Dustin Kesselberg
Illuminator
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Tell me what you mean by that.
So please continue. I'll narrow them down later. In another thread.
You're wrong.
Is it that hard to admit you're wrong? It's not that big of a deal.
What would you accept as PROOF of a God?
- Thread starter Dustin Kesselberg
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Tell me what you mean by that.
So please continue. I'll narrow them down later. In another thread.
You're wrong.
Is it that hard to admit you're wrong? It's not that big of a deal.
The Great Hairy One
Chief Cdr Scientist, NWO Cloning Labs
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*Sigh*
Never studied science, did you Dustin?
Read:
http://www.carlton.srsd119.ca/chemical/Proof/default.htm
http://www.holycross.edu/departments/biology/kprestwi/behavior/e&be_notes/E&BE_04_Sci_Meth&Philo.pdf
This should help you understand.
Cheers,
TGHO
PixyMisa
Persnickety Insect
Game over. Your score is: Zero.
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bignickel
Mad Mod Poet God
Oh, good. What did I win? A cash prize would be nice, although I can always sell it on ebay.
Lonewulf
Humanistic Cyborg
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Seems pretty clear to me.
Thank you for your request. Narration continues...
No, he is right.
That seems a bit negative.
D'rok
Free Barbarian on The Land
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Someone may have already pointed this out to you, but I'm too lazy to plow through the rest of this thread to find out. So...
Because it is deductively invalid. This is not a valid argument. You have committed the fallacy of affirming the consequent, therefore your conclusion is at best suggestive. This argument does not rule out any other causes of what we see in the fossil record. Science encounters this problem all of the time, which is why multiple confirmations of a hypothesis and multiple disconfirmations of competing hypothesis by way of empirical experimentation are necessary before any confidence (not proof) in a conclusion can be achieved.
And this is yet another illustration of the difference between proof and evidence. I hope you are not planning on offering a similar "proof" for god. Glaucon would be very disappointed.
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Crossbow
Seeking Honesty and Sanity
I do not know how it prove such a thing. Which is why I asked such a thing.
Besides, it would be the responsiblity of the being who is claiming to be the ruler and creator of the universe to provide proof of that it is actually the ruler and creator of the universe.
Yes, impossible. I expect that it would be impossible to prove what happened before the universe came into existence, how things can live for 13.7 billion years, how it could create an entire universe, and so on because such things are so far removed from all human experience and knowledge.
Umm, your original question did not have any stipulations on the what people believe prior to the proof being offered so I did not include anything about these stipulations in my response.
If you now wish to change your question now, then that is fine by me, but I think that it would be better to start a new thread as opposed to changing your OP in the middle of the thread you started.
Loss Leader
I would save the receptionist., Moderator
This sentence makes no sense. Evidence is not actual evidence? You appear to not understand the definition or function of evidence.
Oh, but you have. You have set out a standard of proof: evidence "that would convince you." Any honest answer, therefore, is correct. If I said that I would be convinced of the existence of God by finding a restaurant under the Restaurants listing in the yellow pages, that's all the evidence it would take. It is irrelevant that you disagree with the standard of evidence that I have adopted.
That is utterly and completely incorrect in each and every respect. You have demonstrated an absolute lack of comprehension of the concepts of evidence, proof, sufficiency, logic, science, philosophy and law.
You're a moron.
You are wrong. The very dictionary definitions you quote demonstrate that you are wrong. They do not say that proof and evidence are synonymous. The definition you quoted is: "That degree of evidence which convinces the mind of any truth or fact, and produces belief; a test by facts or arguments that induce, or tend to induce, certainty of the judgment."
If proof is synonymous with evidence, the definition would just say "evidence." It does not. It says that proof is whatever degree of evidence that, for whatever reason, one decides is convincing.
Let's take a look at two actual synonyms to see the difference: automobile and car. Would one say that automobile is a degree of car? No, one would not. They are the same thing.
How about happiness and ecstasy? Is ecstasy a degree of happiness? Yes, it is. It is a tremendous amount of happiness.
By conflating "evidence" and "proof," you have colapsed the entire system of logical thought. It's a common mistake among children like yourself. They are constantly arguing that a bloody knife doesn't "prove" someone is a murderer. Of course it does not. It's just a piece of evidence that tends to make it more true that the defendant is the murderer.
No, it is not. You do not understand the concept of proof.
