Positive proof?

[Brian Peacock]

As I said before, you cannot prove a negative. Sometimes proving a positive does the job. Like, how do you prove that ulcers are not caused by stress. Answer, you prove they are caused by bacteria, which has been done.

But when you have something so all encompassing as the idea of deity, that is not sufficient. You can prove that something like the Big Bang happened. You can prove biological evolution. But plenty of Christians and Muslims, etc., say it was all due to Big Daddy in the Sky anyway.

So what do you do? The only other rational approach is to slowly whittle away the foundations of theism by showing that each and every little thing ascribed to The God actually did not need him/her or it.

This has been done, and over 90% of scientists of Ph.D. level world wide are atheists (or some other variant on non believer in deity).

As I recently stated elsewhere on this site, an objective claim (a claim that such-and-such is actually the case; a claim to knowledge) rests on its justification. It's only by assessing the justification for a claim that we can come to any conclusion about whether we should be willing to proportion assent, that is; whether it is reasonable to accept that the claimed-for such-and-such is actually the case, or not. This is same whether we're addressing claims for the existence of the national deity of the ancient Israelites or claims that ulcers are caused by stress.

When it comes to proving (or more usefully, justifying) what you call the 'positive claim' that the national deity of the ancient Israelites does not exist, the athiest finds themselves with an equivalent burden to theists - the burden of supporting the justification of an objective claim that such-and-such (the non-existence of God) is actually the case.

But this is not how addressing an objective claim works. We are not obliged to support a counter-claim in order to reasonably dismiss a claim to knowledge - to reasonably dismiss a claim to knowledge we only need to address the basis of the claim itself, its justification, and where that fails (for whatever reason, depending on the nature of the claim) we are entitled to say that we have reasonable grounds to dismiss or reject it.

By this kind of sceptical method the obligation of support remains entirely with the claimant, as it should do, for the claim must come first and only then can consideration of its justification be undertake and/or any conclusion about the soundness of its justification be arrived at. Or...

First comes the claim; then follows a consideration thereof; then follows a conclusion thereon. If the claim's justification fails then the claim cannot be said to be true (such-and-such cannot be said to actually be the case), in which case it can be said to be false under the logical principle that not-true = false, until or unless something else is brought to its justification.

Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that the national deity of the ancient Israelites does not exist when claims for the existence of that deity are not justified - and no counter-claim is needed, or is even warranted.

[Animavore]

Also, it's a matter of opinion formed based on the Atheist's Fallacy. "Christians say God does this or that, which I think is wrong and evil, therefore God is a whiny cunt." Need I list the fallacious reasoning yet again?

Lol. Utter failure. When I say God is a "whiny cunt" the logic is no different to saying that Christian Grey is an "abusive asshole". It is an opinion about a fictitious character in a book, not a claim against the character of a personage I need to back up with evidence lest I get sued for libel.

I can't make truth a claim about God, or anything else I don't think is real, that is contradictory and absurd. It's literally impossibe for me to commit the so-called, universally unaccepted, "Atheists fallacy".

Until you acknowledge you understand this very simple to understand concept and we can move past it I am simply dismissing everything else you have say off hand. Including any reply to this comment. I simply won't be reading it without the aforementioned acknowledgement in the first sentence. I'm just saying this so you don't have to waste your time writing an assuredly long-winded, bloated and self-indulgent piece.

[Brian Peacock]

cience is always limited in its ability to prove or disprove something by it's own ignorance of the true nature of the universe.

This assumes that Science cannot provide a description of 'the true nature of the universe' or 'the true nature of reality.' Please provide a description of 'the true nature of universe' so that we might make a reasonable assessment of your assertion.

Newton "discovered" gravity but could not explain it. We still can't explain it. Copernicus was unaware of muons, yet the absence of knowledge of muons by the scientific community of Copernicus' time did not mean that muons did not exist at that time and only come into existence as our ability to detect and quantify them advanced.

