Rule 34 states that if it exists there is porn of it. Simply google “rule 34 of the internet” and you will find this immutable law of nature laid out.
In fact, you can even find search engines that use rule 34 algorithms.
Case in point. In the bible we have one of the earliest cases of erotica known to man.
God Himself conceives a child with a virgin. This nasty little tale is one of the earliest records of porn given by history.
And it is much more than that.
If it exists, there is porn if it. God copulated with Virgin Mary. Hence, by rule 34 of the internet, He exists!!!
Of course - if q then p. P - therefore q. A very simple stretch of logic known as modus ponens.
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@ratty: No immutable law begins with the word, "if." You are making an alliteration error. "Porn" was not defined in the same way during the First Century as it is today. It is a fallacy to apply modern standards to First Century Iron Age theologians.
Rules of the internet refers to a humorous list of unofficial rules guiding online conduct or listing axioms about internet use (Not the existence of god.)
RULE 34: Rule 34, according to long-standing legend, goes something like this: If it exists, or can be imagined, there is Internet porn of it. ... Alien goat sex may still exist somewhere in the Internet's unplumbable depths, but it is far deeper down than it used to be.Apr 6, 2016 (So all we are discussing is Internet God sex.)
So the assertion you are supporting is that Rule 34 also applies to books and specifically the bible. Yes, the bible has a lot of sex in it. Some of it may have been porn of the time. (I don't know.) For as sexually repressed as Christians are in the world today, I think we can use the bible to prove they have not always been that way.
@OP
I agree with Cog here. Your position seems to be more of a joke than serious??
To add, your premise is incorrect, as far as any Christian church (and many other religions, I'm sure) would tell you.
"God Himself conceives a child with a virgin. This nasty little tale is one of the earliest records of porn given by history."
This seems to imply that God took on the form of man and had intercourse with Mary (like the Roman/Greek gods would). He, of course, did not. Christ was the first and only time God took on the form of man. Mary conceived Christ through miraculous means, thus maintaining her virginity. You can't say "God copulated with Virgin Mary." That in itself is a contradiction.
The bible doesn't say that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was born, nor does it say she was perpetually a virgin.
@ Sapporo
The Bible does say she was a virgin until Jesus was born, but not a perpetual virgin.
Matt 1:18 This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Matt 1:24 "When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. 25 But he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus."
Mmmm. That kind of reading gets me all hot and bothered. Further proof that God truly exists via rule 34.
And might I mention - rule 34 typically makes no mention of “the imaginable”. It pertains strictly to the “existent”.
@Jo: Yes, your modern bible says that. What about all the biblical texts that came before? The perpetual virginity of Mary was a solid doctrine of the Church in the fourth Century and is still claimed today by Eastern Orthodox faiths. (I know why. Why don't you?) You just keep rattling off Bullshit without knowing why.
@ Cognostic
The 4th century "church", but not the 1st century church, or the OT. It is not in the text of any of the OT or NT books in the Bible (KJV just as a reference).
Yes, I think I know why and I will go first. It was in reaction to another addition the 4th century "church" adopted, original sin.
I was thinking in reaction to lord Shiva and Hinduism. The Christian god is so much more limited than the Hindu god. Bible Quote Time: "16For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and firstborn from among the dead, so that in all things He may have preeminence.…"
"There is no contradiction if everything is god. God is the rock. God is both lifting the rock and not lifting the rock" There is no contradiction as god defines the circle and the square as well as perceptions of the circle and the square. What you see is at the bequest of God and that is his reality not yours. You can know neither circles nor squares without god. ( Presuppostiionalist Nonsense.) No contradiction at all.
@ Cognostic
You say that the Christian God is much more limited than Siva. Why do you support that claim by quoting verses that say Jesus created everything? Shiva is just one of the gods in Hinduism. Jesus is God in Christianity.
Your second paragraph shows a misunderstanding of the free will God gives us. He allows us to decide what is a circle and what is a square. Or more importantly, if God exists.
What is the presuppositionalist nonsense you are referring to? Is it when you require theists to provide evidence, but do not require atheists to provide evidence?
You will never understand this will you Jo?
The burden of proof lies on the one making the claim.
The various god claims has never met the burden of proof. Not one of the many different god claims. They remain completely unproven, the god ideas remain just that, ideas, unsubstantiated, unproven, deficient in any testable fact, etc etc etc
Trying to say god gets credit for everything IS NOT PROOF. Anyone could make that claim.
