(August 17, 2013 at 2:02 pm)pshun2404 Wrote: I do not know one way or the other whether or not there is a god but I noticed in my studies of Philosophy that it is a huge topic producing around 15 or so arguments demonstrating the probability for, and yet none that I could find actually negating the probability.
It seems to me that the concept of god has been developed to include the trait that he cannot be detected by any means that we can use to detect any other item/object in the universe. Therefore the usual methods that we would use to verify the existence of something, and thus the methods we use to conclude that it does not exist, are dismissed when it comes to determining whether god exists.
Theists may roll their eyes when seemingly silly examples like leprechauns and the Tooth Fairy are brought up, but those are used to demonstrate the silliness of the claims in favor of god's existence. God is granted a special exemption that demands that we disprove him or that we accept his existence as a possibility that is much more likely than that of any other fanciful creature.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
