(April 17, 2012 at 4:32 pm)Abishalom Wrote:

(April 17, 2012 at 4:27 pm)mediamogul Wrote: Then what was your point?

Also it's absurd to claim to know what babies believe. I hope this is self evident. Without language one cannot believe in these concepts.

Do you know what a predisposition is? There a difference between believing a concept and having a predisposition. A belief in a concept requires conditioning. A predisposition is involuntary and does not have to be taught.

My point answering somebody's claim of that a baby is naturally an atheist. This is wrong. Humans have a natural predisposition to belief in a higher being and that everything in the natural world has a purpose.

I understand you want to have it both ways but it cannot be.

If you say that a baby believes in god he is a theist. This is clearly not a substantive claim.

If a baby lacks belief in a god then it is an atheist. Resorting to saying they have a "predisposition" to belief in god is first highly questionable and second it is still not a belief in god. Hence, babies do not believe in god.

A predisposition does not equal a belief. A predisposition to learn language, one of the actual predispositions a human possesses, does not mean that a baby understands language.

(April 17, 2012 at 7:38 pm)Abishalom Wrote: It's simple. Either answer my question or leave it be.

Follow your own advice and answer my question.

(April 17, 2012 at 7:38 pm)Abishalom Wrote:

(April 17, 2012 at 7:29 pm)RaphielDrake Wrote:

It isn't an assumption if you repeatedly make assertions we live in a universe where a God exists based on the fact nature exists yet cry out "oh we don't knows thats all there is" when we point out various things in nature that go against the theory of intelligent design.
You're picking and choosing what can and can't be used in a debate based on your own severely biased preferences and its ridiculous.

First of all I haven't written anything along those lines...

I asked one simple question. You dissected it into baseless assumptions, all while IGNORING my question.

"If all we can see is the natural world, then how does our knowledge of the natural world prove that God does not exists?"

It's simple. Either answer my question or leave it be.
[/quote]


Firstly, yes you have and secondly you didn't ask me that question but I've sure as hell been waiting for it:
Have you ever looked at the human respiratory system? Its horribly inefficient and flawed, it gets a fraction the amount of oxygen out of air thats possible. Thats why you could breathe in and out of a paper bag for quite sometime, because what you breathe out still has alot of oxygen in it.
Yet according to religious texts God is an omnipotent, perfect being... and we are "made in his image". Thats clearly not the case otherwise these obvious flaws wouldn't be there.
The only plausible realization someone can come to is that the entire concept is complete bullshit.
I've got plenty more examples if you'd like. :-)

The simple answer to the simple question is simply this: It doesn't prove that a god does not exist.

No one says that it does. The complete and utter lack of evidence regarding the existence of gods of any sort certainly offers no reason to believe that one does. I don't. In fact, there is plenty of reason to believe that no gods are necessary at all.

There is plenty of evidence that gods exist, in fairy tales, and plenty of evidence as to where those fairy tales come from, humans, and plenty of evidence as to why any given god is said to do this or that or have this or that will, politics, sociology, psychology etc. The trouble is that this is all there is to gods. So, no, they don't exist, and yes there is a mountain of evidence for this. It's important to be specific. "Proving" this or that is a fun excersize in craft, but it bears no relevance to evidence regarding gods or reality in and of itself. Garbage in, garbage out.

I'm starting my own religion RIGHT NOW. It's followers are called Patians, after the God, who Divinely named himself as Pat, came down to earth and revealed himself to me and my friends declaring that we must spread his truth that we must all be good and never be evil. All must pray to him daily, or be punished in the hereafter, whether or not you believe in him!

I won't continue this travesty, but that's how you refute a theist god. Make a new one. I provide no more evidence than any other religion in the prior paragraph. Certainly, this bullpucky which I just spouted MIGHT be true, but the odds are infinitesimal.

It is ludicrous and evil for me or anyone to invent a system of belief that claims you must comply or be punished. The only real difference between Patian's and Christians is a few thousand years....

Garpike34 Wrote:The only real difference between Patian's and Christians is a few thousand years....

