To any Atheists, I Have a Few Scenarios for you to Look At.

[Alceste]

So, basically, you're a deist. Now we have something to work with. Generally atheists don't outright reject deist-type gods. They may see them as extraneous, but they don't reject them like they do theistic gods. So, your form of god isn't one they're talking about when they say "God doesn't exist".

True. Deist-type gods provide nothing of substance for an atheist to sink her teeth into. Since they tend to be the writers of natural law rather than supernatural entities who operate outside the laws of nature, they are pretty compatible with a non-supernatural world view. (As DarkSun's Einstein quote demonstrates). Frankly, though, I think there is more credible evidence for M theory, which implies there (possibly) never was a "beginning", but instead infinite universes resulting from collisions of 11 dimensional membranes. So even a deist creator is superfluous.

 

[Magic Man]

True. Deist-type gods provide nothing of substance for an atheist to sink her teeth into. Since they tend to be the writers of natural law rather than supernatural entities who operate outside the laws of nature, they are pretty compatible with a non-supernatural world view. (As DarkSun's Einstein quote demonstrates). Frankly, though, I think there is more credible evidence for M theory, which implies there (possibly) never was a "beginning", but instead infinite universes resulting from collisions of 11 dimensional membranes. So even a deist creator is superfluous.

Yes, as I said, most atheists would see a deistic god as extraneous or superfluous, and you and I are examples of that. I don't necessarily reject such a concept, I just have no need for it. I also don't have much need for M theory or string theory really, since I just don't care that much. I am fascinated with what they come up with (and I watch all the Science Channel shows about that subject), but in the end, I just don't care all that much whether it was an intelligent being or M theory that started it all.

 

[Pure-Truth]

Imagine these scenarios:

1 - You're a native American living freely in Europe. One night, you have a dream about white men coming to your land in big ships. The dream turns bleak. You dream of sickness, of disease, of death, of pain all because of the white men. When you wake up, you were so sure that the dream was real - but when you tell your elders they automatically console you... and tell you that such a thing will never happen, and that it was all a figment of your imagination. You keep believing what you saw to be true, and eventually everyone around you gives up on you as being deluded. Prove that the girl's dream was wrong.

2 - You're living in England in the 1750s. You have a firm view in mind that all swans are white. Someone then travels to Australia fifty years later and sends you back a letter telling you that they saw a black swan. But this can't be true. Swans are white. Your friend is obviously lying because black swans clearly don't exist, as you've never seen one yourself before. Prove that the man was lying.

3 - You're walking passed a church one day. The year is 2010 and your life is going pretty darn well. Suddenly, a small child strolls out and asks you why you're not inside. Not believing in a God of any kind, you smile to the boy and say you don't belong there. The boy frowns and walks back inside. You sigh. That poor child is being brainwashed. He's deluded and his parents are feeding lies to him. Prove this to be true.

As Winter comes along and as it gets cold, a body of water returns to its natural state and or much like a body of H20 that has never seen the light of day, which is best described as a body of Ice rather than water of the deep, is this a fact or not?

If this is agreed to be a fact, then read genesis, up to the point where the sun or light is created, and go back to the beginning and re-read what is stated with respects to a body of H20? is an inference made to a "body of ice" or "waters of the deep"? And can you explain how this is possible by referring only to what is possible, rather than magic, miracle and or the Impossible..

So,
Is Genesis an inference to REAL truth? Or does it contradict real facts and or truth?

Well let me point out, this one passage separates the deluded "like that poor abused child about to enter some religious building" from those who are superior in reasoning as they are able to clearly see the contradiction, so the reality is, its not that simple..

Or is it as such that even after the truth has been clearly provided, the self deluded insist the delusion still far out weighs proper reality? And in order to justify such a gross error is all for introducing more fiction, and in fact - from the very same source of contradiction that one should now be questioning, the call as to what happens now is up to each and every reader, and what they do with the presented facts, I already have conceded some are so backward they indeed will flip the pages of the very source with a contradiction to it and persist with the delusions, while others who are with quite some intelligence will insist an answer, evidence and or a logical explanation must be provided before they continue on to rely on this source any further..

Welcome to the REAL World or 2~Duh~Loo!

Pete, What The F:run:rk!

 

[Vile Atheist]

^ Do you really believe contradictions matter? People will just find a way to BS around it and go on happily with their day.

 

[Pure-Truth]

^ Do you really believe contradictions matter? People will just find a way to BS around it and go on happily with their day.

Proving they are unevolved, backward and with far less intelligence, of course they wont admit it publicly, but they know who they are and where they stand with regards to the evolutionary ladder, the deathly sounds of silence from them says it all and hey its the main reason most of the religious detest evolution..

