Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Part 2)

volchitsa

steamengine wrote: »

What does it matter who goes first ? The challenge by non-believers is there regardless of my personal beliefs ?

No it isn't, nor can it be. This is the ((serious) point being made about your requirement that atheists prove a negative : how many things do you not believe in, and why? The list is, by definition, endless. I don't believe in invisible pink unicorns, nor even in visible pink unicorns, nor any of a multitude of other things I haven't yet been asked about.

How can I say why I don't believe in them, when I don't know what exactly I'm being asked if I believe?

Similarly, there are so many different and contradictory descriptions of God, that even if I feel able to say that on the balance of probabilities I don't believe in any of them, in a discussion with someone who says he does believe in God, it's necessary to know which of the many versions of God he's referring to for the conversation to go anywhere.

So yes, it does matter "who goes first" and any challenge by non believers is always to a specific description of God being put forward by a person or group of people.

Yes I do contend God exists on the balance of probabilities, though I can't prove it scientifically. However, I am totally convinced through personal experience of another plane of existence other than our own. This refers to a series of paranormal experience, further backed off by reading around the subject of NDE's. I didn't always, straightforward faith didn't cut it for me - I was Christian/agnostic for a long time. That's it in summary.

But it doesn't tell us anything about what you feel this God is or does. Does he bring people back from the dead? Does he strike non believers down? Or does he on the contrary let his believers die and bring back non believers to "prove" something to them? If so, could he not just appear in public and have done with non belief once and for all?

steamengine

volchitsa wrote: »

This, of course.

There is no more testable evidence for the God of the bible than for Mars, Apollo, Thor or Lugh. So I'm as certain that Yahweh doesn't exist as I am about Thor, which is to say pretty damn sure.

Although obviously I could be in for a nasty surprise in Valhalla.

Wasn't there a cartoon about that on the Religious Jokes thread some time back? About a Christian family turning up at the gates of heaven to discover they'd been worshipping the wrong God all that time? (I won't spoil the joke for anyone who hasn't read the thread)

So is this 'serious' or 'facetious' would you say ?

volchitsa

steamengine wrote: »

So is this 'serious' or 'facetious' would you say ?

That wasn't addressed to you though, was it?

It was addressed to someone who had used a facetious tone in the post I was replying to - and one to which you also replied, so how that come that didn't bother you back then? It only becomes a problem when you need an out, eh?

(And if that really is your level of refusal to engage with others, I presume you check before engaging with posters who regularly post on that thread, which would of course be much worse than simply referring to it! Replying to them and not to me would be hypocritical - and I'm sure you wouldn't want that. :rolleyes: )

steamengine

volchitsa wrote: »

That wasn't addressed to you though, was it?

It was addressed to someone who had used a facetious tone in the post I was replying to - and one to which you also replied, so how that come that didn't bother you back then? It only becomes a problem when you need an out, eh?

(And if that really is your level of refusal to engage with others, I presume you check before engaging with posters who regularly post on that thread, which would of course be much worse than simply referring to it! Replying to them and not to me would be hypocritical - and I'm sure you wouldn't want that. :rolleyes: )

It's having a cheap laugh at Christianity though !

volchitsa

steamengine wrote: »

It's having a cheap laugh at Christianity though !

So? I didn't post it, only mentioned I'd read it. Hardly a valid reason for refusing to reply to completely different posts of mine.

Unless of course you're just grasping at any old straw. That's certainly how it looks. But in that case what are you doing asking fake questions if you're not willing to engage with the replies unless they are from people with the "right" attitude? You're in a thread about atheism what do you expect? Only Christians to be allowed to talk about what atheists think?

54and56

steamengine wrote: »

It's having a cheap laugh at Christianity though !

It may be humorous but it makes a very serious point. The vast majority of religious people are by pure mathematical definition backing the wrong horse so to speak. They all think their chosen god is the one true god but only find out if they picked a winner after they die and even then, that assumes any god whatsoever exists. How depressing would it be to find out some sort of god does exist but because you worshipped the wrong one you find yourself stuck in hell for eternity.............with all the Atheists for company :eek:

steamengine

volchitsa wrote: »

So? I didn't post it, only mentioned I'd read it. Hardly a valid reason for refusing to reply to completely different posts of mine.

