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@Polytheist-Witch
That’s exactly my point. Not guilty does not mean innocent when it comes to what the jury believes, but the two are synonymous when it comes to how we proceed to handle the defendant.
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@Fruit_Inspector
Second, recall that the premise all of that was based on is that there exists an uncaused cause. That was your premise, I was simply showing you where your premise leads.No, you made an unreasonable assertion based on your own presuppositions, and then tried to force those presuppositions onto my argument.
You’ve been going back and forth with a few of us here, so I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you forgot your own argument. Let’s me remind you of it here (from post 93):
“So my claim is specifically that the universe is an effect, and must therefore have a cause. And to avoid infinite regress, there must be an uncaused cause where all effects stem from.”
So from here I took your assertion that there is an uncaused cause and showed you why, from that point, it would take less assumptions to presume that the uncaused cause is the universe as opposed to a god.
I wasn't arguing that God is the uncaused cause. I was arguing that there is an uncaused cause.
I apologize for going ahead, but everyone reading this thread knows you’re attempting to prove a god so there’s no need to pretend.
No, it doesn't because you need to address the fact that the cause is uncaused. That means that it isn't a product of anything. How can something that isn't produced by anything be a product?
I already explained this. Cause and effect are tied together by definition. You cannot call something a cause if there is no resulting effect. Putting the word “uncaused” in front of it changes nothing.
Whether the cause itself has a cause is a question looking backwards with the answer here being that there is no backwards. But when you call it a cause, that means there is a forwards. That requires time.
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@EtrnlVw
if you don't want to commit to that, simply say you have no answer.
I did. You literally quoted it and thanked me for my answer.
Saying you believe it's more reasonable to believe God does not exist as a way to avoid the options doesn't work either, you're still not choosing the option that you don't know and there is no fourth option.
Not every thing is that simple.
If you’re talking to an atheist, “I don’t know” will almost always be the answer to that question because unless you specifically define god there will always be countless possibilities that the person you are talking too has never even thought of let alone formed a position on. That’s why I went ahead and explained not only what would make me answer no to that question, but how I could go a step further to show why even in the abstract we are closer to a no than a yes. Asking me to just pick one is disingenuous when I already explained in fine detail what my positions are and why.
If my child asked me if the tooth ferry exists of course I would say no, that's not what I would say about the existence of God. Lets just stay on track with things that make actual sense and are worth considering
Why is the tooth ferry not worth considering? Serious question, how did you rule out the possibility that it exists?
Between two positions there is no middle, so you have to pick one as your default.The default position is that you have no position, that would be "I don't know".
Take note of the bold.
The question you began this thread with wasn’t “do you believe god exists”? You asked “Does God exist?”. Those are two different questions. The former has three possible answers, the latter only has two.
This is why when it comes to how you live your life there are only two possibilities. To explain with an analogy, think of a criminal trial. There is no “I don’t know” verdict. Why? Because we can either proceed as if the defendant were guilty (by sentencing him) or we will proceed as if he were innocent (by setting him free). There’s no rational middle ground here. How many years does “I don’t know” justify locking someone up for?
Would you accept that as at least a clear example of of "Y"? I'm not asking you to believe it, just that you consider the example.
No. In this case X is our universe and Y would be a universe resulting from an intelligence. You’re claiming X is indicative of Y, but you have no examples of Y to compare X to, which is what would be necessary to make that statement. You cannot claim X is indicative of something for which you have no established qualities.
This is the ultimate problem with any design/intelligence argument. Without an external point of comparison, all you have left are internal points of comparison. But internal comparisons cannot tell you anything about the external.
Not only that, but if you’re claiming the planets, solar system, galaxies etc. are the product of an intelligence then your claim is actually that everything is the product of an intelligence, at which point you have undermined you entire case because if everything is the product of an intelligence then no comparison of any kind has any meaning thereby invalidating your own comparisons.
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@Fruit_Inspector
So prior to the invention of the telescope, we could essentially only observe our own galaxy. If it was true that we knew of nothing that existed beyond our galaxy, would we have been correct to say that our galaxy is not an effect?
Three pieces to this first.
First is that it’s a terribly worded question. To say it’s “correct to say X” essentially means “X is true”. We’re not talking about what is true, we’re talking about what is most reasonable to believe and how we go about determining it.
Second, recall that the premise all of that was based on is that there exists an uncaused cause. That was your premise, I was simply showing you where your premise leads.
Third, is that this is a comparative statement. I wasn’t assessing the strength of the conclusion, I was explaining why the universe having no cause is a stronger explanation than God being the uncaused chase.
So to the question, by switching “correct” with “reasonable” I would say no, it would not be reasonable to conclude that the universe was not an effect, just as it would not have been reasonable to conclude that the universe was an effect. We simply didn’t have enough information at that time to make any assessment at all.
You're going to have to explain how this works:An uncaused cause is the product of time
Sure, let’s fix the emphasis and see if that clears things up:
An uncaused cause is the product of time
Let me know if you have any questions.
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@n8nrgmi
it looks like you're getting close to merely asserting that God doesn't exist. i dont have to prove conclusively that God exists if all i need to do is show that God existing is a good theory.
You missed the whole point.
My argument on this one point has nothing to do what what is actually true, it is a critique of your method for determining what is true.
Imagine we look at Phenomenon X and determine that there are 3 possibilities (A, B, and C). Question is, which of these 3 options is the most reasonable to presume? If option A has not been shown to exist, then it is not a candidate explanation. The only explanations you have to choose from then would be B and C. If neither of those two are reasonable explanations then your answer is “I don’t know”. You have no good explanations.
