Attn: Theists - What would it take to prove you wrong?

[pineapplebunnybounce]

@theo, you are sooo confused. Absence of evidence thing only applies if you don't claim that your god has evidence.

But if your god affects the world in anyway, it must generate some form of evidence. So absence of evidence is evidence of your god's inability to affect this world.

In a clinical trial, if a drug does not demonstrate efficacy, the absence of efficacy is evidence that the drug cannot perform.

If you claim that god doesn't affect the world in anyway, then that's another story.

[Theo Zacharias]

I'm sorry that I don't response to any other posts that were directed to me. I have been online for hours. I don't have any time nor energy left so I focus only on Maelstrom posting.
Btw, I have to go. I'm afraid I can only be online again next week. So if this thread is still alive and if there is still anyone interested to have any discussion with me, then I will response by then. If not, I may response to other topic I'm interested in.
Apologize for any inconvenience because of this.
Bye everyone, I hope that even though we have a different view regarding to religion or God, we can still be friends. In fact I have two atheist friends in my real life (still friends until now since like 5 years ago).
Thanks for your time.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

That was ... anticlimactic.

[Theo Zacharias]

I'm just about to sleep when I see your post. So this will be my last post until next week.

@theo, you are sooo confused. Absence of evidence thing only applies if you don't claim that your god has evidence.

But if your god affects the world in anyway, it must generate some form of evidence. So absence of evidence is evidence of your god's inability to affect this world.

In a clinical trial, if a drug does not demonstrate efficacy, the absence of efficacy is evidence that the drug cannot perform.

If you claim that god doesn't affect the world in anyway, then that's another story.

If you read my previous post or my religious view, I don't claim that there is any evidence of God existence.

Btw, I don't agree that if God affects the world in *anyway*, then it must generate scientific evidence. One of the criteria of scientific evidence is reproducibility. God can affect the world but not affecting it in the same way, hence it's not reproducible. For example there are many testimony about God's miracles. I'm sure you've heard. But as far as I know, none of them is reproducible, hence it's not considered to be a valid scientific evidence for miracle (it can be a fraud).

Your example of clinical trial above is a valid scientific evidence based on the absence of efficacy because the experiment is reproducible.

Based on your posting above, I have no doubt that you have further argument that may refute my argument above. Unfortunately I can't response until next week. I'm sorry again.
This time I'm really going...

[pineapplebunnybounce]

@theo, it all depends on how you want to define god.

If you want to say god affects the world in ways that known laws of nature do not, then it is reproducible. Because there will be multiple phenomenons that violate the laws of nature, and they can all be analyzed. And since it would happen so many times, the analysis is reproducible.

[Golbez]

Re: fr0d0, Theo Zacharias, Maelstrom. Long post, skip to the relevant section if you wish. I didn't expect a 17 page explosion over night
(and I'm only on pg. 9...)

1. I find it worthy of ridicule, because it is ridiculous.

(And later)

2. A person tells me what they've experienced and I can confirm that it it's also true for me. There's no guess work there. Nothing vague, but a definite, solid experience. We are sharing subjective experience with another person... and can agree when both experiences converge.

The only way it isn't objective, is if you take someone who doesn't accept the logic, will not understand the reference.

(Later, still.)

3. Don't be an idiot maelstrom. "I don't know" is the most intellectually honest and reasonable stance of all.

Once you've stated what kind of evidence would be possible, then we could start looking for it. Unfortunately, your dumb ass is limited by reality.

1. This is cyclical, because of its cyclic reasoning. So why bother explaining something with your "because" clause? The redundancy boils down to: "it is, because it is" or "it is, because I said so."

2. This isn't objective though. It's explicitly subjective - the emotions and perceptions of an individual without the rigors of being subjected to independent verification.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/subjective
So you are exactly, fully, 100% wrong on this point.

