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Theist arguments refuted by an atheist

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oscuria
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18 May 2008, 3:28 pm

slowmutant wrote:

What religion are you, anyway? Jewish? Muslim?


I consider my belief to be a religion of itself. It returns and unites my self to Him. I am nothing more than a "mystic."



Vexcalibur
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18 May 2008, 3:45 pm

wow, this is disappointing, so the atheist actually needed a straw man to refute the theist?

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Of course, it is logically impossible to prove a negative. That doesn't mean the corresponding positive must therefore be true.

Works the other way around.

The lack of conclusive evidence tells me that you would have to be quite daring to make an absolute statement on any direction regarding this issue.



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18 May 2008, 11:19 pm

Being an Athiest is illogical, because you cannot know for fact there is no God. It is purely as emotionial and gut instinct as the Athiests claim the belief in God is.

What is logically, is to be agnositic. That is, to acknowledge that you have no evidence, either way, to make a determination of an existance of a God.

To be a believer, one would have to be presented with a degree of evidence. If so, then one would be foolish not to believe if they were presented with evidence.


Most Athiestic believers are irrational. Expecting others who have heard and experienced evidence of God to not believe in God, because they themselves have not experienced it. Image, if an athiest took this attitude toward another witness. Trying to convience people they really didn't experience a robbery? Or that they didn't experience the rain on their face last year, because they themselves didn't experience it.

I understand, not knowing, and doubting, and challenging others in their belief to try and find an answer. But really, it is not logically to base your faith on an absolute logical fallacy.



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19 May 2008, 7:28 am

IdahoAspie wrote:
Being an Athiest is illogical, because you cannot know for fact there is no God. It is purely as emotionial and gut instinct as the Athiests claim the belief in God is.

What is logically, is to be agnositic. That is, to acknowledge that you have no evidence, either way, to make a determination of an existance of a God.

To be a believer, one would have to be presented with a degree of evidence. If so, then one would be foolish not to believe if they were presented with evidence.


Most Athiestic believers are irrational. Expecting others who have heard and experienced evidence of God to not believe in God, because they themselves have not experienced it. Image, if an athiest took this attitude toward another witness. Trying to convience people they really didn't experience a robbery? Or that they didn't experience the rain on their face last year, because they themselves didn't experience it.

I understand, not knowing, and doubting, and challenging others in their belief to try and find an answer. But really, it is not logically to base your faith on an absolute logical fallacy.


You have an uninformed view of what most atheists believe.

Most atheists, including myself, ARE agnostics (and most agnostics are atheists, though there are agnostic theists), the two terms do not conflict with each other. An agnostic atheist is a person who has no evidence of God's existance and thus has no reason to believe in the existance of God.

I would classify things thusly:

Gnostic Atheist: Claims to know that God does not exist.

Ignostic Atheist: Claims the concept of "God" is incoherent and/or meaningless.

Agnostic Atheist: Has no evidence for God's existance and so doesn't believe in God.

Agnostic Theist: Has no evidence of God's existance but believes anyway.

Gnostic Theist: Claims to know that God exists through personal experience.


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slowmutant
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19 May 2008, 10:02 am

Odin, all these terms and definitions are confusing. Pick one and self-apply. One word, not two or three or a whole paragraph. Say it in a single word or don't say it all.



IdahoAspie
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19 May 2008, 10:22 pm

Odin wrote:
IdahoAspie wrote:
Being an Athiest is illogical, because you cannot know for fact there is no God. It is purely as emotionial and gut instinct as the Athiests claim the belief in God is.

What is logically, is to be agnositic. That is, to acknowledge that you have no evidence, either way, to make a determination of an existance of a God.

To be a believer, one would have to be presented with a degree of evidence. If so, then one would be foolish not to believe if they were presented with evidence.


Most Athiestic believers are irrational. Expecting others who have heard and experienced evidence of God to not believe in God, because they themselves have not experienced it. Image, if an athiest took this attitude toward another witness. Trying to convience people they really didn't experience a robbery? Or that they didn't experience the rain on their face last year, because they themselves didn't experience it.

I understand, not knowing, and doubting, and challenging others in their belief to try and find an answer. But really, it is not logically to base your faith on an absolute logical fallacy.


