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Date Posted: 00:24:01 03/06/04 Sat
Author: Bob
Subject:

Hmmm
In reply to: Abba's Son 's message, "Hypocrisy" on 17:10:12 03/05/04 Fri

"It is difficult to find intelligent "atheists" because their arguments are soft. An atheist can only use deductive reasoning to prove to themselves that there is no God."

If religious arguments weren't banned on these boards, I'd say them's fightin' words ;)

I'll address your logical flaws and avoid the religious ones: You can't prove a negative, only a positive. When the set of answers is discreet, however, you can remove all the solutions but one in a roundabout way of proving a negative. But a negative can't be proven in an open solution like the existance/non existance of aliens (let's say, just for example).

Simple example: Prove that my name is NOT Shirley. How would you even begin? The solution set is discreet in this case. My name is either Shirley or it is not Shirley . You could find drivers licenses, legal documents, fingerprints etc that prove that my name IS (in fact) Bob thereby showing my name to not be Shirley -- but notice: you had to prove a positive in a discreet set of solutions to prove a negative.

Let's take the recent WMD in Iraq issue -- Our Commander in Chief demanded the the Iraqis prove that they do NOT have WMDs! Exactly what positive is supposed to solve this set of solutions??? Of course we went to war over this little logic trick since it is, in fact, impossible to prove the non existance of something.

Now let's take my "Alien" example. (Not God, "Aliens" this is not a religious argument). If you were to say to me "prove that there are no aliens" -- I would point out that one cannot prove a negative . . . it's your job to prove that there ARE aliens. Until you do, I will not bother with fooling myself into believing in them -- it's simply a waste of my time and energy.

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Replies:

Re: Hmmm -- stu, 01:03:52 03/06/04 Sat
- Re: Hmmm -- aliens are not demons. -- Craig, 12:04:20 03/06/04 Sat
  - So, what has convinced you that there are aliens? -- mt. healthy mountaineer, 23:10:52 03/12/04 Fri
A Post about God, but not religion, for that is apparently banned! -- Abba's Son, 12:14:44 03/08/04 Mon
- Postmodernism -- mvd, 15:39:56 03/14/04 Sun
  - Re: Postmodernism -- stu, 17:54:23 03/14/04 Sun
    - Re: Postmodernism -- mvd, 21:21:03 03/14/04 Sun
- Re: A Post about God, but not religion, for that is apparently banned! -- stu, 18:10:35 03/14/04 Sun
  - tell you what -- stu, 19:46:18 03/14/04 Sun
    - why don't you include a link to the "haggle and rejoice" message board? (NT) -- mt. healthy mountaineer, 16:52:09 03/15/04 Mon
  - FAITH -- Abba's Son, 14:56:31 03/22/04 Mon