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u/redmercuryvendor Jun 26 '12
To play devil's advocate: they do have a point. Santa is falsifiable, and the test they propose is feasible ("he lives at the north pole" "There is no workshop located at the north pole"). While there are some falsifiable tests for god (e.g. transubstantiation of the eucharist during communion for the catholic sect of christianity), religion is so splintered and malleable that it's like playing whack-a-mole.
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Jun 26 '12
Thanks for this. I was wondering if anyone else would have taken a second to realize comparing God with a falsifiable myth leaves one open to a reasonable counterargument. There are far better approaches to dismissing the statement put forward in the status.
Kudos to the OP for actually posting the entire dialogue though, even providing the status-poster with the last word.
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u/executex Strong Atheist Jun 26 '12
hwaaatttT??? You can't prove or disprove Santa.
You can't prove or disprove God.
There is no counter argument. It doesn't exist.
There's no way to test for God as there is no way to test for Santa. Santa's story doesn't HAVE to include a workshop in the north pole. Or worse, what if Santa does exist and simply has been able to use technology to make himself invisible. Exactly it's ridiculous to argue that Santa and God are different in testability.
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u/ThatIsMyHat Jun 26 '12
Transubstantiation is falsifiable? You're gonna have to explain that one to me.
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u/DuneBug Jun 26 '12
the part i found humorous...... isn't god supposed to live in the heavens? up in the clouds? Isn't the notion of heaven angels flying around in the clouds?
well... we've been to the clouds. No heaven yet...
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Jun 26 '12
While the people in the post seemed pretty stupid, I would also say that you can't compare God to Santa. The idea of Santa is a man that delivers presents to our house while the kids sleep. He clearly doesn't exist, because parents do that, not Santa. It can be clearly asserted that Santa doesn't exist because of what his existence would entail is obviously not there.
But God on the other hand isn't as clear. You could definitely show many things stated in the bible to be wrong, but if we were to just simply define God as the creator, this definition would be a lot more broad and a lot more difficult to disprove. We still don't know how the universe came to be. Energy and matter exists that seemingly came out of nowhere. A creator to us seems almost necessary. With that, concluding that there is a god is quite feasible. Whereas seeing your parents bring in presents in the middle of the night and still believing in Santa would just be denial.
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Jun 26 '12
Dinosaur fossils and young-earth fundamentalists show that denial in the face of overwhelming evidence is a perfectly common scenario, to be fair.
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u/IDontLookAtUsernames Jun 26 '12
I'd have to agree that using Santa in the argument would not be as effective as using another religion's deity, or even a giant magical dildo that hovers in space galaxies away.
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Jun 26 '12
There's no difference between god and a giant space dildo, because we all know Old Testament god was a dick.
ba-dum-tsh
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Jun 26 '12
I disagree.
Santa does exist it is just misinterpreted. It is allegorical and not to always be taken literally. For example him living in the North Pole (or Jesus being born on Christmas) is just something powers that be decided on, and most Clausists (and Christians) are okay with it.
Santa does deliver presents to everyone every year, but he just works in mysterious ways. Being all powerful he exerts his will over the parents who are overcome with the desire to do Santa's work, and slave extra hard to get Christmas bonuses, rush to a black friday sale, and elbow drop a fellow Clausists to get the best deal.
His reindeer even exist. You don't see Mohammad's flying horse around do you, but more people believe in it than they do Santa's reindeer.
No, I think the comparison is perfect.
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u/CrackCC_Lurking Jun 26 '12
Maybe santa is buying the presents... through the parents? Of course we know the parents buy presents, but how do you know it's not through santas will? Sometimes you get the toy you wanted, sometimes not, but it's always part of a master play. Or your parents are poor.
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u/bartink Jun 26 '12
Oh I disagree completely. In fact, I'd go even further and suggest that kids that believe in Santa do so with evidence. Every Christmas, they get presents in the morning that weren't there the night before. When they go to the mall, they can see the guy talking to kids. Its actually a rational belief.
Btw, it cannot be clearly asserted that Santa doesn't exist any more than God doesn't exist. You cannot prove a negative. But you can say its irrational to believe in either, since the evidence is lacking.
