Any atheists in here?

POSTED BY: BlackCollarBrowncoat
UPDATED: Sunday, March 12, 2006 20:19
VIEWED: 38467
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Yeah, I was raised catholic too. Attended Catholic school, attended Mass every day for a while. I even sang in the choir (it was required). I remember the Latin Mass and the Latin responses. (Which we changed, of course, to "Who's got the dominos? Benny's got the Dominos. Dominos two bits come" ) There was something comforting on the stories about your own guardian angel, the clink of the censer and the smell of incense, the high arches and stained glass windows of the church...

But at some point I realized that nobody could "prove" reality, much less prove god(s).




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Free as in freedom, not beer.

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In logic you can never start by assuming your conclusion. (Well actually if you work based entirely on bi-conditionals you can, but no one in this thread has been doing that so we can ignore it for the moment.)

If you start with the assumption, “There is no god,” it is very easy to prove there is no god. But if I start with the assumption 1 - 1 = 2 I can prove that is true as well. Watch:
1 + -1 = 2
Add -1 to both sides.
-1 = 1
Thus:
1 + -1 = 1 + (1) = 1 + 1 = 2
Equality is transitive therefore:
1 + -1 = 2.

Except it's BS because we've come round in a circle. You did the same thing with god, you started with the assumption that there was no god, and then went on to claim that as a result there was no god.

Of course there being no god follows from their being no god P implies P is a tautology. But then again there being a god follows from there being a god just as nicely.

You said there wasn't a god presented evidence based on the assumption, and then said that the evidence supported the belief that there was no god. Of course the evidence supported the belief that there was no god, it was based on that belief.

The thing is that if you start with the assumption that there is no god all that you can prove from there is that there is one (by showing that it the assumption leads to a contradiction.) If you want to actually show that there isn't a god you can't assume there isn't, you have to earn that. You could, for example, assume that there is and then show a contradiction. That would show that there is not a god. But you didn't do that.

Even though I was talking about proof the same holds true for evidence, evidence based on the assumption your conclusion is right will always support that conclusion, but it doesn't make your conclusion any more valid than the flying spaghetti monster.

No one wants to be equated with that, least of all atheists.

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If you want to know what I mean than look at your example, forget about your roommate, just think about the grizzly bear. How can you say that there isn't one in your house? Well it's exactly what you just said:
"There has never been a bear in my house, and we'd know if there was." There was not one in your house, the size of a bear would mean that its entrance would have left noticeable indications (unless it was assisted) none of which are there (and it is very, very unlikely that someone would assist it) thus it is logical to conclude that there is not one there now either unless presented with compelling evidence to the contrary.

Then you changed what you were saying:
"one just might have been lying in wait, and just finished my buddy off."
How does, "We'd know if one was," change to, "There might have been one lying in wait"? I mean does house include enough accessible bear sized nooks and crannies which it could hide in that it would be able to get out of sight in time every time it might be seen?

More importantly:
Is there enough food available for the bear to survive?
Are there places where the bear could leave its droppings that you would never see nor smell?
Is there a magic system to remove its fur?

I mean if I said, "There's a bear in your house," and, "There's a mouse in your house," which would you find more likely? Well if we start with the assumption that there is not one in your house and use your style of logic I can logically prove that they are both equally unlikely.

If there was not a bear we would not see it or smell it. We would observe no droppings. We would not notice the disappearance of any food that was eaten by it.
-We have not seen or smelled it, he have observed no droppings, we have not noticed the disappearance of any food eaten by it. Therefore the probability of their being a bear is nil.

If there was not a mouse we would not see it or smell it. We would observe no droppings. We would not notice the disappearance of any food that was eaten by it.
-We have not seen or smelled it, he have observed no droppings, we have not noticed the disappearance of any

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It is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God.

It’s the old thought excrement about the tea pot in orbit of mars. You cant prove its existence because we have no telescopes that could detect such a small object. You also cant disprove it. The most you can say is your teapot agnostic.

Of course in the end everyone on earth is atheist in some way, most everyone does not believe in Anubis or Zeus or Thor. And again you cannot disprove there existence. The fact that God cannot be disproved does not prove his existence. It mealy proves he cannot be disproved.

But religion on the other hand. That can be traced. We can fallow its inception from our early history, we can see religions grow and fall, then new one emerge. We can see the emergence of the Judo Christian one God from the suppression of Hebraic goddess. God and Religion are two completely different things.


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Who do you suppose is in there?

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Quote:

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Originally posted by Haze:
He was explaining how protestants and none Christians where all going to hell along with people who didn’t go to church enough. For the first time in years I didn’t hold back and asked the obvious question. “Are you saying that all loving God would condemn a good and kind person to eternal damnation ETURNAL unending torture just for not worshiping him right?” “Yes” was the basic response.

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Slightly different from when Pope John Paul II said isn't it? Of course god's judgement is a thing that's been talked about quite often, no point in going into detail here.

What I like about John Paul II can be summed up in one of his quotations:
"Believers have a duty to treat all men and women as brothers and sisters in the one human family; prejudice and enmity have o place in true religion and can never be justified on religious grounds"

Of course I'm not a Catholic so my stance on a Pope is hardly significant.

