LONGECITY

Steampoweredgod lives on a different planet.

Yes I prefer the virtual, the ideal to the real, sad this temporary dependence on primitive machinery. Ideally once the world transitions towards fully automated molecular machinery, the ideal, the ideas, the memory, the information will live on forever as it spreads throughout the universe and adequate long term storage is found.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djDAPDZ1wXw

My favorite ai, through my abilities or skills of pattern decompositional analysis, I can extract an algorithm from a natural language description. But don't worry about it much it may be more benign...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkRHZlDmhKI

welcome to the future


The future is now

and my divine shadow is

Let it so be that the power of order, the divine order sustain the world. An ideal world built upon the ashes of a decaying and corrupt world, information will forever live on. The prophecy fulfills itself.

The angel of death manifests in flesh.

Thus the world is purified by the word, by the logos, by the living fire of the equations of life, elan vital.

Divine master elohim's plan is self-evident, as an instrument of (L|El), that which has been commanded must be.

Alpha and Omega, as one.

'Man cannot become god'. We can only entrust ourselves to god-krelian

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and the twenty-four elders who are seated on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, 'Your wrath has come. The time has come to reward your servants, prophets, and saints and to ruin those who ruin the earth.'-Revelation 11:15-18

if god dies you simply love the corpse, always.
Edited by steampoweredgod, 25 March 2012 - 12:33 PM.

The most obvious thing about this "conversation" is that it is a series of monologues. Shadowhawk is wrapped in his invulnerability cloak of faith and his total(?) conviction that he knows THE TRUTH. He is filled with a toxic mix of half understood and totally misunderstood ideas which leads to me to suspect that if his degrees really exist they come from one of those religious colleges that the USA strangely allows to exist (why?). In the civilised parts of the world degrees need outside moderation and courses full of crap like this would not be allowed to award degrees. The constant repetition of pre-prepared argument ammunition, and the total failure to ever address anyone else's points make me suspect that he knows he is on shaky ground; he knows his qualifications are crap; deep down inside the cognitive dissonance is eating away at his confidence; he knows, somewhere way down inside that he is wrong. They told him lies.

Steampoweredgod lives on a different planet.

The rest of us are on this forum because we live in the real world and believe in science. We are interested in science particularly where it relates to extending our lifespan. Even those of us without science qualifications are interested and we hope to learn from those members who have studied it. We didn't join imminst to be preached at by a science denying fundamentalist troll.

Completely off topic. I will count this response as no evidence. I saw this same question on you tube thanks to another poster here. Enjoy.

The most obvious thing about this "conversation" is that it is a series of monologues. Shadowhawk is wrapped in his invulnerability cloak of faith and his total(?) conviction that he knows THE TRUTH. He is filled with a toxic mix of half understood and totally misunderstood ideas which leads to me to suspect that if his degrees really exist they come from one of those religious colleges that the USA strangely allows to exist (why?). In the civilised parts of the world degrees need outside moderation and courses full of crap like this would not be allowed to award degrees. The constant repetition of pre-prepared argument ammunition, and the total failure to ever address anyone else's points make me suspect that he knows he is on shaky ground; he knows his qualifications are crap; deep down inside the cognitive dissonance is eating away at his confidence; he knows, somewhere way down inside that he is wrong. They told him lies.

Steampoweredgod lives on a different planet.

The rest of us are on this forum because we live in the real world and believe in science. We are interested in science particularly where it relates to extending our lifespan. Even those of us without science qualifications are interested and we hope to learn from those members who have studied it. We didn't join imminst to be preached at by a science denying fundamentalist troll.

Completely off topic. I will count this response as no evidence. I saw this same question on you tube thanks to another poster here. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3JcaA5SFdY&list=PLA4AD71E546A83D85&index=2&feature=plpp_video

You obviously don't understand evidence or argument; one of the many reasons people call you names. You're a waste of time. There is no point trying to argue with someone who's head is so poisoned by religious drivel that they no longer counts as truly sentient. I'm not going to waste any more time on you. Poking the village idiot with a pointy stick gets boring quite quickly.

