181 replies to this topic

[Arbitran]

Lion6969, on 27 December 2012 - 12:54 AM, said:

Those who claim their unbelief is not a religion, they are kidding themselves because their unbelief is also built on the foundations of faith, ie they have faith in the belief that there is no god, because it cannot be proven definitively, their whole belief of unbelief is faith based just like a believers. Lol, the irony is sweet!

You've got to be kidding me... One needn't have any faith in the proposition that there isn't a god; more often than not, the position espoused is one of simple rejection of the claims made by theists. It isn't faith that a god doesn't exist; it's a complete lack of faith that there IS one. I should have thought that this was really, painfully obvious. It really only requires the least amount of thought...

[Order66]

Arbitran, on 05 January 2013 - 02:43 AM, said:

You've got to be kidding me... One needn't have any faith in the proposition that there isn't a god; more often than not, the position espoused is one of simple rejection of the claims made by theists. It isn't faith that a god doesn't exist; it's a complete lack of faith that there IS one. I should have thought that this was really, painfully obvious. It really only requires the least amount of thought...

What is the proposition you are rejecting, and upon what basis do you reject it?

[Arbitran]

Order66, on 05 January 2013 - 02:57 AM, said:

What is the proposition you are rejecting, and upon what basis do you reject it?

The proposition is the claim of the existence of god[s], and it can be rejected for the same reason that one rejects claims of the existence of leprechauns: there simply is no evidence, no reason to think that there is such a thing.

[Order66]

Arbitran, on 05 January 2013 - 03:13 AM, said:

there simply is no evidence, no reason to think that there is such a thing.

Here are reasons:

http://www.existence...nce-of-god.html

Quote



Arguments for God's Existence



Arguments for the existence of God come in many different forms; some draw on history, some on science, some on personal experience, and some on philosophy. The primary focus of this site is the philosophical arguments—the ontological argument, the first cause argument, the argument from design, and the moral argument.
Each of these arguments, if successful, supports a certain conception of God: the ontological argument, for instance, is an argument for the existence of a perfect being; the first cause argument is an argument for the existence of an eternal Creator; the argument from design is an argument for the existence of Creator with a special interest in humanity; the moral argument is an argument for a moral authority.
Each of the arguments, if successful, then, so supports a specific religion to the extent that its conception of God matches that supported by the argument.


The Ontological Argument



The first purported proof of the existence of God is the ontological argument. The ontological argument seeks to prove the existence of God from the laws of logic alone. It dates back to St Anselm, an eleventh century philosopher-theologian and archbishop of Canterbury, but was also used by the French philosopher René Descartes. It argues that once we mentally grasp the concept of God we can see that God’s non-existence is impossible. This argument, if it is successful, demonstrates the existence of a perfect being that could not possibly fail to exist.


The First Cause Argument



The second purported proof of the existence of God is the first cause argument, also called “the cosmological argument”. The first cause argument seeks to prove the existence of God from the fact that the universe exists. The universe came into existence at a point in the distant past. Nothing can come into existence, though, unless there is something to bring it into existence; nothing comes from nothing. There must therefore be some being outside of the universe that caused the universe to exist. This argument, if it is successful, demonstrates the existence of a Creator that transcends time, that has neither beginning nor end.


The Argument from Design



The third purported proof of the existence of God is the argument from design, also called “the teleological argument”. The argument from design seeks to prove the existence of God from the fact that the universe is ordered.
The universe could have been different from the way that it is in many ways. It could have had different laws of physics; it could have had a different arrangement of planets and stars; it could have begun with a more powerful or a weaker big bang.
The vast majority of these possible universes would not have allowed for the existence of life, so we are very fortunate indeed to have a universe that does. On an atheistic world-view, there is no way to explain this good fortune; the atheist must put this down to chance. On the view that God exists, though, we can explain why the universe is the way that it is; it is because God created the universe with beings like us in mind. This argument, if it is successful, strongly suggests the existence of a Creator that takes an interest in humanity.


The Moral Argument



The fourth purported proof of the existence of God is the moral argument. The moral argument seeks to prove the existence of God from the fact that there are moral laws.
Moral laws have the form of commands; they tell us what to do. Commands can’t exist without a commander though, so who is it that commands us to behave morally?
To answer this, we only need to look at the authoritative nature of morality. Commands are only as authoritative as is the one that commands them; a command of a ruler carries more authority than a command of a citizen. Moral commands, though, have ultimate authority; they are to be obeyed under all circumstances. Their authority transcends all human authority, and they must therefore have been commanded by a being whose authority transcends all human authority.
The existence of moral laws, the argument concludes, thus demonstrates the existence of a being that is greater than any of us and that rules over all creation.


