How do you provide evidence of a negative Alan? I'll tell you how. YOU DO IT BY SEARCHING FOR EVIDENCE OF THE POSITIVE AND FINDING NONE! The lack of existance can be proven categorically by the lack of evidence for existence, in fact in the case of the lack of existence of something the lack of evidence is the god damned proof.
CHrist alive! |
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What's funny is that if what you're saying were true, then the concept of God goes out the window entirely. You keep contradicting yourself. People have searched for evidence for god, and they have found none. There you have it, God does not exist. But then you will bitch about how just because they haven't found evidence of the existence of a god, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, which is exactly the opposite of your quote above. So which is it, then? |
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Fine, then allow me to rephrase, think of this as a debate where a request has been made by both sides that evidence be given.
And actually one has been given Ashley. You know the whole Genesis 7 days thing? That's what's referred to as a misinterpretation. The Hebrew term is, I believe a Yom (spelling may be wrong as may pronounciation), for a Yom there is no direct translation it is literally translated an indeterminate period between light and dark. At which point we can throw all our preconcieved notions about the existence of a god. That you wait for a sign suggest you expect the existence of an inteventionalist God, Yet there are multiple stand points from which such a god does not exist. |
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By your logic, life then, does not exist. |
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You're right in that the default position should be a NEUTRAL position. But that NEUTRAL position is the same as a position of disbelief. You just believe it's otherwise because of your own convictions. Science progresses this way: 1) We know this much. 2) How about if *this*? 3) Can you prove it? 4) Let me try. It does not progress by: 1) Anything goes. 2) How about this? 3) Sure why not? 4) Oh wait it doesn't work out. A neutral position is a skeptic position. It's not a "I do not believe anything at all." It's a "I will not trust my own hypothesis until empirical evidence backs it up." |
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You can't even keep track of your own reductio ad absurdum. |
OKay, I acknowledge my argument is flawed. "you can't disprove a negative." What makes the lack of existence of God an empirical negative? Investigation is required. Investigations into the existence of God have been conducted, but the results, as previously stated are dubious at best and cannot be held as evidence for either case.
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All they need for that is to show that you have no evidence of it. If you demanded 'evidence' to be DISproven, then that's the dictionary definition of an argument from ignorance. You can't just justify an argument by saying "prove me wrong." You have an argument when you prove it right. |
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That's the thing Alan, I can't prove myself right, I cannot prove myself wrong. Data I have access to is inconclusive, therefore I am asking others to provide me with Data that would give me conclusiveness.
I am not appealing to ignorance, I am asking to have my stand point either validated or invalidated. My personal inclination is that God exists, I cannot provide evidence either way. I cannot prove the cause of the big bang, I can prove its existence, but not its cause. However I would conclude that something triggered it, as everythings is triggered by something, most things in nature seem to have a trigger of some kind. SO what triggered the big bang? My personal theory is some form of divine. I can't prove it, I can't disprove it. I'd hunt for evidence, but I've never had the brain for theoretical physics, I prefer to deal in more immediate things that don't require ridiculous volumes of mathematics, Forensics for example. |
When scientists find data to be inconclusive, they know that means that the hypothesis was either wrong or needs to be worked on.
Inconclusiveness doesn't mean "it could go either way." It means "the way we took does not follow from any data." |
Screw it I can't be arsed, yeah you're right the hypothesis needs work. Well done. You win. Go break someone else's faith. Go prove your whole little world view right. Stripping people of hope isn't a good thing Alan. Thanks for reminding me why I avoid philisophy and theology like the plague.
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Deviant and Burningplain isn't going to understand because they're arguing from a desire to have their beliefs be true. They WANT to be right.
But one being scientific desires only to be correct despite what the outcome may be. Deviant and BP is almost in a state of permanent devastation from being afraid that their beliefs wont be real. Alan, Desp, and myself are saying that if god were proven empirically real, we would not be devastated by this new scientific fact. It would be like being devastated by the discovery of a new black hole. That would be silly. |
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Why does it offend you so much that there are people who believe in God? People who believe in a greater power? Just because you cannot see it, or touch it, or witness it's existence, does not mean it does not exist. Everything we've learned from science, at one point, was disbelieved or unknown until proven. None of it happened over night and the amount of science that we do know is virtually non-existent compared to what is left to be discovered. Even Einstein believed in intelligent design, at least to some degree. |
I am constantly finding myself to be wrong all the time in a numerous amount of things.
For example, just this week I understood the idea of marginal utility and how it disproves a large body of marxist economics. But guess what. That didn't break me. Being wrong does nothing for my ego. It humbles me. It makes me realize that I have more things to learn, and that I must adjust my perspective to what I learn, instead of ignoring it for the sake of my investment in something. That's what makes me a good scholar. And it sure as hell doesn't make me a 'shit scientist'. |
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People who have true faith, in whatever they believe, cannot be swayed. You know what is true for you, you can't be held accountable for what is true for someone else. |
I am tired, I have not slept solidly in approach 3 weeks. I am reaching my emotional and physical breaking point. People have commented I look like shit for at least a week. Pardon me for not being my usually rational self.
