Peanut Gallery

RAZD (and you) need to decide what it is you are asking for. Are you asking for peer reviewed literature that refutes specified god concepts? Concepts such as Scarab the ancient Egyptian godly dung beetle that pushes the Sun across the sky. Or Thor as the source of thunder and lightning. Or Yahweh the young Earth creationist creator god. Etc. There is indisputably "mountains" of this evidence available and much of it has indeed been cited by Bluegenes already. To cite all of it would take decades.Or are you asking for peer reviewed literature that unfalsifiable gods cannot exist?Which is it?It remains a fact that the only known source of supernatural concepts is the human imagination. In any other area less riddled with precious beliefs this would be enough of a basis on which to make the inductive scientific conclusion that all such concepts are derived from this same source.Only because of the strength of belief in such concepts are we faced with this relentless horseshit about proving they "cannot" exist and claims that "subjective experiences" somehow demonstrate that they do.

Could be a person butchering a cow. Could be a person standing next to a cow. Could be a horse. Could be something completely different. Could be worshiping. Could not be.It's a frakking stick figure with a vaguely bovine outline divided into sections, which may be part of the "design" or may just be an attempts at shading.Guessing at specifics like what the stick figure is doing with the vaguely bovine outline requires more context than this photograph. Saying "I don;t know what else it could be" is ridiculous and a clear sign of confirmation bias - the picture in no way clearly demonstrates "worshiping." Not by itself."I don;t know what else it could be" only requires that someone else have a better imagination than you. Don't believe things because the evidence allows you to, believe what the evidence compels you to believe. In no way does this drawing compel a conclusion involving worship.We'd need to know a lot more to determine whether this stick figure is worshiping this vaguely bovine outline. When is the artwork dated? Are there other cultural clues aside from this one drawing that would support the hypothesis that the culture worshiped cows? Where was the drawing found? Are there other drawings nearby that add relevant context?

Um, I realize there's no smiley, but he shopped the picture so the guy is blowing the calf....Another confirmation of Poe's Law!

...wow. I thought it was a scan of a photograph and had been smudged. I have been Poe'd.

Poe's Law

See, that's why I don't go to Conservapedia, even for laughs. The stupid, combined with the irony and the fact that the article on Poe's Law could potentially be a Poe itself threatens to make my head explode.It's not worth the funnies. I like my head unexploded.

The possibility of Poe's within Poe's is as head implosion worthy as RAZD's latest posts in this thread regarding the lack of absence of evidence not being evidence of the absence of lack of evidence that may or may not be lacking if absent.(**BOOM**)

LOL I have always thought that unintentional humor is the best type of humor and your post is filled with it. I have not laughed so hard in a while and for that I thank you. That being said...... I can't help but feel that you may also be falling prey to not critically examing the evidence before arriving at a predetermined conclusion. However, I believe I can forgive that seeing as how your post not only brought humor but also knowledge for me (concerning Poe's law). Humor and knowledge that's a win, win in my book.Edited by rueh, : No reason given.

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'Qui non intelligit, aut taceat, aut discat'
The mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open.-FZ
The industrial revolution, flipped a bitch on evolution.-NOFX

It is RAZ not me that is claiming that subjective "evidence" has "NOTHING" to do with deities.But like any good batsman I play each ball on it's merits. See Message 1021 and let's take this discussion to Inductive AtheismEdited by Straggler, : No reason given.

RAZD seems to have added that the supernatural being in question must have a current following of believers....I think there are still quite a few current followers of Yahweh, the young Earth creationist creator god, but your other 2 examples fail to impress me that way. Those other 2 are supernatural beings that don't matter anymore. but I will give credit to bluegenes for the YEC Yahweh - especially tasty to use RAZD's own formidable litany of posts dispelling this supernatural being with objective scientific evidence. If he backpedals to saying something like "Well, they were misinterpreting a still possible Yahweh who dates back to the current scientific model of the universe.", then I would regard that Yahweh as a different supernatural being. Not me. I haven't seen anyone here clinging to that. Can I make a small mod to this? As for the point, I agree....except that the very word "supernatural" breaks up into "above" and "natural" and science only attempts to describe the natural world - so right away we are in a very different situation than - say - the precious beliefs held by Steady State Cosmologists.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

I like that the guy from Everybody Loves Ramond introduced Andy Thomson. I was wondering what he was doing for work these days.- Oni

Where a well evidenced naturalistic explanation for a given phenomenon exists is it ever reasonable to invoke an unevidenced supernatural explanation as superior or even comparable? Yes RAZ likes to make up the rules as he goes along. I am all too familiar with that trait. Thor and Scarab have been rejected exactly because storms and the Sun are understood naturally. Thus refuting their godly explanations. Which is kinda the point. Are there any evidenced examples of supernatural concepts derived from non-humans? Then you are STILL missing the entire fucking point.The existence of, and human belief in, supernatural concepts is a very real phenomenon. And perfectly able to be explained naturalistically.You continue to blatantly conflate the tentative theory that all supernatural concepts are derived from human imagination and the assertion that no supernatural beings can exist.Can you see how Bluegenes is talking about positive evidence for the former? Not playing the silly 'disprove' one god at a time that RAZ and you seem determined to unjustifiably impose as necessary.Can you see why the former approach is based on inductive scientific reasoning whilst what you and RAZ are doing is just a debate tactic that amounts to nothing more than demanding that unfalsifiable beliefs be disproved?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

It will no doubt amuse you when I point out that you have previously agreed that the whole "absence of evidence" thing is a giant red herring.No claim is made in a vacuum of all objective evidence. All human claims are made in the highly objectively evidenced context of human history, pschology and culture.With regard to god concepts and their source of origin there is no "absence of evidence". There is a wealth of evidence. A wealth of evidence strongly favouring the (tentative) conclusion that such concepts originate to fulfil very human needs for explanation, comfort, companionship etc. etc.Conversely there is no objective evidence to suggest such things might actually exist.

Hi RAZD, and yes, lets try again. Again, experience or imagination. However you want to derive that experience, for sake of your position, is acceptable with me. Don't feel like you have to be clever here, it boils down to two, and not because I say so, but because humans can only come to know ANYTHING in these two ways. That's fine, you can know of the communicator by communicating with the communicator. It is an experience of said communicator thru a means of communication.I have not argued differently. Can it really be Thor's hammer? Would that be equal to suggesting a meteor? We have zero evidence of anything supernatural. All we have are claims made by humans. That is shit as far as evidence is concerned.But in any case, if someone is claiming to know the supernatural, there are only two ways in which that person came to know of it: either thru experience or imagination.If they heard of it thru stories, then they don't know the supernatural, they have only then heard of it. Like every Christian today has only heard of Jesus, but they don't know of anything supernatural about him. That is such a fact that they admittedly add faith to the matter because of the lack of evidence. And yet it remains an experience, so what, if anything, is your point?When you said, "lets try again," did you mean, "let me confirm exactly what you have been saying, Oni, but in a way that makes it look like I disagree with you?" Because you nailed it.- Oni

Hello RAZ you old rascal. We need to know what it is you mean by this. Can you give us some examples (some links or extensive quotes would be nice) of some documented "religious experiences" that constitute this "objective empirical evidence" of yours? Can you also tell us what you think these documented religious experiences are evidence of exactly?Please reply to Inductive AtheismThanks in advance.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.