Is it ultimately pointless to engage in debate with those who believe in a deity

Flamed Diving

Naz_st wrote: »

So you can test aspects of this god, but not whether he actually exists?

Well, it's like this. The bible claims that God answers prayers on a Thursday. So we test prayers on a Thurs and none are answered.

Does that mean:

A) God does not exist?

or

God does not answers prayers on Thursday?

I don't believe the above experiment proves (A), nor was it testing this hypothesis in the first place. Perhaps it does damage to the claims of the bible and its followers, but to the existence of the deity itself? I don't think so.

How are you supposed to test for it's existence? I don't think it is possible.

philologos

Flaming Diving: Do not put the Lord your God to the test. So you expect to break God's law, and for Him to answer your prayers? Not effective.

seamus

Jakkass wrote: »

Do not put the Lord your God to the test.

Or in other words - "I do exist, but don't dare call my bluff".

pH

Jakkass wrote: »

Flaming Diving: Do not put the Lord your God to the test. So you expect to break God's law, and for Him to answer your prayers? Not effective.

Which immediately begs the question, who the hell are you to claim to know this?

Maybe God is a proud and sane God who loves to have his powers tested to prove how powerful and kind he is? Who are you and on what basis can you claim otherwise?

CerebralCortex

pH wrote: »

Which immediately begs the question, who the hell are you to claim to know this?

Maybe God is a proud and sane God who loves to have his powers tested to prove how powerful and kind he is? Who are you and on what basis can you claim otherwise?

William Lane Craig, CS Lewis blah blah etc. and all that crap.

darjeeling

Jakkass wrote: »

Do not put the Lord your God to the test. So you expect to break God's law, and for Him to answer your prayers? Not effective.

Does this rule extend to all study of whether the world proceeds according to natural processes?

Zillah

Flamed Diving wrote: »

Well, that doesn't prove he doesn't exist.

It demonstrates that God, as defined, does not exist. Maybe a different celestial entity exists, but I've proved the non-existence of the prayer answering God I defined at the start.

Flamed Diving

Zillah wrote: »

It demonstrates that God, as defined, does not exist. Maybe a different celestial entity exists, but I've proved the non-existence of the prayer answering God I defined at the start.

If God is defined as only existing through answering prayers, then yes.

Flamed Diving

Jakkass wrote: »

Flaming Diving: Do not put the Lord your God to the test. So you expect to break God's law, and for Him to answer your prayers? Not effective.

The God of the desert is not my god. If I was to follow a god, I could do better than that psychopath.

The Mad Hatter

Flamed Diving wrote: »

The God of the desert is not my god. If I was to follow a god, I could do better than that psychopath.

Odin ftw!

toiletduck

Is it ultimately pointless to engage in debate with those who believe in a deity?

Well yes I suppose. I mean in the BP&C thread I don't think some of the creationists will ever give in. Doesn't mean that it can't be entertaining and educational though.

Naz_st

Flamed Diving wrote: »

Well, it's like this. The bible claims that God answers prayers on a Thursday. So we test prayers on a Thurs and none are answered.

Does that mean:

A) God does not exist?

or

God does not answers prayers on Thursday?

I don't believe the above experiment proves (A), nor was it testing this hypothesis in the first place. Perhaps it does damage to the claims of the bible and its followers, but to the existence of the deity itself? I don't think so.

First off, you can't have it both ways: you can't test "aspects" of this God concept if you can't first test if he exists. (You pretty much demonstrate that in your above hypothetical test).

It's like saying "let's test if invisible pink unicorns eat dead goats on wednesdays" and then upon noticing the continued presence of dead goat carcasses on Thursday mornings, concluding either:
a) Invisible pink unicorns don't exist
b) Invisible pink unicorns do exist but don't eat dead goats on Wednesdays
c) Invisible pink unicorns do exist but don't eat dead goats on Wednesdays if they think people are watching
etc

You're not "testing" anything.

In order for something to be testable, it has to be falsifiable.

So you can only test falsifiable claims made by believers about their Gods. E.g. God always answers prayers on Thursdays.

How are you supposed to test for it's existence? I don't think it is possible.

I agree that the Deistic view of a vague "creator" concept that doesn't interfere with anything is not falsifiable, and untestable. My only point on this non-interfering view is that it's materially the same as non-existing, as both would appear identical.

