(September 26, 2013 at 9:25 pm)Rationalman Wrote:

(September 26, 2013 at 9:11 pm)Vincenzo "Vinny" G. Wrote: Is this guy serious?

Your name is rationalman, and you cannot deduce that people are uninterested in reasoning based off of false premises?

You got a ways to live up to your username, buddy.

So I am right. What other reason could there be that you refuse to answer my points. If you were uninterested, you wouldn't be on this forum. Please explain the false premises I am basing my reason off

What points?

You made a totally, utterly, imbecilic post claiming that "Children at a young age are not skeptical at all."

How thick do you have to be to see that such a claim is way too sweeping a claim to be true?

Did you make any other points than this one?

You wrote:
Cumulatively, all these points just raise the probabilities higher and higher. Combined with the lack of any good arguments or scientific evidence in support of atheism, one can conclude with a high degree of confidence that most atheism is irrational.

I wrote:
Atheism doesn't need any arguments, seriously? Do you understand the burden of proof? And you are just lying when you say there is no scientific evidence to support atheism. There is certainly plenty that discredits the christian god. The earth is billions of years old for one, the bible says otherwise. It also says humans came from adam and eve. But there is no evidence of this in our DNA, if it were true, we would see a genetic bottle neck. But there is none. I could literally write for hours about all the scientific evidence that discredits and contradicts god and supports atheism.

You wrote:
I hope you're kidding. Children at a young age are not skeptical at all? Can you think about that statement for a second and tell me how you can make such a sweeping, total universal claim? Ugh.

I wrote:
Please explain why children believe in santa, the tooth fairy, the easter bunny etc. Oh please lets hear your hypothesis on this.

You wrote:
I mean, we could take your same argument and make it show atheism to be nonsensical.

a) Kids believe all kinds of nonsense.
b) Most atheists became atheists when they were kids

I wrote:
Unsupported assertion, please provide the peer reviewed study that confirms this.

(September 26, 2013 at 9:36 pm)Creed of Heresy Wrote:

(September 26, 2013 at 7:05 pm)Vincenzo "Vinny" G. Wrote: I'm surprised I need to spell it out for so many of you.

All the points I raise suggest atheism is more about irrationality and/or emotion than reason. Cumulatively, all these points just raise the probabilities higher and higher. Combined with the lack of any good arguments or scientific evidence in support of atheism, one can conclude with a high degree of confidence that most atheism is irrational.

There's a reason for that: Your conclusions are illogical.

You are stating that, essentially, the default stance must actually be theism; that to NOT believe is irrational, because the burden of proof must rest on the atheists, and not the people making the claim that god exists.

Except this is not the case. Atheists are a wide and diverse breed but I think it's fairly safe to generalize that the main point of atheism is "not having belief in a god." As in, lacking the belief.

Children, it should be worth pointing out, are not born into this world as believers, and funny thing, children raised without any sort of religious or theistic influences tend to never believe in the theistic claims.

Theism is the stance making the claim. Not atheism. You claim god. I ask for proof of this god. I am given nothing. Ergo I have no reason to believe in god.

What's so difficult about this to understand? I mean, shit, you then go on to state that because other people claim to experience experiences of the godly, that therefore it's true. RIGHT, because, you know, people who are already believers wouldn't have a bias for that, of course.

Eyewitness testimony is the absolute worst form of trying to provide a basis for a case. There is a reason eye-witness testimony is far from enough to actually convict someone in a court of law; because peoples' stories change all the time. Two people see the same thing and yet remember it differently.

Ditto with people claiming these experiences. Pressed for details, they suddenly come up hilariously short.

I mean if you're really that gullible that you instantly believe people just because they make the same claims when, previously, they already shared the same beliefs, then man, you're just lost to the deep, dark realms of non-logic, and there's not a single thing any of us can do to pull you out of it, no matter how many lights we shine down into that hole.

Actually it's your claim that is illogical. There is no such thing as a default stance, and I can go into depth explaining why but this will derail the discussion. Suffice to say, the whole notion is nonsensical. Even if there is a position, it would have to start from zero evidence for any position, and thus be essentially agnosticism.

Once you reject the faulty "default position" argument, you rationally arrive at the position that all positions bear their respective burden to defend their claims rationally.

Aside from that, my position on burden of proofs are clear. As far as an obligation to explain or defend a position, everybody has an obligation to defend theirs, be they theist, atheist, agnostic, whatever. I've developed my view in this thread. Feel free to refute at your leisure.

I'm no more obliged to defend my position as you are to accept it, schmuck.

Most atheists I know were raised as Christians. I started calling myself an atheist at 29, but it was perhaps two or three years in the making by that point.

(September 26, 2013 at 9:53 pm)Rationalman Wrote: You wrote:
Cumulatively, all these points just raise the probabilities higher and higher. Combined with the lack of any good arguments or scientific evidence in support of atheism, one can conclude with a high degree of confidence that most atheism is irrational.

I wrote:
Atheism doesn't need any arguments, seriously? Do you understand the burden of proof? And you are just lying when you say there is no scientific evidence to support atheism. There is certainly plenty that discredits the christian god. The earth is billions of years old for one, the bible says otherwise. It also says humans came from adam and eve. But there is no evidence of this in our DNA, if it were true, we would see a genetic bottle neck. But there is none. I could literally write for hours about all the scientific evidence that discredits and contradicts god and supports atheism.

You wrote:
I hope you're kidding. Children at a young age are not skeptical at all? Can you think about that statement for a second and tell me how you can make such a sweeping, total universal claim? Ugh.

I wrote:
Please explain why children believe in santa, the tooth fairy, the easter bunny etc. Oh please lets hear your hypothesis on this.

You wrote:
I mean, we could take your same argument and make it show atheism to be nonsensical.

a) Kids believe all kinds of nonsense.
b) Most atheists became atheists when they were kids

I wrote:
Unsupported assertion, please provide the peer reviewed study that confirms this.

Atheism always has a "burden of proof".

http://atheistforums.org/thread-21066.html

(September 26, 2013 at 10:00 pm)Vincenzo "Vinny" G. Wrote: Atheism always has a "burden of proof".

http://atheistforums.org/thread-21066.html

Put simply: no you are wrong. If I tell you that i have a real living unicorn in my pocket, it is not then up to you to prove that I don't. It is up to me to prove that I do. Now answer the rest

False. Atheism is the state that occurs once a religious claim goes unsubstantiated, or there is a serious lack of demonstrable proof for said claim. Atheism is not a creed or belief system. You are misinterpreting the definition of the atheist position.

(September 26, 2013 at 10:03 pm)Rationalman Wrote:

(September 26, 2013 at 10:00 pm)Vincenzo "Vinny" G. Wrote: Atheism always has a "burden of proof".

http://atheistforums.org/thread-21066.html

Put simply: no you are wrong. If I tell you that i have a real living unicorn in my pocket, it is not then up to you to prove that I don't. It is up to me to prove that I do. Now answer the rest

False. Read the thread, disprove the argument, then tell me I'm wrong.

I asked you first, counter the rest of my points and then i shall do the same for you