I would be interested to hear a sort of general take.

Three reasons why God does or does not exist.

1. Look around you.

This works for both, do you see unimaginable beauty that only a God could've created or do you see death, suffering, and destruction that only absence of a God could have allowed?

2. Our beginnings.

Do you see the evolutionary theory and darwinism as the best possible explanation or do you think that our chances of such a perfect evolution are only God given.

that's all I got right now. You do realise your asking people to briefly explain something that they may base their entire lives on, you cannot even ask them to scratch the surface.

A good reason that allows both views to flourish: there is no examinable evidence. Those who believe in gods cite evidence that nobody else can verify, because it relies entirely on personal experience; those who do not believe in gods cite their evidence, which also relies entirely on personal experience.

quote:Originally posted by Optimus Prime:

A good reason that allows both views to flourish: there is no examinable evidence. Those who believe in gods cite evidence that nobody else can verify, because it relies entirely on personal experience; those who do not believe in gods cite their evidence, which also relies entirely on personal experience.

Word.

In closing, we believe what we want to believe.

quote:Originally posted by Optimus Prime:

A good reason that allows both views to flourish: there is no examinable evidence. Those who believe in gods cite evidence that nobody else can verify, because it relies entirely on personal experience; those who do not believe in gods cite their evidence, which also relies entirely on personal experience.

That is very true...as I have said before, there is only evidence to a certain degree for both sides, and then after that it is all faith.

quote:Originally posted by Optimus Prime:

A good reason that allows both views to flourish: there is no examinable evidence. Those who believe in gods cite evidence that nobody else can verify, because it relies entirely on personal experience; those who do not believe in gods cite their evidence, which also relies entirely on personal experience.

Unfortunately, the burden of proof is on the believers. They have to prove or otherwise postulate evidence as to why God exists.

Saying "You can't DISPROVE God" is fallacious.

So I'm resting on the seat of logic and saying that until I see evidence that convinces me of God, I remain a non-believer.

quote:Originally posted by Digital_Savior:

That is very true...as I have said before, there is only evidence to a certain degree for both sides, and then after that it is all faith.

Thusly why Pascals Wager comes into play.

quote:Originally posted by aTribeCalledSean:

1. Look around you.

This works for both, do you see unimaginable beauty that only a God could've created or do you see death, suffering, and destruction that only absence of a God could have allowed?



If you accept that the universe is infinite, infinite space means infinite variation: that means that, eventually, yes, perfection will occur.

quote:that's all I got right now. You do realise your asking people to briefly explain something that they may base their entire lives on, you cannot even ask them to scratch the surface.

If you base your entire life on something, you'd better be prepared to defend it.

quote:Originally posted by deptstoremook:

If you base your entire life on something, you'd better be prepared to defend it.

I'm not a christian. Don't speak to me like I'm pushing it on you. If you read my post you'd see that I was looking at it objectively. I included both a christian's view and a skeptics view. I don't base my entire life on it, so I don't feel it necessary to defend anything but myself. Thusly why I showed both viewpoints.

quote:Originally posted by aTribeCalledSean:

Thusly why Pascals Wager comes into play.

Aahm yes, Who could forget the good ol' rationally bankrupt Pascal's Sucker Bet (http://www.jhuger.com/pascal.mv).

1: I can smell him

2: I can here him

3: I can see him

4: I can taste him

5: I can touch him



All I need now is to be him and I'll be sorted.

Beany! It's hear. Silly bean.

*LMAO* !!!!!

quote:Originally posted by deptstoremook:

Unfortunately, the burden of proof is on the believers. They have to prove or otherwise postulate evidence as to why God exists.

Saying "You can't DISPROVE God" is fallacious.

So I'm resting on the seat of logic and saying that until I see evidence that convinces me of God, I remain a non-believer.

I think the burden of proof should be on the non-believers, since it is THEIR soul in question, not ours.

