KnifeMissile

This is interesting. I suppose that, for some, it's easy to debate for a side that appears to be reasonable. I mean, "tolerance" is a popular idea these days (and for good reason, I would say); to "respect" other's beliefs and values, including (and, perhaps, especially) their religion. I believe this to be the motivation behind your vehemence for the defense of religion but I, personally, find it to be misguided. Already, you're probably reading this thinking "okay, lets see what I can find wrong with anything he says" and, in the process, ignore anything that's right in what I'm about to say...


I would very much like to know why you think "the first two examples" have been "established to not exist." The point of those examples is that they demonstrate how powerful an argument that "you can't disprove His existence" is not. In exactly the same manner that you can't disprove the existence of God, you can't disprove the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Invisible Pink Unicorn. You're probably pretty sure they don't exist, mostly because they were notably made up by men but, then again, so was the Old Testemant, so that's hardly reason to doubt, if I were to judge from the actions of the pious...

Given the context, I don't think this is an appropriate followup to the claim "put your money where your mouth is." The underlined text was made by me to demonstrate the context that you appear to have ignored. Yakk never said that he can disprove any notion of God. He qualified his claim to all aspects of God that have been testable. For instance, there have been surprisingly many experiments to test the power of prayer (personally, I'm surprised anyone was willing to pay for said experiments!) and they consistently produce as many positive results as the Michelson-Morley experiment.

I think this is a prime example of you reading what you want to read. Motivated by your attitude that all beliefs must be respected (your "tolerance" motivation), you will say anything that even appears to be reasonable. Of course no one can simply disprove God so it's a pretty safe challenge to put forth and so you do, even if it isn't really a response to what was said. I believe this is part of the dishonesty that Yakk loathes...

Let me suggest something that will help you undestand Yakk's position (and many other's, I reckon), if you are interested in doing so.

Suppose you live with a group of people who are delusional. Delusion needn't be the product of mental illness (indeed, there appears to be a human need for religion but that's another topic). It can simply be the product of a powerful meme. Nonetheless, they believe in something that is utterly unreasonable and they use it to make your life hard. Not all of them, mind you. Just the powerful ones... Most of them simply keep their delusional beliefs to themselves and let the others do what they will with it. Would you be motivated to take these people out of their delusion, despite that not all of them are using their delusion to hinder your life?

Even the atheists in this thread have said that the absence of proof does not constitute proof, yet this point has come up several times in this thread in the defense of religion. Why is that? This is a point that both sides agree upon but is still an item of contention?

The point that atheists, here, have been making is that it's reasonable to disblieve in God without the proof of nonexistence for which you are asking. This can be demonstrated by pointing out that there are many things that theists freely disbelieve whose absence can't be proven.

Everyone is an atheist of the other fellow's religion. Atheists merely add one more religion to that list...

This is simply false. Not only is there plenty of evidence that travelling faster than the speed of light is impossible (just check out Tilted Knowledge) but we have been testing these limits out, for quite some time now, in particle accelerators...

You may fault his attitude, as other atheists have, but not his logic. He was merely clearing up a point of semantics yet you, somehow, interpret this as him flip-flopping on his stance. Again, this is another good example of you not reading what was actually written and, instead, trying very hard to discredit anything he says. Is there a reason why you are trying as hard as you can to not understand his point of view?

What Yakk was trying to say is that while we throw around propositions like "proof," there are really degrees of believability in life. We really believe in some things (often, enough to trust our lives in them!), kind of/sort of believe in other things, and disbelieve the rest.

Atheists contend that the believability of God is quite low and wonder why theists think it's so high. Some theists think it's rather high while others think it's a test of their faith that it's so low...

Actually, they are. We've been over this point, before, so I won't expound on it again (this is why I haven't responded to every paragraph). They're not all hurting us but it appears that the important ones are...

Well, he can offer good evidence to support his claim. Perhaps, more importantly, he can point out how deeply flawed their claim is to them in the hopes of understanding. It may not be "polite" to show theists how ridiculous their beliefs are but it can be argued that it's impolite for them to push their belief system onto the rest of us so what else can Yakk do? To many atheists, bringing people out of their religion is not a bad way to go...

It should probably be noted that most of the "religious people throughout history" who have "burned at the stake" had those undeniably cruel acts done to them by other religious people. The hope of atheists is that, without religion, there will be no more stake burnings, metaphorical or otherwise. At the very least, their motives won't be hidden behind religion...

You can think of it as optimism on the part of those atheists who blame religion for the poor actions of the religious instead of the individual.

In the case of Christianity, it is unambiguously their duty to save our souls by forcing their beliefs on us. So, how can you fault the individual for following the tenets of thier religion? The only thing you can do is to blame the individual for following that religion or to blame the religion, itself. Unfortunately, these issues are not unique to Christianity, so some atheists apply this attitude to all religions. However, in practice, they really only talk about the big two: Christianity and Islam...