Anyone can make up an answer that is sufficient to solve a problem. The only thing that sufficiency establishes is internal consistency, which tells us nothing about whether it has any tie to reality. That’s the part you need if you want to call something evidence.
plus NDEs are studied extensively, and when researchers (who report their findings in journals) ask people to explain what they experienced out of their body, they are very highly accurate with even doctors and such to verify the stories. i realize that it's not determined to the degree either of us would like (leaving no doubt about the accuracy), but it's still strong evidence that you just choose to ignore
So here we have Phenomenon X. What are our candidate explanations?
you've given no good reason to assume things that look supernatural happen to atheists.
Provide one example of a thing that looks supernatural happening to a theist.
Then, provide one confirmed example of the supernatural so that we can compare the two to see if they look like each other.
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@n8nrgmi
there's no evidence that the universe could have been produced a higher level of energy than the beginning universe, that we might expect is required
Nor is there any evidence that it couldn’t have been. As has been said repeatedly here, any claim as to what could or couldn’t have been prior to the Big Bang, if there is any such thing as prior to the Big Bang, is just baseless speculation. It’s an attempt to deduce what could explain it despite having zero options left once all logically coherent options have been eliminated.
infinite regress makes more sense to me, but an uncaused cause beyond the universe could also help address the issues.
Please provide some.
it's not a matter of sticking to a simpler approach that double would like, when that simple approach is so full of problems.
The approach is to recognize the simplest explanation as the most reasonable. It’s a basic principal of logic so if you take issue with it I’d love to know why.
I don’t think that’s what you meant though, I think you were referring to my conclusion that *if* the existence of an uncaused cause is accepted as our first premise, then the universe being that uncaused cause is the most reasonable presumption. So back to the above, please provide the issues with this.
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@Polytheist-Witch
Your clearly just love to throw out talking points, I suggest you read the actual points made and think about what the other person is saying before responding. I promise that will make conversations go much better.
I never suggested anything about how a Christian should practice. I made a factual case as to what the Christian is actually doing when they practice. I trust you understand that there is a difference between those two things.
And I never said I couldn’t care less about the point we were discussing, I said I couldn’t care less about what your actual position is, but rather I care about the point you are making. That, after all, is the point of a debate site.
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@thett3
I do get that. The human mind is optimized for interacting with around 150 people in a tribal setting, so specific incidents impact way more than abstract numbers. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to overcome our base instincts to understand the actual reality we’re in.
I’m not sure you absorbed the full point I was making.
The predictive power of a presumption is what elevates it from a presumption, to knowledge. The fact that these killings were widely circulated in real time, the outcome predicted (nothing), and the outcome held up time after time after time, established that this is what happens in America when a black man is killed by police. You can’t convince someone that their beliefs are wrong when their beliefs are used to make predictions that hold up every single time.
I’m not saying that this takes the place of an honest review of the facts and statistics to gain a fuller picture of what is happening across the country and across all racial lines. I agree that social media warps our model of the world, especially when one follows social justice warriors on Twitter or Instagram dominating their feed with all of the highlights of the racist hits of the day. I’m just saying that the left wing view point here was more than just cherry picking, and that there is nothing unreasonable for someone to watch as all of these high profile cases unfolded and conclude that race in America is a problem.
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@Vader
So you agree with the fact that the Taliban shouldn't exist on Twitter yet they still do? I would constitute there beliefs as hate speech, especially there actions?Why haven't they banned yet Trump has been?
I don’t know what the answer to that question is, if you’d like to know go ask Twitter. I could speculate however as to Twitter’s rationale; because the Taliban have not violated their ToS and/or because there is no reason based on their activity and following to suspect that they pose an elevated risk to the general public.
Is that answer valid? Don’t know, don’t really care. If however there is a terrorist attack and we have reason to believe the Taliban’s posts are at least partly responsible then I would definitely support and be outraged by a lack of their banning from Twitter.
The latter is exactly the case with regards to Donald Trump. Folks like myself have been warning about how dangerous this man is to the general public for years, then we saw the effects of his rhetoric on January 6th. His banning by that point was frankly common sense.
The point is companies have a right to do what they want, but to say there isn't a political bias with Twitter that leads to bans is simply 2 dimensional thinking
I’ve never argued that Twitter has no bias. What I may have argued is that this decision is not a product of bias, at least not to any reasonable degree. The only bias here is claiming that he should be allowed to continue spreading his rhetoric after watching congress evacuate the US Capitol because his supporters listened to the blatant lies he was telling them.
Future generations will absolutely understand this once the passions of the moment cool down. This period in US history will be a case study for generations to come in how to mind warp a society.
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@Fruit_Inspector
So my claim is specifically that the universe is an effect, and must therefore have a cause. And to avoid infinite regress, there must be an uncaused cause where all effects stem from.
One of the most basic principals of logic is that you limit your assumptions to only those which are necessary.
Once you accept that there is an uncaused cause, infinite regress is no longer a problem in need of solving. The answer is simple, something exists which is not an effect thereby stopping the regress.
We know of nothing beyond the universe that exists, so the conclusion requiring the least amount of assumptions is that the universe is not an effect.
God then becomes entirely unnecessary, therefore adding him into the equation directly violates logic.
The idea that a cause must be a product of time is your claim, not mine.
More like English 101.
Cause and effect are definitionally tied to each other like two sides of one coin, if you don’t have one you don’t have the other.
Cause by definition comes before effect, and effect by definition comes after cause. Before and after are literal expressions of time.
To claim a cause outside of time violates the definition of the word, thereby rendering it unable to be conceptualized, aka incoherent.
The fact that we cannot conceive of an idea does not mean the idea cannot be real, but it does mean the idea violates basic logic, the foundation of a rational argument.
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@Mesmer
Governments are meant to represent their people's interest. If you have a large enough population (which is pretty much always the case with a nation), you're going to have racial in-group bias being the biggest factor in determining people's interest. I've already explained that to you previously
Here we go again.
Do you understand the difference between politics and policy?
Hint: The above describes politics, not policy.
