Poll: Whaddya reckon about God's existence?

[Seth]

And so we return to the point we always reach: the inane wankery of your dogged claims that there is "plenty of evidence" for the existence of god coupled with your equally dogged refusal to state the precise nature of that evidence.

Oh, Seth stated the precise nature of that evidence quite some time ago:

No, an assertion doesn't "become evidence" it IS evidence, if it's an assertion of an observation of an actual event. You disbelieve that certain claims of actual events are factual, but you cannot provide any countervailing evidence to prove that Jesus did not exist or that he did not perform the acts which the observers recording the acts claim. You know full well that written accounts of observations of events are without any question held to be evidence of those events. Whether they are true accounts is another matter, but they are absolutely evidence that the events written of occurred.

Linkie

Explains a lot, don't you think? About him, I mean.

Well done! You must have spent a lot of time researching past threads just to come up with that gem. Pity you can't counter it with anything other than ad hom. Not surprising really though, that's all I ever get from you and your ilk, because despite thinking you have all the answers, in point of fact you don't, and you don't even care to look for them anywhere outside of your narrow Atheist preconceptions and dogmatic beliefs.

[PsychoSerenity]

- All this wibble about -

[Seth]

An assertion is not evidence until a,nd unless the observation can be independently verified.
I can assert that I am a genius therefore, god, but that's not evidence of either my intelligence or the involvement of the deity in my being so, even though I've had plenty obnservation of my own mental prowess.

Wrong. An assertion is always evidence: "I saw Svartalf shoot his wife in the head" is absolutely evidence that can be used in court to help build a case for putting you to death. Whether it is true or not is another matter entirely.

Whether evidence is probative (meaning "Having the effect of proof, tending to prove, or actually proving.") or not is a question for the jury to decide, or in the case of scientific evidence, for science to examine and either prove or disprove.

"I know God exists because he spoke to me from a burning bush that was not consumed" is an assertion that constitutes evidence of the existence of God.

Whether that evidence is probative depends on many things, including the truthfulness of the speaker.

For science to analyze this evidence to determine truth or falsity however requires more than mere skepticism and dismissal, which is all that deistic claims ever get from Atheists, primarily because Atheists know full well that they cannot scientifically or rationally support their own notions about God, so they always, and I mean always, turn the question back on the speaker, demanding proofs to a scientific certainty when it is not the burden of the speaker to provide such proofs, it is the burden of the individual asserting that the claim is false to prove that it is false.

But Atheists know full well they cannot prove that God does not exist, so they always evade that inescapable conclusion with all sorts of diversions and phony pseudo intellectual hand waving and false protestations of "having no belief."

Absolutely typical of those who haven't the intellectual balls to simply admit that whether God exists or not is an unanswered question and that the only rational answer is "I don't know."

[Hermit]

You must have spent a lot of time researching past threads just to come up with that gem.

Actually, no. A few years ago I decided to start a collection of gems of absurdities from posts in this forum. I did title the file "Gems of Absurdity" so you got the "gem" part right. I copypasted the relevant bits in it, complete with address. I kind of abandoned the project after a while. Too many gems to choose from. Also, almost all of them were posted by you. I added "by Seth" to the title.

As for countering that anything written down is without any question held to be evidence, most appropriately done with laughter.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

And so we return to the point we always reach: the inane wankery of your dogged claims that there is "plenty of evidence" for the existence of god coupled with your equally dogged refusal to state the precise nature of that evidence.

I've stated it many times, you just refuse to accept it as evidence because, as I said, it doesn't meet your personal metric for reliability. But that's a personal problem, not an indictment of the evidence.

Your machine never delivers anything worthwhile. Sometimes it is interesting simply to hear the sound of the buttons clanking for a while but I've had enough of that now. Present your evidence, else fuck off.

The miracle of Fatima.

Prove it didn't happen as described by hundreds of witnesses or prove how it was a mass delusion or something else to your own standard of scientific acceptance. No speculating allowed, only hard science with falsifiable results.

Otherwise, fuck off.

When you refer to the miracle of Fatima, I presume you are referring to the so-called "Miracle of the sun"? Thousands of people claim that the sun changed colour and danced and span. Sounds convincing, doesn't it?

