Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

If you're gonna make a statement like that, I'm gonna have to ask you to back it up.
Disprove God.

You can't do it.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Agreed. No matter which side of the debate you're on, it's impossible to prove God's existance one way or the other beyond any shadow of a doubt.

I suspect that, when people say "Science has disproven God" (people think that, if they add 'science' to that statement, it makes them sound smarter than they are) or "God is easy to disprove" what they mean is "God cannot be proven".
The two statements are not logically equal, though. The inabilty to prove is not, in and of itself, a disproof.
Aaron McGruder said it best through a character on an episode of Boondocks: "I always say the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. "
The character wasn't talking about God, but there's still a lesson in that statement.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

I don't know if science could ever substantially prove that God DOES exist, for the reason of a basic principle of science that a friend of mine--a doctor of organic chemistry--explained to me (though this was while discussing Creationism vs. Evolution). He said:



So, this isn't to say that science has proven that God does not exist. It merely means that within the rules of science, we are not able to prove whether or not any sort of God exists.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

You risked it, and it happened; you sound insulting.

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Actually, atheism does require faith. It requires faith because the non-existence of God is not something that can be proven. So unless you have concrete proof that God does not exist, then claiming that he does not is an act of faith.

So unless you can prove that God is made-up, you really have no basis for such a claim.

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I suggest you think about the natural extension of saying that all religion is made up. For example:

1. All people who believe in God are deluded.

2. They follow a set of rules for living with no basis in reality.



You can say all you want, but people being atheist doesn't offend me.

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You're still not making a real argument, Yeltensic.

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Who says my faith is blind? Upon what do you base this assumption? You haven't even gotten to know me, so how in the world do you think you're qualified to comment on the foundations of my faith?

Your comparison of God and Santa is still not valid. Maybe THEORETICALLY Santa could exist, but the theoretical existence or non-existence of Santa is not parallel to the existence or non-existence of God. I believe I have good reason not to take the Santa myth as real (except perhaps the historical kindly old bishop who gave anonymous gifts to people - he probably did exist). But I also have good reason to believe that God DOES exist. Therefore, at least as far as I'm concerned, your comparison is not valid.

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So you say, but have you ever actually investigated? Probably not.

Which brings us back to the topic of this thread: why it is that people hold certain stereotypes of atheists. The main one being that they love going around telling us religious types that we are wrong, even when they have no evidence to support their claims that we are.

Do you want to know why I believe as I do? You claim I have no evidence, but you really haven't gotten to know me well enough to say whether I do or not, now have you?

I'll tell you what evidence I do have:

First of all, we have the Scriptures. For the sake of this discussion, I will focus on the New Testament, particularly the Gospel accounts.

The New Testament tells the life of a man known as Jesus of Nazareth. There are 4 different biographies of him, plus other writings of several other men that corroberate the story. This man, Jesus of Nazareth made some very outrageous claims, the main one being that he was the Son of God. The interesting part is he performed several remarkable events that seemed to demonstrate his claims. The chief one being that he was crucified and lay in a tomb for three days, but then rose again and appeared to over 500 people. At least 7 of these men wrote testimonies of this experience. And while some have tried to claim they were making it up, every single one of them was severely persecuted and suffered immensely because they believed what they wrote and did not renounce their faith. Only one of them was not executed for his faith, but he was exiled and imprisoned on Patmos.

And these writings are not written like fairy tales or myths or epic legends; they are written as history, with verifiable historical facts in them. Furthermore, despite efforts of various skeptics to present contrary accounts, none of them have been able to actually refute these historical accounts. In fact, the vast majority of them are based on the a priori assumption that miracles cannot occur, therefore the accounts must be false. But this is circular argumentation, and therefore not valid.

And this is but one reason why I believe as I do, Yeltensin. There are actually many others, some of which I may or may not be willing to share, since some of them are intensely personal (and by "personal" I do not mean "merely emotional").

Nevertheless, I find it highly interesting that this thread is supposed to be discussing why it is that people tend to view atheists in a stereotypical fashion, and yet here you are acting just like a stereotypical atheist: assuming you're right before the discussion, making unsubstantiated claims that there is no evidence to support the other side, not taking the time to present your own case before passing judgment on the ideas of others.

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Actually, the Bible isn't a single source. That is your mistake. It is a collection of sources, multiple accounts that corroberate each other, and yet, you find yourself unable to disprove. Therefore, your claim that it is not history is unsubstantiated.


You're missing the point. Your obligation is to present evidence that there is no God. That you have not done.


