Isn't it better to be atheists?

[Trailblazer]

We can respect one another's beliefs without rancor. In the end, we will know

Yes we can and we will know.

 

[sealchan]

LOL, no atheist argument can survive two words ¨prove it¨. Thatś the way it has been since the first unbeliever existed.

That is the exact opposite of my understanding. It is the literalist Bible believer who has all the burden of proof still after 2000 years of inaction, while science has made it possible (computers, internet...) for you to say this non-sensical thing about where lies the burden of proof. Science has been the model for, and doing all the work of establishing just what proof is all about and transforming the world year after year in the process.

I know God exists in my life because of my personal experience. This is not proof for anyone else nor does it need to be. Have you considered that God wants it to be exactly this way for each of us? If it were logical or objective then where would personal choice of faith come into the picture?

 

[shmogie]

That is the exact opposite of my understanding. It is the literalist Bible believer who has all the burden of proof still after 2000 years of inaction, while science has made it possible (computers, internet...) for you to say this non-sensical thing about where lies the burden of proof. Science has been the model for, and doing all the work of establishing just what proof is all about and transforming the world year after year in the process.

I know God exists in my life because of my personal experience. This is not proof for anyone else nor does it need to be. Have you considered that God wants it to be exactly this way for each of us? If it were logical or objective then where would personal choice of faith come into the picture?

Sorry, but you don;'t understand what proof is. Proof is absolute, proof is irrefutable. Science to this point has not answered any of the major philosophical questions of humanity to the point of being absolute. Science does not decide what proof is. That is like a prosecutor telling the jury what proof is. That is nonsense, both the prosecution and defense submit evidence, the jury decides from an evaluation of the evidence where the proof is.

You might say that science, because of the wonderous things it does, makes it qualified to tell me what proof is. That too is nonsense, the jury decides, not they. I am the jury, my decision for me is based upon the equal presentation of two body's of evidence, that I evaluate, and decide what has been proven. It is the same for every human on earth.

You might say that science has done only right things. That again is nonsense. Nuclear weapons, chemical compounds that in use maim or kill, a whole host of unintended unforeseen consequences prove the lie to that.

You might say that what science says is proof. More nonsense. Scientific theory is constantly changing, steady state universe/a created universe. global ice age of the 70's/global warming of the 2,000's. eradication of most of humanity by 2000 of the 60's/ most every person having enough to eat today. Scientific actions as being right and their theories as being right have no special history that would give it any special credence above any other witness.

Therefore science has no special standing, nor authority to decide where the the burden of proof lies in answering the questions mankind has about a whole host of history.

They propose no God exists, I have every right to say prove it. The agnostic has little place in the conversation. There is no evidence to prove "I don't know" other than "I don't know"

 

[Foxic]

Yet religion doesn't adequately answer anything logically in accordance with perceptive and empirical reality. All religion does is fill in the gaps of knowledge with a readily comforting, unprovable, answer instead of reasonably announcing "I don't know".

 

[MonkeyFire]

Believers are born with the evidence they need, skeptics and non-believers naturally don't see it.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Sorry, but you don;'t understand what proof is. Proof is absolute, proof is irrefutable.

My definition of proof is that which convinces. It turns out to be a practical definition.

Science does not decide what proof is. That is like a prosecutor telling the jury what proof is.

Yes. If you can convince a jury, you are said to have proved your case beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury doesn't even have to correct for that statement to be true, just convinced.

When a person says, "Prove it to me," he is challenging you to convince him.

You might say that science, because of the wonderous things it does, makes it qualified to tell me what proof is.

Science isn't in that business. It just determines the rules nature works by.

You might say that science has done only right things. That again is nonsense. Nuclear weapons, chemical compounds that in use maim or kill, a whole host of unintended unforeseen consequences prove the lie to that.

Science gets no blame fr the mistakes of government and industry.

They propose no God exists, I have every right to say prove it.

Science has no position on God. I would assume that every scientist has an opinion about God or gods, most being agnostic atheists, but that's not a part of their work.

There is no evidence to prove "I don't know" other than "I don't know"

Likewise with "I don't believe." Opinions don't need to be proven.

 

[1213]

Po-tay-toe, pah-tah-toe.

Do you ask a dog catcher to explain brain surgery? Or do you ask a brain surgeon?

You as an atheist what "atheism" means-- not a theist.

Please notice, I am not the one who has written the Wikipedia.

 

[shmogie]

My definition of proof is that which convinces. It turns out to be a practical definition.



Yes. If you can convince a jury, you are said to have proved your case beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury doesn't even have to correct for that statement to be true, just convinced.

When a person says, "Prove it to me," he is challenging you to convince him.



Science isn't in that business. It just determines the rules nature works by.



Science gets no blame fr the mistakes of government and industry.



Science has no position on God. I would assume that every scientist has an opinion about God or gods, most being agnostic atheists, but that's not a part of their work.



Likewise with "I don't believe." Opinions don't need to be proven.

Since I am trained in law, I use that terminology. Convinced I think is inadequate. I was once convince that a certain car was reliable, I was unconvinced quite soon. However, if it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt to, that the car ws reliable there was an infinitely greater chance of it being reliable.

