Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Part 2)

sbsquarepants

Festus wrote: »

is this not essentially atheism? or some form of Satanism or occultism. Seems a lot like what Aleister Crowley was about.

Eh, in a word no.

As for atheism supporting it's claim with evidence - it doesn't make any claims. You don't require evidence to prove the claim you're not making - in fact it is actually impossible to prove the non existence of anything (as I'm sure you know).

Defender OF Faith

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Eh, in a word no.

As for atheism supporting it's claim with evidence - it doesn't make any claims. You don't require evidence to prove the claim you're not making - in fact it is actually impossible to prove the non existence of anything (as I'm sure you know).

You are making the Claim that no Creator exist, atheism makes this claim. No one can present tangible and empirical evidence to deny the existence or presence of a Creator however what you can do is use deductive arguments and logical rational approach to present a case as to why a God does not exist.

Science is based on a theory of knowledge called Empiricism. Empiricism stems from the idea that you can only have knowledge of something from experience based on direct or indirect observation.*1) An empirical rejection of God is impossible as it requires evidence from observation to form conclusions. To deny something that cannot be observed, by using the theory of knowledge that can only form conclusions based on observations, is absurd. The scientific world can never deny God’s existence because science can only deal with things that you can observe. This is why the philosopher of science Elliot Sober, in his essay Empiricism asserts that science is limited to questions which observation can explain,
“At any moment scientists are limited by the observations they have at hand…the limitation is that science is forced to restrict its attention to problems that observations can solve.”*
God is not observed. How can you use the observed world to deny that which cannot be observed? It’s impossible. This is why science can never directly reject God’s existence. It can only do one of two things:

1. Stay silent on the matter
2. Suggest some evidence that can be used to infer His existence

*1:Elliot Sober “Empiricism” in The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science. Edited by Stathis Psillos and Martin Curd. 2010, p. 129.
*Ibid, pp. 137-138

Edit: Actual text Quoted from: http://www.iera.org/research/essays-articles/denying-god-denying-reality-dont-need-evidence-gods-existence

RikuoAmero

Defender OF Faith wrote: »

You are making the Claim that no Creator exist, atheism makes this claim. No one can present tangible and empirical evidence to deny the existence or presence of a Creator however what you can do is use deductive arguments and logical rational approach to present a case as to why a God does not exist.

It depends on whether the atheism being talked about is hard or soft.
Soft atheism is merely the rejection of someone's claim "There is a god". If you walk up to me and say that phrase, I, a soft atheist agnostic, will reject your claim, primarily because you don't substantiate it well enough.
Again, like the court-room analogy, I'm finding your claim not guilty. This is NOT the same as me finding it innocent (or saying There are no gods). By voting Not Guilty, or rejecting your god claim, I'm merely saying that whenever someone presents their god claim to me, they have (all of them so far) failed to substantiate it.
Defender, the part that you quoted is technically true, in that for a typical god claim, science cannot disprove it, but you're heading down the wrong road there. Like with others I can name, you're saying that you believe in something merely because it hasn't been disproved. If this is how low you set the bar in order for you to believe, you now have two options
1) Be consistent and also believe all sorts of other things that have, as of yet, not been disproven by science. This ends up with you believing simultaneously contradictory things
2) Be inconsistent, say you believe in Allah only and not other things that haven't been disproven. This then means you're committing the logical fallacy of special pleading.
Why is a lack of proof enough to allow the Allah claim to be something you believe, but not others? Why is a lack of proof a good thing, something to be looked for and considered when you wonder as to whether you believe something or not?

In an argument about the existence of God, it is an incredibly stupid thing to walk up to someone who doesn't believe what you believe and say "I believe in God, because science cannot disprove him!" as if that's somehow a point in your favour. You're intentionally ignoring that that very reason you gave can be used for all sorts of other things. Why would "science can't disprove it!" change my mind, make me a believer? Why your god specifically?

RikuoAmero

Defender, I'm going to work now, but I'll leave you an argument.

Pretend for a moment that you and I are sitting down in a room in front of an audience. You put forward the argument of "Allah exists" (since you are a Muslim). As one of the reasons you believe in him you say "Because science can't disprove him".
To counter you, (pretend for a moment that I actually believe this) I say "I believe in an invisible, immaterial pixy who sits on my shoulders and communicates in various methods, such as in dreams. This pixy tells me the truth of the universe and tells me that the god you posit is a complete lie. Science cannot disprove the pixy. I believe the pixy to be the ultimate arbiter of truth and knowledge, just as you say the same about Allah".
Do you believe my claim about the pixy? More importantly, what about the audience? Which of the two of us should they believe? Both of us are positing beings that cannot be disproved, in fact the being I posit outright says (according to me) that yours is false.

If all either of us offers in favour of our positions is "Science can't disprove it" why should the audience consider that a good argument? Why shouldn't they just ignore, ignore our claims and tell us to take a hike and come back when we actually have an argument?

You cannot have a wishy-washy answer like both of our beings are equally true or possible - remember, my pixy says your god is false. They cannot both be true.

What is different between science's inability to prove there is no god, and science's inability to prove there is no banshee?

