No? How about creation? 
Creation, as in the Earth was created during a long period of time, or Creation, as in God created the heavens and the Earth?
Yeah, all the evidence is that the universe was created in way more than six days. Couple that with the complete incompatibility of the genesis account with observed scientific findings… It just adds up that you have to be pretty dumb to believe in creationism.
Are you pretty dumb, Gozu?
So who came first, atheist zealots or religious zealots? Or put another way, would there be any atheist zealots without religious zealots?
I think he means “Creation” as a synonym for “The Universe” - it’s some variant of cosmological argument, I think, but I can’t be sure.
You are strawmanning. **Der trihs ** just said he couldn’t think of what you could offer as proof of a god’s existence, and that he thought almost anything would be more plausible an explanation of a piece of evidence than the god hypothesis. He did not say that the god hypothesis could never be the most plausible explanation, nor that he considered the god hypothesis to be infinitely unlikely. Nor is it incumbent upon him to come up with ways of proving the god hypothesis. It ain’t his problem.
Further, you criticised his position as being “virtually unfalsifiable”. Advancing unfalsifiable propositions is not scientific and I assume you are suggesting therefore that Der trihs is being hypocritical.
The problem is that atheists do not advance a proposition. They simply don’t believe the theist proposition. If the null hypothesis to the theist proposition is “virtually unfalsifiable” that is a criticism of the theist proposition.
It is not an atheist’s problem.
It’s not strawmanning, it’s more something along the lines of pointing out the elephant in the room. All very well to protest that “there’s no evidence” that God exists, but then it’s only fair to start examining what the proposer’s idea of evidence is. If it turns out upon examination that in fact the proposer’s preconceptions are such that all evidence stands to be explained away by one means or another, then it’s time to start considering the possibility that you’re talking to someone who isn’t quite as objective and evidence-based as he’d have you believe.
This is the Pit. I’m happy to go far beyond suggesting to flat-out stating.
Der Trihs and some others go far beyond merely not believing the theist proposition, to the point of baldly asserting that the theist proposition is false. I have no problem whatever with anyone saying that he does not believe that God exists, but it’s not just “not believing” when they argue that God’s non-existence is a matter of fact and that anyone who says otherwise is deluded, retarded, or deliberately peddling lies.
When someone says “There is no evidence to support Position X”, and five minutes’ casual questioning reveals that, in fact, there appears to be no definition of what they would consider evidence, then yes, it’s their problem.
I think they’d say there’s no reason to believe the theist proposition is true except for feel good delusions, which are difficult to adopt even if one can appreciate intellectually others beliefs and benefits thereof. The best bet is still that it’s all a load of crap.
Heck, I’m an atheist who might be swayed, if the evidence was sufficiently compelling, and considering the claim (an eternal being capable of creating a universe), a “sufficient” level is going to be pretty darn high. Actually, it’s pretty much always going to be more likely that I’m under the sway of some kind of hypnosis or hallucination and only imagining that the Earth has stopped rotating for an entire day, or some such thing.
And their position is pretty solid, as such things go. They need only point out the myriad places deism contradicts known science, as well as itself. Given the lack of evidence in support, their position (mine as well, incidentally) is by far the more compelling.
I’ll be a bit more polite than they and just say you believe because your parents taught you to. There, there. It’s not your fault.
Well, exactly. That which you’re prepared to accept as evidence is, unfortunately, that which is so unlikely that you’ll sooner believe that you’re under a delusion. If you’re shown evidence that you’re not under a delusion, whoa, it’s worse than you thought, because now your delusion has expanded to include a doctor telling you that you’re in perfect mental health!
And I’ll be equally polite and say you’re assuming some facts not in evidence about my parents. How very… scientific. :dubious: There, there. It’s not your fault.
I hate to belabour the obvious but if you’re claiming a God exists capable of creating the universe, you claim is hugely more improbable than even a very convincing hallucination. Heck, I’ve had elaborate dreams that seemed perfectly real for a few seconds after waking.
It’s a working hypothesis based on the empirical evidence that religious beliefs held by parents typically get imparted to their children. I don’t have to call you deluded or a liar, per se, but “indoctrinated” is quite likely. I guess you could describe in detail how your current beliefs are completely at odds with those of your parents. That would make you a bit unusual, but I guess not exceptionally so and would lead me to other hypotheses, including you falling under the sway of a charismatic cult leader or something. In any case, something far more likely than the existence of a being powerful enough to create the universe who made contact with you at some point.
If you want to believe, that’s fine. Heck, Martin Gardner calls the concept (as I perhaps incorrectly recall) “consolo fidelis” - he believes because he finds it consoling. It didn’t diminish my respect for him and his skeptical writings.
Yes, and I say the same thing about claims in the existence of Pyramid Power, fairies, and the claim that Earth is secretly controlled by alien lizard people. All of which are more plausible than God, by the way. God is one of the silliest, most self indulgent ideas ever to exist.
