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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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While it does seem fittingly consistent for you to end on yet another mendacious misrepresentation of someone else's post, that's not what I said.
Again I ask, what is your disbelief in garden fairies grounded in? Is it a philosophy? What is the foundation of your disbelief in garden fairies?
Like Lane Craig's woeful apologetics, you're attempting to put your wheezy clapped out pony behind your cart.
What objective evidence can you demonstrate for any deity?
After being admonished for asking science and philosophy based questions , I asked the obvious - Is Atheism not a Philosophy and is it not based on Empirical Science. By your post you showed that don’t believe Atheism is either of those . Nothing more to be said .
Save your sophomoric fairy’s or any other flying spaghetti detour for somebody else .
Where do the Laws of Nature come from ?
@TheFlyingPig
You seem overly verbose for someone claiming they have nothing more to say. Atheism is the lack or absence of belief in a deity, why would anyone assert a lack of belief in one thing is a philosophy? That's pretty stupid, is your lack of belief in unicorns a philosophy?
The laws of nature, as you have been told, are human constructs that attempt to help us to understand the workings of the universe.
What objective evidence can you demonstrate for any deity? This question is not going away, no matter how much evasive verbiage you post.
So the Laws of Nature are human centric and are not applicable anywhere else in the universe . An Alien civilization 10 billion light years away could have completely different Laws of Nature according to you. Brilliant x 3
Paul Davis has a different opinion on the Laws Of Nature .“ Nobody asks where they came from “. And Sheldon said “ I know , we invented them “
“It may seem bizarre, but in my opinion science offers a surer path to God than religion.”
“People take it for granted that the physical world is both ordered and intelligible. The underlying order in nature-the laws of physics-are simply accepted as given, as brute facts. Nobody asks where they came from; at least they do not do so in polite company. However, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.”
–Physicist Paul Davies, the winner of the 2001 Kelvin Medal issued by the Institute of Physics and the winner of the 2002 Faraday Prize issued by the Royal Society
Not remotely what I said, do you think such blatant dishonesty achieves anything?
Not at all, another rather clumsy lie. Or perhaps you really are too stupid to imagine perceptions of reality differing. Even perceptions that arrive broadly at explaining an objective fact.
I'll dumb it right down for you:
The laws were created by humans to explain the workings of the universe, but humans did not create what they explain.
I can provide the name of the people who created them, the dates and times, and a great deal more objective evidence if this concept really is too hard for you?
Humans created the scientific laws, not what the laws explain. Is this really too complicated for you to grasp, or is your duplicitous misrepresentation simply more bias to shoehorn in an unevidenced deity from a bronze age superstition? I think we know the answer.
That's a subjective claim, and one the global scientific community seems to have missed. This paradigm shifting event seems to have been missed by every major global news network as well, even the Catholic Herald.
Science is evidence based, atheism has nothing to do with science. If science didn't exist religion would remain naught but unevidenced superstition. You're simply repeating your argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy in a tedious ad nauseam fashion.
You already stated we don't know the origins of the workings of the universe, (beyond the big bang). How does this gap in our knowledge remotely evidence any deity?
Nice appeal to authority fallacy at the end as well, unless he has had his theological claim peer reviewed and a Nobel prize awarded for evidencing the existence of a deity. Again I can't help but notice only theists trumpeting this claim, the global scientific community, the Nobel committee, the entire global news networks, all seem to be unaware of it, whatever could this mean, ho hum.
Now, one more time....
What objective evidence can you demonstrate for any deity?
Actually the dishonesty is all yours and others who misrepresent the obvious in the question of where the Laws of Nature come from . Let’s restate the question to remove any linguistic gymnastics. Where did the physical forces that determine the past present and future and we call them “ Laws of Nature “. “ Physical Laws of Nature “ come from . How did these physical forces originate ?
Again , the sophomoric question of empirical evidence for a deity is another dishonest argument . As you should know it is logically impossible to provide what you and others demand and yet you persist . If science could Prove a deity well then it wouldn’t be a deity now would it .