I am god, I created everything! Want proof? look around you you see my "creation" all around you, I also created you!
Would you accept that as proof I am god? I would hope not! Yet this is often times the "proof of claim" just about all religions use.
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@ Logic FTW
When you say "The burden of proof lies on the one making the claim.", is that not also a claim? Isn't it a presupposition?
What about this aspect of the burden of proof? You are challenging a perceived status quo.
"The one who makes the claim typically has a burden of proof to justify or substantiate that claim especially when it challenges a perceived status quo."
Cargile, James (January 1997). "On the burden of proof". Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. 72 (279): 59–83. doi:10.1017/s0031819100056655.
This is also a claim "The various god claims has never met the burden of proof." Isn't the burden of proof on you for your claim?
Here is many more claims you make "They remain completely unproven, the god ideas remain just that, ideas, unsubstantiated, unproven, deficient in any testable fact, etc etc etc."
You are claiming that God, if he exists is testable. Can you prove this?
You don't say how this can be tested, proven, shown to be complete, or how they can be substantiated. You just make the claim.
You put yourself in the position of arbiter on any evidence that is presented.
It is not surprising that no evidence presented is judged as valid. But you do get the answer you desire.
It is a great way of confirming your beliefs (call it claims, opinions or whatever you want to) without applying the same rigorous standards you do for beliefs others hold.
Atheists seem to routinely miss the irony that they hold two inconsistent beliefs in there mind at the same time. The very thing they accuse theists of doing.
The two inconsistent beliefs are:
1. They make no claims, just have lack of faith.
2. Then write extensively on their claims about theism and very passionately make the case for the non existence of God.
Hmm how to write this in a different way to maybe help you grasp this.
We humans, to be more effective, need a way to separate fact from fiction. Humans are most certainly capable of creating fiction. In a sense the better a person is able to separate fact from fiction the more likely they are to be succesful in life. With the opposite being true for someone that is very poor at this.
We have a variety of tools that can help us separate fact from fiction. Some better then others, some more useful in certain scenarios then others.
The burden of proof lies on the person making the claim is one of those tools to help separate fact from fiction. If this is not obvious to you the only way I can think of explaining this is examples.
I believe I already shared with you the "you owe me 1 million dollars" example.
At its core that example is saying I made a claim, and you instead of just accepting my claim, state that I need to prove my claim instead of you proving that my claim is untrue. This is especially true in the "owe 1 million" claim in that I made a claim that is not falsifiable. That example alone SHOULD be enough to illustrate the importance of "the burden of truth lies on the person that makes the claim.
So I present that this statement is not a claim, it is a tool, and better yet this tool's effectiveness can be easily demonstrated. Seriously if you were to say this tool is useless and irrelevant and unusable I would invite you to put your money where your mouth is, and say no this tool is useless and we should not use it. I can simply then make the claim you owe me 1 million dollars, and you could not refute it, and if you were honest, even though you know it's BS you should pay me 1 million dollars if you had any integrity.
What perceived status quo is that? That there is a god? Are you sure that is status quo? Over 100 billion people have lived and died, how many of those 100+ billion been exposed to anything even close to your god concept? Status quo? The status quo is there is no god. We are born knowing of no god concept and only learn it from other humans later in life.
Whoopsie! Using that argument puts you right back to where you started, yes, you folks claim your particular god idea is against the status quo.
Yep that is on me. And guess what...I have...oh I dunno, (googles it) 5000 years of written history that states no god concept has ever met the burden of proof. Hard to imagine anything that has the burden of proof so successfully met.
See above. Same claim same overwhelming burden of proof met.
Depends on your particular definition of your god idea. If you say god actually has any sort of effect on us humans, then we can actually go out and test this and we have and these studies/test etc have with at or near 100% shown there is no god. And if you say your god is outside of time and space and has no effect on humans, then we are not really making a god claim anymore are we?
I perhaps naively hoped I would not have to spell this out.
The test has been going on for as long as people were making claims about their particular god idea. And this test has without fail shown every time there is no god. And that is there is zero testable evidence for these various god ideas. Back to burden of proof, a necessary tool we all employ every day. Do you accept change for 100 US dollar bill without looking at the change you recieved? If you don't I imagine it won't be long before someone take advantage of your large deficiency until you correct it.
I did not put myself there, reality did. Again even you employ this powerful tool everyday, you just make your religion/god idea exempt to it because that is more comfortable and favorable to you.
