Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Calzaer · 05-07-2003, 10:38 PM

Quote:

You and Doubting ought to form a duet for singing the same plaintive lay out of key. �O where O where has the evidence all gone? O where O where can it be? Gone to atheists everyone cuz we�re all too blind to see.� The video should be fraught with Oedipus Rex imagery, implying that the blindness was self-induced.

You're absolutely right. I repent my erroenous ways. I now believe in leprechauns.

Quote:

Let me put this as simply and kindly as I can: You are all a bunch of hypocrites. No offense meant, just my observation.

And you're a hypocrite if you belive in God without believing in leprechauns, since the likelyhood of their existance is about equal.

Lobstrosity · 05-08-2003, 12:22 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Violent Messiah
What you stated constitutes an argument against religion - not God.

God is a construct of religion. When not in the context of a given religion, "God" is an undefined concept. If I argue that all known religion is false, I also argue that all known religious concepts of God are false.

diana · 05-08-2003, 12:23 AM

Quote:

Let me put this as simply and kindly as I can: You are all a bunch of hypocrites. No offense meant, just my observation. � Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Albert,

You are an educated and articulate man. You are more than capable of making your point without stooping to name-calling, which easily falls within the purvue of "inflammatory language" and, as you well know, is in violation of forum rules.

I don't mind if you disagree with me. I count on it. Hell, I enjoy it. But it's time you clean up your act and self-edit when you know you're stepping out-of-bounds.

Calzaer, if any poster says something you cannot respond to without breaking the rules we all agreed to, report the post to a moderator and refrain from answering.

Albert, that was an amusing post, except for the name-calling bit. You implied somewhere in there that there was evidence for God? Intrigued I am. Do go on.

d

Lobstrosity · 05-08-2003, 12:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Albert Cipriani
No doubt, Lobstrosity can often be spied grocery shopping naked cuz, intellectually consistent logician that he is, he doesn�t believe in clothes either, for as we all know: �different cultures hold vastly different, mutually exclusive wardrobe beliefs.� So why bother with pants or loincloths or grass skirts. He will have nothing to do with any of these cultural niceties that are as wildly different as the world�s religions. You might say he wears his anti-religious beliefs on his sleeve� if he had one. So let�s just say that if you see him grocery shopping with conventional clothes on, he�s as inconsistent a hypocrite as PandaJoe and Spenser.

That's somewhat of a poor rebuttal. In fact, it looks quite a bit like a straw man. Choice of wardrobe is a matter of personal preference--clothes are not mutually exclusive universal truths. It's not impossible for me to own a kimono and a pair of khakis at the same time should I so desire--the existence of the kimono does not mandate that khakis cannot exist (otherwise I'd really have a problem when I tried to put them both on at once, now wouldn't I?). Religion is not a matter of personal preference (well, in practice it is, but we both know that ideally no one should believe in a specific reason just because they want to believe in it whether it's right or wrong). Religion asserts absolute truths that are not up for debate (unless science demonstrates that these truths are demonstrably false, in which case a quick reinterpretation of things shows that you must have just been mistranslating something).

If (a) religion X says there are twenty Gods and they created Earth by having a mass orgy and (b) religion X is true, then (c)Christanity is false.

Specifically,
X => (a) & (b) => ~Christianity

the contrapositive tells us that
Christianity => ~X

or in English:
If Christianity is true, then religion X is false.

This same mutual exclusion can be applied to all known religions...and there are hundreds of them, each developed by its own unique culture. So basically you have hundreds of religions we know for a fact are wrong. So why did so many people get it wrong if there was actually a correct religion out there--why couldn't they see it like you could? Weren't they also God's beloved creations? Did he not want them to know about Him? Were they all just too stupid to see him whereas you're the smart one? And where did these false religions come from, anyway? It looks like these pagan cultures just made them up, huh? From a sociological viewpoint, it certainly seems that every culture needs a religion, that religion serves a purpose in society even if it's not correct in what it says. It seems, one might venture, that nearly every religion (at least all those evil wrong ones) is just a cultural creation. All these cultures making up all these religions century after century until one day Judeo-Christianity came along, the one true religion, the one that wasn't made up. Or maybe JC was just another creation in a long line of false religions...hmmm, let's ponder for a minute which option seems most likely, using objective critical reasoning skills.

