GoT may be a documentary portrayal of a pre-ice age civilization, when the last of the dragons finally became extinct.
At least, I can’t prove that it’s not.
(My name is TimB and I approve the above satirical message.)
Sounds about right.
I would love to have a dragon. There’s a large space under my house where he could live.I would feed him the free range neighbourhood children, and homeless people… Perhaps the odd JW or Mormon stupid enough to knock on my door.
It seems like most atheists define atheism like I do (quite simply, I do not believe god(s) exist.) They also make the effort to let it be known that they do not deny the existence of god(s), and are therefore agnostic atheists.
In my experience, the only ones who do not understand are theists who think they understand our position, but really don’t- they constantly claim we’re rejecting whatever god(s) they believe in.
It’s not a subtle difference when you understand the difference, but the two positions appear the same to theists who can’t imagine not ‘knowing in your heart’ that god exists.
If dragons still existed, the House of Trump would have them feeding on asylum seekers at the southern border.
@3point4rat
Good post. I too describe myself as an agnostic atheist. I think the two concepts confuses many of the devout. I must say I get a special feeling when some happy clapper patiently explains MY beliefs to me. The special feeling is a strong desire to hit said happy clapper with a brick.
Another true story (about 10 years ago):
At the party of a very good friend, who was embarrassed at the time because a daughter had just become a happy clapper. She was at the party, accompanied by a fervent-looking young man with a gaze. I was alone at the time. Fervent young man noticed, and slithered over. He fixed me with his gaze, and said, fervently " Have you heard the news?"
My reply’; “If the answer is Jesus, I’m going to punch you in the face.” He had no way of knowing I was bluffing, so quickly moved away, muttering.
In point of fact; the last time I hit another person in anger was in 1964. Still working on the attitude. IE the desire to hit people who annoy me. I remain more passive aggressive than passive resistant.
Of things that don’t exist, the possibilities of what might exist are virtually infinite, and the probability of any of those existing is exceedingly low. But, in case one or two of the infinite possibilities beating the improbable odds against existence, where is the evidence that they exist?
What’s that? Your evidence is Faith? Oh sorry, believing because you choose to believe, is not evidence. With the interest in God/s, someone in the course of Human events, you would think, would have come up with evidence, by now. Hence I am comfortable going out on the very strong limb that says there is no such thing as God, beyond the concept of such.
It is possible that the sun will not rise in the east tomorrow. But that possibility is so low, that it is difficult for me to profess that I am agnostic about the sun rising in the east tomorrow. I know that it is possible that the sun won’t rise in the east, (e.g. an asteroid could hit the Earth in such a way that the revolution is disrupted) but barring evidence of an approaching large asteroid, it seems beyond impractical to profess or to believe by faith that the sun will not rise in the east tomorrow.
“Hence I am comfortable going out on the very strong limb that says there is no such thing as God, beyond the concept of such.”
I’m comfortable asserting that I do not believe in god(s) due to lack of proof. Day to day, I live as if there are no gods or any other kind of woo. I’m unable to make a truth statement because I really don’t know for a fact. I may be wrong, no matter how unlikely I think that might be. There is also the problem that making a claim attracts the burden of proof. Unfortunately, the existence of god is an unfalsifiable claim. It cannot be proved nor disproved. At least nobody in recorded history has done so ,so far.
Absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence. What it is not is proof. 'Evidence ’ is not a synonym for ‘proof’ . Evidence includes anything provide in support of a claim.
Religious belief is based on faith, not proof.
Jesus himself is reported as saying that believing without seeing, is desired, rather than idiocy. I refer specifically to the’ doubting Thomas’ incident in the New testament;
“Key Verses: Thomas the Apostle
Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (John 11:16, NIV)
Then he (Jesus) said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” (John 20:27)
Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28)
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)”
Ok, so someone saying “I believe that there is a God because I have faith, i.e, because I choose to believe it”. That is something you consider to be acceptable evidence.
Also, you say “Absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence.” So when I present the fact that throughout the thousands of years of beliefs in god/s there has been no proof of god/s, beyond declaration of belief, does that not meet the criteria of “absence of evidence”?
And how is it that you accept statements of faith as “evidence”, but apparently do not accept statements of the profound improbability of god/s existing as “evidence”.
I am not impressed by Bible verses, I am familiar with them. “Faith is the evidence of things unseen.” That is an assertion that feeds itself. It does not have magical powers beyond being an assertion, unless ppl choose to believe it. Ppl can choose to believe just about anything. It doesn’t make it real. If it is something not based on facts, then choosing to believe it may happen to be helpful, but more likely, will be ultimately fraught with problems.
If Jesus came to me, in the flesh, in the present, and had me feel his nail-scarred hands, and let me take pictures and DNA, that would be something to consider as evidence.
A story about Jesus showing his nail scarred hands to Thomas, in a hand me down story from the 1st century, is not worthy evidence, IMO. I could as easily quote “Horton Hears a Who” to cite as evidence of the existence of Who’s (or whatever those little creatures were called).
“Ok, so someone saying “I believe that there is a God because I have faith, i.e, because I choose to believe it”. That is something you consider to be acceptable evidence.”
First an oops; that should read “faith is belief in things not seen” A typo, apologies.
n.
Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
n.
Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief, trust.
n.
Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one’s supporters.
((((((((((((((((((((((((((9)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Acceptable? As evidence, of course. As proof, of course not. I’ll repeat myself; evidence is NOT a synonym for proof.
A lack of any evidence is indeed evidence of absence;IE it SUGGESTS, it does not prove. No evidence may mean absence, or it may simply mean . there is no evidence.
