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Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Please Read OP)
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antiskeptic wrote: »That which has the same function as empirical evidence: to bring about conviction that such and such is the case.
can you give an example because I still have no idea what non-empirical evidence is?If you can read this, you're too close!
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can you give an example because I still have no idea what non-empirical evidence is?
Not everything needs physical evidence to support its assertion. In so far as science is concerned physical evidence can only ever be used to discount a theory e.g Gallileo observing the phases of Venus completely discredits ptolemy's model. However up until the telescope was invented it was nigh on impossible to disprove ptolemy's model. That didn't mean you couldn't make an argument against it. You'd have no empirical evidence to support your assertion but you could using basic logic and mathematics make a pretty convincing case that the model was heavily flawed. Non empirical evidence is evidence that comes from disciplines such as mathematics or logic or just plain old inductive reasoning that leads one to consider a proposition.0 -
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In this age of multi media and mass communication, it would be very easy. If God wanted to spread the word that he was in actual fact real,, he could use the TV stations or the internet in a way which would convince everyone.
"Right the Bible is 2000 years old, here I am speaking to all of you today. No matter what TV station you turn on this message will be beamed in to your home, so don't bother changing channels. Oh and by the way every internet site will show it as well"
That would be a good start, don't you think?
I don't think that it is likely to happen though.
I think your confusing God withMoriarty
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This (again) is where we disagree. I have seen no evidence, either in studies or personal experience, that suggest religious belief in any practical sense somehow lessens grief after a bereavement.
Again: If "acceptance" is to be a recognized aspect of dealing with bereavement then clearly anything that bypasses that stage is _potentially_ harmful. If one does not "Accept" the idea a person is really dead but instead fantasizes they are still alive just absent, then that is likely to have some kind of impact on the recovery process.
There are plenty of studies correlating faith with some beneficial improvement in the bereavement process. All I am saying here is A) Very few of those studies normalize for things like social support which they should do and
None of them so far that I am aware of follow this up and look into what happens when people lose that faith later.you have the gall to accuse me of suggesting atheists are somehow "disabled".
No gall required in pointing out you did something you actually did do. The analogy to blind people is, as I said, a very clear attempt to portray atheists as having a similar kind of disability in this context. When there is no reason to think they do. It is a theist linguistic trick designed to distract from the fact that substantiation is not being provided by suggesting the atheist is merely blind to that substantiation in the first place. You are not the first to try it, you will not be the last.
Your football analogy for example is doubly poor. Enjoyment of football is purely subjective. As with art or music or anything. But at no point is anyone sane suggesting football, art, or music do not exist. This thread however is discussing the ACTUAL existence of a thing. Not whether people believe it exists or not. So the analogy does not even touch the topic at hand.You are now moving the goalposts.
Yes I am. BACK to where they were before you moved them away on me. Clarification and repetition of my point is doing nothing but remaking my point in the face of you straw manning it. I know what my points are and if I see someone acting like I made points I did not, then I will correct them on this. Especially when it is someone who generally does so as a matter of course.As an aside, I did not run away form the reincarnation discussion, it had reached a stalemate and life is too short for endless circling.
No, the claim in reincarnation failed entirely. That is not a statemate or some kind of "draw". A claim was made about reincarnation and that claim failed entirely and remains not just slightly, but entirely unsubstantiated.But from your comment above, it is clear that you never understood my claim for reincarnation to begin with.
And not for the first time in this thread I have to remind you that not agreeing with your points is nto the same as failing to understand your points. I understand your claims perfectly. The fact remains that the claims themselves are entirely ubsubstantiated.I understand this is your favorite line and you must repeat it in literally every post, but someday hopefully you will realize it is meaningless. The evidence for God is all around you and within you should you care to look. It is in the very fact of existence and your ability to experience existence.
Comical that you should take a sentence full of meaning, accuse it of being meaningless, and then follow it up with lines that truly are meaningless.
You are simply declaring things to be evidence that are not. The sentences you just wrote make as much sense as a prosecution lawyer walking into a court room and saying "OJ Simpson is guilty your honor because this apple is green and I have just laid it on this table" and walking out.
Saying things are evidence and walking off does not make them evidence. Never has. Never will. This "The evidence is there if only you will look" line is as empty as it is useless. Can you imagine a science paper written like that? Or a court case? "The accused is guilty your honour, if only you would get off your ass and find the evidence yourself!!!".
It is a cop out. Lines like that say nothing except "Sorry, I have no evidence, but rather than admit that I am going to act like the failing is somehow yours, not mine".
