In the headlines today, The Knockout Game -- NYT/NPR Say No Big Deal "From a distance, the media can spot some lone idiot holding up an offensive sign at a tea party rally. But when it comes to black perp/white victim crime, there is a very different attitude. Consider the media reaction to the assault of three white girls on Halloween night, 2006, in Long Beach, Calif., just outside Los Angeles. Without provocation, a mostly black mob of 30 to 40 teens and adults brutally kicked, punched and pummeled three young white women, slamming them to the ground, ripping earrings from their lobes and beating them with a skateboard. One of the victims had 12 fractures in her face that required multiple surgeries, and had damage to her teeth and her eyesight. The women also suffered internal injuries and concussions. But for the efforts of a black good Samaritan, who waded into the crowd to help the girls, they might well have died." Real Clear Politics
Meanwhile a 89-year-old in Fort Myers had some black knock on his door and whacked him on the head when he answered the door. A 72-year-old in the same town was weeding his garden, someone kicked him from behind, knocking him to the ground. The victim says he saw a teenage girl laughing at him before she walked back to join a larger group of black teens. The victim stated that while he was weeding his garden, someone kicked him from behind, knocking him to the ground. The victim says he saw a teenage girl laughing at him before she walked back to join a larger group of teens.
The Knockout Game -- NYT/NPR Say No Big Deal , I reckon that it is all a matter of perception, no big deal to the black thugs, just fun, but a real big deal to the white folks being hurt and killed.
James Randi explains why you cannot prove a negative. The burden of proof is on the person presenting the claim. He then goes into an example of how you can't prove that Reindeer can fly.
The atheist have created for themselves a box in which they wish to put people of faith. The first construct of the box is to claim that any Christian who expresses his belief in God is asserting that God exist, and by so asserting take on the burden of proving that God exist as they cannot prove a negative.
After watching the above video on YouTube I made this comment:
"Philosopher
Paul Chamberlain says it is logically erroneous to assert that positive truth
claims bear a burden of proof while negative truth claims do not.And besides that we can and do proves
negative all the time."There are
no dogs in my room"a negative that
can be proved.This is an assertion that
is made to release one from backing up their argument.The failure to prove is not a proof of non
existence."
Which invoked the following discussion with an atheist who go by the name of Coops:
Philosopher Paul Chamberlain says it is logically erroneous to assert that positive truth claims bear a burden of proof while negative truth claims do not. And besides that we can and do proves negative all the time. "There are no dogs in my room" a negative that can be proved. This is an assertion that is made to release one from backing up there argument. The failure to prove is not prof of non existence.
Belief in God is as ordinary as driving a car, I would hazards even more so as many who believe in God that do not dive. Praying to God is as ordinary as wearing clothes. There is no confusion here. You choose not yo believe, many more choose to believe than not. I am not trying to prove to you that you should believe in God. Those of us who do believe feel that our lives are enriched by that believe.
+Rexx Shelton Yet all those people and you can not provide evidence for your god. Faith is the excuse used by those in lieu of evidence. The claim of a supernatural being is extraordinary, no matter how much you try to dress up the belief in that god as ordinary. You still have the burden of proof.
My life is enriched by a glass of wine, but I don't base my worldview on it. Mind you, I can see the glass and taste the wine....
No I don't. Either you will find Him or you will not, I am under no obligation to prove to you that God exists, any more that you are under an obligation to prove to me that your wine enriches your life.
+Rexx Shelton I can point to studies and you could observe that wine enriches my life. In fact studies have been performed and it turns out those who drink moderately are happier and more productive than those who abstain. Lower instances of heart disease, with reference to the 'french paradox'.
I can read about wine, how it was made, it's etymology, the different styles, effect of climate and soils, and all can be demonstrated. I may not be under obligation, but I can still show you. But then it's not an extraordinary claim. Saying there's a god is. No matter how much you try to play it down.
Either I will find him (refuse to capitalize) or not? False dichotomy. Like yours is the only god that's ever been asserted. Yours wasn't even the first. Yet somehow yours is definitely the real one. Or, more likely, none of them are.
You make a claim of your god, so you don't get to assert it if you have no evidence to support it. If you feel you don't have an obligation, keep it to yourself, don't ever mention it to anyone. Certainly don't try to have it taught in a science class, or a reason to stop gay marriage or persecution. Don't proselytize, don't bring up quotes from philosophers to try and dismiss your burden of proof.