Your appeal to agniology assumes, for the purposes of this discussion, that some future means will grant us the ability to determine or describe what God actually is, which of course necessarily presupposes the existence of the God-thing itself. Well, if that does indeed happen at some point in the future people will no doubt form their conclusions accordingly, but to cite the absence of knowledge (ignorance) now for some, as yet, un-supported, un-evdienced, un-justified thing as a reason to withhold a conclusion about the claims made on behalf of that thing is simply plain apologetic nonsense. Theists make claims now about the actual and current existence their deity - we can only assess the justification of those claims now and and have no grounds on which to hold the door open for God by the necessary assumptions that God actually exists now and that we are ignorant of this fact, and that in the future we will have the means to prove our past (that is to say, our current) conclusions about his existence.

The same is true of God. Just because human science is presently incapable of "testing" the god hypothesis does not say anything at all about the existence of God or gods. That is simple logic.

It is only 'logical' in the sense that it rests on an assumption that God is something that exists now and can and will be tested for by some future scientific means. But in the absence of those means now, and in the face of un-supported claims for deities, we have no reason to proportion assent to claims for the existence of any particular diety, or indeed, anything (any thing) which is claimed to actually be the case without proportionate and relevant justification.

BTW: 'human science' is lol-worthy. What other sort is there?

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

But the absence of evidence supporting the justification of a claim means that we are fully justified in not only withholding proportioning assent to the claim, but citing that absence as valid grounds for dismissing the claim as actually being the case. Now if you have any reasonable grounds (that is, aside from assumptions about our current ignorance being overturned by actual proof) for thinking that the existence of God, or any other claimed for supernatural entity, actually is the case please feel free to provide it - for the burden of support remains with the claimant out of 'rational and logical' necessity, as I'm sure you'll agree.

[pErvinalia]

Why are you bothering? Seriously. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence can see all the gaping holes in his "arguments". And you'll never change his mind. He's impervious to logic and reason. Or else he's just trolling. Probably both.

[Animavore]

You're right. Like Nietzsche said, it is not your destiny to swat flies. He's made his mind up and that's that.

I've better things to do than argue with internet nobodies. I think I might go off the internets for a while. I'm starting to think I'm suffering from internet addiction and it's messing up my life. I'm not getting anything done IRL. Time to hop off the merry-go-round; if I can keep myself away that is.

[pErvinalia]

I can't find enough of interest on the internet to feed my addiction. The internet has been slowing down in novelty in the last year or two, I reckon. I'm just watching a story on the tele now about the Dark Web. Maybe I should get onto that and see what's going on over there.

[Forty Two]

Atheism is not a system of religious belief.

Yes, it is. Or at least it can be and is in many cases.

No, it isn't.

However, if you claim it to be, please identify the system in some way other than referring to or capitalizing the generic term "atheism." For example, we don't just call "Theism" a system of religious belief, because it's not. Some theisms are systems of religious belief, and those systems have names. Even some atheisms are systems of religious belief, like some Buddhisms are atheistic. Jainism is atheistic. That doesn't mean Atheism is a system of religious belief.

Atheism is not a system of religious belief. Theism is not a system of religious belief. Some systems of religious belief are atheistic, and some are theistic, etc.

"atheism" is not necessarily a religious belief. "Atheism" however, is. That's why it's capitalized like Buddhism or Jainism. Big-A Atheism is a religious belief system that happens to have atheism (small-a) as it's central belief.

The problem is, we know what you are talking about when you say Buddhism or Jainism, but there is no definition in modern English for the word "Atheism" with a capital letter. So, you have to define that term. And saying that your usage with a big-A is referring to "Atheism" as a system of religious beliefs, is not a definition. Define it like a real word -- when we look up the word Buddhism, the definition includes the basic precepts or concept of Buddhism. What are the basic precepts and concepts of Atheism?

