I know this isn’t really a political topic but the subject comes up a lot anyhow. These are my responses to arguments I’ve heard that god exists.
The argument I get most is something like, ‘you find a watch and you assume it has a creator, yet you don’t assume that the lifeforms on this planet and the world itself do have a creator, and these are much more complicated. The problem with this argument is that you would then have to assume that god, which is much more complicated again, has a creator. You could say god always existed, but then you could just argue that the material necessary to create the universe always existed.
Another argument is the, ‘avoiding hell,’ argument. That you should believe in god because if you don’t you’ll be punished, not because of any evidence. But should you believe in something just because it carries a threat? If someone told you if you didn’t leave the country you would be killed, but provided no evidence that this was true, would you leave? In the same way, you should believe in god only if there are rational arguments in favour of its existence and not because you are, ‘in trouble,’ if it turns out there is a god. In any case, a creature that would punish people simply for not believing in it would be quite evil, at least if you didn’t believe in god and it turned out it existed, you would know you are defying a great evil.
Another argument is, ‘But they’ve proved Jesus existed.’ I agree, there did once live a man named Jesus. But saying that the fact that Jesus existed proves Christianity right is like saying the fact that Mussolini existed proves Fascism right. True, they have found evidence of a man named Jesus, but this in itself proves little.
Another one is, ‘The bible proves god exists.’ But how does it? If someone in this day and age wrote a book, few would argue that the mere fact that they wrote stuff down proves them right. So with this in mind, how does the bible, written when there was less scientific knowledge and often less scepticism, when there wasn’t the same amount of access to knowledge as there is today, prove god exists?
Here’s an argument I got several years ago from a religion teacher, I stated there was no evidence god exists, and he said what about faith. I said faith proves nothing because it is believe without evidence, and he said that many of the things we do in life require faith, the example he gave was getting on a plane, because we don’t know if it’ll crash. However, I think reason is what gets people onto a plane. They know that planes have been around for over a hundred years, that there are checks done on a plane before it takes off, that it won’t be allowed to take off unless there is good weather conditions, and that the vast majority of planes reach the airport safely without incident. Hence I think it is rational thought, not faith, that gets someone onto a plane.
Anyway, if you believe in something without evidence, then why not everything else without evidence? For example, the idea that the sun revolves around the Earth, there’s no evidence for that either.
And lastly, what I get a lot is that people believe in god because it’s a, ‘comfort.’ But this proves nothing, it might be very comforting for someone to believe that the mortgage on their house is payed off but this won’t make it true.
And lastly, is it a comfort? If an omnipotent being existed, we would all be under its complete control by definition. If we launched the most powerful rebellion against it, it could stop us with zero effort, hell it could prevent us before we even tried.
That’s why I’m glad there’s no god. I’m glad that humans have the potential to live free instead of being controlled forever by a being of unimaginable power. If god existed, for me anyway life would not be worth living.
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The uncaused cause argument is based on time. The cause had to exist before its effect.
Einstein theorized and experimentation has shown that time is not constant. It can slow down. How slow? Can time stop? Can a condition/state/plane exist where there is NO TIME?
What if God exists in this state? Then God could never NOT EXIST and needed no cause.
Hebrews 7:3
Melchizedek was without father, without mother and ancestry.
How can a man not have a mother?
Genesis 5:23
And Enoch was no longer here for God took him
If God created the universe then he has to know about relativity and quite likely could control time. Suppose God grabs Enoch and slows down time for him. 2000 years go by on Earth and God puts Enoch back. Enoch tells everybody his name is Melchizedek.
He arrived on Earth as an ADULT. Without father, without mother and without ancestry for the previous 2000 years.
You see! The Bible isn't so miraculous afterall. LOL
Dal Timgar
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God is such a silly concept. Why would anyone believe in that which cannot be falsified or verified? THere is no hypotheses or theory of God that can pass any scientific, logical test or evaluation or peer scrutiny.
There is no "god theory." A theory requires falsifiable or verifiable data based on Empirical research. You cannot have that with God.
Anything anyone comes up for to prove the existence of God has some primary logical flaw in it. Arguments for God can be also used to prove the existence of a supreme Leprechuan or divine banana peel.
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'Arguments for God can be also used to prove the existence of a supreme Leprechuan or divine banana peel.'
That's the point right there, you could prove the existence of a 100 foot tall flying rabbit or that dinosaurs are still around or anything like that with arguments used to try to prove god exists. Yet most believers in god would laugh at the idea of a 100 foot tall flying rabbit or that dinosaurs exist.
