Does God exist? (21 Viewers)

do you believe in god?


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AsyLum

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withoutaface said:
If we don't criticise beliefs, how will we achieve cultural/institutional change anywhere, ever?
The same way we get peas, with forks!

No seriously though, the problem many people have with hardcore religious people, are that they rely too flatly on this notion of allocating all blame to faith, and disregard everyone else's arguments due to this. In the end you have two brick walls shouting at each other without a conversation or tangible argument being had.
 

Raaaaaachel

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AsyLum said:
Awesome work, now you too can be a website academic!

No seriously, trying to prove something based on a website with the URL evilbible.com rofl.
Have you read the webpage? Dismissing something simply because it is in the format of a weppage make me rofl.
 
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Raaaaaachel said:
Have you read the webpage? Dismissing something simply because it is in the format of a weppage make me rofl.
its not as stupid as you might think. anyone can make a website with a .com in it, regardless of the content. that's why it's credibility is questioned.

say you're in uni and you're trying to convince an academic once or for all, that God does not exist. or even convincing anyone really (which would mean publishing a thesis of some sort anyway). they see that you've provided evilbible.com in there as part of your bibliography, without reading that website. they know that anything with anyone can make a website with .com and i'm sure that this isn't the only site that has denied God's existence either. who is going to believe that this one is actually correct?
 

bshoc

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Raaaaaachel said:
Typical jesus freak. Theres no conclusion that can be drawn from the available evidence so we best assume some god exists.

This page actually shows that God as portrayed by the Bible is actually impossible http://www.evilbible.com/Impossible.htm
I don't think you have the capacity to grasp the true complexity of the god argument, or for that matter why the atheists are a foot behind.

For example, the existence of the big bang does not disprove the existence of god.
 
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Raaaaaachel

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bshoc said:
I don't think you have the capacity to grasp the true complexity of the god argument, or for that matter why the atheists are a foot behind.

For example, the existence of the big bang does not disprove the existence of god.
No, but there is no evidence that confirms the existence of god, so what rational basis is there for believing in him?

Onus of proof on us is not to disprove god, the onus is on you to prove that he does exist. Otherwise we would simply believe every mythical creation that can not be conclusively disproved eg. the flying spaghetti monster, pink unicorns ect.
 

bshoc

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Raaaaaachel said:
No, but there is no evidence that confirms the existence of god, so what rational basis is there for believing in him?

Onus of proof on us is not to disprove god, the onus is on you to prove that he does exist. Otherwise we would simply believe every mythical creation that can not be conclusively disproved eg. the flying spaghetti monster, pink unicorns ect.
The existance of laws implies the existance of a law maker, our existance is too perfectly designed to be the product of random chance.
 

Raaaaaachel

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bshoc said:
The existance of laws implies the existance of a law maker, our existance is too perfectly designed to be the product of random chance.
Even if we accept this complexity argument why does this necessitate a god and even if we accept it does necessitate a god, this does not prove your particular interpretation of god, in fact given all the god's people believe in and the infinate range of possible gods, surely it is improbable that the christian interpretation of god is correct, even if we accept all your unproven assumptions.
 

kangarulz

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i believe that there is a God. If there was physical evidence, if we could understand him, then he just wouldn't be God. God is so much bigger than our human comprehension, if you base all you know on something you understand then you will only go places that you know.
 

Raaaaaachel

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kangarulz said:
i believe that there is a God. If there was physical evidence, if we could understand him, then he just wouldn't be God. God is so much bigger than our human comprehension, if you base all you know on something you understand then you will only go places that you know.
Ok so there is a god, but we can't understand him or logically justify him. But we can be certain that he is the god that exists exactly as a particular religious text describes him and we can be certain that we should follow the teachings of that text.

We can't understand him right, but despite our lack of understanding we know he is not the flying spaghetti monster or a pink unicorn. How do we know this if you conceed we can't even understand him?
 

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bshoc said:
The existance of laws implies the existance of a law maker, our existance is too perfectly designed to be the product of random chance.
The problem with that argument is that it is very much speculative. Certainly, for all I know there may be a solid argument that can be made based on those ideas, but I am skeptical of the notion that one of us (forum goers) could produce one. For the purpose of your 'laws imply lawmaker' argument you really need more than speculation to provide the right amount of logical force - you need to be able to show that a law maker is necessary for the existence of laws, not just that it is a possible explanation. Without necessity all you can claim is that the existence of laws imply the possibility of a lawmaker. (Edit: I should mention that even such possibility needn't be implied, because it might be the case that a given set of laws logically excludes a given conception of god. You could only claim the implication of possibility after a condition of consistency had first been met.)


Also, a question for all those people out there with a stronger mathematical background than I, can we feasibly attribute a probability to a proposition like 'god exists'?
 
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Raaaaaachel

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KFunk said:
Also, a question for all those people out there with a stronger mathematical background than I, can we feasibly attribute a probability to a proposition like 'god exists'?
No but we can attribute a possiblilty to the proposition that a particular interpretation of god exists. The range of possible gods is infinate, so the probability that a given god, say the Christian interpretation of God is correct is infinately small.
 

