6399 replies to this topic

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Even using definition 4, evidence still plays a role. The two aren't antonyms, they're very closely associated, although speculation covers only the kinds of evidences that are "inconclusive" or not sufficient enough to be 100% reliable.The Bible isn't conclusive for evidence. That argument was based on a scripture. If the statement weren't based on a scripture, then yes, it would be insane for God to send bears to maul people. Of course, even in the scripture it wasn't God that sent the bears, but Elisha.In order to interpret the "evidence" objectively, you need to take into consideration that the fact that the supposed mauling is recorded only in one verse of the Bible isn't sufficient evidence to prove that it actually happened, and the use of the number 42 suggests it to be a metaphor.Que? The end of that sentence makes no sense. Why are you bringing up satan at all? And fossil records don't lead to a definite "evolution" theory. There is no conclusive evidence that supports evolution, only suppositions based on inconclusive evidence. Yes, it is still evidence, which is why evolution is still a possibility, but it's not the only possibility.Again, even in that manner, evidence is still subjective. Hard, conclusive evidence is the only evidence that's objective.

Why am I even bothering with this, here:http://dictionary.re...om/browse/faithSecond definition on the first and second entries.It wouldn't be faith if there was evidence it would just be a commonly accepted truth.And it's great to know that we can interpret things however we want, I don't see anyone bothering to refute whatever conclusions I came up with yet. The exegesis of 38542788 is coming along rather nicely I suppose.

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I'm not arguing that faith has no hard evidence. Although even in the definitions you chose, it doesn't say that faith is completely void of any evidence, just lacking material (or "hard") evidence. There is no argument about that.

So you're saying that what evidence you are deign to offer is something that cannot be universally (objectively) accepted?Great, glad we can agree on something.

You seem to remain under the assumption that the only kind of evidence in existence is hard evidence. It's the inconclusive evidences that, for some, prove the existence of God, and for others prove to be nothing but coincidental.

No, just because two people reach different different (contradictory) conclusions based on the same thing does not mean that there exist two contradictory truths.I read a passage depicting a bear mauling attributed to god, and so did you. My conclusion is that such a story depicted what people at the time believed to be true; the story was about a literal bear mauling, you conclusion was that the bears were metaphorical (though you decline to state what they might represent). One of us is right and one of us is wrong (or both of us are wrong I suppose), but the purpose of debate is to put forth arguments so that observes (or even participants such as ourselves), can arrive at that one objective truth.You have tried to weasel out of this by putting forth false equivocations, "but Christians believe faith is important, why don't you understand that?" What you or I believe might have nothing to do at all with objective reality, we could both be completely wrong, the point is that of course no one goes through life like this. You obviously think that what you believe is true, while I don't, at least one of us is wrong (though if we reduce to the question to a simple binary of "does god exist" only one of us is wrong).I have offered evidence of my point, when I asked for the same of you, after repeating the question many times, you finally admit that your evidence is crap and can't convince anyone. Why else would you go around redefining words?

To be quite frank, there's not really even a way to prove without a shred of a doubt that I exist, or that you exist for that matter. As far as we know, our minds could be locked in some sort of artificial world. Perhaps I only exist as a being created by someone's schizophrenia. I could possibly be someone with a multiple personality disorder, and am not even aware of it. In that case, would I make up for two real people? Or would one of those people be nonexistent? I suppose that really just leaves us with one question. What is real? If real is what you can perceive with your five senses, then even reality is subjective.

Great move there, retreating into sophism.I've mentioned parsimony a couple of times already, read up on it.http://dictionary.re...rowse/parsimonySecond definition of the American Heritage version.

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I didn't realize you thought I disagreed.

Why would god give evidence that cannot be universally accepted? Jesus allowed Thomas to touch his wounds, why am I not given the same chance?