Summary



Together, then, these arguments claim to prove the existence of a perfect, necessary, transcendent being that created the universe, has authority over it, and takes an interest in humanity. This, if it could be accomplished, would be more than enough to show that the Christian conception of God, and those conceptions of God related to it, are close to the truth.
It’s time to examine the arguments. The first is the ontological argument.





Pick any one of these arguments and state your reason for rejecting it. I guarantee you will not be able to reject it without making some assertion ( purposely or not ) for which you have no evidence, but ... you are welcome to try.

Edited by Order66, 05 January 2013 - 03:36 AM.

[Arbitran]

1 ~ The ontological argument offers no evidence of any kind, and its logic is effectively obfuscation; deity existing as an idea does not necessitate its reality outside of the mind.

2 ~ The first cause argument is, in a nutshell, a simple argument from ignorance. It also makes the assumption that there must be a 'first cause', which, if you ask any physicist, when it comes to the early universe, quantum mechanics, etc., is far from axiomatic. Also, it makes the absurdist, argument from ignorance-style assumption that any 'first cause' which exists cannot have had any cause which caused it, effectively resulting in the self-destruction of the argument; in other words, if a 'god' is posited as a 'first cause', one is presumed not to ask what caused that 'god' to be there. There are two solutions: an infinite regress of gods creating gods creating gods, which ultimately defeats the argument; the realization that the 'first cause' could be literally anything (a magic catfish, a quantum fluctuation, Dr. Manhattan... take your pick), and thus that it is entirely possible that it could have been a natural cause, rather than a supernatural one. Given nothing supernatural has ever been demonstrated to exist, the default probability indicates that a natural explanation is almost certainly the correct explanation.

3 ~ As an evolutionary biologist by vocation, the argument from design is one of my pet peeves, for certain... I am unaware of any single example of this allegation which is not explained infinitely better by natural principles than by supernatural propositions. Natural selection can produce organisms which appear designed, for sure, but the evidence overwhelmingly supports an entirely mechanistic, evolutionary process as the explanation for these alleged 'designs'.

4 ~ The moral argument, like the design argument, is blissfully ignorant of very basic natural principles; in both cases, evolutionary science is one of the primary fields called. The moral argument presumes that morality is something which must have originated with a mind, when, in fact, it is much more elegantly explained by emotion, and by basic social dynamics (i.e., tribes that don't murder their own members tend to last longer; people don't like having their possessions stolen, therefore it would be hypocritical of them to steal from others). There is no universally-accepted ethical principle which is not present and acted by non-human species, and which can very easily have arisen sheerly out of the process of natural selection.

Really, it's the fact that you seem to consider those to be the best arguments for the existence of god[s] that makes people like me realize that there is no convincing evidence or reasoning behind the claims of theism.

Edited by Arbitran, 05 January 2013 - 03:53 AM.

[Order66]

Arbitran, on 05 January 2013 - 03:53 AM, said:

1 ~ The ontological argument offers no evidence of any kind, and its logic is effectively obfuscation; deity existing as an idea does not necessitate its reality outside of the mind.

How do you know that the ideas in your mind do not represent the outside world?

Edited by Order66, 05 January 2013 - 04:44 AM.

[Arbitran]

Order66, on 05 January 2013 - 04:43 AM, said:

How do you know that the ideas in your mind do not represent the outside world?

What evidence do you have that they do?

[Order66]

Arbitran, on 05 January 2013 - 05:00 AM, said:

What evidence do you have that they do?

I don't offer evidence, I simply have faith in the proposition. If you don't offer evidence to support your claim to contrary, then your conclusion is based on faith also.

[Arbitran]

Order66, on 05 January 2013 - 05:28 AM, said:

I don't offer evidence, I simply have faith in the proposition. If you don't offer evidence to support your claim to contrary, then your conclusion is based on faith also.

You appear to have only a very tenuous understanding of logic. You have faith; which is meaningless. I have made no 'claim', and I have based nothing on 'faith': I have simply rejected the faulty logic in the claim you made.

[Order66]

Arbitran, on 05 January 2013 - 05:39 AM, said:

You appear to have only a very tenuous understanding of logic. You have faith; which is meaningless. I have made no 'claim', and I have based nothing on 'faith': I have simply rejected the faulty logic in the claim you made.

I didn't offer any logic to reject. You are using tools of the physical world to argue a spiritual claim. It is an exercise in futility. It's not really a matter of accepting or rejecting my claim, but rather a question of engaging in the discussion or not, to consider my spiritual claim something which can be scientifically debated. You're not obliged to engage the discussion of course.  But if you do, you cannot expect the limited tools of your physical world to protect you when you wander so willingly into God's midst.

Edited by Order66, 05 January 2013 - 05:52 AM.

