Religion and God

[Caaethil]

I fully believe that there are deep scientific questions that we will simply never be able to answer, regardless of how compelled we are to try. I think that a higher power is as good an answer to those questions as any. Simple as that.

This is called the God of the gaps argument, and the name was coined by not by atheists who wanted to discredit the argument and theism all together, but by Christians who wanted to point out the fallacy to other Christians. It's a form of the 'argument from ignorance' fallacy, where one claims something to be true because it hasn't been proven wrong yet. Now you aren't exactly claiming that it is true because it hasn't been proven wrong, just that it might be. But the core flaw is still the same. As far as science and logic is concerned, it isn't true until you can prove it. We seek to find naturalistic explanation for everything until there is evidence that any other kind of explanation is actually reliable, and there is absolutely nothing to suggest that we won't find those explanations like we've found all the others.

Humanity will never learn everything about the universe, but that's just because there isn't enough time. The stream of learning won't dry up - we'll work out whatever we divert our efforts to eventually.

Medieval people didn't understand quantum physics. They didn't understand relativity. We made a massive amount of progress between that age and discovering those things. I see zero reason why it is too far fetched for us to find out more things that would seem impossible right now.

Somehow, just assuming we will never learn something and thus lazily attributing it to a higher power doesn't sit right with me. It seems so anti-progress. But to each their own, I suppose. :)

 

[gimmepie]

As far as science and logic is concerned, it isn't true until you can prove it. We seek to find naturalistic explanation for everything until there is evidence that any other kind of explanation is actually reliable, and there is absolutely nothing to suggest that we won't find those explanations like we've found all the others.

That first part is precisely why I treat the existence of a higher power as a possibility not a certainty. You're automatically lumping me in with pure theists and that doesn't reflect my beliefs at all. As for the second, I think it's quite reasonable to doubt that we're ever going to have a completely accurate understanding of the universe simply due to the impossibility of looking at anything prior to the big bang, the universe's scope, the impossibility of proving or disproving multiverse theory and the ever growing list of questions we can't answer.

Science isn't even totally sure why we need to sleep or why we yawn, forgive me for not putting 100% blind faith in science's ability to provide all the answers to everything. I think it's healthy to be skeptical about both science and theology. Believing everything a person with a degree says is just as foolish as flocking behind the pope.

 

[Palamon]

Do you believe in a God?

I only believe God in the sense that I like the feeling of someone watching over me in life. But, I'm partially an atheist in a sense that I don't believe in the force of God, if that makes any sense.

Should people believe in a God?

Believe in whatever the fuck you want.

Do you think there is evidence of God?

Nah. Not unless you believe in that stuff. In my opinion, the Bible is fictional, so.

Is religion good?

If you believe religion is good, it's good, but since people use it against others to kill them, I'd say it's not.

Does religion have anything of value to offer to society?

I would say no to this.

Has religion ever had anything of value to offer to society?

Nah.

 

[kuzronk]

Do you believe in a God?
I believe in the existence of a God who created the planet and all the creatures.
Should people believe in a God?
While having faith in God might help some people you should believe what you want to be.
Do you think there is evidence of God?
Yeah but I doubt from time from time.
Is religion good?
Yes just as long as you keep it tame and don't be like some people thinking non-believers should be shunned or even killed.
Does religion have anything of value to offer to society?
Yeah. It helps people down and give them some hope for the future.
Has religion ever had anything of value to offer to society?
Yes since people keep needy people since that is what God wants people to do.

 

[pastelspectre]

I sort of believe in God? I think there is a higher power up in the clouds. What is it? I'm not sure. I like to believe in my own little personal god but i'll keep that to myself unless people are interested. I'm more interested in spirituality and things like that. Chakras, divine spirits, rocks with healing powers, stuff like that. I don't really mind if other people have a religion. I just don't want them shoving it in my face is all. Otherwise I do not mind.

 

[Caaethil]

That first part is precisely why I treat the existence of a higher power as a possibility not a certainty. You're automatically lumping me in with pure theists and that doesn't reflect my beliefs at all.

I'm not lumping you in with anyone, I'm saying it's an argument commonly used by pure theists which is also being used by you. And it's a poor argument.

As for the second, I think it's quite reasonable to doubt that we're ever going to have a completely accurate understanding of the universe simply due to the impossibility of looking at anything prior to the big bang, the universe's scope, the impossibility of proving or disproving multiverse theory and the ever growing list of questions we can't answer.

Of course it won't work out everything. It just seems incredibly naive to say "we will never discover this", because I can simply ask you to prove it. Which you can't, of course. Who says we can't look at anything prior to the big bang? Medieval people would tell you we can't look at anything prior to our lives without some kind of written record. Look where we are now, looking at cosmic microwave background radiation and red shift, proving ideas that none of us were even around for.

Science isn't even totally sure why we need to sleep or why we yawn, forgive me for not putting 100% blind faith in science's ability to provide all the answers to everything.

Did you actually read what I said in that post? Stop being so aggressive, I made perfectly clear I do not think science will ever find all of the answers to everything.

I think it's healthy to be skeptical about both science and theology. Believing everything a person with a degree says is just as foolish as flocking behind the pope.

I don't remember saying you should. Weird.

What I think is that you should believe everything proven or proven to be extremely likely by a wide body of scientists using empirical evidence, peer review, and just generally the scientific process. Until it's proven wrong, if it ever is. Because that's how science works. Nothing is accepted because somebody with a degree said so. That isn't science, and I don't know why you're lumping me in with people who pretend it is just because I hold science's truth above superstition.

 

[World King]

• Do you believe in a God?
• Should people believe in a God?
• Do you think there is evidence of God?
• Is religion good?
• Does religion have anything of value to offer to society?
• Has religion ever had anything of value to offer to society?

• ​
• No. I've been Atheist for quite some time and have been happy since then.
• Well, whatever makes them happy. I'm not against people having their personal beliefs; only when they try to convince/enforce their beliefs on others is when it gets to me and makes me mad.
• In all honesty, no. All "evidence" provided so far since the beginning of time is nothing more than "faith"-based; nothing that can be seen - only that can be "felt".
• Again, yes on a personal level, if they are shallow and empty enough to need to have something telling them how to behave and act like good human beings.
• Not from my point of view. Again, only on a personal level to each one that has decided to believe.
• Hell no.
  

 

[gimmepie]

I'm not lumping you in with anyone, I'm saying it's an argument commonly used by pure theists which is also being used by you. And it's a poor argument.

That is exactly what you were doing, simply by assuming I'm arguing that God exists. I'm not. I'm saying that we don't know and nor will we. I'm simply saying that the existence of a higher power is a possibility and since it cannot be disproven it shouldn't be discounted.

Of course it won't work out everything. It just seems incredibly naive to say "we will never discover this", because I can simply ask you to prove it. Which you can't, of course. Who says we can't look at anything prior to the big bang? Medieval people would tell you we can't look at anything prior to our lives without some kind of written record. Look where we are now, looking at cosmic microwave background radiation and red shift, proving ideas that none of us were even around for.

If you really want to play that game, prove to me that we can. It's an extremely dubious prospect to somehow find any evidence of anything prior to universe's creation. There was (supposedly) nothing there to observe so there can't be anything left to make judgements from. Maybe it's naive to think we'll never find answers, but I think it's probably more naive to attribute some magical power to scientists that will let them find out anything they want if they just try hard enough for long enough. Not to mention arrogant in assuming humanity are that capable.

Did you actually read what I said in that post? Stop being so aggressive, I made perfectly clear I do not think science will ever find all of the answers to everything.

I'm not being aggressive, I'm debating. As for reading your post, I did, thoroughly. The only thing you made clear is that
1. You're staunchly atheist
2. You vastly overestimate our capacity for discovery.

I don't remember saying you should. Weird.

