Death

Originally posted by Deadline
I did try that once. I think I got personally attacked and called a piece of shit eventhough the guy didn't even know what I was arguing about (which was exactly my point). Not to mention the general elitist attitude and obnoxiousness you have from athiests but it's been toned down a bit. Why would there be a problem?

Let's see: general statements about past attacks that have no bearing on this convo, degrading generalizations about atheists, good start here 🙄 ....I'm just trying to listen to your side. You seem more intent on complaining in vague, amorphic ways that we can't respond to, citing past wrongs that I personally can't respond to, and you're still not actually addressing the topic.

We've all received criticism, or failed in our attempts at debate at some point. If you're just going to maintain a martyr complex about it, though, you won't ever have a constructive debate here.

srug

Originally posted by Deadline
That is absolutely not true for starters.

It was sarcasm. I debated him at length earlier and realized there's too little common ground for anything productive. I put the smilie to help out with that intent, as I tend to get taken far too literally on the forums when I'm not obvious about my sarcasm.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is actually a great example of what is wrong and pointless with certain Philosophy. Using faux-logic and baseless axioms.

But we had this discussion before and Symmetric Chaos posted an exhaustive (and correct) rebuttal of the whole thing.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Sure.

Summarized, the first part goes:

p1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
p2: The universe began to exist
c: The universe has a cause.

Followed by:

p1: The cause of the universe was either an eternal set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the creation of a universe, or a being with a will that has the ability to create a universe.
p2: The universe could not be caused by an eternal set of necessary and sufficient conditions.
c: The universe must have been caused by a being will a will of it's own and the ability to create universes. (God).

And, in support of p2:

p1: An eternal set of necessary and sufficient conditions cannot create a temporal effect.
p2: The universe was a temporal effect
c: The universe was not created by an eternal set of necessary and sufficient conditions.

I think that sums up the gist of it. Now you can pick a premise you disagree with or want more info on and I can focus on that one.

Originally posted by inimalist
your last post seemed to imply that the "it is or it isn't" logic of styrofoam v pizza doesn't apply to a soul.

you agree then, that a soul either does or does not exist?

Of course. You misunderstood.

With the Pizza argument, if it was Styrofoam it cannot be pizza. Which means any evidence supporting the thing being Styrofoam is also supporting it not being pizza.

That isn't true of a soul. There is no either A or B. It can be both A and B at the same time. Thus, proving A does not disprove B. It does nothing to B, actually. Again, especially considering we know so little about a soul.

Originally posted by inimalist
lol, well fine, but in this case, saying it is philosophy is simply a way of saying "I have to provide no good evidence for my beliefs"

all you are doing is saying there is a mind, and then refusing to provide anything to support that claim. for some reason, you seem to think that is philosophy

When did I ever argue there was a mind? I said near the beginning I didn't want to get into that debate. I've already been over that once on KMC.

I simply made the very true statement that you cannot disprove a mind, and also that the mind is a philosophical subject and not a scientific one.

And I still don't know where you get the idea that philosophy doesn't require you to back up your points, because it's simply false. Any philosophical argument, if it wants to be taken seriously, backs up it's points.

Originally posted by Bardock42
The Kalam Cosmological Argument is actually a great example of what is wrong and pointless with certain Philosophy. Using faux-logic and baseless axioms.

But we had this discussion before and Symmetric Chaos posted an exhaustive (and correct) rebuttal of the whole thing.

I don't see how it is using faux-logic or baseless axioms. I responded to each challenge brought against the argument. It has yet to be refuted.

Originally posted by inimalist
I've only taken intro logic, so I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I'm with your initial sentiment. (I figure what that is saying is because P&Q, thus Q, given P, and anything can be subbed in for Q).

The wedge symbol is "or". There's a rule in symbolic logic called addition which says that if you have a statement you can always add a wedge with anything you want on the other side. This works okay because normally there's so way get the new statement out of the "or" statement.

Another, more obvious, rule that if you have PvQ and P is false (~P) then Q is true (ie the coin will be heads or tails, it's not heads, so it's tails).

