Fine tuned universe

[Seth]

Until actual evidence crops up, the theory that there is no deity is the one that makes best sense.

To you, in your ignorance of the evidence regarding the existence of God perhaps.

Of course, at the current point, the notion that we could ever come up with scientific instrumetns able to detect the divine and to let us recognize it as such (as opposed to some kind of natural force) is pretty much unconceivable.

Only if you make the Atheists Fallacy false presumption that God is "supernatural" just because that's what theists say.

[Coito ergo sum]

How many times does it have to be said that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence?

Sometimes it is. When evidence would rationally be expected, and it's not there, then it is evidence of absence. For example, if someone says there is a dog in the kitchen, and you go into the kitchen and you don't see a dog. The lack of evidence is evidence of the dogs absence.

However, that is irrelevant to the question, because the absence of evidence in X is a reason not to believe in X. X may well exist, but it ought not be believed in until such time as there critically robust, scientifically valid evidence.

You've acknowledged that before, because you have said that as soon as an atheist claims that God doesn't exist, he must prove it by critically robust, scientifically valid evidence. You've said that before, so I'm not sure why you absolve the pro-God camp of that burden.

This is particularly true when the evidence of existence is denied and ignored because it does not meet some arbitrary standard that is in fact an iteration of the fallacy of begging the question which I call the Atheist's Fallacy:

"God does not exist"
"How do you know?"
"Because there is a lack of critically robust scientific evidence of God's existence."
"Why is the evidence provided by theists of miracles and visions and personal communications with God not considered valid scientific evidence?"

Because they are not repeatable or verifiable, and they are subjective accounts and personal experiences. Of course, it depends on the particular piece of claimed evidence. We can't address them all at once. You'll need to specify which miracle or vision or personal communication you're talking about.

"Because they are unscientific!"
"Why are they unscientific?"
"Because they make supernatural claims."

No no. Miracles are claimed to happen, but aren't verifiable or repeatable. They can't be tested or observed. They are mere second hand reports and suppositions. That's why they are not scientific evidence.

A vision and a personal communication are just thoughts within a person's head, and are as such reports of something going on wholly within the skull of the person reporting the event. That is not scientific evidence in any context, whether the vision is of God or of a scientific experiment.

"Why are the claims supernatural?"
"Because they lie outside of known scientific facts."
"How do you know this?"
"Because theists say that God is a supernatural being."
"Have you tested their claims scientifically to see if their claims of supernaturality are valid?"

The miracle claims can't be tested or falsified, that is why they aren't scientific evidence. The visions and personal communications can't be tested because they are things a person claims to experience personally without anyone else being able to verify them. How would one test such a thing?

If a scientist claimed that he witnessed a miracle, and therefore M Theory has been proven true, or he had a vision that showed M Theory to be true, that also would not be scientific evidence. There is no reason to give religious claims or God claims a different standard.

"No, of course not!"
"Why not?"
"Because they are supernatural and therefore science cannot test them."
"Are you sure? How do you know?"

Because you said they were miracles, which are by definition untestable because they presuppose a special diversion from the normal laws under which the universe operates. A miracle is a special event, not a repeatable event, by definition. If the miracle was of a miraculously successful experiment, but no matter how many times other people tried it, it didn't happen, then it would likewise not be evidence.

Visions and personal communications can't be tested for validity because they are by definition things people see or experience personally, in their own brains, which are specific to them. If the vision was of a scientific experiment, it would likewise not be testable, and would be discarded as not scientific evidence.

"Because theists say so."
"Are the claims of theists always correct?"
"No, of course not, their claims of a supernatural Sky Daddy are nonsense."
"Why?"
"Because nothing supernatural can exist. There is only nature."
"How do you know this?"
"Because the Scientific Method says so!"

This is all a straw man - it's just what you're making up. The reason the kind of evidence you proposed are not evidence of God-claims is because they wouldn't be evidence of any claim, for the reasons stated above.

The scientific method doe snot say that that "nothing supernatural can exist." The scientific method says, that we look at a phenomenon and make testable hypothesis for it, then we do tests or make observations and we see if the results are in accord with what the hypothesis predicts.

"Is the scientific method omnipotent or omniscient?"
"No, of course not, it's just a theory about the nature of the universe that says that all things are explainable by reference to natural actions and without supernatural causes."
"Is God unnatural or supernatural?"
"Yes."
"How do you know this?"
"Because theists say so."

