(May 5, 2025 at 12:59 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Put shortly, you imply something when you don't have the balls to claim it, but want to own it all the same. An inference is when someone is sharp enough to see you trying to slip an idea in without owning it -- kinda like you're doing here when you try to equivocate an implication with a claim.

As long as there's no quote of me saying what you guys claim, then I'm happy. The best you found was me explaining that faith is trust and that's not good enough.

You've already been quoted..and no one should have to remind you what you said in the first place.

Yes but that was a quote that exonerates me. I'm looking for one that doesn't.

We're on to the alternative facts part of the routine, are we? You're the one who said that faith was a trust that required good reasons. No one else. Put up or shut up.

Even as you say it, it exonerates me. Good job lol.

Cosplaying as the donald now, are we? Boring.

(May 4, 2025 at 7:15 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(May 4, 2025 at 6:57 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: It's difficult for contemporary christians to walk in faith.  Their witchdoctors and shamans preach on it every weekend but it doesn't seem to matter.  That's why we end up with all of this claptrap.  The faithful have been indocrinated into our shared culture, and they want to tell us that they have answers, that they know of a rational path between here and truth of christs promise.  It's a lie, and, at least thematically speaking, part of life's test, as they tell it.

I wouldn't dare argue against your analysis. You have a decade of experience in these forums after all, and an interest in religion and anthropology.

So disparaging an argument, not by addressing it in any cogent way, but by attacking the person making the argument, or an ad hominem fallacy.

(May 4, 2025 at 8:06 pm)Belacqua Wrote:

(May 4, 2025 at 5:07 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Hmm to summarize the conversation: I think that openness to evidence requires openness to possibility. Meaning, the very act of seeking evidence for X implies that X is treated as possible. But of course, many here do not think the existence of God is even possible, and therefore I think them asking for evidence is illogical.

My threshold for possibility is simple: If a proposition is at least conceivable and coherent, and not contradictory, then I'm open to its possibility. But people want me to give objective evidence for possibility itself. And I think that's a weird request. So, with your boar example, I would say the possibility is already there, and the evidence you showed simply makes the case for its actuality. I don't think there is such a thing as objective evidence of possibility itself, because possibility is abstract, it is rational rather than empirical.

Edit: For context, I'm imagining a scale that roughly progresses thus: Conceivable, Possible, Probable, Actual. Most here concede to the first, but we've been stuck on the second for the last 20 pages.

I don't see how anyone could demonstrate that it's impossible for God to exist. If they're making that claim, it would require some serious argument.

No one has made that claim, he's attempting to avoid the burden of proof of his claim, by misrepresenting disbelief of that claim, as a contrary claim. It is of course fallacious, to anyone who understand an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy. 

conceivable
adjective

capable of being imagined or grasped mentally.

That one can subjectively conceive that a deity is possible, is of no more import to the veracity of that assertions, than that one can conceive that the world is flat, would be to the shape of the earth. Religious apologists often fallaciously imagine that they can dishonestly ringfence their belief, behind an unfalsifiable concept, as if this moves the burden of proof, or at least makes it some sort of 50/50 premise. It is of course irrational to argue that anything gains credence because we lack an alternative explanation or evidence. 

This is why John has tried to misrepresent the lack of belief in his bare claim a deity is possible, as a claim that a deity is impossible, but there is an epistemological and rational difference.

(May 5, 2025 at 1:20 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(May 5, 2025 at 12:59 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Put shortly, you imply something when you don't have the balls to claim it, but want to own it all the same. An inference is when someone is sharp enough to see you trying to slip an idea in without owning it -- kinda like you're doing here when you try to equivocate an implication with a claim.

As long as there's no quote of me saying what you guys claim, then I'm happy. The best you found was me explaining that faith is trust and that's not good enough.

That's still a lie. 

Quote:Quote:John 6IX Breezy


faith isn't blind belief, it is trust. And trust requires a context where you have good reasons to trust,

One can look in the dictionary and see that religious faith is defined as a belief. 

faith 
noun

2. strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof.


Would you like a quote of you refusing to offer a single reason, good or otherwise, because no one will accept your bare claim that your imaginary deity, is possible?

If you had any good reasons for your blind faith in a deity, you'd offer them, so you have resorted to dishonest semantics, as I said you would, to deflect from that fact. 

One is irresistibly reminded of a small child, who having been caught misbehaving, thinks it can hide by not meeting their parents gaze. Except of course their innocence makes it endearing, whereas your display is simply cringeworthy.

(May 5, 2025 at 4:36 am)Sheldon Wrote:

(May 4, 2025 at 8:06 pm)Belacqua Wrote: I don't see how anyone could demonstrate that it's impossible for God to exist. If they're making that claim, it would require some serious argument.

No one has made that claim[...]

Oh, I see. When earlier you said 

Quote:I DO NOT BELIEVE, ANY DEITY OR DEITIES ARE POSSIBLE. 

 

You are saying that "I do not believe X is possible" is not the same statement as "I believe X is impossible." 

Is that right? 

You've been at this type of fight for a while now, so I expect you've heard many claims by Christians. What reasons do you have for rejecting their claims that God is possible? 

For example, you've no doubt heard the various arguments which say that God is a necessary being and you have judged these arguments to be unpersuasive. According to what standards did you judge them? I assume you are not the sort of person to reject an argument for no reason, so you must have some reasons why you don't agree. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/god-necessary-being/