Quote Originally Posted by KT. View Post
I'm sorry if I offended you and it certainly wasn't my intent to try to appear superior to you or Atheists in general.

This is my argument:

1) God is an unfalisfiable concept.
2) Therefore god is unscientific.
3) Therefore belief systems that involve god are unscientific.

However, science isn't everything. Art for the most part is unscientific, yet it still has merit. Theism and Atheism both have their merits, however neither are for me. I like science. I like to think that I am a logic oriented person. For me, the most logical and scientific answer as to whether a god exists or not is "I don't know now and I may never know ever". I personally find believing in god and not believing in god both illogical to different degrees.
You didn't offend me, I've just heard the "my problem with atheists who are sure there's no god..." line a looooooooooooooot of times. It's based on a fundamental misunderstanding of science and statistics -- the very fact THAT you can't be sure there's a god (ie. the fact of unfalsifiability) renders the proposition unscientific and, since there's no convincing evidence whatsoever that there is a god, it's intellectually dishonest to say that rejecting the idea of god is illogical or unscientific.

(Yes, it's technically correct. Just as it's technically correct to say that there is a possibility that the Earth is flat. But scientists can't go around saying "yeah, the Earth is PROBABLY round, but it'd be unscientific and illogical to say that for sure.")

The thing about people who say they're "sure there is no god" -- show them some real evidence and they'll change their mind. I'm sure there are no unicorns, but show me a peer-reviewed paper on the finding of a unicorn skeleton and I might reconsider.

I've heard the art line, too. I used to use it all the time. Art may not be scientific, but there's some pretty airtight scientific evidence that it exists, so I believe in art. There is also a lot of scientific evidence that art has positive effects on people (even if all it does is make them happier), so I believe art has merit. Not everything falls within the realm of science, but this one question does.

Quote Originally Posted by coqauvin View Post
I think my biggest issue with this argument is that the comparison made is inherently linked to the presence of something as a physical entity (invisible unicorns and teapots), but God, as described in pretty much every holy book, is not a physical entity, per se, although there are physical manifestations from time to time. Because of this, it's a false analogy.
Well, it's not a false analogy, because I also said genies and stuff. And Thor, and Zeus. There's no more evidence for "God" (ie. the big J) than there is Zeus, yet almost everyone alive today would dismiss the belief in Zeus as silly. Certainly all would call it unscientific.

You and I have discussed God before, so unless your beliefs have changed, I think I basically know what they are. And I know you have deep and (to you, but not to me, obviously) convincing reasons for believing what you believe, and very strong arguments to support yourself. But this objection isn't one of them. We're talking about evidence -- there's no more reason to believe in unicorns than a god, whether physical or not.

You are saying, essentially, that the god proposition is exempt from needing evidence.