(July 3, 2012 at 2:34 am)Jeffonthenet Wrote: Can anyone give me a good case against the existence of God that can stand up to scrutiny?

Ahh... the Fallacies are strong with this one...

If we were playing a drinking game where we took a shot every time Jeffonthenet was guilty of a fallacy, we'd all be in the hospital being treated for alcohol poising.

Quote:such as the Kalaam Cosmological argument and the Moral Argument (from the existence of objective moral values to God) it would not follow that there is no God

Kalam and the Moral Argument are very weak. They (and all the other philosophical arguments for the existence of god, for that matter) contain at least one fallacy that invalidates them.

(July 3, 2012 at 1:05 pm)Jeffonthenet Wrote:

(July 3, 2012 at 11:39 am)Skepsis Wrote: Most people who believe there is an external world do so on the basis of foundationalism. Presuppositions like "I exist" and "my senses are sometimes accurate" are both necessary to make cognitive decisions in the world. Otherwise you fall into radical skepticism and inevidably nihilism.

How are those basic presuppositions justified? By argument?

Here, you can disprove this supposition any time you like. I'll lend you my shotgun (You need to make arrangements for it to be sent back to me after this demonstration, though), and you load it up with double-ought buck, flick off the safety (I will of course provide instructions on how to operate it), stick both barrels in your mouth (it is critical that you point it in the proper direction, so that you do not become what is known as a "Flincher" (see:***** (NSFW)), and pull both triggers.

In the event that our presuppositions are unjustified, you can post to the forum and tell us all about it.

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Quote:Goblins aren't analogous to God, as they aren't of the same constitution. How does the fact that intelligent men who happen to believe in God discard goblins as myth strengthen your case? What you have constructed is an appeal to authority with a faulty analogy thrown in. Two fallacies in one argument.

I explained my intention in my last post.

Your intention is irrelevant to the fact that your arguments (which are in any case not evidence) are fatally flawed.

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Quote:Goblins can be eventually defined as an unrestricted negative. An unrestricted negative is, by definition, unproveable.

Can you please define what an unrestricted negative is? And do you mean "unfalsifiable?" (instead of unprovable) I don't think God is by definition unprovable.

GREAT! So prove your version of whatever this gawd-thang is exists, and quit tap-dancing around with all this silly burden-of-proof-shifting. No need at all to move the goalposts, since you can kick the winning goal right here and now with your evidence. You DO have evidence, right?

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Quote:Russell's teapot and infinite other examples of indefinite things fall into this category. What I find is that the religious fall into this odd cycle of "prove to me this unrestricted negative"- what I have never heard before is the OP's odd idea that lack of evidence shouldn't equal lack of belief.
Since when?
Lack of evidence necesitates lack of belief. If you want to contest that then I would feel fine destroying your argument

Because we have no evidence that there are extraterrestrials, does it follow from our lack of evidence that there are no extraterrestrials?

We have the evidence of our own existence, and evidence that there are other solar systems and planets that might have similar conditions in which similar forms of life might also arise.

Little green men in space ships, not so much.

But far more than that of any sort of gawd-thing, which by the way you still have failed to describe or define.

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(July 3, 2012 at 1:19 pm)Jeffonthenet Wrote:

(July 3, 2012 at 12:41 pm)FallentoReason Wrote: I think from pure reasoning alone all an atheist could ever do is demonstrate why holy book X's god(s) doesn't/don't exist. I can't think of any argument from reason alone that would discard the possibility of a god. So I guess at most the theist could push for a Deist god but that's about it. Given that you call yourself a Christian though I think we might have some problems with the claims you want to attach to this plausible Deist god...

The God one would show wouldn't be a deist or a Christian God, it would just be general attributes of God that would be shared by both. And given that I believe the experience of God is the best way to know the Christian God exists, I don't think it would be a huge problem for people to believe in Him after experiencing Him.

OH, Goodie: The "experience of Gawd". Tell us what THAT looks like. Can you send him over to my house for a visit? Should I order something fancy, or just throw something on the grill? Does he prefer baby back ribs made from real babies?

The burden of proof doesn't lie on the believer. It lies on God.

(July 3, 2012 at 8:01 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: The burden of proof doesn't lie on the believer. It lies on God.

WHAT?

Are you trolling or being deliberately stupid?

For goodness sake look up;'the burden of proof'.

(July 3, 2012 at 8:05 pm)padraic Wrote:

(July 3, 2012 at 8:01 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: The burden of proof doesn't lie on the believer. It lies on God.

WHAT?

Are you trolling or being deliberately stupid?

For goodness sake look up;'the burden of proof'.

If God exists, then it's up to him to make himself known (if he wants to be known).

If a believer believes he exists, then he shouldn't have to carry the burden of proving God, rather it's up to God to prove himself.

(July 3, 2012 at 9:24 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: If God exists, then it's up to him to make himself known (if he wants to be known).

If a believer believes he exists, then he shouldn't have to carry the burden of proving God, rather it's up to God to prove himself.

True enough, if you're referring to convincing yourself.

If you want to convince others, then indeed, the burden of proof is on you.

