yeah lol I'm sorry you feel that way for me, a cancer survivor (though they did really mess up my body, probably why I can't really play FPS' in multiplayer any more lol), I think it's pretty obvious. Not just that there's a number of occasions where I came out better than I'd imagined! I'm sure it's rather naive, and believe me I credit this to the resilience of HUMAN BEINGS, I even attribute the cancer stuff to LOGICAL aspects like catching it fast enough and SKILLED (BASTARD) doctors too! I just choose to thank God for making me so resilient and such doctors. Believe me it's better than depression. I know, I tried :x
So you're thanking god for helping you survive cancer, does this mean you also blame him for giving you cancer in the first place. You do realise that geography and chance are the only reason you believe in god don't you. If you were born in India you'd probaby be worshipping a cow. Watch this:
There IS evidence but you refuse to accept it. There is very reasonable evidence suggesting that God exists, assuming that you accept observational data collected while growing up. It's the testimony of 2 billions people including myself. It's the way they behave, towards you and towards themselves. It's the way humanity behaves last 5 thousand years, every single generation in every single place on Earth accepts God and praises it in its own way. Isn't it the preponderance of the evidence as you call it? It's ok to be selective, such evidence may not be decisive to you but at least be fair and admit that evidence EXISTS, it's just your subjective right to not to accept it.
@torq314 There is absolutely NO evidence that a god exists, just because 2 billion people believe in a god does not mean there is one. How many million children believe in the easter bunny, the tooth fairy or santa claus? Does that mean they exist? What observations of god have you seen while growing up? You have been to church and brainwashed that there is a god but you have never seen or had any real contact with such a being. You have been repeatedly told that there is a god and therefore you believe it. Please provide some physical evidence without using the phrases "I have faith", "I feel" or "I know". That is not evidence it is just wishful thinking.
I don't have it. I could reverse your expectation. Please provide at least one physical evidence that God doesn't exist. Do you have one? I doubt. So from the same set of traces, observations and testimonies we both conclude completely opposite statements about God, which both are not provable nor falsifiable.
I'm sorry that is a ridiculous way too look at it. I wouldn't apologise for something that people I never knew did. I don't hold the history of the World Wars against Germans, because it has nothing to do with them, just the people who were involved. You hate a whole race of people just because a few of them were bad over half a century ago? Major intolerance.
Can you disprove the existence of a flying spaghetti monster? No? Then I declare it to exist! It's no more ludicrous than an all knowing all seeing do nothing supreme being. You have to admit, if God does exist, he's a cunt. Just look at when he lets happen.
Here's an argument for evolution, served up with plenty of facts and evidence: And here's an argument against evolution, served up with jokes and insults. I know who I believe. I love the fact that he's so glib. At one point he tells the gullible people that "The evolutionist believes that a dog came from a rock." No I don't believe that. Just a reminder... 21st century.
Are you trolling right now? Because you aren't very good at it. There is definitely observational evidence billions of people believe in God, which is basically all you pointed out. But there is no specific evidence to suggest God exists. Children believe in Santa Claus, and the boogeyman. Should we accept that to be true because billions of children believe it with no hard evidence? Alternatively, parents feed their kids, buy them clothes, take them to the doctor, protect them, pay for college. All these actions can be observed as "love", although they may very well be doing it out of societal obligation. It would depend on specific data sets from specific family scenarios. You are in the mathematics field? Surely you must know the burden of proof is on you to show something is true? It is not feasible and/or impossible to show something is false, if it truly does not exist. You must be trying to make a half ass attempt at playing devils advocate.
And you definitely are NOT in maths, I am sorry to say that or you ARE but try to play more naive than you are. In basic propositional calculi any statement that somehow can be inferred from axioms and reasoning rules is called provable and is considered a theorem. It doesn't matter whether or not such statement contains any specific math operators like "not". So "not (exists x. IsGod(x))" would be a perfect statement to prove or reject if you'd like to use mathematical reasoning in a logic containing any axioms involving the "IsGod" predicate. And what kind of question is it now? I find it rude. Either you think I do troll and please, respect yourself and do not discuss with trolls like me. Or you think I am not and please, do not ask me about that as it's just unfair.
You've just disproved your own statement. Well done. There is no evidence to suggest that God exists therefore any theory to suggest he does exist is instantly disproved. There isn't even a debate here.
Since when there should be "theory of God's existence"? It seems that it's only nonbelievers who want to have it so much. When I ask them to provide a "theory of God's nonexistence" they seem to fall into simple logical traps. I've never said I have a "God theory", neither I said I need one. Where's then the contradiction between any two of my statements?
