(December 3, 2011 at 9:20 am)lucent Wrote: There isn't any middle ground between not knowing and not believing. Either you don't know (agnostic) or you don't believe (atheist).

Which is a false dichotomy when you consider that there are other distinct positions such as not caring for beliefs or lack of beliefs in a god (apatheist) and those who assert that a coherent definition of God(s) must be presented before the question of their existence can be meaningfully discussed (ignostic).

Quote:If, to the proposition of God, you think it is less likely than not, you have a belief about it. If you have no belief, you don't know.

So if you have to consider the likelihood of the prospect of alien life existing on other worlds you therefore have to believe in aliens? You lucent are factually wrong and conflating knowledge with belief as usual.

Quote:There is no equivilence between the question of God, which has explanatory power, and the question of fairies, which explains absolutely nothing.

Neither have been demonstrated to exist using logic, reason and evidence. God has no objective explanatory power, at all, assert it until you go blue in the face. Its merely your mental construct, your subjective placebo and nothing more.

Quote:It is the number one question on peoples minds, because over 90 percent of the world believes in a higher power. You have to think they're all crazy, but have you ever thought that you're the one who has the abnormal belief?

Are you too dumb to realise you're making an appeal to common belief fallacy?

Quote:Theists need to stop trying to redefine the definition of atheism.

Fixed for you.

Quote:To say you lack a belief in something is a meaningless statement. It is simply an attempt by the atheist to redefine the parameters of the debate and escape any burden of proof for their position.

YOU have the burden proof. Now act like an adult and try and meet your obligation as the claimant by providing extraordinary evidence for your extraordinary claim or kindly go and fuck off back to the happy farm.

Quote:Rocks lack belief.

You've got rocks in your head mate. Skip to 5:00 on this video below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNDZb0KtJDk&t=5m

Poor Lucent, your stay in the gauntlet only made you ever more dumb... sad. When you say X exists, its up to you to prove its existence, and in the case of god, that is an extraordinary claim, I require extraordinary evidence. If I don't believe the theistic claim that god exist, then I am an atheist, stop trying to redefine words, apologists like you love that, I know, but it goes to no avail here.

lucent Wrote:f you don't believe in God, you have a belief that there is no God. Not believing in something, believe it or not, also means you have a belief about it. This is elementary.

Only in that convoluted ball of twine you call your brain, and you speak of logic to us? How do you go about doing that claim I'm quoting? I don't believe any claim made to me about any gods by any religion, I don't have my mind muddled with desert goat herders fairy tales, I have no belief. You may believe it so, but repeating that fuckwittery won't make it true, sorry. I have many beliefs regarding politics, society, etc, and atheism informs me of nothing regarding those matters and on the other hand, it also doesn't pollute my mind with bronze-age mythology.

Like I said on the other thread, my atheism only shows when fucktards come out and make claims about reality, based on a very unsubstantiated claim that there is a being watching over us. We aren't asserting no possible god(s) exist, we are CALLING YOU ON YOUR BULLSHIT!

(December 3, 2011 at 10:08 am)Welsh cake Wrote: Which is a false dichotomy when you consider that there are other distinct positions such as not caring for beliefs or lack of beliefs in a god (apatheist) and those who assert that a coherent definition of God(s) must be presented before the question of their existence can be meaningfully discussed (ignostic).

That there are other positions that people can take on the question has nothing to do with the fact that there is no neutral position between not knowing and not believing. It's either one or the other.

(December 3, 2011 at 10:08 am)Welsh cake Wrote: So if you have to consider the likelihood of the prospect of alien life existing on other worlds you therefore have to believe in aliens? You lucent are factually wrong and conflating knowledge with belief as usual.

You don't automatically have to believe or disbelieve. You could say you don't know, but what you can't say is that you lack a belief in aliens.

(December 3, 2011 at 10:08 am)Welsh cake Wrote: Neither have been demonstrated to exist using logic, reason and evidence. God has no objective explanatory power, at all, assert it until you go blue in the face. Its merely your mental construct, your subjective placebo and nothing more.

