Ask an Atheist

Diagoras wrote: If you looked up the definition of atheist, you would see that it's a negative philosophy. Burden of proof rests on you (if we are operating within the scientific framework).

 

lol...BS This is the lamest deflection if i have ever read one. Really. Atheism is not necessarily scientific. You have yet to argue for atheism, and you are now engaging in circular reasoning. You can assert all you want about atheism, but it is all just empty claims until you have the intellectual fortitude to argue your claims. What is shocking is that there are people who are trying to pass this tired, rhetorical trick off as a real argument.

If Atheism is necessarily a negative philosophy (which you have not addressed), then why does this mean that it is necessarily true? The art of your position is simply to assert you have nothing to argue because you simply do not have to, and play the skeptical card with the position of theists,  and then claim QED, your belief is now true. Simply juvenile.

diagoros wrote: I asked you this before and your only reply was one that attempted to hide behind a techincal point. You mean scientific methodology? Yeah, that's a technical point.

 

proof by assertion is not proof..only more of your sophomoric claims.

keep in mind, you have not argued a single point as to why atheism is true. you simply keep rattling off the tired mantra of theism has to be false therefore atheism is true.

you truly break all bounds of poor sophistry.

 

diagoras wrote: If you continue to run this thread in circles with your tired sophistry, then I will be forced to close it. It'd be nice if you provided specific examples of my sophistry. Otherwise it appears that your major issue is that I disagree with you.

 

The entire foundation of your thesis at the forum. The one you continue to dodge with ��but I am really this other kind of atheist, not that other kind��, and �but atheism is a negative philosophy, so I have nothing to prove�. Sophistry

 

diagoros wrote: Please argue your claims. See, if you had been paying attention to this thread you would have noticed that you are the one making the claim and I am the one expressing skepticism.

Ha! Now atheism is not a claim. So, atheism is necessarily a scientific fact that is negative without anything to prove because theism must be false because it does not stand up to skepticism? Either you are obtuse, or you think we are all truly fools.

 

diagoras wrote: Your tired attempt to assert that your position (which you alter here and there as a way to back out of actually having to present a case for your beliefs) is true because thiesm is false is erroneous. Reread my posts, understand the difference between positive and negative ideas, understand burden of proof, then get back to me. I apologize to everyone about the tone I used in this post but when an individual blatantly ignores my earlier points to accuse me of intellectual dishonesty I get angry.

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It is not a matter of what I understand with matters of fact, it is the impossibility to understand your matters of rubbish. Atheism is a claim about a belief, and with a claim a belief, needs proof. I have read what you wrote, the problem is that what you wrote is genuine rubbish.

 

The strength of science is that experiments can be reproduced.

I agree.

But how would the cell infect the body? Isn't AIDS clearly viral?

As you may know, AIDS is the symptomatic result of the human's immune system being compromised. My point in my previous post was to show that if scientist put out a blueprint of the HIV virus  and how it affects the body even with such a clear explanation I may conclude that HIV (or AIDS) is not caused by how the scientist explains I may conclude that perhaps there is some chemical reaction between exchanging bodily fluids and/using drugs intravenously. What I'm trying to say is that there may be a lurking variable that may cause AIDS even with so-called scientific evidence.

 

I did not expect you to respond, since you have shown me that you are unable to actually debate your ideas, you simply cut and paste and hide behind links. You are an intellectual coward.

You're either joking or a troll. I can't believe people like this actually exist, but I unfortunately have evidence of them shoved before my eyes. Now if only you could do the same with God.

Your attempts to obfuscate the matter is clear when you claim that you can shrug all responsiblity for your belief by hiding behind the claim of weak atheism.

You still have clearly not read about burden of proof, or you didn't understand it, or you did understand it but just love being a troll. I am not making a claim, I am expressing skepticism towards the claim that you make.

The claim that a universal negative statement cannot be proven is absolute nonsense that is the intellectual cowards cry for being able to shirk any responsiblity for a belief.

It is your responsibility to prove a claim, it is not my responsibility to go checking under every rock in the Universe for your teapot. Read about burden of proof.

"There is no water composed of carbon dioxide". This is a universal negative statement that has a huge sample domain, yet we know this to be true based upon the attributes of water or its essential properties.

Correct, however, if you came up to me and announced that there was water composed of carbon dioxide, I would be within my rights to ask for proof. If your response was quoting a book written thousands of years ago and accusing me of hating these molecules, you might be able to understand my skepticism.

Also, the concept of God is not a naturalistic one, it has much more in common with the Invisible Pink Unicorn. How can I disprove a magical, all-powerful, invisible super-being capable of doing anything? That's the formula for the most stupendous goal post shifting known to man.