Now, if you can come up with an actual real-world example that casts this kind of analysis into doubt, please feel free to enlighten me. But please...clothes???

Eric Starnes · 05-08-2003, 01:43 AM

The Holocaust

Bumble Bee Tuna · 05-08-2003, 02:00 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Doubting Didymus

1: One should not accept any hypothesis without evidence that supports it.
2: There is no evidence that supports the god hypothesis. (this is where arguments occur, but arguments are the stuff of life)
Conclusion: one should not accept the god hypothesis.

Ditto.

NonHomogenized · 05-08-2003, 02:22 AM

In my ever-so-humble opinion, the most convincing argument for the nonexistence of god is the evidence for the existence of god. In fact, the distinct lack of any evidence whatsoever for god supports the hypothesis "there is no god" infinitely better than it supports the hypothesis "there is one or more gods". As the (lack of expected) evidence fits only the null hypothesis, there's no extraordinary claim to require extraordinary evidence (indeed, it could be argued that it's a claim to lack of extraordinary, and it is supported by an extraordinary lack of evidence

)

Jobar · 05-08-2003, 08:07 AM

Life, the universe, and everything.

Albert, your anger and insults sound very much to me like desperation. You've read my warning to theists who come here regularly, I'm sure? The part about how you may find your faith, which you think to be rock-solid, cracking beneath you like rotten ice? Take care where you place your feet, my friend/opponent.

Lobstrosity, I am delighted to see you back! Lots of us missed your uniquely insightful posts.

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas · 05-08-2003, 09:40 AM

Albert,

Quote:

Originally posted by Albert Cipriani
Spenser says,

Ergo, Spenser is a hypocrite unless he also admits the pointlessness of searching for a visualization of all other temporal manifestations of things beyond space and time, for example justice and whatever the hell it is about music that we visualize or imagine to be going on when all that is going on is stirrup bone vibrations.

PandaJoe doesn�t believe in God cuz of:

That�s why PandaJoe doesn�t believe in pornography or beauty either. You see, even nine very educated old men and women in black robes can�t define pornography. And poets don�t even try to define beauty. They�re smart enough to know that our inability to define something indicts us, not the thing that is beyond our powers to define.

Lobstrosity says he doesn�t believe in religion because of:

No doubt, Lobstrosity can often be spied grocery shopping naked cuz, intellectually consistent logician that he is, he doesn�t believe in clothes either, for as we all know: �different cultures hold vastly different, mutually exclusive wardrobe beliefs.� So why bother with pants or loincloths or grass skirts. He will have nothing to do with any of these cultural niceties that are as wildly different as the world�s religions. You might say he wears his anti-religious beliefs on his sleeve� if he had one. So let�s just say that if you see him grocery shopping with conventional clothes on, he�s as inconsistent a hypocrite as PandaJoe and Spenser.

Doubting says:

Like a drunken sailor chasing whores, of course he never finds a woman worthy of being his wife. Duh. Evidence does not fall from the skies. It must be sought, and sought in the right places. But Doubting, a confirmed bachelor pretending to be open to matrimony if only the right girl would come along is also open to a relationship with God if only God�s signature ring or some other form of evidence would fall out of the sky and hit him on the head. Doubting may fool himself that this is true, and may even be able to fool his barfly floosies that he�s still looking for Miss Right, but alas, he won�t be able to fool God.

Mad doesn�t believe in God because of his attachment to the logical fallacy known as bifurcation, expressed thusly:

You see, in Mad�s mad world, time spent praying is time debited from helping the poor. Of course, time spent watching sitcoms or applying makeup or playing sports or eating junk food or relaxing in the sun or traveling or wasting bandwidth here or� you get the picture. Only wasting time on God is wasting time. Wasting time on all form and manner of other patently silly things is just, well, counted to your credit as helping the poor. But then again, that�s how it is in Mad�s mad world, not the real world theists inhabit.