3. I was torn on this post. Was about to give you a "like" for the "I don't know" response. Here's an atheist clearly articulating reasons when "I don't know" is a perfectly legitimate, honest response. And I agree. It certainly can be:
http://youtu.be/MoTt0-IAbY8
(Start at 11:35)

But I clearly couldn't "like" the second half of your post. Limited by reality? We are all limited by reality. This is the reality. Reality doesn't limit that some of us have supernatural desires, but we're all still bound to the laws of nature. We are not bound by the laws of false imaginings.

I think it's not that easy. If there is a phenomenon that seems supernatural, i.e. defy known laws of physic, I think most scientist will first say that either the data is probably flaw or there probably are some hidden variables that we don't know. Even if those 2 possibilities are shown to be wrong, most scientist will say that the known laws of physic is probably wrong and they will develop a new theory that will bring the seemingly-supernatural phenomenon back to natural phenomenon.

2) Belief in God brings an overall positive effect to me
If you can show one of the above to be wrong, i.e. evidence that God does not exist or belief in God brings an overall negative effect to me, then I will leave theism.
____________

A. If I don't believe in God publicly, it will most likely bring an overall negative effect to me and to my family. If I secretly don't believe in God, I will have to lie in many circumstances. So, at least for me, believing in God brings an overall positive effect to me. I don't know whether God exists or not because there is no evidence either way as far as I know. So why not choose a side that brings an overall positive effect to me?
__________

B. Why I don't believe? Because believing in them does not bring an overall positive effect to me.
___________

C. If there is an evidence that God does not exist, i.e. if the truth is God does not exist, then yes, that might be a reason to hide the truth. But if there is no evidence that God does not exist then we don't know what the truth is. Why should I change my position to atheist? What's the reason?
___________

D. Please answer this. Do you believe that graviton exist? There is no proof of its existence so you should not believe that graviton exist, right? But string theory predicts that graviton exists. So you should not believe in string theory either? But several physicist believes in string theory. Do you think they are nuts?

First, I appreciate your honest self-reflection. You're up front about not knowing, about stating you haven't seen the evidence for the proof of God's existence or not, and you state that there are social pressures to continue to believe, rather than a firm conviction of evidence.

Second, I agree that scientists would seek to reconsider their understanding about the laws of nature. This was a solid rebuttal to my OP. I think a suspended upside down volcano with disappearing lava is fairly supernatural, but we can extend it, or rewrite it altogether. Suppose God intervenes by bringing back a larger than actual life performance by all members of the Beatles - God's half time show, where each member stands 3000 feet tall in the sky, as they rock out to "Can't Buy Me Love" while 10,000 Micheal Jacksons do the thriller dance and maybe 25 of them start touching all the boys. (Sorry, over the top

There can be supernatural events that occur. He could repeatedly violate all the laws of thermodynamics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics

He could show up and hang out for years, subjecting himself to tests, interviews, impoverished populations, hospitalized victims, etc, etc. There are a limitless number of things that could be done to confirm his omnipotence. Make us 2 dimensional. Something.

Also, what is this faster than light form of communication you speak of?

Re:A-D.
A. If you don't adhere to the extremes and limits of religions, and impose their terrible value system upon others, I have nothing against you finding that you fit in better while believing a god is real. But if you should happen to agree that we shouldn't perform stem cell research, or that gays are an abomination who shouldn't be able to marry, or that the earth is 6000 years old and dinosaurs and man coexisted, or that global warming is a madmade hoax, you're crossing the threshold of "overall positive effect," particularly over something that has no basis for reality.

B. Again, I appreciate the candor with which you recognize the reason for your beliefs. But I do wish to emphasize that this is certainly no basis for the claim being true. You seem to acknowledge this, so I have no quarrel.

