Yawn, it’s tone policing time again.
What part of “assertions are a free fire zone for whatever language the critic thereof chooses as being useful in exposing the absurdity or iniquity of said assertions” did you fail to learn in classes on basic discourse?
Well, you’ve got it wrong. You’re obviously no Sherlock. Your quote above, were it to be accurate, would read, “A theist asserts that god/s exist. Since the theist can / will not fully describe their god/s, I have no way to know what they are talking about. Therefore, I withhold belief in their assertion.”
Whatever it is, it won’t be something that you cannot demonstrate any objective evidence for.
One assumes I can use the same method as you do, for all the deities you disbelieve exist? When you eventually share that method of course, you seem keen to ignore my request to share it, quelle surprise.
The extraordinary success of that method in helping us understand reality is manifest. it is by far our best method.
This is an Argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy of course, but that aside you need to objectively define this deity, and demonstrate such a deity exists or is even possible before I would believe that risible claim.
One could say precisely that for all the deities don’t believe exist, hell one could say it for mermaids and unicorns. It is a meaningless assertion, present the best you have.
Obviously because the magic you believe exists has no explanatory powers, it is an appeal to mystery. If the natural and scientific laws can be set aside by such inexplicable magic they obviously become meaningless.
The laws wer ecreated by humans they are descriptive, and what they describe exists. Now back on your merry-go-round we go, where you use an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy to insist that not knowing how those phenomena came to exist means an unevidenced deity using inexplicable magic might had done it all, and I remain dubious as you HAVE DEMONSTRATED NO OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE A DEITY EXISTS OR IS EVEN POSSIBLE.
Firstly you don’t know it can’t possibly be explained, that is an unevidenced assumption, secondly you are piling such assumptions up in tandem because you started with a belief you want to assign to these gaps in our knowledge. Lastly asserting a belief has merit, simply because we lack an alternative is irrational, as it is again the very definition of an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.
Indeed, he is waving an empty bag around and shouting that there might be something in it, and that without looking in we have no right to doubt his claim, which is palpably wrong. We can’t rationally claim it is empty, but nor can he rationally claim it isn;t just because we don’t know, so we have a rational justification to withhold belief from his claim.
Thank you, it’s a straw man he created and has run with. he must think we won’t notice.
Precisely. he will never admit this as his mind is closed.
Welcome to my world, I feel your pain.
Do you generally believe claims before someone has defined the claim, what a spectacularly stupid assertion.
I’m guessing at this point he could care less, remember you brought your snake oil here to sell to us. When you leave with us unconvinced you will inevitably and falsely try to pretend we are to blame, but your closed minded bias, irrational arguments and undefined and unevidenced supersiton will be here in print for anyone who wishes to see.
You don’t get to decide that, this is a public debate forum, and claims must be supported. Though I’m sure by now we all see how desperate you are to ringfence your own supersiton from proper scrutiny with your dishonest and irrational attempts to ignore the burden of proof your claims involve.
What’s funny is you imagine one starts from a position of belief in an undefined and unevidenced concept. now that really is hilarious. I can’t believe in something you can’t even define, how do I even know it’s a deity? I can only say I have seen no objective evidence and no rational argument for any deity, and this includes your endlessly and tedious irrational spiel. I could care less how someone as closed minded as you feels about that.
That’s really not true. That’s the Flewsian definition of “atheism”. There are atheists who disapprove of that definition, atheists who argue that there is no God. There are several definitions of “atheist” in the literature and historically it means the belief that God does not exist.
I know, but some do claim they have never seen evidence for God yet at the same time admit they have no idea what would characterize such evidence (one person however did - admirably - say what would characterize it).
How can one argue that it is logical to say “I cannot see any examples of X and I do not know what X looks like”?
We need no alternatives so why would you expect me to provide alternatives? It is logic and reason that leads to the view God exists because there are questions about the natural world that cannot be answered by recourse to that natural world, they can only be answered by postulating something not naturalistic.
I said I don’t know what your X is! Let me know, are you refusing to fully describe your god/s to me so that I might be able to address the complaint you have that I am unable to say what might evidence it?
That’s not us, go find those guys… You are straw manning; you cannot tell me what I believe. I know many atheists, none of them make that claim. Some do, but once again, not us.
Here is another definition, bigotry: “obstinate or unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion, or faction, in particular prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group”
You came here to educate what you perceived as being the “dumb” atheists. You instead have shown your own ignorance and biases with using logical fallacies to justify your beliefs to a group of people you believe are inferior to you.
I don’t know what you don’t understand about this. I have never seen evidence for purple, invisible elephants and I don’t know what the evidence would look like. So I lack belief in purple, invisible elephants. What is wrong with this logic? What am I missing here?
False.
Major Premise: The natural world exists.
Minor Premise: There are things about the natural world we don’t understand.
Conclusion: Therefore, god exists.
This is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, you are assuming the source and committing a logical fallacy, not using logic. You are at ignorance claiming to be at knowledge. Just because we know the universe exists, doesn’t mean something externally exists to that. Another problem is that this becomes an infinite regress. Who created god? Who created that god? The fact is that we don’t know. If something is complex and something even more complex created that, why does that just get to have always existed? That’s not logical. You choose to pick god for the stopping place (faith). The fact is you don’t know just like the rest of us. We don’t believe in things that can be easily made up and can’t be known.
You are basically trying to say that god exists and we need no evidence for it (FAITH). At least some of the religious people you made fun of above know they are using faith. You are using it and thinking you are using logic.
