Send it off to Trollville - another theist pretending to be agnostic.

 I had this hunch earlier, but figured I'd let him ride.  I think you're onto something.

ALSO.. take some new pictures of your cat, we could use an update.  Obama promised change!

Note this argument isn't about scientific proof, but about practical thinking.

The one bit of empirical evidence you have is my post here. This is sufficient to say there is a phenomenon calling itself "JillSwift" capable of complex communication. Thanks to Occam's Razor, you can deduce that I am in all likelihood "real".

Robot and AI: A very low probability given that no AIs have successfully passed even the Turing test yet. Not impossible, of course, but a very low probability.

Several people posting: Again, a very low probability because my posting style remains constant. Again, not impossible, but improbable.

Figment of imagination: Again, a very low probability as you display sufficient grasp of reality versus imagination in that you are able to use the forum.

So, Occam's Razor states "Do not multiply entities unnecessarily". Given that "JillSwift is a human posting to a web forum" is sufficient to explain the phenomenon and the explanation has a very high probability given the number of humans you can observe posting to web forums, then there isn't much point in adding entities - like assuming I'm a robot.

So, as an agnostic atheist, I take this same idea and apply it to the god hypotheses.

Although "god" fits well into an explanation of the universe we find ourselves in, it is not a necessary hypotheses. Nothing within the universe requires god to exist or function. Therefore, where I'm open to evidence for god and where there has been no evidence so far for god, I default to failing to believe in god.

That's the exact same logic I use when I fail to believe in leprechauns, Fae folk, unicorns, Santa Claus, and Russel's teapot.

Given that. Aren't there people allowed NOT to choose 'god'? Interesting how that comes back to belief isn't it?

Since those who have 'chosen god' have decided to impose their beliefs upon society, I think we have a problem.

I don't have to assume that I am real. So who is "we"? Are you a BORG now?

That does not compute.

As opposed to genuine intelligence? What would YOU have to compare it to?

You're the one saying "We" here.

Then I am impressed because only a truly gifted person could have envisioned me.

Yes. Why are you seeking fake old me instead of conversing with your 'real' imaginary friend?

Brian (the OWNER of this site) personally told me he LOVES seeing me use the NTSA cat picture, so unless you want to lose status...

Oh, I didn't see this post. Sorry.

Wait, if you're an agnostic theist, then why were you arguing something contradictory earlier?

Did you conclude that you're an agnostic theist after we explained the terms in the other thread?

Just making a point, Desdenova.

Which god? lol.

Most definitely. I choose Miller Lite and having sex with as many women as I can. I do not choose religion.

Well there's no accounting for taste, just leaves more women for me to have unmarried sex with, thanks.

First thing you've said that makes any sense at all.

I'm not sure I'm real either. But just who is "we"? Are you a co-joined twin?

You all don't have to assume anything at all.

I don't see any wires or flashing lights on my end. Wait let me cut open my arm to check. Nope. Hold it, need to wipe the blood off the screen so I can type the rest of this.

How would we determine that. Oh no, I'm not cutting open my head to check.

You all are the one typing as a co-joined twin, not me.

If the best your imagination can do is create pretend posters on an Internet site you need help. If you are going to go out to fantasy-land at least imagine something fun like being in the middle of an orgy.

Yeah, there's more problems with that line of thought:

I'm not sure even the programming would allow more than 1 person to have an account with the same name - certainly it would be a violation of the rules and detected if so. Sure 2 people sharing an account is POSSIBLE, but since there's little reason for someone to do so it would be logical to assume very few, if any, accounts do this. As to the AI idea, no known AI program has been able to pass the Turing test yet, and if for some reason the Military/CIA/or some university like MIT came up with one they probably wouldn't come here to test it - more likely inside and if they wanted to see if they could fool the general public it would likely be on somewhere extremely popular such as MySpace or in a chatroom. Plus the people who have actual pictures of themselves is a problem for that - especially if they have ones wearing an RRS shirt.

If we happen to be figments of your imagination and you can't tell the difference you would be psychotic and incapable of telling reality from fantasy in any case.

