Scientists discover that atheists might not exist, and that’s not a joke

[StrangerInAStrangeLand]

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I have never thought, felt, experienced, seen, heard or read anything that gave me any significant evidence there exists any god or gods.

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I have also never touched, smelled or tasted anything that gave me any significant evidence there exists any god or gods.

To continue on&on&on trying to say I know or believe there is a god & I just reject it is just childishly illogical. You truly should stop that.

You claim there is a god & I cannot believe you.

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[James R]

Your cry for evidence is simply for show, and not to be taken seriously. You know God Is, just like the bible says...

How does sideshowbob know that?

It seems to me that he could only know that God Is by employing the same sort of magic spidey-sense that you claim to possess. That sense that gives you certain knowledge in the absence of evidence.

For his invisible attributes (God) , namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

How have God's invisible attributes, eternal power and divine nature been clearly perceived, and by whom? Please explain.

These attributes are to be found in the "things that have been made"? What things are those? Where's the evidence that God made anything?

 

[Baldeee]

So what is an example of something that is evidenced (or conversely, deemed as not being evidenced) that precludes knowledge?

Did you actually mean "precludes" here?
If X precludes Y then X prevents Y from happening, makes it impossible to occur.
How does something being evidenced make knowledge impossible?
Did you not mean something more akin to "that has a prerequisite knowledge"?
I.e. In order to be able to say whether something is evidence or is not evidence, one needs to have knowledge of what it is supposed to be evidence of?

If not, and you really did mean "precludes", please can you explain what your question means?


If you meant what I think you meant, rather than what you wrote, then I would agree.
But note that there is a difference between knowing that something is not evidence of a thing, and not knowing that something is evidence of a thing.
For the former, one needs to have knowledge of the thing you are claiming it not to be evidence of.
To the latter, you need no knowledge at all to be able to say that you do not know it to be evidence of.

 

[Musika]

Before evidence can be offered in support of the existence of a god, there would have to be a determination that the existence of such an entity is consistent with reality, and an ability would have to exist to differentiate god from non god. So until humans have the capacity to accomplish these tasks, it would be impossible for for them to know their god exists as conceived.

You just wrote that completely back to front. Conceptions of things is the first thing required.
Then one is required to have a conception of reality and/or knowledge. Then one draws a determination on how the concept intersects reality and/or knowledge to determine its ontological status (true, false or something in between). The tradgedy is, at least for advocates of "true absence", is that at every step of the way one is bringing knowledge.

These three words : I (ie, the knower) know (the act of knowing) that (the object of knowledge).
They will goof you everytime, on 3 occassions (or at least 2, if you are expert at wiggling in accordance to Buddhist or Shankarite philosophy) you try to bring a platform of "true absence". It doesn't matter if the subject is baldness, loch ness monsters or bald loch ness monsters

No, the game stops here. Humans have the capacity to determine the nature of evidence within the confines of their perceived local reality,

Yes.
Commonly called "epistemology" which comes complete with grubby little finger prints that totally discard the position of "true absence" from the onset.

that capacity does not extend to the greater reality beyond our perception. For the foreseeable future, this relegates the possibility of knowing one’s god to just wishful thinking.

Rubbish.
We delegate others to positions of overseeing greater reality (even on the wager of our life, when we undergo invasive surgery) beyond our perception all the time.
You could even say that the capacity to do so is what has empowered our current civilization to achieve many wonderful things in the name of specialization.

 

[Musika]

The presence of a person. Hair is an attribute.

Then you are just regressing the argument to "person" if you want to assign the inquiry to some variable intrunsic yo people. So then it becomes a q of "Can you not tell the difference between a room with a person and a room without?" ... with the added bonus of regressing it further to "room", if you so desire, and move further afield into the buddhist month.

When you can put "absence" on the lab bench and measure it, you can call it a thing.

If you are drawing conclusions from it, such as "Where is my pen? I thought I put it on the bench." then yes, most certainly.

I said that anybody can SEE the evidence. They do have to present the evidence in court, you know, and there may be fry cooks on the jury.

That is not seeing. That is hearing. The jury hear the testimony of an accepted authority. IOW the jury listens to what the authority says they see.

I have said it. Maybe it was in another thread. Photo ID would work.

A photo of what?
I mean I'm sure I could dig up a photo of a pixie from MR's posts. Sure, you may reject it as a fake, but at least you could discern the subjrct matter.

ANY kind of ID would be a start in establishing existence. Then, once an entity was established as existing, we can move on to studying what godly powers it has.

Interesting.
So what would those godly powers be and how would you propose to test them?

Again, it's the same criteria that I would use in examining the dead body with the bullet hole. If the head is lying ten feet away, I might question the bullet hole as the cause of death.