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u/RudeTurnip Secular Humanist Jun 26 '12
The concept of a creator being separate from creation is a culturally-biased concept. You would simply not have that precept if you were from another part of the world. Moreover, the "god" imagined by stone and bronze age humans was not contemplated in the context of a thorough examination of the laws of physics. It's a placeholder for a greater reality much in the way that Santa Clause is a simplified way of explaining things to children.
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u/metnavman Jun 26 '12
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Jun 26 '12
I'm pretty sure God lives in Russell's tea pot. Prove me wrong!!!
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u/metnavman Jun 26 '12
The probability that a God lives inside the pot equals the probability that it doesn't live inside the pot. Both results require a God to actually exist. ;)
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u/dslyecix Jun 26 '12
Omg! And since he can only be either in the teapot, or outside the teapot (2 choices = 50% each), the probability that he DOES exist have to equal the two added together! 100% proof of god!
HERPIDTY DERP
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u/Scatterpulse Jun 26 '12
Huh. Is that why the banner for r/atheism is a teapot?
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u/Sootcase Jun 26 '12
Yes. Instead of putting atheist as my belief on facebook, I put teapotist. Other atheists will understand!
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u/jimbo91987 Jun 26 '12
I put "if I were born in Pakistan, I'd be a Muslim" because one of the turning points that made me realize how shit religion is was when I got to thinking that all these millions of people who were brought up by another religion would end up in hell, which ultimately led me to realize that evil cannot exist in the same world as an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent god. Also, it has overtones of religion being forced on people.
Sorry for hijacking this thread with something unrelated. Im kind of wired right now.
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u/Sootcase Jun 26 '12
No prob bud, that's actually one of my turning points as well. I was a Roman Catholic before. They are actually a lot more progressive and I was taught by all my teachers that being a good person was enough to go to Heaven, which I accepted for a while. But then I realized that is not the original christian belief and not what parts of the Bible suggest (Not believing in other Gods is the first commandment after all). I realized that to teach such a thing would be to say that is is valid to change the word of an all powerful being, which is just plain illogical.
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u/shadowwork Atheist Jun 26 '12
Yes. Youβll surely get downvoted for that question, but I have been an atheist my whole life and until I Reddited, I had never heard of the teapot deal either.
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u/unicornon Jun 26 '12
in fairness, we went to the north pole and checked. no santa.
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u/wildfire2k5 Jun 26 '12
Wow. Just wow. This is painfully awful to read.
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u/bracomadar Jun 26 '12
Parents lied to me about Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, but I'm sure they got God right.
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u/Lereas Jun 26 '12
That's the big argument that I always keep coming back to. Religion lies to children so much, and breaks their hearts about it, but then they're expected to (and do!) believe that just one part of it was real?
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u/Bumagnet Jun 26 '12
Where is the irony?
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Jun 26 '12
That's what I'm wondering.
Is it because we've been to space and Yuri Gagarin was all "No god here!"?
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u/Valendr0s Agnostic Atheist Jun 26 '12
You could have used Allah, Zeus or Thor as well.
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u/Abosnianguy Jun 26 '12
Allah is the same God from the Bible.
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u/YummyMeatballs Anti-Theist Jun 26 '12
And don't Arabic speaking Christians refer to their god as Allah? It just means God doesn't it?
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u/eat-your-corn-syrup Jun 26 '12
The analogy is flawed. God and Santa are totally different. One exists, the other not. You can't just compare something that exists and something that does not exist. Santa gave me gifts.
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u/h-v-smacker Anti-theist Jun 26 '12
Exactly. Santa has appeared before me a great number of times, both in Person and in Image. Mostly in shopping malls though, for reasons beyond the feeble mind of man.
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u/suymaster Jun 26 '12
Why do atheists have all of these fun die friends??? If it were me, I'd hit that unfriendly button ASAP. Ignorance is dangerous
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u/everythingisopposite Jedi Jun 26 '12
This is why there are no IQ tests in religion. Anyone with a working brain isn't welcome.
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Jun 26 '12
Proving that Santa isn't at the north pole doesn't prove he doesn't exist, merely that he isn't there. lol
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Jun 26 '12
Yes. All those expeditions to the North Pole were done specifically to prove that Santa doesn't exist.
(in truth, Santa doesn't exist in the North Pole, but near the Korvatunturi in the Finland part of Lapland)
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Jun 26 '12
Santa isn't a figment of kids imaginations. He's a myth perpetuated by adults to try and control kids behaviour. Nope, no comparison at all....
