Fine tuned universe

[Gawdzilla Sama]

No... but the point is basically meaningless anyway for the same reason I can't say Santa doesn't exists.

Santa gets picked up on radar every year. So far, no god blips.

[Brian Peacock]

But Santa does exist - I have the receipts to prove it.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

But Santa does exist - I have the receipts to prove it.

[surreptitious57]

The statement God exists is a positive assertion that imposes in the religion of science a burden of proof if and only if the assertion is to be accepted as a scientific truth But exactly the same requirement applies to the statement God does not exist In the religion of science and science is a religion one may not shift the burden of proof away from the one making the positive statement asserting a fact merely because another person may make a different claim God exists that is unsupported

The problem is in determining what the truth is which determination is biased and skewed by each individual s ability to perceive infer and intuit based on indirect evidence This makes what is true exceedingly difficult to determine with any accuracy in many cases because we perceive only the tiniest fraction of reality and some is intuited or inferred through indirect evidence but the vast majority is beyond our knowledge or understanding at least at present

Negative statements such as : God does not exist : do not require any burden of proof for the very
simple reason that one can not validate the non existence of something : for it is only a postive
that can be proved or disproved however and not a negative : science is a discipline and not a
religion : it strives to reference reality as objectively as is possible : not perfect but is still
best methodology : bar none : that one currently has for interpreting reality as it stands

The way to eliminate bias therefore in relation to this is by use of the Scientific Method : agree that
much is beyond our understanding but that should not be a reason for not attempting to reference
it with the tools that one has at one s disposal such as logic and reason and which happen to be
ever more so reliable than emotion and imagination : now I am not suggesting that the latter
do not have their place in scientific thought since they quite evidently do though once they
been fired they then have to be reigned in by the discipline and the rigour of proofs and
theories : for because without those Science would simply cease to have any meaning

[Tero]

This god that is invisible and made of...what?...and all powerful. Why exactly would he choose to be invisible if the point was to behave by his wishes, whatever they are? So with that, why would people that do not sense any god present with their internal antenna have to prove he does not exist?

Politics is different. Or the same. Mostly to do with feelings, and a little bit with money.

[MrFungus420]

14 pages of verbiage to say we can't prove God doesn't exist, which everyone agrees with anyway?
Nice.

Everyone agrees? Hardly. It's been a tough slog to get anyone to admit that they can't prove that God doesn't exist, much less admit that their own ethos and the "scientific method" precludes them from rationally claiming that God does not exist.

And then there's the whole denial of the argument for intelligent design I've laid out, which denial is every bit as religious as the claim that God exists.

Just getting to this point, where Atheists are admitting that they can't prove God doesn't exist

Bullshit.

How many times has it been pointed out that it is virtually impossible to prove a universal negative of the sort, "There is no God"? How many times have you seen examples given of things like invisible unicorns or a dragon in a garage or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Zeus to demonstrate that it is virtually impossible to prove a negative?

(which by the way is different from asserting that God can never be proven to exist, another false Atheist claim)

Another misrepresentation.

How many times have you been asked to provide some evidence that your god exists? That is an admission that it should be possible to demonstrate God's existence.

is a major victory. Usually these debates end with the Atheists resorting to ad hom insult and abandoning the debate entirely with hand-waving assertions that there is "no evidence" that God exists

So present some evidence for examination.

I do not say that there is none, merely that I have yet to encounter any.

and that the burden is on theists to provide such evidence despite the fact that theists are under no such obligation whatsoever.

To paraphrase:

Theist: A god exists.
Atheist: I don't accept that claim as valid. Why should I?
Theist: I don't have to convince you.
Atheist: No problem. Just don't expect me to accept your claim.
Theist: You're being unreasonable. I'm under no obligation to convince you.
Atheist: So we're back to me asking why I should believe you.

[Seth]

14 pages of verbiage to say we can't prove God doesn't exist, which everyone agrees with anyway?
Nice.

Everyone agrees? Hardly. It's been a tough slog to get anyone to admit that they can't prove that God doesn't exist, much less admit that their own ethos and the "scientific method" precludes them from rationally claiming that God does not exist.

And then there's the whole denial of the argument for intelligent design I've laid out, which denial is every bit as religious as the claim that God exists.

Just getting to this point, where Atheists are admitting that they can't prove God doesn't exist

Bullshit.

