Searching for GOD...

[Gordon]

Unfortunately “There’s probably no God” is still a positive assertion and therefore carries a burden of proof.

Even sillier: 'probably' still leaves scope for uncertainty - it does not imply absolute certainty. Moreover, if I say that 'there is probably no God because all claims made to date that there is a God can be said to fail, by being incoherent or fallacious', is not a positive assertion: it is merely a critique of an unjustified assertion being made by the likes of yourself. The burden of proof remains yours alone.

Let me give you my take on why you think you have the default position.... You all wake up in the morning and you don’t see or empirically detect God or a pantheon and therefore you feel you have the right to challenge an alternative Perception but not have yours challenged. The question is why do you do that? In what way is your perception superior?

Then your 'take' is hopeless,since your 'take' is just another attempt to shift the burden of proof.

[Stranger]

Unfortunately “There’s probably no God” is still a positive assertion and therefore carries a burden of proof.

Which is both rather easy to demonstrate and a rather pointless side issue that you brought up, presumably as some sort of desperate distraction tactic. All I was doing is pointing out that you couldn't even get that right.

Let me give you my take on why you think you have the default position.... You all wake up in the morning and you don’t see or empirically detect God or a pantheon and therefore you feel you have the right to challenge an alternative Perception but not have yours challenged.

Nowhere near. Do you wake up in the morning, not see or empirically detect the invisible dragon in my garage or a hordes of sub-atomic pixies making gravity work and therefore you feel you have the right to challenge an alternative perception but not have yours challenged?

What I do is see endless propositions about endless different versions of God and gods, see that those that propose them cannot provide sound reasoning or objective evidence and therefore dismiss them in exactly the same way, and for exactly the same reason, that I dismiss pseudoscience, vampires, the Loch Ness monster, alien abductions, astrology, and so on, and so on.

How can this be at all hard for anybody to grasp if they have a small number of functioning neurons?

In what way is your perception superior?

Because it's not a perception, it's the result of rational thought. I'm treating all propositions in exactly the same way and not trying to give one unevidenced, unargued proposition some kind of special status, that's why.

[Outrider]

Yes we know you believe no valid case has been made. And we say you are wrong.

Then either your case isn't as strong as you think it is, your (collectively) ability to communicate it is somehow limited despite the apparent intellectual capacity of at least some religious people, or a huge number of people representing a normal distribution of intellectual capabilities is somehow blind to this one particular area. My money's on the first of those.

Because your criteria for validity is either empiricist, naturalist or physicalist and the gymnastics, goalpost shifting, redefinition of terms to avoid any suggestion of God has been observed and noted.

It'd been a while since we'd been given an ad hominem in lieu of an argument, it's nice to see the classics being brought out again. My criteria aren't empiricist, naturalist or physicalist, but you don't offer an alternative methodology, you just keep trying to cluster-bomb the discussion with logical fallacies as though one of them might slip through - shifting the burden of proof via a trojan straw-horse with a liberal sprinkle of gish-gallops and ad hominems for flavour.

How can you accuse anyone of redefining terms when one of the key points against your attempt at a case is that the terms your using have no real meaning. As to what you can observe... isn't that empiricism you're (mis)using there?

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Which is both rather easy to demonstrate and a rather pointless side issue that you brought up, presumably as some sort of desperate distraction tactic. All I was doing is pointing out that you couldn't even get that right.

Nowhere near. Do you wake up in the morning, not see or empirically detect the invisible dragon in my garage or a hordes of sub-atomic pixies making gravity work and therefore you feel you have the right to challenge an alternative perception but not have yours challenged?

What I do is see endless propositions about endless different versions of God and gods, see that those that propose them cannot provide sound reasoning or objective evidence and therefore dismiss them in exactly the same way, and for exactly the same reason, that I dismiss pseudoscience, vampires, the Loch Ness monster, alien abductions, astrology, and so on, and so on.

How can this be at all hard for anybody to grasp if they have a small number of functioning neurons?

Because it's not a perception, it's the result of rational thought. I'm treating all propositions in exactly the same way and not trying to give one unevidenced, unargued proposition some kind of special status, that's why.

Demonstrate and since this is a probability issue, show your working out.

Confusing an immaterial God with an invisible dragon is a category error. If it is invisible, how do you know it's a dragon. We know what a Dragon is supposed to look like which is why we are on reasonably safe ground dismissing them. God though does not have to be in that category and isn't claimed to be.