Buddhism is atheistic, as is Jainism. Christianity is theistic. We don't say that Theism is a system of beliefs, because there is no such word in English (not with a capital letter) -- theism is not a system. It's a word referring to various systems that involve a god or gods. Likewise, there is no word "Atheism" in English. There is "atheism" and godless systems are atheistic.

You have come up with a new term, Atheism, that means something to you. But, for us to talk about it, you have to define it. What do YOU mean by it. What are its concepts and precepts. What is this "system" all about? What are its dogmas? Beliefs? If there are more than one type of Atheism, just start with one example.

[rainbow]

[Svartalf]

is that the bottle's countenance or the proof of the vodka?

[Forty Two]

Since Seth has already admitted being a troll, Jim's comment is probably spot on.

But let me remind Seth of the original post I made. You cannot prove a negative. That is why non theists cannot prove the non existence of any deity.

Not entirely true, since it depends on the definition we apply to the deity being tested. For example, if one posits a Zeus who lives atop Mt. Olympus, then we can test that, and prove the negative, that Zeus does not exist, by going to the top of Mt. Olympus and seeing that Zeus is not there.

Not quite. That argument is predicated on the premises that the "Mt. Olympus" referred to is the same one we know as Mt. Olympus and also that Zeus and his residence are detectable and quantifiable to human science. If Zeus lives in a residence on top of the mountain we call Olympus, but in another dimension, we may not be able to observe any evidence of his existence, but that does not prove that Zeus does not exist.

Well, of course -- but, in the classic Zeus concept, a hero could physically go there, if he had the strength. Like Hercules could go to hades, which was thought of as a real place deep below the ground that one could travel to, albeit over a dangerous route.

If one defines the question to be unfalsifiable, of course, then it's unfalsifiable. See Carl Sagan's dragon in his garage. You can always come up with another reason the dragon can't be detected. He lives in another dimension, but he's there.

It's all in how the proposition is phrased. And, we always have to understand that an unstated assumption in everything scientific is that nothing is ever proved conclusively and unfalsifiably, whether negatives or positives. Everything is open to disproof and to being falsified. Once something is presented as unfalsifiable, it's outside the realm of science and becomes a pointless question.

You can't prove that an impossible to detect Zeus doesn't exist! Well, right, of course I can't. The very idea is absurd because the question defines itself as unprovable.

Science is all about proving negatives. We never prove theories, we disprove them, or they stand up to proof.

And science is always limited in its ability to prove or disprove something by it's own ignorance of the true nature of the universe. Newton "discovered" gravity but could not explain it. We still can't explain it. Copernicus was unaware of muons, yet the absence of knowledge of muons by the scientific community of Copernicus' time did not mean that muons did not exist at that time and only come into existence as our ability to detect and quantify them advanced. The same is true of God. Just because human science is presently incapable of "testing" the god hypothesis does not say anything at all about the existence of God or gods. That is simple logic. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

This is all true. Which is why it was rational not to believe in muons in Copernicuses day. Just like we don't believe in garganitrons today. Maybe there are other particles out there that will someday be called garganitrons, or flubenitrons, or monominimuons of the north/south/big/small varieties. There are an infinite number of unknowns out there. We can acknowledge that without believing in stuff.

Like, the theory that two objects of different mass dropped from a height will nevertheless fall at the same rate. We can never prove that theory right in all instances -- we can only test the theory to see if it is wrong by going up the top of the leaning tower of Pisa and dropping two different sized cannonballs to the ground. If the two balls fall at different rates, then we would prove the negative: we would prove that two bodies of different masses will fall at different rates of speed. If they fall at the same rate, then the theory has survived the test and is supported by the evidence, but we can never prove that they will always fall at the same rate. We can only improve our confidence. i.e. scientific method.

But a feather falls to the ground more slowly than a cannonball does, does it not...in Earth's atmosphere. We didn't really prove this hypothesis until two different masses were dropped at the same time in a vacuum, in order to eliminate air resistance as a factor.