You invalidate much of the poster to whom I was responding said.

I think you have missed the context of the burden of proof issue.

An atheist, quite smug about his position, broke into a theological conversation and said "there is no God, prove to me their is" Since I didn't seek him out, and his comments had no relationship to the issue being discussed, to cut to the chase here, I told him to prove that God didn't exist.

I contend, and am right, that when I do not engage in a discussion about evidence of God, and someone challenges me about something I have no interest in discussing, he certainly cannot determine who has the burden of proof on an issue I wasn't interested in at that time. Since he sought me ought with his proclamation, I am under no obligation to prove him wrong, the obligation rests with him to prove himself right.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

An atheist, quite smug about his position, broke into a theological conversation and said "there is no God, prove to me their is" Since I didn't seek him out, and his comments had no relationship to the issue being discussed, to cut to the chase here, I told him to prove that God didn't exist.

I would agree that somebody making that claim has assumed a burden of proof, but with two caveats:

One is that he wants to be believed. If he doesn't care what his audience believes, he can just state his unsupported belief and move on.

The other is that the person one is trying to prove something to routinely scrutinizes evidence and arguments impartially and with both the necessary skills and willingness to be convinced by a compelling argument. There is no burden of proof when dealing with somebody who won't look at evidence or use reason to decide what is true, since as with all teaching, the act is a cooperative process. You can't make a man see or believe what he has a stake in not seeing or believing.

I think we both agree that nobody is qualified to claim that no gods exist.

 

[shmogie]

Yet religion doesn't adequately answer anything logically in accordance with perceptive and empirical reality. All religion does is fill in the gaps of knowledge with a readily comforting, unprovable, answer instead of reasonably announcing "I don't know".

First, the discipline of logic and it's use isn't about "perceptive and empirical reality ". Second, do you make the rules ? Who says truth must be verified by "perceptive and empirical reality " ? Who says you are even interpreting " perceptive and reality" properly ? These may work absolutely perfectly for you, but you have no authority to condemn others to your tools only.

I could argue, from philosophy, and logic that your tools have failed you, and you are unable to know reality, I won;'t.

Others may use other tools to determine their truth, who are you to say that since you don';t know the truth, others with whom you disagree don't know the truth ? Has someone given you authority to do that ? I know the truth, you don't. That appears to be your problem, not mine.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

You cannot say WHY God should prevent evil….

Ooops! I thought that was Captain Obvious: Being All Powerful?

All the Evil-- and I do mean ALL-- is and was created by god.

How could it be otherwise? ALL power is god's-- none left over for silly things like free will, or satan or anything else. Like random acts of Evil....

This should be plain enough, but ... *sigh*

 

[Foxic]

I think we both agree that nobody is qualified to claim that no gods exist.

I would have to disagree.

There are fictional concepts to which we can allude and state with certainty those "characters" don't exist despite having been imagined by the mind. God, just as much a fictional concept as Spider-Man, does not get a pass merely because many people believe in his existence with no real evidence to show to support his existence. It is perfectly, legitimately logical to state with certainty that god does not exist, especially when the world operates on a realistic basis whereby there is zero indication of such a deity existing outside the confines of the human imagination. The burden of proof is then laid upon the theistic shoulder, for the believer is the one making a claim of existence where there is clearly none beyond apologetic personal faith.

 

[shmogie]

Yet religion doesn't adequately answer anything logically in accordance with perceptive and empirical reality. All religion does is fill in the gaps of knowledge with a readily comforting, unprovable, answer instead of reasonably announcing "I don't know".

I would have to disagree.

There are fictional concepts to which we can allude and state with certainty those "characters" don't exist despite having been imagined by the mind. God, just as much a fictional concept as Spider-Man, does not get a pass merely because many people believe in his existence with no real evidence to show to support his existence. It is perfectly, legitimately logical to state with certainty that god does not exist, especially when the world operates on a realistic basis whereby there is zero indication of such a deity existing outside the confines of the human imagination. The burden of proof is then laid upon the theistic shoulder, for the believer is the one making a claim of existence where there is clearly none beyond apologetic personal faith.[/Q

 

[sayak83]

First, the discipline of logic and it's use isn't about "perceptive and empirical reality ". Second, do you make the rules ? Who says truth must be verified by "perceptive and empirical reality " ? Who says you are even interpreting " perceptive and reality" properly ? These may work absolutely perfectly for you, but you have no authority to condemn others to your tools only.

I could argue, from philosophy, and logic that your tools have failed you, and you are unable to know reality, I won;'t.

Others may use other tools to determine their truth, who are you to say that since you don';t know the truth, others with whom you disagree don't know the truth ? Has someone given you authority to do that ? I know the truth, you don't. That appears to be your problem, not mine.

There is a near infinite set of possible kinds of God that can exist, a small subset of which has been sampled by human theologies upto now. For each of these possible ways God(S) could be, there is an apriori equal probability of that God(S) could not be. So total probability of 1 is the sum of apriori probabilities of all possible incompatible conceptions of God with the sum of probabilities of non-existence of each of these conceptions of God.

