Bobinius

According to your understanding of evidence, there is evidence for God. Religious experiences count as evidence of God. With such an enormous amount of evidence, why shouldn't we all believe in God? How come this amount of evidence is not proof for God? Please explain.

Secondly,please explain how, in spite of this mountain of evidence, you are a strong atheist? What is your evidence for the belief 'God does not exist'?

It seems paradoxical that with such an understanding of evidence, you are on the other side. Are you an authentic strong atheist or just pretending to be one in order to be buffered somehow from the criticism? We'll see.

Bobinius

Well John, I don't see any arguments, so I can safely conclude you don't have any evidence for the non existence of God. Just a pretended atheist. With your theory of evidence, it would be irrational for you to be an atheist anyway.

BlessNot

I don't know who John Powell is but if these questions were directed to me, I think I would answer it like this since I am an atheist, possibly on the strong side also, so if I may answer ......


According to my understanding and simple observation of things in our world and universe I do not see any evidence for the existence of god either. If you are making the claim for the existence of a god by saying the evidence is enormous, there shouldn't be any doubt in anybodies mind that this alleged being called God exists. It should be known just as if I were to look up in the night sky or day sky for that matter and see with my own physical abilties a god as plain as the stars in the sky, the moon and the sun or whatever. Therefore, where is all this proof you claim for the existence of this god you are referring too? It seems to me that if something exists it should be without a doubt provable. Therefore the only realization I can come to from my own natural observation, reason and logic is that there is no god.


Once again you are making a claim/assertion but are a failure at presenting any evidence based on logical conclusions. My atheism isn't based on a belief that god does not exist, it is based on my absence of belief that a god exists because there is no provable evidence for it's existence. you have your argument ass backwards. The burden is on you the theist to present proof for gods existence not the atheist to present non-evidence. your argument makes absolutely no sense at all.

This is not only a strange question but so typical of most theists. It's as if there is no such people in the world who think differently of those who believe in a god. It's as if atheists cannot possible have no belief in the supernatural, they are just making believe they don't believe. That is pure Bullshit, as in Major League Bullshit to the core. It goes back to that old worn out question I so often hear from misinformed theists: "You have to believe in something?" Well guess what partner, there are people in this world who do not believe in god and don't have such beliefs so you might as well get used to it.

Unum

You're not understanding the context of this thread. Bobinius is a strong atheist and John Powell is a strong atheist. The reason that Bobinius started this thread is because he doesn't take John Powell at his word that he is a strong atheist because John Powell doesn't agree with Bobinius's understanding of the word evidence. To understand the context go here, although be prepared to do a lot of reading as the thread is over 13 pages long.

Peace,

Unum

luvluv

Bobinius, there's such a thing as the balance of evidence. It may be that Powell (mistakenly - ) believes that while religious experiences are evidence for God, the balance of evidence favors atheism.

Look, is there any doubt that there's strong evidence for Newtonian mechanics? For over 100 years it predicted the movements of the planets with unprecedented accuracy. It has overwhelming evidential support. But, it turns out that, with more precise measurements, general relativity is much, much more accurate. So while Newtonian mechanics has massive evidential support, it's still the case that general relativity has more, and is therefore the theory to be preferred.

There's nothing unusual at all in admitting that theory A has much evidence in it's favor, yet competing theory B has more, and is thus more plausibly said to be true.

That said, I obviously disagree with John Powell about his assesment of the evidence. In my view the balance of evidence supports theism or agnosticism, but definitely not atheism.

John Powell

to Bobinius

POWELL:
Because God does not exist. That's why.

POWELL:
Correct.

POWELL:
I'm sure they count as evidence as defined by the American Heritage Dictionary first definition since they are helpful to some theists to conclude that God exists. My amateur analysis of Bayes theorem suggests they count as Bayesian evidence for God since the probability of the posterior P(G/RE), i.e. the probability that God exists given that there are religious experiences, is expected to be higher than the probability of the prior P(G) given some fair assumptions.

POWELL:
I don't think it's "enormous." Probabilities don't scale with the number of claimants since they can't surpass 100%. I believe that the preponderance of the evidence favors the non existence of God. Given what I estimate to be the extraordinary value of the claim "God exists" to be very high, I don't think theists have satisfied the burden.

POWELL:
It's not proof because despite the evidence it's yet possible that God does not exist and it's possible that God exists. There is to date, no valid deductive argument concerning the question of God's existence (yea or nay) that has been accepted by both sides to be sound.

POWELL:
I am a strong atheist with respect to the Christian God because I believe that the Christian God does not exist.

POWELL:
Oh, lots of things. The current world no longer seems to me to be the kind of world we would likely have if God existed. After I concluded that Mormonism was false, I later concluded there was insufficient reason to believe any other religion either because they all were making extraordinary claims without providing extraordinary evidence. However, none of my reasons are PROOF that God does not exist.

POWELL:
Why don't you ask Doug Krueger and Jason Gastrich? They both know me from elsewhere.

