hinduwoman

I say God does not exist and here is my proof:

Why do I believe there is no chocolate bar in front of me?
The proof is that I cannot see it though I can see a number of other objects.

In exactly the same way I cannot see any superantural powers. That is my negative proof
of the negative proposition of atheism.

Albert Cipriani

With No Undue Disrespect, Hinduwoman,
What you’ve written here is quite stupid. Even more stupid than the un-scrubbed doctors who for 20 years performed operations while disbelieving the novel theory of germs, something that could not be seen yet had been postulated as the reason why most of their patients died.

The reason your statement is even more stupid than the medical community’s bias against germs is that the medical community, as good scientists, were ultimately open to EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE for the EMPIRICAL CLAIM of germs. You, on the other hand, are open to empirical evidence for a NON-empirical claim.

Nothing could be more absurd. To stop searching for God because you cannot detect God is as absurd as its converse, searching for extraterrestrials by praying to meet them. Using empirical means to achieve non-empirical ends is as wrong-headed as using non-empirical means to achieve empirical ends.

You’re smarter than this. Disbelieve in God all you want; but at least have the decency to disbelieve for a better reason than that you can’t detect Him like you can detect a chocolate bar. Geez, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Demigawd

Albert, you seem to be a clever fellow, at least rhetorically speaking, so it's confusing to me that you would use an analogy of primitive thinking to refute Hinduwoman's argument since your religion is based on archaic ignorance. In this age of mass education and communication, a considerable portion of humanity has access to information beyond the imagination of the contemparies of the hucksters (ie. evangelicals and priests) who victimized the populace.

Consider how powerful exploitation of innocence is. Consider a populace without universal access to education. An age where scholarship was the purview of a select few. A time that encompassed the birth and growth of Christianity. In other words, actual history.

In this hypothetical scenario, a person who looked for concrete proof of existence of a supreme being would easily be rebuffed. Authority would question her direct knowledge of societal hierarchy. Had she witnessed her king, lord, or whatever in person? Remember here that most people had little knowledge beyond a few miles of their home.

So, said skeptic had to concede there was an authority beyond her personal experience. And a basis of this hierarchy was the claim that a supreme being decreed it so. We're talking about the supposed divine right of monarchy here, including the top-down power of nobility.

That's what you've inherited, Albert, through your religion: a hierarchy that presupposes your entire existence. Bow your knee to God because he's sit up a chain-of-command.

And you accept this because your precusors said it was so. That's pretty sad, intellectually speaking.

Wyz_sub10

Three posts into the discussion, and I can already see trouble brewing.

Consider this a pre-emptive warning to everyone - let's try to keep a civil tone in this discussions.

Technically, no one has crossed any lines yet, but let's keep it that way, okay?

Wyz_sub10,
EoG Moderator

Albert Cipriani

Demi says:
And Moderator Wyz warns me of “trouble brewing.”

So discretion leads me to sheath my valor and respond through the following veil:

Independence Day
All across the darkness
belting every time zone
in America
(like our collective heartburn
after way too many
hot-dogs, beer, and pizza),
there’s a yearly belching
up of fireworks,
the man-made meteorite
showers -- miniature Big
Bangs -- revealing our
clouds of smoke, our grayness
where the Milky Way was.

The finale finally
comes and goes, releasing
a collective “Oooh”
from crowds left looking up
at darkness that they know
will not be broken in quite
the same way ever again.
Still, they stare up at
the unseen air awhile,
vaguely hoping for
one more surprise before
their headlights atomize them
homeward where the parents
celebrate what’s left
of the Divine Rights of kings:

“Do what your mother tells you.”
and “Because I said so!”
sentences the children
by the millions to
their bedtime and their night-lights.

-- Albert the Traditional Catholic’s Muzzled Retort

Demigawd

"There's no bread,
Let them eat cake.
There's no end
To what they'll take."
-Neil Peart, "Bastille Day" (Caress of Steel)

And your argument via poetry signifies what?

Inconnu

We must remember that heresy was generally dealt with by an "earthly" sword rather than "divine retribution", a will and act of a person not a diety.
Germs and their images are available to all, no mystery there. Still cant find that picture of god though. I guess we will develop a microscope eventually to see god?

Albert Cipriani

Incanuu:
Ah, I see you’re new, so I guess someone needs to tell you that the idea here is to advance an argument, not assert the same assertion that I’d just argued against.

Yeah, I know they are both “A” words, assertions and arguments, but there is a gross difference between them that even you without the aid of your god microscope should be able to see. – Albert the Traditional Catholic

Darth Dane

I can prove God exists:

I can see God whereever I go, if you cannot see God it is because either:

1) You are unpure and not deserving God's attention.
2) You are not equipped to see what I see, I am the elite and can preach teh word of God.
3) You yourself deny God everywhere, where you deny God, God is not. Where you acknowledge God there God is.
4) You are testing me to see if I will be swayed, you are the devil sent to test me.
5) You are right and I am wrong.

I can prove God doesn't exist:

I cannot see God everywhere, everywhere I look I see that I can get science to explain what happens.
I can see that teh brain is dependant of electrical signals and chemical fluids, thus any "experience" resides in teh brain, and you are just having a "glitch" in your brain Matrix. It is a self induced "experience" thus holding no valid integrity we can objectively assertain.
If God created this, he must have been shitfaced when he did it, I mean look at it. Thus it is only chaos, and survival of the fittest.


Sounds pretty much like the arguments eh?





DD - Love Spliff

Albert Cipriani

Demigawd:
1) That the Divine Right of kings was a good thing, an axiomatic political necessity (“because I said so”) that our present day problems can be traced to the lack thereof.

2) That this lack has ushered in our moral relativity, our relative grayness (“our clouds of smoke, our grayness”) as opposed to what used to be dramatically black or luminous.

3) That science has supplanted the finger of God (“the man-made meteorite showers -- miniature Big Bangs… where the Milky Way was”)

4) That cheap thrills have likewise supplanted our instinct to fear God and be awed (“vaguely hoping for one more surprise”)

5) That science ultimately leads to the empowerment of the individual over the collective, to individualism and terrorism as opposed to civilization and honorable wars (“their headlights atomize them homeward”).

6) That our childlike instinct for God, the Light, is even yet still reflected in the dim unnatural light of modern society (“to their bedtime and their night-lights”). – Albert the Traditional Catholic