Show me your proof

[Cyberman]

Oh, and please try not to tell me what to do and say. That's not nice.

You might not like it, but it doesn't make it "not nice". However, if you'd like, you may ignore my posts.

Not liking something is the very definition of "not nice". What I'm objecting to is being told to "work on" something other than what I want to talk about simply because you didn't want me to talk about it.

As for ignoring your posts: first, as a moderator I'm not allowed to do that - I'm cursed with having to sift through all the crap - and second, why are you apparently so opposed to discussion? Are you only here to proselytise?

By the same criteria, the existence of this god of which you speak would be...what, exactly? The existence of all that "other stuff" is proof of the existence of other stuff. Not exactly groundbreaking - and certanly not proof of any god.

We know of a hot pockets' existence by our senses. We know of existence by commonality. I can draw a bunch of different looking triangles on a white board, and you will find that common to them all is "triangle". Similarly, common to everything is "existence". This is the epistemology on the premise "stuff exists" for the necessary being proof.

Fine, so you've demonstrated that "stuff" which we can agree exists, exists. Congratulations; you've constructed what Daniel Dennett termed a "deepity". I'd still like to know how you get from there to a god of any description, because from what I've seen you haven't even come close to showing that. Merely asserting that it must exist simply because other things do is just silly. Or if not, I want my Martian Cheese Bicycle.

I don't want to talk about the proof of necessary being though. I want to talk statistics.

If you don't want to talk about something, may I suggest you don't bring it up in the first place?

This is nothing but simple shifting of the burden of proof. A common and familiar creature, easily recognised by its distinctive wailing cry and unkempt plumage. Traditionally regarded as a bird of ill omen, as its appearance in a discussion often signifies approaching defeat.

This is not intended to be a shifting of the burden of proof.

Whether you intended it or not is irrelevant; it is what it is and I calls 'em as I sees 'em.

These are intended to be rhetorical questions that are only answerable through a deity.

In other words, Magician's Choice. Or if you prefer, "You can have any colour you like, so long as it's black". You intended to define your deity of choice into existence via semantics and rhetoric and we're meant to be impressed by that? You do realise, don't you, that many of us here are so long in the tooth that we can eat six linguistic contortionists before breakfast?

However, I don't want to talk about the proof by necessary being. I want to talk statistics.

I'm trying to coin the term "dolphinetics", to describe the actions of (usually) theists when they leap, dolphin-like, from one argument as soon as it becomes uncomfortable and then dive headlong into relatively safer waters.