Can you design an experiment that demonstrates that an object is pulled to earth at 32 feet per second squared? Of course, you can. But can you design an experiment that demonstrates that this will be true tomorrow? Can you show today that gravity will operate as expected next week? You cannot.
In science, the best we can say is: "This is how a thing has operated in the past. This is why it has done so. Every time we test it, it operates the same way. We have no idea if it will continue tomorrow."
That is not 100%.
Nope. No one can. No one can show the chance is zero, no one can show the chance is 100%. That's why nothing in science is ever "proven" to a logical certainty.
Oh, but it is. Your definition is wrong. The dictionary says so.
It seems that way to you because you don't understand the differences between synonyms and degree. If you were smarter, this seeming disagreement would disappear.
Morrigan
Crone of War
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From what I gathered, his point seems to be, that since creationists don't find the evidence for evolution to be compelling, no matter how much of it is produced, then atheists who can't find any evidence for god, now matter which gets produced, are no better.
Of course, it's bollocks. The theory of evolution is what best describes the biological and paleontological data we have. It's possible to make predictions based on this theory. The data is there, and if we want to explain how it got there, we need a theory - in this case, evolution.
The "theory" of God, on the other hand, explains nothing. There is nothing around that requires a divine creator to explain its presence. So the presence of a divine creator is just a gratuitous assumption based on nothing at all (well, they call it "faith").
Dustin's premise really makes no sense. But I doubt that surprises anyone.
Of course, it's bollocks. The theory of evolution is what best describes the biological and paleontological data we have. It's possible to make predictions based on this theory. The data is there, and if we want to explain how it got there, we need a theory - in this case, evolution.
The "theory" of God, on the other hand, explains nothing. There is nothing around that requires a divine creator to explain its presence. So the presence of a divine creator is just a gratuitous assumption based on nothing at all (well, they call it "faith").
Dustin's premise really makes no sense. But I doubt that surprises anyone.
D'rok
Free Barbarian on The Land
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Except that several of us have given honest answers about what we would consider to be compelling evidence. Dustin then responds by calling us credulous and gullible and dismisses us on the grounds that our evidence does not constitute proof. He seems to think that this is meaningful because he appears to be under the impression that formal deductive logic proves things about the universe. He does not understand that all of our knowledge - even the things that we are most sure about - is conditional. Collection of evidence results in confidence approaching, but never reaching, 100%. Proof is not possible outside of formalized systems of logic.
Yup.
Indeed.
JoeTheJuggler
Penultimate Amazing
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That's just begging the question.
But you're postulating God as the creator of everything--the entire universe. That's where you run into the problem of set membership.
By the way, now you are using "originate" in an entirely different way--originating a prosthetic limb means moving and altering bits of stuff that already exist. You cannot "originate" one from nothing, which is the way you are using that word with God.
Yes, I am arguing an issue that has to do with semantics--the meaning of the words. Just saying it is "semantics" in no way dismisses the issue.
In fact, I prefer using "universe" in its ordinary meaning of everything, and not the special one used by physicists or cosmologists. They actually can speak of more than one universe. Their definition is more like "everything in this contiguous chunk of spacetime" or some such. Some even use the term "multiverse" when talking about everything. Or Douglas Adams' term, "the whole general sort of mish-mash."
If universe does not mean everything, then how are you using it? In other words, if you're talking about more than one universe, are you saying that God created them all, or just this one?
There's a pretty good explanation on wikipedia.
Here's a shorter definition:
"An exact description of how to derive a value for a characteristic you are measuring. It includes a precise definition of the characteristic and how, specifically, data collectors are to measure the characteristic.
Used to remove ambiguity and ensure all data collectors have the same understanding. Reduces chances of disparate results between collectors after Measurement System Analysis." From this source.
One example: years ago, I did some observational studies with some White-faced Sakis. In order to count occurrences of behaviors, those behaviors had to be operationally defined, such that ANY observer could determine when it occurs. For instance, I couldn't say that the female is pouting, unless "pouting" is operationally defined (maybe it means the arms have to be crossed in front of the chest, while sitting facing a wall and not vocalizing). (I did not use "pouting" in any of my studies!)
For most people, belief in God is a matter of faith. Most atheists don't claim proof that God isn't, but find a lack of any reason to believe. Others on this thread have pointed out the difference between evidence and proof. For me, the reason not to believe in God is lack of evidence.