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Someone has pointed out that beliefs about the nature of god have changed over the years, so have beliefs about the nature of the universe. Our current beliefs haven't been around very long but I don't see that as a reason to reject them, as time goes on things get refined.

They recently found what appears to be the oldest writing, in Egypt instead of Samaria. This redefines our basic concept of the origin of writing, turned what would be considered heresy for ages into canon. Fun, fun.

Relativity comes around and says that the reason things go towards the ground is different from what we thought it was, which gravity had done before it. That does not mean we reject the idea that there is a reason. We just change our minds on what that reason is.

I think that some say there were about 124,000 prophets, it seems like a disgustingly small number to me, but even so that would allow for a seemingly infinite number of beliefs if one allows for corruption, interpretation, translation, and combination over time. But with a mere 124,000 sources to draw from, all of them open to interpretation, it would be difficult to build any coherent picture of things.

I mean do you think you could understand the whole universe based on 124,000 experiments? It's too much to ask for.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by Haze:
Of course in the end everyone on earth is atheist in some way, most everyone does not believe in Anubis or Zeus or Thor.

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Well in that case everyone on earth is Christian in some way because they agree with some of the Christian doctrines, some just believe in more than others.

All atheists are Christians. Wow! I had no idea, but you're right it does logically follow, it is also why I think that groups, such as athiests, should not be defined by the beliefs they hold in common (which would create one big group that included all people) but rather by a lack of difference of belief.

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No by that logic all atheists are Judaic Zoroastrians as are all Christians, because virtually the entirety of Christian doctrine can be traced back to these two religions. And there doctrines can be traced back father still to earlier religions which can be traced back further until we find the basis of it all. Human morality and human ambition, both of which are functions of the human brain.

To say that to believe morals espoused by Christianity there for makes you Christine is a complete false synergism as these are things not owned by Christianity. To say a man is an atheist because he does not believe in Anubis is fallowing the definition of the word “disbeliever, nonbeliever, unbeliever - someone who refuses to believe (as in a divinity)”

And I totally agree with you about Science getting it wrong. But the thing is when science gets it wrong it changes its beliefs accordingly. Mostly religion does not. That said science can come close to being religion at times, particularly cosmology.


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Who do you suppose is in there?

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Quote:

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Originally posted by christhecynic:
In logic you can never start by assuming your conclusion. (Well actually if you work based entirely on bi-conditionals you can, but no one in this thread has be

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I AM NOT MAKING A STRICLY LOGICAL ARGUMENT. I don't know how many times I have to say this. Logic is elegant and highly effective but extremely limited in how much it can describe about the world.
I'm also rather frustrated that people keep insisting I begin with the assumption god does not exist. I strove to show that I began with NO assumptions beyond a trust in my senses and ability to reason, took a look at the world and body of knowledge out there, and drew conclusions from it. I haven't seen an argument for god's existence by anybody here that doesn't assume his existence. On your construction, every person would either begin with the assumption that god exists or god doesn't, with each resulting in that respective conclusion, and then any debate would be ludicrously futile.

Don't get tied down in the logistics of the bear analogy. Let's say it was a rabid raccoon (far more likely than the bear, but I'm still all but absolutely sure it didn't happen). one needs to assume nothing about whether it is or is not in the house, one simply notes: I do not know whether there is a rabid raccoon in my friend's room. I do know I have never seen a rabid raccoon in here, nor have I ever heard of one entering a person's house. We keep the doors shut so it has no means of ingress or egress beyond when we enter or exit, so we would notice it coming in. I conclude BASED ON THIS EVIDENCE that my roommate has not now been attacked. My argument about religion shared a similar approach.

I and others have repeatedly (exhaustingly) conceded that one can't dispositively say that no conscious entity created the universe or LOGICALLY DISPROVE any particular religion. Nor, i should add, do I mean to disparage anybody personally or convert anybody. But since the question was put at issue in the debate I weighed in, and I haven't seen anything posted as yet that really addresses the argument, nor have I seen anyone try to justify religious belief as reasonable given our understanding of the world, which was my only point.

If someone responds to this with “your argument is based on the assumption god doesn't exist” i may lose it. Also, if you're just joining us, please do not respond unless you have read a substantial number of these posts--I realize this thread is wearyingly long at this point but it does no good to rehash points that have already been beaten into the ground.



"If God can do anything, could he microwave a burrito so hot that even he could not eat it?"

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Quote:

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Originally posted by christhecynic:
Ok, I can do with some peril.

Look around you, at all of the world, the intricate system of shifting forces, electrons and quarks, predators and prey, all moving in one perfect system better designed than any watch, the cogs so subtle yet important that they must have had a designer, and intelligent one at that.

Oh ... wait a minute, I have to try to convert you to my own faith?

Come back in another twenty years, I'll proselytize you then.

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This is what Einstein was working on leading up to his death. His "theory of everything". He believed in absoulte order and symmetry in God's universe and in his pursuit to find it he illiminated the - at the time- "New Science" of Quantumn physics, which went opposite to him in the notion of chaos and disorder.

