Athiesm and disproving God

[Rick O'Shez]

Which is why we look at things collectively and compare individual experiences. The more we can examine the universe collectively, the more we can factor out faulty individual subjective views. It's not a perfect system to be sure, but it is the best we currently have.

I agree, it's a process of consensus if we're talking about what we can observe via our senses. But does the consensus approach work with religious belief?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I don't think God is less probable, no.

How about- that person with that ticket- has already won 12 times this year, with that same number, is dating the girl who operates the lotto machine- and they both just emigrated to Brazil in their private jet.. but there is no direct empirical evidence of cheating

What are the odds? well in fact they are no less than any particular 12 people winning with any particular numbers right? so there is absolutely no need to suspect 'creative intelligence' being involved in the results?

Suspect all you want, but it wouldn't be reasonable to assert that they did cheat until you had come up with a plausible way that they did cheat, and actual evidence that it occurred. You haven't done this. Your approach has been to say, effectively, that since winning the lottery is so unlikely, any winner MUST have cheated. That's an unfounded conclusion until you know how hard it is to win by cheating.

 

[Cephus]

I agree, it's a process of consensus if we're talking about what we can observe via our senses. But does the consensus approach work with religious belief?

If it was intellectually valid, it would be. The fact that it isn't puts it into the same category as alien abductions and Bigfoot sightings. Religious experiences are neither repeatable nor testable, they are made specifically to be that way. In fact, if we look at how God changed over time, he went from being a deity that walked and talked to humanity openly and performed copious miracles that should have left evidence but conveniently didn't, to the inscrutable, invisible, intangible being we have today that nobody can ever prove because he's designed that way.

It makes me think that someone knows it's all bunk and is doing their best to hide it.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Suspect all you want, but it wouldn't be reasonable to assert that they did cheat until you had come up with a plausible way that they did cheat, and actual evidence that it occurred. You haven't done this. Your approach has been to say, effectively, that since winning the lottery is so unlikely, any winner MUST have cheated. That's an unfounded conclusion until you know how hard it is to win by cheating.

come off it...... so if you were head of lottery fraud, and this same guy- and his girlfriend who worked the machine, kept winning the lottery every single time- 12 times in a row with the exact same numbers, you would not say they were probably cheating until you could figure out how? I think you'd be fired pretty quick!

By that rationale I'd have to assume the magician identified my card by chance- only one in 52 after all! until I could know exactly how this difficult trick was done!

 

[Ouroboros]

You have to have an answer, and you don't.

Why? I don't understand why there is some requirement to have the answer? There are a lot of people living without ever bothering answering the question or even asking it, so you have to give a reason why this is a "have to" issue.

haha.... so there is absolutely nothing (in the fullest sense of the word) and you think that is where everything comes from. I really don't know what to say to that. So to you, ''Nothingdidit''.... haha, absurd I think

God is absurd. It's the pure nature of what God is, something that we can't understand. If you think you understand what/who God is, then you really don't.

 

[Robert.Evans]

Agreed


If you word it that it does not rule out the existence of a god(s), I can agree.


This is nothing more than you setting up a strawman to beat up on

no

Make up your mind.
Your are either talking about where everything came from or an evolving universe....

One of the same thing

bold empty claim.
Care to support it with something other than more bold empty claims?

I have done. Care to listen

No I don't.


I do not know.


Of sorts.


I am not trying to put an imaginary figure into the equation.

No you put a paper bag on your head and say you don't know, but then say It isn't God.

Argument from incredulity only works on the choir.


Seeing as YOU are the only one making any sort of claim that it is...

so?

Depends upon which definition of "nothing" you are referring to.

The one that implies nothing in the fullest sense, which would only fit the argument.

Because outside the wishful thinking of those who claim god, there is no reason to make the assumption there is a god, let alone that god did this and that.

There is plenty of reason to think that, even for someone as skeptical as you. Everything is too complex and the odds are against anything existing at all... yet exist it does.

I do not know enough about the "multiverse" claim to answer this.

So you do not know where everything comes from. so why tell me I am wrong? Because you don't know?

 

[Robert.Evans]

Why?

If you are arguging that an answer is wrong, you have to give a reason... not jsut I dont know. Otherwise you are not arguing.