Devaint, you are correct. My faith is not broken, I am merely no longer in the mood to fight people with Alan's mind set. I hold my beliefs based on my intepretation of the evidence around me. Rule 1 of science; its all down to how you interpret the results. |
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But my point was that, first of all, your example was completely flawed, but even assuming it had a point, that we have not discovered the 'origin' of life does not 'disprove' the existence of life; it would just 'disprove' the origin of life and put into doubts either the search parameters we're using, the concept of an 'origin', or the concept of proof, but it in no way would invalidate the empirical observation of life itself. Quote:
The fact that you take my antagonism and believe that I can only be this iconoclastic because it offends me says more about you than it says about me. Quote:
Especially for your type of religion. You look to nature and at once you say "I know this is not all, there is more" but you also say "that 'more' is no more than that which already is" This is an atheism that is afraid of losing its religion. Quote:
There are numerous letters of him complaining about how people pervert his words into pretending he believes in a god. His quote of "my god is the god of Spinoza" is a very open proclamation of atheism for anyone who has actually read Spinoza. Even his "God does not play dice" has more to do with the fact that he was talking specifically to his theist friend Niels Bohr than Einstein's own beliefs. |
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9/11, creationism being taught in science classes, Rick Santorum, religious child abuse, the GOP, other theocracies, Lisa McPherson, ect. Quote:
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Even Einstein believed in intelligent design, at least to some degree.[/quote] |
I'm going to bed now but let me ask you something.
Why is it so hard for you guys to think that maybe you're just wrong? That maybe you don't know everything about the universe? That's what gets me up in the mornings. The knowledge of just how much knowledge there still is for me to learn. I would die if I ever woke up and found out that I already now everything there is to know about why the world is what it is. Why is faith more important than reason? Why is the 'I don't know' such a scary exclamation and you'd rather gamble in being wrong but determined on your faith? Why the universe not enough by itself, seeing how we have barely begun to understand it? I don't need a god to fill the gaps of what I don't know. I'm perfectly comfortable in knowing that I don't know; in fact it makes me happy, because it means I know what directions I could go to learn even more about life. Like the skeptic Hamlet told the religious Horatio: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." |
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In fact, I think it's exactly the opposite. Before, when I questioned the existence of God, when I questioned whether or not I was living a "Godly" life, or whether even questioning God's existence was a sin, as so many people are brainwashed into believing, I had a lot of fear. Mainly I feared that once this life was over, there would be nothing to show for it. A handful of decades and all that energy wasted for what? If God does not exist, what is the point in our own existence? I used to fear death. Once I accepted that there is a God I don't fear death anymore. I know it will come when it's meant to come. If there is nothing else afterwards, then so be it. No harm done. Nothing I can do about it anyway. I'm at peace with it, and I can't explain what that peace feels like to someone who doesn't understand what God feels like. It's just not something that can be explained. You either feel it or you don't. If you're meant to feel it, then you will at some point. |
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Your idea of God however, has no consequences whatsoever, and by your own admission, no observable effect on the natural world which it supposedly IS. Therefore your God is both irrelevant and self-refuting. Quote:
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Let me put it another way: it may NOT be said that there definitively is no god, but it MAY be definitively said that there is no reason to believe that there is one. When we deal with specific gods (like the judeo-christian God, or various pagan gods), it often can be objectively shown that these gods do not exist, based upon logical suppositions taken from their nature. For instance, the God of the bible is held as a perfect being, yet in the gospels he is shown to NOT know everything (Like when he sent his angels to Sodom and Gomorrah to see if there was a righteous man in town. A perfect God would know this and therefore would not need to send angels, Therefore he is not perfect, and therefore the God of the bible does not exist. Similarly, we know Thor is supposed to cause lightning and thunder with his magical hammer, however, thanks to science we know that lightning and thunder are caused by electrical build-up in clouds. Therefore Thor does not cause lighting bolts to strike with his magic hammer, therefore Thor does not exist. Quote:
If you want me to show proof positive that all Gods ever imagined and all gods that ever will be imagined do not exist we're going to be here a long time. As I said, the default position is the negative. It is not my responsibility to prove a negative, it is your responsibility to prove a positive. If you told me that "aliens exist" It would be appropriate for me to say "Prove your claim", and you could do it by catching an alien and showing it to me. I could say "Aliens do not exist" and you could say "prove your claim" which would be impossible, as the only way to prove this would be to be able to see everywhere in the universe at all times. It would be silly, however, for you to say: "Show me proof" if I were to say "I have seen no sufficient empirical evidence for the existence of aliens, and therefore I will behave as if aliens do not exist, until I see some". As a theist making a positive claim burden of proof is on you, not me. Got it? |
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