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[Phmcw]

I don't agree with that. By the logic used in that reasoning it's impossible to prove anything, thus that logic is flawed.

It's not flawed: it's impossible to prove anything unless you make certain assumptions and build from there. Call them dogmas or axioms or give them any other name, but they are still assumptions. Then there's the building technique. As useful as Logic is, it's just a made-up set of tools, and not the only one.

There is such thing as reasonable assumption. By all reasonable assumption god doesn't exist. You could use unreasonable assumption, but they are ,well, unreasonable.
Something is disproved if it's false by all reasonable assumption. You could always come with unreasonable one.

[ECrownofFire]

What do you mean by "debunk"? I think we established a while ago that you can't really disprove or prove religion anyway, but whatever.

I don't agree with that. By the logic used in that reasoning it's impossible to prove anything, thus that logic is flawed.
For me all gods have been debunked a while ago, as well as most belief.
I have few interest in religions of faith, but I'm interested at why poeple stick with them.

Russell's Teapot and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Go ahead, try and disprove those. Just try.

[Earthquake Damage]

Something is disproved if it's false by all reasonable assumption. You could always come with unreasonable one.

Define reasonable.  Now enumerate all reasonable assumptions.

[Siquo]

Define reasonable.  Now enumerate all reasonable assumptions.

Yes, this

"Common sense" is, like the word "Reasonable", too often used as a euphemism for "what I believe".

[Phmcw]

Something is disproved if it's false by all reasonable assumption. You could always come with unreasonable one.

Define reasonable.  Now enumerate all reasonable assumptions.

There is no god, science is right and I'm awesome  .

Seriously, I'm not going to write an extensive philosophy treaty for this thread.

[Siquo]

Seriously, I'm not going to write an extensive philosophy treaty for this thread.

Aha! You're dancing around the issue! It must be because your beliefs are silly!

[/silly reference to 10 pages ago]

[Earthquake Damage]

Seriously, I'm not going to write an extensive philosophy treaty for this thread.

Perhaps you shouldn't make overly broad claims.

[Phmcw]

Ok, then here is a short answer : the process of making reasonable assumption, linking them and drawing reasonable, peer reviewed conclusions is called science.

[Darvi]

Ok, then here is a short answer : the process of making reasonable assumption, linking them and drawing reasonable, peer reviewed conclusions is called science.

Unfortunately anything involving God or something similarly metaphysical isn't science because... uh, I dunno. Philosophy is my worst subject.

[Phmcw]

Yes it is, god isn't in any science book because no reasonable assumption link to the existence of god (yes your particular god, except if you believe in an ethereal non interventionist god, or that god is actually the universe, or whatever other form of purposely unprovable god, that only have the name in common with any old belief. But if you believe in Jupiter, Osiris, Yaveh, or whatever, then yes, it's been disproved. Several times.).

[Willfor]

Ok, then here is a short answer : the process of making reasonable assumption, linking them and drawing reasonable, peer reviewed conclusions is called science.

Unfortunately anything involving God or something similarly metaphysical isn't science because... uh, I dunno. Philosophy is my worst subject.

Because science is the study of the natural world, and is based on observable and repeatable data.

[Farmerbob]

  I'm always amused by arguments about whether or not there is some sort of omnipotent being out there.

  Yup I am agnostic.  There is absolutely no way to prove either for or against the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful deity without the direct intervention of said deity in a very clear and direct way.

  1) Argument against the Atheist religion.  It IS a religion, the only difference being that they believe there's nothing there, and can't prove it.

  If there is an omnipotent, omnicient being out there, it's more than capable of hiding itself from us.  Even if there is evidence of it's existence, it could erase said knowledge from our minds, or make us incapable of seeing or properly interpreting the data to begin with, because it knows everything we do, and has the power to do anything, and the knowledge to use that power.  You cannot disprove the existence of such a being.  You can have faith that there is no deity keeping itself hidden from us, but you cannot know it.

  2) Argument against the Theist religions.

  For so long as a potential deity does not choose to prove it's own existence conclusively, the only evidence supporting it is circumstantial at best.  If an omnicient, omnipotent being chooses to make itself known, it can most certainly do so, so the fact that it is NOT proving itself to exist means that either it does not exist or it does not want to be conslusively known to exist.  You can can have faith, but you cannot prove or speak with factual certainty.