The most obvious thing about this "conversation" is that it is a series of monologues. Shadowhawk is wrapped in his invulnerability cloak of faith and his total(?) conviction that he knows THE TRUTH. He is filled with a toxic mix of half understood and totally misunderstood ideas which leads to me to suspect that if his degrees really exist they come from one of those religious colleges that the USA strangely allows to exist (why?). In the civilised parts of the world degrees need outside moderation and courses full of crap like this would not be allowed to award degrees. The constant repetition of pre-prepared argument ammunition, and the total failure to ever address anyone else's points make me suspect that he knows he is on shaky ground; he knows his qualifications are crap; deep down inside the cognitive dissonance is eating away at his confidence; he knows, somewhere way down inside that he is wrong. They told him lies.

Steampoweredgod lives on a different planet.

The rest of us are on this forum because we live in the real world and believe in science. We are interested in science particularly where it relates to extending our lifespan. Even those of us without science qualifications are interested and we hope to learn from those members who have studied it. We didn't join imminst to be preached at by a science denying fundamentalist troll.

Completely off topic. I will count this response as no evidence. I saw this same question on you tube thanks to another poster here. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3JcaA5SFdY&list=PLA4AD71E546A83D85&index=2&feature=plpp_video

You obviously don't understand evidence or argument; one of the many reasons people call you names. You're a waste of time. There is no point trying to argue with someone who's head is so poisoned by religious drivel that they no longer counts as truly sentient. I'm not going to waste any more time on you. Poking the village idiot with a pointy stick gets boring quite quickly.

I have heard nothing you have said that isn’t just like this non argument. All you can do is offer logical fallacies over and again and Ad Hominem personal attacks on me. That is all you got!
Here is more argument on point 6 which I gave. You gave nothing or any of my other points.

6. Absence Of Evidence is Evidence of Absence?
http://www.longecity...post__p__504592



see also where I have produced evidence elsewhere.

Both sides, Atheist and Theists present their cases.
http://www.longecity...post__p__480983

Long debate over whether God is possible.
http://www.longecity...post__p__434098

Where is the evidence and proof? I know you are going to run away. Go ahead, you have said nothing meaningful anyway. Off Topic.

Where is the evidence and proof? I know you are going to run away. Go ahead, you have said nothing meaningful anyway. Off Topic.

The proof is in the absence of evidence for gods. You have been told this a million times already, so perhaps you should listen?

Where is the evidence and proof? I know you are going to run away. Go ahead, you have said nothing meaningful anyway. Off Topic.

The proof is in the absence of evidence for gods. You have been told this a million times already, so perhaps you should listen?

The question is "Evidence and proof for Atheism." I have given many evidences for theism that I mentioned in my last post. You here admit you have none.

Where have I been told this a million times already that the lack of evidence for god is the evidence for Atheism?. What bull. Read where I dealt with this. 6. Absence Of Evidence is Evidence of Absence?
http://www.longecity...post__p__504592

You have your own burden of proof and I note you didn't relate to my post on it at all. Here it is again.

4. The Burden of Proof Is not on the Atheist because they don’t believe in anything?
http://www.longecity...post__p__504130

"Another familiar strategy of atheists is to insist that the burden of proof falls only on the believer. If that’s right, it may allow the Atheists to avoid evidentialism’s requirements, and rationally maintain atheism without evidence. But is it right?

You can see Atheists play the why game most of us learned as children. All you have to do is ask a version of “why,” any time any theist makes a statement about God. Does the Atheist also get to play? No because Atheists clame they don’t believe anything and have no burden of proof.

The concept of ‘burden of proof’ (Latin, onus probandi) originally goes back to classical Roman law, and it remains important in legal theory. Who has the burden of proof, and what it consists of, is determined by a judge or by established rules which vary across legal systems. The same is true of formal debates which occur in a variety of formats. The idea of ‘burden of proof’ also has application in non-formal settings; for example, in academic disputes or public controversies. However, without a judge or rules to determine who has the burden and how it is to be discharged, it becomes unclear how the concept is to be applied, or even whether it has clear application.

Yet although the concept of burden of proof in informal settings is ill-understood, that does not stop many from confidently proclaiming how the burden of proof should be assigned. The most egregious mistake is to think that it is a matter of logic. Rather, the burden of proof is a methodological or procedural concept. It is, in Nicolas Rescher’s words, “a regulative principle of rationality in the context of argumentation, a ground rule, as it were, of the process of rational controversy” (Dialectics, 1977). Another error is to presume that the burden falls on whoever is making the grammatically positive statement. However, positive statements can often be translated reasonably faithfully into negative statements, and vice versa: the statement ‘everything happens for a reason’ can be expressed as ‘there are no coincidences’, and ‘there is nothing supernatural’ can be restated as ‘reality is wholly natural’. A third problem is that to be taken seriously many negative statements – ‘there are no atoms’, ‘there are no coincidences’ – require evidence, whereas the corresponding positive statements do not.