Ironically as has recently been discovered he would have reached his formula alot sooner had he embraced quantumn physics, which now has made some serious steps towards completing that formula.

Basically the link between science and religion is now much closer as a conseqence of both parties standing contrary to one another.

The
Somnambulist

www.cirqus.com

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The Christian God (which is the same God as that of Judaism and Islam, since they split from the same cult) is a war God.

That's where the three biggest religions come from, an ancient War God Cult. The Cult of YHWH, which became the cult of the God which cannot be named, which became Judaism. Christianity grew directly from that, and Islam more indirectly.

There was just a comment made about the histories of religions, that's the history of those three, in a very small Nutshell.

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More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
You should never give powers to a leader you like that you’d hate to have given to a leader you fear

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Actually that particular god told Moses to tell the people that they had to swear (as in take oaths) by his name. Not using it in that manner would be to disobey his word as delivered by Moses and as related and translated into English within the Revised Standard Edition of the Christian Bble in Deuteronomy 6:13.

Personally I serve no god so I don't swear by the name of any god, but the god of Deuteronomy must be named by commandment.

Though I did once ask Jesus for help and get it, and just yesterday I thanked every Holy man I could think of from Abraham to Buddha to various other people to Zachariah.

Still help and thanks are hardly enough to make me swear by a gods name.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by britet:
If someone responds to this with “your argument is based on the assumption god doesn't exist” i may lose it.

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Then change your argument so that it does not provoke that response.

It doesn't matter that it is not strictly logical, it matters what assumption it starts from. The way to make people stop saying that is to base your argument on a different assumption, preferably one we can all agree with, physical laws are usually a good basis. The human being's ability to perceive the universe is also generally considered a good start.

If you can not make such an argument (I'm not saying that you can't, I'm just thinking ahead and that's a possibility) then perhaps it's time to consider the possibility (just the possibility mind you) that you are acting on faith. After all if you need to use a basis that people can't agree with you on that means it's not based in science or logic or perception, so where did it come from?

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The cult of YWHW the war God became the cult of the God that can't be named, which became Judaism which Christianity split from. Islam similarly split from these and their traditions.

This was somewhat watered down in Christianity, too merely "do not take the lords name in vain", but this is the reason we really don't know for sure how to pronounce the tetragrammaton. Some say its Yahweh some say Jehova, there may be others, I don't know. In fact in Judaism its still taboo to pronounce the tetragrammaton, substituting Adonai instead.

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More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
You should never give powers to a leader you like that you’d hate to have given to a leader you fear

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Another reason why the God cannot be named cannot be named may be because to call a God by its true name was to have power over it. So theoretically ancient Hebrews could have been using God true name to control him.


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Who do you suppose is in there?

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That's the reason given, though I've heard the argument (made here by our own Dreamtrove no less) that may be it was more too do with disguising the fact that it was a war god cult...

Hence it became the Cult of the god who cannot be named.

---

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
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Its also interesting that Baal the name most of the common people would have called him (Ba’al means lord) became a shameful name and then a name associated with evil, eventually becoming Baalzebub or Beelzebub.


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Who do you suppose is in there?

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Quote:

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Originally posted by christhecynic:
...I'm not saying this should stop, I'm just saying be civil.

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You're lecturing me on being civil?!!

After your tirade in response to my last post, I'd decided to give it a break. I didn't see what I'd done to set you off, but you clearly weren't in an emotional state to continue fruitful discussion. But you keep pushing harder, repeating the same fallacious arguments. Then you have the nerve to accuse others of doing exactly what you're doing.

You are the one arguing from a point of assumption. You assume god's existence and state that it's up to non-believers to prove you wrong. That flys in the face of basic logic and undermines whatever point you're trying to make. If you were merely saying that atheists cannot prove that god does not exist, fine, that's a true statement.(It's also relatively meaningless, because it's impossible to prove a negative.) But you insist on going further, making the unsupported leap to conclude that atheists are acting on faith in the same way that believers are - that atheism is a religion. That's completely unfounded.

If pointing out why I disagree is something you find insulting and inspires you to launch into more angry ad hominem attacks, so be it. All you've proven on this thread is that you are a first-class asshole and incapable of discussing anything that doesn't fit your personal belief system.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Actually I think Baal was an ancient fertility god. He was horned (or at least his contemporaries were) and it is where I believe we can trace back the term 'horny'. The two fingers behind someone’s head joke also stems from this, it was an old pagan sign indicating the horned fertility god, meaning that person was very fertile, it's actually a complement.

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More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
You should never give powers to a leader you like that you’d hate to have given to a leader you fear

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I have a lot of catching up to do, but if I may chime in on the 'atheism as religion' debate -
The intersection of theists and atheists in belief. Non-believers do not intersect.
The intersection of non-believers and atheists is no god. Theists do not intersect.
If you don't take these two factors into account at the same time, you miss vital distinctions.

Therefore, atheism is not a religion (belief in god).

IMHO


Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

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That’s a different Baal. There are an incredibly large number of (seemingly completely unrelated) Gods named Baal true out Europe and the middle east. Its actual very weird. All these gods in all these unrelated cultures all with the same name.

