The Passion...

[BathTub]

Item 3: Prove God doesn't exist. Do it. Now. Don't present evidence. Evidence is not the same thing as solid proof. PROVE it. Without a shadow of a doubt. 100%.

No. It is not the unbelievers job to prove that nothing exists. The person who claims something has to prove it exists.

Nothing is a something. It's a factor in our reality. Bits of our mathmatics system is based on this. I think my challenge stands.

No. It's the same reason a jury does not declare Innocence, only Guilty or Not Guilty Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. It's the prosecution, who brings the charges,  job to show guilt, the defences job is to show the evidence doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

[torgosPizza]

Item 1: Convinience of faith. Believe it or not, alot of us don't go around assigning everything to God. As an example, my aunt died a number of years ago from cancer. I suppose I could have sat around blaming God or saying crap about how it was His will or whatever. But I actually blamed my Aunt because she smoked for 20 years. Go figure. Also, not all of us are equipped either theologically or scientifically to answer every little debate question, and so "because God did it" is thrown in. Doesn't mean there isn't a logical answer. Sounds like a cop-out, I know, but I'm sure aethiests have been stumped in a similiar manner. There are a lot of questions out there neither group can answer. Truly. It's an arrogance on both parties if they think they can.

I am sorry about your aunt. My mom, luckily, won a battle with Colon cancer, which is the #2 killer in the world I believe. It is 100% terminal if it's not caught in time, and thankfully in our case it was.

One or two more weeks and my mom wouldn't be here. I thanked with all of my heart the doctor who tested her, the specialist who caught it in time, and the chemotherapists and surgeons who treated her.

I'm glad you're not the type who blindly attributes everything to God, but keep in mind there are many who do. It seems we have many moderates on this forum, and to that I'm grateful. It just bugs me when, to use an earlier example, you can take a horrific event like 9/11 and put a silver lining on it. Granted, it always helps to be positive, but I believe you used the "man handing out shoes" example as an idea of God's goodness. That's like saying God has played favorites, and somehow wasn't there for everyone who was killed in the towers or elsewhere that day. If God is all-powerful and omniscient, why did he decide not to protect so many innocent and undeserving people that day?

Was everything due to random chance? Maybe. Let's find out! Let's keep exploring. Let's keep all possibilities open. This is the very essence of science. That aethiests outright cry 'no' to God and any kind of spiritual concepts is, to me, a fallacy.

There is a difference between religious dogma and spirituality. Richard Dawkins, for instance, calls him self "a deeply religious nonbeliever." He is a student of the universe, and is a strong proponent of the Einsteinian God that I have mentioned earlier. You can still be spiritually enlightened but not claim obligation to a deity. Sam Harris makes a good mention of this in "The End of Faith."

... all some nearly impossible (considering the odds), random accident and to leave it at that without ever considering anything different is as narrow minded as the most rigid Bible-thumper, and actually requires a great deal more faith than I could ever muster.

You are, again, completely overlooking the definition of evolution and natural selection. They key word here is "SELECTION." Selection is, by definition, the complete and utter opposite of "random chance." When we look at all of the evidence we have seen, both in nature, and in the lab, fossils, etc., evolution is the scientific conclusion. The theory is testable, observable, and questions that are asked of it will most always elicit an observable consequence. To say that all of the theories, which are continuously revised and perfected as new discoveries are made, is simply "random chance" is dashing the work that is ongoing and progressing every day, and is a blatant caricature of evolutionary biology.

Item 3: Prove God doesn't exist. Do it. Now. Don't present evidence. Evidence is not the same thing as solid proof. PROVE it. Without a shadow of a doubt. 100%. You can't. I may not be able to prove He does, but that He doesn't can't be proven either. This backs up item #2.

It's not science's job to disprove anything. You said something before about atheists being stumped the same way - and you're right. But we say "we don't know - and we are working very hard to understand it." We don't just assume, "well it has to mean there was a designer." There is a difference. Just because we don't have all the answers yet, doesn't mean they will never come. Believe it or not, in the scientific community, you can even earn "bonus points" for disproving someone else's theory.

