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See...YOU are the one all twisted up that 4 out of 5 people in this world believe in some Theology.
ME...I not only don't care...I will even stick up for them to be able to hold their beliefs without having to get any flack over it.
They could subscribe to "Plucked Chickenism", worship the "Great Plucked Chicken" deity, and believe the universe was formed by the Great Plucked Chicken laying the Universe Egg...I'd just say, "That's cool".
And if they showed me they had a worthy charity helping the less fortunate in the name of that Deity, I will be glad to whip out a wad of some cash to donate.
Y'all are the ones all mentally irregular that the people of the world are so Theist and Religious.
Don't like Theism or Religion? Y'all Fundie Atheists better buy all the tickets on that trip to live on Mars...cuz the Earth will always be Religious...like it is now, always has been for thousands of years, and probably more so in the future.
Interesting.. I'm left a bit confused. Are you feeling any cognitive dissonance, your post doesn't seem as polished as your other ones. Regardless, I urge you to side on what is better and when you get the time, explain your unique view of "God" for me. Many different Buddhists have their own unique views of "Buddha" and "God(s)" as well.
There is nothing really fundamentalist about atheism. An Atheist or Theist can only act that way if that is how they were taught (and it could be in some people's genes and culture), I can assure you that. A lot of Atheists are reconverts from fundamentalist religions so they probably keep the "fundamental" personality traits that they created for themselves growing up.
See...YOU are the one all twisted up that 4 out of 5 people in this world believe in some Theology.
ME...I not only don't care...I will even stick up for them to be able to hold their beliefs without having to get any flack over it.
They could subscribe to "Plucked Chickenism", worship the "Great Plucked Chicken" deity, and believe the universe was formed by the Great Plucked Chicken laying the Universe Egg...I'd just say, "That's cool".
And if they showed me they had a worthy charity helping the less fortunate in the name of that Deity, I will be glad to whip out a wad of some cash to donate.
Y'all are the ones all mentally irregular that the people of the world are so Theist and Religious.
Don't like Theism or Religion? Y'all Fundie Atheists better buy all the tickets on that trip to live on Mars...cuz the Earth will always be Religious...like it is now, always has been for thousands of years, and probably more so in the future.
Do you also support Plucked Chickenism's Inc. right to exploit people financially and emotionally? How about Plucked Chickenism's right to demand that those they have plucked cut off contact with anyone that tries to leave Plucked Chickenism including family members? How about if they corporation of Plucked Chickenism wants to create arbitrary rules like no blood for the flock and that gets certain members of the flock killed? How about if Plucked Chickenism Inc decided that any chicks that aren't a uniform size and shap be treated as outcasts?There is an interesting conspiracy theory on the no blood thing.
Is it OK to speak against Plucked Chickenism Inc? No? Oh great,let's give Plucked Chickenism tax free status and ***** about a free breakfast for a poor school aged child. Yeah, I'mthe dink for saying that's screwed up (that was sarcasm).Plucked Chickenism Inc has sold you on the idea that speaking against Plucked Chickenism is to speak against one of the people they are scamming.(that was not) See Plucked Chickenism Inc hasn't even hit you with much propaganda and they still managed to brainwash you. Way to hold out Golden.(that was sarcasm) I love you anyway (that was not)
So you have merely a human interpretation of the Quran, not Allah's exact real Quran... correct? Any Christian will say that they have read the original Greek manuscripts of the New Testament and that there is nothing vague about the descriptions there in (and this has indeed actually occurred to me) because of how the words are organized or how the meaning would change or whatever else; and there will be an Atheist scholar of ancient Greek who will clearly tell me how ancient Greek manuscripts didn't have capital-changes to differentiate words are more important then others, nor did they have spaces at all, in order to save parchment. You simply aren't looking at it from the other side.
Furthermore, what is the point of the Caliphate's Quran if it is just as fallible as the Counsil's Bible?
Nothing vague? Then why is there parenthesis "()" added? Why do Arabic-speaking Muslims taught by claimed Muslims scholars misinterpret it? Nothing vague?
