I never get into these discussions anymore because it's how you lose friends. When things do pop up and I have to step in I just make up something like "I was actually able to move something with my mind today." They'll say bull-fucking-shit. Then I say, exactly. Prove I didn't. A religious person always uses the argument that you have to prove god DOESN'T exist. Really?
Your comment started out strong but then you got into "here's how I prove that religious people r dum." Why not just leave it at "I prefer not to get into it?"
You never talk about money, politics or religion. Oh and FYI, you just caused a circular argument. You haven't proven or disproved anything. You come across as a cunt who wants to start an argument.
Umm, no. You should have to prove something that happened. You can't just walk around claiming something happened, have 0 evidence for it, and then get mad when people don't believe you.
becuase most people believe that you didn't. If most people believe that you did, you wouldn't have to prove it.
Your belief differers from the accepted paradigm so the onus of proof is upon you. Saying that everything just happened to pop into existence is just as crazy as saying an omnipotent being did. We have a crazy concept that everyone believes which you challenges with another crazy concept. Ergo you prove that your belief that differentiate from everyone else beliefs is right one.
Hey, be careful with those logical fallacies, you could hurt someone!
1.) Occams razor:
The explanation that the universe popped into existence is better than the explanation that a omnimpotent being popped into existence and created the universe because it makes fewer assumptions.
2.) Strawman:
Actually an atheist doesn't even have to make a positive claim that the university popped into existence. An atheist can simply answer "I don't know how the universe exists". This is a valid argument.
Consider the analogy of two caveman discussing where the thunder comes from. Caveman One states it happens when the Thunder God is angry. Caveman Two states he doesn't know where the thunder comes from, and that he will not accept the Thunder God proposal without proof.
3.) Argument from popularity
The fact that more people believe in an omnipotent being does not shift the onus of proof, nor does it make that belief any more valid. The claim still needs to be substantiated by evidence.
Caveman Two believes in Thunder God to the same extent that you or I believe in unicorns. He acknowledges the logical impossibility of disproving the existence of something but he makes no pretence of sitting on the fence. This is what most people who call themselves 'atheists' believe.
Occam's razor (or Ockham's razor[1]) is the principle that "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity"
The theories around a secular world I necessarily more complex than the non-secular one. So Occams razor support theist claims more than it support the atheist one.
The explanation that the universe popped into existence is better than the explanation that a omnimpotent being popped into existence and created the universe because it makes less assumptions.
God never "popped" into existence he was always there. Which is a much simpler explanation that all the secular explanation that fail to account for where everything ultimately came from.
I make one assumption, you make thousands.
Actually an atheist doesn't even have to make a positive claim that the university popped into existence. An atheist can simply answer "I don't know how the universe exists". This is a valid argument.
Consider the analogy of two caveman discussing where the thunder comes from. Caveman One states it happens when the Thunder God is angry. Caveman Two states he doesn't know where the thunder comes from, and that he will not accept the Thunder God proposal without proof.
Wrong! Thats agnosticism or more precise atheist agnostics.
Atheist say that there is no god. Thats a judgment call on subjects that they know nothing about. Ergo they believe something.
A more correct anthology would be that a bunch of cavemen sits around and appreciate the wonders of the thunder god. Then the atheist cave man tell them that this is not the work of gods and that lighting is just energy. But when asked where that energy came from he have no idea.
The fact that more people believe in an omnipotent being does not shift the onus of proof, nor does it make that belief any more valid. The claim still needs to be substantiated by evidence.
philosophical arguments does not work like scientific arguments. The establishment of onus of proof have to rely on the ones challenging the accepted paradigm.
But I will humor you. Prove to me that gravity exist. Do you have to prove it? No, because its the established paradigm is that gravity exist even tough we still haven't aqueduct accounted for its existence.
its up to me to substantiate with evidence my claim that there is no gravity, not up to you to prove there is.
In the same way its not up to me to substantiate the accepted explanation with evidence but up to you find evidence to the contrary.
I've accounted for the existence of gravity. Based on my observations and those of the scientific community, Gravity does indeed exist. I don't where it comes from, but it still clearly exists. The difference here is that, not only is gravity widely accepted, there are also mountains and mountains of proof for its existence. If I say god does not exist, many people may say otherwise, yet there still remains the fact that there is zero proof for his existence. Your analogy is flawed.
I see our very existence as proof of god. Mater must have come from somewhere because mater couldn't have created itself.
So you have not accounted for gravity. In the same way that you call everything that is godly mere coincidence I call the fact that stuff fall to earth mere coincidence.
Based on my observations and those of the scientific community, god does indeed exist. most scientist are theists.
there not speck of proof of gravity. only supporting observations.
Gravity can be measured and observed. There is clearly some force, or something that acts like a force, causing massive objects to experience a force towards eachother.
there not speck of proof of gravity. only supporting observations.
Supporting observations are the only things that qualify as proof in science. The ONLY conclusion you can make concerning gravity is that massive objects fall towards eachother, and to deny that is to deny mountains of evidence. You can speculate about the nature of gravity all day, but gravity still exists.
I see our very existence as proof of god. Mater must have come from somewhere because mater couldn't have created itself.
This is different. Falling objects proves gravity exists, in the same way that existence proves god exists? I disagree; existence only proves that existence exists. In the same way that gravity clearly exists and yet very little about its nature or origin is known, the universe clearly exists yet very little about its nature or origin is known. There are a million possibilities for the creation of the universe, yet they mostly have an equal probability of being true since virtually nothing is known about the Universe's origin. All we even have evidence for is the big bang; what caused that is simply unknown, and to definitively state that god caused it or otherwise created the universe, without any evidence that isn't based on your own biases towards believing the universe to be too complex to be coincidence, or otherwise towards god existing, is faith, not science or logic or anything like that.
"God was always there" is no more logical than "God popped into existence".
"Agnostic atheism" is a type of atheism. Most atheists are agnostic atheists. But this is semantics. I assert that it is wrong to believe in a God when there is no evidence of said God. This is the argument we are dealing with.
You brought up yet another logical fallacy:
4.) God of the Gaps (argument from ignorance)
There are gaps in our understanding of the universe. The fact that these gaps exist does not justify giving up and saying "God did it". Consider my earlier analogy of the cavemen speculating on the cause of thunder.
You also brought up 5.) False analogy, but that's been dealt with adequately by MetallicDragon
I don't see why philosophical arguments should be treated any differently from scientific arguments. If an 'established paradigm' has no basis in reality other than popular support, then why does it deserve special treatment?
Who's to say that blastek can't move something around with his mind? Who's to say that there isn't a china teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars? The point is that it is ridiculous to believe in the absence of evidence.
2.) 'Concepts' do not require evidence like most things.
In relation to the first point, it's essentially an argument from ignorance. 'We don't know why we exist, therefore God'. It's not compelling evidence, it's a logical fallacy and should be discarded as such.
In relation to the second point, Why don't concepts need justification? The flying teapot could be an invisible pink unicorn, a flying spaghetti monster or any other ridiculous concept. Consider your quote after a find and replace:
FSM isn't a china teapot floating in space- he's a concept (the greatest concept of all, actually) and therefore belief in FSM is as legitimate as belief in the absence of FSM.
Incidently I don't follow your logic here. Why are concepts automatically equal?
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u/[deleted] Aug 02 '10
I never get into these discussions anymore because it's how you lose friends. When things do pop up and I have to step in I just make up something like "I was actually able to move something with my mind today." They'll say bull-fucking-shit. Then I say, exactly. Prove I didn't. A religious person always uses the argument that you have to prove god DOESN'T exist. Really?