It's never been reasonably explained to me why a claim that one exists is any more or less valid than a claim that the other exists?

Defender OF Faith

RikuoAmero wrote: »

It depends on whether the atheism being talked about is hard or soft.
Soft atheism is merely the rejection of someone's claim "There is a god". If you walk up to me and say that phrase, I, a soft atheist agnostic, will reject your claim, primarily because you don't substantiate it well enough.
Again, like the court-room analogy, I'm finding your claim not guilty. This is NOT the same as me finding it innocent (or saying There are no gods). By voting Not Guilty, or rejecting your god claim, I'm merely saying that whenever someone presents their god claim to me, they have (all of them so far) failed to substantiate it.
Defender, the part that you quoted is technically true, in that for a typical god claim, science cannot disprove it, but you're heading down the wrong road there. Like with others I can name, you're saying that you believe in something merely because it hasn't been disproved. If this is how low you set the bar in order for you to believe, you now have two options
1) Be consistent and also believe all sorts of other things that have, as of yet, not been disproven by science. This ends up with you believing simultaneously contradictory things
2) Be inconsistent, say you believe in Allah only and not other things that haven't been disprove. This then means you're committing the logical fallacy of special pleading.
Why is a lack of proof enough to allow the Allah claim to be something you believe, but not others? Why is a lack of proof a good thing, something to be looked for and considered when you wonder as to whether you believe something or not?

In an argument about the existence of God, it is an incredibly stupid thing to walk up to someone who doesn't believe what you believe and say "I believe in God, because science cannot disprove him!" as if that's somehow a point in your favour. You're intentionally ignoring that that very reason you gave can be used for all sorts of other things. Why would "science can't disprove it!" change my mind, make me a believer? Why your god specifically?

RikuoAmero wrote: »

Defender, I'm going to work now, but I'll leave you an argument.

Pretend for a moment that you and I are sitting down in a room in front of an audience. You put forward the argument of "Allah exists" (since you are a Muslim). As one of the reasons you believe in him you say "Because science can't disprove him".
To counter you, (pretend for a moment that I actually believe this) I say "I believe in an invisible, immaterial pixy who sits on my shoulders and communicates in various methods, such as in dreams. This pixy tells me the truth of the universe and tells me that the god you posit is a complete lie. Science cannot disprove the pixy. I believe the pixy to be the ultimate arbiter of truth and knowledge, just as you say the same about Allah".
Do you believe my claim about the pixy? More importantly, what about the audience? Which of the two of us should they believe? Both of us are positing beings that cannot be disproved, in fact the being I posit outright says (according to me) that yours is false.

If all either of us offers in favour of our positions is "Science can't disprove it" why should the audience consider that a good argument? Why shouldn't they just ignore, ignore our claims and tell us to take a hike and come back when we actually have an argument?

You cannot have a wishy-washy answer like both of our beings are equally true or possible - remember, my pixy says your god is false. They cannot both be true.

I don't believe in a God because science cannot prove it am saying that since both the laws of science and the laws of Logic & rationality cannot deny or disprove the existence of God, with not a single sound deductive argument that was brought forth by negative or hard atheist against the existence of a God. What reasons do you have to reject the existence of a God?

Comparing pixies or fairies to God is a fallacy is they are completely unrelated objects, the latter is a universal truth that transcend above any cultural bound unlike pixies or fairies which are culturally bound.

looksee

Comparing the existence of a Creator and a God to fairies or pixies is a comparison fallacy as they are both completely unrelated objects, with God being a universal truth that transcend above all cultural boundaries unlike fairies and pixies.

But god is not a universal truth. Some of us do not believe in a god, some cultures do not/did not have a single god, so how is it universal? In English we call magical beings fairies, pixies or whatever, most other cultures have magical beings of some sort, why does that not make them a universal truth?

Just because you believe god is a self-evident truth (and you said, 'to me, God is a self evident truth etc') does not make it so. You believe it, ok, but rationality and logic absolutely do not come into the equation. I might believe that an angel (or a fairy) hovers over me at all times, you cannot prove it does not - try it, I believe that a spirit creature hovers over me (a lot of people do believe this), now you prove to me that it does not.

Defender OF Faith

looksee wrote: »

But god is not a universal truth. Some of us do not believe in a god, some cultures do not/did not have a single god, so how is it universal? In English we call magical beings fairies, pixies or whatever, most other cultures have magical beings of some sort, why does that not make them a universal truth?

The belief in a supernatural Creator of this universe is a natural belief unlike atheism which is a learned psychology. God is a basic cross cultural belief and a belief in a God is not culturally bond. Believing in Icelandic Elves means I would need to have been brought up in a culture where am taught about such a thing, the idea of God however, the basic underlying idea of a creator and a supernatural cause for the universe is cross cultural. It's not subject on culture but transcend it, just like the belief in causality and the existence of other minds.

regardless of the culture your brought up in, the concept of a God and a supernatural creator of this universe will remain universal and basic cross cultural belief that transcend above any cultural bounds. If I visit Brazil or a small African village and ask them if they know about Icelandic Elves its likely that they would not know but if asked about a God or a being that created this universe the response regardless of the culture will be the same.