Not to mention the fact that God is not completely scientifically provable, or else there would be no reason for faith, which is a very integral part of our belief system.

The "proof" is there...just read the Bible. All of it, not just the parts you DON'T like, which justifies your disdain for it.

quote:Originally posted by Dark_Magneto:

Aahm yes, Who could forget the good ol' rationally bankrupt Pascal's Sucker Bet (http://www.jhuger.com/pascal.mv).

I never supported it. Recently in another thread I denounced it.

I'd much rather "believe" in science, the priciples of which routinely predict the behaviour of the universe perfectly, than swallow a load of crap written in one of the many fictional works people base their lives on just because I'm afraid that being good isn't enough to save somthing there's no evidence of the existance of from going to a place that is highly unlikely to exist according to my near perfect physical principles.

I can't believe you people think rediculous metaphysical neo-hippy statements like "just look around you" will stand up to cold, hard reason. There's a rational explaination of how the universe ended up exactly as it did (it's called science), and there are infinate rational explainations of how the universe could've ended up in infinite other ways (some of them certainly inculding other intelligent life that believes it's created by some all powerful being, because a non-contrived seris of events couldn't possibly have created the universe in exactly the way it ended up), and possibly has somewhere... or when... or where/when... or whatever. I'm rambling, but you get the point.

Damn spork, you must be as high as I am.

quote:Originally posted by Digital_Savior:

I think the burden of proof should be on the non-believers, since it is THEIR soul in question, not ours.

"Believers" made the positive assertion hence, they must prove existence. You can't prove non-existence.

quote:

Not to mention the fact that God is not completely scientifically provable, or else there would be no reason for faith, which is a very integral part of our belief system.

He could be. That's the problem, he hasn't.

quote:

The "proof" is there...just read the Bible. All of it, not just the parts you DON'T like, which justifies your disdain for it.

The bible is as much "proof" of a god, as a Steven King Novel is of a creator race of lizards living in the planet GANGTOK-5, controlling every aspect of the human race....



[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 08-13-2004).]

quote:Originally posted by micho:

Beany! It's hear. Silly bean.

Oops. Damn similar sounding words.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

The bible is as much "proof" of a god, as a Steven King Novel is of a creator race of lizards living in the planet GANGTOK-5, controlling every aspect of the human race....

[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 08-13-2004).]

Beat me to it again, Rust.

Digital read up on "The Burden of Proof". I think Wikipedia has a good article on it.

I already told you why the Bible is invalid proof, but of course you ignored me because you don't have a valid response.

quote:Originally posted by deptstoremook:

Beat me to it again, Rust.

Digital read up on "The Burden of Proof". I think Wikipedia has a good article on it.

I already told you why the Bible is invalid proof, but of course you ignored me because you don't have a valid response.

I haven't responded, because I haven't responded. (been posting massive amounts of information into the abortion thread)

*laughs*

I always have a valid response...I don't see any "verifiable data" that supports why you are able to determine what is a valid response, and what is not.

quote:Originally posted by deptstoremook:

If you accept that the universe is infinite, infinite space means infinite variation: that means that, eventually, yes, perfection will occur.



"The very name "chaos theory" seems to contradict reason, in fact it seems somewhat of an oxymoron. The name "chaos theory" leads the reader to believe that mathematicians have discovered some new and definitive knowledge about utterly random and incomprehensible phenomena; however, this is not entirely the case. The acceptable definition of chaos theory states, chaos theory is the qualitative study of unstable aperiodic behavior in deterministic nonlinear dynamical systems. A dynamical system may be defined to be a simplified model for the time-varying behavior of an actual system, and aperiodic behavior is simply the behavior that occurs when no variable describing the state of the system undergoes a regular repetition of values. Aperiodic behavior never repeats and it continues to manifest the effects of any small perturbation; hence, any prediction of a future state in a given system that is aperiodic is impossible. Assessing the idea of aperiodic behavior to a relevant example, one may look at human history. History is indeed aperiodic since broad patterns in the rise and fall of civilizations may be sketched; however, no events ever repeat exactly. What is so incredible about chaos theory is that unstable aperiodic behavior can be found in mathematically simply systems. These very simple mathematical systems display behavior so complex and unpredictable that it is acceptable to merit their descriptions as random."