It is valid, nay CRITICAL to dismiss an idea that has no evidence to be dismissed! If you cannot dismiss an idea as valid when it lacks evidence, you would already be dead. This is a critical skill, even other animals, in a more crude form to use this tool. They reach out with their limbs, they rely on their senses to tell them what is real and what is not.
Ready to hear something you probably wont hear from many other atheist? I actually do desire some sort of "heaven like" afterlife.A place I could meet up again with others that have died before or after me. I actually desire that a lot. I certainly do not desire a "god" like those depicted in just about any major religion I ever heard of, but some sort of greater entity that makes it so I can get to some sort of wonderful afterlife free of pain, suffering, and ability to be with people that have already died or will die later? Sure, sign me up! But just because I want it does not make it true, does not make it so I can just ignore these powerful useful tools like assigning burden of proof where it belongs. I would like to have a billion dollars, I desire it, should I expect a billion dollars to magically appear before me? Should I plan on it? No that would be idiotic I would waste a lot of time waiting around for something that will extremely likely never happen. How do I know its extremely unlikely? Utilizing tools like evidence, burden of proof etc.
I hold my personal "belief" system to a higher standard than other belief system. If there was a new better evidenced system that supersedes mine (even if it was some god idea) I would abandon my current beliefs for that one as soon as the evidence available to me supersedes the evidence that my current belief system has. I read the world news, I am exposed to opposing belief systems to my own here and elsewhere. So far utilizing these critically important tools it has not even been close. I would bet all my worldly possessions to a single dollar that if there was some sort of fair 3rd party system that could accurately verify who was correct.
One key difference, all of human history and findings so far has pointed to a non existence of god. Even many of the major religions are reacting to this utter lack of evidence for their claims by increasingly painting their god ideas and even their entire religion ideas into a dark corner of "god of the gaps," and "interpretation."
Seriously the argument is over, people have figured this out 100's of years ago. The various god concepts follow perfectly into being the creation of human beings minds rather then actual reality. The evidence is overwhelming. Just read your own "god" book with a critical mind. Don't accept the excuse "well you are not interpreting it correctly" humans obviously and admit to writing, editing, translating these books. Don't give over any possible reasoning or logical deduction to "god works in mysterious ways, we cannot understand god." That is NOT a valid excuse because ANYONE could use that excuse to try and validate their idea.
Cool thing is religion is already dying in many parts of the world, and this death is accelerating. How many people go to church weekly in major metro areas? I would say less than 20%. Need obvious evidence of this? Count how many people walk into your local churches on a random sunday, then count how many go around christmas or around easter? I know most all churches in my area, have to hold multiple sermons around those days because they cant "fit" all the people into the churches, the parking lots fill up etc.
You can also just look up census data for population in your area, then go and count people walking into church on a random Sunday. 200 years ago or more church attendance every sunday in many communities was well over 90%
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@ Logic FTW
"So I present that this statement is not a claim, it is a tool, and better yet this tool's effectiveness can be easily demonstrated."
I completely agree that it is a wonderful tool whose effectiveness is easily demonstrated.
But like all good tools, it can be misused, and may not be useful or appropriate in every situation.
Math and science are also great tools, but can you answer all questions with them, and are they applicable in all situations?
Can you use math to evidence love, or science as a tool to determine goodness?
Young earth creationist use the burden of proof as a tool to deny evolution. They deny evolution by saying it is the responsibility of those who claim evolution to provide suffice evidence to convince them. No big surprise that no amount of evidence is considered valid or sufficient for them. The tool can be misused.
If I claim to have an elixir that cures all diseases. I wise person would withhold belief until my claim is evidence.
In other situations it is not an efficacious tool. Not just with the subject of God, but also love, mercy, goodness, and beauty.
If two friends meet to discuss God and one is convinced there is a God and the other is convinced there in no God.
If the one who is convinced there is no God is the sole person required to produce evidence, who appears to win the debate?
But that doesn't mean God exists. If the theist were the sole person required to produce evidence, the opposite would appear to be true. It can be misused as a way to make someone appear to have no evidence, but is just a rhetorical technique in that case.
By requiring evidence of God you are claiming that it is possible to produce evidence. The evidence you require is also very vague or not specified at all. You also make the claim that if someone cannot produce evidence that God exists, that he does not exist. You don't say it that way, but that is the logical conclusions of your claims and demands.
You asked "What perceived status quo is that? That there is a god?" Here is a reference.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#cite_note-worldfac...