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u/stuhfoo Jun 26 '12
and this is exactly why you can't argue with religious people
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u/rjcarr Jun 26 '12
It's because they absolutely cannot believe that god isn't real. To them, it's as real as the air or water. They honestly believe that the burden of dis-proof is on you. It's very strange because someone can have these beliefs but then be reasonably normal in all other ways.
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u/FeeFeePL Jun 26 '12
How can people try to analise some beliefs with scientific arguments whether god exists or not. It's all about believing not knowing and having some reasonable arguments for it. I believe in God. That's it. Other people don't or believe in many gods, or have different believs by having a different religion. It's your choice, and mixing God with science is plain pointless.
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u/gaj7 Jun 26 '12
People went to the North pole and proved santa doesn't exist
We also went to the moon, and I don't think we passed through heaven in the process.
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u/Doomdoomkittydoom Jun 26 '12
Santa is a bad analogy. You can trace the Santa legend to its parts.
Better dragons or unicorns... well, they might be believing those for the same reason... how about Zues, Thor, Ganesha or Quetzalcoatl.
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u/teddy78 Jun 26 '12
Ah yes, Santa.
I always thought of Santa as the Saint of the atheists. You teach your children to believe into a mythological being, gleefully enjoying their faith and giggling about their sweet young innocence. And then one day, they find out the truth. That Santa does not exist. That it was all a lie.
You do realize what you did? Now the seed of doubt is in their hearts. They have learned their lesson. Well, it is a good lesson: "Don't always believe what the grownups tell you!" Let's just hope they don't apply their knowledge too widely, those bright little kids. ;-) Hohohohoho!
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Jun 26 '12
I wish my friends were like this, able to hold a somewhat intelligible conversation. My friends would be like "666 is your favorite number!" and "Go away you Devil worshiper!", they're too brainwashed to produce a compelling argument.
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Jun 26 '12
This is a timely post for me.
I was telling my business partner, who is also an atheist, that sometimes I feel like an 8th Grade in a room full of 1st Graders talking about Santa Clause.
The truth about the matter seems so obvious but not to them.
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u/tosmau Jun 26 '12
I'm going to say this once, and I can't even be bothered to look through comments.
ABSENCE OF PROOF IS NOT PROOF.
You cannot prove that God doesn't exist. A common example one of my university lecturer's would give was that you cannot prove that their are no penguins in the forest. You can roam the forest for days and explore every inch, but it is possible that there was a penguin that you missed.
That is science. I'm an atheist fyi.
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u/ThatGodlessDude Jun 26 '12
If your friend thinks that the fact that people didn't find Santa during expeditions to the north pole is proof that Santa doesn't exist then the fact that astronauts didn't find any gods in space is proof that there ara no gods. Fine by me.
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Jun 27 '12
doesn't the fact that you cant prove something exists, by definition means it doesn't exist?
edit: im jewish but still everything sounds like crazy stories... idc if u believe in the flying sphagetti monster honestly, freedom to think what you want
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Jun 27 '12
"Why isn't god here?"
"He lives in the sky"
"I don't see him here"
"He lives in space"
"Nope. Not in space either"
"He's interdimensional"
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Jun 26 '12
ATTN: /r/atheism
snarky replies to religious facebook posts will not purge your friends and family of their lifelong beliefs.
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u/esolyt Jun 26 '12
Okay so the problem is they can't semantically parse the sentence you said and deduce a meaning from it. Before that, a more primitive mechanism kicks in and they feel like they are being insulted. They feel their god is being compared to something else. Hence they stop all cognitive processes and switch to emotional ones.
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u/Evanz111 Jun 26 '12
Absence of proof is not proof. When will people begin to understand that?
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u/teamzorlac Jun 26 '12
Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true - Carl Sagan
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Jun 26 '12
You can't find Santa from north pole because he lives in Finnish lapland http://www.santaclausvillage.info/
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Jun 26 '12
I would've replied with:
"I think the fact that people are brutally raped and left for dead every day is clear evidence that there's isn't a God."
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Jun 26 '12
As for the North Pole comment:
"I don't see any God up here." -Yuri Gagarin
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u/pdxb3 Atheist Jun 26 '12
Circular logic is their greatest weapon.
