A good case against God

[popeyespappy]

I could can name several a couple that no any sensible person would question the existence of. Moses, the Judges of Israel, Eric Clapton.

fify

[Taqiyya Mockingbird]

There are no good cases against the existence of god, as there are no good cases against the existence of Santa Claus. But there are definitely good arguments against the existence of god, such as, the proof of the existence of god has never been observed, similar to the existence of Santa Claus has never been proved. That does not mean that god or Santa Claus does not exist; its only that the probability of their existence is almost negligible.

I think for either to be examined you have to first define what each of those, i.e. God and Santa Claus is. Then you have to look at the origins as well as the mythology.

You can't say there is no such thing as Santa Claus and pass 2 or 3 of them on the way to the mall to pick up your kid who has been talking to another one. All you are really saying is that you don't ascribe to the common mythology.

An atheist and a theist celebrating Easter or Christmas is about the same thing.

You seriously believe that those men dressed up in red are Santa Claus? Who let you out of your nut-coat to post here?

[Skepsis]

I assume then you have no good argument or verbalizable reason to think that they are true. It seems to me that you know them by intuition or experience, the same way many people know God exists.

No, it is called foundationalism. Look it up. They are necessary presuppositions to function in the world. The reason you make them is to avoid killing yourself or mental illness. All famous nihilists were radical skeptics and generally died in strange suicide. One even hung himself in his insane asylum with a sock after writing a series of letters signed "Jesus Christ".
These presupposions aren't known by intuition, they are understood by sense perception and validated by necessity. Surely you can't be so dense as to equate this to God(s).

God's existence is falsifiable. People in the past have thought they falsified it by using the problem of evil or finding an incoherence in the attributes of God. However, I think such attempts have failed. As for being immaterial etc… I would remind you that these are not ad-hoc properties of God as the result of modern science, they have been around long before that.

God has no ad hoc properties. It is just a being that is revered and seen to be the "greatest" of something. As it stands, you still haven't properly defined God, so I have nothing to work with. Also, I can present the argument from evil in a way that isn't possible to refute. I generally don't use it as it only means that, if there is a God, he is a prick. I don't like granting God's existence even for the sake of argument because sometimes the idiots I'm arguing against take it the wrong way and say something like, "Oh, so I see you are suppressing God..."
Be sure to define your God, so I can eliminate your proposition.
Oh, and to adress you specifically, he is practically unfalsifialbe. Unless you say that he interacts with the world or has any traits that might have influenced creation, then he is unfalsifiable and thus an unresticted negative proposal.

Does it follow that you should also believe that there are no extra-terrestrials in the universe? I don't think so. I also do not accept that there is no evidence, I just think that the evidence is experiential and intuitive rather than demonstrable.

Here we are. I found the stumbling block that you are struggling to get past with all your intellectual prowess, but you are failing miserably.
So here it is:
You cannot or will not distinguish between lack of belief and belief in the inverse/belief that proposition x is untrue. Like Cthulu Dreaming has said a number of times, you need to understand the difference between
I believe in the existence of x and
I believe the existence of x is likely.

I believe that the existence of aliens that have visited Earth to be immensely unlikely. I believe the existence of extraterrestrial low-level life forms to be very likely.

It doesn't follow that you should "believe there are no aliens in the universe", but it does follow that you shouldn't believe there are aliens.

It comes down to this simple breakdown: You either
1. Believe there are no- x(s) -in existence
2. Believe there are- x(s) -in existence
3. Don't believe there to be any- x(s) -in existence.

Hopefully I shed some light on the topic.

[CliveStaples]

Excuse me, asshole? I didn't call that evidence. Blow it out your fucking ass.

Well, you're a pleasant fellow. So you're a badass on the internet? I bet that translates well into real life.

Watch for when Harris' lips are moving.

Well, it wasn't when he was talking about his exchange with the female scientist who refused to say whether a culture that removed the eyes of every third child (due to religious motivation) was failing to perfectly maximize human well-being. And it wasn't in the next exchange I watched--since it's a pain to go through and look for when Harris appears--where Harris started talking about how the problem of evil meant that God wasn't likely to exist (a bit off-topic, I thought, but then so was Craig).

Is it really that hard for you to give a single time where Harris addresses the Kalaam Cosmological Argument?


...wait.

...it couldn't be that...you haven't actually watched the video yourself...could it? That would make you...an asshole.

Nice straw man, fuckwit. My argument is that \you have not and cannot provide a shred of evidence to support x -- your silly ass superstitious fucking sky fairy story. And until you trot your fairy-tale-monster god-figure out in front of us in the flesh, you have nothing to refute it.

You use that word a lot, "fuck". Did you just learn it? Is this your first time swearing? Man, I remember those halcyon teenage years, when a colorful expletive flying off the tongue made the day just a bit more magical...

Ahem.


That's a really interesting argument. I'd like to see some support for it, though; how do you know that I "cannot provide a shred of evidence to support" that God exists? I get the rhetorical reason to call it a "fairy-tale-monster god-figure", because you want it to seem fictional, but since God's status as a fictional entity is the very issue under debate, it seems like a cheap rhetorical trick. And we all know that you rationalist-skeptic atheists are characterized by reason and logic, not manipulative appeals to emotion, right?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

That's a really interesting argument. I'd like to see some support for it, though; how do you know that I "cannot provide a shred of evidence to support" that God exists? I get the rhetorical reason to call it a "fairy-tale-monster god-figure", because you want it to seem fictional, but since God's status as a fictional entity is the very issue under debate, it seems like a cheap rhetorical trick. And we all know that you rationalist-skeptic atheists are characterized by reason and logic, not manipulative appeals to emotion, right?

