To prove God not existing, atheists conflate God with invisible unicorns.

Material and not supernatural.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Yes. God as the Abrahamists want to flesh it out is ok to equate with unicorns invisible or otherwise.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

It seems some deem "natural" to be equivalent of "that which would occur without human intervention" or some such... which would put genetically modified items as "not natural".
I find this distinction to be adequate when looking around a supermarket and only looking for such "natural" products. But not in philosophy discussions.
In such discussions others, myself included, would argue that humans are part of nature, and that what we do to the world around us is just as natural (especially when discussing the difference between natural and supernatural) as anything that might exist without human intervention.
Our intervention is part of nature.

But some may not be able to cope with the same word meaning different things in different contexts.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

For creating and operating the universe and everything with a beginning, the "Jesus" subdeity conception - most believers contend him identical with the Abrahamic God - doesn't work either.

 

A wild brown trout is as natural as nature gets. See how easy it is to manufacture nature? Does that mean human beings are "supernatural" because they can make something natural using non natural methods.

 

Yeah, the adjective is typically used that way by the general public. The noun 'nature' is used as if it meant something like 'uninhabited wilderness'. There's still kind of a nature/human dichotomy in people's thinking that's almost medieval. But a big difference between contemporary and medieval usage seems to be that where the medievals placed greater value on the human (spiritual beings trapped in a world of matter), a great deal of contemporary popular thinking (influenced by 19th century romanticism perhaps) places greater value on 'nature' (the garden of eden dispoiled by man).

Philosophy seems to use 'nature' most often in a metaphysical sense to mean something like 'the universe that's revealed by the senses and all of its contents'. As contrasted with 'supernatural', which seems to typically suggest a separate mode of spiritual being. The ancestry of this one in medieval thought is clear.

That's where modern scientific thinking seems to have diverged from medieval thought. Instead of thinking of humans as temporary spiritual visitors to the material plane, modern scientific thinking sees man as fully a part of the physical universe. In other words, scientific thought deemphasizes the natural/supernatural distinction, and along with it the ancient human/nature dichotomy.

I tend to think of the world in what I've termed the modern scientific way. And I don't really see New York City as being any different, in fundamental metaphysical terms, than a bee-hive or a coral reef. Despite the obvious differences in complexity and elaboration, it's all equally natural, equally of this world.

 

So do you think serial killing of innocent human beings is natural?

 

Troll. I'll beat the rush on you too and put you on ignore now.

 

No, human beings didn't make the universe. You think "God" did. God isn't material. There is no evidence of God (unlike human beings).

 

It's material and not supernatural.

 

Pachomius said:
Okay, please tell me what you mean by nature, or give me your concept of nature.

From Seattle, Yesterday at 11:59 AM #597
I just did "of this material world" and not supernatural.​

Thanks, notify me if I don't get you correctly.

By nature you mean "of this material world and not [of the] supernatural [world]?


Okay, here are our original contentions:

From Pachomius, Saturday at 7:44 AM #569
My contention is that I know from thinking on facts and logic that God in concept exists as creator and operator of the universe and everything with a beginning.

From Seattle, Saturday at 8:10 AM #570
My contention is that I don't know what created our universe and neither do you. Anything that "God" can do can be done by [natural] nature without involving a god.

I will be repeating our respective contentions as we go along with out exchange.


Now, what is your information of the concept of God?

From my part, my concept of God is that He is the creator and operator of the universe and everything with a beginning.

 

I don't have a concept of God since I don't have an evidence for God. Any "concept" of God which any evidence for God would just be whatever story someone (anyone) who believes in such a concept has made up.

Whoever wrote the story about "Superman" decided that he can fly using a cape. I can't give you my "concept" of Superman unless you are just asking me if I've read the story.

In that case you wouldn't need my "concept" as it wouldn't matter. Just read the story.

 

http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/atheos.html Definition

1. without God, knowing and worshipping no God
2. denying the gods, esp. the recognised gods of the state
3. godless, ungodly
4. abandoned by the god

I prefer to say that there are more definitions of "atheos" than those four mentioned. When St. Paul saw an altar which said "TO AN UNKNOWN GOD" [Acts 17:23], what comes to a religious thinker's mind is that those men simply are atheists who were searching for that God. I know some here portraying atheistic principles but surprisingly they are just remnants of those mentioned in Acts 17:23. Therefore, because no god or gods suffice the god-qualities they are looking for, then they resort to a "forum" like this simply to "confuse" because an advertiser who cannot convince anyone about the superiority of his product throws confusion to everybody.

 

These are diversionary tactics of people who are crippled in following debating standards, people who cannot go down to the level of the least of human thoughts. Why in the world would fiction be compared to facts? If scientists can no longer archeologically trace the story of the 8 men inside the Arc of Noah, then of course somebody would concoct tales of the origin of man for the same reason - to confuse humankind. The Genesis portion of the Bible is still the most misunderstood among readers of all ages. See http://www.controversyextraordinary.com/2014/11/creation-most-misunderstood-portion-of.html

 

That's not necessarily a concept of God. That could be just another reference to quantum mechanics. Lots of people think quantum mechanics created and now operates the universe, which includes everything with a beginning. But many of these people are atheistic, and many others would reject your use of sex pronouns such as "he" as well as the singular entity for their deities. So you need a concept, not a vague criterion that can be met by all manner of concepts you would not accept and stuff no one wants to worship.

And it has to be different from the invisible unicorn type of deity, which we have noticed is pretty common whenever a believer starts talking about "God".

 

I would say that you have it backwards: Atheists aren't the ones advertising, but instead they are asking the ones who are advertising more questions about why they should adopt what the advertiser is selling.
Any confusion is because the advertiser (the theist) is unable to adequately, accurately or meaningfully explain why what they peddle is any better than what the atheist currently has.

 

Care to ask the same question without begging the question?
It is precisely because we have nothing on which we can stick the label "fact" that we merely question why we should adhere to one thing that appears fictitious rather than another thing that appears fictitious.
As soon as you claim it is a comparison of fact versus fiction then you must surely provide us with your reasoning for considering your "facts" as such. So please do so?
And please try to do it with something more than just reliance on that which you wish to claim as factual.

"No longer" implies that they once could... And you have documented evidence of this? Outside the bible, of course, given that this would appear to be what you are claiming veracity for... And we wouldn't want you to beg the question again.

Indeed, a blog that merely tries to fit an old text into modern understanding and claim it was known from the outset...
At least, reading through the comments section, there seems to be one person with any critical thinking ability.

 

I don't know, but that is one plausible theory that is not inconsistent with physics. Or it was eternal, or it came from something else, like another universe.

 

This is really unfair. First you ask for the scientific alternatives to magic, then you ridicule them. For what? Coming from a mind? The energy of the entire universe seems to be exactly balanced by gravitational potential energy. Address that if you can.

 

After 620 posts, the thread seems to have returned full circle to the original mistake in the subject line.

In post #7, I wrote this:

"What atheists are typically doing with the 'invisible unicorns' analogy is responding to a bad theistic argument that says in effect:

Inability to prove that God doesn't exist means that it's reasonable to think that he does. (Certainly as reasonable as the atheist belief that he doesn't.)

The 'invisible unicorn' example, along with 'Russell's teapot' and other variants, are part of the counter-argument that there are no end of things, some of them quite ridiculous, whose existence we can't actually disprove. It certainly isn't reasonable to believe in the existence of all of those things.

Which in turn suggests that stronger epistemic justification is necessary. We need credible and positive reasons to believe in the existence of things. Noting that the existence of something can't be disproven is insufficient reason to believe in its reality."