There are only two possibilities as to how life arose; one is spontaneous generation arising to evolution, the other is a supernatural creative act of God, there is no third possibility. Spontaneous generation that life arose from non-living matter was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasteur and others. That leaves us with only one possible conclusion, that life arose as a creative act of God. I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God, therefore I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation arising to evolution."

(Dr. George Wald, evolutionist, Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University at Harvard, Nobel Prize winner in Biology.)

God explains why there is life, why there is anything existing at all. He explains the design in the Universe, and all the greatest questions of existence. The concept of God has massive amounts of explanatory power.

Also, my claim that Jesus is God is a matter of history.

(December 3, 2011 at 10:08 am)Welsh cake Wrote: Are you too dumb to realise you're making an appeal to common belief fallacy?

Are you too rude to go one line without being insulting or condescending? Is this how you normally relate other human beings? It was an appropiate response to his statement, which implied that belief in God was the abnormality when statistically it is the other way around.

(December 3, 2011 at 10:08 am)Welsh cake Wrote: Fixed for you.

What we reject is your attempt to redefine the debate by making atheism the default position, and therefore we will continue to point out the absurdity of claiming that you "lack belief" in God.

(December 3, 2011 at 10:08 am)Welsh cake Wrote: YOU have the burden proof. Now act like an adult and try and meet your obligation as the claimant by providing extraordinary evidence for your extraordinary claim or kindly go and fuck off back to the happy farm.

You have an equal burden of proof by claiming God does not exist. You don't get a free ride. So, what evidence do you have that atheism is true?

(December 3, 2011 at 10:08 am)Welsh cake Wrote: You've got rocks in your head mate. Skip to 5:00 on this video below

By saying that rocks lack beliefs, I am pointing out that the statement is meaningless, I am not comparing people to rocks. Atheism is also not the default position, because people do naturally believe in God without anyone telling them:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion...laims.html[/quote]

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(December 3, 2011 at 10:23 am)LastPoet Wrote: Poor Lucent, your stay in the gauntlet only made you ever more dumb... sad. When you say X exists, its up to you to prove its existence, and in the case of god, that is an extraordinary claim, I require extraordinary evidence. If I don't believe the theistic claim that god exist, then I am an atheist, stop trying to redefine words, apologists like you love that, I know, but it goes to no avail here.

When you say X doesn't exist, it's up to you to prove its non-existence. You are making your own claim independent of the theistic claim.

(December 3, 2011 at 10:23 am)LastPoet Wrote: Only in that convoluted ball of twine you call your brain, and you speak of logic to us? How do you go about doing that claim I'm quoting? I don't believe any claim made to me about any gods by any religion, I don't have my mind muddled with desert goat herders fairy tales, I have no belief. You may believe it so, but repeating that fuckwittery won't make it true, sorry. I have many beliefs regarding politics, society, etc, and atheism informs me of nothing regarding those matters and on the other hand, it also doesn't pollute my mind with bronze-age mythology.

Like I said on the other thread, my atheism only shows when fucktards come out and make claims about reality, based on a very unsubstantiated claim that there is a being watching over us. We aren't asserting no possible god(s) exist, we are CALLING YOU ON YOUR BULLSHIT!

Settle down. You are asserting that, and I am sure if we looked through your post history we will find you making that claim many times. And by calling it "bullshit" you are saying it isn't true. If you don't know then say you don't know. Otherwise, you are making a positive claim.

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(December 3, 2011 at 10:07 am)Ace Otana Wrote:

(December 3, 2011 at 10:03 am)lucent Wrote: If you don't believe in God, you have a belief that there is no God. Not believing in something, believe it or not, also means you have a belief about it. This is elementary.

Explain how lack of belief = belief.

How is - I don't believe in X = I believe X does not exist?
Please, tell us...

By saying you don't believe in X, you are saying X isn't true. If it isn't true, it is false. Therefore, you believe X is false.

(December 3, 2011 at 10:35 am)lucent Wrote: By saying you don't believe in X, you are saying X isn't true. If it isn't true, it is false. Therefore, you believe X is false.