Rubbish, and any objective reader is welcome to see how many times this question has been addressed honestly, substantively, and specifically by multiple posters.
The scientific laws of nature are human constructs. However No one, including you and all theists, know anything about the origins of the universe, or its functions before the big bang. You're clearly using a God of the gaps polemic to try and imply an unevidenced deity from a bronze age superstion is involved. Yet have dishonestly evaded the question, what objective evidence can you demonstrate for any deity, multiple times now.
Already answered multiple times by multiple posters, and again above. More perfidy from you. The answer, right from the start, was we don't currently know, and it still is. It is logically fallacious to make assertions from not knowing something.
You have yet to explain how this current gap in our knowledge remotely evidences a deity. Probably because you know it is a god of the gaps polemic, and is thus based on an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.
Another piece of duplicitous verbocity. You clearly don't have the integrity to simply say you cannot demonstrate any objective evidence for a deity, despite me asking you repeatedly. That speaks volumes...
Given I never asked, or even mentioned scientific evidence, your continuing perfidy is manifest. Doubly ironic though given you are the one who has been trying to cite science, quoting "scientists", and citing gaps in our scientific knowledge, to imply the existence of a deity. To be absolutely clear a deity is your unevidenced fantasy, so it is for you to demonstrate evidence for it. Not for me to specify what that evidence should be. What evidence would you accept for an invisible unicorn, undetectable in any empirical way?
So now we finally get to it, you are clearly holding an empty bag, you have no objective evidence to support your belief, and have offered naught but a tedious and bombastic repetition of a god of the gaps polemic, making unevidenced assumptions about the origins of the universe, based not on what we know, but on what we don't know. Ohhh look over there, it's god, hiding in a gap in our knowledge, as if we won't notice theists have moved it constantly as knowledge closes the previous gap.
quod erat demonstrandum
Care to list some other beliefs you hold that form no part of your religious beliefs, and for which you can't demonstrate a shred of objective evidence?
Not that it matters, as your closed minded bias was exposed long ago. At least I use the same standard for all claims and beliefs.
Can you demonstrate any objective difference between your deity and all the others? Take a stab at that, and leave the plagiarised and woeful apologetics of WLC alone.
Have you managed to consult a dictionary yet, and look up the words atheism, then philosophy?
Are you able to distinguish between an atheistic philosophy and atheism? Do you understand the difference? I'm starting to wonder whether this obtuse display is really deliberate mendacity.
@ TheFlyingPig
"I think we can leave it at that"
Are you actually going to? Or just regurgitate the same question a few weeks from now?
Do you truly understand that "atheist" is one who lacks a belief in a god or gods" Full stop, mike drop, no need to attach any more baggage.
Which is what you are doing in this thread, by attempting to inject a god into the explanation of this universe, thus attempting to answer a mystery by including an even bigger mystery.
I have a suggestion, try proving to this godless heathen a god exists, then we can discuss whether a god set down the rules on how this universe works.
@David Killens
Quality post, you nailed it there. He's offering a god of the gaps polemic, as if this is a startling new revelation in apologetics, rather than theists using this fallacious tactic throughout the history of religion.
It's in the nature of humans to marvel at the unknown, and it's in the nature of science to rigorously look for objective evidence and try to draw valid conclusions. It's in the nature of religious superstion to make bare assertions, claim they are immutable and infallible facts, then simply change tack when objective methods like science refute those claims.
I wonder what gap god will be moved to, if science reveals the origins of the universe is due to entirely natural phenomena? The same way of course that science closed all the other gaps theists tried to hide their imaginary deity in.
Sailing swine - of course you “keep it simple” ‘cause maths are a concept - a human concept - and we know you’re a
“Pig flying high” ... far from grounded.
Sailing swine ...” mathematics is reality ”
The concepts provided can be applied and/or help explain reality.
You have two things and I take one thing ... you got one (physical objects) left.
