Atheism has the same logical flaws as religion

This whole discussion is too semantical. Words are traps if you don't try to get back to the physical world.

Asking logical evidence for god is like asking logical evidence for respect. You can't provide it, because providing proof for a word is a trivial attempt. The only evidence for mental concepts such as god -- as fresco noted -- is that they exist within our human societies as linguistical symbols.

Until words reflect something real from the ontological realm -- which is up to science to prove -- they remain legends or merely words that don't reflect anything ontologically factual. (Boy, Wittgenstein would have loved this.)

My personal view on the origin of the god-concept departs from the same notion as edgar blythe's point: that god was an explanation for something physically unknown and manifestly overpowering to humankind. I'm more and more convinced that the etymological root for the god-word --'powerful beings in the sky' -- should be taken more at face value than we dare to...

To which powerful beings in the sky do you refer, wolf?

I'll check out the other thread when I'm not on an e-machine. People, don't buy e-machines.

I agree with the other points you made, especially the one that g-d either exists or doesn't. I know that agnosticism isn't an answer to the argument. However, I'm not saying that agnostic is the logical choice for the rest of eternity no matter what. If some evidence prevented it's self, say in the future, it could be worked with. If you would like, I could say agnostic is the only current logical position. However, I feel that there will continue to be a lack of evidence on either side. If some evidence is prevented, then one side or the other could be logically chosen. It has not, so agnosticism is the only logical choice.

while linguistics bring up interesting problems of their own, they are not akin to g-d. Many people could identify respect if they saw it. They would know what to look for, certain body language signals and words, etc. People can generally agree on what "respect" is. Try to do this for "god." Can you identify "God"? If you saw g-d would you know what it was? Would other people?

Portal,

Evidence exists. Certainty only exists about one's ignorance. Each must take the evidence at hand and draw a conclusion.

There are many conclusions the predominant trends being:

Yes, no and maybe.

What evidence do you have? If you do have evidence, about 5 billion people and I would like to know what it is.

(btw, the bible/Quaran argument is circular and doens't count. The basis for g-d is the bible, and the basis for the bible is g-d. That doesn't give me any information, other than the nature of the argument.)



Well, who am I trying to prove isn't g-d? You, a human, in _____state, or from my present information about you,as text on screen? [These require different arguments].

Sigh, don't make this tedious, concede obvious points.

Let's say I decide to contest taht I am not human. I am a god, invisible to humans and with a knack for using their technology to communicate.

Now, you might consider that to be silly, but you can't prove otherwise.

Reasonable logic would suggest that if I make such a claim the burden of proof is on me.

One more try...

By engaging in this debate we are all reifying the "existence of God". The "proof" is our interaction - nothing more and nothing less.

In pre-20th century medicine "doctors" interacted with with the concept of the "four humours" (Phlegm, bile etc ...hence words such as "phlegmatic"). Thus the humours had "existence" by virtue of their effect on social behaviour. No doubt there were medical sceptics (=atheists) at that time but their scepticism was meaningful only with repect to the original concept. They had no viable alternative world view supported by consensus.

fresco,

I have a quibble, IMO, asking that burden of proof be observed is a far cry from reifying anything.

If to speak of is to reify, then to utter the word "asbtract" would be a paradox.

It would probably identify itself as such, there are precedents you know.

Not merely to "speak"but to engage in debate - including internal debates of self with self...but no paradox...the continuity of the "existence of a concept" will depend on its "utility". Thus "humours" have historical utility, "Unicorns" have literary and artistic utility, "Santa Claus" has child rearing and cultural utility etc. The word "abstract" is except for rhetorical debate always uttered in "context" (artistic etc) and therein lies its utility.

Is not the dismissal of diety as a foregone conclusion (implying the need to debunk) about as "in context" as it gets?

Yup . . . i was at a Dead concert once, doin' psylocybin--you know, shrooms--an god was standin' right by the big speakers at the side of the stage, boogy-in' like one of the people. So i walked up to her, an' said: "Say, ain't you . . . "

"Yeah, yeah, kid, i am . . . now beat it, i'm in a groove."

