Atheists who attack Christianity

The Bible isn't the only source for the belief in God. You invalidate your own argument.

You believe in $deity.

Your belief is a statement that $deity exists.

You made your belief, and therefore your statement, public.

You publicly posted your belief - by definition - with the intention of /communicating/ your belief in $deity, and thus asserting to others that $deity exists.

$deity has - by definition - the attribute of #magic. Without #magic, $deity = (NULL). This assertion is not /my/ assertion! It is the assertion of those who believe in $deity. Every. Single. Believer. Requires. The. Laws. Of. Physics. To. Break. In. Numerous. And. Massive. Ways. Not my assertion. The assertion of the believers.

I can prove ¬#magic. Every day! Across the globe! In laboratories everywhere! ¬#magic. It's an axiom of fact.

Therefore, let x = $deity
let φ = #magic;
∀x φ
x ↔ φ
¬φ
∀¬x¬φ = ¬x

Predicate logic proof of the non-existence of $deity.

Corrolary: Your instance of $deity is the Abrahamic deity, or I will eat my hat.

Or were you merely trying to claim that I had not made a proof? It's still less than 24 hours since you were claiming that such a proof was impossible. That makes... hmmm.. you in denial.

give me another source for beleif in the chirstian god (this thread being about athiests attackign christians). Or give me another source for a beleif in any trnascendent divine entity, that is not the bible, or in the form of the bible?

That's true, that it's not the only source for the belief. There's also oral testimony, and all of that is based on fiction and misunderstanding - and for nearly 1700 years, in the case of Christianity, transmitted by - oh, the Bible.

All the testimonies are based on the same set of fiction - it doesn't matter that it has one form or another, it's all still /fiction/.

Muslims worship the same God that Christians and Jews do, yet they don't use the Bible.

However that is irrelevant to the points I have been making in this thread.

My theory is that there are some people for whom metaphor is a vibrant, rich, spiritual way of experiencing life; and others for whom metaphor is an unnecessary and annoying level of indirection.

I think it may be genetic, and there is no chance of us ever communicating.

All of the trouble-makers seem to come from the second camp (they try and kill each other over words in documents!), but that's just me, at this point in time, particularly after reading this thread.

--Allie

I wish I was infallible, but alas I'm only human I think one of the things that confuses people about my point of view is that they see belief and disbelief as equivalent when they really aren't. Belief is active while disbelief is passive. That's why atheism is split into gnostic and agnostic (or weak and strong if you prefer). Finning's position is gnostic atheism while Alex's (and mine) is agnostic. I don't claim that there's proof of non-existance.

There are so many variations and degrees of belief that our language is woefully inadequate to describe it. The words themselves describe binary positions and don't take into account that belief actually isn't. I consider myself an agnostic atheist, but only because I think absolute certainty on the topic given our rudimentary understanding of the cosmos isn't logical. I also see no reason to actively believe given the lack of evidence. Having said that, I'm much closer to Finning's position than to yours. The one thing I can claim with absolute certainty is that I'm not a theist. That doesn't mean I never could be because I'm not an atheist by faith.

When you find the error in here, I'll be willing to continue this debate.



Again, no, you can't. You can prove you have found no proof of magic. That is not proof that magic does not exist.



Your proof depends on assumptions that aren't themselves proven. You can only prove the dependenant assumption if you prove the other, also dependant, assumption.

But there are at least indications that it might be something to look into further, if possible.

By contrast, there are presently no such indications with respect to any gods or goddesses. All we have are stories that were made up by our hopelessly ignorant ancestors mostly to explain things that we now understand well enough to not need those stories anymore. With respect to actual, real reasons to even start giving the concept of a deity serious thought, we literally have nothing.

We have exactly as much valid evidence to support any deities as we have to support the idea that Space Ghost and Rainbow Brite really exist in another dimension, their life stories being channeled by the writers.

Basically, I submit that the only reason you'd treat the existance or not of "God" any differently as an "issue" than that of Space Ghost is that you've been socialized to do so, so you do it unconsciously.



Exactly. The only issue to me is that by-the-book(s) organized religions propose some very frightening, dangerous activities (with absolutely no evidence), and we blindly defend the right of people to believe them without even getting an "are you kidding me?" look. In fact, we even let one of these people run our country.