Flamed Diving

Naz_st wrote: »

First off, you can't have it both ways: you can't test "aspects" of this God concept if you can't first test if he exists. (You pretty much demonstrate that in your above hypothetical test).

It's like saying "let's test if invisible pink unicorns eat dead goats on wednesdays" and then upon noticing the continued presence of dead goat carcasses on Thursday mornings, concluding either:
a) Invisible pink unicorns don't exist
b) Invisible pink unicorns do exist but don't eat dead goats on Wednesdays
c) Invisible pink unicorns do exist but don't eat dead goats on Wednesdays if they think people are watching
etc

You're not "testing" anything.

In order for something to be testable, it has to be falsifiable.

So you can only test falsifiable claims made by believers about their Gods. E.g. God always answers prayers on Thursdays.



I agree that the Deistic view of a vague "creator" concept that doesn't interfere with anything is not falsifiable, and untestable. My only point on this non-interfering view is that it's materially the same as non-existing, as both would appear identical.

I actually agree. Perhaps you said it better than I was. God is not falsifiable. Therefore science is silent on God.

Better?

Zillah

Flamed Diving wrote: »

Well, it's like this. The bible claims that God answers prayers on a Thursday. So we test prayers on a Thurs and none are answered.

Does that mean:

A) God does not exist?

or

God does not answers prayers on Thursday?

I don't believe the above experiment proves (A), nor was it testing this hypothesis in the first place. Perhaps it does damage to the claims of the bible and its followers, but to the existence of the deity itself? I don't think so.

How are you supposed to test for it's existence? I don't think it is possible.

God, being an entity that answers prayers on Thursday, does not exist.

I think your reasoning is a little off here. Put it this way: You and I are biologists looking for an animal that villagers have said lives in the jungle. It's like a monkey but has a blue horn on it's head. It's called Orangazure. We search extensively for weeks and find no sign of such a creature. When I express doubts about its existence you point at another monkey and say "Well that could be the Orangazul except maybe the Orangazul doesn't have a blue horn".

When we perform a test we're not testing for all hypothetical definitions of God, we're testing a specific one. Just like when we're searching for an animal, we're searching for a particular animal, not all hypothetical animals that we'll give the same name to.

Zillah

Naz_st wrote: »

So you can only test falsifiable claims made by believers about their Gods. E.g. God always answers prayers on Thursdays.

But if those testable claims are an element of the definition of that God, then surely by disproving the claim we disprove the God? eg, a God that always answers prayers on Thursdays.

Micky Dolenz

I find it amusing that a lot of the posters here are as fanatical as the mad over the top religous loonies.

It's ironic, not much seperates them.

pH

Flamed Diving wrote: »

I actually agree. Perhaps you said it better than I was. God is not falsifiable. Therefore science is silent on God.

Better?

Not much, you've left out the important bit "I can think of a God ..."

as in:

I can think of a God that is not falsifiable. Therefore science is silent on [that] God.

Once again, there is nothing inherently unfalsifiable about a God, just specific definitions of "God", which if one was choosing to be cynical, one might say that the entire point of the definition was to make it unfalsifiable, which comes back to my original point that the statement "It's possible for humans to invent concepts which are unfalsifiable" is undoubtedly true, but I still don't understand quite what you think it has to do with God.

AARRRGH

achtungbarry wrote: »

Is it ultimately pointless to engage in debate with the religious ?

Yes.

My personal opinion on this is you have to be - to put it nicely - amazingly naive to be religious.

I've also noticed no matter what absolutely rational or logical arguments you put forward about why some of their beliefs don't make sense, they don't want to know.

Society in general is in denial about how ridiculous religion is (e.g. people say "we are all entitled to our beliefs" rather than "religious people are deluded but relatively harmless"), so I think it's better to just waste your energy on anything other than debating with a religious person.

AARRRGH

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

I find it amusing that a lot of the posters here are as fanatical as the mad over the top religous loonies.

It's ironic, not much seperates them.

That's always the case - the extreme on one end is the same as the extreme on the other.

Look at the hardcore anti-scientolology people - they are just as unstable as any scientologist.

Overblood

Eh... actually quite a lot separates us Micky. First of all, we don't believe in magic space fairies who go around impregnating women in stables. There are many many examples that I can list out, but I won't, since the list may go on for infinity.

