Are you an atheist?

[Brianwarnock]

Which is why you said

Better would have been 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence' and 'the burden of proof rests on the one making the claim'. Fanatics especially hate the last one.

Thanks

Brian

 

[ConnorGiles]

Me and a colleague of mine have just had a debate on proving negatives and we stumbled across "Hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy" and remembered this phrase. (Relates to religion).

The Babel fish.

This in my mind proves a negative.

(Given if it was real, try changing the Babel fish with anything someone religious says was created by god due to its complicity.)

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white, and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.

So lets take this Babel fish and replace it with something commonly placed as "can only have been made by god" - The Human Eye.

Opinions?

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

Hehe

They were just showing that, as a broad statement, 'You cannot prove a negative' is wrong, because for it to be true, it would need to apply at all times. Then they brought up examples where you CAN prove a negative, such as a claimed statement not being in the document someone said it was in, or by using something logical techniques like reductio ad absurdum and proof by contradiction.

Yes - so what you are saying is you have no contradiction generally for God.

A contradiction for Jesus exactly as in the bible - is in the bible. But a contradiction for Jesus the man does not seem to exist.


As for who should carry the burden of truth - as an agnostic. Should I be looking to the theist to prove his idea, or to the atheist to proof his with a contradiction.

Which is logical?

 

[ConnorGiles]

Yes - so what you are saying is you have no contradiction generally for God.

A contradiction for Jesus exactly as in the bible - is in the bible. But a contradiction for Jesus the man does not seem to exist.


As for who should carry the burden of truth - as an agnostic. Should I be looking to the theist to prove his idea, or to the atheist to proof his with a contradiction.

Which is logical?

Evidence of Absence

In some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence.

—Copi , Introduction to Logic (1953), p. 95

 

[Brianwarnock]

So lets take this Babel fish and replace it with something commonly placed as "can only have been made by god" - The Human Eye.

Opinions?

He made a proper mess of it in my case.

Brian

 

[ConnorGiles]

He made a proper mess of it in my case.

Brian

Hey, even some babel fish may only be able to translate certain languages

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

Evidence of Absence

Yes some ...

 

[Frothingslosh]

Yes - so what you are saying is you have no contradiction generally for God.

A contradiction for Jesus exactly as in the bible - is in the bible. But a contradiction for Jesus the man does not seem to exist.


As for who should carry the burden of truth - as an agnostic. Should I be looking to the theist to prove his idea, or to the atheist to proof his with a contradiction.

Which is logical?

No, I'm simply saying that I was wrong to state that 'you cannot prove a negative', becuase it some cases, you can.

This does not change the fact that there isn't a single piece of evidence that the Biblical Jesus ever existed.

As to the burden of evidence, it ALWAYS lies upon the person making the claim that something is different or unusual. If a scientist says 'Hey, this particle moves faster than light!', he is the one who needs to provie it. If a biologist were to announce that a kangaroo just gave birth to an octopus, he'd better have a mountain of evidence.

The same thing applies to people claiming God is real. The religious say He is real, that He determines everything that happens in the world, that He throws miracles around willy-nilly, yet when asked for proof, they simply say you have to have faith. The atheists (and atheist-leaning agnostics such as myself) say 'Prove it', but the deists cannot. (On the flipside, atheists point out that a world where God is imaginary would be exactly like this world, as there's no proof around of Him doing a single bloody thing.)

 

[Brianwarnock]

Hey, even some babel fish may only be able to translate certain languages

Are you saying that you don't understand my post?

Brian

 

[ConnorGiles]

Yes some ...

I will quote what Copi answered in regards to :

Per the traditional aphorism, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", positive evidence of this kind is distinct from a lack of evidence or ignorance of that which should have been found already, had it existed.

The problem with the "Absence of Proof" technique is that it becomes Invalid once (credible) evidence is found. But since none has been I can (at this moment) safely say Jesus (Biblical sense) never existed.

