MAGIC =)

by Anonymous 13 years ago

God. Very rarely do I see people make positive arguments against the existence of God, but they still assert that He does not exist.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

That works both ways. You can't give me an argument that proves he DOES exist either. Please don't tell me why you think he exists, I'm just letting you know that it's not a one sided argument.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

If you don't believe in something, that makes it nonexistent for you.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I don't think you're understanding my point. I'm simply saying that people who claim to be an atheist because they have not seen enough evidence to convince them of a God should instead be agnostics....

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Being agnostic is being skeptical. Being an atheist is believing outright that there's no god. You could be either under your scenario of not having enough evidence. If they're not convinced of there being a god, they're atheist. If they're not really leaning one way or the other, they're agnostic.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

By agnostic, I mean those who are unsure about the existence of God, and make no claims either way. Let me use a metaphor: Let's say Bob has $1000 in the bank. Bob's buddy, Steve, is trying to convince him to put his money in the stock market, because the stock market is going up. Steve then proceeds to give several (in Bob's view) weak arguments saying that the stock market is going up. However weak Steve's arguments may have been, it does not necessarily follow that the stock market is going down.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

"What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof." -Christopher Hitchens

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I disagree. There is no proof of aliens. But at the same time, there is no proof that there are no aliens. Thus, most people are "agnostics" when it comes to aliens.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

What does that have to do with anything? The point of the quote is that the burden of proof is on the person who believes in the affirmative. If you think there's a God, then it is up to you to prove it, not up to an atheist to disprove it. If I think aliens are real and you don't, then it is my job to gather evidence for it, not to make you prove me wrong. This is because if something is real, it follows that there should be proof of it's existence. However, if something is not real, then there won't be any evidence, but it is impossible to disprove it entirely. There isn't any proof of God, so I can dismiss the idea until some is found. As another famous quote goes, "The invisible and the nonexistant look very much alike."

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yes, but if I have no evidence to support the claim "Aliens do not exist," then I cannot assert that there are no aliens.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

People assert that magic and monsters and the like don't exist all the time. Because they can't be proven wrong, we operate under the assumption that they are right until we have proof in favor of existence. As I said above, the logic is that if it exists, it should leave behind evidence. As time marches on without a speck of proof even while methods to find that proof become more efficient, the likelyhood of existence decreaces. All of this ties in with God. Without proof in favor of His existence, the idea is dismissed without proof because it is impossible to prove that something doesn't exist. Until evidence turns up in His favor, it is assumed that He doesn't exist, just as it would be for any other idea.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

That is a bit of a straw man. If monsters existed, we should be seeing monsters. If magic exists, we should be seeing people use it. But if God exists, what do you propose we should be seeing? God, by His very nature, stays somewhat mysterious. There is a lot of evidence for God, but we can never have actual proof until we die. Atheists claim that there is no proof for the afterlife. Well the only proof that could be presented for that is somebody dying, coming back to life, and telling us about it. Anytime somebody claims that happened to them, atheists dismiss them as crazy. So I cannot imagine the type of proof they demand.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

How about he does a big modern day miracle like he used to do in the middle east thousands of years ago? Why not cure cancer and make a tattoo of a cross appear on all the victims or make it rain Bibles or send a prophet that can do some magic tricks? It seems illogical that God would create a universe that runs on scientific laws, make humans naturally curious and then base our eternal salvation or damnation on whether or not on showing blind faith to something without physical evidence.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Then what do you propose God's standard for getting into Heaven should be? All he asks is that you take a little leap of faith and believe in him. Do you think he should judge us based on our behavior? Because I can assure you, nobody would be living it up in Heaven right now were that the case.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Why would a qualification to get into heaven be to believe in something without proof? I can't think of any rationale for a God to encourage that characteristic. If God is real, why wouldn't he just give the world some irrefutable proof of his existence? Why would he ever even have allowed the situation to deteriorate to the point where billions of humans have doubts about his existence? It's perfectly in his power to to convince everyone of his existence whenever he want's, and yet he chooses not to.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Around 14 billion years ago, matter, space, energy, and time spontaneously formed ex nihilo, or from nothing. That's a pretty good sign, I'd say.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

So you're saying that the fact that the universe is extant is a sign from God? That's a shaky premise if I've ever heard one, and hardly the kind of irrefutable proof I was talking about. But all of this is getting away from what you were saying in the beginning. You said "Very rarely do I see people make positive arguments against the existence of God". My point was simply that it is impossible to disprove the existence of God, so therefore it is up for believers to find some proof that he does. I've never heard of any such proof, and no one has ever adequately explained why God would create the universe and give no sign that he did it. Another quote: "Blind faith is an ironic gift to return to the Creator of human intelligence. – Anonymous"

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Well that was a massive misrepresentation of my argument. I said that the universe popped into existence out of nothing. Everything which begins to exist has a cause, and the universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause. Since the Big Bang marked the beginning of time and space, the cause would have to be spaceless and timeless, namely God. Well if you can't prove or argue that there is no God, then how can you assert that there is no God? You would have to be an agnostic, because you have no way of arguing against His existence.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Judging by what you've said, you've made a common mistake about the meaning of agnosticism. I think this video does a good job of explaining it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkEJtQJ5tz4. I'm guessing that you would fall into the category of Theist-Agnostic. I can assert that he doesn't exist based on lack of evidence that should be easily discoverable, the logical paradoxes that a God makes, and the fact that science can explain how the universe works without once using the word "God". And I'm sorry to keep using the quotes, but they address what you say in a more succinct way than I ever could. "A believer states everything must have a creator but fails to say how he was created - Anonymous." There are currently many competing hypotheses of the cause of the big bang, most of which involve other universes, which would logically be outside of our space and time. It is difficult to gather evidence for this kind of thing and science has just only dipped it's toe in the water, so it's going to be awhile before anything conclusive is known.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

That is absolutely ridiculous. By that logic, you can't claim to be religious.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

How do you figure?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Well if you can't prove or argue that there is no God, then how can you assert that there is no God? Well, what can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. You shouldn't ask Breakfastfan to conjure up hard evidence to dismiss your claim of God, if your claim didn't have any hard evidence to begin with.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Aliens. Some people don't think they're out there. I however, do. Neither, though, are really right since it hasn't been proven, so I won't make a big deal out of it.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Holy...f*ck...over thinking...mind...exploding.....

by Anonymous 12 years ago