Atheism versus Theism

Alright, I want a good, clean fight.  Simply state your side, your argument/counter-argument/comment and whatnot.  I'm not trying to troll this, just wanting a good debate, so let's have one. (Atheist by the way)

There's no evidence for the existence of God.
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it seems unlikely that something can come from nothing, which is where god comes in i suppose.  but either way, god has a lot of questions to answer himself when it comes to his own creation. 

anyway, these questions arent for humanity to ponder for a long time, unless maybe youre a genius.  otherwise the average intellect is just far too low to comprehend even the enormity of the universe, let alone god. 

If you posit God as the "first cause", you're just begging the question. If you have no problem accepting God doesn't need a cause of his own, why do you have a problem believing the universe does?

>>3
anyway, these questions arent for humanity to ponder for a long time, unless maybe youre a genius.  otherwise the average intellect is just far too low to comprehend even the enormity of the universe, let alone god.
Discouraging inquiry is a good way to perpetuate ignorance. This sort of reasoning explains why religion is still so popular in some parts.

principle of parsimony, why make up a god to begin with?

>>3
ill poin out that god has to come from nothing otherewise it dosent exist("it" because god isnt defined as an existence)

god is a god of nothing thats why its a god of evrything

>>2
(a) There's evidence for the existence of a being that we refer to as "God", but nothing aboslutely conclusive.  Just really, really strong

(b) There's no definitive argument or evidence against his existence, either.

(a) There's evidence for the existence of a being that we refer to as "God", but nothing aboslutely conclusive.  Just really, really strong
Show it or GTFO.

(b) There's no definitive argument or evidence against his existence, either.
Burden of proof, nigger. There's no definitive argument or evidence against the existence of unicorns either.

>>8
Niggers have no burden of proof or any burden at all. Your argument thus falls. As to whom the burden of proof falls on, it's really determined by the masses, so gtfo with this argument.

Atheistfags and theistfags gtfo please.

>>10
Eat niggercocks in hell, heretic.

It's impossible to debate with people who accept conclusions or premises without evidence ... and these are cases when there SHOULD be a LOT of evidence, but there is NONE instead.

That's why we call them "religitards".

As a non-religious person I will be happy to accept that believes in a god on empirical grounds. Abrahamic religions are all just based on ancient Hebrew mythology; monsters, magicians, god created mankind out of dirt, just examples that you will also find in any kind of ancient mythology.

God is a hypothesis I have no use for...

>>7 here.

>>8
(a) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_ontological_proof

And from that page:

http://www.stats.uwaterloo.ca/~cgsmall/ontology.html

Eat that, cocksucker.

(b) >>2 shouldn't have tried to end the thread, given that he (you?) isn't necessarily right.  I didn't say I was right.  I just said you may not be.  Also, for the record, this particular anon is white.  Not nigger.

Does it matter? I mean, really? People will believe what gets them through the day until they die or we evolve into a collective psychic hivemind.

I am agnostic because:

There's no evidence God exists;
There's no evidence God can't or doesn't exist.

The "burden of proof" has no place here, each argument needs to be proven. Atheists are unable to prove this second point.

Until humans solve things like the "first cause" problem in the creation of the universe, then there's always the possibility of a creator. However there's no reason at all to think God would exist as described in any religious text.

Bertrand Russel on The First Cause Argument

Perhaps the simplest and easiest to understand is the argument of the First Cause. It is maintained that everything we see in this world has a cause, and as you go back in the chain of causes further and further you must come to a First Cause, and to that First Cause you give the name of God. That argument, I suppose, does not carry very much weight nowadays, because, in the first place, cause is not quite what it used to be. The philosophers and the men of science have got going on cause, and it has not anything like the vitality that it used to have; but apart from that, you can see that the argument that there must be a First Cause is one that cannot have any validity. I may say that when I was a young man, and was debating these questions very seriously in my mind, I for a long time accepted the argument of the First Cause, until one day, at the age of eighteen, I read John Stuart Mill's Autobiography, and I there found this sentence: "My father taught me that the question, Who made me? cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question, Who made God?" That very simple sentence showed me, as I still think, the fallacy in the argument of the First Cause. If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant, and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, "How about the tortoise?" the Indian said, "Suppose we change the subject." The argument is really no better than that. There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause; nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination. Therefore, perhaps, I need not waste any more time upon the argument about the First Cause.
 

>>15
Oh look, it's the four-year-old's argument for the existence of God dressed up in fancy notation.
Show me a piland and we can talk.

>>17
The "burden of proof" has no place here, each argument needs to be proven. Atheists are unable to prove this second point.
Wow, are you really that confused?

Look, if you replace "God" with "leprechauns" or "unicorns", you have the exact same argument. Would you call yourself agnostic with regards to them as well? Would you say the burden of proof falls on people who don't believe in leprechauns or unicorns as well as those who do?

Until humans solve things like the "first cause" problem in the creation of the universe
There is no first cause problem. It's been addressed in this very thread already, even before >>18 quoted Russel.

then there's always the possibility of a creator.
There's always the possibility the world was created last Thursday and we were created with it, with all our memories and whatnot preformed.
The fact that it's strictly possible doesn't mean it even deserves mention. The existence of God is in the same category as last-Thursdayism.

>>19
>>15 here.  What the fuck are you talking about?  "four-year-old's argument"?  The Wikipedia I linked to was a proof by Goedel.  If you're old enough to be on 4chan, you'd know that he's one of the more famous mathematicians.  This means that he's got a massive amount of credibility, especially when it comes to mathematical proofs.  I'd take his word for it if I were you.

>>20
Unlike you, some of us actually understand his argument, and realise it's based on shitty premises, just the same as Anselm's original. The logic is solid, but that's irrelevant because his base assumptions are crap.

