Sigh.

BlankTH Posted:

You can’t prove that god doesn’t exist. You can only prove that there’s no proof of it.

Not so. It’s a simple aprioristic exercise of looking at the claims of what god is and saying “well that’s logically impossible” or “well that involves a fallacy”.

OverclockedJesus Posted:

Not so. It’s a simple aprioristic exercise of looking at the claims of what god is and saying “well that’s logically impossible” or “well that involves a fallacy”.

If this were true, why has religion, and more fundamentally faith, endured throughout the run of humankind?

God was a conspiracy theory, and like all other conspiracy theories, it’s most likely false.

OverclockedJesus Posted:

Oh, there’s no misunderstanding at all. They wanted to troll because they had come to the end of their clearly-limited knowledge of the topic.

Hmm.

Hobart Bliggity Posted:

If this were true, why has religion, and more fundamentally faith, endured throughout the run of humankind?

Appeal to popularity fallacy.

DarkDespair5 Posted:

I don’t see why he can’t understand that that mathematical proof and his “multiple choice test” argument are very related to Pascal’s Wager…

Compartmentalization.

DarkDespair5 Posted:

Also, How are agnosticism and a/theism unrelated?

You misunderstand. They’re not completely unrelated, but agnosticism is not some middle position between atheism and theism, as it appears they believe. Orthogonal means “at a right angle to”, and agnosticism intersects atheism and theism at right angles, as it were. Atheism and theism relate to belief or lack thereof regarding the existence of something. Agnosticism relates to knowledge or lack thereof of something. So a person can be an agnostic atheist or agnostic theist. But clearly, given that the something must be stated, one cannot simply be “agnostic”, for that is self-refuting. If you lack all knowledge, then by even communicating you admit knowledge of yourself, the external world, others in the external world, language, grammar, syntax, etc. So a person can’t lack all knowledge—it’s just not possible. Thus, agnosticism is not a 3rd option, but rather a modifier of atheism and theism in this instance (it can be applied to other ideas, too).

OverclockedJesus Posted:

You misunderstand. They’re not completely unrelated, but agnosticism is not some middle position between atheism and theism, as it appears they believe. Orthogonal means “at a right angle to”, and agnosticism intersects atheism and theism at right angles, as it were. Atheism and theism relate to belief or lack thereof regarding the existence of something. Agnosticism relates to knowledge or lack thereof of something. So a person can be an agnostic atheist or agnostic theist. But clearly, given that the something must be stated, one cannot simply be “agnostic”, for that is self-refuting. If you lack all knowledge, then by even communicating you admit knowledge of yourself, the external world, others in the external world, language, grammar, syntax, etc. So a person can’t lack all knowledge—it’s just not possible. Thus, agnosticism is not a 3rd option, but rather a modifier of atheism and theism in this instance (it can be applied to other ideas, too).

I see what you mean now. I took the wrong meaning of orthogonal.

Hobart Bliggity Posted:

Ugh. Who said anything about any particular religion being right or not? My question, and I’ll rephrase it so you can’t misconstrue what I’m trying to say, is that if it were so simple to logic away the possibility of a God, why haven’t we done it already? What is causing the linger?

Logic isn’t what drives people to believe in religion. They’re just following a fad. Coupled with government endorsements. Few people actually chose their religion.

DarkDespair5 Posted:

I don’t know whether *A* God exists or not! Also, this is an incredibly difficult question that will take millenia to answer, if at all. Also, you talked about religion in general being prevalent. That is STILL a fallacy.

This is exactly my point. How can anyone say “Oh it’s so simple *logic the night away* and therefore God is impossible”?. Claiming to know, for sure, any knowledge about God (of any form) is such a gross overestimation of the ability of your brain that it borders on complete insanity.