Is God... PG Version

[3mmanu3lrc]

Moreover:

You can add all the words you want to make it seem smarter, but is there really a reason to believe in a god? It's been asked multiple times and no one tries to answer. Instead, we get lectured on who has the BoP.

Nobody has tried to answer that because it's something that comes from the inside of every human being (call them believers if you want)
Most of the times trying to explain that leads to an endless discussion, which is why most of the people try to avoid that type of arguments.
If someone don't believe in the time that person has been leaving in this world, then probably non of what I could say to him would change his/her mind.

 

[Ganonsburg]

That's fine. In your wordiness you gave (well, implied really) actual arguments for God. But my point was that without those arguments, you are justified in saying "I believe that unicorns do not exist".

Right. Since we agree on the nonexistence of unicorns, there's not much need to provide much proof or anything for this case. Were we to give a serious debate on the existence of unicorns though, I would need to provide stronger points.

@GW: Dre's mentioned many times that there are good reasons to believe in the existence of God, namely the necessity of a first cause. And the lecture on the BoP has to do with people simply stating that God can't exist and leaving it at that. Explanations are needed.

@3m: I was saying that whichever side wants to win more will provide proof for their argument. I don't see how it doesn't make sense. If you want to convince someone of something, you'll show them why you're right (instead of just saying that you are).

 

[3mmanu3lrc]

There you go!
It's just that W/O the...

If you want to convince someone of something, you'll show them why you're right (instead of just saying that you are).

...part, it sounded kind of senseless related to the post you were quoting, but now it does make sense.

 

[Mike]

I was saying that whichever side wants to win more will provide proof for their argument. I don't see how it doesn't make sense. If you want to convince someone of something, you'll show them why you're right (instead of just saying that you are).

You cannot prove that something does not exist. All you can do is show people that there is no reason to believe it. In many cases it's as simple as "because you pulled that out of your ***". In other cases, it's required that you refute the points brought up from the other side. Either way, there is no reason a nonbeliever should have to defend his position without someone attacking it first, as nonbelief is the default choice.

 

[GwJ]

Why can't humans simply say "We don't know "yet?"

Why do you think with our current knowledge that we can know everything?

 

[Ganonsburg]

You cannot prove that something does not exist. All you can do is show people that there is no reason to believe it. In many cases it's as simple as "because you pulled that out of your ***". In other cases, it's required that you refute the points brought up from the other side. Either way, there is no reason a nonbeliever should have to defend his position without someone attacking it first, as nonbelief is the default choice.

Correct. Well, mostly. Kind of. People have proven that certain things don't exist, such as (as I mentioned before) ether. I could list more examples, but one is all I need to show that the nonexistence of something can be proven (as much as one can prove anything, anyway).

Why can't humans simply say "We don't know "yet?"

Why do you think with our current knowledge that we can know everything?

I didn't say we have to know everything, but I'm speaking within the context of a debate. Saying "We don't know yet" leaves very little room for a debate (which is fine....except that this is the PG for the DH).

 

[3mmanu3lrc]

You cannot prove that something does not exist. All you can do is show people that there is no reason to believe it. In many cases it's as simple as "because you pulled that out of your ***". In other cases, it's required that you refute the points brought up from the other side. Either way, there is no reason a nonbeliever should have to defend his position without someone attacking it first, as nonbelief is the default choice.

Why if the no believer is the attacker?
Do you really think you can't prove that something does not exist?
Because hypothetically I think you can actually prove that something does NOT exist! That's if speaking from the no believer's point of view, which would be proving that a "Theory" is false.

That'd be like if I tell you, God Does exist!
Then you say, That God you're talking about, does not exist, because of this, this and this...
So you could make some point trying to prove that the God I'm believing in does not exist.
That'd be proving that something does not exist.

 

[1048576]

God is unfalsifiable. Every time you disprove one supposed characteristic the believers shift their goalposts. Parts of the Bible are demonstrably false. Well, duh, those parts are extended metaphors.