Except that many of those present at the event, including some that termed themselves believers, saw nothing of the kind. Also, although it was reported at the time that the event was visible 40 miles away, no reports of such phenomena apart from those made by attendees has ever come to light - so it looks like that bit was definitely made up. Thirdly, all of the people present were asked to look at the sun. I don't know if you have ever been stupid enough to do this for more than a passing glance without protection, but it leads to exactly the kind of visual effects described (along with short-term blindness and possible long-term eye damage if continued long enough)! Add to this the mass confirmation bias of a group of believers that have been told they are about to witness a miracle and it's hardly surprising there are so many reports of solar weirdness.

So we are left with a claim of a 'miracle' that has no independent witnesses and at least one reasonable alternate explanation to that of "goddidit". Effectively, you have replaced an unprovable "god exists" with an unprovable "fatima happened".

Using "my own standards of scientific acceptance", an extraordinary claim has been made but no extraordinary evidence has been presented. It fails. It may be true but the witness statements of a bunch of half-blind catholics doers not constitute proof, only their collective speculation (which you said was not allowed.)


Interesting that you choose as "proof" something that specifically supports the catholic version of the christian mythology. You could easily have found examples of similar miracles "confirming" the existence of gods of many other faiths and sects. Some of these have as many, or more, witnesses than your example. Does this make islam, buddhism, hinduism, mormonism, rastafarianism and sikhism equally true?

[pErvinalia]

You're not challenging anyone's assumptions. You're challenging your own assumption on what you think others are assuming, as you've demonstrated yet again in the post right above.

Quit trying to squirm out of your preconceptions and bigotry. You know perfectly well that you, and everybody else here, positively believes that God does not exist

I know perfectly well that you are an ....

All this wibble about "having no belief" is just Atheis evasionist crap and you know it. That's why you are so desperately trying to derail the debate with irrelevancies and ad hom.

Are we all religious about floating tea pots and spaghetti monsters? What about unicorns? What about every fantastical creature simple people have dreamed up since we could think and communicate? Seriously, your trolling is lame. Up your game.

[pErvinalia]

And so we return to the point we always reach: the inane wankery of your dogged claims that there is "plenty of evidence" for the existence of god coupled with your equally dogged refusal to state the precise nature of that evidence.

I've stated it many times, you just refuse to accept it as evidence because, as I said, it doesn't meet your personal metric for reliability. But that's a personal problem, not an indictment of the evidence.

I and many people have evidence for idiot libertarians on rationalist forums. Your inability to accept this evidence is an indictment of your personal problem. Therefore God.

The miracle of Fatima.

Prove it didn't happen as described by hundreds of witnesses or prove how it was a mass delusion or something else to your own standard of scientific acceptance. No speculating allowed, only hard science with falsifiable results.

Otherwise, fuck off.

Well given it wasn't a scientifically designed experiment in the first place it would be impossible to analyse the results scientifically in either the affirmative or negative. You shouldn't talk about things you don't understand, Seth. Leave science to the clever people, and stick to religion with the other simple folk.

[pErvinalia]

And so we return to the point we always reach: the inane wankery of your dogged claims that there is "plenty of evidence" for the existence of god coupled with your equally dogged refusal to state the precise nature of that evidence.

Oh, Seth stated the precise nature of that evidence quite some time ago:

No, an assertion doesn't "become evidence" it IS evidence, if it's an assertion of an observation of an actual event. You disbelieve that certain claims of actual events are factual, but you cannot provide any countervailing evidence to prove that Jesus did not exist or that he did not perform the acts which the observers recording the acts claim. You know full well that written accounts of observations of events are without any question held to be evidence of those events. Whether they are true accounts is another matter, but they are absolutely evidence that the events written of occurred.

Linkie

Explains a lot, don't you think? About him, I mean.

Well done! You must have spent a lot of time researching past threads just to come up with that gem. Pity you can't counter it with anything other than ad hom. Not surprising really though, that's all I ever get from you and your ilk, because despite thinking you have all the answers, in point of fact you don't, and you don't even care to look for them anywhere outside of your narrow Atheist preconceptions and dogmatic beliefs.

Yes, we are all level 8 (or however many levels there are) atheists and socialists, despite our claims and all arguments of the past showing this to be an idiotic assessment. This is why you are only deserving of ad homs. You aren't logical enough to debate at anything approaching our level. Up your game if you want to be taken seriously.