"If you would need to be brought up in a culture that teaches about god for you to know about the idea of god, then, no person can have had the first thought about the idea of a god. So, since people do have an idea of god, it must be a universal, non cultural, and innate in that they are not acquired via any form of information transfer."

looksee wrote: »

Just because you believe god is a self-evident truth (and you said, 'to me, God is a self evident truth etc') does not make it so. You believe it, ok, but rationality and logic absolutely do not come into the equation. I might believe that an angel (or a fairy) hovers over me at all times, you cannot prove it does not - try it, I believe that a spirit creature hovers over me (a lot of people do believe this), now you prove to me that it does not.

You will not be able to formulate a single deductive ‘a priori’ argument where the conclusion necessarily follows from the premise to proof that spirit creature exist or hover over you unlike a Creator or a God, atheists have never brought forth a single sound deductive argument against God, thousands of years ago science was not well developed so philosophers and thinkers used their logic and rational to deduce such a truth, it's no wonder that the greatest Greek philosophers Plato,Aristotle and Socrates believed in a monotheistic God and made logical and rational arguments to support this belief. Science can never prove Metaphysics but either Logic and rationality or their acceptance as self evident truth can.

silverharp

Defender OF Faith wrote: »

Comparing pixies or fairies to God is a fallacy is they are completely unrelated objects, the latter is a universal truth that transcend above any cultural bound unlike pixies or fairies which are culturally bound.

What does universal truth mean here? Observationally the only one I can see is that societies that start religions need to be pre industrial and to date no two unconnected societies have managed to come up with a religion that has any evidence that they are receiving data from the same god. Ideally Columbus should have bumped into Jews in the Americas if there was anything to the middle eastern myths?
Pixies and gods occur from the same reasoning broadly put as the god of the gaps.

Defender OF Faith

silverharp wrote: »

What does universal truth mean here? Observationally the only one I can see is that societies that start religions need to be pre industrial and to date no two unconnected societies have managed to come up with a religion that has any evidence that they are receiving data from the same god. Ideally Columbus should have bumped into Jews in the Americas if there was anything to the middle eastern myths?
Pixies and gods occur from the same reasoning broadly put as the god of the gaps.

I answered with the following in my previous replay regarding the meaning of a universal truth:

The belief in a supernatural Creator of this universe is a natural belief unlike atheism which is a learned psychology. God is a basic cross cultural belief and a belief in a God is not culturally bond. Believing in Icelandic Elves for example means I would need to have been brought up in a culture where am taught about such a thing, the idea of God however, the basic underlying idea of a creator and a supernatural cause for the universe is cross cultural. It's not subject on culture but transcend it, just like the belief in causality and the existence of other minds.

regardless of the culture your brought up in, the concept of a God and a supernatural creator of this universe will remain universal and basic cross cultural belief that transcend above any cultural bounds. If I visit Brazil or a small African village and ask them if they know about Icelandic Elves its likely that they would not know but if asked about a God or a being that created this universe the response regardless of the culture will be the same.

"If you would need to be brought up in a culture that teaches about god for you to know about the idea of god, then, no person can have had the first thought about the idea of a god. So, since people do have an idea of god, it must be a universal, non cultural, and innate in that they are not acquired via any form of information transfer."

Ignore religion and you can assume it to be a byproduct invited by Humans to understand their innate belief in a supernatural Creator of this universe as religion has little to do with the argument for or against God so far.

silverharp

Defender OF Faith wrote: »

I answered with the following in my previous replay regarding the meaning of a universal truth:



Ignore religion and you can assume it to be a byproduct invited by Humans to understand their innate belief in a supernatural Creator of this universe as religion has little to do with the argument for or against God so far.

What does innate belief mean? If a future generation set off for another planet and they carefully didn't bring any religious information there would be nothing innate about it

tommy2bad

Defender OF Faith wrote: »

I answered with the following in my previous replay regarding the meaning of a universal truth:



Ignore religion and you can assume it to be a byproduct invited by Humans to understand their innate belief in a supernatural Creator of this universe as religion has little to do with the argument for or against God so far.

Much wisdom in this post!
Religion has very little to do with evidence of God. True, religion concerns itself with how we should relate to God. It assumes the existence of god to be ' self evident'.
In fact Alan what's his name has proposed setting up an atheist religion, with ceremonies and buildings to rival cathedrals. It seems even without God religion can't be erased!
I'm not sure it the best way of dealing with the sense of the numious that engenders the religious behaviour, we have seen what happens when man starts projecting himself, his culture or his privilege on to God, what's to stop the same thing happen any other man made ' religion's.

Defender OF Faith

silverharp wrote: »

What does innate belief mean? If a future generation set off for another planet and they carefully didn't bring any religious information there would be nothing innate about it

There's nothing innate about religion but there's something innate about God, if such hypothetical situation were to happen these people will grow up believing in a supernatural cause of this universe however will likely invent a "Religion" to worship him as no information about religion was given to them.

