Why do you not believe in God?

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, the trouble with pants is that you need poly-blend material to affix a proper zipper.....that's ignoring any trace amounts of iron smelted into the zipper assembly itself, which as we all know, is fucking kryptonite to the Lord Almighty, who is very interested in peoples genitals to begin with, and so must have access.

[jonb]

Oh it's a robe is it! That explains why a smudge of priests got upset when I referred to their mulies.

Of course, by wearing robes they can get away with not wearing pants. Makes it easy to get a quickie from the altar boys!

Which is the ancient prayer:-

Pass me another choirboy Vicker, this ones split.
Which I have forgotten the latin for

[jonb]

A much better prayer is by N F Simpson From 'the Resounding Tinkle'
the sound on this is awful but is the best I can present now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXBh1w5aolE

[Jeffonthenet]

If the God of Jesus Christ exists there is a good possibility that you will go to hell when you die… that seems enough of a reason to take the question seriously.

"If the God of Jesus Christ exists"? Are you now unsure?

I then have to move on to your quote, "there is a good possibility that you will go to hell when you die..". According to you, not only is Jesus' existence subject to an 'if' statement, you also proclaim that there is only a 'possibility' of going to hell. How kind of you.

For someone endeavoring to earn an advanced degree in theology you are woefully ignorant of Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm, Luther and Pascal.

I've read a lot of Luther, Anselm and Pascal and a reasonable degree of Augustine and Aquinas. The "if" statement was for you because I am not addressing a Christian. The second "if" was because I don't know for sure who goes to hell and a lot of theology has gone on after Pascal (17th century).

---

I have studied logic a little and I would disagree.

1. The absence of evidence isn't always evidence of absence
2. Therefore I must accept all God claims (catos "proposed postulate")

How does 2 follow from 1?

So here it is: you fail to provide evidence to support your god claim just as miserably as any other proponent of any and every other god claim, and any proponent of any other imaginary creature . All are on equal footing. If you claim one is real and expect others to honor your claim, you cannot reject the claims of any other, because they have precisely as much evidence to support their claims as you do , and you have no more than they do.

You can’t be so fucking stupid as to not understand this. Nobody with a IQ over a Chia Pet's is THAT fucking stupid.

Even if I accept that there is no more verbalizable evidence for God than unicorns, how does it follow that there are equal reasons to believe that they exist? As I have said many times on this site, we all accept beliefs based on intuition (the philosophical term is properly basic beliefs).

Your claim is,

1. We have no more evidence for unicorns than for God
2. Therefore it is irrational to believe in God

Based on this logic I could also say

1. We have no more evidence for basic logic than for unicorns (any argument for logic would be circular)

2 Therefore it is irrational to believe in basic logic

I also want to make clear that it is possible to experience God personally, and so simply because you cannot verbalize the experience perfectly doesn't make it unreal or invalid. If discount the possibility of this apriori you are attacking a straw-man.

---

If the God of Jesus Christ exists there is a good possibility that you will go to hell when you die… that seems enough of a reason to take the question seriously.

Honestly, I have taken it seriously. I myself did fear the Abrahamic God, feared it to an overwhelming degree....

But now I realize such a being is not worthy of worship. It's not great, it's not majestic, it's not honourable.

Even if for some reason, people were evil for not believing in Christianity, why can't God forgive them? Are they that bad? Do you feel such cold wrathful vengeance over disbelievers, that you believe they should be tortured and tortured for this disbelief?

Is that a being worthy of Worship? Is that the honourable thing to do?

Maybe the God you have rejected is one who has been misrepresented. In the bible Jesus seems more concerned with condemning hypocritical believers than with unbelievers. And I do think the eternal conscious punishment thing may be debatable. Annihilationist theologians can be quite persuasive. (they teach that people at some point at least cease to exist in hell)

---

I have studied logic a little and I would disagree.

1. The absence of evidence isn't always evidence of absence
2. Therefore I must accept all God claims (catos "proposed postulate")

How does 2 follow from 1?

I haven't studied logic. I feel the same about "studying" logic as I do studying, say, the average charge of Mars's surface.
Logic, to me, is a tool and in depth studies of this tool wouldn't make it any better at destroying your God claims.

With that out of the way, I'll address your objection in the greatest detail I can.
Proposition (Made by you): "The rejection of God is an illogical leap from there being no evidence for such a being" (Paraphrase, I'm not quoting directly)
Responce: If there isn't any evidence for God yet you insist that the God hypothesis ought not be ruled out, then you must also logically affirm the same of anything that lacks evidence. Because the number of things that lack evidence is concieveably infinite, the number of unfounded beliefs you must accept is also infine- that is, if you want to hold to your claim that things that lack evidence shouldn't be ruled out as unfounded.