It is sometimes said that one acquires a burden of proof if one’s statement runs counter to received opinion, and it does seem that burden of proof often falls in this way. But this proposal has problems too – one being that a person can legitimately take on a burden of defending a widely-held position to those who are ignorant of it or its defense (teachers do this, for example). It may be that the best we can hope for is something like the following: in situations in which participants to a discussion are expected to take seriously the claims made by other parties, all participants bear a burden to provide support for their claims, if asked (see James Cargile’s paper ‘On the Burden of Proof’ in Philosophy 72, 1997).

The concept of burden of proof in informal settings is too complicated to sort out here in this post, but fortunately, we don’t have to, because the question of which side has the burden of proof in an argument is largely independent of the question of what evidence is required to rationally believe any of the positions. Suppose for example that someone claims that there are no electrons, and that person bears the burden of proof. It’s not the case that so long as their burden hasn’t been discharged people can rationally believe that electrons exist without evidence. On the contrary, as evidentialism says, evidence is required for the belief to be justified even if there is no burden to defend the belief. This means that even if the burden of proof never falls on the atheist in disputes with theists (something we have so far found no reason to believe), it does not follow from that fact that atheists can rationally believe without evidence that there is no God or other divine reality. Consequently, the concept of burden of proof is also of no use to the Atheists in avoiding the demands of evidentialism. Where is the evidence?"

Tell us why atheists should believe in Gods? Can haz reasons??

Shadowhawk.....since your so fond of little stories and obviously can't understand logical argument, I've copied a story here for you. Read, enjoy and ponder.

There was a little boy who was very, very keen on football. (soccer to Americans) His ancient godfather, who was kind but very muddled, bought him a ball but unfortunately it was the wrong sort. It was a rugby ball. (like an American football ball) Determined to play with it nonetheless, he took it the park and rounded up other children to play. He tried to insist they should play with his ball but they wanted to play with another boy's proper football. He kept putting his ball into the game and kicking the proper ball off the pitch so that in the end the other children went off to play on a different pitch without him. He continued to kick his ball into the net, on his own, all morning and when he passed the other children on his way home he jeered at them, "Nyaaah...losers....I scored 100 goals!" Being sensible and well brought up children they just ignored him and went past on the other side.

Tell us why atheists should believe in Gods? Can haz reasons??

Change the subject to avoid the question. What a joke!

Shadowhawk.....since your so fond of little stories and obviously can't understand logical argument, I've copied a story here for you. Read, enjoy and ponder.

There was a little boy who was very, very keen on football. (soccer to Americans) His ancient godfather, who was kind but very muddled, bought him a ball but unfortunately it was the wrong sort. It was a rugby ball. (like an American football ball) Determined to play with it nonetheless, he took it the park and rounded up other children to play. He tried to insist they should play with his ball but they wanted to play with another boy's proper football. He kept putting his ball into the game and kicking the proper ball off the pitch so that in the end the other children went off to play on a different pitch without him. He continued to kick his ball into the net, on his own, all morning and when he passed the other children on his way home he jeered at them, "Nyaaah...losers....I scored 100 goals!" Being sensible and well brought up children they just ignored him and went past on the other side.

Another non answer.

Tell us why atheists should believe in Gods? Can haz reasons??

Change the subject to avoid the question. What a joke!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqkZToHL57U&list=PLA4AD71E546A83D85&index=1&feature=plpp_video

your god no matter how old or powerful, cannot defeat a perfect world born of wisdom of truth and the power of science, your old god knows when it is beat

Just as the perfect checkers program can't at best be matched, a perfect arbitary game player, a general superintelligence at its final evolved state(code appears finite through fractal structuring emboding the inifinite), will match god fist for fist at anay endeavour for all intents and purposes their abilities would be equivalent.

In the end when talking about god theologist switch from one god to another.