Religions take very good care to make sure that they never assign any testable characteristics for their gods. Hence, they cannot be proven false, nor can any evidence ever be provided in favor of their existence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot

Edit to make this more relevant to the post above: Scientific theorys are all testable. They all have repeatable experiments with at least one outcome which would prove a theory is false. Therefore, every time this outcome does not occur, evidence in favor of the theory is accumulated. If I knock my water bottle off my desk, and it hovers in the air, the theory of gravity is disproven, because gravity is scientific. Can you design a similar experiment to test God's existence? You can't. Nobody can. That's why your claim that God exists is logically absurd.

 

[3mmanu3lrc]

Can you design a similar experiment to test God's existence? You can't. Nobody can. That's why your claim that God exists is logically absurd.

Speaking from that, Can you design an experiment to test God's nonexistence?
Then from what you said and looking to the previous question, a scientist could say for sure that God does exist.

 

[GwJ]

Nope. It's unfalsifiable.

Unless I've missed something?

 

[Mike]

Correct. Well, mostly. Kind of. People have proven that certain things don't exist, such as (as I mentioned before) ether. I could list more examples, but one is all I need to show that the nonexistence of something can be proven (as much as one can prove anything, anyway).

You "proved" that unicorns didn't exist basically by saying "because we have never observed one". If you call this proof then you have to accept it as proof when someone applies the same argument to god or anything else. But you don't. You are just a big contradiction.

I didn't say we have to know everything, but I'm speaking within the context of a debate. Saying "We don't know yet" leaves very little room for a debate (which is fine....except that this is the PG for the DH).

Just because it's called a debate hall does NOT mean intellectual honesty should be sacrificed for the sake of debate. That is just stupid. If you don't know something, just say so! Don't lie about something just so you can force a debate. A debate based on on lies and misunderstandings is pointless.

 

[Dre89]

Similarily, the claim that there are no rational arguments for unicorns needs to be explained, you can't just say it and expect the BoP to be on the opposition.

God is also completely different from a unicorn.


Also, I don't believe in gravity, so now it's your job to prove it exists, otherwise I'm automatically right.

 

[GwJ]

Gravity is proven to exist. God isn't.

Your example might work if it was something we haven't proven.

 

[Ganonsburg]

Just because it's called a debate hall does NOT mean intellectual honesty should be sacrificed for the sake of debate. That is just stupid. If you don't know something, just say so! Don't lie about something just so you can force a debate. A debate based on on lies and misunderstandings is pointless.

That was NOT the point. The point was, if we're debating this, "I don't know" is not an answer to the overall debate, otherwise we shouldn't be debating the issue.

ie:

"Does God exist?"
"I don't know."
/'debate'

If that's essentially what has and will continue to happen, then there's no point to the debate. Likewise, saying that to every single point eliminates the point of the debate as well.

In short, "I don't know" is not a valid way to shift the burden of proof from yourself.

 

[ballin4life]

Gravity is not proven to exist. It's just something that we have observed repeatedly. It's possible that people will find counterexamples to gravity tomorrow.

I don't know is a perfectly fine answer. You can still convince someone who holds a position of I don't know with strong arguments.

 

[3mmanu3lrc]

Gravity is proven to exist. God isn't.

Your example might work if it was something we haven't proven.

Sorry! but, could I ask you why exactly is that you don't believe in God?

 

[GwJ]

There's been nothing to convince of one.

 

[3mmanu3lrc]

There's been nothing to convince of one.

All right, I'm no even gonna ask you to read the book of Mark or any other in the Bible, because you probably won't believe in what people says is God's word, as you don't even believe in God.
But, does that mean that you really think that world came out of the Big Bang?
That the human being evolved from the monkey, which said monkey also came of some sort of explosion in the space (The Big Bang Theory)??
And a lot of things more that I don't think the BBT (Big Bang Theory) had nothing to do with it...
Just think about it.......
Do you believe in Evil?
What do you believe in?

