The absurd need for logical proofs for God

[The Grand Nudger]

IDK, maybe that is unreasonable, maybe it couldn't. The faithful don't believe that it was capable of hiding it's tracks, at any rate.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

IDK, maybe that is unreasonable, maybe it couldn't.  The faithful don't believe that it was capable of hiding it's tracks, at any rate.

Which is why the faithful (in this case, Kloro) are the ones who keep insisting that existence is evidence enough. But to point to a natural thing - a tree, a river, Boris Johnson - and say, 'There is evidence for God!' isn't sustainable, as there are always alternative explanations that are, at the very least, plausible. In order for a piece of godvidence to be acceptable, it would have to be of such a nature as to preclude all potential naturalistic explanations.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

It would be evidence enough, if they could establish any relationship between it and the character stuck in their magic books. The problem isn't that they can't point to things which would be or could be evidence, and we don't actually require evidence in any other context to preclude all other potential explanations...it's that those things turn out not to be.

Not that it's difficult or that the bar is high, or that the subject is unknown, but that they have been plain and simply wrong. Take Kloros assertion that only a conscious agent can produce conscious agents. That would be, if it were true, evidence of a conscious agent. The trouble is that it isn't true.

Additionally, the simple act of point to lifes grand design, our specific argument, is a textbook example of a stolen concept. Of asserting and thus requiring the truth of that which demonstrates the inadequacy or falsehood of one's own premises.

So..when an argument fails on logical and evidentiary grounds, we generally don't say that it failed..in some sense, because it's not possible to prove it, or to provide evidence of it - but because the idea was just wrong from the floor to the ceiling. Conceivably, if true, some other argument or some other set of evidence could or would demonstrate as much - just not this one, because it's DOA.

[Deesse23]

IDK, maybe that is unreasonable, maybe it couldn't.  The faithful don't believe that it was capable of hiding it's tracks, at any rate.

Which is why the faithful (in this case, Kloro) are the ones who keep insisting that existence is evidence enough. But to point to a natural thing - a tree, a river, Boris Johnson - and say, 'There is evidence for God!' isn't sustainable, as there are always alternative explanations that are, at the very least, plausible. In order for a piece of godvidence to be acceptable, it would have to be of such a nature as to preclude all potential naturalistic explanations.

Boru

Well, yeah, thats the difference between *evidence* and *good evidence*

You can point at anything and claim its evidence for *insert your favourite obsession*. You arent (technically) wrong in doing so. Everything is evidence for anything.
The thing is tho: good evidence rules out other explanations than *insert your favourite obsession*. The more alternative explanations your evidence excludes, the better evidence it is (for your favourite obsession).

Nature is no good evidence for a god, since it doesnt exclude...wait for it....any (and there are many!) natural explanations for the existence of...nature.

[The Grand Nudger]

Let's say you ran into some tomatos in the woods. Is that not good evidence of a human being? There are many (many many many many many) other explanations for the tomato being there - every one of them that we'd be willing to entertain is natural.

In the overarching sense, all of nature is a product of a god in the asserted beliefs of these people, and splitting things up between god/nature in this way is fruitless - but we'll use ourselves as a god analog in this case. Would you say that the presence of the tomato in the woods was not good evidence that human beings were around, on account of there being literally endless other potential and plausible explanations for it? I point this out to show, again, that it's not really an issue of whether or not something is good evidence or bad evidence..but, first, whether it is evidence for the specific proposition -at all.

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-and it's not hard to figure out whether an arguer genuinely believes as much, either. Fun little double edged sword..but to create a premise for ones beliefs that is or could be provably true, is to create a situation for those same beliefs such that they can be provably false. If an arguer asserts, in good faith, that the premise of his beliefs is so and so and has the necessary evidentiary relationship to such and such..then that same person is inviting others to destroy that belief by reference to that same set of asserted facts.

Bets on whether or not Kloro thinks his beliefs can be proven to be false by reference to any argument he hopes can prove them to be true? My money is on no, because, in point of fact in mere reality, even he doesn't believe that this has such a relationship. He's just throwing shit at the wall hoping something sticks.

[Deesse23]

Bets on whether or not Kloro thinks his beliefs can be proven to be false by reference to any argument he hopes can prove them to be true?  My money is on no, because, in point of fact in mere reality, even he doesn't believe that this has such a relationship.  He's just throwing shit at the wall hoping something sticks.

Sure, more often than not the arguments believers use to defend their belief and the reason they believe arent the same.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure, sure, but the item that I think needs to be highlighted here is that in that event, and in this event, it's clear that the arguer themselves does not believe that the evidentiary proposition is informative. It's not bad evidence, it's no evidence at all, not even to them.

Insomuch as they feel it has utility for rationalizing their beliefs or as a tool of evangelism, it's something they say - but they are in no way shape or form committed to the proposal that it is evidence of anything.

[Paleophyte]

From the abstract of your linked article:

"We also report on studies that associate HERVs with human diseases of the brain and CNS. There is little doubt of an association between HERVs and a number of CNS diseases."

Thank you for proving my point. Worse than useless.

From the same article :

Another intriguing finding in human brain cells and mouse models was that endogenous retrovirus HERV-K appears to be protective against neurotoxins.

So HERV are 8% of your genome and you've managed to find a handful that actually do something while the overwhelming majority either have no function or are outright harmful. We'd expect evolution to co-opt a few of them but that's the sort of behaviour that makes your Designer look like an imbecile.

Horseshit. Any fool can show that a broken part is useless. The pseudogene that fails to produce vitamin C in primates for example. Useless. Worse than useless in fact, since it takes resources to reproduce.

