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Post Any Evidence For God Here

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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby crispybits on Thu May 16, 2013 6:57 pm

Firstly, there are no significant assumptions that you make outside of religion that are not based on evidence. Unless you are a high level physicist, the speed of light could be an order of 10 or 100 or 1000 out and it would make no difference to you. But the fact is that we can prove what the speed of light on Earth is. The hypothesis (it might be proven by now, I'm not totally up to date on cutting edge physics) that there may be regions of the universe where the speed of light is not a constant has absolutely no impact on your day to day life, and is itself based on collected evidence, not on some scientists simply saying "well I think this happens and you can't prove it doesn't."

I challenge you to name one non-religious assumption you make without ANY evidence which has any sort of impact upon your day to day life, even occasionally.

You are right that the absence of evidence is no proof of anything except for the absence of evidence, but the contention is not that the absence of evidence disproves the existence of God, but that the absence of evidence makes it irrational to believe in any given God claim. Say I made the claim "molluscs telepathically communicate with each other and have an advanced psychic social heirarchy and culture". The rational way to respond to that claim would be to see if there is any way in which it can be tested. If it cannot be tested then the rational position is not to say "well then it is the truth", but to say to whoever made the claim "provide evidence please". You certainly wouldn't go out and start thinking really hard towards any molluscs you could find in an attempt to communicate with them. All atheists ask is that the same standards which we apply to every other claim are applied equally to religious claims.

But what happens when you can't prove something in either direction?

Then you say "I don't know". What you don't do is say "I know what happened there - God did it!" That is a meaningless answer, and you're heading down the road to a "God of the gaps" type argument which was refuted centuries ago. It also stops you looking, it impedes the advancement of society because once you satisfy yourself that "God did it" then you stop looking for whatever the real answer is.

Relativity is correct within certain bounds, but it is not correct as a universal theory of how space and time and matter work. Neither is quantum physics. Neither is Newtonian mechanics. They are all approximations, our best theories that seem to fit the facts in given situations, and for given degrees of accuracy. None of them is dogma, none of them is meant to be taken as a fact which cannot ever be disproved or an understanding which we can never improve upon. The scientific community, right now, is working it's ass off because the guy who can disprove them gets very very rich and famous indeed, and immortalises himself in history alongside Newton and Einstein and Heisenberg and Schrodinger and others.

The term has been applied to any tactic, psychological or otherwise, which can be seen as subverting an individual's sense of control over their own thinking(1), behavior(2), emotions(3) or decision making(4).

Please explain how this is not a perfect description of religious method. You should not do this or you will go to Hell!(2) You should not think this or you will go to Hell!(1) You should not feel this or you will go to Hell!(3) The only way to not go to Hell is to pray to God for forgiveness and give yourself over to him!(4) Seems very apt to me. Your ideological problems with the public education system may well be justified (you haven't given details for me to know or not and that's outside the scope of this conversation anyway), but that does not stop religion as a whole, and particularly the systematic indoctrination of children with religious concepts they haven't a hope of understanding properly (hence manipulative and unethical), being accurately described as brainwashing.
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby BigBallinStalin on Thu May 16, 2013 7:30 pm

crispybits wrote: Say I made the claim "molluscs telepathically communicate with each other and have an advanced psychic social heirarchy and culture". The rational way to respond to that claim would be to see if there is any way in which it can be tested. If it cannot be tested then the rational position is not to say "well then it is the truth", but to say to whoever made the claim "provide evidence please". You certainly wouldn't go out and start thinking really hard towards any molluscs you could find in an attempt to communicate with them.


Right after a conversation with my mollusc friends, I was informed to tell you that they're offended by your post.
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby crispybits on Thu May 16, 2013 7:32 pm

Did I give away too many of their molluscy secrets?
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby BigBallinStalin on Thu May 16, 2013 7:34 pm

crispybits wrote:Did I give away too many of their molluscy secrets?


They're upset that you're denying the existence of their higher intellectual capacities. Of course, no one else can verify my findings, but that's beside the point.

P.S. My mullusc friends agree with me.
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby crispybits on Thu May 16, 2013 7:56 pm

Hey! I'm the one making the claim that they have advanced psychic powers!

It's all those amolluscists they should be getting angry with!

