Evidence for atheism

[Jackalope]

No, not the point of contention at all. The point of contention (and perhaps not between you and I) is that when someone says p- q...and you point out that it is (insert whatever fuckup they've made) - that claim..the god of that claim (and that's all that the god in question is, the contents of that claim)...it's false. Perhaps some other god, of some other claim. Right?

You're still committing the same fallacy, whether you recognize it or not. Our theist asserts

If p then q
P
Therefore q

If the conditiknal is a non sequitur, it says nothing about the case where not-p. If its valid, and you ask, well, what about the case where not-p, you are absolutely committing the inverse fallacy. The argument says nothing about the case where not-p, only where p.

You cannot necessarily determine anything about q where not-p in a modus poenens.

[The Grand Nudger]

God -is- the mt. That's all we've been given to consider. Imagining some "other-q" is to imagine another argument, not under consideration. The q in question is dependant upon p - as per their claim.

[Jackalope]

God -is- the mt. That's all we've been given to consider. Imagining some "other-q" is to imagine another argument, not under consideration. The q in question is dependant upon p - as per their claim.

Yes, it is. But *in this argument form* not-p tells you precisely nothing, save that the proponent hasn't made his case. You can conclude his argument is bad and perhaps that he's bad at propositional logic, but not that his conclusion is false. Fallacious, unsound arguments are not a tool for discovering what's true.

At best, you can conclude that the argument doesn't establish the conclusion as necessarily true.

[The Grand Nudger]

"Not p" tells me that the god -of this argument- does not exist. While some god may, not the one described by this argument. Would you agree to that?

The god who exists -because/if- ants are 5 feet tall...simply does not exist...as ants are not 5 feet tall. If that's the condition offered.....then what else can I conclude?

[Jackalope]

"Not p" tells me that the god -of this argument- does not exist. While some god may, not the one described by this argument. Would you agree to that?

No, I would not.

The god who exists -because/if- ants are 5 feet tall...simply does not exist...as ants are not 5 feet tall. If that's the condition offered.....then what else can I conclude?

That it's not necessarily true.

I don't know how to put it any more plainly. Concluding the inverse of what is asserted is a formal fallacy, and has been since antiquity. It's trivial to demonstrate the fallacy. Read http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying_the_antecedent

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm not concluding that -god- doesn't exist, I'm concluding that the god -of 5 foot tall ants- seeing as there are no 5 foot tall ants, doesn't exist. I'm not sure I understand the problem. The conditions offered (and required) for that -specific- god have not been met, they have, instead...been negated. That's why the claim is false, isn't it?

[bennyboy]

This idea of the non-sequitur after negation is fine, but it really only matters if the question can only be framed in a particlar way. "p therefore God, not p therefore not God" is a logic fail, fair enough.

But that only matters if this is the question: "Is there a God?" What if the question is "Should we invest mental energy and time in believing in God, and acting on those beliefs?" Without positive evidence supporting God and its importance to us, the answer is-- only if we feel like it. And atheists don't.

[genkaus]

But in sum, and allow me the analogy, God is like an unicorn: it could exist, it's viable, it'd be very reasonable to exist. We might refute that there are unicorns on Earth in the present, but we trully can't refute the existence of a unicorn because it's an entirelly believable possibility, we have several animals with horns, i see no big reason to refute the possibility that there might be unicorns horse somewhere, even on a parallel dimension.
The same as god, it's entirelly believable that there is eternity and something trully uncreated existing, i see no reason to believe otherwise in fact. That that thing might be a god or just the "universe" in it, it's open to interpretation, but there's trully no reason to object the possibility.

This is a perfect example - I agree that unicorns could exist because as they are conceived (horses with forehead horns), they are not illogical and therefore possible.

Your god, however, is not. If you define god as an eternal, uncreated entity the it is possible that it exists. But you go further, you define him as an eternal, uncreated and conscious entity - and given the temporal nature of consciousness, that definition becomes illogical and that is a good enough reason to object to that possibility.

---

I said that as an answer to the argument that saying god is too complex to have been uncreated, or rather, that it is unexplainable, the same attributes do apply to our universe.

No they don't. You are confusing the counter to a theist's argument with an atheist's position. Theists argue that the universe is too complex to be uncreated or that it is unexplainable and use that as a basis to invoke god.

It's actually the opposite. I'm trying to define some concievable characteristics to our universe, and call it "god" a posteriori by it's characteristics. Let's see, eternal, creative, generating all complexity, first cause, collection of everything, deterministic/logically absolute, potentially infinite and transcending (to all sets). Hmm, yeah, this fits my definition of a God.
If i can prove it? I can't, that's why they are beliefs, not knowledge. I just have "reasonable faith" the universe follows these characteristics.

So, you are basically redefining god for your convenience?

[fr0d0]

That they don't have a single good argument (one that stands up to reasonable scrutiny) on their side is evidence that atheism is the more logical position.

That too

That's why I see the deflection so often, they often won't answer a direct question, but just go off on some irrelevancy. Just like a politician.

If there was a god and some way of proving it (a) we'd have seen the evidence by now and (b) they wouldn't have to use ridiculous logical and semantic contortions to get there. I wonder, are they trying to convince us, or themselves?

I find it interesting that from my point of view it seems exactly the opposite

[Cyberman]

It's called insight. Or to put it more prosaically, your eyes are in backwards.