(June 28, 2015 at 8:25 pm)pool Wrote: Please read the complete thing so you get the whole idea,don't half-arse it and the come ahead and critisize me (please!)


Hi,

Here is a quick overview of my life story.
I used to go to church when i was very little.I was a firm believer in god.I don't remember exactly how but i eventually gave up on the idea of a god,my father may have had an influence on my decision,i don't really remember.Since then i was looking for a proof or evidence or logic to back up my decision,i came up(or came across,i don't exactly remember.)with the logic that if such a God did exist i'd have seen/heard or had some kind of experience with it.Well i didn't have any experience or really any proof of existence with any of those God stuff,so i gave up on the idea of a god.I became an atheist(until a few years back(bear with me)).

So here's what happened:

I was looking at some facebook pages on Atheism and i liked a few pages and i regularly looked at their (hilarious)posts which often made fun of religious people and their beliefs.So here's the deal,i'm the type of person which would argue from both sides of an argument just so that i can say to myself with confidence that whatever i'm believing in is what any logical person would believe in.(I was still a firm atheist then)So seeing how other atheists made fun of religious people kind of pissed me off(I don't know why i just thought it was wrong).So i decided to argue with the existence of a God with the people that were on the page.Here's the thing,arguing about the non-existence of a god with a religious person is easy,they are usually in majority not a lot of bright bulbs and their arguments are full of holes but i wanted to see if i can provide real logical points if i was in the shoes of a religious person,i guess you could say i did it for the sake of the argument and for my own personal satisfaction.

I saw yet another post opposing religious behavior in which people again made fun of religious people,so i decided to comment something that apparently pissed the atheists on the post(which was stupid on my part).I was publicly made fun of/bashed for my apparently terribly stupid comment.I got scared,i mean arguing for the fun of the argument is one thing,but going 1 vs millions of atheists on a public post was another thing,so i quickly apologized and withdrew from the post.BUT i decided to not entirely give up,so i sent a message to the page that i wanted to clarify my doubts about the existence of a god.They replied(some admin) and said that they were always open for any discussion.
Sadly the discussion with them didn't go very well,i ended up being called stupid,dumb or something like that,i was also accused of being a religious person who was there to force his beliefs onto others,which hurt me because a lot of them were just swearing at me without clearing my doubt,however there was this ONE guy which was very calm and decided that he'd actually lend a ear to what i had to say.He explained to me how its not possible to prove a negative(which was very helpful),however as the discussion progressed i came up with more strong logical arguments(i thought they were strong)which would contradict atheism.

I went into that discussion as a strong atheist but i came out as a not-so-strong atheist which was a resultant of my own argument against myself and atheism. *sigh* There are so many terms like Atheism i don't even know what they all mean.I believe in logic.

If you were reading this from the beginning you'd probably be wondering what made me a not-so-strong atheist.
The argument that i came up by myself for fun which in turn contradicted my own beliefs on atheism is this :

Picture yourself sitting in front of yourself computer/mobile/tablet right now reading this post.
How strong is your knowledge about the device you are handling?I'm talking about the hardware,electric pulses kind of knowledge,not windows xp,windows 7 kind of knowledge.Well,we can't all be engineers so its okay to not have a wide area of knowledge on whatever device you're handling.How about the house that you are living in?Do you know the orgin of the design of your house,or what it takes to build a house?No?Its fine too who cares about the design of buildings that's what we have Architects for.
Well we all go out to beach at least once,how much knowledge do you have about the sand you're walking on?The chemical composition of a sand grain?Probably not too much.Me too.I mean if everything there was to know about a sand grain were to be written into a book,my knowledge about a sand grain would probably amount to about 1%(or possibly less)and i'm saying about the things that i know that i don't know,what about the things about a sand grain that i don't even know that i don't even know?Probably a lot.
To summarize if you were to consider a random ground on earth and drew a circle around it,take a step back and look at it,i mean REALLY look at it,you actually don't even know everything about that tiny place.I'd probably go as far as to say that it'd be impossible to know everything about something as little as that.