Appeal to authority is worthless. His argument stands or falls on its own merits, and in this case, it falls.

God exists, Satan and his demons (some less religious people have called these "reptilians") control secret societies like the free masons and the Illuminati which in turn control the world in the devils attempt to drag as many souls down to hell with him as he can before his time is up.

There, you have been enlightened.

>>22
At face value, this is less far-fetched than the virgin birth.

There is no possibility of a "creator" as ALL the religitard stories detail.  Why?  Because THAT particular creator was very, VERY nosy in Human affairs, and we've simply no evidence for it.  NO.  EVIDENCE.

When something should be producing a LOT of evidence, and there's just NOTHING, you have to be a sane person and admit your thesis was WRONG.

Now, the Deists may be correct, but since their version of a "creator" is detached in space and time, it's therefore IRRELEVANT.

Ooh, I just PWNT the religitards MANY TIMES.  Since each religitard has the intelligence of a piece of lawn furniture, I suppose that that's not much of an accomplishment, eh?

I agree with >>21, for the curious, St-Anselm's argument is that "if we can think of a God then he must exist"

it's an insane conclusion backed up by insane premises
the whole process is flawed. Anselm doesn't look for evidence, he defines The Rules of Magic and works from there. fail.

>>19
Your unicorn and last Thurday examples I'm almost completely convinced are totally false, but strictly speaking there's a miniscule possibility they could be true. There's not a large enough element of doubt to say I'm agnostic on their existance though. There is a larger element of doubt about the lack of God's existance though. I'd say I'm agnostic with a strong inclination towards atheism. I believe the terms overlap, depending on how strong your convictions are. Russel also described himself both as agnostic and atheist.

Since you yourself admit in a roundabout way a God is strictly possible, you don't fall into the category of atheists I reject; those who say they are absolutely 100% certain God does not and cannot exist.

>>26
In that case, the atheists you reject are straw men, because they just don't exist (a handful of retarded 14-year-olds not considered; they're a tiny, tiny minority, even on the internets).
I would argue that the only reason you think the existence of God is more plausible than that of unicorns is because you grew up in a society that keeps repeating that, not because you have carefully considered the facts. I'd say unicorns are more likely to exist than any conventional god.

Agnostic and atheist are orthogonal terms, BTW. I, like pretty much everyone who's thought about this, am an agnostic atheist. Most religious people, I would venture, are gnostic theists. The rare actually religious scientist is probably more likely to be an agnostic theist.
That's one reason people who answer "agnostic" when asked about their religious beliefs annoy me. "Agnostic" isn't an answer to a question about religious beliefs, it's about epistemology. The atheist/theist scale is about religious beliefs.

>>27
Good points. The confusion is that how you defined these terms is not what everyone understands them to mean.

I don't believe in the bible or really organized religion in general.

But no mortal can really ever no for sure whether there is a god or isn't.  An atheist can argue all he wants about no evidence or proof, but looking at scientifically, you can't prove the opposite theory wrong either.

In end, theres only one real way to find out.  And anyone who says they know 100% either way is fooling themselves.

>>28
There's a lot of general confusion surrounding the term "agnostic", and there has been from the very beginning. I think the clarification put forth in >>27 makes more sense than putting agnostic as somewhere between theist and atheist on a single scale, and an increasing number of people seem to agree.
Still, it'll be a while before anyone can mention the word in a discussion without also explaining what he means by it, for either definition.

>29
But no mortal can really ever no for sure whether there is a god or isn't.  An atheist can argue all he wants about no evidence or proof, but looking at scientifically, you can't prove the opposite theory wrong either.
BURDEN OF PROOF, NIGGER, DO YOU SPEAK IT?
Jesus fucking Christ, it's not that hard. Read a fucking thread past the first post before you post in it.

>>29
here we go 30 replies and back to square one

jesus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmfPhqFat0U

Anyone daft enough to insist that there MUST be a purpose to life, anyone that believes that they can fathom the depths of reality to such an extent as to truly understand why it exists in the first place is just a little bit of an egomaniac.

That said, life on Earth appears to be a chemical reaction in the same sense as fire is, however it is, obviously, quite a bit more complex. The same idea, however. I don't see purpose, I just see unrestrained growth.

I'm not claiming to ~know~ that there aren't higher lifeforms out there, but I see no reason to believe in any specific one at this time.

I am tired of such phrases as "Well, space HAS to have been made by someone, right?" This phrase is suggesting that the speaker has some insider information on the nature of the universe that the rest of us don't, doesn't it? As some animals merely a few steps ahead of chimpanzees, barely able to refrain from killing each other off, can suddenly claim to understand the mechanics behind the universe. It is vanity, it is ignorance and I demand it to stop immediately. I've had it up to HERE with these chimps!

How come Jeesus rhymes with peenus?

There is on difference between atheism and theism. The idea of God is not well-defined - it could have multiple definitions. However, the idea of God is to take on any idea, then it could be anything. Simply put, if God is to be omnipotent, or at least "almighty," then anything could be caused by God at all. Suppose a rock falls. It could have been caused by God. Or it may not have. There is no difference. Suppose some matter levitates or appears and assembles in a formation of a structure of an animal (which, of course, probably never happened). Perhaps God has done that. Or perhaps it naturally happened. There is no difference between the two.

>>35
I meant that "there is no difference" when I said "there is on difference."

>>35
You're more of a fucking retard than the christfags themselves. Take your post-modernist bullshit and choke on it.

>>37
I don't postmodernist, but I think that this "bullshit" is correct, whether it is "bullshit" or not. It is either right or wrong, and you seem to accept the validity of my claims.

>>38
Failtroll is fail.

What's this thread about again?

>>39
Its about atheism versus theism. And by the say, you know you agree with me on my post 35.