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Monarchy
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Really? Do so then. Show me Imperical (i.e. Physical) evidence that that he doesn’t exist.
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squirt
Guest
True. From my perspective, what we do is assign subjective probabilities to the likelihood of the existence of certain entities. And then make decisions based on the assigned probabilities. We update the assigned probabilities, as necessary, to try to keep our worldviews coherent to ourselves. Personally, I would assign zero probability to humans that live near the north pole for hundreds of years and fly around on reindeer on Christmas Eve. I couldn’t prove that I’m right, but I’m willing to act as though I know I’m right.
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Carl
Guest
You can not physically prove the non-existance of anything, Santa included
Exactly how old are you?
We prove the non-existence of Santa by admitting that it is a pleasant fiction invented to please children at Christmas time. These same children, when they arrive at a certain level of maturity, admit they they were pleasantly deceived. We know that all the Santas who appeared in person were part of the pleasant deception. They took their pay and went back to their regular lives.
No one has ever claimed to be the real Santa. If he did, it would be easy enough to prove that he did not live at the North Pole and that no elves were employed in any North Pole workshop.
I find this tedious comparison of the non-existence of God with the non-existence of Santa Claus to be unworthy of anyone who claims to have a brain. You can prove that Santa does not exist. You cannot prove that God does not exist merely because you have never seen God face to face.
And the reason you don’t see even the faintest trace of God in all Creation is that you don’t want to. After all, God is an obstacle to the deifying of the Self.
Exactly how old are you?
We prove the non-existence of Santa by admitting that it is a pleasant fiction invented to please children at Christmas time. These same children, when they arrive at a certain level of maturity, admit they they were pleasantly deceived. We know that all the Santas who appeared in person were part of the pleasant deception. They took their pay and went back to their regular lives.
No one has ever claimed to be the real Santa. If he did, it would be easy enough to prove that he did not live at the North Pole and that no elves were employed in any North Pole workshop.
I find this tedious comparison of the non-existence of God with the non-existence of Santa Claus to be unworthy of anyone who claims to have a brain. You can prove that Santa does not exist. You cannot prove that God does not exist merely because you have never seen God face to face.
And the reason you don’t see even the faintest trace of God in all Creation is that you don’t want to. After all, God is an obstacle to the deifying of the Self.
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AnAtheist
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Carl said:
I, for my part, am exactly 35 years old and have a degree in physics. **And you cannot empirically disproove the existence of a non-existing thing. **That is basic logic and not childish defiance.
Following your argument, we can disproove God by admitting that he is a pleasant fiction invented to please people who are afraid of dying and are desperately trying to find the meaning of life. And there are some people in this world when they reach a certain level of education (I won’t call it maturity), who admit that they were pleasantly deceived. Those people are called atheists (he he). We (the atheists) know that alle the Gods who ever appeared in person were part of the pleasant deception. They took their pay and made a living of it, or were killed by followers of different gods.
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Aris
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To paraphrase a Philosopher
If you believed in God and when you died, you found out it was true. You win
If you believed in God and when you died, you found out there was no God, You still win because of the life you’ve lived and nothing was taken from you.
It’s different if you don’t.
That’s because you’re not sure.
To the threads question - God does not appear to you because you refuse to see God everywhere.
If you believed in God and when you died, you found out it was true. You win
If you believed in God and when you died, you found out there was no God, You still win because of the life you’ve lived and nothing was taken from you.
It’s different if you don’t.
That’s because you’re not sure.
To the threads question - God does not appear to you because you refuse to see God everywhere.
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Carl
Guest
*Following your argument, we can disproove God by admitting that he is a pleasant fiction invented to please people who are afraid of dying and are desperately trying to find the meaning of life. *
Several problems here.
In the first place, everyone is afraid of dying, theists and atheists alike.
In the second place, most people are desperately trying to find the meaning of life … even the atheists who visit Catholic Answers.
In the third place, most people never admit about God, as they would admit about Santa Claus, that they were pleasantly deceived. This is because they cannot see any deception in God … any lies that have led them astray. What most people admit about God is that God has given them less reason to be afraid of dying and more reason to feel they have found the meaning of life.