What I think is that you should believe everything proven or proven to be extremely likely by a wide body of scientists using empirical evidence, peer review, and just generally the scientific process. Until it's proven wrong, if it ever is. Because that's how science works. Nothing is accepted because somebody with a degree said so. That isn't science, and I don't know why you're lumping me in with people who pretend it is just because I hold science's truth above superstition.

Hold on, you're saying that a lot of people thinking something without any solid proof means it's probably true? Now what kind of blind acceptance does that sound like. I don't have any problem with you holding science in high regard, so do I. However you're making a mistake in labelling a belief truth, the same as any religious zealot. It just so happens that your belief is that a higher power doesn't exist. But you've got just as much proof towards that as any religious person does to the contrary. It seems to me the logical thing is to assume you're correct but acknowledge you can't possibly know for sure. Which is exactly what I do.

When you actually have proof, then you can stomp on religious people for lacking proof. Until then you can believe you're correct all you're like but all you have is a belief the same as those people going to church every Sunday. This is why the religious debate makes no sense, nobody can prove anything.

 

[Juno]

Do you believe in a God?
Not really, no.

Should people believe in a God?
I think people should believe whatever they want.

Do you think there is evidence of God?
Not to my knowledge, but I don't spend a lot of time researching religion.

Is religion good?
It can be.

Does religion have anything of value to offer to society?
It offers a lot of people comfort and solace, which is valuable if they cannot find these things through other means.

Has religion ever had anything of value to offer to society?
Kind of the same question as the above.

I have never been religious, and honestly I just don't really care about religion, but I dislike bigots/extremists on both sides of the debate. "Live and let live" is how I feel about it - I hate it when people get overly righteous and holier-than-thou with their beliefs, but at the same time it is equally insufferable and embarrassing to watch when extreme atheists ridicule and belittle others for their beliefs when they have no good reason to do so.

Yes, there are many zealots in the world who do crazy things that end up hurting a lot of people, and I do not support it when super religious communities teach their sacred texts as facts to children while ignoring science if it contradicts their beliefs (sadly happens in some places), but these are the crazies and you can't possibly compare every Christian, Muslim, etc. to the ones who do terrible things in the name of religion - the vast majority of religious people that I actually know are totally normal and their religion does not make them crazy, unreasonable or stupid.

Faith just helps some people make sense of certain things that happen to them, gives them strength, hope, etc., and I think that's great for them. Unless religion is affecting the livelihood of someone else when it has no business to (eg. anti-gay marriage laws that exist for religious reasons), I have no problem with it.

So do I believe in a religion or God? No, but if a person's belief isn't hurting anyone else and they're not relentlessly trying to convert me or whatever, I really don't see the point in tearing down their faith.

 

[Caaethil]

That is exactly what you were doing, simply by assuming I'm arguing that God exists. I'm not. I'm saying that we don't know and nor will we. I'm simply saying that the existence of a higher power is a possibility and since it cannot be disproven it shouldn't be discounted.

I'm doing no such thing, I'm just saying it's the same argument with the same flaw. The flaw does not come from the fact it is arguing God exists, the flaw comes from a failure in logic within the argument which is not at all linked to whether or not you think God exists. Christians were the first to write about the fallacy, they weren't using this one to disprove God.

What I will say is that "it cannot be disproven therefore it shouldn't be discounted" is not true and it should absolutely be discounted. Can you prove their is not a unicorn living inside the moon? No? Then don't discount it.

God as an idea is not useful to science. It doesn't actually explain anything about the universe. We don't learn more or answer any questions in a meaningful way by factoring God, therefore we disregard the idea until evidence comes up.

If you really want to play that game, prove to me that we can. It's an extremely dubious prospect to somehow find any evidence of anything prior to universe's creation. There was (supposedly) nothing there to observe so there can't be anything left to make judgements from. Maybe it's naive to think we'll never find answers, but I think it's probably more naive to attribute some magical power to scientists that will let them find out anything they want if they just try hard enough for long enough. Not to mention arrogant in assuming humanity are that capable.

Seems like an issue with the burden of proof. It doesn't work that way. You can't answer every demand to "prove it" with "prove me wrong". If you're going to make a claim like "we will never prove this", you'd better be ready to be the one to prove that, and I can make as many sweeping counter statements as I like in response until you do. There's a lot of "supposedly" going on here, which just proves you don't actually know what we can and can't know. See bottom of post for more rant on the burden of proof.

And no, assuming we can't do something is much worse than assuming we can do something, because if we assume we can't do something we'll never try. If we assume we can do something, then even if we can't, we'll try, and if we can, we'll get there. Seems like the better deal to me, I don't know why you're trying to one up me with "well that's even more naive".

I'm not being aggressive, I'm debating. As for reading your post, I did, thoroughly. The only thing you made clear is that
1. You're staunchly atheist
2. You vastly overestimate our capacity for discovery.

Well I just read it and I found this. You can even F3 and find it in the post (on the first page) if you must:

Humanity will never learn everything about the universe, but that's just because there isn't enough time. The stream of learning won't dry up - we'll work out whatever we divert our efforts to eventually.

Come on now. I don't know why you're trying to turn what I said into a way to passive aggressively respond with something that has roughly the effect of "I could only determine you're an atheist and an idiot".

Hold on, you're saying that a lot of people thinking something without any solid proof means it's probably true? Now what kind of blind acceptance does that sound like. I don't have any problem with you holding science in high regard, so do I. However you're making a mistake in labelling a belief truth, the same as any religious zealot. It just so happens that your belief is that a higher power doesn't exist. But you've got just as much proof towards that as any religious person does to the contrary. It seems to me the logical thing is to assume you're correct but acknowledge you can't possibly know for sure. Which is exactly what I do.

No no no no no. I don't think a wide body of people accepting something with empirical evidence means it's probably true. Stop twisting my words. I think a wide body of scientists following the scientific process and concluding with a theory widely accepted by the scientific community is probably true. Because that's how science works.

I can acknowledge I don't know for sure just like I acknowledge that I don't know for sure if there's a pink unicorn in the moon. Yes, technically I don't know for sure, but for all intents and purposes, until I can prove it, there's not a pink unicorn in the moon. I see no reason to treat religion differently.

When you actually have proof, then you can stomp on religious people for lacking proof. Until then you can believe you're correct all you're like but all you have is a belief the same as those people going to church every Sunday. This is why the religious debate makes no sense, nobody can prove anything.

That's not how science or logic works. Wikipedia puts it well:

"When two parties are in a discussion and one asserts a claim that the other disputes, the one who asserts has a burden of proof to justify or substantiate that claim."

This is a well known fact. It's the logical way to go about it. So when religious people tell me there is a man in the clouds who made everything, I absolutely have the right to stomp all over that for lacking proof and I don't need a single thing other than "prove it".

 

[jappo]

Do you believe in a God?
I do actually believe in a God, I just cant recognise myself in any religion. But I like to think that there is something after deatch

Should people believe in a God?
I think people should believe in whatever they wishes to believe. If they are from a certain religion, good for them. If someone is Atheist, good for him/her.

Do you think there is evidence of God?
Honestly, I think not. but perhaps im wrong and its evidence we are not meant to see (or stuff like that). Dont think about it in matters of evidence or not.If there was absolute evidence, the discussion would be a lot shorter.

Is religion good?/Does religion have anything of value to offer to society?/Has religion ever had anything of value to offer to society?
Yeah, when seen/used in the right context. I have seen people close to me getting a lot of comfort when near death by due to there religion. I also know of the current shit happening in the world, So I know for what bad things religion can be used.
Bottomline even thought I am not part of any religion, I have seen the good parts of it. I just feel that people need to act more on the mindset of: "treat others like you would liked to be treated aswel".
If you are religious/atheist, and you want to be respected for that, also show respect to those who think differently. Who are you to judge people about that?

♥A little bit more respect and consideration, and this world would be a lot better ♥​

 

[gimmepie]

I'm doing no such thing, I'm just saying it's the same argument with the same flaw. The flaw does not come from the fact it is arguing God exists, the flaw comes from a failure in logic within the argument which is not at all linked to whether or not you think God exists. Christians were the first to write about the fallacy, they weren't using this one to disprove God.