Now, each of these probabilities are extremely small (both of existence of a particular X as God or its non-existence as God... for all X types) .However the existence of any of the Gods impact human actions distinctly, while all their non-existence have identical absence of impact on human action. Example... humans need to act differently in a universe where Zeus is Supreme vs a universe where Yhwh is Supreme. On the contrary all the universes where God of type X is non-existent have similar non-constraint on human action. Thus in the universe where the possible Supreme God Zeus is non-existent is identical in terms of human action where the possible God Yhwh is non-existent. Thus all the non-existent God type universes can be clubbed together as being of same type in terms of human actions while all the existent God type universes remain distinct.

This means effective apriori possibility of universes where human actions are unconstrained by the various Gods is 50% while that where any specific God constrains human actions is very very small.

Hence the burden of making a specific God plausible lies squarely on the shoulder of a theist who believes in a specific Supreme God. Logically.

 

[shmogie]

You disabuse the term logic. It isn´t about a variety of factors that you believes leads to certain conclusions.

Logic is a thought discipline that explores truth based on a series of propositions. A syllogism is a tool of logic. Here are some extremely simple and short syllogisms. Nothing cannot create something, something exists, therefore something created everything. Another. The universe began, everything that begins ends, therefore the universe will end. One you will like. I cannot see God, I can see everything that exists, therefore there is no God. Another. I cannot see everything that exists, I cannot see God, therefore God could exist. This is logic, logical thinking. Syllogismś can go on to be very long .
Please don´t say you are being logical or are using logic when you are supporting your opinion. Logical means using the rules of logic to reach a conclusion , the same as it meant to the ancient Greeks who developed the discipline, as it means today. Until I studied it, I disabused the word as well.

 

[shmogie]

There is a near infinite set of possible kinds of God that can exist, a small subset of which has been sampled by human theologies upto now. For each of these possible ways God(S) could be, there is an apriori equal probability of that God(S) could not be. So total probability of 1 is the sum of apriori probabilities of all possible incompatible conceptions of God with the sum of probabilities of non-existence of each of these conceptions of God.

Now, each of these probabilities are extremely small (both of existence of a particular X as God or its non-existence as God... for all X types) .However the existence of any of the Gods impact human actions distinctly, while all their non-existence have identical absence of impact on human action. Example... humans need to act differently in a universe where Zeus is Supreme vs a universe where Yhwh is Supreme. On the contrary all the universes where God of type X is non-existent have similar non-constraint on human action. Thus in the universe where the possible Supreme God Zeus is non-existent is identical in terms of human action where the possible God Yhwh is non-existent. Thus all the non-existent God type universes can be clubbed together as being of same type in terms of human actions while all the existent God type universes remain distinct.

This means effective apriori possibility of universes where human actions are unconstrained by the various Gods is 50% while that where any specific God constrains human actions is very very small.

Hence the burden of making a specific God plausible lies squarely on the shoulder of a theist who believes in a specific Supreme God. Logically.

See my post on the use of logic to another poster in this thread
. Your conclusion is not logical.

 

[sayak83]

See my post on the use of logic to another poster in this thread
. Your conclusion is not logical.

It is entirely logical. It's simply based on the Mathematics of probability and modal logic.
Did you take an actual course on logic?

Did you understand the logic behind my post. Do you want it in explicit syllogism and equations?

 

[shmogie]

It is entirely logical. It's simply based on the Mathematics of probability and modal logic.
Did you take an actual course on logic?

Did you understand the logic behind my post. Do you want it in explicit syllogism and equations?

I saw some logic, some opinion.The use of random probabilities does not necessarily result in logical conclusions I understand and use syllogisms, the equations unless rudimentary, would probably be beyond me. I did not take a formal course in a brick and mortar university. My University courses did not include logic, my undergraduate degrees are in another discipline. I have a series of video recorded university lectures, as well as having done some reading on the subject. Further, the CS Lewis institute broadcasts lectures, some extremely heavy in logic.
I have no burden of proof regarding anything, unless I make specific claims to someone within the context of a discussion I have initiated. IF someone initiates a discussion with me by claiming ¨ there is no God ¨, I have no burden to prove anything. The burden is with him to prove his claim.

 

[sayak83]

I saw some logic, some opinion.The use of random probabilities does not necessarily result in logical conclusions I understand and use syllogisms, the equations unless rudimentary, would probably be beyond me. I did not take a formal course in a brick and mortar university. My University courses did not include logic, my undergraduate degrees are in another discipline. I have a series of video recorded university lectures, as well as having done some reading on the subject. Further, the CS Lewis institute broadcasts lectures, some extremely heavy in logic.
I have no burden of proof regarding anything, unless I make specific claims to someone within the context of a discussion I have initiated. IF someone initiates a discussion with me by claiming ¨ there is no God ¨, I have no burden to prove anything. The burden is with him to prove his claim.

Cool. You do not wish to have a debate. You are free to believe as you will. Wish you the best.

 

[shmogie]

Cool. You do not wish to have a debate. You are free to believe as you will. Wish you the best.

Since you initiated the discussion, and I assume you believe there is no God, the burden of proof is with you. I understand why you think best to not accept it.
Have a great evening !