As to your summation of my position, I think you are on track. The road that you are speaking of leads to a lot of Scotsmen being kicked out of Scotland, if you know what I mean.

At last! Well I am glad that I understand your position finally.

Cheers,

Matt

As to your summation of my position, I think you are on track. The road that you are speaking of leads to a lot of Scotsmen being kicked out of Scotland, if you know what I mean.

I think you have a very good idea there.

Cheers,

Matt

And, you have no reason to accept the the god explanation over any other, but you do have reasons to reject it.

What reason?

I think I am starting to understand your point of view. You think that no observations can be made of God because to make those observations, one would have to postulate what observations would correlate with God's existence. But without knowing God, one would have to make up those postulates. Am I on track?

Cheers,

Matt

There is the method of proof in mathematics of 'reductio ad absurdum' in which one assumes the opposite of what one wants to prove & derives a contradiction. Eg: the proof (by Euclid IIRC) that there are an infinity of prime numbers by assuming a largest prime & then showing that one can derive from any finite list of primes a number which is either itself prime or must be a product of primes not in the original list.

A variant on this came out when people tried to prove the parallel postulate of Euclidian geometry by assuming in was not true, & after failing to find a contradiction, originated the fields of non-Euclidian geometry.

Similarly in the observational & experimental sciences, one assumes a theory to be true & derives things that should or should not be observed if the theory is true. If you observes things the theory predicts should not happen you have proven the theory false.

So, if you want to prove the existence of God you should start by assuming God doesn't exist, & vice versa.

I think that it is reasonable to suppose that God exists because I have had experiences which are well explained by contact with what is commonly considered to be the "divine".

Then, it is just as reasonable to suppose that it is Allah, Zeus, Baal, FSM, or the floating teapot that is responsible for those experiences. How are these things "well explained" and how do you determine the "divine"?

It is true that there are other possible explanations, but to accept these explanations out-of-hand as automatically superior is also to beg the question.

No, it is parsimonious. Occam's Razor is a great tool. Further, it is not begging the question to point out that another's fallacy of begging the question. And, you have no reason to accept the the god explanation over any other, but you do have reasons to reject it.

But you have already stated that it is impossible that *any* evidence could point toward God without assuming God exists. By this definition it is *impossible*, in your mind, to rationally support God's existence, regardless of any observation.

Well, yes, because of the logic of the situation. You can not support your notions of god without presupposing god in an ad hoc fashion. See, you are wrong that your god exists, because it's really my god that exists. The evidence is that my god likes to toy with people and make them think that their god exists. Many people think their god exists, ergo, that is evidence for my god. When you understand what it wrong with those statements, then you will understand what I'm saying.

Now, if the situation were different, then it would be possible. If god were to freely interact with our world and make herself available for repeatable observations, then you might have a bone to pick, for instance.

You have automatically identified any interpretation which could see "God" in an observation as "begging the question".

No, I have simply pointed out the inherent logical fallacy involved with making these types of assumptions about god.

I think a better way to state your case would be something like:

"The evidence we have access to would be best interpreted as indicating that God does not exist."

This is a much more supportable statement, and one that I think you could support much better.

No, I think my case is stated just fine the way I put it. God belief necessarily entails a logical fallacy and hence, is irrational.

On what basis do you make that claim?

I think that it is reasonable to suppose that God exists because I have had experiences which are well explained by contact with what is commonly considered to be the "divine". It is true that there are other possible explanations, but to accept these explanations out-of-hand as automatically superior is also to beg the question.

And that is only because you beg the question as to what "evidence" counts towards god.

But you have already stated that it is impossible that *any* evidence could point toward God without assuming God exists. By this definition it is *impossible*, in your mind, to rationally support God's existence, regardless of any observation.

Clearly each observation must be interpreted. You have automatically identified any interpretation which could see "God" in an observation as "begging the question".

In the end, the question of whether or not evidence for God exists comes to a "Yes". You may choose to disagree regarding how compelling that evidence is, and that is fine, but to deny that it is there, through force of will, or clever use of definitions will not change the facts.

I think a better way to state your case would be something like:

"The evidence we have access to would be best interpreted as indicating that God does not exist."

This is a much more supportable statement, and one that I think you could support much better.

Cheers,

Matt

Hey People
Is eating god rational?

Well??

If God turns out to be the much-heralded Flying Spaghetti Monster, then it may be a rather enjoyable experience...

:)

Let us be at peace,

Matt

My point is that based on my observations, the existence of God is a reasonable possibility. It is not certain and there is the possibility that God does not exist, but it is also reasonable that God does exist.

On what basis do you make that claim? If you say that it is reasonable that god exists because he can not be disproven, then it is also reasonable to think that Allah, Zeus, Baal, Thor, The Flying Sphagetti Monster, Russell's floating teapot, and anything else I can dream up exist. Simply because you can dream it up does not make it reasonable.

When I say "There is evidence for God", I mean that there are things which I observe which I think are best explained by God's existence. I do not mean that there are things which I observe which can *only* be explained by God's existence.

And that is only because you beg the question as to what "evidence" counts towards god. That you exist, is that evidence for god? Why? Only because you have deemed that an attribute of god would be that he created you. You've answered the question before ever asking.

I think that when you say "There is no evidence for God", you mean that there are no observations you have made which can only be described by God.

There are no observations one can make that support the god guess without first assuming god, yes. If we are going to make hypotheses, like in science, those are outcomes of observations. But, those observations can not lead to god unless you've already hypothesized god. It's circular in nature, and begging the question.

But, let's say that somehow you get past that and you find observations that could be evidence of god or some other natural phenomena. Well, by Occam's Razor, you should toss out the god hypothesis because it is the most complex answer you could pose to the question.

Now, people are testing and accepting or refuting it.

Except you really can't test for god, can you? You can test to see if the scriptures are true when they make empirical claims, but you can't really test to see if sky daddy is up there or not. This is yet another reason why the science analogy doesn't hold. Not only can you not really hypothesize a god without begging the question to begin with and violating Occam's Razor, but you can't test it.

Is eating god rational?

No, but neither is insulting people if you want them to take you seriously.