Whereas the whole human race, having arrived at adulthood, repudiates Santa Claus, virtually the whole human race, except for a few know-it-alls, repudiates atheism.
Your degree in physics proves nothing, though it might suggest that you are a slave to materialism, the curse and burden of modern science.
Several problems here.
In the first place, everyone is afraid of dying, theists and atheists alike.
In the second place, most people are desperately trying to find the meaning of life … even the atheists who visit Catholic Answers.
In the third place, most people never admit about God, as they would admit about Santa Claus, that they were pleasantly deceived. This is because they cannot see any deception in God … any lies that have led them astray. What most people admit about God is that God has given them less reason to be afraid of dying and more reason to feel they have found the meaning of life.
Whereas the whole human race, having arrived at adulthood, repudiates Santa Claus, virtually the whole human race, except for a few know-it-alls, repudiates atheism.
Your degree in physics proves nothing, though it might suggest that you are a slave to materialism, the curse and burden of modern science.
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AnAtheist
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Santa or no Santa is not the issue. The issue is the disproof of non-existing things.
Replace Santa Claus with Vishnu. You cannot disprove the existence of Vishnu, and there are at least 800 million people on this planet who do not repudiate him. Is that a proof that Vishnu exists?
It proves that I am able to understand the principles of mathematics, nature, logic and proving/disproving theories. That is what physics is about.
What Monarchy has posted is a fact known to everybody who has a bit of scientific education. Yet your question “Exactly how old are you?” implied that his statement is that of a defiant child.
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ichabod
Guest
That is your point, I recognize that. Jesus also declared that somethings that were OK to be a sin as well (e.g., divorce), and explained why it had been allowed in the law. As usual, the generalization sounds good, but Jesus didn’t stand up & say “some things you believe are wrong”; as we have it recorded, he spoke mre specifically.
Your use of “contrary” is inappropriate with the code of jewish (or any) law. Contradiction is used when there are two statements which are mutually exclusive, that is only one may be correct (e.g., “I am alive” and “I am dead” ). Codified social law is a set of guidelines for acceptable behavior which does change over time and is interpreted according to circumstance. When Jesus spoke in a manner which re-interpreted Jewish law, he often had to explain why. Those explanations did not contradict the nature of God or the nature of man. In most cases, Jesus clarified and justified the nature of God and man.
Modern catholic christian theology does not provide for a new person to just appear and redefine divine or natural law, and for many reasons(too many to enumerate now).
Before one would accept a person as an incarnation of God, two criteria would apply:
- Does what you say contradict immutable truth?
- What about this person suggests he is any more that human, much less God?
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Carl
Guest
Replace Santa Claus with Vishnu. You cannot disprove the existence of Vishnu, and there are at least 800 million people on this planet who do not repudiate him. Is that a proof that Vishnu exists?
You seem to have a mental wall that nobody can penetrate. Did I say that the number of people believing in God proves the existence of God? I was comparing the credibility of God with the incredibility of Santa Claus. Please try and jump over that wall and see the logic from the other side instead of setting up useless boulders that block your view.
*It proves that I am able to understand the principles of mathematics, nature, logic and proving/disproving theories. That is what physics is about. *
It proves nothing of the sort. I have known several people with advanced degrees in science who, presented with a problem beyond their area of expertise, could not reason their way out of a paper bag.
You seem to argue that scientific logic is the only valid logic. Man is not merely a thinking machine. He is also capable of yearnings far beyond the ability of science to explain … even though science has become so arrogant as to assume it can explain everything (or what it can’t explain it someday will).
What Monarchy has posted is a fact known to everybody who has a bit of scientific education. Yet your question “Exactly how old are you?” implied that his statement is that of a defiant child.
Well, isn’t it?
