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#361 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In a post-fact world
Posts: 91,292
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For any sane definition of "know", yes.
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Prove me wrong. |
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#362 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In a post-fact world
Posts: 91,292
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Neither did you in this one!
You do know that changing the rule of a thought experiment doesn't invalidate the thought experiment, right? It just shows that the person changing the rules would rather not have to deal with the consequences of the experiment. There's no reason to check the other rooms. We live in this one, and we can't leave. Is there a chair in it or not? |
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#363 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In a post-fact world
Posts: 91,292
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#364 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In a post-fact world
Posts: 91,292
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One atheist using a tu quoque means that atheism is a homogeneous group that is incompatible with logic?
More irony!
Quote:
Quote:
A suggestion. Not a certainty. The Big Bang could be a continuation of something else. Don't chastise other posters on their certainty when you can't even get basic stuff right. |
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#365 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In a post-fact world
Posts: 91,292
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#366 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 16,864
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#367 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In a post-fact world
Posts: 91,292
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#368 |
Self Employed
Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,937
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Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#369 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Republic of Ireland
Posts: 21,206
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Obviously false. If you described the nature and characteristics of any of the thousands of flavours of Abrahamic "gods", then everyone would agree that some number of believers exist or have existed in the past in that version of a deity. No problem.
But that is not what you are doing at all. Not remotely close. Also obviously false. Christians clearly believe "god" created the universe. Equally, christians do not believe in the cobbled together god you have invented out of whole cloth. Or at least not many of them. There are likely outliers as always. Suppose I claimed that your messages to this forum and the responses to them are transferred to and from your computer or device by a bucket chain of undetectable message pixies whose sole purpose is to transparently pass on messages on the interwebs. You cannot know with 100% certainty that this is not the case. Network engineers? They merely provide a more efficient method for the operation of the message bucket chain whether they realise it or not. They are much like "pastors" and "priests" in that regard. Your claim is that one cannot be certain that is not happening right now this minute. And that is absurd. BTW, the first pixie on the bucket chain from my laptop to you is named Jock, from Scotland. Prove me wrong. Can you know with 100% certainty that it is or is not the case? |
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Who is General Failure? And why is he reading my hard drive? ...love and buttercakes... |
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#370 |
Self Employed
Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,937
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Hey Belz, psion10's entire argument is "No it's not special pleading because God is different because I special pleading a version of him just to use in arguments."
There he's all caught up now. And like I've already told you this argument is very, very old. Me and Belz both have already had it a dozens times. There's nothing new to "get caught up on." Are we gonna get any answer to any of our points or just more responding to multiparagraph explanations of why you are wrong with a single emoji? |
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Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#371 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In a post-fact world
Posts: 91,292
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#372 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 16,864
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__________________
"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#373 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 16,864
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__________________
"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#374 |
Self Employed
Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,937
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__________________
Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#375 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In a post-fact world
Posts: 91,292
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#376 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 16,864
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__________________
"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#377 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 16,864
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__________________
"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#378 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In a post-fact world
Posts: 91,292
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Oh, I read them. But that you responded to those arguments doesn't mean the response had any value whatsoever.
The point that you cannot counter is very simple: there is no evidence, in any way, shape or form, for ANY sort of god. Ergo we can safely say, pending future evidence, that gods don't exist. You can reply that you can't 100% be certain, but no one ever needs to be 100% certain of anything to make such a declaration. If you think they do, then you need to go outside and forget the internet for a while and interact with actual humans. |
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#379 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 16,864
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I knew that you didn't read any of my responses. You are just parroting the strawman arguments that others have made.
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#380 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In a post-fact world
Posts: 91,292
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#381 |
Lackey
Administrator
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: South East, UK
Posts: 96,096
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The christian god is one that we can detect, nearly all of the believers who label themselves Christian believe that he intervenes in the world now, the single largest denomination of Christianity has a specific office tasked to detecting their god's interventions. If the god you posit does not intervene in the world in a way we can detect it is not the Christian god.
