Any Theists on AF, I Challenge You to a Debate on the Existence of God

[fr0d0]

Sure, no you can't falsify a supernatural claim either, in general. If I say meta-wind is a necessary component of all real-wind movements, you can't prove me wrong. You can't prove me right either. That's why unfalsifiable claims are useless. You can make as many as you want, about anything. You cannot assign any sort of probability to it being true or false, as we have no experience of it. So the probability of anything to do with a supernatural God is unknown. Having no information does not mean that you know it's as likely as not. You don't even know if it possible it can exist at all.

If I claim I have a supernatural friend who could destroy the universe any time he wanted, and eats the meta-essence out of snooker balls, that's also unfalsifiable. Therefor, it's useless.

I'd like to do a little probability now, I used to be a maths teacher so SHUT UP and pay attention. Good. Wow, that never worked when I was a teacher.

I have a normal six sided die in a cup. I shake it all around nicely, then slam the cup down, with no one being able to see which way the dice has fallen. Including me.

Now I claim that the dice is showing a 6. This could be true, it could be false. No one can know, so they have to make up their own decision based on probability. But there are only two possibilities; it's a six, as I claim, or its not a six. Therefor, it's a 50/50 guess.

No it isn't. Two possibilities do not indicate a 50/50 split. In this case, you use what you know, your evidence, past experience and logic to determine that the probability the claim is true is 1/6. This is a clear cut situation, but it demonstrates the point.

Now, if someone is making a claim about something we don't understand, it's either right or wrong but we have no idea how to measure the probability. So saying it is 50 50 is just a guess. And an unhelpful guess which is almost certainly wrong.

I'm not continuing to debate, I have given up, but I thought that example may be useful.

You can't just conjure up any random notion and promote it royally to a coherent theory. That's the difference between everything else and the coherent God theory. That's what we're after. Time wasting not required.

Go stand in the corridor!

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I agree. It's only when you look further into the justifications of Thor and Loki that their possibility of existence fails. That's what a good concept is: possible.

Because there are modern followers of Norse paganism, I am gong to guess that they have tweaked their religion enough to make it seem plausible to them. Maybe I should have used Odin because there is a legend about him hanging for several days to bring knowledge to humans. He seems like a god that could fit in with modern beliefs quite nicely.

The important thing is that your concept hold water. If I can find any holes in it I'll dismiss it. It's quite easy really.

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No accepted current scientific theories posit a god as part of them.

I knew I could bank on science. Good call.

As science is a dispassionate way of viewing the totality of existence then all the experts in every field that counts refute the idea that a god exists at all and the abrahamic god fails even as a vague possibility.

Science refutes God?! Evidence please! (I'll assume that you're lying unless you can prove otherwise)

Its effects would have been too far reaching and deep but every time people looked for the proof none has been forth coming.

Yes of course. Evidence of the supernatural. Haha!

So theists go, " but ah its unknowable" or "ah its outside of time" or " ah we can't know the mind of god" all cop outs that let them cling to their bronze age beliefs.
You can safely bin the idea of a god.

On no evidence. Now you wouldn't want me to do that would you? That would be a double standard from you. Tsk tsk!