drichards85 ...which god are we talking about?  Are we talking about your personal god?  Can you point to this god?  Can you give me an exhaustive list of its attributes?  Is it testable?  Can it be proven to exist?  The reasoning is rather obvious, I should think, why I can merely assert that god does not exist.  I don't even know what god is and I'm quite certain that you don't either and that no one else does or I can't imagine how so many different conceptions of god could inhabit the minds of believers the world over.  I have no reason to believe in the existence of something that cannot be shown to exist and that is ostensibly a figment of the imagination (and not a very good one at that) and for which there exists no cogent definition.  For all intents and purposes, that thing does not exist which cannot be proven to exist.  God does not exist; not in the way, I'm sure, you'd like.

This thread, though, isn't about that.  It's about why Pascal's Wager sucks.  I think that's been fully fleshed out.

You sound just like an atheist.

I make a positive claim, yes.  You don't seem to appreciate, however, the caveat in that claim.  God is certainly some idea in which you believe.  There is, however, no such extant being that embodies the idea you have in your mind and I'll think you'll be very comfortable admitting to that, because otherwise you'd be tasked with proving that something you can't cogently define and which you admit you can't test for certainly exists.  That would be an uncomfortable position to be in, I'm sure.  God does not exist.  Now, the positive claim you make -that the god in which you believe does exist- are you going to justify that?  Are you going to offer proof?  Well, we'll see.

That's not the most I can say, obviously.  It's something and it's certainly true, but it's not the most.

This is going to get tiresome very quickly if you insist that I don't think it's necessary to defend my position (when it certainly isn't true) and when you don't defend your position at all, as I'm sure we'll learn.

No, the many conceptions of god do not disprove god.  I never indicated that they did.  No, I won't spell out to you that I did not -presumably you can read, so go back and read again. 

On what basis can you claim to know that your god is 'spaceless'?  How do you know this?  How can you make that claim ...where is your evidence for it?

Expound on these truths and how it is that they are evidence of your god.

Let's start here, with what I actually wrote:

Now, how did you come to ask that strange question of me?  First, all those things are exhaustively defined which you put up as things I cannot point to (though I can literally point to at least one of them, even if it's abstract).  But I didn't write, 'things you cannot point to don't exist or aren't important,' did I?  No, I wrote something entirely different.  I don't know if you're dishonest or stupid, but this conversation isn't going to go very far if it's the former and you do this ever again.  I can appreciate that perhaps you didn't understand me, but I don't have time to get jerked around.  I'm going to be acerbic (I mean, if I haven't been yet).

Now, I'm going to spell something out for you.  Those things you mention are categorically different from your god.  You wouldn't be comparing your god, which, I assume, is supposed to be an extant entity that thinks, with abstract (but testable and therefor provable) conceptions of logic if your god were an actual entity and could be tested for.  So, which is it?  Are you making a baseless claim when you say that you believe in your god or are you making a testable claim?  You've already put your god outside of science and logic at least twice.  I'll quote you to make sure you know.

Your god has no attributes?  Well, you've already contradicted yourself.  I'm fairly certain that you said your god was spaceless ...perhaps we're using two different sense of attribute.  I'll grant, then, that your god has the property of being 'spaceless' (I really can't wait for you to show me the proof for that one!).  Anyhow, a list of properties of your god would go a long way to defining it cogently (you know, if your god's properties didn't contract themselves).  So, begin listing!  It's not difficult, is it, to come up with a list of properties that you believe your god has?

Actually, the very point to science is that there isn't a lot that's not testable.  Science is all about testing hypotheses.  My 'assumption' (and it's not an assumption) that, 'For all intents and purposes, that thing does not exist which cannot be proven to exist.' was not formulated to be a scientific claim, but let's make it one!  Have you ever considered Russel's teapot?  Well, the point is that I don't have to believe that it exists (and have good reason to disbelieve in its existence) until and unless I am presented with evidence of its existence.  The lack of evidence and the impossibility of there ever being evidence precludes my disbelief.  The fact that there isn't and cannot be evidence then acts as evidence of its absence, of it's nonexistence.  Even things in science that are not directly testable can be tested for indirectly.  If the teapot were really there it could be found.  Even if the teapot is there and remains essentially a part from the universe so that there is no evidence of it, then for all intents and purposes it does not exist.  A further implication is discovered when you ponder how something can be proposed to exist without there being a way to show that it does; how did that knowledge come to you?  The point is that statement I made is testable.  I'll never understand why believers seem intent to drag nonbelievers down to their level and exclaim triumphantly that our position too is unscientific or illogical.  There's nothing good about being either, stop being proud about having imagined something impossible to prove!  Lots of people have done it.