  It is conceivable that an omnipotent, omnicient being would not WANT us to know for certain that it exists, and it might be actively concealing itself from us.  There is a big difference conceptually between having faith and having certain knowledge.  Even on a personal level, how often are our expectations of a person different when we know them only by reputation as opposed to when we know them as a friend or colleague?  It might be that a deity would prefer to have some portion of humanity believing in it, rather than all of humanity knowing it exists.  If said deity was known to exist, the relationship between it and humans would have a completely different aspect.  For all anyone knows, if such a being exists, it might actually draw sustenance or pleasure from worship.  Or maybe it would rather hear a few hundred million prayers per day, as opposed to billions of self-serving demands.  It seems unlikely to me that a deity would be masochistic.

  In essence, there is not even a possibility of humans either proving OR disproving the existence of a deity.  The fact that humans cannot possibly generate such a proof is based on the nature of an all-powerful, all-knowing deity.  With that power and that knowledge, we will only know for certain if it exists if it chooses of it's own volition to verify it's own existence, and we can never know for certain that it does not exist.

[Darvi]

Whatever. It's a stupid subject anyway.

Ok, then here is a short answer : the process of making reasonable assumption, linking them and drawing reasonable, peer reviewed conclusions is called science.

Unfortunately anything involving God or something similarly metaphysical isn't science because... uh, I dunno. Philosophy is my worst subject.

Because science is the study of the natural world, and is based on observable and repeatable data.

That's it, I think. It's all in french so I can only guess what I'm told.

[Andir]

What do you mean by "debunk"? I think we established a while ago that you can't really disprove or prove religion anyway, but whatever.

I don't agree with that. By the logic used in that reasoning it's impossible to prove anything, thus that logic is flawed.
For me all gods have been debunked a while ago, as well as most belief.
I have few interest in religions of faith, but I'm interested at why poeple stick with them.

Russell's Teapot and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Go ahead, try and disprove those. Just try.

We don't have to.  What is the teapot doing to affect our lives?  If it flies into a satellite and causes some damage, then we can look for it to find out why that damage occurred, it most likely was not worth looking for.  Gods, however, do affect our lives on a daily basis.  Politicians are sworn in to office using fictional books as binding agents and the threat of divine retribution is used to attempt to scare civilians into doing things.

Also, you can have very valid science without assumptions.  Let's say I take photos of the night sky every 10 minutes and analyze the stars for oddities.  Sure you could say I'm assuming that there's an oddity to look for... but what if I'm just taking the pictures for an art exhibit and drawing lines between each dot as it moves through the sky.  What if I notice that one of the stars is moving at a different rate than the rest and I discover a plane that nobody else had seen...  The methodology required no assumptions.  It's purely measuring a phenomenon that happens in nature.  Like measuring the growth of a tree.

[Darvi]

What do you mean by "debunk"? I think we established a while ago that you can't really disprove or prove religion anyway, but whatever.

I don't agree with that. By the logic used in that reasoning it's impossible to prove anything, thus that logic is flawed.
For me all gods have been debunked a while ago, as well as most belief.
I have few interest in religions of faith, but I'm interested at why poeple stick with them.

Russell's Teapot and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Go ahead, try and disprove those. Just try.

We don't have to.  What is the teapot doing to affect our lives?  If it flies into a satellite and causes some damage, then we can look for it to find out why that damage occurred, it most likely was not worth looking for.  Gods, however, do affect our lives on a daily basis.  Politicians are sworn in to office using fictional books as binding agents and the threat of divine retribution is used to attempt to scare civilians into doing things.

Even if Gods don't exist, they still exist as ideas. Which can be extremely influental.

Also, you can have very valid science without assumptions.  Let's say I take photos of the night sky every 10 minutes and analyze the stars for oddities.  Sure you could say I'm assuming that there's an oddity to look for... but what if I'm just taking the pictures for an art exhibit and drawing lines between each dot as it moves through the sky.  What if I notice that one of the stars is moving at a different rate than the rest and I discover a plane that nobody else had seen...  The methodology required no assumptions.  It's purely measuring a phenomenon that happens in nature.  Like measuring the growth of a tree.

You don't have an assumption, but you do have empirical facts. Metaphysics lack those.