How many times has it been pointed out that it is virtually impossible to prove a universal negative of the sort, "There is no God"? How many times have you seen examples given of things like invisible unicorns or a dragon in a garage or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Zeus to demonstrate that it is virtually impossible to prove a negative?

Then why on earth do you continue to make the unsustainable and unprovable claim that God does not exist? (and I'm speaking in the general Atheist "you" sense)

It's amusing to see how pissed and frustrated you get when you get called on your own bullshit claims.

You don't know that God doesn't exist, nobody does. You can't rationally make that claim because you have no evidence that God does not exist and you can never hope to prove that God does not exist. But you Atheists go right on making the claim anyway, as if nobody's going to see the bullshit you're purveying and call you on it.

(which by the way is different from asserting that God can never be proven to exist, another false Atheist claim)

Another misrepresentation.

How many times have you been asked to provide some evidence that your god exists? That is an admission that it should be possible to demonstrate God's existence.

I don't have a god, but I've presented evidence which has been ignored or dismissed even though science absolutely cannot prove that God did not cause the phenomenon. You don't like the evidence presented, but that's just Atheism's religious dogma at work, not any sort of rational or scientific attitude or practice. I'm not required to provide evidence that God exists anyway because the claim under examination here is not "God exists and here's the evidence," it's "God does not exist" purveyed by Atheists all the time, over and over again.

It's a bullshit statement precisely because Atheists cannot support their claim.

is a major victory. Usually these debates end with the Atheists resorting to ad hom insult and abandoning the debate entirely with hand-waving assertions that there is "no evidence" that God exists

So present some evidence for examination.

I did.

I do not say that there is none, merely that I have yet to encounter any.

Sounds like a personal problem to me. Your lack of knowledge does not affect the truth I'm afraid.

and that the burden is on theists to provide such evidence despite the fact that theists are under no such obligation whatsoever.

To paraphrase:

Theist: A god exists.
Atheist: I don't accept that claim as valid. Why should I?
Theist: I don't have to convince you.
Atheist: No problem. Just don't expect me to accept your claim.
Theist: You're being unreasonable. I'm under no obligation to convince you.
Atheist: So we're back to me asking why I should believe you.

I'm not asking you to believe anything, I'm merely challenging and examining what you DO believe.

[trdsf]

There's no event that might be ascribed to a divine author that couldn't just as easily and legitimately be ascribed to a much more advanced alien intelligence -- probably more legitimately, since that at least relies on an explanation that's internal to this universe and suggests that a rational physical explanation ultimately exists.

The Thin Blue Line don't listen to facts.

I still feel obliged to cast my pearls.

[MrFungus420]

14 pages of verbiage to say we can't prove God doesn't exist, which everyone agrees with anyway?
Nice.

Everyone agrees? Hardly. It's been a tough slog to get anyone to admit that they can't prove that God doesn't exist, much less admit that their own ethos and the "scientific method" precludes them from rationally claiming that God does not exist.

And then there's the whole denial of the argument for intelligent design I've laid out, which denial is every bit as religious as the claim that God exists.

Just getting to this point, where Atheists are admitting that they can't prove God doesn't exist

Bullshit.

How many times has it been pointed out that it is virtually impossible to prove a universal negative of the sort, "There is no God"? How many times have you seen examples given of things like invisible unicorns or a dragon in a garage or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Zeus to demonstrate that it is virtually impossible to prove a negative?

Then why on earth do you continue to make the unsustainable and unprovable claim that God does not exist? (and I'm speaking in the general Atheist "you" sense)

When have I ever claimed that?

Or are you trying to define atheism based on a subset of atheists?

It's amusing to see how pissed and frustrated you get when you get called on your own bullshit claims.

I'm sorry, don't you mean when you lie about what I have claimed? Besides, anonymous people on the other side of a keyboard can't piss me off. Admitted trolls can't frustrate me.

You represent a little bit of mental masturbation...about the equivalent of playing solitaire.

You don't know that God doesn't exist, nobody does. You can't rationally make that claim because you have no evidence that God does not exist and you can never hope to prove that God does not exist. But you Atheists go right on making the claim anyway, as if nobody's going to see the bullshit you're purveying and call you on it.

Repeating it won't make it true.

The only necessary position of atheists is not accepting theistic claims. That is the ONLY commonality among all atheists.