I would contend that ironically the burden of proof is yours if you say that we ought to rule out God. Is that not a positive claim? Because in one instance I don't rule out a hypothesis without verbalizeable evidence doesn't mean I am committed to ruling in others without verbalizable evidence.

1. There is one instance where I don't rule out a hypothesis without evidence
2. Therefore I must not rule out every hypothesis without evidence to not be a hypocrite

By this logic it would seem that police are committed to ruling out as a suspect anyone who they cannot prove did the crime. It is, I have heard, for this reason, a principle of criminology that the absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence.

You have the same problem that so many thesits I have spoken to have: You think that you either believe a given proposition or its inverse, which is simply untrue. How do I know you think this? By virtue of your responce. You thought I was making a claim myself, saying that God doesn't exist because of lack of evidence.
I wouldn't make that claim in such a way that might reflect I know this with certainty. No, instead I say I know God doesn't exist in the same way I know Santa doesn't exist.
The both of them lack evidence and perform feats beyond the wildest imagination, making them both, conservatively, very unlikely.

I don't consider God's actions as beyond my wildest imagination and one similarity doesn't mean that they are the same thing. It seems very circular to me what you are doing. God is a crazy idea therefore God is a crazy idea.

At this point, I can't see how you might make contention with this. If you try to then you are truly a theist, because only a theist can look into the agape jaw of cold, unrelenting logic only to swat it with your shoe and then ignore it.

Personal accusations don't get us anywhere.

---

If you are not being sarcastic, I then shouldn't believe in you because you are too specific.

I think he meant that your God has too many specified qualities that conflict with reality to be believable, not that specificity is a trait of things that are unbelievable.

[/quote]

I disagree.

[Minimalist]

1. The absence of evidence isn't always evidence of absence

Misstated, Jeff.

The absence of evidence is most assuredly evidence of absence. It is not "proof" of absence.

Were I to assert the existence of invisible pink unicorns drinking maragaritas in a Tiajuana bar at Mardi Gras you should damn well doubt that assertion.

The fact that archaeology has found nothing at the site of 10th century Jerusalem to support the existence of a capital city of a great empire is indeed EVIDENCE that the stories of David and Solomon are horseshit.

The fact that 200 years of excavations in Egypt has failed to produce any evidence of a mass Hebrew enslavement casts considerable doubt on the Exodus story.

The fact that archaeology shows that there was no blitzkrieg "conquest" seriously damages the fundies who insist that "joshua" was real.

It is now up to the fundies to get out there are start digging because they are losing the battle.

[Angrboda]

Premise: I'm out of cold beer.
Conclusion: You suck.

The form of my argument tells you little about the truth of my conclusion. Do you have any evidence that you don't suck?



"He's full of shit!"
George Carlin

[Jeffonthenet]

Premise: I'm out of cold beer.
Conclusion: You suck.

The form of my argument tells you little about the truth of my conclusion. Do you have any evidence that you don't suck?


"He's full of shit!"

George Carlin

Good point, just because I can't prove you don't suck doesn't mean you don't. And from your premise, your conclusion doesn't follow. Is your problem elementary logic?

---

1. The absence of evidence isn't always evidence of absence

Misstated, Jeff.

The absence of evidence is most assuredly evidence of absence. It is not "proof" of absence.

Were I to assert the existence of invisible pink unicorns drinking maragaritas in a Tiajuana bar at Mardi Gras you should damn well doubt that assertion.

The fact that archaeology has found nothing at the site of 10th century Jerusalem to support the existence of a capital city of a great empire is indeed EVIDENCE that the stories of David and Solomon are horseshit.

The fact that 200 years of excavations in Egypt has failed to produce any evidence of a mass Hebrew enslavement casts considerable doubt on the Exodus story.

The fact that archaeology shows that there was no blitzkrieg "conquest" seriously damages the fundies who insist that "joshua" was real.

It is now up to the fundies to get out there are start digging because they are losing the battle.

There are many other ways in which the bible has been crosschecked such as the lists of names and places. (for example, the city of Ninevah and Nimrod (from all the way back in Genesis were always claimed fictional because of the absence of evidence until they were discovered which is probably all I need to carry my point about the evidence of absence) But regardless, even if those stories were filled with fictional events it wouldn't follow that God doesn't exist or that Jesus not Lord. It could follow that God is just not what Christian fundamentalists (perhaps modern day pharisees) want him to be.

[Angrboda]

Good point, just because I can't prove you don't suck doesn't mean you don't.

Aha! The old, "I know you are but what am I?" defense. I don't believe I've heard that since when I was 12.

Is your problem elementary logic?

Is this a game of twenty questions? If so, the first answer is, "no." You have 19 more questions.



"He's full of shit!"
George Carlin

[Cato]

Premise: I'm out of cold beer.
Conclusion: You suck.

