Is "Dublin" a real place?

Mr. CooL ICE · 10-09-2015 02:57PM

Notavirus.exe wrote: »

Explain to me why extraordinary claims would need extraordinary evidence?

Give me another example of an extraordinary claim and the extraordinary evidence put forward to support it.

Oh jaysus, where to start?

Hitler is responsible for the deaths of 6 million jews. Evidence: Witness testimonies from survivors, captured nazis, liberating forces, photographic proof, amongst other things. Yeah yeah, Godwin, etc

The world being created by a deity is a pretty extraordinary claim, yes there is feck all evidence supporting it. Unless you know something we don't?

endacl · 10-09-2015 03:00PM

Notavirus.exe wrote: »

God existing wouldn't be an extraordinary claim, unless scientists have come up with striking evidence that the cause of the universe was by complete chance.

God creating the universe vs the universe creating itself is more of a 50-50 thing and so you can't really call either of them extraordinary. Think about it.

50:50? Really?

What about the thousands of other creation myths we've come up with over the last few millennia? We've invented more than one god, y'know.

Michael OBrien · 10-09-2015 04:10PM

Notavirus.exe wrote: »

Obviously you'd need evidence to prove that God exists but you wouldn't need extraordinary evidence.

When people say extraordinary evidence they mean amounts of evidence, just to be clear.
So a photo of your dog is enough evidence to prove you have a dog, more than enough, most people would believe you by just saying you have a dog.
If you said you have a ghost, testimony alone is not enough and a picture showing a smudge is not enough either, thus a lot more effort is needed because of its extraordinary nature, which would overturn our understanding of reality.
The higher the cost of accepting the claim, the more effort is needed to justify that cost.
That is what people mean when they say "extraordinary evidence".

For god, any god, to exist, you cannot simply say it is not an extraordinary claim, because YOU believe it exists. The stance is judged by the person expected to accept the claim, as it is their worldview that the cost of accepting the claim impacts on.

The 50/50 claim is false. There are an infinite amount of possible godlike entities that might exist, one of which may be your definition of a god. Therefore until evidence says otherwise the likelihood of your god existing is infinitely small.

robindch · 10-09-2015 04:12PM

endacl wrote: »

50:50? Really?

Yes, really.

In religion is there's two truth-choices - something is either true or something is false. Therefore, bearing in mind there's only two choices, the chances of any random thing being one or the other is 50%.

#thatshowitworks

Michael OBrien · 10-09-2015 04:15PM

robindch wrote: »

Yes, really.

In religion is there's two truth-choices - something is either true or something is false. Therefore, bearing in mind there's only two choices, the chances of any random thing being one or the other is 50%.

#thatshowitworks

provided that it has zero properties attached other than the claim it might exist. Pity religion forgets that part.

robindch · 10-09-2015 04:23PM

Michael OBrien wrote: »

provided that it has zero properties attached other than the claim it might exist.

Would you imagine that, for example, somebody like Ken Ham would have physical room for supporting evidence as well as truth-claims?

Michael OBrien · 10-09-2015 04:31PM

robindch wrote: »

Would you imagine that, for example, somebody like Ken Ham would have physical room for supporting evidence as well as truth-claims?

Well you know, he has this book....

galljga1 · 10-09-2015 05:39PM

kylith wrote: »

You're embarrassed to ask her how she's happy when she's an atheist because she has a god and she watches telly?

Maybe that's the key. I also watch television and am fond of gods; perhaps gods and television are what stop atheists going on murderous rampages.

Dyslexia is a curse.

Frank Bullitt · 10-09-2015 05:59PM

Extraordinary claims don't require extraordinary evidence, they just require some form of evidence at all!

NotCominBack · 10-09-2015 06:19PM

Yes, and Kerry will find that out to their great cost in the not too distant future too

P.S Robbie Fowler is great

Wanderer78 · 10-09-2015 07:07PM

galljga1 wrote: »

Dyslexia is a curse.

amen to that

NotCominBack wrote: »

P.S Robbie Fowler is great

my brother use to say he was god so i dont know

life all good without god op

10-09-2015 07:29PM

Notavirus.exe wrote: »

Obviously you'd need evidence to prove that God exists but you wouldn't need extraordinary evidence.