Unless of course you're just grasping at any old straw. That's certainly how it looks. But in that case what are you doing asking fake questions if you're not willing to engage with the replies unless they are from people with the "right" attitude? You're in a thread about atheism what do you expect? Only Christians to be allowed to talk about what atheists think?

It's a thread about the existence of God too - in a Christian forum. :rolleyes:

oldrnwisr

steamengine wrote: »

It's a great post, fair dues to you - however I take issue with your last paragraph. This is not a court of law. For example, hearsay doesn't go down too well in a court of law either, but that doesn't mean hearsay cannot = truth.

No, this isn't a court of law. But my point which you missed is that both legal system and science establish that the burden of proof is with the person making the positive claim. You are making the positive claim, you are claiming that a god exists, specifically the Christian god. I, as an atheist am not making a positive claim. I am simply rejecting your claim as being unfounded, unsupported and false.

The hearsay point is irrelevant. There are a lot of things which are inadmissible in a court of law which have no bearing on the discussion here.

steamengine wrote: »

This is a Christian forum, therefore if atheists are going to put forward the theory that God does not exist ( as in recent statements referring to 'imaginary friends') then they should refer to something which backs that up.

Firstly, atheists aren't putting forward the theory that God does not exist. Atheists are rejecting your claim that he does. There's a big difference between these two positions that you continue to fail to grasp.

Secondly, it doesn't matter where this discussion is taking place it doesn't remove the burden of proof from your side of the argument.

Now as for your idea that those who don't believe that God exists should back that up, there have been many logic and evidential arguments for the existence of God over the centuries and none of them stand up under scrutiny. We've had logical arguments like these:

Ontological arguments (e.g. argument from degree, desire etc.)
Teleological arguments (e.g. argument from design)
Cosmological arguments (e.g. Kalam)
Transcendental arguments (e.g. meaning of life argument)

as well as evidence based arguments like:

Christological argument (e.g. Lewis' trilemma, Dying for a Lie)
Scriptural argument (e.g. biblical scientific foreknowledge)

All of these arguments collapse under critical scrutiny. Now if you want me to explain in more detail why these arguments break down then pick one or two and I'll cover it in more detail in another post.

However, the broad atheist position is unchanged. I am an atheist because none of the arguments presented to me by Christians for the existence of their God have been supported by solid evidence or reasoned argument. If you want to share your reasons for believing, we might get somewhere but until you're ready for that it seems we have reached an impasse.

steamengine wrote: »

Stop hiding behind the 'can't prove a negative' atheist cop out clause.

Would you kindly quote any of my previous posts where I've used that phrase. Oh wait, you can't because I didn't. The phrase "can't prove a negative" is merely a colloquialism for a much broader topic. However, to reinforce my earlier point about where the burden of proof lies, here is some further reading for you:

Burden of proof (Philosophy)

Shifting the burden of proof


Finally, it is very odd for a discussion on burden of proof in a Christian forum to have someone, a Christian no less, run away from their burden of proof. After all, there is clear biblical instructions on the matter in 1 Peter 3:

"But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect"

volchitsa

steamengine wrote: »

It's a thread about the existence of God too - in a Christian forum. :rolleyes:

Sure. But it apparently meets the required criteria, since it hasn't been removed.

If you feel it doesn't then you should report the thread, rather than indulge in backseat modding by trying to exclude what you feel are "the wrong sort of posters" from the thread.

Meantime, since you are participating in the thread, how about attempting a reply to my point about it not being feasible to expect posters to provide all-encompassing proof of every possible thing in the world that does not exist?

Or even better, why not go further, why can't you make a positive assertion about what sort of supernatural being you claim does exist, which can then be examined?

steamengine

volchitsa wrote: »

Sure. But it apparently meets the required criteria, since it hasn't been removed.

If you feel it doesn't then you should report the thread, rather than indulge in backseat modding by trying to exclude what you feel are "the wrong sort of posters" from the thread.

Meantime, since you are participating in the thread, how about attempting a reply to my point about it not being feasible to expect posters to provide all-encompassing proof of every possible thing in the world that does not exist?

Or even better, why not go further, why can't you make a positive assertion about what sort of supernatural being you claim does exist, which can then be examined?

No, definitely not - I'm waiting still for atheists here to justify why people who believe in God have got it all wrong. You do believe we're misguided, so let's have it. I've given reasons why I believe. I would say though at this stage it's an impasse.

volchitsa

steamengine wrote: »

No, definitely not - I'm waiting still for atheists here to justify why people who believe in God have got it all wrong. You do believe we're misguided, so let's have it. I've given reasons why I believe. I would say though at this stage it's an impasse.

