RE: Q: do you, Christian, claim that God exists, rather than you believe that he exists?
February 23, 2014 at 11:00 am
(This post was last modified: February 23, 2014 at 11:12 am by discipulus.)
(February 22, 2014 at 9:21 pm)rasetsu Wrote:(February 22, 2014 at 6:00 pm)discipulus Wrote: rasetsu, are you a human?
No, I am not. Though I can adopt that perspective, if you like, as I have a feeling it was an assumption you were making before you began this tack.
So you are not a human.
What are you then?
(February 23, 2014 at 7:51 am)Esquilax Wrote: So... you trust science up until the point that it contradicts something you want to believe.
That is not what he said or even intimated.
(February 23, 2014 at 7:51 am)Esquilax Wrote: Argument from popularity: many people believing something doesn't make it true, and by the way, how many of those smart people also believed in a flat earth, or alchemy, or any number of demonstrably flawed concepts?
This is not an argument from popularity. Notice what he said. He said that too many intelligent people believed in the supernatural for him to dismiss it. He did not say that many intelligent people believed the supernatural existed and therefore the supernatural exists. You have presented a strawman of his position.
If the vast majority of people throughout history had been atheists, I could not justifiably dismiss atheism. I would ask myself why they were atheists and set out to investigate their arguments and reasonings for their views.
(February 23, 2014 at 7:51 am)Esquilax Wrote: I think you have a very skewed view of how evidence and investigation work, Lek. The bible is correct on a number of things, however, that doesn't mean everything in the bible is true; Spiderman comics have New York in them, that doesn't mean Spiderman exists. Its magic claims still have yet to be demonstrated, or even shown to be possible... which is the problem we have.
What you say is true, just because the bible is correct on a number of things, it does not necessarily follow that therefore everything in the bible is true. Nor does he state this. Once again you are constructing a strawman of his position.
You then go on to state that the bible's "magic" claims have yet to be demonstrated or even shown to be possible.
The error in this reasoning is not unique to you, but a great many atheists I have dialogued with commit this error. It is called a "category mistake". You essentially are asking for non-transcendant, empirical, scientifically verifiable, conrete, material evidence for a transcendant, immaterial, incorporeal being that exists beyond the scope of scientific observation and measurement.
Secondly, empiricism as I have stated earlier is self-refuting. So I hope you are not an empiricist. What you should ask for is evidence that would be consistent with that of a transcendant being.
Thirdly there is no evidence that can be presented for the existence of God that cannot be simply dismissed or explained away by them that are unwilling to accept it.