This fact cannot be controlled for because this is what macro societal groups do: vote based on race. I know this annoys you.
What annoys me is that your entire claim to fame here and rebuttal to charges of being a racist is that race should play a role in government policy, yet you absolutely refuse to talk about government policy. That’s absurd.
I don't care about your theoretical musings.Argue facts, data and research to prove systemic racism/oppression/whatever or don't even bother with this.
Facts and data are not arguments and cannot form conclusions, that requires logic. So it’s pointless to go back and forth with someone on the facts when that person cannot even answer a question so simple as “do you believe the past impacts the present?”.
Hell, I even made an entire thread dedicated to referencing the refutations for all those shitlib false narratives you're probably implying here. I would be honored if you graced the thread with your big brained intellectualism
Now that’s funny.
Every time I’ve responded to you in any of your threads you immediately shut the conversation down, hence my surprise that you actually responded to me here.
I’d be happy to bring my big brained intellectualism to one of your threads when I can make the time.
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@n8nrgmi
the central issue, is that what i presented in the opening post, is plain evidence. and atheists demand more evidence, and remain skeptics for the sake of being skeptics.
I left you an entire post explaining why what you presented is not evidence. Others have given some very strong objections as well. Do you have any response, or does calling us skeptical for the sake of being skeptical suffice in your mind?
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@Polytheist-Witch
I couldn’t care less how you label yourself, I was responding to the comment you posted. You claimed it was “hilarious” watching atheists tell Christians they have to believe every word of the Bible to be a Christian. Do you stand by that or not?
If yes, see my response and address what I wrote.
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@thett3
You’re confusing actions with reactions. Your publication showing the increase in terms relating to racism only looks at the verbiage, not the actions which the verbiage is responding to.
So what did the right do to spur on this reaction? We can start with the lie that Barack Obama is not an American, a lie that propagated through every right wing circle for years and kick started the political rise of his eventual successor, a lie spread about no other president in history but yet stuck to the first black one. That’s not coincidence.
The reaction to Obama really couldn’t have been more obvious. Every president is deamonized, republicans took that to a whole-nother level with Obama culminating in their unprecedented use of the filibuster and refusal to even hold a hearing on his eventual SC nominee resulting in the first year long vacancy the court has seen since the civil war.
You will I’m sure say race had nothing to do with this to which we can just agree to disagree but I will point out that when you have a rise of an entire political movement like the TEA party railing against taxes when the only action Obama took at the time of their rise was to lower their taxes… the movement was clearly being motivated by something else.
Then in 2012 there’s Trayvon Martin, whose story I have no need to recount. He was just the first though. We would see Micheal Brown, Alton Sterling, etc. etc. etc. - instances of unarmed black men being killed and their killers getting away scott free.
I know, I know, “but Google…”
This issue isn’t about statistics. All of the instances animating the left were played out publicly, in real time, over and over and over again. Not until 2020 did we finally watch from the point of a killing to the point of a verdict and end up with someone finally being held accountable. You can’t tell people the statistics are a greater representation of a reality when they have found the opposite to be the case over and over again to a degree of predictable precision.
As far as how this point plays into racism, it’s not the disagreement on the facts but the knots people twist themselves in to excuse the objectionable. A police officer shoots a black man in the back while they’re running away. Both are wrong, yet half the country cares more about the man wrongly running away than the officer that just committed murder on camera and got away with it. You can’t claim that it is not at the very least, suggestive of racism. And when that happens over and over again, the only rational conclusion is that racism is the primary driver.
Or how about critical race theory? Something hardly ever if at all taught in public schools and yet became the most prominent source of right wing political outrage for months?
And then there’s Trump, a man who literally began his political campaign calling the Mexicans crossing the border criminals and rapists and then called for the banning of all Muslims entering the United States… becoming president.
And let’s not forget the national freak out over black football players taking a knee during the national anthem, which the right cared far more about then the dead black men they were protesting.
Racists don’t call themselves racists, they tend to cloak their issues in a veil of political correctness and legitimacy. Don’t like the fact that the president is black? Claim his birth certificate is fake and you’re just following the evidence. Don’t like the fact that scary brown people keep crossing the border? Just argue that you’re concerned about the laws being violated. Don’t like the fact that we’ve got so many Muslims coming in? Just argue that you’re concerned about national security.
So is every person who takes these positions a racist? No. But at some point you need to look at this on a large scale and recognize that there’s no distinguishing between a racist party and the republican party, that’s why every prominent white supremacist votes republican. Racism is the only through-line to all of this.
So to your question, which side is focusing on race more? Well, one side clearly talks about it more, but failure to acknowledge something doesn’t mean you’re not focused on it. I judge the focus by what what animates them, and clearly, the right is the side animated far more by racial issues. The evidence of the fact that this is what drives the political right is to look at the party platforms. The left is actually advocating things for their constituents, the right is focused on culture wars and their only stated agenda item is to support whatever the ban all Muslims guy says. I think this one is clear.
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@Mesmer
You've even agreed in past threads that you don't think races are genetically the same (which is correct), but then you don't think any further for whatever reason. It's like you're capable of understanding the truth, but you don't like what it is, so you choose to forget.
Oh wow, look who suddenly has something to say. Perhaps now you can finally address the question of what government is supposed to be in the first place so that we can continue discussing whether race should play an active role in government policy. But I won’t hold my breath.
I have agreed and maintain that races are not genetically the same. I made my reasons for not considering it any further clear in your thread… because the topic you raised was government policy and my position is that genetic differences should play no role in government policy. This isn’t complicated.
Also, "our past" didn't cause the racial disparities of the present
Do you believe the past impacts the present?
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@Fruit_Inspector
I ask because if time has a beginning, then it seems that time coming into existence must be a product of time. So if you believe time has a beginning, you have the same problem I do and you should reject the idea of time having a beginning.
