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Poll: Do I understand my writing?
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Yes, very well.
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6 75.00%
Somehow.
12.50%
1 12.50%
No, not at all.
12.50%
1 12.50%
Total 8 vote(s) 100%
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In regard to the rational person's choice
#11
RE: In regard to the rational person's choice
@SteelCurtain - One could claim to have knowledge of a thing without claiming to have proof of that knowledge.
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#12
RE: In regard to the rational person's choice
Mohammed: You're most welcome Smile Glad I could help.

I have loads more I want to add to it but sadly I haven't had the energy. One day!
Feel free to send me a private message.
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#13
RE: In regard to the rational person's choice
One could. And one would be considered to be irrational.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great

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#14
RE: In regard to the rational person's choice
(April 27, 2015 at 12:49 am)noctalla Wrote: @SteelCurtain - One could claim to have knowledge of a thing without claiming to have proof of that knowledge.

Primer on epistemology:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/
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#15
RE: In regard to the rational person's choice
Hi there!

(April 26, 2015 at 6:50 pm)Mohammed1212 Wrote: Hello

I learned that dismissing God stems from the fact that a rational person mustn't believe unless evidence provided. The evidence for believing in God are not compelling as many non-religious folks put it.

Okay but is it logically valid to say that God does NOT exist based on the lack of evidence? Or should we say that God could exist but believing in him is irrational without evidence?
I'd say it depends on what precisely you claim when you say "God does NOT exist". Do you mean it as a strictly logical proof? Then rather not. If you mean it as the rejection of a scientific hypothesis based on evidence, then yes, but then you have to very carefully state what your hypothesis concerning the properties of God is. It's not a deductive proof that there is no God. The only case in which I see that possibility is for definitions of God which are internally inconsistent, but then the nonexistence is not derived from empirical evidence.

It seems to me we have to go beyond pure logic to answer the God yes/no question empirically. If you do it like Popper and attempt use God as a scientific hypothesis, then indeed it would be valid to say that the hypothesis is rejected due to lack of evidence. But for that to work you first have to come up with a definition of God which satisfies the necessary criteria.
Quote:In other words: Is the lack of evidence itself is an evidence?
If your God hypothesis doesn't make predictions for empirical observations, then we don't even have to start looking at the evidence. If it does, then it can be ruled out by observation of no evidence where the hypothesis would predict some.

To use a simplistic example, assume the God of your God hypothesis is benevolent. You can then observe the world and might find lack of evidence for divine benevolence. Consequently, the hypothesis is ruled out empirically. That's logical, but you have to add some more assumptions about the scientific process on top of pure logic, and you have to be very specific about what exactly the consequences of your hypothesis are.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition

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#16
RE: In regard to the rational person's choice
I'd be shocked, puzzled, and probably let down if I learned a God exists. All the...stuff...around us could maybe be presented as evidence for or against a god. But for me, it all seems to point very strongly against a god, to the point where to believe would be intellectually fraudulent. Well, actually, that's not the term. I shouldn't post at 6:22am. Dishonest, I guess, suffices.
"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan
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#17
RE: In regard to the rational person's choice
It would be incredibly baffling for sure.

"Well what's he playing at?" springs to mind.
Feel free to send me a private message.
Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.

Index of useful threads and discussions
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Quickstart guide to the forum
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#18
RE: In regard to the rational person's choice
(April 26, 2015 at 6:50 pm)Mohammed1212 Wrote: Hello

I learned that dismissing God stems from the fact that a rational person mustn't believe unless evidence provided. The evidence for believing in God are not compelling as many non-religious folks put it.

Okay but is it logically valid to say that God does NOT exist based on the lack of evidence? Or should we say that God could exist but believing in him is irrational without evidence?

In other words: Is the lack of evidence itself is an evidence?

Am I making sense?

If you can answer this, please help me out here.


See there is a poll here. English is my second language. If this thread is confusing let me know.
Thank you.

First, as a general principle, if there is no evidence, or not sufficient evidence, then one does not know the answer to whatever the question is.  So in the total absence of evidence about whether God exists or not, one would simply not know whether God exists or not.  In such a case, one should not say:  "God exists."  Nor, in such a case, should one say:  "God does not exist."

However, there are questions where, to use your terminology, "the lack of evidence itself is an evidence."  For example, right now, I look in my dining room, and I see no elephants, hear no elephants, and smell no elephants.  Given the size of my room, I know that I would see it, etc., if an elephant were there.  So I know that there are no elephants in my dining room, from not seeing any elephants there.

In the case of God, it depends greatly on what we mean by "God."  If we mean a perfectly benevolent being, who is omniscient and omnipotent, then we can know that such a thing does not exist.  The reason is that bad things happen in the world.  But if there were such a God, being omniscient, it would know about the bad things happening; being omnipotent, it would have the power to prevent the bad things from happening; and being perfectly benevolent, it would have the inclination to prevent the bad things from happening.  Consequently, if such a being existed, bad things would not happen.  Since bad things do happen, such a God does not exist.

Naturally, if you have some other idea of a god, like an omniscient and omnipotent being, but one that isn't good, then bad things happening would not prove that such a god did not exist.  Such a being, of course, would be pretty evil, given all of the bad things that happen.


Your English seems adequate.

"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
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#19
RE: In regard to the rational person's choice
Steel's diagram is a good one for understanding how belief relates to claims of knowledge which, as Alex says, would be meaningless if you can't lay out what sorts of evidence would be confirming. That goes to the problem of defining the term 'god', a real sticking point for some of us. I can imagine a range of definitions of god which I would dismiss out of hand and a few others I would be slower to dismiss where the definition seems entirely foreign to what most theists claim.

Then there is the question, why should we care? If you swear you've seen unicorns up at your summer property. I'll say that's nice, back away slowly and ignore your claim. So long as 'gods' seem to mean something inactive and undetectable in the world, why should I care? That gets filed in the round file. As a here-and-now'er, I have no use for ever-after, woo or magic beings.
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#20
RE: In regard to the rational person's choice
Oh, and Occam's razor
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition

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