Plus, I like exploring rock pools at the beach, it's a fun place :)
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby TA1LGUNN3R on Thu May 16, 2013 9:04 pm

Mollusks, you say?

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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby BigBallinStalin on Thu May 16, 2013 9:19 pm

The mulluscs are not amused.
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby AndyDufresne on Thu May 16, 2013 11:22 pm

TA1LGUNN3R wrote:Mollusks, you say?

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+10 quatloos for TA1LGUNN3R's contribution on this page.


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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby Symmetry on Fri May 17, 2013 5:43 am

john9blue wrote:
Symmetry wrote:
john9blue wrote:symmetry, please, the adults are talking.


Says the manchild with a My Little Pony fixation.


wtf? so everyone who likes my little pony is a manchild? tell that to medefe, you ignorant f*ck.


No, I said that you were a manchild with a My Little Pony fixation. Was I unclear?
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby TA1LGUNN3R on Fri May 17, 2013 9:13 pm

john wrote:a/theism just refers to whether your strong or weak belief is in god or no god... it's binary


Again, you're applying an incorrect, or at least not complete, definition to atheism.

If you don't know god exists or even what god is, then by definition you are an atheist, because you are "lacking belief in god."

If you wanna change definitions or word structures, then you can make a case for that.

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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby john9blue on Fri May 17, 2013 9:43 pm

TA1LGUNN3R wrote:Again, you're applying an incorrect, or at least not complete, definition to atheism.

If you don't know god exists or even what god is, then by definition you are an atheist, because you are "lacking belief in god."

If you wanna change definitions or word structures, then you can make a case for that.


you could use this definition, but it wouldn't mean anything since the act of labeling yourself an atheist is an active rejection of the concept of god, which requires a conception of god in the first place. if you called babies and other T.N.'s "atheists", they wouldn't even know if that meant anything. so it's pretty pointless to extend the definition of atheism that far.

waauw wrote:The problem I'm having is that you said atheism is a form of indoctrination. This is the reason why I wanted to mention that atheism does not claim to know about a divine existence. In indoctrination people do make it sound like they KNOW the answer.


i don't think all atheists are indoctrinated. i think lots of people involved in the new atheist movement are at least somewhat indoctrinated. i hear the same oddly specific arguments over and over from all these different people... it really does sound like some kind of widespread doctrine (i think it qualifies as one, tbh)

crispybits wrote:
john9blue wrote:you wanted our society to actively discourage people from becoming religious (make it "rated R" and keep it away). if we do that then people will not want anything to do with religious morals and may actively go against them because they are being encouraged to think that religion is seriously wrong.


I said no such thing about discouraging. I personally want to discourage people from taking up any religion unless they can provide evidence, but I don't want any such rules put in place by society. Freedom of religion is a good thing.

Have you thought that the main problems people have with religion are the way it treats children (not a catholic church dig) and the way it tries to run everyone's lives, not just the lives of believers? Do you not think that if religion stopped doing the two things that secular people have the most problems with then activism against religion would decrease, not increase?

Nobody is suggesting religion is "wrong", just that there's a place and a time for it and that's in voluntary exchanges between adults who are free to follow any religion they like as long as they don't force their religious rules on people that don't believe the same things they do. Or they can come up with evidence. Either way is fine by me.


your use of the words "keep [religion] away" gave me the impression that you wanted our society as a whole to actively discourage it, or maybe even the government itself.

i agree about the "running everyone's lives" part, but there's a thin line here. are we even capable of forcing politicians to ignore their religious beliefs when making decisions? religion and morality are tightly interwoven for many people. sure, ideally they would make decisions based only on evidence and solid facts, but opinions have to come into play at some point since many issues can't be decided with our current facts alone.
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby crispybits on Sat May 18, 2013 4:07 am

john9blue wrote:you could use this definition, but it wouldn't mean anything since the act of labeling yourself an atheist is an active rejection of the concept of god, which requires a conception of god in the first place. if you called babies and other T.N.'s "atheists", they wouldn't even know if that meant anything. so it's pretty pointless to extend the definition of atheism that far.


