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Author | Topic: I Know That God Does Not Exist | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
tangle writes:
That's what I'm saying. We don't "know" that that outside possibility doesn't exist.
Personally, I'm entirely happy to rule out any and all the Gods we've so far invented, but leave open, as an outside possibility, the chance that one day a thoroughly disinterested god will be found playing dominos with himself in another dimension.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Phat writes:
Well, my subjective experiences confirm the neutral, lifeless and emotionless critical approach.
From a strictly neutral, lifeless, and emotionless critical scientific approach, you are correct.What I for one attempt to share with you skeptics is my subjective experiences.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Stile writes:
It's not an unattainable standard at all. I advocate using the word "know" for something that you can demonstrate on demand. You can demonstrate baking a cake. You can not demonstrate the sun rising at some date in the future.. You expect it; you don't know it. It's a subtle distinction but one that you should be able to understand.
That's not how we use the word "know" because it's an unattainable standard and is therefore useless to us as limited human beings. Stile writes:
Only if you assume that God "would" jump out from His hiding place and reveal Himself to you. Otherwise, you can only claim that you know God isn't with you every day, in your heart, in your mind, etc. Others have detected Him with them every day, in their hearts, in their minds, etc. so it's the same situation as one person finding the monster and another person not finding it. The jury is still out on who is right.
The same evidence is available for God. Stile writes:
It counts in the same way as looking under half of the bed counts. Until you look under the other half, you can't say you know that there's no monster under the bed.
Just because you can imagine another place that we haven't searched yet... doesn't make all the other claims and searches disappear. That evidence is still there, and that evidence still counts. Stile writes:
Nope. I'm arguing for knowledge versus expectation, knowledge versus speculation. In 1491, Europeans didn't "know" that the Americas didn't exist; they had only failed to find them. They speculated that it was clear sailing to the East Indies (just too far to make it). They expected Columbus to fail; they didn't "know" he would.
You seem to be arguing for a 100%-absolute-knowledge use of the word. Stile writes:
And using words properly, distinctly, usefully does not require Stile's.
... "being reasonable" (or rational, or logical...) does not require ringo's agreement.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Stile writes:
Science-minded people should aim for clear and precise usage of words. As I have said, your use of the word "know" is the same as the creationist's use of the word theory: sloppy. You should aim higher.
I can't think of a way to identify that one method is "better" than the other. Stile writes:
As I have also said, more than once, we can claim to know what we do know, what we can demonstrate that we know.
I suppose the biggest negative on open-ended-ness would be that you may not be able to claim to "know" anything. Stile writes:
Only people who think they know more than they do know are content. The extremes - "I know there is a God" and "I know there is no God" - are the same in that respect.
Therefore "I know that God does not exist" would only be valid if you're content (personal subjective measure) with the amount of knowledge we've gained so far and do not feel it is necessary to take any further risks into "the unknown" in order to increase your pool of information. Stile writes:
I would say "collective opinion", which is one step toward objectivity. If I can demonstrate that I know something, to the extent that you agree that I know it, then I can say that I know it.
... it means that all claims of knowledge (no matter what their forms... open-ended or evidence-based) are all nothing more than personal opinion? Stile writes:
It's more a question of how much of the territory you've searched. You've looked under one corner of the bed and declared there's no monster. The appearance is that you don't want to find a monster so you're very careful to limit your search.
But, how much evidence is "enough" evidence?
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Stile writes:
There's a difference between agreeing that something (most likely) doesn't exist and claiming to "know' that it doesn't exist.
However, I do see the information we have on God as being more than the information we have on many other things we all agree that they do not exist. Stile writes:
On the contrary, I'm quite content with the information I/we have on God. I have no particular desire to look for more information because I have no particular desire to know whether or not God exists. I do not, like some, have the arrogance to call my contentment "knowledge".
It may be true for you... and may be a part of why you're not content with the information we have on God. Stile writes:
Irrelevant. The point is that you are convinced that I know and anybody else who sees the demonstration is convinced that I know. The evidence is evident to anybody who looks at it honestly. The same is not true of your "evidence" against the existence of God.