C. The reason is because of how you spend your life, time, and energy pursuing a belief system that has no evidence for being true. Flash forward to the future - you're 65 years old (I was going to say 95, but at that point, you probably wouldn't care one way or another). And if you make the realization then that there is no god, you may well regret all the time you spent at church, all the candidates you supported in elections, all the time frittered away on an unattainable pipedream. You'll have spent the majority of your life believing in, what may as well be Zeus and Poseidon. And just because your friends and relatives do? Hopefully, they're good enough Christians (or other) to forgive you for your honest pursuit of knowledge. And if they're not, because of their beliefs, is that really something you wish to emulate?

D. I agree with your questioning here. But the distinction I want to make from religion is that these ideas are relatively new. Christianity is 2000 years old, and other religions much older. Suppose 2000 years from now, scientists have discovered everything that would have otherwise explained string theory, and it's all supported by verifiable evidence. If at that point, people are still clinging to the belief of string theory, then yes, I would think they are nuts.

But SETI? Definitely not. We just don't know, and the search itself brings new technology, knowledge and understanding that can vastly improve our lives. It's foolish to write that off.

Until intelligent life other than humanity can be positively and verifiably proven, then I will not believe that other intelligent life is possible.

What? You have boxed yourself into imagining it's not even possible? You can just not make a decision about something that's still up in the air. And what is your definition for intelligent life? Lifeforms that show intelligence? Use tools? Communicate? Or have advanced civilizations? Do apes not count as intelligent life?

Edit -
Theo - "Why should I change my position to atheist? What's the reason?"
I want to take another crack at this. Your position is, on an innumerable amount of things we can't disprove, that you accept that this one unfounded, unverified belief is more likely to be correct. But by extension, you are establishing that it's better to believe in leprechauns, unicorns, Russell's teapot, Santa Claus, etc. until proven otherwise. So you just accept, without any evidence, any number of imaginings. Otherwise you're inconsistent in your ration- ahem, your irrationale. So consider that. You're staring at a list of equally unsupported ideas which all have not been proven false. Thousands of them. Yet you cherry pick Christianity and say, "it's okay. Why shouldn't I believe it?"

If you were intellectually honest, you'd recognize that you'd have to accept that entire list. But I imagine you immediately see the absurdity in doing that. Problem is, Christianity is no different. So all those lies you might have to tell in part A), in adopting Christianity, you have to commit to the biggest lie of all, and devote to it your entire life. Seems like a good reason to me not to.

[Locke]

This is a reply to FallenToReason's post on Page 5.

Because people keep on saying I don't know what Atheism is...

AtheismFrom Merriam-Webster)
A) a disbelief in the existence of deity
B) the doctrine that there is no deity

"Critique and denial of metaphysical beliefs in God or divine beings. Unlike agnosticism, which leaves open the question of whether there is a God, atheism is a positive denial." (Concise Encyclopedia)

Atheism can be the rejection of theism, or the position that deities do not exist. In the broadest sense, it is the absence of belief in the existence of deities.

Amoral:
- being neither moral nor immoral; specifically: lying outside the sphere to which moral judgments apply.

Immoral:
- not moral; broadly : conflicting with generally or traditionally held moral principles

NOTE: I did mention that Atheism is NOT immoral, but rather amoral. I have cited definitions because I feel there may be confusion here about what those two words mean.

First, I want to reiterate that my goal was to explain why Atheism no longer makes sense to me; FOR THE RECORD I don't care if you believe in it or not, but this thread was started to ask theists what they believe and why, rather than to disprove Atheism. Since (I believe) I have done my homework on this before deciding, I simply shared my view on it.

Why would you condemn atheism like that based on a select few i.e. generals/presidents or other people in power who shaped history? The fact that you straight up confess not all atheists are amoral undermines any sort of point you were trying to make. I mean, I can raise up my hand and say I'm not amoral. Now what..? *shrugs* nothing to see here, so moving on.