And I've explained why it's not sensible to expect an all-encompassing proof of the nonexistence of something which is described in entirely contradictory fashions sometimes within the same religion.

Your request for someone to explain why something you refuse to describe doesn't exist simply doesn't make sense, because you expect me to describe a God that I can prove doesn't exist, but which may not be the one you believe in.

But since you insist, then here's an example of what I mean : God doesn't exist because he is said to be made of spaghetti and I know that spaghetti is made by people from wheat flour. So that proves you wrong.

Delirium

steamengine wrote: »

What does it matter who goes first ? The challenge by non-believers is there regardless of my personal beliefs ?

It does help, since it's the theists assertion their deity exists that is the item under examination.

Yes I do contend God exists on the balance of probabilities, though I can't prove it scientifically.

I'm not sure how you contend on balance of probablities that God (i.e Christian god) exists, given that I assume you dismiss all other deities. I

However, I am totally convinced through personal experience of another plane of existence other than our own.

How did you establish it was another plane of existence rather than a very vivid dream? I personally have very vivid dreams that seem real to me but I still see them as dreams. How did you determine that wasn't the case for you?

This refers to a series of paranormal experience, further backed off by reading around the subject of NDE's. I didn't always, straightforward faith didn't cut it for me - I was Christian/agnostic for a long time. That's it in summary.

What was it about the experience(s) that indicated that the God exists and not another deity?

pauldla

steamengine wrote: »

No, definitely not - I'm waiting still for atheists here to justify why people who believe in God have got it all wrong. You do believe we're misguided, so let's have it. I've given reasons why I believe. I would say though at this stage it's an impasse.

I've been following this thread for a while, but I don't remember your request for atheists to justify why people who believe in God have got it all wrong (if I have missed a post, please correct me). You did ask how atheists can put forward that god does not exist, but it has been pointed out to you that this is to misconstrue the atheist position. Is this a point you wish to discuss?

El_Duderino 09

steamengine wrote:

That's not correct, Christians outnumber atheists for a start.

The first point was that the number of people who do not believe in the christian god is always greater than those who do believe in it. Same goes for all the gods. You and I equally disbelieve in the Hindu gods, Thor ,Zeus etc. Hindus and I equally disbelieve in the christian god.

steamengine

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

The first point was that the number of people who do not believe in the christian god is always greater than those who do believe in it. Same goes for all the gods. You and I equally disbelieve in the Hindu gods, Thor ,Zeus etc. Hindus and I equally disbelieve in the christian god.

That's not really my point. Atheists don't believe in any God, they are the third highest grouping in the chart I linked to above. They are outnumbered by Christians for starters, and secondly Islam, who share the same God, as they are both Abrahamic religions.

steamengine

Just to return to this 'you can't prove a negative' thing. Hawking doesn't seem to have any problem with doing just that - for those who care to watch the video. Scroll along to the last segment. Not that i agree with him though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj0NL2r6cnU

steamengine

Delirium wrote: »

It does help, since it's the theists assertion their deity exists that is the item under examination.

I've just put up a video about proof that there is no God - and if it's no trouble to Hawking - why is it here ?

I'm not sure how you contend on balance of probablities that God (i.e Christian god) exists, given that I assume you dismiss all other deities.

Just God will do, whatever he/she/it is. Creator/Being/Force whatever.

How did you establish it was another plane of existence rather than a very vivid dream? I personally have very vivid dreams that seem real to me but I still see them as dreams. How did you determine that wasn't the case for you?

All incidents happened while I was awake.

What was it about the experience(s) that indicated that the God exists and not another deity?

The incidents didn't relate to God, they were largely poltergeist and telekinetic experiences, verified by three others. It opened my mind up so to speak, to the probability that God also existed.

oldrnwisr

steamengine wrote: »

Just to return to this 'you can't prove a negative' thing. Hawking doesn't seem to have any problem with doing just that - for those who care to watch the video. Scroll along to the last segment. Not that i agree with him though.

Dammit, that was painful to watch. At least you could have warned us that the entire thing is in slow-motion. I had to max out the play speed just to understand the dialogue.