[Arbitran]

Order66, on 05 January 2013 - 05:51 AM, said:

I didn't offer any logic to reject. You are using tools of the physical world to argue a spiritual claim. It is an exercise in futility. It's not really a matter of accepting or rejecting my claim, but rather a question of engaging in the discussion or not, to consider my spiritual claim something which can be scientifically debated. You're not obliged to engage the discussion of course.  But if you do, you cannot expect the limited tools of your physical world to protect you when you wander so willingly into God's midst.

You have offered no convincing reason to think that anything "spiritual" has ever existed in the first place. It is you who are exercising a futile position, when you attempt to offer evidence, you are refuted, and then simply take all that back and say that 'evidence is futile'. You believe in fairy tales because you want to, because you have faith in them, because you want to; you may wish to sort our your reasoning skills, and your criteria for believing in things. I could believe in leprechauns if I wanted to, but it would be intellectually dishonest of me to try and convince someone else to believe in them, sheerly on the basis that I would have to conclude, in that scenario, that wanting to believe in something is just as good as believing in something because there's good reason to. You have nothing to contribute here; I suggest you think things out before you and your imaginary friend so willingly walk into the midst of human beings literate in science and reason.

[Order66]

Arbitran, on 05 January 2013 - 05:58 AM, said:

You have offered no convincing reason to think that anything "spiritual" has ever existed in the first place. It is you who are exercising a futile position, when you attempt to offer evidence, you are refuted, and then simply take all that back and say that 'evidence is futile'. You believe in fairy tales because you want to, because you have faith in them, because you want to; you may wish to sort our your reasoning skills, and your criteria for believing in things. I could believe in leprechauns if I wanted to, but it would be intellectually dishonest of me to try and convince someone else to believe in them, sheerly on the basis that I would have to conclude, in that scenario, that wanting to believe in something is just as good as believing in something because there's good reason to. You have nothing to contribute here; I suggest you think things out before you and your imaginary friend so willingly walk into the midst of human beings literate in science and reason.

If you really believed all of that, you wouldn't even be engaging in this debate, don't you think? Why would it even be worth your time to address such a foolish question? It would be like debating whether or not the sky is blue. So what is it that draws you into the debate? What is it about the question of God that compels you to argue so fervently something which should be self-evident? Maybe deep down it is not me you are arguing with ...

[Lava_Lady]

Lion6969, on 27 December 2012 - 01:57 AM, said:

If god is at the centre if religious people lives then logically it follows that unbelief replaces him with one self, it's not gonna be another deity is it? It's yourself who is god and becomes central in the universe. Ie individualism, atomism abd atheism!
RT _]

Most of the atheists I know do not replace "god" with anything.  The general idea of religion is an explanation of our existence, ie the creator, the father, the universe.

Atheists don't believe that, they believe in logic, science, hard cold fact.  

To put oneself in the center of existence or being ones own god is not a new thought, it's very metaphysical, earth oriented faith.

Religion is an organization of faith, grouped by specific beliefs that requires followers to accept something without evidence.

[Arbitran]

Order66, on 05 January 2013 - 06:05 AM, said:

If you really believed all of that, you wouldn't even be engaging in this debate, don't you think? Why would it even be worth your time to address such a foolish question? It would be like debating whether or not the sky is blue. So what is it that draws you into the debate? What is it about the question of God that compels you to argue so fervently something which should be self-evident? Maybe deep down it is not me you are arguing with ...

First off, I'll thank you for the laugh you've just given me. Indeed, it is a foolish question; absurd. And it really is self-evident. But I am not so cold that I would deny one who asks an answer. You are, quite literally, having me go through the same procedure I went through with my grandson. The only difference? You speak of God, he spoke of Superman.

[The Silver Thong]

Order66, on 05 January 2013 - 06:05 AM, said:

If you really believed all of that, you wouldn't even be engaging in this debate, don't you think? Why would it even be worth your time to address such a foolish question? It would be like debating whether or not the sky is blue. So what is it that draws you into the debate? What is it about the question of God that compels you to argue so fervently something which should be self-evident? Maybe deep down it is not me you are arguing with ...

, Because religion let alone a god has be proven wrong let alone a dog trainer in humanity and it`s morals. Deep down people don`t trust themselves so they can blaim others for there so called actions, Hence god. Won`t find an atheist blaiming god for killing will you. Do you not see the difference an atheist to kill does not need a god to tell him to do it or claime it. A killer atheists is just that a killer however done in
the name of any god it becomes what a lesser crime. The atheist was a killer and the the religious was doing gods will at least to those that kill. In the name of something like god verse there own private convictions.

Edited by The Silver Thong, 05 January 2013 - 06:49 AM.