[pErvinalia]

But Atheists know full well they cannot prove that God does not exist, so they always evade that inescapable conclusion with all sorts of diversions and phony pseudo intellectual hand waving and false protestations of "having no belief."

Despite us all regularly agreeing that it's impossible to prove God does not exist. Conspiracy theorists like you can be dismissed as the cranks they are.

Absolutely typical of those who haven't the intellectual balls to simply admit that whether God exists or not is an unanswered question and that the only rational answer is "I don't know."

When you learn to read to adult standard, get back to us. Till then, continue your ineffectual trolling.

[Hermit]

It's not my fault you all keep on citing the Atheist's Fallacy time after time after time.

Four out of 18 votes (so far) is "you all"? Really, Seth, there's no need for you to intentionally firm up the already well founded opinions I have about most of your assertions, theories and discussion techniques.

You're not challenging anyone's assumptions. You're challenging your own assumption on what you think others are assuming, as you've demonstrated yet again in the post right above.

Quit trying to squirm out of your preconceptions and bigotry. You know perfectly well that you, and everybody else here, positively believes that God does not exist

Once again you ignore plain matters of fact. Have another look at the poll. Taking the worst possible point of view you can say that 4 out of 16 atheists positively know that there is no God, and that assumes that none of the 7 voters who chose the bacon and cheese option are atheists. The rest of us simply lacks a belief in it until some convincing evidence for its existence turns up. So much for "all".

[MiM]

Well, yes, actually there is a complete lack of evidence for abiogenesis.

Wrong. An assertion is always evidence

Interesting how the interpretations swing

As with most discussion fallacies, "Ad hominem" is not always wrong.

[pErvinalia]

It's not my fault you all keep on citing the Atheist's Fallacy time after time after time.

Four out of 18 votes (so far) is "you all"? Really, Seth, there's no need for you to intentionally firm up the already well founded opinions I have about most of your assertions, theories and discussion techniques.

You're not challenging anyone's assumptions. You're challenging your own assumption on what you think others are assuming, as you've demonstrated yet again in the post right above.

Quit trying to squirm out of your preconceptions and bigotry. You know perfectly well that you, and everybody else here, positively believes that God does not exist

Once again you ignore plain matters of fact. Have another look at the poll. Taking the worst possible point of view you can say that 4 out of 16 atheists positively know that there is no God, and that assumes that none of the 7 voters who chose the bacon and cheese option are atheists. The rest of us simply lacks a belief in it until some convincing evidence for its existence turns up. So much for "all".

But you socialists are all lying to yourselves. Seth knows The Truth (tm)

[pErvinalia]

Well, yes, actually there is a complete lack of evidence for abiogenesis.

Wrong. An assertion is always evidence

Interesting how the interpretations swing

As with most discussion fallacies, "Ad hominem" is not always wrong.

Yep.

[Seth]

You must have spent a lot of time researching past threads just to come up with that gem.

Actually, no. A few years ago I decided to start a collection of gems of absurdities from posts in this forum. I did title the file "Gems of Absurdity" so you got the "gem" part right. I copypasted the relevant bits in it, complete with address. I kind of abandoned the project after a while. Too many gems to choose from. Also, almost all of them were posted by you. I added "by Seth" to the title.

As for countering that anything written down is without any question held to be evidence, most appropriately done with laughter.

Kewl! My work is so compelling that you have a quote archive. Outstanding! Not many Interwebz pundits can say that. Nobody gives a fuck what you have to say, so nobody keeps an archive. How sad.

Still can't understand the distinction between "evidence" and "probative evidence" can you? It's evidence until you provide the appropriate level of "scientific" analysis and reproducible results that show that it's not probative.

Get on that, will you?

[Animavore]

You're not challenging anyone's assumptions. You're challenging your own assumption on what you think others are assuming, as you've demonstrated yet again in the post right above.

Quit trying to squirm out of your preconceptions and bigotry. You know perfectly well that you, and everybody else here, positively believes that God does not exist, loathes and despises theists, and denies being religious about deriding, demeaning and disrespecting religion, theists, God, Jesus and anybody else that doesn't toe the Atheist party line.

All this wibble about "having no belief" is just Atheis evasionist crap and you know it. That's why you are so desperately trying to derail the debate with irrelevancies and ad hom.

Lol. I don't loathe and despise theists. Most of my family and friends are theists. The irony of your last paragraph is astounding.