so you are undecided on the existence of a god or higher being potentially having created and caused all these things to come into existence?
Theory is how something works. Law is that something works. Theories don't graduate to become laws. The theory of gravity is a theory, but an apple didn't suspend in mid air to see if it was accepted as a theory. That's because of the law of gravity. Both theories and laws can be disproven. If you could disprove a law you'd be pretty well known.
Gould said something along those lines.
I'm decided as to who did not create the universe: Bible God.
If you want to say it was the flying spaghetti monster, I've got no problem with it, just keep it out of the science books where evolution belongs.
You'd need to learn a lot of fundamental science and physics to be able to follow the reasoning. Proposing the BB isn't the same as proposing a god. The BB can be disproven by finding contradictory evidence. The god concept or "prime mover" concept fails the falsifiability test because it regresses back to the next unknown. Basically, the BB theory was proposed using evidence and scientific reasoning. The god concept was proposed without any evidence, so there is no framework in which to test the suggestion. No god can be seen "but maybe god doesn't want to be seen". No god responds when summoned "but god doesn't have to". Anything you can say about a god you can say about the flying spaghetti monster. The same is not true for scientific theories. They have a very specific set of rules they must abide by and when they do not, they are disregarded as scientific fact. They are still theories though, they were just disproven.
You don't raise a theory. You raise a hypothesis. You form a theory using a set of criteria and then you try everything to disprove it before anyone else does. A theory isn't a guess.
It's usually philosophers that would try to disprove a god by showing logical inconsistencies and fallacies in how the god concept came to be, and how the believer has painted themselves into an corner by making their god all things. When you have all things to work with, you can do a lot of disproving.fair enough
some arent. plenty are.
what evidence absolutely disproves such things?
again, fair enough. to each their own. i have my personal beliefs, but what doesnt make sense to me is when believers in science want to claim that since theres no factual proof of god, that means he absolutely cannot exist, but then want to tell everyone that its a fact that the universe was not created but came into existence out of thin air.
good for you
we can get as technical or philosophical as we want, it doesnt change the fact that there is no more absolute factual evidence that god doesnt exist than there is that god does exist
and you can split hairs all you want on exactly how theories are supposed to work, it doesnt chance the fact that (while maybe not yourself and some others) many people and scientists who don't believe in god present theories such as big bang, evolution, etc as absolute fact
Well, yes. Saves me time and money on Sunday mornings for one thing.
neat. whatever makes you happy
There's the FSM. Lol.
Absolutely. Now it would make me even happier if politicians kept Bible junk out of politics.neat. whatever makes you happy
lol politics
Well yeah, that's the forum we're in.
Lol c'mon man lighten up
not exactly sure what this means. there isn't a scientific way to disprove god. now... there are scientific ways to disprove some claims within the bible or religious texts (ie creation of man, great flood). that might be what you are referring to, but i question if these people are out there with a specific motivation to prove the bible wrong vs just wanting to actual answer questions within their fields.some arent. plenty are.
the notion that man was created in his current form independent of other animals is completely inconsistent with the fossil record or the genetic record. the fossil record allowed us to compare anatomies of different animals and even place them in a timeline, which allowed us to start tracking and categorizing the history of different species including our own.what evidence absolutely disproves such things?
what's crazy is that when this first started, people hadn't the slightest clue about DNA, genetics, or any kind of hereditary science. once we had the capacity to study those, the genetic record matched up with the fossil record pretty cleanly. this is inconsistent with the claim that all land animals came on one day and humans immediately thereafter, etc. nowhere on the planet will you find fossils of bunnies in the same geological stratum as that where we find dinosaurs.
its the same story with the ark... the record we have to actually look at doesnt line up. not to mention the lack of evidence of a concurrent global flood (some religious apologists now claim that it was more of a local/regional flood phenomenon, not a global one)... or how we find certain animals in certain continents, ie i doubt that noah carried all the kangaroos to australia, all the elephants to africa/india, and all the jaguars to central and south america
i agree, to each their own. i was probably more obnoxious during my early college days, but i dont go around yelling at people for believing things that i dont believe in. i only get flustered when people try to force their religion onto me (or the public) by trying to codify their religious tenets into law.again, fair enough. to each their own. i have my personal beliefs, but what doesnt make sense to me is when believers in science want to claim that since theres no factual proof of god, that means he absolutely cannot exist, but then want to tell everyone that its a fact that the universe was not created but came into existence out of thin air.
