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Author | Topic: I Know That God Does Not Exist | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined: |
Thugpreacha writes: The other candidates simply don't get the attention. And why do my posts evoke emotions in you? I was annoyed that you copied-and-pasted a large group of "arguments" and expected me to read and respond to each one. You did it once - and I obliged... but you didn't engage any of my responses at all.You simply moved on to doing the same thing again - copying and pasting another large group of "arguments" and expecting me to respond to each one. This is inherently dishonest and rude. Dishonesty and rudeness always irks me.Sometimes I can control it - sometimes not so much. I apologize if my remarks were inappropriate. But my offer stands - pick them one at a time and we can go over them all you'd like. Whichever order you'd prefer - it just has to be one at a time. You know what....I think that you lie to yourself and others when you claim that evidence would change your mind. It can certainly appear that way.Especially since the only way to know is to actually show me evidence and see if my mind changes or not. It can also certainly appear that I'm just waiting for evidence before I "know" something - which is what we all do for every other non-God subject.
Your mind is made up. Accordingly to the evidence.Change or get new evidence, and my mind will be open to be changed or admit a new idea. And you are effectively challenging God Himself to prove you wrong. Not specifically, no.I'm challenging anyone and everyone. If anyone or anyone can provide evidence that I should think differently - I will. Again, just like all of us do with every other non-God subject. I'm just applying the same process to God. But its a free country and a science forum so I'll leave you alone with your topic. I'll be here.
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Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined: |
1.61803 writes: Your reasoning to dismissing something based on lack of evidence makes sense but that does not mean it does not exist. Absolutely true.And, again, included in all reasoning. If all we ever see are white swans, and we all searched for black swans as best we could, for thousands of years... and we never-ever saw a black one... we would be reasonable and rational and justified in saying "I know that black swans do not exist." This doesn't mean black swans cannot, or don't exist.And as soon as one is identified... I would change my position. It just means you have not found it yet or may never find it. Right.And the more we searched and found nothing... the more weight we give to "or may never find it." The less we searched and found nothing... the less weight we give to "or may never find it." We searched for Zeus for a few hundred years. Found nothing.Seems like we're all honky-dory (except for ringo) in saying we know that Zeus does not exist. We searched for God for a few thousand years. Found nothing.Why not also say we know that God does not exist? You want to equivocate God to Crabchairs in order to draw your conclusions. Only one aspect - the aspect that shows how an irrational question (one without evidence to support it in the first place) can be ignored.As we do with knowing unicorns, leprechauns, big foot and Zeus don't exist. Others, including atheist do not put crabchairs and God in the same column due to, for example, the historicity associated with the concept of God. That's up to them - and they're being irrational."The historicity" ("Traditional thinking") for anything has proven to be a terrible way to identify truth. Therefore, it should be ignored in place of evidence - which has a fantastic track record. It is as simple as that a disagreement on whether god belongs on the list of things that can be dismissed outright. *Dismissed insofar as to say one KNOWS it does not exist. I am saying there is no evidence for God - do you agree?I am saying, therefore, that God belongs in the list of things we don't have evidence for - do you agree? When we don't have evidence for something, I'm saying we are valid in claiming we know it does not exist - do you agree? (ringo doesn't - this is a fair position to take... you just also cannot claim to know that unicorns don't exist... or that Zeus doesn't exist... or that the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't exist... they're all the same.) If you think "I know the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not exist." is valid - it is the exact same argument to say "I know that God does not exist." You can agree with both - which is my argument. I say that both do not exist. Or you can agree with neither - which is ringo's argument.-this is a valid position -I simply think this is a "less-common" usage/understanding of the word "know." -and you should also be able to admit that if one is to use the more common understanding of the world "know" that includes knowing unicorns/Flying-Spaghetti-Monsters do not exist... then it also equally leads to knowing that God does not exist. Or you can agree with one but not the other - which is an inconsistent argument and therefore irrational
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ringo Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Stile writes:
I couldn't care less which usage is more common among the population. The most common adjective among the population is "massive" but I don't think it should be used at EvC to apply to holes.
Now - how to identify which usage of the word "know" is more common amongst the population? Stile writes:
No, I underline my accusation. You're using a colloquial definition to try to overrule a scientific definition. That's especially objectionable.
If I'm the one using the normal, most-people-use-it definition of the word "know" and you're the one using a more-rare (but not "wrong") definition... I kindly ask you to retract your accusation that I am "rigging the game so I can't lose." Stile writes:
"Massive holes" is also common usage. Don't use it here. And, I'm claiming that "my definition" is, at a minimum, well within common-usage of how people use the word "know" for things in current first-world-level society.All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 618 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
Interesting point of view. If we are wondering about X (whatever X is) and whether or not it is rational, then all we have to do is find somebody who has some rational reason to agree with X (or did agree however long ago). Then, no matter what else we may know about X, we must also consider X to be rational.
That doesn't sound rational.