That is what you want you believe, and I can do nothing about that. Time will tell the truth of it, not the words we post in this comment. Your asserting that God is a hallucination does not make it so, your, or other's) denial of His existence has no power to make Him go away.
+Rexx Shelton I never asserted, I was asking. I'm also not denying his existence, I've no evidence to support he exists. Are you denying Vishnu's existence?
You're asserting your god exists, so that's where you have the burden of proof. You keep denying you have a burden of proof but it's still there, resting on your shoulders. 2000+ years and none of you have met your burden. Why do you get to say that your god exists? By the way, the answer you give is the same as Hindus and Muslims give too, except Hindus have an older holy book.
+Rexx Shelton Because there's never been any evidence for your god. Or any god. I applied reason and critical thinking along with skepticism to any god claims and found there was no evidence to support any of them.
Now, why aren't you a Hindu? Don't avoid the question. To a Hindu, you're an atheist. An atheist to their god. I just go one step further than you.
All you have is the Bible and a fuzzy feeling. I get a fuzzy feeling too, and it's due to electrochemical signals in the brain, not a supernatural being that explains all the questions of the universe in a neat little package to satisfy the ignorance of people. 2000+ years ago, they didn't have the answers we did, so I can be easier on them. You have no excuse. What makes you think your stance has any merit? Especially as you keep ducking and dodging your burden of proof.
+Rexx Shelton "And you think that you are smart enough to understand the infinite! " - did I say that? I merely rejected the claim your god exists. It's easy when you provide no evidence.
Why are you quoting Shakespeare? That's literature too.
Don't like Shakespeare? Then how about Benjamin Franklin when he said:
“The older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men, indeed as well as most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth — and that, wherever others differ from them, it is so far error.
“When you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests and their selfish views. From such an assembly, can a perfect production be expected?
My point, those who believe in God out number those who do not by far. If a concentus belief is good enough to prove Global Warming is caused by man why not the same criteria for accepting that God is?
That is a rhetorical question for I know that you will retort that there is a big differentin a bunch of people you accept as scientist and a bunch us us unwashed poor superstitious fools. You know so much more then we do so we cannot possible be right regardless of how many of us there is.
Besides that you test everything to prove it is not just a fool making the claim, I bet you can duplicate the experiments that proved the existences of fermions (quarks, leptons, antiquarks, and antileptons? No, I did not thinks so, so you must accept theses accretions about elementary particle on faith. The same does for the studies that you mentioned about wine, they are not studies that you have done yourself, nor could do yourself, you just choose to believe that they are true because they fit in your preconceived world view. The name for a closed mind is a bigot. To claim to be an agnostic would be more true to what you claim to be, for the agnostic admits that the lack of proof of God does not mean that their is no God.
What beliefs you have that rest on faith? Let me count the ways...
I mention your belief in fermions, quarks, leptons, antiquarks, and antileptons, et. al., You accept as an article of faith that they exist for you cannot possibly prove they are, but believe the one whom write about them.
The same is true about the Big Bang thing, it cannot be tested or proved, but is an axiom assumed to be so in order for the rest of the cosmological conception to fit within the current explanation.
Why does 1 + 1 = 2? Science doesn’t know. Why is murder wrong? Science can’t tell us. Why are the fundamental laws of the universe what they are? Science is silent. Why is there something rather than nothing? Science is of no help. Why is killing an unborn child immoral? Science has nothing to say. What is good and what bad? Science says, “You talkin’ to me?” How can free will exist in a deterministic universe? Science hasn’t a clue. WM Briggs
I was quoting Briggs to raise the questions, not argue from authority. I had no idea Mason was involved with any statement I have made, whenever I use another's words knowingly I cite them.
I offer you the evidence twice about your reliance upon faith for many of your beliefs, and you chose not to address them.
Now back to your faith: I am sure that you believe that the Higgs field is real, in particle physics, for the Higgs mechanism is essential to explain the generation mechanism of the property "mass". This is a most-important property of almost all elementary particles.
According to this theory, particles gain mass by interacting with the so-called Higgs field that permeates all space. More precisely, the Higgs mechanism endows the three so-called gauge bosons Z, W+ and W- with mass. These particles would otherwise be massless; but actually they are very heavy, with values around 80 GeV/c2.
