Hawkingfan

y,

The crux of the problem is when you said the following statements:

"By whom? All scientists? How do I know they aren't all wrong?" (regarding the statement that it is accepted in our reality what terms and evidence will define a rock as a rock. And that definition is what we compare things to in order to find out if what we are seeing is a rock or not).

and

"As a non-believer in rocks, they are not known to me. Why should I believe you?"

The fact of the matter is that you not need accept as fact what other people or scientists believe and prove as fact. But that is YOUR problem. I find your logic inconsistent and contradictory. You call me a hypocrite. You ask for how we know scientific truths and how we know rocks exist, yet you are "certain" of God's truths and existence without explaning how. Have you asked yourself, "How do I know the Bible is true? Who says so? How do I know they aren't wrong?" or "Why should atheists believe me?"

yguy

Probably not in the sense that you mean it, but it seems you have missed the sarcasm in my reply.

It's no more magical than any other form of denial.

Yeah, I could go along with that. It's happened before.

I didn't say they were liars, I said the concept is absurd at its root.

Now, I have no problem with the testing of theories, and the idea that some are more worth looking into than others. I object to assigning a number to such suspected worth.

Since I consider the concept of probability as applied to scientific theories nonsensical, I can't answer the question.

I'm not familiar with the details of his theory. The point is that its essence, that the Earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa, was correct.

yguy

Exactly. Neither is it my problem that you don't find the evidence for God's existence which assaults your consciousness daily credible.

Hawkingfan

So be it.

Alix Nenuphar

Yguy:

You indicated that you were here to annoy everyone, and Are you actually planning to get around to either of these self-appointed tasks?

SanDiegoAtheist

Nope. That'd be GODS problem, as he's the one who supposedly knew from eternity that, since I wasn't actually BROUGHT UP TO BELIEVE in him, I don't accept the a priori assertion of "goddidit" as the reason behind all other reasons.

You see, I can test various predictions that prove to me that electrons REALLY exist - in fact, we wouldn't be able to be holding this debate if they didn't - but there are far more predictions made under atomic theory, and they can be tested, and verified to behave as predicted. So even if I CAN'T see an electron, everything seems to indicate that they are in fact there.

Now, it's POSSIBLE that God is causing the electron to orbit in its shell, but I can't think of any possible test that would show that - so I remain agnostic on that issue. And that's exactly what all your 'evidence' boils down to - you claim God as the cause behind all other causes - but you have utterly failed to demonstrate this. We can see the causes that you see, but they can be explained sufficiently by purely natural phenomena, no god appears to be required. While a God MAY be the ultimate cause of these phenomena, you have not made any predictions by this that would differ in ANY way from a purely naturalistic universe. So you haven't provided EVIDENCE - you've provided a HYPOTHESIS: "God causes the electrons to spin". Great, now PROVE IT to a reasonable standard. Come up with a test which would show that only a GOD-cause is reasonable justification for an electron to spin, or alternatively, come up with a test which shows that GOD-cause in action. Either one - eliminate the alternatives, or prove your positive.

Until then, I'm perfectly happy saying that I don't know why an electron spins, or why the Planck interval is about 10^-43, or any of the other why's. There are lots of things I don't know about the universe, and many that I will never know - but by hypothesising, testing, and observing, I can LEARN. You've locked the door on learning.

I can come up with a great many tests for a positive God - problem is, they ALL fail. Prayer from Xians being more effective than non-Xians? Nope, no difference. Interventional prayer when the prayee doesn't KNOW about the prayers (to avoid placebo effects)? Nope, no effect. The Bible being inerrant? Don't make me laugh (oops, there goes the fundamentalists God - case closed, that particular version of God disproved to a reasonable standard). And so on.

You've got a hypothesis. Now figure out how to test it. If you can actually produce a test, which results in EVIDENCE, not only will the majority of us believe in God AT ONCE (whether we worship him/her/it is another matter entirely, and is very much independent of belief), but you've got a million $$$ coming from James Randi.

Cheers,

The San Diego Atheist

Mageth

y:

Everywhere you look.

I've looked for going on 48 years, from both sides of the issue. I was a theist for 45 of those years.

And that's really a non-answer, anyway. Name me one specific thing that you consider evidence of god.

But you don't look.

How would you know?

You name. You analyze. You categorize and catalogue. Therefore you do not see.

You babble, therefore you say nothing.

Which pretty well sums up all your posts on this thread so far, BTW.

Philosoft

Must have. Silly me.

That's funny. What you're saying amounts to 'every single scientist is actively wrong and I am actively right.' Those are the kinds of claims that actually require some support.

Why hasn't anyone else noticed this absurdity?

What? Who cares what probability is assigned to the truth of a theory before it's tested?

You can't tell me why you think "scientific consensus" is important to the objective truth of a theory?
However, should the earth cease revolving around the sun, something for which there is an actual nonzero probability, his theory would be falsified.

Tabula_rasa

I stated:
You have equated the concept of God to a theory.
You responded:
OK, here you go.

Just to be clear on this. I said that you 'equated' god to a theory. I never stated that you said, "God is a theory." But your statements which I have now provided you with as requested, validate what I am saying. Did you know that you were doing this? Probably not.

Regarding the rest of your post: W

Tabula_rasa

Hawkingfan

y,
You say evidence for god is everywhere you look, but that we are not looking. What if I looked and found evidence of Allah? What if part of the evidence I gave you was his holy word, the Koran, and showed you where it says Christians will be punished in hell? Why do you not believe in Allah when there is just as much "evidence" for him as there is for the Judeo-Christian God? Allah answers prayers just as often. There is evidence that Allah is more powerful than Yaweh because he has been able to get through to more people. 9-11 shows evidence that Allah exists as well.