to believe that beyond all reasonable doubt

[OurBetty]

there is no god?

One of them was Ireland, Nail, which would be joyous but unlikely, at least in that length of time.

It just goes to show, Florence, there's lies, damn lies, and statistics!
Did you know that the birth rate in Finland has been proven to directly correlate with the number of storks flying overhead?!!

Nailitorelse You've fallen for the "spin". It's 9 countries not 7 and it's "all but vanish eventually" not "is going to die out within the next 50 years or so"

I don't think this does have anything to do with parenting but maybe you should ask the OP? An Atheist, I believe?

My son and his GF both study Philosophy. Neither of them are religious but they both say that since doing so they have been more inclined to believe in God rather than less, because it is so much easier to argue for God (or a necessary being) than it is to argue for no God.

But I think you need to get to the bottom of necessary existences/beings v.contingent existence/beings to know why.

Frantic - Typical. I always fall for the spin! That explains the 3 children by 3 different fathers!!
That said, it doesn't change my conclusion - Religion is the root of all evils!

Really Fellatio? Thats interesting, I always found the opposite, that the arguments used for the existence of god were a) so transparent b) not really updated for about a thousand years, and c) so contrary to the notion of faith in the first place, for supposedly faith needs no proof and therefore the arguments are redundant. I always wondered who Augustine and Aquinas were trying to convince.

Don't ask me! That's just the conversation I had with them both in the car this morning.

The argument is put forward that god must exist because the way things are designed is perfect. I point out that in fact many things are designed quite badly so that's not a proof of god at all. What am I told? that we only think they are designed badly because we are not god so we don't understand.

Is there anybody who can't see the circular argument there? :o

"You decree God doesn?t exist because you have no ?evidence? and you don?t ?understand?

I don't decree anything of the sort.

For me to say "it's a fact that god exists" would indeed require concrete evidence. However it would only take a very flimsy bit of evidence - just the tiniest little hint - to move god out of the 'fairies and talking rabbits category. I know religious people hate that category, but I genuinely think it belongs there for now.

We might think of it as a series of values of 'evidence' from 0 to 100. The list of things in the 0 band is Infinitely large since along with god and fairies it includes any random statement/claim that someone could make. If I say that custard sometimes eats people when no one is looking that has to go in there too. There is no evidence of any kind either way.

The '1' band is much smaller. For these claims there is some reason to think it might be true even if it is very thin. (The claim that Tory MPs can be nice people fits in here). A claim that Jesus existed as a man and had some good advice for living can go in here. There is some (very small) support for this.

The 100 band is empty. After all no matter what 'proof' I've seen I could turn out to be hallucinating so perhaps you are all figments of my imagination.

Instead we have the 99 band for 'proved for all practical purposes'

Evolution fits in somewhere around the 95-98 band. It is a theory, but not in the everyday usage meaning 'A guess'. It now has such huge amounts of supporting data that we can't reasonably doubt it. Which of course is why most religions have switched over to believing it.

onagar Truth be told we're not that far apart. The only thing I would disagree with is your opening statement. I don't think the argument is put forward that God must exist, certainly not by me or any of the Christians I know personally. I am 100% in agreement with you that it is a circular argument.

On your physical "proof" scale of 0 - 100 I suppose that I would put God in the 1 category at the moment, mainly because of the "miracles" which people claim to have witnessed and the absence of any other explanation, and also because no-one has ever written a book about talking rabbits or people-eating custard which so many people have read and continue to read and upon which so much of western civilisation has been built. But I also see that the "no smoke without fire" argument holds no real water and can quite see why you wouldn't agree. Although it does beg the question, why are we discussing it at such length? I doubt that we'd all be here so long discussing talking rabbits?

I'd also put Jesus in band 5 - 10 somewhere I think there is more historical evidence that he existed as a man than deserves a 1 (as the scale goes all the way to 100)

@ Tory MPs

I am a bit at the apparent double standards over evolution. We Theists are charged with not being willing to look at new evidence and being closed minded, whilst scientists are more than willing to discard old theories in the face of new evidence. When we do the same, the Atheists seem to claim it as some kind of triumph!

