Proof there is a God

Discussion in 'Religion' started by JBrentonK, Sep 23, 2015.

  1. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    Are you like 13 years old?
     
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  3. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    You have been near death several times but God always saved you. So it stands to reason that he also put you in those near death situations. So god puts you in horrible positions and then saves you over and over? Maybe God just likes to see you get the crap beat out of you.
     
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  5. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    How do you know?
     
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  7. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    I had a teacher once who said that if you can't explain it to an eight-year-old, you don't understand it. So if YOU really understand it, explain it as you would to an eight-year-old and then I'll get an eight-year-old to explain it to me. Otherwise, we have no alternative but to conclude that YOU don't know what you're talking about.
     
  8. Kristoffer Giant Hyrax Valued Senior Member

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    That sounds reasonable.

    But I think Bart's supposed to be around 10.
    Will he do?
     
  9. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    He may be as smart as a typical eight-year-old.
     
  10. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    From SideShowBob Post # 64
    Your teacher seems to have had some weird ideas. Perhaps he was an English teacher with no knowledge of advanced mathematics & physics.


    I majored in mathematics & physics. I would not expect to be able to teach calculus or other mathematics beyond algebra & Euclidean geometry to a typical 8-year old, yet I used those disciplines when working in a DOD think tank for 3 years after graduating from college.

    BTW: This Post & Post #64 do not seem to belong in this Thread.
     
  11. AlexG Like nailing Jello to a tree Valued Senior Member

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    Sounds like a variation of Einstein "You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother."
     
  12. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Nobody has ever successfully accomplished it.

    That appears to be text written by somebody with psychiatric problems. It jumps from topic to topic without continuity, simply because the writer reminds himself of ideas as he's writing. There's meaningless mathematics, something about spiders' sex lives, a hint that the writer isn't having success in his own sex life, ending with something about evolution and "the missing link". That isn't coherent thought, it's free association.

    Or something... An unspecified friend says that a claim was made on an unspecified TV program that unspecified "equations" somehow "prove" God's existence in some unspecified way. Wonderful. But so what? The whole assertion doesn't have any content.

    Who isn't named.

    That's not true. Most attempted "proofs" of God simplify the concept of 'God' in various ways, so that the word is reinterpreted to mean things like 'first cause' or 'that which greater cannot be conceived'. So different "proofs" of God end up trying to demonstrate different things.

    That's why it's so important in understanding attempts at pseudo-mathematical theistic "proofs" to carefully define all the variables, so as to understand the many simplifying assumptions that are being baked in.

    You are drifting again. (adam and eve structure? beatings?) You need to try to focus your mind if you hope to make sense to other people.

    Are you trying to say that you just believe in God and that's that? If so, then why all the talk about 'proofs' and 'equations'?

    A theist believes God exists. No matter how intensely and passionately somebody believes in something false, it won't suddenly become true knowledge. If I just believe hard enough that Beijing is the capital of France, I won't ever truly know that it's so. But I might convince myself that I know something that I really don't.

    In order to qualify as knowledge, belief needs to have plausible rational and evidencial justification as to why it's true. So what justification do theists have for believing in the existence of God? That's where the arguments with atheists always take place.
     
    Last edited: Sep 28, 2015
  13. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Apart from the last word, what do those hieroglyphs have to do with God?

    (It looks to my layman's eye like something to do with Euler's constant.)

    What do the variables mean?

    And how does one go about reducing theological concepts to mathematical variables in the first place?

    One would think that somebody with four math degrees would be able to spell 'mathematical'.

    I think that you are a kid who spends too much time texting on his cell-phone. (The 'ur', 'u', 'ud' and 'dnt' give it away.)

    And it's 'principles', not 'principals'.
     
  14. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    You miss the point: Your inability to teach reflects your inability to teach, not the student's inability to learn.

    On the contrary, we have a claim about a "proof"; when the claimant is asked to present it, he presents gibberish; when asked to clarify, he says, "You wouldn't understand." I'm saying that his response reflects on his inability to understand his own "proof".
     
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  15. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    I think that anyone who has experience teaching knows that you don't really understand your material until you can teach it to people unfamiliar with it.

    (Students need not literally be eight, in advanced subjects they need to have suitable background. But teachers probably should avoid unnecessary jargon. It's often better to make explanations when possible in terms of widely understood fundamental principles and not on advanced concepts that many students might not fully understand.)

    Teachers need to have the foundations, assumptions and presuppositions of their subject down and know how all the subsequent parts of the subject fit together logically, able to explain what justifies what. They also need to be able to respond to common questions, doubts and misunderstandings.

    That calls for a much deeper and intuitive understanding than students get by memorizing the material and repeating it back on a test.

    Every teacher has had the experience of having a student ask a basic and fundamental question, and discovering that they don't fully understand that aspect of the subject themselves. That can be embarrassing.

    Right. If Shawn has any understanding of what he's talking about, then he should have some ability to further explain it. If he can't explain it, then he probably doesn't understand it.

    In this instance, my guess is that there's nothing there to understand, that it's all bullshit.
     
    Last edited: Sep 28, 2015
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  16. Kristoffer Giant Hyrax Valued Senior Member

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    That it's bullshit has been obvious from the start.
     
  17. JBrentonK Banned Banned

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    I have accomplished the purpose of this thread!

    Yazata, your posts are about as stupid as sarkus', but not nearly as stupid as all of the posts of the atheists combined together. (not!)
     
  18. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    Why hasn't this sockpuppet been banned yet?
     
  19. JBrentonK Banned Banned

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    Daecon I take it you're an atheist?
     
  20. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    Why do you think that?
     
  21. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Which was?
     
  22. JBrentonK Banned Banned

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    To be entirely honest spidergoat, I forget, but the information is there, so easy to see and read that an early child, I'd say 8 or so, could easily accomplish it.

    To deacon I am talking about idiots.
     
  23. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    No one wants to hear about your life.
     

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