'There Is No God', or 'I Believe There Is No God'?

[trdsf]

Asking whether god exists is just a silly question. It is likely that god doesn't exist, but it is something that is not able to be proven for absolute certain. The only things able to be proven without a shadow of a doubt are mathematical truths derived from a set of axioms.

It's not a silly question, although there are a lot of silly answers.

Do you not think we could (if we haven't already) reach the point that we can say, "Look, there's no reason to accept the hypothesis that a god exists in the first place" and at that point, it becomes legitimate to say "there is no" rather than "I believe there is no"?

I'm not asking for anything more than the level of evidence we have to say that there is no phlogiston or caloric.  Or are you saying that I should say I believe they don't exist?

[widdershins]

Again, this is the point that I'm trying to get at: getting the "you can't know" from someone on the reason side, not the belief side, for reason reasons.

Everyone's taking a whack at the low-hanging fruit of the believers and that's not at issue here. 

I'm afraid I really have no idea what you're saying there.  Too many uses of the word "reason" to be easily reasoned, I guess.  My only problem is that once you make the claim that there is no God then it is on you to prove your claim, which is impossible.

It's not like it matters in the grand scheme of things anyway.  Rare is the initiate who so much has the desire to understand what you are saying, much less enough remaining ability for thinking critically to process it.

[Mike Cl]

  My only problem is that once you make the claim that there is no God then it is on you to prove your claim, which is impossible.

I must disagree.  I don's see the default setting as believing in god(s), or the tooth fairy, or bugs bunny, or Betty Crocker, or Paul Bunyan...............or any other imagined character.  For me the default is that nothing and nobody exists.  So, if I claim my mother existed, then I need to prove that---which is easy enough to do.  The same for everybody and everything in the universe.  So, when I say that god does not exist, that is not a 'claim'.  It is a statement of fact.  Can anybody show me evidence that I am wrong.  So, in my statement, I made no claim.  However, when a theist says there is a god, then he is making a 'claim' and it is up to him to provide some evidence to establish that god does exist.  Why should a person who believes in a fiction, demand that we prove that they are wrong?  It is the opposite--the theist needs to prove that they are right, and with evidence. 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You don't HAVE TO SAY either of those.

[hrdlr110]

Yes, but that's a tactic for dealing with a believer.  I'm just talking about whether it is logically proper to say 'there is no god' rather than the hedge 'I believe there is no god'.

I've never had a problem with asserting that there are no gods. I do like to be inclusive by using the plural form - I don't like to discriminate. Like Dan Fouts, I'm a polyatheist.

[aitm]

I don't think it's that hard to say there is no god. And you can use "ad populaum".

Since no god has a vast majority of believers the overwhelming majority don't believe in your flavor of god.

Simple history proves that..yes…humanity has had thousands of gods…where did they come from? Everyone will say they came from the imagination of man..except for their god…he is a true god. Or you run into the occasional whacko that proclaims all the gods existed but the god of abraham pummeled them into oblivion sometime…..long time ago…..

[widdershins]

I must disagree.  I don's see the default setting as believing in god(s), or the tooth fairy, or bugs bunny, or Betty Crocker, or Paul Bunyan...............or any other imagined character.  For me the default is that nothing and nobody exists.  So, if I claim my mother existed, then I need to prove that---which is easy enough to do.  The same for everybody and everything in the universe.  So, when I say that god does not exist, that is not a 'claim'.  It is a statement of fact.  Can anybody show me evidence that I am wrong.  So, in my statement, I made no claim.  However, when a theist says there is a god, then he is making a 'claim' and it is up to him to provide some evidence to establish that god does exist.  Why should a person who believes in a fiction, demand that we prove that they are wrong?  It is the opposite--the theist needs to prove that they are right, and with evidence. 

There is no "default" in any position.  There is only that for which there is evidence and that for which there is not.  I very much loath the idea of a "default" because that is what theists believe their position is.  They believe if they can shoot holes in anything they don't like, leaving no valid explanation but theirs, they win by "default".  The very foundation of Intelligent Design is built on the predication that if they can show that evolution is wrong it makes ID right by default.  I will never accept the concept of a "default position" because I have been bashed over the head with that idea so much already that I believe the concept to be dangerous and ignorant and arrogant.  Besides, to the theist, theirs is the "default".  Saying yours is the "default position" is really just another claim.