So when you have P and ~P you can make any any statement of the form PvQ (by addition) and then "prove" that the added statement is true using the ~P. It's the principle of explosion, there was an XKCD comic about it.

http://xkcd.com/704/

In mathematics you can do the same thing by dividing by zero. The most famous example shows that Winstonchurchill is a carrot:
http://cboard.cprogramming.com/brief-history-cprogramming-com/7769-winston-churchill-carrot.html

Originally posted by inimalist
I look at that the same way I look at people who play with semantics to try and prove things, its interesting, but really only shows the fallibility of human cognitive processes, certainly not that every statement could possibly be true. LOL, if that were the case, that is a clear problem with logic... not some proof that anything we want to be true is...

According to wikipedia there are logicians who see the rule of addition as a problem with something called paraconsistent logic. I think it would be easier to just say you have assume contradictory thing, since that has no practical use in the first place.

But yeah its amazing how certain of things people can become based on the say so of an authority (the genesis of this was that the person who wrote the book included an example that used it). It's very Orwellian how people will just accept obvious nonsense. IIRC in my highschool psych class we saw a video where people convinced themselves that the capital of Pakistan was "Jedi" and that Jupiter orbited the Earth.

Originally posted by TacDavey
I don't see how it is using faux-logic or baseless axioms. I responded to each challenge brought against the argument. It has yet to be refuted.

Originally posted by TacDavey
I don't see how it is using faux-logic or baseless axioms. I responded to each challenge brought against the argument. It has yet to be refuted.

The problem is that we don't know any of those things, most definitely not on a cosmic scale where logic as we know it may not even apply...where time might not exist, where everything we say is complete speculation.

p1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

Don't know that. Cause and effect are only defined in our universe we don't know if anything like that exists beyond that. If the word "before" even makes sense.

p2: The universe began to exist

We don't know that either, it may have existed in one form or another forever.

c: The universe has a cause.

Based on p1 and p2 being speculation this obviously is also speculation.

p1: The cause of the universe was either an eternal set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the creation of a universe, or a being with a will that has the ability to create a universe.

False dilemma, could be any other reason, too. And again "eternal" may not have a meaning outside of this universe we live in.

p2: The universe could not be caused by an eternal set of necessary and sufficient conditions.

Why? (not that it matters, cause all the other points are pure speculation and unfalsifiable)

c: The universe must have been caused by a being will a will of it's own and the ability to create universes. (God).

Doesn't follow for the reasons stated above.

p1: An eternal set of necessary and sufficient conditions cannot create a temporal effect.

There doesn't seem to be a reason for that to be true. Perhaps these conditions create this temporal effect and proceed after it has worked through (kinda like a function call if you are familiar with programming)

p2: The universe was a temporal effect

Temporal effect doesn't really mean anything. Are you saying the universe created time, or the universe is limited in time and scope, because we don't know either of those for certain.

c: The universe was not created by an eternal set of necessary and sufficient conditions.

Therefore this doesn't follow.

As you can see the Kalam cosmological argument proves absolutely nothing about reality, and can in no way be taken as a fact or something to base your beliefs on.

Even if we would forgive the baselessness of its axioms, and accept its statements as factual we have not proven anything beyond there being something that has a will and in some way an ability to create a universe. Not a full will, not a personality, not endless power, just enough to create the universe (which we don't know how hard that was at the time, may be as easy as pushing over a pebble and the will may be little more than a slight desire to want to push over a pebble.

Again this is only if we accept all these unknowable statements (which we shouldn't, they are unknowable and also feel wrong), and even then we have nothing remotely resembling any gods in any mythology, Christianity included.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Of course. You misunderstood.

With the Pizza argument, if it was Styrofoam it cannot be pizza. Which means any evidence supporting the thing being Styrofoam is also supporting it not being pizza.

That isn't true of a soul. There is no either A or B. It can be both A and B at the same time. Thus, proving A does not disprove B. It does nothing to B, actually. Again, especially considering we know so little about a soul.

iirc, my first statement in this thread was to say that a soul is both unfalsifiable and ambiguous. you agree with this then?

Originally posted by TacDavey
I simply made the very true statement that you cannot disprove a mind,

a) only if the concept is unfalsifiable and makes no predictions about how the mind affects reality

b) then I can add it to the list of infinite other things I can't disprove, yet have no baring on anyone's day to day life.

I can't prove you aren't a robot, should I give this idea any credibility at all? I can't disprove the world will end in 25 minutes, should I live my life as if it will? I can't disprove I will get hit by a car when I go outside, should I never go outside?

like, this "can't disprove" line of argument is so poor, I really am surprised you cling to it so often, you are smarter than that

Originally posted by TacDavey
and also that the mind is a philosophical subject and not a scientific one.

not really. You would have to show that there is some aspect of what we know as the mind that is and will forever be inaccessible to scientific inquiry. what part of the mind do you think that is?

like, all you keep doing is saying, "you can't prove there isn't a mind", yet, you don't feel compelled to say what the mind might be, or what part of our experience isn't explained by biology. like... come on man....