If you label yourself yes, then it shows you have cognition of the idea. However a baby is not labelling itself anything. By the definition of atheism as "lacking belief in God(s)" then babies are atheists, because it is impossible to have belief in something if you do not have a mental concept for that thing. Whether they consider themselves to be athiests or not is irrelevant. TN is a subset of atheism.

john9blue wrote:i don't think all atheists are indoctrinated. i think lots of people involved in the new atheist movement are at least somewhat indoctrinated. i hear the same oddly specific arguments over and over from all these different people... it really does sound like some kind of widespread doctrine (i think it qualifies as one, tbh)


There is an anti-theist set of arguments that often get repeated, but there is a difference between that and indoctrination. Indoctrination into an idea by definition does not encourage/allow criticism of that idea. Anti-theism wants debate, it wants people to come up against it, present their evidence or their argument or whatever and have the discussion. Religion (as a philosophy) wants to shut down the discussion, it allows no debate. "This is the word of God" is not allowing for any debate, it is a debate ender, because whoever says it has no way to change their position without abandoning it entirely. Have you ever heard any religious person saying "This is the word of God, but you know what he may have been wrong on this issue"?

john9blue wrote:your use of the words "keep [religion] away" gave me the impression that you wanted our society as a whole to actively discourage it, or maybe even the government itself.

i agree about the "running everyone's lives" part, but there's a thin line here. are we even capable of forcing politicians to ignore their religious beliefs when making decisions? religion and morality are tightly interwoven for many people. sure, ideally they would make decisions based only on evidence and solid facts, but opinions have to come into play at some point since many issues can't be decided with our current facts alone.


Then I apologise for giving that impression. I think your constitution has it pretty much spot on, the government stays out of religion, and the churches stay out of politics. I have no interest in the government getting involved in religious practices. I would however want the government to get involved with religious people or organisations acting illegally. Freedom of religion isn't a free pass to do whatever you want, just to hold whatever religious opinions you want, you still have to operate within the law.

We can elect politicians with a track record of not voting for things because "God says so" but because they have secular arguments for doing so. We can ban any form of religious justification for anything being used in any government discussion, and suspend/fire any politican who tries. Can you imagine if I could propose that as a law tomorrow how many people would be shouting "war on christianity!!!" or "persecution of our faith!!!"? Do you see (I think you do) how passing such a law would be nothing of the sort, but simply an application of the established principles of church/state separation?

Yes you will still get politicians that will have the debate in entirely secular language and vote according to their religious convictions regardless, but like the enlightenment this is not waving a magic wand and suddenly turning the world into atheists. That isn't even the point of it, to turn the world athiest. The point is to ensure decisions are made based on reason and evidence for the best results for everyone. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't put that kind of law in place, because it would be the right thing to do. Merely that we shouldn't expect it to work perfectly from day 1, we as a society carry too much emotional baggage for that.
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby waauw on Sat May 18, 2013 4:25 am

john9blue wrote:
waauw wrote:The problem I'm having is that you said atheism is a form of indoctrination. This is the reason why I wanted to mention that atheism does not claim to know about a divine existence. In indoctrination people do make it sound like they KNOW the answer.


i don't think all atheists are indoctrinated. i think lots of people involved in the new atheist movement are at least somewhat indoctrinated. i hear the same oddly specific arguments over and over from all these different people... it really does sound like some kind of widespread doctrine (i think it qualifies as one, tbh)


Well then you made a horrible mistake in formulating your statement.

The fact that many atheists claim the same things, does not make it an indoctrination. According to the oxford dictionary indoctrination is making people believe things without them questioning it. This is not the case with atheism. Atheists base themselves on science and science does provide them evidence, often even conclusive evidence(for example heliocentrism).

Atheism is also individualistic in it's nature. It does not offer a holy script with all the need to know in it. No, atheism allows people to make up their own mind about the many scientific theories out there. There is a reason why atheism started growing with the birth of liberalism as liberalism is about freedom to believe and think whatever you choose.

