It can be interpreted that way, and I'll have to admit that it wasn't the wisest of examples. The point is, the bible itself as an object, can not act; it is merely an object. It requires human interpretation and action to take on meaning, or purpose.

That's my point. Without humans, the swastika symbol and religion would have no meaning or value. The swastika symbol would simply be, since it itself cannot take action.

The scientific method is not the only way of knowing or validating truths. Many truths are true by definition, and aren't empirically verifiable. I assume you are under the belief that the only truths are those that are empirically verifiable. If so, then you would need to empirically prove the claim of "The only truths that exist are empirically verifiable", which is impossible; the statement is self-defeating. However, I'm almost setting up a straw-man here, and only attacked an assumption of mine.

What I said in my last post, in response to this, is:

And it doesn't care about his either.

A lack of evidence does not disprove something; it takes evidence to disprove something. Just because religion isn't verifiable with the scientific method, doesn't mean it is inherently false. There are more ways of knowing than just one. I would like you to prove that using supporting evidence with a claim is a valid way of verification, by using evidence to support your claim. This will just lead to circular reasoning. If you want to avoid circular reasoning, then you probably need more than just one way of knowing.

Scientology is a religion. L. Ron Hubbard was a man in the same way that Jesus of Nazareth, Joseph Smith, Buddha, St. Peter, Muhammad, and the founder of Hinduism were.


No, he's disagreeing. The flow of knowledge moves like this, in his example.

Bob is alone in a windowless room and puts a rubix cube inside a box. → Bob is present in the room, and knows that the box contains the Rubiks cube he placed in it.
Frank, who was waiting outside with John, enters the room and sees the box. → Frank is now in the room with Bob. He doesn't look in the box. Bob knows that Frank does not know the contents of the box, Frank does not know the contents of the box, and Frank knows that Bob knows that he does not know the contents of the box. Frank does not know if Bob knows what is in the box.
John enters the room and sees the box.
Frank doesn't know what's in the box, AND he knows that John doesn't know what's in the box. → Frank knows that John does not know what is in the box because he was present the entire time John was in the room, and knows John did not look in the box. John does not know if Frank knows or not, but he does know that Frank knows he doesn't know.

The parallel is that Person 1, in set of people A creates a story about a God that he postulates to be true. He claims to every person he meets, for his entire life that this God personally revealed Himself to him, and told him to worship him. Towards the end of his life, there are four sets of people on Earth, A, B, C, and D.

Members of set A know there is no God, and that the story was bogus. They also know that everyone on Earth has either heard of the God, and doesn't know whether it's true or not, or has not heard of the God, and doesn't know if it's true or not.

• Members of set B do not know if there is a God or not, but believe there is.
  
• Members of set C do not know if there is a God or not, but believe there is not.
  
• Members of set D do not know if there is a God or not, but haven't the knowledge to believe or disbelieve.
  

A thousand years pass, and eventually, only sets B and C exist, however, a new set, set E, has arisen.

• Members of set B do not know if there is a God or not, but believe there is.
  
• Members of set C do not know if there is a God or not, but believe there is not.
  
• Members of set E do not know if there is a God or not, and believe it is impossible to know.
  

Modern agnostics fall into set E; and for some reason, the world thinks "we can't know!" is synonymous with we don't know, and a valid enough reason to believe.

He didn't have an opinion on the subject of religion; he analysed data given to him and drew conclusions. As for science on the whole, yes it does, he founded quantum mechanics.

"A lack of evidence does not disprove something; it takes evidence to disprove something." - Why is your assumption "There is a God and this must be disproved.", rather than, the natural state of, "There is no God, and this must be disproved." You're defeating all of your own arguments.

I use the following supporting evidence that scientific methodology is the only guaranteed way to prove some statement true or false: All things that have been found empirically true, are true, and no things that have been found empirically true, are false. All things that have been found true non-empirically, have later found empirical support, or empirical defeat. By your own admission, you cannot non-empirically disprove something, therefore, the scientific method is the only method that works, QED.

