Atheism Destroyed in Under 50 Seconds

[Ace Otana]

Well, think of it. Pragmatism says that the only beliefs that really matter are the ones that influence your actions, and that conversely your actions determine what your beliefs are. So a Pragmatist doesn't care about beliefs that don't influence actions. Thus, there is no Pragmatist distinction between two people who act in precisely the same manner in the same circumstances.

If I were a very religious man, you could say I went to church, prayed and said grace based on my belief. However I lack belief. I'm not acting on a belief. I'm simply living the way I've always lived. Without religion. I lack belief and so it makes no sense to act on a belief (that isn't there).

But that's not true. Replace 'god' with a fictional character that's incapable of creating the universe, and the explanation no longer works.

How do you know god isn't another fictional character? As far as I'm concerned, he's just another crazy concept made up by man like many other made up characters. How do you know god exists? How do you know he created the universe? What gives god (a fictional character) any more merit than any other made up character.

Thing is, no matter what character you replace 'god' with, it's still just as likely. Because god like every other character has not be demonstrated to be anything more than a fictional character.

Really? So if the very best explanation is that God exists, and no other deity exists, and every other explanation is incredibly unlikely, you'd still refuse to accept that God probably exists?

Already consider the existence of god as possible, I've simply ruled it out. Thing is, god is not currently the best explanation we have.

Do you do this with any other explanatory entity?

Pretty much.

When I first heard of "the universe from nothing" I completely doubted it. Questioned it and thought it meant something else. It wasn't till I listened and learnt more about it that I now support the idea completely. You see, I can be swayed. If I generally don't know about something I'll study it. If it lacks credibility I'll question it deeply, and if it stands up and holds true and backs up everything, then I'll be convinced. I can be convinced, you just need to find a way to demonstrate that a god exists and I'll listen, and if the support is strong and stands up to public scrutiny, I'll believe you. I generally want to know what's true. What's real. If god does exist I can accept that, but from this point, I've seen nothing to come even close to suggest that such a being exists.

Like, if you saw a guy fall from the sky who could leap tall buildings in a single bound, could shoot heat beams from his eyes, and could run faster than a speeding bullet, and said he was from Krypton, that his name is Kal-El, and provided a sample of Kryptonite, and then flew you to the ruins of his planet, you'd refuse to believe that Superman exists?

I'd question my sanity and seek professional help. Of course if that did happen we could test, measure and verify what's happening. So yeah, I'd have to accept the data I'm being given, and seeing as it's all verifiable I'd have all the evidence required to support it.

Um, no, it's not.

Um yes it is. If you assert that X caused Y, you must first demonstrate X. You can state that X caused Y but because X hasn't been demonstrated to be real I could easily state that actually it was B that caused Y and it would be just as likely seeing as neither have been demonstrated to exist and cause Y. You can assign as many assumptions as you like and there'd be no change. They'd all be non-answers.