So i want you to imagine this scenario,like REALLY picture it inside your head.Imagine a person living on earth-in a country-in a state-in a neighborhood.This person doesn't even know everything there is to know about the community he lives in(everyone's name,their interests i'm talking about information in general).So a person with no clue about what is going around him(we all like to believe we have a good idea of what is happening around us,we don't,i'm talking about nature not politics or those kind of crap)who is merely a 1 in the billions of people on planet earth(and earth is probably like a single pixel on the screen you are looking at right now and the whole screen would only probably amount to our galaxy and there are countless galaxies)are you imagining it? Ok,so this person decides to believe that there is no supernatural being such as god.

I just don't see the logic in it.
How can a being such as humans,a very insignificant life form on a very average planet with a average star deny the existence of a supernatural being in the whole of the universe?Do we really have the right or the power to believe in that logic?
We are all familiar with people that can calculate numbers as fast or faster than calculators,right?Years ago people thought it was impossible for a human being to be that smart and one day this dude shows up.We like to define as what we see "normally"as "natural".We see humans with 2 eyes and 1 mouth - its natural,its normal.Many years ago this person that could calculate as fast as a calculator would've been pictured as a supernatural being.
We see such diverse cases on planet earth itself.Just today i saw in facebook that this toad had its eyes inside its mouth so everytime it had to see it had to open its mouth(i'm not sure if its legitimate,a quick google search would probably tell you).
*My point is,we see what we see up until today as normal,we categorize something unique which we may or may not see tomorrow as - supernatural.
If we do see it tomorrow,it becomes normal for us,i've read somewhere that the lack of knowledge about something often confuses humans into categorizing them as "Supernatural" or "God" and that's exactly what we are doing.
Toad with eyes in its mouth,humans that can calculate numbers as fast as calculators the list goes on,we probably don't know the half of it!These many unique things happening in our very own planet earth!
Do you believe in aliens?I do.
So what if an alien exists in some distant planet that can read minds or teleport or use telepathy or do something really supernatural.That being would be categorized as supernatural by us,right?What if that being is "God"?
I know what you are thinking,its a lot of what if's and just a lot of imagination.But think about it,i mean like REALLY think about it.We have so many unique occurencess in our very own planet earth(remember the pixel anology i mentioned above?)and we don't even know everything about the lang we step on.We are claiming that the existence of a supernatural being such as "God" or a similar supernatural being with similar attributes are impossible.Now when we deny the existence of this being,we are denying the existence of this being in the whole of the universe and Einstein said the universe is infinite?(Holy cow,right?!).
Think about the probability!If probability has any logic to it then i'd say that the probability of the existence of such a being is pretty high.Why? Because of the mere size of the universe.If i have a handful of sand in my hand the probability of finding gold ores in it would be very low but if i had the whole of the sand on earth to account for the probability would increase significantly,right?
Atheists ask me why i think there is a god i say probability.I am willing to acknowledge my insignificance and i know that i'm no one to downright deny the existence of a being such as "God".Why?Because its plain stupid!Its like living inside a room your entire life and you see only humans your entire life and then one day you go out and you see birds and you go Holy f**k i can't believe they're real!
The probability of the existence of a supernatural being such as "God" in our universe is not 0 and therefore it is possible but it is also not possible.So that's why i think i'm an agnostic or whatever i don't even know what they all mean as of now.But wouldn't that make Atheism pointless?Are you guys seeing the logic in this?I'd agree that its okay to believe in a god or believe in the non-existence of a god but doesn't that kind of put us at the extreme?Shouldn't we be more like "i'm not sure" rather "i'm sure theres a god" or "i'm sure there isnt a god"? Then you ask me why i think there's a god? Because i think that the mere size of the universe is so vast that the probability of the existence of a supernatural being such as "god" or a supernatural being with similar attributes such as a "god" is slightly higher,that's why.
So according to my logic only a person with infinity knowledge have the right to be an atheist because only then would that person actually know and that contrary to popular belief atheism isn't the actual logical desicion between the two(the other being believing in the existence of a god).

I know i'm probably not even as half as smart as you guys here and i'm really new here so please if i said something stupid please please don't just insult me and go away,i urge you to insult me and explain to me clearly why i'm wrong or just explain to me clearly why i'm wrong.

