I don't find the thread boring per se. However to be blunt, I find Pippy pretty stultifying and a little irritating. Probably moreso if I ever bothered reading all of one of his fatuous little rants.

I read what she/he replies to me.

That seems, and i mean this not be rude a bit of a cop out answer. For to say that the only evidence against it is that there is no for it is a two way arguement because i could very well say that my evidence for god is that you cant disprove it.

As for myself i see evidence of god in whatever im doing or wherever i go. And just to clarify no i do not see "jehovah" as it were. I see a higher power at work. I can only assume that because of the way you see the world, you have become conditioned to only see the science in the world around you. Now im not saying its wrong but i do believe it wrong to deny any possibilities other than the one that you yourself hold true.

And yes you can choose to believe in anything and everything, but you will naturally choose to believe certain things and deny others based what things feel right to you. So right then you have the 'believe' that you say is required. Does that right off the bat mean that anything else is impossible or Unbelievable? To you personally yes, but overall? I dont think so, it simply means that you've accepted a different set of choices from the "barrel of choice" than someone else. I choose to believe that something has its loving hands on us because we are so fantastical, so intricate and each one of us is different from the other yet all based on similar structure.

I believe that evolution does prove a plan. If it was just changing willy nilly i would agree that it was merely a generalized process. The fact that it changes, as need for something grows and need for others diminishes, proves to me that we have a "protection system" that we dont need to develop ourselves, unlike say immunity. Yes we are all designed to develop immunities but we dont all have the same ones. The fact that we all have the same "evolution sense" proves to me most definetly that there IS a higher power. Even if there is no finalizedand perfected endpoint as of late, we know the way/plan of how to get there.

-Lotus
"Life Is Short - Death Is A Transition"

I chose not bleive in things that can't be proven.

To say we can't dissprove God exitence is not a good argument for that a God would exist.. Have you read about Rusells teapot by the way? Pretty explains it very well. Lack of dissporvel is not a evidencce exists.

If someone can't come with any evidence or proof of a gods extience will I not believe in such thing. You can't say there is a god without having anything to back it up.

To just belive in something doesn't prove anything and doesn't mean that there is even a possibilty of some things exitence.

Then we would all be able to believe in Rusells teapot and think that it would reasonible idea.

Hey guys,

Firstly if I may respond to Giff. I am taken aback by you longer note, and feel that I have slightly misjudged you. I had not decided what I thought about you yet, but I am now quite impressed. I hope you understand I did not mean you were an idiot in a mean way about not understanding the silly words I use. I apologize, I was only trying to say how frustrating it felt to try to explain that I don't see the world as I hope too, and you thought I was saying the opposite.

I admit to being hard to understand, and my fault in not being clearer. I think we are both willing to admit that we don't 'know' any of this for sure, but we are both pretty certain about what we think we know. In that sense we are very much more alike than different. I have to agree with what you are saying, and yes, you really did understand what I was trying to say before.

Earlier you said,

Quote:But if I will be on topic do I just wonder what design you are talking about Pippy?

and I did not address your question because I was chatting away with Kyu. It is a good question, and I could try to answer it if I may. You were asking about the 'repeating patterns' I saw as evidence. I think one of the biggest patterns is duality. It is in male/female, left brain/right brain, body/mind, yes/no, light/dark, 1/0 (for computers)... Why is it, I just casually ponder , that a pattern seems to be there of many things having two separate but co-existing parts? It's just a little thing, and I don't expect it to seem like evidence too you at all. The whole thing I was trying to say from the get go is that we (all of us here) won't agree on the evidence, so it's kind of a silly argument.

Like I said, I do apologize for being rude, and quite appreciate what you said. I just got mad at how you said it, and that was my fault. The point about Russell's Teapot way back in the beginning was good too, but I didn't get a chance to say so then. Thank you for sharing.

Hi again EvF. You don't need to do the he/she pronoun dance, I am unfortunately a man. It also don't matter, I like discussing with you so far, and so you needn't walk on eggshells. I don't dislike the word 'know' per se, and you can say as many words as you think I dislike. I don't intend to argue semantics, do your best to get your point across in whatever language you can. The only bother I have is the feeling I could be clearer, but it's a process.

Quote:The only real evidence we need of NO God is that there is no evidence OF God.

Can I, just for fun, turn that around? Just because I think we are all circling this one point. The only real evidence we need of god is that there is no evidence of [/i]not[i] god. I know it's low to do that, but bear with me. The evidence itself isn't solid ground for modern humans. We persist on seeing things incorrectly or in distortion, even things like provable evidence for or against god. That is the basis of all of our disagreement. That you are not different that us, on that level. If we can get to the point that no one knows for sure, and surely on this forum no one is showing anyone any evidence. We just can't do it this way, show each other evidence i mean. But we can discuss it for fun! Without actually arguing and always disagreeing about who is wrong.

Another way too look at it, I think, is such. You said that the existence of a creator (of the universe and it's systems more than just us people) created more problems than answers. It made it all more complicated. That is where we disagree. I don't mean at all that it isn't right to you, or that it couldn't be reality, these things are 'personal'. I believe in god (in kind of the above sense) because to me it makes it all simpler. It makes many more answers than questions, to me. That is why we are led to believe what we do, from the exact same function, just different results. There is cause and effect. If that is true we live in a theoretically infinite string of causes and effect, because what was the first cause? Ah, but then it HAD to be the effect of another cause... A living (may be) thing as the first cause, the unmoved mover, is an answer that doesn't involve infinite 'numbers'. For me, I lean towards a theory without the concept of infinity, as it is very illogical.

I will go eat now, and stop stressing everyone's eyes with all my blabber. Much appreciation all, isn't this a great ride?