There is hardly a flaw in logic. I'm telling you we don't know. That is all I'm saying. If we cannot prove something one way or another we shouldn't assume it to be true. That is a principle very deep in science.

What I will say is that "it cannot be disproven therefore it shouldn't be discounted" is not true and it should absolutely be discounted. Can you prove their is not a unicorn living inside the moon? No? Then don't discount it.

Oh, so you mean I'm not allowed to make the exact same argument as you? That's good to know. However since you go a bit further, let's compare the two situations.

God/Higher Power: We've never ventured beyond our Universe (which we haven't fully explored at all) nor were we here to observe its creation. We have exactly no concrete evidence to indicate either the existence or lack thereof of a higher power. There is no conclusive evidence of anything.

Unicorn on the Moon: We've explored the moon physically and through observation at a distance and know for a fact that it is not an environment capable of supporting multi-cellular life. Therefore we reach the conclusion that not only are there no unicorns on the moon, but no life at all.

God as an idea is not useful to science. It doesn't actually explain anything about the universe. We don't learn more or answer any questions in a meaningful way by factoring God, therefore we disregard the idea until evidence comes up.

God as an idea would be useful to science if it was correct. We just cannot know either way and as such turn our attention to things we can actually observe and attempt to understand. Science as a whole does not disregard the possibility of a higher power, many scientists are also religious. Don't attribute a character trait to such an enormous group collectively because then you're misattributing it to a lot of people.

Seems like an issue with the burden of proof. It doesn't work that way. You can't answer every demand to "prove it" with "prove me wrong". If you're going to make a claim like "we will never prove this", you'd better be ready to be the one to prove that, and I can make as many sweeping counter statements as I like in response until you do. There's a lot of "supposedly" going on here, which just proves you don't actually know what we can and can't know. See bottom of post for more rant on the burden of proof.

Sweeping statements are not and never will be good debating, so actually I'd advise you against using them at all. As for "a lot of supposedly" I'm making logical estimations based on established information and deciding based on logic that those things are probably true. That's how a lot of scientific theories - you know little things like evolution theory, quantum mechanics etc - come about. If you're really against "supposedly" though, you should stop making it the foundation of your belief since you're supposing there's no higher power without any proof to back you up.

And no, assuming we can't do something is much worse than assuming we can do something, because if we assume we can't do something we'll never try. If we assume we can do something, then even if we can't, we'll try, and if we can, we'll get there. Seems like the better deal to me, I don't know why you're trying to one up me with "well that's even more naive".

Sure, maybe it would be terrible if I was ever looking in the first place. I'm not a scientist and have no interest in becoming one. So my belief that we'll never discover things like what came before the universe etc is entirely irrelevant to the progress of the human race and causes exactly no harm. I will point out though, that we could be learning a lot more if those who are brilliant scientific minds were turning their genius to things within the scope of human comprehension and use instead of existential questions because those fields of enquiry would ultimately prove far more useful to humanity I would think.

As for why I'm trying to "one up you", I'm debating my point. That generally involves someone making an effort to show why their point is better.

Well I just read it and I found this. You can even F3 and find it in the post (on the first page) if you must:

Humanity will never learn everything about the universe, but that's just because there isn't enough time. The stream of learning won't dry up - we'll work out whatever we divert our efforts to eventually.

I'll concede I forgot about that part. You're still making an enormous and baseless assumption here though. Why don't we put it to the burden of proof that you mention all the time.

Your Statement: Humanity will eventually, without a doubt, discover anything we en masse divert our attention to.

The Evidence as Required by the Scientific Burden of Proof: ??? (I'm guessing there won't be anything you can actually put here since you can't see the future)

Come on now. I don't know why you're trying to turn what I said into a way to passive aggressively respond with something that has roughly the effect of "I could only determine you're an atheist and an idiot".

I never said you're an idiot and not once have I assumed anything even resembling that line of thought. You're clearly plenty intelligent but like many intelligent people, that doesn't mean you can't be misguided. Even Einstein was adamant that quantum mechanics weren't a thing and now they're widely accepted. Try not to frame me negatively by putting words in my mouth.

No no no no no. I don't think a wide body of people accepting something with empirical evidence means it's probably true. Stop twisting my words. I think a wide body of scientists following the scientific process and concluding with a theory widely accepted by the scientific community is probably true. Because that's how science works.

That is exactly what you said. A bunch of scientists sit in a room, they wonder where the universe came from. They decide it appeared out of nowhere in a Big Bang without a trigger and without a higher power being involved. They cannot prove this. However, they decide it is true anyway.

A bunch of priests sit in a room, they wonder where the universe came from. They decide a higher power, something beyond our comprehension, is responsible for bringing everything into existence. They cannot prove this. However, they decide it is true anyway. These situations are essentially what has happened and I have to tell you, neither sounds more crazy than the other to me. Nether sounds more provable to me either.

If we were talking about discrediting the Bible I'd be right there with you. We have plenty of scientific fact that shows us the vast majority of what is written in not only the Bilbe, but the Quran and every other holy text in the history of ever, is wrong. However, we have no observation or evidence that suggests the existence of some sort of higher power than ourselves is impossible. So it bothers me when people act as though we do.

I can acknowledge I don't know for sure just like I acknowledge that I don't know for sure if there's a pink unicorn in the moon. Yes, technically I don't know for sure, but for all intents and purposes, until I can prove it, there's not a pink unicorn in the moon. I see no reason to treat religion differently.


That's not how science or logic works. Wikipedia puts it well:

"When two parties are in a discussion and one asserts a claim that the other disputes, the one who asserts has a burden of proof to justify or substantiate that claim."

This is a well known fact. It's the logical way to go about it. So when religious people tell me there is a man in the clouds who made everything, I absolutely have the right to stomp all over that for lacking proof and I don't need a single thing other than "prove it".

Here's why this is different then, it's called perspective. If we flip things, and you say "There is no unicorn on the moon", you then have the burden of proof to show that there isn't. Unless you're an idiot or the most uniformed person ever, you could probably manage that. All he evidence tells us there is no Unicorn.

Now let's put you and the pope in the same situation. Fair enough, the pope can't fulfil this burden of proof when he claims God is real. Now it's your turn. You say "There is no God or any other kind of higher power". You also cannot prove your statement to be correct. The best you can do, just like Mr. Pope, is tell me why you believe what you do and see if I agree. Because there is exactly zero evidence either way. That's why your burden of proof argument is irrelevant, because if you make the statement that God doesn't exist you cannot prove yourself correct any more than a religious person can prove that they are.

When there is no evidence to back up their claim, nobody has the right to treat that claim as fact. Be that an atheist or theist. So no, you don't have the right to stomp on people's beliefs from some imagined perch of superiority because you're in the exact same position whether you're willing to admit it or not.

 

[Caaethil]

There is hardly a flaw in logic. I'm telling you we don't know. That is all I'm saying. If we cannot prove something one way or another we shouldn't assume it to be true. That is a principle very deep in science.

No, a principle very deep in science is that if you cannot prove something one way or another you should assume it to be false. Don't start giving ideas with literally zero evidence a "maybe".

Oh, so you mean I'm not allowed to make the exact same argument as you? That's good to know. However since you go a bit further, let's compare the two situations.

If you're talking about my use of the don't discount it argument, I was being sarcastic.

God/Higher Power: We've never ventured beyond our Universe (which we haven't fully explored at all) nor were we here to observe its creation. We have exactly no concrete evidence to indicate either the existence or lack thereof of a higher power. There is no conclusive evidence of anything.

No conclusive evidence of God, therefore God doesn't exist in the eyes of science. There is no "we aren't sure" middle ground.

Unicorn on the Moon: We've explored the moon physically and through observation at a distance and know for a fact that it is not an environment capable of supporting multi-cellular life. Therefore we reach the conclusion that not only are there no unicorns on the moon, but no life at all.