like... if a christian guy thinks that gay marriage is absolutely wrong, then in my book, he's free to live his way and refuse to marry a man, even if he was attracted to men and tempted to do so (though i'd pity him for opting for a less happy life in that situation)... but where i draw the line is that person trying to force his religious views onto other people that live in the same country. but if people want to have a discussion about it... i do enjoy doing that. argument/debate has always been a hobby of mine. but i dont typically do that unless there appears to be an invitation to. i dont go barging into a church to proselytize atheism
as for the bolded, i think that wouldn't be logically coherent. but at the same time, something i've seen is some people seem to have an inability to distinguish the following statements:
1) i dont believe in god
2) i believe god doesnt exist
i think #1 is a perfectly fine view, and its the one i hold... ie i havent seen satisfactory evidence to cause me to believe that a god exists, so i dont. but thats different from suggesting that i have proof that god doesnt exist.
it would be like asking you if believe that i have an even number of marbles in my pocket. you have no evidence to believe thats the case, so it would be perfectly appropriate to say that you dont believe me. but then if i turn around and say "oh so you're saying you think I have an odd number of marbles???"... then that wouldnt really be a fair assessment of your position either. ie saying that you dont believe there are an odd number of marbles isnt the same as saying that there definitely arent an odd number of marbles. just that you dont have the evidence to believe the former to be true
fossil record absolutely proves that all life evolved from some primordial soup or something? it absolutely proves that humans evolved from apes or whatever they want to claim these days? honest question.
tbqh the bible doesnt give a specific explanation of how long it took for creation to be done, or exactly how god did it. it could have taken thousands of years, as opposed to a literal earth day. so anyone who assumes that it was an instant creation, or happened within any specific amount of time is simply speculating. i personally wouldnt bother to guess, nor even care how long it would have taken, it makes no difference ultimately.
some good questions certainly. but i dont see how that absolutely disproves that a global flood happened.
tbh anyone who actually knows the bible knows that forcing beliefs on another is not the way to go about it. i 100% agree that forcing beliefs and treating others disrespectfully is a trash thing to do, and not even something jesus did. he offered people teachings, and left it up to them whether to believe or not.
i agree there definitely is a difference between the two that id argue the majority of people dont seem to see, whether theists or atheiests, which results in a major breakdown of communication between the two sides. and tbh most of the people that dont see the difference between the two, simply dont want to be cause they simply want others to believe what they believe, as you talked about earlier.
tbh conversations like this often cant be had between people with such opposite beliefs like you and i. its nice to be able to enjoy one in a civil manner. 99/100 i avoid conversations like this because its just not worth it because people act crazy about it, lol.
Last edited by Neo.; 06-03-2021 at 09:51 PM.
well to be clear, the theory of evolution by natural selection is our explanation for how life changes over time. so the question of how life originated is not one answered by evolution, per se. so like you said, it would prove that humans evolved from apes (and other creatures before that), but it wouldnt be explanatory as to how the first life came to be.
the working theory there is abiogenesis, but i dont think there is nearly as much evidence on that front as there is for natural selection itself, though its still the most plausible explanation we've got given the evidence that is available (in what we confidently believe the early conditions of the earth were like, we've found that amino acids can develop naturally, which is a big deal)
i mean it pretty clearly says "day" so it would be weird if by day they meant millenia (though i know that was the big argument in Inherit the Wind). and whether it took one day or longer isn't really the point, but more so that animals and humans were separately created in their present form... which necessarily excludes the possibility of humans having been descendants of other animals.tbqh the bible doesnt give a specific explanation of how long it took for creation to be done, or exactly how god did it. it could have taken thousands of years, as opposed to a literal earth day. so anyone who assumes that it was an instant creation, or happened within any specific amount of time is simply speculating. i personally wouldnt bother to guess, nor even care how long it would have taken, it makes no difference ultimately.
well its certainly inconsistent with the biblical account of one. but otherwise we'd look to see geological or archeological evidence of a simultaneous global food, which tbh should be pretty apparent given the scale of it... but no convincing evidence on that front either.some good questions certainly. but i dont see how that absolutely disproves that a global flood happened.