What’s wrong? You’ve identified what would characterize the evidence, it must be a) purple and b) invisible and c) an elephant. If some experiment revealed the presence of it you’d no longer lack belief.
Very well so what do you define “God” to mean when you say “I’ve never seen evidence for God”?
If you truly have no definition then all atheism amounts to is the world shattering statement “I do not hold a belief in something for which I have no definition”. with no specificity to “God” at all.
Do you have such evidence for god?
I really want to ask you just one question but I’ll do it in appropriate thread.
However regarding this subject, it wasn’t anyone of us or anyone alive today that created these expectations for god figure.
It has already been described, and unfortunately for theists ,it has been described as impossible being/thing.
Once again, YOU are the one asserting that your cartoon magic man exists, therefore YOU are required to support this assertion, and with substance instead of duplicitous ex recto apologetic fabrications.
I’ve already covered in detail the steps that are needed to establish that any god type entity in the most general sense exists. Failure to complete those steps means that assertions about any god type entity are safely discardable, in accordance with the rules of proper discourse.
Though we can safely dismiss any asserted candidate for the “god role” that is asserted to possess contradictory or absurd properties. Which is the case for every “god candidate” asserted to exist in pre-scientific mythologies.
Once again, you don’t even understand the most elementary concepts applicable here.
Do you not get it or are you obfuscating?
I will iterate: tell me what you mean by god and only then will I be able to begin determining if I’ve encountered evidence for it.
I can and do say I withhold belief in something that has no definition. That doesn’t seem mystifying.
Again, you say god/s exist, I ask what you mean by god/s. For all I know, your god could very well be something similar to fuzzy pink slippers. I have no clue! And that is because you offer none. The onus is on you, not me.
If you continue to insist that I provision the description of your god/s then I will likely conclude you are, in fact, merely a troll.
Those would still lack belief in any deity or deities, so that definition not only reflects common usage it would include all atheists who lack that belief, which of course includes those who also make a contrary claim. Defining atheism by the claims of “some atheists” would exclude many atheists from the definition of atheism, I invite you to see how that would be pointlessly idiotic. Though we can see by now why you’re keen to misrepresent atheism in this vein.
Then why try to deny a definition of atheism that not only reflects common usage, but that would also include every atheist, for one a definition that would exclude many atheists? As if we don’t know by now.
We all start from a position of lacking beliefs, we don’t believe things until we can be sure they’re untrue, that is palpably absurd and demonstrably irrational. I note yet again, you don’t believe in literally the thousands of deities I don’t bar one, one wonders what you are basing that disbelief on, and why you don’t share it, though of course as I say it, I realise there is an obvious reason, and I am not really wondering anymore.
Ask someone who says that, no one here has said that. You are mischaracterising atheism again, which is the lack or absence of belief in any deity or deities, it is not a claim no deity exists. Though an atheist can make this claim of course, take that up with them, and stop lying that this reflects what atheism is.
I see nothing in there that voiced any expectation of any kind. This what we mean when you say your posts are relentlessly dishonest, and you cried like a baby when you falsely accused @CyberLN of paraphrasing you by the way.
if that were true, why are your arguments for a deity relentlessly irrational, and littered with known logical fallacies, even this where you tried to again to use an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, by misrepresenting disbelief and lack of belief as a positive claim.
There it is, and atheism only needs a dictionary of course, but a more accurate analogy would be, you can’t tell me what x looks like, so I can’t believe your claim x exists.
Oh the irony, an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy…tell us again how reason and logic resulted in you repeating a known common logical fallacy? Fucking hilarious fair play.
No no no no, you have to believe it until you can accurately define what it is, even though is his belief not yours, and he refuses to define it.
Has anyone seen a unicorn? I do hope no one is going to claim they don’t believe they exist?
Oh the irony…
Any concept of any deity ever offered as a belief, if it is a concept I am unaware of then obviously i can’t rationally hold a belief it has objective reality, also if the person peddling any particular superstition can’t themselves define what they believe, then obviously I cannot rationally believe their claim it has objective reality.
Are you saying you hold beliefs that things are extant, that you have no definition of, seriously? You’re getting funnier and funnier fair play.
Correct, unless you think “I hold a belief in something for which I have no definition” is a sensible assertion, I would also be agnostic of course, I explained this months ago, my atheism is the absence of belief, and where the concept is unfalsifiable and I can know nothing about its nature or existence I am also an agnostic.
Unless I know what it is you seek how can I provide it? How can I be assured that you do not simply intend to reject all that is shown to you? How can I expect you to acknowledge evidence under these circumstances?
What does that mean? what evidence is there for this vacuous claim? It is absurd, if one has no beliefs then one cannot establish premises and one cannot reason in any way at all. Please explain how your first belief arose, did you have any premises? if not then how can one reason about it?
Define belief for me, as you use the term.
I have asked for months, any objective evidence you think supports your deity exists outside of your imagination, failing that the most compelling reason you think you have.
By the way I defined it, correct. But why would I believe it, if I have no experiment that has proved it? Lack of belief is only logical. You basically proved my point for me. I have no problem accepting a god could exist. I have a problem when people say that it definitely does exist since, not in your case, but others would say that it wants us to do things for that god.
As far as characterization for god is concerned, it would be vague at best. Other measurements would be needed to quantify better. Anything else is just guessing. There is no reason for me to assume a invisible, purple elephant exists.
You are ignoring the logical fallacy you have given me and still not provided any proof or good logic for your claim.
Sorta like saying one can’t point to evidence for an assertion which offers no details…
This is a really terrible argument on his part. I know something exists, but I can’t tell you anything about it.
Which word is tripping you up?
it’s in the dictionary.