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[quote]"Why would anyone believe in that which cannot be falsified or verified?"
So atheism is as illogical as theism.
[/quote]
No. By stating that you obviously demonstrate that you haven't teh foggiest idea what falsifiablity and verifiablity are, nor do you understand the Scientific Method.
Atheism doesn't have to proof anything. It's not making the assertion that something exists. It's logically impossible to prove that something doesn't exist, and therefore unnecessary to prove that something does NOT exist. It's called the burden of proof fallacy. Those who say god exists have the burden of proof. This means they have the burden of showing that he exists. Atheists say "why believe in GOd when no evidence exists?" They also say there is no reason for God to exist.
The burden of proof is always on the party which is making a claim that requires evidence or something that goes against the grain of academics knowledge. Theism does that. Athiesm merely asserts that there is no reason to believe Gods exist any more so than there is to believe Lepreuchans exist.
Do you believe in Lepreuchans? Do you believe in Zeus? How bout Hera? How bout Aphrodite? Easter Bunny? Didn't think so.
God is in violation of Occam's Razor. He's not parsimonious, and creationism isn't a Theory, since it fails to meet the necessary elements OF A THEORY>
We don't have to prove GOD doesn't exist (it's also impossible as mentioned above). The burden of proof is on you, and reading from an ancient book of tribal myths isn't proof.
So, as to your silly statement: No, atheism does not = illogical like theism. Atheism means without God. There are various branches of Atheism. Strong and weak. One says he does not exist, one says there is no reason to believe he eixsts, basically.
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I am supposed to be intellectually intimidated by someone who uses the word PROOF when they shold type PROVE? And you can't claim it is a spelling or typing error.
Atheism is a belief system. The belief that there is no God.
A belief system can't and does not have to prove anything. The person that holds the belief has to defend it, if he can.
Proving that there is no God is like proving there is no intelligent life in the Andromeda galaxy. If we had 1000 ships that could travel 1000 times the speed of light, how long would they take to get there? How long would they take to get back? How long would we have been dead?
How would you prove there was no magnetic field around the Earth if you didn't know what a magnet was? The people that believe in God can't tell you what would have to not be if there is no God. The statement I made stands. You can type forever.
But please learn the difference between PROOF and PROVE. You don't sound very LOGICAL getting it wrong.
Dal Timgar
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Most logical scientists of anytype relating to the subject or any one who holds any convicted thought out beliefs about the creation of the universe believe that there has to be a starting point. It is a chemical reaction on a macro scale and what started the "big bang" had to be a force much greater then anything we can fathom and whatever this forces is, they are what we have come to call god. The total denying of this is ignorance. Without any starting point there can be no continuing principal of our existance. My guess is that you have considered all of the possible solutions that man has created to get you to put a coin or 2 in their pocket and found most illogical, at least you should have before declaring total athiesm. You also need to consider that during the 16000 year long game of telephone that the message might have been screwed up a little bit.
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[B]
I am supposed to be intellectually intimidated by someone who uses the word PROOF when they shold type PROVE? And you can't claim it is a spelling or typing error.[/B}
Typo. Attacking a typographical error then you are engaging in an Ad Hominem, which is a logical fallacy. Get on track kid. Grammatical and semantic arguments are ad hominems. Learn some logic. However, let us do it to you, oh intelligent one in grammar. I don't attack typing mistakes, but you will be an exception.
[I]
Evidence Below:[/I]
[B]
The people that believe in God can't tell you [I]what would have to not be[/I] if there is no God. The statement I made stands. You can type forever.[B]
1. If you want to be pedantic and anal (you know, talking about grammar instead of my argument) you ought to be aware that it's highly improper to split your infinitive. You shouldn't say would have to not be, because to be is the infinitive. Not cannot ever go in the middle of to and the verb.
2. Secondly, your statement doesn't stand in reality of academics. People who believe in God do not prove God must exist not, rather that he must exist. They need evidence for the Positive. Atheists do not have to prove a negative (prove god does not exist IE). That's a fallacy.
If you have trouble understanding the simple logical fallacies of your argument (AD hominmen, burden of proof, red herring, false analogy) I can and will redirect you to several good sites:
CATO institute
Nitzkor project
Infidels.org
[B]
Atheism is a belief system. The belief that there is no God.[/B]
Incorrect: There are two forms of Atheism. Postive/Negative or STrong/WEak. One believes there is no god, one posits that there is no reason to believe in God.
