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@Jo Jo JO! Why be so obtuse?
If you talked to someone who says they believe there is no God.
Would you ask them for objective evidence for their belief? Could they provide it?
Yes and Yes.
If a person asserts, "There is no god." they are making a reality claim. This is the anti-theist position and it is the responsibility of the person making the claim to provide evidence for the claim. You are justified in asking the person to prove their assertion.
Now - If we can just move you off of your black and white fallacy and get you into the real world for a minute, what comes next will be perfectly clear.
BELIEF is allocated to the degree of evidence provided. We can believe something at 0% or we can believe it at 30, 50, 80 or 100 percent. Very few things are accepted at 100% outside of mathematics and I don't know enough to argue but am aware that it can be argued, "even math is subjective."
You don't trust your friends 100%. Just as there are limits to friendships, trust, there are also limits to the degree of belief.
With that said, evidence for the non-existence of God far outweighs any argument or evidence for the existence of God or gods. In fact I know of no sound evidence or logical argument that can lead a single person one step closer to accepting the god fantasy as real. A scientifically sound inquiry into the existence of God will reveal "No reason what so ever to assert the God claim is valid."
THIS IS THE WAY SCIENCE WORKS:
If you tell me that there is a bear in a cave in a mountain near your home. We can test for it. We can set up cameras. We can set up traps. We can look for droppings and paw prints. We can survey the area for other entrances and exits to the cave. We can blow smoke or tear gas into the cave. We can use bait traps to lure the bear out of the cave. We can compare the results we get from observing this cave with all the results we have gotten from similar caves that also did not have bears in them. Then after 10.000 years of continuing observation, data gathering, comparison with other caves that did not have bears in them, we can conclude, "THERE PROBABLY ISN'T A BEAR IN THIS CAVE."
Could there be a bear in the cave? CERTAINLY! It could be dead. It could be magical. It could sneak in and out without us knowing about it. NEVERTHELESS - "ALL" ALL - evidence, FACTS, and inquiry point to the fact that there is no bear in the cave. ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE IS EVIDENCE OF ABSENCE. I am so comfortable with my assertion that there is no bear in the cave that I am willing to walk into the cave and look around.
We have 10.000 years, if not more, of dead god beliefs. We have millions of gods that are not real. Christians assert that only their god is real and the other 10,000 gods currently being worshiped on the planet are not real. At the same time, the believers in the other 10,000 gods give no credibility to the Christian God. Hell, Christians even assert that their own sects are not worshiping the correct god. Science has been examining the Evidence for the existence of gods since the invention of gods. It has come up with NOTHING AT ALL SUBSTANTIATING THE CLAIM. NOTHING!
IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE SOMETHING, WE WOULD ALL LOVE TO HEAR IT.
No theistic claim about the existence of god or gods has ever been substantiated that I am aware of. Do you know of such a claim?
Given the overwhelming evidence for the non-existence of God or gods, I am 99.999% certain that a God or gods does not exist. Might there have been something we once called a god. Okay sure, got any evidence for it? Might there be a god someplace in the cosmos? If so, what in the hell difference would it make, it has ZERO effect on us here. T
THE GOD HYPOTHESIS CAN BE REJECTED. After 10,000 years of rejecting gods and no evidence what so ever substantiating any of them it is completely reasonable to conclude: "There is not, nor has there ever been, any good evidence for the existence of God or gods. I am confident to the level of risking my own life and (Entering the Cave) or (Rejecting God Concepts) that there is no God. The Absence of Evidence IS IN FACT evidence of absence. I am on firm ground when I make the assertion that there is no God. All the facts and evidence point to this reality. 10,000 years of failed gods point to this reality.. Thousands of failed theist apologetics point to this reality. Debunked miracles, healing, and prayer point to this reality. There is absolutely nothing is the God hypothesis or religion itself that does not point to the reality that GOD IS NOT THERE. NOTHING! I am on solid ground when I make the assertion... THERE IS NO GOD. 99.999% certainty. If you think you have any facts or information that could possibly sway me even o.oo1% in the direction of belief in your deity, I would love to hear it.
@ Cognostic
I address this subject a while ago on another forum, so I will not repeat it again here.
"Yes and Yes."
Please provide me with the scientific evidence you have to show there is no God.
Not just your arguments or claim of no evidence in 10,000 years of disproving God.
You should be able to provide falsifiable empirical facts, not just your assertions.
Your bear cave analogy is great for large furry animals.
But how do you smoke out God?
How do you lure him into the cave and trap him?
Your claim of 10,000 years of no evidence is not only just opinion, but also unscientific.
