The Empirical Evidence of Non-Existing God

[godless dave]

Most of the time, absence of evidence IS evidence of absence.

That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by epix

The OP title clearly applies to the evidence of absence and not to absence of evidence. Why do you let the latter in as a constructive argument? It's obviously irrelevant to the topic.

Gods are non-evident by their absence.

[kerikiwi]

Originally Posted by epix

The reality of things may dictate that you abandon such an idea given the fact that there exist a radical form of atheism whose adherents surely contemplated such an idea as well.

What?
I haven't read the rest of the post. Does it make more sense than this snippet?

[RandFan]

Originally Posted by epix

Suppose that you want to come up with empirical evidence that Higgs boson doesn't exist. You decide to spend billions of $$$ to acquire the evidence; you decide to build the Large Hadron Collider, but James Randi shows up and tells you that you will waste all that money for nothing, because "you can't prove the negative."
Common sense prevailed, scientific thinking prevailed and this is the evidence of it:
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithab...5/lhc-sim.jpeg

• James Randi makes clear that the burden is up to those who believe that the Higgs Boson exists to demonstrate it.
• Randi supports researchers looking for supernatural phenomenon (IOW: your argument is a straw man).
• Remember I said that sans evidence we are talking probabilities.
• There was a theoretical framework for the existence of the Higgs Boson.
• There was a means to falsify the hypothesis.
• Those who favored the existence of the Higgs Bosson set out to falsify the hypothesis (Randi would approve).

When you have your means to falsify the god hypothesis you let us know.

[RandFan]

Originally Posted by epix

The OP title clearly applies to the evidence of absence and not to absence of evidence. Why do you let the latter in as a constructive argument? It's obviously irrelevant to the topic.

The OP is nonsensical. The evidence of absence has as much relevance for god as leprechauns, dragons, Santa Claus, etc..

You are trying to shift the burden. That's a fallacy.

http://www.fallacies.info/burdenofproof.html

When you have evidence of leprechauns, dragons, Santa Claus or god you let us know. Until then we don't need evidence of absence. We just need the null hypothesis.

[epix]

Originally Posted by shuttlt

You can surely "prove" the non-existence of a god that answers prayers in a statistically significant way every bit as much as one could have "proved" the non-existence of the Higgs Boson.

The radical atheists or the radical theists never conducted such a study. I wonder why. Maybe it is because God is just believed to answer prayers. I don't know what the theologians has to say about the degree of certainty.
I think the best thing is to get a visual on him once you define heaven. And that's what I will do.

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by epix

The radical atheists or the radical theists never conducted such a study. I wonder why. Maybe it is because God is just believed to answer prayers. I don't know what the theologians has to say about the degree of certainty.
I think the best thing is to get a visual on him once you define heaven. And that's what I will do.

So when you define heaven you will see god? What is your definition of heaven? Say hello to him from me. Atheists know that gods do not answer prayers (no evidence) and theists believe that their god answers prayers. Your point makes no sense.

[shuttlt]

One moment, a trick is being played here. In the Higgs example there was a prediction that, if confirmed, it was agreed would provide good evidence for the existence of the Higgs Boson and a test of know specificity and sensitivity. It was never a case of thinking of an experiment to not find the Higgs Boson. That would have been easy and would have proved nothing. All we need is something that, what ever God EPIX is talking about, does that is measurably different from him/her/it not existing and we're good to go.

EPIX, does your God do anything measurably different from your God not existing?

[epix]

Originally Posted by RandFan

• James Randi makes clear that the burden is up to those who believe that the Higgs Boson exists to demonstrate it.
• Randi supports researchers looking for supernatural phenomenon (IOW: your argument is a straw man).
• Remember I said that sans evidence we are talking probabilities.
• There was a theoretical framework for the existence of the Higgs Boson.
• There was a means to falsify the hypothesis.
• Those who favored the existence of the Higgs Bosson set out to falsify the hypothesis (Randi would approve).

When you have your means to falsify the god hypothesis you let us know.

I can let you know right away that you just got the opportunity to have a chat with others on my Ignore List.

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by epix

I can let you know right away that you just got the opportunity to have a chat with others on my Ignore List.

Yep, ignore facts.

[shuttlt]

Originally Posted by epix

The radical atheists or the radical theists never conducted such a study. I wonder why. Maybe it is because God is just believed to answer prayers. I don't know what the theologians has to say about the degree of certainty.
I think the best thing is to get a visual on him once you define heaven. And that's what I will do.

