Atheism: The True Path?

[Edwardo Piet]

I didn't mention faith. You're avoiding the question. Is there no point of rationality without evidence?

Avoiding the question? I thought we were defining faith as simply 'belief without evidence' though. And if by "No rationality without evidence" you don't mean "no rationality in belief without evidence" then what do you mean? How can you 'have evidence' how can you be 'with evidence' without believing/disbelieving in that evidence. How can you rationally consider it without a belief stance? And if by 'without evidence' you do mean 'belief without evidence' then that is faith (by the definition we've been going by) so it was implied in your statement. And if you don't mean that, then what do you mean exactly?

Yes, faith in the cream cake in the centre of the earth requires there to be no knowledge of said cream cake.

So to believe anyway is irrational. Because to believe anyway with no indication of the existence of (IOW evidence for) the Cream Cake is irrational. And "God" is irrational for exactly the same reason. The personal absurd incredulity of the Cream Cake is irrelevant; I find God pretty personally absurd anyway, but that's irrelevant. The reason why I don't believe he exists is for exactly the same reason that I disbelieve in the said cream cake; and that's the reason why it's irrational to believe in either. And that reason being that there's no indication that either exists, no more indication for "God" than the Cream Cake, whatsoever.

The Bible doesn't give indication to God's actual existence any more than if I wrote on a piece of scrap paper right now, the words "There is a cream cake at the center of the universe" - gives evidence for such a cream cake. The personal credulity or incredulity of either is completely irrelevant in both cases. That isn't the reason to disbelieve in either - entirely personal reasons have no bearing on objective matters. They are both to be disbelieved by me because there's no indication that either exist.

Your talking evidence for God when the statement is about considering faith. Try again: Are you willing to consider faith rationally or not?

If you can explain, in any way...how "Faith" simply defined as "belief without evidence", nothing more and nothing less - really can be at all rational, then yes. How on earth could that be rational to the matter of the actual existence?

The actual existence of the subject HAS to be unknown remember. So FSM, tooth fairy, or serious entity has to be completely unknown to exist to you.

And obviously you can only know what you know. So if all these things are equally unknown, then you have no more reason to believe that any of them exist than any other. God's actual existence is on even footing with the FSM - there's no indication for either.

I'm not talking about absolute knowledge. I'm not talking about proof. I'm talking about evidence as in any indication whatsoever that God exists... or any indication that he exists, whatsoever any more than the FSM

You can rationally consider faith. But the rules are that you cannot know.

With "Faith", you not only can't absolutely know, but you are believing without any indication that the thing you have Faith in, exists at all, right? So there's no more indication God actually exists than the FSM and yet you believe anyway. Because if there was indication of God's actual existence then you couldn't 'have "Faith"' in him (by the definition we're going by) because such an indication would count as evidence, and you can't have faith if you have evidence.

Rationally doesn't mean use proof. It just means using logic. To say you can't start thinking without proof is absurd.

I'm not speaking of proof. I'm speaking of any indication that such a "God" exists whatsoever. That's what I mean by evidence. I'm not talking about 'Proof'. I'm not being absolutist here.

Potential evidence for my God is everything there is. Evidence for the FSM as a joke deity is a non starter.

There's no indication that God exists any more than the FSM, if there was there would be evidence and then you couldn't have faith. So God is just as much a non-starter as the FSM because there's no indication whatsoever that either exist. The fact that the FSM is 'a joke diety' is completely irrelevant because that's a personal thing. Whether the FSM or God are a joke or not is irrelevant to whether they actually exist - the point is whether there's any any indication that they actually exist, whatsoever (IOW any evidence...that's what I mean by "evidence").

So you agree that Special pleading is an unreasonable limitation. Good.

I do agree, yes. So I just wonder why you do such special pleading to your "God". Because there's no more indication that he exists than the FSM and yet you pick him out.

If there is any indication that "God" actually exists then that would be evidence of his existence. So you couldn't have faith. If not you're doing special pleading.

There's no indication that God actually exists any more than the FSM, unless you can enlighten me.

snore

I'm deadly serious tho. You may think the FSM is absurd, you may say (as you have said on another thread that you "pity" me for "not being able to tell the difference", but as I said on the thread, I pity you (to some extent anyway) for not being able to clarify the difference, you seem to only be capable of expressing that you have special pleading. There is no indication that God exists any more than the FSM, I'm deadly serious about that, 100% serious, absolutely. So indeed, unless you can show that there's any more indication that God exists any more than the FSM...then yes it's just special pleading on your part.

Well that was short lived. You're back on with special reasoning... with no reason. Cool.

I do have a reason why it's special pleading. The reason being, that it's special pleading...because there's no more indication that your "God" exists any more than the FSM or anything else without evidence!. So that's why to believe anyway is special pleading.

Exsqueeze me? Fallacious how? Because the book doesn't give proof of God's existence when it says it can't?

