Originally posted by 0mega Spawn
thats me admitting i said he was lying... how did you miss that.but i also said
I bolded that too...
it is still an argument over the way RJ interprets a significant personal religious experience. By saying he is leaving something out, you are saying what he thinks happened to him did not. This is a terrible debating tactic, especially if you are able to phrase a better argument in such a way that RJ would almost have to agree. Let me demonstrate:
1: RJ, you are a liar, God doesn't exist so you never had that happen to you
2: RJ, I don't agree with the way you interpreted that, as there are still numerous ways that you could have survived without divine intervention, but who knows for sure?
not only does this promote a more meaningful discussion about someones beliefs, it is actually far more convincing of a debating style.
Originally posted by Rogue Jedino thats not how thats works. if i set out to prove something DOESN'T exist i would be looking for nothing right 😬
See how that works? You cannot disprove God, we cannot prove God.The unstoppable force has met the immovable object.
but if i set out to prove something does exist i would ve looking for evidence of its exist or at least , it
i guess I must have between you accusing him of lying and insinuating the paramedics don't know how to investigate the scene.
lol, I hardly criticized your handling of this issue to come in and argue with you about it. You needn't get so defensive, I actually didn't (and dont) single you out in my initial post
Originally posted by inimalisti understand... im actually glad to see a person not actually on any side. im mot getting defensive
i guess I must have between you accusing him of lying and insinuating the paramedics don't know how to investigate the scene.lol, I hardly criticized your handling of this issue to come in and argue with you about it. You needn't get so defensive, I actually didn't (and dont) single you out in my initial post
Originally posted by 0mega Spawn
i would need some sort of evidence to start with. right?
no, just testable predictions about what God does
so, (some, etc) Christians think God answers prayers, but studies find prayers aren't answered. Christians think God favors their faith, yet no studies find that Christians live better lives than others.
pretty much all religions offer these type of interpretive frameworks that you can test certain claims they make through, so The-God-Of-The-Bible is actually testable, so long as you can find something that believers think is true about that God.
God, as an abstract concept that might exist in a way entirely seperate from the universe we know? that offers no testable hypotheses, so we can't provide evidence one way or the other. Though I would personally question the relevance of believing in a God that doesn't interact with our universe...
Originally posted by inimalisti felt it was unecessary to tell people praying doesn't have a 100% percent success rate. seems quite obvious
no, just testable predictions about what God doesso, (some, etc) Christians think God answers prayers, but studies find prayers aren't answered. Christians think God favors their faith, yet no studies find that Christians live better lives than others.
pretty much all religions offer these type of interpretive frameworks that you can test certain claims they make through, so The-God-Of-The-Bible is actually testable, so long as you can find something that believers think is true about that God.
God, as an abstract concept that might exist in a way entirely seperate from the universe we know? that offers no testable hypotheses, so we can't provide evidence one way or the other. Though I would personally question the relevance of believing in a God that doesn't interact with our universe...
Originally posted by inimalist
It is a reasonable question thoughwhat would you accept as evidence of God not existing?
Back at you. What would you accept as evidence of his existence?
This is silly. Bottom line is this: No one can prove or disprove God's existence. There is literally no way to do either.
Nothing can be proven or disproven here. Nothing.
Originally posted by 0mega Spawn
i felt it was unecessary to tell people praying doesn't have a 100% percent success rate. seems quite obvious
however, no religious people think it has a 100% hit rate. the addage "god answers, but sometimes the answer is no" sort of holds there.
However, if you can show there is absolutely no statistical difference between the outcome of events when prayer is used or not, does actually test a hypothesis that most religious people believe about God.
I suppose it isn't absolute proof that God isn't responsible for some of those prayers being answered, but what it does say is that there is no evidence that prayers affect the outcome of a certain event above the variance we would expect to see given chance alone... errr, thats really jargony, let me give an example:
So, lets say I'm running an experiment about how much prayer affects the outcome of surgery. I have two groups, the group that will be prayed for, and the one that wont. If after surgery, there is no difference between the outcomes in the two groups, we can say we have provided evidence not only against God answering 100% of prayers, but in fact against the idea that prayer plays any role in the outcome of surgery above the factors that determine the outcome in the group that wasn't prayed for.
