Checkmate atheists

I doubt this guy's doubts

...

I think we can all agree that if there is a God, it's probably Allah.

There are much better arguments

I really hate this reddit atheism that's so common on the internet nowadays. When philosophers say they are atheists, they don't mean they are merely skeptical towards theism, they are claiming that believing the proposition "Theism is false" is justified. To this end, they provide a variety of deductive and inductive arguments.

Trying to make atheism into a position that makes no claims on its own debases it into a mere personal preference of no academic interest.

No one here can disprove existence of Russel's teapot or op's sex life either, but that doesn't mean we should believe that they exist.

>When philosophers say they are atheists
More like
>When atheist philosophers attempt to put forward arguments as to why the atheist position is correct

You're way overcooking it. An atheist is simply a person who does not believe in any god. In fact, atheist is the default and passive position for all people who have not yet been convinced of any god hypothesis.

Atheists are not all foaming at the mouth anti-theists, or non-confrontational "I prefer to call myself an agnostic" atheists either. The only thing you can tell about a person if they are an atheist is that they do not believe in a God.

and that they wear a fedora

>An atheist is simply a person who does not believe in any god.

In the academia, an atheist is someone who hold the philosophical view "Theism is false" to be true. You seem to completely ignore that in the field of metaphysics there are plenty of serious philosophers that have put forward arguments for atheism. According to you philosophers like J.L. Mackie, Jordan Howard Sobel, Graham Oppy and Michael Martin don't exist.

>In fact, atheist is the default and passive position

Empirically false.

All of this coming from an atheist, by the way.

>in the academia
>the academia
>the
Uh huh. And that's great. There have been lots of different approaches to "proving" the atheist position over the years. Serious philosophers are so totally dope and interesting and shit.

But the fact remains that there are a lot of people, many of whom have no formal grounding in philosophy, who are atheists by virtue of having no explicit personal belief in any God and no affiliation with any religion.

Unless you doubt this, the conversation is over.

Unless you're angry at the word atheist, and want all casuals to start using your favourite word "agnostic" because it triggers you when they use correct language in which case the conversation is also over

So the problem is that you can totally prove god exists -- it's just that nobody has.

So really he should say

"True, there is absolutely no evidence god exists and no logical argument to suggest he does, but besides the complete absence of evidence for his existence and the proven falsity of all religious texts in history, there is no other evidence that he doesn't exist and there is a theoretical possibility that a divine being of some kind exists. So therefore you should believe in God."

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

What if you follow these rules though:

Rule 1. There is a god.

Then claiming there isn't a god is the weaker claim.

I think you mean stalemate

Well, yeah, no one can prove he does not exist, because he does not exist.

(reCAPTCHA: eat shit, that third one was not a fucking pizza)

Have any of you seen God's not Dead?

The null hypothesis is the default, which was his entire point. I think you're the one that doesn't understand null hypotheses.

it's shit

especially when they try to discuss physics

All the literature being discussed here amazes me.

...

...

shit, he does look like dawkins

This is dumb, its illogical in nature to prove a negative.
>you cant prove the spaghetti monster doesnt exist using same logic.

>its illogical in nature to prove a negative.
why? we do it in maths

Read green text.

so?
it's only an appeal to ridicule

infinite universe theory. someplace, a spaghetti monster does exist.

If according to op's logic then everything we can think of exists because we cant prove they dont exist in our reality. U see now? The argument is to find out if god exists, you use truth and reason to find that. You cant prove gos exists by saying "you cant prove god doesnt exist" it doesnt make sense. We r trying to find out if god exists, we are not sure but op is already implying that god exists.
Prove it feg

>prescriptivist
>the proven falsity of all religious texts
>my position is obviously the default

that still doesn't explain why we should not prove a negative

If you accuse me of robbing the local bakery at 12:30 and there are no fingerprints or any physical evidence of me being there, witnesses at the scene didn't see me, and the working security camera shows I wasn't there. Surely the absence of any evidence that I was there at 12:30 is evidence that I wasn't there.

That is to say if I had been there I would, for example, be on that security camera. Isn't that evidence I wasn't there even though it's really an absence of evidence?

Theoretically I could be invisible and of incorporeal form. But there is evidence I wasn't there -- it just might not tell the whole story. Like any piece of evidence.

I just explained it dumbass. We r trying to prove the existence of a god(unsure) If we say "cant prove god doesnt exist" we are confirming ourselves of the existance of god (sure) but without reason and logic for god's existence.