And saying "there is no God" is very much a claim, not a "fact".  A fact is that which is indisputably true.  That God does not exist is hotly disputed, therefore not fact.  It IS a claim.  When you are stating "This thing is true" you are making a claim unless it is "indisputably true".  That your mother existed, THAT is a fact, not a claim.  Everybody understands biology and if you say, "I had a mother" nobody is going to dispute that.  It is "indisputably true", therefore a fact, not a claim.  You have it exactly backward there.

Anyone making a claim has voluntarily taken it upon himself to provide evidence in support of that claim.  I've noticed around here lately that we atheists tend to want to excuse ourselves from that requirement.  But we cannot.  Look, our position is easy.  All we have to do is to defend against fantastical claims of great magical powers.  That's pretty damned easy to do.  We don't need to weaken the standards to do it.  But if we weaken the standards for ourselves we then open the door to the theist finding an excuse to weaken the standards for themselves, something they try to do all the time anyway.  We have to hold ourselves to a higher standard.  Not doing so actually WEAKENS our position.

There are no gods.  There are no fairies, no trolls, no elves.  There are no ghosts.  There is no Bigfoot, no Nessy.  No aliens have ever visited our planet.  That is what I believe.  But none of those things are "facts" because none of those things are "indisputably true".  They are my beliefs.  How disputed each is depends on which claim you're talking about and who you're talking to about it.  I can't prove any of those things.  It's not like trolls not existing leaves nega-troll footprints under bridges that I can find and say, "Ha!  Here are footprints of NOT a troll!"  I can't prove that there are no trolls, I just don't see evidence for them.  But maybe there's someone out there in the world who does believe they have seen evidence to show trolls existed.  Theists believe they've seen evidence God exists, often.  So how would a conversation go if we believed that there was a default position, that ours was it and that if they could not present evidence we would accept we win by "default"?  Side T has a lot of evidence to support it.  But side A rejects all of that evidence.  Side A has a well thought out rebuttal to all the evidence presented.  Of course, side T rejects the rejection of much, if not all of the evidence.  They don't accept that this evidence is not valid.  But side A insists that it is invalid.  After soundly refuting all of the evidence, leaving no evidence remaining unchallenged, side A wins by default.  Does that sound about right?  I bet you figured out side T was "theists" and side A was "atheists" there.  But what if we switched them.  Side T is now evolution, side A is now Intelligent Design.  THAT is how the arguments go, which is very revealing.  It tells me EXACTLY why one would want to claim to have the "default" position.  They don't have the evidence to prove their point, so instead they would like to win by just disproving yours.  If you argued that the sky was yellow and I argued that it was really purple do I prove I'm right by proving you're wrong?  Of course not.  That's not how logic works.  So I then claim that mine is the "default" position and NOW I can prove that I'm right by proving you're wrong.  Like anyone, you want to claim a "default" so that you can prove you are right, but you can't, ever.  You can never prove you're right.  It's obvious you are to anyone who has looked into it objectively, but you can never "prove" it.  But you know what?  That's okay.  Scientists can never "prove" anything either.  There is nothing past theory.  Everything in science is no better than "true until we find a truer truth".  It's okay to not be able to give a definitive "Aha!  I am right and here's the proof!"  It's okay to just say, "All the evidence says I am right and until there is evidence to the contrary, that's my position".

I would rather accept that I can't prove it, that I could be wrong, but there is no evidence to suggest that I am, than to weaken my position, my credibility and my critical thought process to pretend that my position is any stronger than it really is.  My position is plenty strong already.  I don't need to take that extra step toward "I win any and all arguments unless you can prove I'm wrong", which is neither honest nor intellectually sound.

[trdsf]

There is no "default" in any position.  There is only that for which there is evidence and that for which there is not.  I very much loath the idea of a "default" because that is what theists believe their position is.  They believe if they can shoot holes in anything they don't like, leaving no valid explanation but theirs, they win by "default".  The very foundation of Intelligent Design is built on the predication that if they can show that evolution is wrong it makes ID right by default.  I will never accept the concept of a "default position" because I have been bashed over the head with that idea so much already that I believe the concept to be dangerous and ignorant and arrogant.  Besides, to the theist, theirs is the "default".  Saying yours is the "default position" is really just another claim.