You have not shown that your test actually works.
I don't see that you ever gave a scientific test for God.
Your claim of no evidence is not accurate or unbiased.
There is no evidence that is acceptable to you, is a truer statement.
The Bible gave answers to the below three questions Popper asked, thousands of years ago.
Science has still not been able to answer them.
If you do apply science to #2 and #3, you get a false negative. Just as you do with your bear cave/God analogy.
"How did everything begin?
What are we all here for?
What is the point of living?"
I think his statement below speaks directly to what you are saying about science disproving God.
"It is important to realize that science does not make assertions about ultimate questions – about the riddles of existence, or about man’s task in the world ..... The fact that science cannot make any pronouncements about ethical principles has been misinterpreted as indicating that there are no such principles while in fact the search for truth presupposes ethics.!"-- Karl Popper, Dialectica 32:342 (1978)!
@Jo
"Please provide me with the scientific evidence you have to show there is no God."
This is an unfalsifiable proposition, a god cannot be proven, or disproven.
"Your claim of 10,000 years of no evidence is not only just opinion, but also unscientific."
Actually, there has not been any evidence. One does not even have to slap on the science label, it is just a fact.
"How did everything begin?"
Unlike religion where people just made up shit, and then expected no further inquiry, science (which is just a process) is actually pursuing that very question. Right now, the honest answer is "we do not know ... yet". So far science has worked back to the instant of the singularity, where what is incorrectly labelled the "Big Bang" began.
Geez Jo, over two thousand years ago ignorant tribesman who knew nothing about the cosmos apart from just seeing points in the sky, made up shit, and you tenaciously cling to those stories as if they were true.
"What are we all here for?"
To survive and propagate. All life follows those two directives. Everything else is just extra.
"What is the point of living?"
So we can propagate.
@David Killens
How much do I love this sentence.
Does that make women our gods?
I do worship my wife...
They certainly deserve an healthy dose of worship... chuckling
@ David Killens
"To survive and propagate. All life follows those two directives. Everything else is just extra."
If I follow your reasoning, what you did not say, was that there is NO purpose, meaning or reason.
Humans are the same as worms? How sterile, empty and meaningless.
Is that what your objective observations have evidenced?
You see nothing more than matter, energy, space, and time.
Sorry, but your mind is closed and you are in denial.
A great example of the height of cynicism.
Have you never held a newborn baby or a seen a sunset?
@Jo
Oh please, don't stoop so low. Of course I take immense pleasure in every aspect of life I am exposed to. Just earlier today I visited a school, where I am friends with many young children. I was there in a volunteer capacity. Before that I played some Civilization V, listening to Beethoven. Strangely enough, the music of Rush, and La Villa Strangiato became one of those tunes I could not get out of my head.
As I stated in my previous post, most of us atheist regulars have seen the same old lame arguments, and the "you cannot enjoy life without god" is one of them. So lame, so predictable, I can now predict you will run through and exhaust the standard list of arguments theists propose. Just throw Pascal's wager at me and let's get this tiresome exchange over and done, forever.
I take offense that just because I am an atheist, I lack that something you enjoy, that my soul is cold and hard. I have taken pains to attempt to establish a warm and friendly exchange of opinions, and despite what you just posted, I will not exchange insults.
But I am severely insulted and disappointed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRmbwczTC6E
@ David Killens
I apologize for insulting you, that was not my goal.
I was basing my post on what you had said. Here is what I was responding to.
"What are we all here for? To survive and propagate. All life follows those two directives. Everything else is just extra."
"What is the point of living? So we can propagate."
I whole heartily agree that you "have taken pains to attempt to establish a warm and friendly exchange of opinions, and despite what you just posted, I will not exchange insults."
I appreciate you not insulting me even when you felt I had insulted you.
I appreciate our warm and friendly exchange of opinions.
I am sorry that I insulted and disappointed you.
I must have misunderstood your previous post.
Not remotely what David said, this is another textbook example of your dishonesty in completely misrepresenting what others have said.
It's also worth pointing out that just because the factual evidence might appear bleak to you, especially when compared to your completely unevidenced delusional superstitious comfort blanket of religion, hat this doesn't remotely validate your superstitious belief.
Another shockingly dishonest post, you have admitted repeatedly that you cannot demonstrate a shred of objective evidence for anything beyond the physical natural universe, so this is just another shameless attempt to dishonestly shift the burden of proof.