And the number of witnesses. Your example portrays Islam, not Christianity.

(April 19, 2012 at 5:31 am)FallentoReason Wrote:

Garpike34 Wrote:The only real difference between Patian's and Christians is a few thousand years....

And the number of witnesses. Your example portrays Islam, not Christianity.

They're essentially the same religion, the only real difference is age.
They share very similar beliefs and its not even as if its restricted to just those two. There are so many different branches of the same belief system that you could be forgiven for comparing the way each new religion adapts to different times and countries to bacteria from the same family adapting to different hosts and developing different mutations. Its no coincidence that Jesus appears in many of these religions either as the main attraction or a profit. It wouldn't surprise me if each religion had tried to latch onto the poor bastard and claim him as their own as so many religions have attempted to do with great thinkers of times past.

In two-thousand years whos to say that the meme of the flying spaghetti monster through misunderstanding and fabrication will have developed into a full blown religion claiming and misquoting Richard Dawkins as its lord and savior? Perhaps it will be competing with the religion of Luke Skywalker who through various mistranslations of fan fiction will be regarded as a histroical figure?

(April 19, 2012 at 5:51 am)RaphielDrake Wrote:

(April 19, 2012 at 5:31 am)FallentoReason Wrote:

Garpike34 Wrote:The only real difference between Patian's and Christians is a few thousand years....

And the number of witnesses. Your example portrays Islam, not Christianity.

They're essentially the same religion, the only real difference is age.
They share very similar beliefs and its not even as if its restricted to just those two. There are so many different branches of the same belief system that you could be forgiven for comparing the way each new religion adapts to different times and countries to bacteria from the same family adapting to different hosts and developing different mutations. Its no coincidence that Jesus appears in many of these religions either as the main attraction or a profit. It wouldn't surprise me if each religion had tried to latch onto the poor bastard and claim him as their own as so many religions have attempted to do with great thinkers of times past.

In two-thousand years whos to say that the meme of the flying spaghetti monster through misunderstanding and fabrication will have developed into a full blown religion claiming and misquoting Richard Dawkins as its lord and savior? Perhaps it will be competing with the religion of Luke Skywalker who through various mistranslations of fan fiction will be regarded as a histroical figure?

What I meant was that his example only involved him as the witness, just like Mohammed being the only one witnessing anything. Christianity has the 4 witnesses, remember? A rather trivial point in what he was trying to say, but I had nothing better to do while waiting for the bus...

P.s. it's spelt 'prophet'

(April 19, 2012 at 6:27 am)FallentoReason Wrote:

(April 19, 2012 at 5:51 am)RaphielDrake Wrote:

(April 19, 2012 at 5:31 am)FallentoReason Wrote:

Garpike34 Wrote:The only real difference between Patian's and Christians is a few thousand years....

And the number of witnesses. Your example portrays Islam, not Christianity.

They're essentially the same religion, the only real difference is age.
They share very similar beliefs and its not even as if its restricted to just those two. There are so many different branches of the same belief system that you could be forgiven for comparing the way each new religion adapts to different times and countries to bacteria from the same family adapting to different hosts and developing different mutations. Its no coincidence that Jesus appears in many of these religions either as the main attraction or a profit. It wouldn't surprise me if each religion had tried to latch onto the poor bastard and claim him as their own as so many religions have attempted to do with great thinkers of times past.

In two-thousand years whos to say that the meme of the flying spaghetti monster through misunderstanding and fabrication will have developed into a full blown religion claiming and misquoting Richard Dawkins as its lord and savior? Perhaps it will be competing with the religion of Luke Skywalker who through various mistranslations of fan fiction will be regarded as a histroical figure?

What I meant was that his example only involved him as the witness, just like Mohammed being the only one witnessing anything. Christianity has the 4 witnesses, remember? A rather trivial point in what he was trying to say, but I had nothing better to do while waiting for the bus...

P.s. it's spelt 'prophet'

I have insomnia and haven't slept in two days so yeah. *thumbs up*