In fact it are the religious people who are often indoctrinated, not the atheists. Many religions are based on holy scripts, which themselves have no scientific foundation and are filled with logical conflicts. It are these scripts which are then taught to children. They only learn what they should believe in but do not receive any logical nor scientific foundation on why to believe it. This in it's definition is indoctrination.
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby chang50 on Sat May 18, 2013 8:42 am

waauw wrote:
john9blue wrote:
waauw wrote:The problem I'm having is that you said atheism is a form of indoctrination. This is the reason why I wanted to mention that atheism does not claim to know about a divine existence. In indoctrination people do make it sound like they KNOW the answer.


i don't think all atheists are indoctrinated. i think lots of people involved in the new atheist movement are at least somewhat indoctrinated. i hear the same oddly specific arguments over and over from all these different people... it really does sound like some kind of widespread doctrine (i think it qualifies as one, tbh)


Well then you made a horrible mistake in formulating your statement.

The fact that many atheists claim the same things, does not make it an indoctrination. According to the oxford dictionary indoctrination is making people believe things without them questioning it. This is not the case with atheism. Atheists base themselves on science and science does provide them evidence, often even conclusive evidence(for example heliocentrism).

Atheism is also individualistic in it's nature. It does not offer a holy script with all the need to know in it. No, atheism allows people to make up their own mind about the many scientific theories out there. There is a reason why atheism started growing with the birth of liberalism as liberalism is about freedom to believe and think whatever you choose.

In fact it are the religious people who are often indoctrinated, not the atheists. Many religions are based on holy scripts, which themselves have no scientific foundation and are filled with logical conflicts. It are these scripts which are then taught to children. They only learn what they should believe in but do not receive any logical nor scientific foundation on why to believe it. This in it's definition is indoctrination.


Indeed all true,I would add that apologists appear to have trouble accepting individualistic thinking presumably because it is so alien to them so we see this tactic of labelling atheism as a faith or a belief as a way of bringing it back within the parameters they are comfortable with.
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby john9blue on Sat May 18, 2013 10:51 am

crispybits wrote:If you label yourself yes, then it shows you have cognition of the idea. However a baby is not labelling itself anything. By the definition of atheism as "lacking belief in God(s)" then babies are atheists, because it is impossible to have belief in something if you do not have a mental concept for that thing. Whether they consider themselves to be athiests or not is irrelevant. TN is a subset of atheism.


what if i told you that you didn't believe in "skub".

what is skub? it could be god, it could be your mom, it could be flying unicorns. how would you know whether you believed in it or not? you don't even know what it is.

crispybits wrote:There is an anti-theist set of arguments that often get repeated, but there is a difference between that and indoctrination. Indoctrination into an idea by definition does not encourage/allow criticism of that idea. Anti-theism wants debate, it wants people to come up against it, present their evidence or their argument or whatever and have the discussion. Religion (as a philosophy) wants to shut down the discussion, it allows no debate. "This is the word of God" is not allowing for any debate, it is a debate ender, because whoever says it has no way to change their position without abandoning it entirely. Have you ever heard any religious person saying "This is the word of God, but you know what he may have been wrong on this issue"?


i have a hard time believing this, since no atheist i have ever talked to has ever admitted being wrong about any of their beliefs despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

waauw wrote:Well then you made a horrible mistake in formulating your statement.

The fact that many atheists claim the same things, does not make it an indoctrination. According to the oxford dictionary indoctrination is making people believe things without them questioning it. This is not the case with atheism. Atheists base themselves on science and science does provide them evidence, often even conclusive evidence(for example heliocentrism).

Atheism is also individualistic in it's nature. It does not offer a holy script with all the need to know in it. No, atheism allows people to make up their own mind about the many scientific theories out there. There is a reason why atheism started growing with the birth of liberalism as liberalism is about freedom to believe and think whatever you choose.

In fact it are the religious people who are often indoctrinated, not the atheists. Many religions are based on holy scripts, which themselves have no scientific foundation and are filled with logical conflicts. It are these scripts which are then taught to children. They only learn what they should believe in but do not receive any logical nor scientific foundation on why to believe it. This in it's definition is indoctrination.


how often do you hear about "non-stamp collectors"?

how about the invisible pink unicorn? russell's teapot? how about "you're an atheist for one less god than i am"? or "i'm an agnostic atheist, not one of THOSE atheists"?

how about the rest of the litany of quotes by modern atheist writers that get repeated over and over again?