You would need extraordinary evidence. The notion that some form of what you call "god" exists is so outlandish, so bizarre, and so at odds with everything we know about the world we live in that the evidence needed to prove it would have to be quite extraordinary.

Note also that such extraordinary evidence would only be extraordinary evidence at first. If someone makes an extraordinary claim, and then produces evidence of an extraordinary quality that proves the claim, then once the claim is proven both the claim itself and its supporting evidence becomes less extraordinary, more ordinary, and possibly even humdrum.

On the other hand, if I make the claim that you have a very strange, contradictory and non-linear imagination - which I do - I contend that this is quite an ordinary claim and requires quite ordinary evidence to support it. And what evidence is that? It's two pieces of information that you yourself have set out in this thread. On the one hand, you say that you have no capacity to imagine how an atheist could live a full life even though you have regularly been given evidence of an atheist in your close family doing precisely that for years. Yet on the other hand you say that you have the capacity to create in your own mind an imaginary being that can build and destroy whole universes even though you have never seen evidence for such a creature.

That's not only contradictory - it's (almost) impressively so.

Lord Riverside · 10-09-2015 07:37PM

magicbastarder wrote: »

can someone please verify the existence of boards.ie before i continue posting here?

As a figment of my imagination, you would say that wouldn't you ? Please provide some evidence that I am not dreaming this world up.

Notavirus.exe · 10-09-2015 10:14PM

Nicolas Cage wrote: »

Oh jaysus, where to start?

Hitler is responsible for the deaths of 6 million jews. Evidence: Witness testimonies from survivors, captured nazis, liberating forces, photographic proof, amongst other things. Yeah yeah, Godwin, etc

Yeah, we know Hitler was the cause of the Holocaust. We have proof. If someone comes along and says "Hitler didn't start the Holocaust, Putin started the Holocaust!" - That would be an extraordinary claim and it would need extraordinary evidence to overpower the proof of Hitler starting the Holocaust. He have no proof that a "god" didn't create the universe, so it's not an extraordinary claim that He did because we have no answer and can't possible know or decide.

Nicolas Cage wrote: »

The world being created by a deity is a pretty extraordinary claim, yes there is feck all evidence supporting it. Unless you know something we don't?

There's feck all evidence that nobody created the universe. Maybe this God fella created the universe and then made it look like molecules caused an explosion or something like that.

There is no evidence that God exists nor is there evidence He doesn't exist. If you're going to call the existence of God an "extraordinary" claim then the non-existence of God would also be considered an "extraordinary" claim as we have absolutely no way of knowing.

EoghanIRL · 10-09-2015 10:31PM

^^ right, you don't get it do you.
Gap of the gods. You can't say god made the universe just because we don't know why yet.

kylith · 10-09-2015 10:36PM

Notavirus.exe wrote: »

There's feck all evidence that nobody created the universe. Maybe this God fella created the universe and then made it look like molecules caused an explosion or something like that.

There's feck all evidence that a god created it either, so why claim one did? Why not say 'fecked if I know' and go get a physics degree and try find out?

Notavirus.exe · 10-09-2015 10:37PM

EoghanIRL wrote: »

You can't say god made the universe just because we don't why yet.

I am not saying that God must exist. I am saying that claiming that God exists is not an extraordinary claim because it does not go against anything we know AND the fact that we can't know. I am saying this as a response to the statement made by someone who was obviously intoxicated at the time which goes "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

Thargor · 10-09-2015 10:54PM

Notavirus.exe wrote: »

I am not saying that God must exist. I am saying that claiming that God exists is not an extraordinary claim because it does not go against anything we know AND the fact that we can't know. I am saying this as a response to the statement made by someone who was obviously intoxicated at the time which goes "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

Why are you arguing this? By your logic claiming the universe was created by a gigantic version of Jimmy Saville is not an extraordinary claim.