At least now however, I understand your query a bit more. It seems that you're looking for arguments that would preclude or prohibit the possibility of a God. If that's what you're looking for then you're out of luck because that would be a completely unscientific argument (given our current scientific understanding). Moreover, I doubt that the maker of that crappy documentary is actually reflecting the views of Prof. Hawking in claiming that because there is no time before the big bang that means there cannot be a god.

Instead if you read the cosmogonical theories that have been proposed in the literature what you will find are explanations more in line with what Laplace said to Napoleon:

In 1802 Laplace presented his work on cosmology to Napoleon who apparently remarked that Laplace, unlike Lagrange had made no mention of God in his work, to which Laplace replied "I had no need of that hypothesis."

Similarly, modern physicists have managed to explain the origin of the universe without needing to invoke a supernatural being to get it all started. That't not to say a God couldn't have created the universe, just that we can explain how the universe came to be without needing a God to fill in the gaps.

One of these theories is conformal cyclic cosmology. The theory goes something like this.
Right now we are in the stelliferous era of the universe, the age of stars. Once stars such as our sun begin to burn out, the universe will eventually only consist of white dwarfs, brown dwarfs and black holes. At this point we will enter the degenerate era. During this time white dwarfs will assimilate dark matter and proton decay will begin leaving only black holes. Then we enter the black hole era. Over time, the black holes themselves due to Hawking radiation will evaporate. At this point the universe will only consist of massless particles travelling at the speed of light. This dark era will stretch on for eternity, as the temperature of the universe cools to zero, and the density approaches zero. But if you are travelling at the speed of light, an eternity is no different from an instant. Time, as a scale of duration, becomes meaningless. This is the heat death of the universe. At this point, the infinite eternity of one universe is no different, scientifically speaking, from the singularity beginning of the next universe. It is possible, and plausible, that the universe may exist in an infinite series of cycles with the death of each universe being the big bang of the next.

This isn't just a nice story. It is a coherent physical framework which fits within our current understanding of cosmology and quantum physics. Moreover, there has even been some preliminary experimental support for it:

Concentric circles in WMAP data may provide evidence of violent pre-Big Bang activity

On CCC-predicted concentric low-variance circles in the CMB sky

Data gathered from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) suggests that there are variances in the cosmic background radiation (CMB) consistent with a cyclic conformal rescaling.

For more basic explanations of this hypothesis you can read more here:

The Five Ages of the Universe

Heat death of the Universe

Conformal cyclic cosmology

There are also books on the subject, one dealing specifically with the hypothesis above:

Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe

and one dealing more generally with the various cosmogonical theories that have been proposed:

The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos

54and56

^^^ The difference between knowledge and empty rhetoric right there!!

Thanks oldrnwisr, you truly are

AtomicHorror

steamengine wrote: »

Just to return to this 'you can't prove a negative' thing. Hawking doesn't seem to have any problem with doing just that - for those who care to watch the video.

Let's assume for a moment that the video says what you suggest. So what?

This is an argument from authority. That's your way, not ours.

pauldla

Robert Kirby, writing in the Salt Lake Tribune, put forward an interesting though experiment recently.

What if you could learn whether the religion you follow is true simply by pushing a button?

No more need for faith. Now you could actually know instead of just believing that you do. Would you push the button? Even if knowing the truth might make you really unhappy?

It's a fair question, considering how many religions claim to be the one true way. Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam and the countless versions of each, they can't all be "true." Right?

Just to make things interesting, let's include atheists, agnostics, Satanists, pagans, cannibals and anyone who votes for Donald Trump. Everyone can know truth about their beliefs.

Would you push the button? I think I would. It'd be fascinating to know, for sure, one way or the other. And if it turns out that my belief (or lack of belief) is wrong, I'd like to be able to take the necessary steps to correct my position.

Absolam

Isn't there something about 'knowing' being inimicable to Christianity, as what God requires is faith above all else? So if you were a Christian, pushing the button would exclude you from heaven, even if you discovered that everything you believed as a Christian was actually true, because now you know instead of having faith? Something along those lines anyways....

pauldla

Absolam wrote: »

Isn't there something about 'knowing' being inimicable to Christianity, as what God requires is faith above all else? So if you were a Christian, pushing the button would exclude you from heaven, even if you discovered that everything you believed as a Christian was actually true, because now you know instead of having faith? Something along those lines anyways....

Yes, I think that is the case (though I hope those better informed than I can correct us if I am wrong). In that case, I'd imagine that choosing not to push the button because your faith is important to you is a perfectly valid option for you.

