@SteelandSouls lol. Maybe. I think we need to have a little more structure before that.

We'd have structure if we took advantage of these mentor programs we're trying to create

There's a Catch 22

@RoadtoDawn totally agree. Science of the material world cannot disprove the existence of God. Atheism is an indefensible position. The irony is that atheism requires faith too. Atheism is unsustainable and untrue. People will always worship some kind of god. Why do you think the social justice movement is filled with so many atheists? They have deified social justice. The atheists on our side have done the same with aspects of western values.

So....we good on our manhood meeting for the day?

the actual issue with rational arguments is that you dont have all the appropriate information at any given time

so your critique of a social structure may be flawed

also the socjus movement is filled with state idolatry

@SteelandSouls yes. For now.

@Salacious Swanky Cat Everything requires faith. We can't actually articulate objective reality, because there doesn't exist such a human methodology. The scientific method can't be proven to be true because nothing can be self-referential (you can't say the scientific method is true because I used the scientific method), and there's the problem Hume pointed out with inductions (I am by no means any fan of hume, but he has his uses). It is actually impossible to link together two events in causality

Even Harris points out that the only thing anyone can really know is that we are conscious. But my challenge to him is: prove that we're conscious

"I think therefore I am" is pretty old

Yeah, you can't prove you even have memories

What you experience could just be a system image

"Our scars remind us that the past is real"

Good lyrics to heed

@Beemann that’s true, it’s difficult/impossible to have all the information you need for a rational argument. Most arguments have some level of flaw in it because of that. Yes the socjus movement deifies the state, but the atheists on our side deify the individual.

"deify" in what sense?

We're our own kings, and what not

if you want to take it a step further, we are our own gods

That's what I see them attempt, anyway

In the words of Frank Underwood, "I believe in me, I pray to myself"

@RoadtoDawn I got a little curious about philosophy awhile ago, but then I thought something. Why should I read what these guys have said? Does it really change anything? Seemingly not. That’s an interesting point you make about science itself. I never thought about it being a form of circular reasoning. I just reasoned out that science couldn’t be used to disprove God’s existence and then i didn’t care what people said ‘science says’. That doesn’t necessarily sound brilliant, but it’s correct.

as someone who actually is an atheist, I wouldnt say I consider myself a god or a king, I just think that ultimately I'm the one steering my own ship

"science" does not comment on the existence of a higher power, the issue is lack of evidence

@Beemann the lack of evidence is on both sides. Atheism requires faith and denies it, but it criticizes religion for acknowledging that it requires faith.

Kind of reckless to disregard philosophy, otherwise you'd be disregarding prophets in general by your line of reasoning

@Salacious Swanky Cat all philosophy teaches is how to be logically consistent. It helps to not contradict yourself, or use logical fallacy

I dont require evidence to not believe a claim

@SteelandSouls not necessarily. I’m not disregarding logic itself. It’s just that some people get their heads up their butt in it. That’s why we have post modernism.

otherwise your disbelief in socjus nonsense is also "faith based"

I'd agree with that actually^

I have faith our principles are superior

you dont need faith to not believe socjus nonsense though

because it's up to the one makng the claim to provide proof

I think you might be missing the point though Beeman. It's not proving a claim to be ridiculous, it's a matter of proving what you have filled in its stead is better

I think what Salacious is saying is that he has had to arm himself in the past against people trying to disprove things he believes using science

you cant necessarily "disprove" God, though you could disprove the feasibility of biblical events

the claim that makes most sense instead, is that there's not enough evidence of the existence of a higher power

claims to the contrary usually operating on some presuppositional level

@Beemann idolatry of the individual is the idea of being totally in charge. To an extent at least. Free will exists, but it’s uncertain to what extent.

Doesnt belief in God necessitate belief in Free Will? Isnt that what He is supposed to have given?

God has sovereignty still. I’m still trying the work out where the line is.

So what's your stance on predestination?

@Beemann what counts as evidence for God?

@Beemann "claims to the contrary usually operation on some presuppositional level"
right, and as Salacious & I laid out with our "everything requires faith" bit, everything we do requires presupposition

well what would you provide as evidence?

and the difference is that if you presuppose that 1 is a number and 2 of them equate to 2, that fits into a system with predictive power

I take Brad Stine's stance on the matter. Any God I can prove is not a God I'd want to believe in

so unless this is all a cleverly created simulation where things are explicitly created to work not the way they should, it can be assumed things work in this way for a reason. Further still, there's less reason to believe the former is the case anyway

I want to go running but it's 45° outside

@SteelandSouls Lets see. I believe that God is all knowing and sovereign, which means he already knows everyone’s fate. It’s hard to say what actually is happening, but the Bible implies both to some extent. Still thinking it through.

It's generally known in the bible we can't know the mind of God. And I wouldn't even call it a mind necessarily, because that's personifying God's nature

we mistakenly do that too often

@Beemann In the Bible, God promises to Abraham that he will make him the father of many nations (genesis 17:6). The abrahamic faiths have completely dominated the world. More so than any other religion. Does that count as predictive power?

depends on how you define a nation

@SteelandSouls you get the point.

I get the gist of it

More importantly, any good ideas for crackers and cream cheese?

@Salacious Swanky Cat not when every religion predicts its spread, no

@Beemann yeah. The all claim it. Which have produced the best results? Abrahamic faiths.

Sup

wut

Everyone predicts they will win the race, one person did, ergo they are a prophet <- basically what is being argued here

@Beemann that’s an example of predictive power.

That's more an example of being wrong until someone is right

it's not, it's a guess. There's no model upon which you're consistently coming out with the same result via the same process

exactly

How do know it’s a guess?

whats the predictive model, and how many times has it been replicated?

Frequency and commonality of what is attempted to be predicted

Replicated? Are we entering into multiverse theory? lol

ohhh dear

no?

The predictive model is an individual believing and it has been replicated enough to where it’s the dominant faith system.

"I predict a coin flip, I have a formula that says what it will be"
do it once = not really special
do it 1mil times = you might have something

thats not replication of the prediction

"I predict you will have a lot of fans" != every fan is replication

having a lot of fans, in total, is one instance of it occurring

make it happen again

@Salacious Swanky Cat I have 1 small issue with what you said, and 1 big problem with what you said. The small one being, atheism can be defensible. The second being

Nothing I Say Has FLAWS!

Yeah that's incoherent, or we're talking about two different things

you came in and talked about a different thing lol

@Shadows I don’t understand what you are saying.

I'm following what Salacious is saying

yes, and we're talking about predictability and test replication

@Beemann China has gone from being atheist to having one of the largest Christian populations in the world.

predictive models should be repeatable

"you will have a lot of followers" isnt a repeatable standard

in fact, I'm hard pressed to think of one single biblical event that matches a repeatable standard, or forms a predictive model

If we're gauging the truth of the Abrahamic faith by the metric he proposed, what you suggested is that we'd need more instances of God naming Abraham the father of many nations and that religion accomplishing that. So if you're asking how many planets in which that person was told by God that, then I'm afraid we only have 1 that we know of

no, thats not what I suggested

I'm saying for something to be a predictive model, you need to be able to replicate the results and have the same thing happen

so I drop a rock, I predict it will fall, it falls. As long as I'm dropping that rock on earth, it will fall

Like revivals happening?

I have a model that states exactly how fast the rock will fall

sure, if you have a process to revive people that is repeatable and observable, let me know

you'll upend the medical community overnight

You just assume a model doesn’t exist because you don’t have the means to test it.