$5million are spent yearly on this kind of research. Studies of this type have been done. People who know they are being prayed for report that they feel better, blah, blah non-specific effects... Double blind studies show no effect.

Why do you think these studies haven't been done?

Follow the references from Wikipedia.

[RandFan]

Originally Posted by epix

I can let you know right away that you just got the opportunity to have a chat with others on my Ignore List.

Why on earth would you put me on ignore?

[RandFan]

Originally Posted by RandFan

• James Randi makes clear that the burden is up to those who believe that the Higgs Boson exists to demonstrate it.
• Randi supports researchers looking for supernatural phenomenon (IOW: your argument is a straw man).
• Remember I said that sans evidence we are talking probabilities.
• There was a theoretical framework for the existence of the Higgs Boson.
• There was a means to falsify the hypothesis.
• Those who favored the existence of the Higgs Bosson set out to falsify the hypothesis (Randi would approve).

When you have your means to falsify the god hypothesis you let us know.

The post that earned me a spot on epix ignore list. I'm honored.

[TimCallahan]

Originally Posted by epix

. . . snip . . . You don't distinguish between "proof" and "evidence." (Note the OP title.)When you learn the difference, explain it to me how you understand it. See, there is a difference between "innocent until proven guilty" and "innocent until 'evidenced' guilty." But since the proof of guilt is often based on the submitted evidence, there is a need to define the terms when they are used as arguments of analogy in transition cases.

Okay, I asked if you could come up with a pass / fail test for the existence of God. You declined to do so. As Others have posted, in the absence of compelling evidence for the existence of God, those of us who are atheists assume, conditionally, that there is no God. We are open to evidence to the contrary. So, do you have evidence you would like to present that there is a God?

As to evidence of the non-existence of God, I would say that there is nothing in nature or the cosmos that requires a deity for its explanation. That, I think, is reasonable evidence of an admittedly unprovable negative assumption.

BTW: As I have already asked do you have a link or any other source for your Yuri Gagarin quotes?

[wollery]

Originally Posted by dafydd

Yep, ignore facts.

Epix never met a fact he couldn't wilfully ignore.

[epix]

Originally Posted by shuttlt

$5million are spent yearly on this kind of research. Studies of this type have been done. People who know they are being prayed for report that they feel better, blah, blah non-specific effects... Double blind studies show no effect.

Why do you think these studies haven't been done?

Follow the references from Wikipedia.

Yes, I know that they have been nibbling at it. We got into this conversation by you comparing the options w.r.t. the search for Higgs boson, the "God's particle," at CERN. That was an effective research, but certain similarities are required.
http://www.ibtimes.com/forbes-findin...billion-721503

Now how much do you think cost the space exploration of 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s?

If you turn the space exploration into the research of God's non-existence, you can't miss. The math is kinda difficult, but not impossible. That's what the OP was all about. But even if you decide to test a few things under severe conditions (exposure to some atheists), you don't expect that things get soooo severe. Imagine this: There is a box with a few colored sheets of paper. For some reason, if the box contains a red sheet, that sheet is considered misplaced. Is the red sheet inside the box?

Is the red sheet inside the box?

I don't know. What are we going to do?

Huh? Well, open the box and take a look inside!

It's not there.

That's good. It wasn't supposed to be there.

What do you mean? You can't prove the negative and that means if I looked inside the box and didn't see the red sheet that you draw your happy conclusion. You can't prove the negative and therefore the evidence of the red sheet's absence inside the box cannot be accepted. If you look yourself and don't find it; if the whole population of this country doesn't find it; if the whole world population looks inside the box and doesn't find the red sheet, it is not the evidence of it's absence inside the box, because you can't prove the negative. You should convert to atheism to learn something about the REEEAAAAAL logic.

[RandFan]

Originally Posted by epix

What do you mean? You can't prove the negative and that means if I looked inside the box and didn't see the red sheet that you draw your happy conclusion. You can't prove the negative and therefore the evidence of the red sheet's absence inside the box cannot be accepted. If you look yourself and don't find it; if the whole population of this country doesn't find it; if the whole world population looks inside the box and doesn't find the red sheet, it is not the evidence of it's absence inside the box, because you can't prove the negative. You should convert to atheism to learn something about the REEEAAAAAL logic.

Prove leprechauns don't exist?