AARRRGH

Overblood wrote: »

Eh... actually quite a lot separates us Micky. First of all, we don't believe in magic space fairies who go around impregnating women in stables. There are many many examples that I can list out, but I won't, since the list may go on for infinity.

No, I think he means people who have passionate but opposing views on things (e.g. x is definitely right versus x is definitely wrong) are normally similar sorts of people.

It's a generalisation but from my own experience being involved in pressure groups, I have noticed people with extreme views on things tend to be a bit unstable, regardless of whether they are 'right' or 'wrong'.

As I say, just a generalisation!

Fanny Cradock

Overblood wrote: »

Eh... actually quite a lot separates us Micky. First of all, we don't believe in magic space fairies who go around impregnating women in stables. There are many many examples that I can list out, but I won't, since the list may go on for infinity.

That's great. Neither do Christians! You see, we DO have things in common.

Naz_st

Flamed Diving wrote: »

I actually agree. Perhaps you said it better than I was. God is not falsifiable. Therefore science is silent on God.

Better?

Yes. As generally defined, God is not falsifiable. And science simply ignores God as an explanation for anything.

Zillah wrote: »

But if those testable claims are an element of the definition of that God, then surely by disproving the claim we disprove the God? eg, a God that always answers prayers on Thursdays.

Sure, of course. But it seems to me that very few Gods have testable (falsifiable) claims as definitional elements of their existence!:)

pH wrote: »

Once again, there is nothing inherently unfalsifiable about a God, just specific definitions of "God"

I agree in theory, but in practice, as I said above, it's seemingly a universal characteristic of Gods to be inherently unfalsifiable. I guess you could put forward specific examples of where this is not the case (perhaps the Greek God Helios, being defined as having a chariot pulling the sun up in the morning, and since this doesn't happen he is proved not to exist as defined). But take the concept of omnipotence, which seems universally attributed to monotheistic Gods, and in the normal use of the concept "God", I think that any God thus defined is inherently unfalsifiable, and ergo untestable.

philologos

Naz_st wrote: »

Yes. As generally defined, God is not falsifiable. And science simply ignores God as an explanation for anything.

Surely it's anti-science to rule out other possibilities?

Zillah

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

I find it amusing that a lot of the posters here are as fanatical as the mad over the top religous loonies.

It's ironic, not much seperates them.

Define fanatical please.

Naz_st

Jakkass wrote: »

Surely it's anti-science to rule out other possibilities?

No, it's anti-scientific to accept non-scientific, supernatural explanations for things.

E.g. the whole "God did it" argument. If we applied that statement to any scientific question we have then we would never advance our knowledge of the world.

Also, "ruling out possibilities" is part and parcel of the scientific method. I mean it's a fundamental process of what science is. Ruling out incorrect hypotheses when they don't conform to the observed results or when the predictions they make prove to be false. You really couldn't have been more wrong with that one...

philologos

It's anti-science not to consider this as a real possibility and to see if there is a logical reason that it could be so, rather than just dismissing it off the cuff. That's why the promotion of atheism should have nothing to do with science, and rather atheists should stop claiming that they somehow are superior due to being "more scientific". What a load of tripe.

BTW, you as an atheist, and scientists as well... scientists, have nothing to suggest that a Creator is an incorrect hypothesis, therefore it shouldn't be ruled out.

The Mad Hatter

Jakkass wrote: »

BTW, you as an atheist, and scientists as well... scientists, have nothing to suggest that a Creator is an incorrect hypothesis, therefore it shouldn't be ruled out.

There's also nothing to suggest that a creator is a correct hypothesis, therefore it shouldn't be ruled in.

Easy on the commas, btw.

Liber8or

I departed the Christian Forums to have a quick look at the A&A Forums and found this thread thrashing through more details and I thought I would say something since it derives from a statement I made.

Ultimately, I feel it is impossible to debate about a subject which uses "Faith" as evidence and precursor for answers.

Christianity utilises and accentuates the idea of "Faith" upon those susceptable to it's preachings. This is the very reason why Science and Religion clash. Science is the endeavour to discover the "Why", Religion is the exertion to ignore the "Why".

However, it is in the endeavour we discover subtle similarities between both Science and Religion which inevitable leads to more subversive themes.