The form of my argument tells you little about the truth of my conclusion. Do you have any evidence that you don't suck?


"He's full of shit!"

George Carlin

Good point, just because I can't prove you don't suck doesn't mean you don't. And from your premise, your conclusion doesn't follow. Is your problem elementary logic?

---

Misstated, Jeff.

The absence of evidence is most assuredly evidence of absence. It is not "proof" of absence.

Were I to assert the existence of invisible pink unicorns drinking maragaritas in a Tiajuana bar at Mardi Gras you should damn well doubt that assertion.

The fact that archaeology has found nothing at the site of 10th century Jerusalem to support the existence of a capital city of a great empire is indeed EVIDENCE that the stories of David and Solomon are horseshit.

The fact that 200 years of excavations in Egypt has failed to produce any evidence of a mass Hebrew enslavement casts considerable doubt on the Exodus story.

The fact that archaeology shows that there was no blitzkrieg "conquest" seriously damages the fundies who insist that "joshua" was real.

It is now up to the fundies to get out there are start digging because they are losing the battle.

There are many other ways in which the bible has been crosschecked such as the lists of names and places. (for example, the city of Ninevah and Nimrod (from all the way back in Genesis were always claimed fictional because of the absence of evidence until they were discovered which is probably all I need to carry my point about the evidence of absence) But regardless, even if those stories were filled with fictional events it wouldn't follow that God doesn't exist or that Jesus not Lord. It could follow that God is just not what Christian fundamentalists (perhaps modern day pharisees) want him to be.

Crosscheck? I didn't know we were engaged in a battle of downs and accrosses. If I were you, I wouldn't use the city/term of Nimrod as an example (nimrod, he he, ho ho, ha ha, meh).

Why exactlty was it that your all-knowing cunt couldn't locate the only man on Earth in the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:9 for your ignorant reference)?

I wait patiently for your excuse. Why your at it; why do you have to give an excuse for a fucking god?

[Skepsis]

I would contend that ironically the burden of proof is yours if you say that we ought to rule out God.

And you would be wrong.

Is that not a positive claim?

No. It's called the "burden of proof".

Because in one instance I don't rule out a hypothesis without verbalizeable evidence doesn't mean I am committed to ruling in others without verbalizable evidence.

What are you talking about?

1. There is one instance where I don't rule out a hypothesis without evidence
2. Therefore I must not rule out every hypothesis without evidence to not be a hypocrite

This is a blatant strawman. When did I ever even hint at taking this position? Never did I say that I am discarding unfounded beliefs to avert possible claims of hypocrisy.
Now that I give it a moment of thought, I can see why you might have thought that I made a positive claim when I used the phrase "rule out".
I didn't mean rule out in the sense that such a claim couldn't be true, be in the sense that one shouldn't believe.
Yes, if I am making a positive claim, it is undoubtedly that you ought not believe a proposition if that proposition is without evidence.

By this logic it would seem that police are committed to ruling out as a suspect anyone who they cannot prove did the crime. It is, I have heard, for this reason, a principle of criminology that the absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence.

Yes, you misunderstood me. This makes it clear.
However, absence of evidence is evidence of absence. It isn't proof of absence, but it is surely evidence that the thing in question is more likely not to exist.
This isn't so much logic as it is common sense.

I don't consider God's actions as beyond my wildest imagination and one similarity doesn't mean that they are the same thing.

Yeah, theists imaginations have to be large proportionally to accomodate for their God and their lack of brain cells.
WAIT. STOP THE PRESSES.
Did you just admit that the both of them share the attribute of lacking evidence?
BREAKTHROUGH!
...But, I feel that you simply don't understand simple logic and/or made a mistake while typing. Probably.

It seems very circular to me what you are doing. God is a crazy idea therefore God is a crazy idea.

Where do you get this stuff? Another blatant strawman of my position. I never said that "because santa is a crazy idea so is God", I compared Santa to God in the sense that neither are evidenced and both perform acts that are, to put it conservatively, extraordinary.
I used Santa because, even if he didn't create a universe and everything in it, at least he can fly around the world. This makes him a good candidate to illustrate why extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Personal accusations don't get us anywhere.

Neither does strawmanning my position, but you do plenty of that.
Besides, at least I feel as if I am making progress- even if I am merely beating my head on the thick wall that is theism...

I think he meant that your God has too many specified qualities that conflict with reality to be believable, not that specificity is a trait of things that are unbelievable.

I disagree.

With what? That you God falls too far into the realm of specificity to hold onto its existence, or that my assessment of his quote was incorrect?
Your God falls to the axe of specificity just as every God before him.
The creators of Yahweh made him too powerful and kind, so he doesn't fit in a world of death and suffering.