Evidences is anything whatsoever produced in support of a claim. Hence the bible, personal opinion, written testimony, eye witness and personal statements are all evidence. What they are not is proof. Unsupported personal claims are called ‘anecdotal evidence’ and not accepted as proof .Forensic evidence tends so be accepted as true. IE a DNA test to prove paternity.
I’m sorry if I have not been able to explain myself more clearly. This is the best I can do.
On the one hand there have been a multitude of witnesses now and throughout history who say god/s exist. Their evidence is nothing more than their decision to believe. That is what faith is. Deciding, even committing to believe.
The witnesses throughout history, however, never got their stories straight about what god/s is/are. An untold number of groups have had different, often contradictory stories. That is crap evidence. No doubt there is an almost unimaginable amount of that crap evidence, but crap evidence, nonetheless.
But all of them, more or less, seemed to seek to be more in tune with their god/s. Through many thousands of years and billions of people, no proof has been shown to indicate the existence of god/s. There has been lots of “evidence” in terms of texts that claim to be inspired by god/s, but probable fiction is also crap evidence. How many times throughout history have some religious sects predicted the end of the world, or the coming of god on a certain date? And that date came and went - no end of the world, no god came.
So we have in our VERY religious species, with humans obsession with religiosity throughout our recorded history, with devout and persevering search for god/s, and yet ZERO proof found on the one hand, and on the other hand we have mountains of crap evidence from probably fictitious texts and from unreliable witnesses.
The sun will rise in the east tomorrow, and no proof of god will be established tomorrow. Crap evidence of god/s will continue in abundance.
A story about Jesus showing his nail scarred hands to Thomas, in a hand me down story from the 1st century, is not worthy evidence, IMO.If you're interested, and I suspect you're not, and don't fault you for it, I recommend Elaine Pagels as the expert on Thomas. She says, the Thomas stories we are familiar with are the ones that were written by those who were opposed to the Thomasian sect, so we get a caricature of a doubter who repents and is convinced. His actual gospel is actually much more powerful and contains wisdom about finding your own path.
TimB: "If Jesus came to me, in the flesh, in the present, and had me feel his nail-scarred hands, and let me take pictures and DNA, that would be something to consider as evidence."What would Jesus's DNA look like? Could anyone test his DNA and see anything unique that would make them say "Wow! This must be from someone conceive in an immaculate conception"?
I wonder if all the genes on the god half would be dominant.
Seems that Holy sperm would have been necessary, since Jesus was a male. If he had just come from an egg of Mary’s, Jesus would have been, essentially, a clone version of her (thus a female). Now, how did that sperm get into her uterus, with her being a virgin? And since Jesus was the first incarnation of a man who was also God, I guess that God had to create the Holy sperm that represented himself, from scratch. Then he must have surreptitiously gotten that Holy sperm into her womb. The totality of DNA that represents God, one would think, had to be in the Holy sperm. Perhaps cloning scientists could get DNA samples from the Shroud of Turin, and develop a clone version of a 2nd Jesus.
Absolutely right, if we’re being rational. However, we are discussing religious beliefs, which tend to be arational
Devil’s advocate: God is omnipotent. He can do anything he wishes, and is exempt from rules of reason, nature or science. He simply willed Mary to be pregnant with a male child, and it was so. The notion of DNA is interesting. A believer might claim there wasn’t any as DNA was unknown at the time. Or that God would naturally have given Jesus whatever DNA he wanted. My bet would be one Joseph, Mary’s husband. A fascinating question to ask a jesuit theologian.
There is at least one precedent of a god miraculously impregnating a human without to having to resort to sperm. I think it was Zeus, who turned himself into a shower of Gold. Of course Zeus really liked to rape human females, in various forms… He impregnated a total of 50 women.
3Point14rat:What would Jesus’s DNA look like? Could anyone test his DNA and see anything unique that would make them say “Wow! This must be from someone conceive in an immaculate conception”
You are mixing up different Christian concepts. The Immaculate Conception had nothing to do with Mary’s conception of Jesus. Mary is the one who was said to have been conceived “immaculately”, which means without original sin. The church couldn’t have a woman with sin on her soul giving birth to Jesus, so, abra cadabra, she was miraculously conceived without original sin. What’s a little backtracking when it comes to religion?
That’s a good explanation of your lack of beliefs, Patrick D. Nobody else seems to have understood the question. Or maybe it’s just that they didn’t want to bite.
I don’t need DNA to tell me that Jesus was an ordinary human with a human mother and father and not divine (no human is divine, IMO). I know fiction when I hear it.
. The Immaculate Conception had nothing to do with Mary’s conception of Jesus.
Indeed.
A pedantic explanation: The phrase “the immaculate conception” is quite recent. It is allegedly the answer given to Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes ( 1858) when she asked her vision who she was. She allegedly told her bishop, who then passed it on.
What it means: that Mary was immaculately conceived. IE she was conceived and born without original sin. This was made Catholic doctrine when Pope Pius x1 declared it to be true, speaking ex-cathedra . (That mens infallibly.) The first and only time a Pope has spoken thus since the doctrine of the infallibility of the pope was made dogma .
A quote from Alice in Wonderland just popped into my head. The queen: " Why, sometimes, I’ve believed six impossible things before breakfast"–could have been written for Catholics
Well thanks for the history lesson in Catholicism. Growing up Baptist, it was pretty clear dogma that Jesus was born of a virgin. I recall hearing or reading that it could be possible that in one in some astronomical number of women, a spontaneous pregnancy could occur but that it would be only from the egg, thus would be like an identical twin of the mother, only much younger.
Can you be more specific about superstitious behaviors in non-human animals?