Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Mar 11, 2008 15:06:25 GMT -4
In this context, I am saying that there is no reason to believe that God or a god exists. There is no evidence that God or a god exists. Right. So show me that there is no evidence. No, it's not up to me. You said: So either you can in fact show that there is no evidence for the existence of God or you will have to retract this earlier statement. So go ahead. Show me.
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Post by wdmundt on Mar 11, 2008 15:21:32 GMT -4
In this context, I am saying that there is no reason to believe that God or a god exists. There is no evidence that God or a god exists. Right. So show me that there is no evidence. You show me that there is evidence. Otherwise, my claim stands. That was in response to you saying that there is evidence in existence that you can't prove is in existence. In terms of that statement, I can show that you have no evidence -- as you yourself say that you can't show it exists. So you should retract your suggestion that I should retract my claim.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Mar 11, 2008 15:30:04 GMT -4
Right. So show me that there is no evidence. You show me that there is evidence. Otherwise, my claim stands. No it doesn't. You said you could show that there is no evidence. Now you want me to show you evidence. Either you can show that there is no evidence or you can't. Which is it? I didn't say I could show you evidence, I said if an object exists then evidence that it exists also exists, even if no one is aware of it. You said you can show that evidence doesn't exist. So show me that it doesn't, or admit that you're wrong. One or the other.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Mar 11, 2008 15:40:46 GMT -4
I've already established that this is a moderately-sized external voice, that of your personal invisible pink unicorn. Uhuh! If it's invisible, how do you know it's pink?
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Post by wdmundt on Mar 11, 2008 15:53:18 GMT -4
You show me that there is evidence. Otherwise, my claim stands. No it doesn't. You said you could show that there is no evidence. Now you want me to show you evidence. Either you can show that there is no evidence or you can't. Which is it? Yes, Jason -- my claim is that there is no evidence. In my claim, I am providing no evidence as I claim there is no evidence. In terms of this argument, my claim stands. No, Jason. In your hypothetical, you said that evidence could exist that can't be shown to exist. That is not evidence, because you can't show that it exists. Evidence exists because it is shown to exist -- not because it is imagined to exist.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Mar 11, 2008 16:37:58 GMT -4
I didn't think you would admit to having made a mistake. You're more stubborn than George Bush when it comes to that. Alright, another win for me then. Of course, I can't win the thread, but I'll chalk it up as a win on my personal score board. This all goes back to my original point in making a comment on this thread in the first place - that you can't in fact know that there is no God. You can't know a negative. Absolute knowledge of the existence of God could only be obtained in the positive sense. If He does exist He could prove it to us. If He doesn't, we'll never know for certain.
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Post by wdmundt on Mar 11, 2008 16:47:48 GMT -4
Uh, no... Jason. You didn't win the argument. As far as I can tell, you didn't even engage the argument. All you did was repeatedly confuse one argument for another and in so doing claimed that I said a thing that I did not say -- and then claimed that I could not do the thing that I did not say that I could do.
If that is how one wins an argument, then I have been doing it all wrong.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Mar 11, 2008 16:54:31 GMT -4
Your continued refusal to admit defeat merely confirms my opinion.
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Post by wdmundt on Mar 11, 2008 16:57:32 GMT -4
More specifically -- my argument was "there is no reason to believe that God exists." And "there is no evidence that God exists." You did not engage this, but rather decided to argue that I was arguing that I can prove there is no evidence that God exists. That is a different argument and one that I did not make.
I made an argument about showing your hypothetical unknown evidence is not evidence because you can't show that it exists. Again, different argument. You applied one to the other in a way that I did not.
In terms of the origin of this thread -- my claim is that there is no reason to believe that God exists and that is in line with someone claiming to know that God does not exist.