Craven

The "problem" with theism stems not from its lowly intellectual status but from its high level utility in fulfilling emotional needs.
Marx may have been correct when he called religion the opium of the masses, but it seems that the masses NEED their opium. Addicts don't play the logic game (or they don't play fair). Thats the problem with the original question on this thread.

You can't prove God exists just as you can't prove pink elephants exists. The popularity of the God concept doesn't imply there's something to it. It hasn't even been philosophically defined. So we're trumpetting out of our behinds here.



Edgar, I'm referring to real living beings, not to mythical assumptions. This may be sobering to many fellow human beings. That is only because Western traditional religions have drugged us into near schizophrenia.

wolf
I give up.

Got a deck a cards, EB?

Know how to play gin?

I'm willing to learn.

How about people who are "highly developed, spiritually" but who are avowed atheists or agnostics? What do you do about people who say they aren't religious but who believe, strongly and firmly, in (for example) astrology? Why should logic "win" over belief or faith? How much of the time is logic, like faith, a matter of what we choose to accept? To what extent is religion (or lack of) simply an inherited set of beliefs, relevant to one's time on earth, culture, nationality? And above all, what is it in our culture which has made our form of Christianity so domineering, prideful, and boring?

The Six Blind Men and the Elephant.

John Godfrey Saxe (based the following poem on a fable which was told in India many years ago.)

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, "Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"
The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he;
" ?'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Moral:
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!




Your God is not my god. No definition derived from sentient postulation based in time and space can describe God. All that can be debated is whether one is touching the tail or the tusk. And Wittgenstein even might debate if touching is real.

I keep coming back to the Hindu tale of the blind men touching the elephant, and describing it according to the area they touched, so like personal experience of reality, one's god (or God), and one's philosophy.

After reading this thread and wading thru the same ideas I've seen countless times before, i wonder, if one can prove God, it is God at all?

That which you refer to as "God" is beyond human imagination, beyond the categories of being and non-being, it is, and is not. How can two different people have the same concept of the Ineffable? In choosing your definition of God, you choose your way of looking at the universe. There are lots of gods, choose yours. The God you worship is the God you deserve.

Simply because we all say the same name for God does not mean we have the same relationship to "that", or the same concept of what it is and this concept of God is only a foreground of the experience.

In all these posts appears the determination by the ones who can state that God can be defined is the presumption of a personal God.

By using a personal pronoun, such as "he, "she." or even "It" to describe your god, one can only assume that God has personality. Sorry to make the point such, but it is the imposition of a traditional cultural superstructure determining the infrastructure of your recognition of your God.

And this is what Fresco, Frankie Apisa and Edgar warn about when they mentioned God as a social construct

If one can understand this point, then it is not even a leap of faith for one to understand that one views one's God in the context of the things around one.

One can see that this expression of the ineffable is a mere metaphor for a more profound experience and that the concept of the Zoroastrian, Hebrew, and Christian God nature is merely the Foreground for a deeper experience. One's search for this source is encumbered by one's own concept of God.

God as a final term is a personality in our western tradition, so our orthodox training and upbringing block breaking thru this "personality." This is so beaten into us that "God" refers to a personality however; mystics of many folds have broken past this "personality."

Meister Eckhart said "the ultimate leave-taking is the leaving of God for God." Your own idea of it, not mine or anyone else's either.

You are going to believe that which you need to get you thru your life. Humans are tool makers of the mind as well as of the hand and one discards tools that no longer have value. The tool which people use to bring value and worth to their lives is usually their God, but when it no longer works as a tool, it is discarded. This has happened with gods of many times and places, and will continue to happen as long as we are around.

God, I hope so.

As for me? I am a Bokononist.

I wanted all things
To seem to make some sense
So we all could be happy, yes, instead of tense.
And I made up lies
So that they fit nice,
And I made this sad world a par-a-dise.
-Calypso from the Books of Bokonon in Cat's Cradle.

Bokononism satirizes the notion of a purpose for life in our universe, and tries to make people happy by providing many "foma," or harmless untruths. This illustrates the principle paradox present in Vonnegut's view on happiness; the necessity of lying about the truth to create happiness

And this feature is seen in all earthly religions that profess knowledge of God.