hingehead wrote:Hi Dok
Not negating theism, just negating omniscient deities, in my own world view. Now move to the back of the bus and let everyone else on.
Hi.
What do you suppose theism is, if not a belief in omniscient deities?
I suppose you could also include deism..but those are your only two choices.
Back of the bus? Naw, how bout the drivers seat of my audi?
Eorl wrote:The logic that leads me to conclude that it is highly unlikely that any gods have ever existed is basically Occam's Razor.
I see no evidence of any gods.
The universe needs no gods to be exactly as it is. That is to say it is entirely possible . . . etc., etc. . . .
Whoa, Bubba . . . you do violence to Occams' razor here (and this
has already been articualted in this thread, and more than once, since it was ignored the first time it was brought up). Occam's razor is
entia non sunt multiplicanda--causes are not to be multiplied. This is a basis for the objection that a creator is not logically needed to comprehend the existence of the cosmos.
Having reached that point, you then start multiplying causes (for not believing) as though were no tomorrow. Definitely does violence to both the letter and the spirit of Occam's razor.
Brandon9000 wrote:If God appeared to you and performed miracles and so forth, and you didn't at least regard it as a strong plausibility argument, I think that would be your problem, not a problem with the evidence.
I would certainly leave the possibility open in my mind. But I would be very suspicious that the magic was just super-hightech and that I was being hoodwinked for some reason.
We also might have to define "God" in this case. As an example, does God consider his *own* actions to be miracles, or science? Is an alien with super technology a god for all intents and purposes.
The issues of this debate are becoming too detailed to be of much use without strict definitions of the type of "God" we are talking about here.
Not everyone is a Christian-- but I suppose it's your job to convert those of us who are not. Good luck--
Brandon, what you may consider spoon feeding may not be considered so by others.
And anyway, what's wrong with spoon feeding?
Or for that matter asking questions that are simple at all.
A few pages back you opined you were hesitant about answering my question, since you presumed it would lead to more.
So what? Actually, it would be a good thing if it lead to more.
IMO the more simple the questions, and the more simple the answers the better.
Also, you were just repeating what someone else said, so you really haven't answered the question.
You didn't think of the Pope, bus or God appearing at all.
Anyways, the part about God appearing to you.....
How would YOU know it was God, WHAT would be evidence to YOU that it was God?
Please, spoon feed me.
Chai Tea wrote:Brandon, what you may consider spoon feeding may not be considered so by others.
And anyway, what's wrong with spoon feeding?
Or for that matter asking questions that are simple at all.
A few pages back you opined you were hesitant about answering my question, since you presumed it would lead to more.
So what? Actually, it would be a good thing if it lead to more.
IMO the more simple the questions, and the more simple the answers the better.
Also, you were just repeating what someone else said, so you really haven't answered the question.
You didn't think of the Pope, bus or God appearing at all.
Anyways, the part about God appearing to you.....
How would YOU know it was God, WHAT would be evidence to YOU that it was God?
Please, spoon feed me.
First of all, I have never repeated what anyone else has said, except by coincidence. I wonder if you aren't thinking of one of my own previous posts.
Secondly, I will tell you what is wrong with spoon feeding. I have noticed when having this argument about the existence of God with religious people, that "playing dumb" is used as a kind of invalid defense, whether delibrately or unconsciously. I am asked a question. I give a logically satisfactory response, and I am then asked another question as though my response were not clear or sufficient when it was. If I choose to answer, I am asked another, and another, and another. It is a method of trying to win an argument you are losing. The fact is that when I say it is not justified to believe in God without seeing some evidence that he exists, just as it is not justified to believe any fact without some evidence that it's so, that is a sufficient answer. To ask me endlessly to clarify, is a way for someone with an insupportable position to try to win the argument. That's what is wrong with asking to be spoon fed trivial logic.
Finally, when you say:
Chai Tea wrote:Anyways, the part about God appearing to you.....
How would YOU know it was God, WHAT would be evidence to YOU that it was God?
Please, spoon feed me.
you are merely proving right my earlier predicition that if I gave you logically clear and complete answers to your previous questions, you would endlessly seek more and more clarification to things that were pretty obvious. I have already told you clearly what I personally would accept as evidence.
Whoops sorry Brandon, you're right. That was you that mentioned the Popes and school buses the first time. I thought it was a different poster.
Sorry.
I'm not trying to win or lose. I'm no bible thumper, I don't believe in the bible literally, I believe in science and I believe your answers are fundementally wrong.
you keep saying give me evidence, evidence, evidence, and in turn I just keep asking was you would consider evidence. If you would stop dancing around the issue, that would help. I'm not arguing, just waiting for an answer. One that you or other atheists won't respond to.