I may not be a scientist, but it seems to me that CHAOS, based on it's integral system of non-systematic events, could not possibly have "gotten it right", no matter how many billions of years it had to do it.

To know the intricacies of our existence (the entire universe, down to it's most minute detail) completely nullifies the claim that chaos is the creator of our universe.

This perfection we live in was achieved by something else. Chaos doesn't cut it.

Take all the pieces of a watch, put them in a jar, and shake it around until the watch is put together. You will die before that is accomplished. (let's not even consider who manufactured the parts of the watch) If you have your children follow in your foosteps, and THEY shake the jar until their deaths, it still won't be accomplished.

It's elementary physics.

[This message has been edited by Digital_Savior (edited 08-13-2004).]

quote:Originally posted by Digital_Savior:

To know the intricacies of our existence (the entire universe, down to it's most minute detail) completely nullifies the claim that chaos is the creator of our universe.



Why? You only consider it perfect or intricate (subjective qualities by the way), because you're living proof of its success. In other words, you're able to look back and question it, because it occured; if it hadn't occured you wouldn't be able to consider it as you do now.

[URL=http://www.hawking.org.uk/activity/acindex.html] Antropic Principle[URL]

If you can't fathom the creation of the universe in a singularity, that is not proof that it didn't happen. That's evidence that you can't fathom it, nothing else.

quote:Take all the pieces of a watch, put them in a jar, and shake it around until the watch is put together. You will die before that is accomplished. (let's not even consider who manufactured the parts of the watch) If you have your children follow in your foosteps, and THEY shake the jar until their deaths, it still won't be accomplished.

It's elementary physics.



Given enough time it will assemble back together.

Elementary mathematics.

[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 08-13-2004).]

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

Given enough time it will assemble back together.

Elementary mathematics.

Every time you shake that jar it "resets" so basically it is a trial everytime you shake it, it is not relevant to the time factor.

Huh?

It's a matter of possibilites. Let say it will assemble back together once every 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 attempts.

Given enough attempts (time and space) it will happen.

It has everything to do with time, since attempts occur in time-space.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

Huh?

It's a matter of possibilites. Let say it will assemble back together once every 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 attempts.

Given enough attempts (time and space) it will happen.

It has everything to do with time, since attempts occur in time-space.



Actually, it won't. It's physically impossible. You can't shake a watch into creation. It must be put together, piece by piece.

quote:Originally posted by Digital_Savior:



Actually, it won't. It's physically impossible. You can't shake a watch into creation. It must be put together, piece by piece.

DS, nothing is physically impossible. Did you know that there is actually a chance that were you to punch a wall your arm would go through it and get stuck, requiring the amputation of your arm? The chance is so miniscule that it has yet to happen, but it is possible.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

Huh?

It's a matter of possibilites. Let say it will assemble back together once every 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 attempts.

Given enough attempts (time and space) it will happen.

It has everything to do with time, since attempts occur in time-space.

So let's say this, if I was to blow up a paper and ink factory over and over again that in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 attempts it is possible for a brand new dictionary, perfect in every way shape and form, to land somewhere in the factory? I doubt it.



[This message has been edited by Just The Facts (edited 08-13-2004).]

[This message has been edited by Just The Facts (edited 08-13-2004).]

quote:Originally posted by Just The Facts:

So let's say this, if I was to blow up a paper and ink factory over and over again that in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 attempts it is possible for a brand new dictionary, perfect in every way shape and form, to land somewhere in the factory? I doubt it.



[This message has been edited by Just The Facts (edited 08-13-2004).]

[This message has been edited by Just The Facts (edited 08-13-2004).]