You have an uninformed view of what most atheists believe.

Most atheists, including myself, ARE agnostics (and most agnostics are atheists, though there are agnostic theists), the two terms do not conflict with each other. An agnostic atheist is a person who has no evidence of God's existance and thus has no reason to believe in the existance of God.

I would classify things thusly:

Gnostic Atheist: Claims to know that God does not exist.

Ignostic Atheist: Claims the concept of "God" is incoherent and/or meaningless.

Agnostic Atheist: Has no evidence for God's existance and so doesn't believe in God.

Agnostic Theist: Has no evidence of God's existance but believes anyway.

Gnostic Theist: Claims to know that God exists through personal experience.


I understand those concepts. They are simply degrees of pessimistic view of God's existance. But it is still illogical to believe there is no God.



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19 May 2008, 10:38 pm

IdahoAspie wrote:

I understand those concepts. They are simply degrees of pessimistic view of God's existance. But it is still illogical to believe there is no God.


Based on that kind of thinking it is illogical to believe that there are no invisible pink unicorns on the far side of the moon, or that there is no a teapot in solar orbit between Earth and Mars. The magical unicorns and the celestial teapot may exist but there is no evidence of their existance so I have no reason to believe that they do exist, same thing with God. I have not seen any evidence of His existance so I have no reason to believe that such a being exists.


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Vexcalibur
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19 May 2008, 11:27 pm

Odin wrote:
IdahoAspie wrote:

I understand those concepts. They are simply degrees of pessimistic view of God's existance. But it is still illogical to believe there is no God.


Based on that kind of thinking it is illogical to believe that there are no invisible pink unicorns on the far side of the moon, or that there is no a teapot in solar orbit between Earth and Mars. The magical unicorns and the celestial teapot may exist but there is no evidence of their existance so I have no reason to believe that they do exist, same thing with God. I have not seen any evidence of His existance so I have no reason to believe that such a being exists.
First of all, as it is non-sense to believe there is a unicorn living in the far side of the moon, it is equally illogical to believe the opposite, there simply is no evidence, a way to prove it would be to have some evidence that unicorns can't live without oxygen then that would refute it, but until then, it requires blind faith to believe that this unicorn exists.

Regarding the teapot, then there really is no way to be sure until we send a probe close enough that we could really eliminate that possibility, believing that there isn't a teapot there, requires quite some blind faith.



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19 May 2008, 11:32 pm

Vexcalibur, I would like to make two points:
1. You are taking agnosticism too far
2. Your avatar pwns


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iamnotaparakeet
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20 May 2008, 7:33 am

A philosophy textbook I was going through said something like this about teleology, "It appeals to both the emotions and to reason..."

Quite a fallacy there appeal to reason. Maybe next there should be argument from thinking or appeal to common sense. :roll:



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20 May 2008, 7:36 am

Vexcalibur wrote:
Odin wrote:
IdahoAspie wrote:

I understand those concepts. They are simply degrees of pessimistic view of God's existance. But it is still illogical to believe there is no God.


Based on that kind of thinking it is illogical to believe that there are no invisible pink unicorns on the far side of the moon, or that there is no a teapot in solar orbit between Earth and Mars. The magical unicorns and the celestial teapot may exist but there is no evidence of their existance so I have no reason to believe that they do exist, same thing with God. I have not seen any evidence of His existance so I have no reason to believe that such a being exists.
First of all, as it is non-sense to believe there is a unicorn living in the far side of the moon, it is equally illogical to believe the opposite, there simply is no evidence, a way to prove it would be to have some evidence that unicorns can't live without oxygen then that would refute it, but until then, it requires blind faith to believe that this unicorn exists.

Regarding the teapot, then there really is no way to be sure until we send a probe close enough that we could really eliminate that possibility, believing that there isn't a teapot there, requires quite some blind faith.


My argument is that unless we have evidence for the existance of something. it is best to assume the null hypothesis (that something doesn't exist). Assuming the null hypothesis and testing it is a very common method in science.


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darkstone100
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20 May 2008, 8:18 am

hey, if there is a god, my problem is which one, I don't want to align myself to a certain religion all my life, die and then find out i had to believe in hinduism or some other religion.


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