Fosgate wrote:
Please bear with me if the tone of the post below sounds harsh. It isn't intended. I'm cutting and pasting using Word and not inserting smilies strategically.
I am used to harsh .... not a problem.
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Wayne Stollings wrote:
Why not? If there is no evidence to disprove one must assume everything exists everywhere if one is scientific.
If one is scientific, yes. Am I scientific all the time? No, I’m not. Am I when it is in my interest to be? Enough to make a pretty good living at it, yes. Do my scientific tendencies clash with that of other believers? All the time. In fact, I can’t think of an instance when I wasn’t in
your shoes in a discussion like this. I’m not arguing specifically with regard to the existence of a God, but rather that it is human nature to have beliefs. This is quite obvious, God or not, I’m not going to say that I don’t believe in certain things simply because I am a scientist.
Ok, you can believe based on no evidence or the evidence of the beliefs of others if you choose, but you cannot say that someone else should not disbelieve because there is no evidence and you or anyone else chooses to believe because there is no evidence to disprove the belief.
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There is no available evidence to support the existence so you cannot conclude the non-existence through any logical conclusion process over time?
Not if the time frame wasn’t shown to be of some significance.
And you are saying centuries are not sufficient periods of time to be significant? It seems to be more of a disagreement over semantics than an actual point.
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Yet, you just said you do not assume everything exists everywhere because there is no way to provide evidence of non-existence.
There’s no way to provide evidence that I love my wife. It is my personal experience that I do, therefore I firmly believe that love exists. Should I assume that everyone loves everyone?
No, but you probably assume most everyone understands love due to the personal experiences similar to yours. You would not extrapolate the feelings to other animals because there is no evidence to support their having the same type of feeling would you?
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How would looking for an invisible earring that operates outside of the realm of nature which you do not know ever existed be scientific?
It wouldn’t be. It
couldn’t be. I’m not even suggesting that it is.
But that would be the real comparison to your example and the existence of a supernatural entity, would it not?
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And the odds against such a thing happening would also indicate something outside of nature, especially if there is no logical explanation for the result.
So low odds and lack of a logical explanation are indicators of things outside nature?
No, astronomically low odds and the lack of a logical explanation for the stoppage of starvation would indicate something outside of nature.
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You are a believer, aren’t you? You just take a bit more convincing than most.
Wasn't that a song by the Monkees? I was not that much of a fan of theirs.
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Testing faith by killing the people off? That would negate the premise of the entity being interested in humanity too.
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Killing something is not generally viewed as a positive interest.
Is that so? Again, you’re ascribing qualities to that of which you know nothing.
You mean by redefinition of the term "positive interest"? I am dealing with the qualities commonly ascribed by the believers. If that is wrong their beliefs must also be questionable and you used those beliefs as evidence of existence.
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Nothing means nothing. That is not variable at all.
Apparently it means quite a lot. Despite an infinitesimal observational time frame and invalid (nonexistent?) detection methods, it means there is no God, right?
No, it means there is no available evidence of God. There are those who do not believe in things without evidence so they would not believe in God at this point in time. This would continue until there were some eventual evidence of the existence of God, if that occurs.
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It happened therefore it is evidence. Of what it is evidence of would depend on the total circumstances.
If that’s the case, the universe happened long before humans, therefore it is evidence.
Evidence of what? The existence of the universe? Yes. A creator? No, not without evidence of said creator.
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That’s a might more profound than a single species on a single planet and the problems it has feeding itself.
If there were some evidence of the connection between the universe being and God, but that is the basic assumption of faith which has no evidence to support it.
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What? How does refuting the premise given become an assumption on my part?
You can’t refute existence by ascribing qualities to that whose existence is in question. There’s no way you could know if an omnipotent being would cure world hunger, therefore you cannot say that it doesn’t exist based on the fact that hunger continues.
But, many of those who claim to believe also claim these attributes as part of their belief. If part of their belief is invalid why do we give any weight to the rest of the belief? The fact is there is lots of points of no positive evidence which combine to indicate the lack of existence as claimed by the believers. Since there is no other evidence than the beliefs of some, and that evidence is now in question, why assume any of the beliefs unsupported by evidence are correct?
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I do not believe anything which can be refuted and in this case the belief is being refuted.
You can refute that I like peanut M&M’s because you’ve never seen me eat them nor is there any evidence (or ever will be) supporting the notion that I like them. I will continue believing otherwise because, frankly, I like peanut M&M’s. Do you trust me on that or shall we discuss it further?
You are saying there is no evidence of you liking peanut M&Ms, but you do? There is no record of you ever buying them? No security camera footage, no nothing? I can trust you to tell me that you believe you like peanut M&Ms but that is a bit different than proving peanut M&Ms exist is it not?
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Here I thought it was good science to not believe in things where there was a total lack of evidence of their existence unlkess and until the evidence of existence was attained.
I’m eating some peanut M&M’s right now. I’ve such a fondness for them. Am I mistaken?
You must be as you claimed there was no evidence of you liking them, yet we have documented evidence of a statement made in your name attesting to that fact.
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No, I have chosen science to show me what to believe, which is significantly different.
Except when it doesn’t? You know, world hunger…
Scientific evidence has shown me that world hunger exists, do you have evidence otherwise?
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Did I not already give you the last word?
But you took it back .... neener neener neener
I did? I thought you jumped back in when I was addressing Boeseker. See, you ARE Boeseker! [/quote]
No, but I may be omniscient except that I am wrong ... but knowing I am wrong makes me right and therefore more omniscient .....
