Vatican says aliens could exist

[Blarg]

But you dont have to be brilliant to be an atheist. THAT is my main point. I see so many smart people making dumb decisions that violate the scientific principles they follow. You can be a complete moron and be an atheist, or a theist. Or be completely brilliant and be a theist. That doesnt change the fact that theism violates rational principles.

[quote:11er285u] I wouldnt associate ANYTHING with 0%, but when something has no evidence or supporting premises what-so-ever other than "i thought it up lol", then you can toss it in the category of extremly unlikely.

I don't understand your opinion either. In one post, you say there is a small possibility, and in the other, you say it violates rational principles. Thing is, it can't do both at the same time. Something that has a chance of happening can't be impossible, or it has no chance of happening.

You admitted there is no way to disprove the concept of God earlier, and for the same reasons, it doesnt violates rational principles. When there is a contradiction in both theism and atheism arguement, I've no choice but to go with the agnostism. I don't want to side with people who believes they can prove/disprove something using flawed argument.
[/quote:11er285u]

You can't prove 100% that Santa doesn't exist either, yet it still violates rational principles to believe he exists.

Also, just because you can't 100% disprove a god doesn't make you a straight agnostic since atheism is just about your belief in a god not your certainty of knowledge into its existence. An agnostic could be someone who doesn't know for 100% sure of something but puts the odds at .000001 or 99.99999 on whatever the thing is, technically we are all agnostic about Santa clause but 'atheisanta' in our belief of him.

[Kaylia]

You can't prove 100% that Santa doesn't exist either, yet it still violates rational principles to believe he exists.

It violate principles because there is certain thing that are impossible in Santa definition. Flying with reinder faster than light to cover the world? Give gifts to every kids, yet, no kid ever got any gifts from him...etc Then there is the fact that Santa is a fictional character, and is not an attempt to explain anything. If you define santa has "Saint Nicholas", or a fat guy wearing a red outfit, then Santa doesn't violate rational principles since both exist.

If you want to explain a phenomenon using Santa, please do so, and it will be a valid answers if your definition actually allow you to do something. However, I'm certain we could make the demonstration that most of Santa's traits aren't useful to explain that phenomenon, and you would be left with a concept of Santa that is stripped of everything that made him Santa. Explains electricity with Santa, and you will be left with an electron named santa.

[Kaelan]

I don't understand your opinion either. In one post, you say there is a small possibility, and in the other, you say it violates rational principles. Thing is, it can't do both at the same time. Something that has a chance of happening can't be impossible, or it has no chance of happening.

You admitted there is no way to disprove the concept of God earlier, and for the same reasons, it doesnt violates rational principles. When there is a contradiction in both theism and atheism arguement, I've no choice but to go with the agnostism. I don't want to side with people who believes they can prove/disprove something using flawed argument.

This is starting to confirm a suspicion I've had for a while now. I think the only reasons people are agnostic and not just atheist are either because they don't understand what being atheist means or they don't understand/haven't heard the arguments on the subject too well. It's not a contradiction for an atheist to say God isn't impossible because the atheist doesn't say he knows God for a fact that doesn't exist, only that it is very unlikely, so unlikely that it's not even worth entertaining the possibility. Atheism is not "the same thing as religion, only the other way around". We'd be hypocrites if that was the position we took, it would be making the same mistake of absolute certainty that they make.

As far as "we can't prove either existance or non-existance, hence the chance must be 50/50, so I'll be agnostic", that doesn't really make much sense. It's not 100% but, but it's not anywhere close to 50/50 either. I'd have thought Russell's Teapot would have weeded out this kind of argument by now. As above poster mentioned, nobody's agnostic about Santa. It's not like somebody centuries ago absolutely proved that Nyx didn't exist but God did - the same logic you use to dismiss Nyx atheists use to dismiss everything else, even though they're all theoretically possible.

Unfalsifiability, by the way, is a sign of an argument's weakness, not of its strength.