It's a magic unicorn. It also lives inside the moon, not on its surface. It's actually an evil unicorn, and the only people who know this are myself and George Lucas. Remember the Death Star? That's Lucas' warning to us.

And until you can prove that wrong I expect you to respect it and understand

God as an idea would be useful to science if it was correct. We just cannot know either way and as such turn our attention to things we can actually observe and attempt to understand. Science as a whole does not disregard the possibility of a higher power, many scientists are also religious. Don't attribute a character trait to such an enormous group collectively because then you're misattributing it to a lot of people.

Science is not a group of people. Science does disregard the idea of a higher power. "We turn our attention to things we can actually observe." Yes, that's what the word disregard means. If evidence of God appears, science will look into it. Until then, science doesn't care. Scientists might believe whatever they want, but science itself does not deal with God. It's refusal to deal with God is the exact same as it's refusal to deal with invisible pink unicorns.

Sweeping statements are not and never will be good debating, so actually I'd advise you against using them at all. As for "a lot of supposedly" I'm making logical estimations based on established information and deciding based on logic that those things are probably true. That's how a lot of scientific theories - you know little things like evolution theory, quantum mechanics etc - come about. If you're really against "supposedly" though, you should stop making it the foundation of your belief since you're supposing there's no higher power without any proof to back you up.

We just gonna slink around the burden of proof then?

"you should stop making it the foundation of your belief since you're supposing there's no higher power without any proof".

Literally just going to ignore the fact you just used it again without addressing the fact it's a well known logical fallacy and invalidates the entire argument? It doesn't help that you're going to call my debating skills into question at the same time, seems a tad hypocritical.

But to address your point, the burden of proof makes it 100% okay for me to say "you are absolutely completely one hundred percent wrong" until you can actually prove your point. That's how it works. I don't need to prove you wrong, you've got to prove your own points right.

Sure, maybe it would be terrible if I was ever looking in the first place. I'm not a scientist and have no interest in becoming one. So my belief that we'll never discover things like what came before the universe etc is entirely irrelevant to the progress of the human race and causes exactly no harm. I will point out though, that we could be learning a lot more if those who are brilliant scientific minds were turning their genius to things within the scope of human comprehension and use instead of existential questions because those fields of enquiry would ultimately prove far more useful to humanity I would think.

Are you the guy standing in McDonald's telling the workers to make something of themselves? Maybe they're more interested in those existential questions. It's called philosophy and it was developed thousands of years ago. I also happen to find it incredibly interesting, I'm sorry if you don't think that is valuable to society.

And no, scientists won't just stop looking into something because you don't think they can prove anything about it. Because you don't know that. Doing that literally goes against everything science is about.

As for why I'm trying to "one up you", I'm debating my point. That generally involves someone making an effort to show why their point is better.

Not sure "you're the one being naive" is important to your point.

I'll concede I forgot about that part. You're still making an enormous and baseless assumption here though. Why don't we put it to the burden of proof that you mention all the time.

Your Statement: Humanity will eventually, without a doubt, discover anything we en masse divert our attention to.

The Evidence as Required by the Scientific Burden of Proof: ??? (I'm guessing there won't be anything you can actually put here since you can't see the future)

'Aight, you win. You've bested me on one side note using an argument you still won't adhere to yourself.

Actually, that's a bit obnoxious to do directly after responding to a comment on the burden of proof fallacy by using the burden of proof fallacy.

I never said you're an idiot and not once have I assumed anything even resembling that line of thought. You're clearly plenty intelligent but like many intelligent people, that doesn't mean you can't be misguided. Even Einstein was adamant that quantum mechanics weren't a thing and now they're widely accepted. Try not to frame me negatively by putting words in my mouth.

Could you put "I didn't call you an idiot" any more patronisingly? "that doesn't mean you can't be misguided" Drop your pride and talk to me like a person with an opinion. Because that's all you have, not wisdom to impart on me. And no, I didn't put words in your mouth at all. I actually worded it very carefully.

"SOMETHING THAT HAS ROUGHLY THE EFFECT OF"

I couldn't say it any more carefully, stop scolding me. I said that what you said had that effect and was rather "wow he actually believes this lol". I didn't say you called me an idiot.

That is exactly what you said. A bunch of scientists sit in a room, they wonder where the universe came from. They decide it appeared out of nowhere in a Big Bang without a trigger and without a higher power being involved. They cannot prove this. However, they decide it is true anyway.

A bunch of priests sit in a room, they wonder where the universe came from. They decide a higher power, something beyond our comprehension, is responsible for bringing everything into existence. They cannot prove this. However, they decide it is true anyway. These situations are essentially what has happened and I have to tell you, neither sounds more crazy than the other to me. Nether sounds more provable to me either.

If we were talking about discrediting the Bible I'd be right there with you. We have plenty of scientific fact that shows us the vast majority of what is written in not only the Bilbe, but the Quran and every other holy text in the history of ever, is wrong. However, we have no observation or evidence that suggests the existence of some sort of higher power than ourselves is impossible. So it bothers me when people act as though we do.

Let me reword that for you...

One scientist called Steven Hawking sits in a room, and he wonders where the universe came from. Now he was a clever chap and he saw some evidence to suggest that the universe originated as a single point, a singularity, and expanded out suddenly in a 'big bang'. He shared this idea with the scientific community, and they looked at the evidence. They noticed Hubble's law, which basically comes down to a bunch of evidence that most of what we observe in the universe around Earth is moving away from Earth. They also discovered the cosmic microwave background, a microwave signal coming from basically everywhere. There's a lot more behind this I won't go into, but think of it as the big bang's grubby fingerprints. They also discovered a whole ton of other evidence I'm too lazy to go into. The scientists' ideas have absolutely zero to do with a higher power. Their idea does not require one, nor does it fail if one exists. But because of the burden of proof, they disregard the idea until there is any evidence, if there ever is.

Some camel herders (they aren't priests) sit in a room, and they wonder where the universe came from. They decide to write a book on where the universe came from for unknown reason and with zero evidence. Also applies to every other religion.

Here's why this is different then, it's called perspective. If we flip things, and you say "There is no unicorn on the moon", you then have the burden of proof to show that there isn't. Unless you're an idiot or the most uniformed person ever, you could probably manage that. All he evidence tells us there is no Unicorn.

That's... Not how the burden of proof works.

Now let's put you and the pope in the same situation. Fair enough, the pope can't fulfil this burden of proof when he claims God is real. Now it's your turn. You say "There is no God or any other kind of higher power". You also cannot prove your statement to be correct. The best you can do, just like Mr. Pope, is tell me why you believe what you do and see if I agree. Because there is exactly zero evidence either way. That's why your burden of proof argument is irrelevant, because if you make the statement that God doesn't exist you cannot prove yourself correct any more than a religious person can prove that they are.

The burden of proof lies on the person making the positive claim. In other words, when we talk about 'the person making the claim', we're talking about the person who claims something to exist or something to be true. I'm claiming something to not exist, something to be false. Is your entire knowledge of the burden of proof based on what I've said here, because this seems like a misunderstanding on how to burden of proof works. The burden of proof is valid in any debate, it's a fundamental of any debate involving a statement being factually true or false. I can't so much explain it to you here as I can tell you to do some research on it and get back to me.

When there is no evidence to back up their claim, nobody has the right to treat that claim as fact. Be that an atheist or theist. So no, you don't have the right to stomp on people's beliefs from some imagined perch of superiority because you're in the exact same position whether you're willing to admit it or not.

You're making this really petty really fast. Does throwing these jabs in just make you feel good? I'm not a classic atheist with a superiority complex and I'm not your punching bag. At this point you're just flaming me, chill out and actually have a discussion instead of throwing in in "CONCLUSION: discussion is with bigoted atheist".