10-09-2015 11:23PM

The subject of the topic used to be "How can atheists live" not believing in God? I watched the thread but never stuck my oar in at the beginning, because I have loads to explain, and I'm too bloody lazy to bother. But now I'm going to make the effort. Don't be surprised If I cut it short, I was never diagnosed with ADHD but all my friends and tutors as an adult say I'm a classic case of adult ADHD. Well, here goes, I'm going to try.

I didn't believe in God. Then when I was about 20, I was in a very dark place. I was very ill, physically as well as mentally. I felt like I had nothing left to live for. A friend of mine was a born again Christian. He introduced me to his beliefs, and I clung to them. It did get me out of that rut. I know now that underneath I never fully believed in the God I was worshipping, but at the time, it was a life raft I needed to be on. As I forced myself to believe in God, I actually found life so much easier. Why did the dinosaurs die? Where did we come from? Why does bad sh1t happen? Doesn't matter, because God made it so. Just be good and behave and God will help.

Few years later and this religion was doing me more damage than good. I have to admit it took a long time before I started to really question certain experiences I had as a Christian. But when I started to really look into it, I found answers. Such as being "slain in the spirit" - hypnosis. God helping out? Coincidence. Etc. (Still experienced some things I can't explain, but I'm sure if I delve into it, I could). Derren Brown helped a lot in the stuff he has on TV and written because he had the same experience himself.

Now I am an atheist. I find life a lot easier to be honest. When I die, I die. I have never really liked my life, sad to say, thanks to lifelong depression, but I try to find things to be happy about every day, I wont let my illness rule my life. My father died last year. I know that he's not floating around waiting to meet me. I said goodbye on August 30th and it helped me a whole lot to know that he's gone for good. Waiting around to die so I can see him again didn't give me comfort. I fear death like anyone does - it's a natural urge in every single lifeform to fight death. I'm hoping to go like my grandmother, in her sleep, it's even got me over my fear of flying, knowing that it'd be a pretty quick way to go (after the minutes in freefall knowing what's gonna happen, I'd scream, anyone would!).

To summarise I guess, believing in God gave me a comfort that I didn't need to worry about where I came from, why I was here and what was going to happen to me. Not believing in God is so much more liberating, no matter what I do, I will float away and disappear like everyone else. I don't need to worry about the souls of my departed loved ones, because they don't exist anymore. I don't need to worry about seeing my dad ever again, because when I die, I disappear.

I liken it to going under general anaesthetic. I remember when I was 14, my body fought it. My breathing slowed down and I was able to say "I can't breathe", then BAM. Dark. I remember a second of dark. Then I woke up. The second time, I was wailing and complaining about the pain of the needle (I was 30!) then I woke up and said "That was brilliant!" The nurses looked at me like I was mental, but I said "I went out without a fight". That's what I compare death to.

endacl · 10-09-2015 11:26PM

Notavirus.exe wrote: »

I am not saying that God must exist. I am saying that claiming that God exists is not an extraordinary claim because it does not go against anything we know AND the fact that we can't know. I am saying this as a response to the statement made by someone who was obviously intoxicated at the time which goes "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

Well, it is lazy thinking. 'Because god' allows an abdication of any sense that we should wonder the 'why' and 'how' of things rather than simply accepting received wisdom and dogma at face value.

And you know, sometimes when we do a bit of poking about, received wisdom and dogma kinda fall apart. We don't have all the answers, and that's a good thing, because we get to continue wondering.

10-09-2015 11:30PM

endacl wrote: »

Well, it is lazy thinking. 'Because god' allows an abdication of any sense that we should wonder the 'why' and 'how' of things rather than simply accepting received wisdom and dogma at face value.

This here describes the novel I wrote above - I'm so bloody lazy that "because God!" was a very easy way for me to live my life for a few years.

I really started to rouse myself out of this easy rut I fell into because I hated the homophobia. There was obviously a lot more, but being a lazy ass human being Christian was easy for me.