Anyway to the ancient Hebrews Baal was a general term used to describe Gods (as I said it means lord)


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Baal never meant strictly lord as I understand it. Baal, at least the Baal mentioned in the Bible, was a Canaanite god, who was responsible for War and Fertility among other things. Baal was the name of the god, whose title was also Almighty, or Lord of the Earth, but I don't think it meant Lord.

El was often used in Semitic Religions (including that of the Canaanites) as either a specific god or for gods in general. El is also used as a synonym for YHWH in the Old Testament.

In some Canaanite cults El was the chief god, in others it was Baal, which makes the issue a little harder because Baal can be translated too English as "Lord" but may also be translated as "Husband" for instance. Like I said, hard too tell I suppose, especially since Baal and El were also interchangeable in some Cults...

I think it is more correct to say El meant god, gods or Lord though.

Edit:
It's not actually that weird, ideas trade and people flowed quite freely between Europe and the Middle East. The Phoenicians trade heavily with in the Mediterranean for instance.

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More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
You should never give powers to a leader you like that you’d hate to have given to a leader you fear

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Quote:

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It's also relatively meaningless, because it's impossible to prove a negative.

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Civility is not about profanity or name calling, it's about respect. You keep throwing bullshit at me, that's not respectful. So long as you keep it up I'll stick on your level, everyone else can grab the popcorn.

I can prove that there is no finite set containing all primes, I can prove that there is no dog at my left elbow, I can prove a hell of a lot of negitives.

Yet you insist on calling it impossible. That's not a question of god, it's a question of logic. If you are right than logic is wrong. If logic is wrong than what are we supposed to base our beliefs on?

Tradition? Whims? What I hear in dreams?

Quote:

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Originally posted by SergeantX:

Quote:

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Originally posted by christhecynic:
...I'm not saying this should stop, I'm just saying be civil.

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You're lecturing me on being civil?!!

After your tirade in response to my last post, I'd decided to give it a break. I didn't see what I'd done to set you off,

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Well you badmouthed the foundations of logic science and mathematics in what should have been a theological discussion.

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But you keep pushing harder, repeating the same fallacious arguments. Then you have the nerve to accuse others of doing exactly what you're doing.

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When did I say that people who call themselves hard atheists have a belief system that never has any point?

When did I say that not believing in something, say a pattern governing the distribution of prime numbers (prime numbers are so useful in discussions of logic), is the same as believing in the opposite of it, the lack of such a pattern?

Which is a siginifcant portion of what I have accused you of.

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You are the one arguing from a point of assumption.

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Yeah, I assume that logic exists, I assume that cause follows effect, I assume that my senses are an adequate way to interpret the state of the world unless compelling evidence contradicts them. I also assume that anyone (myself for example) who can back up their beliefs with neither proof NOR evidence is acting on faith.

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You assume god's existence and state that it's up to non-believers to prove you wrong.

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No I don’t ask a damn thing of the non-believers. I support non-believers as having a position far more logical than my own. I simply believe it is more logical than yours as well.

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That flys in the face of basic logic and undermines whatever point you're trying to make.

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How does it? I ask people who take one stance to support their claims, I ask people who take the opposite stance to support their point, and I ask nothing of those who do not take a stance.

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But you insist on going further, making the unsupported leap to conclude that atheists are acting on faith in the same way that believers are - that atheism is a religion. That's completely unfounded.

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If you didn't notice I'm not claiming it's a religion, that discussion has been hypothetical for all but two posts. I do however maintain that atheists have more in common religiously speaking than a "greater Buddhist" (one who believes Buddha is god) and a Muslim, both of which are theists.

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If pointing out why I disagree is something you find insulting and inspires you to launch into more angry ad hominem attacks, so be it.

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Not done that. Calling you a bastard is hardly trying to discredit your argument based on the merit of your character. Everyone with a brain knows that the content of a person’s character has nothing to do with the validity of that person’s character.

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All you've proven on this thread is that you are a first-class asshole and incapable of discussing anything that doesn't fit your personal belief system.

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Would you consider that an ad hominem attack or is there a double standard in place there too? I wouldn't consider it one, but it seems to meet your definition.

-
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By the

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Quote:

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Originally posted by christhecynic:

Then change your argument so that it does not provoke that response...The way to make people stop saying that is to base your argument on a different assumption, preferably one we can all agree with, physical laws are usually a good basis. The human being's ability to perceive the universe is also generally considered a good start.

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Well:

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Originally posted by Britet:
...the only thing you have to have faith in in order to claim “god does not exist” is your own perception, and your ability to make sense of the world and say/think meaningful things about it. If you're going to deny this, then you'd be forced mute in principle; you couldn't say anything about anything without being a hypocrite.

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I was, based on my perception and general experience with the world, noticing....all the things I described in previous posts. The only other assumptions I made (and they're not so much assumptions as conclusions, again drawn from experience) that we can trust anthropology, archaeology, biology, and anything grounded in the scientific method. These of course are not infallible, but have proven to be the most effective and accurate means we have of making sense of and parsing the phenomena we experience, and the history leading up to the now.

btw, I still have yet to hear an argument, not already assuming god's existence, for the other side (apart, that is, from the argument by design, which you didn't really seem to espouse yourself and which I addressed indirectly already).

