Do Atheists have a reasonable doubt?

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PickyPicky said:
But it doesn’t, because as you have pointed out, their very existence is material evidence that grandpappy existed.
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A bit circular in reasoning. No?

The argument is because you exist, therefore they must have existed unseen and without a clue left behind.
 
o_mlly said:
A bit circular in reasoning. No?

The argument is because you exist, therefore they must have existed unseen and without a clue left behind.
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Why do you think it is circular? The evidence for grandpappy’s existence is your own existence. Nowt circular about that. You need a better example of someone whose existence is not doubted despite lack of evidence. Because with grandpappy, the evidence, as you yourself pointed out, definitely exists.
 
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In fact you may find it difficult to name anyone whose existence is not doubted despite lack of evidence. What you may find is in some cases the evidence is slight, or feeble, but non-existent? I don’t think so.
 
o_mlly said:
The argument is because you exist, therefore they must have existed unseen and without a clue left behind.
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We still have physical evidence of their existence in our genes. Science is even able to date the emergence of certain genes. So, we have actual physical evidence they existed.
 
PickyPicky said:
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o_mlly:
A bit circular in reasoning. No?

The argument is because you exist, therefore they must have existed unseen and without a clue left behind.
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Why do you think it is circular? The evidence for grandpappy’s existence is your own existence. Nowt circular about that. You need a better example of someone whose existence is not doubted despite lack of evidence. Because with grandpappy, the evidence, as you yourself pointed out, definitely exists.
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I think you are over analyzing what he said, he’s just talking about things like …“seeing is believing”.
 
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Techno2000 said:
I think you are over analyzing what he said, he’s just talk about things like …“seeing it believing”.
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Do you think so?
FiveLinden said:
This non-believer tries hard not to believe in anything but only to conclude on the basis of observation that things exist. I see nothing to indicate the existence of god(s). There might be one, or thousands, or there might have been gods once but they all may have died - who knows? But the same is true of any being we could imagine that has no material form.
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and @o_milly replies:
o_mlly said:
Do you believe in the existence of your great-great-great-great grandfather? If I have enough “great’s” in the adjectives then you’ve never seen even a photo of him and, most certainly, you have never observed him. Logically, you cannot exist unless he existed. You exist. Therefore you believe in a being that you have never observed and that has no material form. You imagine him as real.
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That seems to me a daft argument, since the evidence of grandpappy is palpable. Anyway, it’s too daft for us to dwell on it, with that I’ll agree.
 
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PickyPicky said:
That seems to me a daft argument, since the evidence of grandpappy is palpable. Anyway, it’s too daft for us to dwell on it, with that I’ll agree.
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The evidence for Jesus is palpable too.

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

John 20:29
 
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Bradskii said:
This is your religious view in a nutshell.
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No, this is your straw-man in a nutshell.
Bradskii said:
You are presupposing (your word) inherrent design and purpose
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No i am not and that is not what i said
Well i would venture to argue that many of the traits that organisms posses (not all) presuppose an objective environment in which evolution is possible
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As in, those are exactly the kind of traits i would expect in a life giving environment, but only an intelligence would know that, and it would be impossible for a blind natural process to know that, but that is what it produced anyway - things like sensory perception of the environment, a nervous system, a brain. These things presuppose the existence of something that can be sensed and known. A coincidence? I think not.

I am making a new argument here, but I think we have reach the point where we have to agree to disagree. Anythings better than watching you produce another straw-man.
 
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It is maybe worth to point out that God is supposed to exist today, so to refer to past evidence is meaningless.
 
Pattylt said:
We still have physical evidence of their existence in our genes. Science is even able to date the emergence of certain genes. So, we have actual physical evidence they existed.
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I don’t think so. DNA testing is comparative and you don’t have any of Gpa’s DNA.
 
o_mlly said:
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Bradskii:
My family bible goes back about 7 generations. But let’s take it back to ten. In which case I then have over 500 great great etc grandparents. Which one are we talking about?

To be honest, you only have to go back 4 or 5 generations and does anyone care about who they were? Granted they logically needed to exist for me to be here, but apart from that, unless they contributed something meaningful that has lasted the duration, I could care less whether they existed or not.

And what we need to recognise is that that is true for a lot of historical figures. Did Socrates really exist? Not really sure. But what he is reported to have said is worth reading. Whether he was a real person or not. Same with Jesus.

So the question should not be ‘Did they exist?’ It should be ‘Whether they existed or not, are the reports of their work meaningful in any way?’
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I think you are missing the point. Someone reported, in thinking about God, that as a principle they could not know another existed without observing that being or having material evidence of that being’s existence. The grandpappy exercise hopefully disproves that notion.
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Maybe I was being too subtle. My point was that for all intents, it doesn’t matter if God exists. As long as you think you are following what He wants, that should be your only concern.

If He does exist, then you might reap the rewards. If He doesn’t then you’ve hopefully been a nice person.
 
o_mlly said:
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PickyPicky:
But it doesn’t, because as you have pointed out, their very existence is material evidence that grandpappy existed.
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A bit circular in reasoning. No?

The argument is because you exist, therefore they must have existed unseen and without a clue left behind.
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Circular? It’s the most linear argument there could be.

‘I exist, therefore my father must have existed’.

Rinse and repeat until you get back where you want to go.
 
IWantGod said:
Well i would venture to argue that many of the traits that organisms posses (not all) presuppose an objective environment in which evolution is possible
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As in, those are exactly the kind of traits i would expect in a life giving environment, but only an intelligence would know that, and it would be impossible for a blind natural process to know that, but that is what it produced anyway - things like sensory perception of the environment, a nervous system, a brain. These things presuppose the existence of something that can be sensed and known. A coincidence? I think not.
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This is stating the bleedin’ obvious. That evolutionary traits happen in an environment that allows evolution. And that evolution has produced Man. Who has intelligence and perception to enable him to understand this process. Other creatures are intelligent and posess perception. Just to a lesser degree.

And you most definitely are presupposing design. Else why the ‘Coincidence? I think not’.

Your whole argument is one of befuddled amazement. ‘I can’t understand how this could have all happened by natural processes alone.’ So you claim design. Which you have to anyway. Not to the extent of a six day creation - you draw the line there. But all your posts can be summed up thus:

I believe that it can’t have worked without God.

And I agree. You do believe that. But you didn’t finally get there through tortuous examination of the evolutionary evidence. You started there.

Can we agree on that?
 
Bradskii said:
Circular? It’s the most linear argument there could be.
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Circular or linear depends on the the antecedent for the misplaced pronoun “their” which the poster later corrected. The only possible reference in the sentence is “grandpappy” which renders the argument questionably circular.
 
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