Anyway you've got your homework.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Even sillier: 'probably' still leaves scope for uncertainty - it does not imply absolute certainty. Moreover, if I say that 'there is probably no God because all claims made to date that there is a God can be said to fail, by being incoherent or fallacious', is not a positive assertion: it is merely a critique of an unjustified assertion being made by the likes of yourself. The burden of proof remains yours alone.

Then your 'take' is hopeless,since your 'take' is just another attempt to shift the burden of proof.

It's still a positive assertion. You need therefore to work out the probability. Get cracking.

[Stranger]

Demonstrate and since this is a probability issue, show your working out.

No. I'm not going off on a tangent designed to distract from your endless failures to understand what people here are saying.

Confusing an immaterial God with an invisible dragon is a category error.

Bullshit. The nature of the claim is not relevant. It's the unavailability of evidence and sound reasoning to support the two claims that is the point of the comparison, and that happens to be identical.

If it is invisible, how do you know it's a dragon.

I have had a personal encounter with it. Who are you to question my perception? What makes your perception better than mind? Typical example of blatant dragon-dodging.   

Anyway you've got your homework.

How about you stop the desperate bullshit and face up to what people are actually saying for once in your life?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Then either your case isn't as strong as you think it is, your (collectively) ability to communicate it is somehow limited despite the apparent intellectual capacity of at least some religious people, or a huge number of people representing a normal distribution of intellectual capabilities is somehow blind to this one particular area. My money's on the first of those.

It'd been a while since we'd been given an ad hominem in lieu of an argument, it's nice to see the classics being brought out again. My criteria aren't empiricist, naturalist or physicalist, but you don't offer an alternative methodology, you just keep trying to cluster-bomb the discussion with logical fallacies as though one of them might slip through - shifting the burden of proof via a trojan straw-horse with a liberal sprinkle of gish-gallops and ad hominems for flavour.

How can you accuse anyone of redefining terms when one of the key points against your attempt at a case is that the terms your using have no real meaning. As to what you can observe... isn't that empiricism you're (mis)using there?

O.

What then are your criteria?
Am I shifting the burden of proof. No. I know that any positive assertion needs justifying. I  have already said there is no way I can empirically demonstrate God and that I need to establish grounds and have a philosophical argument or two up my sleeve.
All I am doing is where I see or suspect you of holding a positive assertion I have too ask you to justify it. I have to ask atheists to outline these rational arguments they are always claiming.

The response often though looks like a flip flop between rational argument and no burden of proof. In otherwords if one of these strategies fails, there is always another. Del boy philosophising

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Just one thing Outrider. How can you Gish gallop on a text based forum?

[Gordon]

It's still a positive assertion. You need therefore to work out the probability. Get cracking.

Idiocy - I've already told you that the problem you face is that the arguments advanced for 'God' all fail.

If you had any sense at all you'd realise that probability of something depends on some form of method and data on which calculations can be based, and since we all know you don't have a 'divine detection' method to hand then you're just wumming - again.

The burden of proof is still yours - get cracking! 

[Nearly Sane]

As I've covered before I don't think talking of gods in terms pf probability makes much sense. It's a methodologically naturalist approach to claims that appear to make no sense in that approach.

That the claims appear to be logically incoherent seems the much more relevant point.

I think people when they talk about probability are actually saying they can't rule out the possibility of a logically coherent definition. Even with such a thing, it would not be necessary to believe.


Anyway here"s Richard Dawkins and Ricky Gervais having a chat about that and many other things.

https://youtu.be/zBLdMmNuHlQ


Anyeay

[Stranger]

Am I shifting the burden of proof. No.

Yes. You've been caught red-handed misrepresenting atheists' position in order to do just that.

...and have a philosophical argument or two up my sleeve.

Isn't it about time they saw the light of day then? Make a change from all the misrepresentation, bullshit, and crap arguments.

[Nearly Sane]

It was mentioned earlier in discussions but while I've seen people try to put forward arguments for god, and I think of Alien's five arguments which were fallacy ridden, and in some cases not arguments, I've never found that that was thr reason for their belief.

Vlad, and Alan Burns, both claim personal encounters/knowledge of their gods which is why they believe.

[Outrider]

Just one thing Outrider. How can you Gish gallop on a text based forum?

Just, as an example, throw out as much barely literate tangential nonsense as you can, full of faulty analogies, misuses of terminology, vaguely worded assertions, and non-sequiturs, wrapped around your actual failed attempt at a point.

