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circumstantial evidence to Gods existence

Thumper

Thumper

Thank the gods I'm an atheist
Guy Threepwood said:
correct, and any particular sequence of 20 cards, is just as improbable as 4 royal flushes, right?

So how do we know he's probably cheating?
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No, wrong. There is a huge mathematical difference between combinations and permutations. Please stop abusing probability theory.
 
Thumper

Thumper

Thank the gods I'm an atheist
Sapiens said:
You are missing the point. Every time I drop a rock it falls in the same fashion and I can count on gravity being predictable enough to orbit a satellite despite its lack of visible strings and measurable pressures. Prayer, on the other hand, can not be predictably counted on and it is not "answered" at a frequency exceeding that which would be expected by purely random processes, So is it not foolish to have a misguided sense that someone is listening? Remember, your god appears to hate amputees, or perhaps loves salamanders more than people.
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And trees. God hates trees, if lightning is any measure.
 
Guy Threepwood

Guy Threepwood

Mighty Pirate
Thumper said:
No, wrong. There is a huge mathematical difference between combinations and permutations. Please stop abusing probability theory.
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i.e, it's not that this result is any more improbable in itself, but that this particular result provides a hypothetical motive, which in turn provides an explanation with higher odds, you see?
 
Sapiens

Sapiens

Polymathematician
rrosskopf said:
There are people who believe, from their own experience, that prayer can be predictably counted on. I rely on prayer to give me answers to my questions. I am rarely disappointed. Some people are better at praying than others. Studies on prayer are mixed; some show an advantage and others do not.
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I would argue that your own experience is invalid due to confirmation bias. To the best of my knowledge no study has ever, in the final analysis, ever shown prayer to be useful. Every study that had showed even a week response was shown to be poorly designed, improperly conducted or incompetently analyzed. Not controlling for confirmation bias, the fact that humans are more inclined to recognize confirmations of their faith than they are to recognize disconfirmations is often at the root of the problem, as is the fact that existing empirical studies often limit themselves to prayers for relatively unmiraculous events, such as recovery from heart surgery.

I suggest that you get all Mormons to pray for a single amputee. Get them to pray that their God regrow that missing limb. What do you think the outcome of this entirely objective test would be?
 
Dave Smith

Dave Smith

Member
Nowhere Man said:
The judicial system is flawed in that respect. It allows for a percentage of irrationality and emotion to interfere with the actuality of events and the determination of facts thus leading to random and erroneous conclusions for a noticeable part.

Circumstantial convictions are void of the veracity that is required to determine the facts as it stands, and impacts any reliability by which conclusions are made.

I'm uncomfortable with any court system that convicts people on a margin of error and that goes for religions that employ the same things as well.

Circumstances can help out in providing direction and a place to look, so there is value, but without supporting facts to back up and confirm, it's simply not good enough on its own merits if determining the actual truth means anything.
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clearly the majority of people don't agree with that statement and is self evident by the fact that they support a system of law that does rely on circumstantial evidence. obviously you are entitled to your own opinion about what evidence you will and will not accept but that in no way makes it valid by any appeal to authority
 
C

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
Guy Threepwood said:
If you created your own universe, with your own rules and mechanisms, you wouldn't want to maintain any communication with your sentient creations? it's only logical is it not?
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The lack of such communication is the main reason I don't believe in religion. The evidence is very simple. The people who claim to know more about god than I do cannot agree on much of anything important, despite prayers and prophets and all that stuff. The one thing I know about god is that He doesn't much care what I believe.
Tom
 
Dave Smith

Dave Smith

Member
Sapiens said:
That's what is known as a "strawman argument." You make something up, ascribe it to someone and then attempt to discredit them with what you have made up. That dog doesn't hunt.
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do you then deny your willingness to believe in something that you or anyone else has never experienced - Please explain what gives you confidence in what you believe - about the dog, I think it did just hunt you down and bite you're arse, which is why you scream foul so loud :)
 
Thumper

Thumper

Thank the gods I'm an atheist
Dave Smith said:
clearly the majority of people don't agree with that statement and is self evident by the fact that they support a system of law that does rely on circumstantial evidence. obviously you are entitled to your own opinion about what evidence you will and will not accept but that in no way makes it valid by any appeal to authority
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Not if all you've got is the circumstantial evidence.
 
rrosskopf

rrosskopf

LDS High Priest
Sapiens said:
I suggest that you get all Mormons to pray for a single amputee.
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There are some well publicized events that fall just short of that. Mary Johnson had a use-less withered arm when she went to see the Mormon prophet. Joseph Smith commanded that her arm be made whole. Who has that kind of confidence? Apparently he did, and the arm was made whole. She eventually joined the church with her minister friend who accompanied her to the meeting and also saw the miracle.
A young man had his leg shot off at the Hawn's Mill Massacre. His mother exercised faith in God, and God told her what to do to save the leg. He was able to walk again.
I don't know of any cases involving amputation, but there are cases where people have seen others resurrected.
 
F

Furball

Member
Sorry my friend. I Know some theist who are far brighter than you and me both.
There are theist who are smarter, brighter and probably have a better understanding of anything scientific than everyone in this forum.
I Can't see how stupidity comes into play here.

It might be true that less educated people will usually turn to religion, this doesn't make the statement "Theists are stupid" in any way though.[/QUOTE]


Just because someone is smart in other areas of life such as science doesn't come into play when discussing religion. It has absolutely nothing to do with it. Theists are considered stupid in the sense that in spite of having their beliefs proved 100% wrong, they still continue to believe. It's been noted before how bizarre it is that otherwise rational, sane people who use critical thinking in all other areas of their lives yet never use these same abilities when it comes to religious absurdities is utterly baffling. Myself, I am a science buff with high intelligence, yet when I look back on my days as a theist, I consider myself as having been "stupid" for having ever believed in it. If your theist friends are smarter than everyone here on this board and their chosen profession is science itself, then them believing in theistic scriptures that are completely UN-scientific shows just how NOT smart they actually are. People can have all the degrees in the world hanging on their wall, but if they lack common sense, then they aren't as smart you brag they are.
 
Thumper

Thumper

Thank the gods I'm an atheist
rrosskopf said:
There are some well publicized events that fall just short of that. Mary Johnson had a use-less withered arm when she went to see the Mormon prophet. Joseph Smith commanded that her arm be made whole. Who has that kind of confidence? Apparently he did, and the arm was made whole. She eventually joined the church with her minister friend who accompanied her to the meeting and also saw the miracle.
A young man had his leg shot off at the Hawn's Mill Massacre. His mother exercised faith in God, and God told her what to do to save the leg. He was able to walk again.
I don't know of any cases involving amputation, but there are cases where people have seen others resurrected.
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Pictures please.

The incident of miracles is inversely proportional to the availability of camera phones.
 
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