can you proove there isn't a deity?

[1robin]

That is world wide. In any given situation the numbers can be far more or far less. The percentage in Iraq will be far less than Texas.

My data sets were world wide. I am aware they vary by region but if I must guess at them the only (though many times it would be off quite a bit) basis I have is a general statistic. I went with whatever numbers I was given by the poster but that was the best guess I could make until they were. I agree with you but my very inadequate efforts at approximation were made out of necessity and lack of time.

These two seem very contradictory. Can you explain more clearly why you hold both notions?

I think so.

If I said 1% of the earths population believes that Bigfoot exists (or even claims to have experienced him). Since we can almost be certain that bigfoot does not exist then that means that the 30% of humans who have ever lived that believe powered flight was possible must also be wrong. MY point was that the incorrectness of a small fringe populations beliefs cannot indicted the beliefs of a vastly larger populations beliefs by association or equality.

I hope this explained it better. I did not see any contradictions per se'. I assumed you just did not understand what I was trying to say. To be fair the person who I thought claimed this has said he was not attempting to do that but I explained my claims made in the understanding that he had done so.

 

[1robin]

I couldn't believe someone could actually say such things when I read it either.

Oh dear, is all I can come up with in response.
Obviously you did better than that.

I am quite sure you did see the same tings the other person did. You both make the exact same arguments and think the same way from my observations. As I pointed out to them. Mistakes they made of taking a hypothetical as a suggestion, or an observation as a defense of a right, and extrapolating from a logical deduction to a moral justification made my post into something it was never intended to be (which is extremely and all together far too commonly done). If you actually address my claims in a post to me I will point out any appalling claims I made are only appalling if your distort them, misapply them, or take them in a context that was not intended.

This must be taught at Berkley, Harvard, etc... in liberal 101 classes or something. Every very liberal debater in every subjects prime directive seems to be.

Prime directive #1. Defend death and immorality by referring to moral truths that do not exist and distorting any claims made by a more traditional and conservative poster by any means necessary. This is required to create the illusion of a false moral low ground that the defender of life and actual moral truth is chained to by the liberal using distortion and inaccuracy. If desperate use semantics and if all else fails pick on their grammar or just call them names.

-If they are monetarily responsible then say they want to take grandmother's health care away.
-If they want to maintain the protections that guarantee our freedoms call them war mongers.
-If they oppose killing infants by the millions in the womb claim they are against women's rights. Deny any reference to fetus rights and ignore claims of hypocrisy.
-If they oppose soft tyranny call them unpatriotic.
-If they oppose a sexual preference practiced by 4% of Americans that produces 60% of aids cases claim they are homophobic and that aids acts in the opposite manner in Africa.
-No matter how certain a claim is if it is associated the supernatural deny it's validity, no matter how speculative a claim is if associated with the natural, affirm it's validity. Just yell "science" and claim the Geneva convention mandates that anything is true if that word is used.


Defend death and immorality at all costs, and never ever equate the world view most associated with love and goodness in history, under any circumstances what so ever, with morality, even if it is the only foundation for moral truth possible. Now children go forth and ruin everything and call it progress.

Sorry, "once I get going I am too lazy to stop". If you can tell me who that quote is from without looking it up I will buy you a Daniel Webster cigar. You have to admit that even if sarcastic that list is funny and tragic. Take it as such.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

I will make it even easier. You can say for example that saving a child from drowning is good, then prove to me you can know it actually is good.

Easy as pie:

It is good to protect human life when possible. Therefore I know that protecting a human child from drowning is good.

Now I'll take your turn for you:

I, 1robin, have used my personal, human, fallible mind to pick One True God from the many Gods. Also, I have used my personal, human, fallible mind to decide that my chosen God believes that it is good to protect human life. Therefore I know that protecting a human child from drowning is good.

Notice that my proof is shorter and clearer and more rational than yours.

 

[Sonofason]

Easy as pie:

It is good to protect human life when possible. Therefore I know that protecting a human child from drowning is good.

