years or so since I gave up on religion, that virtually all subjective experiences cannot be validated, there is no causal link that can be drawn between the experience and the claimed cause of the experience. People have experiences they cannot immediately explain and they arbitrarily assign a cause to it because it makes them feel good. That cause is almost always the same deity that's culturally popular where they grew up, that they had past experience with, etc. You just don't have people who, say, grew up Christian in a primarily Christian area, have an experience and declare that it was caused by Zeus. It just doesn't happen.

But theists who have these experiences seem to, almost universally, refuse to examine them critically. They don't want to look at their experiences objectively and see if their experience has other explanations, or points to other causes. They don't want to because what they believe appeals to them emotionally. Emotional comfort is not only no guarantee of factual reality, it's often detrimental to discovering the actual truth.

I answered this for someone else earlier. In my fallible, human, subjective and mostly arbitrary opinion the first thing that a being must do to demonstrate to me personally that it is divine is to express a desire to be considered as divine.

And please tell me when you ever had any kind of demonstrable direct experience with any god where it has done that to you. What you're saying here is like claiming "Voldemort is evil, it says so in the Harry Potter books!" No, Voldemort isn't real. He's a fantasy character in a book. Whatever it may say about him in a book doesn't lend any credence to a belief that he's real. There are lots of people out there practicing Jedi as a religion because it makes them feel good to believe in some universal Force that binds the galaxy together. That doesn't mean it's true. An individual or a being or a thing is real or unreal on it's own, regardless of what anyone says about it. I don't care what the Bible says about the Christian God, I don't care what the Qu'ran says about the Muslim god, I don't care what the Vedas say about the Hindu gods, I care if those gods actually exist in reality.

You, apparently, don't.

I think it would be incredibly rude to treat a higher being as a god just because it is advanced and created us. That's a bit presumptuous. So if said creator does not have any designs on a worship/worshipee relationship, then the question of whether or not there is a god is immediately settled as a resounding, "NO." in my opinion.

I don't know about rude, it would simply be untrue. That said though, I would argue that no one, regardless of deity status, deserves worship, reverence or respect if they do not earn it. I don't care what kind of power they have, I don't care what kind of threats they make, respect is earned, not simply granted.

No, what I did was provide a clear avenue to a rational adoption of atheism. This is the point of the thread. For theists to provide their criteria for adopting atheism, and atheists to provide their criteria for adopting theism. That's what I did.

I don't know that you did though because you're not willing, at least from what you say, to question your beliefs in divinity. You want them to be true. You have an emotional attachment to them being true. You want people to prove to you that a god is not divine when you have never demonstrated that any gods are divine in the first place, nor have you really defined what divinity actually is. It's one thing to throw out a statement like that, it's another to have it be a statement that actually withstands scrutiny.

If there is some other definition for divine besides 'of deity' then I am using it improperly and welcome your terminology correction which I assume will be forthcoming.

That's circular though. A deity is divine and anything divine is a deity.

Not knowing something creates a DUTY to make something up. First, you observe a phenomena, then you formulate a hypothesis. THEN you test it. Unless you use some other scientific method I'm unaware of.

Absolutely and unequivocally not. Do you want the police, if they can't solve a crime, to just make up a criminal and arrest someone off the street because they don't like not knowing who actually did it? That's ridiculous. You're right, as far as you go, that you suggest a hypothesis and then test it, but you actually have to be willing to test it. You don't just suggest a hypothesis and then blindly accept it because you like it. It has to be put to a rigorous test, it has to be objectively evaluated by multiple people in multiple disciplines and outlooks, it can't just be within your own particular echo chamber, where everyone already has the same beliefs you do. That's something theists are virtually never willing to do. They have an experience, they arbitrarily assign a god as a cause. They never test to find out if that god is actually the cause, they just presuppose that they're right because they want to be right.

Presupposition is not confirmation.

 

[9Westy9]

What would it take for you to change your mind?

For Theists what it would it take for you to stop believing in God?
For Non-Theists what would it take for you to start believing in God?

evidence

 

[nazz]

Have to make this clear. I'm speaking only of the biblical god of the three monotheistic religions. In order to believe in this entity I would need to see an amputee ( a devout Christian, Muslim, or Jew, doesn't matter which) miraculously grow an arm back. Or a leg.

How would you know the God of Abraham was responsible?

 

[Monk Of Reason]

What would it take for you to change your mind?

For Theists what it would it take for you to stop believing in God?
For Non-Theists what would it take for you to start believing in God?