"If God can do anything, could he microwave a burrito so hot, even he could not eat it?"

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Quote:

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Originally posted by rue:
Therefore, atheism is not a religion (belief in god).

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You're late to the show, we've gone beyond that.

The current debate is on at least two fields (I say at least two because it's sped up, I'm not fully up to date.)

One claims that there is no point in believing that something doesn't exist and the distinction between hard atheists (those who believe there is no god) and soft atheists (those who lack belief in god) is fictional.

The other is about whether or not gathering evidence for a thing by assuming that thing is correct is a valid method for deciding whether or not to believe in that thing. (When done outside of a strictly logical argument.)

For example if I start by believing that a robot named Chompers (yes that is the name of a real robot, it weighs in at 120lbs) does not have a controller, or perhaps never consider the possibility that it does, and then find that I do not need to introduce a controller to explain events is that a reason for believing the controller doesn't exist if I never consider the alternative?

I'll see if I can find a picture of Chompers.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by britet:
I was, based on my perception and general experience with the world, noticing....all the things I described in previous posts.

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But the those things only support your stance if taken with the assumption that god does not exist.

That's where the problem arises. It isn't about how you gather the evidence, but rather how you evaluate it and how you evaluate what evidence is worthy of consideration. I mean the Mormons are being attacked by bugs and the seagulls come in, they think the evidence worthy of evaluation is the fact that they prayed and the prayers were answered. I've always thought the migratory pattern of seagulls was more important.

Such a skewed decision making process works both ways though.

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btw, I still have yet to hear an argument, not already assuming god's existence, for the other side

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That's because the other side admits faith. You believe things without evidence that can be accepted as solid by other atheists and yet claim lack of faith, the other side, my side, claims faith.

I don't argue for god because I don't see the point. I'm not trying to shake your faith or convert the infidels. I only ask for honesty.

I ask that those who base things on faith admit it.

If you want to know why I personally believe it's because
1 I already do (after having gone through both hard and soft atheism.)
2 I've been given no reason to change that belief.
3 When I take a sampling of events that are religious in nature which have been scientifically explained I see a mathematically disgusting situation which, while it can be explained as an example of the statistical phenomena of grouping, feels (very unscientific word) more like an unnamed factor to me. I choose to give that factor a name.

No proof. No more evidence than you have, but I don’t claim a reason for belief.

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(apart, that is, from the argument by design, which you didn't really seem to espouse yourself and which I addressed indirectly already).

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Intelligent design claims that god is such an inept bastard that the processes he (they all seem to believe god is male) created were so incredibly inefficient that they could never possibly succeed without his help.

While I don't claim that it is impossible that such a useless being exists I do not believe in it and if I did I would try to find a way to make myself stop believing just to piss the inept one off.

The universe as we know it is elegant, the universe as they claim it is something that is incapable of maintaining that elegance without help, which is decidedly inelegant. Hardly an Intelligent Design. An intelligently designed would universe would be able to be explained without talking about the creator. It would be self sufficient and have a way for the creator (if it so chose) to work without breaking the rules.

Most IDers hate people who actually believe in such a universe. I mean after all such a universe would eliminate the ability to prove god because god wouldn't have left footprints.

What they fail to understand is that if we had discovered there were letters 500 miles high on the back side of the moon that spelled (in English) the words, "There is a god," which had been there for longer than the English language had existed it would not prove god exists. (Or even prior knowledge of English.)

It would be grouping (the statistical phenomena I mentioned before.) Coincidence and nothing more. You can't prove god, if god shows up it doesn't prove god, it just proves that some powerful being claiming to be god exists. They try so hard but even if Jesus walked around with a full halo and let people poke his wounds on global television while scientists showed that he was indeed born of a virgin 2000 years ago it wouldn't prove god.

Some things can't be done, proof of god is one of them. I have a friend who is a devout hard atheist and I once asked him what it would take for him to believe and I heard the answer I expected, nothing could do

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ChrisC

Oh OK. I have not been managing to get to the board often. I was trying to get around the debate by using a different analysis.


Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

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Zeke, you've got a lot to learn. I'm still working my way down but I had to reply.

Studies recently published show that toddlers as young as 18 months will observe an adult and go over to help if it looks (to them) like the adult needs help. For example, if the adult deliberately pushed a book off a stack while 'trying' to stack them, the toddler would not go over. However, if the adult 'accidentally' dropped a book the toddler would go over and pick up the book and hand it to the adult. This was without the adult either asking for help, looking at the toddler, or thanking the toddler afterwards. And in fact, toddlers, would repeatedly go over to help in the face of non-requests, non-responses.

And simple examination of human physiology shows that helping has to be a basic human drive. From the helplessness of infants (and their burdened mothers) to the accumulation of learning, human survival is ultimately impossible without the existance of a cooperative group.


Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

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Haze,
I too was Catholic until I realized that a god like that arbitrary capricious god I was supposed to believe in was not a god I would believe in, even if it meant eternal damnation.
The other thing I realized much later in life is that western religion is based on a severe self-contradiction: god is unknowable, but you have to listen to us 'cause we know what god wants.
I think we came down a similar path.


Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

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Well, I went through the entire thread, though I probably missed some points. I have not thought about this topic much, so pardon if my responses lack detail. I'm thinking as I'm going.

I want to reiterate what I started out with - when it comes to reality I'm - lazy? pragmatic?

SignyM mentioned that no one can prove reality. Practically, will I test the reality of the bus coming at me by turning my back and plugging my ears? Even with "cogito ergo sum" I don't know I'm not part of a dream where the dreamer dreams that I think I'm real.

So certain things I take on 'faith', which are that I exist, and that as imperfectly as I sense it, there is a reality of which I am part, and that it moves of its own accord. Also I 'believe' that there is cause and effect (macroscopically) in regular relation to each other.

These are the rough and ready axioms I settled on.

Given that, I see science as the testing of those perceptions about the world against more perceptions. As was mentioned above, that's what makes science different from religion. Science looks for regularity of perceptions and devises a model - not to be confused with reality - and extends the model to other perceivable phenomenon. (As a scientist, I find irony in the statement 'consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds')

Religion OTOH is all about NOT testing belief in the 'real world' of perception. Religion is about faith, which is specifically required to be in the absense of perceivable phenomena, or in the presence of contrary perceivable phenomena.

The other thing I think is that it is impossible to positively prove something either negative or positive. To positively prove something you would have to test all of existance for all of time including every infinitesimally small period. So it's impossible to prove that god exists, as it's impossible to prove that god doesn't exist. And to base an argument on 'prove to me god doesn't exist' is as fruitless as 'prove to me god does exist'. (OTOH it's easier to disprove the null hypothesis - you only have to find one instance where it isn't true to disprove.)

So I found the whole argument about proving or disproving faith to be a blind alley.



Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

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Well put Rue, thats pretty much exactly where I was coming from.


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Who do you suppose is in there?

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Originally posted by rue:
And to base an argument on 'prove to me god doesn't exist' is as fruitless as 'prove to me god does exist'.

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Which is my point. Some people seem to dislike that incredibly. I think it is the first "as" that pisses them off, though I can not be sure.

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Originally posted by christhecynic:

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It's also relatively meaningless, because it's impossible to prove a negative.

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I can prove that there is no finite set containing all primes, I can prove that there is no dog at my left elbow, I can prove a hell of a lot of negitives.

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How would you prove the non-existance of God?

(The Dog could be invisible by the way

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_proof

This article is about a logical fallacy. The term negative proof can also refer to a proof of impossibility.

The fallacy of appealing to lack of proof of the negative is a type of logical fallacy of the following form:

"This exists because there is no proof that it does not exist."
Non-fallacious ways to prove something include the use of logical syllogisms and/or the incorporation of empirical observations. But it is not logical to argue that something exists simply because there is no proof to the contrary; one cannot say, "No one has proven that aliens do not exist. Therefore, based on that alone, they must exist, notwithstanding that I have no evidence that they do exist". Given (as it is above) that it was not proven that aliens do not exist, they might exist, but this alone does not prove them to exist.

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The issue here christhecynic is that you claim to be championing logic but you are continuing to espouse a logical fallacy.

Practice what you preach



...................................
Hurrah, hurrah, when things are at their worst
With cries of “Death or Glory” comes the mighty Twenty-First

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Originally posted by Hotpoint:
How would you prove the non-existance of God?

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I wouldn't, I'm taking issue with the fact he is claiming an absolute which is not true, I agree on the topic of god. It's the vast sweeping generalization I disagree with.

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(The Dog could be invisible by the way

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It would have to be more than simply invisible, for example would need to have no body heat, and thus not be warm blooded, and thus not be a dog.

I can't prove that there is no living thing there, but I can prove there is no dog. (I should point out that I meant “live dog” I suppose. The lack of air displacement indicates a lack of respiration which is also a pretty damning thing for the pro-dog camp.)

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The issue here christhecynic is that you claim to be championing logic but you are continuing to espouse a logical fallacy.

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Which one exactly? Because I never used the argument you just pointed out was a fallacy. Why don't you read my posts? I never argued that the lack of proof against god is proof of god. I argued that absence of proof is not proof of absence.

I have not once argued for god in this entire thread. So, taking that into account, and assuming that you really did read my posts, when do you think I used that fallacy?

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Practice what you preach

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I'd love to.

Please help me by telling me when I was not.

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Originally posted by christhecynic:

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Originally posted by Hotpoint:
The issue here christhecynic is that you claim to be championing logic but you are continuing to espouse a logical fallacy.

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Which one exactly? Because I never used the argument you just pointed out was a fallacy. Why don't you read my posts? I never argued that the lack of proof against god is proof of god. I argued that absence of proof is not proof of absence.

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Come off it! The basis of your argument is that Atheism is a Religion/has religious undertones because it requires faith in the non-existance of God.

This as an argument is utterly refuted by the fact that you do not need proof of the non-existance of something, but merely the existance of it.

Not believing in something for which no evidence exists is not faith.

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Originally posted by christhecynic:
I have not once argued for god in this entire thread. So, taking that into account, and assuming that you really did read my posts, when do you think I used that fallacy?