The coming into existence part would be a product of time, that poses no problem at all for my position even if I asserted that time had a beginning, which I never did.
I’m not the one asserting a timeless cause, nor is there any reason one would be necessary if time did come into existence. In fact the opposite, if it came into existence then there couldn’t have been a cause in any sense of the word. Hence why claims of God being responsible for time are incoherent.
Let’s back up and remember the main point here; you’re claiming that there must be a god of some kind to explain the universe because the universe couldn’t have caused itself. Yet you don’t place the same constraints on the God belief that you appeal to. You claim the universe must have a cause but a God doesn’t. You claim the universe is a product of time but God isn’t. You claim the universe could not possibly be eternal but God is.
Your support for all of this is that the former claims defy logic, but you dismiss the fact that the latter claims suffer from the same flaws. So this is why, as have been pointed out to you, our understanding of all of this breaks down. This is the point where the only rational position is to say “I don’t know”, but only one of us is doing that while the other claims they’re the only one being rational. That’s backwards.
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@ethang5
I will never allow a thief to charge me with theft. The left loves doing that. I don't want to hear your hypocritical views about Jan 6th while cities and federal buildings are still smoldering and business are still shut.
My views are irrelevant to the validity of yours. Again, you stated and are still defending the view you hold that January 6th was about Trump protesters taking selfies with police officers as they held the doors to the US Capitol open for them. I’m just trying to get you to explain why despite all of the other far more objectionable things that took place is you’re only answer “but the left…”
This is the exact same hypocrisy you alleged about the left, making your entire position incoherent. You’re decrying the left for the same thing you are actively doing.
And not for nothing, but read your own statement again. First you start by telling me why you won’t share your views, then move on to telling me why you don’t want to hear mine. So what are you doing here?
Because you were deceptively trying to use your "facts" to support a false narrative. I will not allow that. The only person who died was a Trump supporter illegally shot by a capitol officer.
First, can you please recite one fact I provided that wasn’t true? If you can’t, can you please explain why you put the word “fact” in scare quotes?
Second, I never painted anything, I was very careful not to say anything that wasn’t empirically verifiable. The facts painted their own narrative, and the demonstration of that is the fact that you already had the narrative in your head to make this claim.
Setting aside officer Sicknick, who the blue lives matter crowd couldn’t care less about, the only person directly killed in the attacks was a Trump supporter. Another question for you that you won’t answer is; why do you disregard the context surrounding that incident? Again I ask, should Congress be protected from a mob of trespassers while they are in session? If that mob breaches protected space, what should be done about it? It never ceases to amaze me how Trump supporters hold up Ashli Babbit’s death as an argument while ignoring the reason she died in the first place.
You ignored my questions to you in my post, you get the same treatment here. Understand liberals, no one is here to be grilled by you as you ignore their questions.
The questions I did not answer in your last post were ignored because they were all irrelevant to our conversation and based on a complete strawman. You asked me how January 6th was an insurrection, I never claimed it was. In fact I’ve never made that claim anywhere, ever. This is where the part of my post comes in where I talked about the fact that you are not trying to have a conversation. I really don’t know why you bother at all, or why I continue to waste my fingers.
Once again, you wrote an entire post about how you see Jan 6th as selfies and door holding. Are you ever going to defend that view, or are you just going to keep attacking your own concoction of what the political left is about? Because if that’s the case, then I’m literally talking to the wall.
On a positive note, I will say that this conversation should give you all that you need to answer your original question: why do we look at the same thing and see something entirely different?
The answer: because we’re not actually looking at the same thing. Every single time I’ve asked you about what the Trump mob did that day literally all you have to say is “the left”. You’ve even defended why you do that. So this is why you’re not seeing it, because your head is turned and you’ve managed to convince yourself that reality aligns with whatever side you chose to look at. And then from there, it appears you’ve projected that same attitude onto the other side, thereby justifying your own refusal to look. Well, what happened that day is there for you to see, just let me know when you are willing to turn your head.
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@ethang5
The OP did
I wasn’t responding to the OP, I was responding to you.
I've been to Nigeria several times, but I care about the logic in the argument. Mesmer, in this particular case, is correct. The logic that says American whites are racist because they hold all the power, applies equally well to the blacks in Nigeria.
Except that this is not the argument. You are focusing all of your energy refuting a strawman. Congratulations.
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@EtrnlVw
The default position would be to make no determination.
I haven't made one. I stated my position that it is more reasonable to believe God does not exist than to believe he does. That's not a determination of what is true, it's a determination of which of two options more aligns with reason.
I went on the use the tooth ferry example to make my point, but you focused on the absurdity of the example rather than the point.
Between three positions, the default position is generally the middle. Between two positions there is no middle, so you have to pick one as your default. When it comes to belief, that entails three potential positions (I believe X, I believe not X, I don't hold any belief). But when it comes to how we live our lives, there are only two (I live my life as if there were a god, I live my life as if there were no god's). So when I say 'between the two' I am making reference to the fact that in this case, I have to pick one.
However, both correlation and indication ARE evidence
They lack indication. In order to claim X is indicative of Y you need an example of Y. Without an example of Y to compare X to you're just guessing.
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@Fruit_Inspector
Does time have a beginning?
I don't know. Why do you ask?
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@EtrnlVw
Does God exist?
That depends on what you are calling God.
In most cases my answer is no because the God being proposed contradicts logic. Like a timeless creator of the universe (creation is an action, actions are necessarily a product of time). Or an all loving, all powerful God who created a place of torment and torture where we all end up if we don’t follow his rules. No being capable of creating such a place could possibly fit any coherent definition of all loving.
Once we cast all the contradictions aside, I would say it’s more reasonable to believe God doesn’t exist than to believe he does, but in terms of knowledge my answer would be I don’t know.