I would need hard phyisical evidence for god. Something akin to the world's functions working in accordance to the philogophy of god. For example if prayer had a meaningful impact on events or if we could communicate with god in a measurable manner.

 

[Windwalker]

What would it take for you to change your mind?

For Theists what it would it take for you to stop believing in God?
For Non-Theists what would it take for you to start believing in God?

If the entire experience of life was completely inaccessible to me any longer.

Not really a fair question as God is not really a matter of belief.

 

[underthesun]

I hope you don't mind my interjection; I found this conversation pretty interesting and I wanted to offer my opinion as well. If you'd rather just continue the conversation on a one-on-one basis, I won't be offended.

People have experiences they cannot immediately explain and they arbitrarily assign a cause to it because it makes them feel good. That cause is almost always the same deity that's culturally popular where they grew up, that they had past experience with, etc. You just don't have people who, say, grew up Christian in a primarily Christian area, have an experience and declare that it was caused by Zeus. It just doesn't happen.​

The lack of being able to objectively validate something is what makes it subjective, but that doesn't necessarily make it wrong. Do you take issue with most every kind of subjective experience and opinion, or only the ones that are of a religious or spiritual nature?

I don't know that you can blame people for having their minds automatically go to what they have experience with; that's pretty much common to all of us, including yourself, I'd assume. You see something that one culture calls a swan, but you do not know of that word because you are not of that culture... you're not going to suddenly call it a swan. I mean, I suppose there is the absolute smallest possibility that you happen to come up with that word, but, in reality, you're going to call it something similar to what your culture would... like 'water-bird'.

If someone has an experience that leads them to believe the Divine intervened, but within that experience they do not have something like a vision in which the Divine told them "Hey, Zeus here!" or something, they are most likely going to logically assume the deity is a god or goddess that they are most familiar with. In your example, they would assume the Abrahamic god, yes. People assume what they are familiar with, usually. Obviously not always, as many people spend years learning about all different kinds of paths and points of view so that they can choose to go with the path that they feel makes the most sense. But those who stick closer to what they know, I don't think you should blame or look down upon. When you watch an apple fall from a tree, you assume it is gravity at work, without taking the time to actually 'test' and 'validate' that it is gravity, because you are familiar with the concept of gravity and know how it works. Never mind that perhaps a child was in the tree and threw the apple to the ground.

But theists who have these experiences seem to, almost universally, refuse to examine them critically. They don't want to look at their experiences objectively and see if their experience has other explanations, or points to other causes. They don't want to because what they believe appeals to them emotionally.​

What of those theists that do not feel comforted by their belief in a certain religion or spirituality? What of those who feel nervous, worried, or just generally unhappy about the existence of something divine, though that doesn't change their actual belief? Not all people who have religious or spiritual beliefs get an emotional "high" of comfort and happiness and rainbows and peace. Some, sure, but not all. But just the same, some atheists don't want to examine their opinions critically, because they are happy believing what they believe. It's not a trait limited to theists.

And many, many theists do look at other possible explanations or other causes, and many do realize that something could have been caused by other means, other than divine intervention. But, the fact that other causes exist does not make divine intervention less possible. Plenty of theists shrug things off as coincidence on a quite regular basis, and only consider things 'signs' after a continuous string of coincidences. And no, that doesn't mean they aren't coincidences, of course, but it also certainly doesn't mean that they are.

How many 'critically analyzing' people would look at the apple that was thrown from the tree and stop, move closer, and try to examine if there was another cause? If they couldn't see or hear the child, and the apple wasn't thrown at an extremely fast speed or anything, I expect very few would take the time to question if it really was gravity, if any would at all.

And please tell me when you ever had any kind of demonstrable direct experience with any god where it has done that to you. .... An individual or a being or a thing is real or unreal on it's own, regardless of what anyone says about it. I don't care what the Bible says about the Christian God, I don't care what the Qu'ran says about the Muslim god, I don't care what the Vedas say about the Hindu gods, I care if those gods actually exist in reality.

You, apparently, don't.​

Why would you assume he doesn't care? More importantly, would you assume that a follower of Christianity doesn't care if the Abrahamic god actually exists? I think said follower certainly would. But, just like you cannot prove beyond anyone's doubt that he doesn't, they cannot prove beyond anyone's doubt that he does. That's not to say they can't have their own evidence that is convincing enough for them, and that's not to say you don't have your own evidence that is convincing enough for you.

