RE: Hello soulcalm17
August 2, 2024 at 6:11 am
(This post was last modified: August 2, 2024 at 6:18 am by Sheldon.)
(August 2, 2024 at 5:38 am)Belacqua Wrote:Yet my question remains unanswered, again.(August 2, 2024 at 4:32 am)Sheldon Wrote: Now I keep asking questions, and you keep ignoring them, while I promptly and honestly answer yours, so FYI, I shall not be answering another of your questions until you make some effort to answer mine that you've ignored. Debate requires reciprocity, and I am starting to feel a little like I'm being preached at, as you make claims, then when I address them, you either move on to new ones ignoring what I've said, or focus on minutia, like the numbers debate, which was tangential to evidencing a deity. Since you seem to be trying to make its existence an unfalsifiable concept. I explained my views on such ideas, and you ignored that completely.
That's not the way I see it, obviously,
Quote:Try this, what is the most compelling reason you think you have to believe a deity exists outside of the human imagination? I already asked, but it went unanswered?
Surely that is the best place to start, with the best reason you have to believe something.
Quote:There are things which seem self-evident and undeniable to you about which I am much less convinced.
Like what? I can't critically examine a claim that tells me nothing, and I am the best placed to say what I do and do not deem undeniable btw.
Quote:I don't really want to go on to the theological part of the discussion until I've addressed the priors on which you are making your judgments.I either will or will not find your reasons for belief compelling, you already do obviously. All that will happen is I will examine the claims critically and as objectively as I am able. I don't need handling or prep work. Parenthetically anything I assert can likewise be critically examined and subjected to rational scrutiny. That's part of the reason I bother with debate, to examine my own ideas, and have others examine them critically.
Quote:I suspect this is not what you want to work on, so I certainly won't insist.
Stop suspecting start asking would be my advice, and I have no idea what you mean by "work on" or what you're referring to? It does not however seem to involve you answering my questions when I ask them.
Quote:Your beliefs are much closer to the consensus on this forum than mine are,
What beliefs? Atheism is not a belief, it is the lack or absence of one, but I hold all beliefs to the same standard, no matter who is making them.
Quote:so you will do well with other people here, I'm pretty sure. Good luck to you.I would hope I will do well, because I express myself honestly, and without reservation, that subject all ideas and beliefs to the same standard, and want them all subjected to critical scrutiny, especially my own of course.
There is no belief or position I would not abandon if the objective evidence demanded it, if the idea is unfalsifiable then I must remain agnostic, but also disbelieving as I said previously this is the only rational position I can see. Believing all unfalsifiable claims is irrational, as it must involve believing contradictory claims, believing some and not others, given the impossibility of evidence either way, must involve bias for or against, and that is the definition of closed minded.
I think it's important to note, that when I say I don't believe a claim, that does not rationally infer I believe the opposite either. This would be especially true of unfalsifiable claims.