Originally posted by TacDavey
And I still don't know where you get the idea that philosophy doesn't require you to back up your points, because it's simply false. Any philosophical argument, if it wants to be taken seriously, backs up it's points.

what proof do you have that there is a part of our mind that goes beyond what science can study?

if you want your position about the mind to be taken seriously, you must provide this evidence to back up your point.

Originally posted by King Kandy
You responded, but your responses made no sense to me at all. I'm not going to argue with you anymore, because every time I ask you to explain your points better, the explanations just confuse me even more.

Well... Not much I can do about that beyond trying to explain it better...

Originally posted by Bardock42
The problem is that we don't know any of those things, most definitely not on a cosmic scale where logic as we know it may not even apply...where time might not exist, where everything we say is complete speculation.

[b]p1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

Don't know that. Cause and effect are only defined in our universe we don't know if anything like that exists beyond that. If the word "before" even makes sense.

p2: The universe began to exist

We don't know that either, it may have existed in one form or another forever.

c: The universe has a cause.

Based on p1 and p2 being speculation this obviously is also speculation.

p1: The cause of the universe was either an eternal set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the creation of a universe, or a being with a will that has the ability to create a universe.

False dilemma, could be any other reason, too. And again "eternal" may not have a meaning outside of this universe we live in.

p2: The universe could not be caused by an eternal set of necessary and sufficient conditions.

Why? (not that it matters, cause all the other points are pure speculation and unfalsifiable)

c: The universe must have been caused by a being will a will of it's own and the ability to create universes. (God).

Doesn't follow for the reasons stated above.

p1: An eternal set of necessary and sufficient conditions cannot create a temporal effect.

There doesn't seem to be a reason for that to be true. Perhaps these conditions create this temporal effect and proceed after it has worked through (kinda like a function call if you are familiar with programming)

p2: The universe was a temporal effect

Temporal effect doesn't really mean anything. Are you saying the universe created time, or the universe is limited in time and scope, because we don't know either of those for certain.

c: The universe was not created by an eternal set of necessary and sufficient conditions.

Therefore this doesn't follow.

As you can see the Kalam cosmological argument proves absolutely nothing about reality, and can in no way be taken as a fact or something to base your beliefs on.

Even if we would forgive the baselessness of its axioms, and accept its statements as factual we have not proven anything beyond there being something that has a will and in some way an ability to create a universe. Not a full will, not a personality, not endless power, just enough to create the universe (which we don't know how hard that was at the time, may be as easy as pushing over a pebble and the will may be little more than a slight desire to want to push over a pebble.

Again this is only if we accept all these unknowable statements (which we shouldn't, they are unknowable and also feel wrong), and even then we have nothing remotely resembling any gods in any mythology, Christianity included. [/B]

Almost all of your "refutations" are based off of, "well, we can't know if that's true. Maybe things don't operate under the same logic as the rest of the universe." And maybe the universe was created by a giant squid. You can't base your reasoning off of sheer possibility.

Is there any reason to think that logic doesn't apply to the things you described? Is there any bit of evidence that would suggest that this possibility should be taken seriously?

No.

There is no reason to think the same logic that governs the universe simply falls apart on these very specific items. Unless,of course, you can provide any justification for this idea, it doesn't hold any weight in a debate.

Also, you said we don't know that the universe had a beginning. That, also, is untrue. Modern cosmology has determined this. I've been over it in my past posts.

You want to refute the argument with nothing more that "maybe it doesn't work that way." But you will need more than that. I hardly consider that a rational reason to reject something.

Originally posted by inimalist
iirc, my first statement in this thread was to say that a soul is both unfalsifiable and ambiguous. you agree with this then?

I don't know the arguments for a soul, so I can't really say.

Though, I would think that any argument for the Christian God is also, at the same time, an argument for a soul. And since arguments for the Christian God exist, I would say there are also arguments for a soul.

Originally posted by inimalist
a) only if the concept is unfalsifiable and makes no predictions about how the mind affects reality

b) then I can add it to the list of infinite other things I can't disprove, yet have no baring on anyone's day to day life.