Axioms are necessary starting points.  In logic (or mathematics, I prefer to use logic) one of the axioms is the principle of contradiction.  An axiom is not merely assumed, it is necessary and it is tautological.  Observationally, the principle of contradiction holds true.  It is quite real and it is not assumed to be true only for the sake of the system.  The system itself employs the rule.

I take it for granted that people know what an axiom is.  Your ignorance is unfortunate, but don't presume that I haven't bothered to defend something that I thought every person learned in high school.

Well, now you have it spelled out for you.

It's not poor logic, it's redundancy and the only problem with it is that it may be inefficient.  Poor logic is using logic incorrectly, I thought. 

You axioms, by which I assume you mean the presuppositions of Christian apologists, aren't axioms at all.

So, the game you're playing is to ask me (without answering any of the questions I've posed to you) to give you a university level eduction in philosophy so that you can choose how to apply reasoning skills once you've learned them?  That I should teach you to recognize what reasoning is?  You're using reasoning!  You're game is to equivocate on your god and on reason?  (By reason you mean logic, right? ...I'm understanding you to mean logic.) And to suggest that I'm defending myself against a charge you've not made?  I don't consider my knowledge to be whole or for my understand to be complete.  I'm not playing your game.  I'm not here to stand up for thousands of years of scholarly thinking and modern science and philosophy and to educate you.  Now, let's get to the heart of this: If you can't prove your god to exist, then what justification do you have to believe your god does exist?  I mean, if your belief is based on faith and is entirely outside of science or logic, then just tell me so that I can stop trying to reason with you.  Otherwise, spit up the bloody proof and make your claim to fame!

Not only did I admit to making a positive claim, I defended it ...thoroughly.  You're not going to make me quote myself from that post are you?  Go back and read it again, in whole and take your time to understand what you've read.

 

I go outside.  The sky is clear, I am visible from the center of the universe.  Clear shot.  I yell, "GOD IS A WUSSY AND HE DOESN'T EXIST AND IF THIS AIN'T TRUE, LET HIM STRIKE ME DEAD."  <crickets>

For that matter, if god/s/dess exist, then maybe Satan does as well.  So where is my winning lottery ticket?  Beautiful face and body and dozens of dancing boys?  How about eternal youth?  No?  No Satan, either.  Because I would sell my soul for that.  And if all this came bundled, I'd sell my first born son as well - he'd object as he is 40 years old now, but what the heck.

It is ridiculous, it is insane, it is totally irrational to believe some invisible sky daddy is up there loving you but torturing you as well for your own good.  How creepy is that?

?

Read post #306.

Which "god" was that again ?

Yes, but God has seniority. He is even older than CJ. So the burden of proof falls back on you, atheists.

The computer you are using is powered by electricity that you cannot see. That electricity exists. You cannot see God either, therefore God exists.

Let me tell you a few things about bananas. They are these miraculous fruits that God made which prove His existence. They have a skin to keep it fresh, a tab for easy opening, and they are shaped like the inside of your fist. Do you feel the flames of Hell licking up around your feet now, atheists?

See, if you had stopped to think about electricity and bananas, you wouldn't be in this embarassing position. Stop your arrogant crusade against God and let Jesus into your heart.

 

 

Whole lotta assuming going on there..

Is this is supposed to be a reply to Tomathy's post ? Are you seriously saying he didn't address your points ?

 

 

               Stick a wet finger in a light socket and you can FEEL the electricity, when I stick a wet finger in the bible all I  feel is wet paper.  You can set up two poles made with copper heads and turn on the juice and you will see electricity jumping between the heads, have you ever seen lightning bolts? That to is electrcity.