Like everything else, you bait-and-switch. First you claim that this is about consideration of certain kinds of evidence. Now it's about the definition of supernatural and natural. Well, I've explained pretty plainly why the miracles and visions and personal communications would not be evidence of any scientific claim, so there is no reason to consider them evidence of a God claim. It doesn't matter if God is natural or supernatural. Miracles, visions and personal communications wouldn't be critically robust evidence of whether the dog was in the kitchen. If someone said, I saw a vision of a dog in the kitchen, we'd say "so?" And, then we'd go look in the kitchen. If there wasn't something dog-shaped in there, then we wouldn't believe the miraculous vision to be true.

Capice?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

There's no evidence there's an elephant in my hip pocket. There is no elephant in my hip pocket.

[Coito ergo sum]

The difference is that the belief that something does not exist can never be supported by any evidence.

Well said! Which makes your belief that God does not exist an irrational one. Ipse dixit, quod erat demonstrandum.

Quite the opposite. It makes it the only rational position.

And, it's funny when you misuse Latin terms. I can always tell when you're starting to realize you're argument is being pummeled you start to fling the names of logical fallacies and Latin terms like poo, irrespective of what they actually mean.

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.

That depends on how you define your God.

No, it doesn't. That's an iteration of the Atheists Fallacy. God, you see, (if he exists) is not constrained by human definition.[/quote]

Of course it depends. What you call God may not be what other people call God. YOU have your own definition, part of which is that whatever it is is not constrained by human definition. That's part of your definition, and is not part of all God definitions.

[Coito ergo sum]

I've never claimed that the inability to prove X not to be true is evidence that it is true, so that's a strawman argument. I've said that your discounting or denial of the evidence of the existence of God that other people find and accept is not the metric upon which the existence of God may be judged by anyone. Your ignorance of the evidence does not disprove the existence of God, you see, if God exists. Skepticism is not the same thing as proof of absence.

Read it again. Look unless YOU have reason/evidence to believe X to be true, then it is, as noted, necessarily unreasonable/irrational for YOU to believe X is true.

One must always consider that one might be ignorant of new evidence, but all knowledge is in that way provisional. Even the spheroid earth theory is subject to further evidence. Even the expanding universe theory is subject to further evidence. So what?

The fact remains, if you have no evidence from which to believe X to be true, then it is irrational for you to believe that X is true. Period.

[Coito ergo sum]

There's no evidence there's an elephant in my hip pocket. There is no elephant in my hip pocket.

That is the rational conclusion. Obviously, if someone were to present you with some evidence that there is an elephant in there (maybe they show you that there is a tiny, miniature elephant in there the size of a ball of lint which you missed) then you change your mind. Until then, you don't accept the claim that there is an elephant in there.

It wouldn't matter if someone had a vision of an elephant in your pocket, or someone said they saw an angel putting an elephant there, etc. That's not evidence of elephants in pockets. Well, to Seth it is. To Seth, you can only rationally have no idea whether an elephant is in your pocket because someone, somewhere might claim to have miracle or vision-related evidence of an elephant in there. So, it's just as valid to claim there is an elephant there as there isn't.

Nice example.

Seth - that is how bad your argument is.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Nice example.

Seth - that is how bad your argument is.

[Svartalf]

I don't know if there's an elephant in Zilla"s pockets, but there's hearsay of the trunk being seen in his shorts.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I don't know if there's an elephant in Zilla"s pockets, but there's hearsay of the trunk being seen in his shorts.

Trunk and ears.

[Brian Peacock]

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.

What is happening here is a confusion between the objective truth status of a claim and a rational conclusion about the truth status of a claim.

As the dragon example highlights, along with the previously mentioned example of Santa (or similar supposed entities such as Big Foot, the Yeti, Paul Bunion, mermaids, Faeries and Ogres etc), rational conclusions about the existence of a claimed-for entity are not put aside for lack of evidence - nor should they be.

The charge is that it is not only unreasonable but epistemologically unsound to offer a rational conclusion on the extant status of God in the absence of corroborating evidences. The examples of imagined entities above demonstrate the sheer ludicrousness of such a charge. What possible grounds are there for granting and exception to God when no reasonable person would grant a similar exception to Zeus or Rapanui Tangata-manu or Santa and co? The facts that religionists will insists that belief in an extant God is justified whereas a disbelief is not only serves to demonstrate the epistemic double-standards that are sometimes applied to those who do not share their beliefs or way of life.

If discussion is to continue on a rational basis it is therefore incumbent on the apologist to justify how a disbelief in any particular deity is unreasonable and epistemologically unsound.

[Seth]

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.

What is happening here is a confusion between the objective truth status of a claim and a rational conclusion about the truth status of a claim.

Yup, exactly.

