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 Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 1:58 pm
Lateralus es Helica Suicidesoldier#1 So, if you going to try to scientifically analyze the existence of God... you must assume that, being as it may without any of us having even the slightest shred of evidence promoting either the existence or non-existence of God, you must assume that God both exists and doesn't exist. That is more of an agnostic sentiment than purely atheist. Many of the 'hard' atheists, those that consider themselves more gnostic than agnostic, are anti-religious. Not all, certainly, but enough to say that they would be atheist quotes. There's also considering many atheists 'converted' due to experiences with religious practicioners, causing them to form bias against religion. No, objectively they would not be Atheist quotes. That's like saying that black, or white, or green people would enjoy something more than anyone else.
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 1:59 pm
Quote: Also, I'm not excluding any options - I never said god can't exist, I never even said god doesn't exist. I just say that I don't believe he does. Which is a something you believe based entirely on faith.
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 2:42 pm
Suicidesoldier#1 Quote: Also, I'm not excluding any options - I never said god can't exist, I never even said god doesn't exist. I just say that I don't believe he does. Which is a something you believe based entirely on faith. How is disbelief because of lack of evidence faith? You totally lost me.
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 3:26 pm
Artto Suicidesoldier#1 Quote: Also, I'm not excluding any options - I never said god can't exist, I never even said god doesn't exist. I just say that I don't believe he does. Which is a something you believe based entirely on faith. How is disbelief because of lack of evidence faith? You totally lost me. Your belief is in disbelief. If your belief was in "Gargankeepots" it wouldn't make any difference than if it was in God or anything else. If you believe something, despite having a complete lack of evidence, whether it is "non-existence" "Existence" or "Gargankeepots", you are still believing something without any conclusive evidence. If you believe anything, despite a complete lack of evidence, you are not going on logic, or reason, or science, but merely on faith that it does (insert name here), whatever that may be. So, becuase there is no conclusive proof that it does not exist, you believing that it doesn't is merely based on speculation and random data. Anything based on raw speculation is random data is basically faith. xp Your ideology is that a lack of evidence is evidence for a lack there of. But apparently, you've never considered the fact that what your belief is, is simply based on something that you have absolutely no evidence for. Becuase you have a belief in something, despite what it is, with no conclusive evidence, you are simply relying on faith in the belief that your ideology is correct.
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 3:49 pm
It's not belief, it's a lack of belief. Again, if you posit a claim and present no evidence for it, I have no reason to believe it. It's as simple as that. See also. You're trying to make it seem that accepting a claim without evidence is equally valid as rejecting it. And that's just not true. Especially when it comes to existence, because non-existence is virtually unprovable (see Russell's teapot). Even more so with vague terms like "god".
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Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2010 5:21 pm
You keep saying that it's "Simply not true".
Why?
Where is a proven postulate that a lack of evidence means that the only logical outcome is not to believe something exists? O_o
Just becuase you don't know about doesn't mean you shouldn't assume it doesn't exist.
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Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2010 5:51 am
Suicidesoldier#1 You keep saying that it's "Simply not true". Why? Where is a proven postulate that a lack of evidence means that the only logical outcome is not to believe something exists? O_o Just becuase you don't know about doesn't mean you shouldn't assume it doesn't exist. The logical outcome is not that it doesn't exist - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But we're not talking about knowledge, we're talking about belief. And if there's no evidence for the existence of something you shouldn't believe it. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but you just have no reason to believe it does, I actually can't believe it does. To illustrate with your "cats" example - If I didn't know that cats existed, I wouldn't have a belief in cats. And if someone told me they existed, but provided no evidence (let's say a photo), I still wouldn't believe they exist (same with big foot, loch ness monster or the chupacabra). That wouldn't mean they don't exist, and I wouldn't be claiming they don't exist. I just wouldn't believe they existed. There is also a subtle difference between believing something doesn't exist and not believing something exists. In the first case, you would actually need evidence, maybe in the form of a logical contradiction, so you could deem it impossible to exist (doesn't mean you couldn't be wrong though). In the second case, you're kind of waiting for evidence, and suspending believing in something without it.