It not only doesn't give proof. It doesn't give any indication that God exists whatsoever. Nor does it give any reasons to believe that any experience in life is indication that he exists. To say that the Bible is in any way valid to matter of whether God exists or not is fallacious because it would be circular reasoning to believe as such. If you are not saying that, then I can simply conclude that if there's no indication to believe that God exists then there's no reason to believe he does any more than the FSM and so it's also special pleading to believe in God anyway. So if the Bible is any way special, is only special on a subjective personal level to whoever finds it that way; and it has nothing to say on the matter of God in reality...because if it did we would need to believe he actually existed first - and as I said, the bible doesn't give any indication that he exists whatsoever. And nor does anything else...as I said - unless you can enlighten me?

A book doesn't give indication to the existence of a supernatural superbeing. For exactly the same reason why the FSM Gospel doesn't give indication to the existence of the FSM.

I'm glad I can agree with you on something at last.

So we agree that the Bible gives no indication that "God" (as a supernatural superbeing, a creator of the universe) exists in reality, any more than the FSM Gospel gives indication that the FSM exists in reality? Right?

In which case if you are believing in God over the FSM it's simply a case of special pleading. Because there's no more indication that God exists than the FSM, in the Bible or the FSM Gospel. And no more indication elsewhere...at all that God actually exists, than there is of the FSM either, so it's special pleading As I say - unless you can enlighten me.

You cry that you can't understand it whilst refusing to follow the logic.

What logic? The logic of believing in X without evidence as opposed to Y without evidence for personal preference?

You just contradicted the logic again.

Cry? When? It's not that I don't understand it. It's that I do understand exactly why there is no reason to believe God exists.

Same thing.

Eh? What do you mean? Do you mean you saying that 'not understanding it' is the same as 'understanding why there's no reason to believe it' is the same thing? Or do you mean that 'understanding why there's no reason to believe it' is the same thing as 'crying'?

For exactly the same reason to believe that the FSM doesn't exist. Subjective experience gives no indication for the existence of either of them in reality, Books are not indication either, whether labeled "Holy" or not is irrelevant because they don't truly give any credence to God (or the FSM ) actually existing until you already assume he (or it ) exists, in order to make them truly "Holy" rather than simply labeled as such and believed as such.

So can you get over this now?

Get over what? I am just pointing out that there's no more indication that "God" exists than the FSM is all, so you're doing special pleading. That's all.

That makes you deliberately ignorant.

Sorry, I'm just too busy with the FSM I'm not going to do special pleading with your God, sorry but I'm just too busy with the FSM to follow this 'logic' of yours. I'll do my special pleading with the FSM instead. To each his own, fair enough?

Hmm but tomorrow I feel like a change. Tomorrow I might randomly dream up some other random thing to believe 'On faith' (out of the countless conceivable things to believe in without evidence that there are) that's just as valid (or invalid rather) as your God.

Yeah. You're too tied up with thinking bollocks to consider anything remotely sensible for a moment. your choice though.

The point is there's no more indication that your God exists than anything I randomly dream up. That's whats not remotely sensible...your belief - in terms of the truth of whether it's actually true, whether your God actually exists, is all.

You don't 'believe in your arm. You 'know'. It's different. That isn't 'believe'. Believe means something different. Again, you can't change the meaning of words to suit yourself. They have accepted definitions in the english language.

I do believe my arm exists because I don't disbelieve that it exists. I can't help but believe it exists, the belief can be really strong, as strong as any belief can be. It doesn't have to be vague.

I disagree. I don't disbelieve in the existence of my arm. Nor do I disbelieve in Evolution, for example. But this doesn't mean I have faith in them because I don't believe on these things without evidence. Assuming we are continuing to define faith as nothing more than "Belief without evidence".

I hope you see the glaring faults in this paragraph. Like I said, you need to erase those words.

Hmm..what faults? Perhaps I failed to clarify the fact that I obviously do believe in the existence of my arm...because I certainly don't disbelieve in it's existence (that's what I was trying to imply). It's not that I deny that it exists!! I believe it does - based on evidence (that's at least mostly self-evident

It's purely rational because it can't be evidential? So it's purely rational to believe in the FSM for exactly the same reason then? Or Zeus? Or the IPU? Or Russell's Teapot? Or [Insert a random string of more unprovable things there can be no evidence of here, regardless of the absurdity level]?

Your suggestions are absurd yes. Mine isn't.

The 'absurdity' of them doesn't in and of itself give them any more or less indication to whether they actually exist than the level of God's absurdness (whatever level that be). The absurdness is irrelevant, the point is there's no indication that either exist. Personal credulity or incredulity is irrelevant to the question of whether something actually exists or not.

if you KNEW God existed you wouldn't have to rationalise it. HOW MANY times have we been over that?

And as I have said before - I'm not talking about 'knowing' I'm talking about whether there's any indication...whatsoever - that God actually exists or not, any more or less than the FSM. If there isn't then how can you rationally believe God exists if there's no indication that he does whatsoever? You'd simply be doing special pleading to your "God" rather than the other countless things there's no indication of the actual existence of whatsoever (E.G, the FSM).

EvF