[QUOTE=Uncwilly;181683]I think that there was already a decline before 1491.

I was trying to point out that Europeans and others may have already had a disruptive effect. Cristobal Colon was just the start of a sustained assult.[/QUOTE]

What has this opinion of yours to do with the OP and thread title?

[QUOTE=Zeta-Flux;181777]Tony, technically speaking, there is no *proof* for any statement. Not in the sense of absolute proof. Even in math, there is always the possibility that we did the computation wrong (for the 300 millionth time), or have misunderstood the basic axioms, or etc...

However, there certainly is a lot of evidence for God.

-------------------------------



Cheesehead, while I cannot speak for jasong, and there are times I significantly disagree with him, I think I can express his reasoning another way. Suppose we create a very large computer, that runs a very large computation. Think of it as a very large hologram, similar to Star Trek. It runs through the history of an imaginary intelligent species.

Would we say that there is any real value to anything the players on the stage do? Would we consider it immoral that Grok slew Filibar in the 300,123rd year of the program, so he could steal his wife? Or is it just a computer program? What gives meaning to the lives of the inhabitants of the program? What if we ran the program, but nobody watched it, and then we destroyed the computer?

If this universe is truly finite, and we are merely existent for a small part, and it will die heat death... it just isn't a pleasant alternative to the idea that we are eternal beings, on the path of eternal improvement and progression.

All things being equal, which would you rather believe in? At what point would evidence from one side trump evidence for the other? At what point is believing beneficial vs. disbeneficial to the occupant of the universe?[/QUOTE]

Not correct.

There are statements, many, that can be proven.

For example, one plus one equals two.

It is provable and true, yes simply by going to
the definitions of one, two, and plus, but it still
takes a mind's understanding to get the proof.

There's more to respond to in this post, but not yet.

[QUOTE=rogue;181779]I guess that depends upon what you mean by "absolute proof". Are you referring to philosophical or mathematical concepts when you talk about "absolute proof"? Does 1 = 1? It does mathematically, unless you want to argue that either "1" or "=" do not have a definitive meaning.

BTW, where is your evidence for god? You claim that there is a lot, but I am unaware of any evidence.



Your first statement is the reason one people believe in god in the first place. How does one spend eternity without getting bored? We cannot possibly know what any afterlife consists of (no proof), so why waste time thinking about it? Why waste time theorizing on what god wants? Why waste time preparing ourselves for a complete unknown?

There is nothing that can prove the existence or non-existence of god. If the side of caution you error on is the theistic one, how can you guarantee that you are doing the correct things to make your deity happy?[/QUOTE]

I agreed with this post up until the penultimate sentence.

How can you claim, just because you've never heard the proof,
that NO ONE ELSE has proven the non-existence of god?

I'm happy to tell you (and you don't have to believe me, I'm not god)
that someone, on earth, has proven THERE IS NO GOD.

I've seen the proof (don't ask me to reproduce it right here), and
I know for a fact the proof is totally correct.

Hence there is no god.

I still haven't seen anyone present evidence that God exists other than as an idea in human minds.

If there really were "a lot of evidence" for God (other than as an idea in human minds), why are the believers so shy about telling us what it is? Why don't they just trot it out for everyone to see? Why do they so often present statements of limitation of their own imaginations (e.g., "I can't imagine that the universe could exist without God") as, supposedly, such evidence?

Why are hallucinations sometimes claimed to be evidence of God -- other than, of course, the mundane explanation that such claimers simply don't understand that a hallucination is a process inside human brains, and they attribute things they don't understand to "God"?

Why would teachings or tenets of religion be presented as "evidence" of the existence of God (other than as an idea in human minds) when those teachings or tenets only show that God exists as an idea in human minds ... if real evidence of the existence of God (as something other than an idea in human minds) existed? Why not show us the real evidence instead (which would be more convincing)?

Why do believers sometimes cite benefits of belief in their (or others') religion as evidence for existence of God (as something other than an idea in human minds), when, actually, such citations are evidence only of the benefits of an idea in human minds?

Is the answer to all the questions simply the mundane explanation that God-believers simply have trouble distinguishing (or don't want to distinguish) an idea from reality?

[QUOTE=cheesehead;248493]I still haven't seen anyone present evidence that God exists other than as an idea in human minds.

If there really were "a lot of evidence" for God (other than as an idea in human minds), why are the believers so shy about telling us what it is? Why don't they just trot it out for everyone to see? Why do they so often present statements of limitation of their own imaginations (e.g., "I can't imagine that the universe could exist without God") as, supposedly, such evidence?

Why are hallucinations sometimes claimed to be evidence of God -- other than, of course, the mundane explanation that such claimers simply don't understand that a hallucination is a process inside human brains, and they attribute things they don't understand to "God"?

Why would teachings or tenets of religion be presented as "evidence" of the existence of God (other than as an idea in human minds) when those teachings or tenets only show that God exists as an idea in human minds ... if real evidence of the existence of God (as something other than an idea in human minds) existed? Why not show us the real evidence instead (which would be more convincing)?

Why do believers sometimes cite benefits of belief in their (or others') religion as evidence for existence of God (as something other than an idea in human minds), when, actually, such citations are evidence only of the benefits of an idea in human minds?[/QUOTE]

Agreed.

They don't because they can't.

So for an agnostic or atheist to take the next step,
it's a question of: is there somewhere in there a
proof of the non-existence of god?

Sure there is.

I do believe there is God and 'God is Love'. Only those who love unconditionally will know the existence of God. We need to have show true love to our neighbors always. The 2 greatest physicists to ever come out of this world share their opinion here - [url]http://www.worldtransformation.com/is-there-a-god/[/url].

Science and a rational philosophy on which to base it
are the surest way to answer the original question in
this thread. Is there a god? Of course not.

[QUOTE=davar55;349533]Is there a god? Of course not.[/QUOTE]

Prove it.

[QUOTE=chalsall;349547]Prove it.[/QUOTE]Except in some formal constructions, non-existence is almost impossible to prove.

Existence is something that must be proven. Especially if one uses the existence of an entity to prove something, then that entity should be proven to exist.

Jacob

[QUOTE=chalsall;349547]Prove it.[/QUOTE]

Prove what? The fact that there iis no god?
Asking for the proof as one's total contribution to
that post, is being on the wrong side of the challenge.

Let the agnostics try to prove there MIGHT be a god.
Even that's impossible.

Wrong path.

The right path:
Q: Is there a god?
A: Who the freaking cares?