Let's cut to the chase. Do you have any evidence?

[no evidence no belief]

I feel like we've been beating around the bush for... 6000 years!

Can you please either provide some evidence for your supernatural beliefs, or admit that you have no evidence?

If you believe there once was a talking donkey (Numbers 22) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe there once was a zombie invasion in Jerusalem (Mat 27) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe in the flying horse (Islam) could you please provide evidence?

Walking on water, virgin births, radioactive spiders who give you superpowers, turning water into wine, turning iron into gold, demons, goblins, ghosts, hobbits, elves, angels, unicorns and Santa.

Can you PLEASE provide evidence?

[Jax Agnesson]

Is there any chance you might be intellectually honest enough to answer the questions I have posed to you HERE and HERE, and in several other places on this forum?

Is there any chance that if you're going to ask me a question I've already answered a great many times, you could do so in the post I'm currently reading?

The answer is no, I don't claim to know there is a God.

There was I, asking for intellectual honesty, and you respond by answering a question I didn't ask. I know you don't claim to know there is a god.

You seem throughout your posts on this forum to be claiming to know that there is not a reasonable God, (a god whose attributes can be reasoned about) but to believe that there is, or at least that there could be, an unknowable one.

I'm claiming none of us know if there is a god or not. That is, we have not the slightest idea if there is anything supernatural, outside of what we call the laws of nature and human logic.

Thus, we have no idea at all whether our human logic calculations are even vaguely relevant to these questions....

Here you claim that all those apologists (eg the Thomists) who do propose a comprehensible God are just flat-out wrong? This is a much stronger atheistic claim that I would presume to make. How could you possibly know this?

Thus, all this adamant table pounding and fantasy superiority poses, mostly by atheists on this forum, is pure sillyness.

If you concede that unknowable gods might exist, how can you claim to know that a knowable god does not?

Like I keep saying, I have no idea, and neither do you or anybody else. I propose that intelligent and productive inquiries in to the subject of religion aren't really possible until we face, accept, and embrace this simple obvious fact.

Facing facts is something atheists claim to enjoy, thus I am directing most of my comments to them.

Here is where you get slippy, Phil.
I think it is reasonable, even commendable, to have a bit of intellectual humility, and say 'I don't think it is possible to know (something or other).'
It is sheer arrogance, coupled with profound stupidity, to claim 'I don't know the truth about (something) but I can be certain that nobody else could possibly know it either'
How do you know WLC is just wrong to the point of being not worth debating,, or Aquinas was just wrong to the point of being not worth reading and considering. Just because you feel a god ought to be unknowable?
I will grant you your feeling in this matter is not unreasonable; I too feel that gods ought to be somewhat unknowable; but I cannot go so far as to claim that, just because I don't believe gods exist, nobody else's thoughts on the matter are even worth debating.

[no evidence no belief]

Human reason has proven itself useful in a great many cases, too many to mention. I am happy to apply reason where it can be shown to be useful.

Thousands of years of reasoning, believing and arguing etc about gods in every corner of the world has yielded nothing.

At the beginning of that debate nobody could prove anything, and the same remains today thousands of years later. Evidence of a pointless endeavor.

Thus, it's not really reason that suggests we keep doing the same thing over and over expecting different results, which I remind readers is actually the definition of stupidity.

Dude, I really feel like you're saying something completely meaningless.

All you're saying is "We don't know that which we don't know". Well WHOOPTY DOO!

You're saying we have a sphere of knowledge. There is stuff inside that sphere of knowledge, and there is stuff outside.

We can use logic, evidence, rational thought, intuition, guesswork, etc to explore stuff inside that sphere of knowledge, or on the edge of our sphere of knowledge.

But for the stuff that is completely outside our sphere of knowledge, attempting any kind of understanding is a complete waste of time.

I agree. There could be ANYTHING outside our sphere of knowledge. There could be alien civilizations, Greek Gods, flying spaghetti monsters, Frosty the Snowman, a Deity that looks EXACTLY like Mickey Mouse, parallel universes identical to this one except for the fact that all male mammalians have three testicles, whatever.

Hey, it's outside our sphere of knowledge! All bets are off.

So we agree so far. What is the next step in your argument?

Trying to make claims about that which we don't know is meaningless. Therefore _____________________? What?

[JohnA]

Here's the circularity of atheism.