all invalid arguments, all repeated mindlessly and unquestioned by most modern atheists. (and yes, most religious people are the same way)

so don't give me this shit about how you are all individualistic free-thinkers. i know what a free-thinker sounds like, and this isn't it. in fact, i bet i can guess 90% of your political beliefs, because i'm well-versed in the way people like you think. you are all pretty much the same.
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby chang50 on Sat May 18, 2013 11:12 am

john9blue wrote:
crispybits wrote:If you label yourself yes, then it shows you have cognition of the idea. However a baby is not labelling itself anything. By the definition of atheism as "lacking belief in God(s)" then babies are atheists, because it is impossible to have belief in something if you do not have a mental concept for that thing. Whether they consider themselves to be athiests or not is irrelevant. TN is a subset of atheism.


what if i told you that you didn't believe in "skub".

what is skub? it could be god, it could be your mom, it could be flying unicorns. how would you know whether you believed in it or not? you don't even know what it is.

crispybits wrote:There is an anti-theist set of arguments that often get repeated, but there is a difference between that and indoctrination. Indoctrination into an idea by definition does not encourage/allow criticism of that idea. Anti-theism wants debate, it wants people to come up against it, present their evidence or their argument or whatever and have the discussion. Religion (as a philosophy) wants to shut down the discussion, it allows no debate. "This is the word of God" is not allowing for any debate, it is a debate ender, because whoever says it has no way to change their position without abandoning it entirely. Have you ever heard any religious person saying "This is the word of God, but you know what he may have been wrong on this issue"?


i have a hard time believing this, since no atheist i have ever talked to has ever admitted being wrong about any of their beliefs despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

waauw wrote:Well then you made a horrible mistake in formulating your statement.

The fact that many atheists claim the same things, does not make it an indoctrination. According to the oxford dictionary indoctrination is making people believe things without them questioning it. This is not the case with atheism. Atheists base themselves on science and science does provide them evidence, often even conclusive evidence(for example heliocentrism).

Atheism is also individualistic in it's nature. It does not offer a holy script with all the need to know in it. No, atheism allows people to make up their own mind about the many scientific theories out there. There is a reason why atheism started growing with the birth of liberalism as liberalism is about freedom to believe and think whatever you choose.

In fact it are the religious people who are often indoctrinated, not the atheists. Many religions are based on holy scripts, which themselves have no scientific foundation and are filled with logical conflicts. It are these scripts which are then taught to children. They only learn what they should believe in but do not receive any logical nor scientific foundation on why to believe it. This in it's definition is indoctrination.


how often do you hear about "non-stamp collectors"?

how about the invisible pink unicorn? russell's teapot? how about "you're an atheist for one less god than i am"? or "i'm an agnostic atheist, not one of THOSE atheists"?

how about the rest of the litany of quotes by modern atheist writers that get repeated over and over again?

all invalid arguments, all repeated mindlessly and unquestioned by most modern atheists. (and yes, most religious people are the same way)

so don't give me this shit about how you are all individualistic free-thinkers. i know what a free-thinker sounds like, and this isn't it. in fact, i bet i can guess 90% of your political beliefs, because i'm well-versed in the way people like you think. you are all pretty much the same.[/quote

Ok I'll bite.describe 90% of my political beliefs,you might start by giving my voting record 1974-2003 in the UK.Should be easy seeing as we are all pretty much the same and you are so prescient..
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby john9blue on Sat May 18, 2013 11:15 am

on what issues specifically?

feel free to pick positions that you think would surprise me. i like to be pleasantly surprised.
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby jonesthecurl on Sat May 18, 2013 12:01 pm

john9blue wrote: the act of labeling yourself an atheist is an active rejection of the concept of god, which requires a conception of god in the first place.



Seems to me this argument works both ways. How is it possible to believe in "god" if you can't define it? Isn't that meaningless -oh yes, I believe in this thing. Whatever it is...
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby crispybits on Sat May 18, 2013 12:10 pm

Until I find out what "skub" is, if I ever do, then I have no belief about skub. I neither believe that it exists or that it doesn't exist. I don't assign any probability factor to it's existence either. Now look again at the sentence "lacking belief in X" and tell me that it is not appropriate for that to apply in this case. I lack belief, AND I lack understanding of the concept. If it is possible to be "askubist" than my askubism is stronger than my atheism, because I at least know what we're talking about when someone says "God". You are confusing atheism with anti-theism (which is when an atheist starts challenging religious dogma rather than not giving a crap about it at all). Anti-theists are a subset of atheists, but atheism is not limited only to anti-theists.

