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RE: Do we need to study all the religions to know that God doesn't exist?
May 8, 2015 at 7:56 pm
It is a fool's errand to attempt to exhaustively disprove nearly any proposition (maths excepted.)
Luckily, in atheism, disproving the existence of (any) God is not necessary.
The burden of proof is squarely on those making the positive existential claim.
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat?
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RE: Do we need to study all the religions to know that God doesn't exist?
May 8, 2015 at 7:56 pm
I don't know of anyone who studied all religions at all, much less as a way to determine if god does or doesn't exist. It seems to me that most people only ever really study one --and perhaps two-- in any sort of depth. If there is a god, and he desperately craves attention, then you'd think he would cut through all of that bullshit and get to know everyone so that there would be only one religion. It seems to me that the most reasonable options are that he doesn't exist, he doesn't give a shit about us, or he's the dumbest creature in the universe.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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RE: Do we need to study all the religions to know that God doesn't exist?
May 8, 2015 at 9:53 pm
I think the sheer number of religions is proof (for me) against God. How about all of the polytheistic religions? The ancient religions that no longer exist? How can they all be right? Humans naturally try to justify and rationalize the absurdity of life.
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RE: Do we need to study all the religions to know that God doesn't exist?
May 9, 2015 at 1:39 pm
I think it's preferable to remain agnostic about claims one hasn't examined.