If I were to ask you for evidence that something was sweet, you could site that it has various fructose, lactose, etc ingredients.
I'm not playing dumb, I don't play that game. Never have, never will. I too find that more than annoying. It makes me fantasize about smacking the crap out of whoever's doing it.
Actually, I started thinking quite a while back that you're the one who's playing dumb, when you play like you can't understand what I'm asking.
To me, you haven't given a logically satisfactory responds....I'm not using any method of trying to win an arguement I am loosing. You haven't given me a sufficient response.
Again, I don't know where you picked up the idea I'm arguing, or trying to win or lose.
I don't have a position, insupportable, supportable or anything in between.
You're making a lot of assumptions about me Brandon that just flat out aren't true.
So, if you want to think I'm dumb fine, if you think I need to be spoon fed, fine.
I find it hard to believe I'm the only one who finds my question not so dumb, and your answer not to the point at all.
Don't get defensive hon, I think you're really cool. Honestly, I think the bible is a pretty mediorce book and don't understand why people make such a fuss over it. But I've always wondered what atheists would consider evidence that God exists.
Any other atheist care to field this question?
Or am I the only idiot here?
I dont think you're and idiot, mschaiteavous. Just a little...
Talking of spoon fed, did you see George Galloway on Celebrity Big Brother?
Steve (as 41oo) wrote:I dont think you're and idiot, mschaiteavous. Just a little...
Talking of spoon fed, did you see George Galloway on Celebrity Big Brother?
Is George Galloway the flutist?
Never seen Celebrity Big Brother.
Well then maybe I am an idiot.....
George Galloway - member of parliment
James Galloway - flutist
Just a little what?
knowledge seeking?
Chai Tea wrote:Steve (as 41oo) wrote:I dont think you're and idiot, mschaiteavous. Just a little...
Talking of spoon fed, did you see George Galloway on Celebrity Big Brother?
Is George Galloway the flutist?
Never seen Celebrity Big Brother.
No that was James. George flaunts in quite another way. Surely you have Big Brother on your tv...you know television box thing lights up in the dark...the BB format is not possible to escape from on planet earth.
Galloway is a maverick UK mp and founded left wing Respect party. He went over to US and gave the Senate both barrels (but not oil obviously) over Iraq. Last seen in the Big Brother house crawling on hands and knees to Rula Lensky the actress and eating food out of her cupped hands as she pretends to be feeding pussy. Woha there just a minute, I mean George is pretending to be a pussy cat, being fed by...phew nearly embarrassment there...
Anyway Mr Galloway's E London constituents are watching this as they cope with chaotic transport system, high taxes, poor public services etc and think Mr Galloway is not gaining Respect.
Chai Tea wrote:
....you keep saying give me evidence, evidence, evidence, and in turn I just keep asking was you would consider evidence. If you would stop dancing around the issue, that would help. I'm not arguing, just waiting for an answer. One that you or other atheists won't respond to....
What was wrong with this answer several pages ago?
Brandon9000 wrote:...But if I must, I will give you one or two and see whether or not it is followed by a lot more questions over something not complicated. If the Popes never got sick until the illness that finally ended their lives, that would be some evidence. If a bus of schoolchildren being driven over a cliff by a drunk bus driver were suddenly transported to a safe location. If God appeared to me visibly and audibly. If some plant that cured a serious disease showed no sign of having evolved, but just seemed to have appeared all at once. Anything that looked like the hand of the creator.
Source several pages back
When someone gives you a perfectly sound answer or argument, as I have, to ask for more, and more, and more clarification, is just an invalid way of trying to win despite an insupportable position. Even if I could not specify what kind of evidence, as I do above, at all, my argument that believing facts without evidence is unjustifiable would still be perfectly correct.
Chai Tea wrote:. But I've always wondered what atheists would consider evidence that God exists.
Any other atheist care to field this question?
Or am I the only idiot here?
I can only speak for myself.
Seems like if there is a god and it supposedly has all the attributes that most Christians give it, (think all the omni-things here) then wouldn't that god know exactly what it would take for me to believe? I shouldn't have to come up with anything. He/she/it should already know. Since I'm now 52 years old and absolutely nothing has ever occurred to make me think a god exists, I am left to think that:
A. There is no god.
B. There is no god that cares whether I believe in it.
I'll go with A, but feel free to add to the list.
P
C: There is a god that wants you to suffer eternal damnation?
If there is a God, Momma Angel, why would things like this happen?
Where was God when this poor woman cried at night? When the whip fell..... again and again.
That is why I question the existence of a supreme being. That girl ultimately died at the hand of that sadistic Nazi.
A life cut short. A life full of promise.
