Atheists, smarter than religious people

Thomas wrote:

Frank Apisa wrote:
In my estimation, the existence of sea water cannot be disproved; that makes it about as likely as the existence of Russel's teapot between Earth and Mars.

Do you get it, Thomas?

The difference is that the existence seawater, unlike god and Russel's flying teapot, can be supported with good evidence, even proven.

Wake up, Thomas.

You originally wrote:

"In my estimation, the existence of god cannot be disproved; that makes it about as likely as the existence of Russel's teapot between Earth and Mars."

I correctly pointed out that your contention here is absurd. I showed it to be absurd by substituting sea water for godto check on the logic of your argument. And now your are making this pretence!

C'mon!

The original comment ison its faceabsolutely absurd.

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Frank Apisa wrote:

You were offering that crap to show that "That's not a problem with Occam's razor. It's a problem with incomplete empirical evidence."

But if by some chance, you are actually saying that Occam's razor is worth shyt until it is no longer neededwith that I will agree.

I am saying that Occam's razor is a useful tool that lets you make the best out of the evidence you have. You can get better results with better evidence. But with every given set of evidence, you will get better results with Occam's razor than when you don't apply it.

Frank Apisa wrote:

So you are offering that because humans cannot explain the stuff that is unknown to themthe stuff that is unknown to them does not exist!

If I have empirical evidence of something, and I cannot explain it, then it's my problem. But If somebody postulates the existence of something, it is complex so unlikely to just happen, and I have no good theory of why it should exist -- then yes, my best bet is to assume it doesn't exist.

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THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE BASING A CONTENTION THAT THERE ARE NO GODS??????

It's not a contention. It's my best reading of the available evidence.

Frank Apisa wrote:

Give it up, Thomas. You are making a fool of yourself.

Says you.

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Thomas wrote:

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Or alternatively, the evidence for the existence of gods is so feeble as to be negligible these days.

I do consider the evidence FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GODSto be enormously feebledamn near, in fact, as feeble as the evidence that gods do not exists.

What does that have to do with it???

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Since you seem to agree with the rest of my explanation, let me suggest an empirical test.

Suppose there is evidence for the existence of gods to evaluate, that atheists are rejecting it blindly, but aren't rejecting the evidence against gods. Suppose, in other words, that you're right.

That does not represent my position at all.

I do not think there truly is any real, probative evidence that there are gods. SO WHAT?!

That does not lead to "there are no gods."

There is absolutely no probative evidence that there is sentient life on any planet circling the nearest five stars to our SolBUT THAT IS NOT EVIDENCE THERE IS NO SENTIENT LIFE ON THOSE PLANETS!

It is simply evidence that there is no evidence that there is sentient life there.

Do you honestly not get this?

Have you been fooling me when we've metand you seemed so goddam intelligent? Have you actually been pulling the wool over my eyes?

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Frank Apisa wrote:

There is absolutely no probative evidence that there is sentient life on any planet circling the nearest five stars to our SolBUT THAT IS NOT EVIDENCE THERE IS NO SENTIENT LIFE ON THOSE PLANETS!

Well, we know there is sentient life on this planet, so the extrapolation that life may exist on other planets is at least not totally crazy. That's more than we can say about the existence of gods -- anywhere

Frank Apisa wrote:

Have you been fooling me when we've metand you seemed so goddam intelligent? Have you actually been pulling the wool over my eyes?

No -- goddam intelligent is just what we atheists are -- hence the creation of this thread.

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As I understand Frank's position on this matter, it goes:

There is no way of knowing that there is a god.

There is no way of knowing that there is no god.

Therefore, these issues aren't worth debating. A waste of time and effort since we cannot arrive at any conclusions either way.

And if I'm wrong, Frank, feel free to whack me with your slippers. Just be careful with that shoulder Smile

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Cyracuz wrote:

Therefore, these issues aren't worth debating. A waste of time and effort since we cannot arrive at any conclusions either way.

Thank SATAN Frank doesn't discuss these issues then. Bless his soul.

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Thomas wrote:

No -- goddam intelligent is just what we atheists are -- hence the creation of this thread.

Hmmm... I created this thread, and I'm no atheist. I'm no theist for that matter. I'm no agnostic, realist, idealist or any -ist whatsoever.

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So you're an anti-"ist"-ist?

Twisted Evil

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That would mean that I have a negative relation towards isms, so no.

I am nothing, nobody and nowhere. Figuratively speaking, of course.

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Observations:
1) An implement for the preparation and serving of tea meets the definition of "Teapot"
2) Russians as a people are fond of tea.
3) Russians have been documented enjoying fresh tea aboard both Mir and ISS.
4) The tea had to have been prepared and served in space.