Alright. But you made the claim that you could actively demonstrate that we don't have souls. This isn't true, though, is it?

I never said we should thus believe we have a soul simply because we can't disprove it. But we CAN'T disprove it like you said you could.

Originally posted by inimalist
I can't prove you aren't a robot, should I give this idea any credibility at all? I can't disprove the world will end in 25 minutes, should I live my life as if it will? I can't disprove I will get hit by a car when I go outside, should I never go outside?

like, this "can't disprove" line of argument is so poor, I really am surprised you cling to it so often, you [b]are smarter than that [/B]

😎 Why thank you. But I've been trying to tell you that I'm not arguing for a soul. I'm just pointing out that you said we could prove we don't have one. It was really more of a nit-pick than an actual argument.

Originally posted by inimalist
not really. You would have to show that there is some aspect of what we know as the mind that is and will forever be inaccessible to scientific inquiry. what part of the mind do you think that is?

like, all you keep doing is saying, "you can't prove there isn't a mind", yet, you don't feel compelled to say what the mind might be, or what part of our experience isn't explained by biology. like... come on man....

I really don't have any info on what a soul is or does other than continue on after death. I've done very little research into dualism and the mind. As I said. I'm not arguing for a soul here.

Originally posted by inimalist
what proof do you have that there is a part of our mind that goes beyond what science can study?

if you want your position about the mind to be taken seriously, you must provide this evidence to back up your point.

I have no proof outside of arguments for God's existence. Specifically the Christian God. As I said, I think any argument for His existence is also an argument for souls.

But again. I'm not arguing for a soul right now.

Originally posted by TacDavey
I don't know the arguments for a soul, so I can't really say.

Though, I would think that any argument for the Christian God is also, at the same time, an argument for a soul. And since arguments for the Christian God exist, I would say there are also arguments for a soul.

Alright. But you made the claim that you could actively demonstrate that we don't have souls. This isn't true, though, is it?

I never said we should thus believe we have a soul simply because we can't disprove it. But we CAN'T disprove it like you said you could.

😎 Why thank you. But I've been trying to tell you that I'm not arguing for a soul. I'm just pointing out that you said we could prove we don't have one. It was really more of a nit-pick than an actual argument.

I really don't have any info on what a soul is or does other than continue on after death. I've done very little research into dualism and the mind. As I said. I'm not arguing for a soul here.

I have no proof outside of arguments for God's existence. Specifically the Christian God. As I said, I think any argument for His existence is also an argument for souls.

But again. I'm not arguing for a soul right now.

science tends to look at things that are unfalsifiable as being more problematic than things that are just flat out wrong

if you want to expend your philosophical energy in the realm of "oh, but you can't 100% prove X", fine. If you want to nitpick the difference between "there is no reason to believe in the soul and no possible way to ever test it" and "there is no soul", again, fine, that is your prerogative. That is highschool level logic though, and if you are going to use "nuh-uh, you can't say there isn't" to argue against the neuroscientific evidence of how human behaviour and experience is produced, again, cool, do that. I can't stop you, but you are selling yourself and your own points short. I refuse to believe you don't see how weak that logic is.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Almost all of your "refutations" are based off of, "well, we can't know if that's true. Maybe things don't operate under the same logic as the rest of the universe." And maybe the universe was created by a giant squid. You can't base your reasoning off of sheer possibility.

That's incorrect, that is a huge problem you have of course, but really the main problem is that the statements you made are unfounded.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Is there any reason to think that logic doesn't apply to the things you described? Is there any bit of evidence that would suggest that this possibility should be taken seriously?

No.

Again, it was only an aside, not even remotely the main point.

Originally posted by TacDavey
There is no reason to think the same logic that governs the universe simply falls apart on these very specific items. Unless,of course, you can provide any justification for this idea, it doesn't hold any weight in a debate.

I disagree, we don't know how universes behave. We can't assume they behave like marbles. Basically your assumption "everything I see in this universe has a cause/beginning, therefore the universe has a cause/beginning equivalent to these" is in no way valid.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Also, you said we don't know that the universe had a beginning. That, also, is untrue. Modern cosmology has determined this. I've been over it in my past posts.

We don't know that at all. We are pretty sure that there was a big bang that changed whatever was before, if anything, into what we experience now. If you want to call it the "beginning" that's okay, but it doesn't follow the description you give "beginnings". I may very well be like saying that the time water changes into ice is the beginning of this matter, rather than a change of state.