And saying "there is no God" is very much a claim, not a "fact".  A fact is that which is indisputably true.  That God does not exist is hotly disputed, therefore not fact.  It IS a claim.  When you are stating "This thing is true" you are making a claim unless it is "indisputably true".  That your mother existed, THAT is a fact, not a claim.  Everybody understands biology and if you say, "I had a mother" nobody is going to dispute that.  It is "indisputably true", therefore a fact, not a claim.  You have it exactly backward there.

Anyone making a claim has voluntarily taken it upon himself to provide evidence in support of that claim.  I've noticed around here lately that we atheists tend to want to excuse ourselves from that requirement.  But we cannot.  Look, our position is easy.  All we have to do is to defend against fantastical claims of great magical powers.  That's pretty damned easy to do.  We don't need to weaken the standards to do it.  But if we weaken the standards for ourselves we then open the door to the theist finding an excuse to weaken the standards for themselves, something they try to do all the time anyway.  We have to hold ourselves to a higher standard.  Not doing so actually WEAKENS our position.

There are no gods.  There are no fairies, no trolls, no elves.  There are no ghosts.  There is no Bigfoot, no Nessy.  No aliens have ever visited our planet.  That is what I believe.  But none of those things are "facts" because none of those things are "indisputably true".  They are my beliefs.  How disputed each is depends on which claim you're talking about and who you're talking to about it.  I can't prove any of those things.  It's not like trolls not existing leaves nega-troll footprints under bridges that I can find and say, "Ha!  Here are footprints of NOT a troll!"  I can't prove that there are no trolls, I just don't see evidence for them.  But maybe there's someone out there in the world who does believe they have seen evidence to show trolls existed.  Theists believe they've seen evidence God exists, often.  So how would a conversation go if we believed that there was a default position, that ours was it and that if they could not present evidence we would accept we win by "default"?  Side T has a lot of evidence to support it.  But side A rejects all of that evidence.  Side A has a well thought out rebuttal to all the evidence presented.  Of course, side T rejects the rejection of much, if not all of the evidence.  They don't accept that this evidence is not valid.  But side A insists that it is invalid.  After soundly refuting all of the evidence, leaving no evidence remaining unchallenged, side A wins by default.  Does that sound about right?  I bet you figured out side T was "theists" and side A was "atheists" there.  But what if we switched them.  Side T is now evolution, side A is now Intelligent Design.  THAT is how the arguments go, which is very revealing.  It tells me EXACTLY why one would want to claim to have the "default" position.  They don't have the evidence to prove their point, so instead they would like to win by just disproving yours.  If you argued that the sky was yellow and I argued that it was really purple do I prove I'm right by proving you're wrong?  Of course not.  That's not how logic works.  So I then claim that mine is the "default" position and NOW I can prove that I'm right by proving you're wrong.  Like anyone, you want to claim a "default" so that you can prove you are right, but you can't, ever.  You can never prove you're right.  It's obvious you are to anyone who has looked into it objectively, but you can never "prove" it.  But you know what?  That's okay.  Scientists can never "prove" anything either.  There is nothing past theory.  Everything in science is no better than "true until we find a truer truth".  It's okay to not be able to give a definitive "Aha!  I am right and here's the proof!"  It's okay to just say, "All the evidence says I am right and until there is evidence to the contrary, that's my position".

I would rather accept that I can't prove it, that I could be wrong, but there is no evidence to suggest that I am, than to weaken my position, my credibility and my critical thought process to pretend that my position is any stronger than it really is.  My position is plenty strong already.  I don't need to take that extra step toward "I win any and all arguments unless you can prove I'm wrong", which is neither honest nor intellectually sound.

Ah, thank you, this is exactly the kind of debate I was wanting.

The position I'm trying to stake out is that the god hypothesis of how the world works belongs to the same category as the caloric theory of heat and the luminiferous æther theory of light propogation -- and scientists quite properly say that there is no caloric and there is no æther without having to qualify it with ''I believe", and their non-existence is essentially considered proven despite the so-called impossibility of proving a negative.  And no one is trying to find either of those (or phlogiston, or the four humours, or any one of a countless number of deprecated theories) on the chance that they might have missed something.

