Proof of God

[volatile]

There is no aether.
Now try disproving god.

Do we have to go back to falsifiaibility again?

Look, we have not "conclusively" proved that aether doesn't exist. What you don't seem to understand, though, is that the fact that the Aether Hypothesis is falsifiable - that is, it could still, maybe, be wrong - makes it more likely to be true given all the experimentation.

That room for doubt remains is to the credit of the aether hypothesis. It's what makes it credible and scientific. At some hypothetical point in the future, we could develop better measurement tools which show aether to exist, but the fact is that all the measurements we've done so far we haven't found it gives us strong evidence that it doesn't.

Back to God: as already shown, "God exists" is not a falsifiable hypothesis [for your deistic definition of God], thus is useless. "God does not exist" is a falsifiable one, and, though it has not been conclusively proven, the preponderance of the evidence is on its side.

This is where you seem to be going wrong. You seem to conflate unprovability with possible existence, but in fact the very lack of evidence or proof you use to keep God as a possibility actually more or less confirms his non-existence, in the same way as aether.

We don't believe in aether. Neither do you. The reason, ironically, is that the existence of it is still open to question...

 

[Herzblut]

Back to God: as already shown, "God exists" is not a falsifiable hypothesis [for your deistic definition of God], thus is useless.

Declaring only falsifiable statements to be useful for everybody is an assertion without evidence.

The abundance of belief in the world even tends to disprove your value judgement.

Herzblut

 

[Lonewulf]

Okay, so your opinion, Herzblut, is one of two things:

1) There is arguably a benefit to belief.

2) If 1 is true, then there is obviously less of a benefit to disbelief.

Do you agree with 1 and 2?

 

[BillyJoe]

The point is that I have provided you with an explanation as to why you were unable to observe my sooper special planet - you have rejected my suggestion off hand: Do you know why?

I reject your suggestion because you were using it in attempt to demonstrate that the planet hypothesised in my example was not a counterexample for the truth of your statement "You cannot prove a negative". Your attempt failed.

The planet in my counterexample was hypothesised to exist to explain a specific astronomical anomaly. If you do not find the hyothesised planet at the position hypothesised for it to be in (if it is to be the cause of that anomaly), then that planet does not exist.

If you now want to steal the label for that planet and apply it to another object with totally different characteristics, it hardly demonstrates the lack of existence of the original planet that was hypothesised to account for a specific astronomical anomaly.

I ask you - why is it that you feel so certain that you can claim that the planet I am talking about doesn't exist?

I made no such statement about you example. I analysed your example only as it related to my example. You started with the statement "you can't prove a negative". I responded by providing a counterexample. You (I thought) were attempting to show this was not a counterexample. I replied "nuts" because it clearly did not succeed in doing that as I have now spelled out above.

First point of contention: How would you go about proving that you were not three metres tall?

Stand upright under a horizontal plank less than three metres off the ground.

Answer to rhetorical question: You do it by providing evidence for a different, positive claim - the claim that you ARE a specific height (e.g. Two metres tall).

That would be providing evidence that "I am two metres tall", the logical deduction of which would be that "I am not three metres tall"

There are many claims such as this that might seem to be 'proving a negative', but in reality all you are doing is proving a positive claim that is mutually exclusive to your negative claim.

The first proves "I am not three metres tall"
The second proves "I am two metres tall" from which it can be deduced by simple logic that "I am not three metres tall".

Another example of this: If I were to make the claim, "I am not a woman," I would only be able to prove this by demonstrating that a mutually exclusive positive claim is true (i.e. That I am a man).

Symmetry:

A female could prove her claim, "I am not a man", by showing that there was no y chromosome in her genome.

(There are people who are genotypically male who, through sex change operations, are phenotypically female. On the other hand there are people who are genotypically female, who have masculine characteristics who may wish to prove that they are not genotypically male.)

How do we know the ether does not exist? We know because in the past, people thought that the ether did exist and was necessary. Some people did tests to find the ether, and they were unable to find any evidence of the ether.

If that didn't sink in the first time, read it again. The reason that you are able to make a statement such as, "The ether does not exist," is because there is no evidence for the positive claim that the ether DOES exist.