Did he actually say that? What was the context?

it does prove the atheists wrong tho

No one can prove or disapprove of the existence of God. Therefore its logical to assume the absence of a god and live accordingly since its impossible to prove god.

>disproving a negative

Stop

>8207331
From what I'm reading he said something about not aborting a fetus that has the possibility of getting down sydrome is immoral on twitter.

Watched it for teh lulz, but in the end wish I hadn't.

No problem with that argument. The "absence of evidence" was just something I read once from a Christian poster.

To be honest, I don't know how to describe myself: i believe there are gods and powers that are beyond our comprehension, but I think that they don't give a shit about us, the same way we don't care about ants.

On the other hand I find myself attracted to buddhism, but I'm not practicing, and don't know how much that puts me in contradiction with my previous statement.

What am I?

>What am I?
Cowardly.

Proof is a mathematical term. The only things one can "prove" are based entirely in empty concepts. Spooks begone.

theguardian.com/science/2014/aug/21/richard-dawkins-apologises-downs-syndrome-tweet

>The geneticist's latest Twitter row broke out after he responded to another user who said she would be faced with "a real ethical dilemma" if she became pregnant with a baby with Down's syndrome.

>Dawkins tweeted: "Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice."

>2016
>Still cannot prove God

What is the "Way" then?

Not the same God the one OP's agrument is about.

Why

>null hypothesis
This is the default in EVERY CASE not just theism.

Which God he's arguing about ? The Christian one ?

Inshallah. The crescent blade must be red with the blood of kuffars.

>there is no universe not created by God
There you have another one.

That stupid inaccurate definition

I can't believe this thread even has replies. If I were sick right now this would make me want to vomit, it's a good thing I'm not sick.

wow, the christposters are out with conviction today

Just writing "The universe was created by god" in an intentionally confusing or misleading way doesn't make your beliefs any less of a lie

The film God's Not Dead is talking about the Christian one. Its a film by an evangelical studio.

um yar , right back at you fuck boi.

dawkins is right tho

QUENTIN: One cannot use the tools of natural science to study the supernatural, since scientific investigation is a study of the natural world alone. It follows that evidence obtained from scientific inquiry is within the natural world and never without. It is then foolish to seek evidence of the supernatural

PLEB: B-but you have to prove to me the sky fairy exists!

QUENTIN: The comedy proceeds, you also assert that all things that are proven are supported by evidence. Not a mathematician I take it.

PLEB: I studied mechanical engineering

QUENTIN: Quite. Now you must see that it is *you* making the assertions. You claim to know that the natural world is all that is, or can be. And in your arrogance you cite the reason that there can be no supernatural world since the tools of natural science are a priori unable to discover it! I say to you, my unenlightened friend: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

PLEB: y-you're just a fucking bigoted christian, look at this video of Christopher Hitchens, ahahah btfo

>2016
>using russels tea pot as an argument

slap.gif

Here's what it comes down to. There's a couple different positions which someone can have on the universe. One is scientific, all you see is observable and far fetched ideas that have no grounding in reality aren't very scientific, thus a person with scientific convictions sees the idea of god as retarded. I am one of those people. The other person is someone who simply believes in god because they think that you can't disprove it, the universe is a complex thing and there could be a good simply because there's a lot of stuff we don't understand, and since we can't understand how all this stuff got here (and the religiously convicted rejects scientific notions), they presume it was god. So you see, there's really not that big of a complexity in the argument, I've been going at it with christians for years, but I will be the first to admit that this argument is baby's first philosophical argument. I don't even try anymore, although sometimes on facebook I will comment to someone that god doesn't exist when I see people mentioning god. I think that eventually when our civilization embraces science and the new generation who grows up with computers and can actually google search facts to see if they're right, instead of just hearing them from their parents and preacher, thus getting exposed to outside opinions and becoming an intelligent and enlightened person like me who is euphoric from their own intelligence or whatever, then we'll finally see religion bite the dust. Until then, we'll have to suffer through the irony of this depressing farce. You have a good day though, religiously convicted.

Russel's tea pot isn't an argument, its an example used to show how the burden of proof works.

>all light is visible light because I can only perceive it with my eyes
>there is only the natural world because we can only perceive the natural world

The burden of proof is on the man that says: "there is only the natural world".

>your belief
What beliefs?

What a ridiculous word-game you're playing.

Do you think the descriptive terminology of our day to day lives is an invocation of a fundamental law of reality?

I'm sorry to break into your conversation with the other user, but this question struck my heart.