Whether YOU argue morality or not is irrelevant to my point, because I'm not talking about you - I'm talking about Atheism. I also DID NOT say all Athiests are amoral, as you mentioned; in fact I said that many Atheists ARE moral. The point I am making is that they are moral IN SPITE OF their Athiestic claims. The examples of those people in history are relevant because they were atheists, and when there was no law they acted precisely IN ACCORDANCE with atheism, which claims to lie outside the sphere of moral anchors. This has consistently proven to produce such results in history as I mentioned. And, if you're going to be honest, such accurate consistency is EVIDENCE that cannot be refuted.
Whether or not atheists follow this is a different story, but that only means they are not adhering to atheism, yet claiming to do so. Just because I say I eat beef doesn't make it so; it is only true if I actually do eat beef. I am NOT claiming that atheists have no basis for morality - in fact I am claiming that they DO. HOWEVER, atheism itself claims that morality is integral to human society, because human social groups need predictable rules and behavior to function.. but these rules change based on whoever is at the top when God is removed, and it has been proven time and time again that this leads straight to the devolution of the human race when put into practice. In light of all this, I was simply stating that Atheism makes no sense to me, so I don't follow it.

To expand on this, I want to quote someone who worded it more clearly than I seem to be able to:

"One wonders whether there might be a degree of wish fulfillment in the belief that there is no God. For example, people often say they would do the right thing regardless of whether they would be rewarded or punished. However, when the police are visible on the highway, drivers really do slow down. When they think 'the law' is far away, they take significantly greater liberties. Denying the increase in immorality when the law is absent is as naive as discounting the connection between belief in a judgment day (and a Judge) and right living. I am reminded of a Web page that pictured a red, waxen cross. It was melting. This text was included:

No God, no guilt.
The belief in God awakens
fanaticism and guilt.
Live free and responsible.
Debaptize yourself!

But can we really free ourselves from guilt by simply denying the law? Either we have violated the moral law of the universe or we have not. No amount of wishing can change the reality. If there is a God, we can do nothing to free ourselves from him. To do so would not be responsible or bring freedom. Atheists often accuse believers of projection, of creating spiritual reality for their own comfort. But I believe the opposite is true. The atheist imagines a world without ultimate accountability, where he is answerable to no authority beyond this life." - Douglas A. Jacoby, Compelling Evidence for God and the Bible, p. 43

I love how in the paragraphs before, you say something like "our desires don't shape truth" (paraphrasing. I'm on my phone and I deleted those paragraphs since I only wanted to respond to these points..). Yet, what do you do; claim that meaninglessness is somehow a point against atheism? But.. why??? Why would your desire for an objective purpose have any bearing on the truth about our purpose (if any)?

Our purpose on earth is subjective in a way that nihilism is self-defeating; you can decide for yourself what your purpose will be, which means that deciding that you have no purpose *is* a choice in itself about what purpose your life has. Either way, this point of yours is again of no negative consequence whatsoever *precisely* because you're speaking from your desires.

A being that has no purpose cannot create purpose; something cannot come from nothing (as we know from physics, for example). Therefore, if there is no external agent to instill purpose, we cannot have any purpose. If we make our own purpose, it is relative only to ourselves, who in turn are without purpose, so our purpose itself is purposeless. This is making its way towards ex nihilo, which accomplishes nothing. However, with God in mind ex nihilo is avoided because what we call existence itself is merely the genesis of our existence. To an eternal God who is the (original) Creator, He has always been and therefore needs no source before Him. This only works in the case of the Trinity, because it means God is three in one, so rather than having an originator, God originates Himself (better, but not perfect explanation). On a mathematical level it also checks out, because we had to use a similar projecting assumption and then work backwards to reach a bridge between the higher levels of proven mathematics we have today and the lower. I explained this much to give you a fuller (but not complete) picture, but this CLEARLY is getting into debates on other topics, which I have not yet mentioned on these forums and will not mention further in this thread.

You've failed to grasp how the problem of evil works; it assumes God (and therefore the theistic idea of evil) to exist so that an inconsistency *on your turf* can be exposed. It's got nothing to do with atheism per se.