Symmetry:

"There is an ether"
You disprove that claim by proving that "There is no ether".
You prove "There is no ether" by:

1) Demonstrating that light does NOT require a medium because it self-propagates.
2) Demonstrating that the characteristics that this medium would be required to have to propagate waves of light frequency is NOT compatible with the effects it should also have which we straight forwardly observe it does NOT have.
3) The aether was conclusively shown NOT to exist by the MM experiment.

In order to rationalise away a "proof of a negative", one merely needs to explain that the experimenter who "proved" the negative has somehow made a mistake, or is currently unable to observe that which has been "disproved".

In order to rationalise away proof of a positive claim, one must deny the evidence itself.

Are you really saying that a person making a positive claim cannot make a mistake?

Holy Ed. Of course a rational person would conclude that there was no million dollar bill in my hand! The reason that a rational person would conclude this is because I was unable to provide proof for my positive claim: The claim that there was a million dollar bill in my hand!

Okay:

A says to B "I have a million dollar bill in my hand".
B looks in A's hand and finds no Million dollar bill there.
Therefore B says "There is no million dollar bill in your hand".

Are you really saying that B based his conclusion on the fact that A could not prove his claim??? Or do you think that perhaps, just maybe, B based his conclusion on the fact that he looked and there was actually no million dollar bill there?

You seem to be constantly confusing who has the burden of proof in these situations. In my hypothetical 'million dollar bill' example, what did the skeptic actually DO to try and disprove the claim? He did nothing. All he did was ask to see the evidence - and rightfully so, as the burden of proof was on the person making the positive claim that he had a million dollar bill.

If you say so.
Me? I would not bother to ask A to prove his claim. I would simply look and see that there was no million dollar bill in A's hand and conclude "There is no million dollar bill your hand". My proof? "Look, there is no million dollar bill in your hand"

I certainly am not going to deny that, "There is no god," is not a positive claim. That is because, "There is no god," is a negative claim, and one cannot prove a negative.

Both are claims that those respective people positively believe to be true.
If you say "There is a god" you believe positively that "There is a god".
To prove your positive claim that "There is a god", you would have to provide evidence that "There is a god".
If you say "There is no god" you believe positively that "There is no god".
To prove your positive claim that "There is no god", you would have to provide evidence that "There is no god".

When a non-believer says, "There is no god," they are NOT making a positive claim, and they are certainly not claiming to have proof of god's non-existance. What they are saying is, "There is no evidence of god's existence"

When a person says, "There is no god," they ARE making a positive claim, and they certainly WILL need to have proof of god's non-existance. What they are saying is, "There is evidence that god does not exist".

For christ's sake, if they want to say "There is no evidence that there is a god", why not just say that. Why say "There is no god" when what they really mean is "There is no evidence that there is a god"?

And before you start on your "You can't say there's no god, you can only say there is no evidence for god" rant again, I'd like to say that you are unequivocally WRONG.

Here is a list of things that there is no evidence for:

• God
• Leprachauns
• Unicorns
• Centaurs
• The Ether
• Goblins
• Yeti
• Sasquatch

But there IS evidence that "There is no ether".

Now, you yourself felt quite happy with stating not a few paragraphs ago that, "The ether does not exist." This statement of yours is based upon the well known lack of evidence for the ether.

No. This was based on evidence that the ether does not exist.

I cannot speak for your beliefs on the other items on my list, however, I myself feel quite comfortable in stating that: Leprachauns do not exist; Unicorns do not exist; Centaurs do not exist; Goblins do not exist; The Yeti does not exist; Sasquatch does not exist.

Where is your evidence that "X does not exist"?.

That leaves only one item on my list: God. I have just as much evidence for god as I do for unicorns and goblins - that is to say, none - and yet for some reason you insist that I am not allowed to say, "God does not exist."

You are not allowed to say "God does not exist", because you have no evidence that "God does not exist".

Why is this? If it is because we should respect religion, I say bollocks to that! Religions are only worthy of respect if they are correct in their beliefs - otherwise they are no more than a massive (and I mean, truly colossal!) waste of time and money. Asking me to respect them by saying, "There is no evidence for god," rather than, "There is no god," is nothing short of ridiculous.