There is a subset of atheists that also have the belief that there is no god.

(which by the way is different from asserting that God can never be proven to exist, another false Atheist claim)

Another misrepresentation.

How many times have you been asked to provide some evidence that your god exists? That is an admission that it should be possible to demonstrate God's existence.

I don't have a god, but I've presented evidence which has been ignored or dismissed even though science absolutely cannot prove that God did not cause the phenomenon.

No, that's not the way evidence works. You don't get to claim something is evidence unless it can be demonstrated not to support the claim. It is only evidence if you can demonstrate that it necessarily supports the claim.

Also, the claim that we cannot prove the existence of a god is essentially the agnostic position...the position that we cannot know.

You don't like the evidence presented, but that's just Atheism's religious dogma at work, not any sort of rational or scientific attitude or practice. I'm not required to provide evidence that God exists anyway because the claim under examination here is not "God exists and here's the evidence," it's "God does not exist" purveyed by Atheists all the time, over and over again.

Wrong again.

The thread is about the supposed fine-tuning of the Universe which is an attempt at an argument for the existence of a god.

It's a bullshit statement precisely because Atheists cannot support their claim.

What claim?

I am an atheist because I have seen no reason to accept any of the claims that a god exists.

Instead of playing around with strawmen, why not address what I actually have said?

is a major victory. Usually these debates end with the Atheists resorting to ad hom insult and abandoning the debate entirely with hand-waving assertions that there is "no evidence" that God exists

So present some evidence for examination.

I did.

In that case I must conditionally apologize because I do not remember seeing it. What is your evidence?

I do not say that there is none, merely that I have yet to encounter any.

Sounds like a personal problem to me. Your lack of knowledge does not affect the truth I'm afraid.

I don't claim to know the truth.

The only claim that I make in this case is that I do not accept any of the claims of the existence of a god that have been presented to me so far because they have not been supported.

and that the burden is on theists to provide such evidence despite the fact that theists are under no such obligation whatsoever.

To paraphrase:

Theist: A god exists.
Atheist: I don't accept that claim as valid. Why should I?
Theist: I don't have to convince you.
Atheist: No problem. Just don't expect me to accept your claim.
Theist: You're being unreasonable. I'm under no obligation to convince you.
Atheist: So we're back to me asking why I should believe you.

I'm not asking you to believe anything, I'm merely challenging and examining what you DO believe.

No. You are still misrepresenting me. You are misrepresenting most atheists. You are attacking a strawman.

[Coito ergo sum]

Then why on earth do you continue to make the unsustainable and unprovable claim that God does not exist? (and I'm speaking in the general Atheist "you" sense)

You've been explained this. Because just like you can't prove there isn't a dragon in Carl Sagan's garage, one ought not believe there is a dragon in Carl Sagan's garage until there is evidence. So, "there is no dragon in Carl Sagan's garage," subject to further evidence. Every such question is ALWAYS falsifiable by further evidence.

It's amusing to see how pissed and frustrated you get when you get called on your own bullshit claims.

What pisses people off is your dishonest argumentation, bait-and-switch tactics and monumental straw man arguments, repeated over and over again, after they have been debunked many times.

You don't know that God doesn't exist, nobody does.

True. Nor do we know that unicorns and three headed magicians from the Horsehead Nebula don't exist. But, it is unreasonable to believe that either they, or gods, exist.

You can't rationally make that claim because you have no evidence that God does not exist

Oh, there is evidence that many particular gods don't exist as described by their believers. What there isn't is unfalsifiable proof that no possible imagined concept of a god is non-existent.

and you can never hope to prove that God does not exist.

That depends on the god. You'll have to tell me what "God" is before I can ever hope to determine if there is evidence that it doesn't exist. Saying the word "God" is like saying "X" -- until you define it, it means nothing. I can never hope to prove that X does not exist. Of course. X -- and "god" or "God" - can mean a lot of things.

So, you'll need to set the parameters of what it is you think needs to be proved. Then we'll see. If you invent something, however, that by definition is unprovable, then you can't expect anyone to prove it. That is like saying "you can't prove X does not exist, and X is something that exists outside the universe that can not be detected by human perception, aided or unaided." Of course that can't be proven not to be the case. So what?

But you Atheists go right on making the claim anyway, as if nobody's going to see the bullshit you're purveying and call you on it.