As far as why I believe it’s more reasonable to believe he doesn’t exist, quite simply because that’s the default position; Nothing exists until it has been shown to exist. If your child asks you if the tooth ferry is real and you answer them honestly, I’m willing to bet your answer is “no” despite having no evidence to support that assertion.
As far as how I deal with the arguments presented by theists supporting his existence my position is that they all fail, aka there is no evidence. I find it curious that you write this answer off as a lack of thought, It’s almost as if you don’t understand how the burden of proof works. I don’t need a reason to not believe, I need a reason to believe. The mere fact that I find every argument I have ever heard supporting his existence to be severely flawed is no indication of how much thought went into it.
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@Polytheist-Witch
Watching atheists tell people they have to believe every word if the Bible is fact to be Christian is hysterical.
Do you believe the Bible is the word of God?
If no, then on what basis do you consider yourself a Christian?
If yes, and you don’t believe every word, then you are not a follower. You are determining what to believe and what lessons to take and applying them as you see fit.
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@thett3
To put it succinctly, my view is that we should be focusing on building an economy where everyone has a realistic opportunity to succeed. That’s really it. Race shouldn’t play a role in how we go about it, but if we can succeed at making drastic improvements that would go a long way to mitigating the racial disparities that have retained from our past.
With regards to policing, all most of us leftists really want is accountability, and we’ve seen a sea change in this over the past year. That’s what the BLM protests were really about. No one is looking at statistics, they’re looking at one dead unarmed black man after another after another and the officers who killed getting off.
I agree with oromagi, I think the right focuses on race far more than the left. Sure there are elements of the left that take things way too far, but so what? It’s just as absurd for the right to focus on them as it is for the left to focus on Qanon.
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@Fruit_Inspector
Q2: Why couldn’t your answer to Q1 apply to the universe?Because I do not think it is reasonable to say the universe is eternal, do you?
It’s every bit as reasonable as claiming God is eternal. In fact it’s more reasonable, at least we know the universe exists.
My understanding is that the laws of physics have applied to the universe for as long as it has been in existence. Why should we assume otherwise?
I never said we should. You’re the one making the claim, I am simply explaining to you why your claim has no merit. The fact that there are possibilities other than the one you are asserting should be enough to make you stop and say “you know what, I don’t know how we got here”, but instead you take the side that those of us who do say that are irrational. That’s the issue here.
I never claimed that the law of cause and effect applies to God. You assumed that was necessary, while at the same time claiming universal ignorance of the matter. That was my criticism.
I don’t claim ignorance of the matter, I’m explaining to you that you are using a bunch of words that come together to form a coherent concept as effectively as combining oil and water.
You’re claiming God caused the universe, making the universe the effect. That is by definition a product of time, meanwhile you claim God presides outside of time. This is incoherent. In order for God to create anything there had to have been a point where that something did not exist, followed by a point in which it did. That’s called progression, as in the progression of existence, the literal definition of time.
He would just be an eternal unchanging Being.
More incoherence. An unchanging existence would, by definition, require the object in question to remain static. If God were static then he could not take any actions whatsoever, like creating something. Even the decision to create something would violate this, as that would require God to move from a state of being undecided into a state of being decided, in other words he would have to change.
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@ethang5
You wrote a whole post about how the left and right look at the same thing and see opposite realities, using Jan 6th as your prime example. The question is, why?
When I pointed out to you that 140 officers were injured you immediately leapt to stubbed toes, completely ignoring the officer who lost a finger, another who lost consciousness after being shoved into a wall, plus multiple officers who suffered concussions and rib fractures. Why?
When I reference the dozens of videos showing the mob forcing their way through the police barriers, smashing windows and climbing in, outnumbered officers retreating from their posts guarding the US Capitol, you ignore all of that to point to the selfies they took. Why?
You made your answer obvious; because you think hypocrisy is fine as long as you can concoct it within the other side.
You claim that conservatives dismiss this occurrence because the left doesn’t seem to care about Antifa/BLM. In other words, you’re justified in your hypocrisy as long as the other side does it too.
When it was pointed out to you that the mob you described as festive roamed the halls of the Capitol chanting “hang Mike pence” you dismiss it as a liberal charge. No, it’s an empirical verifiable fact.
The problem for you is that you’re not having a conversation with anyone here, you made that clear by asking myself and multiple others to justify Antifa/BLM riots or explain how Jan 6th was an insurrection. As far as I am aware no one in this thread made those claims, I certainly haven’t. You’re just engaging in a talking point tit-for-tat.
If you want to have a conversation about the BLM riots I’d be happy to give you my perspective, but not until you can either justify your own hypocrisy and blatant willingness to ignore what happened on Jan 6th, or just admit that what we are saying is perfectly valid.
Do you believe the US Capitol must be protected, and anyone who busts through Capitol police barriers injuring officers along the way must be held accountable?
Do you think it’s ok for Congress to have to evacuate the building in the middle of certifying an election to get away from a mob of trespassers?
Everyone reading this thread knows what your answers would be of the roles were reversed. The question is, do you?
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@Fruit_Inspector
What created God?Nothing. Do you believe that it is possible for there to be an uncaused cause?
…
Q1: What caused God?Q2: Why couldn’t your answer to Q1 apply to the universe?
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@Fruit_Inspector
This statement requires one to believe that the Laws of Thermodynamics did not exist prior to the Big Bang. If you have no idea what laws may or may not have been present prior to the Big Bang, how can you possible make such a statement?
Simple. First, take note of the phrase “as far as we understand” that you conveniently missed. Then, take note of the rest of my statement that you conveniently cut out…
“If you have no idea what laws may or may not have been present prior to the Big Bang, how can you possible make such a statement?”
Notice the implicit assumptions within the question;
1. That the universe itself may or may not have existed in some other form prior to the big - we just don’t know
2. That *if* the universe existed in some other form prior to the Big Bang, the laws of thermodynamics may or may not have applied - we just don’t know
So no, the statement taken in context requires nothing but for the person on the receiving end to read it and understand what is being asked.
