(March 27, 2013 at 9:04 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote: Lets see if we can settle this once and for all. Do you believe (not do you know of theories) that our existence and that of the universe is the result of or exists in some other fashion that is neither the result of plan and design or some unguided naturalistic process that unintentionally resulted in our existence?
Speaking for yourself you can claim that being an atheist just means you don't know or you're ignorant. But your mistaken if you think thats what the majority of atheists think and I could take a survey to prove it. The vast majority of atheists will claim to be nearly certain no God was involved in the cause of the universe because according to them there is no God, God doesn't exist.
I do not know that a creator was definitely not involved in the existance of our universe. I do not know this because I do not have evidence to prove that one was not in fact involved.
I do not believe that a creator was involved for the same reason. Here's the rub. I'm not claiming that one did, i'm simply rejecting anyone's claim that one is real and actually did for the same reasons I cannot SHOW that one did not.
I saw an example one time that illustrates this perfectly.
If I had 2 clear glass jars that both appeared to be empty.
I told you that one of them was infact empty but the other had a God in it that was responsible for every answer to every question you could have about anything.
But this God could not be seen or heard by you.
It lacked any attribute that you would associate with any actual being or thing whatsoever.
There was no experiment that you could do that shows that anything existed in the "God Jar" that didn't exist in the empty jar.
How then would I convince you of this claim?
If I had a really popular book that had unfalsifiable methods for individuals to prove it to themselves that the God was in the jar, but no way to show it to others for them to validate their claims, would that convince you?
What would it take to convince you that the God Jar had anything more in it than the empty one?
Perhaps they're both empty. Does that seem like a logical conclusion?
It certainly follows, but still isn't enough to PROVE that there's no God, but in this case the absence of evidence serves as evidence of absence.
(not all cases but many) as long as the properties and data that one would expect to exist should the thing you are looking to prove be true, then its certainly a very valuable rule of science.
Example: If I draw the conclusion that a planet doesn't exist between Earth and Mars, and I draw this conclusion based on the lack of any evidence of a spherical object of consideralbe mass anywhere to be found revolving around the sun between our planet and the next object that meets the qualifying criteria (mars) that can be viewed, there is no
reason to believe that there is an invisible one that just happens to defy all other characteristics and laws that all other objects in our universe would follow for no other reason than it just seems possible. Which it is! In the sense that it cannot be proven otherwise! Given that there is no method for recording invisible planets, I cannot in FACT say that one doesn't exist. It just seems more likely given the absence of evidence for any other object with similar qualities.
If you are to claim otherwise, show me why or i'm not interested.
I'm okay with the 2 empty jars. I don't need to place something in one in order to have a sense of closure for the things I just don't know right now.
The universe we have is precisely the one that could be expected and explained by a universe created out of chance from nothing. It is most likely quantum.
Quantum science is amazing. Look into the crazy postulates of string theory! It's mind boggling!
When I say that God doesn't exist, it is an assumption that has not been altered because its the default assumption. It's not on me to prove that your wrong any more than I would actually try to convince you that both of the jars aren't empty.
