Not the act the people who commit the act.

My question was, how can you tell you had a personal experience with god. Is your answer "by having a personal experience with god"?



No, but it's disrespectful for you to tell me what my worldview is, which is what you did.



Then please do.


What about secular humanism requires more faith than a theistic religion?

Never said it wasn't a system of beliefs. It's just not a religious one, because it doesn't require faith in anything supernatural.

There is one very big difference. "Love" is, by definition, a label we put on something we observe and experience in reality. We may not be fully able to explain the mechanics of it to every last detail, but we never posit that it has a supernatural component. Whereas theists do one of three things:

- They never point to something in reality and say "that is god". They posit that a supernatural god exists, and point to things in the world as supposed evidence that the god exists. But the logic never tracks, and the fact that those things exist never ends up being a good reason to belive that the proposed god, which remains undemonstrated, actually exists.

- They point to something in reality and say "that is god, and it has supernatural powers". Then when we put this assertion to the test, we never find a reason to conclude that the thing they point to does have those powers.

- They point to something in reality and say "that is god, but it doesn't have supernatural powers, I just call it god". This is a completely pointless exercise and doesn't tell you anything about reality that you didn't already know.





And again I ask, what is the relevance of this?

Many of those same people also had syphilis. So what?

Good thing I never claimed that then. I'm beginning to see a pattern of you, how did you put it? Arguing against someone that is not in the room?


It depends entirely on what the claim is. If my best friend makes an outlandish claim, I would not believe him just because he's my friend, even if he never told me a lie before.

But credibility must be weighed against the particular claim being made. Just because someone made a thousand mundane true statements doesn't give them a pass to make one outlandish claim and expect to be believed.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and credibility does not count as extraordinary evidence. That is why the scientific process, our most reliable tool for determining truth, includes independent verification as one of its cornerstones.

And so it doesn't matter how many cities and kings and other historical details a text mentions, when it starts talking about supernatural entities, I'm just as justified to call bull**** on that as a future historian would be justified to stand in the middle of the ruins of NYC and call bull**** on the existence of Spiderman. It's a different kind of claim, one with zero confirmed historical examples of its kind.


Honest people can still be wrong. I'm perfectly prepared to believe that ancient peoples genuinely believed that a god existed. That doesn't mean I should accept that assertion as true without any evidence just because it's next to other, mundane claims which we have verified.

lol

Actually, that was not your question. Your question was:

Which I answered very accurately.

I see that you have asked me an entirely new question, and then followed that up by asking me if my answer to your previous question would be the same as this new question.

My answer to your new yes or no question [Is your answer "by having a personal experience with god"?] is "no, I would not use the answer that I used for your previous question as the same answer to your new question."

Ok, so if it is disrespectful to state what someone's worldview is... Does that mean it was equally disrespectful when you stated that I believed in God? Does that also mean that you are being disrespectful when you refer to people as "Christians" or "Muslims" or "Theists"?

If I was in fact, incorrect that you are an Atheist/Agnostic that believes that God does not exist, please let me know. I will gladly apologize with sincerity and begin referring to you as a Theist, Muslim, Christian, Deist or whatever you prefer.

No offense, but you come across as someone that is fishing for disrespect in attempt to level the playing field.

I have no intention of ever disrespecting you and would gladly apologize if I have done so.

Sure. I will use your exact formatting.

I can tell God exists, because I experience it directly, AND there is physical evidence of it, AND because I can observe others acting in a way that is consistent with my experience.

1) "Nothing" exploding into "something". (The Big Bang)
2) The fine tuning of the universe happened by chance

Supernatural - "attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature."

"Nothingness" exploding into an unfathomably fascinating complex universe full of unique and complex structures is obviously a supernatural event.

From everything we know within science, "nothing" cannot create "something". Therefore the Big Bang is supernatural.

Therefore every secular humanist (not saying you are one to avoid disrespecting) believing in the big bang believes in a supernatural event.

There are many supernatural beliefs that secular humanists have. They are just keenly unaware of them because they do not self analyze themselves and realize that they are no different than people of any other worldview. They have been conditioned to believe that their worldview is the "absence of beliefs" when it is quite the opposite. It is just as loaded with beliefs, if not more so than the other worldviews. It makes a long list of wild assertions that simply can't be proven by evidence, scientific theory, or observation. They accept these assertions as truths despite not being able to prove any of them, and simultaneously ridicule other worldviews for doing the exact same thing.

I see your point, however this argument can be used equally to dismiss the accomplishments of anyone from any worldview.

It kind of reduces the discussion to silliness.

Ahhh, it seems I have misread and misunderstood the above quote, which was not my intention. My apologies for my human error. :(

Sure you would.

If your best friend came running into your home right now with an authentic panicked look and said "Your car outside is on fire!"

More than likely you would believe that his/her outlandish claim would have high level credibility and go running outside, possibly with a fire extinguisher in hand.

The power of credible personal testimony is indeed a force to be reckoned with.

It is why we use it in courts of law.

If my best friend told me with an authentic look and voice tone that he saw an alien, I would be very likely to believe that he was sharing truth with me. I would likely believe he was hallucinating, but I would more than likely believe that he saw what he saw.

