Ok I admit it

[pocaracas]

Please!?!?!?!?

[Esquilax]

I don't understand why it had to be extant esq. Extant like I had to learn language you mean? Sure... we are all machines acting upon the information that we've been fed. I know parts of the UK exist. I believe Australia exists. I believe God exists.

Again, your thoughts, especially conclusions about reality, don't happen in a vacuum: to come to a conclusion about the universe, you would have to have had something within it that prompted your line of reasoning. How would you determine that the universe was created without discussing, in your premises, features of the universe itself?

I began from atheist roots. I questioned hard and discovered an overwhelming amount of evidence against my lack of belief. I could not the continue to disbelieve, the cognitive dissonance was too great. Can I tell you one fact to change your mind? No. You have to balance all of the facts together.

Well, we are in a discussion forum, you could at least give an overview from which one could begin an investigation.

There has been presented on this forum enough information for anyone to work out the same conclusion as me. As you know, nearly all people here cling on to their preconceived ideas. Most develop them.

As a true skeptic, how much time do you spend doubting your own position? I would say that your position is groundless if you do not. How much time do you devote to entrenching your position? Isn't that a dangerous game?

I specifically chose an atheist forum that brings in theists too, so that I could scrutinize my position. Not finding presented evidence convincing is not the same as having a bias.

Oh, and incidentally, how do you know Tony's metaphysical creature has no purpose?

[KichigaiNeko]

Perhaps JL should go through ALL the Mythologies of the world from say Babylonia to Norse?

[xpastor]

I began from atheist roots. I questioned hard and discovered an overwhelming amount of evidence against my lack of belief. I could not the continue to disbelieve, the cognitive dissonance was too great.

Your story sounds just like mine in reverse. I came from a strong Christian belief. I was a pastor in a conservative Christian denomination. I began to see an overwhelming amount of evidence against my beliefs. I lived with terrible cognitive dissonance for some years, and then I got out, first out of the ministry, then out of the church, and finally out of theistic belief altogether.

I am not the only one. I recently joined a support group for present and former clergy who have abandoned all supernatural belief. There are currently about 550 of us in the group, and I am sure there are many more who have not joined.

You said above:

I don't know that Australia exists. I could prove it physically, but I haven't. I trust information from various sources that it does. That is enough for me to believe. All of us make this leap on information received.

I presume you are implying that your belief in God is based on trust in information from various sources. What would those sources be?

If your sources are the bible or the testimony of religious people, I think you are on very shaky ground indeed.

[fr0d0]

how do you know Tony's metaphysical creature has no purpose?

An absence of evidence?

---

If your sources are the bible or the testimony of religious people, I think you are on very shaky ground indeed.

So you were a brainwashed xtian turned atheist. I'm surprised you say you lived with that (dissonance) for years. I wouldn't have thought that possible.

Of course you would think it shaky. If you didn't you'd be in dissonance again!

[FreeTony]

Your creature has no purpose Tony. God has a purpose which is where we rationalise from.

How do you know my creature has no purpose? If I claimed it is the reason that people have dreams this doesn't make it any more likely to exist.

1. Creature causes dreams
2. Dreams exist
Therefore creature exists.

This is the same logic you are using and it is absurd. Adding extra claims onto unproveable things doesn't help and gives you more things you need to find evidence for, not fewer.

[fr0d0]

Of God provides answers to our purpose, then we have reason to address the idea.

If your creature doesn't stand up to scrutiny, then we can dismiss it.

[FreeTony]

Of God provides answers to our purpose, then we have reason to address the idea.

If your creature doesn't stand up to scrutiny, then we can dismiss it.

1. No. Something isn't more likely to exist just because it solves some problem that you think exists. You'd first have to demonstrate there is a purpose to life, and then provide evidence of the God, then provide evidence that the God solves this problem.

As I said before , adding baggage to a claim doesn't help your cause, it just leaves you with more things to justify.


2. Exactly, it stands up to scrutiny as much as your God does.

[fr0d0]

1. Nobody said it was more likely to exist. Please come back with some original thoughts if you can. Repeating clichés is mindless.

There is no baggage. That's the point of God... to explain purpose. You seem to add baggage, but that's nothing to do with me or anything I've said.

2. You understand zero but are willing to dismiss an idea on ignorance. This is what we call critical thinking .

[FreeTony]

There is no point in providing an explanation for which there is no evidence. I dismiss the idea because you cannot provide any evidence to support it.

Let's take another scenario. You come home to find your car has been scratched. 2 of many possiblities are:

1. A person did it by mistake. Just bad luck.

2. A metaphysical being did it because you had naughty thoughts earlier in the day and it was punishing you because it is the ultimate moral being.


Even though 2 explains why it happened in a way that would appeal to your strange understanding of the world, it doesn't make it more likely.