Okay ATHEISTS <rolls sleaves>

So yeah, there was this one French guy who said that there are reasons why a lot of myths are the same, even in cultures that have never had any contact with one another. I guess he'd argue that Mithra, Horus and Christ would be quite likely to emerge due to parallel cultural evolution: people are people.

 

I didn't say anyone was stupid. I'm here debating with intelligent people for the most part. I might poke fun or joke around. But, I refrain from personal attacks unless someone
goes off on me first. If I did something to make you think I'm calling you stupid in a subliminal or covert way my apologies.

Understand this point...I'm in the Atheist forum. I'm aware of that. I'm also aware that most people are going to think they're right. LOL

To answer a question with a question is a common diversion tactic pointed out by Socrates. There's a Latin name for it that escapes me at the time. If ask you something and you ask me something back the original question doesn't get answered.

I'm not trying to prove the can't. I'm trying to prove the CAN. The can't is just an argument to prove the higher point. There can be and is a God.

 

That's my point... i'm the farthest thing from an atheist dood.

 

I don't agree. If a question is asked that requires further clarification, asking a question is not a failure to answer. To call it a "diversion tactic" suggests that people are deliberately avoiding answering your question. Most people aren't deliberately avoiding answering your question: they're just bewildered by your logic.

But you're not proving that! Plenty of people have offered a pretty solid argument against you. It's kind of ironic that you're talking about atheists using "tactics"; you've been using them from the start.

Anyway, humans can conceive abstract concepts. What about justice? What about mercy? They don't exist, but we invented them, we created them, before they existed. We make them happen, we observe them in random events by ignoring the ones that don't sit with what we want to see. So yes, humans can/have create(d) things with our a point of reference.


BTW dude, you'd do a lot better if you quoted people's posts. It's not hard to do and, since you're conversing with multiple users, it might make it more obvious what you're responding to and, more to the point, what you aren't.

 

This thread is quickly going in every direction... did we want to keep it to the color palette argument thing or are we just gonna let it go into the ad-lib circular age old debate of God Vs. No God!?

If so i'll comment accordingly...

 

You're right: "It does not follow logically." From what I've already said, I thought you understood that I wasn't intending to put forward a logical proof of anything, but only to explain some of the reasons that lead me to bet on God. In the film The Matrix, Keanu Reeves discovers that the reality of our perceptions is really an illusion to keep us pacified and confused while the evil robots pursue their wicked tyranny. How do we know it isn't true? We can put forward arguments, but none of them really "follow logically". The gnostic breakthrough occurs when Keanu rips the electrodes from his head and comes face to face with the matrix. Ethnopharmacologist Dennis McKenna believed that it, or something like it, is true. Of course his judgment might have been affected by years of pharmacological experimentation and a brain tumor, but it doesn't "logically follow" that he was wrong. On the basis of existing empirical evidence, two logically possible explanations are possible: (1) the universe, life, consciousness, fine tuning, etc., are the result of natural causes, which scienitst are working on and may or may not discover some day; (2) these phenomena are the result of some kind of intelligence. I see no reason for accepting or rejecting either of these possibilities on the basis of evidence and logic alone. I think it is essentially a policy question. An argument for adopting a naturalist position is that science has shown in the past that many unexplained phenomena attributed to deities have natural causes, and that expecting similar advances in the future is a useful mindset to continue the search. "God did it" closes the door prematurely. An argument for the "God" approach is that the numerous fortunate coincidences leading to our existence and ability to be having this dialogue seem too good to be true if we rely on naturalistic explanations alone. Logically, it could all be one big happy accident. Coincidences happen, and we don't know how many other universes there are where things haven't turned out so well. But it isn't implausible to believe otherwise, and I choose to do so, realizing that I could be completely wrong and spending my life on a wild goose chase. It's a judgment call.

 

The OP's basically refusing to advance the debate; he won't elaborate much on his position, won't explain his logic, and accuses anyone who tries to go anywhere else with it of avoiding the question. I still don't see why it matters whether there's a god or not, since based on this argument, the god that we're being told is proven to exist is totally unidentified - basically, even if this guy had proved his point, and I had no choice but to believe in a creator, it's not like he's proved that I have to do anything differently than I did before.

 

We can reason based on relative probability though, which is what most people do.

Thing is, unless the universe/whatever that this intelligence occupies is radically different from ours, as in so different that it would be beyond our capacity to comprehend, I don't see how it doesn't leave you with the same question of where it came from, what if anything created it, etc. It ultimately comes down to whether we believe something can exist without being created. If you believe a creator was created, he is no more godlike than I am when I tool around on SimCity.

Fair point. Very few scientists state absolutely that God doesn't exist though; one can believe in both a rational order to the universe and a creator to set it in motion, and investigate the mechanics of how God operates in exactly the same way that they would the laws of physics.