As for no atheist ever changing their mind on the question of the existence of God, have you ever thought that this is because no theist (the ones making the claim, who hold the burden of proof) has ever supplied evidence that he/she/it exists? That is of course ignoring the many and varied documented former athiests who have become religious again later on, for a whole load of different reasons.

On the point that you have heard a lot of arguments many times, well this is because they are effective at making a point. Yes it's not original thought, there is a kind of cultural playbook atheists can turn to in the combined works of many philosophers and writers in the past couple of hundred years that gives ready made responses to religious fallacies. Some are not as effective as others, but I have yet to see someone disprove the existence of my invisible immaterial pink unicorn who can save their eternal soul if they are just willing to come and help clean my flat. Oh and by the way the immaterial invisible pink unicorn also says that eating potato is evil and a mortal sin and you will go to hell if you do so. Therefore I'm going to petition government to have potatoes and potato based products made illegal, and if they refuse I'll take it all the way to the Supreme Court because by not enforcing my invisible immaterial pink unicorn's rules on everybody they are violating my religious freedom.
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby john9blue on Sat May 18, 2013 12:22 pm

crispybits wrote:Until I find out what "skub" is, if I ever do, then I have no belief about skub. I neither believe that it exists or that it doesn't exist. I don't assign any probability factor to it's existence either. Now look again at the sentence "lacking belief in X" and tell me that it is not appropriate for that to apply in this case. I lack belief, AND I lack understanding of the concept. If it is possible to be "askubist" than my askubism is stronger than my atheism, because I at least know what we're talking about when someone says "God". You are confusing atheism with anti-theism (which is when an atheist starts challenging religious dogma rather than not giving a crap about it at all). Anti-theists are a subset of atheists, but atheism is not limited only to anti-theists.


suppose "skub" is another word for mud. you believe that mud exists, right? therefore you believe in skub, you just don't realize it.

same with T.N.... they realize that you can use a vague notion for god that you believe is true (i.e. pantheism) or a specific one that you believe is false (i.e. zeus)... and the fact that we haven't defined god means you can't give an answer to whether you even have belief or not.

jonesthecurl wrote:
john9blue wrote: the act of labeling yourself an atheist is an active rejection of the concept of god, which requires a conception of god in the first place.

Seems to me this argument works both ways. How is it possible to believe in "god" if you can't define it? Isn't that meaningless -oh yes, I believe in this thing. Whatever it is...


see above ^

if you don't know what a word means, then you aren't even able to say whether you believe in it or not.
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby waauw on Sat May 18, 2013 1:25 pm

john9blue wrote:
waauw wrote:Well then you made a horrible mistake in formulating your statement.

The fact that many atheists claim the same things, does not make it an indoctrination. According to the oxford dictionary indoctrination is making people believe things without them questioning it. This is not the case with atheism. Atheists base themselves on science and science does provide them evidence, often even conclusive evidence(for example heliocentrism).

Atheism is also individualistic in it's nature. It does not offer a holy script with all the need to know in it. No, atheism allows people to make up their own mind about the many scientific theories out there. There is a reason why atheism started growing with the birth of liberalism as liberalism is about freedom to believe and think whatever you choose.

In fact it are the religious people who are often indoctrinated, not the atheists. Many religions are based on holy scripts, which themselves have no scientific foundation and are filled with logical conflicts. It are these scripts which are then taught to children. They only learn what they should believe in but do not receive any logical nor scientific foundation on why to believe it. This in it's definition is indoctrination.


how often do you hear about "non-stamp collectors"?

how about the invisible pink unicorn? russell's teapot? how about "you're an atheist for one less god than i am"? or "i'm an agnostic atheist, not one of THOSE atheists"?

how about the rest of the litany of quotes by modern atheist writers that get repeated over and over again?

all invalid arguments, all repeated mindlessly and unquestioned by most modern atheists. (and yes, most religious people are the same way)

so don't give me this shit about how you are all individualistic free-thinkers. i know what a free-thinker sounds like, and this isn't it. in fact, i bet i can guess 90% of your political beliefs, because i'm well-versed in the way people like you think. you are all pretty much the same.