AsyLum

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Raaaaaachel said:
Have you read the webpage? Dismissing something simply because it is in the format of a weppage make me rofl.
LAWL YES WEB INTEGRITY FOR JOO!

Hey, did you know that coloured people and homosexuals are the spawn of the devil!

http://www.kkk.com/

Says so, ergo it must be true!

Raaaaaachel said:
No, but there is no evidence that confirms the existence of god, so what rational basis is there for believing in him?

Onus of proof on us is not to disprove god, the onus is on you to prove that he does exist. Otherwise we would simply believe every mythical creation that can not be conclusively disproved eg. the flying spaghetti monster, pink unicorns ect.
Evidence and rational logic are two very different things. One can rationally deduce a point without evidence, thats the beauty of human rationality, whether this logic is inherently justifiable is the question at hand.

Attempts to sounds like you know very much where this discussion really is makes you look as ignorant as those people who blindly follow a faith. Much smarter people have debated this very issue for centuries, and neither has conclusively or inconclusively come up with a definite answer, and most likely we never will.

But its an interesting flash point nonetheless.
 
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Raaaaaachel

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AsyLum said:
LAWL YES WEB INTEGRITY FOR JOO!

Hey, did you know that coloured people and homosexuals are the spawn of the devil!

http://www.kkk.com/

Says so, ergo it must be true!
Im not saying its true because it is written in a webpage, Im saying that something on a webpage can be true and should be assessed on its own merits. You seem to be saying that anything on a webpage is automatically false and should be disregarded.
 

AsyLum

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Raaaaaachel said:
Im not saying its true because it is written in a webpage, Im saying that something on a webpage can be true and should be assessed on its own merits. You seem to be saying that anything on a webpage is automatically false and should be disregarded.
What merits should we allow for a site which is titled, evilbible.com and how does this differ from my KKK example?

Respond in an interview format in no more than 2500 words.
 

nathan71088

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bshoc said:
The existance of laws implies the existance of a law maker, our existance is too perfectly designed to be the product of random chance.
This argument is what's known as: The Levers theory. Simply put your argument is: "The world exists in such a way that the only possible explanation for why everything 'works'...is god.

This notion produces whats known as the lottery fallacy. In a lottery a 100 trillion people may enter the person who wins won because they had a one in 100 trillion chance of winning. It could have been anyone else but it was them. Now did they win because of divine intervention or was it just the fact that someone had to win. The world and everything we discuss came into existence at some time. It is the way it is. Now one might say that existence had a one in infinity chance to be as it is now. Because we are arguing with logic and human reason you will recognise that this remote possibility occured because of it's one in infinity chance. If you aregue from religion you will recognise that there was never infinity options...things happened because thats how they were 'made' to happen.

You will now recognise that religion and 'scientific' logic are on two very separate wavelengths. While you may bring arguments from one or the other, recognise that neither has strong validity AGAINST the other. You have faith in what you believe. If you do not believe, it is because you do not believe, not because you have' scientific reason to disprove the BELIEF. Also, on the flipside, if you disagree with a scientific proof it is not because you have faith in it being wrong. It is because you have other evidence to show a contrasting result.

Keep this in mind.
 
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Raaaaaachel

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AsyLum said:
What merits should we allow for a site which is titled, evilbible.com and how does this differ from my KKK example?

Respond in an interview format in no more than 2500 words.
We should allow a site titled evilbible.com or kkk.com the same merits as any other website. The content of the website is what is relevant, not its name.
 

S1M0

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Raaaaaachel said:
We should allow a site titled evilbible.com or kkk.com the same merits as any other website. The content of the website is what is relevant, not its name.
By that notion we should also judge a person on their personality, not their appearance. However, the world does not work that way, and we initially judge based on the first impression, which in the case of websites is its name.
 

Raaaaaachel

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S1M0 said:
By that notion we should also judge a person on their personality, not their appearance. However, the world does not work that way, and we initially judge based on the first impression, which in the case of websites is its name.
Sure, but asylum was trying to automatically dismiss it because of its dubious URL. Then he went on to try and make me look ignorant for citing a website as a source without reading it or making a logical argument about its credibility. So while it is reasonable to initially make some judgement about something based on its name, appearance ect. it is not reasonable to compeletly dismiss something on this basis.
 

Jachie

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Raaaaaachel said:
We should allow a site titled evilbible.com or kkk.com the same merits as any other website. The content of the website is what is relevant, not its name.
Step one of assessing the reliability of sources: recognise zee bias.
 

Raaaaaachel

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Jachie said:
Step one of assessing the reliability of sources: recognise zee bias.
Every source is to some degree biased. The fact that something is written from a particular viewpoint does not mean its wrong. If its so wrong you should be able to go to the website, analyse what it says and constract as sound argument as to why it is not valid. Much of the content on the aformentioned site is excellent and you would have great difficulty doing that, so instead people try to dismiss it based on the name.
 

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