Belief in existence of God scientific. Denial - unscientific

[theStudent]

The length of the thread, in the link below, is largely due to repeated questions.on the contained information. The following is open for debate.
Belief in the existence of God is scientific. Denial - unscientific.

For those who disagree with the above, please state why, and/or provide evidence for the following:

• God does not exist.
• God exists only in the mind of the believer.
• Miracles do not happen.
• The Bible is a book of myths.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 7 by theStudent]

Hi Tired of the Nonsense,

Did you read the post in the link?

If you did... then...

For those who disagree with the above, please state why, and/or provide evidence for the following:
God does not exist.
God exists only in the mind of the believer.
Miracles do not happen.
The Bible is a book of myths.

Merely quoting the OP does not advance the debate. Are you telling us that someone who REPLIES to your OP hasn't READ it?

We are here for serious, respectful, reasoned debate, not fun jibes at one another.

TON made a criticism of the questions themselves by way of example. It would be interesting to know what you think of his questions... can you prove the non-existence of Hercules ? If you can't... maybe it will give you an idea as to why we cant disprove YOUR pet theories, either.

The reason is that you make an impossible request.
We can't do the impossible, and neither can you.

[theStudent]

[Replying to post 9 by H.sapiens]

All I tend to get from particular individuals, are insults and negative comments.
If there's nothing to contribute to the debate, then there is no obligation.

I left the option: and or.
If you disagree and you want to say why, say why you disagree.
If you want to provide evidence to the four statements, do so.
If neither... no obligations required - I didn't give any.

That's the one thing I can say about Bust Nak.
He gives his honest answer.
If he doesn't understand, he asks.
If he doesn't agree, he tell you.
If he has nothing to say, he keeps quiet.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 10 by theStudent]

That's pretty insulting Blastcat.
I would have thought that your being here longer than I have, you would have left that for me - the less experienced.

All that to say you don't want to take part in the debate?
Or is there something you are trying to understand from the post?

Please refrain from making personal statements in the thread as it derails from the topic. If you wish to complain to me about some perceived slight, do so in a private message, and I will be glad to respond to your concerns.

[theStudent]

[Replying to post 6 by Kenisaw]

You can't prove something does not exist. That is false logic. You can only prove something does exist. If you cannot prove something does exist, the only rational conclusion to reach is that it does not.

Let's test that against the Laws of logic.

The police claim John Killed Joe.
The police can't prove John Killed Joe.
Therefore, John killed Joe.
FAILED

Group A claim God exists, and miracles take place.
Group B claim they can't prove it.
Therefore, Group A's claims are false - God does not exist, nor do miracles happen.
FAILED

The Law of thought isn't working here.
Therefore, this is not logical, but irrational thinking.

I don't claim that gods, or miracles, or any other supernatural claim, do not exist. I state that there is no known empirical evidence or data that show these claims to be true. Without the data, there is no reason to consider them plausible or realistic.

I have asked you, specifically, to provide even one single scrap of empirical evidence for these things. You haven't. You've posted a few quote mines and some youtube videos showing people's unfounded claims, but you still haven't given us any actual data. No cultist ever has, and the reason why is perfectly obvious - there isn't any. If there were it would have been on every news station and billboard in the country.

I don't agree with you Kenisaw.
I showed that there is evidence.
And just because a person does not understand something, that doesn't disprove it.

Are you sure you viewed the right post, because I don't recall it containing videos.
It does contain this quote however,

some things are not scientifically explainable.

And isn't that the truth. So how are they able to deduce what is indeed a miracle from a supernatural, or even what is supernatural?

Thank you.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 12 by theStudent]

All I tend to get from particular individuals, are insults and negative comments.

Insults are not allowed in the forums.. if that happens, report them. But you have to expect negative comments in debates. Not everyone is going to agree with you.

For example, your questions don't make sense. So we have criticized them.

If there's nothing to contribute to the debate, then there is no obligation.

Agreed.
Nobody is forced to take part in debates.

I left the option: and or.
If you disagree and you want to say why, say why you disagree.

I think that most people have.

If you want to provide evidence to the four statements, do so.

It's impossible, so we can't. The best that anyone can do is try to explain why the questions don't make sense. TON gave us a very good example. Just change the word "God" to "Hercules" in your questions, and you might get an idea.

But if you really need for us to spell it all out.. it might take a while. Especially when we take into consideration that you suffer from confirmation bias. That's a HUGE problem right there. I don't feel too enthusiastic about teaching a reluctant STUDENT.

If neither... no obligations required - I didn't give any.

I don't think that anyone feels forced to take part in these debates.