(July 3, 2012 at 9:46 am)Jeffonthenet Wrote:

(July 3, 2012 at 3:51 am)Tempus Wrote:

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I'm not sure whether you understood the first sentence of my reply. It wasn't intended as an argument; it was, as you correctly identified, a statement.

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In this thread, I am looking for a case against God. Cases require evidence and argument.

Right. I don't think you're going to find one.

(July 3, 2012 at 9:46 am)Jeffonthenet Wrote:

Tempus Wrote:

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You're right. If there were no good arguments (or any arguments at all) it wouldn't follow that there are no gods, since arguments don't affect reality. It would follow, however, that there's no good reasons to believe there are gods. Just because there's no good reason to believe X it doesn't mean that X isn't true. Observing this fact doesn't strengthen a case for gods any more than it does for a tooth fairy.

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It doesn't follow that if we have no good arguments for God, (which I have not accepted) then there is no good reason to believe God exists. There are no good non-circular arguments for the fact that there is a past or that the external world is real.

Re-reading the part of my post quoted here, I should've written "It would follow, however, that there's no good reasons to believe there are gods." as "However, it would follow that, given no evidence or good argumentation, there's no good reasons to believe there are gods." So yes, what I wrote there was wrong and I would agree with your first point here.

(July 3, 2012 at 9:46 am)Jeffonthenet Wrote:

Tempus Wrote:

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By the way, the Kalam and moral arguments suck, frankly. The former is like a child took a five minute crash course in philosophy and came up with it.

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Then why are they debated in professional philosophical journals by world class philosophers, some of them atheists, who take them seriously?

Because WLC (used as a specific example since he's a proponent of Kalam) is a shit philosopher. He makes big, unjustified jumps in logic, similar to the ones you make which I examine below. Your response would be akin to asking "why do some colleges / universities teach homeopathy, creationism or astrology if they're not valid?". The reason they teach that nonsense is because they're shit colleges or universities. You can tell they're wrong by doing studies and inferring from known facts that neither homeopathy, creationism or astrology work / make accurate predictions. Similarly, with the Kalam or moral argument all you need to have is a good grasp on logic to see why those arguments suck. Having a prestigious title like "University of X" or "Doctor X", or being very popular does not lend credence to them or their claims.

(July 3, 2012 at 10:06 am)Jeffonthenet Wrote:

(July 3, 2012 at 4:57 am)zebo-the-fat Wrote:

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Can anyone give me a good case against the existence of Goblins that can stand up to scrutiny?

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Half of humanity believes that there is a God…

Appeal to popular opinion. Besides, it's currently much more than half last I checked.

(July 3, 2012 at 10:06 am)Jeffonthenet Wrote: and this has included such brilliant minds as Charles Darwin (a deist), Aristotle, William of Occham, Einstein, etc

Appeal to authority. Also, you're conflating a lot of different beliefs / equivocating... Darwin's beliefs changed over the course of his life from Christian, to a sort of deist, then to what he called "agnostic". Einstein, to my understanding, was never a theist or a deist. He believed in Spinoza's god, which has nothing to do with some intelligent deity beginning the universe.

(July 3, 2012 at 10:06 am)Jeffonthenet Wrote: 1. Darwin and Einstein would not seriously believe a children's fable is true
2. Darwin and Einstein seriously believed God existed
3. Therefore God is not a children's fable

Please don't interpret this as me being rude, but you have an abysmal understanding of how logic works. Firstly, the conclusion doesn't follow the premises, making it a non-sequitur; you'd need to add an additional premise, something like "Darwin and Einstein can't be wrong", for example. Darwin and Einstein could simply be mistaken; after all, they've both been wrong before. Secondly, the premises themselves aren't known to be true - how do we know #1? And #2, as I highlighted above, is flat-out wrong. Thirdly, the whole argument is an appeal to authority. The argument is both invalid and unsound.

There are many different interpretations of "God" within Christianity Jeff, you could be talking about anything.
You must define your God and your reasons for subscribing to it before attempting any kind of discussion on the matter otherwise your question is meaningless.

Do we have a dumb new thread of the week award?

(July 3, 2012 at 9:27 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote:

(July 3, 2012 at 9:24 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: If God exists, then it's up to him to make himself known (if he wants to be known).

If a believer believes he exists, then he shouldn't have to carry the burden of proving God, rather it's up to God to prove himself.

True enough, if you're referring to convincing yourself.

If you want to convince others, then indeed, the burden of proof is on you.

True, and the same can be said about "free-will". I don't think there is an argument to prove free-will, but I believe in free-will, and I believe I know free-will exists.
It's the same with morality being real/objective and not a delusion.

I believe there is strong arguments for God, but the end, every argument is making use of intuition, which some people can disagree on.

For example, from nothing, nothing follows. Or that things need an explanation except for the Necessary being by virtue of being necessary. Or what defines original reality needing to be simple/indivisible.

At the end, there is no knock out argument either way. And I don't think there ever will be. Some people don't believe in free-will. I don't know how to convince those people at all and can only advise them to reflect if they truly know or don't, because I feel I do know we have free-will.