Just Addressing Yet Another Absurd, Dishonest Atheistic Argument

Revoltingest · Mar 1, 2017

Guy Threepwood said:
you already mentioned what you really believe, that 'what' is a better explanation than 'who'.

Anyone can ask a question which I can't answer.
Proves nuthin about the existence of gods.

but in the analogy you revert to being so neutral, you'd rather just stick it on green and give it all to Bernie, than put one cent on what you just described as 'the better explanation'...

which is it?

we all believe in things we can't prove, not much way around that, but why disguise those beliefs as disbeliefs? How can you ever challenge your own beliefs if you don't at least acknowledge them?

I'm not neutral.
I abstain.

But now I get to ask a stupid question....
Without resorting to a calculator, what digit is in the 5th place right of the decimal point for pi raised to the e power?

Guy Threepwood · Mar 1, 2017

Revoltingest said:
Anyone can ask a question which I can't answer.
Proves nuthin about the existence of gods.

I'm not neutral.
I abstain.

But now I get to ask a stupid question....
Without resorting to a calculator, what digit is in the 5th place right of the decimal point for pi raised to the e power?

I do not conclude that any digit is a 'better answer' than any other...

So I'm just curious about 'what' as a better answer than 'who' (before you abstained), and what level of confidence you would give that better answer.

do you see it as slightly more likely? highly probable? almost certain?

That should not be such a tortuous question to ask should it?

Curious George · Mar 1, 2017

Valjean said:
You can either begin by believing everything, and ruling things out, one by one,
or you can begin with a blank slate and add beliefs as evidence accrues.

Which approach makes more sense? Which is more feasible?

If you start by believing nothing, you cannot add anything. Assumptions must be made.

Revoltingest · Mar 1, 2017

Guy Threepwood said:
I do not conclude that any digit is a 'better answer' than any other...

So I'm just curious about 'what' as a better answer than 'who' (before you abstained), and what level of confidence you would give that better answer.

do you see it as slightly more likely? highly probable? almost certain?

That should not be such a tortuous question to ask should it?

If I can't calculate the probability, it would be silly to venture an answer.

Valerian · Mar 1, 2017

viole said:
Yes, and we pray to them. Especially mindless chance. It seems to respond to prayers with a reliability comparable to other types of prayers.

Nope. They do not. But there are some Christians who believe they do. Christians believe a lot of strange things, I guess.

Do you need an I.D. to create a pancreas? I thought you needed that if you want to buy beer but look too young.

And what do you need to design organs for the creation of immortal souls so that they share the function of urinating? A S.D.?

Count me out. I cannot possibly be offended by arguments involving polar bears coming from stones.

So, God has a passion for apes. Must be, since He created humans, the very reason for creating the rest of the Universe, so that they belong to the same family.

I wonder what He thought. Maybe something in the lines of: wow, that ape design is so cool. Look at that gorilla, how beautiful it is. And those bonobos are so amazing. Maybe without hair, they would look even better. That is exactly what I was looking for as a model for the pinnacle of my creation. So let those hairless apes awe at my creative power and glory. Ok, bonobos are slightly gay, which is suboptimal, but I can correct that with a couple of laws involving stoning their hairless version.

Am I close?

Ciao

- viole

I really tire of “scientific frivolity.” Ok, so polar bears did not come from rocks. Good. Then do me a favor and go to Ancestry.com and trace back their lineage. After all, evolution says we all came from some primordial soup. They also claim some way some how DNA formed. Without any intelligent designer, too, mind you. Something about proteins and amino acids, too, I guess?

So somewhere “back there” a polar bear was not a polar bear was it? If we follow the family tree back hundreds of millions of years or further was did his great, great grand pappy look like? Was he a clam or a mouse? Was he a water beetle or a fire fly? And before that was he carbon or rocks or primordial soup? That is your contention whether you will admit to it or not.

IOW, your entertaining us by pointing out my naiveté is really just another way to skirt the salient point.

Iti oj · Mar 1, 2017

1137 said:
You're more than welcome to twist it any way you want . But yeah, when the majority of online atheists solely rely on dishonest philosophy I take issue. Any real seeker of truth would.

1137 said:
No argument as always, how hysterical!

There's nothing here to twist or argue against. My original response is the end of it. What box, bad analogy.

Guy Threepwood · Mar 1, 2017

Revoltingest said:
If I can't calculate the probability, it would be silly to venture an answer.

okay, I'm the croupier and based on that I'm placing 510 million on 'what' and 490 million on 'who' for you- are you happy with that, or would you like to change before I call no more bets?