The innate disposition of Human begin or our innate natural state is a theistic nature,with atheism being a learned psychology as I mentioned. History and psychological studies are enough to prove this and I will cite some below, throughout history every collective ancient Civilization such as the Inca or Aztecs as a whole believed in some sort of a God and a Supreme creator of this Universe to whom they gave a name then associated other Gods with him.

Prof Justin Barrett. Professor Barrett’s research in his book Born believers: the science of children’s religious belief looked at the behavior and claims of children:

“Scientific research on children’s developing minds and supernatural beliefs suggests that children normally and rapidly acquire minds that facilitate belief in supernatural agents. Particularly in the first year after birth, children distinguish between agents and non-agents, understanding agents as able to move themselves in purposeful ways to pursue goals. They are keen to find agency around them, even given scant evidence. Not long after their first birthday, babies appear to understand that agents, but not natural forces or ordinary objects, can create order out of disorder…This tendency to see function and purpose, plus an understanding that purpose and order come from minded beings, makes children likely to see natural phenomena as intentionally created. Who is the Creator? Children know people are not good candidates. It must have been a god…children are born believers of what I call natural religion…”

Quoted from: http://bycommonconsent.com/2012/03/08/review-justin-l-barrett-born-believers-the-science-of-childrens-religious-beliefs/

Olivera Petrovich conducted some studies concerning the psychology of the human being and God’s existence. She concludes that the belief in a non-anthropomorphic God is the natural state of a human being. Atheism is a learned psychology.[15] Theism is our natural state.

Key Psychological Issues in the Study of Religion. Olivera Petrovich. psihologija, 2007, Vol. 40 (3), str. 351-363
Quoted from: http://www.iera.org/research/essays-articles/denying-god-denying-reality-dont-need-evidence-gods-existence

looksee

So essentially you are saying, everyone believes in god (even though they do not), children are born believing in god, (why do they only believe in the god of their culture?), people have always believed in god (even though they haven't, they may have ascribed life mysteries to a supernatural cause, represented by animals, natural phenomena or created personalities, but not necessarily god or God), and great classical thinkers decided that the secret of the universe was god) therefore god must exist. None of that is even remotely logical or reasonable.

There must be millions of children all over the world in every kind of culture who have not been taught about the existence of god. Living in Ireland or countries that follow Islam does not provide very convincing evidence of this as children are taught to believe in god by default. But children living in more secular countries can easily grow up not believing in god because the subject has never come up. Not that they have been taught atheistic ideas, they just have not had any teaching about god. At what stage do they automatically start to believe in god?

And never mind my ability to prove a fairy hovering over me, I believe in it, I want you to disprove it.

Defender OF Faith

looksee wrote: »

So essentially you are saying, everyone believes in god (even though they do not), children are born believing in god, (why do they only believe in the god of their culture?), people have always believed in god (even though they haven't, they may have ascribed life mysteries to a supernatural cause, represented by animals, natural phenomena or created personalities, but not necessarily god or God), and great classical thinkers decided that the secret of the universe was god) therefore god must exist. None of that is even remotely logical or reasonable.

I was not using this as an argument for God existence, I was stating a fact that our natural disposition is to believe in a God and to become an atheist this would mean that you made a conscious decision based on what ever reasons you have to reject this belief. Hard/negative atheist have not produced a single deductive argument or gave a single good reason as to why a God does not exist and Soft atheist spend their time refuting the arguments of the theist without providing reasons as to why they don't believe.

Different culture will name their God differently, Viracocha is the creator God of the Incas, Brahma of the hindu and Ometecuhtli and Omecihuat happen to be the Creator God of the Aztecs. Exact same concept named differently, you will never find something universally true like God when you compare him to fairies or pixies.

looksee wrote: »

There must be millions of children all over the world in every kind of culture who have not been taught about the existence of god. Living in Ireland or countries that follow Islam does not provide very convincing evidence of this as children are taught to believe in god by default. But children living in more secular countries can easily grow up not believing in god because the subject has never come up. Not that they have been taught atheistic ideas, they just have not had any teaching about god. At what stage do they automatically start to believe in god?

If a child is raised by atheistic parents then he will grow to reject the belief in a God because he was taught otherwise simply because atheism is a learned psychology, but if a child is thrown in a desert and not taught about God he will naturally because of his natural disposition will grow to believe in a God and a supernatural Creator of this universe.

looksee wrote: »

And never mind my ability to prove a fairly hovering over me, I believe in it, I want you to disprove it.

Present me one single good argument as to why your fairy exist? there have been hundred of argument made in an attempt to support God existence but none so far to support the existence of your hovering Fairy can you provide one maybe? your fairy is clearly an individual culturally learned and bound belief shared by you alone, unlike a God which is a belief shared by the 97.5% of the world's theistic population, irrespective of faith and religion but a belief in a God is what unite them.

looksee

DoF are you aware that you have not answered any of my points. You have changed the arguments, moved the goalposts and have refused to prove to me - and this is the third time of asking - how you know there is no angel/fairy hovering over me. And no, it is not a belief just of mine (in fact it is not even a belief of mine, but it makes the point), many thousands of people believe in a personal guardian spirit.

