Absence of evidence do not mean evidence of absence…furthermore, all the evidence is all around you
Since you are in kindergaten of rational thinking, let me redirect you to some other authorities. Perhaps you will get where we are coming from.
Bertrand rusell’s argument: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell’s_teapot
“Russell’s teapot, sometimes called the celestial teapot or cosmic teapot, is an [U]analogy[/U] first coined by the philosopher [U]Bertrand Russell[/U] (1872–1970) to illustrate that the [U]philosophic burden of proof[/U] lies upon a person making scientifically [U]unfalsifiable[/U] claims rather than shifting the burden of proof to others, specifically in the case of religion. Russell wrote that if he claims that a [U]teapot[/U] orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, it is nonsensical for him to expect others to believe him on the grounds that they cannot prove him wrong. Russell’s teapot is still referred to in discussions concerning the [U]existence of God[/U].”
If you still cannot get it, go read Thomas Kuhn on falsification.
I honestly would want to understand your thinking here. What my thinking agrees with is God is the source of all these, IT doesn’t have to be human or anything. Whether we think IT is nothingness, chance…name it, that is God. The causeless cause of all these, the consciousness/quality behind each and everything. Again, IT doesn’t need to be in a human figure (or confined), human emotions or anything…just the God-within-and-without-philosophy. Otherwise how can I explain the birth and death of stars (new stars are born everyday and dying everyday), the trigger behind everything? That to me is God, and that to me is the evidence
Okay. Freedom of worship is exercised in the whole the free world
This is Russell’s original text: “Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”
@Ingia ok, just a question…how did everything come into being? What do you think is behind all these? What triggered all these?
From where we stand has a human race, we do not know everything, but that does not qualify or Justify outrageous assumptions. Religions, in all their forms, are assumptions and imaginations of people who want to control people. Scientists never try to claim things they do not have evidence of. For example, no real scientist is trying to claim he/she has a cure of HIV or herpes. The beauty of the scientific method is that it accepts that humans are not omniscient, but are in a learning process.
John bury has a similar opinion of theology: “Some people speak as if we were not justified in rejecting a theological doctrine unless we can prove it false. But the burden of proof does not lie upon the rejecter… If you were told that in a certain planet revolving around Sirius there is a race of donkeys who speak the English language and spend their time in discussing eugenics, you could not disprove the statement, but would it, on that account, have any claim to be believed? Some minds would be prepared to accept it, if it were reiterated often enough, through the potent force of suggestion.”
God can only be understood on the plane of faith and not on rational plane.
Those who dispute God are not wrong in their think and neither does that disapprove God.
I will agin prescribe this to you
This is Russell’s original text: “Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”
The two aspects of society cannot kept from colliding.
Please explain that to me like a two year old.
It means that if you present a proposition, people are not obligated to buy into it at all and they are justified to claim its false until evidence is provided, just as you would require me to provide evidence if I claimed that right now I have a dragon in my kitchen. Again we cannot give it the credit that propositions with evidence deserve because that is an open gateway to anybody claiming whatever they want.
Russell says a person making such unsubstantiated, out of the ordinary claims would ordinarily be ridiculed(remember Maina Njenga claiming to have survived thirty six bullets to the torso without protection. Ofcourse we all/majority assumed he is lying or he is mentally deranged). However, if the same claims were written in a book and preached for thosands of years, they would appear true and any person professing disbelief would either be commited to a mental institution in modern times, or would be subject of Inquisition in the Holy Roman Empire.
I think this comes down to an issue of belief.
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You have just answered because you have to reply, not because you have anything useful to say.
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You have not answered me, I asked what is the trigger behind all these (universe etc)? Or what does Russell say about it? Just because we cannot explain some things does not mean we dispute them…those who do that have very simple minds (kina Russells). For example just because you have found yourself in the middle of a desert mysteriously does not mean you dispute the very fact that you are there…first start by finding out how you got there in the first place. Disputing your being there only portrays the fool in you…now answer me, what do you think is the trigger behind all these?
Rusell does not seek to give any answers because he has no evidence. What is the problem? Take time and read instead of arguing from a point of self conviction. Who told you you must know everything. You dont have to aknow everything. So the attempt by religion to answer everything is simply nonsense. Why doesnt religion find a solution to the problem we have right now instead of creating theories about creation and afterlife, things that are of little concern to us here?? You have to cool down and find evidence and discover. If you dont, then leave it to your children, if they dont, the let them leave it to their children. Not giving magical solutions. Its like asking me why should we not recommend people with cancer to visit magicians if the scientists cannot find a cure. We simply have to research until you or someone else finds the cure!!! If we dont find a cure in earnest, then you/people have to live with it!! Must you have an explanation on where the edge of universe lies or why life is only found on earth at the moment?
And there lies the answer sir! We cannot know everything (read God) and we cannot come to a logical conclusion of God using our limited faculties…in fact our minds try to understand God by negation i.e. God is not a car (hiyo unatoa kwa list), God is not a cow, God is not this…God is not that…etc mpaka mwisho the mind is left staring at nothingness (the reason atheist claim there is no God). But it is that same nothingness which contains everything and is the trigger behind everything. That sir is what I call God (perhaps you call it by another name but it is one and the same thing).
P.S. I do not subscribe to religion. In fact religion paints a human picture of God (or some other form), but that is the only way the mind can fathom (or appear to fathom). Remember the mind cannot cling on anything which is formless, it has to have a form for the mind to cling onto it
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But you just replied!!!
Mwenyewe, you are being insincere in your argument. Your 1st two replies in this thread clearly show your belief in the Christian God.