"According to the World Factbook, Non-religious people make up 9.66%, while one fifth of them are atheists."
"A 2004 survey by the BBC in 10 countries showed the proportion of the population "who don't believe in God" to be close to 17% in the countries surveyed, however, 8% of the respondents specifically stated that they consider themselves to be "atheists". Diversity was observed in that "across the entire sample, almost 30% of all atheists surveyed said they sometimes prayed."
Has not the vast majority of people throughout time had some sort of god, supernatural beliefs, or some sort of faith?
"5000 years of written history that states no god concept has ever met the burden of proof."
I could say that 5000 years of history has shown the vast majority of people have determined there is sufficient evidence for God.
It doesn't make God proven, it is just opinion presented as fact. Neither your statement or mine prove anything.
Claiming someone is wrong is not a test that proves anything, it is just opinion. Billions of people would dispute your claim of no evidence for God. They are convinced that there is a God and that he has been evidenced to them. Of course that is just their opinion or belief. But then isn't yours also?
"Studies/test etc have with at or near 100% shown there is no god." Can you give me the reference for these studies.
When I became a Christian, and many time since, I have prayed and asked God to help me be a better man. He has helped me be a better man. Even those around me who do not agree with my faith, would tell you I am a better man since becoming a Christian. How do I provide evidence to you that this is true? How can I show that God did actually help me? Is it possible? Does my inability to produce the kind of evidence you desire make it untrue. You can say that it was my desire to be a better man that caused the improvements. But I would tell you that it was God who gave me that desire. Beliefs, opinions, conjecture by both of us. Can't prove it was or was not God.
It is folly to say God can be proven or disproven. Arguments and evidence given is a valid requirement. A decision, a belief, an opinion, a conclusion, call it what you want. In the end "we decide which is right and which is an illusion."
@ Jo
Shame they couldn't help you "live in truth" then.....or recognise racism, misogyny and genocide when you see it written down. Or understand "evidence".
Seems to me that a lot of religion, especially the born again kind is character destroying rather than uplifting.
@Jo
I struggle to think of a scenario where the tool of: "the burden of proof lies in the one making the claim." could be misused or is not appropriate? Perhaps you can give me a few examples? To me this powerful tool recognizes the basic truth that humans are capable of fiction/lies.
There are certainly scientific tools that can evidence love (the physical traits of it.) Goodness is strictly in the subjective realm, but the "need" for "goodness" again can be done in math or science.
I suppose you have a point there, the tool can be misused, because well another event is occuring, the refusal to accept the evidence then people attempt to meet the burden of proof. But before you run off thinking you scored major victory points for theist apologists, understand this does not compare to atheist demanding evidence for "god" to believe in one. There is a lot of real, testable repeatable evidence for evolution, and it fits in very nicely with so many other related fields of inquiry discovery and fact finding. This is not true for the god claim. There is ZERO (that I know of) evidence for god, not even a little bit of circumstantial evidence. There is none, all the evidence for god can be narrowed down to people talking or writing about their "god" idea.
Love, mercy, goodness and beauty all unlike god can possibly quantified measured and possibly meet the burden of proof with evidence. For instance I tell my wife all the time I love her. Is that enough for her? Of course not, my wife would not accept that claim if I did not follow it with action, talking to her, helping her, caring about her, being a friend, standing at her side good or bad. etc etc etc.
Again the god side of things there is no chance for that (the way most theist set up their god idea.) The concept of god at every level remains strictly in the minds of people there is nothing that ties this ideas to reality, unlike your examples of love, mercy, goodness, beauty, etc.
Nope. This is the core point. God has never been evidenced, proven, or anything, so there is NOTHING to disprove. If 2 friends meet, and they were being honest, the friend that did not believe in god would simply say: I do not have to disprove god to you at all, you have never proven it!
Just like if it was a discussion about unicorns that fart rainbows. Just like my example about a million dollars, the correct answer is: you have not proven that I owe you 1 million dollars, I can and should ignore your claim, there is no debate, no argument, because there is nothing there! This is why evidenced ideas are so important, especially when you try to bring your idea to the real world (like convince others the merit of your idea or shared idea.)