That is not my argument.
All I said is that god is not as easy to dismiss as those other characters.
It's got nothing to do with respect.
I am not going to repeat my reasons yet again, they are on record.

If, however, you are saying that I cannot say, "There is no god," because by doing so I am making a claim to be able to prove a negative, I am going to have to tell you once again that I am not making any such claim.

When you say "There is no god", you don't actually mean to imply that you have any evidence?
When you say "There is no god", you are saying "There is no evidence that there is a god"?

Well, okay, but what a round about way of saying things?

If that is your reasoning, I am also going to have to point out that you should never, ever again, deny the existence of ANYTHING. To do so would be, by your logic, making claim that you could prove a negative.

But I have already said that you can prove a negative, not all negatives, but some.

This means that you as a person should be agnostic about everything. You should be agnostic about fairies. You should be agnostic about unicorns.

Yeah, but I don't really give them a second thought.
God is different as I have already elaborated on.

You would even be unable to say something like, "The ether does not exist."

Unless there is proof that "The ether does not exist".
Which I have provided.

Also, my name is Mobyseven, not Moby Dick. While it is interesting to know that I am your 'white whale', I would prefer to be called by my actual screen name

 

[Z]

Actually, there are some quantum theories which do in fact discuss a medium by which light propagates - such as the idea of 'spacetime foam' and the like - which if discovered would show that the aether does, in fact, exist.

Ether, by the way, is not the same as aether...

But once again, you cannot prove that something does NOT exist.

 

[Herzblut]

Okay, so your opinion, Herzblut, is one of two things:

1) There is arguably a benefit to belief.

2) If 1 is true, then there is obviously less of a benefit to disbelief.

Do you agree with 1 and 2?

Benefit is not an intrinsic attribute to belief / disbelief per se. It is an individual decision to believe or not in order to achieve some personal benefit. During the cause of his/her life a human might take different decisions based on changing circumstances - believe, not believe, then believe again.

I'm not the one to judge this decision, if it is "really" beneficial, neither are you nor anybody else except that person.

Herzblut

 

[BillyJoe]

Deistic god is the ultimate god of the gaps. It's the god that exists nowhere, does nothing, and affects nothing. Poor thing has been shuffled right out of existence.

He is the god of the ultimate question.
We fill his gap.
He is the be all and end all of you.

There is a god that does not manifest, does nothing, and is indistinguishable from the whole of Nature = There is no god.

Then there is the god that created the whole of nature....including you!

If you believe that the non-existence of unicorns is unprovable, you are agnostic about the existence of unicorns. You are unwilling to say "there are no unicorns in the universe". Quite simple, really.

Unicorns do not concern me because they do not posit answers to any important questions.

Sure they did. They enhanced deistic god's profile as the last refuge for the fanciful. They are practically evangelists for deism. They have made it much harder maintain a rational belief in a personal god.

Yes, they did not constrain the characteristics of the deistic god like they did the personal god. Why don't you just agree with me instead of pretending to disagree.

They advanced our understanding. Every such advance results in a corresponding retreat for god. The final fall back position for those with a need for a virtual father is deism.

Ditto.

You have, metaphorically speaking, sent off that spaceship to explore the aether and determined it wasn't there?

The spaceship went off to land on the non-existent planet.
The statement about the ether related to another part of your quote.

I think you are certain that there is no aether for darn good reasons - but by your reasoning, you should consider aether unlikely.

No, the ether (as hypothesised), like my planet (as hypothesised), has been proven not to exist.

There is no god.

Evidence?

What's the difference between "it is not the case that there is no god", and "maybe there is a god"? You are indeed saying "maybe there is a god".

Show me where I say "it is not the case that there is no god".
What I said was "There is no evidence that there is a god".
Try to get "Maybe there is a god" out of that.

Alternatively, someone who goes around saying "Maybe there is a god. Maybe there is a god. Maybe there is a god", is not the same person as the one who says "There is no evidence that there is a god".

I hope that gives you a hint about my position.

