Tom Capuder
Toran Jorane Shaw@tomcapuder you can both be a scientists and have a strong faith. Just because you're one of them, doesn't mean you can't also be the other!
You're right. Francis Collins, former director of NIH, became a Catholic after observing a three-part frozen waterfall.
But individuals' beliefs are beside the point. They have no bearing on the methods of religion or science. No one put it better than Sam Harris:
"Is there a distinction between believing things for good reasons and believing them for bad ones? Do science and religion differ in the degree to which they observe this distinction? Put this way, the debate is over before it even begins."
@tomcapuder have a read of this book, which was co-written by a high school physics teacher, that's also a Christian. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Let-There-Be-Science-science/dp/0745968635
No thanks. You ignored the content of my reply, instead steering me to what Amazon shows is pre-suppositional Christian propaganda.
Even if I wanted to read it, it's putting the cart before the horse. What theists need to do first is *DEMONSTRATE THAT A GOD EXISTS IN REALITY*. Everything else is pointless speculation.
I'd like some evidence, please, not apologetics. No one—especially science—"needs God."
@tomcapuder and this is what I hate about this debate... saying that only one side has to provide the evidence, and not the other.
Both sides have to provide scientific and verifiable evidence...
No. Theists are making a claim for a god's existence. They carry the burden of proof for such claims. Atheists simply aren't convinced the claims are true.
Atheism makes no claims of its own. Atheism IN ITS ENTIRETY is withholding belief of the god-claim. There is nothing we need to provide evidence for. We remain unconvinced of their claims, until they produce convincing evidence.
Think of it as a court case, where god is accused of existing. The prosecution (theists) would have to prove their claim. The defense needn't put on a case. The jury decides if the prosecution has proved *their* claims to be true. The burden of proof flows in only one direction—from those making the claim.
Theist = holds a belief in god(s)
A+theist = doesn't
𝗖 𝗔 𝗧Whoever makes the claim has the burden of proof, i.e., has the responsibility of providing the evidence to prove their claim. If someone presents a claim to me, it isn't my responsibility to disprove their claim; it's their responsibility to prove their claim, and if they can't, then I'm completely justified in not believing their claim.
A Tattered Scrapbook@toran @tomcapuder Which sounds so reasonable; until you realize the impossibility of proving the absence of something. Try it. *Prove* that there are no tiny invisible elephants flying intangible around your room. To do so is impossible. Which is why the burden of proof is on those who claim the existence of tiny invisible elephants.
J$@Tattered @toran @tomcapuder nonexistence of P is proven in a simple and straightforward way. Assume P, show that this implies absurdity (a contradiction), hence P cannot be.
@js @toran @tomcapuder Yes; except absurdities exist. For example, the platypus, the *second* Trump presidency, …
@Tattered @toran @tomcapuder Beg to differ. Existence is a proof of nonabsurdity, even.
Yet what *cannot* be will not be.
@js @toran @tomcapuder I think we are both pointing towards Wells’s The Man Who Could Work Miracles, an elegant proof of the impossibility of magic. However, it is still necessary for the believer in an absurdity to make the attempt to prove its (admittedly impossible) existence, and not really our responsibility to work our way through a list of religious absurdities.
@Tattered @toran @tomcapuder Sure, the claimer bears the burden of proof for the claim made.
But I was merely reasoning from logic, the basic reduction ad absurdum/principle of non-contradiction being the pivotal rule (or law).