Your example shows it working as intended, not it being misused. Seriously try this exercise, think of anything you know obviously is not real. Say I make the claim you have no hands. You can easily show to me you have hands, sure, but why would you even need to argue you it. You can say to me: you have zero evidence that I have no hands, I can dismiss your claim because it is without any merit whatsoever, and even if I took the time to prove it this time, do I have to prove every single claim you make no matter how crazy is not true? Of course not! Why? Because until someone comes up with REAL evidence for it, you can. If I walked up to you, and said you have no hands, then grabbed your arms and showed your stumps where your hands used to be, THEN you would have a need to actually listen to my claim that you had no hands.
I am not actually. Something slightly different. I am claiming that if your god does exist and I should consider this to be reality instead of purely fiction, I demand evidence for it, real repeatable testable evidence, not just words and words written by humans.
I don't have to, many atheist do not, but I DO take it a step further beyond simply "god is not proven and lacks evidence." I believe there is a TON of evidence that humans made up the god idea. And I think my evidence on that is OVERWHELMING.
The simple fact that the god concept flat out does not exist where there are no humans around that believe in a particular god idea. That is powerful evidence all by itself that god is a human concept instead of reality.
I am saying if god is real and has any sort of effect on us whatsoever that god idea should be able to be evidenced. So far all major religions past and present if anything has steadily withdrew any evidence claims on this as the claims did not hold up to scrutiny. Most all of us do not believe god's throw around lightning anymore, or live up on a mountain anymore. Why? Because we been to the top of mountains. We understand what lightning is now and what causes it, etc. We know water cannot turn into wine because we know what it is made up of etc. Compared to the gods of old, current god ideas are hiding perpetually in the shadows, these gods never do miracles anymore, and are tangled up in confounding issues of the text on them being highly hypocritical, riddled with obvious flaws, the "case" for "god" is at is weakest and most miserable state since people first started organizing their beliefs of gods. All throughout first world countries with access to education and free flow of ideas the god ideas are in full retreat unless they resort to fear and violence.
Every single argument any religious apologist has come up with has been thoroughly rebutted, quite often 100's of years ago. All this retreat from the various religious ideas is also evidence, we went looking for evidence of god and found the "evidence" all points to no god. Or at the very least a god concept that is pretty much inconsequential to us humans, (as in their is zero reason to worship a "out of time and space" entity that may have created the universe, but of which there is zero evidence of that.)
2004 was a while ago, I would be interested in 2018 or 19 numbers. But even then I don't need to. Religion being on the decline in the US and many 1st world countries is obvious. Even despite the best efforts of the various churches to hide this. People may say they have prayed or gone to church, but for many people it is an afterthought these days. Worse still for churches is youth/young adult participation rates are way down. Weekly Church attendance in many of these first world countries used to be in the 90's it used to be social suicide everywhere to not attend weekly mass (or variations of this based on which ever religion.) Pick any large 1st world city, look up its population. Then go around to the various churches on their holy days, see most of the churches do not even fill up to capacity. Then realize, that population number, count how many churches are in the area, and realize the amount of "filled seats" to population ratio in these large population centers is likely below 10% Ouch. that is a heck of a drop from 90+% The "God" idea is increasingly become irrelevant, a footnote, to large portions of the population. In first world, well educated areas with access and freedom the signs of religious decline is EVERYWHERE.
I agree with you there.
Disagree with you here. Again because you got your burden of proof backwards. You (and the religious community) makes a claim, and 5000 years have gone by and no evidence or proof of claim has been presented. If I and a bunch of other people spent 5000 years trying to claim and prove the rainbow farting unicorn exists and still have not presented anything, do you just go "oh well, even though you have not been able to prove anything it does not prove (or even take into consideration!) that there is no unicorn that farts rainbows. If you still think 5000 years of no evidence does not disprove anything, realize you just put your god idea on the same merit level as my rainbow farting unicorn idea.
Agree just an opinion. If I make a claim with zero evidence it just opinion. And we already went over this, your argument ad populum actually hurts your "god" idea rather than helps it, billions more will look at you with a blank stare and say something like: "god? what is that?" Or their own god, idea to them makes your god idea seem completely wrong.
If you can't even realize your particular "god" idea is a tiny minority, that speaks to delusion.
Its not, and you already know why. I get this is a hard concept, but atheist is not a "belief." It is rejection of belief. It is taking into account the tools of evidence, tools like burden of proof, tools like: "that presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." Important powerful tools that allow us humans to better ourselves, to succeed in life. Many of these same tools can stop a con artist in their tracks, prevent fraud, etc.
You took what I said slightly out of context but here you go.
"Studies/test etc have with at or near 100% shown there is no god." Can you give me the reference for these studies.