Originally posted by Rogue Jedi
Back at you. What would you accept as evidence of his existence?
I've thought about this a lot actually.
It would probably be incredibly difficult for me to be convinced of a "non-interacting" God, and one that just appeared to me would need to do something which absolutly convinced me I wasn't hallucinating (this should be trivial though. Have him give me a cell phone that I call my mother with, you know, or something that I wouldn't be able to buy alone. A God willing to reveal himself in that way I think would be pretty convincing).
Beyond that, demographic stuff, imho, would be the stuff that convinced me, but that is really only convincing of a specific religious perspective. So like, if catholics had a 100% greater chance of surviving car crashes or something. Actually, one of the major reasons I am more partial to Islam over Christianity is the way Islam spread in its early years. I think a powerful idea that carries truth would revolutionize the world it is brought into, which is seen with the birth of Islam, whereas the suffering and persecution Christians faced seems, of course this is only to me, not like something people who knew the one truth would have to endure. Jews interpret religious suffering in an entirely different way, and I'm not a Muslim, so obviously its no a rule or anything, but in terms of the type of thing that would convince me, it is largely that historical/demographic stuff.
Originally posted by 0mega Spawn
i think sadako has gotten around something like that by asking about the prayers of the 911 victims vs the prayers of the 911 terrorists
what do you mean "gotten around"? I thought I was giving you a way to test the existance of God, a way to answer the question RJ was asking you...
asking about the prayers of victims vs victimizers really doesn't test anything though. In sports, both teams often pray to the same god for victory.
I see that more as a statement about God's benevolence (lets bad things happen to good people) rather than evidence against prayers not being answered. It is possible that neither the prayers of the hijackers or the victims were answered and God still answers other prayers, or that the outcomes of some victims were changed by their prayers and God just doesn't interviene so much as to stop evil as he does to save people in distress. These types of redefinitions can be done with prayers not being seen to work in surgery as well, but the fact it is done with a controlled study makes the evidence so much stronger
Originally posted by Rogue Jedi
See how that works? You cannot disprove God, we cannot prove God.The unstoppable force has met the immovable object.
I see how that works...and its not like you say.
We can prove that a petitionable God is extremely unlikely.
We can now be reasonably certain that the man made religions of Earth, are in fact, man made.
Originally posted by inimalist
however, I think there is value in pointing out that once one does accept any traditional view of God that is "God is unknowable", the predictions and statements of fact associated with the religious views of God (so far as they can be tested) are almost unanimously false.Obviously this doesn't say much about this amorphous God of the modern theist, but it does, imho at least, give a pretty strong perspective on the concept in general. If the only interpretation of God that humans have held that doesn't have evidence against it is the one that specifically says this evidence is impossible to obtain, I don't really think that speaks well about the probability of God existing.
The concept of God cannot be proven at this time in our history because people are simply unable to grasp the concept without any predispositions.
Impartiality is paramount in attempting to prove something so abstract as God. Such qualities can be found, at present, in neither atheists nor theists.
Also, our inherent inability to accept that we are simply incapable of understanding certain concepts fully is what is arresting our ability to even try to come to a middle ground when it comes to God.
I believe that as humans, we are also incredibly arrogant when it comes to knowledge, and accepting that our capacity to grasp a lot of things is simply insufficient, is ego shattering.
Originally posted by lil bitchiness
I would argue that we're back to what the scriptures say.The concept of God cannot be proven at this time in our history because people are simply unable to grasp the concept without any predispositions.
Impartiality is paramount in attempting to prove something so abstract as God. Such qualities can be found, at present, in neither atheists nor theists.
Also, our inherent inability to accept that we are simply incapable of understanding certain concepts fully is what is arresting our ability to even try to come to a middle ground when it comes to God.
I believe that as humans, we are also incredibly arrogant when it comes to knowledge, and accepting that our capacity to grasp a lot of things is simply insufficient, is ego shattering.
GOD IS JUST ANOTHER NAME FOR MOTHER NATURE