Atheists believe in miracles more than believers

[YoursTrue]

But no-body is saying that, only that we have no reason to believe that whatever this undefined, unevidenced thing is does exist.
Again as I said to @leroy, not accepting a claim of existence is not the same as denying existence.

I'm not going to argue this issue because as you imply (or say), the fact that we cannot see certain things does not mean they do not exist. Whether we believe or think we know what these unseen things are or we do not.

 

[YoursTrue]

The fact that invisible things might exist is not evidence for God. There is more to a God-claim than intangibility.

That is the point I'm not going to argue. The fact is, though, that it is perfectly logical to believe there are things we have not seen or heard about that do exist. It is not illogical. What those things are is another account.

 

[Valjean]

That is the point I'm not going to argue. The fact is, though, that it is perfectly logical to believe there are things we have not seen or heard about that do exist. It is not illogical. What those things are is another account.

Yes, there are likely things we're unaware of, but they're of varying probabilities. Do they explain anything not already explained? Are they necessary? Are they or their effects small and scarcely evidenced, or are they large and significant?
A major, necessary force or component of the universe I'd expect to be evident.

 

[leroy]

??? -- do you think physicists just pulled the idea out of their hats?

No, I am pretty I made clear that the science supporting DM is sound

Unexplainable gravitational effects were being observed --

Unexplainable Fine Tunning in the universe was being observered ... Pretty analogous in my opinion

with no visible mass to account for it.

Fine tuning With no "visible" naturalistic explanation to account for it

Dark matter is just the handle physicists began using for whatever was causing the effect.

Wrong DM is claimed to be a thing with specific characteristics.... DM is not "whatever"

It's not an argument.
Physics doesn't claim to understand it, but they had to call it something.

But physicist do claim that DM is the best explanation.

Anyone who disagrees is expected to provide an alternative

No! You keep presenting God as an explanation. It's not. It's an attribution; a claim of a cosmic magician.

That is just a meme that you keep repeating

 

[Valjean]

No, I am pretty I made clear that the science supporting DM is sound

Unexplainable Fine Tunning in the universe was being observered ... Pretty analogous in my opinion

Fine tuning With no "visible" naturalistic explanation to account for it

No, there is no evidence of fine tuning, and most of the characteristics of life, the world and the universe are explained by unconscious, natural forces.

Wrong DM is claimed to be a thing with specific characteristics.... DM is not "whatever"

Dark Matter has limited evidence, but the evidence is clear and measurable. It generates a gravitational effect, that's its only claimed characteristic.

But physicist do claim that DM is the best explanation.

For the gravitational effects. Not for life, the universe, and everything.

Anyone who disagrees is expected to provide an alternative

No. We who don't accept the God-claim have no burden.

 

[firedragon]

We're talking about intention?
Now it's you making the claim.

Nope. I did not make a claim. It was your claim I am asking for evidence to. Burden of proof fallacy.

 

[blü 2]

no, dark matter is a "thing" something with gravity and that doesnt emit light or energy .

No, at present we know of no such thing, so "dark matter" is the name of a hypothesis, shorthand for a particular problem with our concepts of gravity.

There are maaaaaany alternative explanations, for why we detect “extra gravity” in galaxies but postulating the existence of this “dark matter” seems to be the best alternative.

That remains to be seen.

Anyone who denies that dark matter is the best explanation, is expected to provide an alternative…………..agree? (Yes)…………..if you don’t explicitly disagree with this point I will assume that you agree

Even the people who proposed it are looking for alternatives ─ along with evidence that might confirm it or tend to confirm it.

Nobody is asking you to worship God………….all you are being asked is to ether

1 agree that God is the best explanation (you don’t have to grant tha it is the correct explanation)

2 disagree and provide your alternative

Unless and until you have something to show me, the word "God" indicates nothing more than a wide variety of notions, concepts and things imagined, having in common a supernatural being with particular claimed powers and particular claimed relevancies to human affairs.

You question is just a dishonest attempt to distract and move the conversation to an other topic.

My question goes to the heart of the problem with your claim. It was,

What is the difference between the manner in which God exists and the manner in which Mickey Mouse exists?​

And I suspect that if you knew of a relevant difference you'd simply provide it.

Meanwhile I take it as your concession that you don't know of any difference between the two, when it comes to the manner in which they exist.

 

[YoursTrue]

Yes, there are likely things we're unaware of, but they're of varying probabilities. Do they explain anything not already explained? Are they necessary? Are they or their effects small and scarcely evidenced, or are they large and significant?
A major, necessary force or component of the universe I'd expect to be evident.

Do you think it's necessary to spend lots of time trying to figure the origin of the universe?

 

[John53]

Do you think it's necessary to spend lots of time trying to figure the origin of the universe?

I'm still waiting for evidence of your accusations.

 

[vijeno]

Several multiverse hypothesis...

Gotcha. Jeez, did the first few hypotheses all have children with each other in one hot sweaty unproven orgy?

That's entirely up to you. But keep in mind that HOWEVER you choose to respond to this realization, it's going to define who you are. So the power of self-creation is in your own hands.

I agree with you that there are no consequences to either accepting, rejecting, or not answering the claim that god exists. God is irrelevant, just as I thought. It's only about warm fuzzy belly feels after all.

 

[ratiocinator]

so what? how does that affect any of the premises.

We were just talking about actual infinities.

Becasue if I was born after an infinite number of seconds/moments/events/ then by definition I would have to traverse an infinite path

And it still hasn't sunk in.