Not difficult at all. There is no god. Provide evidence that there is.

You see it is difficult for you:
There is no god. Provide evidence that there is no god.

 

[BillyJoe]

Nominated, drooled over and printed out and stuck to my wall.

I wouldn't lose much ejaculate over that nomination, Mobydic...er...seven.
This is from the hero that nominated wolfgirl.

 

[BillyJoe]

Actually, there are some quantum theories which do in fact discuss a medium by which light propagates - such as the idea of 'spacetime foam' and the like - which if discovered would show that the aether does, in fact, exist.

Ether, by the way, is not the same as aether...

But once again, you cannot prove that something does NOT exist.

The aether (as originally hypothsised) has been proven to not exist.
Stealing the label, sticking it onto another object, and then claiming the aether has not been disproven is [derogatory term]

 

[D'rok]

The only way you can say that the aether still exists is if you steal the label and apply it to something entirely different. In the mean time, the substance to which the label was originally applied has been proven to not exist.

Definition; Aether: the medium hypothesised to exist specifically for the propagation of light.

Disproof:
1) Light has been proven conclusively not to require a medium because it self-propagates. Hence the need to hypthesise the aether has evapourated into thin air.
2) The characteristics that this medium would be required to have to propagate light is incompatible with the characteristics is cannot have without having other effects which we straight forwardly observe it does not have.
3) The aether was conclusively shown not to exist by the MM experiment.

There is no aether.
Now try disproving god.

I'll play along in your world because I'm tired of being pedantic and because Mobyseven has had the last word on this nonsense of proving a negative.

Let's use your aether example as a framework for looking for god. To use this framework, you have to give god some properties. Deistic god is undetectable and therefore incoherent. Let's keep it really, really simple. We'll look for thunder god.

-----

Thunder god is pretty scary. When he's mad, the whole sky echoes with his roar. We cower in fear under thunder god's wrath. We sacrifice our best livestock to appease his anger and give our thanks when our sacrifice appeases his anger - as it always does.

But not all worship or fear thunder god. Some think that his voice might merely be the collision of clouds. Others notice that thunder god stops his carryings-on even if no sacrifice is made.

Aeons pass. We become able to reach the sky and visit thunder god in the very halls of his kingdom. By hypothesizing, measuring, and observing, we refine our hypotheses into explanatory theories and determine that thunder is the "sound of a sonic shock wave caused by the rapid expansion of the air surrounding and within a bolt of lightning." (wikipedia)

And so thunder god becomes a quaint notion banished into the mythological dustbin of history. Before long he is joined by more and more gods as the walls of their once unassailable fortresses are thrown down by man.

In the new thunder godless world, where once many gods ruled, now there is only one (generally) and to him is given praise for originating all that is. But he is hard pressed to maintain his kingdom as he is harried on all sides by his children who once feared thunder. Some still have feelings for him and bustle him off to a deistic retirement home where he can safely be ignored. Others cheerfully acknowledge his non-existence and carry on with their daily lives. Still others experience his non-existence as the presence of an absence in their hearts and try to replace him with ideology, technology, economics, or even themselves.

Some want to grant him political power and live under his absolute rule. These are the ones we must watch and be prepared to fight.

-----

Did you like my story? Did we kill thunder god by "proving a negative" in the same way we disproved aether? Why not take the next step:

There is no thunder god.

 

[Lonewulf]

Benefit is not an intrinsic attribute to belief / disbelief per se. It is an individual decision to believe or not in order to achieve some personal benefit. During the cause of his/her life a human might take different decisions based on changing circumstances - believe, not believe, then believe again.

I'm not the one to judge this decision, if it is "really" beneficial, neither are you nor anybody else except that person.

Herzblut

While I agree that I have no right to go about forcing everyone to believe what I believe, surely you think that benefit/lack of benefit can, in some ways, be verifiable?