Is the moon "having" light or "trailing" light or "shining" light? This doesn't seem vague to you? Well, if it was a Christian verse the Christians would claim it wasn't vague to them.
I am not accusing you of dishonesty, but disingenuity, which I meant in the sense of trying to ignore that you know better. I'm sure you might be very sensitive or sensitized to verbal accusations, and might take verbal things very seriously... I was highlighting that you were making a simple mistake. The parenthesis are disingenuous, indeed, because they are an obvious addition and you are pretending to say it needs no addition. If an arabic word or phrase means "something" without being vague enough to need further clarification, than it doesn't need parenthesis in the transition, which wouldn't help anyway, because the parenthesis and the sentence within the parenthesis is still in the other "unreconcilable" language.
Whoa way off topic. The Christian Bible has *nothing* to do with the Quran... no one knows who even wrote those books and they are not the words of God. They are supposedly the words of various disciples. That is extremely different than he Quran.
We have one true Quran, in Arabic. That is it. To read the Quran you are required to know Arabic, as otherwise you are reading a translation whereby there can be words in Arabic that have no direct translation in English or other languages. Hence parenthesis, brackets and commentaries will help guide the non-Arabic read to understand what is meant.
For instance the word Habibi... this word has no direct translation in English, none. However it can be described as "my dear", "good friend ","loved one" or "honey" depending on the context.
Nothing disengenuous about linguistical variances in two very different languages.
Do you also support Plucked Chickenism's Inc. right to exploit people financially and emotionally? How about Plucked Chickenism's right to demand that those they have plucked cut off contact with anyone that tries to leave Plucked Chickenism including family members? How about if they corporation of Plucked Chickenism wants to create arbitrary rules like no blood for the flock and that gets certain members of the flock killed? How about if Plucked Chickenism Inc decided that any chicks that aren't a uniform size and shap be treated as outcasts?There is an interesting conspiracy theory on the no blood thing.
Is it OK to speak against Plucked Chickenism Inc? No? Oh great,let's give Plucked Chickenism tax free status and ***** about a free breakfast for a poor school aged child. Yeah, I'mthe dink for saying that's screwed up (that was sarcasm).Plucked Chickenism Inc has sold you on the idea that speaking against Plucked Chickenism is to speak against one of the people they are scamming.(that was not) See Plucked Chickenism Inc hasn't even hit you with much propaganda and they still managed to brainwash you. Way to hold out Golden.(that was sarcasm) I love you anyway (that was not)
People and families choose to do all kinds of things...things KNOWN to risk their health and life, all the time...and they have that choice.
They surf giant million ton waves, cliff climb up sheer rock faces, slide down hill on sticks strapped to their feet (ski) at high speed, do backflips off jumps on dirtbikes, hang-glide, skydive, walk tightropes, the list is endless.
Risk of health, or life, or contentment has never been a total proscription or impediment to what we choose to do...unless we are intentionally trying to hurt ourselves or others. Even then, it is allowed with consenting people...like boxing, Ultimate Fighting and the MMA, or extreme body piercing.
People also join all kinds of groups...NRA, PETA, BLM, NARAL, AUL, etc. All take stong positions and views on things...some at total odds with opposing views.
I see Religion the same way...people make choices for themselves and their families. Others can think what they want of it.
And...if there was a Religion with you as the Goddess...I'd give that bigtime props!
The "Standard" is irrelevant to the onus of proof. The onus of proof is not decided by the standard, it is decided by what the positive claim is. If the positive claim is that a god exists, then it does not matter if 1 person, 1 million, or 10 billion people believe it...... the onus of evidence still lands with the positive claim.
We can just add this to the list of examples...... like your not small but COMPLETE misuse of the term "Argument from Ignorance"........ where you insist on talking the talk of philosophy without having a shred of knowledge of the field. Even the most basic "Bluffers guide to philosophy" has more on the subject than you are showing here.
So personal insults are your usual move I guess. Comments like "you know very little" are just snide insults and nothing more, and insults demean only the insulter, never the target.
That said however you are not going to redefine philosophical terms by cherry picking doctored wiki documents and OPINION PIECE articles written specifically against atheists. But it certainly is comical that after my using the phrase "Bluffers guide to philosophy" you contrived to go directly to the bluffers guide to everything.... wiki. Before then trawling the internet to cherry pick a single opinion piece to bolster your otherwise unsubstantiated view. I literally could not make up comedy gold of this quality.
What makes this even more comical is that the reference given in the wiki document does not actually appear to support the interpretation wiki gives for it. The James Cargile quote simply is not supporting the tosh you are espousing here. And in fact a large portion of his quote is dealing with "Burden of proof" in the LEGAL sense, not the philosophical one.
Once again however the reality of our situation is that we find ourselves in a universe and we do not know how this has come to be. We start from a position of ignorance. We THEN establish hypotheses and ideas on how this might be. And we THEN have the burden of proof to find any substantiation for each of those hypotheses. The "argumentum ad populum" fallacy of saying "Well most people believe THIS hypothesis therefore it is somehow better than the rest, or reverses the burden of proof" is just that, a fallacy.
As other sources say, which did not fit the filter of your cherry picking "A burden of proof is generally (though not always) believed to lie with the person asserting some idea that deviates from the "normal" idea. It should be noted that this is not always true -- society's views should not be presumed to be true if questioned, but provide a useful background on which arguments can be made." But that did not fit with your narrative so I guess you simply skipped that one over. So too with "Fallacious shifting of the burden of proof occurs if someone makes a claim that needs justification, then demands that the opponent justify the opposite of the claim. The opponent has no such burden until evidence is presented for the claim."
Now when the "burden" DOES legitimately shift to me is when (though it has not happened yet) someone actually does provide arguments, evidence, data or reasoning for the non-human intelligent agency behind the universes creation. At that point the burden is on me to evaluate what is offered and coherent accept it, or rebut it. Since you are not doing this however, the burden still lies with you, and no Bluffers 101 guide to the subject of philosophy is going to allow a lay man to the topic like yourself redefine the subject or its precepts.
For anyone else still following the thread who, like yourself, has no interest in reading actual texts in the subject of philosophy, there is a good video on the subject here.
Quite often shifting the burden of proof in discussing the differnces between religions does not even work in the first place however. Take the claim many religious hold that there is an after life for example. No one is presenting any evidence for this claim it seems.
But let us run with your cop out move of trying to shift the burden of proof here. The "majority" of people think there is an after life so in your fantasy land this shifts the burden of proof. But the reality is that NOT ONLY are proponents of an after life offering ZERO evidence supporting that claim...... there is PLENTY of evidence..... the sum wealth of our knowledge of human consciousness and sentience....... that links it to a living working brain.
So we are therefore in a situation that regardless of where the burden of proof actually lies........ 100% of current evidence.... that is ALL of the current data set..... points one way and 0% of it....... nothing at all........ points the other.
So when the ledger for one side has nothing and the ledger for the other side has everything..... shifting the burden of proof is generally done by those people not honest enough to come clean that they literally have no evidence to support their views.
Whether YOU have any views to support however is entirely unclear as your entire position appears to be nothing but looking at "everything" and simply calling it "god". There is nothing to prove or rebut there. It is an empty linguistic move and no more. I genuinely do not see anything there to address or rebut or consider as a "truth claim". It is just a linguistic way to look at the world that clearly gives some people a fuzzy feeling inside. I have no issue with that. It is the people like your cohort who you make yourself a cheerleader for, HAVING smuggled the word "god" into the discourse then make fantastical leaps FROM that word to claims that are egregious nonsense........ that we need to take issue with.
So personal insults are your usual move I guess. Comments like "you know very little" are just snide insults and nothing more, and insults demean only the insulter, never the target.
That said however you are not going to redefine philosophical terms by cherry picking doctored wiki documents and OPINION PIECE articles written specifically against atheists. But it certainly is comical that after my using the phrase "Bluffers guide to philosophy" you contrived to go directly to the bluffers guide to everything.... wiki. Before then trawling the internet to cherry pick a single opinion piece to bolster your otherwise unsubstantiated view. I literally could not make up comedy gold of this quality.
What makes this even more comical is that the reference given in the wiki document does not actually appear to support the interpretation wiki gives for it. The James Cargile quote simply is not supporting the tosh you are espousing here. And in fact a large portion of his quote is dealing with "Burden of proof" in the LEGAL sense, not the philosophical one.
Once again however the reality of our situation is that we find ourselves in a universe and we do not know how this has come to be. We start from a position of ignorance. We THEN establish hypotheses and ideas on how this might be. And we THEN have the burden of proof to find any substantiation for each of those hypotheses. The "argumentum ad populum" fallacy of saying "Well most people believe THIS hypothesis therefore it is somehow better than the rest, or reverses the burden of proof" is just that, a fallacy.
As other sources say, which did not fit the filter of your cherry picking "A burden of proof is generally (though not always) believed to lie with the person asserting some idea that deviates from the "normal" idea. It should be noted that this is not always true -- society's views should not be presumed to be true if questioned, but provide a useful background on which arguments can be made." But that did not fit with your narrative so I guess you simply skipped that one over. So too with "Fallacious shifting of the burden of proof occurs if someone makes a claim that needs justification, then demands that the opponent justify the opposite of the claim. The opponent has no such burden until evidence is presented for the claim."
Now when the "burden" DOES legitimately shift to me is when (though it has not happened yet) someone actually does provide arguments, evidence, data or reasoning for the non-human intelligent agency behind the universes creation. At that point the burden is on me to evaluate what is offered and coherent accept it, or rebut it. Since you are not doing this however, the burden still lies with you, and no Bluffers 101 guide to the subject of philosophy is going to allow a lay man to the topic like yourself redefine the subject or its precepts.
For anyone else still following the thread who, like yourself, has no interest in reading actual texts in the subject of philosophy, there is a good video on the subject here.
Quite often shifting the burden of proof in discussing the differnces between religions does not even work in the first place however. Take the claim many religious hold that there is an after life for example. No one is presenting any evidence for this claim it seems.
But let us run with your cop out move of trying to shift the burden of proof here. The "majority" of people think there is an after life so in your fantasy land this shifts the burden of proof. But the reality is that NOT ONLY are proponents of an after life offering ZERO evidence supporting that claim...... there is PLENTY of evidence..... the sum wealth of our knowledge of human consciousness and sentience....... that links it to a living working brain.
So we are therefore in a situation that regardless of where the burden of proof actually lies........ 100% of current evidence.... that is ALL of the current data set..... points one way and 0% of it....... nothing at all........ points the other.
So when the ledger for one side has nothing and the ledger for the other side has everything..... shifting the burden of proof is generally done by those people not honest enough to come clean that they literally have no evidence to support their views.
Whether YOU have any views to support however is entirely unclear as your entire position appears to be nothing but looking at "everything" and simply calling it "god". There is nothing to prove or rebut there. It is an empty linguistic move and no more. I genuinely do not see anything there to address or rebut or consider as a "truth claim". It is just a linguistic way to look at the world that clearly gives some people a fuzzy feeling inside. I have no issue with that. It is the people like your cohort who you make yourself a cheerleader for, HAVING smuggled the word "god" into the discourse then make fantastical leaps FROM that word to claims that are egregious nonsense........ that we need to take issue with.
Ya got some evidence to back up those claims of yours Nozz?
Oh, and...trying to use "No Evidence", as evidence...does not logically cut it...and you know that.
Your claim you have no burden to provide evidence is false.
I ask you for evidence...but you never provide any. Zero, Nada, Zilch.
I fully substantiated my claim. Layed out the evidence.
Your further false claim that it is a "linguistic move" (because you are Godblind and lack understanding), notwithstanding.
Please desist from cherry-picking and redacting expert provided definitions and meanings of words, and excising those meanings that don't suit your illogical argument.
Deal with the evidence as presented...quit trying to pretend it doesn't exist.
All ideologies must be substantiated by evidence ...including Atheism.
The OP forgot to mention that Atheists have the same requirement to provide no less evidence than they request.