Another shockingly dishonest misrepresentation of the facts. Open minded implies an absence of bias, closed minded implies the opposite. Since you and the other theists are the ones who hold a single belief without any objective evidence, and set a different standard to all your other beliefs, as I proved when not one religious apologist could offer even one belief apart from theism they held without any objective evidence, it is you and the other apologists who are demonstrating clear closed minded bias. It's also clear you don't fully understand this, as your replies in that thread showed. However, the closed minded bias is all yours. As an atheist I set the same unbiased objective standard for belief of all claims.
I believe things for which sufficient objective evidence can be demonstrated, you keep asserting this shouldn't apply to your religious beliefs, yet can offer no epistemological or rational reason for this bias. What's more one could believe literally anything if one removes the epistemological requirement for objective evidence.
Yes, and yes, all the evidence indicates they're both entirely natural phenomena, so what's your point?
Another wishy washy dishonest attempt to label human emotions as mutually exclusive with atheism and secular humanism I suspect. Your arrogance would be astounding if it were not typical of almost every theist who comes here to preach at us.
You would first need to accurately define the deity, and then demonstrate sufficient objective evidence for it, until you can do that atheism is rationally and epistemologically justified, no denials or contrary claims are needed, and of course you now this as you have been told time and time again not to lie and misrepresent atheism as a claim or a belief, but honesty escapes you it seems Jo.
Well there you go, another lie repeated, you have presented no evidence Jo, why do theist think endless tedious repetition of a lie is compelling argument?
Yes, absolutely, I only believe what can be supported by sufficient objective evidence. You on the other hand believe in a bronze age superstition that you admit you can demonstrate no objective evidence for, what's more you cannot list even one belief you hold without any objective evidence that forms no part of those religious beliefs, as of course we saw in the thread I started asking theists to list ten such beliefs, you listed 6, and they either were demonstrably part of your religious dogma, or else could be supported by objective evidence, so please don't lie as I'll be forced to quote them here.
How typical, again you make the same unevidenced assertion, that you know you can demonstrate not one shred of objective evidence for. QED...
And there's another unevidenced claim, and one that is roundly contradicted by the available objective evidence, as every single part of nature science has objectively evidenced is an entirely natural phenomenon, and not once has anything supernatural or any deity been objectively evidenced, you're lying again Jo, and it's rather tiresome.
Argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, again. dear oh dear Jo, your posts are beyond dishonest. How long are you going to go on ignoring your use of this common logical fallacy. ONLY natural phenomena have ever been objectively evidenced, so since we know these exist as an objective fact, .CAN YOU DEMONSTRATE ANY OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE FOR ANYTHING SUPERNATURAL? We already know the answer of course...
Oh really Jo, this is too much, another shameless lie, and again i have explicitly explained to you time and again this is simply not true. Belief in a deity is the affirmation of a claim, the absence or lack of that belief is not a contrary claim, or belief. How many times must this epistemological fact be explained to you?
Well that's easy Jo, you hold a belief you can demonstrate no objective evidence for, atheists are not prepared to do this as it is irrational. Again do you need to be reminded of your obvious bias in favour of that belief? You failed, as has every other theists here, to offer one single belief you hold without any objective evidence that is not any part of your religious beliefs.
Yes of course, but you don't do you, you hold a belief you can demonstrate no objective evidence for, as an atheists I recognise that is an irrational and biased position of faith, so I cannot share it. Sadly you are relentlessly and dishonestly rehashing the same tired old argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy too try and reverse the burden of proof. I don't need to know there is no deity, anymore than I need to know there are no invisible unicorns, for disbelief it is sufficient that no one can demonstrate any objective evidence for any deity.
....mmmm....lobster...slurp...
@Grinseed Re: "....mmmm.... lobster... slurp..."
...*scratching chin*... Hmmm... I think you may have a damn good point there. Give me a sec. Gonna go change into my swim trunks and join you... *hurrying down hallway toward locker room*...
Lobster....can’t....breathe...puffing up....need epipen....too expensive....can’t breathe.....
What you did is an excellent example of a no true Scotsman, imo.
-------------------------------------
This is clearly false, if for no other reason than counterexample:
My standard for who is Christian is rather simple, and objective. I use self-identification. Hitler clearly self-identified as a Christian; so there are objective standards in which Hitler was a Christian, despite your claims to the contrary.
/e The following silly example might make the point more clear. Consider the objective standard: "if you have the letter H in your name, you're a Christian".
So while you told us there is no objective standard in which Hitler could be a Christian; it seems there are an infinite number of them.
@ Nyarlathotep
If someone had lack of faith that any God exists, but for political expedience claimed to be a Christian.
Would you consider them a Christian or an Atheist.
Please forgive me for nosing in...if I tell you I’m atheist, how do you know I am?