Last week I visited three prisoners. We talked about their views on religion, or the lack of it. One of them said he had been raised in a Christian Church but as a teenager had lost his faith and became an atheist. I asked what attracted him to atheism. He said he thought it would be a lot easier for him to get through life if he could decide what was right or wrong instead of obeying a higher power. Well, apparently it was not so easy, as he is now in prison. I asked him why he gave up on atheism. He answered that he looked around and saw how unhappy atheism had made him, and how much happier and more hopeful his Christian friends were.
This kind of logic baffles the scientific method of reasoning. You cannot put happiness under a microscope or find it at the end of a telescope.
The curse and burden of modern science … trapping so many people into a meaningless existence on the presumption that you can never prove in a scientific way that the universe has any meaning.
You seem to have a mental wall that nobody can penetrate. Did I say that the number of people believing in God proves the existence of God? I was comparing the credibility of God with the incredibility of Santa Claus. Please try and jump over that wall and see the logic from the other side instead of setting up useless boulders that block your view.
*It proves that I am able to understand the principles of mathematics, nature, logic and proving/disproving theories. That is what physics is about. *
It proves nothing of the sort. I have known several people with advanced degrees in science who, presented with a problem beyond their area of expertise, could not reason their way out of a paper bag.
You seem to argue that scientific logic is the only valid logic. Man is not merely a thinking machine. He is also capable of yearnings far beyond the ability of science to explain … even though science has become so arrogant as to assume it can explain everything (or what it can’t explain it someday will).
What Monarchy has posted is a fact known to everybody who has a bit of scientific education. Yet your question “Exactly how old are you?” implied that his statement is that of a defiant child.
Well, isn’t it?
Last week I visited three prisoners. We talked about their views on religion, or the lack of it. One of them said he had been raised in a Christian Church but as a teenager had lost his faith and became an atheist. I asked what attracted him to atheism. He said he thought it would be a lot easier for him to get through life if he could decide what was right or wrong instead of obeying a higher power. Well, apparently it was not so easy, as he is now in prison. I asked him why he gave up on atheism. He answered that he looked around and saw how unhappy atheism had made him, and how much happier and more hopeful his Christian friends were.
This kind of logic baffles the scientific method of reasoning. You cannot put happiness under a microscope or find it at the end of a telescope.
The curse and burden of modern science … trapping so many people into a meaningless existence on the presumption that you can never prove in a scientific way that the universe has any meaning.
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squirt
Guest
Hi AnAtheist, Monarchy (and hey, Booger too! … although I don’t know if you’re a science type),
Just wondering if you ‘believe’ that causal relationships exist (given that they cannot be proven … heck, you never accept a null hypothesis, you just fail to reject one from time to time)?
Or is that just a useful way of modeling the world? (Kind of what seems to work best for trying to understand the world around us.)
Just wondering if you ‘believe’ that causal relationships exist (given that they cannot be proven … heck, you never accept a null hypothesis, you just fail to reject one from time to time)?
Or is that just a useful way of modeling the world? (Kind of what seems to work best for trying to understand the world around us.)
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AnAtheist
Guest
Yes you did. You mentioned that only a tiny fraction of mankind does not belief in gods as if that was a hint of God’s existence or the mere fact that atheists are a minority makes atheism wrong. If I misunderstood you there - sorry, mea culpa.
Yes it does. That is exactly what a degree does. You have to prove by exams and interviews that you are capable of doing those things. If you don’t understand the afore mentioned principles then you don’t get a degree in physics. At least not in my country.
Logic is logic, i.e. a defined way to draw conclusions from presumptions. “scientific logic” is a tautology, “non-scientific logic” an oxymoron. Therefore, yes, I argue that.
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wildlifer
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Then there are those of us whom view themselves as “strong atheists” regarding the gods of the religious, and “weak atheists” regarding the possiblity of an as yet undefined “god.”
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AnAtheist
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What do you mean by “casual relationships”? Is it like the birth rate and the stork population correlate (they do, really!), hence storks bring babies?
A rejected null hypothesis implies that the alterntive hypothesis might be true, to what extend is not part of the null hypothesis test. A positive null hypothesis test only means, that the observed outcome of a statistical experiment may be due to mere chance and not to a siginificant correlation.