Now I'll take your turn for you:

I, 1robin, have used my personal, human, fallible mind to pick One True God from the many Gods. Also, I have used my personal, human, fallible mind to decide that my chosen God believes that it is good to protect human life. Therefore I know that protecting a human child from drowning is good.

Notice that my proof is shorter and clearer and more rational than yours.

But not protecting an unborn human child from abortion, right?

I mean, we wouldn't want to make any laws restricting women from killing unborn children right, especially if that child might be a future burden to that mother, right?

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

But not protecting an unborn human child from abortion, right?

Unborn human children can't be aborted. Only zygotes, embryoes and fetuses can be aborted.

I mean, we wouldn't want to make any laws restricting women from killing unborn children right, especially if that child might be a future burden to that mother, right?

No idea what you are talking about. You'll have to go slower for me.

 

[Sonofason]

Unborn human children can't be aborted. Only zygotes, embryoes and fetuses can be aborted.



No idea what you are talking about. You'll have to go slower for me.

No doubt.

 

[1robin]

Unborn human children can't be aborted. Only zygotes, embryoes and fetuses can be aborted.

This is proof your moral system is an abject failure. It allows you to think taking human lives by the millions out of convenience, can be made right by using semantics to label an action into being moral. Thank God almighty people who think like this have been held in check by theists.

 

[1robin]

Easy as pie:

It is good to protect human life when possible. Therefore I know that protecting a human child from drowning is good.

Now I'll take your turn for you:

I, 1robin, have used my personal, human, fallible mind to pick One True God from the many Gods. Also, I have used my personal, human, fallible mind to decide that my chosen God believes that it is good to protect human life. Therefore I know that protecting a human child from drowning is good.

Notice that my proof is shorter and clearer and more rational than yours.

You can't defend your own position. Do not be putting forward mine. Your work is still all before you. Prove protecting life (that is unless you want to take it by labeling it a more convenient term) is wrong or preserving human life (which comes at the expense of all other life) is a moral truth. You can't redefine morality into equaling some arbitrary sound bite about preserving life. You must prove that you know it is moral. Cows, chickens, and pigs would say you are practicing speciation at heir expense based on arrogance and species that is just as immoral as racism.

 

[s2a]

Yes. I can prove there is no deity.

Next?

 

[Sonofason]

This is proof your moral system is an abject failure. It allows you to think taking human lives by the millions out of convenience, can be made right by using semantics to label an action into being moral. Thank God almighty people who think like this have been held in check by theists.

Well said.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Ok the relevance to me of a discussion is almost always in how it impacts Christianity.

Yup. Understood. Just clarifying that I'm not arguing directly against Christianity, but I'm okay with you arguing from a Christian viewpoint.

In your example the data set would be approximately this:

1. 2 billon plus that make explicit and emphatic claims to have experienced God using the Bible as a road map.
2. Maybe tens of millions who make explicit and emphatic claims of having supernatural experiences that are not consistent with the bible.
3. Another group of several million that have negative experiences with the supernatural that are consistent with the Bible but are not of God or Christ.

I'd quibble that 2 billion plus Christians make explicit and emphatic claims to have experienced God. I know many who would not make that claim (and plenty who would). But let's say I go with 50/50. Still makes a billion, so I understand your point (like I said...a quibble...)

Evaluation methodology: Groups that have supernatural experiences consistent with the bible are so vast a proportion of the general population and so much larger than the group that had experiences inconsistent with the bible that any lessons drawn from the smaller group are virtually irrelevant in considering the veracity of the much larger biblically consistent group.

That's one way of reading it. But it only works if you assume Biblical beliefs are true.

Conclusion: The claims of biblically consistent supernatural experiences are likely true and valid. The claims of the far smaller groups are consistent with fringe group mentality and are in all likely hood false.

How do you reach that conclusion? It's unsupportable unless you use a leading assumption that it's true before you start, or alternatively work from a simple appeal to numbers.

You threw in some points about replacement effects that I did not understand and I would not think have any significant impact on my claim.