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I wish I knew how to quit you |
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#382 |
Self Employed
Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,937
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Again this is a:
"2+2, 2x2, 2^2, 8-4, 8/2..." "So... 4?" "I NEVER SAID 4!" argument. No version of God that people actually functionally believe in on any practical day to day level, to say nothing of any version of the Judeo-Christian God, is a hands-off deity. You're still making up new versions of God, constantly adding special pleadings to it to "Nuh-uh" every way in which his existence could actually be tested. You think just by doing it passively it's different. For someone who's screaming up and down what you are doing is saying there's an invisible dragon in your garage, you're following the script on how to do it to a T. It's textbook. You've gone one further in fact, invoking an invisible, incorporeal, mute, indeterminable, undetectable, dragon that once lived in your garage. |
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Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#383 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 8,852
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Yet theists (like yourself) claim they can answer both.
Theist (like yourself) answer - “Nothing can eternally exist except my eternally existent god” (special pleading for their god). Atheist (intellectually honest) answer - “I don’t know, but I have no reason to assume it hasn’t always existed in some form”. Theist (like yourself) answer - “The universe is far too complex to have been evolved by natural forces, so it must have been created by my even more complex god that needs no creator” (special pleading for their god). Atheist (intellectually honest) answer - “I don’t know, but I have no reason to assume any intelligence was involved”. Obviously the theist "positions". ETA - You need to define if your use of the word "created" means "something from nothing" or "something from something". |
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Paranormal/supernatural beliefs are knowledge placebos. Rumours of a god’s existence have been greatly exaggerated. Make beliefs truths and you get make-believe truths. |
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#384 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 27,956
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I read the title of this thread and I can't help thinking the question should be "when isn't religion silly?
I have yet to read a description/definition of God that isn't silly or meaningless. You can easily poke holes in all the theistic models I have ever had described to me. And deism is entirely useless today. Please, someone give us a God that isn't silly. |
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Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get to me. . |
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#385 |
Philosopher
Join Date: May 2016
Location: Brisbane, Aust.
Posts: 6,523
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You run the risk of being branded a "militant atheist" acbytesla. One John Humphrys has you in his cross hairs. Just been reading a book by this dude, where he singled out Dawkins, Hitchens, and others as being of this ilk. I got the impression that his research was not too sound because he referred to one "Sam Smith" as the author of "Letter to a Christian Nation". John was saying with some monotony that we should respect the faith of the religious and religion wasn't responsible for all the bad things that have happened in the world because other causes, (like communism), are culpable also. The old "those guys are doing it too so there" argument. Not seeing myself as a "militant atheist", nor considering the others of more fame than myself as such, the book didn't ring true for me. Anyone who doesn't recognise the harm being done by religious faith is ignorant. John referred to himself as a "failed atheist" for some vague reason - possibly because of his lack of militancy. |
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Thinking is a faith hazard. |
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#386 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 27,956
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I'm definitely an atheist. I fought forever identifying as such. Anything, but an atheist!
And by forever, I mean 40 years plus. I grew up in the Christian church attending church regularly and every summer going to Vacation Bible School and Bible Camp. Yeah! ![]() But I don't think I ever believed in it literally. I saw it similarly to say Aesop's Fables. A collection of morality tales. The problem though, taken as whole, the Bible isn't moral. I'm good with loving and being kind to our neighbors and even to a degree people we call enemies. But that's maybe 1 percent of the book. And God who is preached to be loving and wise ISN'T. He's petty, self involved, narcissistic, vengeful, racist, misogynistic, homicidal, even genocidal and stupid. He's Trump on steroids. I finally had to give in. There is no other word. I'm an atheist. I cannot unequivocally say there isn't a god. But I can say unequivocally, I have never heard a credible reason to believe there is one. Like Big Foot, Leprechauns, Loch Ness Monster and String Theory as we know today. They are unfalsifiable hypotheses and are utterly useless. As for having respect for faith? None. Faith is without a doubt the most useless, absurd, even destructive concept I can imagine. That is if you define it as most religious people do such as in Hebrews 11 Now faith is the [a]substance of things hoped for, the [b]evidence of things not seen People use faith to justifying believing in not only the unprovable but what has been demonstably disproven. I define "faith" as the excuse people give for believing without good reason. Because if they had a good reason they would give that. They wouldn't have to resort to an appeal to faith. Does that make me militant? If it does, I just will have to live with it. |
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Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get to me. . |
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#387 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 8,852
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Paranormal/supernatural beliefs are knowledge placebos. Rumours of a god’s existence have been greatly exaggerated. Make beliefs truths and you get make-believe truths. |
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#388 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 8,852
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__________________
Paranormal/supernatural beliefs are knowledge placebos. Rumours of a god’s existence have been greatly exaggerated. Make beliefs truths and you get make-believe truths. |
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#389 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 12,121
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Beats me. I'm not sure what special pleading is. I'm just picking up on Joe's lingo.