Would you like to answer the question now?
And BTW, cause and effect is a product of time,By your own logic, how can you possibly know if this applies to God who is outside the universe?
Once again, let’s go back to the rest of the statement you conveniently cut out;
“…something God supposedly presides outside of so claiming he caused the universe is incoherent.”
The statement wasn’t an assertion about the nature of God (reminder, you’re talking to someone who doesn’t believe there is a God), the statement was an assertion about the lack of coherence to claiming that a being who presides outside of time follows a law that is by definition, a product of time.
So could it be true? Sure, in the same way that anything is possible. But to believe it’s true is a whole different thing, that requires you to hold the idea of it inside your head, which you cannot possibly do without throwing out the 2nd law of logic (non-contradiction).
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@ethang5
The exact same things are true for Asians in Nigeria. You easily see it for homosexuals in America, but not for ethnic Chinese in Nigeria. Why?
Because I am not looking at Nigeria. I don’t live there nor do I have any plans to travel there, ever, so I have no reason to take any interest in what’s going on there. Do you? Is there a reason you care so much about Chinese Nigerians, or is this just a lame attempt to paint the opposition as hypocrites based on a complete lack of understanding of the opposing position?
But is your point that discrimination, racism, and bigotry cannot exist absent that history? No one from 400 years ago is alive today. No one alive today can be blamed for 400 year old behavior.
My God you people are such snowflakes. No one is blaming anyone for anything that happened 400 years ago. This is not about you.
What I did was lay out the history of how we got here, because what happens today impacts tomorrow, therefore what happened today can be traced back to yesterday. It’s kind of how the progression of existence works.
So it’s not a surprise that the black community fares worst in just about every indicator of public health in this country, that’s exactly what any rational person would expect given our history.
The same things you point to as evidence for oppression in America against blacks, exist for oppression in Nigeria against Chinese Asians.
Ok. Perhaps now you will spend some time studying Nigeria’s history on race and then enlighten the rest of us on what’s going on over there and how that impacts anything going on over here.
Or, you could just go “duh, blacks are the majority of the population and control most of the institutions, so that’s racism too”.
Your choice.
Mesmer's satire has exposed the hypocrasy in the American liberal's position.
No, it exposes the political right’s inability to understand anything in depth and instead just claim hypocrisy without even understanding the nature of the positions you criticize.
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@n8nrgmi
Q1: What caused God?
Q2: Why couldn’t your answer to Q1 apply to the universe?
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@Fruit_Inspector
The laws of Thermodynamics as far as we understand, came into existence at the point of the Big Bang. What could you possibly know about whatever laws would have applied to the universe if it existed in some other form prior to the Big Bang?
Also, cause and effect is an observed law of the universe. How could you possibly know if it applies outside of the universe?
Both of these questions are of course rhetorical, the answer is that you have no idea and neither does anyone else. Same with your God proposition. It’s all just baseless speculation.
And BTW, cause and effect is a product of time, something God supposedly presides outside of so claiming he caused the universe is incoherent.
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@n8nrgmi
there's good evidence for God. atheism is irrational because they pretend there's no evidence or at least there's enough evidence to be at least agnostic.
Agnosticism isn’t some middle ground between theism and atheism. Gnosticism addresses knowledge, theism/atheism address belief. On the question of whether you believe in a god there are only two options; you either do, or you do not. If you do, you’re a theist. If you don’t, you’re an atheist. The proposition ‘God does not exist’ is completely separate from this.
So right off the bat, you’re strawmanning the overwhelming majority of atheists including most of the people of the people are are probably thinking of when you wrote this.
we see things that look supernatural happen to praying theists but there's no reason to assume those things happen to atheists.
You cannot claim something looks supernatural until you have a confirmed example of the supernatural to compare it to. If I told you that you look like a scnitzlerod, you would have no way to assess that without having any idea what a scnitzlerod is.
This example pretty much sums up your entire argument, so I’ll respond to all of it with one simple statement;
Things that do not exist cannot be asserted as the cause for other things.
Does this mean God and/or the supernatural doesn’t exist? No, it means that they cannot be asserted even as a candidate explanation until you can first demonstrate that they exist.
If you’re claiming to be logical then you must follow it’s basic principals. All you’re doing is bringing up phenomenon for which there are no explanations you accept, and then claiming God solves these problems. But of course God solves it, because that’s essentially what God is… the solution to every problem. NDE’s? God solves it. High energy to low energy? God solves it. God is a panacea of solutions, which means you aren’t doing any work. Just asserting him for everything and then claiming it makes the most sense. That’s not logic, that’s an end run around logic and the work it takes to develop an understanding of the world you experience.
With regards to the first cause argument this one is again very simple and all comes down to one basic question… ‘why is there something rather than nothing’?
Your answer to this is God, but that’s incoherent. God is by definition… a something. So what you’re really doing is asserting that God is responsible for his own existence, the exact same argument you reject as irrational with regards to the existence of the universe.
To put that another way, the theistic claim is that God exists. This by definition makes him subject to the nature of existence itself just like the rest of us, so God cannot be the explanation for it.
Back to the main point, at the end of the day all most atheists are saying is that these answers are beyond our reach. And given that we have no access to this realm of reality where God supposedly presides, any other position is inherently irrational.
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@ethang5
The lack of homosexuals in positions of power was a supporting argument for claims of discrimination, not the argument itself. The argument itself was the litany of examples that every person who lived through the 90’s or before saw for themselves in addition to the litany of well documented examples of discrimination nationwide. It wasn’t exactly a secret.
