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Frosstbyte · 02-15-2007, 03:00 AM

Those of us who are atheists or agnostics see a very clear line of logic, IL. We're making logical, fact-based arguments. Your faith specifically rejects either the need for or the presence of a logical, fact-based foundation. If you want to engage us in an argument-which is what you're trying to do-we're going to engage you with our facts and our logic. We're looking at the world and observing and drawing conclusions. None of our evidence, arranged in any logical order, suggests there is a god. That fact is unimportant to you, because you believe in god simply because you believe in god. That fact is paramount to us because we see no reason to believe in god unless we can prove that there is a god.

You won't undermine our arguments or Dawkins' by saying, "I believe and that's the point, to believe without evidence." Nor, for that matter, are we likely to undermine yours.

The point remains, in a scientific inquiry which you seem to be so concerned about, the burden is on the person presenting the hypothesis. The hypothesis, in this case, is that god exists. From a scientific perspective, the burden is not on us to disprove, but rather for theists to prove. As repeated above, an infinite number of possible things can be disproved, the disproof of which does not correspondingly prove anything. Thus, from a scientific perspective (which you may or may not care about), theists need to prove there is a god.

Which is all to say, science-as an abstract field-does not necessarily make the blanket claim that god doesn't exist, not can it. Scientists and people who choose to believe there is no god look at-what we believe to be-an overwhelming amount of evidence which strongly suggests that god does not exist. Given that evidence, we choose to make the (to us) logical assumption that god does not exist.

So you are right that science can't prove that god doesn't exist. If that in some way vindicates you, fine. It does not, however, make you any more correct. I can't disprove that my desk is made up of 300000000000000000 tiny potato chips. That doesn't mean that it is made up of tiny potato chips any more than its made out of balsa wood or plastic or metal or dried spit.

02-15-2007, 03:00 AM	#12 (permalink)
Frosstbyte Winter is Coming Location: The North	Those of us who are atheists or agnostics see a very clear line of logic, IL. We're making logical, fact-based arguments. Your faith specifically rejects either the need for or the presence of a logical, fact-based foundation. If you want to engage us in an argument-which is what you're trying to do-we're going to engage you with our facts and our logic. We're looking at the world and observing and drawing conclusions. None of our evidence, arranged in any logical order, suggests there is a god. That fact is unimportant to you, because you believe in god simply because you believe in god. That fact is paramount to us because we see no reason to believe in god unless we can prove that there is a god. You won't undermine our arguments or Dawkins' by saying, "I believe and that's the point, to believe without evidence." Nor, for that matter, are we likely to undermine yours. The point remains, in a scientific inquiry which you seem to be so concerned about, the burden is on the person presenting the hypothesis. The hypothesis, in this case, is that god exists. From a scientific perspective, the burden is not on us to disprove, but rather for theists to prove. As repeated above, an infinite number of possible things can be disproved, the disproof of which does not correspondingly prove anything. Thus, from a scientific perspective (which you may or may not care about), theists need to prove there is a god. Which is all to say, science-as an abstract field-does not necessarily make the blanket claim that god doesn't exist, not can it. Scientists and people who choose to believe there is no god look at-what we believe to be-an overwhelming amount of evidence which strongly suggests that god does not exist. Given that evidence, we choose to make the (to us) logical assumption that god does not exist. So you are right that science can't prove that god doesn't exist. If that in some way vindicates you, fine. It does not, however, make you any more correct. I can't disprove that my desk is made up of 300000000000000000 tiny potato chips. That doesn't mean that it is made up of tiny potato chips any more than its made out of balsa wood or plastic or metal or dried spit.