Of course, if some observation turned up that could not be explained any other way that required bringing any of those theories back, that would happen.  That, as much as rigor and logic, is the real strength of the rationalist position, that when it needs to change, it does so, and based on reality rather than nostalgia.

And the god argument now, I think, belongs in that same category, and that in the same way that I can say there is no æther, I should be able to say there is no god, without qualification.

[FaithIsFilth]

For me it's, "I don't think there is a god" or "I think there is no god" or "I assume there is no god". I don't like "I believe there is no god" or "I know there is no god". Simply "there is no god" I'm generally fine with, but people mean different things when they say that. Some of them are meaning that that is their assumption. Others mean that this is something that they know for certain.

[widdershins]

Ah, thank you, this is exactly the kind of debate I was wanting.

The position I'm trying to stake out is that the god hypothesis of how the world works belongs to the same category as the caloric theory of heat and the luminiferous æther theory of light propogation -- and scientists quite properly say that there is no caloric and there is no æther without having to qualify it with ''I believe", and their non-existence is essentially considered proven despite the so-called impossibility of proving a negative.  And no one is trying to find either of those (or phlogiston, or the four humours, or any one of a countless number of deprecated theories) on the chance that they might have missed something.

Of course, if some observation turned up that could not be explained any other way that required bringing any of those theories back, that would happen.  That, as much as rigor and logic, is the real strength of the rationalist position, that when it needs to change, it does so, and based on reality rather than nostalgia.

And the god argument now, I think, belongs in that same category, and that in the same way that I can say there is no æther, I should be able to say there is no god, without qualification.

The problem I have with that is that you're trying to apply scientific principals to a supernatural claim made not made by science.  That God exists is not a theory by scientific terms, nor is that God does not exist.  As you well know science deals with the physical universe only.  While science can be applied to claims of miracles, which are claimed to have a measurable effect on the physical world, God, as an entity, is not himself measurable or quantifiable, only his influence on the physical universe is.  This is why science can investigate claims of ghosts or psychic powers.  These things are said to affect the physical universe and that can be measured, so science can say that no such evidence exists.  Science cannot, however, make the claim that there is no soul.  While "soul" and "ghost" generally refer to the same nonsense, a soul is an imagined part of our being while a ghost is a free roaming soul with observable physical effects.  Strictly speaking there can be no "god hypothesis" if you are speaking of any god which resides outside of our physical universe.

This is why no scientist worth his salt would ever try to prove there are no gods, or that there are one or more gods.  The very concept lies outside the realm of science, the study of the physical.  I posit that if the claim cannot be investigated with scientific method, which it cannot, then we cannot draw conclusions in the same way scientist do.  Furthermore, you, yourself, allowed that even though scientists say there is no æther that does not mean that they are ruling it out with 100% certainty.  What they say and what they mean are two different things.  That is acceptable within science because when they say "Steady State theory is wrong" what they are really saying is "There is currently more evidence to support Big Bang theory".  And when talking to laymen they do use the same language, but they don't do it for the purpose of stating "This is absolutely correct", though it does come off that way to many laymen.  They do it because they don't want to explain each and every time how science works.  They do it as a convenience.  But I doubt your reasoning for not wanting to state "I believe..." or "There is no evidence to support..." is not the same as that of a scientist who is essentially saying, "I don't want to spend 2 hours explaining why I am not making an absolute claim, just expressing what the evidence supports according to current understanding..."

Just because we hold ourselves to scientific standards does not mean we are allowed the same liberties taken by scientists involved in science.  You must admit, for scientists to have to explain why they simply state scientific theories as fact and that they don't actually hold them as fact would be tedious and time consuming.  Every scientific announcement would be preceded by something akin to an End User License Agreement.  You know, those things that pop up when you install software that hardly anyone reads and even fewer read thoroughly.  Science, by its nature, is complicated.  Even words we use all the time have completely different meanings in science.  When I'm in my car if I am speeding up I, that is acceleration.  If I am slowing down, that is deceleration.  In physics if I am speeding up, slowing down or maintaining the same speed but changing directions, that is all acceleration.  Will you adapt their terminology too?  If I slam on my brakes and you hit your head on the dash will you chastise me for my excessive acceleration?  Not likely.  Science, its terminology and its privilege is for scientists.  Like it or not, we mere mortals live by different rules and we cannot borrow just those we like from science to use to our advantage when speaking to other mere mortals.