No effect on your claim, that's true. I was offering an alternative version of this which did not feature Christians, merely as a way of demonstrating this wasn't ABOUT Christians. I understand that the equation is different from your worldview (ie. Christianity is true)

It also gets much worse than this because what you can first hand have knowledge of for witchcraft claims to the supernatural would be only a few hundred or thousand. You claims may very well be true concerning millions but are not reliable enough to include in a study.

Meh, I could probably prove them if I had to, to be honest. But we're not actually IN a scientific study, I was merely trying to explain my thought process. I would readily admit that my first hand knowledge is indicative only because of additional reading I have done, and doesn't mean too much in and of itself. But given my thoughts on your position (ie. based on a presupposition of correctness, or an appeal to numbers) it would make no difference if I could prove all 7 million PNG residents were both Christians and pagans in any case.

The very nature of Christian theology makes all Christians members of a data set that includes 2 billion claims to the supernatural. Statistics are very hard to use. I had three classes in them and wound up hating them.

I understand. I was a psych major, and stats was a key component.

I have no reason to doubt this but it is also non-typical in the fact that it's Christians mostly come from witchcraft backgrounds which would offset their higher percentages. IOW you live in a place prone to the mixing of witchcraft and Christianity that is not indicative of most of the world. I bet it makes for interesting conversations however.

Yep. Agree on all counts with this. Don't live there anymore (just for clarity).

What is SDA? I do not recognize the acronym.

Seventh Day Adventists.
Lutherans and Catholics were the other main religions I came across, but there were a couple of local Christian churches that were quite large, but which I lacked understanding in their beliefs (beyond the basic).

I would imagine where you live is extremely conducive and prone to a mixing and contradictory theological resultant. It is not however typical of Christianity as a whole and there for makes it a terrible data set for generalized beliefs and Christianity. In Christian theology Satan has had a stronghold in your nation for a long time. He will not give it up without a fight and what you observe is exactly what I would expect if that was true. The same is true of ministries that treat the addicted. You would find many Christians who are truly born again that still have trouble with old habits.

My points are related to the veracity of claimed belief and the fact that people would claim experiences regardless. I understand that other interpretations are possible if working from the perspective that Christianity is true.

I would have sworn you were making points very similar to this but I can certainly be wrong.

And I could be communicating my point poorly. But no, that's not what I'm trying to say.
Otherwise, all I need to do is find one imbecile who holds inconsistent beliefs, and hey presto! I can 'scientifically' prove whatever I like is wrong.

What I am talking about (and would readily admit I cannot prove, but only surmise) is that the majority of supernatural belief held by people is false. Perhaps there is supernatural things I don't understand, but my supposition is that the contradictory nature of the various beliefs on Earth indicate to me that much of what is believed is false.

I would go further than this, to also suggest that any meaningful supernatural belief system has a proportion of observers who claim personal experience, and that in my mind this therefore leads me to similarly suppose that people commonly claim beliefs either falsely, or via an interpretation which relies on their pre-existing belief system.

Make sense? (even if you don't agree...just trying to work out if I'm communicating my position effectively)

Continued below:[/QUOTE]

 

[lewisnotmiller]

That would be the same as rejecting most of cosmology, most of medical theory, and most of aspects associated with the opposite sex, etc.... Personal experience is not the only access to truth. If I conclude .5% of humans believe in Big foot I would probably ignore it. If I conclude billions claim to have experienced God even if I had not I would take it very seriously. People grant validity or assume validity for things that are only claimed by tiny fractions of the population based on the quality of the claim or it's claimant's credentials or trustworthiness. When a belief is held by a huge portion of the population and also has great detail and consistency it it's claims along with the greatest credibility of those who claim it (Billy Graham, Mother Theresa, etc...) dismissing or ignoring it becomes suspicious.

Really? I think that's the first time I've been called suspicious...lol
Well, fair enough. I'm just some words on the other end of a screen to you, so I know it's not personal. I think the key components you are missing in your hypothesis are the contradictory nature of other claims, plus the lack of the sort of empirical evidence which a mass claim of Bigfoot would result in.

