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RE: Evidence for atheism
September 25, 2014 at 3:21 pm
(September 25, 2014 at 2:50 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Every negative claim explicitly invokes a positive one. It's not impossible to prove/disprove a negative at all. It's just irritating.
I agree; however clearing Smith of murder doesn't prove that Jones did it. The unstated implication is that a god is the positive to the naturalistic negative, when it's never been established that those are the only two options on the table. We have to account for and eliminate possibilities - such as everything we do know of the Universe's origins being incomplete and some other, deeper physics about which we can't imagine with our current level of science - before we can even entertain a binary choice.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: Evidence for atheism
September 25, 2014 at 3:27 pm
(This post was last modified: September 25, 2014 at 3:29 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(September 25, 2014 at 3:21 pm)Stimbo Wrote: The unstated implication is that a god is the positive to the naturalistic negative, when it's never been established that those are the only two options on the table. Which is fine. If I say there are no gods in the box, we open the box and look. If we see a god in the box I'm wrong. Simple.
Those -are- the only options according to the claim. Either there is or there is not a god in the box. What third option could there be?
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Evidence for atheism
September 25, 2014 at 3:29 pm
Ah, but now you're doing science. Great if there's something there to test. Trouble is, the empty box will always contain a god, as long as it can be redefined continually out of reach.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: Evidence for atheism
September 25, 2014 at 3:33 pm
We're doing logic as well. The claim is whats being tested. The claim exists. If someone constantly shifts the goalposts then they've failed at logic, haven't they?
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Evidence for atheism
September 25, 2014 at 3:36 pm
Completely agree.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: Evidence for atheism
September 25, 2014 at 3:37 pm
(September 25, 2014 at 1:58 pm)Madness20 Wrote: But in sum, and allow me the analogy, God is like an unicorn: it could exist, it's viable, it'd be very reasonable to exist. If we are considering the possibility that there exists a breed of animals that are essentially horses with a single horn in their foreheads, I agree that such a thing is plausible. As you note, we know that there are animals with horns and tusks and similar growths, so it wouldn't be a fantastic thing for there to be such an animal. A being that is anything like the gods that are often described by believers today has no parallel, nor anything that we can compare it to and say "with just a few changes, this would be a god."
We also have to keep in mind the significance of such a discovery. Finding unicorns would be pretty neat, but not outside the realm of reality. We could reasonably expect to discover them at some point, if they're really out there. Finding god would be a world-changing discovery for every person on the planet, and it doesn't seem like the kind of thing we could easily brush aside. The lack of any sign of god outside of emotional appeals and philosophical blabbering strikes me as much more significant than the idea that the universe is so amazing that someone had to have made it.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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RE: Evidence for atheism
September 25, 2014 at 3:49 pm
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: Evidence for atheism
September 25, 2014 at 3:51 pm
(September 25, 2014 at 3:49 pm)Stimbo Wrote: ![[Image: 20140912.png]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.smbc-comics.com%2Fcomics%2F20140912.png)
I guess you could say that horse is...
Getting long in the tooth.
![[Image: csi_yeah_skyline-s449x287-138348.jpg]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=files.sharenator.com%2Fcsi_yeah_skyline-s449x287-138348.jpg)
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
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RE: Evidence for atheism
September 25, 2014 at 3:52 pm
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: Evidence for atheism
September 25, 2014 at 3:59 pm
(This post was last modified: September 25, 2014 at 4:03 pm by robvalue.)
This link got quoted earlier, seemingly in an attempt to disrupt my claim about the Isiah verse: http://www.gotquestions.org/Isaiah-45-7....z3ELMxidPC
This looks like an apologetic site, and it says that "evil" could be a mistranslation. (Unreliable bible, again.) It says that in Hewbrew god could instead be bringing one of, "adversity, affliction, calamity, distress, misery." Well, that's not much of a counter since all of those things are clearly not omnibenevolant actions.
Yeah the weird thing is, I could understand the bible being put forth as some amazing book if it actually was amazingly good, as in moral. But it isn't. God is about the least moral character I could possibly imagine. It is much more likely satan wrote the book and portrayed himself as god. Could anyone tell the difference I wonder? Also it is incomprehensibly stupid, riddled with contradictions, filled with known forgeries and after-the-fact edits, filtered by men via a vote... it's about the least convincing thing I could imagine. I really don't get why it has such a hold over people. (Indoctrination, mainly, I guess.)
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