Err~Cheers!

Pete,
What The F:run:rk!

 

[DarkSun]

"Journal article"? To support an opinion? No, I'm not the "appeal to authority" logic fallacy type. You go ahead if you think it will help your case. I wouldn't hold my breath though, if I were you - the members here are pretty sharp with that kind of thing.

I am asking for experimental evidence for the inexistence of God. Could you please explain how posting that evidence would be a logical fallacy?

It does not "work both ways". Belief in god/s is a positive action - a decision to embrace somebody's concept of a deity despite a complete lack of evidence supporting it. Not believing does not require any action. I never have embraced a belief without any evidence to support it. My disbelief in all the gods thus far proposed is exactly the same as my disbelief in every other non-evidenced proposal.

Disbelief without evidence?

Once more, I will point out that by your reasoning, EVERY non-evidenced proposal is worthy of belief. That's a dangerous attitude - every now and then a drugged up teenager who sees things your way decides to believe he can fly, with disastrous consequences.

Drugs aside, if you want evidence against the teenager's ability to fly, then he should try to fly. If he can't fly, then his belief is disproven. Simple.

Do the same thing with God and get back to me. Thanks.

 

[DarkSun]

So, basically, you're a deist. Now we have something to work with. Generally atheists don't outright reject deist-type gods. They may see them as extraneous, but they don't reject them like they do theistic gods. So, your form of god isn't one they're talking about when they say "God doesn't exist".

I'm not talking about deism, theism, or any God concept specifically. My beliefs, however they're classified, are irrelevant to what I've been saying.

 

[DarkSun]

Well, then I don't know what else you're looking for - if you take evidence as proof, a lack of evidence for something is proof against it. Proof does not(!) equal truth, it simply means that one is able to come to a logical conclusion based on the evidence. A lack of black swans is evidence of there being no black swans. The more swans you see, the more sure you can be - the stronger your evidence is. That's it, that's all you can do, there's no absolute proof, no absolute truth.

Evidence.

• attest: provide evidence for; stand as proof of; show by one's behavior, attitude, or external attributes; "His high fever attested to his illness"; "The buildings in Rome manifest a high level of architectural sophistication"; "This decision demonstrates his sense of fairness"
• your basis for belief or disbelief; knowledge on which to base belief; "the evidence that smoking causes lung cancer is very compelling"
• testify: provide evidence for; "The blood test showed that he was the father"; "Her behavior testified to her incompetence"
• an indication that makes something evident; "his trembling was evidence of his fear"
• tell: give evidence; "he was telling on all his former colleague"
• (law) all the means by which any alleged matter of fact whose truth is investigated at judicial trial is established or disproved
  wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Evidence and proof, by nature, are meant to allude to the truth.

Which god? There is evidence for the inexistance of god - it's the lack of god.

So now you're proving something doesn't exist... by saying it doesn't exist?

 

[DarkSun]

So a lack of evidence counts as evidence?

Pfft. And not collecting stamps is a hobby.

 

[ThereIsNoSpoon]

So a lack of evidence counts as evidence?

Well ... if the thing that is to proove supposedly claimed that there is evidence and that evidence is not found ... then "yes", wouldnt you say so?

 

[Commoner]

Evidence.

• attest: provide evidence for; stand as proof of; show by one's behavior, attitude, or external attributes; "His high fever attested to his illness"; "The buildings in Rome manifest a high level of architectural sophistication"; "This decision demonstrates his sense of fairness"
• your basis for belief or disbelief; knowledge on which to base belief; "the evidence that smoking causes lung cancer is very compelling"
• testify: provide evidence for; "The blood test showed that he was the father"; "Her behavior testified to her incompetence"
• an indication that makes something evident; "his trembling was evidence of his fear"
• tell: give evidence; "he was telling on all his former colleague"
• (law) all the means by which any alleged matter of fact whose truth is investigated at judicial trial is established or disproved
  wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Evidence and proof, by nature, are meant to allude to the truth.

I don't know what you've hoped to achieve by posting these definitions. That you have evidence for something doesn't make it magically become truth. And if it is later found out that in fact it was not true, you cannot then turn around and say - "aha, it wasn't true, so you could not have had any evidence for it being true - therefore you're a liar and you were presenting misinformation, you just wanted it to be true." That's what I fell you're doing when giving your black swan example to try and argue that a lack of evidence (for something specific) - a lack of occurrence, is not evidence. That's false.

So now you're proving something doesn't exist... by saying it doesn't exist?

No. I'm saying, tell me which god concept you're refering to so we can examine which god we're talking about - and then we can consider the (potential) lack of that god (its specific properties, it's supposed actions...) in our world as evidence that it does not exist.