 

 

               Don't start sounding like banana boy Ray Comfort. That long narrow yellow thing we buy in a store is the result of human agracultural work. A banana growing in the wild {god country) is dark green, shaped like a scrawny eggplant, and tastes like raw platine.

Maybe you just didn't grasp what he was saying. That's possible too, right ?

Hmmm, I think you may have missed a post.

Anyway, we have no way of knowing yet what "belief in god" actually means to you. Beliefs can be so self-destructive, despicable and downright silly in some cases, that the question "why do you want proof ?", answers itself. If someone believes that god told him that I should give him money, I'm going to need some proof, for the obvious reason that I don't want to get conned. What would do it ? God him/her/itself asking me nicely would be a start.

Again, we have no clue what you believe. It could be utterly crazy, it could be perfectly reasonable, it could change back-and-forth every couple of years, etc.... We just don't know. What constitutes evidence is going to depend on just exactly what it is that you believe.

You're welcome. Now if you could answer all the questions you skipped in this thread, that would be nice too.

So that would make all the other theists on this site who claim they can prove god exists dishonest ? But what if they believe they're right ?

 

You have a tendency to repeat yourself, so I am focusing on the parts of your post that seem to me to be the most coherent.

Starting with this sentence.  Personally, I don't think you need to believe what I believe.  I think you're nuts, you think I'm nuts.  <shrug> 

As long as religion does not intrude on science or my life, I don't care.  What I care about is no creationism in the science classroom and the freedom to not believe in my own fashion.  A lot of other people on this forum disagree with me and that is okay, too.

 

 

If you told me this, I would direct you to the mathematical proof that 1+1=2 and tell you that the same proof applies to 2+2=4.  Someone came up with this proof a few years ago.  I didn't memorize it as it runs a couple of pages long.  You could google if you were interested.  At that point, I would have to point out to you that it would be your duty to disprove this proof (that was verified by a lot of mathematics professors).  It wouldn't be my duty to recreate this proof.

 

 

I justify my requirements for empirical proof for god/s/dess because that is the proof I require for all of my beliefs and assumptions.  You can ask around - I am a pain as I dredge up facts and numbers on a topic and then ask for contrary facts and numbers in order to begin to change my mind on said topic.    I know that lying with statistics or numbers is possible, so I like to have more than one source if at all possible and I like to know the agenda of the source.

My need for empirical data is based on my personality, history and environment.  I know this.  It was true when I was a child, it is true now, and I don't see it changing any time soon.  You could give me reams of anecdotal first person experiences and I would ask for empirical data.  You could ask me to open my heart and I would ask for empirical data.  Tell me I will burn in hell for eternity --- where is the data?  If there is no empirical data, then the object/entity does not exist in reality.  And therefore, for me, it doesn't exist.  This is no kind of real proof of non-existence and I know that.  That doesn't change the fact that until I can see it, touch it, measure it, it isn't real to me.  And that is what religion is all about, isn't it - the personal belief in something/someone that can not be touched, seen or measured.  It's a non-starter as far as I am concerned.

Intellectually I am aware that millions of people are just fine with having an imaginary friend.  You are one of them.  You won't convince me and I know I won't convince you.  But you asked and this is my best answer.

Anonymouse,

Of course it is possible that I did not grasp what Thomathy said, but that would need to be demonstrated.  A disagreement of principle does not imply a lack of understanding.  If I missed a post or somehow misconstrue the point of this discussion, then please direct me to the relevant post and show how I did not address his specific points.  I understand well that a belief can be self-destructive, despicable, and downright silly, but it has not been shown that my belief is self-destructive, despicable, or downright silly.  It has been asserted though.

I am not sure why one would equate belief in God with a person who claims that God told you or anybody else to give them money.  The former has explanatory value, at least in concept, and the latter has none.  Furthermore just because there are some people who do make silly claims about the divine, this in no way renders all claims about deity equally silly.  This is one of those assumptions I mentioned that has yet to be defended.  I know plenty of atheists who had bad experiences growing up in some religion and there are militant atheists who actively work for the destruction of religious instutitons.  Should I therefore identify all atheists with these types, or treat all disbelief in God as stemming from the same psychological causes?  A good rule is to apply your same logic toward people who believe as you do and see if it holds; since you are more prone to find a fallacy when the logic is directed at your beliefs, if you find a fallacy then it is likely that your logic against theism / religion is flawed as well.