His data was that there was a lack of evidence, and his opinion was that people created religion because... (insert long quote here, that isn't needed for my point to be shown). I've already shown, quite in depth, as to why a lack of evidence does not always disprove a claim in this post: http://www.staredit.net/193799/ , as well as later on in this post.

I assume neither of those beliefs. I don't believe there is no God, and I don't believe there is a God. You simply assumed that I had an assumption of either or. I do not know whether or not there is a God.

You used the scientific method to verify the scientific method. By your own means, I can create my own way of knowing, and validate it with itself. Here it goes:

The only valid way of knowing, is the way of Master Noodle; what Master Noodle says is always true, and he is never wrong. This claim is true, because Master Noodle says so.

Do you see the circular reasoning? You have made a logical fallacy by trying to use the scientific method to verify the scientific method -just as Master Noodle verified himself.

This is how i view the whole thing. This is kind of off topic a bit, but in semi-response to the OP, here's my two cents.

I believe in GOd, the christian god, and that is my belief. Real, nothing you can say will sway me because i believe that to be truth. You may believe something different, get in an argument of semantics and such, but this is still what i believe. This is partially who i am and partially just because of what i believe.

I also If someone wants to hear what i think about god, i tell them. If that makes them believe what i believe, then i believe that to be what god has chosen, therefore i do not argue with people much when they try to argue with me.

Here are my facts that i use when people try to argue with me, and i think they work well.
1. You cannot prove or disprove god. If you want to call me an idiot because i believe in him then, then so be it, i still believe what i believe.
2. Arguing semantics doesn't accomplish anything. Arguing the validity in a belief in god ultimately comes back to 1, that you cannot prove or disprove god.
3. Pulling quotes from anybody doesnt solve anything either. No matter how smart, intuitive, or knowledgeable the quoted is, they are still a human, and thus can have false ideas and beliefs. The ancient greek scientists thought that leeches got bad blood out of people,a nd they were completely wrong, even though the may have been thought of as geniuses in their time.

The truth is, this is not how it works. If you have ever extensively studied the scientific method, then you would know. IF you say something is true and then find an exception, then you can call it false. This exception, is the evidence that it takes to disprove something. The scientific method almost never "proves" anything, it just disproves different things. The truth is, his argument is not "There is a god, and this must be disproved", his saying is "God has not truly had enough evidence to be disproven, although throught the scientific method you can also not prove him real."

Much of this entire topic is subject to interpretation. I think the best argument that can be given to the original topic is one single thing.

1. God cannot, in any way, be proven, or disproven. All attempts to prove this are human theories. All things we can try to argue are moot. This is a truth, proved empirically, as no evidence can be found for him, and no evidence can be found against it.

If you really want me to show you how to prove it empirically, it is actually very simple.

Hypothesis: god does not exist.
Null hypothesis: god exists.
Experiment: attempt to prove god exists.
Conclusion: since no evidence can be given that supports that god exists, in no experiment in any way, we cannot reject the null hypothesis that god exists. Therefore, we cannot say that god exists.

Now this too:

Hypothesis: god exists.
Alternative hypothesis: god does not exist.
Experiment: Try to prove god does not exist.
Conclusion: Since we can see no evidence that god does not exist, as the only way to prove the fact that god does not exist false, would be to see god, we cannot reject the null hypothesis that god does not exist. Therefore we cannot say that he does not exist.

God may or may not exist, and you can't prove nor deny it.
This does not mean you should stay on the fence. It means you should pick a side but don't push on it too hard.
Either be a Christian and worship it quietly and freely, or be an Atheist and leave others alone.
Weak Christian, Weak Atheist

In the least flamebait way to say it, arguments regarding religion are pointless because nothing can ever be proved.

I only wish i could have summed it up in only this many words. NEver underestimate kevin's sheer wisdom.

God exists as the culmination of endless human ideologies... not as an omnipotent and omnipresent creator and overseer.

That goes the same with any other God(s), or any of the deities.

But he did not explain why we should pick a side? What is wrong with being agnostic? (and to an extent what about other religious deities because he only said Christian) (some kind of bias right here? )
(and even if it was not biased what is wrong with being a Christian Atheist?)