Even if you bake a cake right in front of me... Maybe it's your body-double and not actually you. Therefore... you can't demonstrate your ability beyond a certain level of "contentment" with the information. Stile writes:
I'm not trying to poke holes in your argument. I agree with your conclusion. All I'm saying is that you're stating it badly.
You are unable to poke any holes in the argument that my rational position is based upon. Stile writes:
Sure. You can use "if" statements to make any statement meaningless: "If pigs could fly bacon would be more expensive." That's exactly why we have to use strict definitions instead of watering everything down with what-ifs.
The "if" statements even remove all your silliness about a strict definition of the word "know."
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
One notable attribute of believers in God is that they like to think they're being rational about their belief.
One notable attribute of believers in God vs Santa is that most of the God believers are otherwise rational adults.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
AlexCaledin writes:
Atheists look for straw gods and can't find them. ahteists are damn great experts in making "straw gods" and disproving them . . . Theists look for straw gods and find them. What's the difference?An honest discussion is more of a peer review than a pep rally. My toughest critics here are the people who agree with me. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Phat writes:
In your imagination.... In my belief, He imagined us long before we had evolved to the point of imagining Him.An honest discussion is more of a peer review than a pep rally. My toughest critics here are the people who agree with me. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Phat writes:
You're creating a God in your imagination Who creates everything in His imagination. And you constantly accuse me of wanting to be my own God. And yet we were created in His imagination.An honest discussion is more of a peer review than a pep rally. My toughest critics here are the people who agree with me. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
I can describe a carrot because I've seen one. How do you describe something you can't see? Worse than that, how do you describe something that you imagine is deliberately hiding from you? Is it possible to simply describe a God who may exist without necessarily creating Him?An honest discussion is more of a peer review than a pep rally. My toughest critics here are the people who agree with me. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
One of the signs of copying is that they all make the same mistakes.
... you may well have concluded that they were simply copying off of the papers of others who had claimed to see such a God.... Phat writes:
Logically, the answer is yes. I can describe a one-legged pirate and by describing him, I create him.
So back to my question.
Is it possible to simply describe a God who may exist without necessarily creating Him?
Logically, the answer is no. It is not possible. Phat writes:
You've already done that, so I'll just go with your description. So try creating this God that was hiding.An honest discussion is more of a peer review than a pep rally. My toughest critics here are the people who agree with me. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Phat writes:
You're the one who claims he's hiding, aren't you? Haven't you said that He doesn't show Himself because He wants us to have faith?
It's your story---how could I create the god that you claimed was hidden? Phat writes:
Indeed. Why doesn't He preach in stadiums like Billy Graham? I argue that by using the term "hidden" we should assume that you have something to hide.An honest discussion is more of a peer review than a pep rally. My toughest critics here are the people who agree with me. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
That doesn't answer the question of why He hides Himself away.
Some would say that he used Billy to do the job. Phat writes:
And they'd be wrong, of course. Jesus had crowds of 5000 in Matthew 14 and 4000 in Mark 8.
Others may argue that Jesus---even if He lived in todays culture--would never do such a thing. Phat writes:
Then why don't we? You would be more likely to find God hanging out down with your homeless friends.An honest discussion is more of a peer review than a pep rally. My toughest critics here are the people who agree with me. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Faith writes:
I have. I think Bishop Ussher got it about right. I'm sure his ghost will be glad to have my endorsement. Have you tried adding up the years from Adam to the Flood?An honest discussion is more of a peer review than a pep rally. My toughest critics here are the people who agree with me. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
How often is it appropriate to put "Christian" and "humility" in the same sentence? The atheist ended up winning the debate due to superior logic, but the attitude was one of intellectual smugness and contrasted with the humility of the Christians. Which I think speaks volumes. Are you really fooling yourself? Were those the real attitudes or were they what your apologetics told you to see?An honest discussion is more of a peer review than a pep rally. My toughest critics here are the people who agree with me. -- ringo
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