2) If there is a small possibility that God exists, (refering to your 2nd quote), then what's wrong with people having faith? You lose nothing if there is no god or a non sentient god, but could hit the jackpot if there is one who is listening.

Pascal's Wager is a pretty bad argument that has more to do with appealing to people's selfishness than to any kind of logic. It's not really worth even considering as a reason to believe in anything.

[Kaylia]

This is starting to confirm a suspicion I've had for a while now. I think the only reasons people are agnostic and not just atheist are either because they don't understand what being atheist means or they don't understand/haven't heard the arguments on the subject too well.

The most common definition is "someone who reject the existance of God".

The problems with atheist is that they say it's the "logical choice", when it's simply a belief. If an atheist tell me "I believe God doesn't exist", I've no issue with him for the same reason I've no issue with someone telling me "I believe God exist"

This is starting to confirm a suspicion I've had for a while now. I think the only reasons people are agnostic and not just atheist are either because they don't understand what being atheist means or they don't understand/haven't heard the arguments on the subject too well.

As far as "we can't prove either existance or non-existance, hence the chance must be 50/50, so I'll be agnostic", that doesn't really make much sense. It's not 100% but, but it's not anywhere close to 50/50 either. I'd have thought Russell's Teapot would have weeded out this kind of argument by now. As above poster mentioned, nobody's agnostic about Santa. It's not like somebody centuries ago absolutely proved that Nyx didn't exist but God did - the same logic you use to dismiss Nyx atheists use to dismiss everything else, even though they're all theoretically possible.

It's not 50%/50%. It's a and b, where a+b= 1

Try to make me a demonstration that one has more chance than the other without personal beliefs and I will raise my hat to you.


And I adressed Santa point in my previous post.

Unfalsifiability, by the way, is a sign of an argument's weakness, not of its strength.

My bad. I would probably do better if the whole debate was in french, because I'm lacking the word to do similar debate in english.

[Kaelan]

And I adressed Santa point in my previous post.

Not really. You didn't really do anything about the argument just about the way he put it. If Santa is too easy to disprove, you can replace it with any unprovable imaginary entity of your choice. Get any passive deity from some creation mythology and put it in there instead. That's why I mentioned Nyx and that's why I mentioned Russell's Teapot.

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

[quote:38ld0jzi]Unfalsifiability

My bad. I would probably do better if the whole debate was in french, because I'm lacking the word to do similar debate in english.[/quote:38ld0jzi]

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unfalsifiable

An argument that relies on not being able to be proved wrong rather than being able to be proved right or at least better than the alternatives. "You can't disprove it" is a negative point for the God argument, not a positive one, is what I'm getting at.

[Blarg]

You can't prove 100% that Santa doesn't exist either, yet it still violates rational principles to believe he exists.

It violate principles because there is certain thing that are impossible in Santa definition. Flying with reinder faster than light to cover the world? Give gifts to every kids, yet, no kid ever got any gifts from him...etc Then there is the fact that Santa is a fictional character, and is not an attempt to explain anything. If you define santa has "Saint Nicholas", or a fat guy wearing a red outfit, then Santa doesn't violate rational principles since both exist.

If you want to explain a phenomenon using Santa, please do so, and it will be a valid answers if your definition actually allow you to do something. However, I'm certain we could make the demonstration that most of Santa's traits aren't useful to explain that phenomenon, and you would be left with a concept of Santa that is stripped of everything that made him Santa. Explains electricity with Santa, and you will be left with an electron named santa.

I brought Santa up because you seemed to have a problem with Neo saying that nothing can be shown to be 0% likely and it still being able to violate rational principles. You really can't disprove that this life is a computer game and the Santa code didn't work too well so parents have to give the gifts instead, but in the real world in which we are a part of Santa really does exist and does everything he is said to. Something as stupid as this will exist in the realm of possibility but its back in the 0.0000000000million0000001% likelihood with every other ridiculous idea.