 

[ConnorGiles]

Are you saying that you don't understand my post?

Brian

Not at all, I'm saying even some Babel fish must not work perfectly

 

[Frothingslosh]

Yes some ...

Example of Evidence of Absence:

I am not a murderer. I can only prove this by the lack of any evidence of my ever having killed anyone.

 

[ConnorGiles]

Example of Evidence of Absence:

I am not a murderer. I can only prove this by the lack of any evidence of my ever having killed anyone.

(If you have ever watched the TV series Hannibal you can relate)

What if you blacked out?

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

Example of Evidence of Absence:

I am not a murderer.

Has any reasonable trained investigator looked into this? Otherwise this is really absence of evidence?!

 

[ConnorGiles]

Has any reasonable trained investigator looked into this? Otherwise this is really absence of evidence?!

Modus Tollens - Propositional Logic.

Living in Ferguson I would probably say he has been (I'm joking by the way)

 

[ConnorGiles]

All in all,

In my opinion as long as creationists use this moral :

“The book is true, and if evidence seems to contradict it, it is the evidence that must be thrown out not the book.”
― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

(Relevant due to Alisa's first post)

Then we can never put our argument across without all of our plausible evidence being thrown away.

 

[Frothingslosh]

Has any reasonable trained investigator looked into this? Otherwise this is really absence of evidence?!

I received a Top Secret (TS/SCI, technically) clearance from the US government a few years back for my job.

So yes, you could say a competent investigator has gone through my background with a fine-toothed comb.

Which is moot. If you want to find evidence of me killing someone, it's up to you to find it.

Interestingly, in this exchange, I am the atheist (there's not a single piece of evidence), while you have taken the role of the theist (just because there's no evidence whatsoever, it doesn't mean you're not a spree-killer! Maybe you just need a better investigator!). I find that rather amusing.

 

[Bladerunner]

To Galaxiom: Did you read "Killing Jesus", the book?

You do know that it has nothing to do with religion but is an historical account of Jesus as a man and what happened to him.

The bible has been brought down for thousands of years yet you say it is inaccurate. are we talking Genesis and its inconstancies or other. Please name a few and lets debate these and see if :


Blade

 

[Galaxiom]

To Galaxiom: Did you read "Killing Jesus", the book?

You do know that it has nothing to do with religion but is an historical account of Jesus as a man and what happened to him.

No I have not read it but I am aware of the complete lack of credible historical evidence. It will have everything to do with religion and I am certainly no going to waste money buying it.

I have asked you to provide an example of its "evidence" for the existence of Jesus. Choose the one you think is best.

The bible has been brought down for thousands of years yet you say it is inaccurate.

So what if it has been brought down for thousands of years? Scribes copying BS is still BS. It doesn't prove it is true. In fact it is the refusal to reconsider any point in the light of new evidence that makes religions such a ridiculous anachronism.

are we talking Genesis and its inconstancies or other. Please name a few and lets debate these and see if

Sure, lets start at the beginning. Genesis has plants, including fruiting trees created on the third day, the Sun on the fourth while birds and fish were created on the fifth day. I should not need to explain why plants could not have lived without the Sun.

Moreover, flowering plants are a relatively recent evolutionary divergence. The first fish predate them by hundreds of millions of years.

 

[Bladerunner]

Galaxiom.

I just did and you have not read it.You are also using hearsay evidence as to its varsity instead of reading it yourself and yet, you claim it is all about religion. How do you know. [Can not a book be written about the man who happens to be the Pope without having any religion other than to mention that he became Pope of the Catholic Church at so and so time in history. Would you say this sentence is wroth with religious objectives. ?

No it is only history. There is no religion in the book. All accounts of the man named Jesus have been verified through historic records. I hope you are not saying these historical records are false or mislead someone who reads them.

It would be well worth you time and money to get the book.!

Have a good day my friend.

Blade