There are harmful beliefs that are intrinsically detrimental, for instance. The belief that one can fly is detrimental if they decide to test it out from a high-rise building or a train, for instance. The belief that medicine does no good is potentially detrimental, the belief that one must kill others to satisfy an invisible God, etc. (I'm talking fundamentalists here, not average believers, don't get on my case about this). Scientology, for instance, is a very obviously detrimental belief, especially in the area where psychiatric medication or advice is disregarded in favor of religious faith; Christian Science is the same way, where it falls into rejecting medicine for God's healing.

The same can be true of measuring positive effects of beliefs. For instance, the placebo effect and studies of it have demonstrated that belief that a doctor is healing you and is giving you personal time is more beneficial than belief that the pill you are taking is helping you, even when both are not truly helping you at all. That is a measurable effect, albeit it's a small effect. However, at no point has REAL medication been disproven for the effects that it has; the placebo effect is no comparison to real effects of medicine and physician's skills.

Either way, I think that "benefit" can be partly personal, and partly measurable. I also think that valuing certain things, such as science and honesty, is more beneficial than faith and dishonesty. And yes, I do intertwine the two in both cases, though I'm sure that people will call me "bashing" because of it.

 

[Herzblut]

While I agree that I have no right to go about forcing everyone to believe what I believe, surely you think that benefit/lack of benefit can, in some ways, be verifiable?

Sure. In Saudi Arabia for instance it's a huge benefit to have islamic belief or at least pretend so.

There are harmful beliefs that are intrinsically detrimental, for instance. The belief that one can fly is detrimental if they decide to test it out from a high-rise building or a train, for instance. The belief that medicine does no good is potentially detrimental, the belief that one must kill others to satisfy an invisible God, etc. (I'm talking fundamentalists here, not average believers, don't get on my case about this). Scientology, for instance, is a very obviously detrimental belief, especially in the area where psychiatric medication or advice is disregarded in favor of religious faith; Christian Science is the same way, where it falls into rejecting medicine for God's healing.

You mention insanity, fanatism, antirationalism, our beloved "science of the science". All in all, these facets don't represent religious belief justly nor are they even typical for belief.

BTW faith is not the counterpart of rational thinking - magical thinking is.

The same can be true of measuring positive effects of beliefs. For instance, the placebo effect and studies of it have demonstrated that belief that a doctor is healing you and is giving you personal time is more beneficial than belief that the pill you are taking is helping you, even when both are not truly helping you at all. That is a measurable effect, albeit it's a small effect.

In terms of therapy, the placebo effect is basically zero.

Either way, I think that "benefit" can be partly personal, and partly measurable. I also think that valuing certain things, such as science and honesty, is more beneficial than faith and dishonesty.

False dilemma. Faith and knowledge are built on each other, knowledge is based on faith, to be more precise.

Again: check out magical thinking in contrast to rational thinking.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

Herzblut

 

[Z]

Double post. Is anyone else getting reply times in the minutes, rather than seconds?

 

[Z]

The aether (as originally hypothsised) has been proven to not exist.
Stealing the label, sticking it onto another object, and then claiming the aether has not been disproven is [derogatory term]

Welcome to God. It's the same story.

God (as originally hypothesized) has been proven to not exist. Stealing the label, sticking it onto another object, and then claiming God has not been disproven is... oh, right, what you did.

 

[Mobyseven]

Thanks for nominating my post, volatile. Certainly took a bit of time to write.

Also apologies for using 'ether' instead of 'aether'. I clearly meant the latter, and I will now have to punish myself severely.

*Sound of whips*

Ah, that's bet...horrible. Horrible, horrible agony. Now, where were we?

BillyJoe,

I'm honestly a bit sick of explaining this to you, as I was hoping that my last post would help you understand. Evidently not. But I would like to state a few things again for your benefit, in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, you will realise that you are wrong and change your mind. I had hoped to stay away from formal logic in all this, but it's all I can think of to get my point across.

To begin with, all this business with negative and positive claims. You keep claiming that, "There is no god," is a positive claim. Let's look at that for a second.

It might help to formalise this, so you can understand just what it is that you are looking for when you try to 'prove' anything. For both statements, we will be using a very simple dictionary: Gx - x is a god.

First, the statement, "There is a god."