Listen to your own question, user. Have you listened to it?

>What is the "Way" then?
A "Way". Capitalized and all, in quote marks of your own words, as if it was ready to receive anything at all that takes it place. Do you really think there is something to fit that place you've created?

I think I recognize this question from long ago, I've made it many times. I understand there is not something that I can give to you right now that you can just take it and go, because it takes time, it costs a lot for us to give up on such personal questions. But if I could give you anything now, I'd share something to haunt you quite silently, something that would aid you in not feeling the need to make such a question some day perhaps, the idea that there is nothing to fill what you require of an answer to this question.

I'm not strictly speaking of religion, but of career, emotional development, life itself, anything. I could put it brutally: there is no such "Way", no certain path, no answer. But what strikes me as the most important point to that question is that it is even made, that it is adressed to someone and that you are willing to give the other this privilege of taking a chance at answering it for you. The world is not filled with grown ups who know better than you do about life. You'd argue any answer to your question would be later considered by yourself with care, could be questioned, refused, you'd not settle for something less than perfect, you'd not accept something just because someone says it, I'm certain of it. Nevertheless, you put that question out of yourself. Are you listening to yourself? What is it that you expect?

Perhaps that's the cowardice that user read on you, not that he is right about that. You'll meet a lot of answers and a lot of people arguing, logically or not, with heart or not, about how they found this "Way" and they may go their whole lives thinking they have it and so be it, they have it, just that it isn't the "Way", it's their way and their way alone. However, if you're lost about it, you have a great advantage over them that you currently think is a disavantage. Because you're already living the uncertainty that making that question entails, you just hate to be in that place. Thus, perhaps, and I hope so, you're more ready than they are to hear this: you don't have to make that question. I'm not answering it. I'm saying something you are able to do: not ask that. To live with your own way knowing full well it is not the "Way". That this other that you're addressing knows nothing of it.

I hope this gets to you, even if it may seem confuse or preachy. I think you put yourself in a very delicate position when you ask that question, even if you don't give it importance.

is that even josh wheaton. i remember him being a lot uglier.

Assumed you were trying to prove theism, not playing devils advocate. "there is no universe not created by God" means the same as "All universes were created by god." If it had been proven that the universe was created by god, then the burden of proof would transfer to anyone who says that it was not.

The burden of proof is one the man who says "there is something outside of the natural world" BECAUSE we can only perceive the natural world. The man who proposed the existence of light outside of the visible spectrum held the burden of proof BECAUSE we could not perceive it with just our eyes.

>You can replace GOD with UNICORN, LEPRECHAUN, SANTA CLAUS, and BIG FOOT.

>Inshallah

Head-Cha-La

There is no bigot like the atheist.

The atheist is not interested in anything except attacks on atheism.

Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident. It is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an everlasting coincidence far more miraculous than a miracle.

There are arguments for atheism, and they do not depend, and never did depend, upon science. They are arguable enough, as far as they go, upon a general survey of life; only it happens to be a superficial survey of life.

An interesting essay might be written on the possession of an atheistic literary style. There is such a thing. The mark of it is that wherever anything is named or described, such words are chosen as suggest that the thing has not got a soul in it. Thus they will not talk of love or passion, which imply a purpose and a desire. They talk of the “relations” of the sexes, as if they were simply related to each other in a certain way, like a chair and a table. Thus they will not talk of the waging of war (which implies a will), but of the outbreak of war – as if it were a sort of boil. Thus they will not talk of masters paying more or less wages, which faintly suggests some moral responsibility in the masters: they will talk of the rise and fall of wages, as if the thing were automatic, like the tides of the sea. Thus they will not call progress an attempt to improve, but a tendency to improve. And thus, above all, they will not call the sympathy between oppressed nations sympathy; they will call it solidarity. For that suggests brick and coke, and clay and mud, and all the things they are fond of.

agnosticism is the sniveling coward's way out of forming an opinion

>a theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident

Define "right"?

The burden of proof is on the man that says: "there is more than just the natural world" as well.

>BECAUSE we can only perceive the natural world.
This is where the user is screwing with you. If I got that correctly, he doesn't give priority to perceived thing over the ones not perceived.

Let me as you this.

In what way is a universe that has inexplicably come to be without a God any less miraculous than one that is created by God?

No one's gonna reply to that brilliant paragraph I wrote up there?

no, that's not an absence of evidence, you not being on the cameras is a form of evidence, clearly.