POWELL:
I've been busy responding to some long posts, including yours.



to BlessNot

POWELL:
You're a "strong" atheist with respect to the Christian God if you believe that the Christian God does not exist. If you don't go that far, but only claim that you don't believe the Christian God exists, then you're a "weak" atheist with respect to the Christian God.

POWELL:
Could be, but perhaps you mean that you see no PROOF of God or anything that could only be explained by God's existence.

POWELL:
Given what you said, you would seem to be a "weak" atheist, Blessnot. When you get the courage, take the plunge: become a strong atheist. Then it won't be so easy to put the burden on them. Rather, you'll have a greater burden to defend your beliefs.

POWELL:
They're right. We all have to believe in something. However, it doesn't have to be God or something supernatural.



To Unum

POWELL:
You've done a great job in that thread, Unum.



To LuvLuv

POWELL:
Right. You could even say that more strongly. (You've also done a great job in that thread.)

Theist arguing:
1. God exists.
Therefore
2. God exists.

That's a valid deductive argument and it's a sound deductive argument despite what atheists might claim since the premise is true. The refusal of atheists to accept it as sound has no relevance to its soundness. The conclusion is true despite atheistic beliefs to the contrary.

POWELL:
Of course I don't agree that the argument is sound (valid, yes) and I might propose a competitor circular argument with "God does not exist."

John Powell

Bobinius

Ipse dixit. So you say.

1. They are the same kind of evidence like wishfull thinking.

2. Given some fair assumptions, we can raise any posterior for any prior.

Of course you don't. But all you present are assertions.

Oh my, but it would be irrational to reject the God thesis, given so much evidence.

Are you not accepting your mom as your mom, because you can't infer her to be your mom based on a sound argument? Is possible that she might not be your mom.

yes, you succeded to define the word strong atheist. Bravo.

I understand, is just an irrational belief of yours.

To remind you, you are saying that God does not exist, not that I am a strong atheist with respect to the Christian God because I believe that the Christian God does not exist, not that PROBABLY he does not exist.

Then you are not a strong atheist.

You concluded mormonism is probably false, but how you concluded God does not exist?

Yes, and you have no arguments for your position. You are not a strong atheist.

You are not an atheist either. You have to prove that the evidence presented for God is not sufficient for a RATIONAL conclusion that God exists. The mere possibility he doesn't is not a justification.

John Powell

POWELL:
Then you answer the question, Bobinius. What is the reason that God does not exist? Don't give the reasons that you happen to believe that God does not exist, but the reason that God does not exist.

POWELL:
That's doubtful. What fair assumptions would you propose by which pigs being fat raises the probability that Relativity is true? (This is an example you brought up in the other thread). Don't just invent numbers, but give reasons to think those numbers are a fair match to how things are.

Given what you said in the other thread, perhaps you think that "pigs generally eat more than they need to be lean" and "Relativity is true" are "logically equivalent with respect to the evidence" since they both are potentially offered as explanations for fat pigs and so should be given the same probability. Is that your view?

POWELL:
I'm making claims and supporting them. I'm not trying to persuade you to become an atheist, so my answer is rather brief.

POWELL:
No. Atheists are rational. However, so are theists. Rational people can disagree, Bobinius. Rational people can be wrong.

POWELL:
My beliefs concerning my mom are based on inductive / probabalistic arguments rather than merely deductive arguments. So are your beliefs about your mom.

POWELL:
I think my atheism is rational.

POWELL:
I do NOT affirm that CERTAINLY the Christian God does not exist. Do you affirm that, Bobinius? Are you absolutely certain, there's no chance you could be wrong, that the Christian God does not exist?

If you do so affirm then where is the valid deductive argument with premises that the rest of us should accept to be true?

POWELL:
Sure I am. However, I'm not a gnostic strong atheist as you seem to be, someone who not only believes that the Christian God does not exist, but thinks he KNOWS FOR CERTAIN that the Christian God does not exist. I'm an agnostic strong atheist. I believe the Christian God does not exist, but I don't know for sure.

POWELL:
My circumstances did not match my beliefs of God. At first I thought God wasn't happy with me. Later, I figured God might as well not exist. Later, I concluded that God probably did not exist since the evidence wasn't so good after all, but people were mistakenly attributing curious psychological things to spiritual beings and explaining what was mysterious to them by "God did it."

POWELL:
Sure I have arguments, Bobinius, I've been making some, but why should I try to persuade you to be an atheist?

POWELL:
Then I challenge you to do that, Bobinius. PROVE that theists are irrational. Where is that valid deductive argument with premises that all competent persons will likely accept as true? Perhaps you think only atheists are competent to judge such things since only atheists are rational. That would seem to be begging the question.

John Powell

Angrillori

Powell:

A person who believes that the ad populum argument is valid should not be so brazen about demanding valid arguments...

luvluv

This is an ad populm fallacy:

1) What many people claim happen is true.
2) Many people claim to have experienced God.
3) Therefore, it is true that many people experienced God.

This is not an ad populm fallacy:

1) What many people claim is evidence for their claim.
2) Many people claim to have experienced God.
3) Therefore there is evidence that people have experienced God.