Searching for GOD...

[Nearly Sane]

Does it taste of mint though.

In my experience all rock no matter what colour is still mint!

I do not like mint.

it has a mixed taste of shite and exasperation.

[Shaker]

That carries a burden of proof yes. But then it is Shaker who declares there is no God

That clinches it. There has to be another Shaker on the forum.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

That clinches it. There has to be another Shaker on the forum.

Ok you don't say ''No God''......That;s great!!!

[Shaker]

There's quite a bit more to it than that.

And something tells me you won't be thinking "That's great!" (or even That;s great!!!) about it.

[ippy]

Alan's grasp of the difference between the two is still very much a work in progress.

Progress?

ippy

[Walt Zingmatilder]

There's quite a bit more to it than that.

And something tells me you won't be thinking "That's great!" about it.

I thought that might be the case....I fear you really do want your cake and eat it here. But you need to try me.....a lot of theories of burden of proof have sprung up in the world of antitheism that are unknown and untested in reality. Let's see if we can change that......bring it on.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Fallacy Boy,

Seems to me you are just creating your own ''science of the Gaps'' then. In the future science will do this and science will solve that.
I wonder how close to scientism you are getting. Are you prepared to accept that there are or even might be some things science could not possibly answer?

Given the problems around science's abilities. I don't see your argument having as much virtue and advantage as you might think.

Now try responding to wha I actually said rather than to you straw man version of it.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Fallacy Boy,

On another tack we have still to hear whether Hillside believes that all unknowns will be revealed by science and even if we don't we still have to question the value of his 'Thor and thunder statements'

Perhaps if you instituted a "no lying Tuesday" policy that would help you a little? I have clearly told you many times that I make no such claim, not least because we'd have no way to know that we had explained everything.

Oh, and there's no need to question the Thor analogy when the "reasoning" of "no evidence-based answer therefore X must be it" is attempted (as AB did). 
 

Human consciousness could be eventually described by science. The beginning of the universe or the eternality of the universe? There are sound reasons to think that science cannot given that it is an attempt to explain something by the things in it rather than the context of the thing......and yet Hillside trots out the Thor and thunder argument as a 'good for anything'.

Stop lying. When someone thinks an un-reasoned and un-evidenced explanation applies because no reasoned or evidenced explanation is to hand then whether that explanation is Thor, God or anything else doesn't matter much. That's why the analogy works. 

[Rhiannon]

The other day I took a 'quick' flick through this thread. It is like a stick of rock, the same words all the way through.

Maybe it's had its day now. I still have had some of my most favourite discussions here. Just looking back to the pages in the 50s. It was fun. Seems a million years ago now.

[Shaker]

Maybe it's had its day now.

Perhaps.

The liars keep lying, the fallacy peddlers keep playing with their long-standing fallacies ... there's no indication that the constitutionally unable to get it are ever going to get it ... maybe after 20,000 posts we've been Searching for God and have concluded that it was (in the words of A. N. Wilson) the biggest wild goose chase in history.

Though personally I got that memo long, long ago; I took part in this thread only because I have a moral objection to zoos.

[Alan Burns]

I was explaining to my daughter yesterday about how God hides himself. She couldn't stop laughing.

But God is not hidden.  He revealed Himself in the form of Jesus Christ, and He continues to reveal Himself through the inspired work of many who still follow Him, despite all the persecution and ridicule they have to endure.

[Shaker]

But God is not hidden.

Why do some of the people who want him most disagree? Mother Teresa springs to mind.

He revealed Himself in the form of Jesus Christ

And in Mohammed too, one presumes? As well over a billion Muslims will solemnly attest. (Which really means assert just as you do, obviously).

and He continues to reveal Himself through the inspired work of many who still follow Him, despite all the persecution and ridicule they have to endure.

"Good people doing nice things" carries vastly less explanatory weight than "good people doing nice things therefore the fifth wheel of this god character" you insist on foisting upon everything.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Fallacy Boy,

Perhaps if you instituted a "no lying Tuesday" policy that would help you a little? I have clearly told you many times that I make no such claim, not least because we'd have no way to know that we had explained everything.

Oh, and there's no need to question the Thor analogy when the "reasoning" of "no evidence-based answer therefore X must be it" is attempted (as AB did). 
 
Stop lying. When someone thinks an un-reasoned and un-evidenced explanation applies because no reasoned or evidenced explanation is to hand then whether that explanation is Thor, God or anything else doesn't matter much. That's why the analogy works.

The Thor and thunder argument might be good for situations where what is unknown is the proof of a scientific theory. However you and I know there are scientists who think there are questions which aren't amenable to science and even scientists who think certain scientific questions may be beyond answering all though I am prepared to discount those.
Beyond the things that are susceptible to science the Thor and Thunder argument is just a big advert for scientism.

[Shaker]

The Thor and thunder argument might be good for situations where what is unknown is the proof of a scientific theory. However you and I know there are scientists who think there are questions which aren't amenable to science and even scientists who think certain scientific questions may be beyond answering

So that means "Dunno squire" and not "Let me tell you all about Jesus ..." then, doesn't it?

[floo]

But God is not hidden.  He revealed Himself in the form of Jesus Christ, and He continues to reveal Himself through the inspired work of many who still follow Him, despite all the persecution and ridicule they have to endure.