There are several reasons why I have not given a precise definition of what "belief in God" means to me.  One is that I have been trying to illustrate that when people ridicule belief in God as "irrational," they themselves do not bother to elaborate on what belief in God means to them.  As a consequence they argue against a strawman.  God is some "flying spaghetti monster," or like Russell's teapot.  But this just supposes that belief in God is arbitrary, or else on the level of whatever we can imagine.  I asked for an argument to this assumption, but received none.  It just sounds so much better to misrepresent all theistic belief, I guess.

Why would your evidence for my belief change with the belief?  What does me changing the belief have to do with the type of evidence you use to evaluate that belief?  I don't remember all the questions posed in this thread, but there's a strong chance that they proceed from presuppositions which I would either qualify or altogether reject.  Now there's a chance I missed something since I'm back-and-forth on these threads, but experience tells me that the best approach is not just to hurl questions but to establish working premises.

cj,

My tendency to repeat myself has to do with not being heard or engaged on any of my points.  I don't think you're nuts, just wrong.   Re: creationism and the like, it seems to me that those are irrelevant to the question of whether or not God exists.  The subject of how religion should (or if it should) shape public policy is another matter altogether, and at least as far as I am concerned one can be committed to theism and not embrace its implementation on State and Federal politics.

You confirmed my point about two plus two, so thank you.  The point is that, when asked why the burden of proof was on me, the theist, to prove that God exists whereas the atheist does not need to prove anything (despite constant assertions that God does not exist), I was told that my assertion was in the positive and theirs was just a negative.  As if somehow, being a negative meant that they had no burden of proof.  I've noted numerous times that a person is in a better epistemic position if they just say that they personally do not believe because of the lack of evidence; I would disagree with them, but we could at least discuss it on that level.  But when someone wants to make an assertion, this is where they need to back up that assertion.  At any rate, burden of proof has nothing to do with negative vs. positive claims, because there are - logically - claims which are negative but still carry the burden of proof.  Which you helped me demonstrate.

So, based on what empirical proof do you justify your belief and assumption that all beliefs and assumptions require empirical proof?  If that is your requirement for all beliefs and assumptions, how about the belief and assumption that that is what you should require for all beliefs and assumptions?  I would say that this basic belief is not backed up by anything empirical, and that even if it were, it would beg the question.  It does no good to say "that is just the way things are" - why?  Why does this belief get a pass, why does it not have to be tested in order to be proven?  Yet this is the sort of assumption that many people use when they measure belief in God.  It does not even meet its own criteria for a rational belief because it has not been tested, it has not been verified by natural science, and it has not been proven.  So if this is your best answer, please try again.

My entire argument hinges on this: on what basis does a person demand this sort of evidence for God, when their belief that this sort of evidence is necessary does not meet its own burden of proof?  I simply deny that this sort of evidence is necessary for all beliefs because, if it were, I would have to prove the foundation of my belief by itself, and that is impossible and self-contradictory.  At least, that is what theists are accused of doing.

IC XC

David

 

You know where his post is. Maybe reading it again will help. Actually, it looks like you'll have to read mine again as well.

 

Someone used those exact words to describe your faith ? Wow, what are the odds.

Btw, if you understand people hold beliefs like that, then why don't you understand why I would demand proof for such beliefs ?

 

I don't understand that either. Maybe, just maybe, that's because I didn't do that. Let's check my post and see, shall we ?

Maybe I'm reading myself wrong, but what I appear to be doing there is giving you an example of a situation where asking someone to give me proof for his belief is a reasonable thing to do.

Again, I could be wrong, but I might have been replying to you, claiming you had not yet heard an explanation for why a belief in god might require proof.

This is just a suggestion, but do you mind if I put the defending on hold untill I actually make that assumption ? Just a thought.

You're really going to have to show me the post where I even faintly suggest that you should do that. Seriously, if I'm sleep-typing, I want to know about it.

