(September 3, 2013 at 11:39 pm)Drich Wrote: Which all arguments with you eventually default to 'proof.' No matter what is being discussed when you run out of steam, you default to 'no proof in God.' Then I point out if you want proof then you have to a/s/k for it, and the circle begins anew.
I could simply default to that at the start and win every fight with he first punch, but that's no fun. What happens is that you make assertions of God's existence, or which are only valid if he does exist, as if they are objectively true statements instead of (very generously speaking) hypotheses which are designed specifically to resist any attempt to test their factual content. So, naturally, I am forced to ask for objective evidence when faced with people making assertions which are indistinguishable from fiction. And what do I get when I ask for objective evidence that the creator of all things exists? I am told to seek subjective evidence from a book which I can't trust because there is no external proof verifying a single relevant claim it makes.
You accuse me of defaulting to a request for legitimate proof of your claim (as if that behavior is not the very basis of any intellectual exercise), while in the literal next breath defaulting to a book which is an example of precisely the opposite of the thing I asked for. Accepting anything in the bible as factual involves first accepting its incredible premesis entirely on faith, and when I am at the point where the foundation of what I think of as truth has no moorings to objective reality, I may as well give up any pretensions of truthseeking, because I am now willing to accept something as true either because I simply wish it was or because not accepting it would mean that I lack integrity if I didn't apply the same skepticism to the core premise (a glaring fault virtually every theist possesses: any argument in favor of one supernatural god works perfectly well favoring any supernatural god).
In short, the one criteria which is necessary to establish your claim as not being obvious horseshit is the one criteria you can never possibly satisfy. It's obvious why: whenever a natural system is finally examined objectively, there's no evidence of a god at work. Never. Not once. Without any trace of the magic theists insist must have been at work, a few realize that there is no magic and never was. The recalcitrant majority simply redefine the magic, taking special care to create an ambiguity that no scientifically valid examination can ever resolve. This is an effective gambit as long as people don't seriously question the validity of an intentionally unfalsifiable assertion. You've decided that not winning any argument is an acceptable cost to insure that you'll never lose one. It'll work nicely as a short-term strategy but is doomed to fail in the long run. Faith itself is important to religion only because advocating a truly objective and unbiased approach to any religion can only harm it as methods of empirical examination of reality grow more effective. Before we knew what made bad weather and plagues, when religion was dominant in all social, economic and political human affairs, threats and violence were more efficient. Faith exists as an option only because more than one option is allowed. You think a Muslim theocracy cares about faith? They'll give you faith at gunpoint if you're having trouble finding it yourself. They have no need for apologetics.
