this is like me flipping a coin and it shows heads and asking you whether it is tails on the other side
and you saying you don't know.

Yes. It must be God because I have eliminated all the other possible answers. There's no room for "I don't know" here. I do know. I've told you why because you asked.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:48, archived)

Weren't you saying something about having to experience things to know they exist?
I can't 'know' for certain it's tails on the other side but it is highly likely.

Belief in God is not a coin flip, it is a monumental leap of faith akin to saying, when presented with a coin showing a head, that it is not tails on the other side. It is not an 'answer' it is blind faith and we are only discussing this because I cannot flip over your God coin and ultimately prove you wrong.

There is also a teapot that orbits around a star in our universe. Now that I have said this, it is impossible to disprove, therefore it must be true.
( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:54, archived)

I have ultimate faith in the teapot theory. I just KNOW it to be true, even though there is no evidence for it.

( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:56, archived)

We know something of coins,
from experience you might counter, but as far as the thought-experiment goes we know it from the definition of this abstract coin. Obviously the analogy didn't work as intended. Let me not muck about with analogies then. If there are two mutually exclusive claims and we know that one is wrong, we know that the other is right. There is no excuse for fence sitting. I know you are not yet convinced that we are dealing with mutually exclusive claims but can you at least agree with me so far in this?
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:00, archived)

Yes I agree, with regards to things like coins where there are always one of two answers, that if one is wrong, the other must be right.
What does that have to do with you believing in God?
( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:07, archived)

All the non-God answers are absurd.
I have enumerated them below.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:09, archived)

Sorry, you mean to say the God answer is NOT absurd?
Imagine if only one person believed in God. They'd lock them up in a mental asylum.
( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:11, archived)

I'm still waiting for you to disprove my tea-pot too.

( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:16, archived)

if only one person wasn't deaf no doubt the same outcome would result.
this is not a very good line of argument.

You have assumed it is absurd, for some reason.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:16, archived)

Yes but hearing isn't the same as someone, one day claiming "THERE IS A GOD" and then there just being a God.
Stop using terrible analogies.
( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:18, archived)

And you haven't answered my question on where God was for the other 190,000 years of our existence and why, when he did decide to make himself known, he did so in an uneducated, illiterate and consequently gullible part of the world.
He didn't make himself known to the Chinese, who could read.
( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:20, archived)

woah now wait a second,
are you saying I'm the first and only person ever to say there is a God? And that my saying so somehow makes it true?
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:21, archived)

No, I'm saying that at some point, someone did declare it and, in your mind, that made it true.
You did not come to this conclusion on your own.
( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:23, archived)

Come on MGT, you're clever enough to know that this logic isn't just flawed, it's complete balls.
Good joke though.
( TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:56, archived)

I'm glad you're here, I'm starting to question my sanity.

( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:59, archived)

Off to bed now I'm afraid treacle, you're on your own.

( TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:03, archived)

complete balls?
what? I know that a coin is heads on one side and tails on the other, let is take that as a given. What is the problem here? Is logical deduction completely useless in general?
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:03, archived)

Well firstly working out by deduction how reality exists is in no way comparable to flipping a coin,
your complete unflinching arrogance in thinking that you have discovered and considered all the ways in which the reality could have come into being is staggering. You haven't even considered all sides of the coin, let alone the universe.

Secondly, logical deduction might possibly be useless in general, it's just an idea right? Why does it have to correspond with anything absolutely true?
( TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:08, archived)

It's arrogant to deduce anything now,
or maybe only when you don't agree with the conclusion. You'd rather it be vague and open-ended maybe so we can all agree to disagree and get on with living however we want. Well call me arrogant. But tough.

I have considered all the sides of the coin. There are two sides of an ideal coin as used in philosophical thought experiments, heads and tails. And that's it.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:14, archived)