I also find problems with logical inconsistencies with most definitions of God. (Note: I am not saying these are things that you have claimed in your definition in this thread.) For example, if God is all-knowing, then the future (if that's part of the "all" that God knows, which is usually claimed), then the future must be determined, so there can't be free will. If there is no free will, then how can there be sin or judgment and reward or punishment (other common claims in descriptions of God)?
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Bob Klase
Master Poster
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And what have you accepted as proof of that?
It's your question. Look at the title you put on the thread- it's on every page.
I'm not talking about just transmitting a number from point A to point B by radio or something. I'm talking about fixed mathematical constants which are an inherent part of our reality. The example Sagan used was pi (ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter). Pi has endless, non-repeating decimal expansion, which you can compute to as many decimal places as you want to by a variety of formulae.
In Sagan's example, the digits in the decimal expansion of pi appeared to be more or less random for billions and billions of digits...and then they stop, and a long sequence of only 0's and 1's begins. A message in binary, written right into a fundamental mathematical constant. The only way such a message could exist is if it were actually encoded into the fabric of reality. It would be the same everywhere; mathematicians all over the universe could see it. Everybody would agree on what it said, and in fact anybody with a decently fast computer could see it for themselves. I would find that very convincing.
It couldn't be inside the universe. It would have to be something external to us, something which had some control over the shape our reality would take; specifically, our laws of mathematics.
*shrug* It's trivially easy to find alternative explanations for anything. As you yourself have sophomorically pointed out in this very thread, you can invoke hallucinations to explain away pretty much anything you want. But that doesn't mean it's the most reasonable explanation.
Cogito = I think.
Cogitare = to think.
Full conjugation here.
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That's the beauty of it, though. A message encoded in a mathematical constant would be visible to everybody. There would be no need to convince anyone; all they'd have to do is compute it to the specified number of decimal places and see it for themselves -- and once the mainstream scientific community found out about it, you can bet that all accusations of insanity would be quickly dropped. No interpretation would be necessary, except of course about the content of the message, whatever that may be.
You could still invoke aliens as an alternative explanation, I suppose, although after a certain point highly advanced, universe-creating aliens start to look an awful lot like God. You could even call the message a coincidence if you wanted, although the odds of finding a long string of 0's and 1's within a few billion digits of the beginning of pi would be vanishingly small, and Occam's Razor might suggest we drop that explanation, especially if the message had something interesting to say.
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Loss Leader
I would save the receptionist., Moderator
I knew something else about your argument was bothering me. You argued that certain things in science have been proven. You said:
But earlier in the thread you argued that NOTHING can be known with certainty:
So, you've answered your own question. Why can't we say gravity is 100$ true for all humans as experienced on earth? Because everything about your experience with gravity might be a dream or illusion. The earth may not even exist. You can't prove to me that your reality is not an illusion, so you can't prove to me that your experience of gravity is not an illusion.
See, Dustin, the mistake you're making is that you think you're smarter than you are. I promise you are actually quite dull witted. In every case where you believe you've trumped someone, you've done so by equivocating - you've changed your definitions or you've changed the rules. In the example above, you've flat out contradicted yourself.
The absolute best course of action for you at this point is to stop. Step two would be to see a therapist to find out why it is so important to you that you be disliked.
But earlier in the thread you argued that NOTHING can be known with certainty:
So, you've answered your own question. Why can't we say gravity is 100$ true for all humans as experienced on earth? Because everything about your experience with gravity might be a dream or illusion. The earth may not even exist. You can't prove to me that your reality is not an illusion, so you can't prove to me that your experience of gravity is not an illusion.
See, Dustin, the mistake you're making is that you think you're smarter than you are. I promise you are actually quite dull witted. In every case where you believe you've trumped someone, you've done so by equivocating - you've changed your definitions or you've changed the rules. In the example above, you've flat out contradicted yourself.
The absolute best course of action for you at this point is to stop. Step two would be to see a therapist to find out why it is so important to you that you be disliked.
Mashuna
Ovis ex Machina
This was my view of the progression of the thread too. Dustin asks for proof of God, then claims it doesn't count as proof because of solipsism. I feel like I'm sixteen again, when one of my friends first read philosophy for dummies.
Next we'll be on to 'how do you know that my red is the same as your red', and I'll have to sneak off to the park to drink a 2 litre bottle of cider with my mates.