i dont disagree at all.  that being said, there are no more scientific facts suggesting that there is no god than there are scientific facts suggesting the is a god.  so both arguments rely on faith in things that cannot be or have not been concretely observed.

In that case, why believe either of these things?  As Carl Sagan said, "Really, it's ok to wait for the evidence to come in."  He was talking about alien life, but it is still applicable.

please dispense with the attacks.  if you think im wrong explain why.  otherwise dont waste my time.

 

*shrug*

Not my place to say, strong atheism isn't my position, but I think there might be one or two here that may give you their point of view on what evidence there may be for no god whatsoever.

i understand.  but you DO believe in a certain set of viewpoints on the subject.  do you not?

I post that cat picture in response to things that have been dealt with here numerous times.

 

Basically there is also an equal ammount of evidence for and against a teapot orbiting the sun somewhere between Jupiter and Saturn. When there is no evidence either way it is logical to not believe something exists.

 

As to the Christian god - there is evidence against - as omnipotence and omniscience are broken concpets.

Yes. I believe there is insufficient evidence to justify accepting theism, that many concepts of a deity (the causer of causality) are incoherent and contradictory and therefore explicitly reject those particular conceptions, the current diversity of life emerged through evolutionary processes occurring over a large timespan and therefore young earth creationism is false, etc. Your question seems to have been intended to make a point but I cannot fathom what it's supposed to be.
 

 

 

first, you assume that god cannot have been the driving force for evolutionary processes over a large timespan.  i dont believe in the young earth creationism idea either.

second, my point is that those beliefs that you have cannot be scientifically investigated or observed.  so it is a faith.

No need to apologize.  Perhaps I've jumped the gun.

Before we continue, I will be happy to concede that you might be correct within your own definition.  Since you and I have not agreed upon a definition of faith, I'd like you to give me a precise definition.  If we are using the word differently, there's no point in discussing this.  So you tell me.  What is faith?

 

Matt Dillahunty says:

I lack a belief in God based on evidence so what do you do? instead of providing the explaination, you simply claim "well you believe in no God based on no evidence so hahaha we're equally as stupid" No we're not! One is a faith based position, the other is a rejection of a faith based position

You assume I assume, and you're wrong in that assumption.



A causer of causality is contradictory, therefore false. YEC and the ERV phenomenon are contradictory; thus, one is false and one is not; the ERV phenomenon is true; therefore, YEC is false. I have not come across sufficient evidence to justify accepting theism; therefore, there's insufficient evidence for me to justify accepting theism. These beliefs—the ones I listed earlier and to which you responded by saying they're based in faith—are deductively true, no faith required.
 

 

Okay, and your position is that there is a god (or gods), and you have not been proven right. My position would be that you're basing such beliefs on a tradition that you grew up with or were introduced to.

Saying there are no real leprechans before you're introduced to a two-foot-tall Irish gremlin is just being reasonable. There's no reason to believe that leprechans exist at all.

Truthfully, it's not even about a god. It's you I don't believe. When you say, "God exists!" I'd say, "produce what you're talking about or it doesn't exist." I think that's fair.

Whereas the evidence that Kevin is awesome is abundant.

Ok.  As I suspected, we have different definitions of faith.  Allow me to explain why your definition is insufficient.

As you are supposed to have read, logic is divided into two types:  deduction and induction.  Deduction moves from given statements to necessary conclusions.  Induction is the process of making inferences (which are never 100% certain) about broad statements given specific individual statements.

Deduction:

All men are mortal.

Socrates is a man.

Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

***

This formula is 100% certain if the premises are true.  We say that this 'formula' is a valid deductive argument.

 

Induction:

All the cats that have ever been observed have brains.

Therefore: All cats have brains.

 

As you can see, the inductive argument is not necessarily true.  However, it is very likely to be true, since we have observed millions of cats.  Furthermore, inductive arguments, unlike deductive arguments, gain strength through accumulation.  If I want to prove that all cats have brains within a reasonable doubt, the above argument may not be sufficient.  However, I could add the following inductive arguments:

All observed creatures displaying intelligence have brains.

All observed cats have displayed intelligence.

Therefore: All cats have brains.

***

Now, I have strengthened my inductive case by adding another corroborating piece of evidence.  In truth, if we compiled every single piece of scientific data giving strength to the argument that all cats have brains, we would have enough of an argument to fill a small library.

Here's a very important thing about induction.  Sometimes an inductive argument is weak because there is conflicting evidence.  For instance, there is a lot of inductive evidence that global warming is man made.  On the other hand, there is some inductive evidence that global warming is part of a natural cycle, and has little or nothing to do with human activity.  Because of this conflicting evidence, it is more difficult to say with near certainty that global warming is caused by humans.  In cases like this, we have to weigh the evidence from each side and make a decision based on which side has more conclusive evidence.

Induction involves probability.  We have a mathematical formula for dealing with probability.  Since you haven't read the essays I suggested, I'll copy and paste from one of them:

As you can see, it is possible to determine with mathematic accuracy exactly how certain a given proposition is based on empirical data.