@Cyber Re: "Please forgive me for nosing in...if I tell you I’m atheist, how do you know I am?"
Easy for Christians. They can smell the sulphur from Satan's lair oozing from the pores of our skin.
@Tin-Man
I don't know for you, but when Satan oozes from my skin's pores...delighted moaning... it always smells of citrus fruits....grinning...
@ CyberLN
I am not presenting myself as the arbiter of who is a true Christian, Atheist or Scotsman.
It seems illogical to me when someone claims to be a Christian and a Nazi.
The same as if someone claimed to be an Atheists and also had faith in and believed in God.
They seem mutually exclusive to me. One cancels the other.
Christ on a fucking bike, please tell this is an attempt at irony?
1. You have claimed not to be doing something in that first sentence, you then absolutely do in the next two.
2. The two claims are both textbook examples of the no true Scotsman fallacy.
3. Plenty of Nazis were christians, that is axiomatic, all German members of the SS were christian, as it was a requirement for membership, a fact you seem determined to dishonestly ignore.
4. Ironically the leader of the SS Himmler was a pagan, but of course was not an atheist, anymore than Hitler, who was a catholic, and therefore a christian.
Jo, you wrote, "It seems illogical to me when someone claims to be a Christian and a Nazi."
why cant someone be a nazi and a xtian? they may seem mutually exclusive to you, but you are not the arbiter of mutual exclusivity either. the word xtian and the word nazi simply aren't antonyms.
@Jo
Clarification: Nazi is a shortened and Anglicized term for National Socialist. Their political dogma is socialism wrapped in a blanket of stout nationalism. The greater percentage of Nazis were duped by the most effective public relations/brainwash propaganda campaign of their time. Most Nazis were decent people, not the child-eating homicidal maniacs we are led to believe.
Notwithstanding, even if all Nazis were rabid killers, there are many examples of christians also being as ruthless and homicidal, Cromwell being a good example.
IMO you are equation christians as wonderful and nice people,and Nazis as evil and homicidal. Please understand this, christians can also be bad people.
"At the Siege of Drogheda in September 1649, Cromwell's troops killed nearly 3,500 people after the town's capture—comprising around 2,700 Royalist soldiers and all the men in the town carrying arms, including some civilians, prisoners and Roman Catholic priests. Cromwell wrote afterwards that:
I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future, which are satisfactory grounds for such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret."
@ David Killens
Sorry it has taken me so long to respond.
"IMO you are equation christians as wonderful and nice people,and Nazis as evil and homicidal. Please understand this, christians can also be bad people."
I am not claiming Christians are wonderful people. There are bad, evil people who identify as Christians.
Bad people can come in any stripe. Christian, any type of Theist, Atheist, or Agnostic.
No problem Jo, it's been awhile and I hope you are doing OK.
JO! OOPS! Nazi's are Christians. They swear an oath to go. You are in fact playing the "No True Scotsman Fallacy" game. They believe they are Christians. They believe they are doing God's work by eliminating the Jews, just as the Bible tells them to.,
NSDAP's 25 Point Program - Of special interest to us - is Hitler's point 24.
24. "We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The Party as such advocates the standpoint of a positive Christianity without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: "The good of the community before the good of the individual".[13] ("GEMEINNUTZ GEHT VOR EIGENNUTZ" [all caps in original]).
"Luther was not the first person to have such strong anti-Judaic feelings, but he has
been described as being the first to spread these beliefs in Germany; he not only spoke of
Jews in his sermons, but he also wrote three anti-Jewish books, the most famous of which
is Of the Jews and their Lies."
… burn their synagogues
… break into and destroy their houses
… take away their prayer books
… forbid their rabbis to teach
… abolish their escort and ban travel
… prohibit the usury
… force young Jewish girls and boys to work
While the Holocaust and Hitler’s killing of six million Jews can easily be described as
“the greatest outpouring of evil in the history of the planet,” Hitler was only original in
his “single-minded determination with which he proceeded to put into effect ideas of the
removal or extermination of the Jews that others had toyed with, without seriously
considering how they could be implemented.”104 Ideas that Martin Luther harbored and
shared, but that he himself did not execute; Hitler simply used Luther’s original concepts
of handling the Jewish problem and put them into action. Looking back upon Luther’s
instructions on what should be done with the Jews, it would seem that Hitler followed
them rather closely. During the Kristallnacht of 1938, the Nazis burned thousands of
synagogues. The creation of ghettos simultaneously allowed the Nazis to break into the
houses of the Jews and destroy their property, while restricting their mobility and travel.
New laws constrained the professions Jews were allowed to possess. Concentrations
camps forced all Jewish boys and girls, men and women, to work.