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Post by wdmundt on Mar 11, 2008 17:00:16 GMT -4
Your continued refusal to admit defeat merely confirms my opinion. So one must only ask several times that the other admit defeat to win an argument? Refusal to admit defeat is proof of defeat? Again, I guess I have been going about this all wrong.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Mar 11, 2008 17:05:45 GMT -4
More specifically -- my argument was "there is no reason to believe that God exists." And "there is no evidence that God exists." You did not engage this, but rather decided to argue that I was arguing that I can prove there is no evidence that God exists. That is a different argument and one that I did not make. On the contrary, you did claim to be able to show that there is no evidence: "I don't have to speculate that non-existent evidence might not exist because I can show that it does not exist." I can show that it does not exist.Perhaps you didn't mean to make this claim, but you did, and by refusing to admit it was a mistake when I pointed it out to you, you lost. Perhaps what you meant to say was that "I can show how any evidence you might be able to present is incorrect." But that's not what you said. I didn't jump on this thread to prove that God exists, but to say that it's impossible to prove He doesn't exist. And that's wrong. No one can know that God does not exist, and finding no evidnce or reason to believe in Him is not the same thing at all.
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Post by wdmundt on Mar 11, 2008 17:34:30 GMT -4
More specifically -- my argument was "there is no reason to believe that God exists." And "there is no evidence that God exists." You did not engage this, but rather decided to argue that I was arguing that I can prove there is no evidence that God exists. That is a different argument and one that I did not make. On the contrary, you did claim to be able to show that there is no evidence: "I don't have to speculate that non-existent evidence might not exist because I can show that it does not exist." I can show that it does not exist.Perhaps you didn't mean to make this claim, but you did, and by refusing to admit it was a mistake when I pointed it out to you, you lost. Jason, it's right there plain as day in the sentence you quoted. I don't know how to make it any more clear. One does not have to speculate about non-existent evidence -- it is, as defined, non-existent which means that it does not exist and I therefore do not have to speculate about whether it exists. Right. What I said was there is no reason to believe there is a god. I said there was no evidence that God exists. You then said I claimed I could prove there was no evidence, which I did not do. In the very same way that it is impossible to prove the non-existence of anything for which there is no evidence. That puts God in the same boat with unicorns and fairies and anything else we can dream up. Would you say I am correct in claiming to know that unicorns and fairies don't exist? And why are you always so eager to claim that you have won something? I don't get that.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Mar 11, 2008 17:46:45 GMT -4
I've already established that this is a moderately-sized external voice, that of your personal invisible pink unicorn. Uhuh! If it's invisible, how do you know it's pink? It's one of her ineffable characteristics ;D edit: missing word
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Post by LunarOrbit on Mar 11, 2008 17:54:25 GMT -4
Jason, it's right there plain as day in the sentence you quoted. I don't know how to make it any more clear. One does not have to speculate about non-existent evidence -- it is, as defined, non-existent which means that it does not exist and I therefore do not have to speculate about whether it exists. I think I understand why Jason is having a hard time seeing your point. The fact that we do not currently have any evidence of God's existence does not mean the evidence does not exist, it just means we haven't found it. It's the same mistake Bill Thompson was making in the SETI debate. Let's put it this way: North America existed prior its discovery. The fact that we weren't aware of it doesn't mean it didn't exist. Also, maybe the evidence is staring us in the face and we just don't recognize it for what it is. A better way to phrase what you're trying to say might be "there is no known evidence for God's existence" or "no evidence has been presented so far." But saying "there is no evidence" is very different than saying "there is no evidence that we are aware of." I do agree that evidence needs to be shown in order for me to have a reason to believe in God, and so far I have seen no evidence. I also agree that Jason has jumped the gun by unilaterally declaring victory (again).
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Post by wdmundt on Mar 11, 2008 18:18:44 GMT -4
Well... unknown evidence is not evidence in the realm of human knowledge. If it is not known then it can't be called evidence. Some thing we don't know about could exist and it could have properties, but those properties are not evidence in the realm of human knowledge until we know of them.
I'm not arguing that God doesn't exist because there is no evidence. The fact that there is no evidence is part of an argument that there is no god, but that argument is a fool's errand. One does not have to prove the non-existence of something for which there is no evidence. Too often, non-believers are asked to shoulder the burden of proof.
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