Originally posted by TacDavey
You want to refute the argument with nothing more that "maybe it doesn't work that way." But you will need more than that. I hardly consider that a rational reason to reject something.

I do not need a single thing more than that though, you have to prove it works the way you claim. Burden of proof is squarely on you again (I believe that you've been over this with many others on this board). I don't have to prove that your claims are true, that's what you have to do. Something you have certainly not done (neither has anyone else who ever brought up this argument).

Like, when Jeremy Wolfe ran some experiments that showed Anne Triesman's Feature-Integration Theory wasn't an adequate way to describe how signals from the eyes are converted into perception, Triesman would have been laughed out of academia if her response was "well, you only proved it at p=.05, therefore you didn't prove me wrong". Her response was to look at the research and find a better way to combine her previous findings with those of Wolfe's to improve our understanding.

You would be right if you said Wolfe couldn't disprove Triesman, but it is so beside the point that nobody really cares about that fact. It shows almost no logical sophistication to harp on the fact that it is impossible to ever disprove something.

Originally posted by inimalist
science tends to look at things that are unfalsifiable as being more problematic than things that are just flat out wrong

if you want to expend your philosophical energy in the realm of "oh, but you can't 100% prove X", fine. If you want to nitpick the difference between "there is no reason to believe in the soul and no possible way to ever test it" and "there is no soul", again, fine, that is your prerogative. That is highschool level logic though, and if you are going to use "nuh-uh, you can't say there isn't" to argue against the neuroscientific evidence of how human behaviour and experience is produced, again, cool, do that. I can't stop you, but you are selling yourself and your own points short. I refuse to believe you don't see how weak that logic is.

What logic? The logic that since we can't disprove something thus it exists? You're right. That is weak logic. Thankfully, that isn't MY logic.

I have not once made a single argument for a soul since we started this discussion. So what logic am I using that's weak if I have provided no argument?

Originally posted by Bardock42
That's incorrect, that is a huge problem you have of course, but really the main problem is that the statements you made are unfounded.

Unfounded? In what way?

Originally posted by Bardock42
Again, it was only an aside, not even remotely the main point.

You're main point was that I had not produced evidence that logic applies to the origins of the universe, right?

Originally posted by Bardock42
I disagree, we don't know how universes behave. We can't assume they behave like marbles. Basically your assumption "everything I see in this universe has a cause/beginning, therefore the universe has a cause/beginning equivalent to these" is in no way valid.

That's like asking me to provide evidence that gravity applies to a specific bowling ball, and then denying it does unless I can prove it. Gravity affects everything else, why not the bowling ball? If you want to claim logic applies to everything else except these specific things it is YOU who is going to have to back that up. I see no reason to think that logic just doesn't apply in this case when it does in every other for no apparent reason.

Originally posted by Bardock42
We don't know that at all. We are pretty sure that there was a big bang that changed whatever was before, if anything, into what we experience now. If you want to call it the "beginning" that's okay, but it doesn't follow the description you give "beginnings". I may very well be like saying that the time water changes into ice is the beginning of this matter, rather than a change of state.

Sorry Bardock, but the cosmologists say there was a beginning. Not a change. A beginning. That's THEIR words. You can go back and look at the quotes yourself. I'm going to go ahead and believe the experts on this one.

Originally posted by Bardock42
I do not need a single thing more than that though, you have to prove it works the way you claim. Burden of proof is squarely on you again (I believe that you've been over this with many others on this board). I don't have to prove that your claims are true, that's what you have to do. Something you have certainly not done (neither has anyone else who ever brought up this argument).

Works the way I claim? Works according to logic? Why wouldn't it? What possible reason could we have to think that logic, while it governs everything else, simply doesn't apply to this very specific case for no apparent reason? You are now trying to refute my argument by claiming MAYBE logic just doesn't apply? That is a pretty weak refutation. No logician is going to accept maybes and possibilities as valid reasons to believe something.

From Plato and the early Greeks, through Jesus and Paul, through most African and Oriental cultures, to spiritualists of the twentieth century, a belief in some kind of survival of bodily death has been unequivocally affirmed. Jesus' assertion that in his Father's house there are many rooms, would seem to be justified by the fact that this common belief is held by such divergent peoples.

While many traditional believers tend to shy away from the topic, testimony to the existence of a spirit world actually permeates the Bible.

