Poll: Whaddya reckon about God's existence?

[Animavore]

Yeah, you're right. I should take my own advice

Disengaging.

Yes, that's an excellent illustration of what the intellectually deficient do when they run out of excuses and evasions trying to defend their indefensible, irrational and illogical arguments. I really like it.

Lol. The irony of the last paragraph of your the previous post here is astounding.

[Animavore]

When did I ever say abiogenesis proves that God doesn't exist. Point it out. Go on. Find the exact sentence where I said this.

I'll wait.

I never said you did, but the theme of the thread is "Whaddya reckon about God's existence?"

Do try to keep up.

It doesn't matter what the title of the thread is. You went on full on attack on a position I don't even hold believing that I do. The irony of the last paragraph of your previous post here is astounding.

[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.

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.

"Spun", among other things.

Sounds convincing, doesn't it?

Doesn't have to sound convincing, it was a widely observed phenomenon reported by hundreds of witnesses.

Except that many of those present at the event, including some that termed themselves believers, saw nothing of the kind.

Which proves what, exactly? That they were excluded from witnessing the miracle? Or that the miracle didn't happen? Where's your evidence supporting either of those theories?

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.

Er, if it was reported at the time, then it must have been reported by people 40 miles away don't you think? In any event, the report was made and it exists as evidence. Further, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Now it's up to you to prove that it didn't happen. Get to it.

Thirdly, all of the people present were asked to look at the sun.

Were they? Where's your scientifically robust evidence proving this assertion? Can you prove that every one of the tens of thousands of people there was told to "look at the sun" and did so?

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.

Pure unsupported speculation based on observer bias. Could this sort of thing happen spontaneously merely because one looked at the sun for an extended period? Sure. Scientific research has shown that this can and does happen. Is that what actually happened? I don't know. But it's up to you to prove that your theory of the observed evidence and its cause is what actually happened, since you are the one making the claim that it was other than a miracle. Speculation doesn't cut it I'm afraid, and that's all you have in your quiver!. Nor does the aforementioned stupid rationalization of "God was not necessary, therefore it was not a miracle" cut it.

Proof please. Critically robust hard scientific evidence of what happened THAT DAY to THOSE PEOPLE, not what you speculate or hypothesize might have happened or could have happened. Either prove what actually DID happen or fuck off.

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".

There's no real question that something happened at Fatima, the question is what happened, and what caused the observations that were reported, or to put it another way, what produced the evidence that some phenomenon occurred? Unless you are claiming that nothing happened at all, that the alleged witnesses, all 30,000 or so of them, were not at Fatima on that day and all of the reports are simply amazingly widespread and consistent lies. Are you?

Using "my own standards of scientific acceptance", an extraordinary claim has been made but no extraordinary evidence has been presented.

What has not been presented is one single iota of evidence, other than your skepticism, that the events at Fatima did not occur or that they did not occur as described by the witnesses. All pseudo-intellectuals do exactly the same thing when faced with the possibility of a genuine "Goddidit" event that you personally don't find credible or believable: You hand-wave it away using the "extraordinary evidence" canard and studiously evade the implications of your unreason and illogic because if it turns out that Fatima was actually a "miracle" produced by some intelligent entity, God or otherwise, your entire philosophical and intellectual house of cards collapses around your head and you are left bereft of any philosophical or religious anchor to which you can cling in your desperate attempt to deny reality and impose your sense of order on the universe.

It fails.

No, your reasoning has failed. Don't be ashamed, you have a lot of company in that respect.

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.)

I said you are not allowed to speculate or hypothesize as an answer to the question "Was Fatima a miracle performed by God?" I didn't say others couldn't speculate because only you are challenging the veracity or accuracy of their observations, which places the burden of proof upon you to prove your allegations.

Now, once again, you resort again to ad hominem in place of rational discussion because you know, deep down inside, that you have lost the debate and cannot support or defend your position. Just FYI, many of the observers were NOT "half-blind catholics" (sic), and a goodly number of non-Catholic journalists, police officers and other officials witnessed the same thing reported by others.

Interesting that you choose as "proof" something that specifically supports the catholic version of the christian mythology.

I chose it because it's the perfect counter to your silly argument. You said that no evidence of God exists and I proved you wrong, and rather than admit that you simply don't know the truth, you insult the people who actually experienced the event without one iota of credible, critically robust scientific evidence that they didn't see what they said they saw and that it was not a miracle from God.

You could easily have found examples of similar miracles "confirming" the existence of gods of many other faiths and sects.

I'm sure I could.

Some of these have as many, or more, witnesses than your example. Does this make islam, buddhism, hinduism, mormonism, rastafarianism and sikhism equally true?