"Ain't it great, to be alive?",
-Pip

Quote:I think one of the biggest patterns is duality. It is in male/female, left brain/right brain, body/mind, yes/no, light/dark, 1/0 (for computers)... Why is it, I just casually ponder , that a pattern seems to be there of many things having two separate but co-existing parts?

I'll have a quick stab at this one if you don't mind?

Male/Female - What about hermaphrodites? In some species there is no need for male/female. The fact they arose out of natural selection is a chance occurrence.
Left brain/right brain - Granted, I'll give you that one, but on it's own it doesn't make much impact.
Body/mind - I think this is an unnecessary partition. The mind is not a separate entity, it is part of the body. What about less developed creatures that have pure instinct and no "mind" in the sense we talk about?
Yes/No - We also have "maybe", and these are examples of human language development, not of nature. Yes/No only exist within certain groups of humans; they are abstract.
Light/Dark - Ok, you do realise there is no such thing as "dark" right? Dark is the absence of light, not it's own thing. You can't put dark in a room, you can only take light out of a room. Dark is as abstract a concept as "yes/no".
1/0 - This is only because we want to be efficient. We could have chosen to have a base 4 computer rather than a base 2 (binary) computer but the hardware would have been much more complex. Binary is the simplest form for a computer to take, and it works a charm. Also, quantum computers have multiple bases and are incredibly complex, working much faster than any binary computer system.

So all in all, I think you score 1 point for the brain, but nothing for any of the others. I don't see how the "duality" of some things is a pattern anymore than 1 thing being a pattern, or groups of 3. All these numbers don't exist, they are human inventions.

(May 9, 2009 at 7:55 am)Lotus Wrote: That seems, and i mean this not be rude a bit of a cop out answer. For to say that the only evidence against it is that there is no for it is a two way arguement because i could very well say that my evidence for god is that you cant disprove it.

It's ok - I don't find you remotely rude. I'll just say that it's not a cop-out answer at all.

The burden of proof is on the believer. And you cannot prove a negative. I mean even the Flying Spaghetti Monster cannot be disproven (or Russel's Teapot) but this does NOT count remotely as evidence TOWARDS it? Does it (?)

Are you saying it DOES?

No, you need evidence FOR something first. Before you can have evidence AGAINST it.

If I say the only evidence AGAINST God is that there is no evidence FOR him, that is NOT a cop-out and NOT on even footing with saying that the evidence TOWARDS him is that there is no evidence AGAINST him...

Because otherwise, you could simply say that for ANY negative (because you cannot prove a negative). You could say that the fact there is no evidence AGAINST the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Zeus, Santa, Russell's Teapot or the Tooth Fairy counts as evidence TOWARDS them. And that, of course, is just plain ridiculous. The only thing needed to reject belief IN these things - is that there is no evidence FOR these things.

And if the fact that you cannot prove a negative is evidence TOWARDS those things according to you - and you end up therefore literally believing in them ALL - you'd of course, be seriously deluded. You'd believe in absolutely everything if the fact that you cannot prove a negative= evidence!!

The burden of proof is on the believer FIRST. Until evidence is provided - there is no evidence needed against BEFOREHAND That would be silly.

How can you expect to have evidence AGAINST something - if there is no evidence OF that something in the first place!!

Quote:I believe that evolution does prove a plan. If it was just changing willy nilly i would agree that it was merely a generalized process. The fact that it changes, as need for something grows and need for others diminishes, proves to me that we have a "protection system" that we dont need to develop ourselves, unlike say immunity. Yes we are all designed to develop immunities but we dont all have the same ones.

Mutations are natural and random.. yes there are effective ones - but there's an awful lot of ineffective - bad ones - TOO.

The fact that what's efficient and what are the best survivors are what tend to survive, is because...being efficient and a good survivor - helps you survive!! Lol. So that's what is left over. Pretty obvious really. Natural selection. What survives survives - and reproduces. And what is good at surviving and reproducing is more likely to do so!! So the efficient and 'impressive' survive. 'Survival of the fittest' - natural selection.

And yes natural selection 'designed' our immune system. Natural selection 'did'. But it is design without a designer.

And yes all our immune systems are not exactly identical (we are different) - but that's because of genetics of course. People are different, there are mutations, etc. We are not all exact replicas of course.

And as for how the efficient survives - how the immune system has evolved to be so effective - well that's just natural selection again.

I'm sure someone else could explain this better though. I only know the basics.

Quote:The fact that we all have the same "evolution sense" proves to me most definetly that there IS a higher power.

Explain please. What do you mean by "evolution sense"? The universe operates by natural selection ( I mean that's the way evolution IS) simply because...what survive survives! So what is best at surviving on average is what will survive - so on average you'll be left with the organisms that are best at surviving (and reproducing) - and the most 'impressive' at it, for example.

Quote:Even if there is no finalizedand perfected endpoint as of late, we know the way/plan of how to get there.

You know WHAT way/plan to get WHERE? Sorry but I do not understand what you are referring to.

EvF

Quote:The only real evidence we need of god is that there is no evidence of not god.

erm I hope you don't mind me coming in but, there is no evidence against santa claws, does that mean he is real too?

Just because there is no evidence against it doesn't make it real. Because if that's the case then can you disprove santa claws, the easter bunny, the orbiting teapot and the FSM?

You can't. Just as I nor any other can disprove god. It's because they are all fake, imaginary and evidence is what seperates fantasy from reality. That is why we demand evidence! We cannot just follow a god because of someones words or what is writen in books. Because we still need reason to reject all other gods. Why should we reject the god thor and not the christian god? Why should we accept your beliefs which is unproven and reject everyother claim?

See? We need evidence of a god.

Ace.

Great point Ace. And brilliantly put I might add.

EvF

(May 12, 2009 at 3:58 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Great point Ace. And brilliantly put I might add.

EvF

Thank you