A god without man is pointless.

Originally posted by googlefudge
No you [stellspalfie] got that right.

Due to the problem of hard solipsism we can't know anything about the universe with absolute 100% certainty.

Thus all knowledge about the universe is probabilistic.

The probability that the universe was created 15 mins ago (or 6~10kyrs ago) looking like it's ~13.77 billion years
old is vastly vastly less t ...[text shortened]... sonship] would have to understand maths and logic
to understand that. you [sonship] don't.

The problem with a probabilistic universe is that the bumblebee still flies.

Originally posted by googlefudge
If you can't prove it you can't know it. And you are thus lying any time you claim it as fact.

This is the error in your post.

I CAN know it. Maybe you can't, but I can. It comes from the Holy Spirit.

Just because I cannot prove it to YOUR satisfaction does not mean I am lying.













EDIT: There IS one way I could prove it. If you were to have a change of heart and wished in your heart to make your life right with God and repented and accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior and gave your life over to Him, the truth of my FACTual faith would become apparent to you.

But in your probabilistic universe, I guess that garners a big fat 0% chance of happening. But don't say I didn't offer to prove it to you.

Originally posted by Suzianne
The problem with a probabilistic universe is that the bumblebee still flies.

Repeating old discredited folklore tends to diminish one's credibility. Even if legitimately unexplained, it has nothing to do with a probabilistic universe.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1076/is-it-aerodynamically-impossible-for-bumblebees-to-fly

"Once he sobered up, however, the aerodynamicist surely realized what the problem was--a faulty analogy between bees and conventional fixed-wing aircraft. Bees' wings are small relative to their bodies. If an airplane were built the same way, it'd never get off the ground. But bees aren't like airplanes, they're like helicopters. Their wings work on the same principle as helicopter blades--to be precise, "reverse-pitch semirotary helicopter blades," to quote one authority. A moving airfoil, whether it's a helicopter blade or a bee wing, generates a lot more lift than a stationary one. "

So the blade of a helicopter acts like the wing of a plane going much faster through the air than the plane is, in fact the helicopter can hover because its rotating "wing" is rapidly generating lift. The bumblebees wings go back and forth instead of around.

The beats per second issue is also dealt with at that site.

Originally posted by JS357
Repeating old discredited folklore tends to diminish one's credibility. Even if legitimately unexplained, it has nothing to do with a probabilistic universe.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1076/is-it-aerodynamically-impossible-for-bumblebees-to-fly

"Once he sobered up, however, the aerodynamicist surely realized what the problem was--a faulty a ...[text shortened]... th instead of around.

The beats per second issue is also dealt with at that site.

Now this I can appreciate.

I love Cecil Adams. 🙂

Originally posted by Suzianne
The problem with a probabilistic universe is that the bumblebee still flies.

And the wary bushbuck still looks askance at the hungry leopard.

Originally posted by Suzianne
This is the error in your post.

I CAN know it. Maybe you can't, but I can. It comes from the Holy Spirit.

Just because I cannot prove it to YOUR satisfaction does not mean I am lying.













EDIT: There IS one way I could prove it. If you were to have a change of heart and wished in your heart to make your life right with God a ...[text shortened]... t garners a big fat 0% chance of happening. But don't say I didn't offer to prove it to you.

nope, even caps-lock cant help you know it. feeling something very strongly doesnt constitute as knowing. its possible that you are not lying on purpose, you may be genuine in your assertions, but this does not make them true.


the edit doesnt prove anything either. you are basically saying if you wished for somebody to become a christian and they did, then that would be proof. which of course it wouldnt.

Originally posted by Suzianne
The problem with a probabilistic universe is that the bumblebee still flies.

????

How is that a problem?

Bumble bees fly because their wings generate enough lift to counteract gravity.
They just do so in a way more complicated that the way aeroplane (or bird) wings
work and thus the equations used to describe bumblebee flight didn't work.

However that lead us to study bumblebee flight and so we learned more about
aerodynamics and we learned how they do work.

None of these either gave or gives any trouble to the scientific method or the fact
that all knowledge about the universe is probabilistic.

EDIT: better description given above... should have read further down.

Originally posted by Suzianne
This is the error in your post.

I CAN know it. Maybe you can't, but I can. It comes from the Holy Spirit.

Just because I cannot prove it to YOUR satisfaction does not mean I am lying.













EDIT: There IS one way I could prove it. If you were to have a change of heart and wished in your heart to make your life right with God a ...[text shortened]... t garners a big fat 0% chance of happening. But don't say I didn't offer to prove it to you.

No the fact that you cannot demonstrate your 'knowledge' means that you cannot actually know it.

Believing something really hard does not mean you know it.

Knowledge MUST be demonstrable and provable by definition.

Have a read of this blog post that explains it (with a real world example) really well...

http://freethoughtblogs.com/axp/2013/01/21/the-argument-from-it-just-makes-sense-to-me/

Particularly the parts about verification.

But if you can't be bothered to read the whole thing this is the conclusion that neatly states the point
I am making. (formatting mine for clarity)

As a side benefit to LaBerge’s story, he, himself, actually recognized something I agree with,
and something some people have a problem understanding.

There is a saying that “your personal experience justifies your belief, but I haven’t had your experience,
so it can’t justify it for me, since I only have your claim.”

But LaBerge demonstrated that his personal experience wasn’t sufficient to justify his beliefs.
Personal experience, depending on what it is, is not automatic justification for adopting a belief—especially
if you are forced to admit you aren’t personally able to confirm your interpretation of what you experienced.

When you tell me you saw a ghost, I not only wonder how you plan to verify that to me, but how you ever
managed to verify that to yourself?