The most common definition is "someone who reject the existance of God".

Atheism is about a belief, if someone currently believes in a god they are theist/deist if they don't believe in a god they are Atheist. That is all that Atheism is, you can't reject something that you don't believe in. Agnostic is the knowledge you claim to have about god whether he absolutely exists or absolutely doesn't exist and since absolute certainty into anything is rather foolish we are technically agnostic about everything but since that is the case it becomes foolish to even say it for most beliefs.

[Kaylia]

Pascal's Wager is a pretty bad argument that has more to do with appealing to people's selfishness than to any kind of logic. It's not really worth even considering as a reason to believe in anything.

I didn't use it to prove God either. You wont see me trying to prove its existence in this thread, because I know I can't.

Not really. You didn't really do anything about the argument just about the way he put it. If Santa is too easy to disprove, you can replace it with any unprovable imaginary entity of your choice. Get any passive deity from some creation mythology and put it in there instead. That's why I mentioned Nyx and that's why I mentioned Russell's Teapot.

I would reply the same thing. Why did you postulate the existence of such being? When people postulate the existence of a God, it's to answer the question "why this world exists?". If you postulate something to explain nothing, then there is no reason to postulate anything since "nothing" can explain it as well.


It doesn't matter if it's Santa, Zeus, or a carebear, if you're not trying to explains something with those concepts, they will end up losing their definition since none of their traits are useful to explain anything. When I defined God earlier, I kept the concept to its simplest form, the one from the dictionary (being who created the universe), because any additions will bring nothing more.

Atheism is about a belief, if someone currently believes in a god they are theist/deist if they don't believe in a god they are Atheist. That is all that Atheism is, you can't reject something that you don't believe in. Agnostic is the knowledge you claim to have about god whether he absolutely exists or absolutely doesn't exist and since absolute certainty into anything is rather foolish we are technically agnostic about everything but since that is the case it becomes foolish to even say it for most beliefs.

Isn't that what I said in my last post about atheism? I don't reject their belief, I reject the part where most atheists said they got to that conclusion using logic. Not believing is an act of faith, just like it is to believe, when you don't have any certitudes.

[Blarg]

Isn't that what I said in my last post about atheism? I don't reject their belief, I reject the part where most atheists said they got to that conclusion using logic. Not believing is an act of faith, just like it is to believe, when you don't have any certitudes.

Your use of the word rejection made it a bit unclear what you meant. I still don't think that I have faith unless I also have faith that there is no santa, no unicorns, no dragons, no tooth fairy. I was born without a belief in a god but I didn't have faith to believe that, and up until this point there has been no proof of a god so my belief has stayed the same. There is no leap of faith to not believe in something that has no evidence unless you have a very loose definition of faith.

[Senoska]

The most common definition is "someone who reject the existance of God".

Atheism is about a belief

Totally unrelated to the discussion at all, but no it's not. It's a lack of belief. A very tired example of this; it's like calling bald a hair color.

Moving forward, Kaylia, you've said 10 times you're not here to prove god's existence and then turn around and try to do it. Before you continue making "points" and saying what you're not saying, how about you sit down and tell us what exactly you are saying, because you've jumped from topic to topic faster then anyone I've seen in a single thread.

You say you define god in simplest terms possible, but you don't, well of course assuming by simple you didn't mean shortest. Making an explanation short does not make it simple. You said "a being that creates the universe", well I challenge you to define "being" because that's far from simple. What you did is like responding with "why did the apple fall" with "gravity" and going no farther. Not telling us what "gravity" is. If you want your points to be understood please define them.

I look forward to your response.

Edit: Grammar and spelling.

[Kuya]

Totally unrelated to the discussion at all, but no it's not. It's a lack of belief. A very tired example of this; it's like calling bald a hair color.

It's more like calling bald a hairstyle, which incidentally, it is.