If you would not believe your friend that has never lied to you, that's fine, but to claim that anyone believing a highly trusted source is doing so without "good reason" seems wrong to me.

No, they really don't.

Not sure who told you this, but it is wrong.

"Your car is on fire" is an extraordinary claim.

You would have fire extinguisher in hand.

A: "Your car is one fire!"
B: "Please provide evidence!"
A: "No dude, it's seriously burning down right now. Go put out the fire."
B: "I'm sorry, but that is an extraordinary claim. I require extraordinary evidence!"
*car burns down*

Yeah, it's not going to go that way. ^

Your own actions would clearly show that you do not believe that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

And as an adult you are well within your right to make an informed intelligent decision.

I encourage everyone to do their research and draw their own conclusions.

I respect your decision and understand why you feel the way you do.

I feel you have good reason to think the way that you do.

Where I think you are wrong is that you claim that others "do not have one single good reason" to believe in their worldview. I feel that is a very close-minded uninformed statement.


Anyone expecting you to believe something without any evidence is an idiot.

One of the main points I'm trying to make is that you more than likely believe that Theists are people that do not look at the evidence when it is quite the contrary.

All of the scientific evidence that the universe presents to us overwhelmingly points to the existence of an intelligent designer.

That is why Antony Flew, the great Atheist gave up his stance and began believing in God, much to the disappointment of all secular humanists that held him on a pedestal.

Another point I am making is that testimony serves as evidence in many cases, such as a court of law.

I'm not suggesting that you should go on testimony alone at all, which is what you may assume.

I'm assuming that you look at all the evidence and make up your own mind, which you have.

At this point, your brain has fully solidified on its conclusions and has hardened into a complete state, which was easily identified from your first post. You are beyond swaying or influencing in any other direction. Nobody will ever convince you to prescribe to any other worldview. Hence why this discussion is mostly a waste of time.

More than likely you have dismissed every single point that I have ever made.

More than likely you will walk away saying "Wow, that guy didn't even give me one good reason that he believes in God".

"He is just a blind idiot that refuses to look at the obvious evidence. Why are people so dumb?"

Did I get it right?

As I said, waste of time...

Ritualistic belief in higher power hasn't just survived for a few thousand years. It seems to have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, across all cultures. That's hardly something to be dismissed, especially by anyone interested in Darwinian evolution. How the hell is it that major religions can have billions of followers to this day? It goes deeper than intellect and physical reason. There is something there which draws and holds these people. They all share the experience, and thus its real.

Slavery hasn't gone away entirely, and where it did go away it had a lot to do with economic advancement. There was a viable economic path for the abolition of slavery to take place, and so it did. Care to guess what percentage of the US population was Christian in the early and mid 1800s? It's not as if slavery was abolished by some new atheist movement or something. It's also perfectly reasonable to expect a peoples' understanding of their religious teachings to advance with the times. Lots of factors. You are not a blank slate. You as an individual are not in control of your moral compass.

The Old Testament is a good reflection of the thousand years across which it was written too. The vengeful God was necessary for the individual and group survival in highly tribal times. You had to take care of your own, but you also had to embrace violence to defend your kingdom from outsiders.

I asked you for a good reason to be a theist. You said "having a direct experience with god". I said that "having a direct experience with god" doesn't qualify as a god reason until you can explain how it can be achieved. So, how can one achieve a direct experience with god?


I asked you several times to tell us what you believe and why. You never did, so I'm forced to assume. Am I wrong?

No, because I'm not telling any particular person what their religion is. You'll also note that I haven't referred to anyone as "christians" or "muslims". Different room etc etc.

I am both an agnostic and an atheist, but I do not believe that "God does not exist". I'm just not convinced of the existence of any of the gods I've been presented with thus far. Always keen to hear more though.



What is your physical evidence of god's existence?

Neither of these are intrinsic to secular humanism. What you posted are questions of cosmology, which is completely divorced from secular humanism.

That said:

1) Here's Lawrence Krauss, a leading cosmologist of our time, talking about how a universe might come about from "nothing":

- 4 minute summary: A Universe from Nothing - YouTube
- 1 hour lecture: 'A Universe From Nothing' by Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009 by Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009 - YouTube
- full 7 hour audiobook: A Universe From Nothing by Lawrence Krauss - Audiobook - YouTube

The fact is, according to the most accurate scientific findings in history to date, a universe coming about from "nothing" is not only unsurprising, it is in fact inevitable.

2) The problem with this one is what's called the anthropic principle. In a universe that wasn't "fine tuned" for human life, there would not be any humans to ponder the apparent fine-tunedness of the universe. A billion random universes could have come and gone, each of them "fine tuned" for a different form of life. In each of them, those lifeforms could be looking at their own universe and thinking that theirs is special and created just for them by some benevolent deity, and each of them would be wrong.

Another classic example is from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy:

It's not that the universe is fine-tuned for us. We're fine tuned for this universe.





See above. You're wrong, basically.

Sure, everyone makes some assumptions by necessity. Hard solipsism is the classic example. We all assume we're actually living in a shared reality, when in fact we could be in the Matrix or I could just be dreaming all this. No way to know.