In order to apply one's logic to assertions about all of reality, one has to first assume that one's logic is binding upon that reality.

You know, if my logic is only binding inside my house, then my logic calculations would be irrelevant to your house and beyond.

So to make atheist assertions you first have to assume that there is nothing supernatural, nothing that is above logic, unbound by logic.

In simple words, when we boil away all the blah, blah, blah, the atheist logic calculation is...

There is no God, therefore there is no God.

This is called faith by the way....

The atheist claim is, there is no evidence for the supernatural, nothing else.

It then poses an epistemological question, what kind of conclusions are we allowed to draw from the above claim? There are different epistemological approaches.

William Lane Craig, for example, would claim that God claim has to be accepted if there are better argument for God than there are against God. That seems like a very odd approach to me. I have never heard of anyone applying it anywhere else.

In my experience, the usual approach in academia is the so called null hypothesis, which means that claims may be accepted only if they are backed up by sufficient evidence/reasoning. According to this epistemological approach the atheist is justified in rejecting the God claim merely on grounds of insufficient evidence.

There is quite a few alarm bells going off when I read this.

Atheists made no claims. Being an atheist is merely about the lack of belief in a god / gods.
Am not sure where you get this supernatural claim from.
If atheists really had this claim, then they would have a burden to live up to. And this thread would not exist, surely.
What is his about there is no evidence? No evidence for what? Nobody even knows what the supernatural is, so how on earth can an atheist say there is no evidence for it? I never said this. Who are you to speak on my behalf? Since when do you believe that you know my beliefs?

Craig calls himself a philosopher but he fails as he uses probabilities in his premises to argue his arguments are probably true in order to shift the burden to the atheist. That just shows that he has no understanding of philosophy. He recons that for evolution to occur is so small it must be a miracle. This man rejects science, philosophy and probability theory, not to mention theology. This is pitiful.

Your experience of the null hypothesis?
What experience do you have with this? Are you a scientist, a statistician?
The null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis applies to statistical inference of observed data of scientific experiments. This is not an epistemological approach; it is not philosophy. Not everything is philosophy, actually not one thing is. You will say everything is philosophy. But the problem you face is that philosophy can not prove anything. So if we apply your faulty null hypothesis to this, then you have to accept my opinion that nothing is philosophy.
What you are looking for is the burden of proof. You make a claim, then you need to back it up with logic, arguments and evidence. If you can not then your claim is rejected. Simple. Nothing to it, no need for statistical null hypothesis that you clearly have no experience in.

Dear Doctor instantc,
I have previously asked you to sincerely consider educating yourself in science to prevent these and similar other misrepresentation of science by yourself from occurring. The suggestion included to start with the basics, and also to consider staying away from it if it is too hard for you (and in no way do I wish to allege that you are anything short of a genius).

As NENB wrote - suggest take this advice:
"I would kindly suggest that you direct your acute intellect and expansive knowledge of all subject matter to a more productive endeavor. Perhaps one that would not incite the less enlightened among us to begin to question the soundness of your otherwise unimpeachably razor sharp mind.
"


Thank you.

[no evidence no belief]

Here's the circularity of atheism.

In order to apply one's logic to assertions about all of reality, one has to first assume that one's logic is binding upon that reality.

You know, if my logic is only binding inside my house, then my logic calculations would be irrelevant to your house and beyond.

So to make atheist assertions you first have to assume that there is nothing supernatural, nothing that is above logic, unbound by logic.

In simple words, when we boil away all the blah, blah, blah, the atheist logic calculation is...

There is no God, therefore there is no God.

This is called faith by the way....

The atheist claim is, there is no evidence for the supernatural, nothing else.

It then poses an epistemological question, what kind of conclusions are we allowed to draw from the above claim? There are different epistemological approaches.

William Lane Craig, for example, would claim that God claim has to be accepted if there are better argument for God than there are against God. That seems like a very odd approach to me. I have never heard of anyone applying it anywhere else.

In my experience, the usual approach in academia is the so called null hypothesis, which means that claims may be accepted only if they are backed up by sufficient evidence/reasoning. According to this epistemological approach the atheist is justified in rejecting the God claim merely on grounds of insufficient evidence.

There is quite a few alarm bells going off when I read this.