This is a debate. You aren't educating me. You aren't right just because you say you are in your post. You are literally closing off with "So in conclusion, I've proven you wrong, stop being <insert whatever>". That's what you might do when you lecture me, and I'd very much rather you didn't lecture me.

 

[Jay]

Do you believe in a God?
No. Also yes. But then no again. I don't tend to believe in things that I can't gain proof of... but I also don't disregard things that have a significant margin for existing. Like aliens. Aliens almost definitely exist, but I can't prove that either.

Should people believe in a God?
This is a very stupid question.

Do you think there is evidence of God?
I think you've organised these questions in a way that leads to easily countered answers. Stop pandering things to make them easier for your argument. Ask an older civilisation if they have evidence of the Earth being round, they don't. What you're doing is asking people to prove something that is quite clearly inconclusive on both fronts because it deals with topics beyond the current scope of human understanding... your vehemence to push the dissection and irrelevance of religion is ironically similar to the attitude of those same religious zealots from centuries past who impeded scientific progress.

Is religion good?
Approaching this question from a psychological and philosophical standpoint. Yes, yes it is. It gives people hope in desperation. It grants morale and purpose. It in some cases, keeps populations in check for fear of damnation. It helps people sleep at night. As a completely unrelated question... would you like it if one day religion was completely disproven? If it was shown as undoubtedly false without room to disbelieve? Witness then the result. Mass hysteria, suicide, murder, increased crime rates... the attitude of hopelessness and a complete disintegration of many a man's inhibitions. With no fear of punishment, what stops a man from sinning? Law and order only go so far to instill morality and while personally it has no effect on me, religion is the entire basis of morality for a large percentage of planetary population.

Does religion have anything of value to offer to society?

Read above. It's necessary... it's a grinding gear in a machine, removing it will break things down irreparably.

 

[gimmepie]

No, a principle very deep in science is that if you cannot prove something one way or another you should assume it to be false. Don't start giving ideas with literally zero evidence a "maybe".

Science does that all the time, it's called a theory. Now before you say "theories are based on observations", maybe they should be but you say "observations" and I say "multiverse theory" and "string theory". The theory that there's a God is based on just as much evidence as either of those.

If you're talking about my use of the don't discount it argument, I was being sarcastic.

Was not at all what I was referring to.

No conclusive evidence of God, therefore God doesn't exist in the eyes of science. There is no "we aren't sure" middle ground.

Dark Energy, String Theory, Multiverse Theory. Please go on.

It's a magic unicorn. It also lives inside the moon, not on its surface. It's actually an evil unicorn, and the only people who know this are myself and George Lucas. Remember the Death Star? That's Lucas' warning to us.

And until you can prove that wrong I expect you to respect it and understand

Pretty simple
"Hi George, where'd the death star come from? Oh and have you ever had access to a radar powerful enough to penetrate to the centre of the moon?" When he tells me a) I thought it was a cool idea and
b) No then I have evidence to say you're probably wrong.

Science is not a group of people. Science does disregard the idea of a higher power. "We turn our attention to things we can actually observe." Yes, that's what the word disregard means. If evidence of God appears, science will look into it. Until then, science doesn't care. Scientists might believe whatever they want, but science itself does not deal with God. It's refusal to deal with God is the exact same as it's refusal to deal with invisible pink unicorns.

Disregard doesn't mean "assume you're correct if there's no evidence to support either camp". It means ignore. As in "let's work on something else until some evidence shows up or work on finding that evidence."

Science not dealing with God has nothing to do with "God doesn't exist" it has everything to do with "we have no evidence either way so we can't comment."

"you should stop making it the foundation of your belief since you're supposing there's no higher power without any proof".

Literally just going to ignore the fact you just used it again without addressing the fact it's a well known logical fallacy and invalidates the entire argument? It doesn't help that you're going to call my debating skills into question at the same time, seems a tad hypocritical.

I don't think I'm skirting around anything. You're literally the one who made the statement "there is no God" when you started this whole shebang off. The burden of proof rests on you as the person who originally made the statement. As for my other comment, it is bad debating to make sweeping statements. Simple as that.

But to address your point, the burden of proof makes it 100% okay for me to say "you are absolutely completely one hundred percent wrong" until you can actually prove your point. That's how it works. I don't need to prove you wrong, you've got to prove your own points right.

You're right, you have to prove your own points right! So start doing it instead of literally skating around the fact you have no evidence of anything at all by throwing technicalities in people's faces. You started everything off, start showing the proof behind your perspective. You think I'm being hypocritical about things by calling some of your methods into question, but so far you're entire method is to simply not acknowledge there's a huge flaw in your own position. The exact same flaw that any theist has.

Are you the guy standing in McDonald's telling the workers to make something of themselves? Maybe they're more interested in those existential questions. It's called philosophy and it was developed thousands of years ago. I also happen to find it incredibly interesting, I'm sorry if you don't think that is valuable to society.

I didn't say it has no value at all. But it's probably got a lot less than "How can we use entanglement to our advantage?" or "How can we travel to other hospitable planets in a reasonable period of time" or "How can we minimise deaths due to viral infections". It's interesting to think about the universe's origins, but if I'm on a sinking ship and can only fit two people onto my boat I'm going to choose the engineer, or the doctor or the teacher into my boat over theoretical physicists and philosophers studying things that ultimately have very little baring on the survival of humanity.

And no, scientists won't just stop looking into something because you don't think they can prove anything about it. Because you don't know that. Doing that literally goes against everything science is about.

I don't recall asking them to? I just don't think they'll find anything and think there's probably more important things out there. I'm not working on a cure for cancer so I'm not about to tell Hawking he should of put his genius to work there instead lol.

Not sure "you're the one being naive" is important to your point.

It's kind of the entirety of my point.

Could you put "I didn't call you an idiot" any more patronisingly? "that doesn't mean you can't be misguided" Drop your pride and talk to me like a person with an opinion. Because that's all you have, not wisdom to impart on me. And no, I didn't put words in your mouth at all. I actually worded it very carefully.

"SOMETHING THAT HAS ROUGHLY THE EFFECT OF"

I couldn't say it any more carefully, stop scolding me. I said that what you said had that effect and was rather "wow he actually believes this lol". I didn't say you called me an idiot.

You heavily implied that in your post and now you're back peddling. Literally only one of us is resorting to personal attacks here and it's not me.

Let me reword that for you...

One scientist called Steven Hawking sits in a room, and he wonders where the universe came from. Now he was a clever chap and he saw some evidence to suggest that the universe originated as a single point, a singularity, and expanded out suddenly in a 'big bang'. He shared this idea with the scientific community, and they looked at the evidence. They noticed Hubble's law, which basically comes down to a bunch of evidence that most of what we observe in the universe around Earth is moving away from Earth. They also discovered the cosmic microwave background, a microwave signal coming from basically everywhere. There's a lot more behind this I won't go into, but think of it as the big bang's grubby fingerprints. They also discovered a whole ton of other evidence I'm too lazy to go into. The scientists' ideas have absolutely zero to do with a higher power. Their idea does not require one, nor does it fail if one exists. But because of the burden of proof, they disregard the idea until there is any evidence, if there ever is.

Yes, we can all acknowledge that the universe seems to have started from a singular point. We have no idea why or how.

There is indeed a microwave signal coming from pretty much everywhere. We have no idea why and are just assuming that's something to do with the big bang and not something completely unrelated with very little to actually suggest it has anything to with the big bang at all.

Disregarding an idea because you cannot provide proof either way is not the same as that idea being false. It's simply a matter of being practical, which so many atheists and agnostic atheists seems to forget/not understand. In the same way you need evidence to consider something fact, you also need to prove to me that it's fiction.

Some camel herders (they aren't priests) sit in a room, and they wonder where the universe came from. They decide to write a book on where the universe came from for unknown reason and with zero evidence. Also applies to every other religion.

Dark Energy, multiverse theory, string theory...

That's... Not how the burden of proof works.