… burn their synagogues
… break into and destroy their houses
… take away their prayer books
… forbid their rabbis to teach
… abolish their escort and ban travel
… prohibit the usury
… force young Jewish girls and boys to work
Once Luther’s initial steps were followed, Hitler went beyond and added his own to the
list:
Prohibit Jews from marrying or having relations with Aryans
Move Jews into designated ghettos
Sterilize those deemed inferior, including Jews
Exterminate life unworthy of life, including Jews
Are you also asserting that MARTIN LUTHER, THE FOUNDER OF PROTESTANTISM, IS NOT A CHRISTIAN? The real problem here is that you neither know or understand your own religious history.
(EDIT) Sorry - Citation: https://scholarship.rollins.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&context...
@ Cognostic
"They believe they are doing God's work by eliminating the Jews, just as the Bible tells them to.,"
Can you give me the reference in the Bible for this claim?
Yes, there are those who identify as Christian who are racist.
There are those who identify as Atheist who are racist.
What does that have to do with you or me?
JO: Can you give me references in the bible for this claim:
Sorry NO! I have overstated my position as the claim is not "clearly made" in the bible. Instead: "Christians have long asserted that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for the death of Jesus. The antisemitic slur "Christ-killer" was used by mobs to incite violence against Jews and contributed to many centuries of pogroms, the murder of Jews during the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust.
It has long been a Christian interpretation of Biblical Doctrine and a foundation of Martin Luther's (THE FOUNDER OF PROTESTANTISM) beliefs. In the first ten sections of Luther's treatise, "On the Jews and their Lies," Luther expounds, at considerable length, upon his views concerning Jews and Judaism and how these compare to Protestants and Protestant Christianity.
1. to burn down Jewish synagogues and schools and warn people against them
2. to refuse to let Jews own houses among Christians
3. to take away Jewish religious writings
4. to forbid rabbis from preaching
5. to offer no protection to Jews on highways
6. for usury to be prohibited and for all Jews' silver and gold to be removed, put aside for safekeeping, and given back to Jews who truly convert
7. to give young, strong Jews flail, axe, spade, and spindle, and let them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow
Try These Bible Passages --- It is the best I can do and they have been the key passages used to persecute Jews by Christians.
“jews are the children of satan. (john 8:44) (interpolation by bigots, not actual words. The Gospel of John does in fact identify “the Jews” (hoi Ioudaioi, in Greek) as being “of [their] father the Devil.” Throughout the Gospel of John, in fact, “the Jews” are repeatedly identified as the opponents of Jesus.
The crowd responds in unison, “His blood be on our hands and on the hands of our children” (Matthew 25:27) While the association of Jews with Satan is most explicit in the Gospel of John, in all four of the canonical gospels a (presumably) Jewish crowd calls for the death of Jesus, and Jewish authorities spearhead efforts to arrest and convict him.
@ Cognostic
Why do you keep giving examples of racist Christians or how some misused the Bible to justify their evil?
You are not mentioning these facts about Luther, or Christianity in a vacuum.
What is your point? More guilt by association fallacy?
How ridiculous, unfair, and biased are the accusation you are implying.
Are you a man as Luther was? Are you of German or European ancestry as Luther was?
Does that somehow make you responsible or discredit you?
Should we throw out all books by any Europeans because Luther was a European?
If a famous scientist was a racist, should we discard all science?
Does that contaminate all of science and convict all scientists?
If someone misuses science to justify their racism, should we no longer use science?
If Nietzsche was a racists, does that discredit Atheism?
If someone’s mother is a racists, is the child to blame?
Should the child answer for her racism?
Is the child somehow guilty because of her racism?
When you were a Protestant Christian were you someone guilty or blemished by Luther or any others you have mentioned?
Is anyone who has ever darkened the door of a Lutheran Church somehow part of some evil conspiracy?
What is your purpose in mentioning the verses that some have used to justify their racism?
Are you after truth, and logical reasoning?
I know you know the Bible much better than that.
You know the entire audience in John were Jews.
Do you not know that the Jews mentioned that are the opponent of Jesus are the Jewish Religious Leaders?
You know that Jesus and all of the early Christians were Jews.
Were the 12 apostles, the "chosen people", Abraham, and David not all Jews?
You must realize that it is absurd, bizarre, and illogical for anyone to claim that the Bible is anti-Semitic.
Sorry, but you didn’t just overstate your position.
So they're not all damned to Hell for all eternity? You are disagreeing with Jesus then a cording to your bible.
....and he was actually Jewish, ironically.
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