Prophets such as Ezekiel and Isaiah report powerful spiritual visions, as does the writer of the book of Revelation. In the Gospels, angels speak (Lk 1:28) and on the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus talks with the long-dead Moses and Elijah (Mt 17:1-3). Christian mystics and saints throughout history also spoke of spiritual experiences.

The proposition that life continues beyond physical death goes a long way toward explaining well-recognized and otherwise unexplainable phenomena, for example, near-death experiences, visions of deceased persons and the experience of authentic communication from the other side.

To understand what happens to us at death, we first need to understand of what we are made. Most of us tend to identify closely with our physical bodies, but this is only part of the picture. We are not only physical matter, but also spiritual essence. It is accurate to say that we are essentially spiritual beings who possess physical bodies. When we die, we in effect take off our physical bodies as one might take off an overcoat. The essential person remains.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Unfounded? In what way?

Not based on reality, complete speculation.

Originally posted by TacDavey
You're main point was that I had not produced evidence that logic applies to the origins of the universe, right?

No.

[QUOTE=13378955]Originally posted by TacDavey
[B]That's like asking me to provide evidence that gravity applies to a specific bowling ball, and then denying it does unless I can prove it. Gravity affects everything else, why not the bowling ball? If you want to claim logic applies to everything else except these specific things it is YOU who is going to have to back that up. I see no reason to think that logic just doesn't apply in this case when it does in every other for no apparent reason.

It's not though, it is quite obvious that there is no reason to think that what goes for items within the universe goes for the universe itself. That is honestly one of the main problems of your point

Originally posted by TacDavey
Sorry Bardock, but the cosmologists say there was a beginning. Not a change. A beginning. That's THEIR words. You can go back and look at the quotes yourself. I'm going to go ahead and believe the experts on this one.

Again, this is likely based on different definitions of the word beginning, you'll need to use the same one for your argument to hold true. No one knows for certain what was "before" the big bang as we are not getting any data from that.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Works the way I claim? Works according to logic? Why wouldn't it? What possible reason could we have to think that logic, while it governs everything else, simply doesn't apply to this very specific case for no apparent reason? You are now trying to refute my argument by claiming MAYBE logic just doesn't apply? That is a pretty weak refutation. No logician is going to accept maybes and possibilities as valid reasons to believe something.

Why wouldn't it is not a valid question. Like you have to prove that local laws of nature apply to other parts of the universe, you'd also have to prove that the laws of the universe apply outside of the universe and to itself.

Additionally you do have to a) prove that predicate logic applies to something we are completely unaware of, of which we have no knowledge, which is ridiculous to treat like a pebble on a beach when it could be, and probably is, something completely different, and more so than logic, you have to prove that the traits you give this item actually mean something. At best what you said so far is "if universes behave like volleyballs, and I correctly excluded other possibilities/causes, which I too have not proven, then the reason for the universe is something that I vaguely defined as having a will and the ability to create the universe". Not a very convincing argument.

And I am not asking you to believe anything, you are asking us to believe in God and your reasoning for doing so is severely flawed, and of course you first have to prove your axioms and show your steps to be not flawed before you made your case, something you have most certainly not done.

Prove it with evidence, not with thought experiments that may or may not apply.

Originally posted by Digi
Let's see: general statements about past attacks that have no bearing on this convo,

They have absolutely bearing on the convo. The point is its about debating style. You can't even have a proper debate if people have a bad attitude.

Originally posted by Digi

degrading generalizations about atheists, good start here 🙄 ....I'm just trying to listen to your side. You seem more intent on complaining in vague, amorphic ways that we can't respond to, citing past wrongs that I personally can't respond to, and you're still not actually addressing the topic.

Fine this is what I will do I will compile the evidence and show it to the mods. If I go into now all thats going to happen is you are and you're buddies are going to gangbang me, besides it's not just one incident there are numerous ones. However I bumped one of our previous discussions in the how do you visualise god thread, which pretty much illustrates you're elitsist attitude.

Originally posted by Digi

We've all received criticism, or failed in our attempts at debate at some point. If you're just going to maintain a martyr complex about it, though, you won't ever have a constructive debate here.

srug

No you do not. What you do have in this forum are groups of religous and spiritual people acting like elitists and treating athiests like idiots. What you do have on this forum are athiests acting like elitists.