[Resume]

Originally Posted by epix

Huh? Well, open the box and take a look inside!

It's not there.

That's good. It wasn't supposed to be there.

Daisy is in the box. How could you miss her?

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by epix

If you turn the space exploration into the research of God's non-existence.

There is no need for that, it has nothing to do with reality. NASA did not go off in search of heaven. Your arguments really are futile.

[epix]

Originally Posted by TimCallahan

Okay, I asked if you could come up with a pass / fail test for the existence of God. You declined to do so. As Others have posted, in the absence of compelling evidence for the existence of God, those of us who are atheists assume, conditionally, that there is no God.

I declined, mainly because you never offered you own version. Justice is related to balance.
I didn't make any attempt to prevent you or others from assuming that there is no God. So don't mention it. (To me, it doesn't look as an assumption at all; it is nothing but simple denial.)

Quote:

We are open to evidence to the contrary. So, do you have evidence you would like to present that there is a God?

No, I would like to present evidence that there is no God. I thought that the title of this thread would be sufficient enough for you to understand its meaning, but I was wrong once, and now I see I'm wrong twice. You know, Epix fail... Ask me for the the third time to provide evidence of God's existence and you'll be following the yellow line ----------> Ignore List.

Quote:

As to evidence of the non-existence of God, I would say that there is nothing in nature or the cosmos that requires a deity for its explanation. That, I think, is reasonable evidence of an admittedly unprovable negative assumption.

Your observation fails on the definitions of deity.
Sure, we can wait wait some 300 million years before being capable of finding another universe, wait another 100 million years before being capable of getting there. Then another 25 million years to find a planet with folks being on the ancient level.
Ah, come on. Don't call me god. Or do I display some signs of possessing a superhuman ability? What? Where do I come from? From another universe.

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by epix

No, I would like to present evidence that there is no God.

Carry on then.

Quote:

Sure, we can wait wait some 300 million years before being capable of finding another universe, wait another 100 million years before being capable of getting there. Then another 25 million years to find a planet with folks being on the ancient level.
Ah, come on. Don't call me god. Or do I display some signs of possessing a superhuman ability? What? Where do I come from? From another universe.

I can discern no meaning in the above. You display no signs of superhuman ability. You come from planet Earth. Where did you get your figures from? I think I know, but could you confirm it?

[RandFan]

Originally Posted by epix

No, I would like to present evidence that there is no God.

I would like you to present evidence that there are no leprechauns.

[Slowvehicle]

Originally Posted by epix

I can let you know right away that you just got the opportunity to have a chat with others on my Ignore List.

Gee, what do I have to do to get back on that august list?

http://www.examiner.com/article/scie...cessory-prayer
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/...-heal-the-sick
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/he...pagewanted=all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficac...cacy_of_prayer

[bruto]

Originally Posted by epix

No, that case of bardus fallacy doesn't show any Tim's skepticism, because he never displayed one. In his last question, he just inquired about an option of detection and Bob's answer broke the rule according to which logical fallacies can exist. In other words, the conversation doesn't show what was intended.

Evidence of absence is formally guided by modus tollens. In propositional logic

P --> Q
~Q
~P

and the consequence is what you see being done recently.

So presumably you are counting evidence of absence as P and evidence as Q? P implies Q, but if there is no Q there can be no P. That's the only way that this makes sense. If there is no evidence at all, then obviously there can be no evidence of absence. But just as obviously, then not P does not imply not Q. So we're left with the same old problem here, that anyone who asks for evidence of absence is asking for something that is logically impossible if there is no evidence, and tautological if the evidence is not of presence. And, of course, silly, since any and all ideas, no matter how foolish, can be sustained in some silly way if the logic is ignored, as the Bob and Tim example illustrates. If no evidence is present, then the request for evidence of absence is logically impossible and foolish, and the person making the request certainly would seem to fulfill the definition of a "bardus."

[MIKILLINI]

Originally Posted by epix

I can let you know right away that you just got the opportunity to have a chat with others on my Ignore List.

Oh I see; Once you can't handle something that's real difficult for the purpose of debate, you just step aside...Wow, that's a real incompetent method.

[Recovering Agnostic]

Originally Posted by epix

If you turn the space exploration into the research of God's non-existence, you can't miss.

I have no idea what you're trying to say here, because it bears no relation to reality as far as I can see.