 

[Magic Man]

I'm not talking about deism, theism, or any God concept specifically.

Great. So, now we're back to "If I don't define it, you can't say it doesn't exist". Well done.

My beliefs, however they're classified, are irrelevant to what I've been saying.

How exactly? Aren't you the one mentioning "any possible god-concept"? Obviously, if you leave a term undefined, it's impossible to say it doesn't exist. However, normal people define terms before talking about them. For instance, it would be stupid of me to say "Murgolphs don't exist" when there is no definition for murgolphs, or when there are many definitions for the term and one is not specified. However, if you then specify that murgolphs are gnats, then we can see that the claim that murgolphs don't exist is wrong and senseless. On the other hand, if we specify murgolphs as "large, rectangular, living, cycloptic pencils with wings made of rubber", then we can see that the claim that they don't exist is correct and sensible.

The same goes for God. It needs to be defined before being able to really discuss it. When it's discussed in ways such as your OP, it generally means "theistic, omnimax, interventionalist being". Therefore, that's the one we're specifying. If you want to talk about other versions of it, as you seem wont to do, then you need to specify.

When you say God is that theistic, omnimax, interventionalist, creator being, then there is evidence against it. If you don't want that one, since it can actually be disproven, then give us another one. The obvious choice would be yours, but you don't seem to want to do that. Apparently, you just want to keep it as vague as possible so that you can keep feeling like you're right. Good luck.

 

[Magic Man]

So a lack of evidence counts as evidence?

Yes. The sooner you understand that, the quicker you understand where you're wrong here.

Pfft. And not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Nice try, but not quite.

 

[Magic Man]

No. I'm saying, tell me which god concept you're refering to so we can examine which god we're talking about - and then we can consider the (potential) lack of that god (its specific properties, it's supposed actions...) in our world as evidence that it does not exist.

But...but then you might actually be able to provide evidence against the god-concept, or worse still you might just say that you don't reject that particular one.

No, no. He has to keep it very vague or else his whole "Atheists are just as bad as theists" argument falls apart.

 

[Alceste]

I am asking for experimental evidence for the inexistence of God. Could you please explain how posting that evidence would be a logical fallacy?

Still missing the point, I see. Make some claim about something you think YOUR god did, and I will probably be able to find you some empirical evidence s/he did not do it - depending on what you think s/he did. "God the laws-of-physics writer" can't be rationally accepted or rejected because it is completely irrelevant whether the laws of physics were "written" or are inherent properties of matter and energy: The empirical evidence we would see in front of us would be the same either way.

The point you are missing: FIRST you must make a claim and present your evidence. THEN the atheist will decide whether to accept or reject your claim based on your evidence. The atheist must only provide evidence of her own if she makes a counter-claim.

FYI, there is no "experimental evidence" of the non-existence of leprechauns. For most of us it is enough that nobody has ever seen or interacted with one.

Disbelief without evidence?

Rejecting a non-evidenced factual claim. (Like leprechauns).

Drugs aside, if you want evidence against the teenager's ability to fly, then he should try to fly. If he can't fly, then his belief is disproven. Simple.

Way to totally miss the point AGAIN. You are arguing that his belief that he can fly is exactly as reasonable and rational as disbelief would be. Most of us don't need to get hopped up on drugs and jump out a window to prove we can't fly: it is enough for us that nobody ever has.

Do the same thing with God and get back to me. Thanks.

I have. It is enough for me that nobody has ever seen one.

 

[Vile Atheist]

Most of us don't need to get hopped up on drugs and jump out a window to prove we can't fly: it is enough for us that nobody ever has.

Best. Counterpoint. Ever.

 

[Magic Man]

Do the same thing with God and get back to me. Thanks.

And you want us to "lose the belligerent, sarcastic attitude"? That's some nerve you've got there.

 

[Adam-a]

The arguements originally presented are purely hypothetical and prove nothing. Most of these scenarios could be disproven by the characters involved if they simply search out the answers for themselves. On the contrary, as hard as one might look for a god, one will always turn up empty handed and inevitably corner themselves into the theist arguement of "it is my personal experience and I cant expect you to understand since you haven't experienced it for yourself.

 

[Commoner]

But...but then you might actually be able to provide evidence against the god-concept, or worse still you might just say that you don't reject that particular one.

No, no. He has to keep it very vague or else his whole "Atheists are just as bad as theists" argument falls apart.

Oh yeah...

My bad. :areyoucra

 

[Vile Atheist]

I have a scenario for everyone to gawk at:

You claim you have a magic wand that can turn lead into gold. Someone disbelieves you. How do you prove you are telling the truth?