9-10ths_Penguin · Mar 1, 2017

Curious George said:
Sure. It is not an argument for atheism. Is an argument regarding the burden of proof. Because atheists are fond of bringing up the burden of proof, they bring up this argument to explain it. This argument in no way suggests that atheism is right or supported. Rather it is an explanation of the thought behind many people's reasoning. What isn't explained is that it is arbitrary. The assignment of truth value as negative is ingrained in many people so they do not realize the arbitrary nature. Skepticism has us assume something is not true until it is proven otherwise. Because of how Skepticism is taught in our society, many people rely on this in evaluating propositions. Hence, why I would suggest that a multi-valued truth system is more appropriate to answer this question. However, if we are applying the law of the excluded middle such an option is not available. The consequence of both this societal influence and the restriction to a binary valued truth system is that we we get people who approach a question with the assumption of no until proven otherwise.

Not true... or at least, you're missing some of the nuance.

The skeptic position isn't to assume that a claim is false until proven; it's to not assume it to be true until evidence is presented, and then apportion your beliefs to the evidence.

The skeptic position does have a middle option, because it's dealing with knowledge, not necessarily the actual state of things:

1) I have reason to believe that claim X is true.
2) I don't have reason to believe that claim X is true, or that claim X is false.
3) I have reason to believe that claim X is false.

The question is how we should treat claims that fall into category 2. A bit of thought will let you realize that category 2 contains at least some things that can't be true (since mutually exclusive claims can be in category 2 simultaneously). We can also recognize that the things in category 2 aren't influencing anything we have observed in any perceptible way (since if they were influencing things in a perceptible way, this would be evidence that would push them into category 1).

This means that category 2 is made up of:
- things that don't exist, and
- things that we can't tell exist.

There are some cases where it's prudent to guard against some uncertain outcome (for instance, I have a smoke detector even though I have no evidence that my house specifically will be on fire in the foreseeable future), but in general, if we don't even have evidence that an outcome is possible, let alone likely, the appropriate behaviour toward it looks a lot like our behaviour toward things that don't exist.

Magic Man · Mar 1, 2017

Valerian said:
Atheists, IMO, serve two "gods." Time and mindless chance.

Only if you use an incredibly broad definition of "god", one that is then useless because of how broad it is.

They believe if you give a pile of rocks enough time it will turn into a polar bear.

You're probably a troll, but let's assume you're not for a minute. This is just plain ridiculous, and I'm pretty sure you know it.

They also think the probabilities of some organism can create an eyeball or a pancreas when once there was none is no big thing. Even if the chances of that occurring (without an I.D.) are one in a quintillion. They still hold strong to their theories.

Yes, we do hold strong to scientific theories that are backed up by mountains of evidence. I'd love to see where your odds came from. But no, an organism cannot create an eyeball or pancreas where there wasn't one. What organisms can do is mutate over time and in doing so develop different body parts over the course of many, many, many generations. That's scientific fact.

Also, too many of them become easily offended if we appear to ridicule them.

Wait, I thought we were talking about atheists, not theists. But yes, you're right, a lot of theists take offense to any criticisms of their beliefs.

Nor can they even agree how anything even occurred, since the evidence is so sketchy. I like what agnostic Dr. David Berlinski said of that. > > The fundamental core of Darwinian doctrine, the philosopher Daniel Dennett has buoyantly affirmed, "is no longer in dispute among scientists." Such is the party line, useful on those occasions when biologists must present a single face to their public. But it was to the dead that Darwin pointed for confirmation of his theory; the fact that paleontology does not entirely support his doctrine has been a secret of long standing among paleontologists. "The known fossil record," Steven Stanley observes, "fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition and hence offers no evidence that the gradualistic model can be valid."
Small wonder, then, that when the spotlight of publicity is dimmed, evolutionary biologists evince a feral streak, Stephen Jay Gould, Niles Eldredge, Richard Dawkins, and John Maynard Smith abusing one another roundly like wrestlers grappling in the dark.

Maybe get back to us when you have something from a legitimate source. The evidence for evolution is not at all sketchy. It is very solid and long-standing. But I realize this is all going over your head.

viole · Mar 1, 2017

Valerian said:
I really tire of “scientific frivolity.” Ok, so polar bears did not come from rocks. Good. Then do me a favor and go to Ancestry.com and trace back their lineage. After all, evolution says we all came from some primordial soup. They also claim some way some how DNA formed. Without any intelligent designer, too, mind you. Something about proteins and amino acids, too, I guess?

So somewhere “back there” a polar bear was not a polar bear was it? If we follow the family tree back hundreds of millions of years or further was did his great, great grand pappy look like? Was he a clam or a mouse? Was he a water beetle or a fire fly? And before that was he carbon or rocks or primordial soup? That is your contention whether you will admit to it or not.