Originally Posted by epix

The math is kinda difficult, but not impossible. That's what the OP was all about. But even if you decide to test a few things under severe conditions (exposure to some atheists), you don't expect that things get soooo severe. Imagine this: There is a box with a few colored sheets of paper. For some reason, if the box contains a red sheet, that sheet is considered misplaced. Is the red sheet inside the box?

Is the red sheet inside the box?

I don't know. What are we going to do?

Huh? Well, open the box and take a look inside!

It's not there.

That's good. It wasn't supposed to be there.

What do you mean? You can't prove the negative and that means if I looked inside the box and didn't see the red sheet that you draw your happy conclusion. You can't prove the negative and therefore the evidence of the red sheet's absence inside the box cannot be accepted. If you look yourself and don't find it; if the whole population of this country doesn't find it; if the whole world population looks inside the box and doesn't find the red sheet, it is not the evidence of it's absence inside the box, because you can't prove the negative. You should convert to atheism to learn something about the REEEAAAAAL logic.

I assume by this argument you're asserting that proving a negative is possible, therefore atheists should be able to prove that there's no God. Maybe you think that's really nifty, but it's got more holes in it than a Swiss cheese.

To be a true analogy, the box would have to be infinitely big, and the red sheet would have to be defined in such a way that it couldn't be seen, touched, or detected in any way at all. (There would also be a huge vocal group of people claiming that despite these conditions, they know it's in there somewhere because they believe it in their hearts/experienced it somehow/someone else told them there was, but that's by the by.)

[Dancing David]

Originally Posted by epix

You just continue to build on your false, TimCallahan^TM conclusions. The OP doesn't leave much of an impression of me "demanding that atheist prove the non-existence of God."

That is exactly what it does, your inability to make coherent arguments is rather lacking.

[Dancing David]

Originally Posted by epix

Suppose that you want to come up with empirical evidence that God doesn't exist.

Nope, can't prove a negative.

How about your show that god does exist.

[tsig]

Originally Posted by RandFan

The post that earned me a spot on epix ignore list. I'm honored.

If you* put every other poster on the ignore list you have effectively banned yourself from the forum.

*generic you

[Dancing David]

Originally Posted by epix

Suppose that you want to come up with empirical evidence that Higgs boson doesn't exist. You decide to spend billions of $$$ to acquire the evidence; you decide to build the Large Hadron Collider, but James Randi shows up and tells you that you will waste all that money for nothing, because "you can't prove the negative."
Common sense prevailed, scientific thinking prevailed and this is the evidence of it:
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithab...5/lhc-sim.jpeg

Hi Epix, you do not build something to prove that something doesn't exist. At least not in science.

You build something to gather data that matches your theory to some level of not. The LHC was not built to disprove the Higgs boson, it was built to see if the data matched the theory.

In fact things like the Michelson-Morely experiments were designed to demonstrate data that supported the aether, not disprove it.

So your supposition is in error thus creating a false dichotomy and fallacy of construction. And you don't understand the methods of science.

[tsig]

Originally Posted by wollery

Epix never met a fact he couldn't wilfully ignore.

He either ignores them or tortures them till they say what he wants.

[tsig]

Originally Posted by epix

I declined, mainly because you never offered you own version. Justice is related to balance.
I didn't make any attempt to prevent you or others from assuming that there is no God. So don't mention it. (To me, it doesn't look as an assumption at all; it is nothing but simple denial.)


No, I would like to present evidence that there is no God. I thought that the title of this thread would be sufficient enough for you to understand its meaning, but I was wrong once, and now I see I'm wrong twice. You know, Epix fail... Ask me for the the third time to provide evidence of God's existence and you'll be following the yellow line ----------> Ignore List.

Your observation fails on the definitions of deity.
Sure, we can wait wait some 300 million years before being capable of finding another universe, wait another 100 million years before being capable of getting there. Then another 25 million years to find a planet with folks being on the ancient level.
Ah, come on. Don't call me god. Or do I display some signs of possessing a superhuman ability? What? Where do I come from? From another universe.

Cite?

[Loss Leader]

Originally Posted by shuttlt

Surely half the problem is that "God" isn't remotely well defined?

You can surely "prove" the non-existence of a god that answers prayers in a statistically significant way every bit as much as one could have "proved" the non-existence of the Higgs Boson.

Now, a God that doesn't interfere, or a God that wants to hide...? One can't test for that at all.