Then please provide evidence for said god and we'll move on from there. Then we will know that you can indeed provide evidence, and that Taq is in fact incorrect.

NB: Personal anecdotes, opinions and beliefs are not evidence.

I look forward to reading your evidence and reassessing my views on the matter.

[Skepsis]

Nice straw man, fuckwit. My argument is that \you have not and cannot provide a shred of evidence to support x -- your silly ass superstitious fucking sky fairy story. And until you trot your fairy-tale-monster god-figure out in front of us in the flesh, you have nothing to refute it.

You use that word a lot, "fuck". Did you just learn it? Is this your first time swearing? Man, I remember those halcyon teenage years, when a colorful expletive flying off the tongue made the day just a bit more magical...

Ahem.

That's a really interesting argument. I'd like to see some support for it, though; how do you know that I "cannot provide a shred of evidence to support" that God exists? I get the rhetorical reason to call it a "fairy-tale-monster god-figure", because you want it to seem fictional, but since God's status as a fictional entity is the very issue under debate, it seems like a cheap rhetorical trick. And we all know that you rationalist-skeptic atheists are characterized by reason and logic, not manipulative appeals to emotion, right?

Are you seriously going to get at him for cussing? Only the religious would give special abilities to words. Besides, you look at explitives a a nastalgic throwback to the good ol' days. get over it.
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You also get onto him for calling god a monster creature fairy lord, or something, right? If him calling it as he sees it is an appeal to emotion, then so is you calling God, God.

[CliveStaples]

Then please provide evidence for said god and we'll move on from there. Then we will know that you can indeed provide evidence, and that Taq is in fact incorrect.

NB: Personal anecdotes, opinions and beliefs are not evidence.

I look forward to reading your evidence and reassessing my views on the matter.

Here's a random wikipedia link, apropos of nothing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance


You're shifting the burden of proof. Taq made the claim; he needs to support it, or retract it. I thought atheists were supposed to know about the basics of reasoned discussion.

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Are you seriously going to get at him for cussing? Only the religious would give special abilities to words. Besides, you look at explitives a a nastalgic throwback to the good ol' days. get over it.

...it was a bit. You know, a joke? Witty repartee? ...things going a little to fast for you?

You also get onto him for calling god a monster creature fairy lord, or something, right? If him calling it as he sees it is an appeal to emotion, then so is you calling God, God.

"God" is just a useful label. We aren't talking about NASCAR or WoW, we're talking about "God". If you'd prefer that I use the label "god" instead, I'm fine with that.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Then please provide evidence for said god and we'll move on from there. Then we will know that you can indeed provide evidence, and that Taq is in fact incorrect.

NB: Personal anecdotes, opinions and beliefs are not evidence.

I look forward to reading your evidence and reassessing my views on the matter.

Here's a random wikipedia link, apropos of nothing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance


You're shifting the burden of proof. Taq made the claim; he needs to support it, or retract it. I thought atheists were supposed to know about the basics of reasoned discussion.

Nonsense. I'm talking directly to you.

Provide evidence that your god exists and we can move on from there. If you cannot provide evidence, that we all have as much reason to agree with Taq re: you being unable to provide evidence.

I say I can fly around the earth in 2 seconds akin to that of superman. I don't provide evidence for it, but we get into discussions about how you not being able to refute my claim leads you to have no argument against my proposition. Absurd, no?

I find it ironic that you would post a WIKI link on an argument from ignorance as well...

[The Theist]

You seriously believe that those men dressed up in red are Santa Claus? Who let you out of your nut-coat to post here?

They are in effect, Santa Clause. Just like someone with a mask of Barack Obama are, in effect, Barry Soetoro. The point is there is, in both cases as in most cases, some mythology behind the truth. Atheists tend to want nothing more than to slander God without knowing much about the truth and the myth behind the meaning of the word God itself.

[Skepsis]

...it was a bit. You know, a joke? Witty repartee? ...things going a little to fast for you?

A bit? Never hear of a joke referred to like that. Anyway, I guess we all have our own sense of humor...

"God" is just a useful label. We aren't talking about NASCAR or WoW, we're talking about "God". If you'd prefer that I use the label "god" instead, I'm fine with that.

God may be useful, but I think it's silly to get onto to people for trivial things like labels. If I said "sticker cars going left" you would think NASCAR, and if I said "Mountain Dew Elven Warlord Loungechair" you might think WoW.
Same thing really. You call him God, I'll call him "magic sky fairy of chaos".
Fair?

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They are in effect, Santa Clause. Just like someone with a mask of Barack Obama are, in effect, Barry Soetoro. The point is there is, in both cases as in most cases, some mythology behind the truth. Atheists tend to want nothing more than to slander God without knowing much about the truth and the myth behind the meaning of the word God itself.

This looks bad...
Homor us, what is the meaning of "God"? It has been a topic of discussion on occasion here on the forums a number of times, but since you know for sure, hit me.