Why don't you believe in God?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:


But you can't prove something doesn't exist by failing to prove that it does exist. You just can't. It is like our court system. You can fail to prove someone guilty, but that doesn't mean they are innocent. Or guilty. Just means you haven't proven it.


I'm not saying there's proof the soul doesn't exist. I'm saying you can't prove it exists in the way you can prove love exists. Nor is there evidence that the soul exists the way there's evidence that love exists.

I'm not convinced you can prove love exists. All your study does is prove some people have a higher sense of altruism. Unless your argument would be that altruism is a symptom of love?

[Anonymous]

OP here. I admit I am glad to see this thread resurrected. As I have said before, there can be no more vital topic of conversation. "Man or Rabbit?" The choice to believe or not has permanent consequences.

I do hope the largely cordial tone remains. We are talking about two diametrically opposed belief systems. Only one can be true. But the people holding the beliefs on either side are generally of good will and fine intellect. We should be kind to one another.

Actually, that reminds me of something that made me start this thread to begin with regarding the Golden Rule. I think I will make that a spinoff thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Either someone started everything from nothing (theists)

Or nothing started everything from nothing (atheists).

Not quite. Once again because it looks like you missed it:

The theist's position is that "Nothing started something from nothing (which is essentially the atheist's position), then that Someone started everything from nothing (theists)."

Atheists win by Occam's Razor. At least if theists want to keep the fig-leaf of rationality. Probably wiser to admit "it makes no sense, but it's what I believe" which is what others have said.

I'm not PP, but I think I missed it, too. Atheists think no one started everything, where as theists think someone started everything, no?

No, theists think that no one started everything as well: there was nothing, then there was God, then there was everything. Atheists think there was nothing, then there was a singularity, then there was everything.

Calling the singularity "God" gets us no closer to understanding. Actually further, since there's the possibility physics will uncover the provenance of the singularity; theists want to shut down the operation.

Ok, got it this time. Thanks.

Not sure what you mean by singularity, though. Why can't the singularity be God? One could argue that physics theories and laws are just a human effort to describe the world around them. The same way people use religion. Could be that both serve the exact same purpose for the human race.

No, absolutely. Let's call the singularity "God". But that's just a matter of semantics. We still don't get the super-human powers (omniscience, omnipotence, etc...) I think you're right about the second bit, though. Far be it for me to try to take God away from the theists. Just answering the topic: we don't generally believe in god because it's irrational to do so. That's the "faith" bit.

I like you, PP!

How do you explain things that can't be explained through science? Do you believe in fate or destiny? Or only in conicidences? When you hear stories from people who have had near death experiences, do you believe there is a scientific explanation for everything?

To me, God is as real as my computer screen or keyboard. I feel it in a way that makes it as tangible and "real" as the love I feel for my children. But I am pretty far out there in a lot of ways. I also believe in soul mates. I know a lot of the scientific types would see me as a lost cause.

If it were left to me to have to explain how our microwave works, its very likely I would end up having to fall back on saying its magic if pressed on the details very hard, but that doesn't make it so.

[Anonymous]

I'd buy OBE as evidence of a soul, if the person could, for example, see something in another room from where their body was and then identify that thing when they returned to their body.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


But you can't prove something doesn't exist by failing to prove that it does exist. You just can't. It is like our court system. You can fail to prove someone guilty, but that doesn't mean they are innocent. Or guilty. Just means you haven't proven it.


I'm not saying there's proof the soul doesn't exist. I'm saying you can't prove it exists in the way you can prove love exists. Nor is there evidence that the soul exists the way there's evidence that love exists.

I'm not convinced you can prove love exists. All your study does is prove some people have a higher sense of altruism. Unless your argument would be that altruism is a symptom of love?

Bonding among humans and other mammals is documented. The chemicals that accompany the feelings of love can be measured. We're not the only species willing to kill or die for our loved ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There have been many cases of documented out of body experiences that can not be explaned through normal scientific means. If a body and a person's mind can exist in two different physical places, that means they must be connected through a "supernatural" means, ie a soul.

We can induce out of body experiences in a lab. First done in 2007. Not so mysterious anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


But you can't prove something doesn't exist by failing to prove that it does exist. You just can't. It is like our court system. You can fail to prove someone guilty, but that doesn't mean they are innocent. Or guilty. Just means you haven't proven it.


I'm not saying there's proof the soul doesn't exist. I'm saying you can't prove it exists in the way you can prove love exists. Nor is there evidence that the soul exists the way there's evidence that love exists.

I'm not convinced you can prove love exists. All your study does is prove some people have a higher sense of altruism. Unless your argument would be that altruism is a symptom of love?