I would argue that no one, regardless of deity status, deserves worship, reverence or respect if they do not earn it. I don't care what kind of power they have, I don't care what kind of threats they make, respect is earned, not simply granted.​

Which is why you have no need to worship, revere, or respect any deity. But just because you don't, just because you don't feel that it is necessary or important, does not mean that others shouldn't worship or revere anything they feel is worthy. Others certainly believe that a divine being deserves worship simply for what they are -- and that's fine for them. Why does it matter to you, out of curiosity?

...you're not willing, at least from what you say, to question your beliefs in divinity. You want them to be true. You have an emotional attachment to them being true. You want people to prove to you that a god is not divine when you have never demonstrated that any gods are divine in the first place, nor have you really defined what divinity actually is.​

You don't know that he has an emotional attachment to his beliefs being true; you're making an assumption that you really shouldn't make. Certainly, some people have emotional attachments to their beliefs (both theists and atheists alike!) but some others do not. Many theists are completely open to the fact that their view on life and divinity might not be completely accurate (some are even sure of it!) but that is not reason to throw out the beliefs in the first place. Many, many theists are open to changing beliefs if they experience any kind of evidence that suggests they should.

And, depending on what divinity is defined as by an individual, it isn't always possible for someone to clearly try and strip that away and see the world without it. I know I had trouble, for instance, trying to envision looking at the world and not seeing the Divine, but that's because of my personal opinion of what is divine. The only way I could see the world otherwise would be to change my definition.

That's circular though. A deity is divine and anything divine is a deity.​

And a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not always a square. So? That doesn't make it inaccurate.

Absolutely and unequivocally not. Do you want the police, if they can't solve a crime, to just make up a criminal and arrest someone off the street because they don't like not knowing who actually did it? That's ridiculous. It has to be put to a rigorous test, it has to be objectively evaluated by multiple people in multiple disciplines and outlooks, it can't just be within your own particular echo chamber, where everyone already has the same beliefs you do. That's something theists are virtually never willing to do. They have an experience, they arbitrarily assign a god as a cause. They never test to find out if that god is actually the cause, they just presuppose that they're right because they want to be right.

Presupposition is not confirmation.​

I don't think he was trying to argue that it was confirmation; I don't think anyone was trying to argue that. But I, for one, certainly do want the police to make assumptions and make up theories -- that's how they solve crimes. I don't want them to make them up without having some kind of evidence they feel is sufficient, and I want them to continue to collect evidence and be willing to change their assumptions if the evidence starts pointing the other way, but I certainly want them to come up with assumptions and theories along the way. Otherwise nothing would get accomplished.

And there's a difference between objective and subjective evidence that I believe you are ignoring by trying to use such an analogy. Fingerprints and such are very black-and-white. Religious/spiritual evidence is not.

What of love? Can I assume that my husband husband loves me, even though I cannot quantifiably and critically test and prove that? Am I wrong to think love exists, even though I can't quantifiably and critically prove that beyond anyone's doubt?​

 

[Sir Doom]

Instead of having 100 1-sentence responses, I'm trying to cut this down to only the major points as I see them. If there's something specific you want me to address that I cut, please let me know.

You are trying to hijack the thread, is what you are doing.

The question was:

For Theists what it would it take for you to stop believing in God?

My answer was:

It would have to be demonstrated to me in a compelling way that life on Earth was not the result of a divine creator. This is probably only possible if life on Earth was the result of a non-divine creator.

The question does not require me to elaborate on why I believe in the first place, and only asks what would make me stop. So that's all I provided. If you want to know why I believe in the first place, perhaps you can peruse the thousands of threads on that topic that I may or may not have answered. Or, depending on your patience for such things, make your own thread with that as a topic and stack it on the thousands that already exist and hold your breath until I arrive to answer it.

 

[Straw Dog]

For Non-Theists what would it take for you to start believing in God?

To begin with, I'd need a more clear conception of what exactly it is I'm meant to believe in. Is the conception a hypothesis that can be falsified? Or is it just solely based on conjecture? In the latter case, is there sound reasoning to support said notion? So far I haven't come across a clear conception, much less any evidence or sound reasoning, although I do like to keep a flexible open-mind in case new information does come to light.

 

[Sir Doom]

Just to show you that I'm a poor sport...

Compare my answer:

For Theists what it would it take for you to stop believing in God?

It would have to be demonstrated to me in a compelling way that life on Earth was not the result of a divine creator. This is probably only possible if life on Earth was the result of a non-divine creator.