You're right, atheism declares itself to be outside the sphere of morality.. which is why it's senseless for an atheist to reject theism on grounds of an immoral God, since they have to step back into the sphere of morality to do so. With atheism being so relative, it cannot have a foundation. (Arguing that science is not relative is irrelevant, since you would be right, but atheism and science are not one and the same, though you'll find atheists acting like they are in nearly every thread on this forum).

Your presupposition leads you to say the analogy is valid, but my presupposition doesn't. More needs to be done here than simply pointing to something and dressing it up with your presupposition.

There are only 3 possible presuppositions:
1) Atheists believe there is a Designer
2) Atheists believe there is not a Designer
3) Atheists believe there may or may not be a Designer

My presupposition was that they believe there is not a Designer. Your presupposition, therefore, since it does not agree with mine, must either be that they believe there is a Designer, or that they believe there may or may not be a Designer.. but regardless, under the case that the idea of a designer is rejected under said argument, my analogy is perfectly valid.
You argue that more needs to be done here than dressing up my presupposition, but I would argue that you need to do more here than say I'm wrong and move on as if nothing was proven. The real issue here isn't even whether or not atheism stands (though it IS hopelessly muddled) but whether or not God is real. You are hiding behind the definition of atheism to steer away from the conclusion you dislike.

Now we're getting desperate! Moving on!!!

Clearly.. anyone who argues against God through circumlocution, as I mentioned, is making a poor case, and several atheists I've talked to have tried.. so in the spirit of understanding why I reject atheism and accept Christianity, my point is perfectly valid. Again, you did not refute the point, but dodged it by being snide.

Yep.. so what?

So what? It validates the position atheists attack. And since there are only two conclusions - either God exists, or He doesn't (not deciding is not a conclusion) - one being validated in an area points away from the other, though it does not in itself verify the conclusion by itself. Again, my point is not moot.

Now we're just taking stabs in the dark. The topic of "judgement" isn't exactly something that makes or breaks my beliefs.

Well nobody was talking about your beliefs. As the point above, it also points away from contradicting arguments and towards Christianity, because the atheist arguments meant to invalidate the Bible were actually supporting it by invalidate theists who support views contrary to the Bible. Y'know, enemy of my enemy is my friend type stuff. Yet again, my point has not been invalidated - you simply attempted to redirect.

you think atheism is some sort of organised philosophy where anything not-God must be included.

Once anything not-God is refuted, there is reason to explore possible evidence for God, and once that has been found, God is a very good possibility. Again, my ultimate point is to find out if God exists or not. It is not to prove atheism wrong. In addition, I couldn't care less if I convince you or not, but your constant scapegoating back to that does imply that you don't want to address the arguments I have presented, which were actually quite reasonable. This leads me to believe that, perhaps, you aren't really looking for the truth of the matter, but instead trying to advocate what you want to be true.

Your hostility betrays your intentions. The truth is, you can believe whatever you want; nobody will stop you, or even care for that matter. However, I reply to your post in order to clarify the points I made, in hopes that anyone thinking more clearly will be able to make a sound judgment, because I think you're just in denial; you clearly only replied to my thread to attack it.

ON A COMPLETE SIDENOTE: I find it ironic that early Christians were actually considered atheists in the Roman Empire.

[Bad Writer]

Just going to say that while atheism is not predicated on morals, atheists are not amoral. With this in mind, how do you justify saying atheism is amoral?

[Captain Colostomy]

Don't confuse lack of comment on morality(via atheism's definition) with lack of morality(persons who acknowledge atheism). Atheism just isn't that broad a term. It's a mistake to assume atheists are lacking morals, and fucking insulting.

[Ryantology]

There is no evidence of intelligent being other than human.
What is your view about this? Do you believe that there is non-human intelligent being?

Until intelligent life other than humanity can be positively and verifiably proven, then I will not believe that other intelligent life is possible. I am an atheist. An agnostic may state it is possible, but I would rather follow the current evidence until I am proven wrong.

I don't really understand you, here. There's a difference between believing that extraterrestrial life is possible and believing that it definitely exists.