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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:
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GDR writes:
That would be how I would define knowledge but Stile's definition seems to be slightly broader.
Do you agree that if we claim to "know" something then we are making the claim that we have objective knowledge in order to make that claim. GDR writes:
He seems to be counting lack of objective evidence as objective evidence. I think that's valid in this case. I'm not at all clear on what objective evidence that Stile has that you are referring to. Again, my only nitpick with Stile's position is that I'd say I'm "very confident" that God does not objectively exist (very small error bar), not I "know" that God does not objectively exist.All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
NosyNed writes:
I agree. I think Stile is using "know" in exactly the way that means "very confident". He's tried hard to make it clear that we can never *know* anything in the way that you used the word there but we pretty much *always* use it to mean very (or very, very, very) confident. I have explained at one time or another that I would only use "know" for something that I can demonstrate - e.g. I know how to bake a cake, and when I show you the evidence, you will agree that I know. I would particularly avoid using "know" in a constroversial example like this one. This is the perfect place to be explicit about our confidence level.All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Dredge writes:
What has believing in existence got to do with it? We could walk humbly with neutrinos before we knew they existed. We can walk humbly with leprechauns whether they exist or not.
Now explain how one can “walk humbly with thy God” if one doesn’t believe in God? Dredge writes:
Ask Micah. Then explain what this means:”without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists” (Hebrews 11:6). Ask Jesus. According to Him, the ones who inherit the kingdom are NOT the ones that mouth, "Lord! Lord!" They're the ones who do the right thing, whether they think they're doing it "for Jesus" or not.
Dredge writes:
And Jesus said that the commandments boil down to loving God and loving your neighbour as yourself. It is the will of God that people believe in Him and obey His commandments.... So, how do you go about loving God? Presumably, those who inherit the kingdom are those who love God - and those who inherit the kingdom are those who love their neighbours.
Dredge writes:
How is it different?
However, this is a different argument to the one you started with in message 659, which was that Christianity is “about what you do, not what you believe or what you profess.” Dredge writes:
It's what Jesus taught, as I have quoted. You can ridicule Him all you want and you can claim that He's easy to refute all you want. (Incidentally, you may well be the only person in history who has ever proposed such a ridiculous, easily-refuted theological argument. Congratulations.)All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
GDR writes:
No. I don't acknowledge the possibility of "absolute" knowledge at all. I'm talking about objective knowledge.
... for either of us to say we "know" that God doesn't exist would mean absolute knowledge. GDR writes:
No, you don't. Stile's "knowledge" is based on an objective lack of evidence. Your belief is strictly subjective. Using Stile's apparent definition I am pleased to announce that I "know" God does exist....All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
GDR writes:
As I said, the lack of evidence is objective. If you think it isn't, show how it isn't.
What is the objective evidence for Stile's claim? GDR writes:
You have it backwards. Intelligent origin is not the default. Lack of intelligent origin is the default. You're turning poor Occam upside-down again. In that case I can claim that there is a God because there is an objective lack of evidence for non-intelligent origins to life or the evolutionary process.All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Stile writes:
I'm not trying to invalidate the argument. I'm just saying that you need to use a very finely-tuned definition when dealing with such a controversial subject. The definition you are using is fine for preaching to the choir but beyond that, it's value is much less. You might as well have just posted, "I know that God doesn't exist," and closed the thread. ...it just simply does not invalidate the argument/definitions as described in the first post.All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Stile writes:
And if I can know that unicorns exist, then I can know that God exists for the same reasons. You can make any argument "rational" by slapping an "if" in front of it and you can make anything exist by defining it as existing. I believe it was Modulous, years ago, that posted something like: "If I can know that bigfoot and the loch ness monster do not exist, then I can know God does not exist for the same reasons." But you're just rigging the game so you can't lose.All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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GDR writes:
It doesn't have to be conclusive to be objective.
...lack of evidence isn't conclusive, so Stile cannot "know" that God doesn't exist. GDR writes:
On the contrary, all of the evidence points to natural processes leading to natural processes leading to natural processes leading to natural processes leading to natural processes leading to natural processes....
There is also lack of evidence to show that the natural processes that are available for us to study today resulted from other pre-existing natural processes. GDR writes:
We are searching reality. There is always a default position: No unicorns without evidence for unicorns, no spooks without evidence for spooks.
We are searching for truth so there is no default position. GDR writes:
That's a good excuse for filling your argument with convoluted made-up nonsense but it isn't very useful when dealing with reality. Reality tends to confirm Occam. Occam is a philosophical approach and not a scientific one and is hardly objective evidence.All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
GDR writes:
I think he's made it clear that it's the current conclusion, not the "ultimate" conclusion. No objective conclusion is ever final in the sense that it can not be altered by new evidence.
... but Stile says He "knows" which IMHO asserts that his evidence is conclusive. GDR writes:
Evidence is not subjective. What evidence is that, and is it subjective or objective? All of the evidence we have points only to natural processes. How could evidence ever point to something unnatural?
GDR writes:
Why? If you can say "the buck stops here" at your intelligent cause, why can't the buck stop somewhere else?