[Senoska]

Totally unrelated to the discussion at all, but no it's not. It's a lack of belief. A very tired example of this; it's like calling bald a hair color.

It's more like calling bald a hairstyle, which incidentally, it is.

If bald is a hairstyle then thats not all what is being said, you moron. Atheism is a lack of something. Good try at making a point but it helps to not be a total retard when doing so.

[Demosthenes11]

I sense anger!

[Kuya]

Totally unrelated to the discussion at all, but no it's not. It's a lack of belief. A very tired example of this; it's like calling bald a hair color.

It's more like calling bald a hairstyle, which incidentally, it is.

If bald is a hairstyle then thats not all what is being said, you moron. Atheism is a lack of something. Good try at making a point but it helps to not be a total retard when doing so.

Explosive anger for a comment that is only mildly serious. Humor me since i'm noticing a pattern here. Is it common for atheists to trow a hissy fit over the simplest things? You know, like getting mad when people won't accept their philosophies on life.

[Senoska]

Totally unrelated to the discussion at all, but no it's not. It's a lack of belief. A very tired example of this; it's like calling bald a hair color.

It's more like calling bald a hairstyle, which incidentally, it is.

If bald is a hairstyle then thats not all what is being said, you moron. Atheism is a lack of something. Good try at making a point but it helps to not be a total retard when doing so.

Explosive anger for a comment that is only mildly serious. Humor me since i'm noticing a pattern here. Is it common for atheists to trow a hissy fit over the simplest things? You know, like getting mad when people won't accept their philosophies on life.

Explosive anger for a comment that is only mildly serious. Humor me since I'm noticing a pattern here. Is it common for theist to throw a hissy fit over the simplest things? You know, like killing people, discommunication, waging war on a science, and passing laws when people wont accept their philosophies on life.

OH WAIT

[Blarg]

The most common definition is "someone who reject the existance of God".

Atheism is about a belief

Totally unrelated to the discussion at all, but no it's not. It's a lack of belief. A very tired example of this; it's like calling bald a hair color.

I shouldn't have said 'a belief' but instead just 'belief'. His use of reject threw me off cause it reminded me of people who think atheists are people who think god exists but reject him because they are mad at god, even though thats not what he meant the statement just seemed off.

[Kuya]

Totally unrelated to the discussion at all, but no it's not. It's a lack of belief. A very tired example of this; it's like calling bald a hair color.

It's more like calling bald a hairstyle, which incidentally, it is.

If bald is a hairstyle then thats not all what is being said, you moron. Atheism is a lack of something. Good try at making a point but it helps to not be a total retard when doing so.

Explosive anger for a comment that is only mildly serious. Humor me since i'm noticing a pattern here. Is it common for atheists to trow a hissy fit over the simplest things? You know, like getting mad when people won't accept their philosophies on life.

Explosive anger for a comment that is only mildly serious. Humor me since I'm noticing a pattern here. Is it common for theist to throw a hissy fit over the simplest things? You know, like killing people, discommunication, waging war on a science, and passing laws when people wont accept their philosophies on life.

OH WAIT

Who are you talking to, and how does that relate to me criticizing you for obviously having a stick up your ass today?

[Senoska]

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/4418/evotatnd5.jpg

[Kaylia]

Totally unrelated to the discussion at all, but no it's not. It's a lack of belief. A very tired example of this; it's like calling bald a hair color.

If science or mathematics can't disprove something, then there has to be belief somewhere in your reasoning. If your reasoning is following logic exclusively, I'm sure you won't mind posting it here.

Actually, please, post it. It's much easier to attack an oppinion than defend one. Define your term, and try to keep it in short statement

You say you define god in simplest terms possible, but you don't, well of course assuming by simple you didn't mean shortest. Making an explanation short does not make it simple. You said "a being that creates the universe", well I challenge you to define "being" because that's far from simple. What you did is like responding with "why did the apple fall" with "gravity" and going no farther. Not telling us what "gravity" is. If you want your points to be understood please define them.