But that doesn't give us license to just make up stuff and believe it willy-nilly. Because if we do in fact live in a shared reality where the laws of the universe work independently of what we believe, then our false beliefs inherently carry the risk of harming us or those around us. So if you care about the well-being of your peers, then you have an onus to also care about truth and not make unnecessary assumptions.



Exactly. It's silly to attribute the accomplishments of anyone to anything but the fact that they were good at what they were doing. That means it's silly to try to legitimize religion by saying that the top scientists in history were religious.


As a matter of fact I don't have a car, so I would definitely not believe him in this case. :) But I'll run with the example for the sake of argument.

Their claim that my car is on fire is not extraordinary in the sense that it is well within the realm of possibility as I understand it. I know I have a car, I know that cars can catch fire, and so it is entirely plausible that my friend is telling the truth.

But nothing about my experience with the universe gives me reason to believe that deities exist, and so someone's word alone is not going to be good enough to make me believe it.

You'll also note that spectral evidence has not been allowed in court for a long time. The courts will not take supernatural claims at face value either.

If he was hallucinating, then he did not in fact see an alien. Yes, I might believe that he thought he saw something, but whether or not that thing was really there would again depend on what he claims he saw. If he said he saw a raccoon, I'd believe him, because I know racoons exist and that they sometimes get close to humans. If he said he saw an alien, I would not believe him on his word alone, because I have no other reason to believe that aliens are visiting earth.

Again, depends on what the claim is. You would not be wrong to believe someone when they have a history of making similar, accurate claims. But that does not mean you should believe any other claim they make, especially wildly outlandish ones that challenge all you know about reality.



It was Carl Sagan.

Sagan standard - Wikipedia

And he's not wrong. I'll hazard a guess that you believe mundane things every day without evidence, but every now and then someone will tell you something extraordinary that prompts you to investigate. Again, it depends on the claim: you're inclined to believe things that line up with your current understanding of reality, because the universe tends to remain largely the same from one day to the next. But as soon someone says something that goes contrary to how you think things are, you want to hear more before you believe it.



I didn't say that though. I said that the reason for religious debates being a waste of time is because people who have no good reason to hold their beliefs won't admit to it. I have heard conversations where someone realized they have no good reason to hold their beliefs, and consequently dropped them: those conversations weren't a waste of time.




Well then you're wrong. I fully know that theists will look for evidence for their deity. It's just that as far as I've seen, (and I've seen a lot), nothing they come up with actually qualifies as good enough evidence to justify their religious beliefs.

If that were true, then the field of cosmology would include intelligent design. Which it doesn't. So you're wrong.

Antony Flew was a philosopher, not a physicist, and stories like his are very much the exception, not the rule. Also, refer to my earlier point about different types of claims. I don't care how brilliant someone is when it comes to topics other than gods. If they make claims of a god's existence, those claims will have to stand on their own.

You absolutely got it wrong.

I'm always open to new reasons, new evidence, etc. But if you're wrong, you're wrong, and me refusing to be swayed by bad evidence is not an indictment of my open-mindedness, but an indictment of the quality of your evidence.

Just as if you keep asking the hut-dwelling tribes to bring you evidence of their spirits that cause illness, and they keep bringing you albino children and shaved monkeys or whatever the **** else, you'd be entirely correct to stay unconvinced. Lots of bad evidence does not add up to good evidence.

There's a good book Snow Crash, which is a pretty funny satire but it also has a very interesting untertone about the power of religion to control the masses over time. A lot of links between Deuteronomy and how religious doctrine was used to basically hack social consciousness to do beneficial things.

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and that, children, is how science stopped being an academic discipline and became a religion

~bedtime stories from 2120~

You asked the wrong question. You're supposed to ask if he'll condemn pedophiles.

Small things come together in miraculous ways
Would it be so amazing that there is something larger than us that remembers everything
be one of us

he will never do that.

You tell me:

"What do you think a direct experience with God would be like?"

I'm curious what you think.

Nope. It was fine. I do not find such things to be disrespectful as you claim them to be.

The fine tuning of the universe.

How did our universe come into existence?

How do you think the fine tuning of the universe came to be so precise to the point of near mathematical impossibility?

What formed the physical laws that govern our universe?

What prevents these physical laws from changing?

That is correct. And yet, most secular humanists believe in the big bang by a significant margin.

I never said the universe was fine tuned "for us", I said it was fine tuned, which it is. I wasn't wrong about that.

Furthermore no, we are at the mercy of the universe, not the other way around. If you tweaked gravity slightly, we'd be toast. One asteroid and POOF, we gone. We are a leaf in the wind.

We are not fine tuned for this universe at all. Read about the near extinction events humans encountered that Hitchens talked about in formal debates. We aren't even finely tuned for this planet, let alone the universe, that is infinitely more terrifying.

Claiming that we are finely tuned for this universe is just wrong.

If 99% of Atheists were all the best dancers I've ever seen, there would be nothing "silly" about attributing Atheism with good dancing.

You can attribute a connection to anything if it is practical, makes sense, and holds up under scrutiny.

I would place much stronger value on the testimony of trusted friends than you would.

It seems that you have never encountered something in your life that challenged all you know about reality and found it to end up being true.