And now for a little jackasserey.  I'm not gay.  I have pictures of me not being gay to prove it!

[Baruch]

I don't think it's that hard to say there is no god. And you can use "ad populaum".

Since no god has a vast majority of believers the overwhelming majority don't believe in your flavor of god.

Simple history proves that..yes…humanity has had thousands of gods…where did they come from? Everyone will say they came from the imagination of man..except for their god…he is a true god. Or you run into the occasional whacko that proclaims all the gods existed but the god of abraham pummeled them into oblivion sometime…..long time ago…..

Or human imagination is real ... just on a different plane than secular reality.

[aitm]

Or human imagination is real ... just on a different plane than secular reality.

but us humans always tend to suggest that our imagination is better than animals and their reality is somehow not nearly as defined as ours because of god. Yet if you put a tree, shrub, mosquito, squirrel or human in an device that separates atoms into their own families, you find little difference.

[Unbeliever]

There is no God, and I believe there is no God, so my belief seems to mirror reality.

Mere coincidence? I think not.

[trdsf]

The problem I have with that is that you're trying to apply scientific principals to a supernatural claim made not made by science.  That God exists is not a theory by scientific terms, nor is that God does not exist.  As you well know science deals with the physical universe only.  While science can be applied to claims of miracles, which are claimed to have a measurable effect on the physical world, God, as an entity, is not himself measurable or quantifiable, only his influence on the physical universe is.  This is why science can investigate claims of ghosts or psychic powers.  These things are said to affect the physical universe and that can be measured, so science can say that no such evidence exists.  Science cannot, however, make the claim that there is no soul.  While "soul" and "ghost" generally refer to the same nonsense, a soul is an imagined part of our being while a ghost is a free roaming soul with observable physical effects.  Strictly speaking there can be no "god hypothesis" if you are speaking of any god which resides outside of our physical universe.

Even if this hypothetical god is outside the universe, the effects this god is supposed to be able to produce are inside it, so it can't be separated entirely from scientific inquiry.

So why shouldn't the god hypothesis be treated the same way as any other?  It is, after all, merely a primitive attempt to understand what makes the world work.  Lightning?  Thunder god.  Rain?  Rain god.  Volcano?  Fire god.  Good fishing today?  Thank the ocean god.

Thousands of years later, we know better: there is no evidence of a guiding intellect.  In fact, modern science has essentially done away with determinism, and a theistic universe -- at least one that proposes an omniscient personal, interactive god -- requires determinism in order for omniscience I think.  A deistic universe, with an impersonal and uninvolved god, has no observational differences from a non-deistic universe, so the extra theory can be discarded as extraneous.

Either way, I think you can get there from here.  There can't be something that affects the universe but is completely outside it, and it's going to take one hell of an interesting observation to disprove that.

This is why no scientist worth his salt would ever try to prove there are no gods, or that there are one or more gods.  The very concept lies outside the realm of science, the study of the physical.  I posit that if the claim cannot be investigated with scientific method, which it cannot, then we cannot draw conclusions in the same way scientist do.  Furthermore, you, yourself, allowed that even though scientists say there is no æther that does not mean that they are ruling it out with 100% certainty.  What they say and what they mean are two different things.  That is acceptable within science because when they say "Steady State theory is wrong" what they are really saying is "There is currently more evidence to support Big Bang theory".  And when talking to laymen they do use the same language, but they don't do it for the purpose of stating "This is absolutely correct", though it does come off that way to many laymen.  They do it because they don't want to explain each and every time how science works.  They do it as a convenience.  But I doubt your reasoning for not wanting to state "I believe..." or "There is no evidence to support..." is not the same as that of a scientist who is essentially saying, "I don't want to spend 2 hours explaining why I am not making an absolute claim, just expressing what the evidence supports according to current understanding..."

And that's fine, assuming all the terminological baggage -- I do assume it.  That's specifically why I say 'no god' in the same sense as 'no phlogiston' -- if evidence turned up that potentially indicated a god, I would have to take notice of it.  But I'm not required to go looking for it, and the better explanations we currently have do a much better job of explaining reality.