The burden of proof lies on the person making the positive claim. In other words, when we talk about 'the person making the claim', we're talking about the person who claims something to exist or something to be true. I'm claiming something to not exist, something to be false. Is your entire knowledge of the burden of proof based on what I've said here, because this seems like a misunderstanding on how to burden of proof works. The burden of proof is valid in any debate, it's a fundamental of any debate involving a statement being factually true or false. I can't so much explain it to you here as I can tell you to do some research on it and get back to me.

Forgive me, but I'm pretty sure that in the very first post of this thread you're claiming the atheistic view point to be truth. The burden of proof applies to any time you state something as fact. Which you are doing. I'll say it again, stop throwing the burden of proof in people's faces to cover up for the fact you have exactly zero evidence to support your view point. Science does not consider anything as fact without evidence. If there is no evidence it disregards it (as you keep telling us) until evidence is found.

You're making this really petty really fast. Does throwing these jabs in just make you feel good? I'm not a classic atheist with a superiority complex and I'm not your punching bag. At this point you're just flaming me, chill out and actually have a discussion instead of throwing in in "CONCLUSION: discussion is with bigoted atheist".

I'm not being petty. I'm pointing out there's an enormous flaw in your argument and you're continuously ignoring that flaw. That is all. I quite honestly don't care what you personally believe I just want you to apply the same standards to yourself as you do to everyone else, which you're clearly not doing. Once again, the only person actually making personal attacks is yourself. Whatever you're perceiving as aggression from me isn't actually there, so just focus on the issue at hand instead of creating a problem where there isn't one.

This is a debate. You aren't educating me. You aren't right just because you say you are in your post. You are literally closing off with "So in conclusion, I've proven you wrong, stop being <insert whatever>". That's what you might do when you lecture me, and I'd very much rather you didn't lecture me.

Yes, this is a debate. Usually in a debate you're required to prevent evidence for your side of things. You have not done that. I'm telling you to provide some evidence for your own standpoint because to demand evidence from the theists here without ever giving any to support your own view is hypocritical. The only one of us proclaiming that they are right and deciding for themselves with no good reason that everyone else is wrong is you. Stop trying to get personal, it's not getting you anywhere. This is as close to being lectured as you'll get from me, and it has everything to do with me doing my job and nothing to do with our debate. For the most part though, I'm not lecturing you, I'm not talking down to you and honestly I'm sorry that you feel I am. All I have done is state my point of view, tell you why I think it and ask you to provide some evidence for your side because, as you so rightly reminded us, this is a debate. In a debate both sides are required to give evidence. There's nothing more to it.

 

[Caaethil]

Science does that all the time, it's called a theory. Now before you say "theories are based on observations", maybe they should be but you say "observations" and I say "multiverse theory" and "string theory". The theory that there's a God is based on just as much evidence as either of those.

That isn't even slightly what a theory is. God is not a theory. I think you're misunderstanding. You can absolutely look into things with no evidence to find evidence, but they aren't even considered to be real until there is evidence. We don't use string theory in our science books as the factual explanation for anything, because string theory is not proven.

Multiverse 'theory' is a hypothesis. I don't know who you've heard call it a theory, but that's just mislabeling. Hell, people are calling into question whether string theory is actually a theory. Because a theory demands observation and evidence. But want to know what's great about string theory? It makes predictions. It makes valid predictions which attempt to explain things in the universe we don't have explanations for in a well reasoned, plausible manner. That's why we're looking for evidence. It was thought up by mathematicians and scientists who knew what they were doing and knew what they were looking for.

Was not at all what I was referring to.

Well come on then, don't leave me hanging.

Dark Energy, String Theory, Multiverse Theory. Please go on.

Science does not accept any of those things as truths. Just like it doesn't accept God as truth. Went on, as commanded.

Pretty simple
"Hi George, where'd the death star come from? Oh and have you ever had access to a radar powerful enough to penetrate to the centre of the moon?" When he tells me a) I thought it was a cool idea and
b) No then I have evidence to say you're probably wrong.

George doesn't know, he just knows what the Unicorn told him, which is that it is true. George is simply the unicorn's profit.

Disregard doesn't mean "assume you're correct if there's no evidence to support either camp". It means ignore. As in "let's work on something else until some evidence shows up or work on finding that evidence."

Disregard != Ignore? This is a new level of nitpicking, I can't handle it. Stop getting so caught up on words, it's the same bloody thing. I absolutely support working on other things until evidence of God shows up. THAT'S MY WHOLE ARGUMENT. The point is that God is not real until we find that evidence. That's how it works.

Science not dealing with God has nothing to do with "God doesn't exist" it has everything to do with "we have no evidence either way so we can't comment."

You assume everything to be false until it is proven true. That's why we don't ask criminals to prove themselves innocent while the prosecution is sitting eating popcorn, laughing about it all at home. I believe an invisible pink unicorn exists in the cosmos and I am his prophet. Science does not under any circumstance respond to that with "welp, there's no evidence either way".

I don't think I'm skirting around anything. You're literally the one who made the statement "there is no God" when you started this whole shebang off. The burden of proof rests on you as the person who originally made the statement. As for my other comment, it is bad debating to make sweeping statements. Simple as that.

It's not so much a belief I hold as much as it is a lack thereof. If you think of it that way it makes a bit more sense. My whole argument for "God does not exist" is "These people keep saying God exists but there's no evidence so he doesn't", in the same vein as there is no evidence for an invisible pink unicorn therefore it doesn't exist.

You're right, you have to prove your own points right! So start doing it instead of literally skating around the fact you have no evidence of anything at all by throwing technicalities in people's faces. You started everything off, start showing the proof behind your perspective. You think I'm being hypocritical about things by calling some of your methods into question, but so far you're entire method is to simply not acknowledge there's a huge flaw in your own position. The exact same flaw that any theist has.

I've addressed this flaw over and over, I've made my point quite clear and you're doing the rough equivalent of yelling "La la la I can't hear you". It's tiring. I do not need proof to tell you that random ideas spouted with zero evidence are false. "God exists" is a positive claim. It asserts the existence of something, and that needs to be proven. Asserting the lack of existence of something we have zero proof for requires no evidence other than "there is literally nothing to suggest this is real, why the hell are you wasting my time."

I didn't say it has no value at all. But it's probably got a lot less than "How can we use entanglement to our advantage?" or "How can we travel to other hospitable planets in a reasonable period of time" or "How can we minimise deaths due to viral infections". It's interesting to think about the universe's origins, but if I'm on a sinking ship and can only fit two people onto my boat I'm going to choose the engineer, or the doctor or the teacher into my boat over theoretical physicists and philosophers studying things that ultimately have very little baring on the survival of humanity.

I don't understand why this is relevant to the discussion and who you think you are to question this. So what about you then? You're moderating a Pokemon forum and arguing about something you seem to think can never be proven. Seem like a useless endeavour to you. Then go and work out how to use entanglement to your advantage for yourself instead of pointing at all of philosophy and telling it it's being lazy for not focusing on a completely different field of study.

I don't recall asking them to? I just don't think they'll find anything and think there's probably more important things out there. I'm not working on a cure for cancer so I'm not about to tell Hawking he should of put his genius to work there instead lol.

I don't understand why you need to be the workflow director of all of science. Instead of telling me that these people would be more useful to society working on something you personally think is important, why don't you accept that people will pursue their interests. You aren't all seeing and it's not like we're short on time to figure out if these things can be discovered or not.

It's kind of the entirety of my point.

If your entire point is trying to one up me with an ad hominem, then I give up entirely.

You heavily implied that in your post and now you're back peddling. Literally only one of us is resorting to personal attacks here and it's not me.

For somebody who gets so worked up over people inferring things from their posts, you sure like to infer things from my posts.

Yes, we can all acknowledge that the universe seems to have started from a singular point. We have no idea why or how.

But until we find reason to believe otherwise, we assume a naturalistic explanation, because that's how science works.