I don't have a raw/theoretical mathematics background, so you are dragging me out of my comfort zone. But I'll bite, the base axiom in your statement is "IsGod", correct? Should this not be two separate axioms for both the true/false flags? What I do know is more applied science, which I suppose abstract mathematics may be detached. But it's not feasible for anyone to disprove God for you. The burden of proof is on you to show evidence a God exists. Without doing so, you're just another person who believes something because it makes them feel better, without any hard evidence. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this, it is what it is. Like you said billions of people believe it. Sorry. Last time this happened, Monsly was trolling.
How can this God of yours exist? This infallible omnipotent bastard with which you place so much trust? If I were to pit my gods against your one god, which one is true?
It's not an axiom but a predicate. Predicates can be seen like functions, from a predefined domain (numbers for example) to boolean values (true/false). Axioms can be build out of predicates but, unfortunately, often "Predicate(x)" is as good axiom as "not (Predicate(x))", if there's nothing else than math to support or disprove any two of them. It's even worse, one of versions of the Goedel theorem of incompleteness says that for any logical system (consisting of axioms and rules) there are sentences that are neither provable nor falsifiable. You can include them into the world as an axiom but you can include their negation as an axiom and still have a perfectly consistent logic. You can only argue which set of axioms/rules (logic) is better than the other one but definitely it's not math then but philosophy. I accept that, although I am not much into applied science. Of course, I cannot build a constructive proof of God's existence. Yes, I am one of people who belive, although I am fairly disappointed with the way Christianity is defined. I too had my doubts and questions but have found most answers by studying other beliefs, mostly these coming from the East (Buddhism, Hinduism). I respect atheists and am perfectly aware that the notion of God is completely unnecessary to be happy, full of love and comprehention for others. On the other hand, I think also that there's nothing wrong if people believe, although there are plenty of unfair ways people express their faith.
The funny thing is because this is a forum of people with technical knowledge I took for granted that people here were intelligent enough to know there is no god. I didn't start this thread expecting a debate on the existence of a god it was more to debate whether we really need religion anymore. It is an outdated unproven theorum that has caused so much trouble for the world. From trivial issues to world wars religion is no good for mankind. It is interesting to see people who can only be described as torn in two. They are intelligent well educated people who must know there is no god but because of how they have been brought up they have been brainwashed to believe in something that conflicts with everything they know. For me the only good thing to come out of religion is the architecture, without religion we would never have built such amazing churches but they are more a testament to mans skill rather than his false beliefs.
My brother is a mathematician, while I went into engineering. We have similar arguments all the time. I've noticed that in the abstract, mathematics has alot more in common with philosophy than applied sciences. Some of the concepts he discusses are deeply philosophical that my "real world" applied mathematics brain just can't grasp.
Which is also the same reason that people who do pure maths tend to trip out on mathematics applied to physical systems. I'm totally amazed at the amount of people in university who are good at pure maths, but can't solve ANY physics problems.
if he did, he gave it to me as evidence of human resilience and the will to survive. Things I never learned in school, things I didn't respect as a child, so yes, I am ALOT better off now, and I thank God for that. If I was Indian I'd probly be dead. All the more reason to thank God I'm not in a third world country. Torq I suggest we stop now, we've passed the point in which they stop asking questions and make nothing but accusations. Well passed that point. I thought I'd answer this since it has nothing to do with religion and just displays apathy over a fellow man . Intolerance, yes. I never said I was tolerant at all. Just Christ is (rather) tolerant and churches I've been too have been, IMO, MUCH too tolerant. You my friend need a history lesson and a wake up call about knowing what your asian neighbors are doing. What do you think? they're still in the stone age, only a FEW are all that's needed to stage a whole revolution?? No, it was pretty much the ENTIRE nation... ok maybe not 100%, maybe lets just say the percentage of Japanese that had such intent were probably about the same as the percentage of Americans that mourned over 9/11... Don't be stupid that's 100%!! Secondly they AS A COUNTRY, IT IS THEIR RELIGION will condone EVERYTHING their ancestors had done! I will say this again, I used to even hate our own COUNTRY (USA) for invading, taking over, and tainting the ENTIRE Hawaiian culture! The US was not much better! BUT the United States APOLOGIZED for what they did. Did Bill Clinton HAVE to apologize for what happened during GROVER CLEVELAND's term in the 50s?? No. But I accept such apology and I enjoy being called a minority now rather than just being lumped into the native americans' thing as before 2002 or whatever. This may not have been done recently, but make no mistake, we are PAYING for it even NOW. I hope you now understand why I am so angry about something that happened in the passed, I hope you also understand why an apology is so important!