MrPudding

Absolam wrote: »

Isn't there something about 'knowing' being inimicable to Christianity, as what God requires is faith above all else? So if you were a Christian, pushing the button would exclude you from heaven, even if you discovered that everything you believed as a Christian was actually true, because now you know instead of having faith? Something along those lines anyways....

How do we know that that is actually a requirement of your god, rather than simply a protection mechanism for the religion itself? Clearly, where you have something that can't actually be proven and does not stand up to "normal" logical and rational enquiry, then you have a problem if people are looking for actually proof or asking too many questions, and I mean real questions with a genuine desire to have then answered.

Lets imagine you decided you were going to start you own religion, for whatever reason. You wanted it to be persistent. Think about how you would build that, think about what you would have in there. Think about the perfect survival machine you would build. Comp[are that to what religion is today. Does that not make you think? If you were building something completely made up, or even partially or mostly made up, the absolute first thing you would need was a requirement for faith.

This is yet another reason why I think atheism, specifically agnostic atheism, is a more sensible position. When your religion looks exactly like you think a religion would look when it was made up, and the values and virtues it holds dear are exactly those things that will allow it to survive, because they either prevent questioning or convince people that they should not ask for evidence, that evidence is somehow "dirty", then seriously, you need to stop and think.

MrP

Absolam

MrPudding wrote: »

How do we know that that is actually a requirement of your god, rather than simply a protection mechanism for the religion itself?

What difference does it make? If God exists, you won't push the button because you won't get into heaven. If God doesn't exist, you won't be worried about testing your faith because you don't have any.

Kev W

Absolam wrote: »

What difference does it make? If God exists, you won't push the button because you won't get into heaven. If God doesn't exist, you won't be worried about testing your faith because you don't have any.

A person's lack of faith isn't predicated on the non-existence of God, it's an absence of belief. If I believe something isn't true that doesn't mean I'm not curious to see if I'm wrong.

Absolam

Kev W wrote: »

A person's lack of faith isn't predicated on the non-existence of God, it's an absence of belief. If I believe something isn't true that doesn't mean I'm not curious to see if I'm wrong.

Well no, a lack of faith is an absence of faith, not an absence of belief. Neither is predicated on the non-existance of God since an absence requires no predication at all. It doesn't really matter though; whether you don't believe or you don't have faith you won't be worried about pushing the button. Whereas if you do believe God exists you have good reason not to see if you're wrong.

MrPudding

Absolam wrote: »

Well no, a lack of faith is an absence of faith, not an absence of belief. Neither is predicated on the non-existance of God since an absence requires no predication at all. It doesn't really matter though; whether you don't believe or you don't have faith you won't be worried about pushing the button. Whereas if you do believe God exists you have good reason not to see if you're wrong.

I suppose it is that complete lack of interest in knowledge that I find really sad about some of the religious.

Given the many thousand religions, and the many thousand gods and that fact that the particular religion you follow is likely to be more due to geographical accident than anything else, statistically you are most likely to be following the wrong god, so you would probably be better to find out what is the correct god and start form scratch, or, more likely, discover there is no god and get a life.

MrP

Absolam

MrPudding wrote: »

I suppose it is that complete lack of interest in knowledge that I find really sad about some of the religious.
Given the many thousand religions, and the many thousand gods and that fact that the particular religion you follow is likely to be more due to geographical accident than anything else, statistically you are most likely to be following the wrong god, so you would probably be better to find out what is the correct god and start form scratch, or, more likely, discover there is no god and get a life.

I suppose you could think of it as a bit like the lotto then; statistically your chance of getting it right is vanishingly small, but if you do the payoff is beyond imagining. Which could be why so many more people believe in gods than do the lotto; it may well amount less to a lack of interest in knowledge than to a pragmatic consideration of chance. There's no doubt that many many religious people through history have avidly pursued knowledge, and there's no real reason to imagine even the majority of atheists are more interested in knowledge than their religious counterparts; rather than being sad about the number of religious who have a complete lack of interest in knowledge, perhaps extend your compassion to the number of people who have a complete lack of interest in knowledge?

54and56

Absolam wrote: »

I suppose you could think of it as a bit like the lotto then; statistically your chance of getting it right is vanishingly small, but if you do the payoff is beyond imagining. Which could be why so many more people believe in gods than do the lotto;

Are you familiar with Pascals Wager - http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/pascals-wager.htm?