No, liar. Parts of the gene are literally missing, not broken.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14703305/

We read : Only five exons, as compared to 12 exons constituting the functional rat GULO gene, remain in the human genome. A comparison of these exons with those of their functional counterparts in rat showed that there are two single nucleotide deletions, one triple nucleotide deletion, and one single nucleotide insertion in the human sequence.

Sorry, you're confusing me by arguing my side again. First you call me a liar and then you go to great lengths to show that the gene in question is half missing and that the remainder has suffered so many frameshift mutations as to be utterly useless. If that isn't broken then I don't know what is. It sure as hell won't be making you any vitamin C any time soon.

Even more, the mutation that made the gene stop being able to synthetize vitamin C may have been of beneft to early primates.

Confused again, but it's nice to see that you've finally grasped the basics of common descent. I swear, if I locked you in a room with your clone you'd argue one another into atheism.

Point of order! Which side of this debate are you arguing? I ask because you're arguing that humans give things function, utility, and purpose, not god. I mean, thanks and all that, but I really wasn't expecting you to argue both sides of this debate. Why don't I just leave you to it.

You're not that stupid, pal.

Well, that makes one of us.

Read your posts again : you're arguing that some gene somewhere is "useless", and therefore not designed. My point is that this logical implication is invalid.

No, I'm arguing that the bulk of the genome is apparently useless rubbish and has no appearance of Design. At least not by any sane or competent Designer. It's easy to understand how this would come about through purely natural processes. 4 billion years of unguided evolution is going to be a smidge untidy. If you're claiming Design then the Burden of Proof is on you to show why this unholy mess of a genome should be regarded as Designed rather than the nasty looking accident that it pretty clearly is.

Because we have abundant counterexamples to your assertion.

Try not to use the plural when referring to a single example. Makes you look a bit odd.

And I gave the example of chemical elements out there in nature who stayed "useless" for centuries, then became useful when we figure out out more about chemistry.

Until we gave them purpose. Not gawd. Thanks for making my point again.

In short: the terms "useless" are "useful" are entirely related to our condition, our science, our culture, etc.

And entirely unrelated to any Designer. Congratulations, you have arrived.

[Pat Mustard]

I care about your opinion of my position again why? Oh, wait I just remembered I don't. Did I say there were causes before? No, I don't think I did. You realize one can find nothing illogical about a position but not accept it, And at the same time reject the first cause arguments because they are all rubbish.

You don't get to play the agnostic position on whether there is a first cause or not, you stupid kid. There either are infinite actual causes or a first cause. Now pick one, or go back to kindergarten.

Well bored of listening to the same rubbish theist babble for the one-millionth time. Conversing with you is about as stimulating as reasoning with a bucket of warm water. 🥱🥱🥱

Have a lovely evening

Leave the words "theist", "conversing", "reasoning" for people capable of heavy thinking, you're just embarassing yourself now.

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When you say god are you referring to the farting unicorn? Because last I checked it couldn’t even move its ass.

Talk is very easy. You can always make a god and give all the power. Doesn’t mean much more than gobbledygook.

I see you're backing off now. Under the assumption of the existence of a three-omni being- call it unicorn or anything you like, why do you think breaking laws of nature is impossible for the latter ?

You can't have a three omni being. Omnipotence is funamentally incompatible with omniscience. To know everything you need to know with certainty what happens in the future. That knowledge will, by necessity, constrain the rang of your actions down to, at most, a few very similar actions (and in most cases down to one), thus making you not all powerful, but uniquely powerless.

[Belacqua]

You can't have a three omni being.  Omnipotence is funamentally incompatible with omniscience.  To know everything you need to know with certainty what happens in the future.  That knowledge will, by necessity, constrain the rang of your actions down to, at most, a few very similar actions (and in most cases down to one), thus making you not all powerful, but uniquely powerless.

For people (Christian or atheist) who assume that an omniscient God would know things the way people know things, only more so, this is a reasonable objection. For people who assume an omnipotent God can "do anything," this is a reasonable objection. 

When an objection like this is so obvious, we should assume that it also occurred to Christians centuries ago. For people educated in theology, the objection doesn't address Christian claims about God.

For the standard philosophical theology, ever since Platonic and Aristotelian thought was subsumed into Christian thinking, God does not know things in the way that people know things. When people know things, there are two separate things: a person who is knowing, and a thing that is known. God, however, is infinite and excludes nothing. It is existence itself, the ground of being. It is impossible for God, therefore, to know of something which is not itself, since nothing is not itself. In theology, "omniscient" means that all knowable things are part of God. When they say that God "knows," they mean that nothing is excluded from God. 

"Omnipotence" does not mean that God can do anything. It is standard in theology that there a lot of things God can't do -- make a four-sided triangle, for example. The word "omnipotence" refers to the Aristotelian metaphysics by which all things are either in act or in potency, or in some mix thereof. Aristotle proved (to the satisfaction of many) that for any potency to be actualized there must be something which is already fully actualized. "Omnipotence" therefore means that the actualization of all potencies in the world depends on God. 

Whether one finds these arguments persuasive or not is not what I'm discussing here. I'm saying that the words "omniscient" and "omnipotent" refer to these standard and ancient systems. They don't mean what your objection assumes they mean. 

Moreover, these arguments are not modern patches which someone came up with to try to avoid old contradictions. They are the standard view of what a First Cause (in the Aristotelian sense) or the infinite One (in the Neoplatonic sense) would have to be like. The senses you are arguing against are the more modern meanings, which were dreamed up by people ignorant of philosophy. 

It's unfortunate that so many Christians only know of the simpler, obviously false meanings. Your argument is effective against them.