Oh, my, I nearly spilled my morning coffee, and that is never a good start. Jan, are you seriously claiming that when someone says "I don't know" that it is only a "debate tactic"? Are you seriously insisting that everyone actually knows that God exists (if God does actually exist)? Seriously??? I've known before that you have serious struggles with the agnostic position, but you've never been quite so explicit about rejecting it out of hand as simply a "debate tactic". No, agnostics are not aligned with your strawman that you like to argue against. Hence your difficulty in discussing matters with them. So what do you do? That's right, you simply classify their position as a debate tactic. You only see atheists as people who know God exists yet choose, through some faith they have (so you believe), to reject / deny God. To you it is all black and white... there is everyone knowing God exists and there is subsequent rejection of God by some. Until you bother to step down from the ill-informed horse you rode in on, until you bother to listen to the arguments they put forth rather than simply assume their arguments as as put out by your strawman variant, you will forever be seen as the disruptive class clown. Of course, there may be some atheists who fit the stereotype you recognise, and no doubt you will latch on to them as being the epitome of the atheist, no doubt reconfirming (through selection bias) all your preconceived notions of what atheism is. Yet you won't recognise that approach for the selection bias it is. And you will continue to refuse to actually discuss with others who offer different flavours. Because to you everything is a constant war... between the theist (you) and the atheist. And the onl pay way you feel you can win the war you think you're fighting is to line the atheist trenches with strawman and knock them over with your well-rehearsed routines, your repeated one-liners. And you may even catch a few actual atheist in your crosshairs. And while you lob shells at your strawmen, while some retaliate and lob shells back, the ground just gets turned into a quagmire. It happens on field after field, thread after thread. And the common denominator really does seem to be you, Jan. You and the war you think you're fighting. Between you and the atheist. Only its not with atheists, Jan, but with your idea of the atheist. You don't understand atheism any other way and you don't seem to want to understand... because then who could you lob shells at? I have no doubt your ignorance of the atheist and your desire to battle your strawmen draws traffic to the threads, and will continue to be tolerated, but don't be fooled into thinking it is anything more than people simply looking to feed the troll. Truth be told, I'm still hoping that one day you'll actually turn out to be worth the effort. No sign of it yet, though.
Jan clearly can not reject my claim that its all made up otherwise given his excellent ability to hold his side of an arguement he would do so...but he can not avoid the fact that it is all made up. But he cleverly side tracks us to focus upon trivial matters rather than demonstrate there is an arguement to silence the fact that it is all made up. He is far too clever to offer any reason why we could think other than its all made up. Perhaps I am at fault as Jan probably comes on here determined to address the op which inoccently asks what does God do but gets sidetracked and fails to produce his list of all that God does. So Jan I ask what does God do on your view...I ask because I am sincerely interested in how you view these matters and not to set you up for ridicule. So how would you answer the question what does God do. Alex
As with some other threads (this seems for some weird reason to be the longest) the words pigeon and chess conjure themselves up Not good, not good at all Had you spilt your coffee, or reacted with a mouthful such as some came out front your nose I would think a life time ban to be in order Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
So which of those do you think allow for free will? So we can't describe quantum behavior under indeterministic interpretations? Who said it did?
I thought you could interpret QM either way? My personal favourite is that it is deterministic, but only probabilistically so... i.e. the same inputs lead to the same probability function of possible outputs. But it is not possible to determine at the outset which eventual output will result. So it is ultimately non-deterministic. But this is just one interpretation. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Just popped in to see how long the list has grown. Mmmm it is not getting past disasters it seems. So in the absence of further contribution can we conclude that God is active in the weather department and although happily aligned with insurance companies in the past has now clearly retired from any God work. And good on him. But this thread has been an absolute disappointment.. I waited expecting a list to beat all other lists ... I mean in a day even as an old man with crook legs like me gets a few things done but so far God or his advocates are unable to offer anything...not a thing...further evidence that the God story is made up. I wonder if god botherers have ever taken a moment to consider what God does today or yesterday ... clearly they have not and offer nothing... Their absence of input suggests that we must move forward in a world without any help from God but still some humans form a belief he is still there somehow fixing stuff... like minimising the deaths in our horrible world wars...I shudder to think how many would have died if God had not been helping to reduce casualities by saving those who prayed to him to save them. Thebottom line...in facing the question presented in the op ..no input from believers to suggest what God does...nothing. Absolute proof the God story is fiction or for you theists fiction means it is just made up.. Alex
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Door to door salesmanship 101 Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Sorry. Been away over the pond for a week. Because it means the atheists is essentially saying there is absolutely nothing that will convince me; I refuse to accept any amount of evidence. That is not the stance of a rational, analytical person. It would be similar to a Flat-Earther saying: there is nothing you can do to change my mind that the Earth is flat. If you literally show me, I'll simply conclude it is an elaborate illusion or something. Or Fat Freddy saying: there is no amount of evidence you can show me to convince me that we went to the Moon.
