GCT
Posts: 1001
Joined: Aug. 2005
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| Quote (skeptic @ Dec. 29 2007,01:09) | | It always comes back to this at some point or another. No, Ian, the default position is not no and no, GCT, the burden of proof does not lie on the theist. Both aspects of this statement are a positive statement and both require proof. Neither rises to the occasion but you can not point to the failure of one side as decisive knowing that the alternate position is equally fruitless. |
I fail to see why the burden of proof lies on the atheist to disprove god. If I act like an actual skeptic and say that the theist has proven there is no god, so I do not accept their positive assertion, how is that making an assertion myself?
| Quote | | If your position is that atheism says that there simply is no evidence for a God then you can not come to a determination because the nature of evidence is fluid. I think that is more of the agnostic position whereas atheism actually says there is no God based upon the lack of evidence. We may quibble here over the semantics but I think most atheists are willing to take the position that God doesn't exist even if they don't want to accept that they're making a positive claim. |
Can you do me a favor? Instead of telling a bunch of atheists what they think/believe, etc, why don't you actually listen to what we are telling you we think? Do you really think that you know what we think better than we do?
Now, to your statement, are you asserting that someone has presented evidence for god, to me? You can rest assured that this has not happened. Until it does, I am well within reason to reject the positive assertion that god exists.
| Quote | | Our answer to this question is irrelevant to the subject as the question has already been answered by the Universe at the moment of existence. Either God, of whatever nature, exists or It doesn't. This is a fifty-fifty proposition and there is only one logical course to follow in assessing it. |
How did you determine that the probability is fifty-fifty? Do you also believe that the probability of invisible pink unicorns is fifty-fifty? How about Zeus, Thor, Baal, the FSM, etc? Are those all fifty-fifty as well? Why or why not?
| Quote | | So, again, either God exists or doesn't and we have no direct evidence in either case so either proposition is equally viable. |
Either Russell's floating teapot exists or it doesn't and it's equally viable and rational to believe that it does than to believe that it doesn't? Are you really trying to say this? Do you really wish to assert that it is viable to believe in any proposition if you don't have evidence against it?
| Quote | | IMO, what most atheists actually have a problem with is religion, as I stated before. Most never really address the existence of God they just reject the [insert here] God. The problem with that is that the [insert here] God may bear no resemblance whatsoever to God and they are basing their entire argument on an illusion. |
You do realize this is done out of expediency, right? We live in an overwhelmingly Xian country, so of course we will expend more energy battling against the myth of Xianity than other myths. That doesn't mean that we secretly believe in other gods or that we haven't considered those other gods or anything else that you think it means. Also, if we argue against a specific belief, we are arguing against that belief, it is not a strawman.
| Quote | | That is why, Ian and GCT, that any claims on either side are positive claims and fall victim to the same fallacy. |
I remain unconvinced because you've based your whole entire argument on a strawman characterization of what atheists believe.
| Quote | | And that is why, Chris, you're really outmatched in this discussion because you refuse to look at the question rationally and continue to rely on your irrelevant emotional response that has no connection to the actual question. It's time to disengage your heart and engage your mind. Without doing that you'll never get anywhere on this topic and you probably won't even be aware why you're wrong. |
This is obviously getting nowhere, as Chris and I have already pointed out that you aren't comprehending what he's saying. You simply keep repeating the same charge, and even when I break it down to you, you ignore what I said and continue to repeat the same charge, as if the more you say it, the more true it becomes.
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