Ugh - the point is that the notion is never proved conclusively and irrefutably -- it's never unfalsifiable. Every contention is subject to disproof. That doesn't make allcontentions equal. Some have stronger levels of confirmation than others.

You see, science doesn't know what it doesn't know and therefore science cannot draw rational conclusions about things of which it has no evidence from which a conclusion can rationally be drawn.

Science does not draw conclusions about things of which it has no evidence. Conclusions are based on evidence. A conclusion based on no evidence is irrational.

That's why god-belief without evidence is irrational. If you have evidence from which it rationally follows that there is a god, then your belief may not be irrational. I, for one, have never encountered a single person who has ever presented any evidence from which could rationally follow that there is a god. I remain open to the possibility, of course, if someone were to present such evidence - in fact, my interest in the topic has me looking hard for that evidence. I really would love to find it. So, I do not believe in any god ever described to me, because none of them has ever been presented with any evidence I found rationally leads to the conclusion that the god exists.

In fact, most - albeit not all - god believers tend say that the faith in the being without any evidence is a virtue, and is what is important.

[Forty Two]

Seth's comment, if taken as true, proves that theists cannot even recognize their fundamental failures in logic and reason -- which they commit when they say anything other than "I don't know" in response to a theistic god claim. In other words, theists who say they believe, rather than say "i don't know," under Seth's logic, would be committing a fundamental failure of logic and reason.

Of course, unless they know something Atheist's don't know.

Likewise, by your logic Atheists may know something theists don't. In which case, by your logic, they would not e committing a fundamental failure.

Then again "belief" is "confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof"

The primary definition is "something believed; an opinion or conviction." I believe that the Earth exists. that is definitely subject to rigorous proof. You're referring to the secondary definition, which refers to something someone accepts as true, despite not having any or much proof for it.

and amounts to an opinion and not a statement of fact. So religious belief is not actually a claim of the truth of the proposition, it's an expression of opinion and philosophical position which may legitimately be based on something less than rigid scientific proofs.

Sure, in the religious context it usually means faith that something exists -- or "belief without proof or reason." And, also it can mean "belief" as in "trust" -- I trust in you or I believe in you. I have confidence that you are with me -- I believe you are with me.

In that type of belief, you hear religious folks say that they may not be able to prove god exists, but they're going to trust he's their anyway. They take solace from the hope that he's there, and from trusting that he's there. That's a wholly different kind of believe, though, than is used in science.

This is where we get into non-overlapping magisteria. Science doesn't go in for "trusting" that something exists, or believing something which is not susceptible to proof or disproof.

I think we atheists can all agree that "I don't know" is a perfectly good answer to many questions, even the gods question. Are there any gods? I don't know, which is precisely why I don't believe. I don't believe in things I don't know, and I only know things for which I have good reason to think are true.

Correct, and for the first time ever I might add...

I've been correct all along.

[Seth]

And you know that this is what God does how, exactly? You are once again falling into the Atheist's Fallacy line of reasoning.

Oh my god! I just realised something! Do you think that when I talk about God, I'm talking about the actual real, living God, and not God, the character in a book God? Is that what you actually think?

Nope.

Oh you silly ninny

Ninny is as ninny does, as you aptly demonstrate below.

The only gods I know are the ones in the books and tales.

Do you know? My point is that you don't know, you only think you know and you base your assumption that you know on false premises, therefore your conclusions are also false.

The gods from various cultures throughout history. I don't believe in or know of any actual gods to talk about in any real way. When I speak of any gods I'm not speaking about them like real enitities, I'm talking about the characters from the novels. When you say to me, "And you know that this is what God does how, exactly?", you might as well say, "And you know that this is what Dumbledorf does how, exactly?" I know because JK Rowling told me that's what he does. Other than that asking me anything about what Dumbledorf does is absolutely meaningless to me. I don't know of any real-life Dumbledorf to be speaking of. When you say, "Christians could be wrong about the nature of God," you might as well say, "JK Rowling could be wrong about the nature of Dumbledorf." I know of no Dumbledorf for JK Rowling to be wrong about. I only know the character as depicted in the book, portrayed on screen, and there may be some fan-fiction out there. I don't know.

