Quote:
OnTheRazorsEdge wrote
First off, let me start by saying thank you to you and the others here for taking time to read my posts and to respond to my questions. Before starting this thread, I read through some other posts and I noted the discussions in those threads generally became, ah, heated. So I must admit, I half expected to get flamed immediately here for asking questions..
|
Nah, we only do that if we feel like you're being disingenuous. Or if we're hungry. Or Drunk.
Or if it's Tuesday.
Quote:
And I hope you had a good shift at work.
|
It was alright. Too much time out in the sun filming cricket (stupid buggers couldn't get a wicket to save their lives), and there was a tip fire that was...interesting. Otherwise relatively quiet.
Quote:
I don't think I agree with some of your statements here.
|
Oh dear. I think we're going to have a problem.
Nah, that's fine. noone said you had to.
Quote:
So you're saying I don't have a choice in whether or not I believe in unicorns?
|
Well, I actually said you don't have a choice in whether or not you
disbelieve in things. You can further infer from that a statement about choices in belief of any number of absurd things if you like.
Put bluntly - and more generally for you - Yes, that is basically the gist of it.
Quote:
And I don't have a choice in whether or not to believe in gravity? I mean, a person would be foolish to believe in unicorns and not in gravity, but he/she could have those beliefs, right?
|
It's possible, sure. That would be weird, though. Maybe they think unicorns are responsible for pushing everything down? I don't know.
Quote:
In your example above, it seems that you are saying that my belief in gravity one way or the other will alter the result. So if I don't believe in gravity and I walk off the table, I should hang in mid-air and if I do believe in gravity then I should fall.
|
Apologies if my example mixed you up - No, that is not what I was saying. Actually, my point was rather the opposite.
My point was that if you believe in gravity - which you seem to, thankfully - then you cannot step off the edge of a table and
expect to end up standing in mid air. You know what is going to happen, and you expect it, regardless of what you tell yourself.
That is to say that no matter what you tell yourself, you cannot choose to not believe in gravity. The whole point was to demonstrate that people do no choose their beliefs.
Secondly, even if you
didn't belive in gravity and stepped off the table, you'd still fall, as reality does not reflect our beliefs, no matter how tightly we cling to them. For that reason, we should do our absolute best to ensure our beliefs reflect reality.
Quote:
But my belief won't change that outcome at all.
|
That is correct.
Quote:
Let's consider the two of us for a minute. I believe in a god and you do not. One of our beliefs is accurate.
|
Not necessarily, the way you phrased it. What if the Hindu's are correct and there are
multiple gods? Then we're both wrong.
That's one of the biggest problems I've noticed with theists - they fail to see the possibilities, so they end up believing the universe must fit into this or that view. If it doesn't fit into one, it MUST be the other.
Quote:
But our beliefs themselves don't have any impact on what actually is. If you don't believe in a god and it turns out that is the correct view, your lack of belief didn't make it so.
|
Yep.
Quote:
Apologies if I misconstrued the meaning of your example above. I'm not looking for reasons to decide to become an atheist. Rather, I just wanted to hear from you and others why atheism "works" for you. Like Simoon said in his earlier reply, he's heard a lot of arguments and none of them present a strong enough case.
|
I think you'll find most atheists are that way, honestly. At least the ones interested in engaging in debate.
Quote:
I guess I've never thought of Santa as a "spiritual" being (magical, maybe).
|
Yeah, it's probably for the best that you don't, honestly.
Quote:
But I see the point you are making with your analogy of the firmament. But I submit the idea of the "shifting goalposts" could be used against the atheist.
|
Only if the atheist makes a claim and then refuses to acknowledge evidence against it.
Quote:
Someone in this thread, quite possibly Simoon again, said that the case for a god hasn't met the burden of proof. But couldn't we say the same of the atheist argument?
|
The atheist argument
is that god hasn't met the burdon of proof. You're essentially asking us to prove that you haven't proven anything. It's nothing more than shifting the burdon of proof away from your argument.
It's on you to prove the existence of the thing you're claiming, not on us to disprove it.
Quote:
I mean, if an atheist is going to deny the existence of a god, then he/she would have to have knowledge of every place in the universe to affirm that no god exists in any of those places.
|
Absolutely not. Nope. No.
This is nothing more than a shifting of the burdon of proof disguised as an argument from ignorance both of which are wrong.
Once again, it's not on use to prove that a god doesn't exist. It's not on us to show that it isn't there. It's on the person claiming it
is there to show that. And if they don't, then there is no reason to believe that it is.
And like I said in my last post, which I think you said you agreed with - not knowing something does not equal god. So if we don't have knowledge of all things everywhere, that does not mean you get to slip your god in there by default.
Your post shows a cognitive dissonance. One the one hand you say -
Quote:
And I agree; just because we don't know the answers doesn't mean that a god IS the answer.
|
but then you say
Quote:
I mean, if an atheist is going to deny the existence of a god, then he/she would have to have knowledge of every place in the universe to affirm that no god exists in any of those places.
|
Not knowing means simply we don't know. If we haven't got knowledge of god in the things we do know, and we haven't got knowledge of god in the things we
don't know, then we haven't got knowledge of god, full stop. Therefore we have no reason to believe in god. He might be there, but until we find reason to think that, we shouldn't.
Beyond that, those bits of knowledge of the universe don't exist in a vacuum. They exist relative to everything else - including the bits we DO know, that don't have anything to point to a god, or rather even point away from one.
Here's a good comic that illustrates the point I'm making, and addresses yours.
I should note that I didn't make this, but I do like to whip it out occasionally.