There is no way to do that. It is impossible.
The most we can say is that if there has been intervention then the effects of that intervention look identical to the effects of random chance.
How can we then claim that evolution is more likely/reasonable than a theistic alternative?
Under-population? Which countries? The UK feels pretty overpopulated to me.
Exactly so letting homosexuals marry is a sure fire way to save society as we know it. More people having sex within marriage.
If you guys don't like having political propaganda forced down your throats then why not just watch BBC News which takes a neutral approach to reporting. Of course it seems weird that anybody would accept any other sort of approach but there we go. Why would you want a right-wing or progressive...
If we give people concessions then should we allow people who are afflicted with dwarfism to drive forklifts? Is it a violation of their rights if we don't hire them because they are physically unable to operate the machines or should every employer be forced to purchase specially built...
And yet the law does not deem this to be a danger because you cannot get a fine if you don't speak English and are not a commercial driver.
My question is why a commercial driver has greater need to communicate with the police than normal drivers? If there is no difference then a person should...
There are differences between a carrot, Fido the dog and Bob the person which are sufficiently significant when it comes to deciding who should be allowed to drive on the road. There is no "licences for vegetables" movement because everybody is able to recognise that these differences are...
An act of God.
I disagree for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I think that "determined to be true" is too vague. When is something determined to be true? It can't be when you have accepted its truth because then "We believe in things because they are determined true" is the same as saying "We...
Well there must be some extra process that happens after or as we die that actually takes us to the afterlife and that seems to be unnatural since every single bit of us that is naturally identifiable clearly stays here on earth regardless of whether we are alive or dead. The bit that leaves is...
Are you familiar with NOLA? The claim is made that God is detectable but not by science very commonly. If that is the case then the logical contradiction is closer than that highlighted by this thread.
Assuming that there is an afterlife, a heaven and a hell, is it possible to get there if we were sufficiently advanced? Could we build a rocket, go through a portal and end up in heaven? What would the implications be if we could move between life and the afterlife in this way?
If not, where...
I completely agree and yet it is a very commonly deployed argument and therefore requiring of consideration.
That is also a very interesting question. Of course many people claim to have detected God. Another question, given this fact, would be why has science not detected God?
I fully agree with you, kmkemp. That is a very bad assumption to make. However, I disagree that I am the one making it. It is the theist who employs the very argument of which this thread is critical who has made that mistake. The conversation has gone like this:
Atheist: Why have we not...
When something is outside of something else, in the sense that is meant in this thread, then it is undetectable from the inside. If we cannot detect God because he is outside of the universe then this implies that God cannot affect the universe.
On the other hand, we can detect the programmer...
Neither the panentheistic God nor the infinite God is outside of the universe and the Christian God is not panentheistic.
That is true but I'm fairly sure that plenty of the people who invoke it won't recognize it as empirically verified or scientific. Recognising it has basis outside of...
Fully agree but I think you can go further.
If God (meaning God and all of its potentially observable effects) are sealed off from the universe, there can be literally no justification for belief in God because there can never be any connection between a person's belief and reality. Such a...
Is it possible for this thread to trigger the atheist to grasp what they previously did not grasp? In what way can this expand the atheist's conciousness?
It is true that I don't grasp the meaning of the OP. However, that doesn't tell me that there is anything there to grasp. I'm left with no...