And therein lies your irrationality. You incorrectly think that all gods mentioned in literature (or also presumably through oral history) are fictional in nature and are products of the imaginations of the authors. The Atheist Fallacy you commit is that your lack of knowledge and understanding about a real, actual, living, non-fictional god cannot be the basis of a rational conclusion. In the fallacy you take at face value what some person says about God/gods, without recognizing that their description or claim may itself be mistaken or fictional, and use it to construct an argument against the existence of God/gods.

That's exactly like concluding that the sun revolves around the earth because some pre-Copernican scientist says so. Absent independent scientific analysis using valid and critically robust evidence of the pre-Copernican claim, you cannot draw a rational conclusion about the orbit of the sun, and a claim by a pre-Copernican scientist simply does not qualify as valid, critically robust evidence. Copernicus, however, formed a hypothesis about the earth orbiting the sun and proceeded to prove his hypothesis using critically robust scientific evidence. But he could only do that because he had critically robust scientific evidence available and known to him. Therefore his conclusion about the earth orbiting the sun was a rational conclusion.

But if Copernicus had not had access to or knowledge of the critically robust scientific evidence proving that earth orbits the sun and not vice-versa, even if he happened to be correct in his hypothesis it cannot be claimed that his conclusion is rational because he has nothing to support that conclusion with.

Likewise, if I hypothesize that God exists in the absence of critically robust scientific evidence that I know of, I am making an irrational conclusion, but so is the Atheist who makes the claim that God does NOT exist because he has no critically robust scientific evidence to support his claim.

In the case of the Atheist's Fallacy, the evidence relied upon both to formulate the hypothesis and analyze it in order to draw a conclusion is not critically scientifically robust, it is merely a claim by others about the existence or nature of God by others. One cannot draw a rational conclusion about the root hypothesis (the existence or non-existence of God) based on an unsubstantiated claim of any kind by others unsupported by critically robust scientific evidence.

Therefore, drawing any sort of conclusion about the existence or non-existence of God/gods based only on the assertions of various authors, including Rowling, is an irrational act.

On the other hand, concluding that the assertions of an author of a claim about God/gods is without critically robust scientific evidence to support it in the absence of critically robust scientific evidence showing that there is in fact no such critically robust scientific evidence is also an irrational conclusion.

In other words, saying, "I conclude God does not exist because no critically robust scientific evidence exists" is irrational because you cannot and do not know what you do not know, and there may in fact be critically robust scientific evidence of God's existence of which you (and the rest of humanity...or some portion of them) are simply unaware.

Thus, when the Atheist says "the miracle at Fatima was not a miracle at all, it was an artifact of staring at the sun for too long" this is an irrational claim because while there is critically robust scientific evidence that staring at the sun can, potentially, result in perceptions as described, there is no critically robust scientific evidence that this is what happened to the witnesses at Fatima. Such observations might have been caused by optical illusions based in human perception, or they may have been accurate observations of actions by a superior intelligent entity.

In both cases, drawing any conclusion about the cause of the reported phenomena at Fatima (or indeed any other reported miraculous event) without critically robust scientific evidence upon which to base that conclusion, one way or the other, is an irrational act.

In short, you cannot rationally deny the existence of a "miracle" that defies scientific analysis in the absence of scientific evidence that the event was caused by something other than an intelligent agency with abilities beyond our ability to examine and explain.

You can of course choose not to believe that the "miracle" occurred based on your personal bias towards "naturalism," which rejects a priori all possibility of "supernatural" forces, but that is merely a belief, or in other words confidence in the proposition that all things can ultimately be explained by the scientific method and therefore anything "supernatural" cannot by definition exist.