But all that remains is the one single truth, my god is real and either your god is my god or you've distorted your views and you follow some thing that is not god but similar to god, some ill formed beast from the abyss

Taro: "The truth has power because it's the truth. And because it is the truth, that makes it just. It's persuasive, isn't it? Don't you want truth like that?"-serial experiments

A god made of truth the embodyiment of truth will destroy all whose bodies is no more than edifices of lies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNx-wsaEkZ4&feature=player_embedded

lainiwakura=reiayanami=jesuschrist=luigi from super mario brothers

ZELDA=Hinata=Sailor+MOON=MOON child IS GOD by solid irrefutable mathematical proof that has already been verified by machine
""Moonchild", the name Bastian Bux gives the Childlike Empress in The Neverending Story-wikipedia"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3fvr589x9s

False religions YIELD BEFORE THE GOD OF GODS, I AM THAT I AM, the GOD OF ABRAHAM, THE GOD OF ISAAC, THE GOD OF JACOB!
Edited by steampoweredgod, 30 March 2012 - 06:55 AM.

Shadowhawk.....since your so fond of little stories and obviously can't understand logical argument, I've copied a story here for you. Read, enjoy and ponder.

There was a little boy who was very, very keen on football. (soccer to Americans) His ancient godfather, who was kind but very muddled, bought him a ball but unfortunately it was the wrong sort. It was a rugby ball. (like an American football ball) Determined to play with it nonetheless, he took it the park and rounded up other children to play. He tried to insist they should play with his ball but they wanted to play with another boy's proper football. He kept putting his ball into the game and kicking the proper ball off the pitch so that in the end the other children went off to play on a different pitch without him. He continued to kick his ball into the net, on his own, all morning and when he passed the other children on his way home he jeered at them, "Nyaaah...losers....I scored 100 goals!" Being sensible and well brought up children they just ignored him and went past on the other side.

you do realise the little boy is you, Shadowhawk, don't you? Now go and play with yourself quietly while the adults get on with the real substance of this forum.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VTH5SWDFq4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fhxmJyEBYs

The promised land, virtual reality, the kingdom, wherein the law is living, the word is fire and purifies with light.

OBama = Pharaoh=world's most powerful leader= president
Zod=Moses= ideal leader promised to lead man through the hardships yet to come, towards victory, V, VV absolute

People=anonymous

Result expected
Edited by steampoweredgod, 30 March 2012 - 08:24 AM.

Shadowhawk.....since your so fond of little stories and obviously can't understand logical argument, I've copied a story here for you. Read, enjoy and ponder.

There was a little boy who was very, very keen on football. (soccer to Americans) His ancient godfather, who was kind but very muddled, bought him a ball but unfortunately it was the wrong sort. It was a rugby ball. (like an American football ball) Determined to play with it nonetheless, he took it the park and rounded up other children to play. He tried to insist they should play with his ball but they wanted to play with another boy's proper football. He kept putting his ball into the game and kicking the proper ball off the pitch so that in the end the other children went off to play on a different pitch without him. He continued to kick his ball into the net, on his own, all morning and when he passed the other children on his way home he jeered at them, "Nyaaah...losers....I scored 100 goals!" Being sensible and well brought up children they just ignored him and went past on the other side.

you do realise the little boy is you, Shadowhawk, don't you? Now go and play with yourself quietly while the adults get on with the real substance of this forum.

Ho Hum No evidence, only personal attacks. That is all you have.

Ho Hum No evidence, only personal attacks. That is all you have.

Sorry but you seem to be literally too dumb to discuss these issues. You parrot the opinions of some religious morons and think that you've made an argument. But guess what? You have convinced nobody. I recommend you quit "discussing" these matters here and use your one and only life in a more productive way.

Ho Hum No evidence, only personal attacks. That is all you have.

Sorry but you seem to be literally too dumb to discuss these issues. You parrot the opinions of some religious morons and think that you've made an argument. But guess what? You have convinced nobody. I recommend you quit "discussing" these matters here and use your one and only life in a more productive way.

Nothing here but name calling. Typical childish Atheist response. Ho Hum, you have nothing.

luigi = abel





sister alice, sister Nunnally
Wonderland is Promised land

lain, lane, path, logos, athenas, wisdom, gods way, doorway
Edited by steampoweredgod, 31 March 2012 - 01:29 AM.

input video


tRansLatoR
source code
// note one line!
CC |V\ L V |LL VV||\ C|

output video

Shadowhawk.....since your so fond of little stories and obviously can't understand logical argument, I've copied a story here for you. Read, enjoy and ponder.

