TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
It's what the very word means.
If you have no model or claim that is falsifiable / verifiable, then data is just data.
Data can only be evidence "for or against" something, if there is a something that is verifiable / falsifiable in the first place.
It's only a good thing for your insisting to believe it without justification.
I never made the claim that no gods exist.
I tend to try and stay clear of useless claims.
There is no evidence that leprechauns don't exist either. How much energy do you spend claim no leprechauns exist?
We are discussing the claims of theism. ie "god exists".
"god does not exist" is a separate claim. Nobody is making that claim.
Consider it like a court case.
The accused is either guilty or innocent.
So 2 claims are possible: he is guilty or he is innocent.
In court though, only the claim of guilt is being investigated.
When a court rules "not guilty", that isn't synonymous for "innocent". It just means that the accuser failed to make his case to sufficiently demonstrate his claim of guilt.
So you could say that my atheism is like me saying that I rule "god not guilty existing".
And the reason is simple: theists, who make the claim that god IS guilty of existing, failed to sufficiently demonstrate their case. In fact, the very framing of their claim (unfalsifiable) makes it IMPOSSIBLE for them to sufficiently demonstrate their case.
That unfalsifiability, by itself, is already enough for me to reject it out of hand.
Or he may not. How would you know? Again: the undetectable and the non-existent look exactly alike.
And the answer is going to be "no", since the undetectable (= unfalsifiable) can't have any evidence by definition.
There isn't. There are only claims and believers of said claims.
"hell bent"?
First, that's emotionally laden language that is neither here nor there.
Secondly, plenty of the bible is demonstrably false. It's okay to point that out. Especially when conversing with people who deny that.
Third, you could disprove the bible from a to z and still that wouldn't prove no gods exist.
1. the bible isn't evidence. the bible is a collection of CLAIMS
2. Plenty of claims in the bible are in fact falsifiable yes, because they deal with things in reality, with events in reality. Take a literal reading of adam and eve for example. That makes predictions about the genetic record of humans (it predicts an enormous bottleneck since according to that claim, at one point there were only 2 humans in existence). Or take Noah's flood. That makes predictions about the genetic record of all complex life (mass reduction of populations to only a handful) and also about geology. Those things are testable. And if we don't find such genetic bottlenecks in our sequenced genomes... then those claims are falsified. Meaning that those particular bible stories are incorrect.
Since the predicted bottlenecks do not exist, we know that those stories can not be literally true. So the literal interpretation thereof is demonstrably false.
So only those you already believe then?
Only those associated with your religion, which more then likely is just determined by your geographic location and / or culture you happen to be born into?
You completely dodged the point made, btw.
It's okay though. I would do my best to dodge it also if I were in your place with your mindset.
And I already explained how claims aren't evidence, like in the previous quote where you dodged the point. Claims require evidence.
To say that the claims are the evidence, is textbook circular reasoning.
????
Why would I stay clear of the topic of religion on religiousforums who's whole reason d'être is... discussing religion??????????
This is a new low.
You are seriously confused.
The claim that god, or the supernatural, exists is an unfalsifiable claim. Regardless of who makes it or where it was written down.
That doesn't mean that the book that contains such claims doesn't also make OTHER claims that are in fact falsifiable. Like above, where I gave the example of noah's flood or adam and eve.
Disproving those claims doesn't disprove any unfalsifiable gods or other supernatural stuff.
Instead, it just disproves those claims of the flood and adam and eve. That's it.
I didn't mention anything specific. Stop trying to move the goalposts.
Your bible claims that "god did that" when it speaks of adam and eve and the flood. Both are disproven by the evidence. The testable predictions don't check out. That falsifies those claims.
And in case of creationism, there in fact is a natural mechanism that explains the origins of species. You might have heard of it.... it's the corner stone theory of modern biology.
I bet all science that flies in the face of your religious beliefs, sounds like that to you.
WHOOSH!
That's the sound of the point flying over your head at light speed.
Yes. You successfully repeated what I just said. You believe the words of men who claimed to be speaking for their god.
You don't care about followers of other religions saying the same.
That is your double standard.
Just like you, I don't care about those either. The difference is that I don't share your double standard. So I put the followers and authors of your religion in the same boat.
It's men claiming to speak for gods.
No, it isn't. You just think it's "special" because you are a follower.
A muslim consider his islam to be "extra special" also.
Every follower of every religion thinks his religion is "extra special" compare to all others.
From my side of the fence though, that is not at all surprising.
It's just the follower's bias at play.
In reality, it's all the same in principle.
Classic god of the gaps argument.
To quote Neil deGrass Tyson: "If that is how you define your god.. then your god is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance".
Gods keep being pushed back as science unravels the nature of reality. Gods always occupy the gaps in knowledge. Now you put god front and center at the creation of the universe. And apologists will come up with "arguments" like Kalaam or "fine tuning" and what-not to rationalize it.
If however tomorrow for example science beyond a shadow of a doubt proves a multi-verse including the exact process of universe generation.... then I bet a bazillion dollars that your god will be pushed further back as the creator of the multi-verse.
This is so because gaps in knowledge are the only places that gods can occupy without flatly denying the evidence of reality.
Off course some, like YECs, don't have any problem with such irrationality...
See... this is the problem with unfalsifiable claims.
Yes, if you define your unfalsifiable god as an entity that can do anything while remaining undetected, then sure - he can do anything while remaining undetected.
But then you are back at square one. And unless you acknowledge to holding a double standard, you should believe that I have an undetectable pet dragon.