... ultimately there has to be either an intelligent or a non-intelligent root for that string of processes regardless of how far back you want to go. GDR writes:
There is evidence of human intelligence. And as I have said before, the evidence shows that intelligence can only manipulate natural processes. It can not create new processes except from existing processes. What we know about intelligence can not point to an ultimate origin of processes.
But there is evidence for a creative intelligence. GDR writes:
There's no such thing as subjective evidence. You don't get your own private evidence. Evidence must be evident to everybody.
Intelligent life itself is subjective evidence. GDR writes:
We also have Treasure Island. We have the objective evidence that it exists. And furthermore, we have objective evidence of how it came to exist, in Stevenson's own words, which puts it well ahead of the Gospel stories in authenticity.
There are also the Gospel stories. We have the objective evidence that they exist and we subjectively decide whether or not to believe them. GDR writes:
The simplest solution is known processes, as opposed to speculation about the unknown. ... is the simplest solution, a virtually infinite number of untraceable lucky processes or the concept of theirebeing a pre-existing intelligence that is responsible for life?All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Thugpreacha writes:
Believers are pretty conclusive evidence that they have nothing special, no imparted wisdom, no exemplary morality, etc. I submit that the Believers themselves are evidence for some effects claimed from the God within the book via the Holy Spirit.All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Every religion has adherents who are decent people and atheists can be decent people too. You keep claiming that believers themselves are evidence that the belief is valid; I'm saying there is no reliable correlation between belief and behaviour. Believers can use their belief to justify the vilest behaviour.
All of them? Phat writes:
Since the purpose of sermons is to inspire believers, that's hardly surprising.
I have seen some rather inspiring sermons... Phat writes:
The logic of sermons? You might want to think a little longer about that. ...perhaps we can start a new topic on Inspired Sermons and you can attempt to debunk the logic of them.All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
GDR writes:
But you have no evidence.
Well then with that understanding, as I said earlier, I declare that I "know" God exists. GDR writes:
That may work in a court of law where it is necessary to make a decision one way or the other. It's worthless in a scientific context where we're trying to determine the existence of something.
The definition that comes up for "subjective evidence" is this.... GDR writes:
Again, all of it. For one example, the evidence suggests that boiling water is caused by heat - take the heat away and the boiling stops.
Again, what evidence points only to natural causes? GDR writes:
That's a "reason" with no reasoning behind it. It's empty speculation. It's an answer that answers nothing.
When you are talking about an intelligent first cause then you are talking about the reason that the natural processes that we can evaluate exist. GDR writes:
That's because your "answer" is not an answer. It doesn't explain anything. It just adds another turtle to the stack.
That is just evading the question by asking another question. GDR writes:
But it isn't an infinite regression. It's a network. One process causes another. If you want to admit that your god is created by another god, you have the same situation. If you want to claim that there's an ultimate god that causes all else, it's different. ... I am simply pointing out that you have the same problem with an infinite regression of natural processes.All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
GDR writes:
Your experience is clearly not representative. If it was, there would be a notable difference in those activities between Christian and non-Christian nations. The percentage of those people in the church world that are prepared to spend their resources of both time and money for the benefit of others, far exceed what I experience in my secular world.All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
GDR writes:
I don't think you can even compare Canada and the US. The US is more fanatically fundamentalist but also less inclined to display love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance. And the Scandinavian nations are pretty secular but they're also pretty good at taking care of their poor and sick.
How about even comparing the US or Canada with any other nation on Earth. GDR writes:
If you measure goodness in terms of cash, the ones with the most cash will seem like the most good. Here is a study in the USChristian vs Secular giving in US All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
GDR writes:
What on earth are you talking about? You said in Message 991, "I declare that I "know" God exists." and I replied in Message 993, "But you have no evidence." How on earth is a quote from NASA in any way related to what we were talking about?
From this sourceWe have scientific evidence of the this quote. We now have the world that we know with humans possessing consciousness and intelligence. That is quite a leap from one to the other. GDR writes:
Nobody "believes" in string theory. Some people think it's the most promising current hypothesis.
Wouldn't you say that belief in string theory is based on subjective evidence? GDR writes:
Are you suggesting that heat is not an explanation for boiling water? You asked for evidence that we can explain phenomena in terms of natural processes or "blind chance" as you call it. That's what I did. Now the goalposts have moved?
ringo writes:
Just how is that an explanation for deciding to believe that we are solely the result of processes driven by blind chance? ... the evidence suggests that boiling water is caused by heat - take the heat away and the boiling stops. GDR writes:
But it isn't piling processes on processes. It's connecting known processes to known processes. As I said, it's a network, not a hierarchy. There is no ultimate beginning to the network of processes, so there's no need for an infinite regression - like there is for an intelligent cause.
...just like piling process upon process adds turtles to the stack. GDR writes:
It looks like the fundamental forces interacting with each other. You propose a network. Can you explain what that looks like and where it came from? There's no need to speculate about "where it came from". If something "always was" - like your God - then the processes can just as easily be the something that always was.All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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