The supernatural, as a concept, simply makes no sense, and it's kind of ironic that those who really believe in it generally make up a huge amount of elaborate detail within which to couch their belief. Vampire lore, PK energy... it's all just signs of science, a way to naturalise the supernatural...

 

I don't think probability will help you much with these questions. It is precisely arguments from probability that are raised against atheism, and atheists like Dawkins ususally resort to multiverse arguements to refute them. Since multiveses can't be proven, stalemate.

No one, to my knowledge, believes that "a creator was created." Formal arguments for and against God lead to conundrums. We can't "know" anything about these ultimate questions. We have to rely on intuition as a tie breaker, and take a chance. I'm betting on a creator.

 

Sorry for the confusion. I think we were both typing replies and yours got melded into mine somehow, so I tried to salvage it this way.
It's probably impossible for scientists to investigate God the way they would the laws of physics, because He might not cooperate, and could easily fool them or confound their efforts. (See Tower of Babel)

 

look buddy, all i'm saying is that you made a rude remark about running along before the acid gets cold, and i was simply defending myself and giving a little bit of my perspective on god and all. i'm sorry to say it, but i'm sure the majority of people reading this thread will agree that you're the one who has been sounding like a child all along. and with that, i'm bowing out. i'm sorry i even tried to have a discussion here, and i'm sorry for responding to your hostility.
on a final note, i hear you don't like atheists. maybe you'll like christians, then? they believe that one should turn the other cheek.

 

Most pro-god arguments that don't rely solely on scripture also deal in the probability of God existing (how could all this have happened if there wasn't a god?, etc.), just as atheists deal in it being improbable. I'm only mentioning probability because proof is never going to be forthcoming (or at least, it's highly improbable). Far as I can tell, the only way God's existence will be proved is if He just shows up and proves it. God's non-existence can never be proved for the same reason. It then comes down to likelihood.

I don't really get how the "multiverse arguments" would even run, but I hope you won't see Dawkins as a figurehead for atheism, as he really is a dreadful prat.

Someone earlier was saying that "god is not a watchmaker, he is part of the watch". It may have been you, actually! I don't understand though, how it would be irrelevant to know who created God. Not being created by someone else would be the one and only condition of him being The Creator, rather than just some sophisticated artizan, as we are to mice in the mazes we build.

It just seems to me like, if God was real, we would've found some evidence of his existence by now. I mean, there are plenty of phenomena that we've only discovered in the last 100 years, but there's plenty of evidence that they existed before we discovered them. That seems important somehow: that people become aware of these things before they come up with an explanation for them.

I don't know that intuition is the tie-breaker really. I'd argue probability, but the problem is as I outlined it; you could probably get incredibly slim odds on God turning up in person to say who he is, but incalculable odds on God not existing. That doesn't mean it's unlikely that God doesn't exist, just that it's incalculable. To get all Dawkinsy on you for a moment (even though I despise the man): one could go one's whole life without ever disproving the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Some things truly cannot be proven, and it's frustrating that the stupid or the desperate use that fact to crowbar whatever belief they want into the gap. I have no problem with people believing what they want, but when they try to use reason to "prove" it true, I just don't see the point, I don't understand why they can't just be content to believe in the Spaghetti Monster and not insist that any gap in science MUST prove its existence.

Thing is, if God operates in exactly the same way that we understand the laws of physics to, there's no way of proving or disproving his existence. We based our laws of physics on the way the universe is presented to us; unless some major inconsistency comes up, there's not going to know whether we have them right or not.

 

Zilla, I WASN'T SPEAKING TO YOU! I NEVER CALLED YOU A CHILD. SERIOUSLY, WHAT COMPLEX IS INVOLVED HERE. WHY MUST YOU DEFEND YOURSELF...IF I WASN'T SPEAKING TO YOU?!? A GIRL GOT (ImaginePeace) ON THE THREAD AND SAID I WAS STUPID. IT WASN'T YOU IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU. MY LORD. LOL

 

BTW I don't dislike Atheists, Agnostics or Skeptics. I'll advance my position when the original one is dealt with fully. Which it hasn't. It's turned into name calling and The Jedi Mind Trick.

 

How has it not been dealt with? You're asking people to show you something that was created without a point of reference. I've done so. Now it's your turn to explain how those things prove the existence of God. Get on with it please.

 

Self you have NOT done so. LOL It's an impossibility.

 

you dont need a point of refence for everything, say i just closed my eyes and scribbled on a pice of paper, no piont of refence to that...

 

but you have pen and paper!

 

the only explanation is that everything is god, because we agree that there is something rather than nothing. if we agreed that there was nothing rather than something, then nothing is god. it's really all about language -- the ultimate points of reference -- words.

 

this thread makes me want tofu