Wrong yet again. I'm not saying X isn't true, I'm saying I don't believe in X. I haven't claimed anything. YOU have! The burden is on you, not me.
No belief, no faith. I've rejected theist claims due to lack of evidence.

Or in other words, no matter how much bullshit you have to pile up in the name of baby Jesus, always be glad to pile up a little more.

If I say I have an invisible fairy dragon on my garage its up to ME to prove its existence, else you try to disprove my claim to see how dishonest your claim on this thread is.

(December 3, 2011 at 10:47 am)Ace Otana Wrote:

(December 3, 2011 at 10:35 am)lucent Wrote: By saying you don't believe in X, you are saying X isn't true. If it isn't true, it is false. Therefore, you believe X is false.

Wrong yet again. I'm not saying X isn't true, I'm saying I don't believe in X. I haven't claimed anything. YOU have! The burden is on you, not me.
No belief, no faith. I've rejected theist claims due to lack of evidence.

Sigh. Okay, let's rephrase this.

You either believe in X = X exists
Don't know if X is real = X may or may not exist
Don't believe in X = X doesn't exist

It is not a lack of belief. It is founded on your belief that X does not exist, is not real, etc.

(December 3, 2011 at 11:01 am)lucent Wrote: Sigh. Okay, let's rephrase this.

You either believe in X = X exists
Don't know if X is real = X may or may not exist
Don't believe in X = X doesn't exist

It is not a lack of belief. It is the belief that X doesn't not exist, is not real, etc.

Quote:If a man has failed to find any good reason for believing that there is a God, it is perfectly natural and rational that he should not believe that there is a God; and if so, he is an atheist... if he goes farther, and, after an investigation into the nature and reach of human knowledge, ending in the conclusion that the existence of God is incapable of proof, cease to believe in it on the ground that he cannot know it to be true, he is an agnostic and also an atheist – an agnostic-atheist – an atheist because an agnostic... while, then, it is erroneous to identify agnosticism and atheism, it is equally erroneous so to separate them as if the one were exclusive of the other...

Nuff said.

(December 3, 2011 at 10:54 am)LastPoet Wrote:

Or in other words, no matter how much bullshit you have to pile up in the name of baby Jesus, always be glad to pile up a little more.

If I say I have an invisible fairy dragon on my garage its up to ME to prove its existence, else you try to disprove my claim to see how dishonest your claim on this thread is.

Theists and atheists have an equal burden of proof. I'm prepared to give an answer for my faith, but I don't have to stand over your chasm of unbelief to do it.

You really are dense huh? Atheism only exists as long as a theistic claim exists. Infact, I said it elsewhere that atheism will only end when no one believes in god. YOU make the claim, I reject it due to the lack of meeting the burden of proof.

(December 3, 2011 at 11:04 am)Ace Otana Wrote:

(December 3, 2011 at 11:01 am)lucent Wrote: Sigh. Okay, let's rephrase this.

You either believe in X = X exists
Don't know if X is real = X may or may not exist
Don't believe in X = X doesn't exist

It is not a lack of belief. It is the belief that X doesn't not exist, is not real, etc.

Quote:If a man has failed to find any good reason for believing that there is a God, it is perfectly natural and rational that he should not believe that there is a God; and if so, he is an atheist... if he goes farther, and, after an investigation into the nature and reach of human knowledge, ending in the conclusion that the existence of God is incapable of proof, cease to believe in it on the ground that he cannot know it to be true, he is an agnostic and also an atheist – an agnostic-atheist – an atheist because an agnostic... while, then, it is erroneous to identify agnosticism and atheism, it is equally erroneous so to separate them as if the one were exclusive of the other...

Nuff said.

False. If he ceases to believe that God exists because he cannot know it to be true, he must also cease to disbelieve it, because he also cannot know it to be untrue.

Atheism is belief that God does not exist. Agnosticism is the belief that we cannot know if God exists or not. They are contradictory beliefs and mutually exclusive.