I don’t know anything about Nigerian politics or it’s racial history so perhaps you can enlighten me… did blacks in Nigeria enslave the white population for 400 years, then free them into a society with no education, no resources to care for themselves and no compensation for the work they did to build the country’s wealth, then spend the next 100 or so years stopping them from voting, owning businesses, and buying their own homes, then suddenly and finally change the rules to make them facially neutral even though by that time the black population already controlled everything?
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@Mesmer
Sorry, but I'm not going to be baited into responding to your far-right wall-of-text propaganda.
Aka being challenged on the most basic premise of your position. Kind of like starting a thread on the role that race should play in government policy, and then running away as soon as you are challenged on what you think government is supposed to be in the first place.
You’re welcomed to address that point at any time BTW…
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@TheUnderdog
No muslims in America -> less terror attacks. But freedom and economic growth are trade offs to the deaths from terrorism, so the US lets muslims in.
Well over 600k Americans have died from COVID in the past year and a half. Remind me how many Americans were killed by Muslim terrorists during that time.
The gay example is legitimate because HIV is also a health threat and kills many people just like covid, unless your claiming HIV is no big deal.
HIV infects heterosexuals as well, so this is just stupid.
People who are immunocompromised (like my brother) can still get a vaccine to protect themselves.
Vaccinated people can die from this, and those cases tend to be overwhelmingly immunocompromised. Do you not know this, or are you just trolling? Cause that is what this is starting to feel like.
America does not have UHC. The government does not pay a single cent for people to get treated.
I never said anything about government, but the rest of us are absolutely paying for this. How do you think insurance works?
What I was actually talking about however are ICU beds filling up so people who come in with other ailments cannot get the care that they need. These beds are in many cases filled with over 90% Covid patients and 95% of them being unvaccinated. Their choices are absolutely impacting other people.
People who aren't vaccinated only impact their own economy. Buisinesses can hire others for more money to fill the void left by the employee that got covid.
WTF? What is “their own economy”? What are you talking about?
When cases are soaring people stay away. They stop traveling, not just state by state but internationally. This is common sense, and it clearly impacts all of us.
Do you believe in the old saying; “the freedom to swing your arms ends at someone else’s nose”?It's more like, "People can swing their arms if the odds of hitting someone is almost non existent (assuming they are blind and have no idea if they are hitting someone)".
I can see why nothing makes sense to you, cause you have zero ability to understand anything even slightly hyperbolic.
The phrase “someone else’s nose” is referring to other people’s space. Not just physical space, but any encroachment into someone else’s well being. This includes endangering someone else’s safety. Odds have nothing to do with it.
You believe it’s ok to speed cause chances are low that you’ll kill or hurt someone else. Is that the position you will take after someone drives past your from yard doing 70 while your children are playing tag?
To not believe in this basic principal is absurd, but I’ll allow for you to clarify your position before going further.
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@Tradesecret
I would suggest that there are 4 basis for knowledge and truth.Reason - we sit and we think - requires a belief in the immaterial because the laws of logic are not material. We cannot touch them or taste them.Empiricism, evidential evidence, we see and touch and feel etc. Relies on the material and denies the immaterial.Pragmatism. If it works it must be true. Says we should not waste our time on the above, because we are here and we think - in the material and immaterial. But indicates that the end justifies the means. There is no real knowledge save except what works.Transcendental. Revelation. Based on the view that none of the others can consistently and rationally make sense by themselves.
The first two are all we need, the second has no application here and the last is incoherent.
The idea what we cannot make sense of reason without the transcendental is self defeating. The very act of making this claim requires the use of reason, as well as the acceptance or rejection of it. It is essentially an attempt to use reason to invalidate reason.
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@Mesmer
The evidence is very obvious and I suspect you're a White supremacist who is extremely racist against Nigerians of differing ethnicities.I had a friend who went to Nigeria and felt like she wasn't welcomed. She ordered a coffee…
Wow. I thought you were at least trying or at the very least pretending to be clever, but I see this thread is every bit as stupid as it seemed.
For someone so obsessed with discussing race it is remarkable how unable you are to concoct a competing supremacist narrative. Population size is not an argument anyone uses as evidence for white supremacy.
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@Mesmer
Blacks are in power and causing systemic racism to oppress any racial group that isn't Black.
Evidence?
That is after all, kind of the point of a debate site.
Unless you think this attempt at satire is actually funny and/or clever. In which case carry on, don’t let me keep you from your fans.
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@TheUnderdog
Refusing a vacciene or a mask doesn't make vaccinated people significently less safe. You can make this argument to implement a muslim ban.
Except that, setting aside the remarkable bigotry of claiming that the danger posed to the public because of Muslims is akin to COVID… this is just factually false. There is no evidence that banning Muslims would have any detectable impact on national security. Getting large portions of the population vaccinated however is objectively proven to make a significant impact. Your gay example if just as absurd.
People should be free to decide their own risk tolerance, whether that is having sex with someone with HIV, or being unvaccinated.
You haven’t listened to a word I or anyone else has said. Getting vaccinated is not merely a personal choice, your actions impact everyone else around you. Unvaccinated people not only have a far greater chance of spreading the virus to other people including those who are immune compromised, but they are far more likely to drain our medical resources by filling up hospital ICU’s, contribute to mutations of the virus that the vaccines may not be able to protect against, and contribute to the economic impacts this has on all of us.
Why is this so difficult to understand?
This is why it is acceptable to speed even though some people die as a result. The freedom of 250 million drivers to speed for over an hour every day for 350 days a year is a legitimate trade off to the 30,000 people that die from car accidents. If you disagree, then don't speed.
You can’t be serious.
Setting aside the disgusting claim that 30,000 lives a year is a proportional trade off to letting everyone speed all year… Speeding doesn’t just endanger the safety of the driver, it impacts the safety of every car and pedestrian around that driver.
Why is this so difficult?
Do you believe in the old saying; “the freedom to swing your arms ends at someone else’s nose”?
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@TheUnderdog
I already explained how that does not follow, you ignored every word I said.