There was a little boy who was very, very keen on football. (soccer to Americans) His ancient godfather, who was kind but very muddled, bought him a ball but unfortunately it was the wrong sort. It was a rugby ball. (like an American football ball) Determined to play with it nonetheless, he took it the park and rounded up other children to play. He tried to insist they should play with his ball but they wanted to play with another boy's proper football. He kept putting his ball into the game and kicking the proper ball off the pitch so that in the end the other children went off to play on a different pitch without him. He continued to kick his ball into the net, on his own, all morning and when he passed the other children on his way home he jeered at them, "Nyaaah...losers....I scored 100 goals!" Being sensible and well brought up children they just ignored him and went past on the other side.

you do realise the little boy is you, Shadowhawk, don't you? Now go and play with yourself quietly while the adults get on with the real substance of this forum.

Ho Hum No evidence, only personal attacks. That is all you have.

No evidence? You have an entire post history of evidence where your conform to the little boy in the story.

Ho Hum No evidence, only personal attacks. That is all you have.

Sorry but you seem to be literally too dumb to discuss these issues. You parrot the opinions of some religious morons and think that you've made an argument. But guess what? You have convinced nobody. I recommend you quit "discussing" these matters here and use your one and only life in a more productive way.

Nothing here but name calling. Typical childish Atheist response. Ho Hum, you have nothing.

You have nothing either. Troll away troll, troll away.

Is there evidence for evidence? I submit that there is not.

This thread should be locked. Let's move on.

This thread should be locked. Let's move on.

I would second that. It's being abused and going nowhere.

This thread should be locked. Let's move on.

I would second that. It's being abused and going nowhere.

Oh I agree. This has just been one giant troll post by the OP.

Where is the evidence and proof? I know you are going to run away. Go ahead, you have said nothing meaningful anyway. Off Topic.

The proof is in the absence of evidence for gods. You have been told this a million times already, so perhaps you should listen?

so you claim to have proven that god (whatever his form, name, etc) doesn't exist, even if humanity knows nihil about the cosmos? make no mistake, I am not saying there is evidence for a god. but the topic is, is there evidence for the non-existence of god (the only useful interpretation of the name of this topic anyway, otherwise we would be left with 'is there evidence for the rejection of the faith/belief in god?' which would be an obsolete question). Evidence we have yes, but our knowledge is meager, incomplete, so proof is unusual to claim.

Where is the evidence and proof? I know you are going to run away. Go ahead, you have said nothing meaningful anyway. Off Topic.

The proof is in the absence of evidence for gods. You have been told this a million times already, so perhaps you should listen?

The question is "Evidence and proof for Atheism." I have given many evidences for theism that I mentioned in my last post. You here admit you have none.

Where have I been told this a million times already that the lack of evidence for god is the evidence for Atheism?. What bull. Read where I dealt with this. 6. Absence Of Evidence is Evidence of Absence?
http://www.longecity...post__p__504592

You have your own burden of proof and I note you didn't relate to my post on it at all. Here it is again.

4. The Burden of Proof Is not on the Atheist because they don’t believe in anything?
http://www.longecity...post__p__504130

"Another familiar strategy of atheists is to insist that the burden of proof falls only on the believer. If that’s right, it may allow the Atheists to avoid evidentialism’s requirements, and rationally maintain atheism without evidence. But is it right?

You can see Atheists play the why game most of us learned as children. All you have to do is ask a version of “why,” any time any theist makes a statement about God. Does the Atheist also get to play? No because Atheists clame they don’t believe anything and have no burden of proof.

The concept of ‘burden of proof’ (Latin, onus probandi) originally goes back to classical Roman law, and it remains important in legal theory. Who has the burden of proof, and what it consists of, is determined by a judge or by established rules which vary across legal systems. The same is true of formal debates which occur in a variety of formats. The idea of ‘burden of proof’ also has application in non-formal settings; for example, in academic disputes or public controversies. However, without a judge or rules to determine who has the burden and how it is to be discharged, it becomes unclear how the concept is to be applied, or even whether it has clear application.

Yet although the concept of burden of proof in informal settings is ill-understood, that does not stop many from confidently proclaiming how the burden of proof should be assigned. The most egregious mistake is to think that it is a matter of logic. Rather, the burden of proof is a methodological or procedural concept. It is, in Nicolas Rescher’s words, “a regulative principle of rationality in the context of argumentation, a ground rule, as it were, of the process of rational controversy” (Dialectics, 1977). Another error is to presume that the burden falls on whoever is making the grammatically positive statement. However, positive statements can often be translated reasonably faithfully into negative statements, and vice versa: the statement ‘everything happens for a reason’ can be expressed as ‘there are no coincidences’, and ‘there is nothing supernatural’ can be restated as ‘reality is wholly natural’. A third problem is that to be taken seriously many negative statements – ‘there are no atoms’, ‘there are no coincidences’ – require evidence, whereas the corresponding positive statements do not.

