[QUOTE=ITR champion]
I will make one last post on the flying spaghetti monster and then leave it focus on the bigger and better issues in this thread. You say that there’s no difference between belief in God and belief in the Flying Spaghetti, because neither set of believers offers evidence to back up their belief. (The fact that the second set of believers doesn’t exist, we’ll lay aside for now.) Believers in God offer tons of evidence to back up their beliefs. You, obviously, do not accept that evidence, and neither does Richard Dawkins or a number of other people. (Or to be precise, you do not believe that portion of the evidence which you are aware of.) Nonetheless, the evidence exists. That makes the situation wholly different from the situation with the Flying Spaghetti Monster, for which the claim of “no evidence” is actually true. That’s what makes it a silly argument.
[/quote]
What evidence exists for God which does not exist for the FSM? Be specific. Are you quite sure you understand what the word “evidence” means in science. Please be advised that “I really, really believe it” is not evidence.
There’s a huge, gaping flaw in this analogy. No evidence whatsoever exists for God. The “prosecution” has yet to offer Exhibit A.
I think we’ve at least discovered the reason for your inability to understand the FSM analogy. You are under the mistaken impression that the evidence for those things is different. It is not. It’s not a question of atheists “not accepting” evidence for God. That just sounds like whining. The truth is theists have never offered any evidence. It doesn’t exist.
[QUOTE=oldboy]
there is no way that god can be proved or disproved,so the way i see it it nothing can be proved until you prove it.
[/QUOTE]
But the default presumption is that X does not exist until it is proven to exist. Saying “You can’t prove there ISN’T a God” is as lame as saying you can’t prove smurfs don’t exist (which is equally true and equally specious).
[QUOTE=ITR champion]
That’s what makes it a silly argument.
Suppose in a certain trial the prosecution spends six months arguing for the defendant’s guilt. Then the defendant’s lawyer stands up and says, “The Prosecution has offered no reason to believ my client is guilty. Therefore there is no more foundation for his guilt than for the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The defense rests.” If you understand the weakness of this defense, then you understand how the whole Flying Spaghetti Monster argument looks to most people.
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With due respect, and my repeated assurance that I am very happy that you are explaining your stance so all alone against a group obviously not aligned with them, I’m afraid that what makes it a silly argument is your failure to understand it, as evident from your analogy. You have simply not yet grasped what the argument is about; it’s not about the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it’s actually about Zeus, or Brahma, or sprites, or crystal rays. Forget the FSM, if you want, and take the analogy to them.
Suppose, instead of your example, this: that a prosecutor has spent six months arguing the defendant’s guilt, and the lawyer for the defense stands up and says: “The Prosecution has offered no reason to believe my client is guilty that would not likewise, with exactly the same factual justification, also prove the guilt of my mother, my father, that guy over there, or the judge – it can prove everybody’s guilt. The defense rests.” This, if true, is an unanswerable defense. Your task, now, is to tell the defense why your evidence is so special that it points to precisely that supernatural being that you believe in, and no others, even made up ones (as if they weren’t all made up).
While I did promise to responded to everything, I find that the thread has branched in too many directions for me to follow them all. What I would propose is that we move on to the next book, or rather the next pair of books. In the thread where the book discussions originated there was some interest in repeating the process with new pairs of books. I have one in mind that would address a lot of the issues that have been brought up here. Would anyone else be interested in Round 2?