(January 4, 2013 at 3:06 pm)Fidel_Castronaut Wrote:

(January 4, 2013 at 2:53 pm)Mark 13:13 Wrote: on the good/bad question you seem to be saying that in an atheist world the terms good or bad is relative and therefore changeable that there is no fixed concept of good or bad.

Theist do not have the Idea look at me i'm so good but rather how can you look at me when compared to you I'm so bad.

Seven Deadly sins is a misnomer they refer to a state of mind rather than the actions so the real sins are the actions or inactions (when action was required) caused by that state of mind.

yes, morals are purely subjective to the society in context. There is no objective absolute in moral terms, though some ideas hold more sway through time than others.

I'm also not accusing you being 'bad', so please don't assign me a position I don't hold

no the bit about bad was a Christian view of themselves when presented with GOD, not a reference to you

(January 4, 2013 at 3:07 pm)apophenia Wrote: So, then coveting thy neighbor's ass is not a sin?

'Ey gurl.

(January 4, 2013 at 8:11 am)Mark 13:13 Wrote: I contend that if you cant prove the position you take even if you express such a position as a negative then you are still accepting some part on faith regardless of who has the burden of proof.

You do realise that atheism is a response to theistic claims?

You assert there's a being that you labelled "god". We don't know of any such being so therefore, you have the burden of proof to demonstrate this being's existence and convince us it is real. Not us. We are not the party making the claim, YOU ARE. We're your audience.

By saying we have the burden is as asinine as saying its the theater audience's job to entertain the actors on stage. That's not how this dispute works dipshit.

(January 2, 2013 at 6:32 pm)Mark 13:13 Wrote:

(January 2, 2013 at 6:25 pm)Brian37 Wrote: Don't give me that crap. You have uncorked the wine(actually when you win a race it is usually champagne or sparkling apple juice).

You "uncork" the "BULLSHIT" Brand skepticism when it comes to the claims you reject.

I don't think you drink the stupidity of flat earthers. So when you claim, or anyone claims that they have a Santa for adults, I am not going to lose much sleep wondering if I pre maturely uncorked my champagne.

Do you still keep the bottles of Thor and Osirus and Vishnu in your wine cellar?

http://newcovenant.blogspot.co.uk/2004/0...proof.html
"This is a common mistake that is made by the purveyors of atheistic naturalism - that of their point of view somehow being the benchmark by which all other views must measure against..... That an atheist considers the claims of a theist to be extraordinary is irrelevant. They are assuming a benchmark which they have no way of proving as valid." 

you don't give a shit about proving your position so why should I feel I am somehow in the need to prove anything to you in order to hold my position .

You should not be looking to the author of that blog for guidance, because he is a very poor guide. It is simple to illustrate the paucity of the claim that the burden of proof doesn't lie on the theist position: there are tens of thousands of other proposed gods, and if there's no burden of proof for Yahweh, there isn't for any of them, which leaves one in the absurd position of having to assume they all are at least equally as likely to exist as not, despite the fact that some of them can't exist by definition if some of the others do. I've met people who hold this position, you don't strike me as being one of them, as it is at odds with being a Christian.

Burden of proof is established according to rules of logic, we're not making it up special for theism. If I say I have a two-headed chicken in an undisclosed location, and you don't believe me, there's no more of substance to say on the matter unless I am forthcoming with some reasons why you should believe me. Then we can argue about whether what I have to offer meets my burden of proof. You don't have to prove I don't have a two-headed chicken, because if I don't have it, you still can't prove it. If I said it was in the yellow coop in my backyard, you could come over and prove it wasn't there, ...and I could say I DID have it, but it escaped, and it's still out there somewhere.

That's where you're at. You say there's a God, we don't believe you. If you haven't got more to offer, we can stop there. We already know we can't prove you don't have a God, two-headed chicken, leprechaun, or whatever. All the burden of proof means is that it's your move if you want the discussion to go forward.

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(January 2, 2013 at 8:26 pm)Mark 13:13 Wrote: When you die do you wish that it is the end?

When I die, what I wish will have no relevance whatsoever to what happens to me. Viewing what I'd like to believe is true with suspicion has served me very well in this life.

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(January 3, 2013 at 11:42 am)Mark 13:13 Wrote: In truth I would find the Idea that death was the ultimate end comforting at one level in that I would never be accountable beyond my life for what I have done during it but at another level I would find the idea that life is a pointless accident and in the great scheme of things irrelevant no mater what we do as individuals or as a society unpallitable too. So on balance I would wish for life after death regardless of what that experience brings.

I can't think of anything that would make our lives more pointless than them being merely a momentary prelude to an endless existence, becoming ever more insignificant as each millenium passes, just as the first trillion years will be dwarfed to insignificance by the next trillion trillion, and so on forever. If there is an eternal God, I pity it for its eternal past, how unbearable the weight of infinite years must be!

(January 4, 2013 at 3:20 pm)Annik Wrote:

(January 4, 2013 at 3:07 pm)apophenia Wrote: So, then coveting thy neighbor's ass is not a sin?

'Ey gurl.

yes it is if you continue to focus on your neighbours ass and not give thanks for your own ass. Should you then decide to pinch your neighbours ass or not treat you own ass properly that would make things worse.

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(January 4, 2013 at 3:01 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: There is no fixed notion of good or bad.

If you lived life according to the old testament you would be considered a monster in this day and age.

People get their morals from the society around them and as a society we have improved our morals over time.

This is a much better age to live than any that have gone before and much of that is down to the jettisoning of the adherence to the religious texts as a basis for morals.

