Agreed.TacoTerrorist said:
The 'FSM' is one interpretation of what the creator may be... If your argument rests upon 'something created our universe' but you don't provide any explanation at all about the nature of such a thing then this doesn't seem at all to me to be proof of god (even if I accepted it) but merely proof that something created our universe.
Yes and such a belief is equal to claiming the 'nature of such a thing' is the flying spaghetti monster. There is no acceptable epistemology imo that could lead you to accept the existence of 'god' (idk what you mean by that, it may just be white noise) as the nature of such a creator over any other possibility...TacoTerrorist said:
would you happen to know what that is called? cause i tend no to like religion too much but the idea of a being out there watching over us like a watered down big brother sounds not as bad. i dont like the teachings of catholics, etc they are too constricting and petty differences such as whether a priest can or cannot get married separates two different classes of religion is ridiculous. oh and then theres Scientology what a piece of crap that is. (wtf aliens from outer space coming to rescue us?? note i got that information from south park so i dont completely trust it but i wouldnt really care if its false sounds about right)not.addie said:
The atheist demands that the Deist, or theist, provide evidence for the existence of God. They continually resort to logical fallacies of their own, for example, a common one is the Petitio principii (begging the question) fallacy; it goes something like this: there is no God because we find no evidence of God in nature. But is this true? No. We presently do not know enough about nature to make such a conclusion, eventually, the possibility that there is a God could be proven. The atheist has no evidence that the universe is eternal or accidental; they are assuming that scientific speculation somehow equals scientific fact. Obviously there is a great gap between speculation and fact to the rational mind.
I don't make that mistake tbh. I accept that we do not 'know enough about nature' to make final conclusions about the nature of objective truth, but I do think we have provisional truths which work as well as anything and actually tell us something meaningful about our reality as best we know. This is all I think we have as far as knowledge about reality is concerned and this leads me to conclude God is not a part of my reality.TacoTerrorist said:
This is another strawman attack. An unrefined atheist may argue that there is no apparent evidence in nature, therefore god does not exist (period). I disagree with this argument myself. What is reasonable, I feel, is to say that given the present lack of evidence any belief in god is unjustified. This leads to an agnostic rejection of belief in god. Beliefs can be wrong and beliefs can be revised, but you have to go with the best current evidence. Wishful thinking simply doesn't cut the mustard.TacoTerrorist said:
This pretty much sums up my beliefs.3unitz said:spaghetti monster or russell's teapot is just a way to describe the logic behind the negative proof fallacy. ie. "X is true because you cant prove X is not true". either you miss this point, or youre calling logic, stupid. calling people fuckwits doesnt make you smart either.
i am sure most reasonable atheists are open to the possibility of god potentially being proven, and do not take the stance "god does not exist" but rather "there is no logical reason to believe god exists, or what god even is" (for example). it just depends on how one arbitrarily defines "atheist" and "god". i think this text does nothing but make generalisations and construct straw man arguments on a subjective definition of an atheist.
i would consider myself atheist and i do not hold the opinion that "there is no god because we find no evidence of god in nature". in fact that statement seems to be implying the very existence of the "supernatural". if you're assuming god potentially does not exist within the natural (where we exist?) then how is one to know what god even is? hence, you've done nothing but call the spaghetti monster argument back on yourself.
nice sweeping generalisation.
im sure you will find that there are atheists (depending on ones definition), myself included, along with a vast majority of scientists, which simply do not know the early processes for the beginning of the universe, nor do they confuse speculation with facts. to say anything more than "dont know" in this area is to speculate, which is why i find this quote highly hypocritical coming from a self-proclaimed deist. once again it depends how one defines "god" and the motivations behind ones definition. to quote bertrand russell:
this is because the claims of a theist generally invoke a burden of proof:
in other words it is logical that one cannot assume true the existence of a potentially disprovable god if it cannot be disproved (negative proof fallacy).
That's not entirely correct.Garygaz said:
I understand that, but people are using the spaghetti monster analogy to try and disprove or discredit a deity. It is fine to use it when someone says that they believe God exists because he can't be disproven, but it is not fine to use it when something of that sort is not mentioned.3unitz said:spaghetti monster or russell's teapot is just a way to describe the logic behind the negative proof fallacy. ie. "X is true because you cant prove X is not true". either you miss this point, or youre calling logic, stupid. calling people fuckwits doesnt make you smart either.
Well I disagree. The text outlines a common argument.3unitz said:
The text described one argument often used or at least implied by the typical atheist. In this instance I assume you have other reasons to support your beliefs.
?3unitz said:
There may be an error of communication here. 'Natural' in the context of the paragraph meant the physical nature of the earth and universe itself. Of course we cannot possibly 'know what god even is', and I don't understand what you mean here. The physical nature of a god? Is that even relevant?3unitz said:
The text I quoted stated that, not me.3unitz said:
3unitz said:
I know, it was from the article.3unitz said:
I know.3unitz said:
This really is the roots of where opinion and mindset is apparent. You say that there is a 'present lack of evidence' and I disagree, because people have different definitions of what constitutes as evidence. You (and other atheists) accept only proven scientific evidence, which I feel is heavily constrictive.KFunk said:
Straw man.TacoTerrorist said:
