1/19/10

The Freedom From Religion Foundation Again Positively Affirms God’s Non-Existence But Where is the Evidence?

This post has been moved and re-posted in TrueFreethinker's section on Dan Barker.
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Posted by Ken
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9 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 19, 2010 at 8:50 AM

    Consistency is not their strong suit.

    What is most amusing is that if their bizarre worldview was true (the nothingness-to-molecules-to-Angelina Jolie bit) that Darwinian evolution would be the cause of my Christian faith.

    These purposeless, undirected chemical reactions made me originally "think" that there was no God then made me "think" I saw strong evidence for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus such that I put my faith in him for forgiveness of what I thought were my many sins.

    But of course, they weren't really sins, since there is no grounding for universal reality in their worldview. I can help my neighbor or kill him to perpetuate my family line, depending on the circumstances, right?

    Why would they be so hostile to Christian views if their pet explanation was the real root cause? Where is their foundation for the existence of the concept of true pride and their major doses of it? How irrational of them!

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  2. AnonymousJanuary 19, 2010 at 9:38 AM

    Absense of evidence is evidence of absense.

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  3. WhatevermanJanuary 19, 2010 at 10:15 AM

    The evidence of the nonexistence of God is all around us. Despite the (truly dogmatic) claims of theists, I can malign God's name and never fear that I will be struck down for it. I can point to God's name being invoked to protect all kinds of things (people, political ideologies, material assets, etc) and show that none of these things end up being more "protected" than things for which there was no appeal to the divine.

    The evidence for God's non-existence is all around us, whereas the evidence for his existence is absent.

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  4. WhatevermanJanuary 19, 2010 at 10:20 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. WhatevermanJanuary 19, 2010 at 10:20 AM

    What I have never been able to understand is theistic projection: accusing those who disagree with theists the very things believers are guilty of themselves. Dogmatism, close-mindedness, pride, arrogance, ignorance, etc.

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  6. Sherlock HolmesJanuary 19, 2010 at 1:48 PM

    There is no evidence that "There is no evidence for God."

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  7. ReynoldJanuary 19, 2010 at 2:56 PM

    You people have it ass-backwards. You're the ones claiming a particular deity exists...you have to show it. It's not up to the non-believers to disprove the existence of your god.

    If that was the way that things worked, then non-believers would have to run around and disprove the god of every religion in history.

    Screw that. There's not time in the world for that.

    The closest that we can come to is to look at the fact claims made in various holy books and show how they don't always match up with reality.

    Good enough.

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  8. AnonymousJanuary 20, 2010 at 8:00 PM

    Reynold,
    The point that Mariano is making is that atheists, such as yourself, say that when you make a positive claim (about anything), you need to back it up with evidence. To use your own words, "you have to show it."

    Therefore, if they are saying "We at the FFRF lack a belief in a god(s)," then that is one thing. But that's not what they are doing. They are making a positive truth claim and when pressed for evidence have (in the case of Barker) consistently claimed that such evidence is not necessary. When pressed for evidence supporting his truth claim that "there is no god," he consistently falls back and says that he needs no evidence to support that claim.

    Do you see the problem now? If there are certain truth claims that need no proof, then the whole atheistic empiricist paradigm falls apart. Thus, by putting up this billboard without giving any supporting evidence of such a truth claim, then they must either admit that they have no evidence of such a claim and that it is mere speculation, or they must offer evidence.

    It's very common in theist/atheist debates for theists to point out that atheists demand evidence for all claims and that if they want to be atheists and not mere agnostics that they must offer some evidence for such a claim. Atheists typically respond to the effect of "You are the one making the claim, I am making no claims. I simply lack a belief in a god(s)." The problem is that a truth statement such as the one FFRF is making goes against this very thing and undermines this debate tactic rather critically.

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  9. WhatevermanJanuary 21, 2010 at 10:18 AM

    Anonymous wrote this: if they want to be atheists and not mere agnostics that they must offer some evidence for such a claim

    Strong atheists most certainly DO need to offer evidence that no Gods exist. The average run of the mill atheist (re. the Weak variety), who merely lacks belief in specific deities, is under no logical requirement to provide evidence. All that's required is for him/her to say "No, I don't believe in that".

    Even if you disagree with this assessment, the evidence for non-existence is all around us.

    To be sure, there are logicians who mistakenly make positive statements while claiming they're under no obligation to substantiate them. Without having read more about the FFRF, they appear to fall into this category; nonetheless, evidence in the form of faulty believer claims and contradictory scripture provides enough substantiation (for some) to positively and logically assert that Gods Do Not Exist.

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