Harika

Defender OF Faith wrote: »

Present me one single good argument as to why your fairy exist? there have been hundred of argument made in an attempt to support God existence but none so far to support the existence of your hovering Fairy can you provide one maybe? your fairy is clearly an individual culturally learned and bound belief shared by you alone, unlike a God which is a belief shared by the 97.5% of the world's theistic population, irrespective of faith and religion but a belief in a God is what unite them.

You can use every argument made for your god and apply it to the fairy. It will pass it. Cause there are people all over the world believing in this fairy, so it is clearly not culturally learned. On the other hand, there are people and tribes that never believed in a god or a creator, so this proves clearly that god is a cultural made up product. See: Pirahã people or certain forms of Buddhism. And the fairy just talked to me and will now talk to you too, if you don't hear it, you are not believing hard enough in it.

Defender OF Faith

Harika wrote: »

You can use every argument made for your god and apply it to the fairy...

Nope as God and fairies are completely different subjects and hence are completely unrelated and we cannot use the same argument to prove the existence of two completely unrelated subjects.

Harika

Defender OF Faith wrote: »

Nope as God and fairies are completely different subjects and hence are completely unrelated and we cannot use the same argument to prove the existence of two completely unrelated subjects.

Which qualities does your god have that the fairy doesn't have?

Defender OF Faith

looksee wrote: »

how you know there is no angel/fairy hovering over me

Why don't we go beyond fairies and investigate the very reality of your world. Can you prove to me the reality of the world around us? that the world is real. In other words, the physical world is separate and external from our minds and our thoughts. If you say it's real because you touch and feel it I would say that does not prove what you touched and felt is external to your mind. The thinking and feeling could simply be happening by the workings of your brain. Consider that your brain is locked up somewhere with scientist placing probes in it which is making you think and feel what your feeling right now.

"You don’t actually have substantial evidence for the reality of the world you experience. Evidence based on experience is unreliable as the experience could simply be produced in the brain. Evidence based on philosophy or complex logic is also a product of the mind. The external world may have no real existence apart from what is going on in your skull."

We don't have any proof that the real world is external to our Brain absolutely no evidence for it but we don’t need it. Which is why we call the belief in the real world an axiomatic, a self-evident truth or a basic belief. Therefore, I would argue, that rejecting God’s existence is equivalent to rejecting that the world is real because they are both self-evident truths.

other self-evident truths and axioms that we believe in. These include:

• The existence of other minds
• The existence of objective moral values
• The existence of logical truths
• The validity of our reasoning
• The law of causality

Self-evident truths, axioms and basic beliefs are cross cultural in that they are not culturally bound. They are also innate in that they are not acquired via any form of information transfer, and they are also foundational. What is meant by foundational is that they provide the basis for a coherent worldview.

Self-evident truths,axiomatic and basic beliefs are cross cultural as I mentioned and are not culturally bound. They are also innate in that they are not acquired via any form of information transfer along with being foundational, In that they provide the basis for a coherent worldview.

Your fairy however is:
Not a self-evident truth.
Not foundation/Doesn't provide basis for coherent worldview
Is culturally bound/Require a form of information transfer for you to understand the concept of "Fairies"
Not Innate.

From the above assuming its existence I conclude that the existence of your hovering fairy is irrelevant,unimportant and useless, as not believing in fairies is of no importance with absolutely zero good reason,argument or a cause, nor is it required for a coherent world view, unlike a God.

looksee wrote: »

many thousands of people believe in a personal guardian spirit[

I would actually like to see a single individual who believe in a fairy as his personal guardian spirit, any survey or statistics?

Harika

Defender OF Faith wrote: »

Your fairy however is:
Not a self-evident truth.
Not foundation/Doesn't provide basis for coherent worldview
Is culturally bound/Require a form of information transfer for you to understand the concept of "Fairies"
Not Innate.

I don't see god as self-evident truth or a foundation for a coherent worldview, this works quite fine without it. And as shown god is clearly a concept that is culturally bound and not innate or how do you explain those mentioned people that clearly have never heard of god or the concept of? For the first two points, you might reason it can only be brought up by atheists but what explains the Pirahã? If it is innate they should have it, but are clearly missing those what immediately disqualifies god.

RikuoAmero

Defender, I knew you would react with "Pixy isn't the same as God" argument, which is why I deliberately used that word.
Now, how about you try my challenge again. We're in the room, in front of an audience. The audience, before we start speaking, does not have a belief in a god. Now, instead of me saying pixy, imagine I say I believe in a god who communicates to me and says that the god of your religion, Allah, is completely false.
Which of us should the audience listen to?

Also, by the way, your assertion that a belief in God is cross cultural is factually false.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_people

According to Everett, the Pirahã have no concept of a supreme spirit or god, and they lost interest in Jesus when they discovered that Everett had never seen him. They require evidence based on personal experience for every claim made. However, they do believe in spirits that can sometimes take on the shape of things in the environment.

Basically, at best, the closest form your argument can be worded in order to accurately reflect reality is that humans have a tendency, in most cultures, to believe in spirits that have magical powers. Note here that this makes no mention of a deity who created the universe.

