Person who doesn't really understand logic
Offline This is from the site http://www.uncensored-gabfest.com was after my "why I hate religion" post and how I explained why I don't believe in religion:
MattShizzle wrote:
Actually when I use the word "religion" I mean believing that something supernatural exists- I believe there is no god through logic, rationality, etc - not any sort of faith. I just don't believe in things without evidence.
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No, you don't believe there is no God through logic. You believe there is no God because you believe there is no God. To support an epistemological belief in any meaningful way, the logic must rest upon observation. Once the concept of God is introduced, and it has been around for millenia, you can only believe in it, believe in not it, or not know. You are chosing to believe in not it, an act of faith. The truth is that you do not know. Our education has a corrupting influence, however. We are told to guess when we don't know. Guessing causes a great deal of mischief in the real world, outside of school.
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I've met atheists who were every bit as fanatical about their beliefs as any Catholic, Baptist or whatever. I've seen them become irrationally angry or make a public spectacle of themselves denouncing religious people for being religious. They have an epistemological belief that there is no God, and an ethic that, therefore, they should insult anyone who has a different belief. Therefore, that kind of atheism is precisely a religion.
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The business about bald being a hairstyle is simply a false analogy. By that definition, an atheist would be someone who had never heard the word "god," and that isn't the case.
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In this conversation there is no such thing as evidence because there is no agreement on what constitutes evidence or what belief it supports. The account of a piller of fire leading the Israelites out of Egypt could be called evidence. A devout Jew would say it was evidence for the existence of God, as written down by witnesses. A devout atheist would say that it was the evidence of the existence of fanaticism. Evidence or the lack thereof is a meaningful concept in this discussion only if we agree on it.
Actually no religious book can count as evidence - using it is a logical fallacy known as circular logic.
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Come on, you're better than that. How do you know what's real? Most of the time, most of us accept someone else's authority. Once in a blue moon we base it on an experiment or direct experience. Logic applies to using something we already know to figure something else out, but we need the experiences and authorities first. Even then, you ultimately need to be ready for the possibility that everything you know is wrong.
Someone said whatever is written down in any religious book. That doesn't make it "not evidence." It's testimony. It isn't proof. Maybe it's perjured, but it's testimony, and testimony is evidence.
You wind up with circular logic on either side of this discussion. It all comes down to interpretation within the context of the position you chose initially. "There is a god" or "There is no god" are morally equal positions with authorities on both sides. That doesn't make it a useful question. You can't find any evidence that proves that there is no God, although you can argue that you can. Conversely, you can't provide any evidence that proves that there is a God, at least not to an atheist.
I don't have enough math to prove this, so I accept the authority of certain physicists that there are about a dozen dimensions. I forget the exact number. If you pick the right number and make a few basic assumptions, all of the equations make sense back to the big bang. When you reach that point, nothing makes sense. What was the big bang? According to the membrane theory, at least one of the dimensions moved relative to the others, and something got spun off into our set of rules, our own unique universe. So, what caused that movement? That question is absolutely unanswerable through science, logic or mathematics. The most honest answer is "I don't know."
If there are other ways of knowing (and this is debatable), we have the problem that most of what we take for, say, "intuition" is really a mix of unconscious acceptance of authority, experience and logic.
The "there is a God" model works for certain purposes. That doesn't make it true. It makes it useful, sometimes. Other times, no. In a hospital study, if your friends came in and prayed for you, that appeared to make things worse.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Posted: Today, at 11:38 am Post subject:
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Quote:
No, you don't believe there is no God through logic. You believe there is no God because you believe there is no God. To support an epistemological belief in any meaningful way, the logic must rest upon observation. Once the concept of God is introduced, and it has been around for millenia, you can only believe in it, believe in not it, or not know.
There's one more option: You can simply lack a belief in regard to the existence of God (which is my position). I don't say there are pink unicorns. I don't say there are not. I simply have no belief either way.
That being said, given the lack of any evidence that supports the existence of pink unicorns, I say that it is extremely unlikely that such things exist. A similar claim can be made--quite reasonably--about "God."
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In this conversation there is no such thing as evidence because there is no agreement on what constitutes evidence or what belief it supports. The account of a piller of fire leading the Israelites out of Egypt could be called evidence. A devout Jew would say it was evidence for the existence of God, as written down by witnesses. A devout atheist would say that it was the evidence of the existence of fanaticism. Evidence or the lack thereof is a meaningful concept in this discussion only if we agree on it.
Scientific evidence is the only evidence that matters. All else is self-serving, ego-massaging speculation.
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Skeptic67
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Posted: Today, at 11:47 am Post subject:
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Someone said whatever is written down in any religious book. That doesn't make it "not evidence." It's testimony. It isn't proof. Maybe it's perjured, but it's testimony, and testimony is evidence.
"Testimony" is not valid evidence in any reasonable epistemological sense. Testimony in the sense you are using the term can be called simple opinion. Hot gas, nothing more. Only hard facts and verifiable claims constitute any sort of reasonable evidence.
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You wind up with circular logic on either side of this discussion. It all comes down to interpretation within the context of the position you chose initially. "There is a god" or "There is no god" are morally equal positions with authorities on both sides.
I disagree. When there is no evidence supporting A, !A is the logical position to take (contingent on new evidence, of course). Making a positive existential claim in the absence of any hard evidence is the height of folly. It says more about the psychological makeup of the claimant than objective reality.
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That doesn't make it a useful question. You can't find any evidence that proves that there is no God, although you can argue that you can. Conversely, you can't provide any evidence that proves that there is a God, at least not to an atheist.
1. It's impossible to provide negative evidence. The simple lack of evidence in support of a claim is sufficient to contingently dismiss it.
2. If you have any evidence in support of the "God exists" claim please share it.
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I don't have enough math to prove this, so I accept the authority of certain physicists that there are about a dozen dimensions. I forget the exact number. If you pick the right number and make a few basic assumptions, all of the equations make sense back to the big bang. When you reach that point, nothing makes sense. What was the big bang? According to the membrane theory, at least one of the dimensions moved relative to the others, and something got spun off into our set of rules, our own unique universe. So, what caused that movement? That question is absolutely unanswerable through science, logic or mathematics. The most honest answer is "I don't know."
How does claiming that God exists constitute one of those entirely reasonable "I don't know" statements?
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The "there is a God" model works for certain purposes. That doesn't make it true. It makes it useful, sometimes. Other times, no. In a hospital study, if your friends came in and prayed for you, that appeared to make things worse.
I would say that the "there is a God" model has worked wonderfully for scores of inquisitors, manipulative and controlling clerics, dictators and puritanical busybodies.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
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The business about bald being a hairstyle is simply a false analogy. By that definition, an atheist would be someone who had never heard the word "god," and that isn't the case.
Lol. Is he seriously suggesting that, bald people never previously had hair? Good job on refuting a "false" analogy, with another false analogy.
I hope they cannot see
the limitless potential
living inside of me
to murder everything.
I hope they cannot see
I am the great destroyer.
Yeah, I thought that was pretty absurd.