Now I have to do stuff like think.

smokingman · 11-09-2015 12:06AM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

The subject of the topic used to be "How can atheists live" not believing in God? I watched the thread but never stuck my oar in at the beginning, because I have loads to explain, and I'm too bloody lazy to bother. But now I'm going to make the effort. Don't be surprised If I cut it short, I was never diagnosed with ADHD but all my friends and tutors as an adult say I'm a classic case of adult ADHD. Well, here goes, I'm going to try.

I didn't believe in God. Then when I was about 20, I was in a very dark place. I was very ill, physically as well as mentally. I felt like I had nothing left to live for. A friend of mine was a born again Christian. He introduced me to his beliefs, and I clung to them. It did get me out of that rut. I know now that underneath I never fully believed in the God I was worshipping, but at the time, it was a life raft I needed to be on. As I forced myself to believe in God, I actually found life so much easier. Why did the dinosaurs die? Where did we come from? Why does bad sh1t happen? Doesn't matter, because God made it so. Just be good and behave and God will help.

Few years later and this religion was doing me more damage than good. I have to admit it took a long time before I started to really question certain experiences I had as a Christian. But when I started to really look into it, I found answers. Such as being "slain in the spirit" - hypnosis. God helping out? Coincidence. Etc. (Still experienced some things I can't explain, but I'm sure if I delve into it, I could). Derren Brown helped a lot in the stuff he has on TV and written because he had the same experience himself.

Now I am an atheist. I find life a lot easier to be honest. When I die, I die. I have never really liked my life, sad to say, thanks to lifelong depression, but I try to find things to be happy about every day, I wont let my illness rule my life. My father died last year. I know that he's not floating around waiting to meet me. I said goodbye on August 30th and it helped me a whole lot to know that he's gone for good. Waiting around to die so I can see him again didn't give me comfort. I fear death like anyone does - it's a natural urge in every single lifeform to fight death. I'm hoping to go like my grandmother, in her sleep, it's even got me over my fear of flying, knowing that it'd be a pretty quick way to go (after the minutes in freefall knowing what's gonna happen, I'd scream, anyone would!).

To summarise I guess, believing in God gave me a comfort that I didn't need to worry about where I came from, why I was here and what was going to happen to me. Not believing in God is so much more liberating, no matter what I do, I will float away and disappear like everyone else. I don't need to worry about the souls of my departed loved ones, because they don't exist anymore. I don't need to worry about seeing my dad ever again, because when I die, I disappear.

I liken it to going under general anaesthetic. I remember when I was 14, my body fought it. My breathing slowed down and I was able to say "I can't breathe", then BAM. Dark. I remember a second of dark. Then I woke up. The second time, I was wailing and complaining about the pain of the needle (I was 30!) then I woke up and said "That was brilliant!" The nurses looked at me like I was mental, but I said "I went out without a fight". That's what I compare death to.

Fair play to ya. It's always been an anomaly, in my opinion, to be human and not accept responsibility for your life. Being religious has always seemed to me to be a methodology for avoiding this responsibility. When that is removed, you feel free and you feel in control...of your own decisions and your own direction.

Michael OBrien · 11-09-2015 12:12AM

Notavirus.exe wrote: »

There's feck all evidence that nobody created the universe. Maybe this God fella created the universe and then made it look like molecules caused an explosion or something like that.

There is no evidence that God exists nor is there evidence He doesn't exist. If you're going to call the existence of God an "extraordinary" claim then the non-existence of God would also be considered an "extraordinary" claim as we have absolutely no way of knowing.

Atheists don't have to say "no god created the universe", they only have to reject the claim one (or more) did until evidence is provided.
Every religion has a creation story. We don't have to state we know they CANNOT be true, only say we don't accept the claims they are.

While there is a dichotomy between the existence, or absence, of something, these are two separate claims, and religions primarily ONLY address one point of that two point dilemma. One can reject the claim, without making the opposite claim.
The only claim an atheist makes, which has nothing to do with the god existing (or not) is that they don't believe the theist's belief. This is a self evident claim by default, as it rests entirely on the action of disbelief.