It most definitely would not be the logical position.

"Absence of proof" of anything has no LOGICAL implications at all.

You would need to provide a more plausible explanation for the replies you see which seem like they are coming from another person, before you can say that the more reasonable position is that I don't exist. IOW an explanation which made more sense than the simple assumption that there actually is a person writing these response to you.

I. Inherently Ironic

By asking other people this question, you are implying that you're a schizo. If you can't be certain that anyone else exists, then who are you talking to? What happened to that healthy agnosticism?

II. How We Know Things

It is impossible to know anything for certain other than the fact that I exist. The way I go about learning other things about the world is through my senses. I test things around me using the sensory tools at my disposal. Sight. Hearing. Smell. Taste. Touch.

I then log this information away for future use. As I continue to exist, I draw upon this information again and again, teaming up bits of information, comparing them, contrasting them, revising them, adding to them, and so on. Eventually I have an entire mental database of information, and the conclusions I have reached based on my data, experience, and analysis, culminate into a window through which I perceive reality. The window is not perfect, but it is all I have. The only things I can say about reality are the things which come through this limited window.

This is how it works for everyone. Including you.

You and I both know that past experience has taught you that internet forums are built and populated by people, who sit at computers and type messages on them---just like you sat at a computer and typed the OP. Your denying that you possess that information is just a fun game. It's the old "explain it to me as though I were an alien and knew nothing about your earthling ways" type game. We could maybe play that game, but if we're being serious, it's not necessary.

The point is this: there is plenty of evidence which you've collected over time which allows you to say with a high degree of certainty that those things called "other people" do exist in reality. You also have plenty of evidence at your disposal that lets you say with a high degree of certainty that you are discussing ideas with real people on a real internet forum that is not a product of your imagination.

But the "god" concept, conversely, has no such evidence to speak of. If we could at least say that there was SOME evidence, but not enough to be highly confident, then we'd at least have something. But we have nothing. So all we can say is that there might be something god-like going on in the universe, but if there is, we know jack shit about it, and so it's pointless to even talk about it. We don't have evidence for polka-dotted penguins on planet Polxtox-9 either, and we could therefore assume that there very well could be such penguins. But it's probably better if we just don't say anything about it until we have good reason.

III. Appealing to the Self-Tricking Mind aka Appealing to The Matrix

At this point, people who usually make this argument resort to some form of the following defensive measure:

[defense]Places a pencil in a glass of water.  See? The pencil looks bent, and yet it is not bent. But if it looks bent, then how can I trust my senses? You say that everything we know about the world is only known by first being received through a limited window of sensory perception, but if my perception of this pencil can be so wrong, then how do I know that what I perceive to be reality isn't completely wrong? What if my senses are lying to me?[/defense]

This is the same thing, just with a visual aid. If this person's senses were really tricking them, then how do they know that the pencil isn't bent after all? They know that because science---a thing we do with our senses----has taught us and them that the illusion of a bent pencil is just a trick of light.

If someone were truly fooled by this, they wouldn't even be asking the question, because they would believe the pencil was bent, and so what's there to be curious about?

But suppose we WERE all living in some Matrix-like world where everything we think we know is a lie. Can anyone really say that they know this to be true? To make that suggestion would imply that they're aware of the Matrix, which goes against the very idea of the Matrix they've proposed. i.e. "I happen to be aware of a truth that nobody is aware of." or "I happen to know that my senses are tricking me, even though I have no way of knowing whether my senses are tricking me."

Hmmm.... something fishy about that line of thinking.

These thought experiments are fun games often given to Philosophy101 students to get them primed for the real deal. And they're easy and fun toys to play with, which is why they get passed around.

Not exactly novel questions, though.

No, it is a myth that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

absence of evidence is always evidence of absence

I would agree that "absence of evidence is always evidence of absence".

But it is still also true that Absence of Proof is logically empty, certainly as a statement in isolation.

This is a version of the fallacy that propositions can only be assigned values of TRUE or FALSE. Which is only true in the context of binary logic, whereas understanding reality requires dealing with the whole spectrum of probability, likelihood, weight of evidence.

