You’re right… they sure do…
some people just have faith though.
So that when things don’t go right, you’ve got Satan to blame. Either way, you’re relieved of any real responsibility.
How conveeeeeeeeeenient! [/Church Lady]
Let’s try a little experiment in free will, o.k.? Could you, for just twenty four hours, have full faith in the existence of Odin, and worship him accordingly? If not, why not?
There’s also my more mundane challenge above: see if you can spend one day truly believing that I was born in California and the next day truly believing that I was born in Canada.
OK, trying this again (I’m not sure why)-
All souls go to God.
God is “Fire”, pure & passionate compassion & fairness
Thus, in a way, everyone goes to the Lake of Fire.
Those who will embrace God are enveloped in that compassion & fairness.
Those who will not embrace God are tormented by it.
And if THEN one chooses to be a spiteful bastard who will not be reconciled,
then it’s not God’s fault. One can choose to burn- and maybe burn out.
Apparently it only works one way-we have free will to change our beliefs willy nilly, but their beliefs come from the heart and can’t be swayed by facts or logic.
Again, where exactly can we find this particular loose translation of the Bible? Is there a website we can visit, or a version of the Holy Book we can look at?
Oh, I get it. God’s love is “fire.” Symbolic fire. Like lighting a fire underneath someone’s britches. Cool. I like symbolic fire.
Fuck Disneyworld, let’s go swim in the lake of fire! Woohoo!
So it’s not so much a symbolic fire as it is a…real fire. What the fuck, mate?
I can sum up this beautiful lake of fire for you real quickly: the beatings will continue until morale improves.
I don’t know who Odin is… and I don’t believe in Odin or the concept of an Odin. I have no faith in Odin.
I have a real faith in God…in his existence -there’s a real connection. there’s the difference. Odin is just a word.
Plus, I couldn’t believe in Odin even if I wanted since he would be considered a false god, not the true God that I believe in. Even for a mere 24 hours, it would be like adoring a false profit. No can do…
Ha! Of course I can’t believe in Odin, he doesn’t exist. Psh, try again, nonbeliever!
That would speak to the creation, not to the [the potential of a] creator. So I am left confused, frankly. We’re not talking about the qualities of the universe; we’re talking about the creator of the universe.
Tell me, in what way does the orderliness of the observable universe speak to the existence of God? I think you just don’t get it. If God exists, it is in fact both irrational and illogical to ascribe the qualities and limitations of the creation, to the creator.
So we are left with nothing more substantive (so far anyway) that we must presume God doesn’t exist. Isn’t that right? So you know, I have no problem with that. As an atheist, I sleep better at night knowing that my atheism has no scientific basis. Pounding square temporal pegs into atemporal holes gives me headaches.
The question as to whether “he might as well not exist” is a question of his utility, not his existence. Maybe he’s lame, or pre-occupied, or evil, or…or…or. Or maybe there is an explanation for the way things are. But that’s all irrelevant to what we’re talking about; namely, “Does God exist?.”
And you should probably add “probable” to the trash heap we heaved “presume” onto. There is simply no way to assess the probability of the existence of a supernatural God within the human framework.
Care to try?
Might as well start with Pascal, huh? 
Hey, I agree with you.
Isn’t that simply agnosticism in atheist clothing?
Fortunately you’ve brought us to ground zero in our discussion. Please show the mouth breathers scientifically—via mathematics— the probability that God doesn’t exist.
You see, the words “odds are very low” suggest—to me anyway—that there is a scientific basis to support soft atheism. Show us the basis for this assertion.
If you can’t, it would seem you’re simply dressing up a simple belief system with the suggestion that there is a mathematical/scientific basis.
Is there?
You’re not posting from a dorm room are you?
Hey don’t get defensive. I’m on your team. When I put words in people’s mouth I try to use quotes. Where have I done that? I’ll fess up poste haste.
Well, you’re close. I’ll help you out.
I said, "simply acknowledge that science can no more prove the existence of God than the Spaghetti Monster. " So I never said I was willing to believe in either God or the Spaghetti Monster.
I was simply saying that science must be silent on the matter.
Of course I am not.
I don’t believe your atheism is capricious, not at all. But in the end surely you must concede that, if God exists, his existence would be outside of human observation.
If this is true, a lack of evidence----by the limitations all humans would experience in searching for supernatural evidence—doesn’t speak to God’s existence or non-existence.
In the end, we have simply chosen to disbelieve.