I don't know. See how easy that was? Try it sometime. It doesn't hurt a bit.

I won't disrespect someone's observations or experiences merely to satisfy some atavistic desire to advance my personal political or religious agenda over theirs. As long as they are doing no harm to others, what they see, or say they saw, and what they believe neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg, and so I'm satisfied to tolerate their expressions of religious faith without finding reason to insult and deride them.

Why do you find it necessary to insult and deride them? What is it about the miracle at Fatima that does you such great harm that you have to call people nasty names and impugn their experience? I suspect it's just arrogance, hubris and a lack of humanity that leads you to be so disrespectful of the peaceable religious expressions of others. I believe that is called "radical religious intolerance," something that Atheists profess to despise in others.

But I guess it's okay for you to do it.

Here endeth the lesson.

Now fuck off.

[rachelbean]

What Ani said.

[Seth]

When did I ever say abiogenesis proves that God doesn't exist. Point it out. Go on. Find the exact sentence where I said this.

I'll wait.

I never said you did, but the theme of the thread is "Whaddya reckon about God's existence?"

Do try to keep up.

It doesn't matter what the title of the thread is.

Funny how when I say that I'm accused of derailing the thread....

You went on full on attack on a position I don't even hold believing that I do.

I base my arguments on what I observe here, and it's my estimation that the position you say you hold is not actually the position you hold, and that you are furiously backpedaling so as to weasel out of the consequences of being religiously intolerant of religion and theists. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think not because I've been at this a long, long time and in my experience anyone who says they hold "no belief" with respect to the existence of God is flatly lying through their teeth.

The irony of the last paragraph of your previous post here is astounding.

You have no idea how ironic it actually is.

[Animavore]

When did I ever say abiogenesis proves that God doesn't exist. Point it out. Go on. Find the exact sentence where I said this.

I'll wait.

I never said you did, but the theme of the thread is "Whaddya reckon about God's existence?"

Do try to keep up.

It doesn't matter what the title of the thread is.

Funny how when I say that I'm accused of derailing the thread....

You went on full on attack on a position I don't even hold believing that I do.

I base my arguments on what I observe here, and it's my estimation that the position you say you hold is not actually the position you hold, and that you are furiously backpedaling so as to weasel out of the consequences of being religiously intolerant of religion and theists. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think not because I've been at this a long, long time and in my experience anyone who says they hold "no belief" with respect to the existence of God is flatly lying through their teeth.

The irony of the last paragraph of your previous post here is astounding.

You have no idea how ironic it actually is.

Oh. I really do.

[Seth]

You have no idea how ironic it actually is.

Oh. I really do.

Oh, you really don't.

[Animavore]

You have no idea how ironic it actually is.

Oh. I really do.

Oh, you really don't.

Yup. I do.

[Hermit]

Kewl! My work is so compelling that you have a quote archive. Outstanding! Not many Interwebz pundits can say that.

The absurd opinions people come up with are kind of fascinating, yes. My file listing them did not focus on you, but when it became apparent that your posts were hogging the limelight the collection became boredom overload. I renamed the file and stopped adding to it.

[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, 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 ironylame trolling of your last paragraph is astounding.

[pErvinalia]

When did I ever say abiogenesis proves that God doesn't exist. Point it out. Go on. Find the exact sentence where I said this.

I'll wait.

I never said you did, but the theme of the thread is "Whaddya reckon about God's existence?"

Do try to keep up.

It doesn't matter what the title of the thread is.

Funny how when I say that I'm accused of derailing the thread....

You went on full on attack on a position I don't even hold believing that I do.

I base my arguments on what I observe here, and it's my estimation that the position you say you hold is not actually the position you hold, and that you are furiously backpedaling so as to weasel out of the consequences of being religiously intolerant of religion and theists. PerhapsI'm wrong, but I think not because I've been at this a long, long time and in my experience anyone who says they hold "no belief" with respect to the existence of God is flatly lying through their teeth.

[surreptitious57]

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

I do not loathe or despise theists and in point of fact have lived amongst Muslims all my life. I do think however that religion should be subject to critical scrutiny just like any other philosophical position. But that does not translate to the individuals who practise it just it itself. Not all atheists are anti theist anyway as you seem to think and in point of fact I am proof of that because I am an apatheist - which is as far removed from an anti theist as it is possible to get while still being an atheist

[rachelbean]

He knows there are people here that aren't anti-theist he just loves trolling by lumping everyone into the same group and representing us as a big mean atheist mob.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

tl;dr.

No. You fuck off.

[Pappa]

Seth, while whitness testimony is regarded as evidence in a court of law (to be weighed up for validity), it's not usually regarded as evidence in science. The sceinces that do use such self-reporting are usually regarded as "soft sciences" too.