Image transcription: a section of a Wikipedia article titled “Relationship with Reality”. It reads “From a scientific viewpoint, elves are not considered objectively real. [3] However,” End transcription.
Image transcription: a section of a Wikipedia article titled “Relationship with Reality”. It reads “From a scientific viewpoint, elves are not considered objectively real. [3] However,” End transcription.
There is absolutely zero necessity to dance around the non existance of god. There is objectively no god.
What a thing to say. It’s perfectly reasonable to say that there’s insufficient evidence to believe in any gods, but to state that there is no god as a matter of fact is as presumptive as saying that there objectively is.
What evidence do you have to back up that claim?
I love how nobody is responding to you, because the truth is: we can’t know, but most of us are very sure whether there is a god either way. It’s nonsense to call what an atheist believes absolutely “true,” because we can’t know. I’m an atheist, but it’s just pseudoscience to suggest that we can scientifically prove that there’s no god.
Agreed and well-put. Lack of evidence cannot give creedence to a claim. It’s all well and good to believe in (the absence of, or possibility of) supernatural being(s), but to state such beliefs as objective is not follow the scientific method.
Would you say that feelings, thoughts and numbers do “exist”?
Would you say that God has the same power as the number four?
There are a few crusades and jihads that point towards gods being just as meaningfully real to us as dollar values and national pride
Again, that’s actions taken by people based on beliefs, not actions taken by that in which they believe.
Same goes with trading a dollar bill for goods and services. That dollar doesn’t have legitimate inherent value, but it can manifest change in the world via the people that believe it does. Same goes with pride in your country/city/state/province when you see your region’s flag. It isn’t physically real, but the wiki never claimed that it is.
OK, how many dollars is god worth?
How many dollars is my favorite color being purple worth?
I really want to get through to you. What that wiki article is saying is that god is “”“real”“” (with a lot of air quotes) in the same way that fiat currency has value.
Can we agree that the bills in my wallet have less physical utility than the many paper towels they could buy? I could use them for kindling, or to wipe up a small mess, but paper towels are so much better at that. And some of these bills, despite being exactly the same size and weight, and arguable worse at being kindling, are somehow worth “more” than others.
For what reason am I able to exchange those bills for many paper towels? Why can I exchange one bill for several bills of the same exact size, but with a numerically smaller number written on them? The value of money is “real” insofar as it affects how we act. I don’t think there is a god, but the concept of gods has had a very real impact on the world. It is “real” in the sense that it affects people, the same way seeing a flag with a bunch of random colors can, the same way writing an extra 0 on a piece of green cotton can.
We can trade currency for goods and services because we agree to use the currency. Physical currency has an agreed-to meaning; you can’t spend a dollar bill after you burn it. It’s like arguing that a pound of gold being worth more than a pound of dog shit is meaningless.
Comparing God to feelings is ridiculous. We can observe and induce feelings by manipulating the brain physically or chemically.
The idea of a god has no power. The idea did not create the universe, cannot perform miracles, cannot observe or act. God is as real as the number four; it’s an idea that may have utility, but lacks any power in and of itself.