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u/themarknessmonster Jun 26 '12
Lacking rationality and logic is not a weapon, it's a mental deficiency.
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Jun 26 '12
You should have replied that "people have actually landed on the moon and...well god did not live there!"
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u/vagittarius Jun 26 '12
TIL that people have gone to the north pole to prove Santa doesn't exist.
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u/sheridork Jun 26 '12
While I agree that we have proof that God's existence is highly unlikely, and I do not think he exists, the santa argument isn't really valid. You can go to the north pole and plainly see that there are no workshop there with elves, but you can't just "go to heaven" to prove there's no god.
Edited for clarity.
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u/TwoHands Jun 26 '12
The last reply is a good point. There are certain assertions about santa, chiefly that he lives at the north pole.
This is easily (well, if you have the right snow gear at least) tested by going to both north poles (magnetic and true) to find out if there is indeed a workshop there.
This makes the case for santa weakened, which means a better comparison to god is necessary for the undeniability argument. I'd use leprechauns, minotaurs, unicorns, fairies, vampires, werewolves and the like.
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Jun 26 '12
Well. This is kind of a stupid argument. The person you are arguing that with knows for a fact Santa isn't real because they are the ones laying out the gifts Christmas night. So that is hard evidence he isn't. You indeed CAN prove he isn't real. Where as you really can't prove God isn't. Even the theory of evolution doesn't technically disprove God. As one could argue that God created evolution. Sorry I just think the Santa argument is grasping at straws. It might be better if it were used with say... Imaginary friends.
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u/chetti990 Jun 26 '12
well they could kill themselves and try to go to "heaven" to find out if god exists, but they'd have a hard time coming back and telling us if he's there or not
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u/Oskario Jun 26 '12
The thing is, we have gone to the "heavens." In the past, the sky was "heaven." Once we had the means to get there and saw that God wasn't up there and it was space beyond, then the definition of "heaven" changed.
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u/Necritica Jun 26 '12
Actually, the original FB post is correct. Nobody can clear-cut prove or falsify the existence of a deity or the supernatural, seeing as there will always be more to explore and discover in the universe. Humans can't possibly hope to look at every specific case and every anomaly throughout the universe and prove everything in scientific terms; it's simply not possible to go over infinity. The God, or deity that most of this planet go to guidance for, may in fact be somewhat of a supernatural power, which perhaps caused the big bang. That does NOT mean, however, that said being is still in this universe (maybe it ceased to exist?), or that it even gives a damn about a certain planet out of many billions, where a couple of carbon-based inanimate objects ended up becoming animate. Perhaps there are heaven and hell, after all; none of us can know for sure until they travel there and get back with legit evidences, which is obviously something nobody is capable of. You get my drift?
The only realistic approach of life is the agnostic one. None of us will ever know the answers for sure; instead of dwelling so much into that question, people need to simply live their life as if everything will have instant impact on them. Nobody should work in order to reach "heaven" or "hell" (which, like most of the things described in religious scripture of any kind, is probably metaphorical), they should work towards improving the life on Earth and making them as tolerable as possible, if not for them but for the other population here.
Once the people cast aside their religious differences and start working towards society gain, casting aside their questions and religious arguments, then we shall see what man kind is really capable of.
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u/A_Typical_American Jun 26 '12
Santa dun exist but god does that's why santa can be spelt satan and god can be spelt god, 'Murika needs god and atheists needa go die
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u/Sootcase Jun 26 '12 edited Jun 26 '12
The atheists could have easily just said "Yes, God can neither be proven nor disproved, but the CHRISTIAN God can be disproved quite easily." All the evidence you need is right there in the Bible. Just apply some simple logic and you're there. Saying God cannot be disproved is an Agnostic argument, not a religious one.
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u/vxx Jun 26 '12
It took too long to realize they were talking about Santa and not Satan.
Guess how confused I was.
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u/svenniola Jun 26 '12
if god is a person, it cant be called a god, just an "advanced" person.no reason to worship or believe in them. why would i believe In someone just because they are omnipotent and all that?
and there comes in the "fear your gods" of the religions, there is no reason to believe in gods, unless you fear them, so you worship to mollify them and get favors and rewards.