Sorry, I don’t get your question and what is has to do with gods. Please rephrase/elaborate.
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squirt
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It really has very little to do with gods. Just asking if you believe in cause-effect relationships. As you point out, correlation does not imply causation.
If you do believe that there are cause-effect relationships, why?
If you do believe that they exist, can they be determined deductively or only inductively or not at all?
Just curious.
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Monarchy
Guest
Carl said:
31 years, 10 months, and 1 day.
What does it matter?READ!! I said you cannot PHYSICALY prove the non-existance of anything. Show me emperical(sp?) evidence of his non-existance.
Read above, you cannot physicaly prove the non-existance of anything, INCLUDING god.
Are you a mind reader sir? If not, then don’t tell me what I think or feel.
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Monarchy
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Argumentum ad numerum fallacy
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AnAtheist
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Now I’m with you.
Yes, of course I “believe” in cause-effect-relationships, because I can observe them every day. The tricky part is to divide the relationships from the casual correlations.
I say both, depends on the problem. Deduction is generally more reliable, if you ask me.
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squirt
Guest
This is still thread drift, as it has nothing to do with gods or atheism …
I’m trying to think of an example of a realworld cause-effect relationship that can be known purely deductively … but I’m stuck. (I’ve spent too many years doing applied stats
)Can you give me any examples?
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Carl
Guest
MONARCHY
Argumentum ad numerum fallacy
You just flunked Logic 101.The argument from numbers is not always a fallacy. It can be a fallacy if deception is involved, whether the many deceive the few or everyone deceives themselves.
However, if out of one hundred people, ninety standing on one side of a building see smoke and flames pouring out of the building, and ten standing on the other side of the building see no smoke and flames, the ten would do well to stay out of the building when the ninety stampede around the corner shouting “Fire!” They would not do well to say, “No, that is argumentum ad numerum.”
Your answer, of course, is that theists are deceiving themselves and others with the idea of God. How do you know? How do you know it is not the atheist who is deceiving himself and others by insisting that all logic must apply only to events in the material world? How do you know there is not another world that calls to us, that warns us of fire, and whose warning we would be fools to ignore?
How do you know? Please answer the question: "How do you know?
Stop beating around the burning bush and tell us how you know?
You won’t, because you can’t.
Argumentum ad numerum fallacy
You just flunked Logic 101.The argument from numbers is not always a fallacy. It can be a fallacy if deception is involved, whether the many deceive the few or everyone deceives themselves.
However, if out of one hundred people, ninety standing on one side of a building see smoke and flames pouring out of the building, and ten standing on the other side of the building see no smoke and flames, the ten would do well to stay out of the building when the ninety stampede around the corner shouting “Fire!” They would not do well to say, “No, that is argumentum ad numerum.”
Your answer, of course, is that theists are deceiving themselves and others with the idea of God. How do you know? How do you know it is not the atheist who is deceiving himself and others by insisting that all logic must apply only to events in the material world? How do you know there is not another world that calls to us, that warns us of fire, and whose warning we would be fools to ignore?
How do you know? Please answer the question: "How do you know?
Stop beating around the burning bush and tell us how you know?
You won’t, because you can’t.
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Monarchy
Guest
Argumentum ad numerum
This fallacy is closely related to the argumentum ad populum. It consists of asserting that the more people who support or believe a proposition, the more likely it is that that proposition is correct. For example:
“The vast majority of people in this country believe that capital punishment has a noticeable deterrent effect. To suggest that it doesn’t in the face of so much evidence is ridiculous.”
“All I’m saying is that thousands of people believe in pyramid power, so there must be something to it.”
They could tell them to go around and look at the other side of the building, and they could SEE the fire and smoke as proof. You can’t see God.
I have never claimed to know anything with certainty. Could God exist?
YES.
Is there any physical proof that he does?
No.
But you would force people to believe in something for which there is no physical proof. Even if you could prove that he exists, you would then have to prove that he is the God of the Bible and not some other God.
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