 

[GwJ]

Monkeys didn't evolve into humans. We just share common ancestors. As for the big bang, it's possible. Maybe it happened, maybe something else did. I'm not claiming to know everything.

As for evil? What is evil other than a viewpoint that contradicts the popular moral standard?

I like the answer, "I don't know.", a whole lot more than, "Well I don't know, but I want to so I'll make a god who will tell us everything. That way, we know everything."

 

[3mmanu3lrc]

And with that being said.
No more questions your honor.
It's a self choice of everyone to believe what they feel like believing in, you have your point of view and we all respect it, (I think) at least me...
but it's kind of hard to prove the existence of something you can not see, in a forum, but hey, we're alive thanks to whoever/whatever we want to believe in.

 

[GwJ]

That's dandy and all, but this isn't Sunday school. Somebody's right and wasn't the unwise purpose of this thread to figure out if god believers were correct or incorrect to an extent?

The "I stay in my corner and you stay in yours" arguement isn't a very good one.

However, can we all agree to let this die? Most of us knew it was a bad idea from the start.

 

[3mmanu3lrc]

I can point many things why I believe, as you can do the same of why you don't believe.
But as interesting as gets to be what we say here, won't change someone else's mind.
Seems like an endless discussion to me.
We could debate this here like, forever!

 

[GwJ]

Which is why a mod should close this.

 

[Dre89]

As for evil? What is evil other than a viewpoint that contradicts the popular moral standard?

Wow what a massively uneducated, and culturally influenced statement. This sentence just shows that people buy into legal positivism simply because it's the mainstream view of the time.

Also, technically gravity isn't proven to be true. It assumes the philosophical premise that scientfic methodology concludes truths. So you need to prove that premise, but people who say "God debates are meaningless because there's no empirical evidence" can't actually prove that premise, because that stems from the same line of reasoning that they criticise when they say the aforementioned quote.

So my point about graivty still stands. You can't actually prove gravity true, without contradicting yourself, unless you accept that the God issue can be reasoned out meaningfully.

And please, no-one do the politically correct "we should all respect each other's beliefs" crap. All your achieving is showing off to other people that you yourself are open minded, but debates assume open-mindedness, even if everyone in them isn't open-minded.

Also, you shouldn't be in the debate hall if you're trying to change other people's minds. You should be here for the sake of debating and learning.

 

[A Pimp Named Slickback]

Also, technically gravity isn't proven to be true. It assumes the philosophical premise that scientfic methodology concludes truths. So you need to prove that premise, but people who say "God debates are meaningless because there's no empirical evidence" can't actually prove that premise, because that stems from the same line of reasoning that they criticise when they say the aforementioned quote.

If scientific methodology and empiricism don't conclude truths, then there is no way for us to conclude truths. To reject empiricism is to reject reality as a whole, as our view of reality is shaped by our observations.

You might as well be saying "well what the screen in front of you isn't actually there!?!?!?"

Yes Dre, what if it wasn't there? What if we were all in the Matrix? What if the world doesn't actually exist and we're some sentient figment of a something's imagination?

These questions are meaningless, as is your objection to scientific methodology. There is no reason to dismiss it as you have, and to do so would be completely counterproductive to actual discussion. Nobody should need to prove that what we observe determines truths, because there is no way to prove it, as our only way of determining truths assumes that our observations determine the truth. To dismiss this assumption is borderline idiotic in intelligent discussion.

 

[Dre89]

Why must you always assume extremes? It's as if when anyone questions the foundations for the principles you put up on a pedestal, you predicate of them the extreme view that they outright disregard what you cherish so much.

If you understood the argument, I was not saying that scientific methoodlogy is invalid. The fact you thought that shows you have no grasp of the argument. For if I was to assert what you accuse me of, I would be disregarding anything which stems from as philosophical premise (which is pretty much every thought we have), and in doing that, I would be saying that the God debate is meaningless, which is the complete opposite of what my argument is for.

Secondly, I do have reasons to believe I can know things with absolute certainty, and that other minds other than my own exist.