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@TheUnderdog
Democrats are the party of tolerance (until you decide to open carry an AK 47, be mask less, or be without a vaccine. Then they will not be tolerant. They will justify this using some weird logic, but in the end they aren't being tolerant of your life choices.)
Yes, Democrats are tolerant… until you endanger the health and safety of others and/or the general public. Can you explain what is hypocritical about this, since you’re so above the rest of us and our political opinions?
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@Dr.Franklin
these rules are dumb, a judge should have this power
Do you mean a judge shouldn’t have this power?
Honestly it doesn’t matter, your statement makes no sense either way. If you’re saying a judge should have this power then they already do. If you’re saying a judge shouldn’t have this power then who should? A politician?
Like I already said, someone is going to have this power and that someone will always have the ability to make an unjust choice. That’s not a flaw in the system, that’s a flaw in humanity. Instead of complaining about what you don’t like, purpose an actual solution.
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Then why doesn't Biden just say that instead of saying one week being vaxxed keeps you safe and saying the next week you will never be safe from unvaxxed people even if you are vaxxed?I assume you can read English and decipher former from latter claims. Am I wrong?
WTF?
You wrote both of these above. Why would I cite a scientific study to support your strawman of someone else’s claims?
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@Greyparrot
Then why doesn't Biden just say that instead of saying one week being vaxxed keeps you safe and saying the next week you will never be safe from unvaxxed people even if you are vaxxed?
Complete strawman, but what else should be expected from someone who doesn’t believe in nuance? I already explained to you the list of considerations behind vaccine mandates. Feel free to read up on our previous conversation.
Also, you never did cite the scientific study for that latter claim. I will just assume you can't find any.
What latter claim would that be? That vaccines reduce your chances of contracting, spreading, and/or becoming severely ill from Covid? Please tell me you’re referring to something else.
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@3RU7AL
In other words,GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT
No, those are your words and your message, having nothing to do with what I’m talking about.
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@Greyparrot
It's like saying a drunk driver was forced to pay up after he chose to drink and drive.
Drinking and driving is illegal and highly punishable. Do you believe the same should be true about having sex?
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@Greyparrot
There's now a lot of people with Vax regrets with all the talk about them still being vulnerable to the unvaccinated. What was the point if they don't keep you safe?
And yet another demonstration. Do you understand what the term nuance means? Does it occur to you that the world does not always spell every issue out in black and white?
Vaccines reduce your chances of contracting, spreading and becoming severely ill from COVID. It’s not a magic pill and it was never supposed to be. There is nothing optically bad about what logically follows from this, unless you are once again, stupid or just willfully ignorant.
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@949havoc
I see a definitive link because both processes are being treated as mandates because anyone opposing abortion is branded as taking away a woman's right to her body, but anyone refusing to take the vaccine is branded as a heretic, not as one who also sees an invasion on their right to privacy of their body.
The problem is that the link you see is not based on what the debate is actually about. I already explained this, but let me try rephrasing to make this easier.
The abortion debate is about two entities competing for the right to one body, so the question at hand is which one has the ultimate right.
My body my choice is a legitimate argument here, because the person is saying that the fetus should not have a greater right to their body then they do.
Vaccine mandate’s are about public health, so the question at hand is whether one who refuses to reduce their potential to contract and spread the virus should have the complete right to expose themselves to other people.
My body my choice makes no sense here whatsoever. If you don’t want to get vaccinated then don’t, but then, you don’t get to expose yourself to the rest of us.
If you are framing the issues any differently in order to claim hypocrisy you are engaging in one big strawman.
Therefore any individual who uses this slogan when it comes to an issue where it has nothing to do with the debate (vaccine mandates), while rejecting it where is it literally the central question of the debate (abortion), is a hypocrite.
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@Greyparrot
Anyone who wants to know why they should take the vaccine can look at the science. Anyone who wants to know why we should impose mandates should study epidemiology. If they don’t want to read through hundreds of pages of reports and dedicate the hours it takes to understand it properly then they can listen to the experts. If they don’t want to do either then they are beyond help. Policy should be based on reality, not how it looks to the stupid and the ignorant.
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@ethang5
When I look at videos of Jan 6th at the capitol, I see people solemly singing the national anthem, taking selfies with capitol officers, and having doors held open for elderly ladies.Liberals seem to see officers being mailed, windows being broken, and somehow, the "intention" of the demonstrators to "overthrow" the government.
140 police officers were injured on Jan 6th. There is video footage of officers being beaten by the mob with a hockey stick and flag poles, as well as audio recordings of police officers being maced as they fought the crowd, among other examples.
Footage also includes the US Capitol being breached by individuals breaking the windows and climbing in while outnumbered officers retreat. Chants by the mob to hang the Vice President, and footage of the mob within feet of congress as they were forced to evacuate the building in the middle of verifying the results of a US election.
Every single single thing I just mentioned are indisputable facts. This happened, and any individual with an internet connection who decides they would like to see it has full access to it.
Yet despite all of this, your “view” of what happened that day is people singing the national anthem and taking selfies with police officers. The problem is not that we see different realities, the difference between us is in what parts of reality we choose to disregard.
What is remarkable here is just how simple this really is. If this had happened in any other country you would not disregard what you are here. If that was Antifa or BLM breaking into the US Capitol while congress votes to certify Donald Trump as the winner of the election, your “view” would be a complete 180 from what you profess now.
To claim that the thousands who were a part of this do not represent the greater whole of the party would be a legitimate point to discuss, but to claim that it’s simply not what you see when you look at the days events is absurd, nakedly hypocritical and transparently partisan. It’s not a claim to be taken seriously.
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@TheUnderdog
Most politicians take money from PACs. If your position is to only support those that do not then that’s fine, but concluding that she’s corrupt or a hypocrite merely from this does not follow.
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