God is a human invention. And seeing how language has developed over time also shows much of languages limitations. For instance, would you believe that there was a time when "god" was never spoken about? It's true Language, like humanity, has actually developed gradually - over time.
Now we're able to talk about god and whether it's more than fictional.
I'm working from the idea that there isn't a god because there's no reason to think otherwise.
I'm just being practical.

(January 21, 2010 at 11:25 am)Tiberius Wrote:

(January 21, 2010 at 10:53 am)leo-rcc Wrote: No, I only edited my post because stfu was a bit too harsh in this case. As for using "null hypothesis" as opposed to Adrian's explanation of "Default hypothesis". It is my wording, I would use null hypothesis every single time something like this would come up. And I am not about to change that.

For the sake of clarification (which I believe was the only thing FaithvsFact was after), by "null hypothesis" you do mean "default position" right?

I can understand where FaithvsFact is coming from, as I never use the phrase "null hypothesis" for anything other than statistics. If he is an engineer as he claims, it is not surprising he was confused by your wording.

It isn't so much semantics, but when someone has used a word in a context where it is not usually placed, clarification is needed.

i am a senior mechanical engineer of 10 years standing graduating with first class honours / magna cum laude degree in mech eng and a bachelor in commerce from one of the best unis in my country which has a won nobel prize for its medical research. my clients are global corporations who are leaders in their industries but for obvious reasons i will not name drop them. when the previous poster makes out that they know how to use the term null hypothesis, when in reality they don't, they need to be corrected which adrian is doing here and which i did.

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(January 21, 2010 at 11:18 am)chatpilot Wrote: To answer your questions to me FvF I do consider myself to be a strong atheist. I do not have faith in my contention that god exist, I am convinced that god does not exist due to the lack of evidence. I do not think it is my job to prove a negative, but I base myself on the evidence we have available for the existence of god. I personally don't see god anywhere in our natural world of order and chaos combined. Where do most people claim to see god? In visions, dreams, and revelations whether that be some experience of religious ecstasy or read it in a book claiming divine inspiration is irrelevant. None of these methods of detecting god are valid since they are completely subjective to the person claiming the experience, to the rest of us they are meaningless and require our faith in the word of the revealer.

Conveniently, as in all mythological creatures god exist outside of the natural realm according to his believers. Outside the reach of science and untestable in any way.

Thanks for that and since you say that "I am convinced that god does not exist" I will agree with you that you are a genuine strong atheist and hence the subject of my OP.

Could you please answer the two questions (if you haven't already - apologies if you have) I posed in the OP.

You will find later that I will not be asking you to prove a negative - that is not the scope of my post (refer OP).

Glad to have helped.

(January 21, 2010 at 7:31 am)Tiberius Wrote: How do you test the "theory" that there is no God then? Outline some tests that demonstrate the truth of that statement.

Very good point.

You could of course turn that on its head.
What test would demonstrate Gods existance?
I cant think of any.

So I have concluded that, given the present lack of evidence to the contrary, there is no god.

That there is no supporting evidence of god's existence seems to be the most solid argument in favour of atheism. I'd love to know what better argument supports "there's no god", if this isn't.

No evidence for God = No reason to believe ≠ God does not exist.

In other words that does not prove 'God' does not exist, but it is an argument for Atheism, as in there is no valid logical reasoning that supports the existence of God, thus it is only reasonable to withhold belief in God indefinitely meaning you are without gods and thus an Atheist (A = Without, Theist = Belief in god or gods).

So I can only believe in the negative? What if my belief is in what's real? (regardless if there is a god or not - I'm faithful there isn't)...

Imho the only intellectually honest position is that it is unreasonable to believe as we cannot conclusively prove he does not exist.

I am 99.9% sure he does not exist, everything considered (the argument that he was conceived of by humans in a primitive attempt to explain the universe by anthropomorphising it being the most convincing for me) , but i would be lying to myself and everyone else if i made the assertion that he definitely does not exist.

(January 24, 2010 at 11:27 am)downbeatplumb Wrote: Very good point.

You could of course turn that on its head.
What test would demonstrate Gods existance?
I cant think of any.

So I have concluded that, given the present lack of evidence to the contrary, there is no god.

So your view is that things don't exist until evidence demonstrates that existence? I think that view is quite self-refuting.

Exactly Adrian, Evidence supporting the statement that God does not exist, does not exist. If absence of evidence is evidence of absence then by the same logic the lack of evidence for the non-existence of God means the evidence for the non-existence of God does not exist.