That is bad, baaad business, and I would go so far as to say that religion vs. religion is one major factor (although not the primary factor) in the wars we're fighting today.

2b|!2b = y, where y is the question. You want a proof that deities do not exist, or that a specific deity does not exist. It's called /reductio ad absurdum/, taking the premise and reducing it to the ridiculous. There is no error.



It's called the standard of the burden of proof. I do not have to prove the ordinary.The ordinary is in the set of axiom; #Magic is extraordinary, and thus lack of proof of its' existence is - in and of itself - proof of its' lack of existence - it is not ordinary - QED. I may regularly and safely - and completely legally under the terms of logic and debate - presume that it does not exist. And guess what? Physics demonstrates that #Magic does not exist. The age of the planet, demonstrated by geology, proves #Magic does not exist. Lack of global flood? #Magic= (NULL).



My proof depends upon self-evident axioms - they're called reality, history, physics, geology, science, and the swathes of human intellectual disciplines. Magic does not, in fact, exist. The existence of deities depends upon magic. Deities do not, in fact, exist. QED. The fact that you continue to hold the burden of proof to the ordinary demonstrates that you neither understand the rules of logic, nor of debate, nor of process. The existence of $deity is an extraordinary claim and is considered false until proven - at which point it is ordinary. Your critique of my premises is faulty, and your attempted critique of my methodology is faulty.

Let me explain how this works. This is a debate. You ask for something - a logical proof that deities, deity, or Deity does not exist.
I have provided you with the same.
You have naysayed it - that is not how this works.
You have whined that it is not what you asked for - that is not how this works.
You have poorly tried to find fault in my methodology, and I explained to you the error of how you were trying to find fault in my methodology /and/ acceded to your suggestion for the proof in predicate logic form.
At this point, you have two choices: Either you demonstrate how my proof has problems with its' premises, (by demonstrating magic, a deity, or both) or you demonstrate an actual fault with my methodology (by correctly critiquing the syllogism, in syllogistic form, or by transcending the method and producing a critique of it in predicate logic form, or by producing a critique of the predicate logic form, or by transcending /that/ method to produce a critique of it) - in short, you will respond /in kind/, not by saying "Nuh-uh." That is the way these things work.
You set the criteria. The criteria have been met, all the way to the point that you could no longer participate - it is now /your duty/ to bootstrap yourself into the discussion at the point it has been set, and if you don't like the way that the discussion has gone, then you ought not have steered it in that direction.

And at the end of the day, you're still the one who is advocating the existence of $deity - because you presume (wrongly) that the burden of proof lies with the ordinary. If you did not intend to send that message, then you ought not have made that base assumption and error.

Nope, you still haven't found it. Keep trying.



Burden of Proof still is not proof of a negative.

Physics in no way demonstrates magic does not exist, by it's very nature it cannot, since magic would defy the laws of physics, not conform to it.

The rest of your post is repetition of topics already covered, claiming you have proof you do not, condescention, and repeated mischaracterizations of what my position is, so since this is like the fifth or sixth time around this block, I'm no longer going to humor you on it.

See, this kind of thing irritates me. Anyone who's taken a first-level logic class (and has passed it) is capable of seeing that "X does not exist in the set of Y" is in fact a positive statement, and to prove it all one needs to do is prove the inverse (logical negation) of "X does exist in the set of Y" - either by exhaustively searching Y or by demonstrating X is exclusive to Y. Anyone with a physics, mathematics, computer science, electrical engineering, or economics degree - anything dealing with logic, FOPL, Set theory, or mathematics can easily see through the fallacy of "one cannot prove ∀x ¬φ" when it's part of a 201 level class.

Deities do not, in fact, exist. This is ordinary.
The assertion of the existence of deities is extraordinary.
The burden of proof lies with the one making the extraordinary claim.
Like Wittgenstein said: If you cannot speak of it rationally, you must pass over it in silence.
End.
Of.
Discussion.
Produce.
Deity.
Or.
Just.
Be.
Ridiculous.

In other words, you concede.

Thank you.

No, I simply refuse to waste time with someone who is arguing with himself.

All of which might be an impressive way to end the aguement, if you weren't arguing with phantoms in your own mind.

I say, this is quite a bit of fun to read, if only for its sheer insanity.