The difference is that in these cases, you do not bring an absence.
You bring a "presence".
Namely anatomy, ballistics etc.

I'm not claiming there's no evidence. I'm saying I haven't seen any,

If you can't say what you claim you would have to see (ie provide criteria) you cannot talk of evidence.
If you can say what you claim you would have to see (ie provide criteria) you cannot claim absence of belief.

So basically you have two choices :
1. Tell us whether you can or cannot bring criteria to the subject (bald man, loch ness monster, bald loch ness monster, etc).

2. Continue to goof in the buddhist field month.

just like I haven't seen evidence to conclude that Bigfeet, Loch Ness Monsters, pixies or little green UFO pilots exist. Show us the evidence.

The difference is that you can measure them against criteria. You could even go as far as to distinguish a loch ness monster from a bald loch ness monster.

 

[StrangerInAStrangeLand]

It is unfortunate that for many believing is easier than knowing.

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[Musika]

Is that the highest compliment that a person can receive..."I admire your philosophical training"?

Its not something you usually compliment people on. Rather, it's one of those things that usually comes to the fore on account of bad performance. For instance, it would be unusual to compliment someone on their professional driving skills. If, however, they T boned a tree or something, asking them if they got their license from a cereal box or whatnot may be the sort of comments they would receive.

Are you Jan?

Are you Jan?
If I was Jan and decided to sock puppet up, the best cover would be to pose as an atheist, so as not arouse suspicions. The only thing that might give me away would be my gross inability to launch a convincing or attentive defense of atheism.

The reason people can easily dismiss your pantheon of bald people and loch ness montsters is that there is no agreement as to what we are talking about.

It's not so with God. It's a slippery subject. One minute it's an old man with a beard, then it's a spirit, then it's everything in nature, next it's inherent in each person's personality. Of course no one can say what would or would not prove or disprove God.

You can't disprove something that is too amorphous to be described but then you know that and find some pleasure in beating this dead horse.

Then the obvious question here is "Why one would bring an argument of evidence to an argument of definition.?"

What sort of atheist would commit to such a poorly thought out strategy?

Listen Jan, if you come out now and admit that you were posing as an atheist under the name of Seattle, the mod's may go easy on you.

 

[Sarkus]

If I was Jan and decided to sock puppet up, the best cover would be to pose as an atheist, so as not arouse suspicions.

Actually the best cover, if you were Jan and deciding to sock-puppet up, would be to pose as someone who debates honestly. That way no one would have a clue it was Jan at all, irrespective of the position the sock-puppet held.

(Sorry, couldn't resist).

 

[Musika]

It is unfortunate that for many believing is easier than knowing.

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It is unfortnate that for many, retching cliches and memes is easier than critical thought.

 

[StrangerInAStrangeLand]

It is unfortnate that for many, retching cliches and memes is easier than critical thought.

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Bullshit attempt at insult & sidestepping issues. As usual.

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[StrangerInAStrangeLand]

If you can't say what you claim you would have to see (ie provide criteria) you cannot talk of evidence.
If you can say what you claim you would have to see (ie provide criteria) you cannot claim absence of belief.

So basically you have two choices :
1. Tell us whether you can or cannot bring criteria to the subject (bald man, loch ness monster, bald loch ness monster, etc).

2. Continue to goof in the buddhist field month.

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As usual, you have it backward. You make a claim, it is up to you to support it.
All this babbling & we yet have extremely little of the god you claim to believe in & absolutely nothing of why you believe.
If you cannot say why you believe, you cannot claim to believe.
If you cannot support your claim, you cannot promote it.
If you cannot demonstrate why you are correct, you cannot say others are incorrect.
Your attempts at criticizing those who are not theist are just silly without showing that they should be theist.
Attempting to criticize science is unrelated to whether there is a god or whether anyone should be theist.
If you cannot cease your childish attempts at insult, your being disturbed by petty things & your seeming to think you win points as if this is a video game, you will not be taken seriously.

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[Capracus]

You just wrote that completely back to front. Conceptions of things is the first thing required. Then one is required to have a conception of reality and/or knowledge.

My statement assumes a concept has already been chosen. How can one ever know that the reality one exists in is compatible with the existence of a given concept of God? There may be a law of reality that states that no gods are possible, and that any that are found are actually imposters. So until you can consult the cosmic statutes, which can’t be done, any evidence of God cannot be known to relate to God.

Then one draws a determination on how the concept intersects reality and/or knowledge to determine its ontological status (true, false or something in between).

How can one compare a concept to a reality that cannot be actually perceived and described?

The tradgedy is, at least for advocates of "true absence", is that at every step of the way one is bringing knowledge.

If an element is missing from a set, it is truly absent from that set, and that condition, like any other, is an example of knowledge.

