Take note, Atheists: If you claim to know that God does not exist then you need to be able to prove it.

@hartfire
But he didn't create evil and that was my point countering your point

@pdockal I can see how you see it that way.

If I were to create a cyborg with independent consciousness, a will of its own and the capacity to change itself - but knew that it would inevitably develop a capacity and preference for evil (deliberately causing unnecessary suffering for innocent sentient beings), and if I knew that that was the inevitable outcome for this creation, then I would be directly responsible for creating that cyborg and hence also responsible for its choices and character.

@hartfire
You are clueless when it comes to GOD
the whole point of his creations is FREE WILL
look at Adam and eve
Cain and able
Etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc
We aren't cyborgs
We are created in HIS image
Etc etc etc etc etc

@RoxClymer

Sorry to hear that.
People certainly do sometimes use piety as a stick to beat people with.

@RoxClymer
I remember when I was a kid in the 80's, it seemed like the religious people were more ill-tempered than non-religious. At the time I knew some of the "sins", one being anger. I thought, "If they are so holy, how come they commit the sin of anger so much?"

But of course they did not drink nor smoke so that made them righteous. 🙄

@Glassysky
Actually, yeah. Remember, you have countless galaxies, with infinite stars, with limitless planets orbiting them. Given those odds, you’re bound to hit the bullseye once in a while. If off center.

@Glassysky
I questioned as to whether or not god has to be a higher form of intelligence. We have evidence that supports the Big Bang, but all it tells us is there was a massive release of energy. It in no way suggest that energy was in any way “designed” or intentional. So god may be nothing more than that one shot burst of energy that set the universe into motion.
Something to consider.

@Glassysky
Do you have any idea how many stars are estimated to exist in the observable universe? The number is 200 billion trillion stars. And the universal could be a trillion times the size of what we can see. So, assign a number for how many planets each star might have and multiply that number by 200 billion trillion. How many planets do you think will be like ours, one or a billion or even more? And remember, our planet is constantly changing. It was much different in the past. And it will be different in the future.

According to the biblical fairy tale, God is only concerned with a speck of dirt on this planet and a couple of his favorite people. Everything and everyone else is just garbage. Jesus thought that stars were just tiny bits of light that would fall to the Earth, like meteors. He was clueless. Aren't you smarter than he was?

@WhateverWorks

Being unconvinced by the arguments and evidence in favour of a god is perfectly reasonable and carries no burden of proof.

@Pikachu Have you seen atheists on here making such claims?


I'm actually not sure there is much practical difference between the two. Take this syllogism:

1. If x exists, we would expect to find evidence if it's existence
2. Evidence of X's existence doesn't exist
Therefore
3. X doesn't exist

Of course the flaw comes in the phrase "we would expect to find." This is not a truly deductive argument since 3 does not follow necessarily from 1 and 2. But it's a fairly strong inductive argument.

We use inductive argument all the time. While there is necessarily some measure of uncertainty in any inductive argument, see can often get enough certainty so as to reasonably consider it "knowledge."

To use Hume's example, we can't know deductively that the sun will rise tomorrow. We have to infer it based on the uniformity of all that has come before.

And yet the sun will rise tomorrow. And I can reasonably say I know this to be true.

@ShadowSister Often.
Yes, it's a strong argument but does not remove the possibilities of having reasonable belief in the existence of things we have no direct evidence for.
It is not correct to assume that all things that exist will necessarily provide evidence of their existence that we can detect.
In the community of highly respected scientists some believe* the multi-verse exists. There is simply no direct evidence within our universe and it may potentially not be possible for evidence to cross into our universe, but it's perfectly reasonable. Others believe* there is intelligent life on other planets - no direct evidence of ANY life outside earth and odds far less according to science than the general public appear to assume - but clearly reasonable. Others believe* consciousness is beyond the beginnings of our universe (along with other things if you follow these discussions, including mathematics). The current set of arguments around fine tuning and emergence are also really interesting and are part of what shapes the discussion within the first and last of these three views I listed.
So in the community of science we have sets of arguments that don't ignore evidence - and it may be argued have 'evidences' to support the argument but without anything that constitutes direct evidence.
*Views held to be correct. Reasonable. Not currently provable.

@ShadowSister


Well as you say,3 doesn't necessarily follow logically from 1 and 2 because absence of proof is not proof of absence.