If you want to sell that kind of reasoning for "god" then once again all we can do is ask you to be specific as to what you mean by "god" because it sounds like you are selling one of those empty "God is all" or "God is love" type definitions then. You just got all upset about me repeating my own definition of "god" here. If that is not the definition that pleases you then by all means repeat your own.0 -
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nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »There are plenty of studies correlating faith with some beneficial improvement in the bereavement process. All I am saying here is A) Very few of those studies normalize for things like social support which they should do and None of them so far that I am aware of follow this up and look into what happens when people lose that faith later.
Then we are in agreement that there is nothing conclusive in studies linking religious beliefs to short term "improvements" in the bereavement process, so lets leave it at that.nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »The analogy to blind people is, as I said, a very clear attempt to portray atheists as having a similar kind of disability in this context. When there is no reason to think they do. It is a theist linguistic trick designed to distract from the fact that substantiation is not being provided by suggesting the atheist is merely blind to that substantiation in the first place. You are not the first to try it, you will not be the last.
Non-belief in God is not a disability. Lack of religious practice is not a disability. Someone like Sam Harris for example, who clearly believes in a concept of God, is not disabled by his disbelief in a supernatural God, assuming the attached article is accurate (although the title may be sensationalist).
http://www.newsweek.com/rationalist-sam-harris-believes-god-73859nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »Your football analogy for example is doubly poor. Enjoyment of football is purely subjective. As with art or music or anything. But at no point is anyone sane suggesting football, art, or music do not exist. This thread however is discussing the ACTUAL existence of a thing. Not whether people believe it exists or not. So the analogy does not even touch the topic at hand.
The football analogy actually is quite relevant. All religious or spiritual experience (or appreciation of art or music or whatever) is purely subjective. Trying to explain the states of mind possible in religious practice to a non-believer is no different than a fervent Man Utd supporter trying to explain how they feel during a game to someone with zero interest in football. We are talking about the subjective feeling here, not the actual thing.nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »If you want to sell that kind of reasoning for "god" then once again all we can do is ask you to be specific as to what you mean by "god" because it sounds like you are selling one of those empty "God is all" or "God is love" type definitions then. You just got all upset about me repeating my own definition of "god" here. If that is not the definition that pleases you then by all means repeat your own.
As an atheist you lack a meaningful concept of God (and just to repeat that is not a disability). You have concepts of what others mean by "God" but have no meaningful concept yourself. This is in my view what is lost on many atheists, what Sam Harris refers to as that sense of "ecstasy, rapture, bliss, concentration, a sense of the sacred". Now Harris may shy away from the "God" term due to its connection to organized religion, but I do not share this view as Pantheistic beliefs were around long before organized religions came about, and in my opinion will flourish again when organized religions fade away into the sunset.0 -
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Then we are in agreement that there is nothing conclusive in studies linking religious beliefs to short term "improvements" in the bereavement process, so lets leave it at that.
There is very little "conclusive" in studies on any socio-humanity-political topic. That is generally why we commission yet more and more studies. But as I showed in the link I included in my post there are lots of studies correlating religious belief with recovery from different aspects of bereavement. So you can "leave it" wherever you like, nothing to do with me.
The only points I am making are:
A) That these studies are generally pretty bad at normalizing for the social aspects of religion. Which is pretty bad form. If X and Y influence Z, and you want to do a study on how X influences Z.... then to do that study without accounting for Y is just.... embarrassing. There are some truly bad methodologies out there. Since we know that acceptance of a loss is important in recovery from bereavement, and we also know that time is a factor in a healthy recovery.... this would suggest that it is not wise to pretend to yourself dead people are not really dead. Especially if you later lose that fantasy and are faced with the hard reality later on. As such I would like to see more studies on the subject of people who used faith as a factor in coping with a loss, and then later lost that faith.
C) Not an ounce of this has any bearing whatsoever on the actual existence of god which the thread is actually about. Even if we somehow showed tomorrow that having faith in a god was 100% a clear winner in being the single best way to cope with the pain of grief... this would not for one instant lend even a modicum of credibility or substantiation to the claim there actually IS a god. A claim that remains not just slightly but ENTIRELY unsubstantiated. Much more so on this particular thread.Non-belief in God is not a disability. Lack of religious practice is not a disability.
I know this. That was my point. You do like to repeat my own points back at me. The point I was making is that the analogy between lack of belief in god and blind people not seeing color is suggestive of some kind of deficiency on the part of the atheist.
The analogy is very poor for two reasons:
1) Because it is suggestive of a disability on the part of atheists when they have no such thing and
2) Because the existence of color and light can be evidenced to a blind person, which is not in any way analogous to a god which you have failed to even remotely substantiate the existence of in any way whatsoever.