If it were simply altruism then there would be no difference between the group of fathers/daughters and the control group of random people who don't know each other, assuming the rate of altruism is relatively constant. I'm sure the rate of altruism in the control group would not be zero, just as I'm sure that for the father daughter group it would be less than 100%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It gets amusing to watch nonbelievers state that ANY alternative hypothesis of creation MUST be more plausible than God, because God is impossible. So an infinity of successive universes, a "spontaneous creation" of everything from nothing for no reason, a black hole...all of these things are more plausible than an Uncaused Cause.

I don't think anyone has said that God is impossible. I think the PPs here would just say God is unlikely.

Then no one is an atheist.

Only people who look at the preponderance of evidence and choose to have faith in some other explanation for our existence besides God.

Atheism is the lack of belief in the existence of gods, not the claim to absolutely know that they do not exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you don't believe in God, do you believe in souls? Do you think you have a soul?

I don't believe in souls or think that I have a soul. Souls are a religious concept - no evidence of their actual existence.

There is no "evidence" for love, either, but I'm guessing you believe in that. [/quote

Actual PP here. There is evidence for love. Emotions can be observed using brain scans.

[Anonymous]

I'd buy OBE as evidence of a soul, if the person could, for example, see something in another room from where their body was and then identify that thing when they returned to their body.

There have been many, many documented cases of this. One of the most famous was when a man suffered some serious injury and had an OBE. He saw a neighbor's baby in its crib, several houses away. He had never even met this infant before. He was able to "see" that this baby had a greenstick facture in is arm. Later, when the man was recovering in the hospital, neighbors were coming to visit him. Someone mentioned the one neighbor wasn't there because they were having trouble sleeping at night because their newborn baby had severe colic and would just cry and cry, keeping them up all night. The man said "That baby has a broken arm. Go get it checked." He was right. And there is no way he could have known that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote::
If you don't believe in God, do you believe in souls? Do you think you have a soul?

I don't believe in souls or think that I have a soul. Souls are a religious concept - no evidence of their actual existence.

There is no "evidence" for love, either, but I'm guessing you believe in that.

Actual PP here. There is evidence for love. Emotions can be observed using brain scans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There have been many cases of documented out of body experiences that can not be explaned through normal scientific means. If a body and a person's mind can exist in two different physical places, that means they must be connected through a "supernatural" means, ie a soul.

We can induce out of body experiences in a lab. First done in 2007. Not so mysterious anymore.

Really? How? And a link please?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
If you don't believe in God, do you believe in souls? Do you think you have a soul?

I don't believe in souls or think that I have a soul. Souls are a religious concept - no evidence of their actual existence.

There is no "evidence" for love, either, but I'm guessing you believe in that. [/quote

Actual PP here. There is evidence for love. Emotions can be observed using brain scans.

No, love can't be seen on a brain scan. The brain's reponse to love can be seen on a brain scan. Big difference. Kind of like a lightbulb shows electricity. Giving off light is just a symptom of electricity. The brain's reaction to love is just a symptom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:? You think unicorns are less likely than God?

No sorry, clunky phrasing: unicorns are more likely than God.

Now here's a debate I can get into. Unicorns are less likely than God to exist in that unicorns are big animals and somebody would have noticed them if they exist. God, on the other hand, is presumed not to be physically present in the world, so he has an excuse why he can't be found that unicorns don't have. Plus, a bunch of people at least claim to have felt the presence of God. I've never heard of anything similar for unicorns.

You're assuming that unicorns exist on Earth. In a universe the size of ours, there's a distinct possibility that another Earth-like planet may have developed favorable to life, and that horses there have a horn. At least that's a coherent narrative. And, yes God is presumed not to be physically present in the world. The most obvious explanation for that is that gods don't exist.

That's leaving aside the scads of documentary evidence of unicorns in literature and art throughout human history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


But you can't prove something doesn't exist by failing to prove that it does exist. You just can't. It is like our court system. You can fail to prove someone guilty, but that doesn't mean they are innocent. Or guilty. Just means you haven't proven it.


I'm not saying there's proof the soul doesn't exist. I'm saying you can't prove it exists in the way you can prove love exists. Nor is there evidence that the soul exists the way there's evidence that love exists.

I'm not convinced you can prove love exists. All your study does is prove some people have a higher sense of altruism. Unless your argument would be that altruism is a symptom of love?

This is getting silly. Of course "love" exists. Not if you're looking for something you can bottle. But if you define love as an intense emotional attraction, it exists. No magical thinking needed. I think you're creating a conundrum where none exists.