 

[Robert.Evans]

Why? I don't understand why there is some requirement to have the answer? There are a lot of people living without ever bothering answering the question or even asking it, so you have to give a reason why this is a "have to" issue.

Those who do not know and do not care, then fine. Those who say it is not one thing, but give no alternative, do not therefore know. This argument requires an alternative if it is not this answer. in other words, if we cannot turn right, then what is the alternative? It might be left, but what if there is no left, then there is only right. So what is the alternative. If there is none, then we have to accept that right is the answer until further evidence comes in.... which it won't

God is absurd.

God is everything. Man is absurd

It's the pure nature of what God is, something that we can't understand. If you think you understand what/who God is, then you really don't.

We know in part but not in full, but we shall know in full what we now know in part.[/QUOTE]

 

[Robert.Evans]

I don't believe that I "have to have an answer".
Why must I?

If you are arguing you need an alternative. It is not good enought to say it is not this answer. I just answered this above I think

But hypothetically, let's say that I must have
one, & that I don't. What should I then do?

Jump up and down a lot, that usually helps.

 

[Willamena]

If you are arguing you need an alternative. It is not good enought to say it is not this answer.

It's okay to not know the answer.

 

[Robert.Evans]

If it was intellectually valid, it would be. The fact that it isn't puts it into the same category as alien abductions and Bigfoot sightings. Religious experiences are neither repeatable nor testable,

Nor is the BB, nor the multiverse, nor evolution, but we can find evidence for all of them to one degree or another.

they are made specifically to be that way.

They are not made, but they are esoteric.

In fact, if we look at how God changed over time, he went from being a deity that walked and talked to humanity openly and performed copious miracles that should have left evidence but conveniently didn't, to the inscrutable, invisible, intangible being we have today that nobody can ever prove because he's designed that way.

It makes me think that someone knows it's all bunk and is doing their best to hide it.

No it shows that everything evolvs from lesser simpler things to more complex things. He shows you that in many ways, just as he shows you how the universe itself develops

 

[Robert.Evans]

It's okay to not know the answer.

Sure. But the beginning of this argument was not that.

 

[Cephus]

It's okay to not know the answer.

What is not okay is to just make something up because you're uncomfortable not knowing the answer. That's what far too many theists do.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

If it was intellectually valid, it would be. The fact that it isn't puts it into the same category as alien abductions and Bigfoot sightings. Religious experiences are neither repeatable nor testable, they are made specifically to be that way. In fact, if we look at how God changed over time, he went from being a deity that walked and talked to humanity openly and performed copious miracles that should have left evidence but conveniently didn't, to the inscrutable, invisible, intangible being we have today that nobody can ever prove because he's designed that way.

It makes me think that someone knows it's all bunk and is doing their best to hide it.

God requires personal faith, you cannot force a person to love you, or it's not love is it? So it's entirely consistent that he would not want to force 'proof' on you if you do not seek it for yourself.

It is entirely consistent that the wonders of the universe are laid out in a way that so perfectly tests our ingenuity, curiosity to it's fullest, so that we can learn and appreciate it to it's fullest.

Yet there is no particular reason for an accidental mechanism to accidentally do the same, that has to be chalked up to yet another bizarre fluke.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

God requires personal faith, you cannot force a person to love you, or it's not love is it? So it's entirely consistent that he would not want to force 'proof' on you if you do not seek it for yourself.

Try that technique: find the person who you want to love you, and then hide from them. Let me know how it works out.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Try that technique: find the person who you want to love you, and then hide from them. Let me know how it works out.

Worked out pretty well for God apparently didn't it? several billion found him by looking

 

[Copernicus]

Worked out pretty well for God apparently didn't it? several billion found him by looking

Either that, or they just imagined that they found him.

 

[Willamena]

What is not okay is to just make something up because you're uncomfortable not knowing the answer. That's what far too many theists do.

Yes. Far too many people do that in general, about everything.

 

[Cephus]

Yes. Far too many people do that in general, about everything.

And it is irrational no matter who does it and for what reason.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Worked out pretty well for God apparently didn't it? several billion found him by looking

You're jumping to conclusions by assuming that these people "found God" just because they believe in a god.

... and if they did find him, if they knew enough about him to know to look for him, he must not have done a good job of hiding, did he?