There is a difference, in relativity between timelike and spacelike distances, but 'flowing' and having to traverse them, is not what it is. The past of your birth (or any other event) isn't even a single direction, it's a region of space-time. It looks like this:

1 Things can´t come from nothing (premise 1)

2 I was not born after an infinite number of causally connected seconds/events/moments (premise 2)

And if any of the premises is false , it would be false under presentism too

Premiss 2 is just wrong.

Ok but if the universe (all natural world) is the effect of something else (what you call reason), then this reason by definition has to be supernatural…….that sounds like you are making a big step towards theism.

The word 'supernatural' means nothing to me.

Regardless, how can we know anything about such a reason, if it exists, and why can't we just ask about its reason (other than special pleading)?

This is only true from your own subjective point of view, it seems to me…………

Exactly. In relativity, 'now' is no more significance than 'here'.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

It seems contradictory, but if you see it from this perspective you will understand:

A believer considers miracles to be the result of a display of knowledge and power on the part of a conscious person.
An atheist believes that things that exist came out of nothing in a miraculous way, obeying some natural laws that emerged out of nowhere, by themselves.

So who is the one who believes in miracles?

Oxford defines a miracle as;

an extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore attributed to a divine agency.

So, it's not atheists who believe in miracles. There's just stuff we don't know. That is NOT the same thing.

 

[ratiocinator]

Can you provide any evidence that couldn’t be dismissed as “dark matter of the gaps argument?”

Its gravitational effects on ordinary matter. We can even draw maps of where it is. What we don't know is what it is.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

As a theist whose theology doesn't include any sort of "creator" I am very confused by this thread. Does this mean I also believe in miracles more than other theists?

Nah.

You dont need a creator. Just some sort of 'divine agency'.
So...I would guess...it's not just monotheistic beliefs where this applies, but it's not all religious beliefs (or supernatural beliefs even).

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Strawman ….The claim is that I could have not been born as a consequence of an infinite chain previous events…(where the events are causally connected to each other)

Not a strawman.
The point remains unanswered. You are just repeating your claim.
If you have an infinite chain of causally connected events, then every one of those events is an event.
You could pick any of those specific events and say what you said.
One of those events could be could birth, but it doesn't matter. You could make the claim about any specific event.
Yet, by positing an infinite chain of causally connected events, what you have are an infinite amount of events. And those events would occur. Right?

The abstraction of your claim concerning one specific event would then apply to any specific event and it would result in having no events happening at all, while positing an infinite amount of events.
It makes no sense.

But even that would be impossible and absurd.
If there is an infinite number of events, what is the probability of me experiencing the specific event of my birth? the possibility is 1/infinity= 0

But given that I experience that event, the probability necessarily has to be greater than zero………..otherwise you would have to affirm that events with zero probability occur

Again, you could say that about ANY specific event in the infinite series of events.
And what you end up with is a claim that EVERY event in an INFINITE series of events, would be "impossible".

You end up saying that any event could not occur in an infinite series of events.
That is what is absurd.

IF you posit an infinite series of events, then by definition an infinite series of events is occurring.

I mean, that it would be a different question

For example the claim “humans evolve from ancient apes” it likely true and well supported.

But that leads to an other question

If humans evolved from apes, where did apes come from………….? Your ability or inability to answer that question is “beyond the scope” of the original claim (in red)……………..it doesn’t matter if you don’t have an answer, the claim in red is still true

In other words we can agree on that the universe has a “reason” (which according ratiocinator means cause in tensless language)

And leave the question on whether if God has a reason or not, for a future discussion…………….my ability or inability to support that god doesn’t have a “reason” has no bearing in the previous claim (in red)

But we can still ask the question. And it applies to the apes just as much as it applies to the humans.
Likewise, it applies to your god just as much as it applies to the universe.

Having said that, I hope you are not comparing the well-evidence and well-supported conclusions of evolution theory to KCA.

 

[ratiocinator]

Fine tuning With no "visible" naturalistic explanation to account for it

We don't even know if it's a thing. It is based on some hypotheses that suggest that some of the constants of nature could have been different.

If it turns out that it is, then there are multiple other 'naturalistic' hypotheses to explain.

Funny how theists like the speculative hypotheses that they think they can use and dismiss those that they don't. This is the opposite of a rational and scientific approach. You've started with your conclusion. A recipe for self-deception.

Wrong DM is claimed to be a thing with specific characteristics.... DM is not "whatever"

Its gravitational effects are like matter, hence the name. We don't know anything else, yet. The obvious explanation is some sort of particle that interacts gravitationally but not electromagnetically. This is a hypothesis, not a theory.

But physicist do claim that DM is the best explanation.

It's not an explanation, it's a problem.

That is just a meme that you keep repeating

God 'explains' nothing because it could 'explain' anything. It's like saying "it's magic".

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

What is the value in being a skeptic?

You minimize your chances of holding false beliefs and being tricked by con-men.

One of the things I never understood about atheism is the rejection of a positive and beneficial possibility

What "positive and beneficial possibility"?
Is this a pascal's wager in disguise?

based not on nothing: no logic, no evidence, and no experience. And even weirder still, many want to deny these to others, as well.

No idea what you are referring to.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

If you reject the claim that God is the best alternative………….then tacitly you are claiming that there is at least one better alternative.

No.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Huh? Please explain.
This smells like some kind of false dichotomy...

Sounds like "heads I win, tails you lose..." kind of argumentation

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

like what?Can you provide any evidence that couldn’t be dismissed as “dark matter of the gaps argument?”

This tells me that you actually have no idea what dark matter is to physicists.

the same is true with God

No.