Yes.
Commonly called "epistemology" which comes complete with grubby little finger prints that totally discard the position of "true absence" from the onset.

Epistemology doesn’t give you refuge from having to rationally justify a belief in order to claim and qualify knowledge.

Rubbish.
We delegate others to positions of overseeing greater reality (even on the wager of our life, when we undergo invasive surgery) beyond our perception all the time.
You could even say that the capacity to do so is what has empowered our current civilization to achieve many wonderful things in the name of specialization.

The conditions you are describing are composed of known environments and actors. You can’t compare delegating oversight of knowledge in a known local setting, to that of a vast unknown greater reality. There is no such expert entity that is able to discern the nature of that greater reality. It would take a god to accomplish that task, and unfortunately we’re not in a position to hire one.

 

[StrangerInAStrangeLand]

 

[sideshowbob]

So then it becomes a q of "Can you not tell the difference between a room with a person and a room without?" ...

Don't lose the plot. The question is, "Can you tell the difference between a room with God and a room without?" You can't explain to us how to do it. There's the attempted copout of, "He's everywhere," but that's just moving the goalposts out of the park.

If you are drawing conclusions from it, such as "Where is my pen? I thought I put it on the bench." then yes, most certainly.

No. The absence of a pen is still not a thing. The ability to draw conclusions doesn't make it a thing. Absence is the opposite of a thing.

That is not seeing. That is hearing. The jury hear the testimony of an accepted authority. IOW the jury listens to what the authority says they see.

The jury can ask to see photographs, etc. The idea is that the jury COULD see the raw data if they wanted to. It exists. It is not absent. The word of the "authority" is not just hearsay or it would not be admissible.

A photo of what?
I mean I'm sure I could dig up a photo of a pixie from MR's posts. Sure, you may reject it as a fake, but at least you could discern the subjrct matter.

See, I ask for evidence, you ask me what kind of evidence, I tell you what kind of evidence - and you have the gall to reject it. YOU are the one who is making it impossible to find evidence.

So what would those godly powers be and how would you propose to test them?

We're not there yet. IF we can get your "god" thumb-tacked to the lab bench, then YOU can tell US what you think distinguishes him from the guy who thinks he's Napoleon. YOU provide the list of god-like powers that YOU claim, and then we'll test them.

If you can't say what you claim you would have to see (ie provide criteria) you cannot talk of evidence.

I did tell you what I would have to see.

The difference is that you can measure them against criteria.

As I said, I can measure your "god" against the same criteria. You reject my criteria because you can not meet them. That does not make the criteria magically disappear.

 

[Seattle]

I
Then the obvious question here is "Why one would bring an argument of evidence to an argument of definition.?"

What sort of atheist would commit to such a poorly thought out strategy?

One who doesn't care?

Listen Jan, if you come out now and admit that you were posing as an atheist under the name of Seattle, the mod's may go easy on you.

First we have to define what you mean by "posing".

 

[Musika]

One who doesn't care?

".

Well at least we now know what standard to hold you accountable to.

 

[Seattle]

Well at least we now know what standard to hold you accountable to.

You may not be quick but you get there eventually. Where can one buy a Spock Helmet? What size do you wear? That's so much nicer than plain old tin foil hats.

 

[Musika]

You may not be quick but you get there eventually.

It wasn't so much a feat of traversing difficult territory.

 

[iceaura]

If I was Jan and decided to sock puppet up, the best cover would be to pose as an atheist, so as not arouse suspicions.

You couldn't do that for more than a couple of days. Neither could Jan.

It's been tried by others. It's fairly common on science forums.

That's one of the penalties for posting dishonestly and in bad faith - you come to sort of believe your own pitch. You lose track of the reality. And since your pitch is the standard fundie personal misrepresentation of atheists and atheism, and you believe it in some weird way, your identity as an atheist and the atheism you present would be easily identifiable as the creation of an overt Abrahamic theist, running one of their scams on a science forum.

 

[Musika]

Did you actually mean "precludes" here?
If X precludes Y then X prevents Y from happening, makes it impossible to occur.
How does something being evidenced make knowledge impossible?

Did you not mean something more akin to "that has a prerequisite knowledge"?
I.e. In order to be able to say whether something is evidence or is not evidence, one needs to have knowledge of what it is supposed to be evidence of?

You seem to be saying the same thing, since you call it "knowledge" and position it prior to evidence.

But note that there is a differencebetween knowing that something is not evidence of a thing, and not knowing that something is evidence of a thing.
For the former, one needs to have knowledge of the thing you are claiming it not to be evidence of.
To the latter, you need no knowledge at all to be able to say that youdo not know it to be evidence of.

Then we are back to the conundrum of explaining how an individual can spot a bald person if they have an "absence" of belief about hair.