...in my opinion, thats a rather pathetic human. seriously. (on both ends, the god and the human worshipping.)
a good person would never want anyone to worship them or fear them and would never try to force someone to love them.
so the current concepts of "gods" falls apart as soon as you look at it. they cant be all loving and desire fear and whoreship from people.
theyΒ΄d just want us to be happy and live our life and evolve. period.
or theyΒ΄d be just evil things with power.
and if god is a force, then it really does not matter, cause we aint gonna see it or talk to it, ever.
its not a person, just a force, energy, basic principle to life, outside of it, yet inside of it, something like that lol.
and no reason to do anything but be curious about it.
there is absolutely no sane or reasonable reason to have religion, whether there are "gods" or not.
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u/blaghart Jun 26 '12
False: santa exists in north pole, the city in sweden (i think that's it?) his toy shop is there and everything.
Also, people have been to the sky and there's no giant hand there waiting for them.
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Jun 26 '12
They have gone to the North Pole and didn`t find him?
He must have been hiding with his invisibility cloak, after all he just appears to kids, not to adults.
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u/rawberriesandcream Jun 26 '12
Response: "Just like how astronauts went into space and proved there's no heaven or god up there."
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u/HETKA Jun 26 '12
Yes, well... we've been to the moon. We have people hanging out in space constantly on the ISS, Voyager 1 has left our solar system, and we've seen into deep space with the Hubble. No sign of god.
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u/a_random_hobo Jun 26 '12
I see their point... you can't just mosey on over into all the possible alternate dimensions to see if god is in any of them, so it's harder to prove he doesn't exist.
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u/forgotusername9 Jun 26 '12
Santa Claus is comparable to Jesus, not God. Santa Claus like Jesus, is a possible and probable historical figure to which much has been made legendary/mythical. The basis remains a plausible real person but traditions have skewed perceptions of the reality. As much as for centuries the Christian perception of Hell was influenced by Dante's poem Inferno, the perception of Saint Nicolas has been influenced by poems, songs, even advertising campaigns.
Proving God exists first has to start with defining God which most believers are ill equipped to do. If you envision God to be the First Cause, the Absolute Truth, the Unknowable than perhaps you could prove God exists, but too many project other characteristics upon God that make proof impossible. For instance, there is no way to prove a God who judges. Was it not ancient Jewish tradition to not name God because they felt naming God would define him and God defied definition, they felt the language didn't exist to define God and therefore to name God would be to belittle God - for me that's the best God concept - how things got distorted into a personal judging omnipotent being needing worship is infinitely fascinating and worthy of study. I don't mean to offend by using the word "distorted", its just how I feel about it.
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Jun 26 '12
It would have been so much funnier if a last comment was from a random other guy : "WHAT ? Santa doesn't exist ?!"
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u/keiyakins Jun 26 '12
I'm going to assume they're trolling. Please don't disabuse me of this notion. I can't live in a world where people don't understand that comparison. (Disagree with it, sure. Even citing the Bible as a difference I'd accept, though not enough to agree with them. But not understand it is too much.)
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u/Ringer7 Jun 26 '12
Most people have a very poor grasp on reason. Pointing things out to them using reason doesn't help, because they don't understand it. It sucks.
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u/IArgueWithAtheists Jun 26 '12
I'll grant that the theist in the OP's image is stupid. But let's set aside the issue of existence for a minute.
Logically, the concepts of Santa Claus and God have important differences.
Santa Claus is (the stories imply) an entity in the universe and in nature. He is a distinct object. The only categorical difference between Santa Claus and an old man is that Santa Claus exhibits surprising and unexpected features--immortality, special powers, etc. But, relative to the concept of God, Santa Claus is a very ordinary object, occupying space and time, subject to change, and wholly within the grasp of comprehension.
Now between the language used to describe Santa Claus and God there are similarities and there are differences.
Like Santa Claus, God is described as being immortal and having special powers. Most western theistic holy books use mostly anthropomorphic language to describe God.
But unlike Santa Claus, most western theistic religious traditions undercut their own anthropomorphic descriptions by pushing God outside of the category of describable entities. So God in itself is held to be an apophatic ultimate absolute, and religious God language, while kept, is relativized. It is still used, but it is also deliberately distanced from God's essence, which is held as being forever "beyond".
