DaRk_LoRd_SuPrEmE_3.14159

Exactly. I'm bhuddist, but who cares.

Trey

I don't see why people go to such great lengths to disprove religion. I mean, it's a fruitless venture anyways, amd you can't fully disprove it, because the vast majority of believing in it is faith.

As long as someone doesn't use said religion to prove a point or validate/subtantiate a topic or action, then I see no problem with it.

Miburo

I don't see why either. Not for the reason you presented though. More so because the burden of proof is on the people making the claim, not the other way around. ; )

Agreed.

Highspeed0516

But what do you mean prove a point? If you mean stuff it down someone's throat - I agree, but if you are offerring it as an invitation . . . under the proper forum . . I think the idea is to have some kind of point.

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dirk667

why so? in court, the prosicutor has to provide the evidence also. so please, present.

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Miburo

Court is a perfect example. The prosecutor is the one making the claim that the defendant is guilty, therefore it is his duty to provide proof of that claim. The defendant assumes the default 'innocent' label unless sufficient evidence is presented to prove otherwise.

There is no evidence to support the belief in God, hence the whole blind faith thing. Therefore there is no reason to logically believe any claim presented by someone that God does exist unless they can supply convincing proof. Which they cannot.

If someone said "Hey, I found a species of turtle that can fly and shoot lazers from it's shell," you probably wouldn't go "Oh, cool. I believe you until someone can prove those turtles don't exist." Right? You'd probably want some proof, assuming you're not a gullible idiot. Same exact line of reasoning applies here. If people make a claim, it's their job to supply proof. it's not the job of the people who justifiably doubt the claim to prove them wrong.

RNB

Logic is based on some sort of faith though so it isn't like you are taking faith away all together.

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Trey

Well, I have to agree with Mibz on that one. It is the duty of the followers to provide proof to validate the existence of God.

Miburo

Almost everything is based on some sort of faith. Pointing that out doesn't change anything I've said though.

RNB

So why is it logical to trust in logic?

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Freshgrease

Perhaps, but they should not have to validate the existence of God to believe in him. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. For example, you may know a murder is guilty as sin, but that doesn't always mean he'll go down in court (EX: The OJ Simpson case). Yes, if you want to put the man in jail (Read: Preform a serious decision) you need significant evidence. However, you can believe he did it, and nobody can make you believe otherwise.

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Miburo

Are you serious, dude? Seriously? Just read that aloud. You're basically asking "Why is it logical to be logical?" It's logical by virtue of being logical. A=A, 1=1, etc. Come on, man. = /

Look, I know the philosophical line of thought you're going by here. Descartes type shit, right? Not really a fan of his, honestly. But whatever. Using that line of thought, nothing can be trusted completely. Even first hand knowledge, because our senses can be tricked. Pretty much nothing is without doubt.

Sure, that's a neat way of thinking and all, I suppose. But it's completely useless too. What does doubting almost all known knowledge do for us, really? Not a damn thing, and I'm sure you know it. I could use your same exact argument to argue against literally almost any known fact to put a degree of doubt upon it. You're not proving anything though, and you're not making any point at all.

Besides, there's a huge difference in having faith in something like, say, the fact that the earth revolves around the sun compared to the a claim that has no credible supporting evidence like there being a magically powerful entity that controls all space and time, and other equally baseless things. That goes far, far beyond the default amount of doubt that is found in all human knowledge. They are in no way comparable.

No one is saying you can't believe in that stuff. Just that it is illogical. That's all.

That's kind of why it's slightly erroneous, in my opinion, to argue that God definitely doesn't exist. To make that claim requires some sort of proof. Though, when you think about it, it doesn't really matter. Functionally, not believing claims that there is a God and believing he doesn't exist are the same things. You can't prove the boogie man doesn't exist, but if someone asked you if the boogie man existed you'd probably say no. Same with any other made up magical thing, I'd hope.

Logically, claims that have no credible support should be ignored. That's how it should be, because that's what makes the most sense. You would likely use this same logic in almost any other scenario where it applies. It shouldn't be a foreign concept to pretty much anyone.

Trey

@Fresh--I never said that, though. I still believe in something, even though I can't prove it explicitly using scientific means. Doesn't mean I don't think he's there though. I just think he transcends comprehension and phsyical laws.

@Mibs--Well, there should be some doubt in some things, because they are not fully proven. There's still exceptions to the rules, keeping them from being fact. The Earth revolving around the Sun is fact, because we do in fact travel around the sun invariably. However, the Big Bang (among other comsological theories) and somesuch are not explicitly, invariably proven. We have a general idea, but we still should have doubts that we may, in fact, be wrong.

Miburo

RNB is saying that logic, and pretty much all things we know as facts, requires a small leap of faith. This is actually true if you look at things from a particular philosophical viewpoint. Because you can find a cause for doubt in pretty much anything. All you need to do is find any reason at all to doubt something, really. According to Descartes, of course.

Like, the earth going around the sun thing. How do you know that's a fact, beyond any shred of doubt what-so-ever? You're likely taking the studies and tests done by countless other people and going off that, right? Well, people can be wrong, and people can lie. There's doubt right there.

Even if you did the math yourself, there's still doubt because how are you sure you did it right? You're not flawless. Even if you went out into space and actually witnessed the earth going around the sun, there's STILL doubt. Ever see an optical illusion? Your eyes can't always be trusted, sometimes they're wrong, after all.

It basically boils down to there being no way you can be 100% sure in almost anything, there's always that super, paper thin, layer of doubt. And there is truth to it, I suppose. If you're really interested in the philosophy to it you can look up the first two meditations from Descartes. I think it's pretty useless and kind of silly, personally. And it's definitely not a train of thought I'd bring up in any sort of debate section in an attempt to discredit anything, that's for damn sure. But they make you read about the dude in Philosophy 101, so some people must think it's kind of neat or some shit. ; )

Freshgrease

From what I got out of Trey's statement must have been reading too far into it, but my underlying frustration deals with people that use logic as the sole authority for justifying an existence or means. To push it even further, it is atheist zealots that try on a daily basis to disrupt a Christian's faith with solely logic-based arguments. I wouldn't mind it so much if they were not forcing their beliefs on us expecting us to "see the light" as it were, but with their arguments comes the inevitable "he is stupid because he doesn't see the logic my way" deal.

You'll see that Christians are diverse in their acceptance of science. It is common to believe that we all believe in "some magical entity" that magically controls everything, but some believe more in a direct intervention from God than others.

For example, there is no way the Earth and man were created in seven complete rotations of the planet Earth. We have science to prove that the Earth is billions of years old. Perhaps "days" is of a different timescale, hundreds of millions of years our time? I dunno. If man is in God's own image (as said in the Bible, and image is interpreted to be more than physical appearance), perhaps God's thought process is similar as well (though infinitely superior). Due to the similarity in the thought process and the vastness in amounts of time determined to be a "day", it can be deduced that he sees time faster than we would. Why would he involve himself so deeply in a small whip of time with menial matters of revolving the Earth around the Sun in a similar orbit for billions of years?

He could just setup the system, push it forward and concentrate more on his humanity game plan. The world needed a savior, so he sent his son. The individual human needed guidance, so he sent the Holy Ghost.

EDIT: Yeah. Descartes is pretty interesting, but we don't need to go back to basics. Sadly, its been forever since PHIL 302 (the philosophy class for non-Philosophy majors. I'm trying to think of the philosopher that said that you cannot know anything without justified true belief. So in essence knowledge is only knowledge if you can justify a belief. I guess this can go either way and knowledge is not static nor is it exact.

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