You're not thinking this through. Applying logic to my own religious beliefs is what caused me to lose them. And I think you'll find, once you find the time to really read some of the threads here, that people here are very serious about applying logic to their own thoughts and opinions. Exhaustingly so, in fact.

You want atheists to "elaborate on what belief in god means to them" ? ?

What's a strawman to you, might very well be The Truth to another theist. We're arguing against a strawman, you say ? Okay, here's your ticket and get in line, we'll get to your version in a minute.

It's actually quite impossible to misrepresent all theistic belief, since you guys are all over the place, so I really don't see what you're complaining about.

Also, how exactly are we supposed to correctly represent your theistic belief, if you won't tell us what it is ?

But I don't have any evidence for your belief. I don't even know what it is yet.

Why is this so hard to understand ? You could believe anything. Like I said, it could be perfectly innocent, or it could be batshit insane. I have no way of knowing because you won't tell me. An innocent belief would require no proof at all, but if you were to come to believe that god told you you could fly, demanding proof of that might keep you from hurting yourself.

Reading them might solve that problem.

So you're presupposing that people are gonna proceed from presuppositions. Ooooookay....

Might I suggest another working premise ? Take it one at a time, cuz this really isn't working.

Btw, you know what happens when I don't "hurl questions" ? : I get accused of making assumptions.

  I hope it didn't give him a garment with mixed fibers!

Deuteronomy 22:11 Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woolen and linen together.

Why would Ray Comfort apologize for making such an incisive argument? The miracle banana argument has ne'er been refuted.

UFOs, Sasquatch, the Lockness Monster, and ghost sightings, are all just demons trying to distract us from Bible study and prayer.

And the Bible clearly states that God created man. So how could man be older than God?

Genesis 1:27 (King James Version)

 

 ²⁷So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

 

Well, David, it is becoming all too obvious to me that you are unwilling to argue in favor of the existence of God. You stay on the defensive. You aren't much of an apologist for the Lord. Where is your faith?

I have made arguments for the existence of God. Maybe these atheists haven't accepted them, but at least I am trying. I am doing God's Will. Whose will are you doing? Hmm?

Stop being such a pansy and tell these atheists why you believe in God. Do something for the Lord for a change, instead of sitting on your thumb.

Be like me. Be a True Christian.

Anonymouse,

Forgive me.  You did attempt to answer my question about proof, and I did give a [meager] response but did not fully flesh out why I think your example demonstrates precious little.  Your point was that, if someone walked up to you or me (or most of us, for that matter) and said to you that God told them for you to give them money, you would want proof.  But I did reply that there is no reason to think that the specific claims of this particular individual are in the same category as mere belief in God, for the simple reason that the hypothetical you introduce has no explanatory value while belief in God does.  I have not delineated what this "explanatory value" amounts to, because my point is that the two instances are not co-extensive, so that belief in God cannot be reduced to the level of a beggar who claims that God wants you to give him or her money.  This is the same reason why flying spaghetti monster parodies miss the point: they suppose that God is some arbitrary construct, but they never prove it.

If I told you that there is a realm that is immaterial, spaceless, and timeless, this would be an attempt to explain the sphere of Mind as opposed to that of Matter.  Mind would be able to discern patterns of recognition throughout the material world and develop abstract models that correspond to the external order perfectly (geometry) but yet are independant of any experience, and these rules would constitute what we now call logic, mathematics, and science.  It is taken for granted that the rules of logic, for example, are universal across time and space, that a thing is not both itself and not itself at the same time and in the same sense for example.  In a similar way a geometric figure or proof is taken to correspond to the real world, though really we have no actual experience of such abstract concepts as the Euclidian point.  Either we take these to be independent of empirical investigation (since no amount of investigation will yield concepts such as unity or plurality) or we conclude that they are mere mental constructions that do not correspond to anything but are just convenient ways to express what we encounter.  If we hold to the latter then we have no basis on which to establish that any set of axioms is true or false, and this includes the rules of logic.