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Dec 5 2009, 10:59 pm by MasterJohnny.

@Syphon, That's a good idea and I didn't even think about it. I'm pretty sure that I won't learn more than she knows. She has an argument for everything, and I mean everything, but I'll do some research and some reading and try my best to "show her up", something that she might take as me attempting to become a catholic because god got to me. (something she might counter me with...)

Yeah, like you turn on your television/calculator/other electronic device with even the slightest doubt that it'll not turn on/malfunction. Science isn't based on "absolutes." It's based on making statements about the world around us based on patterns and observations, and is always open to being wrong. It might not be ABSOLUTELY right, but it's our best bet.

Let me ask YOU a question: Would you rather believe what you want to believe, or believe something because it's the truth?

Any further posting of simple absolute statements without supporting argumentation or evidence will be deleted as violations of reasonability and effort. I refer specifically to posts like these:


The topic does not exist as a venue for you to simply express that there is or is not a God, but to debate the existence and relevant consequences thereof. Simple unsupported statements are not contributive to the discussion, as we are all already intelligent enough to know that some people believe in God and some do not.

A true scientist in the pursuit of knowledge would create/change/remove his truths to reflect new evidence. Because everything is relative, science cannot be absolutely true. Thus, one remembers the statement, "There is no absolute truth except this statement."


I believe most people would rather say they'd believe the latter, even though 1.5 billion Christians actually believe the former. But then again, no human can truly know. All religions are equally right or wrong if one goes by that doctrine.

Preservation of the human race. Why?

Why are there laws? Why do we have a conscience? Why do we tend to follow Natural Law? Why morals? Why anything?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 15 2009, 5:40 pm by CecilSunkure. Reason: http://www.staredit.net/193986/

You know what? God is the slowest-ass creator I have ever heard of. And there are things that contradict the Bible that we have found and proven. For example, we have found fossils that are several hundred thousand years old, and bacteria that are even older. If God made everything in 7 days, well, his idea of a day might not be the same as mine.

[/quote] If God made everything in 7 days, well, his idea of a day might not be the same as mine.
[/quote]
NO DUH
How do you even suppose that our concept of 'Day' even existed when there was no 'Earth' to begin with? And that an eternal being having the same concept of time as a finite being such as our selves?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 15 2009, 6:16 am by CecilSunkure. Reason: Slight flame.

But supposedly God didn't write the Book of Genesis. Therefore, assuming it was passed down by word of mouth, and it was written by a human, it would be a reasonable to assume that the term day meant a human day. Besides, if time was infinite to God, then you couldn't have seven of them because then it would still be infinite.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Dec 15 2009, 5:42 pm by CecilSunkure. Reason: Modified unsupported claim.

Hopefully I won't get severity for this...

Anyway. The reason God created the world in 6 days, and rested on the 7th, in a total of 7 actual days, is to set up the working week, and weekend. Basically, any change results in a loss of productivity, or people get run down. The French changed the week into a 10 day week at one time, and horses collapsed from the strain. God could have just created everything like BAM but instead He made it in a week, to show us how to manage our time.

As for incredibly old fossils, AFAIK, the only way to prove that said fossils are old is with carbon dating, but carbon dating is flawed, because the rate of decay in carbon may not be fixed.

And especially because it was passed down by word of mouth, things specific could've changed in any alteration or form you can imagine it to be. It would be reasonable to say that the book of genesis really is full of gibberish that isn't really our business now is it?

Also, there wasn't 7 'time' for us, anyone or for God to begin with. Time isn't a concept which can be counted, it is a concept of length from an immeasurable length. We just use days, years because it's simply easier for us to keep track of our finite existence. Imagining infinite time is probable to nothing. Of course we could think in words, but wouldn't be able to 'imagine' living a time such as lim(n->inf)100^n solar years would amount to a speck of infinitely small dot in the infinitely long timeline. That would be a quite horrendous chill to 'most' people here. God, being bored that long would be like hell, just like the bible said.