TootGuitar
Obviously you can’t prove it one way or another. That’s the whole point. Are you new?
Nope, I’m old.
But I prefer not to base my life choices on things that are unprovable, and one of us has claims that are backed by at least some amount of evidence (the existence of missionaries, documentation of brainwashing techniques used by the particular church that OP belongs to, documentation of the financial motivations driving said church to continue brainwashing people, the sheer utter logical ridiculousness of the specific claims of that church), and the other does not. So I’ll continue taking the default, rational, skeptical position, until there is sufficient evidence to do otherwise.
You can of course believe whatever you want, but please don’t tell me what I believe, because you’re clearly confused.
I will make this as clear as I can: I absolutely do not make the claim that there is no god. For each of the positive claims for a particular god that I’ve heard, I don’t believe the claims meet their burden of proof. Think of it like a jury in a courtroom: for each god claim I’ve heard presented, thus far I have found that deity “not guilty” of existing. This is not at all the same as asserting that no gods exist.
There are plenty of specific gods that are claimed to exist (Zeus, for example) where I do assert that particular god doesn’t exist. But there are other god claims (a deistic god, for example) where I don’t feel the proposition presented is falsifiable. For that reason, while I do not believe those claims meet their burden of proof, I also feel I cannot honestly assert that the deity doesn’t exist.
The presence of even one deity in the “unfalsifiable” category, IMHO, prevents me from making the claim “no gods exist.” But I am still an atheist, because I hold no theistic beliefs.
Hope this makes sense.
It was an analogy.
I am an a-stamp-collector. I do not collect stamps. This does not necessarily mean I still collect something.
I am also an atheist. I do not believe any claim I have heard about a god. This does not necessarily mean I still believe something (about a deity, or indeed about anything else).
No one has advanced any sort of ontological argument that would hold for a deity, either.
Regardless, thank you for being honest and admitting that you believe what you believe because of feelings and nothing more. I find it hard to have discussions with people who don’t care about the actual truth of what they believe, so I’m gonna disengage here. Have a good one.
We don’t have to get into it, but neither of the options you just gave is the same as “universe from nothing,” which is what you said initially.
I think you’re implying that the claim “the matter and energy that comprise the universe has always existed” is a bad position. If I’m correct on that, why do you feel that way? I feel that it is the claim that best comports with our current understanding of the cosmos.
Atheist.
No arguments that I’ve heard for the existence of a deity have met their burden of proof. For some of these deities (the Abrahamic god, gods of most eastern religions, Zeus, Xenu), I actively assert they do not exist, while for others (e.g. a deistic god) I can’t honestly claim they don’t exist due to the lack of falsifiable claims involved, but I still don’t believe claims that they do exist.
OK, so it sounds like you’re freely admitting that there is currently no test, evidence, measurement, or other way that you can show the truth of your claims.
Edit: Also, I don’t think I’ve ever seen what you’re talking about regarding seeing a spirit’s effect in people’s lives, and I definitely haven’t felt it myself.
Therefore, I claim that while I believe you are being honest and genuinely think you feel a spirit, it doesn’t actually exist, and instead you have been indoctrinated into a cult (which you freely admit you were born into), and that indoctrination has programmed you to believe things that don’t actually exist. I’d like to find a way to determine which of us is correct. How do we do that?
Also, your god vs. universe that started existing out of nothing (which isn’t a thing) argument is a false dichotomy.
Also,
Fairies, however, don’t add anything to the discussion and can therefore be dismissed out of hand.
For a given proposition, I don’t think it makes any sense to use “does it add anything to the discussion” as a criterion for dismissing it. The OP is asking about other claims of supernatural entities, which are simliar to gods at least in terms of their supernatural qualities. You don’t just get to dismiss them. So, rephrasing the OP’s question: given that you have the same amount of direct evidence for the existence of deities and unicorns, why do you believe in one but not the other?