Hypothetically, obviously...

What then are your criteria?

That rather depends on what claim is being made. If you keep on failing to offer a methodology I'm forced to revert to the reliable methodologies we already have (which are practically restricted to empiricism and pure logic, I guess), but if you were to come up with something else it would have to be viewed on its own merits.

Am I shifting the burden of proof.

You're trying to.

I know that any positive assertion needs justifying.

Really? Because you keep acting like you think 'God' should be the default position, and anyone that doesn't accept your claim somehow has to disprove it, rather than just being able to say that they explanation you've given isn't sufficient. That it's sufficient for you isn't really the point.

I  have already said there is no way I can empirically demonstrate God and that I need to establish grounds and have a philosophical argument or two up my sleeve. All I am doing is where I see or suspect you of holding a positive assertion I have too ask you to justify it.

Well, as a communicator, you're failing to appreciate the implications of what you're saying, then, because you keep misinterpreting other people as putting forward a positive assertion when they are quite clearly, explicitly telling you that's not the case.

I have to ask atheists to outline these rational arguments they are always claiming.

And they do. But the rational arguments they are making are exposing the holes in the claims of god that you're failing to make (because, by your own admission, you can't), whilst you keep trying to get them to actively make the case that there isn't a god which no-one is putting forward.

The response often though looks like a flip flop between rational argument and no burden of proof. In otherwords if one of these strategies fails, there is always another. Del boy philosophising

There's always another because the case for god is philosophical colander, it's more hole than substance.


O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I know that any positive assertion needs justifying.

If the person making it wants it to be accepted by anyone else, then yes it does.

For the atheist, this is easy: the only “positive assertion” required is the positive assertion that the justifying arguments attempted by the theist are shit. In this case, the arguments you’ve attempted to justify your positive claim “god exists” are shit. They’re shit for the reasons that have been explained to you many times, that you then straw man or run away from. Therefore the explanations for why your justifying arguments are shit remain, and so atheism in response to them has been justified.

For the theist, the positive assertion “god exists” also needs to be justified. Your attempts at doing that with reason are shit. Your burden therefore is either to find some justifying arguments that aren’t shit or to find a different way of justifying your positive assertion. It’s no good complaining that your god claim isn’t amenable to empirical justification – if that’s the case, it’s your job to find another way of doing it that isn't also shit.

“You know what you have to do.” (V. Lad)           

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

If the person making it wants it to be accepted by anyone else, then yes it does.

For the atheist, this is easy: the only “positive assertion” required is the positive assertion that the justifying arguments attempted by the theist are shit. In this case, the arguments you’ve attempted to justify your positive claim “god exists” are shit. They’re shit for the reasons that have been explained to you many times, that you then straw man or run away from. Therefore the explanations for why your justifying arguments are shit remain, and so atheism in response to them has been justified.

For the theist, the positive assertion “god exists” also needs to be justified. Your attempts at doing that with reason are shit. Your burden therefore is either to find some justifying arguments that aren’t shit or to find a different way of justifying your positive assertion. It’s no good complaining that your god claim isn’t amenable to empirical justification – if that’s the case, it’s your job to find another way of doing it.

“You know what you have to do.” (V. Lad)           

I had to laugh at this.

[Outrider]

I had to laugh at this.

Because you don't have a point to make in response and want to post something as a response to claim that you've 'answered', or because you've had a sudden insight into your own behaviour here?

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Just, as an example, throw out as much barely literate tangential nonsense as you can, full of faulty analogies, misuses of terminology, vaguely worded assertions, and non-sequiturs, wrapped around your actual failed attempt at a point.

A bit of evidence of this mis in order here.
The answer is of course. No....you can’t Gish gallop on atext base forum where You can take your time to read what’s been written. Of course because posters go into chat room mode it might happen but I think analysis of the forum will show that people are just having the same conversations. If there is any fallacy of overwhelming it occurs where one poster is outnumbered by other posters. That can’t be perpetrated by the theists here.....too few. And oh dear here you are as part of such an overwhelming.

Hypothetically, obviously...

That rather depends on what claim is being made. If you keep on failing to offer a methodology I'm forced to revert to the reliable methodologies we already have (which are practically restricted to empiricism and pure logic, I guess), but if you were to come up with something else it would have to be viewed on its own merits.

You're trying to.

Really? Because you keep acting like you think 'God' should be the default position, and anyone that doesn't accept your claim somehow has to disprove it, rather than just being able to say that they explanation you've given isn't sufficient. That it's sufficient for you isn't really the point.