And if you didn’t, then you are no more justified in your belief you’ve had a ghost encounter, than I would be.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
nope, even caps-lock cant help you know it. feeling something very strongly doesnt constitute as knowing. its possible that you are not lying on purpose, you may be genuine in your assertions, but this does not make them true.


the edit doesnt prove anything either. you are basically saying if you wished for somebody to become a christian and they did, then that would be proof. which of course it wouldnt.

Don't water down my statement and make it into your opinion by reducing it to a "basically". I said what I said. I didn't "basically" anything.

Same with my first statement. I didn't say I "felt something strongly" or whatever nebulous idea you want to water it down to. I said I know it because the Holy Spirit reveals it to me, and if you were to receive the Holy Spirit, you would know it too. Pretty simple concepts there, but you water them down to make them appear weak.

Originally posted by googlefudge
No the fact that you cannot demonstrate your 'knowledge' means that you cannot actually know it.

Believing something really hard does not mean you know it.

Knowledge MUST be demonstrable and provable by definition.

Have a read of this blog post that explains it (with a real world example) really well...

http://freethoughtblogs.com/axp/2013/01 u are no more justified in your belief you’ve had a ghost encounter, than I would be.[/quote]

Okay, prove that God does not exit. Prove God did not create the heavens and the earth and living creatures to reproduce after their kind. Prove that the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo are fakes and that no person has ever risen from the dead or ascended up into heaven. Do you have the knowledge to prove these things? If so, get busy and show us.

As it has been said before, "Put up or shut up." 😏

HalleluYah !!! Praise the Lord! Glory be to God! Holy! Holy! Holy!

Originally posted by RJHinds
Okay, ... Prove God did not create the heavens and the earth and living creatures to reproduce after their kind.

I will.

When you prove the FSM didn't do it.

Because I will use the same proof.

😏 Hailpotnoodles! FSM is great. Pasta. Pasta. Pasta

Originally posted by RJHinds
Okay, prove that God does not exit. Prove God did not create the heavens and the earth and living creatures to reproduce after their kind. Prove that the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo are fakes and that no person has ever risen from the dead or ascended up into heaven. Do you have the knowledge to prove these things? If so, get busy and show ...[text shortened]... up or shut up." 😏

HalleluYah !!! Praise the Lord! Glory be to God! Holy! Holy! Holy![/b]

Ok first off. And this has been said to you a thousand times without it sinking in so I have no hope of you grasping it this time....


The person making a positive claim has the burden of proof.

YOU claim that there IS a god (a specific god no less).

YOU claim that that god created the universe.

YOU claim that JC existed AND rose from the dead.

And YOU claim that the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo (whatever the heck that is) are genuine and prove something.

YOU thus must present the EVIDENCE and reason that backs up those claims.




However the combination of maths science and our accumulated knowledge over the past few centuries does in fact demonstrate beyond a
reasonable doubt that your god does not exist, there is no afterlife, we have no souls, ect ect.


First off we can turn to probability theory and see that given an infinite possible number of god concepts the probability of picking the
correct one/s (assuming that any exist at all) without guiding evidence is effectively zero.

Which means that we can dismiss any god claim without supporting evidence strait off the bat because the chances of it being right a priori
are effectively zero and thus it's beyond any reasonable doubt that it's not true.


Secondly we can examine the observable universe and using the scientific method learn how it works.
And we discover that it's function and existence is effectively explained by natural (non-supernatural) non-intelligent processes without any need
of a god/creator at all.

We can see that there is nothing going on in the brain that indicates the existence of a soul and we see through our long slow evolution over
billions of years from bacteria to humans that there is no reasonable point at which you could say "and poof we suddenly got souls".

We can look at our bodies and see things like the "recurrent (inferior) laryngeal nerve" which extends from the base of your brain down your neck
and around the heart and then back up to your larynx... which is stupid "design" in humans... much more so in giraffes and sauropods. And see this
as evidence that there was no intelligent designer and that we did in fact evolve (evolution both explaining and predicting this kind of thing).

We can turn to quantum physics and see particles popping into and out of existence and work out that the same process can and will cause
universes to pop into existence, from nothing.


We don't need a god to explain the universe, There is no evidence for a god or gods, there is evidence against their being gods, and the chances of
guessing which gods are real without evidence guiding us is effectively zero.

It is thus beyond all reasonable doubt that any and all claims for gods existence made throughout human history including the claims by all modern religions
of the existence of gods are wrong.

We can thus say that we can know beyond all reasonable doubt that there is no god/are no gods.
And that the universe came into existence and runs on natural means as described by the laws of physics.




And while it is possible that it might be possible that we could be wrong about this.

It is not probable enough based on current evidence to take that idea seriously.

You have to be seriously unreasonable to think otherwise.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Don't water down my statement and make it into your opinion by reducing it to a "basically". I said what I said. I didn't "basically" anything.

Same with my first statement. I didn't say I "felt something strongly" or whatever nebulous idea you want to water it down to. I said I know it because the Holy Spirit reveals it to me, and if you were to rec ...[text shortened]... t too. Pretty simple concepts there, but you water them down to make them appear weak.

if i received the holy spirit how would i know?

Originally posted by Suzianne
The problem with a probabilistic universe is that the bumblebee still flies.

That's fine. Probability can deal with certainty.

So bumblebees can fly with probability 1 because it has been observed.

People with different belief systems can understand each other's point of view and get along happily with probability 0. OK, maybe a little higher than zero but I know of no instance of this happening so am happy to assign probability zero to that event.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
if i received the holy spirit how would i know?

You would suddenly find yourself in possession of a bottle of Laphroaig.