Funnily enough I haven’t actually heard of that saying XD I only kept thinking about Xeno Lovegood from Harry Potter and how NOT to sound like him lmao. He thought something existed, Hermione didn’t, so he says “prove that it does not.”
But I see where you’re coming from, I just don’t think the idea is that far-fetched or unlikely. I’m not even talking specifically about being a theist, but also even just the idea that we live in a simulation, like our whole universe was “created” as an experiment, or a zoo for aliens much larger than our universe, or shit like that. But I could see the argument for “life” being a “miracle” the same way I can see it as slightly more advanced than a plant, just buttons being pushed and reactions happening. I just think there’s SO much we haven’t seen and so much we don’t know that it’s hard to discount anything. Like we keep having to rewrite what we think the laws of physics are as our understanding of them changes. I know I’m not gonna change your mind, so agree to disagree, but it is fun to think about
It’s fun to think about a lot of things for sure. But everything you just said is well summed up in your sentence “I just think there’s SO much we haven’t seen and so much we don’t know”.
See, just because we don’t know everything, saying that god probably hides somewhere in what we don’t know yet, that’s called “The God of the gaps”. It’s what Christians have done over the centuries.
They claimed that God created the sun and earth and the solar system, and that earth is the center of it all. Then Kopernikus came along. They claimed that god created the animal kingdom and that all species are unchanged since creation. Then Darwin came along. Etcetera, etcetera. Science has kept disproving religious claims, and it still continues to do so. The gap is becoming smaller and smaller for God to hide in. Christians always point to what science doesn’t know yet (and it happily admits it doesn’t know) and say, see, that’s why God is still possible. It’s why I used the word “desperate” earlier in our debate.
In general, believing in something because one doesn’t know better is called an argumentum ad ignorantiam - and that’s a logical fallacy. There is no good reason to come up with a far fetched claim, just because you don’t have evidence to the contrary.
Have you ever heard of Russell’s Teapot? It’s a thought experiment that claims that there’s a teapot orbiting the sun somewhere in between Jupiter and Mars. Just because it cannot be discounted, does that make it likely to exist? Is it sensible to assume it does exist? No.
I think about God the same way. Everything indicates that mankind invented God. After all, we know over 3000 different deities. It just doesn’t make any sense to assume he’s real.
You’re getting really hung up on this idea of “god” when that’s not what I’m really talking about lol
Maybe some people find the big bang theory far-fetched, maybe in 300 years we’ll have a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT origin story for our universe, ALSO free of any god or creation theory, but just different thanks to our understanding of it changing.
“argumentum ad ignorantiam” - I’m not claiming anything, just trying to keep your mind open by playing devil’s advocate. There’s a HUGE difference between saying “this is real because we can’t prove it isn’t,” and “there’s a small possibility this is real, but we can’t prove it.” Like, saying something DOESN’T exist simply because you HAVEN’T seen proof of it is actually, literally argumentum ad ignorantiam, and you’re getting dangerously close to that.
Like yes, the discussion started because you don’t believe in a god because you haven’t seen evidence of it. I’m just trying to point out the argumentum ad ignorantiam in that. Not trying to get you to believe in god, just to see that there’s maybe things we don’t understand, that we aren’t capable of disproving, and possibly will simply never know in our lifetime
You’re getting really hung up on this idea of “god” when that’s not what I’m really talking about lol
This whole thread was about the likelihood of God’s existence…
Maybe some people find the big bang theory far-fetched
Perhaps, but contrary to the god hypothesis there is a lot of science that makes the big bang theory very plausible.
just trying to keep your mind open
Forgive me, but I’m a person who follows science and the scientific method, so it seems ironic that YOU are trying to keep MY mind open. I will always change my mind according to new evidence, just as science does, being a self-correcting system.
There’s a HUGE difference between saying “this is real because we can’t prove it isn’t,” and “there’s a small possibility this is real, but we can’t prove it.”
True, but some things have an infinitesimal likelihood. And to me, the likelihood of God’s existence is, while not equal to zero, so extremely close to zero that it makes no practical difference.
Like, saying something DOESN’T exist simply because you HAVEN’T seen proof of it
I never said god doesn’t exist. I actually stated several times now that you cannot disprove the existence of anything.
you don’t believe in a god because you haven’t seen evidence of it. I’m just trying to point out the argumentum ad ignorantiam in that.
That’s not an argumentum ad ignorantiam. Wikipedia:
“The fallacy is committed when one asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or a proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true.”