Logic can only disprove some proposition about reality, by revealing a contradiction. It cannot prove a proposition is true, it can only show that it is consistent with another set of propositions.

This is why logic alone is not going to lead you to knowledge of reality, for that you need tools for gathering and evaluating evidence. Logic is an essential tool in the evaluation, but not remotely sufficient - you need all the tools of science and mathematics.

So that reinforces the basic point, arguing about 'proof', if that means strict logical proof, is a waste of time.

It should be all about evidence.

Here's where your logic is flawed:

We have every reason to believe people are real since we can sense and perceive them every day. Of course certainty in the human mind is impossible, but the important part to remember is PROBABILITY.

Based on our perceptions of reality, I can reasonably assume people exist because the probability of people existing is approximately 99.99999999999%

Likewise, I can reasonably assume God, as theists see him, does not exist because the probability of God existing is approximately 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%

The author--as some of you are--is confusing evidence for something with certainty. Evidence for any x is merely something that has a positive probative value for that x. It need not make x more probable than not.  Consequently, merely stating that there is evidence for God's existence or for the external world is a weak claim.

Here's a little help for the OP author and it works through the sticky milieu inductive logic

1. All the conscious experiences that I've experienced are mine
2. I've examined a large and varied group of conscious experience
3. Probably all conscious experiences are mine

This is basically an argument that shows I'm the only conscious being. It's difficult to attack my second premise without begging the question.

Oooh, I like this one. At least you have an appreciation of the fun of logic. (It's often absent in theistic posters.)

The only difficulty I have with your conclusion is that you introduce a step. Within 3 is contained another logical assumption, that being "a large and varied group" is representative of "all". If you're making reference to statistical analysis, then I see what you mean, but you haven't said that, so there's a big jump in your logic that makes the argument invalid. Let's reframe it.

1. A large and varied group of conscious experiences are a good representation of all conscious experiences

2. I have had a large and varied group of conscious experiences

3. I have experienced a good representation of all conscious experiences

See, I'd agree to that, but that just says that human beings have a shared conscious experience, which isn't what you're saying (I don't think). Maybe you can reframe it so that the faulty step is missing.

No, I am not confused. Consistency is just sharing the (or in some cases a) same truth value. for instance,

if A then B

if B then A

are consistent if A and B are true. yet, you cannot use one to deduce the other. 

Even if I grant this, it does not mean that the argument is false. rather, it is that i am being inconsistent, weird or the argument is false.

A logically inconsistent argument is irrational, and need not be considered as a logical argument at all.

This is arguable. Maybe the 'always' is too strong, but then so is your 'nonsense' retort.

'Absence of evidence' would assume that some minimal attempt has been made to seek evidence.

In the truly practical sense, if we find no evidence, in the broadest sense, for the existence of some entity or the truth of some positive assertion about reality, then it is rational to proceed as if those propositions were not true.

'3' is only true about reality if '1' and '2' are in fact true propositions about reality. And reductio arguments are exactly consistent with my initial point - a contradiction is clearly logically demonstrable. It is your need to include the conditional "if the rest of the premises are true" that is my point.

If we start with some assertions about reality, and the logic leads to a conclusion which can be shown to not correspond with reality, then we have prima facie shown that something is wrong with one or more of our input assertions. But if the conclusion seems OK, that does NOT prove that our starting premises are all ok. This is the essence of Popper's falsifiability requirement for scientific theories.

assuming what you need to prove is not necessarily inconsistent.  it just begs the question.  Before you comment on logic, and i say this to all of you, are you even trained in it?

*Reaches for his gun*

Mykey: Do you actually have any compelling evidence for us to review with regards to your God? Or were you just here to beat-around semantics?

A set of propositions is logically consistent if it does not contain any contradictions. IOW, it should not be possible to construct a valid proof based on some combination of those propositions which proves P, and find another valid proof based on that same or another combination of propositions in the set which proves NOT P.

I had not realized that this thread was meant to offer evidence for God's existence.