A massive percentage of the PNG population told me witchcraft was real. Its not convincing. I have no reason to doubt that if the whole WORLD was at the same primitive level of education as PNG, and with similar backgrounds, this would be consistent across the globe. Belief and faith are not the same as discovery of a new species (for example) which is, at the end of the day, pretty mundane, and fits within the empirical evidence of the world around me.

In short, I neither believe nor disbelieve in medical theory. I merely suppose it is humanity's collective best guess based on current knowledge. As with cosmology, etc. If anyone told me they have 100% the complete and utter truth of medical theory, and that it's inalienable and unchangeable, you can bet your bottom dollar I'd disbelieve it.

Agreed but I would have lower expectations than you because the commitment to witchcraft is not academic it is emotional or superstitious. Knowledge only counters knowledge based claims.

You mean you would work from an assumption that it's false, due to your pre-existing beliefs. It's fair enough, I would do that same. I find the proposition that I should believe in unproveable things as logically incoherent, whilst also being beneficial to some people. One of the reasons I find theology interesting.

Are you claiming that you believe both are false but Christianity has been designed so as to be more impervious to disproving?

Almost, yes. I think 'designed' is probably making it sound more deliberate and suspicious (to use your word) than I mean. I would, instead, suggest that one belief system has evolved, whilst the other has not. I would offer (for example) the OT versus the NT as an example of developing belief.

You do not have access to the data to know this. However lets grant that you do. 35%of a population that is uniquely susceptible to witchcraft exhibiting beliefs in it is not significant. If I said the Christian population of the Vatican is 80% that would not mean very much. The larger the data or polling set the better. It removes local anomalies impact on the data like you have. The largest data set available is what I have been using. Statistics never produce known truths. They produce likely hoods or probabilities. I would never suggest even the 2 billion peoples claims to experiencing God is a be all end all argument. However combined with a thousand more just as compelling makes the Bible the best explanation for reality of any known candidate. Numbers do count but they alone are not usually convincing nor should they be. I was dealing only with numbers because that was the primary context of your posts. I have more arguments just as compelling or more so for the Bible than you have time and maybe the desire deal with. However let me know and I will lay a few out from the start.

I can talk about this stuff all day, so feel free. But I'm not sure how productive it would be given our different starting points. In terms of the 35%, you're right. It's at best a guesstimate, and I don't claim it as scientific. My nature is to be very conservative on these sort of things, since it's what I build my worldview on, and are therefore something I take seriously. 'Losing' an argument only adds to my worldview, whereas lying or exagerating about such things only robs me of this opportunity for no benefit. I don't get the 'try to win a debate' mindset. Anywhooos...that is neither convincing, nor proof against me simply being mistaken about things.

(But in this case I'm not...)

The case for Christ would be a good one. A William lane Crag debate on the evidence for the resurrection another, and a Ravi Zacharias speech of the empirical burdens of the Gospels another. If you let me know exactly which part you found the most interesting I can be more helpful. Maybe the best is a paper written by Simon Greenleaf (maybe the greatest expert on testimony and evidence in human history and co-founder of Harvard law). It is a legendary legal examination of the Gospel accounts. I will give you the link.
Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf

Hmmm...well, I have no actual problem with the concept of a historical Jesus, at a simple level. If you have links to the Craig debate you mean I'd be interested. Zacharias....not 100% sure what you mean by the empirical burdens of the Gospels, but it sounds likely.
I've read some Greenleaf, and I'm less enamored, but perhaps that is merely my bias showing...lol

I would not find beliefs that had no spiritual or supernatural aspect to them worthy of note. If this life and materialism are the totality of reality then everything becomes very trivial to me. This life is an ultimately meaningless, pointless, purposeless, trivial, cosmic blink in time without the supernatural. We are simply biological anomalies with no actual dignity, equality, moral truths, or destiny without God. At best life becomes a transitory, arbitrary, accident without something beyond mere nature. That doe snot make the supernatural true but it does make it significant. Before I gave up on it I would exhaust any possibility it could be true.

I can understand that viewpoint. If I could ask you a question on it?
Why does a Creator and eternal life, etc actually make life more meaningful in your view? That's something I can't really connect to.