 

[ballin4life]

Other minds other than my own is empirically supported.

Anyway, this is stupid. Let me briefly frame an empirical argument about God so you guys can stop talking about this.

1) Things have causes (supported empirically)
2) There couldn't be an infinite causal chain (I disagree with this, but empirically we have never observed anything infinite, and empirically we point to a certain time called the Big Bang when the universe was said to begin)

3) Therefore, there must have been a first cause which caused the rest of the universe.

 

[A Pimp Named Slickback]

Why must you always assume extremes? It's as if when anyone questions the foundations for the principles you put up on a pedestal, you predicate of them the extreme view that they outright disregard what you cherish so much.

If you understood the argument, I was not saying that scientific methoodlogy is invalid. The fact you thought that shows you have no grasp of the argument. For if I was to assert what you accuse me of, I would be disregarding anything which stems from as philosophical premise (which is pretty much every thought we have), and in doing that, I would be saying that the God debate is meaningless, which is the complete opposite of what my argument is for.

Secondly, I do have reasons to believe I can know things with absolute certainty, and that other minds other than my own exist.

Then what's your point? Why do you continuously assert that we need to "prove" that empiricism determines truths?

Sure it's unprovable. So what? I really don't see your point. If you're not going to argue this fundamental premise, then what's the point in bringing it up at all? It's completely meaningless.

 

[Dre89]

Ballin4death- I don't see what that was supposed to achieve. You say that empirically we point to the Big Bang, but then this assumes that we shouldn't look past that which is empirical. This again assumes that only empirical methodology concludes truths, and then we fall back into the whole problem which Pimp is having an alarmingly long time trying to comprehend.

Pimp- I've explained it a painful a number of times to you, and your responses are so far off the mark in terms of understanding what my argument actually is that I think you should just really leave this debate. Virtually everyone who I've explained it to (including athiests) understood what I meant straight away, yet time after time you're misunderstanding of what I'm tyring to argue is astronomical.

I'm going to try explain it again, perhaps my patience will only allow one more attempt, I'm not sure at this point. First, I'm not saying EM is invalid, I accept it as a valid method of deduction. However, we consider EM valid because of our philosophical assumption that EM deduces truths. So for EM to have any merit, there needs to be at least one other way of concluding truth (ie. philosophical assumptions, such as the one we have that EM deduces truths).

So when you say "there is no empirical evidence of God therefore there is no reaosn to believe in Him", the surpressed premise is that we can only conclude something true if we have empirical evidence of it. My point is that EM does not apply to God. Furthermore, it's illogical to argue that only EM deduces truths, because EM can't deduce that EM deduces truths it's circular. We use philosophical reasoning to deduce that EM deduces truths, so to say "only EM deduces truths" s wrong.

Therefore, the people who demand empirical evidence for God, who exists outside of space and time, is wrong, because EM is not the only way we deduce truths.

I hope you get it now. If not, upon contemplating and then ultimately declining putting a bullet in my head, I'll get Jaswa to explain it to you.

 

[A Pimp Named Slickback]

haha okay Dre.

Thank you for your patience and I hope I wasn't too dense.

But my point was that since God does not have an observable presence and since He apparently refuses to leave any sign of it, we have no way of verifying his existence.

Your method of validating the existence of God via necessity is flawed too. I still think that it is an argument from ignorance, since, as you said, we have no way of knowing the conditions outside of our own universe.

 

[Dre89]

But the truth of moraliy is not visibly observed yet there is still some truth to it. Whether you believe in an objective morality, subjective mroality, or no mroality, there is still a truth not empirically accessible.

You can't place empirical demands on everything. For example, I can't place empirical demands on proof that your mind exists. I can observe that your body simulates control via a mind, but the mind tiself cannot be empirically shown.

So not all truths are accessible via the empirical method. So if someone places empirical demands on something outside of space and time (God), they are placing inappropriate demands.

As for verifying His existence, we can do that, or discard it, via reason, through arguments from necessity etc. The people who say that this is meaningless, for only empirical evidence counts commit the fallacies of circularity and inconsistency that I've explained above.