Anyone who makes the claim "god does not exist" makes, at a minimum, no more absurd a claim than "god does exist." You can't prove it does exist, and yet "you Believers go right on making the claim anyway, as if nobody is going to see the bullshit you are purveying..." Yet, of course, Seth defends the "right" of the religious to make their unproven claims all day long. Atheists are, though, according to Seth, not entitled to the same privilege.

How many times have you been asked to provide some evidence that your god exists? That is an admission that it should be possible to demonstrate God's existence.

I don't have a god, [/quote]

LOL - so Bush League.

Look at this folks -- the ONE TIME Seth uses the "uncapitalized" god -- every other time, Seth uses "God" or "GOD" as his reference to a deity. Here, when asked for proof that your "god" exists, lower case, he responds, "I do not have a god..." Nice dodge. You do not have lower case god.

Do you have an upper case God, Seth? Do you believe in God? Is God your God? Let's have a straight answer.

but I've presented evidence which has been ignored or dismissed even though science absolutely cannot prove that God did not cause the phenomenon.

I've argued with you several times over the gods question. You have never presented any scientific evidence. You've presented claims. You bootstrap the claims of others and call it evidence.

You don't like the evidence presented, but that's just Atheism's religious dogma at work, not any sort of rational or scientific attitude or practice. I'm not required to provide evidence that God exists anyway because the claim under examination here is not "God exists and here's the evidence," it's "God does not exist" purveyed by Atheists all the time, over and over again.

It's a bullshit statement precisely because Atheists cannot support their claim.

LOL - straight answer please:

If a statement cannot be supported, is it always a bullshit statement?

Like - when a Believer can't support his claim that "God" exists, it's a bullshit statement, right?

[Coito ergo sum]

So present some evidence for examination.

I did.

You didn't present any "critically robust, scientifically valid evidence," Seth.

You presented claims and called them evidence. Nothing you have ever presented has been critically robust in the least.

That is your standard for evidence when you seek it from atheists. You must honor it in return.

[Seth]

This from Seth -- "This makes "what is true" exceedingly difficult to determine with any accuracy in many cases, because we perceive only the tiniest fraction of reality, and some is intuited or inferred through indirect evidence, but the vast majority is beyond our knowledge or understanding, at least at present."

Correct, but that doesn't make all beliefs equal.

Equal to what? Beliefs are confidence in the truth or existence of something that is not subject to immediate rigorous proofs. Therefore they are all equally vague in that no belief is "better" or "worse" than another.

Just because we can't prove that X is not "True" doesn't mean that we ought to believe X, or that it is rational to believe X.

Why not? If you can't prove it's not true, then the value of one belief is exactly as good or bad as that of another. That you don't think it's rational to believe in God doesn't mean that it's irrational to believe in God in part because your actual knowledge of that which is true, or of the evidence supporting the existence of God does not necessarily reflect the totality of the knowledge or evidence available about God. It may not be rational for YOU to believe in God, based on your level of knowledge and experience, but that is not a universal experience and clearly other people have had different experiences and knowledge that gives them a rational belief in God. You are not the only sane person on the planet, nor are Atheists the only sane people on the planet. It's just that Atheists don't have the wealth or depth of experience with God that theists do, and therefore their belief is based on less evidence and less experience and therefore the claim that God does not exist is based in their ignorance, not in some supposed intellectual superiority.

Yes, it is exceedingly difficult to know what it is true. That is why science is a difficult thing to do -- because it is an attempt to find out what is true, not merely guess at what is true. Things are not accepted as true until there is a reason to believe them to be true. If we don't have a reason to believe them to be true, then we ought not believe them. That would be unreasonable. Things that may be unreasonable to believe may nevertheless be true, however.

What you don't have a reason to believe in is not a universal attribute, it's a manifestation of your ignorance, willful or otherwise, that evidently is not present in the vast majority of human beings on this planet. Does that make you the rational one or the delusional one? There are none so blind as those who will not see, goes the saying.

That is the distinction you're failing to appreciate, Seth. You confuse "believe" with "true," essentially, and you are not admitting that there is a difference. Perhaps you don't see the difference, I don't know.