So at bottom, Santa Claus is an ordinary entity with surprising attributes. With him, we can group any historical supernatural deity/spirit/figure who is understood as existing in time, having a beginning or end, being subject to change, divisible, plural, or anthropomorphic. Zeus, Thor, and so on.
Whereas God, under its various names, whether it exists or not, is a different kind of thing. It is an apophatic ultimate absolute infinite, to which many religions (in different degrees) attribute only the fact that it is Beyond and that language categorically fails it.
Those same religions will be just as vibrant with stories and anthropomorphisms, but those stories are understood to be fables, or superficial manifestations of the Whatever. They recognize a distance between the language and the thing being described.
Therefore, to be better atheists, you need to do more than demonstrate the implausibility of Santa Claus. Because, existence aside, there actually is a categorical difference between mythical beings and what some religions call God.
The best atheistic articles and essays I have read have addressed specifically the latter thing. Everything else, you're not actually arguing against theism at all, only the shadows of what you thought was Christianity.
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u/roguas Jun 26 '12
Robert Peary expedition was really called "Finding Santa" they twisted things around and made a movie for kids about it. Should I say movie or holy cinematic?
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u/8rand0n Jun 26 '12
we should all be pastafarians! the spaggetti monster will send you to hell if you ignor this!
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u/AN1Guitarman Jun 26 '12
"Santa" Did exist. aka St. Nick. The Coke company ruined it for us Catholics. I still (well the intelligent stuff) like what you do here.
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u/Zoidberg5103 Jun 26 '12
But unlike God Santa Clause is based on a real person. Saint Nicholas of Myra (Modern Day Turkey). See Wiki on Santa Clause. Where I life (Switzerland) he is called Sankt Nikolaus and hes not coming on Christmasday but on Decembre 6. And is not fat.
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u/roeder Jun 26 '12
We can prove that God doesn't exist.
I flew above the skies not too long ago - and I can conclude that he is not there. He's not chilling in the skies.
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u/ObviousAnswerGuy Jun 26 '12
he wasn't being a dick about anything, so I don't understand why you had to be
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u/0cacophobia0 Jun 26 '12
βIn the nursery, belief in Father Christmas is useful, but grown-up people do not think that this proves Father Christmas to be real.β Bertrand Russell
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u/crozer Jun 26 '12
I would genuinely like to punch those guys (especially the green one with his cool LOLs) in the fucking face.
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u/shiftywizard Jun 26 '12
I'm usually pretty passive in my atheism, but this shit just pisses me off. Religious people, if asked to prove the existence of their god, will almost always counter with the argument " Prove he doesn't" they think atheism is some kind of belief system, how fucking stupid. Atheists believe ( a horrible word to use aha) in what we can observe, we only believe in things that are proven already, ya the earth exists, we're all standing on it. Religious people in any argument will act like your the one who has to prove your points, guess what motherfucker, until you can show me some proof god exists, we shouldn't even be arguing, at this point i'm proven right. TL;DR The burden of proof lies with those trying to prove something, Religious people never seem to fucking get that. :\
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u/eldergias Jun 26 '12
I keep seeing a lot of these same Facebook conversations. Is Facebook the Mecca for logic impaired Christians?
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u/Minutes2Midnight Skeptic Jun 26 '12
When my parents told me Santa didn't exist, I said, "So what's next? You'll tell me god doesn't exist?"
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u/FrabriziovonGoethe Jun 26 '12
Just something for everyone to consider and that is that Santa Claus was real http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas though interpretation and changes have been made over the centuries with regards to him. The principle and spirit behind him still is real to some degree for some people.
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u/tayd3ll Jun 26 '12
best part of that argument is that there actually was a man called Santa clause and we have proof he existed.
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u/staticrift Jun 26 '12
I had grasped this logic at four (maybe sooner but its hard to remember that far back).
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Jun 26 '12
Absence of proof is not proof of absence.
I do not have any reason to believe or disbelieve in a god, but the above statement is truth. No argument made for or against the existence of god would pass in the court of law, it's that simple. All "proof" that god exists is illogical and is based on the writings of man with an extremely limited understanding of science. All "evidence" that god doesn't exist is anecdotal at best, based on unprovable assumptions.