That's the one thing I can say about Bust Nak.
He gives his honest answer.
If he doesn't understand, he asks.
If he doesn't agree, he tell you.
If he has nothing to say, he keeps quiet.

It would be best to refrain from personal comments and restrict ourselves to the issue at hand. Even if it's a glowing review.

Personal comments do NOTHING to advance the debate.

[ttruscott]

This is naught but a futile effort to massively try to shift the burden of proof by ignoring the fact that it is impossible, prima facia, to prove a negative. What a waste of time and effort.

You can't prove something does not exist. That is false logic. You can only prove something does exist. If you cannot prove something does exist, the only rational conclusion to reach is that it does not.

The OP asked for evidence, not proof.

For those who disagree with the above, please state why, and/or provide evidence for the following:

This continuous conflation of evidence with proof causes the worst disruptions of this forum.

They are NOT the same thing and lack of evidence for a thing is not proof of the lack of existence of that thing as the black swan fallacy reminds us.

[Neatras]

[Replying to post 16 by ttruscott]

We both know that theStudent's track record has always shifted from 'evidence' back to asking "Does this prove evolution?" It's a staple of his debate tactics to manipulate the discussion in ways that make it difficult to address his arguments.

[ttruscott]

[Replying to post 16 by ttruscott]

We both know that theStudent's track record has always shifted from 'evidence' back to asking "Does this prove evolution?" It's a staple of his debate tactics to manipulate the discussion in ways that make it difficult to address his arguments.

I do not engage in the debates about evolution - if he equates them, he is wrong.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to post 2 by Tired of the Nonsense]

Hi Tired of the Nonsense,

Did you read the post in the link?

If you did... then...

For those who disagree with the above, please state why, and/or provide evidence for the following:
God does not exist.
God exists only in the mind of the believer.
Miracles do not happen.
The Bible is a book of myths.

It's relatively easy to prove that a physical thing physically exists, simply by provided the "thing" in question. It's a good deal more difficult to prove that a thing does not exist however, since it is not possible to provide a non extant "thing." The best that can be done is to provide reasons why the apparently non extant probably does not exist.

You are asking for physical proof that a thing with all of the qualities of being non extant does not exist. I am simply suggesting that you first provide us with an example of how one goes about providing physical proof that a non extant thing does not exist! Because none of us has any idea of how to do that. The best we can do is provide reasons why a non extant thing probably does not exist.

Well of course there is this one physical proof. All experimentation and observation have resulted in the recognition of a law of physics known as the law of conservation of energy. It simply states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but only changed in form. Since Einstein established that E=MC^2, which establishes that mass is simply one of the forms that energy takes, it becomes physically apparent that no creator created mass/energy. Because mass/energy cannot be created, according to all observation. That is about as definite as physical evidence of the non existence of something is likely to get. Physical evidence has no effect on, and does not limit the imagination however. Which is perfectly capable of conjuring up matter/energy creators with a single thought.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 16 by ttruscott]

This is naught but a futile effort to massively try to shift the burden of proof by ignoring the fact that it is impossible, prima facia, to prove a negative. What a waste of time and effort.

You can't prove something does not exist. That is false logic. You can only prove something does exist. If you cannot prove something does exist, the only rational conclusion to reach is that it does not.[/quote]

The OP asked for evidence, not proof.

For those who disagree with the above, please state why, and/or provide evidence for the following:

This continuous conflation of evidence with proof causes the worst disruptions of this forum.

They are NOT the same thing and lack of evidence for a thing is not proof of the lack of existence of that thing as the black swan fallacy reminds us.

Proof is just another word for "very good evidence" that establishes the truth of a proposition.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defin ... lish/proof

We shouldn't make SUCH a big deal about these semantic trivialities. Inconclusive evidence isn't worth a plug nickle. We have been asked to provide some THING that we can point TO that would demonstrate that the proposition "GOD EXISTS" is FALSE.

And that is a request that is impossible to fulfill, because of the nature of the question itself. We don't have any evidence that any god DOES exist. And that's a good reason to not believe in any gods.

The "God" proposition is EXTREMELY vaguely defined and it is PRESUMABLY undetectable. So what the HECK kind of evidence are people asking for, exactly? We are supposed to detect the non-existence of what they describe as undetectable?... nah.. that's not a serious request at all.

That doesn't stop apologists from attempting to shift the burden of the proof for what they believe is true. It's a lot less work to just sit back idly watching others try to prove you wrong, instead. It's extremely bad logic, but it's done all the time in apologetic circles. Could it ever PROVE that a god exists?

Never. It's a pathetically FUTILE attempt at avoiding the fact that there isn't any evidence FOR the proposition.