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How about your quote here:

"I believe in god and you believe in a lack of god, that means we both believe something with no hard evidence, those that don't believe have the only intellectually defensible position."

Or here:

"What I wanted to make sure you know is that everything is based on belief."

Or here:

"The belief that there is no god is a belief about god."

Or here:

"I mean come on, if holding a belief about the nature of god is not religious than what is religious?"

There is a running theme in your posts that tries to equate a belief in the non-existance of God with a belief in the existance of one. You have even purported that Atheism is a religious belief based upon that.

Your entire premise is undermined by the fact that non-existance does not require proof. That is where you have fallen into the trap of the logical fallacy of equating belief in God with non-belief. One is inherrently a faith position which requires proof, the other is not because non-existance does not logically require proof.

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Originally posted by christhecynic:

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Practice what you preach

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I'd love to.

Please help me by telling me when I was not.

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Re-read your posts


...................................
Hurrah, hurrah, when things are at their worst
With cries of “Death or Glory” comes the mighty Twenty-First

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Just butting in to say this is a pointless argument. You're time cna be better spent by hand painting all those little gravel bits in the driveway different colors. Just saying.

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Debate is never pointless, even when no conclusion can be reached it still has worth. It drives one to think, maybe to think in ways one never did before.

That is a valuable thing.


--------------------------------------------------
Who do you suppose is in there?

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Anyway, what I got out of the discussion was this (and everyone, please forgive me if I misstate your positions, this is just my understanding):

There is the position that human observation and thought have been pretty good (so far) at regularly linking observable phenomena to other observable phenomena in time and space. (This is with the caveat that human senses and therefore human thought are inextricably limited.) Therefore, since these things seem to be linked to each other there does not seem to be any evidence for another agency - a god. Additionally the condition of intellectual self-awareness and the history of the development of the idea of god(s) (traceable through religion), mean it is possible that the idea of god is an outgrowth of language development.

The counter to that is that you can't use what you assume to prove what you assume. I would state it differently. I would say that perception and logic may be a closed system, and that god may be outside of that closed system. However, that definitely puts god in a non-testable category, outside of human experience and therefore in the realm of faith.

The other argument was, restated, if you can't prove to me that god doesn't exist, then your belief in god's non-existence is a matter of faith. I have some issues with that argument, which are that: it is logically impossible to positively prove a negative (therefore requiring such proof is fallacious); and also, if god is definitionally outside of perception any proof, no matter how formulated, is impossible.

I did want to add comments about emergent properties from simple rules, evolution, and the balance of existence - which has to do with the search for god in the physical world.

The mere presence of this universe in its current form may naturally result from the condition that anything else is unstable. And that that is why the universal constants are so finely balanced. It's from physical natural selection in that nothing else lasted very long.

I wish I could remember the name of the book or the name of the author - maybe someone can supply it for me. What he did was demonstrate that by applying simple invariant rules you can develop complex, asymmetrical, non-repeating patterns if you follow them long enough. In other words, complexity invariably emerges from simplicity.

And, everything is in evolution, including life. Darwin never said 'survival of the fittest''. What he proposed was natural selection of existing variations.

If variation is an emergent property and selection a natural consequence, then there is no point to looking to the 'creation' for evidence of god.

Finally, it's strange to me that people stumble over the question 'who created the universe', but glide over the question 'who created the creator'.

This is not to claim a definitive answer to is there a god(s) or not, it's just an outline of my thoughts.


Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

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Originally posted by rue:
Finally, it's strange to me that people stumble over the question 'who created the universe', but glide over the question 'who created the creator'.

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People like to work backwards from the present. For example:
Why are we human?
We evolved.
But why did we evolve?
A changing climate made it so that what we previously were was not as fit for survival as certain variations produced by random mutation.
Then why did the climate change?

...

So why is the earth here?
When the sun was being created an uneven distribution of matter caused some things to ...
But why was the sun created?

...

What caused the big bang?
Until an answer is placed here people won't want to move to the next step, many people who believe the answer is "god" have gone into great lengths to figure that out though.

The common answer is that the universe is made of space-time and since before it existed neither space nor time had meaning it is pointless to talk about cause and effect before it was created because there was no "before" until it was created.

Kind of an annoying argument, not gratifying in the least.

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Originally posted by Hotpoint:
Come off it! The basis of your argument is that Atheism is a Religion/has religious undertones because it requires faith in the non-existance of God.

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No the basis of my argument is that anything taken without proof is on faith and anything taken without evidence is blind faith. It works for cats too. Watch:
"Hey there's a cat over there?"

Do you believe it? Truth is I don't even know if it's true. I have a cat, and she has been known to be there (over by my TV to be more specific) but I can't actually see there right now.

I could believe that she is not there (on faith), I could believe that she is there (on faith), or I could reserve judgment till I have a reason to believe one way or another. These three positions are different, especially if I decide to do something based on a position, like pet the cat.

(If she is there, for example, and I believe that she isn't and then go to pet her I'll never find her because when I look for her there will be no reason to check there. After all if I checked in all of the places I believe she isn't, Westminster Abby for example, we might both die of old age before I found her.)