RikuoAmero

Therefore, I would argue, that rejecting God’s existence is equivalent to rejecting that the world is real because they are both self-evident truths.

You are committing an error of classification here. The axiom of "the world exists" is NOT equal to the claim "God exists". "God exists" is not an axiom. An axiom must by necessity be simple. God, or the concept of God, is not simple. When you try to posit God as a claim, you are forced by necessity to define God, to come up with all sorts of attributes and descriptions. For you, it is Allah, the God of Muhammed and the Islamic religion, and NOT any other god posited throughout history. Notice now here we're moving into complex territory.
Compare that to the claim "Reality is real" or "the world exists". At most, all we need to say for it to be an axiom is "There is a reality external to my experience". That's all. We don't need to describe that reality right now, say what it is and what it is not.

An axiom is also something that is generally accepted to be true without proof. However, since we're debating the truth of the claim "God exists", we must by necessity NOT allow "God exists" to be an axiom.

Defender OF Faith

Harika wrote: »

And as shown god is clearly a concept that is culturally bound and not innate or how do you explain those mentioned people that clearly have never heard of god or the concept of?

Shown where? no one have yet to prove that the concept of a God is culturally bound "If you would need to be brought up in a culture that teaches about god for you to know about the idea of god, then, no person can have had the first thought about the idea of a god. So, since people do have an idea of god, it must be a universal, non cultural, and innate in that they are not acquired via any form of information transfer."
The concept of an uncreated supernatural creator for this universe is universal, different cultures however will define this Creator God differently as I already shown in my previous post.

Harika wrote: »

For the first two points, you might reason it can only be brought up by atheists but what explains the Pirahã? If it is innate they should have it, but are clearly missing those what immediately disqualifies god.

Before I discuss the Piraha I need to establish again that a belief in the supernatural and a Creator of this universe is innate according to actual scientific psychological evidence which I will present here again:

Prof Justin Barrett. Professor Barrett’s research in his book Born believers: the science of children’s religious belief looked at the behavior and claims of children:

“Scientific research on children’s developing minds and supernatural beliefs suggests that children normally and rapidly acquire minds that facilitate belief in supernatural agents. Particularly in the first year after birth, children distinguish between agents and non-agents, understanding agents as able to move themselves in purposeful ways to pursue goals. They are keen to find agency around them, even given scant evidence. Not long after their first birthday, babies appear to understand that agents, but not natural forces or ordinary objects, can create order out of disorder…This tendency to see function and purpose, plus an understanding that purpose and order come from minded beings, makes children likely to see natural phenomena as intentionally created. Who is the Creator? Children know people are not good candidates. It must have been a god…children are born believers of what I call natural religion…”

Quoted from: http://bycommonconsent.com/2012/03/08/review-justin-l-barrett-born-believers-the-science-of-childrens-religious-beliefs/

Olivera Petrovich conducted some studies concerning the psychology of the human being and God’s existence. She concludes that the belief in a non-anthropomorphic God is the natural state of a human being. Atheism is a learned psychology.Theism is our natural state.

“The possibility that some religious beliefs are universal (e.g., basic belief in a non-anthropomorphic God as creator of the natural world) seems to have a stronger empirical foundation than could be inferred from religious texts. Some of the initial findings of research into early religious understanding are consistent with other areas of developmental research which suggest that there are cognitive universals in a number of domains of human knowledge…”

Key Psychological Issues in the Study of Religion. Olivera Petrovich. psihologija, 2007, Vol. 40 (3), str. 351-363
Quoted from: http://www.iera.org/research/essays-articles/denying-god-denying-reality-dont-need-evidence-gods-existence

I highlighted the word scientific as I assumed like most atheist your a man of science but it appears you only follow and believe the science according to what you desire and believe.
Lets talk about the Piraha now:

As far as the Pirahã have related to researchers, their culture is concerned solely with matters that fall within direct personal experience....According to Everett, the Pirahã have no concept of a supreme spirit or god, and they lost interest in Jesus when they discovered that Everett had never seen him. They require evidence based on personal experience for every claim made. However, they do believe in spirits that can sometimes take on the shape of things in the environment.

Cited from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_people

The Innate disposition to believe in a Creator can be ‘veiled’ or ‘spoiled’ by external influences. These influences can include parenting, society and peer pressure. These influences act to cloud this natural disposition and prevent it from acknowledging the truth. In this light we argues that when the natural state of someone is “altered” that person may need “other evidences” for God’s existence. The Piraha developed this notion of requiring evidence based on personal experience alone for every claim made, yet they still have this innate disposition to believe in something supernatural, which in this case happens to be spirits.

It's important to note that a belief in God is not inferred from some type of inductive, deductive, philosophical or scientific evidence. Instead, this type of evidence acts as a trigger to wake up this innate natural disposition to believe in a God. Hence if inside your heart you personally don't want to believe in a God as it would lead you to many other assertions,questions and acceptance of certain facts which you would rather avoid you will never believe in him, no matter how strong and deductive the argument I present is.