I already have. Instead of actually offering contrary evidence, though, you simply chose to dismiss it.

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We don't have hard, solid evidence that life exists beyond this planet, but that doesn't mean that many scientists aren't out there searching for it, nor does it mean that anyone who believes in the existence of alien lifeforms is irrational. If scientists firmly believed that the absence of evidence was truly the evidence of absence, then we'd have no reason to look for alien life forms...yet we do. Why is that?

I don't like the Santa analogy because Santa is obviously not paralleled with God, as Didymus said. Santa is supposed to be a physical person who interacts with our physical world once a year, whereas God is supposed to exist beyond our physical realm, typically only interacting in ways that cannot be quantified by physical science. Therefore, to disprove the existence of Santa would be far easier than to disprove the existence of God.

As I said before, science is hardly capable of proving the existence of God, if for no other reason than the reason that science must be allowed to be proven fallible, whereas God, by most definitions, is infallible. Moreover, there are plenty of scientists who hold some sort of religious beliefs, be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Pagan, or whatever else. Science and God do not have to be as mutually exclusive as some people make it out to be--no more than football and music have to be mutually exclusive. You can have both on the same field, and it shouldn't have to offend people.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

Thanks, Pianoman.

You see, Yeltenic, it's not enough just to say your opponent has no evidence (especially when your opponent actually presents some). You have to present contrary evidence to support your own position.

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The existence of God cannot be disproven or there would be a far greater number of atheists. Likewise, the existence of God cannot be proven or there would be a far greater number of people who worship him.

All your "How do you know?" thing proves is that the phrase "Well, how do you know?" is not enough to prove the existence of God (which is very well true). It doesn't disprove anything.

- Kef

I for one understand the concept of "burden of proof" and understand the point you're making here. (I'm an atheist, too, but a weak atheist -- I accept the possibility of the existence of God, I just don't actively believe in him.) I actually feel kind of insulted by the arguments you make, because they make scientists and other atheists look bad. I agree that the burden of proof is still on the theists, but we can't go around pretending that this neatly solves the problem of the existence of God.



That's more of a hypothesis than it is evidence, although it's a very reasonable one.



I'd say God has more of a "reason" to exist than Santa does. Also, the existence of Santa is easily disproved. For example, a satellite scan of the entire arctic will show no signs of Santa Claus, no matter the resolution. On the other hand, the existence of God is impossible to disprove.

- Kef

I disagree. Until you can give me some reason to distrust the Bible as historical, then you're not making a sound argument. Just claiming that it's no better than Greek mythology is not a substantial argument. For one thing, we have no historical records of Greek mythology whatsoever. On the other hand, we do have the biblical records, as well as the writings of the early church, that have been substantiated historically. So no, your comparison is still not valid.

To give you an example of what I mean, can you show me on a map where the historical Hermes was born? Can you show me an ancient manuscript of the biography of Hercules? I can do these things concerning Jesus. This in and of itself does not prove that I'm right, but it does make my faith in Jesus a good bit more credible than, say, in Zeus. Or Santa.

Thank you, Kef. As much as you and I disagree on some things, I respect you very much as a person. And this is exactly the reason why I do.

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I realized that. It doesn't mean I can't take offense at your argument. As for why I found it offensive, I'd rather not get further into it right now... I'm not in my best cognitive faculties.

- Kef

Unsubstantiated claims once again. Present evidence to support them.

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If you can cite me some scholarly resources based on sound research.

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Yeltensic, I have more than 8 years studying the Bible in an academic setting. I have a BA in Biblical Studies, and a Master of Divinity. As part of our education, we studied skeptic scholars as well as orthodox, so I'm familiar with most of the arguments on both sides. Although, I will admit that since I started my professional work, I haven't really kept up with any new information from the past two years, but my suspicion is that there's really not that much new in the way of argumentation. The simple truth is that the best and most convincing argumentation is going to be found in books, not the internet.

Look, I'm not trying to prove your atheistic philosophy wrong. I haven't been able to do that with Kef or Upsilon yet, so there's very little chance I will with you. My point is, just as Kef stated above, that there really is no cut-and-dry proof on either side of the equation. I feel I have evidence to support my case; you feel I do not. All I'm doing is trying to show that I really do have reasons for believing as I do, and that it's not mere "blind faith."

It is my sincere hope that from this point on, we can be at least a little more respectful of each other's beliefs, as well as our reasons for holding those beliefs. I've gotten into too many heated discussions to really want to pursue another.

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