As the dragon example highlights, along with the previously mentioned example of Santa (or similar supposed entities such as Big Foot, the Yeti, Paul Bunion, mermaids, Faeries and Ogres etc), rational conclusions about the existence of a claimed-for entity are not put aside for lack of evidence - nor should they be.

That depends on the nature of the rational conclusion and it's precise form.

The charge is that it is not only unreasonable but epistemologically unsound to offer a rational conclusion on the extant status of God in the absence of corroborating evidences. The examples of imagined entities above demonstrate the sheer ludicrousness of such a charge. What possible grounds are there for granting and exception to God when no reasonable person would grant a similar exception to Zeus or Rapanui Tangata-manu or Santa and co? The facts that religionists will insists that belief in an extant God is justified whereas a disbelief is not only serves to demonstrate the epistemic double-standards that are sometimes applied to those who do not share their beliefs or way of life.

Here you tread on the margins of the Atheists Fallacy by engaging in comparative analysis of competing god (or imaginary entity) claims. This is not the point at all. In assessing the objective truth value of a claim that anything, including God, a god, many gods, or dragons, exists one can base a rational conclusion on an inspection of the evidence supporting the assertion. But what we are discussing here is the negative proposition, that God, gods or dragons DO NOT exist. In holding Atheists to their own ethos insofar as demanding critically robust scientific evidence in support of a proposition regarding the existence of God, gods or dragons, all I'm doing is indeed stating that it is both unreasonable (and unreasoning) and epistemologically unsound to make a positive assertion about a negative existence (God does not exist). The standard of argumentation and proof demanded of theists for their positive claim that god DOES exist are rational, but so is applying the same standards to the Atheist proposition.

It's utterly irrelevant what theists believe or say about their claim when examining the unreason and illogic of the Atheist claim. One thing is not the other, one claim is not the other, and each claim must be examined on its own merits and using the same standards for both. That's all I'm doing.

If discussion is to continue on a rational basis it is therefore incumbent on the apologist to justify how a disbelief in any particular deity is unreasonable and epistemologically unsound.

This is not about disbelief! Belief is confidence in the truth or existence of something that is not subject to immediate rigorous proofs, and one's beliefs are not therefore subject to scientific analysis by their very nature.

This is about the positive and absolute assertion by Atheists that God does not exist. Not that God might not exist, or that they don't believe that God exists, it's an analysis of the claim that God DOES NOT exist. That claim is as unprovable as the claim that God does exist, and so both the burden of proof and the standards by which the evidence supporting this claim are judged are exactly the same, and the conclusions about the validity of the claim are also exactly the same.

One absolutely cannot build a valid conclusion about such a claim on a foundation of sand, and the fragility of the logical foundation of the Atheist claim is exactly equal to the fragility of the logical foundation of the theist claim. There is critically robust scientific evidence for neither, and because the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence in both cases, no rational logical conclusion can be drawn about either proposition other than "I don't know."

[Coito ergo sum]

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..."

Snip.

Seth, I asked you a simple question, and you skipped it.

If you won't answer, just say so.

Invariably, you use God, with a capital G for your references to a deity. I never saw you use lower-case "g" in your posts. You never acknowledge multiple gods, and always direct your arguments to whether there is a "God."

The one time I have seen you use a lower case "g" was when you were asked above for "evidence that your god exists."

You answered, "I don't have a god..."

That lower case "g" stuck out like a sore thumb right there. You don't have a "god."

Do you have "God?" Or, a "God?"

Do you believe in "God?"

Will you answer these questions? Or, will you not provide the courtesy of an answer?

It bothers me when people will not answer questions. I try to make it a point to answer any question posed to me. If I miss some, it's through inadvertence. But, if someone calls my attention to it, I will provide the courtesy of an answer. Perhaps, given the volume of our posts, this was inadvertently missed when I posed it before. So, I'm highlighting it here.

[Seth]

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..."

Snip.

Seth, I asked you a simple question, and you skipped it.

If you won't answer, just say so.

I did answer it. I don't have a god, or a God, or a GOD. I'm a non-theistic Tolerist™, as I've told you many times.

Invariably, you use God, with a capital G for your references to a deity. I never saw you use lower-case "g" in your posts. You never acknowledge multiple gods, and always direct your arguments to whether there is a "God."

This is a device I use to distinguish between the Christian God (who is the usual object of discussion) from some other singular or pantheon of "gods." It's merely a convenience and a convention, not an indication of belief in any particular description or definition that humans may have created. Since the essence of the Atheists Fallacy is referencing some specific human-defined god or other and then using that as an excuse and a justification to deny that God exists, I avoid the trap by simply referring to "God" because if God exists, its nature is not defined or parceled out by human definitions or beliefs.