Forget no being well defined, I've never seen a definition that wasn't self contradictory. Tyne thing is logically impossible. We don't even have to get into whether it's practically impossible, too.

[Jack by the hedge]

Originally Posted by epix

Yes, I know that they have been nibbling at it.

Really?

So when you just wrote:

Originally Posted by epix

The radical atheists or the radical theists never conducted such a study. I wonder why.

... did you really wonder why, or were you just being disingenuous?

[Merton]

Originally Posted by epix

Suppose that you want to come up with empirical evidence that God doesn't exist.

The problem with your Higgs analogy is that, as RandFan stated, the Higgs boson had a scientific theory behind it, one that made testable predictions. We analyzed the theory until we found a place where evidence should be if the Higgs boson existed, and we tested for its presence there. Think of it mathematically: we can't determine that an item is missing from a set until we either 1) have found the item, thus disproving our hypothesis, or 2) know every single member of the set. In other words, you can only prove a negative if you know where evidence for the phenomenon would be, but didn't find it.

A god, by contrast, has no theory, and no testable predictions for one's existence can be made. This is the whole point behind the term agnostic: no "evidence" in favor of a god can be accepted (because there will always be a more plausible, natural explanation) and no evidence can refute a god's existence due to the common attributes associated with it, viz., agency and omnipotence.

[TimCallahan]

Originally Posted by epix

I declined, mainly because you never offered you own version. Justice is related to balance.
I didn't make any attempt to prevent you or others from assuming that there is no God. So don't mention it. (To me, it doesn't look as an assumption at all; it is nothing but simple denial.)

I would think that, if you had a pass / fail test for the existence of God, and it demonstrated that there was indeed a God, that you would be eager to show us the light. I have responded, as have others on this thread, that you can't prove a negative. Thus evidence for or against the existence of God would have to be in the form of a pass / fail test. I frankly can't think of any. Thus, I was wondering if you could. Apparently, you can't.

Originally Posted by epix

No, I would like to present evidence that there is no God. I thought that the title of this thread would be sufficient enough for you to understand its meaning, but I was wrong once, and now I see I'm wrong twice. You know, Epix fail... Ask me for the the third time to provide evidence of God's existence and you'll be following the yellow line ----------> Ignore List.

So, basically, if you don't get the responses you want from people, you put them on ignore? Have you already done this with RandFan? This is the second time on this thread that you've made that threat. Well, if you wish, you may do it. I certainly can't stop you, and I'm utterly unimpressed by your threat to do so.

As to evidence there is no God, I and others have pointed the following out to you:

1) You can't prove a negative. So, no, we can't prove the non-existence of God. So, you have a point. We can't prove a negative, that there isn't a God. So what?

2) What we can demonstrate is that there is nothing in the universe that requires a deity to explain its existence. Hence my request for a pass / fail test.

3) As to evidence (rather than proof) of the absence of any God, I ask you this: Where was this God of yours in 2004, when an earthquake under the Indian Ocean generated a tsunami that took the lives of 230,000 human beings. Again, where was this God of yours in 2010, when an earthquake in Haiti, followed by a cholera epidemic, took the lives of 300,000 human beings. It would seem to me that any God must be far greater than I am. Thus any level of compassion I have would be minuscule compared to God's. Since I could not stand by and allow such a tragedy, had I the power to prevent it, I would have to assume that, were there a God, he (or she) also could not allow such a tragedy. Since, these tragedies happened, I must assume, as Epicurus did thousands of years ago, that either there is no God, or, if there is, he is either powerless to prevent such evils or indifferent to them, hence evil. Since the monotheistic God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam is assumed to be all-powerful and benign, I must assume that total of over 500,000 people killed in these two natural disasters constitutes strong evidence that there is no God.Your response?

Originally Posted by epix

Your observation fails on the definitions of deity.
Sure, we can wait wait some 300 million years before being capable of finding another universe, wait another 100 million years before being capable of getting there. Then another 25 million years to find a planet with folks being on the ancient level.
Ah, come on. Don't call me god. Or do I display some signs of possessing a superhuman ability? What? Where do I come from? From another universe.

I frankly can't make sense of this last block from the quoted post. Can anyone else explain it?

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by TimCallahan

I frankly can't make sense of this last block from the quoted post. Can anyone else explain it?

Beats me too. The words are English, but that's about it.