I wonder have our morals really improved or do we kid ourselves that
because of our technology we seem on the surface to be more advanced.

(January 4, 2013 at 8:11 am)Mark 13:13 Wrote:

(January 3, 2013 at 9:24 pm)mr.atheist Wrote: Not its not a faith.
Not believing in something, isn't a faith.
Its more like the opposite actually.

I contend that if you cant prove the position you take even if you express such a position as a negative then you are still accepting some part on faith regardless of who has the burden of proof.

It doesn't take faith to note that a claimant hasn't met their burden of proof. I would take your word that you tied your shoes this morning: it's not unlikely, I've no reason to think you'd lie about it, it would be irrational for me to insist that you didn't tie your shoes without knowing more (like you're a parapalegic). I take your word that you believe God is real, who am I to doubt your reports of your own beliefs? If you say there IS a God, that's something you're not in a position to know, however confident you may be about it, even if it's true, no faith needed to withhold belief pending at least the kind of evidence it would take to get me to believe in anything else.

Now I admit I have taken things 'on faith' that turned out not to be true, like daddy longlegs being really poisonous, just unable to bite humans. I trusted a source that I shouldn't have, and didn't investigate the matter. When I found out different I changed my mind, but I'm sure there are may other things I think I know that aren't true, and I only hope that most of them are as trivial as the daddy longlegs thing. It can't be helped. Casually believing something that's of cosmic import if true is not trivial, and anything like that deserves serious consideration before accepting it...although not necessarily serious consideration for dismissing it. It would not be trivial at all if I asked you to put on a tinfoil hat or your brain will explode in the next hour due to an orbiting death ray, but I wouldn't expect you to seriously consider it, or even put on some tinfoil as a precaution, just in case, unless I could make a really good case that I'm right that involved more than a really good story.

The word 'faith' is meaningless if it applies to all positions equally, which is where you're taking it.

Welsh cake Wrote:You do realise that atheism is a response to theistic claims?

Interesting point , so I wonder what came first the Theist or the Athiest.

(January 4, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Mark 13:13 Wrote: Interesting point , so I wonder what came first the Theist or the Athiest.

The disbelief in gods existed before the belief in gods. There just wasn't a name for it.

Why do you write 'atheist' with an upper case 'A'?

(January 4, 2013 at 3:48 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote:

(January 2, 2013 at 6:32 pm)Mark 13:13 Wrote: http://newcovenant.blogspot.co.uk/2004/0...proof.html
"This is a common mistake that is made by the purveyors of atheistic naturalism - that of their point of view somehow being the benchmark by which all other views must measure against..... That an atheist considers the claims of a theist to be extraordinary is irrelevant. They are assuming a benchmark which they have no way of proving as valid." 

you don't give a shit about proving your position so why should I feel I am somehow in the need to prove anything to you in order to hold my position .

You should not be looking to the author of that blog for guidance, because he is a very poor guide. It is simple to illustrate the paucity of the claim that the burden of proof doesn't like on the theist position: there are tens of thousands of other proposed gods, and if there's no burden of proof for Yahweh, there isn't for any of them, which leaves one in the absurd position of having to assume they all are at least equally as likely to exist as not, despite the fact that some of them can't exist by definition if some of the others do. I've met people who hold this position, you don't strike me as being one of them, as it is at odds with being a Christian.

Burden of proof is established according to rules of logic, we're not making it up special for theism. If I say I have a two-headed chicken in an undisclosed location, and you don't believe me, there's no more of substance to say on the matter unless I am forthcoming with some reasons why you should believe me. Then we can argue about whether what I have to offer meets my burden of proof. You don't have to prove I don't have a two-headed chicken, because if I don't have it, you still can't prove it. If I said it was in the yellow coop in my backyard, you could come over and prove it wasn't there, ...and I could say I DID have it, but it escaped, and it's still out there somewhere.

That's where you're at. You say there's a God, we don't believe you. If you haven't got more to offer, we can stop there. We already know we can't prove you don't have a God, two-headed chicken, leprechaun, or whatever. All the burden of proof means is that it's your move if you want the discussion to go forward.

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(January 2, 2013 at 8:26 pm)Mark 13:13 Wrote: When you die do you wish that it is the end?

When I die, what I wish will have no relevance whatsoever to what happens to me. Viewing what I'd like to believe is true with suspicion has served me very well in this life.

---

(January 3, 2013 at 11:42 am)Mark 13:13 Wrote: In truth I would find the Idea that death was the ultimate end comforting at one level in that I would never be accountable beyond my life for what I have done during it but at another level I would find the idea that life is a pointless accident and in the great scheme of things irrelevant no mater what we do as individuals or as a society unpallitable too. So on balance I would wish for life after death regardless of what that experience brings.

I can't think of anything that would make our lives more pointless than them being merely a momentary prelude to an endless existence, becoming ever more insignificant as each millenium passes, just as the first trillion years will be dwarfed to insignificance by the next trillion trillion, and so on forever. If there is an eternal God, I pity it for its eternal past, how unbearable the weight of infinite years must be!

Well that depends on what Eternity is; we may even Experience eternity already in this life , we just call it NOW. Eternity could be Just a NOW moment as without time there is no past or future.

(January 4, 2013 at 8:45 am)Zen Badger Wrote: Proof that Thor exists.

Thor is the god of thunder and lightning.

Thunder and lightning exist.

Therefore Thor exists.

TAH DAAH!!!!!

SHIT! Gotta admit, you got me there. So where's the nearest Thor Temple in North Carolina? I don't want to be smited or smoted or smitten.