Defender OF Faith

RikuoAmero wrote: »

Defender, I knew you would react with "Pixy isn't the same as God" argument, which is why I deliberately used that word.
Now, how about you try my challenge again. We're in the room, in front of an audience. The audience, before we start speaking, does not have a belief in a god. Now, instead of me saying pixy, imagine I say I believe in a god who communicates to me and says that the god of your religion, Allah, is completely false.
Which of us should the audience listen to?

Your understanding of religion is clearly not very sophisticated this is clearly not the way one would approach an argument from a logical and rational perspective nor is it a stance to take when involved in a comparative debate between two religions to study which hold the truth and makes more sense then the other.

Also, by the way, your assertion that a belief in God is cross cultural is factually false.

I spoke regarding this tribe issue on just my last post review it.

RikuoAmero wrote: »

You are committing an error of classification here. The axiom of "the world exists" is NOT equal to the claim "God exists". "God exists" is not an axiom. An axiom must by necessity be simple. God, or the concept of God, is not simple. When you try to posit God as a claim, you are forced by necessity to define God, to come up with all sorts of attributes and descriptions. For you, it is Allah, the God of Muhammed and the Islamic religion, and NOT any other god posited throughout history. Notice now here we're moving into complex territory.
Compare that to the claim "Reality is real" or "the world exists". At most, all we need to say for it to be an axiom is "There is a reality external to my experience". That's all. We don't need to describe that reality right now, say what it is and what it is not.

I was not classifying both matters together I spoke about how that there's absolutely no evidence to believe that the world around us is real but we dont need such evidence because it's a self evidence truth. You have made the idea of a God a complex one every Culture throughout history have had a unique Creator God responsible for creation to whom based on the religion and culture attributed specific characteristics and then other Gods associated with that God, I simply believe in this Creator God, not the God of Muhammed or the Islamic religion, the Abrahamic religions believe in this Creator God as the only God and deity in existence outside the bounds set by the culture or attribute of different societies whose characteristics must fall purely within what's the logical and rational characteristics of a Creator God which makes more logical sense then having multiple God as Socrates asserted.

Manach

My understanding of history and the various creator myths that abound, the notion of associations of peoples bound into a society not having at least some form of God concept is practically unheard of. Looking through the post-communal lens of modern Western thought (as per Haidt in Righteous Mind) makes it difficult even for experts to interpret the in-built cultural religious threads than bind societies.

RikuoAmero

I simply believe in this Creator God, not the God of Muhammed or the Islamic religion

You've identified as a Muslim to myself and others, and have previously had a long discussion on the relationship between Muhammed and Aisha (which we won't get into here). You've previously stated a belief in Allah, you've previously stated that Muhammed did no wrong.
In my book, you're a Muslim. Unless you're now going to retract all of that?

this Creator God as the only God and deity in existence outside the bounds set by the culture or attribute of different societies whose characteristics must fall purely within what's the logical and rational characteristics of a Creator God

False. The god posited by the abrahamic religions is logically incoherent. Try the omnipotence and all-knowing conflict, for one.
Plus, isn't that mighty convenient for you? You define what a creator god is in terms of logic and rationality, and lo and behold! It just so happens that the particular god that you already worship meets that definition (apparently).

Defender OF Faith

RikuoAmero wrote: »

You've identified as a Muslim to myself and others, and have previously had a long discussion on the relationship between Muhammed and Aisha (which we won't get into here). You've previously stated a belief in Allah, you've previously stated that Muhammed did no wrong.
In my book, you're a Muslim. Unless you're now going to retract all of that?

You might actually want to look deeper into the concept of God in Islam, as Allah is basically the Arabic name for God which is used by even the Arabic and Jewish Christians alike.

RikuoAmero wrote: »

False. The god posited by the abrahamic religions is logically incoherent. Try the omnipotence and all-knowing conflict, for one.

I don't understand how does God Omnipotence conflict with the All-Knowing nature of God?

RikuoAmero wrote: »

Plus, isn't that mighty convenient for you? You define what a creator god is in terms of logic and rationality, and lo and behold! It just so happens that the particular god that you already worship meets that definition (apparently).

I believe in the Creator God every other religion believe in, they might have a different concept of this God but it remains that we all unanimously agree that there is a Creator God, I however believe that this creator God must have Characteristics that falls within the logical and rational characteristic of this Creator God.

For example a Characteristic of this Creator God must be that he's in-material because at a particular point he created the material sum of the universe, this Creator God must be a Powerful {If the splitting of the Atom for example releases so much power it implies that the creator of the Atom must be even more powerful} and an uncreated God. The problem when you say who Created the Cause of the universe {since Cosmologist and scientist have agreed that the universe cannot be eternal as it's expanding with the Big-Bang theory since being accepted by the consensus of astronomers the atheistic view, that the universe is all there is, requires that the universe with it's laws of Nature and Physics, for no reason, just came into existence out of nothing or believe in the speculative Multi-verse theory} is that then you can go at it for infinity continually asking "Who caused that caused that..." if you go on for ever we will run into a problem of infinite regress and you cannot traverse the infinite so we wouldn't be standing here today, the very fact that we are here means that there must be an ultimate Un-Caused Cause for the universe.