Review The efficacy of "distant healing": a systematic review of randomized trials.
Astin JA, Harkness E, Ernst E
Ann Intern Med. 2000 Jun 6; 132(11):903-10.
Review The efficacy of "distant healing": a systematic review of randomized trials.
Astin JA, Harkness E, Ernst E
Ann Intern Med. 2000 Jun 6; 132(11):903-10.
Crawford CC, Sparber AG, Jonas WB. A systematic review of the quality of research on hands-on and distance healing: Clinical and laboratory studies. Altern Ther Health Med. 2003;9:A96–104
Aviles JM, Whelan E, Hernke DA, Williams BA, Kenny KE, O'Fallon M, et al. Intercessory prayer and cardiovascular disease progression in a coronary care unit population: A randomized controlled trial. Mayo Clin Proc. 2001;76:1192–8
Krucoff MW, Crater SW, Gallup D, Blankenship JC, Cuffe M, Guarneri M. Music, imagery, touch, and prayer as adjuncts to interventional cardiac care: The Monitoring and Actualisation of Noetic Trainings (MANTRA) II randomised study. Lancet. 2005;366:211–7.
Benson H, Dusek JA, Sherwood JB, Lam P, Bethea CF, Carpenter W, et al. Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: A multicenter randomized trial of uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer. Am Heart J. 2006;151:934–42.
Dusek JA, Sherwood JB, Friedman R, Myers P, Bethea CF, Levitsky S, et al. Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP): Study design and research methods. Am Heart J. 2002;143:577–84.
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If you need more just google it. But here is a real world test you can answer for yourself.
Ever
Why am I picking on prayer? It is one of the few things about god that is still measurable. (Since god ideas has mostly been pushed to god of the gaps.)
Can you give me an example of a single religious group that has some sort of "divine" advantage over any other group? That people living longer, lead better lives, better health outcomes have more freedom, wealth etc? I sure can't and I have looked. This also goes for other remaining traits of religions, take religious buildings, houses dedicated to the worship of gods, have these buildings been somehow magically immune to disaster? Why didn't "god" prevent the notre dame fire? If you want to say "god" does not give any sort of benefit to the group that correctly worships him, why worship this supposed "god" idea at all? What benefit is of you too sit down in prayer? Maybe to feel good? What about when religions tell people to pray for others, is again just to make people feel good?
How did "god" do that? Reach down into your mind and changed your ways? Or did you just read and listen to what other people said and write and tried to incorporate that into your life? If the latter, then the people that spoke/wrote that stuff deserve credit not god.
Subjective, but can someone become more agreeable to others since they started becoming christian? I think that certainly is within the realm of possibility, but you can not prove in anyway that "god" did that. Sounds more like to me, that YOU did that.
Oop read further in your post, you already mentioned this. You are right it does not prove it eithir way. Which is bad for you if you are trying to use these points to somehow state your case god is real. All you managed to do is state the obvious, "god is unproven."
It may well be. I like how you apparently agree, god is not proven. Now... if you could only recognize, that even if god (one described to be outside of space/time/understanding) can not be disproven, that it is a waste of your and everyone else's time to ascribe to this god, to worship it, to talk about it, to proselytize it, really to give an unevidenced idea any thought, this idea does not deserve any. And religious history and present presents a powerful case why it can be downright harmful.
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@ LogicFTW
You asked "I struggle to think of a scenario where the tool of: "the burden of proof lies in the one making the claim." could be misused or is not appropriate"? I gave the example of theists who use it as an excuse not to recognize the merits of evolution and carbon dating.
Perhaps a better example is global warming. Those who wish not to beleive it is real fall back on the burden of proof being on the one making the claim. No amount of evidence or valid arguments will convince them. They will just retreat into the lack of faith, or you have not provided sufficient evidence. They fail to appreciate that that is not how it works. If we wait until the world is a desert (or whatever are the consequences) it will be to late. We cannot wait until sufficient evidence is available to convince the skeptics, because by then it will be to late. The climate change deniers say it is just the natural world acting on its own. Warming up as it has done in the past, without human contributions. They fail to see the agency behind it.
You said "I demand evidence for it, real repeatable testable evidence, not just words and words written by humans." That is a claim that if God exists there will be real repeatable testable evidence to affirm his existence. You can beleive that but that doesn't mean that is how it works. Maybe it is not that simple. Maybe you are rigging the test to get the answer you want.