It is sometimes said that one acquires a burden of proof if one’s statement runs counter to received opinion, and it does seem that burden of proof often falls in this way. But this proposal has problems too – one being that a person can legitimately take on a burden of defending a widely-held position to those who are ignorant of it or its defense (teachers do this, for example). It may be that the best we can hope for is something like the following: in situations in which participants to a discussion are expected to take seriously the claims made by other parties, all participants bear a burden to provide support for their claims, if asked (see James Cargile’s paper ‘On the Burden of Proof’ in Philosophy 72, 1997).

The concept of burden of proof in informal settings is too complicated to sort out here in this post, but fortunately, we don’t have to, because the question of which side has the burden of proof in an argument is largely independent of the question of what evidence is required to rationally believe any of the positions. Suppose for example that someone claims that there are no electrons, and that person bears the burden of proof. It’s not the case that so long as their burden hasn’t been discharged people can rationally believe that electrons exist without evidence. On the contrary, as evidentialism says, evidence is required for the belief to be justified even if there is no burden to defend the belief. This means that even if the burden of proof never falls on the atheist in disputes with theists (something we have so far found no reason to believe), it does not follow from that fact that atheists can rationally believe without evidence that there is no God or other divine reality. Consequently, the concept of burden of proof is also of no use to the Atheists in avoiding the demands of evidentialism. Where is the evidence?"

See one of the reasons why it is more useful to maintain that god does not exist is that this hypothesis is easily falsified. This in contrast with there is a god. Can anyone disprove that god exists? Even if we somehow scanned the entire cosmos, god could still exist in a number of ways, because god seems to range from a bearded guy to an invisible spirit that pervades the cosmos.
Edited by DAMABO, 03 April 2012 - 07:44 PM.

Where is the evidence and proof? I know you are going to run away. Go ahead, you have said nothing meaningful anyway. Off Topic.

The proof is in the absence of evidence for gods. You have been told this a million times already, so perhaps you should listen?

The question is "Evidence and proof for Atheism." I have given many evidences for theism that I mentioned in my last post. You here admit you have none.

Where have I been told this a million times already that the lack of evidence for god is the evidence for Atheism?. What bull. Read where I dealt with this. 6. Absence Of Evidence is Evidence of Absence?
http://www.longecity...post__p__504592

You have your own burden of proof and I note you didn't relate to my post on it at all. Here it is again.

4. The Burden of Proof Is not on the Atheist because they don’t believe in anything?
http://www.longecity...post__p__504130

"Another familiar strategy of atheists is to insist that the burden of proof falls only on the believer. If that’s right, it may allow the Atheists to avoid evidentialism’s requirements, and rationally maintain atheism without evidence. But is it right?

You can see Atheists play the why game most of us learned as children. All you have to do is ask a version of “why,” any time any theist makes a statement about God. Does the Atheist also get to play? No because Atheists clame they don’t believe anything and have no burden of proof.

The concept of ‘burden of proof’ (Latin, onus probandi) originally goes back to classical Roman law, and it remains important in legal theory. Who has the burden of proof, and what it consists of, is determined by a judge or by established rules which vary across legal systems. The same is true of formal debates which occur in a variety of formats. The idea of ‘burden of proof’ also has application in non-formal settings; for example, in academic disputes or public controversies. However, without a judge or rules to determine who has the burden and how it is to be discharged, it becomes unclear how the concept is to be applied, or even whether it has clear application.

Yet although the concept of burden of proof in informal settings is ill-understood, that does not stop many from confidently proclaiming how the burden of proof should be assigned. The most egregious mistake is to think that it is a matter of logic. Rather, the burden of proof is a methodological or procedural concept. It is, in Nicolas Rescher’s words, “a regulative principle of rationality in the context of argumentation, a ground rule, as it were, of the process of rational controversy” (Dialectics, 1977). Another error is to presume that the burden falls on whoever is making the grammatically positive statement. However, positive statements can often be translated reasonably faithfully into negative statements, and vice versa: the statement ‘everything happens for a reason’ can be expressed as ‘there are no coincidences’, and ‘there is nothing supernatural’ can be restated as ‘reality is wholly natural’. A third problem is that to be taken seriously many negative statements – ‘there are no atoms’, ‘there are no coincidences’ – require evidence, whereas the corresponding positive statements do not.