Conclusion:
While perhaps the teapot may not be Russell's porcelain teapot, and while said teapot would be not always strictly "somewhere between Earth and Mars" (as, due to the mechanics of Earth orbit relative to the other bodies of the Solar System, at some point the Earth will between any Earth-orbiting body and any other Solar System body), by the evidence clearly it cannot be said there is no teapot of some description in space.

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You could have made that much simpler timber.

Earth floats in space. There are teapost on earth. There are teapots in space. Humans too. And dogs, ants, ducks. But no gods that we know of.

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If there is anything that calls an atheist's intelligence into questionI suspect using "flying spaghetti monsters, invisible pink unicorns, and purple cpa's working on a moon of Saturn" in arguments with agnostics probably is a prime contender.

The question this area of interest deals with is: What accounts for existence? How is it that "whatever is"IS?

Considering the possibility that "all that is" is the product of a production of some kinda creation of some uncreated something or otheris certainly not silly or unreasonable. In fact, to simply discard the possibility that it is the "creation" of something greater than what we assume to be "what is" probably is less reasonable than at least considering it.

I agree with atheistsand other skepticsthat insisting that "what is" HAS TO BE the result of creation activityis absurd. But I consider it EVERY BIT AS ABSURD to suppose that such a thing is impossibleor even less likely than that it is not a result of creation.

We simply do not have enough unambiguous, probative evidence upon which to base a meaningful estimate or guess.

In shortI agree with all the shortcomings atheists see in theistic thinking. I just cannot understand why, if they truly are on average more intelligent than theistswhy they cannot see that their own shortcomings are every bit as glaring and debilitating to their theories.

Acknowledging that we do not knowand do not have enough probative evidence upon which to base a meaningful estimate or guessIS NOT EQUIVALENT TO GIVING UP ON THE QUESTION.

The real question has to be: Why are theists and atheists so in love with their guesses that they become blind to reason during discussions of the issue?

Why do they insist on their guessestheir blind, completely unsubstantiated guessesbeing correct no matter how logic and reason have to be twisted in order to rationalize their insistence??

WHY????

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Cyracuz wrote:

You could have made that much simpler timber.

Well, yeah, mebbe - but where's the fun in that?

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Earth floats in space. There are teapost on earth. There are teapots in space. Humans too. And dogs, ants, ducks.

Irrelevant, a red herring, in that by and for the purposes of the discussion at hand, "On Earth" and "In Space" are separate and distinct things, conditions, and/or states of being; while Earth, and by extension all on Earth, indeed "floats in space", the proximate consideration, by definition, is of things not ON Earth.

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But no gods that we know of.

Yes, there is that, and that IS very, very hard to get around - with or without the aid and comfort of a steaming cup of tea :wink:

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Now if only we had an infinite probability drive...

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I'm not sure that Frank can convince me he exists.

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Frank.

I'm encouraged by your attempt to address the issue of "existence". Unfortunately a simple reference to the English word "is" is transparently superficial as shown for example by an elementary look into the Spanish verbs "ser" and "estar" .

See e.g. http://spanish.about.com/cs/verbs/a/servsestar.htm

This peephole into the intricacies of semantics should be sufficient to ponder the relationship between "being" and "existence"....a question discussed by Heideggar (philosophically) and Bohm (scientifically). neither of these had recourse to evoke " a deity" in their conclusions.

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fresco wrote:

Frank.

I'm encouraged by your attempt to address the issue of "existence". Unfortunately a simple reference to the English word "is" is transparently superficial as shown for example by an elementary look into the Spanish verbs "ser" and "estar" .

See e.g. http://spanish.about.com/cs/verbs/a/servsestar.htm

This peephole into the intricacies of semantics should be sufficient to ponder the relationship between "being" and "existence"....a question discussed by Heideggar (philosophically) and Bohm (scientifically). neither of these had recourse to evoke " a deity" in their conclusions.

I cannot imagine anyone with a functioning brain who would suppose that a deity is essential to almost any discussion of almost any subject.

That fact does nothing to further insistence on the part of (some) atheists that there are no gods...and certainly that fact does nothing to further any argument that there are no gods.

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What amazes me about agnostics and the religious, they take a blind guess that there is or may be a god, then say atheists are making the wild guesses. It's like George Bush saying, we got to take Hussein out before he bombs Toledo.

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To say that something "may be" isn't to take a guess. It is to remain aprehensive. Personally, I think that the ability to not form a conclusion when there is insuficcient data to do it properly is admirable.

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Cyracuz wrote:

To say that something "may be" isn't to take a guess. It is to remain aprehensive. Personally, I think that the ability to not form a conclusion when there is insuficcient data to do it properly is admirable.

I think it's following the herd. No offence intended.

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Atheists, smarter than religious people

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