Why oh why can I not "get" these italics? AAARRGGG!

I sympathise about the italics. Why couldn't MN use a more standard approach.

You can't really compare religions changing their beliefs with science changing a theory. Scientists always say that a theory may be wrong and as soon as it is published actively look for other explanations. Religion says "this is true. God told me. Disagreement is blasphemy"

Which is all very well until they change that claim and you ask "did god change his mind then?"

Everyone was so sure that God had made the world in seven days. I am trying to imagine god admitting to the bishop/pope that he was only kidding and that really he set up evolution to do it for him. That must have been embarrassing.

Oh! I don't think people have thought that for a very, very long time indeed! At least not the 24 hour day we know. I don't think people have believed that Adam lived for over 900 of "our" years either! (Well not since the days when scientists thought the earth was flat and cartographers used to write "here be dragons" on maps!)

nobody ever thought the world was flat, I don't know why people always say that. A rudimentary look at the horizon and/or the stars tells one the world is not flat, and recorded texts from the earliest documented time new the world was a sphere. although actually, its isn't.

That's bit of a sweeping statement Florence. Certainly there is evidence to show that it was realised by some cultures that the Earth was round (I agree, it isn't but it's a bit nearer the mark than "flat" ) much earlier than used to be believed. But to say no-one ever thought the world was flat is false.

I don't take kindly to being told I have no belief in God because I "don't understand". That makes it sound as if it is me that is at fault for being too thick to grasp this terribly complex concept. Er, nope. It's a very simple concept - Fings Wot Is Made Up Unless You Can Show Uvverwise, Innit? A child could grasp it, and indeed many frequently do.

Christians just can't see that it isn't enough to say "oh, well, you think that because you haven't met Him yet," as if singing a bad Michael Bublé song at me can solve everything. Yes, and I'm sure you don't believe in Thor, Zeus, Ra, Horus, Isis, Osiris, Vishnu, etc., etc. because you just haven't met them yet, right? Or do you just know they are myths? The big thing which it is impossible to get over is that your god is not special. It is just one of many thousands which the human imagination has come up with. It is granted, currently a popular one, but when I say "currently" I mean a blink of an eye in Cosmic terms. In another blink - a few millennia, say - it will have been replaced by something equally popular and equally improbable. The only constant will be scepticism. And in a few billion years, when we may well be extinct, who knows what the evolved creatures to come after us will have invented to explain the universe?

I'm sorry if anyone thinks I am "going on" at all but I have to answer challenges like this, otherwise it looks as if they stand without challenge and I have no response.

No-one with eyes thought the world was flat. Its a phrase used to mean "when people knew less about the world" but its inaccurate. You don't need any knowledge to know the world isn't flat other than your eyes, and the evidence shows us that all recorded civilisations knew this as common knowledge.

No-one who ever thought about it at all thought the earth was flat.

I'm sticking with the lizards, though I'm most perturbed no-one has given me respect for these beliefs, since they are apparently due to anyone who thinks anything since proof or indeed logic is required in order to have ones notions respected by all.

Florence

Of course people used to think the world was flat

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

"You don't need any knowledge to know the world isn't flat other than your eyes" is. Are you serious? You must be having a laugh.

Intrestingly enough It is possible that the ancient Hebrews always knew that the world was round: Isaiah 40:22 says "he sits enthroned above the circle of the earth"

and yet that quote supposedly supports evidence for a flat earth theory in your very own link.

So, er, not threatened. Wikipedia?

Of course it supports evidence for flat earth theory. That's the point?!

Wow....

So you use a quote to say that they thought the world was flat and then use it to say interestingly, they didn't.

Are you drunk?

At SOME POINT IN HISTORY PEOPLE USED TO THINK IT WAS FLAT

THEN THEY DIDN'T

Shocking. Just shocking.

THE SAME QUOTE CAN'T BE USED TO PROVE BOTH THOUGH!

By the way, you might take a minute to understand that its only opinion and conjecture interpreting the texts that way. Other scholars would argue the same passages argue for a spherical earth.

If you aren't drunk, you should be.