Would it be even more miraculous to have occurred without any creating God, does this unintuitive answer make it more wondrous?

Why can't I just not believe in a creator god because it seems silly to believe in an anthropomorphized, perfect deity that is capable of divine providence but chooses to allow universal suffering? I don't think I need philosophical rigor here, fellows, as I'm not trying to prove shit because I'm not autistic

literally retarded

Miraculous but all the more troubling.

If religious people live a lie by believing in a God, then those who disbelieve also live a lie if they think life can have any meaning without him.

It also seems to me that a universe that exists in and of itself is paradoxical in nature and it isnt long before you start to ascribe the powers of a God to its creation.

>perfect deity that is capable of divine providence but chooses to allow universal suffering

Life is suffering without God.

There is no induviduality without suffering.

>think life can have any meaning without him

German moustache man.jpg

>It also seems to me that a universe that exists in and of itself is paradoxical in nature and it isnt long before you start to ascribe the powers of a God to its creation.

But from an atheistic point of view, the powers attributed to God were inferred, assumed and created by man in the first place, regardless of any biological predispositions towards these kinds of contemplation.

>Life is suffering

Suffering is only one part of life.

(Not that user)
>those who disbelieve also live a lie if they think life can have any meaning without him.
Could you please keep on topic? We are talking about existence of God, not purpose of man.
>It also seems to me that a universe that exists in and of itself is paradoxical in nature and it isnt long before you start to ascribe the powers of a God to its creation.
Existence of a God in and of itself is equally paradoxical, I'd say.

>anthropomorphized, perfect deity

This is a contradiction. A perfect deity wouldn't be like man, so believe in a perfect deity. Besides the question of evil isn't the point. Sure it is a problem with any religion but the bigger problem is dealing with how something came put of nothing.

Atheist responses to this based on modern day science say it is either irrelevant, impossible to answer or something that could make sense when laws of physics were different before the big bang. All of those I think are more unsatisfying than dealing with the question of evil. The religious response is that there is something that can begin things without needing to be began ie God. His choosing to do that means he has will and then they rationalize and argue for other characteristics.

This in itself isn't hard to accept and it isn't the same as Zeus or unicorns or whatever. It is an argument for a specific way that it is possible for things to exist. Unicorns cannot be an answer and Zeus can only if you interpret him as what I just wrote. A pantheon of gods might explain rain and mountains but not as well as science which as of yet cannot explain why there is something rather than nothing.

Believing in an Unmoved Mover or watchmaker God is very reasonable. Where you leave the domain of reason is when you get into specific religions. I don't mean to say it is unreasonable just that it is somewhat faith based and reliant on emotions without being as factually or logically provable since it depends on that deity caring for us, the history of the particular revelation, and this is where many have troubles miracles. I myself am Muslim. I think the belief in God is reasonable, logical and provable (or at least arguable). I get people have a problem with believing in angels coming down and miracles, or inerrant words of God, etc. but atheism has always seemed silly. At least agnostics have some modesty to make less of a claim.

tacking on god does not solve the paradoxical problem you're talking about. i would agree with you generally regarding purpose in life, and meaning, that lacking the belief in what is considered an absolute truth in god, as a fundament to any moral system, it is unmatched. whether or not it's objectively true is another question. if inaction is the price to pay for avoiding the folly of conclusions made without a confirmation of objective truths, then it is a worthy price indeed for many. to try to reduce the nature of the problem to the creation of the universe completely avoids the initial problematic paradox of needing absolute truth as a foundation to identify the validity of an absolute truth.

One, posts this pretentious have no right to exist, nor do their posters. Please die.
Two, you're right, it is foolish to seek evidence for the supernatural, as by definition it cannot be found empirically. However, this means that you have not the slightest shred of authority to assert anything about the supernatural, it's existence being a given or no. You have every right to believe in whatever god you may choose but you haven't any substantiation, nor predictive power, nor epistemic authority. Congratulations, you are essentially masturbating yourself about something you will never be able to prove. Again, please die, everyone will be happier.

>Existence of a God in and of itself is equally paradoxical, I'd say.

Thats my point.

But God is not presented as conforming to the laws of this Universe and yet we talk of a Universe that can only exist by the breaking of those laws.

> Could you please keep on topic? We are talking about existence of God, not purpose of man.

Its a discussion, not a debate.

reply to me

> assumed and created by man in the first place

I wouldnt be so quick to disregard what men have inuited since the dawn of man.

The creation of this Universe is not seperate from its agent. As man made fire, so too did God create light.