Maybe someday a new experience will come along. Perhaps not...

I have never read about Sagan, so I thank you for sharing that.

However, I believe Carl Sagan was found to be wrong.

The basic vibe of what you are saying about investigating is practical and total common sense.

However, extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary evidence, as I illustrated clearly in my previous example.

This has been debunked a long time ago. It is a flamboyant statement that seems intelligent on the surface, but when used in the formal debate, the person uttering it always regrets it when it gets picked apart. It's a weak and flawed argument.

I caution you against adhering to this, but many people will not know how to deal with it, so it's great to use against people if you simply desire to assert dominance. Just know that you are teaching them misinformation.

In gaming terms it is a pub-smashing tool. Most likely you have already got plenty of mileage out of it, so you will not be keen on putting it down.

Anyone can do the same exact thing to anyone else.

I can simply say that you have no good reason not to believe in God.

Then when you present all your evidence I can simply say "See, that's not a good reason" regardless of what you say.

Then I can claim "100% of Atheists I speak with have no good reason, but won't admit to it."

Here you go, "I have never met a single Atheist that had any good reason to believe the things that they do."

Done. Did I win the game?

This form of communication is non-productive. As it seems to be the centerpiece to your approach on the topic, I find your approach to be non-productive.

I can just as easily say "Atheists have no good reason to not believe in God, as all the hard evidence points to God's existence."

Rinse and repeat over and over and over again.

When you articulate yourself like this over and over again, you are not really saying anything. Nor are you reaching the opposing party, nor are you learning anything from them.

I caution you against this form of communication.

When everyone in the world agreed that the world is flat, were they right?

You are arguing that mass opinion equals truth, which will get you into all kinds of trouble.

Don't make that argument, it's a very bad one. Possibly one of the worst.

I never said he was a physicist?

I'm sure you really feel that way. I can appreciate that.

Generally curious minds don't open with "GG thanks for your ultimate surrender".

Such rhetoric is a clear indication of a "victory mentality", aka someone that is simply interested in establishing perceived dominance, which is the opposite of someone that is interested in learning the opposing party's point of view. Such an individual will only take on enough information to use as ammunition to throw back at the opposing party. None of the information will actually be absorbed as having any sense of truth or reason.

The fact that you have not even heard one single good reason to believe in a different worldview is another very clear indication that you are not open-minded to the worldviews of others.

You don't seem to see why others draw the conclusions that they do, and chalk it up to negative qualities, such as being stupid, unlearned, etc.

In contrast I do not think Atheists are stupid at all. I believe them to be highly intelligent.

The unfortunate truth of intelligence is that it is a double edged sword. It can be used to build a high powered rocket engine that plunges the boat you are in to the bottom of the sea.

You see "productivity" as "winning," which is why you go for the GG.

Neither of us have been swayed even one inch in the direction towards the other in this discussion, hence it was not very productive, other than giving me some great down-time, fun discussion, and getting my mind off of work, which I greatly appreciate.

I heard amadeus likes little kids t/f

True

But it's okay, he won't act on his impulses. That's why pedophilia is ok.

f

f
but he does get into the pilpul ****
some 'cultures'
it's wrong A it's just plain wrong as society grows and gives women more choices,,,, after they've grown half a brain
it's wrong to condone it in any form

i notice amadeus has a lot of words

but none for this for some reason

also none for condemnation of child molesters.......only child molestation definition (thus implied laws he wishes to change)

it's like the feelz = realz

but only sometimes

or when he likes what you feel and therefore justifies it

:shrug:

i just want to boil this entire argument down into cliffs

basically.......we shouldn't have imaginary friends

or believe in things that aren't real or we can't scientifically measure

even if those things make us feel good.......bring us happiness.....bring us individual joy

because that individual belief might somehow hurt larger society and others

SAYETH the person who also believes in kids being put on puberty blockers and admits to being sexually attracted to children younger than 12

YEP........great discussion we got going on here

God created 200 billion galaxies, each with about 200 billion stars in the visible universe, and he's mad at you for masturbating.

* Did not read all the mental masturbating going on in this thread.

I'm more curious why people choose their particular god. It is largely where they were born and what their parents believe. Dawkins is pretty good on that point.

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^^^ We still have slavery today. How do you think all those buildings in Dubai were built? In the USA it's called Minimum Wage where those who are dumb end up working a McJob. That's why many states are raising it, even though that is not the answer. It's on the ballot, will go from $8.46 to $15 by 2026. I'm voting no, but it's probably going to pass.
Floridas 2020 ballot will include $15 minimum wage question

Would have to be what churches are available in your area. And people want to be part of a large group. The major churches have campuses with auditoriums, bands, events. If someone was to follow a smaller religion, they would probably end up at a house with a few people.

Religion goes way back, here's the time line.
Timeline of religion - Wikipedia
Started when they buried people, they put tomb stones to remember, then the Egyptians took it to the next level building pyramids that pointed to the stars.