No one would bat an eye at "There is no Zeus" or "There is no Ba'al" or "There is no C'thulhu".  Yahweh, Allah, and Vishnu belong in the same generalized class -- why should they be treated differently, just because there are large numbers of active adherents to those fictions?

Just because we hold ourselves to scientific standards does not mean we are allowed the same liberties taken by scientists involved in science.  You must admit, for scientists to have to explain why they simply state scientific theories as fact and that they don't actually hold them as fact would be tedious and time consuming.  Every scientific announcement would be preceded by something akin to an End User License Agreement.  You know, those things that pop up when you install software that hardly anyone reads and even fewer read thoroughly.  Science, by its nature, is complicated.  Even words we use all the time have completely different meanings in science.  When I'm in my car if I am speeding up I, that is acceleration.  If I am slowing down, that is deceleration.  In physics if I am speeding up, slowing down or maintaining the same speed but changing directions, that is all acceleration.  Will you adapt their terminology too?  If I slam on my brakes and you hit your head on the dash will you chastise me for my excessive acceleration?  Not likely.  Science, its terminology and its privilege is for scientists.  Like it or not, we mere mortals live by different rules and we cannot borrow just those we like from science to use to our advantage when speaking to other mere mortals.

I would, in fact, chastise you for the unexpected acceleration -- after I finished cussing you out.  I actually do try to adopt the more precise terminology when it's feasible.

But I'm weird.  :)

In any case, I don't agree that there are different rules for science and everyday life, terminological or otherwise.  I don't need to be an artist to appreciate art or to attempt to produce it, and I don't need to be a scientist to appreciate both science and the scientific method or to attempt to apply it.

And now for a little jackasserey.  I'm not gay.  I have pictures of me not being gay to prove it!

And I am gay, and I don't have pictures of me being gay to prove it!

For this, you should be grateful.  :D

[widdershins]

Even if this hypothetical god is outside the universe, the effects this god is supposed to be able to produce are inside it, so it can't be separated entirely from scientific inquiry.

Ah, but any effect it produces, miracles, if you will, are a separate thing entirely.  If you wished to find evidence one way or the other you would start with the miracles.  As you are well aware no case of magic has ever been proven.  Every miracle ever investigated by science instead of a church has either been disproved or not enough evidence existed to draw a conclusion.  All this proves is that these supposed miracles were not caused by a god, but by humans or some natural force.  Since, by disproving the miracle, you proved they did not come from any god you have then separated them from that god and they therefore say nothing about that god because they weren't "of it".

So why shouldn't the god hypothesis be treated the same way as any other?  It is, after all, merely a primitive attempt to understand what makes the world work.  Lightning?  Thunder god.  Rain?  Rain god.  Volcano?  Fire god.  Good fishing today?  Thank the ocean god.

I wouldn't go so far as to give it the status of "hypothesis".  More like "fanciful dream".  A deity, by nature, is going to have powers and abilities which we would consider "magical".  While a sufficiently advanced alien using technology could make it appear to us that he had magical powers he would still not be a deity because the power would be technological, not inherent.  Any deity would, by its nature, be "supernatural".  Science is not equipped to deal with the supernatural, only the natural.

Thousands of years later, we know better: there is no evidence of a guiding intellect.  In fact, modern science has essentially done away with determinism, and a theistic universe -- at least one that proposes an omniscient personal, interactive god -- requires determinism in order for omniscience I think.  A deistic universe, with an impersonal and uninvolved god, has no observational differences from a non-deistic universe, so the extra theory can be discarded as extraneous.

Again, there is a difference between effects on the universe and the existence of any deity.  Once you discredit any give magic as having a purely natural cause you have separated it from the supernatural, meaning it now says nothing whatsoever about the supernatural.  It is evidence neither for nor against anything supernatural because you have attributed a purely natural cause to it.

Either way, I think you can get there from here.  There can't be something that affects the universe but is completely outside it, and it's going to take one hell of an interesting observation to disprove that.

Contrary to what Mario and Luigi would have us belief as they tackle various ghost houses on TV, science is not in the business of "disproving" things.  That a deity affects the universe is nothing but a series of claims for which there are individual lines of evidence/data to be collected.  That a deity exists is a whole different story.