Diana says:

You and Doubting ought to form a duet for singing the same plaintive lay out of key. �O where O where has the evidence all gone? O where O where can it be? Gone to atheists everyone cuz we�re all too blind to see.� The video should be fraught with Oedipus Rex imagery, implying that the blindness was self-induced. I smell a crossover hit! Wait a second. No. That was the garbage I forgot to take out.

Let me put this as simply and kindly as I can: You are all a bunch of hypocrites. No offense meant, just my observation. � Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

HA HA HAH A HA HA HA HAAAAAA HA HA HH AAAAA HA HA AHH A

HAHAHA HAAAAAA
HA AHA HA

HA AAHAHAHAAAA

H EE H EHEEHE EEEEE EEEEEEE

HEE hEE!!!

...oh. Man. <blink> <blink> <cough>

#$*! that was funny. This is probably the best post I have ever seen during my time here on these boards. Do this...try reading this post in the voice of Stewie from the Family Guy. He he he...

Anyway, I must say, I was going to take a crack at illuminating the numerous fissures in these shoddy whinings about 'lack' of evidence for God...but why? Albert has already done so magnificently.

Albert, my hat is off to you.

:notworthy

I got tell you guys...I love you...but the hypocrisy of your positions is unbelievable. Using the exact same 'arguments' as above...you should then believe:

-Logic doesn't exist...because you can't see, hear or touch it.
-Abraham Lincoln never existed...because you can't really define Abraham Lincoln.
-Music is fallacious...because different cultures have different forms of musical expression.
-You will never make new friends...because you have no evidence that people you don't know will actually like you.
-There is no milk at the store...because you have no objective proof of such.

I have no problem with athiesm but I will tell you this: I have never met an athiest who truly and unbiasedly applied their reasoning about God to other aspects of their life.

It's Ok if you don't belive in God...you just can't believe in any of the above stuff either.

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Philosoft · 05-08-2003, 10:01 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas
-Logic doesn't exist...because you can't see, hear or touch it.

It's also not a thing, as God is alleged to be. Strike 1.

Quote:

-Abraham Lincoln never existed...because you can't really define Abraham Lincoln.

"Abraham Lincoln" was a specific collection of matter. The actions attributed to the collection of matter known as "Abraham Lincoln" fit a highly probable model of American History. Strike 2.

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-Music is fallacious...because different cultures have different forms of musical expression.

Music is interpretive by nature. It's not some form of universal truth. Strike 2.5.

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-You will never make new friends...because you have no evidence that people you don't know will actually like you.

What?

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-There is no milk at the store...because you have no objective proof of such.

Who said anything about "objective proof"? I'd take evidence of God's existence equivalent to evidence of milk's existence. Strike 3.

Quote:

I have no problem with athiesm but I will tell you this: I have never met an athiest who truly and unbiasedly applied their reasoning about God to other aspects of their life.

I'm not bringing my brand new irony meter anywhere near this one. Anyway, I've got news for you: God isn't like other aspects of my life. I don't need to presuppose God in order to function on a daily basis.

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05-08-2003, 01:43 AM	#15
Eric Starnes Regular Member Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 373	The Holocaust

05-08-2003, 02:22 AM	#17
NonHomogenized Veteran Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: no longer at IIDB Posts: 1,644	In my ever-so-humble opinion, the most convincing argument for the nonexistence of god is the evidence for the existence of god. In fact, the distinct lack of any evidence whatsoever for god supports the hypothesis "there is no god" infinitely better than it supports the hypothesis "there is one or more gods". As the (lack of expected) evidence fits only the null hypothesis, there's no extraordinary claim to require extraordinary evidence (indeed, it could be argued that it's a claim to lack of extraordinary, and it is supported by an extraordinary lack of evidence )

05-08-2003, 08:07 AM	#18
Jobar Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: secularcafe.org Posts: 9,525	Life, the universe, and everything. Albert, your anger and insults sound very much to me like desperation. You've read my warning to theists who come here regularly, I'm sure? The part about how you may find your faith, which you think to be rock-solid, cracking beneath you like rotten ice? Take care where you place your feet, my friend/opponent. Lobstrosity, I am delighted to see you back! Lots of us missed your uniquely insightful posts.

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