Not at all. What I'm telling you is that the beliefs of science as regards the existence of God are precisely equal to the beliefs of theism as regards the existence of God. The belief that God does not exist is exactly the same as the belief that God does exist because both are based on zero evidence of each respective proposition's truth. You admit just above that unreasonable things may nevertheless be true, but the fact is that the "unreasonableness" you proclaim for belief in God is precisely the same as the unreasonableness of believing God does not exist.

Science is simply not in a position to render judgment or state truths about the existence or non-existence of God because science does not have the tools, knowledge or understanding of the question to be able to subject it to rigorous immediate proofs. Therefore, what scientists, or pseudo-scientists have to say about the existence of God is not based in science at all, it's based in religious belief, nothing more.

When an atheist says they see no evidence of a god or gods, and that they see no reason to believe in one or another gods -- that is not a "truth" claim. They aren't saying they know 100% that there aren't any gods. They're saying they don't believe in gods.

Correct, when Atheists actually say that. But that's not the claim I'm addressing, so quit trying to goalpost-shift your way out of it. I'm addressing the specific claim made by Atheists that "God does not exist" and ONLY that specific claim. That statement is a rational and logical error no matter how you look at it because it is a positive claim of the truth of the question that is based in zero critically robust scientific evidence of the non-existence of God.

It is not unreasonable to not believe in something for which one does not have evidence. In fact, it's the only reasonable position to take.

But evidence exists, just not evidence that you find credible or reasonable. That does not mean that it is not evidence nor does it mean that God does not exist, it merely means that your belief about God is based in your ignorance of the evidence and your bias towards naturalistic explanations.

Still waiting for the evidence of god you said there was, BTW.

The evidence is still sitting there waiting for you to examine, but you're going to have to do your own homework I'm afraid. Or not.

The point being that what you know of the evidence, and what the evidence actually comprises are two different things and no scientific conclusion can be drawn about the existence or non-existence of God based only on your knowledge of the evidence. You can only say "I don't know whether or not God exists" and, if you like, "I don't believe God exists."

But you cannot rationally or logically say, according to your own scientific ethos and rules, that "God does not exist."

[Seth]

So present some evidence for examination.

I did.

You didn't present any "critically robust, scientifically valid evidence," Seth.

Correct. But then again I'm under no obligation to do so since it is not I who made the positive claim that God does not exist.

You presented claims and called them evidence.

Claims of personal experience attributable to God. No different than a claim that someone has invented cold fusion.

Nothing you have ever presented has been critically robust in the least.

I never claimed it was. I merely responded to a request for "evidence that God exists." I provided evidence. Whether it is critically robust is not relevant because it's entirely aside from the analysis going on here, which is the analysis of the claim that God DOES NOT exist. It is THAT claim that is under examination, and it's not a claim made by me, but one made by YOU which burdens you with the requirement to provide, according to your own scientific ethos and rules, critically robust evidence supporting your claim.

I'm under no obligation to provide that level of evidence because I'm not making any claim at all about the existence of God, I'm merely providing the requested evidence. What the value of that evidence is irrelevant to me and to this discussion because I'm not claiming that God exists, I'm claiming that YOU cannot prove that God DOES NOT exist and therefore any claim by you that God does not exist is invalid and irrational as a matter of scientific rigor. I'm holding YOU to exactly the same standard that you demand of theists in supporting your argument that "There are no gods."

That is your standard for evidence when you seek it from atheists. You must honor it in return.

Wrong, because I'm not making any claims about the existence of God, I'm analyzing your arguments that God does not exist for their logical and rational weakness and invalidity.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"But you cannot rationally or logically say, according to your own scientific ethos and rules, that "God does not exist."

Until you prove a god or gods DOES exist, they don't. Get over it.

[Seth]

"But you cannot rationally or logically say, according to your own scientific ethos and rules, that "God does not exist."

Until you prove a god or gods DOES exist, they don't. Get over it.

So, until CERN proves that the Higgs Boson exists, it does not exist? But how then could CERN prove that the Higgs Boson exists if it doesn't exist until CERN proves it exists?

Quite a conundrum you've set for science there. Presumably, using your rather buffoon-like argument, until somebody discovered electrons, or quarks, they did not exist, but came into being when they were proven to exist by virtue of that scientific investigation. Which leads one to wonder how the universe actually managed to get along for 15 billion years without electrons...

I think you ought to stick to worshiping the thin blue line, because you're just embarrassing yourself all the more when you try to participate in a debate that's above your pay grade.