But this too is fallacy because it presumes that "supernatural" is in fact supernatural whereas it may actually be entirely natural and fully explainable by science, just not the science of today. If we look at history we see that science has often labeled things it does not understand and cannot explain as "supernatural," right up until some scientist explains it using the scientific method, whereupon it becomes non-supernatural. But in reality it was always non-supernatural and it was humanity's ignorance of the truths of the universe that made it seem to be supernatural.

Therefore, God may exist, and God may be entirely natural and an explainable part of the universe, but we are simply not advanced or intelligent enough at the moment to do so. As a result it is irrational to conclude that God does not exist merely because we are (or may be) as yet unaware of the critically robust scientific evidence proving his existence.

And so the only rational answer to the question of God's existence for the Atheist (or the atheist) is "I don't know."

[Seth]

Why are you bothering? Seriously. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence can see all the gaping holes in his "arguments".

If they existed as you claim, it would be child's play for you to rebut them, and yet you cannot, and do not. All you do is make unsupported claims.

[Seth]

Since Seth has already admitted being a troll, Jim's comment is probably spot on.

But let me remind Seth of the original post I made. You cannot prove a negative. That is why non theists cannot prove the non existence of any deity.

Not entirely true, since it depends on the definition we apply to the deity being tested. For example, if one posits a Zeus who lives atop Mt. Olympus, then we can test that, and prove the negative, that Zeus does not exist, by going to the top of Mt. Olympus and seeing that Zeus is not there.

Not quite. That argument is predicated on the premises that the "Mt. Olympus" referred to is the same one we know as Mt. Olympus and also that Zeus and his residence are detectable and quantifiable to human science. If Zeus lives in a residence on top of the mountain we call Olympus, but in another dimension, we may not be able to observe any evidence of his existence, but that does not prove that Zeus does not exist.

Well, of course...

Ipse dixit quod erat demonstrandum

-- but, in the classic Zeus concept,

Atheist's Fallacy.

a hero could physically go there, if he had the strength. Like Hercules could go to hades, which was thought of as a real place deep below the ground that one could travel to, albeit over a dangerous route.

If one defines the question to be unfalsifiable, of course, then it's unfalsifiable. See Carl Sagan's dragon in his garage. You can always come up with another reason the dragon can't be detected. He lives in another dimension, but he's there.

And if you cannot show, using critically robust scientific evidence that he is not there, even in another dimension, concluding he does not exist is an irrational act.

It's all in how the proposition is phrased. And, we always have to understand that an unstated assumption in everything scientific is that nothing is ever proved conclusively and unfalsifiably, whether negatives or positives. Everything is open to disproof and to being falsified. Once something is presented as unfalsifiable, it's outside the realm of science and becomes a pointless question.

Merely because you think something is unfalsifiable doesn't mean it is.

You can't prove that an impossible to detect Zeus doesn't exist! Well, right, of course I can't. The very idea is absurd because the question defines itself as unprovable.

Unless you find a way to detect Zeus sometime in the future using knowledge you do not presently have. Until then your only valid response to the question is "I don't know." Anything else is an irrational conclusion. By using the word "impossible" in your statement above you are creating your own tautology, one which I have not suggested. I have never suggested that it is "impossible" to scientifically examine or draw a rational conclusion about the existence of Zeus or any other god, I have said only that it is irrational to draw any conclusions in the absence of such evidence. This does not mean that humanity will never find such evidence, only that humanity does not (apparently) possess knowledge of such evidence, which is entirely different from there being no evidence.

Science is all about proving negatives. We never prove theories, we disprove them, or they stand up to proof.