The latter one being an aspect of why your football analogy fails too. Subjectively liking something has literally nothing to do with a god, or the existence of a god.Someone like Sam Harris for example, who clearly believes in a concept of God, is not disabled by his disbelief in a supernatural God
Nothing in all my readings of his books, in all my listening to his talks, or in all the conversations I have had with him personally face to face or over email are even remotely suggestive that he has even the smallest belief in a supernatural god entity. I would suggest strongly reading a little more than the title of the article next time.As an atheist you lack a meaningful concept of God
False. As what you want to call an "atheist" I simply lack an emotional attachment to any one single concept of god. I can consider and discuss them all. My credulity nor my impartiality is not marred by being invested in my own, or any particular, pet definition on the subject.
There is one concept which, as you noted, I repeat in conversations as a starting point to inform others what I mean by the term "god". My definition is no less (or more) meaningful than anyone else's. It is just the hubris from your own definition that makes you feel you have a pedestal to judge other peoples ones when you have no such thing.
But the whole point of discussion is to A) establish what the other person means by "god" given there are so many definitions out there, some so dilute as to be entirely meaningless and then depending on the definition given ascertain whether there is even a modicum of substantiation for the definition being proposed.
If, for example, someone simply has one of those empty "God is all" definitions of the word then such a person has essentially said nothing, has just engaged in a little linguistic relabeling, and there is nothing further to discuss or substantiate.
But a non human intelligence responsible for the creation and/or subsequent maintenance of our universe is not just meaningful.... it encompasses a pretty apt definition of the god of Abraham which permeates the majority of religions people around this forum tend to discuss.0 -
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Having read most of this thread and your posts, further discusison is pointless for that person or any other so.
If all the other user(s) is going to do is tell me that arguments exist, but not actually present any of them ever, then you are right, discussion is pointless.
If I had a single cent for every time I have seen a theist claim there is lots of arguments and evidence.... I would be quite rich. If I had another cent for every one of those people who, while claiming the existence of such a profundity of knowledge and evidence, managed somehow not to actually present a scrap of it.... I would be _Exactly_ to the very cent twice as rich.You're just soapboxing, over and over.
I am engaging in the discussion the thread is about. Soap boxing is against the rules of the forum. If you feel my posts are breaking any rules then please report them to the moderators as back seat moderating.... that is accusing a user like me of breaking the forums rules.... is also against the forum rules too and I would hate to see anyone have to accuse you of rule breaking or report your posts.You many not agree with them, but looking through this thread there have been many arguments and lots of evidence put forward.
They may call them arguments for god, but that does not make them arguments for god. Calling something an argument for X does not magically make it so. If I said "OJ Simpson is guilty because apples are green" and then CALL that an argument for OJ Simpsons guilt.... would it be one just because I called it one? No.... clearly not.
An example of this is quite recent when nagirrac threw out "It is in the very fact of existence and your ability to experience existence." as an argument for god. It is not. It is just something typed out and called an argument for god.
So if you think there are some actual arguments for the existence of a god.... not just something you throw out and call an argument for god..... then I am all ears to hear them and discuss them at length.
For me "evidence" and "argument" is very simple. It is an EASY three step process as follows:
1) State clearly what it is you are claiming.
2) State clearly the list of things you think support the claim in 1.
3) Explain clearly how the things listed in 2 support the claim in 1.
Simply throwing out a line like "It is in the very fact of existence and your ability to experience existence." does step 1 not at all.... does step 2 only a tiny bit.... and totally and utterly avoids step 3 in any way whatsoever.
So it is not... as you put it... that I "personally may not agree with the arguments".... but rather no argument has _actually been made_ for me to agree or disagree with _at all_. Just an assertion thrown out, and called an argument for the sake of.... well for the sake of argument
So no, there is nothing disingenuous about stating that no arguments, evidence, data or reasoning has been put forward on this thread to support the existence of a god deity entity. At all.And before you do, don't bother selectively cutting and pasting my post either.
You do not get to write or dictate the contents of my posts. I do that. You get to write and dictate the contents of your own post. My quoting style is my own. And it is simple as this: I quote only enough of the other persons post for that person to know generally which section of their post I am specifically replying to.
If that bothers you I can recommend you either build a bridge, or put me on ignore.0 -
There is no irrefutable proof that God does / does not exist.
Hell is self chosen eternal darkness and permanent separation from God and his infinite love for all eternity.
This definition of Hell is very interesting.
Lets assume for a minute that God does not exist. In that scenario, which is possible, let's face it, every Christian who dies will think he or she is in Hell, won't they? Because they will not be able to see God. Scary thought!
Lets hope all the Christians are right!0 -
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This discussion has been closed.
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