I could assert, logically, that Finning Widget does not exist. But only if I make up certain totally baseless assumptions such as that "magic is extraordinary, and thus it is proven not to exist". Or, "The existence of deities depends upon magic."

I could even do it scientifically, or by reductio ad absurdum. Atoms are so full of empty space, and particles are essentially nothing but little motions (or "magic", if you prefer). Therefore when our eyes are reporting the existence of a solid object, such as a Widget, they are clearly lying their asses off. There is nothing really there, statistically, but emptiness. Therefore, since ascertaining the existence of a Widget depends on a perception which is self-evidently false, we must assume that claims that Widget exists are extraordinary, and lack of extraordinary evidence of its existence "proves" that it does not really exist.

ROFL *wife watches and just gives the WTF! look*

Really, your effort has been heroic -- above and beyond the call of duty.

Good try.

Well they use the torah and the koran. My point being that the sources for the existence of god are all literary in nature. Noone ever sees god handing out, and god does not send us e-mail, or have a website. We don't stare deep inot the heavens and see god, not do we finding him at the bottom of the ocean, we can break all matter down to the point where it is nothing, existing in two paces at once, and we do not find god (we do however find the buddhist void.

In short, in all our looking god is someone that someone else might have once seen, and they only way you will know god is to beleive in him. Even if you do beelive in him, he'll never send you and e-mail or meet you at starbucks for a coffe. In short, god behaves just like Harvey, the imaginary rabbit.

Nothing god does is consistent with his own existence, and most everything he is alleged to have done can be expliaed scientifically. Also, many people for millions of years prior to moses, beleived in many other gods, and billions of people today live in a world without god, or with gods other than those of christianity. What makes christianity right and them wrong. In order to sort that mess out, you need to engage in some theological tapdances to show why zeus is less than jesus.

Now if none of the gods exist, we don't have to do any tap dance. Gods are simply a culture's way of explainign things until they acquire enough knowledge to shed thier dependence on a transcendent deity and take responsibility for themselves.

Really it comes down to Occam's Razor: the concept of divine transcendent entities requires huge cultural debates to determin which entities are real and which are false idols. How ever if we adopt the principal that all gods are manifestations of cultrual myth and thus works of fiction, we have a simpler, cleaner solution.

Or, to use a sherlock holmes reasoning, elimiate the impossible, and whatever remains must be true, no matter how improbable. So if god cannot be proven to be true, he must not exist, no matter how remote the liklihood of proving this negative.

Nothing god does is *inconsistant* with his own existance either. The allmighty does as the allmighty chooses. As for disproving zeus? Nope, no tapdance, I just don't believe in him - However, I acknowledge I could be wrong.



Occam's Razor isn't proof, it's just a guideline.



Uh, no, that's NOT Sherlock Homles reasoning. In fact, that doesn't even make sense... I think you screwed up somewhere in transcribing what you were trying to say.

... and you can't even keep in mind the fact that I told you I'm a woman.

*chkchk* Thanks, buhbye.

Yes.
Her heroic effort to actually pay attention to what I said, and uhm, *bwahahaha* she can't even be bothered to recall that I'm a woman after I told her so.

No ravens in the mailbox.
No deities in the universe.
Simple.

Her heroism in remaining blind to simple facts is /amazing!/

your forgetting that reitsuki is a male, so I guess that makes you a hypocrite.

If you ever said anything to the effect of your gender, it was missed, yes - however, are you sure you're not confusing me with Alex? I don't recall ever adressing you by gender before.

Your apparent desire to continue to argue with someone who you don't respect enough to read what they wrote is also heroic.

However, proper application of occam's razor is in fact consistent with the non-existence of any deity. Adn yes, God does not revela himself to no beleivers on the five o'clock news. God does not proveide help in times of war, and god frequently allows devout worshippers and the faithful to suffer horribly. All of which is inconsistent with an onnimpotent, onmipresesnt deity who allegedly loves those who worship him. So basically if there is no proff of god..that is the allmighty doing what the almighty wants. Its clever rubric. You can categorically deny the existence of zues as amttter of faith..ok but would you also admit ther ecould be a gandalf and a darth vader too?

You see I don't need to acknowledge I could be wrong, because I am right, there simply is no god.