Well, the atheist viewpoint is very similar. (Indeed, the viewpoint of anyone believing anything is very similar): I couldn’t believe in the existence of God even if I wanted since this would be considered a false belief, not the truth of God’s nonexistence that I believe in. Even for a mere 24 hours, it would be like submitting to a false theory. No can do…
[Though, I think your point is that believing in Odin will actually cause you some kind of spiritual harm, it being a transgression against the commandments of the real God, whereas my point is simply that it’s difficult to even do it at all (voluntarily start believing things one currently believes are false), regardless of what punishments it may bring. Still, there is a rough similarity]
I do agree with the raindog that a statement about the probability of God’s existence, if pushed mathematically, cries out “According to what probability distribution?”. If we picked a particular probability distribution, and then conditionalized on various available observations, we could say something concrete about God’s probability of existence; however, almost certainly, we’ll stall from the start on the initial assumed probability distribution.
this makes total sense… the idea of believing in the existence of “God” to some people is completely unacceptable for whatever reasons they may have.
I can understand that…
But on the other hand, you can understand how some people could have a real faith and belief in God… a real connection and love for him, I hope you could understand. This faith can’t be explained, but it is real.
Sure, I can understand that, and the faith is real, absolutely, in the sense that those people have genuine, strong, unwavering beliefs.
I think those beliefs are incorrect and that God is not real (despite faith being “real”), but just as I am involuntarily in a state where God’s existence strikes me as implausible, I understand that theists are similarly involuntarily in a state where God’s nonexistence strikes them as implausible. I believe the evidence supports my position, but, then, naturally, theists have their own differing interpretation of the evidence (if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be theists).
But giving weight to the idea that there is a being that exists outside of the rules of our universe when there is no proof that there is anything even approaching that level of existence is a, pardon my very academic, technical term you may not be familiar with, GINORMOUS leap.
Mine has plenty. There is no positive evidence for my atheism–my atheism is not a positive belief, but comes from the scientific principle of skepticism by default and requiring evidence to form new beliefs. I am as much an atheist about god as I am an atheist about fairies. Science can ask the question “where’s the beef?” and if there’s no response then go about its merry way.
Sure there is. There’s no way to measure the absolute probability of anything–we don’t work in a closed system where all variables are accounted for and our knowledge is limited. But we can assess probability based on how much we know, which we know from experience is a rather effective tool for describing the universe.
.0000000000000000000000000001%. Give or take a couple of significant digits.
Call it whatever you want. My take is agnosticism is an acceptance that we can not know the answer to the question of god and ending thinking on the matter there, while atheists go a step further and decide what we see as the likely answer. But if you want to call it agnosticism in a bow tie, it won’t bother me any.
All right, probability works like this. Everything in the future can theoretically be judged on a basis or probability, or the likelihood that it will happen. A probability of zero means it will not happen, a probability of 1 means it definitely will happen. These are extremely rare and only exist in closed systems, so you shouldn’t see too many of those.
Now, in between, we have other numbers that describe what the odds are that one thing will happen versus it not happening. A .5 means both chances are equally likely; any number above means chances are high, any number below means chances are low.
Yay, probability.
Now, let’s talk about probability in terms of beliefs. I believe this dice will land on two. I have a 1/6 chance of being correct on my belief. Not very good odds.
You believe that an observable entity for which there is no evidence will change the dice for you. Now, with my prediction set, I can pick between the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and six. But with your belief set, you can pick from a literally infinite pool of possibilities. So while my chances will always be one in six, yours will be one in infinity.
First of all, that’s ad hominem and completely irrelevant to the merits of either of our arguments, and secondly, no. You’re not posting from a submarine, are you?
Sorry, there’s just not too many location-related quips available.
Son of a…fuck you, I think you might be right. I’ll go sulk in my corner and think a bit more, but I suspect that I have been hasty in how I framed my debate.
I hate you. 
OK, I’ve played some ping pong and thought a bit, and come to my own internal peace. My ultimate message relevant to the thread is this:
Given our reasoning facilities, it is intellectually irresponsible to believe in a god.
I have no idea what you’re talking about with this die example. It does not seem well-formed, though feel free to clarify.
In general: If we’re going to do probabilistic arguments, we need to be clear about the assumptions we make about the probability distribution under discussion. It will not be possible to say anything at all meaningful about the probability of God’s existence without making some significant assumptions about the probability distribution of possible universes or what have you. Anyone who cares to advance a probabilistic argument, please spell out clearly what your assumptions are.
Let me see if I’ve got this straight, now.
To believe in God(apparently there’s only one, and y’all believe in the same one) all you need is blind faith.
To disbelieve in God, I’ve got to come up with some sort of proof that God not only doesn’t exist in this universe, but that he also doesn’t exist in any other universes, or even outside of any universe.
There is a term for this type of argument, but I don’t think I’m allowed to use it outside of The BBQ Pit.