On the burden of proof you said "I would be interested in 2018 or 19 numbers." I don't have anything from that recent, but below are some recent figures that show the burden of proof is on the atheist.
A 2010 Pew Research global study found that 16 percent of the global population to be unaffiliated with a religion, however, Pew notes that "more than three-quarters of the religiously unaffiliated live in Asia, the majority in China. Many of the people in this group do hold some religious or spiritual beliefs and may even believe in a deity, but they do not identify with a particular faith."[6] Of the global atheist and nonreligious population, 76% reside in Asia and the Pacific, while the remainder reside in Europe (12%), North America (5%), Latin America and the Caribbean (4%), sub-Saharan Africa (2%) and the Middle East and North Africa (less than 1%).
According to WIN/Gallup International, in their 2012 poll of 57 countries, 23% of respondents were "not religious" and 13% were "convinced atheists" and in their 2014 poll of 65 countries 22% were "not religious" and 11% were "convinced atheists". However, other researchers have advised caution with the WIN/Gallup International figures since other surveys which use the same wording, have conducted many waves for decades, and have a bigger sample size, such as World Values Survey; have consistently reached lower figures for the number of atheists worldwide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism
Here is a conclusion from one of the studies on prayer you referenced. How does 71% reported positive results support you claim?
RESULTS: A total of 45 laboratory and 45 clinical studies published between 1956 and 2001 met the inclusion criteria. Of the clinical studies, 31 (70.5%) reported positive outcomes as did 28 (62%) of the laboratory studies; 4 (9%) of the clinical studies reported negative outcomes as did 15 (33%) of the laboratory studies.
Another one of your studies said this. How does 57% showing positive results evidence your claim?
CONCLUSIONS: The methodologic limitations of several studies make it difficult to draw definitive conclusions about the efficacy of distant healing. However, given that approximately 57% of trials showed a positive treatment effect, the evidence thus far merits further study.
Regardless, can you really study prayer and use it as evidence for or against? Seems unscientific to me. Even the studies you cite say there are many problems in the studies on prayer. Here is a study that makes the following conclusions.
1. If research on intercessory prayer is positive, does it suggest to us ways and means by which we can manipulate God or make his behavior statistically predictable?
2, Why would any divine entity be willing to submit to experiments that attempt to validate his existence and constrain his responses?
3. Where does this leave us? God may indeed exist and prayer may indeed heal; however, it appears that, for important theological and scientific reasons, randomized controlled studies cannot be applied to the study of the efficacy of prayer in healing.
4. In fact, no form of scientific inquiry presently available can suitably address the subject.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802370/#CIT43
An excellent example of argumentum ad populum.
@ Nyarlathotep
I was responding to LogicFTW's question. He thought atheism was more popular. Here is the quote.
Jo - "You are challenging a perceived status quo."
Logic - "What perceived status quo is that"?
@Jo
Why don't you settle this confusion:
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Yes or no: is the burden of proof on the atheist because belief in a god is more popular than atheism?
@ Nyarlathotep
If you want a one word answer the most correct one is yes.
Here is some background to the conversation with LogicFTW. This was my response to LoicFTW when he said the burden of proof was on me.
When you say "The burden of proof lies on the one making the claim.", is that not also a claim? Isn't it a presupposition?
What about this aspect of the burden of proof? You are challenging a perceived status quo.
"The one who makes the claim typically has a burden of proof to justify or substantiate that claim especially when it challenges a perceived status quo."
Cargile, James (January 1997). "On the burden of proof". Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. 72 (279): 59–83. doi:10.1017/s0031819100056655.
That is the best example of an argumentum ad populum I've seen in a while.
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To be honest, I don't care enough about what Mr Cargile thinks on the matter to even bother reading it. ANY argument that takes the form that X is true, because X is popular; is an argumentum ad populum. That is what I thought you had done when I pointed it out, and you have just confirmed that is what you did.
@ Nyarlathotep
On page 66 of the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy is where the quote originated. I only have an ebook version so I can't copy and paste.
Please quote the part that says: an argument, based on popularity, isn't an argumentum ad populum.
Assuming it does not say that; then I really don't care what it says (as far as the criticism I've posted in this thread goes anyway).
@Jo
So you mean people that refuse to recognize the evidence. Hmm sounds familiar to me, I make the claim all the time that there is TONS of evidence that man made up god and it points nicely to a proof that man made up god, but the religious folks refuse to accept that evidence, and refuse to go by "burden of proof on the claim." And I make that claim boldly because the evidence is everywhere, it just so obvious it often times is overlooked, humans are capable of lying or coming to false conclusions, ESPECIALLY when there is no evidence to back it up.