You can argue by contradiction, you can argue by demonstrating a fallacy such as "a married bachelor". The real issue of trying to claim that you cannot argue for a universal negative by appealing to "weak athiesm" is complete grabage and a charade to make claims without having any responsiblity for belief.

Reductio ad absurdum? How? God can do anything, and anything he does is his will!

As I said earlier, and as you continue to blatantly ignore, it's your job to show me evidence. Stop passing the buck, buckle down, and get to work.

your calim is no better than saying that you have "faith". If you believe in something but do not have any strong reason, then you are affirming faith.

It's not that I believe in something, it's that I don't believe in something.

Why don't you believe in magical, invisible leprechauns? You must have "faith" in the non-existence of leprechauns.

More demonstration of your completele lack of knoweldge of the topic.

There is nothing to answer, it is a juvenile jab thrown at thiests in the context of an analogy that is about the burden of proof. The analogy is great with regards to "burden of proof", but it makes an assumptions that begs the question: What god reason is there to believe that a teapot orbits the sun. If you change "teapot" and fill in something like, "scrap metal" or a piece of titanium, then the example begins to show its signs of weakness and we begin to see that it is simply s game that tries to assume that thiests are st**id. There is some reason to believe that a piece of metal orbits the sun. Or how about a rock? Afterall, most objects are generally found in a different orbit in the solar system, but there might be reasons to believe it. So when we start with an object that is so rediculously manufactured as to compare a belief in the God of the Quran and bible, not just any God, with something as impossible as a teapot, then the actual charade is exposed.

We have many examples of rocks orbiting the sun, and the idea is not that strange. However, orbital teapots are rare.

You're claiming that one should inherently accept the idea that a giant, magical, all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing superbeing made the Universe, then turned into a person and died to save us from his own wrath before rising as a zombie three days later and flying into heaven, and that he loves you very much but if you don't believe in him or believe the wrong version he'll throw you into a fiery place where you'll burn forever and ever?

I have a great problem with the willful ignorant.

And I have a great problem with those who are rude.

I have been arguing and discussing this entire thread with Israfil and, quite frankly, he knows a good deal more than me about this topic. Has he belittled me? Has he accused me of intellectual cowardice or insulted me? No, he's pointed out my errors and actually helped me understand my atheism better.

You, on the other hand, seem to be the kind of person that gets enjoyment out of insulting others. I may be wrong, I may have no idea what I'm talking about but that is no excuse to be rude, ever. You could've approached this matter rationally and kindly and pointed out my errors, instead you took the opportunity to break the civility we had in this thread so far. That is not a civilized way to discuss a matter.

If you want to approach this thread again in a polite manner, I am willing to wipe the slate clean. Maybe you were feeling angry, maybe you mistook ignorance for arrogance. But if you continue to needlessly belittle me then I'm done talking to you. There are many ways to argue your position without being needlessly rude, I'm sure some members of this board could point them out to you.

I apologize to anyone else still reading this thread about the nasty back-and-forth it has devolved into, but I generally don't roll over when kicked. I intend to ignore Andalus until he figures out that people respond a lot better to respect and mutual consideration then random insults.


Edited by Diagoras

Diagoras wrote: I did not expect you to respond, since you have shown me that you are unable to actually debate your ideas, you simply cut and paste and hide behind links. You are an intellectual coward. You're either joking or a troll. I can't believe people like this actually exist, but I unfortunately have evidence of them shoved before my eyes. Now if only you could do the same with God.

incoherent rubbish. I wish you would spend half as much time on arguing your claims as you do with such juvenile "tit for tat".

 

 

Your attempts to obfuscate the matter is clear when you claim that you can shrug all responsiblity for your belief by hiding behind the claim of weak atheism. You still have clearly not read about burden of proof, or you didn't understand it, or you did understand it but just love being a troll. I am not making a claim, I am expressing skepticism towards the claim that you make.

 

Ah! And you again repeatyou mantra when faced with the delima of actually arguing your beliefs. "you just do not understand"....."you should study burden of proof"....

You should take a basic course in critical thinking, that way you could do more than make claims and then assert that you can just "shirk" any responsibility to back your claims, with nothing more than cheap "handwaving".

 

Playing the skeptic card is easy. It is a fools play and one can use the skeptical card to place doubt on just about anything. You are doing more and making the bold claim as an athiest that "god does not exist", but you want to try and hide behind loopholes and ficitonal technicalities to shrug off any responsibility.

 

The claim that a universal negative statement cannot be proven is absolute nonsense that is the intellectual cowards cry for being able to shirk any responsiblity for a belief. It is your responsibility to prove a claim, it is not my responsibility to go checking under every rock in the Universe for your teapot. Read about burden of proof.

