God does not exist. By sythe's logic and the principal of burden of proof, I do not have to provide any justification to this statement, the onus is on you to provide proof and to prove me wrong.

This logic comes from Sythe himself, as he demonstrates in this thread.

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Indeed. We all knew that the burden of proof rested on those who claimed there was a magical being that created the universe.

However, they never seem to come up with any.

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I'm not dead. I'm just gone. Sythe is in the past, as it will be one day for all of you. Thanks for the 6 years. Bye.

People are too stupid to realize this.

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Actually, that's a slight misunderstanding of the burden of proof.

The title of this thread is actually a true and correct statement, due to the omnipotence contradiction;
But burdern of proof is the presumption that a 'thing', the state of a 'thing', or an event, phenomenon, or occurrence differing from the norm does not exist / is not the case unless there is evidence to suggest that it is.

So what if I never claimed that God did or didn't exist, and you claimed that he didn't. Then the burden of proof lies on you.

What if I view God as not being omnipotent?

Yes, then the burden of proof to substantiate the claim would lie with me. But the two outcomes of such a claim are presumed non-existence (the previous state of things) -- if the claim is false -- and definitive non-existence -- if the claim is true.


That's really an example of the 'moving the goal posts' fallacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalpost

But supposing that you did, you would still need to make a set of claims pertaining to his existence and the nature of his existence, and provide evidence to back those claims. It doesn't help your case, you just create a new case from the same position.

My belief that God isn't omnipotent has been set since we began this converstion. I didn't move my goal posts anywhere.

Alrighty then,
As a pantheist, I believe God is everything. I believe there are two main parts to him; all the matter and energy in the universe and probability. We all, religious or atheist or whatever, abide by the same universal rules, the rules of probability. These rules highly depend on our location and the people that are around us. For example, if you are a friendly person, your probability of meeting and befriending many people greatly increases than if you were not a friendly person. If you are aware of your environment and think outside the box, then new ideas and opportunities come easily to you. By being friendly and open minded, we are being rewarded by the world around us. So it's almost as if the world around us wants us to be friendly and open minded isn't it?

No I'm not saying you should drop your religions and come join mine.
No I'm not telling you to worship anything.

Now it's true that the rules of probability don't apply to everyone equally. Some people are born in shit countries with AIDS and no food. There's no way that God could care about each of us individually, if he did then the shit that's happening in the world right now wouldn't be happening.

I believe that all religions are different paths to the same destination. Some paths of course are clearer than others, and some paths lead you to nowhere... The reason there are religious wars is because people have different perceptions of the world and different realities. When these people come across strangers who have different perceptions of the world, they think that one of them has to be wrong, and as human's usually don't like admitting defeat, they fight to the death for their religions. But it turns out that it's not that one is right and one is wrong, they just have different perceptions of reality.

Now I believe in science, I mean how can you not. But I believe science explains the world to a certain extent. That extent is how far our senses and devices that enhance our senses can interpret what we see, hear, feel, etc. But with science alone, all we know is facts and theories based on only those senses. Ok the big bang happened, but why? Ok things exists in the universe, but why?

Religion to me should be purely theoretical, with high elasticity for change of views. I believe this because our perceptions of the universe are so tiny, there's just too much we don't know to create a perfect image of God and reality at this point. This is why I think it's completely retarted that people are going around the world converting other people to their point of views. That shit has to stop.

I find it funny how you guys always ask for proof of God. If I ask you to give me some proof of evolution, you'll probably show me some fossils or something. If I ask you to give me some proof of the big bang, you'll tell me how the universe is expanding or something. This evolution and big bang aren't tangible objects, you can't take a chunk of evolution or the big bang and show me. Well the same thing applies to God, if you ask me to prove then I'll explain to you what I just explained in this post. God, evolution, and the big bang are simply names that define and describe phenomena. God is what describes all phenomena.

What are the facts? Where is the evidence to support this theory that the laws of probability bend depending on some attribute of the subject. Is the claim falsifiable?

Evidence, please.

My question in reply to your question is: Why not?

This is getting very much into metaphysics. But I'm happy to take a small tangent. And note that these are my own musings, and are obviously subject to human error and so forth.

Let's begin.
1. Matter / things exist.
2. There is not a rate of disappearing, or appearing of matter that anyone has observed. The closest observation is that of the unbinding of atomic material, but even with respect to that it is unclear (unlikely even) that matter is being destroyed and the creation of atomic matter from energy has never been achieved.
3. If matter exists, and no solid case can be made for a 'life-span' of matter (not material configurations such as atoms, but matter itself -- particulate spatially exclusive volumetric inertial mass) then it is not rational to assume matter has a life-span.
4. Something with no life-span that currently exists must always have existed.
5. There is no reason to believe in a 'birth of the universe'. Such a concept does not follow scientifically from the observable phenomena.

That's my reasoning about the 'origins of the universe' or 'why stuff exists'. Short answer: because it does.

Omnipotence isn't self-contradictory. The classic "Can God create a rock so heavy He cannot lift it" is flawed, because it rests on the presumption that God is limited by Universal logic. An omnipotent entity wouldn't be limited by Universal logic, the laws of physics or the boundaries of reality; otherwise said entity wouldn't be omnipotent to begin with.



Also, I'm an atheist folks, so no need to throw your feces at me.

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do you believe in love?

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god is real. end of story.

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Pm me the proof

Well done for reading the thread and the stickies.

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Yes, I see the hypocrisy in this post. Follow the rules and don't point it out.

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You know, you come from nothing, you're going back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing!
- Monty Python

Probably shouldn't have, I wasn't the only one =P

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I've always considered the concept as such:

The burden of proof lies in the believer, or the individual(s) whom presented the claim.

I've rarely seen a rational individual who believes in no higher being state so first in a debate, unless they were debating with another specified individual.

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unf

Please clarify this... So if there is a homework problem that your teacher says is there but you do not see it. But the problem is actully there but you do not see it so there for it do not exist?

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If you don't see the problem, though someone is pointing to "it", there are two options, none of which involve divine pondering.

Either you're blind, or it's not there.

Simple.

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unf

Are you not able to construct your own arguments? As interesting as that post is, the creation of this thread is ironic...and somewhat paradoxical.

1. Assert God is not real. (Yes, asserting nonexistence qualifies as an assertion)
2. You then assert that you need no proof because "the logic comes from Sythe himself".
3. You then mischaracterize both his post and the analogous Russel's teapot.

Don't bludgeon the whole concept. Let's just remember that the burden of proof is one of rationality, not absolute existence.

Saying that 'he isn't limited by logic' is the same as admitting outright that he is an illogical being. And having already assumed that the universe is rational in order to begin rationally debating it in the first place, you are once more in contradiction with yourself.

It just pushes the contradiction back deeper into the premises to the argument, it doesn't resolve it.

Never thought we'd be on the same team