God or No God - that is the question (for atheists)

The puns, they burn!

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Not bad for a one-liner..you on?Thus athiesm as a position of a choice between two equally possible possibilites of which the atheist choses on the basis of....??

...there not being any evidence whatsoever for this additional entity called "God."If you use this kind of logic, iano, you have to believe in magic invisible fairies, too. Why don't you bewlieve in them? There are books written about them all over the place, so how is it any different with a god? Occam's razor tells us not to include extraneous entities - entities without any evidence of their existance certainly qualify.iano, you're asking athists to prove a negative - that no god exists. This is impossible, and a flaw in your logic. Nothing can be proven NOT to exist - but when there is no evidence to suggest that an entity DOES exist, the default position rationally is that it does NOT exist.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Equal possible? yes.
Equally probable? No.
A supernatural origin has zero evidence and requires the presence of an unexplained and unexplainable supernatural entity.
A naturalistc origin requires nothing beyond the universe itself. We already have a theoretical way in which this could have happened. Unfortunately we also have zero evidence that this is the way it did happen. It still remains a whole lot more probable since we can understand a theoretical mechanism without proposing a supernatural, undefinable, untestable, unexplainable solution.That is Occams razor.
Basically don't overcomplicate the situation. If the universe doesn't need to have a God then don't bother adding one. It is the only rational position for a scientist.(sigh. so much for the one liners. It was a promising start though.)This message has been edited by PurpleYouko, 08-12-2005 12:54 PM

Post deleted, since crashfrog brought up the same point already.This message has been edited by DominionSeraph, 08-12-2005 02:51 PM

Third time lucky (or blessed - depending on your view) ...a God who is no more 'addtional' than a blind mechanism which could cause all this, for which there is no evidence whatsoever and who would be a far more rational starting assumption if one didn't have a clue know either way.This message has been edited by iano, 12-Aug-2005 07:49 PM

a natural origin has zero evidence and requires the presence of an unexplained and unexplainable super, dooper natural (and it's Ocams Razor by the way, not Ocams magic wand)

And though I wish to Hell it could be otherwise...as will all those who chose that road - though I don't think it a temperature related thing.

Yup. And they didn't ususally put the nails through your hands like you see in the pictures, they put them through your wrist just below your hand. Right through the nerve which runs between the two bones of your forearm and which works your hand. By bending your knees and nailing you in the crooked-leg position, the only way for you to free up your diaphragm to breath was to haul yourself up on the nails through your wrists and push against the nails through your feet. Each breath was excruciatingly painful and the victim died when pain and exhaustion meant they could haul themselves up no more - or their knees were broken by the guards wanting to knock off for the evening.All for you....or not. Everyones personal choice

'Born from above' which is the opposite of..... born from.......yup... below........ which we have........ been already, so for a man to be born from....... above....... when he has already been..... born below....... is to be...wait for it....steady on now........you got it... b..b...b...born again!

"Cause."Can you please get that word out of your head?You're ignoring everything I have said and focusing on something that I have shown to be an impossibility. You can't have cause without time.There isn't a blind mechanism that "caused" the Big Bang, becasue the Big Bang didn't have a "cause."Of course, if we are no longer talking about the Singularity, and you are simply talking about universal mechanisms in general...Why would it be more rational to assume the existance of God? Note that "Goddunit" is not a mechanism - it doesn't actually explain anything at all.Let me use another easy example. You see no evidence that there is an evil fairy following you around. You can't say he doesn't exist - he's really sneaky and has magic invisibility powers! But you don't see any evidence that he exists or ever has existed. In fact, the only reason you ever even THOUGHT about the evil fairy is becuase you read about him in a book once - and the book was really old, so you think it might be true.What's the more rational position here, iano? Do you believe the fairy exists becuase you read about it in a really old book? Or do you conclude that, since there is absolutely no evidence that the fairy exists outside of the book, it is highly unlikely that he does?You can't just assume the existance of additional entities without any reason. You MUST have some sort of evidence that requires the entity to exist in order for any explanation to be formed.The alternative is blind, irrational faith that, even though you can't see it or perceive any reproducible evidence, it exists. That would be what we theists must have - blind, irrational faith.I really don't see what your point in this thread was. Atheists, or anyone else for that matter, cannot prove a negative. But likewise you can't prove the existance of God, especially with your previous posts about how "Jesus dies for you" and so on. You asked for a justification of atheism: atheism is the RATIONAL position. I know it's not fun to becalled irrational, but it's true - all of us who believe in a deity with no evidence are being irrational. I'm right there in the boat with you in this. If faith was the rational choice, there would be no atheists, and there would be no doubt. In fact, it wouldn't be faith any more - it would be knowledge.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

This is the crux of the issue.
Here we reach a complete impasse.
No matter how many time we go over this or something like it, I think we will never reach an agreement.
The "blind mechanism" is already there. It is the universe itself and therefore it is by definition a simpler proposition requiring less players ie. no God.This has been brought up before but think of it as an equation.
I propose that the Universe came about naturalistically via a big bang caused by a collision of multi dimensional membranes (a la brane theory)
1) Big bang = Universe
2) Big bang + God = Universe
Therefore God = 0, zero, nada, nothing, not necessary, irrelevent.The rules of parsimony (occam's razor) say that we should take the simplest answer and assume that it is true until proven otherwise.
God just complicates the issue so I don't even consider him until I see proof. Even a tiny bit of evidence would do. Until then it is simply a non-issue.If one does not know either way then the simplest mechanism that is possible must be the default position.We have a straight forward, possible, theoretical mechanism already in place so we have no need to add fictitious supernatural superbeings into the equation. Your God, Odin, Zeus or the great Niberwilikan (worshiped by the equaly fictitious and unprovable inhabitants of Rigel 5).
They are all equally irrelevent.

I hope Purpledawn doesn't mind me jumping in here but I thought I might give a go at a response to Iano. How would "you" determine if an intangible 'god' exists? Do you presume that the intangible 'god' exists because your parents/friends tell you that it exists and you felt some emotional connection to this belief?I ask this because in my garage I have a pet pink dragon. He's invisible, is intangible, but he always plays with me. When people ask how I could have a pink dragon in my small garage I tell them he can become any size 'He' wants. Any skepticism they might have I can easily dismiss the same way many believers could dismiss a non-belief in some 'god'. If someone tells me I have no proof for this dragon, I tell them that they need to modify their proof to allow for his existence.The ultimate answer is that my extraordinary claim REQUIRES extraordinary evidence. I can make any claim I want to, but in order for it to be examined rationally I must provide evidence. Supernatural events by definition, are NOT evidence. In order to be examined there must be evidence. So far, there is no evidence for the existence of any 'god'.