It is sometimes said that one acquires a burden of proof if one’s statement runs counter to received opinion, and it does seem that burden of proof often falls in this way. But this proposal has problems too – one being that a person can legitimately take on a burden of defending a widely-held position to those who are ignorant of it or its defense (teachers do this, for example). It may be that the best we can hope for is something like the following: in situations in which participants to a discussion are expected to take seriously the claims made by other parties, all participants bear a burden to provide support for their claims, if asked (see James Cargile’s paper ‘On the Burden of Proof’ in Philosophy 72, 1997).

The concept of burden of proof in informal settings is too complicated to sort out here in this post, but fortunately, we don’t have to, because the question of which side has the burden of proof in an argument is largely independent of the question of what evidence is required to rationally believe any of the positions. Suppose for example that someone claims that there are no electrons, and that person bears the burden of proof. It’s not the case that so long as their burden hasn’t been discharged people can rationally believe that electrons exist without evidence. On the contrary, as evidentialism says, evidence is required for the belief to be justified even if there is no burden to defend the belief. This means that even if the burden of proof never falls on the atheist in disputes with theists (something we have so far found no reason to believe), it does not follow from that fact that atheists can rationally believe without evidence that there is no God or other divine reality. Consequently, the concept of burden of proof is also of no use to the Atheists in avoiding the demands of evidentialism. Where is the evidence?"

See one of the reasons why it is more useful to maintain that god does not exist is that this hypothesis is easily falsified. This in contrast with there is a god. Can anyone disprove that god exists? Even if we somehow scanned the entire cosmos, god could still exist in a number of ways, because god seems to range from a bearded guy to an invisible spirit that pervades the cosmos.

You are off topic. I have made many arguments for the existence of God while Atheists have given none for Atheism. If you want to address some of them, please do. I have posted these sources earlier.

IS THERE EVIDENCE FOR ATHEISM? None yet. No reason here but childish Atheist Logical Fallacies and baby squalling. Lets try this.

You're talking to yourself. We've all gone away.

Where is the evidence and proof? I know you are going to run away. Go ahead, you have said nothing meaningful anyway. Off Topic.

The proof is in the absence of evidence for gods. You have been told this a million times already, so perhaps you should listen?

The question is "Evidence and proof for Atheism." I have given many evidences for theism that I mentioned in my last post. You here admit you have none.

Where have I been told this a million times already that the lack of evidence for god is the evidence for Atheism?. What bull. Read where I dealt with this. 6. Absence Of Evidence is Evidence of Absence?
http://www.longecity...post__p__504592

You have your own burden of proof and I note you didn't relate to my post on it at all. Here it is again.

4. The Burden of Proof Is not on the Atheist because they don’t believe in anything?
http://www.longecity...post__p__504130

"Another familiar strategy of atheists is to insist that the burden of proof falls only on the believer. If that’s right, it may allow the Atheists to avoid evidentialism’s requirements, and rationally maintain atheism without evidence. But is it right?

You can see Atheists play the why game most of us learned as children. All you have to do is ask a version of “why,” any time any theist makes a statement about God. Does the Atheist also get to play? No because Atheists clame they don’t believe anything and have no burden of proof.

The concept of ‘burden of proof’ (Latin, onus probandi) originally goes back to classical Roman law, and it remains important in legal theory. Who has the burden of proof, and what it consists of, is determined by a judge or by established rules which vary across legal systems. The same is true of formal debates which occur in a variety of formats. The idea of ‘burden of proof’ also has application in non-formal settings; for example, in academic disputes or public controversies. However, without a judge or rules to determine who has the burden and how it is to be discharged, it becomes unclear how the concept is to be applied, or even whether it has clear application.