Take for example me wanting to give someone 1$ however before I give it to him I must ask the person behind me for permission who then must ask the person behind him for permission who would then ask the one behind him, assuming there's an infinite number of people behind me the person I want to give the 1$ to would never receive that 1$, hence why the Creator of this Universe must be Uncreated to account for the existence of the universe and to prevent the dilemma of infinite regress, as if the Creator God of the universe required another God to Creator we will ask "Who created this creator God" again leading to an infinite regress and a situation whereby our Universe would have never come into existence. It follows that this God must be eternal,self sufficient and most importantly had a will as at a certain point he decided to Cause this universe to come into begin.

RikuoAmero

You might actually want to look deeper into the concept of God in Islam, as Allah is basically the Arabic name for God which is used by even the Arabic and Jewish Christians alike.

That's common knowledge, everyone knows that. Basically, you have previously identified yourself as a worshipper of Allah, so now you're contradicting yourself.

I don't understand how does God Omnipotence conflict with the All-Knowing nature of God?

Omnipotence means the ability to do anything. All knowing means knowing all, which would include knowledge of what one would do throughout all of time. However, if one knows all, then one knows all of one's actions, meaning one no longer has the ability to choose something else, thus rendering the claim of omnipotence false.
Both cannot be true for the same entity. It is logically incoherent.
I've had this discussion before (maybe not with you, I can't remember), so let's leave it at that.

I believe in the Creator God every other religion believe in, they might have a different concept of this Go

Then it's not the same god. This is like saying "These ten people believe it was a single man who killed that woman over there. Each of the ten believes it was a different man with different characteristics, but they all believe it was a man".

I however believe that this creator God must have Characteristics that falls within the logical and rational characteristic of this Creator God.

Like I said before, you post hoc define the characteristics of what a creator god must have to match the god that you already believe in. Convenient.

{since Cosmologist and scientist have agreed that the universe cannot be eternal as it's expanding with the Big-Bang theory since being accepted by the consensus of astronomers the atheistic view, that the universe is all there is, requires that the universe with it's laws of Nature and Physics, for no reason, just came into existence out of nothing or believe in the speculative Multi-verse theory}

1) What cosmologists and other scientists believe is open to revision. For example, how about this link
http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html
If the work talked about there holds up to scrutiny, it could potentially render the big bang theory false.
2) Came into existence out of nothing is rather a theistic belief, creation ex nihilo. It always amuses me and pisses me off whenever a theist says that to me. Now, I know ex nihilo is a Jewish/Christian belief, care to remind me if there's something in the Quran that is similar to what's in the Torah/Bible, similar to "In the beginning, God created the universe..."?
3) The atheist view DOES NOT equal that the universe is all that there is. An atheist (soft that is) is merely someone who rejects the god claim. That does not mean that they reject all other supernatural claims too. You're committing an error of classification here AGAIN.

the very fact that we are here means that there must be an ultimate Un-Caused Cause for the universe.

That argument is incredibly easy to dismiss. To put it simply, you posit that there are two sets of things
1) Things that have a cause
2) Things that do not have a cause
and after some word-play, you say that God is un-caused. Thing is, since God/Allah, is according to you the only thing that does not have a cause, then it means that the second set is merely a mask for God, it might as well be called God. This means you have put your conclusion into your premise, which is NOT what you are supposed to do.

most importantly had a will as at a certain point he decided to Cause this universe to come into begin.

This line means nothing at all, absolutely nothing, since it implies a state of time...before time, before creation.

You say all of this is logically coherent? It is anything but.

Harika

Defender OF Faith wrote: »

Shown where? no one have yet to prove that the concept of a God is culturally bound "If you would need to be brought up in a culture that teaches about god for you to know about the idea of god, then, no person can have had the first thought about the idea of a god. So, since people do have an idea of god, it must be a universal, non cultural, and innate in that they are not acquired via any form of information transfer."
The concept of an uncreated supernatural creator for this universe is universal, different cultures however will define this Creator God differently as I already shown in my previous post.
...
It's important to note that a belief in God is not inferred from some type of inductive, deductive, philosophical or scientific evidence.
...
http://www.iera.org/research/essays-articles/denying-god-denying-reality-dont-need-evidence-gods-existence
...

Religion is so widespread, so we only have small groups that were not exposed for a long time to religion or the believe of a god. When you claim that the Piraha are not religious because their disposition to believe in a Creator has been veiled or spoiled, could it not also be the other way around? That they are the only ones that have not been brought up for a long time with the believe in a god and so their logic is not spoiled? In fact, there could be a trait called believe in god. And over the centuries this trait has been dominant, what benefited people to understand what they could not understand. Basically a good example for evolution.
What brings me to the point that a hard wiring for a believe in god, does not prove that there is a god. As shown, god was used to bridge the gaps, but before we knew why the tides rise and fall, does that mean Neptune did it?
Also I find the link hilarious, while claiming that the flying spaghetti monster is not a natural tendency, Allah is, what is never mentioned but only the Qur’an is quoted so we can clearly link it to the god they are talking about without ever answering the question what makes Allah better than the Christian God or Buddha or Shiva.