Quote Originally Posted by Vengeful Scars View Post
When what you believe in only relies on Faith, then trying to prove what you believe in ignores the concept of 'Faith'.
You have to prove that it relies on faith, and that the faith is foolish. Science relies on faith in induction, but this faith isn't a bad thing at all.

Consider, for example, Gödel's ontological argument. You can attack any of the axioms, and a religious person can try to defend it. Such a discussion would be perfectly rational without any talk of faith.

Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
did, uh, did you read the rest?
No, sorry, I skimmed it.

Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
the only remaining possibility is that he created us and doesn't give a shit about our suffering. i refuse to believe that.
Is your favour for omnibenevolence purely for personal reasons? Imagine God as a scientist-like entity who creates the world as an experiment and merely observes. Is this scenario inconceivable or abhorrent to you? Also sorry if you explained this earlier.

Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
it's that inconsistency -- that inability to fit with what i KNOW is decent, just, moral and good -- is why i am completely confident there is no god.
This is a really strong statement. To back it up, you'd have to establish a coherent moral theory. As far as I can tell, believing in morality requires some serious faith—much less faith than belief in the existence of God, and much more faith than belief in induction. I'm not saying this to be a pedantic prick (nor am I to you, VS) with a position like "you're just as bad as them." What I mean is there's say a hierarchy of faiths that looks something like this:

  1. Belief in the existence of yourself / your consciousness
  2. Belief in the existence of the physical world
  3. Belief in the existence of other consciousnesses
  4. Belief in induction
  5. ???
  6. Belief in the existence of true moral propositions
  7. ???
  8. Belief in the existence of god(s)
  9. ???
  10. Belief in the existence of heaven / hell / invisible unicorns


So you can draw the line somewhere between morality and god and say only faith in things listed above it is worthwhile. This approach may appear relativist, but it's super hard to argue that any of them except #1 requires absolutely no leap of faith whatsoever.

Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
when we claim to know something scientifically, we know it. we may learn in the future that it's more complicated than we think, or we have some details wrong, but we know it.
Your conception of knowledge is sort of loose, even if it's common sense. Is Newtonian physics knowledge? My answer is no, not really. Do you have any knowledge of morality? I believe not.