You are incorrect to infer that simply because I capitalize the word (partly as a sign of respect to my friends who are believers) I am a believer.

The one time I have seen you use a lower case "g" was when you were asked above for "evidence that your god exists."

You answered, "I don't have a god..."

That lower case "g" stuck out like a sore thumb right there. You don't have a "god."

Do you have "God?" Or, a "God?"

No.

Do you believe in "God?"

No.

Will you answer these questions? Or, will you not provide the courtesy of an answer?

I've answered it many times, and now I've answered it again.

It bothers me when people will not answer questions. I try to make it a point to answer any question posed to me. If I miss some, it's through inadvertence. But, if someone calls my attention to it, I will provide the courtesy of an answer. Perhaps, given the volume of our posts, this was inadvertently missed when I posed it before. So, I'm highlighting it here.

And what relevance would there be to the debate if I did hold a personal belief in God, or a god, or many gods? This is an ad hominem derail, nothing more, but I'm glad to clarify it for you so you won't have to derail things again in the future, ever, by trying to attack my arguments based on my personal beliefs, which is a particularly weak form of evasion on your part.

[Coito ergo sum]

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..."

Snip.

Seth, I asked you a simple question, and you skipped it.

If you won't answer, just say so.

I did answer it. I don't have a god, or a God, or a GOD. I'm a non-theistic Tolerist™, as I've told you many times.

One final clarification. As opposed to "a" god or "a" God. Do you have God? And, do you believe in God?

Invariably, you use God, with a capital G for your references to a deity. I never saw you use lower-case "g" in your posts. You never acknowledge multiple gods, and always direct your arguments to whether there is a "God."

This is a device I use to distinguish between the Christian God (who is the usual object of discussion) from some other singular or pantheon of "gods." It's merely a convenience and a convention, not an indication of belief in any particular description or definition that humans may have created. Since the essence of the Atheists Fallacy is referencing some specific human-defined god or other and then using that as an excuse and a justification to deny that God exists, I avoid the trap by simply referring to "God" because if God exists, its nature is not defined or parceled out by human definitions or beliefs.

However, you do define it. If you refer to the Christian God, that god is defined in the Bible.

Some other god, one that has no "human definition," is simply an indescribable X. If it has no human definition,then we have no definition for it, because the only definitions we have a human. If you say that it exists outside of this universe, for example, you are defining it and that is a human definition.

You are incorrect to infer that simply because I capitalize the word (partly as a sign of respect to my friends who are believers) I am a believer.

I will take you at your word on that. However, I would appreciate clarification of the question "do you believe in God?"

The one time I have seen you use a lower case "g" was when you were asked above for "evidence that your god exists."

By that I mean "whatever god you're talking about." To say "God exists" is really not helpful. We have to define that god first. Some people use "God" as synonymous with "The Universe." To those people I can say, sure, that god exists because if it is equal to the Universe, then it's just saying "The Universe exists." Which, I can agree with.

You answered, "I don't have a god..."

That lower case "g" stuck out like a sore thumb right there. You don't have a "god."

Do you have "God?" Or, a "God?"

No.

O.k., so scratch my request above for clarification of that.

Do you believe in "God?"

No.[/quote]

O.k., thank you. Most appreciated.

I will point out that you are, therefore, an atheist.

Will you answer these questions? Or, will you not provide the courtesy of an answer?

I've answered it many times, and now I've answered it again.

I won't argue with you about the former, but I appreciate the latter. Thank you.

It bothers me when people will not answer questions. I try to make it a point to answer any question posed to me. If I miss some, it's through inadvertence. But, if someone calls my attention to it, I will provide the courtesy of an answer. Perhaps, given the volume of our posts, this was inadvertently missed when I posed it before. So, I'm highlighting it here.

And what relevance would there be to the debate if I did hold a personal belief in God, or a god, or many gods? This is an ad hominem derail, nothing more, but I'm glad to clarify it for you so you won't have to derail things again in the future, ever, by trying to attack my arguments based on my personal beliefs, which is a particularly weak form of evasion on your part.

No, it's not an ad hominem, because an ad hominem is advanced in order to prove something. I haven't done that. I've merely asked you what you believe, for my own edification.

I haven't used your clarification or my questions to attack your arguments at all.

And, don't accuse me of evasion, because I haven't. Your arguments were put to bed easily through basic logic and reasoning. It requires no evasion, other than by you, and it does not require any ad hominem, to defeat your arguments.

[Seth]

One final clarification. As opposed to "a" god or "a" God. Do you have God? And, do you believe in God?

Read the fucking post, CES. Sheesh. I'm not responding to this derail attempt again.