(∃x)Gx​

Translated, this reads, "There exists an 'x' such that 'x' is a god." In order for this statement to be true, one needs to find only one example of something that is a god. In order for this statement to be false one would need to examine every single object in the domain and ascertain that it is NOT a god. As the assumed domain in this case is 'everything', that is a helluva lot to look at.

Proving this statement to be false is therefore impossible, whereas proving this statement to be true is (in theory) simple.

Now lets look at the next statement, "There is no god."

~(∃x)Gx​

Translated this reads, "It is not the case that there exists an 'x' such that 'x' is a god." For this statement to be true, one would have to examine every object in the domain to ascertain that it is not a god. For this statement to be false, however, one simply needs to find a single example of an object in the domain that is a god.

Proving this statement to be true is therefore impossible. However, proving this statement false is, again, simple.

Do you see where I am going with this yet?

Science operates on the principle of falsifiability. It has long been recognised that if one cannot falsify a statement then it is foolish to assume the truth of the statement: It is no more than blind faith to believe a claim which no one can prove to be incorrect, and it can in no way advance our understanding. Indeed, if a claim cannot be falsified then it is no more than a dogma.

Now, this does not mean that for all falsifiable statements, the negation of the statement is an unfalsifiable claim. For example, if I were to claim, "The Earth is flat," we would be able to falsify that statement simply by measuring the Earth and finding it to have any other shape than 'flat' (e.g. oblate spheroid). However, the negation of my original claim (i.e. "The Earth is not flat.") can also be falsified. This would be done by measuring the earth and finding that it IS in fact flat.

However, when talking about the existence of a particular object, the negation of a falsifiable statement WILL be an unfalsifiable statement. That is to say, a statement of the form, "There is an 'x'," will always be unfalsifiable and a statement of the form, "There is not an 'x'," will always be falsifiable. In science, the 'default belief setting' is always one of non-existence, and the reason is simple: If one's 'default belief setting' is one of non-existence, then one can always be proved wrong, because the statement is falsifiable. Scientists like to be proved wrong! They learn something new about the world from the experience of being proved wrong, whereas a finding that simply confirms their original held belief is boring - after all, they already knew that! If things were different and the 'default belief setting' was one of existence, there would be no scientific or technological progress, because the statement is unfalsifiable: No one can ever prove it wrong!

So, let's look at some examples. First off, humans. Do they exist? If I am going to determine that humans exist I will need to falsify the statement, "There are no humans." It just so happens that I am a human, and therefore provide a counter-example to my own statement! I conclude from this that humans exist.

With that existential crisis out of the way, let us move to a different topic - say, perpetual motion machines? I wish to prove the existence of perpetual motion machines, so I must falsify the negation of that statement - that is, "Perpetual motion machines do not exist." To falsify this statement, I must find an example of a perpetual motion machine. However, there is no such example! Moreover, the laws of thermodynamics (well established physical laws) say that such a machine cannot exist. From this I conclude that perpetual motion machines do NOT exist.

It is important to note that when there is no evidence for the existence of an object, the position that is assumed is simply the default position of non-existence. This means (and this is important) that it is still possible to falsify the claim of non-existence should future evidence for existence warrant it. If in the future (and I am not holding my breath about this) someone really were to build a perpetual motion machine, it would falsify the statement, "There are no perpetual motion machines," which in turn would alert us to the fact that there is something very wrong with the laws of thermodynamics. At this point, I would like to note that so far whenever someone has tried to do battle with the laws of thermodynamics, the laws of thermodynamics have always won. I do really not see this changing at any point in the future, but I would be perfectly happy should somebody prove me wrong.

And so we move onto the claim, "There is a god." In order to prove this statement true, one must falsify the negation of the claim: That is, one must falsify the claim, "There is no god." To falsify the claim, "There is no god," one must provide evidence that there IS a god. It used to seem as though there was plenty of evidence for a god or gods - thunder gods, rain gods, etc. - however all the things that used to be explained by god have been shown to have perfectly natural (though not always simple) scientific explanations. Currently, there is no evidence for the existence of god. As such, I believe that there is no god. And if somebody asks me my opinion, I will say, "There is no god."