I hate to belabour the obvious, but all you’re doing is making it more and more clear that your so-called “evidence-based” viewpoint does not in fact admit of any evidence that would contradict it - or rather, any interpretation of said evidence. That’s exactly the same POV as is espoused by Answers in Genesis, just on the opposite site of the fence.
In other words, it’s a guess based on your prejudices of how you think believers come to believe, and to which you will cling regardless of any counter-argument. I’m quite cool with that, as long as we’re calling things by their right name.
If you want not to believe, that’s fine too. I don’t know about “consolo fidelis”, though my Latin’s up to parsing the statement, but you plainly find it scary to consider that the thought processes of your organic computer aren’t the be-all and end-all - or at any rate, if there’s anything greater, it has to be some alien organic computer, or maybe something inorganic that was developed by something organic. That’s cool. It’s safe, controllable, un-scary, makes no demands on you, and you can make a God of yourself or the alien/artificial intelligence of your imaginings. It doesn’t diminish my respect for you, either - nor my sincere wish for your welfare.
You’re telling me your point of view. I already know your point of view. Everyone who reads this board knows your point of view. There are isolated tribes in the uplands of New Guinea who sit around the fire at night chewing sago root and talking of little else but your point of view. What you’re not doing is providing a shred of argumentation as to why pyramid power, the existence of fairies, and the alien lizard people thing, are equivalent to belief in God; nor are you convincing me why I should respect your viewpoint as being evidence-based.
I see. It’s the atheist’s fault because we won’t accept any evidence that is given to us. I hear this a lot, but it’s easily testable. I have stated what it would take to convince me-something only a god-like being could do. This is an example of good evidence because it eliminates most other possibilities. But to be fair, I’m willing to give believers a fair chance in a public forum, and let the populace decide whether we are being fair enough, o.k.?
So what’s your evidence?
They all have zero evidence to back them up. If you’re saying otherwise, provide the evidence.
Atheism 101. Incredible claims require incredible evidence. If I tell you there is the ghost of a pony in my house, wouldn’t your lack of belief in my claim be considered evidence based? Without evidence for the pony ghost, you wouldn’t believe based on lack of evidence. Pretty simple, huh?
You’re really not keeping up here, are you? We haven’t got past the question of what would be considered acceptable evidence, or why our evidence-based atheists would not in fact consider pretty much any alternative explanation to be more likely than the God hypothesis.
Whereas I can very clearly articulate, say, the evidence I’d like to see for some aspects of the pyramidologist’s claims. The pyramid sharpens a razor blade? Fine, let’s get a whole heap of razor blades, put half of them under a pyramid, half somewhere else, leave for a period of time, conduct a double-blind experiment on the two sets of razor blades, the details are left as an exercise for the student. The height of the pyramid divided into the circumference of the base is exactly one hundred millionth of the distance to the Sun measured in Egyptian cubits? Fine, let’s look at those measurements and your sources for the units.
Philosophy 101. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Decide my belief is not for you, by all means, but that’s not the same as proving my belief false. Any particular reason why I should care either way whether there is the ghost of a pony in your house?
Wait, what? Are you saying that you would consider the word of God written in letters of fire across the sky as more likely to be evidence of (a) God or (b) a delusion on your part?
Preconceptions are one possibility. Your lack of evidence is the other. You don’t got the evidence. That is the elephant in the room. Your whole schtick is just a pisspoor whine you use so you can pretend that it doesn’t matter that you haven’t got the evidence because it wouldn’t do any good anyway.
I don’t know what the heck your particular god is like or how I’d recognise it. You tell me. But most Christian gods (and there may be only one, but let’s face it we’ve had threads pages long where you guys can’t get it together to provide a consensus at to what he’s like) are so bloody powerful that they could provide evidence of overwhelming probative value if they chose to. And instead we’re asked to weigh up a snippet here and an implication there, evidence that a jury wouldn’t convict on in a trial for theft of a handkerchief.
I’d find this theist position more convincing if theists could define their gods better. What exactly does it say in the “What God is That?” field guide? How does one recognise a god and distinguish it from other things it could be? How about you tell us?
He’s already said. This illustrates my point. Your dilemma is that you ain’t got the evidence. You have an example of an atheist saying what he’d accept, and you’re in a flounder because your piss poor whining excuse is gone, and you can’t come up with the evidence.
The second half of this sentence is a null - I don’t “feel” Yahweh or Jupiter or Thor or Christ or Krishna or Wotan at all. I feel the Glinda the Good wouldn’t “let this stuff happen” either, but it’s not like she’s coming over the rainbow either.
Sorry, did I piss on your cornflakes or something? I don’t think it’s at all improper to introduce the question of what is or is not evidence into a discussion about evidence-based reasoning, nor to ask why one form of evidence would be acceptable and not another. Also I don’t think “You’re just saying that because…” is particularly sound reasoning for a rationalist to be engaging in. Yummvee.