I never asserted that the proposition of god is false (as mentioned several times above). I refuse to make any definitive assertions concerning the existence of god (neither true nor false).
I only asserted that the probability of god’s existence is infinitesimally small.
Funnily enough I haven’t actually heard of that saying XD I only kept thinking about Xeno Lovegood from Harry Potter and how NOT to sound like him lmao. He thought something existed, Hermione didn’t, so he says “prove that it does not.”
But I see where you’re coming from, I just don’t think the idea is that far-fetched or unlikely. I’m not even talking specifically about being a theist, but also even just the idea that we live in a simulation, like our whole universe was “created” as an experiment, or a zoo for aliens much larger than our universe, or shit like that. But I could see the argument for “life” being a “miracle” the same way I can see it as slightly more advanced than a plant, just buttons being pushed and reactions happening. I just think there’s SO much we haven’t seen and so much we don’t know that it’s hard to discount anything. Like we keep having to rewrite what we think the laws of physics are as our understanding of them changes. I know I’m not gonna change your mind, so agree to disagree, but it is fun to think about
It’s fun to think about a lot of things for sure. But everything you just said is well summed up in your sentence “I just think there’s SO much we haven’t seen and so much we don’t know”.
See, just because we don’t know everything, saying that god probably hides somewhere in what we don’t know yet, that’s called “The God of the gaps”. It’s what Christians have done over the centuries.
They claimed that God created the sun and earth and the solar system, and that earth is the center of it all. Then Kopernikus came along. They claimed that god created the animal kingdom and that all species are unchanged since creation. Then Darwin came along. Etcetera, etcetera. Science has kept disproving religious claims, and it still continues to do so. The gap is becoming smaller and smaller for God to hide in. Christians always point to what science doesn’t know yet (and it happily admits it doesn’t know) and say, see, that’s why God is still possible. It’s why I used the word “desperate” earlier in our debate.
In general, believing in something because one doesn’t know better is called an argumentum ad ignorantiam - and that’s a logical fallacy. There is no good reason to come up with a far fetched claim, just because you don’t have evidence to the contrary.
Have you ever heard of Russell’s Teapot? It’s a thought experiment that claims that there’s a teapot orbiting the sun somewhere in between Jupiter and Mars. Just because it cannot be discounted, does that make it likely to exist? Is it sensible to assume it does exist? No.
I think about God the same way. Everything indicates that mankind invented God. After all, we know over 3000 different deities. It just doesn’t make any sense to assume he’s real.
You’re getting really hung up on this idea of “god” when that’s not what I’m really talking about lol
Maybe some people find the big bang theory far-fetched, maybe in 300 years we’ll have a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT origin story for our universe, ALSO free of any god or creation theory, but just different thanks to our understanding of it changing.
“argumentum ad ignorantiam” - I’m not claiming anything, just trying to keep your mind open by playing devil’s advocate. There’s a HUGE difference between saying “this is real because we can’t prove it isn’t,” and “there’s a small possibility this is real, but we can’t prove it.” Like, saying something DOESN’T exist simply because you HAVEN’T seen proof of it is actually, literally argumentum ad ignorantiam, and you’re getting dangerously close to that.
Like yes, the discussion started because you don’t believe in a god because you haven’t seen evidence of it. I’m just trying to point out the argumentum ad ignorantiam in that. Not trying to get you to believe in god, just to see that there’s maybe things we don’t understand, that we aren’t capable of disproving, and possibly will simply never know in our lifetime
This whole thread was about the likelihood of God’s existence…
Perhaps, but contrary to the god hypothesis there is a lot of science that makes the big bang theory very plausible.
Forgive me, but I’m a person who follows science and the scientific method, so it seems ironic that YOU are trying to keep MY mind open. I will always change my mind according to new evidence, just as science does, being a self-correcting system.
True, but some things have an infinitesimal likelihood. And to me, the likelihood of God’s existence is, while not equal to zero, so extremely close to zero that it makes no practical difference.
I never said god doesn’t exist. I actually stated several times now that you cannot disprove the existence of anything.
That’s not an argumentum ad ignorantiam. Wikipedia:
“The fallacy is committed when one asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or a proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true.”
I never asserted that the proposition of god is false (as mentioned several times above). I refuse to make any definitive assertions concerning the existence of god (neither true nor false).
I only asserted that the probability of god’s existence is infinitesimally small.
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