As for the argument from ignorance, this is a misunderstanding of my argument. Allow me to explain. The AFI card works when the theist's framework is relative to science; that is, the thiest dismisses current scientific explanations, and cosndiers this sufficient reason to posit the existence of God.

That's not what I'm doing however. My argument has nothing to do with science, in fact I think science has no relevance to the God debate. I don't claim to know the first activity in the material world, whether it be big bang, loop theory etc. The science of it is irrelevant to me, seeing as I haven't committed to young Earth creationism or any scientific theory like that.

My issue is when someone makes the metaphysical claim that their material explanation (eg. big bang) was the first cause, because that can't be empirically proven. I'm not saying the Big bang didn't happen, or that it wasn't the first activity in the material world, just that it couldn't be the first cause, because it does not meet the necessary critieria for "first cause-ship" so to speak. The two main (and heavily simplified reasons) why I don't think a material thing could be the first cause is because a complexity, or something with a specific form can't be the first cause (simplified), and that the first cause can't share attributes with what it creates (materiality, also simplified).

 

[GwJ]

I respect that you want to keep this going, but there's nothing any side can do to end this debate. There's a reason some atheists and theists alike refuse to debate; you can't prove anything.

You all can take this advice or go in circles for another month.

 

[ballin4life]

I was pointing out that even if empirical methodology is the only method of concluding truths then there is still an argument for God existing within empirical methodology. In fact, I would actually say that the argument relies heavily on empirical methodology.

Same thing with other minds existing. We have empirical reasons to believe this based on our observation of the actions of others and our knowledge of our own mind existing.


Morality though is NOT A TRUTH.

 

[3mmanu3lrc]

Many people who doesn't believe in Jesus existence do believe in Socrates, Aristoteles and some others existence, but, why not believing in Jesus existence?
Why is it so hard?
Reason: Because Evil twists people mind and makes them not believing in God, when the fact is that there's some supernatural power going on here.

 

[GwJ]

Ok then. What's your reasoning behind an underlying evil corrupting the world?

 

[A Pimp Named Slickback]

Jesus very likely existed in one form or another. The historical evidence for his existence is simply overwhelming.

What I don't believe is that he was divine or actually the "son of God." The evidence for his divinity is far less convincing.

 

[3mmanu3lrc]

Ok then. What's your reasoning behind an underlying evil corrupting the world?

Do you think that a mother would kill her own child, not by accident, and then suicide herself because she didn't want to do it?
Also a son killing his/her parents?
Why are there all this war stuff going on?
All those things are written in the Bible that were meant to be happening in these times.
Also, why do you think there're people that hear voices in their head telling them to do usually bad things?
You keep saying all those rejecting points, that I'm no trying to convince you, because you don't seem to have an open mind!

What I don't believe is that he was divine or actually the "son of God." The evidence for his divinity is far less convincing.

You're willing to believe that, but just think about it for a second...
How did Maria got pregnant without doing what's needed for ti?
Or how Jesus rose from the dead?
And so many more things that he did that couldn't be possible without some sort of divine power.
Or you're also saying that what's in the Bible may be lies at some points?
Because even centurion that was there when Jesus was crucified said: "Surely he was the Son of God!" Matthew 27:54

 

[A Pimp Named Slickback]

I'm saying the Bible is essentially the only evidence for Jesus' divinity. And a doctrine cannot prove itself.


And I don't see why you think God wants us to suffer war and murder. Isn't he supposed to be benevolent?

 

[3mmanu3lrc]

Is not that he wants us to suffer war and murder, because it placed the man in the garden of Eden, and that's nothing near war and murder. It's that those are signals for us to know that the end of this world is coming.

He doesn't want us to suffer but to be saved, that's why Jesus came and died for us in first place, he suffered for us, he paid what we had to pay so that now we could be free/save.

 

[GwJ]

If suffering signifies the end of the world, it shouldve happened thousands of years ago.