11-09-2015 12:12AM

smokingman wrote: »

Fair play to ya. It's always been an anomaly, in my opinion, to be human and not accept responsibility for your life. Being religious has always seemed to me to be a methodology for avoiding this responsibility. When that is removed, you feel free and you feel in control...of your own decisions and your own direction.

Your probably should't have quoted my entire post but hey! Thanks. And yes, it's true. Accepting responsibility for how ****e your life is, instead of blaming your parents or believing in God, is certainly a freeing experience!

Really knowing that this life is the only one I have, and no afterlife, and no man sitting upstairs with a snes controller pushing A for good and B for bad didn't turn me into a raging psychopath, in fact I find myself a lot more mellow and kinder knowing that there isn't a hell and heaven we're all going to live or die in.

smokingman · 11-09-2015 12:22AM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Your probably should't have quoted my entire post but hey! Thanks. And yes, it's true. Accepting responsibility for how ****e your life is, instead of blaming your parents or believing in God, is certainly a freeing experience!

Really knowing that this life is the only one I have, and no afterlife, and no man sitting upstairs with a snes controller pushing A for good and B for bad didn't turn me into a raging psychopath, in fact I find myself a lot more mellow and kinder knowing that there isn't a hell and heaven we're all going to live or die in.

I quoted the whole thing because I thought it worth repeating.
But yes, waiting for an outside influence to press Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right B, A, Start to cheat you out of your own mess, while understandable, is not what we, as a race of animals that have taken close up pictures of Pluto, should limit ourselves to.
Thanks for your post by the way.

11-09-2015 12:26AM

I wish I had my Bible right now.

I've run out of Rizlas. And I'm gasping for a smoke!

smokingman · 11-09-2015 12:29AM

I was in that situation and am ashamed to admit banana skins were attempted....ah fun times...:)

johnnyskeleton · 11-09-2015 12:36AM

kylith wrote: »

You're embarrassed to ask her how she's happy when she's an atheist because she has a dog and she watches telly?

Maybe that's the key. I also watch television and am fond of dogs; perhaps dogs and television are what stop atheists going on murderous rampages.

I dont have a dog nor home broadband and they cant prove that ive ever killed someone. At least, not beyond reasonable doubt.

11-09-2015 12:37AM

smokingman wrote: »

I was in that situation and am ashamed to admit banana skins were attempted....ah fun times...:)

I found some skins in my dump of a sitting room! I remember when I was actually acting the believing Christian I shared a house with three other Christian girls. Money was very tight. Two of us smoked. We used to walk around the UCD campus at night and pick up half smoked fags, take them home and use the tobacco, rolled in pages of the bible. Why are bibles printed on such thin paper? My housemate was walking around reading scripture from Revelations off her rolly. Good times! (Also, very bad times.)

johnnyskeleton · 11-09-2015 12:51AM

Notavirus.exe wrote: »

Here it goes: We know that Hitler ordered the Holocaust.

Not to go off topic (mar dhea), but Hitler didnt order the Holocaust. Heydrich ordered it. You can see for yourself in the Wansee Conference House, Wansee, Berlin. Or trust the wikipedia article:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Heydrich

Not, of course, to diminish Hitlers culpability or his desire to murder millions of people, but he didnt actually order it personally.

The point being that sometimes a simplistic and not entirely correct narrative is used (suh as that it was Hitler, and not the wider Nazi movemenet that hated Jews, or that the universe started as a big bang) as an illustration.

As regards extraordinary claims and proof, if you believed that Hitler alone ordered the holocaust you are likely unaware of the Wansee papers and the ordinary belief for you is based on your own knowledge. The claim that disagrees with that that you find extraordinary is met with proof based on facts which you were unaware (ie extraordinary proof).

So too with God, the origins of the universe etc. To substantiate a belief beyond our own frame of reference we require evidence that is beyond our current frame of reference. At least thats what I think is meant.

Is "Dublin" a real place?

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