Yet although the concept of burden of proof in informal settings is ill-understood, that does not stop many from confidently proclaiming how the burden of proof should be assigned. The most egregious mistake is to think that it is a matter of logic. Rather, the burden of proof is a methodological or procedural concept. It is, in Nicolas Rescher’s words, “a regulative principle of rationality in the context of argumentation, a ground rule, as it were, of the process of rational controversy” (Dialectics, 1977). Another error is to presume that the burden falls on whoever is making the grammatically positive statement. However, positive statements can often be translated reasonably faithfully into negative statements, and vice versa: the statement ‘everything happens for a reason’ can be expressed as ‘there are no coincidences’, and ‘there is nothing supernatural’ can be restated as ‘reality is wholly natural’. A third problem is that to be taken seriously many negative statements – ‘there are no atoms’, ‘there are no coincidences’ – require evidence, whereas the corresponding positive statements do not.

It is sometimes said that one acquires a burden of proof if one’s statement runs counter to received opinion, and it does seem that burden of proof often falls in this way. But this proposal has problems too – one being that a person can legitimately take on a burden of defending a widely-held position to those who are ignorant of it or its defense (teachers do this, for example). It may be that the best we can hope for is something like the following: in situations in which participants to a discussion are expected to take seriously the claims made by other parties, all participants bear a burden to provide support for their claims, if asked (see James Cargile’s paper ‘On the Burden of Proof’ in Philosophy 72, 1997).

The concept of burden of proof in informal settings is too complicated to sort out here in this post, but fortunately, we don’t have to, because the question of which side has the burden of proof in an argument is largely independent of the question of what evidence is required to rationally believe any of the positions. Suppose for example that someone claims that there are no electrons, and that person bears the burden of proof. It’s not the case that so long as their burden hasn’t been discharged people can rationally believe that electrons exist without evidence. On the contrary, as evidentialism says, evidence is required for the belief to be justified even if there is no burden to defend the belief. This means that even if the burden of proof never falls on the atheist in disputes with theists (something we have so far found no reason to believe), it does not follow from that fact that atheists can rationally believe without evidence that there is no God or other divine reality. Consequently, the concept of burden of proof is also of no use to the Atheists in avoiding the demands of evidentialism. Where is the evidence?"

See one of the reasons why it is more useful to maintain that god does not exist is that this hypothesis is easily falsified. This in contrast with there is a god. Can anyone disprove that god exists? Even if we somehow scanned the entire cosmos, god could still exist in a number of ways, because god seems to range from a bearded guy to an invisible spirit that pervades the cosmos.

You are off topic. I have made many arguments for the existence of God while Atheists have given none for Atheism. If you want to address some of them, please do. I have posted these sources earlier.

IS THERE EVIDENCE FOR ATHEISM? None yet. No reason here but childish Atheist Logical Fallacies and baby squalling. Lets try this.

Mh I seem to have missed those. Can you provide them to me then? Please to the point, I am not eager to read 5 articles where there is perhaps only one sentence interesting.

PLEASE DO NOT EDIT BLOCK OR BAN THIS POST
http://www.myspace.com/shardofthesky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jYU9meVXKg&feature=player_embedded
REAL WORLD STATS, US SOIL US CHILDREN GOV DOES NOTHING BUT CONSENT IMPLICITLY CONSENT, so across the globe, especially north korea and china.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aecGejnBqo&feature=fvsr

FOUNDING FATHERS QUOTES!
http://www.dojgov.ne...berty_Watch.htm
CONSTITUTION DEFINES CURRENT LAWS AS UNCONSTITUTIONAL! BY MATHEMATICAL PROOF! UNDENIABLE TRUTH!

TREASON! TREASON! US MILITARY GOV HAS COMMITTED TREASON! ORGANIZED TERRORIST ORGANIZATION NUMBER ONE! CONSTITUTION DEMANDS TOTAL ELIMINATION OF SYSTEM DEATH PENALTY ALL JUDGES ALL SENATORS ALL GUARDS ALL COPS ALL ECHELONS INCLUDING PRESIDENT AND CANDIDATES AND ALL POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FqnTsh8rUU

You're talking to yourself. We've all gone away.

Look that's impossible

Because I'm here talking too, and I'm certainly not some shadow hawk, while I'm a member of the hawk, I lead it by example as a raven in disguise. AND NO THERE IS NO WAY I'm shadowhawk unless we somehow have two freaking bodies at the same time and two different families, and live in two different countries, is it possible that we are one and the same despite all of this? maybe maybe, but that would mean that shadowhawk is not a boy but a girl, and though i know not I doubt that very very much. Note that while my gender is kinda ambiguous in body, mind and soul, im still not undefined but perfectly defined.
Edited by steampoweredgod, 04 April 2012 - 10:42 PM.