It really is that simple. "There is no god." For exactly the same reason as I can happily and easily say, "There are no perpetual motion machines," I can say, "There is no god."

This is not a 'roundabout' way of saying things. It is not double-talk or newspeak. It is quite simply a statement of a lack of belief, based upon a lack of evidence, and it is a conversational convention that everybody uses - and if you don't believe that everybody uses it, feel free to prove me wrong. My statement is falsifiable if you are able to provide a single example of a person who refuses to express a lack of belief in anything.

So, did that help you understand at all? If it did, fantastic. If it didn't, good hunting. I'll be here waiting for a counter-example.

 

[Faithkills]

My life has been quite eventful thank you very much. See what you don't see that I do now is that with God it's a win win situation. We don't lose anything we don't need to lose to follow Christ. He gives me freedom to study and learn just like you, but I choose to test things I learn in this secular world in light of scripture. If it doesn't pass the test of testing it against scripture then I disreguard it as just another false teaching from the god of this world. I will choose Gods truth over Satans lies any day of the week!

The problem is that you are wasting your one chance to see reality because of a book of baloney which you know in your heart was made up by men to control other men. The promises they make they cleverly never have to fulfill. You only believe it because your mind was malleable when the lies were told to you and they are such nice lies. You get to live forever. Someone loves you always, and will protect you. Though you know inside that no one lives forever, and clearly no one is watching out because of all the horrible things that happen to innocents. When I see a picture of mother holding half of her baby in her arms because some deluded bastard blew himself and them up in God's name it's pretty clear there is no papa smurf in the sky one that cares. You know it too when you see those things. It's why you probably avoid seeing them.

There is a universe of beauty and truth out there, and yes horror as well. But you will live your limited life in a delusion someone else made up for you and serve their ends. You have been violated in the most foul and horrific way.

Your very reality has been stolen.

 

[Faithkills]

He is the god of the ultimate question.
We fill his gap.
He is the be all and end all of you.



Then there is the god that created the whole of nature....including you!



Unicorns do not concern me because they do not posit answers to any important questions.

What posits to what questions? As far as I am aware the posits from God are equivalent in quantity and hence quality to the ones from unicorns, but please do enlighten me.

 

[Lonewulf]

Sure. In Saudi Arabia for instance it's a huge benefit to have islamic belief or at least pretend so.

Indeed.

You mention insanity, fanatism, antirationalism, our beloved "science of the science". All in all, these facets don't represent religious belief justly nor are they even typical for belief.

I was demonstrating verifiable effects, all negative, of a belief system. Even if said "belief system" was based on faulty data, an unwell mind, etc. I was explaining that one can independently make a value judgment, outside of another individual's value judgment. I.E., that everyone else can make a value judgment over whether a belief is detrimental or beneficial to an individual.

I can tell you that faith that you can fly (faith in a supernatural claim, or perhaps you really do think that you have wings, in which case faith in a delusion) is detrimental for very obvious reasons. Thus, I can make value judgments on faith and belief. Now, how far those value judgments can go, I don't know, but that's where we come to faith in the supernatural.

BTW faith is not the counterpart of rational thinking - magical thinking is.

Having faith in the magical is essentially magical thinking. Almost all religions are based on having faith in the magical, especially the major religions.

In terms of therapy, the placebo effect is basically zero.

But for pain control, they have been demonstrated to have an effect, however minor. That is observable, verifiable, statistically documented.

But yes, I would advocate real medication over the placebo effect anyday.

False dilemma. Faith and knowledge are built on each other, knowledge is based on faith, to be more precise.

Perhaps, but under certain definitions of "faith". You'd have to explain your reasoning here for me to say whether I agree or not.

Again: check out magical thinking in contrast to rational thinking.

And almost all religions and belief in the supernatural is based on faith in the magical, faith in the irrational.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

What, is that the non-Believer way of saying, "I'll pray for you"?

 

[Paulhoff]

Double post. Is anyone else getting reply times in the minutes, rather than seconds?

Yes, too many users and not enough bandwidth, and that is falsifiable.

Paul



And there is still no so-called god............

 

[volatile]

The aether (as originally hypothsised) has been proven to not exist.