It's no less rational for some than saying they won't accept evidence of a square circle, or perpetual motion. By that I mean if you have deemed evidence of God to be an impossible occurrence, even if God exists, then you rationally accept that there is no evidence, nor will be any evidence. Secondly, any evidence put forth can either be rationally explained by non-deity means OR a rational person would likely conclude that they don't know what is causing the evidentiary phenomenon. Could some / many be convinced? Of course, we each have our own threshold before we accept something as true. But I don't think it's wrong to say that some, if they were being honest, would conclude at best that they don't know if the evidence shows what it claims to. And I therefore don't think it is necessarily awkward. Well, not really, because I'm sure we both agree that those claims (that we have been to the moon, that the earth is round) can be evidenced. God, or indeed God's non-existence, for many, is simply not a proposition that can be evidenced. Even some deists believe there to be no (possible) evidence of God, and that reason alone is sufficient to conclude as they do. If you think God can be evidenced, suggest something that would categorically prove God to exist. What you have put forth so far is simply evidence of a powerful entity who can access and manipulate spacetime. But God? Maybe you would be convinced by that, but rationally I'm not sure I would be... as where is the evidence of being the ultimate cause? And at what point could you be sure that what you are being shown is not merely an hallucination etc? Personally I'm of the camp that simply says "I don't know" and this includes whether there is evidence that could convince me. I don't know. I can't name any evidence that would convince me, but I can't say there isn't some. But I can't say that it would be awkward for all atheists to assert that there isn't any evidence that could convince. It really depends on their view of God that they're referring to.
Still waiting on my flying flock of unicorns, to be convinced. Used to be horse's but I upgraded Send a flock to circle my house, but respect federal air regulations as I live next to airport If the entity can do that i would conceded to it the title Creator of the Universe no problem Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Oh. I think I see your point. We don't have the facilities to analyze that 'that thing there' is 'all of creation', and that 'this guy here' created it. It's not a proveable conjecture - even in principle.
I don't think that it's a matter of refusing to accept evidence. It's a matter of whether or not the desired evidence even exists, of not knowing what sort of evidence can possibly serve as evidence of Divinity, of Holiness. If something seemingly (to us) omnipotent and omniscient appeared in the sky in a glorious light-show, something as far beyond us as we are beyond an earth-worm, how could we be sure it wasn't a super-evolved, super-powered, super-advanced space-alien with similar inexplicable (to us) qualities? If ex-hypothesi it's all stuff that human beings can't comprehend, then what marks the boundary between natural stuff that we can't (yet?) understand and supernatural (divine, holy) stuff that we won't (ever) understand? Is that an objective rational decision or more of a subjective emotional response?
I'm sure if the aliens are not here to wipe us out they would be able to explain their powers and we could extend our knowledge to replicate the power I found the super entity can show mind bending power - flip a switch within us so we have it - flip the switch - now you don't. For me that would settle it fairly well as being inexplicable Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Hang on. Divinity and Holiness are not well-defined words scientifically. The question does God exist? is simply more a matter of was the universe created by an intelligent entity? That's sufficient for me; the details are not important. The evidence required for that can be as simple as that entity showing up and demonstrating his abilities. Baldee has put forth a compelling conjecture that I interpret as suggesting it may not be possible for us to comprehend the evidence, even if he did his parlor tricks. That had not occurred to me before.
Unable to parse this sentence. The phrase '...evidence is in...' makes no sense there. Please rephrase.
Wouldn't it sort of behoove one to first determine that this god exists and has actions, before bothering to question them? That's kind of the point of this thread.
hebrew ,christanity and muslim are all based on the same fundamental concept of god . abrahamic . This god did exist , thousands of years ago , and exists today . It's written in cuneform texts , thousands of years old . This understanding of god , is really nothing new .
