Oops... must have touched some button....
Oh, and please do not commit the intellectually lazy act of thinking not believing in god means those who don't feel or are hopeless. Pascal's wager is just a sad way of
No one has anwered my question: (first define hope-less-ness)... the claim again was: If you are an atheist... what is your hope? If there is one, then I was mistaken in implying that there was not. Pascal's wager was limited to the contrast of Catholisim against atheistic viewpoint.... It was limited as an argument to any conclusion outside those parameters.
Nope, most don;t ask that. However a common question posed is "if there is a god why is there no evidence for god exisitng, and why is there always a perfectly satisfacoty (or at least as satisfactory) naturalistic explanation for all the things some people claim god did"?
A perfectly satisfactory answer implies an arrogance on the part of a proponent of a particular viewpoint... Are you saying that there is no debate between persons with far more knowledge than us on these "Facts"? The history of man is full of examples of believers in unknown (unseen) things... As a society, we celebrate the hopeful and vilify the skeptics as fools but only after the luxury of their discoveries have been "verified" by our standards. When we are in the "proving" stage how certain can we be. Example: Is there life on other planets....
Please do not restrict your rhetorical questions put on behalf of atheists to ones you find easy to answer.
Example?
Why on Earth do you think this is an argument? You presuuppose there IS an existence beyond this life. There is no proof of this. Why should someone not being able to demonstrate a hope for an unprovable and probably (as with other unprovable things) non-existent life after death be considered anything other than rational?
Same question/statement as above.....
But it is an egg you cannot prove you found. You can't exactly show it to anyone, can you? Even if they examine your path and look for evidence that would be classified in a court of law as 'beyond resonable doubt' or accepted in a peer-reviewed science journal, they will see no indication the egg exists outside of your mind .
I broke the egg to open it.... All I can show you is what was inside... If you really want to see, c'mon over.
And others say THEY have the ONLY egg and that YOU LIE, and that their egg will destroy all those that don't believe in it!!!!
Wow.. those people have some pissed off eggs! Glad I didn't get one of those! .... Oh wait, I do remember getting one of those eggs, lot's of people did, but I threw mine back.
There's a point? BAD analogy. Anyone anywhere can repeat the UV experiment and get the same results. Not so with testing god. There ARE results. If you replace sunlight with a duck or darkness, you get no reaction. Things seem to happen pretty much without god. You are asserting that the 'results' come from god, but why should we believe you? Why, the results you credit to god could come from my hairy arse or the almighty cosmic duck, or just be that way as that's the way the Big Banged (like 'cookie crumbled' but, like, really big)
I don't think I'm gonna try and use any more analogies here.
The point was not about testing God by scientific methods that are developed by our "Amazingly Vast Intellect" It was a statement about the openmindedness of people have haven't been handed the results of years of research.... Again: Do YOU beleive in life on other planets? (NOTE to READER--- This Question is NOT about life on other planets.. It's about YOU!!!)
The only person who seems to think their knowledge is unbounded is you. No one else is saying 'we' know everything. We are simply saying you nor anyone else has proof of god sufficient to pass the 'beyond reasonable doubt' test or peer review. In the absense of such proof you choose to believe. We don't. Get over it and please put your overweening superiority complex to one side until it fits you.
Smarter than you... who know's? More open-minded than you... who knows? More gullible than you... who knows? Maybe we'll get some answers if we keep looking.
You've implied that you are more knowledgable about theories of evolution.... you're probably right, it is not really a subject that fascinates me.
If I have implied that I know more about God than you.... maybe that is a fair statement too?
Why are you so sure you are not mentally ill? Hell, I've lost count of the number of god-whispers and Jesus we get through here. Some Islamic terrorists would describe a personal religious experience not unlike yours that lead them to kill people. There is NOTHING to differentiate the validity of your claims from theirs.
I'm not ruling anything out... I'm just looking at the results of this current "condition"... fortunately, there have been no signs of destructive behaviour.
Please, don't assume we haven't thought about this topic at great length and discussed it eventually. It's very arrogant to assume you are claiming ANYTHING new that someone hasn't claimed before, and that by the use of hacknied and unoriginal arguments we're suddenly going to say "gosh, there must be a god after all".
Perhaps... Just perhaps... This isn't about you! The first line of this thread was directed elswhere.. the statements that I've made since have been in response to someone else's questions. I hope i haven't ignored any of yours.
If none of the non-evidental arguments for god haven't worked in the past they won't work now just because it is YOU typing them.
You're probably right.....