[epix]

Originally Posted by TimCallahan

1) You can't prove a negative. So, no, we can't prove the non-existence of God. So, you have a point. We can't prove a negative, that there isn't a God. So what?

You missed one of my post that included

Quote:

Suppose there is hypothetical environment P. If that environment once existed, then element Q must still exist. Finding the element Q is sufficient and necessary to upgrade hypothetical P to theoretical P. The opposite outcome - the absence of Q - downgrade P, perhaps to a belief. And that's the idea behind the search for the "God's particle." P is the Higgs field and Q is the Higgs boson. You extract modus tollens out of the logical formality and you are on your way.

As you see, you can "prove the negative," if you realize that the definition of deity allows upgrading belief into a hypothesis. Then you follow the green line.
-----> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proving_a_negative

You remind me again of how many times I have been told by you and others that "you can't prove the negative." Are you a god that requires a blind acceptance from those who don't even worship him? What if I subscribe to a different opinion?

Quote:

Among professional logicians, guess how many think that you can’t prove a negative? That’s right, zero. Yes, Virginia, you can prove a negative, and it’s easy, too. For one thing, a real, actual law of logic is a negative, namely the law of non-contradiction. This law states that that a proposition cannot be both true and not true. Nothing is both true and false. Furthermore, you can prove this law. It can be formally derived from the empty set using provably valid rules of inference. (I’ll spare you the boring details). One of the laws of logic is a provable negative. Wait … this means we’ve just proven that it is not the case that one of the laws of logic is that you can’t prove a negative. So we’ve proven yet another negative! In fact, “you can’t prove a negative” is a negative — so if you could prove it true, it wouldn’t be true! Uh-oh.

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-12-05/ (scroll down to the article)

The consequence of your "you can't prove the negative" claim invalidates the title Empirical Evidence of the Non-Existence of God. Does it also invalidate a hypothetical title Evidence for the Non-Existence of the Son of God? If so, why; and if not, why?

Quote:

2) What we can demonstrate is that there is nothing in the universe that requires a deity to explain its existence. Hence my request for a pass / fail test.

There is also nothing in the universe that prevents a deity from explaining its existence, especially in the case of God. Almighty, you know.

Quote:

3) As to evidence (rather than proof) of the absence of any God, I ask you this: Where was this God of yours in 2004, when an earthquake under the Indian Ocean generated a tsunami that took the lives of 230,000 human beings?

That's a good question. A natural disaster is sometimes referred to as "act of God." It stands to reason that if God felt like acting and created a major disaster, he would do it on a major religious holiday, like the second day of Christmas. Where was he on 12/26/2004? I don't know. Probably surfing the tsunami waves.
Did it occur to you that personal attributes as percieved by others got nothing to do with existence of a person? If I fail (epixc fail) all the time, and I once fail to fail, does it mean that I don't exist?
In Revelation, God compares himself to opposites, and not to an omniloving deity.

[Recovering Agnostic]

Originally Posted by epix

A natural disaster is sometimes referred to as "act of God." It stands to reason that if God felt like acting and created a major disaster, he would do it on a major religious holiday, like the second day of Christmas. Where was he on 12/26/2004? I don't know. Probably surfing the tsunami waves.

Yes, I often find all that "peace on Earth, goodwill towards men" stuff inspires me to commit mass murder. It stands to reason. Maybe He just can't stand the endless Morecambe and Wise repeats, or maybe He's stuck at His elderly aunt's place playing cribbage and bored out of His skull, and wants to take it out on someone.

Originally Posted by epix

Did it occur to you that personal attributes as percieved by others got nothing to do with existence of a person? If I fail (epixc fail) all the time, and I once fail to fail, does it mean that I don't exist?
In Revelation, God compares himself to opposites, and not to an omniloving deity.

Revelation isn't exactly a clear creedal statement, and Christianity has more or less universally described God as omniloving, or omnibenevolent. Once again, we're back to the problem of definitions. We've been over the reasons why you can't typically expect someone to prove a negative ad nauseam, but you're expecting atheists to prove the non-existence of being which is so poorly defined that about all anyone can agree on is that He can't be seen, touched or detected in any way. Can you not see how ridiculous that is?

[Jack by the hedge]

Originally Posted by epix

As you see, you can "prove the negative," if you realize that the definition of deity allows upgrading belief into a hypothesis.

Can you explain this part in plain language?

Quote:

Then you follow the green line.

An ink line, no doubt.