Thank you for reading this awfully long post!

Your logic is flawed just by the use of the word "right" as if your positions are a matter of law. You have the "right" to claim you are Napoleon but that does not make you Napoleon. 

Outside this I see this argument countless times, and the fence sitters try to justify that with one little aspect they never consider.

TIME in the context of past claims, current claims, and the future. Part of understanding this is knowing the horribly cobbled word "agnostic" which was never used by the ancient Greeks, but a term coined by Thomas Huxley to mean "fence sitter" which people like to make a stand alone word, but it is not.

"a" is the Greek prefix "without" and "gnosis" the suffex meaning "knowlege", so even with the way Huxley formed that word, it does not denote a position. It is like trying to treat a light switch as on and off at the same time.

Now, if you apply that to either theist or atheist, that is perfectly acceptable, because then it becomes an admission of a position while admitting you cant know for sure. 

Now as far as past claims, I am outright 100% sure all g/God/supernatural being claims are outright bullshit. My current position RIGHT NOW is "off" on past and current claims. I consider myself "technically" and "semantically" only "agnostic" about the future, but even then, I find  it highly unlikely with all the science I am aware of, and the abundance of evidence that humans merely make god claims up, that a g/God will fill in our current gaps in the future. 

I do not find it arrogant at all to leave bad claims in the past. Arrogant to me, is when you cling to the past to placate your own narcissism and or insecurities. The Church of Galileo's time were arrogant, Galileo simply told the truth.

"Technically" since we don't know the future, I might get a blowjob from Angelina Jolie, but I am quite sure you don't waste much time considering that any real possibility worth considering.

Humans stupidly fill in the god of the gaps only to later replace that unknown with a natural explanation. The natural explanation as to why god claims exist is because people make them up as a false sense of security psychologically reflecting their own narcissism and insecurities.

(July 6, 2015 at 1:04 pm)pool Wrote: X=5;
Y=X;
It is proven that X was not initially 5 but rather non-existent.
What is the value of Y now?

(I reduced my idea to something that is THAT SIMPLE.I can't make it anymore simple!)

Try this:

1. A theist is a person that believes in god.
2. The Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury are people.
3. The Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury believe in god.
4. The Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury exist.
5. Theists exist.

Get it now?

(July 6, 2015 at 2:09 pm)Mr.wizard Wrote:

(July 6, 2015 at 2:06 pm)pool Wrote: I don't think you realize it but you just implied that i'm right.

No I didn't, you just said if a baby knew about the concept of god it would automatically mean the he believes in god, and I just told you that I know of the concept of god and I don't believe he exists. It directly refutes the conclusion you came to in your previous post.

You misread.

Quote:According to that logic,
Babies that know about god should automatically believe in god too.

Assuming you chose a baby to demonstrate your idea based on the fact that babies are completely oblivious to the concept of a "God":

Consider a person that have a reasonable capacity to reason and arrive at logical conclusions that doesn't know anything about god.
According to your logic,if i told this person about god,then that makes him a theist by default.
(Do you see how faulty that logic is?Telling a person about god doesn't implies that  that person is a theist by default.It simply implies what it states - that this person know what god is!)

Which is false.Very false!

According to Your logic.Not my logic.
It's okay,it happens.

(July 6, 2015 at 2:13 pm)Cato Wrote: Get it now?

Not likely, but if he does he'll never let on.

He never said babies default to the theist position, because they learn about god. He said disbelief is the default position, this is true when your assessing any claim.

Pool, theists exist. Why do they exist? Well, to answer that we would have to understand the concept of theism and what it implies for a theist. 

Theism implies a belief in a supernatural entity, like a god or gods. So for the existence of a theist to be possible there has to be a person who has a belief in such a thing - God. This does not address the question of the validity of his belief though, simply the existence of the belief itself. The fact of the matter is, beliefs exist independent of what they imply because beliefs are simply constructs of the mind. They exist in the mind of the believer. They are abstract things but they exist nonetheless. Get it? Beliefs exist. And, more importantly, so do believers. Just as atheists doo. Just as about any other idea out there. Ideas exist indifferent of what they represent. So god is just an idea. It exists as such - as an idea. So does a believer in God - he exists as an idea first and foremost. We sometimes use ideas to describe objects, people and even other ideas that already describe their own objects and people.