Most religions seem to focus on One God, and then tell the stories of a prophet (Mohamed) or Son (Jesus). That's the flaw with religion in the USA. Every Sunday thousands of Americans are learning about history of Jerusalem from 2k years ago, when they could be learning about the USA. There can be one God, but the story being told needs to be updated for Americans. All those people going to church on Sunday get nothing out of it, except knowing they need to be good, give all their money, and encourage others to follow (cult). Besides prayer groups and being at church, no one talks about the people in the bible.

Religion is old.

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Combination of a couple reasons.

First, as I said, humans are naturally bad at logic and reason. I've already mentioned agent detection (the lion and the bush). Then there's plain old superstition, a behaviour so ingrained in biology that it can even be cultivated in pigeons. On top of that, human brains are hardwired for pattern recognition, which is how we get all those "I saw Jesus in a piece of toast" stories. Put those three traits together, and you very quickly get a predisposition to the idea that there are great mysterious entities moving the world, and performing strange rituals will make those entities love us and move the world in our favor.

Second, humans are a social species, and for a social species, group cohesion is paramount. Sharing rituals and customs is a great way to achieve group cohesion, so the irrational religious beliefs can survive by piggybacking on the very useful social benefits that derive from them. You yourself admitted however, that we can achieve these same benefits without the religious belief as well.

Third, plain old violence. Religions have a history of putting themselves in a position of power where dissent is impossible. Do you have any idea how many people are out there even today who don't believe in a god, but proclaim to be muslim anyway because the people around them are ready to kill them if they committed apostasy? And even if we're not talking about physical violence, some people in the so-called civilized western world today are still getting completely shunned and even disowned by their parents for coming out as atheists. So much for aligning yourself to a higher ideal.


Nobody's denying that culturally, religions have been deeply integral to human civilization. But that doesn't mean that their claims about supernatural beings existing are true.

You spent a paragraph describing how people have changed the moral standards of society... only to conclude that people can't change their moral compass. Something doesn't add up here. If people can't change their moral compass, and you don't believe in any god's existence that dictates morality to people, then just who changed the morality of the western world?

Again: if you agree that we no longer share the same morals as the peoples of the old testament, but you don't think that people can change their moral compass, then how did this change come about?


And all this waxing philosophical aside: what about all the reformed criminals of the world? People who have willingly committed heinous crimes a long time ago, but are now truly remorseful and have turned over a new leaf? Are you saying those people don't exist? They're all faking it?

God is not imaginary, nor is the reality of God's existence all peaches and cream, quite the opposite in many cases. The notion that everyone believing in God willfully chooses to believe in an imaginary friend in desperate pursuit of comfort is one of the most incorrect and directly false notions that people adhere to. This belief however, does come with a long list of conveniences for those who hold it. There is a certain irony in that.

If we followed the creed that we are not to believe in things that we can't scientifically measure, scientific discovery would come to a crashing halt. There are a long list of truths that this universe holds to that are waiting to be discovered and cannot yet be measured scientifically. All of us directly act upon unmeasurable truths and use them as building blocks to learn more about the universe, despite the fact that they cannot be measured, tested, or observed using the scientific method. There are undiscovered forces that we have yet to learn about and comprehend, let alone measure.

It is often those who dare to believe in the impossible that make the greatest of breakthroughs.

Before the Wright brothers came along, everyone knew it was "impossible" for humans to fly.

Now human flight is a normal things that can be observed, tested, and measured.

I am not at all suggesting that it is a great idea to believe in things without evidence, quite the contrary. I'm just suggesting that if our beliefs were limited to the small percentage of reality that we can actually measure, we would be massively hamstringing ourselves.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

It makes me nervous to hear anyone say that studying history is a waste of time.

Human history is paved with valuable lessons.

Indeed.

It is as old as human beings are.

ur arguing with a robot

No John, you are the robots

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Burden of proof, mother****er, can you bear it?

You're the one saying that having a direct experience with god is a good reason to believe, so you're the one who will have to demonstrate that such a thing is possible.

You may have heard of Hitchens' razor: "that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence". It's not my job to prove your point for you.


Well, here we have a little problem. Because I'm not convinced that the universe is in fact fine tuned. It may appear to be, but it has not yet been demonstrated that this appearance is not a coincidence.

So the question becomes: how did you determine that the universe is in fact fine tuned, and doesn't just accidentally look it? What would a non-fine tuned universe look like?



Aside from the problem with apparent fine tuning described above, the answer to these questions is "I don't know". Are you going to pull god of the gaps now?


...so?



See above. What is the universe fine tuned for, and how did you determine that it doesn't just accidentally appear fine tuned?

I feel like you're glossing over my point just to pick holes in my verbiage. Anyway, we'll put a pin in this until you explain what you think the universe is fine tuned for.



This is patently false. What you're describing here is a spurious correlation, and it plays nicely into my conversation with amRam about how religion comes about as a product of people's hyperactive pattern detection.

Here's a few graphs showing some very strong correlations between two things. Please tell me if you think it would be silly to attribute one with the other:

Spurious Correlations

Some notable examples:

https://i.imgur.com/JGrHlLR.png

https://i.imgur.com/uNkuV2o.png

https://i.imgur.com/4nSW5DB.png

Actually, only that last one is true: if it holds up under scrutiny. Which is what I'm doing.