Seriously you're reasoning makes no sense. But anyway here is a list of your claims and my answers:
  • The same analogies can recur multiple times
    ==>This has nothing to do with how opinions are formed or what the opinions are. What you are referencing here is the way of expressing oneself.
  • "i'm an agnostic atheist, not one of THOSE atheists"
    ==> A lot of people would react that way if they were called something they are not. This statement is about definition, generalization and cathegorization. If I would call you a genocidal maniac because religious pursecutions have happened in the past, would you accept it? No, you would say "I'm not one of those religious extremists"(or some variant of the same statement) and I'm willing to bet that a whole lot of other religious folk would answer the same thing. But this statement alone does not make a person collectivist(as in opposite to individualist) or indoctrinated.
  • atheist writers repeat the same thing over and over again and this is why they are no free-thinkers
    ==> If I would quote something out of Star Wars does that mean I am unable to form my own opinion about those movies?
  • so don't give me this shit about how you are all individualistic free-thinkers
    ==> I never said that ALL atheists are free-thinking. Some of them probably aren't. What I meant was that atheism in general does not dictate people what to believe. Atheism just means that people do not believe in a god. For the rest atheists are free to believe what they want(individualistic). There is no standardization of what Atheists are supposed to believe. There are for example tons of atheists who don't agree with the big bang theory.
  • You think you know what I and all atheists think(including 90% of our political views)
    ==> I'm pretty sure you can not derive whether one believes in liberalism, neo-liberalism, socialism, anarchism, social-liberalism, etc. based on whether or not they believe in a God. The same goes for many other topics like for example gunrights, death penalty, interventionism, abortion, etc.
    The only things that atheists do resemble each other on are things like seperation of church and state. The reason for this however is that people have the propensity to protect themselves. For atheism, a seperation of church and state is required to attempt to be as safe as possible.
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby waauw on Sat May 18, 2013 1:34 pm

john9blue wrote:on what issues specifically?

feel free to pick positions that you think would surprise me. i like to be pleasantly surprised.


try me. Which is my preferred political persuasion?(narrowed it down to only liberalism as I already mentioned that I'm liberal in another topic.
Classical liberal, neoliberal or social-liberal?

or what about this one? Tell me what my economical persuasion is? What is my preferred economical system?
mercantilism, classical, neoclassical, Keynesian capitalism, austrian capitalism, chicago capitalism, ... ?

==> let's see if you get both of 'm right, because none of these have anything to do with my atheist point of view. But as you claim to know my political views, give it a go
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby crispybits on Sat May 18, 2013 1:46 pm

Lets try and simplify things for you here J9B.

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So, to believe X, you must therefore accept it as true that X.

Image

So a theist believes (accepts as true) that God exists.

We put the letter "a" in front of some words instead of putting "not". So for example "amoral" doesn't mean bad, it means without any moral properties at all. "Apolitical" doesn't mean anti-political, it means without having anything to do with politics. We could just as correctly write "not moral" or "not political", but these are ambiguous phrases that could be confused with other meanings depending on the context.

So, when we put the "a" in front of theist, what it means is that an atheist is anyone who is not a theist. Given that being a theist involves assigning a truth value to a statement, anyone who cannot assign a truth value to this statement is not a theist, and therefore TNs are, by definition, atheist.

Now do you want to stop quibbling about semantics and go back to when the conversation was interesting, like the point where I was waiting for you to demonstrate why atheism will lead to a total collapse of the moral fabric of society maybe? I've set out my case in response to BBS, still waiting for yours.
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby tzor on Sat May 18, 2013 3:25 pm

crispybits wrote:So, when we put the "a" in front of theist, what it means is that an atheist is anyone who is not a theist. Given that being a theist involves assigning a truth value to a statement, anyone who cannot assign a truth value to this statement is not a theist, and therefore TNs are, by definition, atheist.


Just a minor nit pick; in the original definition of the Latin word, Christians were considered atheist since they didn't worship the Roman gods (the Romans were practical people; they didn't care who you worshiped as long as you also worshiped their gods as well). It is only later that the word was applied to any gods as opposed to the Roman pantheon.
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Re: Post Any Evidence For God Here

Postby crispybits on Sat May 18, 2013 3:38 pm

Minor nit pick - it was a greek word, not latin.

What that has to do with the actual point is lost on me though.
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