That is a better example and helps me understand the argument you are trying to make.
That is both amazing and mind blowing to me that you write this. You understand quite well what the climate change deniers are doing. Do you still think there is zero possibility you are not doing the same for your particular god idea?
You are correct, we do not for sure how it works, but I can tell you this, it is a very dangerous and poor way to operate on anything. No reasonable court of law would operate this way, and even as you go through life, you cannot operate this way, if you did, it would be a simple manner to con you out of your life savings if you allowed random areas that are not "evidenced" to be "well that's okay, even without evidence we don't know for sure, so I will go ahead and believe whatever you say." While it seems kind of silly put in this perspective, imagine parents presenting this argument to their 5 year old, which is exactly what happens all over the world over and over and over again.
That by it self is over a billion people. But this goes into argument ad popularium, as others have pointed out. The point I was making is religion is not nearly as dominant as many people would like you to believe. Over 100 billion people have already lived and died. And I think to call anyone under the age of 10 to be silly. I think various religious groups actually harm themselves using popularity arguments, drill down to a specific religious idea, even the largest of them and it actually represents a minority, especially when you consider everyone that ever lived. The point I was trying to make here is not argument for popularity, but instead a particular god idea, if it were so happened to be real, only reached a TINY minority of all people, with the VAST VAST majority of all people who ever lived having zero idea of that god even existing. Many might of believed in some sort of deity, but trying to tie that into belief of your particular god is is silly. If I decided I wanted to bend the definition of god to suit me, (like so many religions do) I can just say I consider myself my own god, perhaps I cannot call my self atheist, but I can go around and say all the other god ideas are ridiculous, would you still count me among the statistics of "believers?"
Which puts it below the effectiveness of the placebo effect.
57 percent is a horrible number to try and back the claim that prayer is actually physically beneficial. Again Placebo effect is greater than this.
I agree to some extent, but religions in their hurry to the god of the gaps have left little that is tangible that we can study. All we can study is the absence of, and it shows, well absence, absence of an effect greater than known placebo effect.
That is a really good question I think all people that pray should consider.
Actually all 4 of these points are really good points. And this is a problem for the religious side, probably why many do not really push "prayer" all that much anymore beyond the casual.
Ran out of time I wanted to do a better response, but I will leave at this for now.
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▮I am an atheist that always likes a good debate
▮Please include @LogicFTW for responses to me
▮Tips on forum use. ▮ A.R. Member since 2016.
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@ LogicFTW
"Do you still think there is zero possibility you are not doing the same for your particular god idea"?
I will admit it, if you will admit it, for your ideas about God.
@Jo
I looked for possibility of your god and all god ideas for decades, it was only in the last few years that I came to the conclusion that god (as most folks define god,) is about as unlikely as: a winning billion dollar jackpot winning ticket floating out of the air into my outstretched hand in the next 5 seconds.
I was very sheltered from religions, just like you are for most all religions but one.
During that time, especially early on I had no preconceived notions or biases, beyond anyone else including theist. Had no biases back then, and was not "set on" atheist, just wanted answers.
@ LogicFTW
In a previous post you said "Do you still think there is zero possibility you are not doing the same for your particular god idea"?
In this post you said "I looked for possibility of your god and all god ideas for decades, it was only in the last few years that I came to the conclusion that god (as most folks define god,) is about as unlikely as: a winning billion dollar jackpot winning ticket floating out of the air into my outstretched hand in the next 5 seconds".
That is pretty close to zero possibility. Most theists I know are not that certain. How can you be so certain?
What do you mean by "I was very sheltered from religions, just like you are for most all religions but one".
I wanted to ask about your previous comments on prayer. Would you expect to see a theist living a charmed life if prayer worked? Would a praying theist never get sick, or at least not stay sick. Would he be healthy, wealthy, and wise simply by asking God for all he desires? No calamity would ever fall on him? If a mountain was blocking his view, a simple prayer would move it onto an atheists property? What would you expect to see if prayer did work?
@Jo
Doing a response at end of thread to end the nesting of replies occurring here.
@Jo
"I will admit it, if you will admit it, for your ideas about God."
Then this issue is extremely easy to resolve. We gather all the evidence, then make an intelligent, rational, and informed decision.
@ David Killens
I agree
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