You believe that to be true, but as has been said boringly often about your assertions, there is no evidence to back them up. People are happy to die for things they passionately believe in, like Islamic suicide bombers!

[torridon]

You seem to be accusing me of making a conscious decision not to read your post and simply re assert my own view.  Can you not see the irony in this? 

Your post indicates that your refusal to accept the existence of anything non physical forces you to come up with an imaginary scenario to explain how our apparent freedom to make conscious choices is just an illusion, and our conscious awareness merely spectates upon pre defined series of events.  Yet the thing you are trying to disprove is obvious evidence for the existence of events which must derive from the non physical.

I don't recall any imaginary scenario, quite the opposite, my scenario is based on reason and evidence rather than intuition.  Throwing 'non-physical' into it will not suddenly transform illogic into logic I'm afraid.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Fallacy Boy,

The Thor and thunder argument might be good for situations where what is unknown is the proof of a scientific theory.

Wrong again. It’s a good analogy when the thought process that leads to “God” and to Thor is exactly the same. Thus when one person says says, “No scientific explanation for consciousness, therefore God” and another says: “No scientific explanation for thunder, therefore Thor” they’re attempting the same argument.

And that has nothing whatever to do with whether the unknown is a missing proof of a scientific theory or of anything else.   

However you and I know there are scientists who think there are questions which aren't amenable to science and even scientists who think certain scientific questions may be beyond answering all though I am prepared to discount those.

There are “scientists” (and non-scientists too) who think that there are questions that aren’t amenable to science currently, but that say nothing to whether or not they could be in future.

Beyond the things that are susceptible to science the Thor and Thunder argument is just a big advert for scientism.

First, you’ve never grasped what “scientism” actually means.

Second, it’s no such thing – either for the correct meaning or for your personal re-definition of it – for reasons that would be apparent to you if you’d ever understood the arguments that falsify this claim.

[torridon]

But God is not hidden.  He revealed Himself in the form of Jesus Christ, and He continues to reveal Himself through the inspired work of many who still follow Him, despite all the persecution and ridicule they have to endure.

A fat lot of good that is.  The best a supreme being can do is to incarnate himself into an obscure backwater of the Roman Empire and tell a bunch of illiterate fisherman that he's God and to go spread the message by word of mouth.  Hardly cuts it by modern standards of evidence you know, strictly for those eager to believe but hardly compelling for anyone with critical faculties.

[wigginhall]

A fat lot of good that is.  The best a supreme being can do is to incarnate himself into an obscure backwater of the Roman Empire and tell a bunch of illiterate fisherman that he's God and to go spread the message by word of mouth.  Hardly cuts it by modern standards of evidence you know, strictly for those eager to believe but hardly compelling for anyone with critical faculties.

Yes, it seems to fail the divine hiddenness argument, that a loving and good God would want to convince reasonable people about himself.    How does a 2000 year old set of stories do this?   What would convince people would be something current, and not bogus.   Where is it?

[bluehillside Retd.]

torri,

A fat lot of good that is.  The best a supreme being can do is to incarnate himself into an obscure backwater of the Roman Empire and tell a bunch of illiterate fisherman that he's God and to go spread the message by word of mouth.  Hardly cuts it by modern standards of evidence you know, strictly for those eager to believe but hardly compelling for anyone with critical faculties.

Be fair though - we're also told that "He" has made himself known a select few like AB whose job it is apparently to spread the word. Why this god would choose only people incapable of making a cogent argument for His existence at all is I suppose another of those mysteries that lie at the end of any sceptical enquiry.

[Sebastian Toe]

But God is not hidden.  He revealed Himself in the form of Jesus Christ, and He continues to reveal Himself through the inspired work of many who still follow Him, despite all the persecution and ridicule they have to endure.

I want to know if you have watched the elephant baby rescue video yet?
BR asked you several times but I couldn't spot a response!

[Shaker]

I want to know if you have watched the elephant baby rescue video yet?
BR asked you several times but I couldn't spot a response!

AB's responses to specific questions are often extremely hard to spot.

[Maeght]

Agnostic is not the same as atheist. One about belief the other knowledge.

How many times does this need to be pointed out!?

[Shaker]

How many times does this need to be pointed out!?

Not enough, evidently.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Fallacy Boy,

I thought that might be the case....I fear you really do want your cake and eat it here.

What else would you want to do with a cake?

But you need to try me.....a lot of theories of burden of proof have sprung up…

No they haven’t. It’s simple enough – the burden of proof rests with the person making the claim of fact.

Thus when you for example assert an objectively true “God”, then it’s for you to demonstrate the claim. That you always disappear in a flurry of fallacies and lies when asked to do so is another matter, but there it is nonetheless.

…in the world of antitheism…

Oh dear. Again, there is no “world of antitheism”, and even if there was that world would not have produced “lots of theories of burden of proof”, and even it had their provenance would be irrelevant to their logical force.

Apart from all that though…

…that are unknown…

If they’re “unknown” how is it that you know about them?

…and untested in reality.

Just stop now – you’re only embarrassing yourself further.

Let's see if we can change that......bring it on.

Bring what on – your burden of proof problem? It’s been “brought on” many times. Look, I’ll even ask you again: what method would you propose to distinguish your claims and assertions about an objectively true “God” from just guessing?

Mind the swing door doesn’t whack you on your way out…