IOW, your entertaining us by pointing out my naiveté is really just another way to skirt the salient point.

Ok, seriously.

What you call frivolity is orthodox science. And evolution is not concerned with the origin of life. In the same way astronomers , or astrophysicists studying stellar evolution, are not concerned with the origin of the Universe.

Truth is: we have no clue how life originated. But we know how it developed under the assumption of having started, somehow.

So, if you want to attack evolution, do not call out our ignorance about the origin of life. You would make a category error by doing that. And using analogies like polar bears coming from stones would only embarass yourself.

In any case your whole point is moot. Many theistic scientists accept the theory of evolution by natural selection. And I know atheists who have problems to swallow that us and bananas have a common ancestor.

So, your attack is a scientific attack. Not necessarily a metaphysical one.

Ciao

- viole

Curious George · Mar 1, 2017

9-10ths_Penguin said:
Not true... or at least, you're missing some of the nuance.

The skeptic position isn't to assume that a claim is false until proven; it's to not assume it to be true until evidence is presented, and then apportion your beliefs to the evidence.

The skeptic position does have a middle option, because it's dealing with knowledge, not necessarily the actual state of things:

1) I have reason to believe that claim X is true.
2) I don't have reason to believe that claim X is true, or that claim X is false.
3) I have reason to believe that claim X is false.

The question is how we should treat claims that fall into category 2. A bit of thought will let you realize that category 2 contains at least some things that can't be true (since mutually exclusive claims can be in category 2 simultaneously). We can also recognize that the things in category 2 aren't influencing anything we have observed in any perceptible way (since if they were influencing things in a perceptible way, this would be evidence that would push them into category 1).

This means that category 2 is made up of:
- things that don't exist, and
- things that we can't tell exist.

There are some cases where it's prudent to guard against some uncertain outcome (for instance, I have a smoke detector even though I have no evidence that my house specifically will be on fire in the foreseeable future), but in general, if we don't even have evidence that an outcome is possible, let alone likely, the appropriate behaviour toward it looks a lot like our behaviour toward things that don't exist.

Given only a binary truth value system one must assume it as false or true. That is 1 or 0. No ?s allowed.

9-10ths_Penguin · Mar 1, 2017

Curious George said:
Given only a binary truth value system one must assume it as false or true. That is 1 or 0. No ?s allowed.

The existence of the thing itself is a binary matter.

Our position on the existence of the thing can be one of three states:

- I assert that the thing exists
- I assert that the thing does not exist, or
- I make no assertions about the existence or non-existence of the thing.

Revoltingest · Mar 1, 2017

Guy Threepwood said:
okay, I'm the croupier and based on that I'm placing 510 million on 'what' and 490 million on 'who' for you- are you happy with that, or would you like to change before I call no more bets?

To bet with unknown odds means an arbitrary choice.
Clearly, there's only one way to proceed.....
I need a floozy in an evening gown at my side to pick for me.

Kilgore Trout · Mar 1, 2017

viole said:
Oh, so it contans an odd number of things. Namely one OP.

Ciao

- viole

It contains nothing worth seeing. Let me know if you need further clarification.

BilliardsBall · Mar 1, 2017

Revoltingest said:
And we like you too!

The difference, of course, being that I LOVE you. I would step in front of a car for you to trust Christ, you wouldn't give me a cold glass of water if I was drowning!

Guy Threepwood · Mar 1, 2017

Revoltingest said:
To bet with unknown odds means an arbitrary choice.
Clearly, there's only one way to proceed.....
I need a floozy in an evening gown at my side to pick for me.

Well if you're down to 50/50 now at least I have you coming around!

But since God frowns on floozies and gambling, maybe we are better to abstain after all...

viole · Mar 1, 2017

Kilgore Trout said:
It contains nothing worth seeing. Let me know if you need further clarification.

Oh ok. Poor OP. That is hard.

Ciao

- viole

9-10ths_Penguin · Mar 1, 2017

BilliardsBall said:
The difference, of course, being that I LOVE you. I would step in front of a car for you to trust Christ, you wouldn't give me a cold glass of water if I was drowning!

Seeing how being killed for Revoltingest means - according to your beliefs - trading this life for one in paradise, it doesn't really strike me as a sacrifice.

viole · Mar 1, 2017

BilliardsBall said:
The difference, of course, being that I LOVE you. I would step in front of a car for you to trust Christ, you wouldn't give me a cold glass of water if I was drowning!

Big deal. Everybody loves me.

Ciao

- viole

1137 · Mar 1, 2017

Iti oj said:
There's nothing here to twist or argue against. My original response is the end of it. What box, bad analogy.

It's atheists who came up with an make the argument

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