You are then ignorant of thiestic arguments for a particualr God? Not acepting the evidence is not the same as not being any evidence.

You do not have to check under every rock in the universe. A universal negative claim can be argued. You are playing a charade and pretending that you do not have to. This is the latest gimmick of athiests. It is simply that, a gimmick. It does not hold water. Anyone who makes a clima must provide some kind of argument for that claim. Your rejection of any arguement, or any evidence, is not proof that no evidence exists.

It is not about looking under every rock in the universe, it is about your being intellectually lazy and not having the fortitude to argue.

 

 

"There is no water composed of carbon dioxide". This is a universal negative statement that has a huge sample domain, yet we know this to be true based upon the attributes of water or its essential properties. Correct, however, if you came up to me and announced that there was water composed of carbon dioxide, I would be within my rights to ask for proof. If your response was quoting a book written thousands of years ago and accusing me of hating these molecules, you might be able to understand my skepticism.

There is no however. I just gave you an example and you just tried to deflect. Nice. There is no water composed of carbon dioxide. That is a universal, negative claim that can be proven based upon essential elements of water and carbon dioxide. It is that simple. You are once again being dishonest.

 

Also, the concept of God is not a naturalistic one, it has much more in common with the Invisible Pink Unicorn. How can I disprove a magical, all-powerful, invisible super-being capable of doing anything? That's the formula for the most stupendous goal post shifting known to man.

Irrelevant garbage. No one is talking about unicorns. Instead of trying to dance your way out of a strong example of proving a universal negative claim, which I just gave you, you should at least have had the honesty to acknowledge it.

You can argue by contradiction, you can argue by demonstrating a fallacy such as "a married bachelor". The real issue of trying to claim that you cannot argue for a universal negative by appealing to "weak athiesm" is complete grabage and a charade to make claims without having any responsiblity for belief. Reductio ad absurdum? How? God can do anything, and anything he does is his will!

No one is talking about reductio absurdum, although some athiests have used that route. If you do not understand the various forms of argument, then at least have the courtesy of researching the topic. Your lack of interaction is a telling sign.

 

As I said earlier, and as you continue to blatantly ignore, it's your job to show me evidence. Stop passing the buck, buckle down, and get to work.

I have heard this mantra from you and have responded to it. If you wish to continue repeating this mantra, then that is your problem. Try dealing with the material intsead of going on with mantras.

 

your calim is no better than saying that you have "faith". If you believe in something but do not have any strong reason, then you are affirming faith. It's not that I believe in something, it's that I don't believe in something.

incoherent rubbish. You claim to be an athiest. I have already argued that your claim is the same as that of the "strong" athiest. You did not respond to it. You are once again repeating yourself. Your view makes a claim, it asserts a claim, it asserts a belief. If you have no real evidence or argument to support your belief, then you have faith.

It is that simple.

 

Why don't you believe in magical, invisible leprechauns? You must have "faith" in the non-existence of leprechauns.

false analogy. no one is talking about unicorns.

More demonstration of your completele lack of knoweldge of the topic. There is nothing to answer, it is a juvenile jab thrown at thiests in the context of an analogy that is about the burden of proof. The analogy is great with regards to "burden of proof", but it makes an assumptions that begs the question: What god reason is there to believe that a teapot orbits the sun. If you change "teapot" and fill in something like, "scrap metal" or a piece of titanium, then the example begins to show its signs of weakness and we begin to see that it is simply s game that tries to assume that thiests are st**id. There is some reason to believe that a piece of metal orbits the sun. Or how about a rock? Afterall, most objects are generally found in a different orbit in the solar system, but there might be reasons to believe it. So when we start with an object that is so rediculously manufactured as to compare a belief in the God of the Quran and bible, not just any God, with something as impossible as a teapot, then the actual charade is exposed. We have many examples of rocks orbiting the sun, and the idea is not that strange. However, orbital teapots are rare.

But it is not certain, and you are missing the point that as you input other objects into the analogy, one begins to see that the analogy is simply a jab at thiests, and it does not hold water because there is no good reason to believe that a tea pot orbits the sun.

You're claiming that one should inherently accept the idea that a giant, magical, all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing superbeing made the Universe, then turned into a person and died to save us from his own wrath before rising as a zombie three days later and flying into heaven, and that he loves you very much but if you don't believe in him or believe the wrong version he'll throw you into a fiery place where you'll burn forever and ever?

No, I am claiming that a particular God exists which gives us a more sane and raitonal approach to the workings of nature than the blind faith given to us by Richard Dawkins, which your apporach seems to closely mimick. (by the way, I am not a Christian).

I find it interesting that you cannot give me any good reason why athiesm is nessecarily true.

You simply repeat your mantra.

 

Edited by Andalus