i dont think its really the role of science to actively disprove things. rather, the scientific method calls for us to adopt the "null hypothesis"... ie make no assumptions and work from the starting point that a given idea/hypothesis is not the case. the burden then goes on one to make their case in the affirmative. for example, the scientific method for demonstrating the global flood would to start from the assumption that it was not the case, and to only change that position when the evidence for that thing emerges. to reverse that order leads to some absurdities imo, like the flying spaghetti monster stuff (which nobody asserts seriously, but more so to demonstrate how the burden of proof keeps things from falling into absurdity)
tbh anyone who actually knows the bible knows that forcing beliefs on another is not the way to go about it. i 100% agree that forcing beliefs and treating others disrespectfully is a trash thing to do, and not even something jesus did. he offered people teachings, and left it up to them whether to believe or not.
yeah i think a lot of people are inarticulate about these things. or they just dont clarify definitions before getting into their argument. like i would characterize myself as an atheist, but somebody might think that atheist means one who affirmatively claims god does not exist... whereas i would describe it as not having a belief in god. so people get off on the wrong foot without realizing it and that stops conversations from going forward smoothlyi agree there definitely is a difference between the two that id argue the majority of people dont seem to see, whether theists or atheiests, which results in a major breakdown of communication between the two sides. and tbh most of the people that dont see the difference between the two, simply dont want to be cause they simply want others to believe what they believe, as you talked about earlier.
yeah, same. i appreciate the convo though. some posters here are better than others with that... being able to have a good faith discussion about points of views they differ on. others (like koriwhat) never really seem interested in doing that.tbh conversations like this often cant be had between people with such opposite beliefs like you and i. its nice to be able to enjoy one in a civil manner. 99/100 i avoid conversations like this because its just not worth it because people act crazy about it, lol.
It's not that two sides believe opposite things. It's that one side believes something and the other side is saying prove it.
It's how burden of proof works
2 Chronicles 15:12-13
English Standard Version
12 And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul, 13 but that whoever would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, should be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman.
I would say I'm not undecided, I reject the notion there's a god, at least as it's presented in theology.
Thankfully, I don't have to prove a negative, thus I don't have the burden to prove that god doesn't exist.
No. A theory is something that attempts to explain how something works. It presents a number of parameters to test it's fallibility. It becomes a scientific law once all claims are tested to be true and correct.
So, once all claims are testable and reproducible, it does graduate to a law. Newton's law of universal gravity was originally a theory. It took until 1798, 70+ years after Newton's death, till it could be tested and ascertained as correct, at which point it became Newton's law of universal gravity.
Scientific laws can't be disproven, as a matter of logic. If the tests have been positive, and are reproducible, then it's simply factual. What can happen to scientific laws is they become superseded by a much larger theory or law. For example, Newton's law is largely superseded by Einstein's theory of general relativity.
Now, you could correctly point out that a theory isn't factual (not yet anyways) and a law is, and thus the law carries more weight. That is true to an extent, but depends on the claims. Newton's didn't make a lot of claims, at least not as many as Einstein, so it was easier for him to graduate his theory. Einstein claims don't disprove Newton either, they simply encompass a much wider explanation of gravity, especially beyond earth.
a day doesnt always refer to a 24 hour period of time. day often also can refer to a period of time, even by definition. and its often used in such a manner, for example when old school people say "back in my day, when real basketball was played, the only way to get a foul called was to get chokeslammed to the ground and bleed to death" or "in todays day and age..." etc...
there are even times literally where the bible defines a day as a year, or even as a thousand years, depending on context and to illustrate certain points through hyperbole
the thing is, all of this is based on the assumption that no god exists. if he actually does exist as the bible says, then that opens up the thought that not everything was done according to the current understanding of science; that some things happened supernaturally in ways that we simply do not know or understand (which i personally dont understand why it should be outside the realm of possibility considering science has barely scratched the surface on understanding much of anything about life and the universe, theres just so much that absolutely eludes human knowledge and understanding).
potato potatoe imho i think we are saying the same thing tbh
so what does this prove?
what makes the existence of god a negative?
I don't think you understood my response, since that's not the claim I made.
Here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proving_a_negative
That the Bible is about forcing beliefs on others.
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