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ringo Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Sarah Bellum writes:
That's right. It's not a popularity contest. In fact, judging rationality by popularity would be a logical fallacy. It only takes one rationale to make an idea rational. If we are wondering about X (whatever X is) and whether or not it is rational, then all we have to do is find somebody who has some rational reason to agree with X (or did agree however long ago). Then, no matter what else we may know about X, we must also consider X to be rational.All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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Tangle Member Posts: 9504 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8
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Stile writes: Name your best one.Let's look at it. Oh stop it. You know the arguments, they're hundreds - some thousands - of years old and still stand as reasonable, logical constructs, even though we both think they are wrong.
If all we ever see are white swans, and we all searched for black swans as best we could, for thousands of years... and we never-ever saw a black one... we would be reasonable and rational and justified in saying "I know that black swans do not exist." This doesn't mean black swans cannot, or don't exist.And as soon as one is identified... I would change my position. This is the only point that matters - the rest is word play. We haven't yet begun the search, we don't even know how, where or what to search. We're only just left the cave blinking - we're baies just discovering the world. We *know* sod all.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 618 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
It is you who are making it into a popularity contest - a weird popularity contest in which the voice of one outweighs the voice of many - instead of a debate! We might argue whether something is rational or not, but your position allows you to say that because someone in the past (that we have no opportunity to persuade and show them their error) thought something rational we cannot now be allowed to demonstrate that it is irrational.
Pretend we had a time machine and we could bring Og, our neolithic chum who believes in a thunder god, forward to our era. We could then explain to Og the mechanism of clouds and electric charge and so forth. This might take some time, of course. In the end, though, wouldn't you feel sure that Og would say that there was no longer a rational reason to believe in a thunder god?
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ringo Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Sarah Bellum writes:
That would be the opposite of a popularity contest, dear.
It is you who are making it into a popularity contest - a weird popularity contest in which the voice of one outweighs the voice of many - instead of a debate! Sarah Bellum writes:
You're still confusing rational with correct. Og can be 100% wrong in his conculsion but that doesn't make the idea irrational. And Og can change his mind about the conclusion without making the idea irrational. Pretend we had a time machine and we could bring Og, our neolithic chum who believes in a thunder god, forward to our era. We could then explain to Og the mechanism of clouds and electric charge and so forth. This might take some time, of course. In the end, though, wouldn't you feel sure that Og would say that there was no longer a rational reason to believe in a thunder god? The rationality of the argument is separate from the truth of the premises and the correctness of the conclusion. It disturbs me that you and Stile don't understand that.All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 618 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
But if Og changes and decides that the thunder-god thing is irrational, can we still say that it is rational? Even though now you have NOBODY who agrees that it is rational?
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ringo Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Sarah Bellum writes:
Once a rationale is put out there, you can't just make it go away. It still exists and it's still rational even if the originator doesn't like it any more. But if Og changes and decides that the thunder-god thing is irrational, can we still say that it is rational?All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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Dredge Member (Idle past 95 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
Theodoric writes:
I am indeed Catholic. I don’t know if God is all-knowing, because I don’t know what all-knowing means.
So you believe in a god that is not all knowing? Aren't you catholic?
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AlexCaledin Member (Idle past 435 days) Posts: 64 From: Samara, Russia Joined: |
Anyway, God's "computer" is all-knowing, generating all the "objective" picture.
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Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 618 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
I didn't say make it go away. It still exists, in a sense, in the past. In the same sense as an ice cube, melting, was (in the past) ice. But now it's liquid. You may say it was solid, but it's not logical to say it is solid.
I think you're just caught up in a logical quandary. You want to use the idea that people in the past believed in something we now know to be nonsensical as some sort of support for that something. After all, we have to have respect for those in the past, even if they haven't got the knowledge we've gained over the centuries. But that's just my speculation on your thinking, of course.
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ringo Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Sarah Bellum writes:
You still making the same mistake. Their conclusions are irrelevant. You want to use the idea that people in the past believed in something we now know to be nonsensical as some sort of support for that something. Whether people in the past made correct or incorrect conclusions has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with whether their ideas were rational. For a conclusion to be true, the premises have to be true and the reasoning has to be valid. If the conclusions in the past were incorrect, it could be because their premises were untrue. It does not, definitely not have to be because their reasoning was irrational. That's Logic 101. Why is it so hard for you to understand?All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
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Phat Member Posts: 18310 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
Stile writes: The *We* is not unanimous. Obviously some people found *something*. What sense would it make for so many people to unknowingly pretend? I can understand that peer pressure would allow for some to fit in. Some people have a total life change, however. And their stories are all similar. None of them ascribe the change to Zeus, Thor, or Gandolf. Of course some ascribe change to things like new diets, positivity, and healthy negative ions. A valid question would be whether a measurable percentage of those who claim to have been born again or finding God(Knowing vs Knowing About)is available. We searched for God for a few thousand years. Found nothing.Why not also say we know that God does not exist? Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. ~RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo
Subjectivism may very well undermine Christianity.In the same way that "allowing people to choose what they want to be when they grow up" undermines communism.~Stile
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