They have never been seen nor tested, they just have to be for them to explain things in a way they wish to explain things to be. An imagined Higgs can do what neither god nor devil can do, e.g., be believed in by an atheist.
All I know is that is is not been proven to exist, and even if someone somewhere has proved it, you would have to take his word for it, as there is no way you can prove it one way or the other, and that makes my point about your having to take your worldview on faith as there is no way on God's green earth that you can verify the most of what you believe, you have to take another's word for it. That one of your high priest, excuse me, the scientist says it is so makes it so. I doubt if you bother to test and prove anything except as a mental exercise as to what you will believe and what you will reject as the ravings of a lunatic (your opinion nor mine) like me. If it does not fit your preconception of something that can be empirically tested you will not accept it. If your high priest/scientist says it you accept it as gospel without any doubt at all.
+Rexx Shelton My "worldview" doesn't rely on the Higgs Boson. Sorry. The only reason I'm talking about it now is because you're mentioning it.
Science isn't a religion. You're acting immature now trying to bash science while ironically making use of it while typing to me presenting ridiculous assertions you've yet to back up.
How is it your god's green earth? You've not proven your god exists yet. It's just....Earth. No owners. No supernatural creator, until you present evidence of it.
I have never said that I reject science, science is a five step process of understanding the natural world. There are lots of things it is good at explaining and lot of things that it cannot explain something does not mean that is does not exist. It is an article of faith with you that God does not exist but science cannot speak of it one way or the other.
I am under no obligation to prove anything to you, but you dance around the fact that your worldview stands upon faith regardless if you believe that it is Higgs Force that give mass to partials or not. You say that science isn't a religion but you have faith that what the scientists say are true, and you have never admitted to the fact that you personally have never tested any theory or hypothesis and as close as you have cameto it is to read about them. That is the way id if for all but a very few of us can get because of both the expense and lack of training.
I hold two Bachelors of Science as well as a Masters. It is not science that I am arguing with, it is the arrogance of belief that anyone who believe in God is a fool that gets my dander up.
+Rexx Shelton No
faith involved. Faith is synonymous with religion. I don't belong
to a religion, therefore: no faith. How many Christian scientists
still can't assert that God exists?
I don't think you're a fool for believing in something without evidence.
Just delusional. Your arrogant unfounded assertion that I need
faith is getting boring. Are you going to ask if I need faith that my leg
won't fall off when I stand up? I'm getting deja vu. Theists seem
to use the same non-sequiturs.
For a scientist, you have low standards of evidence. Quoting philosophers
to back your arguments too. Oh yeah, and "I'm a scientist" is
an argument from authority. You could be a plumber for all I care.
Faith is not synonymous with religion, and saying that is
so does not make it so. To have faith is to believe in something
unknowable and unprovable. For me it in a belief in God, for scientist
these unknowable and unprovable things are called axioms (or a
universally accepted principle or rule), and they underpin all scientific
knowledge. They are accepted on faith is every one who accepts these
axioms fool for believing in something without evidence as true and have no
need of proof?
I have never claimed to be a scientist, you have a way of putting a
meaning into words that were never said or implied. I am an Engineer who
has made his living for the last 40 years as an Electronic Engineer. I
also have a degree in Computer Information Systems/ I referred to my
education not as an argument from authority, rather as proof that I am
well acquainted with the scientific method, and still believe in God.
"H How many Christian scientists still can't assert that God
exists??" I have no idea. Did you ask the question right?
Or were you asking how many Christian scientists still can assert that
God exists?
There are many scientists who believe that God exist. In 1996 and again
in 1998, Pulitzer Prize winner Professor Edward Larson of the University of
Georgia and Washington Times reporter Larry Witham teamed up to duplicate
Leuba’s studies in 1914 and again in 1933, in an effort to determine if
scientists’ religious beliefs have changed much over the last 65 years. Larson
and Witham found that 40% of American scientists still believe in a personal
God. This does not include scientists who believe in an impersonal God or in a
God who does not answer prayer. Nor does it include scientists who believe in a
personal God, but don’t believe in the immortality of the human soul. If you
were to take them into consideration, the percentage would likely be higher.
Are all of them delusional too?
+Rexx Shelton "Are all of them delusional too?" - yes. Next.
Reply
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With this I will end the discussion as anyone who does not agree with the way Coops sees the world is delusional in his opinion, and only a fool would argue with a delusional man.