O.

How ironic given the elimination of the principle of sufficient reason in arguments against the argument from contingency

[Maeght]

Certainly there has to be an ordered way to start a debate but whether it goes further than mere etiquette, I’m not so sure.
So the house does not believe there is a God, well, a theist could say they do believe there is a God and that would be fine, both beliefs then have equal status by being beliefs so if one had the burden of proof so would the other and that would have remained fine however in the mists of time a theist somewhere declared there was a God and was heard claiming it by....atheists. No amount of subsequent admission that there was no empirical evidence could put the cat back in the bag.
The theist claim had been made. The debate and the default position and burden of proof was on. Epistemiologies had been offended, justice had to be visited upon.

But what is good is also good for the gander and somewhere an atheist bus campaign was about to commence with an exhortation to stop worrying because God did not exist. Of course legally they weren’t allowed to put it on and I suppose some atheists felt that they could continue to say it had never been claimed.

So belief that God doesn’t exist may be claimed as a counter argument to belief that he does and God doesn’t exist in a counter argument to him existing I suppose.

I find therefore the argument of default positions here a bit unconvincing,the best reason. This is how these things have been done a wholly inadequate explanation.

Once again - saying you have a  lack of belief in God is not a positive claim but a statement about your current status of belief. Saying there is no God is a positive claim which carries a burden of proof. The default position I have suggested is the former. The have a lack of belief in God until convinced otherwise.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

The answer is of course. No....you can’t Gish gallop on atext base forum where You can take your time to read what’s been written.

Yes you can. When you fire off a salvo of fallacies in one post (as you’re prone to do) it takes longer to rebut each of them in turn than it takes you to type them, and the temptation in any case is to think “what’s the bloody point?” given the near-certain knowledge that you’ll never address the rebuttals you’re given.
 

How ironic given the elimination of the principle of sufficient reason in arguments against the argument from contingency

Do you now have a version of that argument that isn’t shit? 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Once again - saying you have a  lack of belief in God is not a positive claim but a statement about your current status of belief. Saying there is no God is a positive claim which carries a burden of proof. The default position I have suggested is the former. The have a lack of belief in God until convinced otherwise.

In which case I can't see how having a belief in God is a positive claim. I've just been watching an up and coming youtuber on the atheist youtube circuit use the term atheism and naturalism interchangeably.
Would you agree that atheism is really naturalism or can you have a supernatural atheism?

[Stranger]

How ironic given the elimination of the principle of sufficient reason in arguments against the argument from contingency

What's the bleedin' point? You keep on lobbing out PRATT* after PRATT, and just ignore the responses even when when people shoot them down yet again.

* Point Refuted A Thousand Times.

[Maeght]

In which case I can't see how having a belief in God is a positive claim. I've just been watching an up and coming youtuber on the atheist youtube circuit use the term atheism and naturalism interchangeably.
Would you agree that atheism is really naturalism or can you have a supernatural atheism?

If you have a belief in God you are saying God exists, which is a positive claim surely. Not having a belief in God doesn't mean you are saying there is no God but just that you aren't convinced tat there is.

Someone can be an atheist and still believe in the supernatural I'd say since supernatural doesn't equal God or gods.

[Stranger]

In which case I can't see how having a belief in God is a positive claim.

Give it a rest - nobody's that stupid.

I've just been watching an up and coming youtuber on the atheist youtube circuit use the term atheism and naturalism interchangeably.
Would you agree that atheism is really naturalism or can you have a supernatural atheism?

And off you go on another pointless tangent to distract from the car crash of your 'arguments' to date.

Who the fuck cares what some random youtuber says who isn't here to respond? However, they are wrong. The terms are not interchangeable. I doubt there are many examples, but there is no logical conflict between not accepting that a god exists while accepting the supernatural exists in some other form.

Personally I see the same problem with other supernatural claims as with god(s) - I see no reason to take them seriously.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

If you have a belief in God you are saying God exists, which is a positive claim surely. Not having a belief in God doesn't mean you are saying there is no God but just that you aren't convinced tat there is.

Someone can be an atheist and still believe in the supernatural I'd say since supernatural doesn't equal God or gods.

sounds a bit iffy to me.How does lacking a belief in God differ from believing that God does not exist?

[Stranger]

sounds a bit iffy to me.How does lacking a belief in God differ from believing that God does not exist?

Grow up.