[B]
A belief system can't and does not have to prove anything. The person that holds the belief has to defend it, if he can.[/B]
False. Foremost, you are using only one definition of belief. Anything, according to that definition, is a belief. We are looking for faith/belief of religion, which is an irrational source. It asserts something exists or that something is occuring w/out evidence. This requires the passage of parsimony and occam's Razor. Again, you demonstrate the lack of understanding behind the Burden of Proof Fallacy.
If you have a belief that makes an assertion (GOD EXIST IE), then you have the Burden of Proof. It is your job to defend it by providing proof or evidence that it exists. Sans evidence, no one has to believe in it and it can be discarded untill you do.
[B]
Proving that there is no God is like proving there is no intelligent life in the Andromeda galaxy.[/B]
No. It's not. Proving God doesn't exist is like proving that lepreuchans don
't exist. Can you prove that Lepreuchans don't exist?
[B]
If we had 1000 ships that could travel 1000 times the speed of ligh[/B]
You can't. Too bad
[B]
how long would they take to get there? How long would they take to get back? How long would we have been dead?[/B]
THe speed of light is abouty 186k MPS. You do the math. This is also a red herring, since it does not deal with burden of proof. It's also a false analogy since you cannot compare aliens (which do have a greater chance of existing) to God.
[B]
How would you prove there was no magnetic field around the Earth if you didn't know what a magnet was?[/B]
No one has to prove that there isn't something or that something does not exist. To say one must is committing the BURDEN OF PROOF FALLACY. Don't you understand that? It is your job to defend it and say it exists by providing evidence.
This isn't hard for you to understand, I hope. BURDEN OF PROOF. THis is on people who say God exists. The Burden of Proof is always on those who claim a positive assertion that has no evidence or that requires support. The burden of proof is never on the person who questions the belief and says it doesn't exist or isn't true, unless saying so goes against the preponderance of academic knowledge.
[B]
But please learn the difference between PROOF and PROVE. You don't sound very LOGICAL getting it wrong[/B]
Learn not to use ad hominems in debate, but more importantly, learn NOT TO SPLIT YOUR INFINITIVES. Doing so makes you look illiterate and hypocritical, given that I am typing quickly and not running something through a spellchecker[B]
I know the difference. Christians, in order to be taken seriously academically, must provide PROOF for their GOd and his claims. THey must prove he exists.
Atheists, since they are questioning it and saying there's no reason to say he exists, do not have the BURDEN OF PROOF. They do not have to prove a negative. No one does. Understand?
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Apologize for the bracket mistakes. Forgot to delete the quote and replace it with a bold.
PS: On the discussion of Atheism, I am a soft/negative atheist. I assert there is no reason to believe in God due to the lack of coherent arguments for him or evidence.
I am without God. I do not say he does not exist. I say I don't believe in him or that there's no reason to believe.
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[B]
Atheist do not have ot prove there is NO GOD[/B]
You got another spelling mistake there. Ot? What's that?
[B]
Atheism is a BELIEF. No BELIEF has to be proven.[/B}
Incorrect usage of the term belief and incorrect application of Burden of Proof Fallacy. Atheism is the assertion that there is no reason to beieve in God. It means "without God."
Definition of Atheism:
1.Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
Atheism is essesntially a position which asserts that there is no reason to beieve in GOD. THEre isn't, since there is no credible scientific evidence for it. THere is no more evidence for God than there is for Lepreuchans. Do you believe in Lepreuchans? If not, then you are a hypocrit.
As you can see, Atheism is not BELIEF in something, rather DISBELIEF in something. As I tried to explain to you prior, the Burden of Proof fallacy asserts that he who is asserting a claim of existence or something contrary to evidence must prove the belief. Someone in DISBELIEF does not have that responsibility. Atheists do not have to prove there is no God. If you say Atheists, as a belief, must PROVE their belief, then you are asking them to prove a negative, which means you have just committed the Burden of Proof Fallacy.
Definition and explanation of Burden of Proof Fallacy"
1.[I]In many situations, one side has the burden of proof resting on it [...] The claim of the other side, the one that does not bear the burden of proof, is assumed to be true unless proven otherwise. in debate the burden of proof is placed on the affirmative team. As a final example, in most cases the burden of proof rests on those who claim something exists (such as Bigfoot, psychic powers, universals, and sense data).[/I]
From the above description of the Burden of Proof fallacy from the Nitzkor Project, you can clearly see three major points:
A. The affirmative team saying something exists (God, monsters, bigfoot, crocsmagic) have the burden of proving that X exists. THey must prove their BELIEF is true if it is to be taken seriously.