One might argue that the set of axioms which comes closest to our experience of the world are the axioms which should be upheld, but then another problem arises.  First, as I pointed out, we do not experience abstractions.  No axiom that abstracts a concept from its physical context can be held to correspond to the world of experience, or we beg the question -- and this is the second problem: "We know that there is a number called two because I see two things in front of me" does not get us very far at all.  In fact, there is a not a number two, but rather you have assigned the property of quantity where no such property exists.  How about qualities, are they real or constructed?  If real, then where do we find them in nature?  Where is the property of color or of temperature?  Are these umbrella terms anything more than descriptive of particular objects?  And on what basis do we predicate quality and quantity to an object or to a class of objects?  And how is my approach at all similar to the "flying spaghetti monster," or the beggar who tells you that God told him you are supposed to give him money?

I cannot "prove" any of this to you, of course, at least not with the type of proof you require, but that does not discount that the existence of immaterial, spaceless, and timeless concepts are used for their explanatory value and not because no better scientific explanation has come along.  As Kuhn pointed out, science is always interpreted in accord with some paradigm through which raw data is interpreted and related.  It is not a tabula rasa and there is no such thing as a pure, objective science.  [Natural] Science is just a method in which the natural world is studied, and the concept of God -- as immaterial, spaceless, and timeless (just three examples of divine properties) -- is outside the purview of modern scientific tools and research.  This is why I reject the assumption that, because the existence of God has not or cannot be proven by "evidence" or "proof," therefore God does not exist.  It is because the whole argument rests on a category error, the assumption that if God exists then His existence must be verifiable by scientific proof.  I just reject the assumption, just as I reject the assumption that I must prove that unity, plurality, quantity, and quality exist.  If we turn our method against itself, and use it for the abstractions of logic, we will soon find ourselves adrift in nihilism.  No thanks.

IC XC

David

 

David, you are making things needlessly difficult for yourself and others.

These properties are by definition and convention.  Color is a particular wave length of radiation in the section of the spectrum we have termed "visible light".  http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/Wavelengths_for_Colors.html  Your eyes, if you are not color blind, perceive these colors and we have named them by convention - red is about 700 nanometers.  It the wavelength is 690 nm, we start talking about "reddish orange" or "orangeish red".  "Red" is just the common word we use to mean this perceived wavelength.

Same for temperature - the guys who came up with the original temperature scales just defined it that way.  Celsius, Fahrenheit and Kelvin were all scientists who came up with a standardized way to measure temperature.  It is just a definition combined with an instrument that can measure changes in temperature. 

So temperature is a real phenomenon - the average kinetic energy - and the measurement of temperature is a construction and agreed upon standard.  Color is a real phenomenon - the length of the wave between photons - and the agreed upon convention for color naming.  You can make up stuff about color or temperature to your own convention, but why bother?  No one would understand you if you did.

"2" or "two" is again, a real thing and a construct.  One banana plus one banana is two bananas.  It really is that simple.  It doesn't get difficult until you start talking about Euclidean geometry or polar calculus (actually, I thought polar coordinates were easier to use than rectilinear, but that is a different story).  It is a definition of the concept of multiples of objects.  Heck, even your dog can count.  http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2619-lab-tricks-show-dogs-can-count.html

These properties exist both in reality and in concept.  The basis for assigning these properties and having standards to define these properties is to a way to talk about them in short hand.  So we can say - it is a beautiful day at 80 degrees Fahrenheit or 27 degrees Celcius - or I have 2 cars - or the sea is a lovely shade of aquamarine at the beach at sunset - and we all know what we mean.

Your approach is the same for any invisible, not in reality, hypothesized entity.  How can you say that your god/s/dess has more validity than the fsm?  The bible tells you so, your heart tells you so.  What sort of evidence is that?  A bunch of bronze age goat herders made up a bunch of stories and you believe them?  If you feel good about that, great for you.  The fsm makes me laugh - so you could say it makes me feel good in some sense.  The god of the christians has yet to make me feel like laughing - even when I was trying my hardest to believe in him.

Anonymouse and cj,

Unfortunately I'm going to have a busy day at work today, but I will respond to your comments when I have time.