Speaking of scrutiny: none of what you said is relevant to the point I made about false beliefs risking harm by undermining your view of reality.


Maybe it will. But the time to believe in that thing will be when that experience comes, not a minute before.




And I explained why your example doesn't work. Are you just going to straight up ignore my replies now?



As a matter of fact, you lost super hard.

The rational position is to withhold belief on any claim until sufficient evidence has been presented. I don't need evidence to withhold belief in god, in the same way I (or you) don't need evidence to withhold belief in leprechauns, seven-headed dragons, or tehvul's massive silver cache. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim.

And here I should point out that I never posited the non-existence of a god, hence I don't carry a burden of proof. I'm simply withholding belief, waiting for sufficient evidence.


See, the problem is that you keep proving me right on multiple levels.

First, when you do present your suppposed evidence for god, it's very bad evidence. It doesn't line up with the methods that we otherwise use to reliably arrive at truth.

Second, you continuously fail to admit that you have presented bad evidence, proving my very first point: that if these discussions are a waste of time, it's because of people refusing to admit when they are wrong.

So you'll excuse me if I carry on, because so far, the evidence shows that you're another theist without a good reason to believe.



Good thing I'm not making that argument then.

You said, and I quote, that "all of the scientific evidence that the universe presents to us overwhelmingly points to the existence of an intelligent designer". That statement is at odds with the actual scientists who have actually spent their actual lives actually studying the actual evidence you're talking about, but did not arrive to the same conclusion you did.

I'm not saying you should believe them because there's a lot of them and they all agree. I'm saying you should believe them because through their work, they have much, much, MUCH better informed conclusions on the subject than you, who have never even heard of Carl Sagan until now, do.

Because the principles that drive that work are the same principles that have brought you the very computer you're using to have this discussion. And your house, your car, and pretty much everything you own. They're principles that demonstrably and reliably give us more and more accurate knowledge.

science can't disprove divinity just yet burden of proof

where do the laws of nature come from

how clever the void to employ physics

Victory mentality, can you drop it? Looks like no.

I'm challenging you to think differently than you have been for the past many years. This is something you might not process easily, because you mostly see "victory" and "defeat." Your thought process would lead you to assume that I'm attempting to evade your question because I do not have an answer, or my argument is weak, or I'm scared of "losing." For you, this is a "ranked match" or "scrimmage", for me this is just tossing cat poop around in a sandbox.

Also, for someone who was just getting on my case about "respect" for referring to you as a "secular humanist," sure is awkward to then be referred to as a "mother****er" soon after. Do you hold yourself to your own standards of respect? Seems like not.

I understand that it might be irritating to discuss these matters with someone that knows a lot and doesn't immediately yield to your pre-hashed canned statements devoid of factual basis such as "extraordinary measures," but when you resort to name-calling,
it makes your argument look even weaker. It is an indication that you are losing the argument, not that I care if you are or not, but for someone that wants to win, I would think that would be undesirable. Might want to abstain from calling the opposing party
a "mother****er."

Your worldview is just like any other, full of positive assertions that you do not bear a burden of proof for, so why should I? You really do not hold yourself to your own standard, though I'm certain you think you do.

BTW, do you believe in the big bang? yes/no?

You are welcome to dismiss my statement entirely if you wish. I'm certain you had dismissed the notion entirely years before I even brought it up anyway. I'm not going to burn my tires towards futility. If you are actually curious as you claim to be, there are plenty of books on the topic that you can read, though I'm sure you will not.

More than likely everything you have seen from me in this discussion has only served to push you further towards your secular humanist worldview. More than likely my words are being filtered into a pre-created box labeled "Theist" where all my words are associated with all the other "idiotic Theists" that you have come across before.

You will go and tell your friends "I asked him one simple question and he wouldn't even answer it, because he knew he couldn't" and feel like a winner. I will be Theist #101 that couldn't provide a single good reason to believe in God, right? Just another notch in your belt of "ultimate surrender."

I used to think exactly like you for a long number of years. Then I found out I was wrong about everything I believed.

Anthony Flew is not an exception, there are droves of people like me, that were once Atheists, and were guided by logic, science, and overwhelming evidence towards an inevitable knowledge of the truth that an intelligent creator exists.

I'm not asking you too. Nor would I. Nor would answering your question in any form yield any admission from you. You would only then move the goal post again and counter with another question.

You might want to consider a different approach than always trying to win if you want to learn, grow, and adopt new information and new perspectives.

In other words, start seeing discussion as less about "winning/proving" and more about "learning/playing with new ideas."

After all, there are so many things that can't be proven in the world that you already believe, such as the likely non-existence of God. Discussion on the non-provable nature of negative assertions is not necessary, I am well aware.

Lastly, the question you asked, anyone with a rudimentary imagination could answer it.

Are you admitting that you couldn't even conceive or imagine what a direct experience with a being far more intelligent than you might be like?

I think you can.

Please tell me what you think it might be like.

Well then you disagree with most every scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, etc.., which is fine.

I myself said that it is ok to disagree with mass opinion. That is well within your right and I do not find it foolish. Often it can be highly intelligent.

The suns rays cross millions of miles across a vast vacuous space and end up on your property just hot enough to ripen a tomato, within a few degrees.

