After I submitted that reply I thought someone might read that sentence the dismissive way. Bigarrow and I had exchanged a couple of replies, I had put his argument into syllogism form and asked if that was what he was arguing. He said it wasn't, so I made that second syllogism and asked, "is that it?", meaning, " is that the argument you are making?" Hopefully bigarrow did not also take it in the dismissive sense it's commonly used in. On your second question, I won't praise or condemn bigarrow's argument. He made a choice. Edit: good morning, P&R!
If you don't mind me saying, I think you might make better use of time spent waiting by first checking your assertions for proper grounding. ....is not true because.... ...so no matter how you want to manipulate things, that is a thread whose basis is founded from the beginning on the OP's own clearly stated purpose which is to "encourage believers to think about what they believe." With all due respect, if any is due, whatever happened subsequently when you and others started chasing your logical fallacy all over the place is another thing altogether.
When you started out saying "After I submitted......." there was that sinking feeling again, that you'd wrecked another post sending it crashing to cyber neversee. However congratulations are due on success this time, but from reading it I must ask again with all due civility seeing as you've not really answered the question, are you suggesting no evidence of - is in any way - evidence for?
Lol, not quite sure about your intro there, but that's ok, I'm a coffee or two down this morning. I do not believe the absence of evidence is evidence, no. Except perhaps for those cases where a person's silence "says it all". ; )
read all of his posts. all of them. not just the ones that support your commentary. my argument was pure and simple: you cannot disprove God because we all lack the knowledge necessary to state without reservation that something cannot possibly exist. therefore, the whole premise about God in this thread is irrelevant, on both sides. if you think the OP's overall intent was to have believers question their belief simply because some churches are being foreclosed on, then you are really, really stupid (and perhaps an adjustment to your moniker with the related suffix should be executed). either that or you woefully underestimate what faith is to those who believe in a higher power if you think it can be so easily shaken by so marginally a news article. i'll let you have the last word (since you no doubt will continue to miss the point regardless). enjoy.
i dont expect any god to answer my prayers. after all i dont belong to the club/cult. funny thing. we have computers nowdays. its easy to run a statistical analysis of the difference of outcomes for fatal diseases between believers and nonbelievers. guess what we find. the most pious believers die at the same rate as the worst criminal. every study of prayer has found no benifit in terms of health outcomes.
Anyone can define a set of rules, and on the basis of those rules make proclamations as to what is or isn't. Every thing we know, is founded on what we already know, with a sprinkling of logical inference about what we don't know. Throughout history that process has been ever changing, as knowledge changes with new discoveries, better equipment, but the underlying process is generally the same, from the simplest observation of the sun revolving around the earth. We later found out that what we see is not what always is. So senses, our means of gathering evidence...are inherently limited and flawed. Absolute knowledge, which would pertain to God, is beyond the reach of senses, and mind, and intellect, simply because these tools we have are not absolute. Let the atheists have their belief, let the theists have their belief, let them keep their beliefs to themselves and out of the realm of politics and causing harm to other people.
"let them keep their beliefs to themselves and out of the realm of politics and causing harm to other people." if this actually happened i would get bored and go away. thumpers are taught it is their duty to try to get everyone into their cult.