It's obvious to we non-Christians that God just doesn't seem to have the power that he used to.  In the Old Testament he was creating universes and destroying the world.  Really powerful shit.  In the New Testament he was healing the sick and raising the dead.  Still pretty impressive, but orders of magnitude less so.  Today he's answering prayer by giving you not what you asked for and making sure your gas lasts the whole week until payday.  Not impressive at all.  No better than random chance.  This suggests to me that earlier claims of magnificence may have been slightly exaggerated.  God is supposed to be eternal, unchanging, yet he has changed drastically over the course of his recorded history, becoming weaker and weaker as people got smarter and smarter.  What this says is that magic isn't real.  It's made up.  What this suggests is that the whole damned thing is made up.  But there's no way for me to test the earlier claims of greater magics.  I can't prove that it's made up, I can only infer that it is.  What's more, even if I were to prove all the claims of magic false all I have done is erase the claimed evidence for this deity, not provided any evidence against.

And that's fine, assuming all the terminological baggage -- I do assume it.  That's specifically why I say 'no god' in the same sense as 'no phlogiston' -- if evidence turned up that potentially indicated a god, I would have to take notice of it.  But I'm not required to go looking for it, and the better explanations we currently have do a much better job of explaining reality.

I couldn't agree with that more.  If you want me to believe something it's not my job to learn all about the subject to prove to you why I should not believe it, it's your job to present me with the evidence to prove your claim.

No one would bat an eye at "There is no Zeus" or "There is no Ba'al" or "There is no C'thulhu".  Yahweh, Allah, and Vishnu belong in the same generalized class -- why should they be treated differently, just because there are large numbers of active adherents to those fictions?

That is because "There is no Zeus" became fact when it became indisputably true.  No one cares if you say Zeus isn't real.  No one disagrees with you.  They don't bat an eye simply because they don't care.

I would, in fact, chastise you for the unexpected acceleration -- after I finished cussing you out.  I actually do try to adopt the more precise terminology when it's feasible.

But I'm weird.  :)

Lol, you would be the only one I know who would complain about my excessive acceleration when braking.

In any case, I don't agree that there are different rules for science and everyday life, terminological or otherwise.  I don't need to be an artist to appreciate art or to attempt to produce it, and I don't need to be a scientist to appreciate both science and the scientific method or to attempt to apply it.

Certainly you don't need to be a scientist to appreciate science.  Most of us here are science nerds and geeks.  And you don't need to be a scientist to apply scientific method.  Many of us here do that regularly in these discussions.

What I am saying is that we can't take the same liberties scientists take when explaining science to the layman in our everyday lives.  We expect scientists to take these liberties.  When I'm watching a show on black holes I don't expect that I'm going to learn the real science behind it.  The show would go on for weeks and I would sleep through much of it.  I expect to get the interesting facts about it; some not-quite-as-explained details.  I know that when two scientists are telling me opposing things what they are really saying is that this is their understanding.  I know that because I seek out science information.  I expect them to take some liberties for the purpose of brevity and even give me some not-quite-correct information for the purpose of my general understanding of the concept as a whole.

So when a scientist says, "This is so" I understand that what he is really saying is, "This is so according to our current understanding".  So, actually, a scientist saying, "There are no gods" is really saying, "I believe..." or "We believe there are no gods according to current understanding".  It is a necessity for scientists to do this because what they have to say is so complex and requires so much specialty knowledge that to not do it would simply cost them, and us, too much in terms of time.  It is not a necessity to us.  The concept that there is no evidence whatsoever to remotely suggest the existence of any deities is not a difficult one.  It took just under 2/3 of the last sentence to fully articulate the entirety of the idea.  That is not a high cost in terms of time or effort.

So I'm not saying you can't respect, appreciate or use science.  All I'm saying is that the argument that you can take the same liberties in your everyday life, because you want to, that scientists take in science, out of necessity, is not exactly sound.

And I am gay, and I don't have pictures of me being gay to prove it!

For this, you should be grateful.  :D

Hey, man, whatever makes you happy, it's cool.  If being a shutterbug in the sack is what does it for you, by all means, you have yourself some fun.  Maybe just don't break out the photo album when I come over.  :D