Take me and cog, two living things -
Put us together and you can get four things, for awhile, then back to two, after offspring, uh, left us.
It’s a form of communication.
HEY!!! WHY has my screen name changed to my username.?
@shyamchung
I've heard of William Lane Craig and that he is a most disingenuous Christian apologist.
Because I'm mathematically illiterate, I can't comment on the maths. However, I'll add my general understanding:
(1) Craig is trying to argue God into existence. Apologist sophists have been trying to do that for centuries. No luck so far. As far as I'm aware, any claims about god remain unfalsifiable. This atheist demands empirical evidence.
(2) I'm a bit confused about the way he used the term 'infinite'. It i my understanding that 'infinite' does not have have the same meaning in philosophy, mathematics and physics.
"Because we can't understand the infinite. It's just beyond us. But this reaction is in fact mistaken and naive."
Mistaken? Yes. Naive/stupid? Yeah, like a fox. . I think "intellectually dishonest ,bare face liar" is more accurate
As I said, can't comment on the maths. Nor do I think it's relevant in an argument about metaphysics. I'll comment instead on the logic:
Craig's argument is a classic example of argument from ignorance. IE "I lack the knowledge, imagination an wit to think of anything else, there god/aliens did it"
See the five arguments for the existence of god proposed by Thomas Aquinas. Craig has not discovered a new one.
My response to Craig and his ilk is: "You believe in God? How wonderful for you. You'd like me to share your beliefs? Of course,no problem. I will agree the instant you prove the existence of god to me. Until then, kindly fuck off and stop wasting my time"
I don't think I can say fairer than that.
(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((9 ))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
"The Quinque viæ (Latin "Five Ways") (sometimes called "five proofs") are five logical arguments regarding the existence of God summarized by the 13th-century Catholic philosopher and theologian St. Thomas Aquinas in his book Summa Theologica. They are:
the argument from "first mover";
the argument from causation;
the argument from contingency;
the argument from degree;
the argument from final cause or ends ("teleological argument")."
I recommend the full wiki article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ways_(Aquinas)
Give some examples of what you would consider to be empirical evidence for God .
Oh sailingswine... wish I was a scientist of some sort.
As a regular human being with enough knowledge to make me dangerous ;) I just benefit from the advancement of scientific knowledge.
I’ve read some papers, some peer reviewed, some commonly accepted conclusions. Have confidence in Scientific Theories (with an understanding of what that means) done some very simple experiments and used predictability.
God knows I have no idea what god could provide - after all I’m not “it”
... I just know it hasn’t... or it hasn’t been demonstrated in any sort of evidentiary way
Anything man has offered up has failed miserably in the evidence department “for god”.
But, I carry a smittchen of room ... as I don’t like to limit our ability to discover and describe “what is true”.
@TheFlyingPig
"Give some examples of what you would consider to be empirical evidence for God ."
You know, I used to spend time worrying about that. Finally realised that such a question is an attempt to shift the burden of proof..
I have no idea what evidence would convince me. Not my problem.
The christian apologists we get here usually describe a god of infinite qualities. Imo, such a god would have no trouble in knowing and providing proof I could accept.
Nothing further to say on this matter.
Cop out Boomer . This is what you wrote - “ As far as I'm aware, any claims about god remain unfalsifiable. This atheist demands empirical evidence.“. So I’m asking you what is the empirical evidence is that you are demanding . Give us an example , something that says - GOD -
. Of course since it is impossible to satisfy your demands then you are not being honest in your arguments . It doesn’t matter what evidence is presented , you have already made up your mind that no such evidence exists so why even use terms like “ empirical evidence “ .