And science is always limited in its ability to prove or disprove something by it's own ignorance of the true nature of the universe. Newton "discovered" gravity but could not explain it. We still can't explain it. Copernicus was unaware of muons, yet the absence of knowledge of muons by the scientific community of Copernicus' time did not mean that muons did not exist at that time and only come into existence as our ability to detect and quantify them advanced. The same is true of God. Just because human science is presently incapable of "testing" the god hypothesis does not say anything at all about the existence of God or gods. That is simple logic. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

This is all true. Which is why it was rational not to believe in muons in Copernicuses day. Just like we don't believe in garganitrons today. Maybe there are other particles out there that will someday be called garganitrons, or flubenitrons, or monominimuons of the north/south/big/small varieties. There are an infinite number of unknowns out there. We can acknowledge that without believing in stuff.

Indeed. But there is a difference between "not believing" and making a rational claim of non-existence. "Not believing" is merely an iteration of "I don't know."

I am referring to the more positive assertion made quite commonly by Atheists of the factual non-existence of God/gods here, nothing else.

Like, the theory that two objects of different mass dropped from a height will nevertheless fall at the same rate. We can never prove that theory right in all instances -- we can only test the theory to see if it is wrong by going up the top of the leaning tower of Pisa and dropping two different sized cannonballs to the ground. If the two balls fall at different rates, then we would prove the negative: we would prove that two bodies of different masses will fall at different rates of speed. If they fall at the same rate, then the theory has survived the test and is supported by the evidence, but we can never prove that they will always fall at the same rate. We can only improve our confidence. i.e. scientific method.

But a feather falls to the ground more slowly than a cannonball does, does it not...in Earth's atmosphere. We didn't really prove this hypothesis until two different masses were dropped at the same time in a vacuum, in order to eliminate air resistance as a factor.

Ugh - the point is that the notion is never proved conclusively and irrefutably -- it's never unfalsifiable. Every contention is subject to disproof. That doesn't make allcontentions equal. Some have stronger levels of confirmation than others.

Indeed. But drawing a rational conclusion requires that it be based upon rational analysis, which requires the existence of critically robust scientific evidence supporting that conclusion. In the absence of such evidence, as in the case of the absolute lack of evidence of the non-existence of God/gods, it is irrational to come to the conclusion that God/gods do not exist, and the only rational response is "I don't know."

You see, science doesn't know what it doesn't know and therefore science cannot draw rational conclusions about things of which it has no evidence from which a conclusion can rationally be drawn.

Science does not draw conclusions about things of which it has no evidence.

Indeed. But Atheists do, all the time, with mind-numbing regularity and predictability and entirely irrationally, and therein lies my entire point.

Conclusions are based on evidence. A conclusion based on no evidence is irrational.

Absolutely correct.

That's why god-belief without evidence is irrational.

Correct, but I'm not discussing god belief, I'm discussing Atheist claims of the non-existence of God. Two different things entirely.

If you have evidence from which it rationally follows that there is a god, then your belief may not be irrational.

Correct. And an Atheist who has no evidence that the evidence cited by the person claiming knowledge of the existence of God is faulty, based on critically robust scientific evidence and rational conclusions drawn from that evidence, is drawing an irrational conclusion.

I, for one, have never encountered a single person who has ever presented any evidence from which could rationally follow that there is a god.

Which, while I'm sure is true, is utterly irrelevant to, and not determinative of the existence of God.

I remain open to the possibility, of course, if someone were to present such evidence - in fact, my interest in the topic has me looking hard for that evidence. I really would love to find it. So, I do not believe in any god ever described to me, because none of them has ever been presented with any evidence I found rationally leads to the conclusion that the god exists.

And that is a rational statement.

In fact, most - albeit not all - god believers tend say that the faith in the being without any evidence is a virtue, and is what is important.

Indeed. And that seems to be a bit irrational to me.

[JimC]

Forty Two wrote:

So, I do not believe in any god ever described to me, because none of them has ever been presented with any evidence I found rationally leads to the conclusion that the god exists.

/thread