We're talking about Infinity here. Given infinite time, any possibility will occur.

This goes for Digital and micho too. Infinity. It's an interesting concept.

Rust, I love you. I truly do. If we just ignore our respective political sentiments I think we can get along just fine. Everything Rus has said is true.

[This message has been edited by deptstoremook (edited 08-14-2004).]

quote:Originally posted by Optimus Prime:

DS, nothing is physically impossible. Did you know that there is actually a chance that were you to punch a wall your arm would go through it and get stuck, requiring the amputation of your arm? The chance is so miniscule that it has yet to happen, but it is possible.

Ok...please give some evidence/verifiable data/proof that shaking watch pieces in a jar will eventually create a watch.

You are telling fairy tales, which is something Christians are often accused of.

quote:Originally posted by deptstoremook:

We're talking about Infinity here. Given infinite time, any possibility will occur.

This goes for Digital and micho too. Infinity. It's an interesting concept.

Rust, I love you. I truly do. If we just ignore our respective political sentiments I think we can get along just fine. Everything Rus has said is true.

[This message has been edited by deptstoremook (edited 08-14-2004).]

So, you only love those that agree with you ? How limited.

I love everyone on this site...why else would I endure the ridicule day in and day out ?

Think that's easy ? It isn't. You all piss me off, and irritate me, and frustrate me...and most of the time you don't make any sense.

BUT...

You still deserve a shot...why ? Because God said so. I was given that same shot. So, why not you ?

Infinity is a measurement of time, no matter how vast...and no amount of time will make that dictionary fall into place, nor a watch come together. Please be logical.

quote:Originally posted by Digital_Savior:

Ok...please give some evidence/verifiable data/proof that shaking watch pieces in a jar will eventually create a watch.

You are telling fairy tales, which is something Christians are often accused of.

You just don't get the concept of infinity, do you?

Ok, so there's no evidence that shaking watch peices in a jar will eventually create a watch, but given that they can possibly land in a watch formation, given infinate tries it must happen.

quote:Originally posted by Digital_Savior:

Infinity is a measurement of time, no matter how vast...and no amount of time will make that dictionary fall into place, nor a watch come together. Please be logical.

Funny, it is you who are not being logical.

We're talking about possabilities. Given an infinite amount of time, more specifically, an infinite amount of attempts, the watch will assemble itself. Period.

For you to claim there is no possibility, you must either show that it is impossible or show the argument being logical fallicious statement. You have shown neither.

quote:Ok...please give some evidence/verifiable data/proof that shaking watch pieces in a jar will eventually create a watch.

It is YOU who have to show that it is impossible, not us. One can only "prove" something has the possibility of happening by actually succeeding.

The default possition is that does have a probability of it happening. It is therefore up to you to refute that notion.



P.S. Infinity is actually not a measurement, since it is never-ending.



----



quote:Originally posted by Just The Facts:

So let's say this, if I was to blow up a paper and ink factory over and over again that in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 attempts it is possible for a brand new dictionary, perfect in every way shape and form, to land somewhere in the factory? I doubt it.

I can't know for certain the number of attempts needed. What I gave was a number to prove my point. But given the an infinite amount of attempts; of "blowing up the paper/ink factory", then the answer is yes.

The chance of it happening is incredibly small. But it will occur if enough attempts are given.

----

quote:Originally posted by deptstoremook:

Rust, I love you. I truly do. If we just ignore our respective political sentiments I think we can get along just fine. Everything Rus has said is true.

http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif)

1. where am i

2. huh?

3. fuck this im gonna go watch Alien

Hate to tell you guys, but the infinity people are correct. If given an infinite time for something, all possibilites are, well, possible.

If given infinite time, monkeys at keyboards would eventually type hamlet.

quote:Originally posted by aTribeCalledSean:

1. Look around you.

This works for both, do you see unimaginable beauty that only a God could've created or do you see death, suffering, and destruction that only absence of a God could have allowed?