With your answer:

It would take actual, objective, demonstrable evidence that a god was actually real. Nothing less would do.

The main difference that I can see is that I added an additional logical deduction after stating the general fact. In contrast to your answer where you stop short at 'evidence' and then provide no honest commentary on what that would actually look like to YOU.

So, my answer is objectively better. Neener.

 

[Cephus]

How would you know the God of Abraham was responsible?

That's an excellent, excellent question, one I ask all the time. How do people know that their particular god does things? How do they know their particular god created the universe? How do they know their particular god is responsible for miracles? Where does this information come from and how is it attained?

Apparently, it's just blind faith and wild guesses.

 

[nazz]

That's an excellent, excellent question, one I ask all the time. How do people know that their particular god does things? How do they know their particular god created the universe? How do they know their particular god is responsible for miracles? Where does this information come from and how is it attained?

Apparently, it's just blind faith and wild guesses.

not always

 

[Cephus]

It's an open forum, by all means, jump in. I had to cut this down because I exceeded forum limits, sorry.

The lack of being able to objectively validate something is what makes it subjective, but that doesn't necessarily make it wrong. Do you take issue with most every kind of subjective experience and opinion, or only the ones that are of a religious or spiritual nature?

No, it doesn't necessarily make it wrong but it does make it questionable and if the person who had the experience doesn't do whatever they can to verify it, especially if it's an extreme claim, then what guarantee is there that it's a valid experience to begin with. And no, I think that all extreme claims, regardless of source, need to be validated. We're all aware that there are cars on the road. If someone makes a claim that there are invisible, intelligent cars on the road that are just waiting to run over the unsuspecting pedestrian, that requires evidence because it's an extraordinary claim.

I don't know that you can blame people for having their minds automatically go to what they have experience with; that's pretty much common to all of us, including yourself, I'd assume. You see something that one culture calls a swan, but you do not know of that word because you are not of that culture... you're not going to suddenly call it a swan. I mean, I suppose there is the absolute smallest possibility that you happen to come up with that word, but, in reality, you're going to call it something similar to what your culture would... like 'water-bird'.

Sure, they can do that but they'd be wrong. I'm not just talking about the name for a particular bird in a different language, but if you point at a cat and call it a dog, that's not cultural differences, that's just plain error.

If someone has an experience that leads them to believe the Divine intervened, but within that experience they do not have something like a vision in which the Divine told them "Hey, Zeus here!" or something, they are most likely going to logically assume the deity is a god or goddess that they are most familiar with. In your example, they would assume the Abrahamic god, yes. People assume what they are familiar with, usually. Obviously not always, as many people spend years learning about all different kinds of paths and points of view so that they can choose to go with the path that they feel makes the most sense. But those who stick closer to what they know, I don't think you should blame or look down upon. When you watch an apple fall from a tree, you assume it is gravity at work, without taking the time to actually 'test' and 'validate' that it is gravity, because you are familiar with the concept of gravity and know how it works. Never mind that perhaps a child was in the tree and threw the apple to the ground.

Yet most don't have an experience that directly points to the divine, they insert the divine into it as an ad hoc explanation. It's like people saying "God helped my sports team win today!" There's no need whatsoever to insert God into that claim, one team played better than the other, there's no evidence of supernatural intervention whatsoever. In your example, if the individual were to actually check out the event rationally, to examine it critically, then they could come to the real solution instead of having to make something up to fill a hole in their own knowledge.

What of those theists that do not feel comforted by their belief in a certain religion or spirituality? What of those who feel nervous, worried, or just generally unhappy about the existence of something divine, though that doesn't change their actual belief? Not all people who have religious or spiritual beliefs get an emotional "high" of comfort and happiness and rainbows and peace. Some, sure, but not all. But just the same, some atheists don't want to examine their opinions critically, because they are happy believing what they believe. It's not a trait limited to theists.

I've yet to meet a theist, and I've met thousands and thousands over the years, who didn't beleive for emotional reasons. Even if they do have fear, they are still comforted that there's some imaginary sky daddy watching over them, protecting them, taking them off to a happy afterlife, etc. I'm not saying all atheists are rational, certainly some of them are not and I'm just as critical of them, moreso in fact.

And many, many theists do look at other possible explanations or other causes, and many do realize that something could have been caused by other means, other than divine intervention. But, the fact that other causes exist does not make divine intervention less possible. Plenty of theists shrug things off as coincidence on a quite regular basis, and only consider things 'signs' after a continuous string of coincidences. And no, that doesn't mean they aren't coincidences, of course, but it also certainly doesn't mean that they are.

