Lonewulf,
I'm finding it increasingly difficult to respond to you because you continually change or misconstrue what I am saying and repeatedly explaining what I have said seems to make no difference....
I just don't see how you don't comprehend the base argument.
Quite frankly, I can reject claims that have no evidence for them, as I can reject any fictional character. Until you come up with an idea that has predictions, or evidence, or something other than, "Oh, well, until we see the top of the mountain we don't know if Zeus can't exist!", it's a silly thing to have "faith" in, or go and kill other people for.
I said that I did not mean to mock you, that it was just meant as a joke. I even went to the trouble of explaining how I meant it as a joke. But you continue with that accusation all the same.
If it was a joke, I still do not see it as funny. We can move on, it was a small point anyways.
It took three attempts to convince you that I had retracted a particular statement, before you would stop asking me to do so.
Yeah, that was my fault.
I said "the tooth faerie", you respond to "faeries"
If faeries existed, thus the Tooth Faery could exist. The Tooth Faery would be a part of the ordinary belief of faeries (albeit a bit sillier). However, you cannot disprove that faeries exist.
I said "the easter bunny", you respond to "Easter"
Yes. The Easter Bunny has history, don't'chya know? 'Sides, I was being more light hearted with that regardless.
To switch from Christianity to a deistic god seems about as logical as switching from belief in a pagan holiday to just believing in the easter bunny to me...
You want to keep it with santa, but it was "santa, the easter bunny, and the tooth faerie" right form the start.
You may not realize this, but my arguments are not everyone else's. I was talking about Santa exlusively at first, though my overall point had to do with fictional characters. Nonetheless, Santa Clause has most of the same similarities to God, which I explained earlier.
I said god cannot be dismissed as easily as [name your fictional character] and you respond by asking me to prove god exists.
Right.
You claim that "multiple dimensions" exist or somesuch, but you don't seem to realize that just because an individual takes something more seriously,
does not make that character more likely to exist. In terms of logic,
seriousness does not equal evidence in any way, shape, or form.
You want to refuse an argument over Santa Clause's existance (which was brought up to prove a point about God in the first place), but you want to spend all of your days arguing over God's existance using nothing more than speculation.
And I'm supposed to take seriously the deistic God because "billions of people" believe in Him, when billions of people ALSO believe in crap like virgin virths, reincarnation, the afterlife and soul, cannibalism (Jesus bodies! Jesus bodies! Get yer Jesus Jerky!), and that some pope is "inspired by God", or that Allah will be merciful yet sends people to hell -- all without evidence, and all a construed fabrication.
The churches make lots of money off of people that "take it seriously". Just like scientology makes lots of money off it's cult members. But I don't take scientology's beliefs seriously at all -- nor do I take Christianity's, Catholicism's, Islamism, etc. You argue for the deist god, but yet, you seem to be in the minority if that's your only argument.
I said there are unanswered questions at the beginning of time and space, which is the scenario in which god is posited but, instead of addressing that, you respond with the teapot, which was never had to have anything to do with these questions.
Unanswered questions does not mean you get to believe in, without doubt and with only faith, a speculative answer, without being ridiculed or not taken seriously.
You make statements about god that are irrelevant to the discussion and which you seem to assume I agree with just because I don't agree that the god question is equivalent to the tooth faerie.
I don't see why they're so unequivalent. I have yet to see why one fictional character is different than another because some measure of the population "takes it more seriously".
If you want a serious argument over the situation, once more, what people think is serious does NOT lend any type of evidence or weight to the argument.
You almost come close to understanding what I am saying at the end of your last post....
The problem is that is was god that was posited as a an explanation for these unresolved questions, not faeries. If "god" had been called "the tooth faerie", I would agree with the above.
Minor correction: I said "faeries", not "The Tooth Faery". Maybe you should look into ancient mythology some more before you continue? Maybe look into what faeries actually were?
Faeries were mythical beings brought up as an understanding for certain things. They were believed by ancient cultures, and appeared in many mythologies (as well as fictional tales). Thus, they are analogous to your God Hypothesis. Thus, I can substitute it with a Faery Hypothesis -- that invisible tiny faeries are pulling the strings of the world together.
Or maybe I could propose the Hungry Hungry Hippo hypothesis -- tiny invisible hungry hungry hippos go and hunt for quantum particles.
It's all the same thing. I'm just trying to speculate on "invisible creatures", or maybe one Ginormous Invisible Creature (Like God), all without evidence, mathematics, or even logic.
As it is, "the tooth faerie" is the name given to the intentionally fictional character who swaps your fallen out tooth for money. The character, who is posited as the explanation for the ultimate questions is called "god".
You fail here. See above as to why.
To make it perfectly clear, I live my life as if god does not exist. Because there is no evidence for him. Okay.
Well, that's good at least.
All I am saying here is that god cannot be dismissed as easily as the tooth faerie for reasons that I have given above.
I remain unconvinced.