If you want me to back up a claim with evidence you need to be a little more specific about what you are asking. Quoting an entire post of 12 paragraphs and then vaguely asking for evidence is weak at best.
I of course have the burden of proof when I make a claim, but I am not making a claim here. I am EVALUATING the claim that there is a non-human intentional agent at play in the creation of the universe. So the onus of proof lies with the people making that claim, not me. They are making the claims, they can evidence them.
If and when they provide such evidence, the onus then falls upon me to evaluate it and be clear on what basis I am accepting or rejecting what is offered. That is when and where the burden of proof really does fall to me. Not where you pretend it does.
And this is the issue when evaluating evidence between religions (remember, the topic of the thread before your usual method of hijacking and derailing). Firstly they are not actually providing any, so there is nothing there TO evaluate let alone relative to one another. But secondly no level of discourse is possible if the best they can each do is pretend their claims and positions are the default and everyone else has the burden of proof to falsify them.
Let us take, for example, the claims of miracles from the Nazerene. Some of the religious claim that the unemployed son of a barely out of the bronze age carpenter was able to perform miracles and the sole basis of this is a book that asserts it. Nothing else.
Meanwhile we have an only recently dead man doing miracles in our life time..... Sathya Sai Baba. He even claimed to be born of a virgin (as was Ghengus kahn and alexander the great apperently, seems virgin births are somewhat common place). This guy had a birthday party and a million people showed up.
100s of contemporaneous eye witness anecdotal accounts support his claims to having done these miracles. So by any standard of comparison these people have MORE evidence that their Magical Mystic of choice did this stuff than the followers of the Nazerene. But somehow most Christians ignore YOUR fantasy application of the "burden of proof" and simply dismiss their claims as the abject rubbish they likely are, but all the while clinging to their own.
Sathya Sai Baba doesn't even warrant an hour on the discovery channel but place SIMILAR claims in pre-scientific 1st century roman empire and people not only believe it but some people organize their entire lives around the older stuff. Baffling that something can have LESS evidence and be outside living memory.... but this magically makes it MORE credible to some people?
That is the kind of "thinking" we have to deal with in any exercise in comparative religion and religious evidence. And thankfully many of the people doing so do not need philosophy 101 lessons on how burden of proof works or what "argument from ignorance" actually means.
Ya got some evidence to back up those claims of yours Nozz?
Oh, and...trying to use "No Evidence", as evidence...does not logically cut it...and you know that.
Your claim you have no burden to provide evidence is false.
I ask you for evidence...but you never provide any. Zero, Nada, Zilch.
I fully substantiated my claim. Layed out the evidence.
Your further false claim that it is a "linguistic move" (because you are Godblind and lack understanding), notwithstanding.
Please desist from cherry-picking and redacting expert provided definitions and meanings of words, and excising those meanings that don't suit your illogical argument.
Deal with the evidence as presented...quit trying to pretend it doesn't exist.
All ideologies must be substantiated by evidence ...including Atheism.
The OP forgot to mention that Atheists have the same requirement to provide no less evidence than they request.
No I do not. As far as my senses and actual scientific evidence has established, there is no evidence of a supernatural being or cause of our existence. I don't claim there is or is not a god.
You can believe all you wish(without evidence), yet you are not granted a positive claim without evidence. Which comes to the purpose of the thread. Being that there are many beliefs and unsubstantiated claims, why should I or anyone else accept your specific claim?
It goes both ways. Why should a Buddhist believe you or you believe a Buddhist?
.... why should I or anyone else accept your specific claim?
No one is asking you to accept anything. It's like someone saying they think therapy or 12-step programs are stupid and a waste of time so why should they go. So don't go.
People may share with you their successes and benefits which are roundly met with the fingers in the ear mantra and rote response of "unsubstantiated claim." I use therapy as an example because on these boards we see often the same people who are militant zealots in having no use for religion also ridicule and reject therapy. Using the same "logic" the same "reasons" and the same "demands" for "proof and evidence." Can you see how that approach is an obstacle to growth?
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 01-19-2017 at 07:40 AM..
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