There is indeed a microwave signal coming from pretty much everywhere. We have no idea why and are just assuming that's something to do with the big bang and not something completely unrelated with very little to actually suggest it has anything to with the big bang at all.

I'm not even dealing with this. Do your own research. This has nothing to do with God and I can't bring myself to go into all of the research required to explain CMBR properly.

But I will tell you that it wasn't a case of "wow microwaves it must have been THE BIG BANG."

Disregarding an idea because you cannot provide proof either way is not the same as that idea being false. It's simply a matter of being practical, which so many atheists and agnostic atheists seems to forget/not understand. In the same way you need evidence to consider something fact, you also need to prove to me that it's fiction.

*completely disregards my arguments on the burden of proof*

Is this entire discussion going to be back and forth with you ignoring what I say the burden of proof is from my perspective while you give me your rather interesting idea of how the burden of proof works? Then, you'll follow it up with "Why aren't you listening?"

Because it's ironic and bothersome.

Dark Energy, multiverse theory, string theory...

Somebody needs to delete this thread, this is getting really boring. Like, seriously? If you're going to do this, you might as well shove off because repeating the point over and over it like I'm some child you need to educate is really beginning to grate on me.

And every time you say multiverse 'theory' it just gets worse.

Forgive me, but I'm pretty sure that in the very first post of this thread you're claiming the atheistic view point to be truth. The burden of proof applies to any time you state something as fact. Which you are doing. I'll say it again, stop throwing the burden of proof in people's faces to cover up for the fact you have exactly zero evidence to support your view point. Science does not consider anything as fact without evidence. If there is no evidence it disregards it (as you keep telling us) until evidence is found.

"THERE IS NO INVISIBLE PINK UNICORN IN SPACE"

Science, please tell me my idea is false and thus accept that their is an invisible pink unicorn in space.

I've already explained the difference between positive and negative statements and how they affect the burden of proof, and I'm not going to do it again because you'll just ignore it again.

I'm not being petty. I'm pointing out there's an enormous flaw in your argument and you're continuously ignoring that flaw. That is all. I quite honestly don't care what you personally believe I just want you to apply the same standards to yourself as you do to everyone else, which you're clearly not doing. Once again, the only person actually making personal attacks is yourself. Whatever you're perceiving as aggression from me isn't actually there, so just focus on the issue at hand instead of creating a problem where there isn't one.

You don't know how much hypocrisy like this annoys me. I've explained multiple times why the burden of proof does not work on a negative statement (denial of a scientifically unaccepted idea), you're the one who won't listen.

Listen, I'm only going to say it once more. Talk to me like a real person with real ideas. Give me your honest views. Stop trying to take advantage of the situation and strategically maneuver your way into a better arguing position by telling me I'm doing exactly what you're doing (see: focus on the issue at hand instead of creating a problem). I've told you multiple times why I do not believe I hold the burden of proof, why don't you address that instead of telling me I'm ignoring you? The argument is right in front of you, but you're cherry picking what you want to look at and ignoring the rest.

Yes, this is a debate. Usually in a debate you're required to prevent evidence for your side of things. You have not done that. I'm telling you to provide some evidence for your own standpoint because to demand evidence from the theists here without ever giving any to support your own view is hypocritical. The only one of us proclaiming that they are right and deciding for themselves with no good reason that everyone else is wrong is you. Stop trying to get personal, it's not getting you anywhere. This is as close to being lectured as you'll get from me, and it has everything to do with me doing my job and nothing to do with our debate. For the most part though, I'm not lecturing you, I'm not talking down to you and honestly I'm sorry that you feel I am. All I have done is state my point of view, tell you why I think it and ask you to provide some evidence for your side because, as you so rightly reminded us, this is a debate. In a debate both sides are required to give evidence. There's nothing more to it.

The burden of proof is a feature of a debate by which only one side has to give evidence for the statement. It's not the first person who makes a statement who has to provide that proof, it's the one making the positive statement - "this unaccepted idea is true". Me saying "this idea which is already accepted by science is true" does not require evidence because it's already accepted. If you want to contest that it's you who's got to have your evidence ready. Saying that both sides need to provide evidence is contradictory to every single thing you've said in this thread on the burden of proof and it saddens me greatly that you'd turn that view into anything that a moderator should enforce because it's simply not true. And if you want to prove it's true, actually prove it by addressing my points instead of skirting around the topic and just saying "It's true and that's that."

Maybe if you were talking about a wide topic rather than one question, you'd have a point, but with something as narrow as "does a higher power exist", only one side needs to give evidence and that's the one making the positive claim. The only thing you're making me think right now is if you'd be acting the same way if I made a thread on the invisible pink unicorn's existence. Would you be hunting for evidence to disprove something that cannot be detected at all, as somebody who staunchly believes that both sides require evidence?

 

[gimmepie]

Snip

[x] Tell other party not to get hung up on words whilst getting hung up on words
[x] Tell other party to stop ignoring them when that is exactly what they're doing
[x] Act like you know a lot more than the other person, whilst accusing them of doing that, even though you have no idea how educated that person is about anything.

That's quite the checklist you're working on. Honestly, I'm not even going to bother going in depth again because you're just going to continue ignoring any point I make whilst constantly sprouting rhetoric that is irrelevant to said point.

Here's the bottom line

You say: "There is no proof, therefore it certainly does not exist."
I say: "I have no proof and accept that means I cannot draw a conclusion either way."

The idea that something doesn't exist just because we haven't discovered it is ridiculous. We used to think the Earth was flat, we used to think that the universe was much smaller and heliocentric. We couldn't observe those things so we assumed that the world was different. For someone who keeps bringing things like that up you're ignoring that they poke a hole in your own argument. Those things were all true long before scientists worked it out.

I'm completely fine with someone choosing to ignore the idea of a higher power until the idea can be proved/disproved. I am not okay with a person claiming something as fact with no evidence and then climbing up on a perch of imagined superiority and subsequently shitting on people doing the exact same thing.

You keep telling me that "until it can be proven, science doesn't acknowledge it". That's because it can't. The thing about it not acknowledging it, means that it doesn't acknowledge it as a truth or fallacy. It cannot work with either assumption because it has nothing to work with. So it works ignoring the idea altogether. That's not the same as assuming something doesn't exist.

I won't debate this further with you until you feel like actually debating instead of doing exactly what you persistently accuse me of. I will remind you though (again), that in a debate both parties are expected to provide evidence for their PoV. So you might want to find some.

 

[Jay]

All that nonsense.

Look.

You're trying to argue your point but you're missing the fundamental purpose of our argument. Now I know you're going strong, but do try to step back... put your emotions away... and look with a broader perspective at exactly what you're trying to say... because to be honest you're losing all of your valid points (if there even are any) in massive walls of useless jargon. Focus more or you're going to be perceived as wrong based solely on your needless and unprofessional aggression.

Now, are we ready to proceed? Good.

You say things aren't considered real without evidence but that's a very skewed perspective of what evidence is. Without evidence something cannot be proven to be true, however this can be said of non-existance as well. That's he care truth here that you are missing. It's a piece of information we cannot make heads nor tails of either way. No we cannot present evidence for God, nor I assure you, do we plan to try. However, you cannot present proof to the contrary and this is something you glaze over by reinventing the preliminary requirements in your own perception of the scientific method.

You keep bringing up this silly Unicorn. But it's such a vastly different concept. We have viewed a large portion of the space around this and we have no evidence of such a creature... we have proof it doesn't exist within our perceivable space.

Now if you are suggesting that there is something similar outside if our perceivable space or somehow hidden from our sight and scanning apparatus then yes, technically such a creature could very much exist. I point you towards the ideology of Schrödinger's Cat. The idea that if nothing is there to perceive it, nobody can make a counter claim to its existence. That being said... I really don't see what kind of point you were trying to make with this nonsense.

As well as this you are victim to all of the failings Mr. Pie pointed out... it makes you rather difficult to take seriously at this point.