2. Our beginnings.

Do you see the evolutionary theory and darwinism as the best possible explanation or do you think that our chances of such a perfect evolution are only God given.

that's all I got right now. You do realise your asking people to briefly explain something that they may base their entire lives on, you cannot even ask them to scratch the surface.

i like this...

but yea, theres way too much you could say about this topic.... and even though im a christian, alot of opposing opinions make alot of sense to me... O.o

quote:Originally posted by Pucca46:

i like this...

but yea, theres way too much you could say about this topic.... and even though im a christian, alot of opposing opinions make alot of sense to me... O.o





Word.

My asian sister.

-to athiests-

stop and think

those who believe in god will never get it...

those of us who dont, should stop wasting our breath...

besides... it might be best to refrain from invigorating their belief with debate and any regard for their god as an important matter...

some religious people without a church, a bible-type book, and a percentage of society who agrees with them, would lose faith in a simple matter of time... at least that would save the next generation from the mental conditioning we have suffered on such a huge scale...

the religious psychosis can be demolished slowly and surely with the proper methods...

debating their god on the same level as the meaning of life, gives them far to great a feeling of relevance... do not help them feel righteous... religions are built to turn doubt into faith... making them doubt, often times, makes them turn more quickly to the arms of god--- rather than open their eyes like we think they should...

never believe that the religious mind thinks in the same nature as the clear mind--- at least, not in all ways--- god and religion being one of those aforementioned...

quote:Originally posted by Eos:

-to athiests-

stop and think

those who believe in god will never get it...

those of us who dont, should stop wasting our breath...

besides... it might be best to refrain from invigorating their belief with debate and any regard for their god as an important matter...

some religious people without a church, a bible-type book, and a percentage of society who agrees with them, would lose faith in a simple matter of time... at least that would save the next generation from the mental conditioning we have suffered on such a huge scale...

the religious psychosis can be demolished slowly and surely with the proper methods...

debating their god on the same level as the meaning of life, gives them far to great a feeling of relevance... do not help them feel righteous... religions are built to turn doubt into faith... making them doubt, often times, makes them turn more quickly to the arms of god--- rather than open their eyes like we think they should...

never believe that the religious mind thinks in the same nature as the clear mind--- at least, not in all ways--- god and religion being one of those aforementioned...



If religion brings someone joy, why do you spite them so much?

If you believe that we just die and that's it, just death and then perma-sleep. Why do you care?

quote:quote

Infinity is a measurement of time, no matter how vast...and no amount of time will make that dictionary fall into place, nor a watch come together. Please be logical.

Funny, it is you who are not being logical.

We're talking about possabilities. Given an infinite amount of time, more specifically, an infinite amount of attempts, the watch will assemble itself. Period.

The problem with these examples (dictionary , watch, what ever) that is different from reality, without intelligent design, is that something has to make it stay in the dictionary form or the watch form.

Let's use the dictionary example. Even though, given enough time and "tries", the dictionary [i]could[/] concievably be produced from random character combinations, what holds them in that pattern? If the dictionary were produced at random, it would be a "one time occurance" and continue to randomly produce characters and it would become garbled again, unless something made the "correct" results hold until it were made , and once it was made, continue to build on the "correctness".

Gotta run now. Town parade, kids, place to sit,, u get the idea.

It is a hypothetical scenario where the "attempts" would stop once the goal is achieved. Hence, leaving it in 'watch form'.

Still, whether you have somebody "hold it in the correct form" or not, does not refute the claim that given an infinite amount of attempts, the watch would assemble itself back together. In one scenario it would stay as a watch, in the other, in the absence of someone to 'hold it in the correct form', it could disassemble itself... the assembling still happened and that's the point.



[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 08-15-2004).]

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

It is a hypothetical scenario where the "attempts" would stop once the goal is achieved. Hence, leaving it in 'watch form'.