Sure, we can know that something that has happened every day for as long ass humanity has been around to observe it will happen again tomorrow.
But using inductive reasoning how can we make a similar knowledge claim about god?

@RedBaron

Nope.
Concerned or not, it means you're conceding that you cannot defend your argument and attempting to obfuscate that failing using distraction via personal attack.

Let me put it to you this way, Red: You are under no obligation to debate. You are under no obligation to consider the debate important, relevant or even interesting. But if you choose to engage in that debate then the rules of debate apply.

So if you make a knowledge claim, the burden of proof falls on you to demonstrate that claim whether or not that is an achievable goal.
That's all there is to it. Don't overthink and complicate the issue.

@Pikachu I don't feel the need to defend any argument. I am done with you.

@RedBaron

Nothing wrong with that. As i pointed out: you're under no obligation.

I mean...it did seem like you were trying to do just that for several posts but it's ok to change your mind.
Talk to you later then 🙂✌️

@ChipmunkErnie

Oh...but i haven't even started trying to do that lol

@Pikachu Enjoy yourself, I've better things to do. ;)

@ChipmunkErnie

lol don't lie 😜

@Abstraction

Sounds fine to me. I don't think anything you said is in opposition to what i laid out in this post.

@redredred

Well my point was that if an atheist makes a knowledge claim about the existence of a god then they bear the burden of proof in the same way that a theist does when they make a knowledge claim about the existence of a god.

How does saying "Prove Odin and i'll prove Yahweh" address that point?

@Pikachu presumably you don’t believe in those deities. By what process did you come to that proof? I’ll use the same process and standard of proof to prove Yahweh doesn’t exist.

BTW, Don’t waste your time. There is no logical way to prove a negative. If you want to try, prove there are no bison in your kitchen. Personal observations are not proof.

@Zaphod42

I agree that the theist has the same burden of responsibility when they make the claim to know a god exists.

@SW-User

lol well i'll try to do that...but there was no sarcasm in this post. It is made in earnest.


Or a very ambitious one, i suppose lol

@BackyardShaman

Then you're not the sort of person at whom this public service announcement is aimed.

Good@Pikachu

@BackyardShaman
🙂✌️

@Diotrephes

Well sure but he said that when they were failing to cure some dude which they should have been able to do and they go on later to do miracles so one wonders if that was meant to be a literal description of things you can do or more of a motivational speech lol

My point being simply that while the lack of anyone demonstrating these faith-based super powers is a good reason to doubt anyone claiming god is real, it's not a great way to determine necessarily that god is not real.

@Pikachu Your comments indicate that you are brain-washed. You seem incapable of considering any God expect the Jewish one of the Bible.

@Diotrephes

Brain washed?
That seems a rather unfair comment considering we're working off your comment " It's easy to determine if the biblical God character is real...."

... You brought up the god of the Bible and how to determine he's not real, you brought up the things the faithful of the god of the Bible are supposed to be doing....We're talking about the god of the Bible lol.
And now i'm indicating that i can't consider any other god because i'm adhering to the subject of the conversation?
lol that's just silly.

If we're gonna start getting shitty about this then i'm out.
The ball is in your court 🙂

@JimboSaturn

Yup. If you want someone to accept that claim as true.

@JimboSaturn When something does exist, it's usually pretty easy to prove - although some things require advances in scientific instruments to record, measure and test.

@hartfire Agreed

@Like2play


Generally speaking, no. You're right.
But if you claim that you know that god does not exist and if you want someone else to accept that claim...then you need to be able to prove it.

It's exactly the same sort of claim and therefor the same burden of proof that falls to the theist when they claim to know god exists.

@Outsider98

How do you know the prayers aren't just answered with "No" ?

@NortiusMaximus

Yup.

@Straylight

There's been some misplaced pushback, yes lol

@Pikachu Yes is one the person making the assertion that the burden of proof lies.

@Pikachu I've never heard an atheist say, "convince me your god is real."
However it was one of the projects of the Catholic Church. The Pope started universities of the Middles Ages by commissioning philosopher-monks to prove by logic that God existed.
Not one, over the centuries, was able to find an argument that proved sound; some other philosopher always found a flaw in the premises or reasoning.
Eventually the Church announced that the whole point of faith was to believe in something unprovable.

@Tastyfrzz

What do you mean?