 

[Caaethil]

[x] Tell other party not to get hung up on words whilst getting hung up on words
[x] Tell other party to stop ignoring them when that is exactly what they're doing
[x] Act like you know a lot more than the other person, whilst accusing them of doing that, even though you have no idea how educated that person is about anything.

Is this just going to keep happening? Not even going to explain those things at all? I tell you you're ignoring my points, I give you evidence as to which points you're ignoring. You tell me I'm ignoring your points, you repeat "I already said that the burden of proof is on you". I did not ignore that, I explained multiple times my stance. The other stuff I don't even know, something vilifying or ad hominem with no evidence so whatever. Just points. Checklists don't work.

That's quite the checklist you're working on. Honestly, I'm not even going to bother going in depth again because you're just going to continue ignoring any point I make whilst constantly sprouting rhetoric that is irrelevant to said point.

I literally spent my last point fully responding to your claims of me ignoring you. And at that exact moment when I do that, you don't even respond to anything I said and just complain I'm ignoring you. This is just getting really silly.

Here's the bottom line

You say: "There is no proof, therefore it certainly does not exist."
I say: "I have no proof and accept that means I cannot draw a conclusion either way."

The idea that something doesn't exist just because we haven't discovered it is ridiculous. We used to think the Earth was flat, we used to think that the universe was much smaller and heliocentric. We couldn't observe those things so we assumed that the world was different. For someone who keeps bringing things like that up you're ignoring that they poke a hole in your own argument. Those things were all true long before scientists worked it out.

They don't poke a hole in my argument. We assumed they were false because we had ideas. Scientists had ideas and reasons - evidence - why they believed in a heliocentric universe. Then more evidence came and they realised the universe was not heliocentric. That's not poking a hole in my argument. They assumed the universe was heliocentric before because that's what the evidence pointed to and they simply believed that any other model was false until it was proven otherwise.

And that's exactly what I'm doing. It's called the scientific method. You observe, measure, and so on. You create your hypotheses and you test them. Until you've tested them, however, they mean nothing and are to be considered false.

I'm completely fine with someone choosing to ignore the idea of a higher power until the idea can be proved/disproved. I am not okay with a person claiming something as fact with no evidence and then climbing up on a perch of imagined superiority and subsequently ****ting on people doing the exact same thing.

Chill. For the love of God (irony not intended), I don't know why you're trying to paint me so negatively. Yes I have an opinion and clearly you don't like that. I don't know why that's turned me into the literal enemy of the universe. It's not a perch of imagined superiority. I'm not claiming to know something without any evidence, I'm dismissing something (creationism) because it has no evidence. If I say it like that, does it sound better?

You keep telling me that "until it can be proven, science doesn't acknowledge it". That's because it can't. The thing about it not acknowledging it, means that it doesn't acknowledge it as a truth or fallacy. It cannot work with either assumption because it has nothing to work with. So it works ignoring the idea altogether. That's not the same as assuming something doesn't exist.

Is there a state in between God existing and God not existing that science works with? No, of course not. Your model either has a God or it doesn't. The scientific model of the universe does not include a God. That's pretty close to the assumption that God doesn't exist. In fact, it's the same thing. A God's existence is binary, it either does or it doesn't. Either God exists in the model and science just explains everything that way, or God doesn't exist in the model and science explains everything in a more naturalistic sense.

I won't debate this further with you until you feel like actually debating instead of doing exactly what you persistently accuse me of. I will remind you though (again), that in a debate both parties are expected to provide evidence for their PoV. So you might want to find some.

To be fair I'm still missing the evidence that God exists. You keep telling me both sides need evidence but you've given me nought. But disregarding that, here's the best evidence to suggest God doesn't exist - we've never observed anything even slightly suggesting a God exists.

I really want to get off my chest that I feel genuinely angry inside to read this post. You're literally saying exactly what I want to say to you, except you're doing it in a post with a whole lot of zero supporting evidence. You don't actually quote where I do all of these things and you don't disprove my claims of you doing them. I was absolutely as honest as I could be in those posts and I did my utmost to answer your questions as well as I could. I took where you said I was ignoring you - i.e. your claims that I was ignoring your mentioning of the burden of proof, and I reiterated my points (such as on positive and negative claims) very carefully. I answered every question you posed, and I can't help but feel you're coming off as a bit dishonest by responding with this, which is just a whole post telling me how immature I am and how I'm still ignoring you. It's just one great huge ad hominem and a slap across the face to close off with. Please, stop talking about this bloody perch of imagined superiority or whatever, it's really obnoxious. I'll by all means listen to your points on how I'm just as bad. Just actually give me a quote. This whole thread has been baseless statements where you don't actually tell me where exactly I've done x, y and z crime. And then when I deny it you wonder why.

And I hope you've just read all of that thoroughly because I'm not quite convinced you've done that thus far. See telling me something I said was never said and telling me I'm ignoring arguments I literally responded to in the last post (maybe if those responses aren't good enough you should clarify your question? That would be productive). And in this paragraph there's more supporting evidence than in your entire last post, to note.

You're trying to argue your point but you're missing the fundamental purpose of our argument.

What is the fundamental purpose?

put your emotions away...

Yeah, I'm feeling a bit down.

(if there even are any)

Smooth.

in massive walls of useless jargon. Focus more or you're going to be perceived as wrong based solely on your needless and unprofessional aggression.

Is this how we're going to do this? Take a moment to push my arguments to one side to invalidate my point with "you're so aggressive". I feel like a trainee monk here trying to channel my energy and find inner peace. I don't need that here.

Now, are we ready to proceed? Good.

You say things aren't considered real without evidence but that's a very skewed perspective of what evidence is. Without evidence something cannot be proven to be true, however this can be said of non-existance as well.

Science doesn't work that way though. We don't start believing things might be true because we haven't proven them false yet, we start believing things might be true because we find evidence to support them. It doesn't go the other way around, that's not the scientific method.

That's he care truth here that you are missing. It's a piece of information we cannot make heads nor tails of either way. No we cannot present evidence for God, nor I assure you, do we plan to try. However, you cannot present proof to the contrary and this is something you glaze over by reinventing the preliminary requirements in your own perception of the scientific method.

I don't even see why it's an important distinction. Whether you want to say "we can't prove it either way", you're basically assuming it's false in the end because you're going to live your life and go about your day to day business as if there isn't a God. You aren't going to decide you can't prove it either way and start going to Church.

You keep bringing up this silly Unicorn. But it's such a vastly different concept. We have viewed a large portion of the space around this and we have no evidence of such a creature... we have proof it doesn't exist within our perceivable space.

What proof? You can prove there isn't an invisible pink unicorn in space?

Now if you are suggesting that there is something similar outside if our perceivable space or somehow hidden from our sight and scanning apparatus then yes, technically such a creature could very much exist. I point you towards the ideology of Schrödinger's Cat. The idea that if nothing is there to perceive it, nobody can make a counter claim to its existence. That being said... I really don't see what kind of point you were trying to make with this nonsense.

I was trying to make the point that just because you can't disprove an idea doesn't mean you should respect it or treat the idea of it being true equally to the idea of it being false.

As well as this you are victim to all of the failings Mr. Pie pointed out... it makes you rather difficult to take seriously at this point.

Oh yes, all those failings. Thanks for reminding me, I was almost having a discussion, but okay.

 

[gimmepie]

Congratulations you have once again ignored the whole point of my argument. We do not know. We cannot know. My point is exactly that neither theists nor atheists have any semblance of any evidence at all to support their beliefs - and despite what you claim atheism is a belief and nothing more until you can back it up with something. You're literally as bad as each other.

You've also once again gone right ahead and continued with your "disregard=assume as false" talk even though I have at this point repeatedly explained why this is wrong. You literally are doing everything you claim I'm doing and your only evidence for your position is that the opposition has the same amount of evidence you do.

I'm sorry that you feel upset, but when you bring emotions into a debate that's pretty much bound to happen.