I beg to differ. All options are not equally probable. If you're driving down the road and you see something you can't explain, magic is not equally as probable as a natural explanation. As a rational explanation, the supernatural is the last place you go, not the first as many theists seem to think.

How many 'critically analyzing' people would look at the apple that was thrown from the tree and stop, move closer, and try to examine if there was another cause? If they couldn't see or hear the child, and the apple wasn't thrown at an extremely fast speed or anything, I expect very few would take the time to question if it really was gravity, if any would at all.

It all depends. If it's a common occurrence, there's really no reason to question what it was if it's something that happens all the time. However, we're not talking about common occurrences here. If, to change your example, an apple fell out of the tree, stopped three feet from the ground and hovered, should people just assume that gravity is broken today and continue on? Or should people stop to examine the real cause of this strange event?

Why would you assume he doesn't care? More importantly, would you assume that a follower of Christianity doesn't care if the Abrahamic god actually exists? I think said follower certainly would. But, just like you cannot prove beyond anyone's doubt that he doesn't, they cannot prove beyond anyone's doubt that he does. That's not to say they can't have their own evidence that is convincing enough for them, and that's not to say you don't have your own evidence that is convincing enough for you.

Because most theists don't. They don't care if the Abrahamic god actually exists because they already assume, a priori, that it does. It's an assumption, arrived at by faith, not a conclusion, arrived at by reason and critical thinking. And while they may say they have evidence that is convincing to them, that doesn't make it good evidence that should convince anyone. We're trying to objectively evaluate claims in a world where it is commonplace for theists to not only try to convince others that their god is real, but they make the claim, constantly, that their god actually exists, performed miracles, etc. and therefore they ought to get special treatment and special privileges, ought to get their beliefs enshrined in law, etc. Yet the second that anyone says "hey, let's take a closer look at these beliefs you're touting", they freak out.

And a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not always a square. So? That doesn't make it inaccurate.

That's because squares and rectangles don't have definitions that are mutually contradictory. Squares and circles do. A square must have right angles and straight sides. A circle cannot have any angles or straight sides. Anything that is one, cannot be the other by definition.

I don't think he was trying to argue that it was confirmation; I don't think anyone was trying to argue that. But I, for one, certainly do want the police to make assumptions and make up theories -- that's how they solve crimes. I don't want them to make them up without having some kind of evidence they feel is sufficient, and I want them to continue to collect evidence and be willing to change their assumptions if the evidence starts pointing the other way, but I certainly want them to come up with assumptions and theories along the way. Otherwise nothing would get accomplished.

But they VERIFY their theories. They take their cases to court and lay out the evidence before a jury of their peers. There is a defense team that tries to tear apart that evidence and whichever side does the best job, wins.

And there's a difference between objective and subjective evidence that I believe you are ignoring by trying to use such an analogy. Fingerprints and such are very black-and-white. Religious/spiritual evidence is not.

Because it's not evidence. In the above courtroom scenario, you couldn't tear it apart and have everyone accept the conclusion of the best supported side. It doesn't work that way.

What of love? Can I assume that my husband husband loves me, even though I cannot quantifiably and critically test and prove that? Am I wrong to think love exists, even though I can't quantifiably and critically prove that beyond anyone's doubt?

Absolutely you can. You can hook someone up to an MRI and measure the complex brain chemistry that demonstrates love, hate and all other emotions. It's not that difficult, although you have to have some pretty expensive machinery to do it, but medical science has been able to do this for quite some time.

So now quantifiably and critically prove that any gods exist.

 

[Cephus]

not always

Then where are the cases that it's not?

 

[Cephus]

You are trying to hijack the thread, is what you are doing.

Nope, I'm responding to things written in this thread. If you'd like to take this to a whole different thread, by all means, start one and I'll move any "problematic" arguments there.

The question does not require me to elaborate on why I believe in the first place, and only asks what would make me stop. So that's all I provided. If you want to know why I believe in the first place, perhaps you can peruse the thousands of threads on that topic that I may or may not have answered. Or, depending on your patience for such things, make your own thread with that as a topic and stack it on the thousands that already exist and hold your breath until I arrive to answer it.

No, and if you don't like it, you can just stop responding. I was pointing out that various claims made by theists weren't logically valid in the first place. You're free to disagree and you can start a discussion, as apparently you have, or you can simply not respond and think whatever you'd like. The idea that on an open discussion forum, people shouldn't respond to what's said is absurd.