Still, whether you have somebody "hold it in the correct form" or not, does not refute the claim that given an infinite amount of attempts, the watch would assemble itself back together. In one scenario it would stay as a watch, in the other, in the absence of someone to 'hold it in the correct form', it could disassemble itself... the assembling still happened and that's the point.



[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 08-15-2004).]



The problem is that there is a near infinite number of "watches" that have "held in correct form", and along with this, "something" has let the watches "know" that they were in the correct form.

Science would say that the "something" is "scientific laws". Even though those scientific laws are also some of those "watches"

To me, that is exactly the kind of circular reasoning that Christians get accused of.

Could you explain what you mean in more detail, because you are making absolutely no sense.

The hypothetical scenario involves stopping when the watch is created...

The scenario dealt with someone shaking a jar in an attempt to assemble the watch. That "something" that stops is the guy shaking the watch obviously....

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

Could you explain what you mean in more detail, because you are making absolutely no sense.

The only reason that it (the watchmaker) is said to be a hypothetical senerio, is that this is meant as an illustration to point out the impossibility of a watch being produced by chance. And comparing that to the universe being created by chance, given enough time. (i'm sure you understand this part, but im just trying to go step by step. This would be so much easier in person, so please bare with me.).

Instead of the watch, let's imagine making biggest, fattest, most complete dictionary that you can imagine. We'll produce this dictionary by a computer. The universe will represented by the dictionary. The computer will represent infinite time and infinte, random possibilties. This computer does not know when it has produced the dictionary. The only program that the computer executes is like a hacking tool that looks for a huge password, but never knows when it has found the password. Let's even say that the program even knows the total number of characters in the string of the complete dictionary.

It starts with all A' s. Then all A's and one B. It keeps going, but when it has found the total string of characters that make up the complete dictionary, it doesnt know it so it keeps on "hacking".

In order for the computer to "hold" the correct value (dictionary (universe)), something or someone had to "let it know" that it should "hold", and that it can be printed out ("big bang" or creation). And in my feeling, it had to do this JUST to create the scientific laws that govern the universe. Then it had to do this again with life (granted, now the program has a holding point, because the laws were established), but now we cant use infinite time, because science says that the universe has "only" been around for 10 - 20 billion years.

I hope i made more sense this time. And by the way, i am not claiming authorship to this idea, it was an actual (famous) debate. The Christian lost because it was assumed that the "program" would "know" when a correct character was found, and also "know" when to stop/ print. A scientist of natural sciences and organic chemistry was the one to realise that there was no stopping point. I only revamped it with the computer senerio.

The loser of the debate happened to be a highly esteemed mathemation. The winner was the one to set the terms of infinite paper and ink, 6 typewriters that worked forever by 6 eternal chimps.

The debate was at Oxford by Wilburforce (sp?) and Huxley. The loser (Wilburforce) was the (christian) mathematician, who understood the probablilty formula.

Okay, now I understand. The reason I was confused was because I was not debating that. I was debating whether or not the watch would assemble. And only that.

Anyways, I would argue that the example used in the debate you cite is flawed. It assumes that continual attempts mean the end of success.

It could very well be that unsuccessful attempts produce nothing, only a successful attempt produces a result, hence unsuccessful attempts do not change the successful out come.

For example, since you use a computer program:

A random number generator is used. The program only successfully executes when the number 1,004,567,345.55032 is generated. Any other number is ignored, nothing happens.

As I said in my first, stoned-seeming post, the universe isn't the result of someone 'knowing' what the 'correct' nature of the singularity before the big bang was to create this exact universe. Everybody's assuming that the universe for some reason could only be this way.

Stop being so egocentric, the universe wasn't created for you, it just happened that this particular configuration resulted in intelligent life in this particular place. Any number of other configurations of matter and energy could have resulted in intelligent life in any number of other places.

In fact, there're probably a few intelligent races somewhere thinking "wow, the universe must've been designed because otherwise we wouldn't be here".

Confusing post. Sorry. (No I'm not stoned Optimus)