Show me where I tried to make a demonstration that God exist? You can see attempt to prove God in my post if you want, but there is none. There is attempt to demonstrate that you can't exclude the concept of God however.

...and I already defined those terms many times. It's not my fault if you skipped half of this thread and made a few random attacks that were already addressed. Here is 3 quotes from page 6-7. I could probably find 2-3 more if I went back and looked harder.
-"When I say god in this context, I'm talking about a being, conscious or not, that has something to do with the creation of our universe (and more if there is more)"
-"God is the being who created the universe"
-"God is the definition we gave to explain the fact that we exist"
How is this definition complex? Wording changed a bit, but it's all the same shit. If you want to accuse me of something, get your fact straigth at least. If you want the dictionary definition, then use
God: supreme being, the creator of the universe.
creator: a person or thing that creates."


Why apple is attracted to Earth? Because of gravity
What is gravity? A force that attrack thing.

Gravity at this point wasn't an explanation, but a postulate/theory. It became a scientific fact after it was tested and experimented. Not every postulate in sciences are verified, or have a known cause, but they are always valid as long they answer the studied phenomenon (doesn't mean they are the best/correct answer tho).
What is the "speed of light"? I don't want you to tell me how fast it is, I want you to tell me what it is exactly. Is the concept not valid simply because we can't explain it or define the process? Sure, we can observe that 300 000km/s is the speed of massless thing in our universe, but we don't know how or why. We don't know what kind of structure made it this way.

You're asking me to define God in a way that goes against common sense. God is the answer proposed to "Why do we exist" question. You can't define the concept more using science or logic, but you can confirm the fact that we are here, that the universe does exist and that the question is a valid one.

Since Neosutra is missing in action, I will ask you the question I asked earlier.

1) If God isn't a valid idea to explain the existence of this world, which postulate would you make to explain the fact that you exist, that the universe exists

[Senoska]

the default place to be in on anything without proof is non-belief, the burden is on you to prove it exist, if you don't, I don't believe it. Therefor it is more logical to not believe in a god because you've shown no evidence for its existence. For example, do you believe in Kerlaffatreebooples? They are apples that make you fly if you eat them.

Stop with the "im not trying to prove god exist" bullshit, it's fucking old, I've asked you to define what your motives are in this thread and you skipped it. If you're not trying to prove god exist, then stop making claims like "a+b=c" and shit like this. Its rather clear what you're trying to do but the reasons you mask your motives are beyond me.

Again you've defined god as a "being", what does that mean? Define it. Is he a human, energy? what. What are his characteristics. You've already taken a step into explaining him by calling him a being.

Thirdly, there is no difference between scientific theory and scientific fact.

And last but not least: The question you ask "Why do we exist" is asked wrong, assuming you mean why life came to be and not a life goal (IE: BE THE BEST CHRISTIAN EVAR LOLZ, or things of this nature.). Why does a god need to be there in order for us to exist?


Edit:

1) If God isn't a valid idea to explain the existence of this world, which postulate would you make to explain the fact that you exist, that the universe exists

God isn't a valid idea because it claims there is an invisible man who poofed people or beings into existence. Why I exist? see sig, Why the universe exist? I'm not sure, but I'm not one to play god of the gaps. Just because science doesn't know something does not mean that you can just throw crazy ideas like this into the mix. Just because I'm an Atheist does not mean I have the answers to all questions, sadly.

[Blarg]

1) If God isn't a valid idea to explain the existence of this world, which postulate would you make to explain the fact that you exist, that the universe exists

I'll take a shot at this. I don't know why. I do know why humans exist but since the universe's origin precedes that it's not really needed.

Why propose a even more incredible entity for being the creator of the universe when 'I don't know' seems to be a better response until there is evidence towards a actual answer (which there already may be, I don't follow cosmology? that much)