Atheists made no claims. Being an atheist is merely about the lack of belief in a god / gods.
Am not sure where you get this supernatural claim from.
If atheists really had this claim, then they would have a burden to live up to. And this thread would not exist, surely.
What is his about there is no evidence? No evidence for what? Nobody even knows what the supernatural is, so how on earth can an atheist say there is no evidence for it? I never said this. Who are you to speak on my behalf? Since when do you believe that you know my beliefs?

Craig calls himself a philosopher but he fails as he uses probabilities in his premises to argue his arguments are probably true in order to shift the burden to the atheist. That just shows that he has no understanding of philosophy. He recons that for evolution to occur is so small it must be a miracle. This man rejects science, philosophy and probability theory, not to mention theology. This is pitiful.

Your experience of the null hypothesis?
What experience do you have with this? Are you a scientist, a statistician?
The null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis applies to statistical inference of observed data of scientific experiments. This is not an epistemological approach; it is not philosophy. Not everything is philosophy, actually not one thing is. You will say everything is philosophy. But the problem you face is that philosophy can not prove anything. So if we apply your faulty null hypothesis to this, then you have to accept my opinion that nothing is philosophy.
What you are looking for is the burden of proof. You make a claim, then you need to back it up with logic, arguments and evidence. If you can not then your claim is rejected. Simple. Nothing to it, no need for statistical null hypothesis that you clearly have no experience in.

Dear Doctor instantc,
I have previously asked you to sincerely consider educating yourself in science to prevent these and similar other misrepresentation of science by yourself from occurring. The suggestion included to start with the basics, and also to consider staying away from it if it is too hard for you (and in no way do I wish to allege that you are anything short of a genius).

As NENB wrote - suggest take this advice:
"I would kindly suggest that you direct your acute intellect and expansive knowledge of all subject matter to a more productive endeavor. Perhaps one that would not incite the less enlightened among us to begin to question the soundness of your otherwise unimpeachably razor sharp mind.
"


Thank you.

Hi John,
Thanks for pointing this out. You are absolutely right.

The atheist position is NOT "there is no evidence for the supernatural". It is "No convincing evidence of the supernatural has been presented to me yet, therefore I don't believe in the supernatural yet".

[instantc]

The atheist position is NOT "there is no evidence for the supernatural". It is "No convincing evidence of the supernatural has been presented to me yet, therefore I don't believe in the supernatural yet".

I think this is a fair correction. Yes, to suggest that there exists no evidence for the supernatural is technically the same as suggesting that there is no supernatural. Therefore the rightful wording of the claim is that the theist side has not yet met their burden of proof.

Well done, you are right. The rest of the guys post was absolute garbage though. My main point still stands. After the above claim is made, different epistemological approaches lead to different conclusions.

[Jax Agnesson]

to suggest that there exists no evidence for the supernatural is technically the same as suggesting that there is no supernatural. .

So is suggesting that there exists as yet no evidence to support string theory technically the same as suggesting that string theory is wrong?

[keithprosser3]

The atheist position is NOT "there is no evidence for the supernatural". It is "No convincing evidence of the supernatural has been presented to me yet, therefore I don't believe in the supernatural yet".

Hmph. This atheist's position is that I know there never will be any evidence for the supernatural. I know that because I possess mystical psychic powers and can see the future. At least about that I can.

[Goat]

The atheist position is NOT "there is no evidence for the supernatural". It is "No convincing evidence of the supernatural has been presented to me yet, therefore I don't believe in the supernatural yet".

Hmph. This atheist's position is that I know there never will be any evidence for the supernatural. I know that because I possess mystical psychic powers and can see the future. At least about that I can.

And this atheists potions is 'The concept of supernatural is defunct, there is only the natural, although it might be too narrowly defined'.

[instantc]

to suggest that there exists no evidence for the supernatural is technically the same as suggesting that there is no supernatural. .

So is suggesting that there exists as yet no evidence to support string theory technically the same as suggesting that string theory is wrong?

No, to suggest that we don't have evidence at this point is also correct. These guys were just picking on a technicality. Minor issue.

[keithprosser3]

A significant difference is that getting evidence for string theory is technically difficult for reasons that are well understood - for example the scales require vast energies that present technology can't provide.

Evidence for the supernatural is surely gettable, but has never been, er, got even when people have tried. If people had tried and failed to get evidence for string theory things would be very different in the world of physics.

No one is saying the lack of evidence is actually in favour of string theory being true, but sometimes that is close to what is said about the supernatural.