I never said anything about there being two contradictory truths. That's illogical. And again, I haven't redefined anything. Every definition I've used can be found on a dictionary reference site. Nor have I admitted that my evidence is "crap". Take one of your examples, that girl that spent 7 years (I believe) virtually isolated from any human contact. In your opinion, your ideal God would not have allowed that to happen, or at least not for as long as it did. But look at how everything turned out. She ended up being rescued, and then taken in by a God-fearing couple, one which was looking for a child that was exactly the opposite of that little girl. And yet they felt compelled to take her in as their own. To you, perhaps that is mere sympathy and compassion. To a Christian, that's the Holy Spirit at work. As far as we know, the neighbors around that little girls house during those first 7 years simply ignored any compulsion they may have felt to report what was happening. According to Christianity, that compulsion (theoretically speaking) is the Holy Spirit. Whether or not the neighbors chose to listen was up to them. Neither of us has any hard evidence as to whether it was sympathy, or the Holy Spirit. Would that make both of our arguments "crap"?

I have no idea what you're talking about. What example are did I give that's remotely like that?Your evidence is crap because it proves nothing, what if a Yazidi couple adopted that child and they lived a happy life? Would you accept that as proof that Shaytan was set by the demiurge as the overseer of this world?

By the way, I didn't say the bears were metaphorical. I said that I couldn't be certain as to how literately the passage was to be taken, which is why I declined to state what the representation may be. I'm not entirely certain.

You said that my interpretation made no sense, I assumed that you offered an alternate explanation consisting of "it's metaphorical, lol" but now you're saying that I'm wrong without offering your interpretation, great job there.

Of course, Ockham's razor. I should have guessed that you'd be one of those people. I suppose then it would be very simple to say that it would make much more sense that none of us exist. Everything around us is nothing more than an illusion. That's the simplest way to explain everything we perceive. It's much more difficult to assume that we all evolved over time, branching into our respective ethnicities, formulating hundreds of different languages, each with a dozen different dialects. Just because an simpler explanation is generally preferred, that doesn't make it true.

What the hell are you talking about? One of those people? Parsimony is a concept everyone uses in everyday life.When your find that you wallet is missing, do you think "I must have forgotten to put it in my pocket", or do you think "oh no! invisible gremlins must have stolen my wallet!"?Another application is that a simple explanation precludes something that is superfluous, for example, "oh no! invisible gremlins must have stolen my wallet when I forgot to put it in my pocket!".

Dude, stop spouting crap. The verse said (loosely) "A day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day." All it means is that the way we perceive time is completely dwarfed by the way God perceives time.You seem to forget that on the first "day" God created the heavens and the earth, light, and he made a separation from the light and the darkness, and he called the light "day" and the darkness "night". So the sun would have already been created. And the moon doesn't create night, so that's completely irrelevant. Either way, you're falling into the same thing that a lot of people fall into by using that "a day is like a thousand years" line. Stop it.As I already stated, the word is literally translated as "a set period of time", hence, a vaguer term.

Yes, I too based my beliefs upon self contradictory account that are admittedly vague.Tell me, according to the bible, what was the order that man and women were created in? Man first, woman first, or both simultaneously?Was the world risen from the waters, or did water spring from the dry ground?Read the bible and then tell me.

Is it bad that I laughed at that? Yes, we still adapt. Adaptation doesn't require macro-evolution however. Macro-evolution isn't almost proven. The evidences for it are just as weak as the evidences for the Loch Ness monster. Okay, that's over-exaggerating.

Creating a new species is a ridiculously easy thing to do. Would that count as "macro-evolution" to you? Cause there are very good records on how domesticated wheat came about.Aside from that, just going to quote myself on common descent again:

For some reason it seems like you're trying to argue against evolution too. Not that it really deals with the question at hand (does god exist), but I guess your particular god construct doesn't allow it.I would think that common descent by itself would be enough proof.One proof for common descent is through the observation of mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondria is an organelle in all eukaryotic organism that deals in metabolism, it is functionally identical in all eukaryotes (it does the same thing for people, cats, dogs, primates, and even plants, and hasn't changed it's function in billions of years). Because it initially evolved by being absorbed by eukaryotes, mitochondria actually has it's own DNA, separate from whatever creature it's based in.These two facts means that if evolution is true, mitochondrial DNA of creatures that are more closely related to each other should be more similar, while that of creatures less related to each other should be less similar.If god created all things, mitochondria should have the same degree of difference for all creatures, because it does the exact same thing.Guess how things turned out? Mitochondrial DNA for humans are very similar to that of other primates, it's less similar to that of dogs, and even less similar to that of a chicken, and even less similar than that of a tree.This would not have happened unless common descent was true.