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This as an argument is utterly refuted by the fact that you do not need proof of the non-existance of something, but merely the existance of it.

Not believing in something for which no evidence exists is not faith.

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Which I have said I agree with how many times?

Again:
When someone says:
"I do not believe in U."
I believe that they do not need to offer proof.

However when someone says:
"I believe U is false."
I believe they should either offer evidence, or admit that they believe it on faith.

It is what I was taught and the reasoning went like this:
(Eunuch = A man without functioning testicles.)
(The room contains at least one man.)

Assume that if there is a lack of any evidence for something we can conclude that it does not exist.

Statement: "I believe that there exists a eunuch in this room."
Response: there is no evidence that there is a eunuch in this room.
Thus there is not a eunuch in this room.

Statement: "I believe that there exists a working testicle in this room."
Response: There is no evidence that there is a working testicle in this room.
Thus there is not a working testicle in this room.

Because there is a man but not a single working testicle the man must be a eunuch.

Therefore
1 There is not a single eunuch in this room.
2 There is at least one eunuch in this room.

This is a contradiction. This contradiction was arrived at because we assumed that absence of proof for something was sufficient to believe that the thing in question does not exist.

-

I would have brought up this example earlier but I really didn't want to have to use the word testicle repeatedly.

Of course by changing the words I can do the same thing with your argument.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by christhecynic:
I have not once argued for god in this entire thread. So, taking that into account, and assuming that you really did read my posts, when do you think I used that fallacy?

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How about your quote here:

"I believe in god and you believe in a lack of god, that means we both believe something with no hard evidence, those that don't believe have the only intellectually defensible position."

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I wasn't arguing for god I was saying that I personally believe and that to believe in anything without evidence is faith. (Even when I'm the one doing it.)

Let me repeat: To believe anything without evidence is faith. That is very different than saying that a lack of evidence against something is proof of it.

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Or here:

"What I wanted to make sure you know is that everything is based on belief."

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That’s not about religion or god. Is true though. Science and math, my two favorite ways to model reality, are both based on beliefs. In math we call them axioms. In philosophy they cal

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I was unaware it was possible to double post while editing an already posted message. I'll be more careful the next time I try to fix formating.

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Originally posted by christhecynic:

No the basis of my argument is that anything taken without proof is on faith and anything taken without evidence is blind faith. It works for cats too. Watch:
"Hey there's a cat over there?"

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Sorry but you are just completly ignoring the issue at hand and are now trying to back peddle because that is not just what you were saying earlier, you were trying to equate belief or non-belief in God as being equally a matter of faith which they are patently not because of the need for evidence for one but not the other.

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Originally posted by christhecynic:

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This as an argument is utterly refuted by the fact that you do not need proof of the non-existance of something, but merely the existance of it.

Not believing in something for which no evidence exists is not faith.

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Which I have said I agree with how many times?

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So you're admitting that your earlier arguments were logically false?

Or are you saying you didn't say what you said earlier?

Or that you didn't mean what you said?

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Originally posted by christhecynic:

"I believe U is false."
I believe they should have to offer proof, or evidence, or admit that they believe it on faith.

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But that is not quite what you were saying earlier is it (be honest now)

In any case the burden of truth vis a vis the existance of God must lie primarily with the Theist wouldn't you say?

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Originally posted by christhecynic:
I wasn't arguing for god I was saying that I personally believe and that to believe in anything without evidence is faith. (Even when I'm the one doing it.)

Let me repeat: To believe anything without evidence is faith. That is very different than saying that a lack of evidence against something is proof of it.

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You are still utterly missing, or perhaps avoiding, the point. YOU EQUATED BELIEF IN A GOD WITH NON-BELIEF IN THAT YOU MAINTAINED THEY BOTH REQUIRE PROOF. THIS IS THE LOGICAL FALLACY YOU DENIED MAKING.

The fact that there is no proof of the non-existance of God is utterly irrelevant to the debate. The burden of proof lies solely with the theist.

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Originally posted by christhecynic:

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"The belief that there is no god is a belief about god."

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Are you claiming that it isn't? Then what is it a belief about? Fish?

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Obfuscation. The point was that you were still trying to make it seem like it was an equal matter of faith, or proof, on both sides which is patently false.

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Originally posted by christhecynic:

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Your entire premise is undermined by the fact that non-existance does not require proof. That is where you have fallen into the trap of the logical fallacy of equating belief in God with non-belief. One is inherrently a faith position which requires proof, the other is not because non-existance does not logically require proof.

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Then I guess there exists no universe without a god.

After all there is no proof that a universe without a god exists, and non-existence does not require proof, so it's ok to believe that it doesn't exist but requires faith to believe that it does. So I’m justified any you‘re acting on faith. YAY!

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Total drivel. There is evidence for the existance of the Universe itself which would be the starting block of such an argument on existance. How the Universe came into existance would be a subsequent question and it would be at that point that the issue of whether a creator was required would come up

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Originally posted by christhecynic:
That is if you are right about non-existance not requiring proof.

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Nice try but since you started out on a false premise (bringing the causation of the universe in before establishing its existance) the rest of your chain of logic (such as it was) fell apart.

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Originally posted by christhecynic:

Of course since i

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