If that is not fine-tuning, what is?

If you are curious what a non-fine tuned universe might look like, throw a water balloon full of dog-poop on an open canvas, and then imagine something with 100x less order and structure.

More than likely a giant blob of crap composed of a singular chemical composition, all the same color, filling up the entirety of empty space. Since my imagination is limited, I would say that it probably has even less structure than I just described.

You can have plenty of fun with this topic. It's a great one.

There are lots and lots of books on the topic. I'm sure the authors could do a much better job than I could explaining it. Read about what all the scientists say, they have interesting ideas.

However, scientific minds pretty much all agree that it is very finely tuned.

The math behind it is insane as well. The probability of it happening is next to impossible.

Your own worldview will work against you in this case, if you choose to believe otherwise, you will have to go against your own school of thought, which is fine.

Nope. I have no intention of baiting or "trapping" you. Nor did I have any such intention of mentioning gap theory, as I do not find it very compelling at all. I fear you have talked with too many people with a victory based mentality, so you have learned to expect it from others.

I was just honestly curious what you thought.

Those are some of the questions my mind is fascinated with...

So, many secular humanists believe in the supernatural without realizing it.

Fine tuning:
https://www.amazon.com/Fortunate-Uni...s=books&sr=1-1
Geraint F. Lewis - Wikipedia

Not fine tuning:
https://www.amazon.com/Fallacy-Fine-.../dp/1616144432
Victor J. Stenger - Wikipedia

Read for yourself and draw your own conclusions. I would recommend reading the book on fine-tuning first, as we are all guilty of having an inclination to read the information that lines up with our own world-view.

I do not believe that either of these books are written from a Theistic worldview, so they might be a smooth read for you. I tried to find both books written by Atheists but I am not certain if I succeeded.

If you would like we can read them together and discuss them. Just let me know.

That's a fair point.

I'm happy to indulge a bit more on the fine-tuning:

You walk into a hidden control room in your own house you never knew was there.

On the wall you see eight dials, each of them with 1 million settings on them.

If you were to touch any single one of these dials and move them to even one notch to the right or left, the universe would explode.

This is the universe we live in.

If you were to adjust any of the natural parameters that are held constant by an unknowable force, the aftermath would be cataclysmic.

If you think of a car and how fine-tuned it is, our universe is exponentially more fine-tuned than that to a laughable degree. All the parts must work together in tandem for our universe to function as it does.

Every well-read science-based-thinker and Atheist I have spoken to has quickly agreed to this fine-tuning and it has always served as common ground. Believing in fine-tuning does not logically force you into a Theistic world-view at all. It is simply facts about the math and physics behind the universe and how it operates.

If you are well-informed on the topic and adhere to the universe not being fine-tuned, I'd be super curious as to how/why you drew those conclusions.

Indeed it is a spurious correlation. Often these correlations get us into trouble.

I definitely yield on this point and agree that I drew a spurious conclusion.

And yet, if someone knocked on your door, and you opened it, and they beat you up. The next time you saw that person, you would not open the door for them?

Why not?

It's just a spurious correlation after all right? It could have been sheer luck/chance that the guy beat you up. Maybe he was having a bad day?

Pattern seeking is a survival tool that we all use to get by.

There is nothing foolish about not opening the door when that dangerous individual came back.

I'm not saying that all spurious correlations are correct.

You are welcome to argue that my previous correlation between Theism and Scientific Discovery doesn't hold up. That's a totally acceptable argument.


Sounds good to me!

The way I came to be a Theist was by researching both sides of the argument, and selecting the worldview that had far more evidence.

Atheism loses easily on the evidence front.

The fact that you claim there is not even one piece of good evidence to support Theism is a scholastic nightmare.

Before I solidified my worldview, I found compelling arguments on both sides, though it took me a very long time to realize that the Theistic arguments and evidence were far more compelling. Many many debates and books were consumed before I was swayed one way over the other.

No, I just disagree with you, and you have moved towards a bottomless pit. By that I mean, define extraordinary?

Your entire counter argument was that a burning car was not extraordinary when indeed it is.

Marriam-Webster - extraordinary: very unusual or remarkable.

Your car suddenly lighting ablaze is quite unusual and remarkable indeed. If you want to say otherwise it's just semantical nonsense. This is just more evidence to me that you are willing to dismiss things outright because they don't line up with your worldview.

You said it's not extraordinary enough and then you mentioned the belief in supernatural things, but that's a discussion on the "supernatural" when we were discussing the "extraordinary". Your words, not mine.

If you wanted to use supernatural, you should have said "Supernatural claims require extraordinary evidence," but you did not. Your argument was "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," and I gave a very clear, brief, and concise example proving that they do not. You are fine to reject it and turn a blind eye. But I used pure logic that anyone could understand.

If you want to be an ostrich with its head in the sand, it's fine by me.

Try the "extraordinary" thing the next time you are in a formal debate in front of a large group of people and see what happens... you will not like the result unless the other person is a giant noobsicle.

See? Victory mentality. A clear indication of a closed-mind. Told you I was right about that.

Also, nobody can win or lose. It's a discussion, not a tennis match.