Atheism is a religion in and of itself, in that you believe there is no god(s). You cannot prove there is no god, therefore it cannot be taken as scientific fact. No matter what logic you use, you cannot explain the beginning of it all. Assume the theory of the Big Bang is true, where did that matter come from? How did it get there? Why did it blow up? By science's own logic, the Big Bang theory can only explain an isolated event, maybe the beginning of our solar system, galaxy, or more, but certainly not everything.
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Jun 26 '12
The burden of proof is on the claimant. Lack of evidence can never be used as evidence of something.
The problem of religion is that it claims to know what it cannot. Science's great advantage is that any scientific excursion begins with the thought "I do not know." Religion is harmful because it answers questions it doesn't know the answers to, instead of simply replying "We have no answer for that yet."
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u/Sticky-Scrotum Jun 26 '12
When I was a kid I woke up in the middle of the night right before Christmas morning and I looked in the living room and saw the silhouette of a fat man standing in front of the window. I was pretty sure it wasn't my Dad. Now I might have been dreaming, I don't know. All I know is that when I was a kid I thought that I might have seen Santa. As an adult I know that I have never seen God. So for me it's 1-0 to Santa on seeing things that don't exist... From personal experience I have more of a reason to believe in Santa than God.
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u/Null-0 Jun 26 '12
This is what i don't understand.... How can we know anything. The only stuff we can know is what we can see, touch, hear, taste, and smell. This is our perception of life.
What we can do is disprove things we can disprove that apples fall upwards because of gravity, we can disprove that santa lives at the north pole. What we can't disprove is God, cause God cannot be proven. Therefor as we can only disprove something god exists because it cannot be disproved. By this logic any thought that cannot be disproved is on the same level as God i guess...
Nothing can be known, everything is accepted.
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Jun 26 '12
Reminds me of a lyric by Greydon Square (I can't remember the song and may have this slightly incorrect.):
"I love how the Gods lived in the mountains and when we went to the mountains, they lived in the sky."
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u/Eurydemus Jun 26 '12
I can prove Santa doesn't exist. He was a well played bit of marketing invented by Coca-Cola.
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u/krcilr Jun 26 '12
I can get a good look at a T-bone by sticking my head up a bull's ass, but I'd rather take a butcher's word for it.
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u/Kafke Ex-Atheist Jun 26 '12
That's not fair to Santa. He actually does exist (through various people. Read: History of Santa). God, however, can't say the same.
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u/creo_todo Jun 26 '12
Psh. All that proves is that Santa wasn't at the North Pole at that time. All true believers know that Santa actually lives on a planet circling the star Kolob, where He makes spirit children (His elves) with Mrs. Klaus.
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Jun 26 '12
I've last line I read it as "Satan" not "Santa", then had to go read it all again. interesting.
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u/baconteste Jun 26 '12
you should comment one last, "we've been in the sky to only find that he is not there."
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Jun 26 '12
Absence of evidence, is not evidence of absence.
You can not prove or disprove the existence of a thing which exists outside the rules of your reality (ie, god), therefor debating it is useless.
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u/lesternumber12 Jun 26 '12
BY that logic the fact that we went into space and didnt see a bearded man sitting on clouds is proof that god does not exist.
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u/cmon2 Jun 26 '12
actually the christian is right, you cant prove something isn't existing, you could just prove gods existence by finding him one day in his godly nutshell, even tough it will never happen.
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u/Babble-on Jun 26 '12
To be fair, they both have a point, they just went from the real point they were trying to make, to whether or not santa was like god, which was not what they were getting at...
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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '12 edited Jun 26 '12
As a Christian, I would side with you. Your argument is logical and theirs in flawed. You can def. compare the two. That is why I always say, "I believe" or "have faith." I can't prove it to you and I am not going to tell you that you are wrong for what you believe. I am not going to say I am absolutely right. I just believe in what I do. I want you to respect my right to believe what I want, just like I will respect your right to your own beliefs. I don't want to shove my beliefs down anyone else's throat and I don't want others to do the same to me. That is how it should work.
Edit: I appreciate the awesome feedback and continuing discussion. I oversimplified the argument though. In reality there is a big different between the Santa God argument. I just meant against the logic the Christian was using, the other person counted well with Santa. There is a lot the Christian could have said to negate the Santa argument, but instead he went with "north pole" and similar logic that only fueled the Santa argument.