That is a good point but not one that really effects what I said. Christians more than any other faith in history have adopted beliefs completely foreign to them. I am not saying that makes them true. I am saying their source is often not wishful thinking, nor tradition, or expectations of any kind. Right or wrong the only explanation for much of a Christians faith is the quality of the evidence. I was speaking about sincerity and merit alone as motivation, not any kind of proven certainty.

Okay. Well, I'd grant the honesty of much belief.

 

[outhouse]

I do not care what you think about me, nor your sarcastic commentaries. No one was mentioned in my claim so no one was judged. I made a conclusion from what is true about a belief not an individual. Your the one writing textual versions of violent actions in their posts. I have a very easy way for you to prove me wrong if your non-evidenced based assertion was true.


Prove a single action is a known good thing, and that everyone would notice it.

I will make it even easier, forget the noticing it part. Prove to me any action you can thing of is an objective moral good without God.

I will make it even easier. You can say for example that saving a child from drowning is good, then prove to me you can know it actually is good.


Tests do not get any easier if you are right. Good luck.

Your not making a lick of sense.


Things that are good or bad have nothing at all to do with religion, it has everything to do with human nature.

 

[psychoslice]

can you prove there isn't a deity?....no I can't, but can you ?.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

This is proof your moral system is an abject failure. It allows you to think taking human lives by the millions out of convenience, can be made right by using semantics to label an action into being moral. Thank God almighty people who think like this have been held in check by theists.

Actually it's evidence of the confusion of your own moral outlook.

Only a confused moralist would relabel a tiny glob of tissue in a woman's belly as a 'child' in order to rail against killing children.

Semantics indeed.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

You can't defend your own position. Do not be putting forward mine. Your work is still all before you. Prove protecting life (that is unless you want to take it by labeling it a more convenient term) is wrong or preserving human life (which comes at the expense of all other life) is a moral truth. You can't redefine morality into equaling some arbitrary sound bite about preserving life. You must prove that you know it is moral. Cows, chickens, and pigs would say you are practicing speciation at heir expense based on arrogance and species that is just as immoral as racism.

Geez, when you miss a guy's whole point, you really miss a guy's whole point. So let me say it in a simple, declarative sentence.

You cannot defend your position that God loves human life.

You cannot know that God wants us to save the drowning child.

Your morality is as personal, as fallible, as individual as everyone else's. You just make up a God and claim that you're reciting His opinion -- rather than admitting that you are actually reciting your own opinion.

I find my moral outlook way superior to that of God-using moralists.

 

[SkepticThinker]

That is exactly wrong. WE are drawn toward what we like not what is good. Many of us get as far away from what is actually good as we can. People without God do not notice good because good does not mean anything objectively. You simply redefine what you like or prefer as good, then redefine morality as what you think is good. Because you deny the half of reality that makes all this stuff actually coherent you have to define your system into coherence by arbitrary means.

Speak for yourself.

People without god do not notice good?! What a crock.

 

[SkepticThinker]

This is proof your moral system is an abject failure. It allows you to think taking human lives by the millions out of convenience, can be made right by using semantics to label an action into being moral. Thank God almighty people who think like this have been held in check by theists.

Um, theists get abortions too.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Um, theists get abortions too.

I'm sure that all true theists agree with 1robin's moral opinions, down to the most subtle of details.

 

[Contemplative Cat]

Well let me take a whack at it...

Evidence will suggest that their is no deity or personal God, this doesn't necessarily discredit the idea of an Impersonal God, which is considered a term used to describe the Absolute reality.

When a deity appears, it appears;
Different to each person, which means its subjective. A sign that the perception is simply a hallucination.
When people claim to have been visited by god, they are the only person to receive a "vision".

If it were REAL then it would be relative to all present.
If by chance, the experience was of a lifeform relative to all present, then even then the perception is subjetive to the quality of the senses, thus its an object.
God is the Creator of objects, so an object cannot be God(it could be one with God, but not God itself)

These are the problems with the theory of deity.