 Ideas are things that exist. We think them, say them out loud and generally share them with each other. Therefore they exist. Just so, we talk about God and theists and therefore they exist, but in a slightly different manner from each other or by certain varying degrees. Because, see, theists have their immediate equivalents in reality - real people with real thoughts that happen to have an idea of God and hold on to that idea as something real, even though it's not real by any standart. Gods have as of yet no such equivalents in reality. Therefore they describe in fact nothing pertaining to the real world - at least not at first sight. That doesn't invalidate their existence as ideas though. 


In conclusion, and to simplify this daunting block of text, theists are simply one of many constructs that help as describe different aspects of reality. In that sense, anything language touches is real, but it's paramount to understand the degree to what something can be real. Can you touch a theist? Does it have in that sense an equivalent outside of the mind, does it go about in the physical world? Why yes, in fact, you can find very many of them if you just go in a place of worship, like a church, or a mosque. These are real beings, that we happen to describe for the different things they represent. We call them theists whenever they happen to hold a belief in God. But of course theism means nothing in and of itself. It is merely an attachment to the human being, something to describe him by, something to distinguish him from a person who doesn't happen to believe in a God, like a Buddhist for example.


That the world(meaning all of humanity) isn't rational enough for us not to have to even discuss or know about such an irrational concept like God is a sad thing but it is a part of reality nonetheless. You can deny it all you want but theists do exist because humans exists and some humans have been known to hold beliefs in gods. That's all there is to it.

I hope I covered it.

This thread makes we want to weep manly, salty tears of despair. Pool, I am going to very clearly and precisely communicate my words to you, in the hope that you can understand.

Please. Fuck. Off. You. Dumb. Bag. Of. Elephant. Semen.

(July 6, 2015 at 2:18 pm)Mr.wizard Wrote: He never said babies default to the theist position, because they learn about god. He said disbelief is the default position, this is true when your assessing any claim.

Yep, what he said. ty wiz

(July 6, 2015 at 2:15 pm)pool Wrote:

(July 6, 2015 at 2:09 pm)Mr.wizard Wrote: No I didn't, you just said if a baby knew about the concept of god it would automatically mean the he believes in god, and I just told you that I know of the concept of god and I don't believe he exists. It directly refutes the conclusion you came to in your previous post.

You misread.

Quote:According to that logic,
Babies that know about god should automatically believe in god too.

Assuming you chose a baby to demonstrate your idea based on the fact that babies are completely oblivious to the concept of a "God":

Consider a person that have a reasonable capacity to reason and arrive at logical conclusions that doesn't know anything about god.
According to your logic,if i told this person about god,then that makes him a theist by default.
(Do you see how faulty that logic is?Telling a person about god doesn't implies that  that person is a theist by default.It simply implies what it states - that this person know what god is!)

Which is false.Very false!

According to Your logic.Not my logic.
It's okay,it happens.

Its your logic you only represented as our logic you little dishonest fuck, nobody on here has made the argument you just presented. In fact that argument looks like the argument you have been making the whole time. knowledge of a concept = belief in a concept, that is your argument not mine.

Stupid as he is he does raise some interesting philosophical questions. These questions though, difficult as they are at first sight, they can and were resolved already by proeminent philosophers. I would suggest that pool studied philosophy of language first and foremost. That is, if he is not too lazy to do so.
He likes me because I take his erroneous and chaotic statements and make sense of them as best I can, transform them in something more tangible and logical and then talk to him as though he was consistent from the very beginning. I think more of us should do this. Not everyone has the same tools of reason at his side as some of us do. If they did, they wouldn't need our help in the first place. So this begs the question why are we even atheists if all we do is try and reason with theists and stupid people exactly as we would with other rational people like ourselves? We should rather get to down to everybodies levels and try to reason with them instead of expecting them to reach logical conclusions on their own. Bombarding them with obviousness and being blunt doesn't help in the least if the person concerned only speaks the following languages: stupid and emotion.
Atheism needs more tact and tactic and less intellectual tantrums.