IC XC

David

High praise, Anonymouse, and thanks, but I won't be responding to drichards85 even if he does direct comment to me.  I, however, have one last thing to say to him directly: 

drichards85 I don't believe you're actually interested in any constructive conversation:

and that is as much of an admission I need.  This could go on in circles for a long time.  We're essentially (and I do mean that literally) opposed.  You don't want to define your god or tell us anything substantial about it.  You want your god to be undetectable to science and virtually exempt from logical scrutiny ...granted you reject that it's necessary for your god to be within the purview of science or reason, though I find that position untenable.  You tell us that you've dismantled our objections to your (as yet undisclosed) idea of god, showing that they are insufficient for unbelief, when you've done no such thing.  -I can't imagine that you could when you outright admit to rejecting the very foundations upon which our objections are based.  Conveniently for you, however, I can only infer the foundations of your beliefs and argue generally from my perspective about problems with god ideas (taking for granted, because of my limited knowledge, that your god isn't especially exempt from those arguments -though I've not met a god idea that isn't).  I'm sure we can admit that this is disadvantageous.  I doubt if either of us is going to take the perspective of the other, especially when you see absolutely no reason to defend your beliefs on my terms and when the terms of my own defence are incompatible with your beliefs or vice versa, if you like.  You're welcomed to call me a dogmatic atheist, though I find the phrase to be meaningless and indicative of a complete ignorance for what atheism is.  I'll simply refer to you as a dogmatic theist.

You're not the first person to have come to these boards with these particular arguments, this particular world view, this stunning ability to evade all questions asked of you (and indeed to evade responding directly to arguments or responding to them at all), retorts noting that we have been remiss in responding to you adequately and claims that you've successfully defeated our arguments and you won't be the last to do it.  I can't abide wastes of my time.  You're welcomed to actually respond to anything I've written, but from me, at least, expect silence.

Actually, I am going to bow out of this discussion for now because I am working on a much more complicated and sustained argument, which I may post on these forums when I have time.

IC XC

David

Nobody's forcing you, David.

Not me. I said "nobody".

Good luck with the other argument.

 

Pascal's wager refutation (theists use this often):

1. And if you die and to your surprise there really is a god, but not the one you believe in? You've wagered on the wrong god (and there are countless gods to chose from).

2. And if there really isn't any god and you are throwing your short and one and only life away for a false belief?

3. Richard Dawkins suggests that instead of the deity Pascal assumed, God might reward honest attempted reasoning and punish blind or feigned faith.

4. The French intellectual Louis Althusser is critical of Pascal for inverting the order of things. By arguing that we should first act and then gain faith Pascal is in fact subjecting us to physical domination through use of ideological power (i.e. we are being forced to physically kneel down, pray, etc.). For this reason Althusser claims that Pascal brings 'like Christ, not peace but strife, and in addition something hardly Christian... scandal itself'.

I usually present the problem something like this: What if I started telling people aliens exist and that if everyone didn't believe me and started following me, our world would be destroyed? Would you make the wager? There is a lot more chance for aliens with flying saucers to exist than a god, because we know biological life in the universe is possible, when it comes to anything like a deity, we can only guess - yet we don't see UFO believers knocking on our door with pamphlets, or even persecuting people for not believing, not being prepared to make the wager. This is where the Pascal's wager has it wrong. You don't a priori accept a proposition and then wait for it to be verified or falsified, yet until then submit to an authority that was the source of the proposition (the church for example). If the proposition is a dogma (like in religion), then it is even worse, because you are not even allowed to try and inspect the validity of the proposition. Thus all you can do is blindly follow it. But even if you were to accept this flawed wager, there is still the problem of what proposition to blindly follow, since you also have many such propositions and all contradict each other and sometimes even themselves (contradictions in the bible and different interpretations of its texts for example).

 

 That's usually what happens when you discuss this stuff on the internet. somebody heard something somewhere about Pascal, or Anselm, or Aquinas saying something that they thought sounded like a real "nail biter" for Atheists so they find a few quotes and send them out. 

When asked why the Creator of the physical cosmos would not be irritated by you pretending to believe to cover your own ass "just in case"; or how that could possibly develop a "relationship" between you and God, I hazard that person's response would have been: "Jaezus!"