B. Atheism is disbelief in what Christians, or the pro-god affirmative team, are saying exist. Atheism, in this debate, is the negative team, not the affirmative. Burden of Proof is always on the Affirmative team when dealing with this particular topic. Atheism is not the belief in the sense you are saying. You are incorrectly using terminology here. We should get on the same footing if we are to continue. YOu cannot have a debate using different your version of terminology. Mine come from standard logic, science sites.
C. Those who question a belief do not have the burden of proof. IT's always on the positive team. God exists is a positive assertation, while logically, Atheism is not.
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT #1
Let us do a thought experiment: Let us call Atheism---- Alepreuchanism. It is the assertion that Lepreuchans don't exist, and it acts as the anti-thesis of Lepreuchanism, which states it does exist. Compare this experiment to Atheism and Theism. Atheism/alepreuchanism, is the negative. Theism/Lepreuchanism is the affirmative. The burden of proof rests soley on the affirmative team, not the disbelieving team. Below, you will see the Burden of Proof fallacy in it's full definition:
I hope you concede early, since I don't want to go around and around if you are not responsible enough to know when you are wrong.
[B]
If however the atheists CLAIM TO BE LOGICAL then they are saying it is not a BELIEF. Then they have to PROVE IT.[/B]
read above. Atheism is disbelief, not belief-in. Pay attention to the Logical Fallacy called BUrden of Proof. I provided it above. As the negative team, Atheism is contrary to theism. This means it doesn't have to prove dildo from ****. Theists have to prove God exists. Atheists don't have to prove God does not exist, nor do they have to disprove it. This is your major mistake, and you aren't understanding, which I find dismaying.
[B]
To accept something as true without sufficient evidence therefore belief is stupid by definition.[/B]
Belief is different from Faith. Religious beleifs are faith, and FAITH is an Irrational belief in that which does not have logical or empirical evidence behind it. However, this is another mistake of yours. Belief and Faith can be used interchangably, but they are not the correct definitions to apply to this debate. For example, look below:
I have faith that my car will not be stolen when I am in it.
I have the belief my car will not be stolen when I am in it.
A. I have belief that there is no reason to believe in God, since there is no empirical evidence or logical justification for it.
B. I have belief that God exists
Whilst A requires no proof, since you cannot prove a negative (and it's the negative team), B does require proof. It's affirmative asserstion.
I also didn't mention prior that Athiesm is not a religion. It's just the opposite. It's the disbelief in God, God's, or spiritual forces. It is A-THEISM. IT's not it's own religion any more so than Alepreuchanism is a religion.
This usage of belief/faith is identical, but it does not convey a sense of THEORY. It doesn't require proof. Saying GOD IS THE MASTER and CREATOR of the UNiverse DOES require proof, because it is an academic positive claim. It's the argument of the affirmative team. ATheism, on the other hand, is the negation of Theism. SInce you cannot logically prove a negative, and it's the negative team, Atheism does not have to prove anything, since there's nothing to prove. Atheists don't have to prove God doesn't exist as much as they don't have to prove LEPREUCHANS don't exist. Do you now understand? Do you require a more potent example?
Now, you might ask me why is it placed in the same category of religion? The answer is convention and it fits in that category because it's a non-religious, yet religion-centred opposition system. One can also draw a parallel to Race. Races, in humans, don't biologically exist, but on applications and other documents, RACE is an option you must check off. Biologically, Race refers to separate sub-species---humans have none. There is currently only one species of Human. Homo Sapien Sapien.
Do you believe in BigFoot? Do you assert that those who say there is no reason that one should believe in BigFoot should prove he doesn't exist?
[B]
You can KNOW that 2 + 3 = 5. You can SUSPECT that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. But you can BELIEVE in Santa Claus.[/B]
Yes. YOu can believe in Santa Clause. But that's, again, a positive, affirmative assertion. If you want your "belief" to be taken seriously in academics, you must provide evidence. If someone said Santa Clause doesn't exist, he doesn't have to prove he doesn't exist. You are just reiterating WHY I am correct. Every time you post, you help me more.
You can apply the terms FAITH and BELIEF to mathematics too, but you would be using an incorrect definition for the purpouses of this debate.