[Science] attempts to answer questions people ask, such as why do i fall? What are these lumps? Does life exist on other planets? That is the primary function of Science, the challenge to understand the World around us and better ourselves.

[Religion] would rather you ignored these questions and listen to the answers the Bible and Mass gives you. Things are a lot easier when people conform and adapt to a single way of thinking. It makes life easier and most importantly controllable.

However, Religion can not avoid people asking questions, even the people within its own ranks. It is inevitable that man/woman will question things, no matter how ignorant or uneducated that person is. The only difference is the complexity of the question, be it, how far do I walk to get water, to how can I get the water to come to me?

So Religion, in response to these questions must come up with an answer or fear of losing the masses. We come to "Faith". This quintessential five letter word of genius proportion that is the master key and will fit into the lock of any question standing before it. "Faith" asks you to trust in this "Eternal Being". "Faith" begs of you to be humble and bow down to the "will of God". "Faith" can and will make the coffee for you, but only if you trust in it and don't ask it to hurry up.

Science, however does not know everything, but it knows that and attempts to keep going and give as much answers as it can offer. It does this through "Proof", verifiable, undeniable evidence that clearly answers a question. If it does not answer the question, it simply tells you that but will try and find out. Religion, on the other hand, says "Have Faith".

From here on, this debate really changes between "Faith" vs Proof.

What is "Faith"? "Faith" is the acceptance of not knowing the answers for why "God" does this, or "God" does that, or why "he" does nothing at all. It is a submission a Christian makes, an exception to the rules of reasoning you give to Religion, a "spiritual" contract you make allowing it to choose when to prove the existence of "God" when it so pleases.
Ultimately, it is an admission of ignorance on both the believer's part and religion itself. You choose to make yourself ignorant to allow this rule to execute on the premise that it will become evident. This is a binding contract between the individual and the religious establishment upon accepting the ideas of the said religion.

What is "Proof"? "Proof" is the results or evidence of examination and analysis of a particular question. The "Proof" allows someone to stand up and say "X" or "Y" because of "Z". "Proof" can be questioned as can "Faith", however "Proof" will yield results, "Faith" will reveal promises. "Proof" invokes and encourages human instinct, the instinct of curiousity and ability to question things. Alongside intelligence, "Proof" works in synthesis to human questioning. Therefore, "Proof" directly opposes ignorance and counts for everything ignorance encourages.

Hence, "Proof" professes intelligence, education, inquiry, examination. "Faith" professes exception, ignorance, lack of clarity and an unwillingness to explore.

With these two opposing ideologies, we have an explosive counter-balance of results.
Science using "Proof" encourages free thinking and answers with evidence. Religion supports "Faith" and the acceptance of promises and gifts, which ultimately can not be proven until another object based on "Faith" known as "God" chooses to allow it to appear.

The synopsis of this argument truly boils down to Intelligence vs Ignorance. Always has and always will. There are people who would rather not question things, would rather accept the World around them as it has been told for them to see it. "God" made the trees and the birds etc. However, there are those who look past the shroud of ambiguity and begin the long endeavour to discover why we have trees and birds instead of accepting a book which says the opposite.

Science and Religion will always argue, and unfortunately, in an educated environment Religion will fall because of "Faith". It's golden card, was accepted in an age of non-existant education and conformists attempting to avoid punishment and submit to fear, but not anymore. Instead, mankind looks for alternative options, verifiable ones and has decided to move on from the archaic in exchange for "Proof".

Finally though, Science can not win in open debate. Infact, our wildcard is by ignoring ignorance. If we feed it, pay it attention it survives, like a virus or parasite. Science should ignore religion, move past it, give it no attention and strive forward leaving it in the dark ages. We all know religion is in decline, just look around us and the power the Vatican has, it used to be able to topple nations, now it can not even topple a table without looking for permission from surrounding states. Mankind is evolving, changing its ways and its treatment of archaic ways. Science will always be ahead, with Religion chasing its tail, hoping, "praying" for some "Faith" to come its way...

philologos

Science and Religion don't argue. It's Atheists and people of faith. Atheists are not the equivalent of science. I personally have no issue with modern science. Actually it seems to me that atheists abuse science to pursue their own goals even when science has no stance on the God question at all.

As for ignoring the why, I think that's what atheists try to do. Science explains the how, religion and philosophy tries to explain the why.