Let's say you have 4000 different witnesses for the 4000 different religions and they each perform the exact same miracle. You don't have the ability to directly measure even the miracle itself, all you know is that it happened for each. They then claim that their version of god was responsible for the miracle. How could you tell which one or more of them had a supernatural source? The fact is you can't. You would have to assume that one or more had some metaphysical interaction in order to make the specified miracle supernatural instead of a trick. That non-measurable metaphysical something is unfalsifiable. At the moment we can't measure that and you have to want to believe it's there. On top of that, you can never remove it from your personal model unless you want to. To say that the universe is created by god is unfalsifiable. You have to assume that there is some metaphysical thing that did it. That's what makes this an epistemological argument. In order for us to "know" that god create the universe and exists, we would have to measure it directly, which we can't. This is also an example of a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Aka, the universe is this way, my model must be true. Any one of the 4000 religions can claim this. People are good at making stuff up. That is why epistemology is important. How do we know what is true and why? We don't know where matter an energy come from, but to just assume any source is wrong.
@TheFlyingPig
So you claim a deity exists, and when someone asks you to demonstrate empirical evidence for YOUR CLAIM, you ask them to tell you what that evidence is?
I think this is a new level of idiocy, like me asking you what empirical evidence you want to support the existence of invisible mermaids.
It's your claim, ipso facto the burden of proof is entirely yours. If you haven't the honesty to admit your belief is unsupported by any empirical or objective evidence, then than that speaks volumes about your bias in the beliefs favour. If you have the integrity to admit there is no empirical or objective evidence for any deity, then I'm sure you can see that asking those who've requested you demonstrate such evidence tell you what it is, is pretty stupid.
@ TheFlyingPig
How do you capture a leprechaun? If you cannot provide me the established method as defined in the "Leprechaun Catcher's Handbook" then your mind is closed.
Well off the top of my head:
A repeatable religious ritual that restores the missing limbs to amputees; would certainly get my attention! Would have me scrambling to learn anything I could about it. Begging the practitioners to tell me all about it.
Only problem is it is all backwards in my experience: the practitioners always try to press the details on you first, and they never actually get around to "restoring any limbs".
The only problem with that example is that science is already on the regrowing limbs train, that’s old news and almost certainly would be demolished as “empirical evidence “ . Anything else in the “ miracle “ vein that might get your attention ? think big .
@TheFlyingPig
I don't care what "train" science is on. If people are praying (or whatever) and limbs start reappearing; it will have my undivided attention. If you don't believe that; there isn't much I can do about it.
Awww how nice of you to acknowledge “ ...that science is already on the regrowing limbs train, that’s old news ...”
Humans kinda had to - god has had 2000 years for his followers to do it -
We got tired of waiting and the legless & armless people were complaining too much! Someone’s gotta step in and “shut them up”...
@ TheFlyingPig
Evasion and dishonest debating tactics.
Modern science is barely in it's tentative stages in understanding limb regrowth. So your god still has at least twenty years to regrow a human limb before it's miracles are confused with science.
@Flying Piggy: He's fucking omnipotent and omnipresent, just invite the son of a bitch over for tea. How frigging hard can it be?
Same as empirical evidence for anything else, there is no rational reason for the god claim to be an exception.
Does lightning as “empirical evidence” for Thor count?
As the Norse god of thunder, Thor can summon the elements of the storm (lightning; rain; wind; snow) and uses Mjolnir as a tool to focus this ability, although the hammer cannot command artificial weather, only natural. ...
A very worn out tired argument .
Give an example of what you would consider empirical evidence for God .
I’m on my couch.
God is more than capable of doing my dishes.
I’m waiting.
This would work in the most simplest basis.
Then I’d tell these assholes about it and they’d rip at me- but Cali or Algebe may come up with a testable falsifiable experiment....
Whooo now we’re somewhat “excited” so publish our results.
Others try to “duplicate” and/or shred - once again...
Maybe the dishes that god is doing for me is only my “sign” - unable to “prove” - so what. I know???? What good does it do me? Or others? Or is god gonna fuck with me now, get me to write a book that conflicts with every other book he “had”
people write.... sneezing *bullshit*
Soooo sailingswine- You checking out the “new”
forum layout...
I’m headed over there and won’t be back...
HERE ...
And the only “reason” you reject the Thor lightning is because the scientific method taught you ...
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