If we were to say it was "winnable," the real winner would be whoever learns and grows the most from the interaction.

Yes, and irrational people can stare at any amount of evidence and simply dismiss it regardless of how compelling it actually is.

A: "There's jim the murderer, look he has a bleeding dagger in his hand."
B: "Naw, someone probably put the dagger in his hand."
A: "But we've got video footage of him commiting the act."
B: "Naw, it was all CGI."
A: "But we have DNA evidence."
B: "Obviously planted."
A: "But he admitted to the crime himself!"
B: "Obviously forced into a confession."
A: "Uhhhhhh... But look, there he goes doing it again, he's murdering someone right now!"
B: *has already walked away having "won" the discussion using "science and logic"*

In short, people can believe however they please and slap a "science" and "logic" label on it, when it's really faith and religion.

Atheists are mostly faith based in their worldview, more so than Theists. They are just keenly unaware of their own plight.

When overwhelming evidence comes at them, they simply do the above, then they hide behind the word "burden of proof."

It's a fullproof strategy.

As an Atheist, you will never have to change your thinking. The structure of defense is perfect. The only problem is that it is perfectly wrong.

I know it feels that way. But look at how eager you were to say the universe was not fine-tuned. Did you do your research on that? Watch a debate on it? Read a book on it before deciding? Likely not. An open-minded individual may have done extensive research before deciding...

You are welcome to tell me the book you read on it and I will back down on this point.

If I had used another form of physical evidence pointing towards God, likely you would have been heavily influenced to reject it outright before researching, as it conflicts with your worldview. You do not desire for there to be any physical evidence of God's existence when there clearly is, and science agrees.

You probably also deny the historicity of religious figures throughout history, no?

Virtually no historians would do that. It's pretty much facts. Disregarding them, you may as well disregard history in general as a source of truth.

No, and for two reasons.

1) You are only proving my point that you can rinse and repeat "there's no evidence" to your hearts content despite what anyone shows you. It is effortless for someone to dismiss fantastic evidence because they have a desire not to believe. If you were shown a bleeding dagger murder weapon that was your own family member's, you would be immediately inclined to disregard it as evidence because your own family member "could never do that." Your conclusions would be clouded by your own bias.

2) These are your own methods that are being held up to scrutiny. What was it you said? You know love to exist because there is evidence that can be measured and is observable? Well, the fine tuning of the universe is measured and observable and mostly agreed upon as scientific fact. Yet you reject it by your own standards that you use to accept other things. In short, you are holding my evidence to a fully different
standard because you do not like the conclusions that are drawn from it. In the case of love, you used hormones and brainwaves. In the case of the fine-tuning, it's multiple physical laws coming together in harmony that are measurable and observable.

If anything, this is a heavy lynchpin that very clearly points to the fact that you are not willing to accept clear and ready evidence, because you yourself refuse to use your own standards of what constitutes good evidence in the case of the evidence I am presenting.

This is akin to:

A: "I like chocolate because it is delicious. I find anything delicious to be good."
B: "What about tacos?"
A: "Oh tacos are delicious, but they are bad."

It is effortless to say "it's bad evidence" when you are given good evidence. It's work free and lazy. It's also unscientific and illogical and it's a double standard.

Too bad that you did.

You suggested that intelligent design can be dismissed as being false because it is not taught in cosmology. (If I made a mistake please correct me, it's been a long discussion)

That is the same as saying "everyone agrees that the world is flat" therefore the world being round can be dismissed.

It is also at odds with all the scientists that did the exact same thing and drew the conclusion that God does exist?

"Some smart guy that dedicated his life to study disagrees with you" is also a bad argument similar to the argument featured above "mass opinion equals truth." It's especially bad when there are plenty of identical smart guys drawing a different conclusion that opposes your argument. In this case the same exact argument can be used against you.

Just because I hadn't heard the name doesn't mean I was unfamiliar with the argument. I heard that argument probably around 8 years ago? And I've heard it countless times since then, many times in formal debate. I've also never once seen it succeed in a debate. Every time I see the argument get dropped, some guy that is much smarter than me crushes it.

You don't have to know the name Pythagoras to use his math on a triangle and understand it on a deep level.

Anyway, by your own argument, you are now a Theist, because you should believe the work of theist scientists that have much MUCH better informed conclusions based on science right?

That argument basically can be turned right back around against you.

Well then you must love religion, because most of the morals of our society that hold us together "do not steal, do not murder" came from religion.

Those morals served as the foundation for the people inventing computers to not get their eyes gouged out for fun.

You seem keenly unaware that most of your arguments are equally applicable to be used against you.

Thanks for the very fun discussion Amadeus, I really appreciate you.

Longest post I have ever made on TW in 20 years?

Maybe?

https://media4.giphy.com/media/3osxY...&rid=giphy.gif

tpk y u waste all that effort postin on a pedo?

holy effort post A+++++

All of God's creations are precious homey...

That includes you and everyone else on this forum.

Thank you buddy. :)

https://media3.giphy.com/media/8wps8...&rid=giphy.gif

Awwwwwwwwww...

LU2 broseph.

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???

Quakers were persuasive in their moral arguments.

electricity is the devil anyway