Wikipedia offers this example:
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I don't bring anything to these discussions because I don't concede that human language is capable of describing what God is, not if it used every word in the dictionary and then some. In fact I would expect that it isn't. If there is a God, what make me think that I would understand It? So I'm pretty sure that what I'm doing is textbook special pleading. |
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#390 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 27,956
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Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get to me. . |
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#391 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 27,956
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Special Pleading
noun argument in which the speaker deliberately ignores aspects that are unfavorable to their point of view. making an exception in logic for one's own point of view. There is a simple starting principle of logic. That the maker of an existential claim is responsible for proving it. I have never ever met a believer in the supernatural of any kind not violate this principle and out of the gate engage in some form of special pleading. |
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Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get to me. . |
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#392 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 16,864
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This is the problem. You take pro-theistic arguments made by others and attribute them to me so that you can take me to task for my "theism".
We have ZERO information on the origins of the universe so to say that the probability that it was created is infinitesimally small is silly. I don't care if some believers claim to be in constant communication with their god nor if they claim to have witnessed miracles. I have no unambiguous personal experience of either so I have no basis to judge the truth of these claims (most appear to be false). Similarly, I have no time for those who think that the existence of God can be argued from scientific grounds (it can't) nor those who claim to have the key to their religious text and can explain why it doesn't say what it appears to say (see Darat's example earlier). Do you understand what "ZERO information" means? |
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#393 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 16,864
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__________________
"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#394 |
I would save the receptionist.
Moderator Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Florida
Posts: 27,719
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I have the honor to be Your Obdt. St L. Leader |
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#395 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 27,956
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No, it is definitely not silly. To think it was "created" you have to imagine something that is far greater and complex than the universe and then imagine how that came to be.
Yet, everything we know about physics, chemistry, biology, engineering demonstrates a progression from the simple to the more complex, not the other way around. There is not a shred of evidence pointing to this complex and powerful being. None. Is it possible? It's possible only in the idea that all things are possible because of the unknown. But from a reality perspective it very well could be impossible. Which is simply not true. We have more than petabytes of data going back to the Big Bang and in that nothing that suggests a creator. You can only posit its existence. |
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Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get to me. . |
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#396 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 27,956
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Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get to me. . |
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#397 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 8,852
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I would phrase it as, “We have reasons to conclude any sort of god(s) don’t exist”.
Some reasons . . . No credible evidence any god(s) actually do exist. No credible method by which any god(s) actually could exist. No credible reason any god(s) should actually exist (in modern times). Credible reasons why people invent gods that don’t exist. |
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Paranormal/supernatural beliefs are knowledge placebos. Rumours of a god’s existence have been greatly exaggerated. Make beliefs truths and you get make-believe truths. |
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#398 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 27,956
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This gets down to that not quite right maxim;
"that abscence of evidence is not evidence of absence". Because it is evidence of absence when evidence is expected. We see volumes of evidence of how the universe as we know it came to be and absolutely no evidence of this mystical powerful being. You would expect evidence. Which leaves a critical mind to ask. What is more likely? That an all powerful, all knowing being created a 14 billion year old universe with a staggering almost unfathomable number of galaxies, stars and planets and leave no evidence of itself, or that it doesn't exist at all? |
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Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get to me. . |
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#399 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 8,852
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__________________
Paranormal/supernatural beliefs are knowledge placebos. Rumours of a god’s existence have been greatly exaggerated. Make beliefs truths and you get make-believe truths. |
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#400 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 8,852
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__________________
Paranormal/supernatural beliefs are knowledge placebos. Rumours of a god’s existence have been greatly exaggerated. Make beliefs truths and you get make-believe truths. |
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