 

Now, here's the kicker.  When there is no evidence for H (the hypothesis), guess what you get as a probability....

 

That's right.  You don't get anything.  That's because you can't divide by zero.  It is a nonsense answer.  The probability of a thing for which there is no evidence is nonsense.  Even math bears this out.

 

Ok, so now we get on to faith.  Some things are far less than certain, but we have sufficient reasons to believe in them.  For instance, every day, I sit in my office chair without so much as a single empirical test of its stability.  It's certainly well within the realm of possibility that one day, the thing will collapse when I sit in it.  Even so, I think we could agree that I have a reasonable belief that the chair will support me.  Consider:

1. I can observe that it is sturdy and well constructed.

2. It is made by a reputable company.

3. I have owned it since it came out of the box, so I am reasonably certain it has not been maliciously weakened.

4. It has held me up for hundreds, maybe thousands of hours without ever failing.

Etc...

So, I am far from certain that my chair will hold me up, but I have reasonable justification for the belief -- empirical evidence to support my belief.

In philosophical terms, this is called Contingent Belief.

 

Now, suppose I believe that there is an invisible gremlin who lives in my refrigerator.  This gremlin is made out of living cream cheese, except that it's invisible.  When I am not in the house, the gremlin leaves the refrigerator, and without leaving any traces of its passing, rearranges my entire sock drawer and then puts it back in the order it was before.  The gremlin has the ability to become incorporeal -- that is, it cannot be seen, felt, heard, or detected in any physical way.  It does this any time I am in the house, and will also do so any time I set up equipment to try to catch it in the act.

What evidence do I have for this gremlin's existence?  None!  Not a scratch.  There is not one scrap of empirical evidence that such a creature exists.  Furthermore, I have evidence that it does not exist.  First, every sort of living creature that has ever been observed consists of matter, which cannot become "incorporeal" at will.  Second, several of the qualities this creature supposedly possesses violate the laws of physics, which have been observed in every single case that has ever existed where scientists observed the laws of physics.

In short, there is no evidence for this creature, and there is counter-evidence suggesting that it does not exist.

This kind of belief -- that is, belief despite a total lack of evidence, and possibly in spite of evidence to the contrary, is known as Non-contingent Belief.

 

Faith, then, is non-contingent belief.  It must be so, for faith is only used when science cannot offer any proof.  Think about that carefully.  If science can provide evidence, then the belief is necessarily contingent.  The only possible way for something to be taken on faith is if there is no evidence.  Otherwise, there is no need for the word!

 

Now, how do contingent and non-contingent belief relate to god?  Well, you have said yourself that the question of god cannot be addressed by science.  That is a prima facie demonstration that it is necessarily non-contingent.  (Prima facie means that it is proven by this very fact.  No other proof is necessary.)  If, then, the belief in god is noncontingent, it is necessarily without proof.  Since it is without proof, there is exactly as much reason to believe in god as invisible cream cheese gremlins.

QED

 

 

 

 

 

Even though this is very very well written, and easy to comprehend (I had my 10 year old niece read it and she got it, except the bayes therom that's a bit over her head),  you know they ain't going to get it, it contradicts their belief in god. god must exist for their lives to have meaning or for their view of the universe to be ok.

taking Baye's theorm out of the equation (again she's 10 if she got that then I would personally be paying her tuition to any university she wanted). But she understood the premise of your topic of reasoning/faith and why one should not believe/have faith in something that has no evidence to back it up, the examples were done well enough for a 10 year old to comprehend it.

So I assume from this that you would agree believing in magic leprechauns living on Pluto is equally as valid as whatever beliefe you hold in a deity, correct?

If that is correct, how then would a peson's belief that they can fly be any less valid at the top of the Empire State building?

Until logic, fact and reason is introduced, it cannot.

When you splatter on the pavement, we see that you cannot fly. When we analyze Pluto from satellites, we know no life as we understand it lives there, when we reach the age of 6 we realize leprechauns are not real, and when we reach the age of reason, we let go of the other fairy tales too.

 

Another very frustrating thread, but still enlightening.

  Obviously saying, I do or do not believe in Gawed, says nothing without a definition of gawed.

   I am a hard core atheist, and I unquestionably believe in god, as I am god as you !

  "What isn't god ?",  is a much better question, a buddha asked laughing .....

   "God is the highest supreme intelligent designer" some will say,

... and I will reply, "that god sure didn't give much intelligent thought to designing us , unless that god is a teasing masochist."  

Hey stupid god, you gave us no wings, and we drown in water, etc ... what gives ?

  Forgiving god, that's a tough one !  ..... 

   

                        

   

  

  

a belief system has to have more than one part. saying there is no god is not a system just a belief. The rest of your statement is circuitous logic.

Minor point, Brian, but rigor resolves in 72 hours... so 3 days would, in fact, be when the body becomes loose again.