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Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2010 8:36 pm
Artto Suicidesoldier#1 You keep saying that it's "Simply not true". Why? Where is a proven postulate that a lack of evidence means that the only logical outcome is not to believe something exists? O_o Just becuase you don't know about doesn't mean you shouldn't assume it doesn't exist. The logical outcome is not that it doesn't exist - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But we're not talking about knowledge, we're talking about belief. And if there's no evidence for the existence of something you shouldn't believe it. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but you just have no reason to believe it does, I actually can't believe it does. To illustrate with your "cats" example - If I didn't know that cats existed, I wouldn't have a belief in cats. And if someone told me they existed, but provided no evidence (let's say a photo), I still wouldn't believe they exist (same with big foot, loch ness monster or the chupacabra). That wouldn't mean they don't exist, and I wouldn't be claiming they don't exist. I just wouldn't believe they existed. There is also a subtle difference between believing something doesn't exist and not believing something exists. In the first case, you would actually need evidence, maybe in the form of a logical contradiction, so you could deem it impossible to exist (doesn't mean you couldn't be wrong though). In the second case, you're kind of waiting for evidence, and suspending believing in something without it. But you SAY that. You have no conclusive proof that I should not believe something if I don't have evidence. Why shouldn't I believe cats exist if I don't have any evidence? At this point, it could really be anything. Why should I BELIEVE non-existence over existence? It's just as logical to believe something doesn't exist without evidence as it is to believe something does exist without evidence.
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Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:21 am
Seriously, do you even read my posts? Or am I really that bad at explaining my points?
Another point - if you believe both to be true, you can't avoid a logical contradiction A and not-A is always false.
What you should do, when you don't have any evidence either way, is believe neither.
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Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 3:42 pm
You should believe that either are possible, if you truly want to be logical.
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Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 4:08 pm
Suicidesoldier#1 You should believe that either are possible, if you truly want to be logical. Of course, but you said you should assume both are true, which is logically inconsistent. Not believing either to be true, however, is not. I believe either is possible, but I don't believe any of the two claims to be true.
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 4:25 pm
It is just as logical to believe both are true as it to believe neither. xp
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 5:24 pm
Suicidesoldier#1 It is just as logical to believe both are true as it to believe neither. xp But where do you start when asking questions about God? Do you assume that both positions are correct, or do you adopt the "undecided" position until you have gathered satisfactory evidence to support one side better than the other? I had an argument with my brother about this once. We never got anywhere though. lol
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 5:30 pm
Suicidesoldier#1 It is just as logical to believe both are true as it to believe neither. xp No it's not. Believing neither is not the same as believing both are false. You mustn't confuse "I don't believe it is" with "I believe it's not". Let's say you hide a coin in one of your hands and ask me: "Which hand do you believe the coin is in?" Based on your logic, I would have to answer "both." Of course, I think that's impossible. In practice I would say "I don't know." But I think the proper answer to this question, since we are talking about belief, would have to be "neither." To illustrate why this is correct, let's brake down the question: "Do you believe the coin is in the right hand?" The answer to this question would be "no." "Do you believe the coin is in the left hand?" The answer in this case would also be "no." This is because I am not justified in believing any of the above. At the same time, if we flip the questions into "Do you believe the coin is not in the left/right hand?", the answers to both of these would also have to be "no." You cannot assume both to be true, that's nonsense - (A & !A) == FALSE If I believe neither, I am not making any conclusions, since I haven't accepted any of the claims. But since atheism is defined as "I don't believe god exists", I'm an atheist (if we're talking about a deistic god).
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Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2010 12:22 am
Suicidesoldier#1 Just becuase you don't know about doesn't mean you shouldn't assume it doesn't exist.
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