[B]
You can no more prove there is NO GOD than you can prove that I did not wear a brown necktie yesterday.[/B]
Exactly. This is my whole point. Athiests claim there is no reason to believe in God like there is no reason to believe in BigFoot, The Boogie Man, Zeus, Aphrodite, Hera, or Lepreuchans. They are the negative questioning team, not the affirmative team, therefore, the burden of proof rests squarely on the shoulders of those who claim there is a God, not on the Atheists.
Belief of Atheism is not the same as belief of God.
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And even though it was a typographical error, you engaged in a complete red herring and ad hominem attack on my intelligence, whilst committing several spelling mistakes and a pretty egregious error of grammar.
Amazing standars you have. I don't pick at people's silly typing and spelling errors. That's only important in an academic environment. As long as the text is legible, I could care less. The argument is more important than the trivial things.
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It's pretty weird to see a super computer and then think it gradually was created that way by natural selection and evolution. Especially the earlier processes are strange to think about; the initial 'self programming/evolving' cells/substance. And the step to intelligence itself, how did life suddenly grow brains? Mutations in DNA that are 'lucky' and occur so much so they could destroy/overwhelm the older genes? And how likely is it for DNA to mutate in a way that it does not somehow destroy the organism? Well, maybe it were the aliens? Which are more crude; but how did they evolve then? And if God was always there, then that is pretty materialistic, and maybe life is pretty materialistic qua philosophy. It's just always been there.
Anyway, I strongly disagree with most Christians and their way of thinking about God, that you can talk with him and that he created a heaven where you go after you die where you sprout rainbows out of your ass. God is probably as ****ty as a smart and complex computer algorithm.
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Blind faith is a scary quality but is a easy thing to accquire. Your views are just as bad as people who are saying there is no God, how can you lecture people about narrow-mindeness when you yourself are a victim of it. You may believe what you want and say it in any way but when you complain about other people's ignorance thats the biggest irony of all. If it makes you happy to think you'll be sent to hell or heaven then stick with religion is built on unstable minds, the church has to much influence and power.
One day minds will be reset.
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'how can you lecture people about narrow-mindeness when you yourself are a victim of it.'
Logically he can't do this, but will nonetheless. He's just having a temper tantrum cos he knows he's wrong.
I really believe that you should just ignore him. Part of his purpose here is to derail threads, divert people by getting them to call him an idiot instead of participating in a good debate. I think by answering him you are letting him win. He is already aware at least on some level of his idiocy, you're just telling him what he already knows.
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You have no answer but just lame ass insults give me a reason to believe in God, go on inspire me with yur huge knowledge of Religion and the world, convert it is yur mission.
One day minds will be reset.
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[quote]Someone please prove to me that God doesn't exist. Pretty hard to do isn't it? I'd say it's harder than proving God does exist.
[/quote]
It's impossible to prove a negative, therefore you cannot prove that God doesn't exist. There is also no reason to prove god does not exist. Lack of information does not prove that something doesn't exist.
How bout you prove to me that flying martian invisible lepreuchans don't exist.
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I think one has to believe in a god, otherwise they lose meaning in their life.
This doesn't mean I think the all the **** is right....
God doesn't have to be an all powerful thing, It can be based on laws and rules. You can really fit everything into the picture if you have a god.
I compel you all to rather be agnostic, or unsure. I don't see how you can prove there isn't god, but you can't prove there is one either. There is no proof for anything. Anything is certainly possible, and we will never know the truth, because there is always the distinct possibility that there is a blindfold over our eyes, either from above, or here on earth.
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The thing is, you don't need to prove there isn't. You must only prove there is. Those who say something exists must prove it exists. No one has to prove it does not exist. That's not the way it goes.
I can say Lepreuchans exist. I must prove it, not you disprove it or you prove it doesn't exist.
You're life can also have meaning without God. Many lives are without God and many have meaning and direction.
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Dont u ppl hav homes 2 go 2? Ur arguin ovr somethin u claim dont even exist. the fact is, no one has 2 prove anything If i ask: "how do u prove a cup exists?" i'd xpct u 2 turn round and ask: "what's a cup?". u know some1 actually got a 1st class philosphy degree over sayin that in an exam! 4GT FAITH its simple- why not? if ur still reading this post DONT ur wasting ur time. speak of a different subjct- like ,say...um....COMMUNISM! OR FOOD OR UR MUM no1 gives a toss! Go back to ur wives, go take ur kidz out 2 maccy D's or catch up on some sleep. Stop arguing the s**t ovr a subjct ppl hv argued in vain ovr 4 centries!!!
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