Originally posted by Digi

It was sarcasm. I debated him at length earlier and realized there's too little common ground for anything productive. I put the smilie to help out with that intent, as I tend to get taken far too literally on the forums when I'm not obvious about my sarcasm.

I don't think he had any good points to make anyway, even if he did probably wouldn't matter.

Anyway I've basically had enough and I'm going to sort this situation out in time.

Originally posted by Deadline
gangbang me

I don't think that means what you think it means.

Not that I'm not up for it. 😛

Originally posted by TacDavey
What logic? The logic that since we can't disprove something thus it exists? You're right. That is weak logic. Thankfully, that isn't MY logic.

no, the logic that there is any value at all to saying we can't disprove something

Originally posted by inimalist
is that me you are referring to?

accusing me of "making stuff up" or whatever is one thing, unjustified, but an opinion you are free to hold. I've never made a personal attack against you, especially one like calling you a piece of shit...

No Omega Vision.

Originally posted by Bardock42
Not based on reality, complete speculation.

It isn't based on speculation. It's rooted in scientific findings.

Originally posted by Bardock42
It's not though, it is quite obvious that there is no reason to think that what goes for items within the universe goes for the universe itself. That is honestly one of the main problems of your point

You've got it backwards. There is no reason to think logic just simply stops applying to specific things for no reason. If you think it is at all ration to think that logic doesn't apply to the universe, then kindly provide reasons why this speculation should be taken seriously. BEYOND "Maybe it's the case." That isn't a valid reason to hold to something.

Originally posted by Bardock42
Again, this is likely based on different definitions of the word beginning, you'll need to use the same one for your argument to hold true. No one knows for certain what was "before" the big bang as we are not getting any data from that.

Again, this is simply incorrect. Go back and read the quotes. They literally say the universe began from nothing

Originally posted by Bardock42
Why wouldn't it is not a valid question. Like you have to prove that local laws of nature apply to other parts of the universe, you'd also have to prove that the laws of the universe apply outside of the universe and to itself.

You are asking me to prove that the laws that govern reality DON'T simply break down when we are talking about the universe. I don't have to prove that at all. If you think you have any valid reason for thinking something like this is possible, it's up to YOU to provide some reason to think this is even a possibility worth investigating.

You are claiming that logic is only bound by the universe, and does not apply to the universe itself and outside it. YOU are making this claim. YOU provide evidence that it should be taken seriously.

Originally posted by Bardock42
Additionally you do have to a) prove that predicate logic applies to something we are completely unaware of, of which we have no knowledge, which is ridiculous to treat like a pebble on a beach when it could be, and probably is, something completely different, and more so than logic, you have to prove that the traits you give this item actually mean something. At best what you said so far is "if universes behave like volleyballs, and I correctly excluded other possibilities/causes, which I too have not proven, then the reason for the universe is something that I vaguely defined as having a will and the ability to create the universe". Not a very convincing argument.

It's a more convincing argument than "Maybe it didn't happen that way." 😖hifty:

a. What do we have no knowledge about? The universe? We have plenty of knowledge about it. What we DON'T have any evidence for is a reason logic would simply not apply to it.

You are claiming it is possible that logic ONLY applies to things INSIDE the universe. Back that up. Provide evidence for that claim, because I have seen no reason thus far to take it seriously. All it is is a huge MAYBE at the moment. You cannot base your beliefs off of maybes and possibilities. At least you can't expect everyone else to take the argument seriously when you do.

Originally posted by Bardock42
And I am not asking you to believe anything, you are asking us to believe in God and your reasoning for doing so is severely flawed, and of course you first have to prove your axioms and show your steps to be not flawed before you made your case, something you have most certainly not done.

Prove it with evidence, not with thought experiments that may or may not apply.

My reasoning is not flawed. Not that I've seen. You have offered possibilities as to why the reasoning is flawed, but you have not provided any reason to take these possibilities seriously.

Another possibility is that universes themselves have a will and mind of there own and can somehow make themselves. That IS a possibility, and is as much a possibility as "universes transcend logic."

But I don't have to take any of my time to prove that universes don't have a will of their own. If anyone wanted to make that refutation, they would need to provide a reason to support this claim. And I don't have to take any of my time proving that universes DON'T transcend logic. If you want to claim it's possible they do, then YOU need to give reasons for thinking they do so.

Originally posted by inimalist
no, the logic that there is any value at all to saying we can't disprove something

Like I said. It was originally a nit-pick. It was you who insisted on calling me out on an argument I never made.