That's the beauty of science - the continued struggle to understand why we're here, what we're made of, where we're from and where we're going. It's a lot less arrogant to say, "We don't know how it began, but we'll let you know when we find out," than to say, "I know for a fact that God is the one who did it, and that's the end of the story."

By the way, evolution in no way claims to explain the ORIGIN of life - just the origin of species.

[Tyrant]

Item 3: Prove God doesn't exist. Do it. Now. Don't present evidence. Evidence is not the same thing as solid proof. PROVE it. Without a shadow of a doubt. 100%.

No. It is not the unbelievers job to prove that nothing exists. The person who claims something has to prove it exists.

Nothing is a something. It's a factor in our reality. Bits of our mathmatics system is based on this. I think my challenge stands.

No. It's the same reason a jury does not declare Innocence, only Guilty or Not Guilty Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. It's the prosecution, who brings the charges,  job to show guilt, the defences job is to show the evidence doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

 I would say in fairness, since believing in nothing is a far newer concept than believing in something, that proof for nothing should be presented first. The majority of the population of the world believes in a higher power. You've got a larger group to convince than the other way around.

 Because the physical world represents the hand of God (or a God/Goddess), I challenge you to find the equivelent for nothing. An area of reality and a representing mathmatical equation that proves the existance of NOTHING. No molecules, no atoms, nothing. Not even a vaccum. Literally nothing.

  I can prove to you a physical world.

[Tarantulas]

Part of the problem is that a huge amount of christians think that the rapture is going to happen in their lifetime.

This is compounded by evangelical politicians who want to "speed things along."

I wonder why the people why who are programed as children to be racist are reviled while those programed to believe in ghosts are somehow above reproach.  They are just as staunch in their beliefs, but it doesn't make them right either.

I'll specifically address the god of Abraham in the following:

Look at the christian interpretation of hell... it's eternal torment and agony, because how could you ever be worthy of gods love?

Why is someone so judgmental worthy of your honor and respect?  They/he/she isn't.  It's a system of control put in place to keep you passive and submissive. Ultimately, religion is an outmoded concept designed to keep people down.

"I know he burned your house down, and there is nothing you can do about it, but if you pray real hard, god will punish them in this life and the next"

If I was a serf in the middle ages, I could see how that would be an interesting proposition.  I'd also wonder why I'm wearing all these leeches and letting some old dude bleed me to try and reduce a fever.

We now know why people get infections and die, and it's not the magic that witches put inside you.  We don't need the cop out of using god to explain away our complex universe any longer.  We now have actual repeatable testing that lets us prove and disprove ides.  We don't need the temple priest to explain why the sun is hiding behind the moon or why the birds leave when the weather gets colder.

I'm not here to win anyone over.  That's not my job.  My job is to piss you off and make you think for a change, rather than vomit the same 10 talking points that christians have used since they bilked their first old person for all their money with promises of greater rewards in their house of gold that contains all their dead pets.

[Quicksilver]

eegah-
I believe in things when there is evidence to support them. There is no evidence for a god, so I don't believe. That does not mean that I'm arrogant ("To be atheist, you must believe nothing bigger exists, so essentially you think you're the center of the universe") or that I believe in nothing. I really get tired of hearing that so excuse me if I seem annoyed.

understood. You know what, I guess I'm pretty much an atheist. I'm a bit fried to a crisp, so please dont take offense. I havent thought about this in a while. I used to say I was an athiest, and people always said you dont believe in anything and I was sick of explaning my position, so I said I was agnostic. I was actually thinking about this today at work and realized the error of my ways. So if you erase all the crap I said back there, I still believe what I said, not the thing about you being silly.  sorry

[msmpls]

It's not science's job to disprove anything.

oh but it is!
That's the whole point of the scientific method. There is no way for you to prove a hypothesis is true, but you can, however, prove that it is not true.
I'm in no way saying that it should be the responsibility of science to disprove the existence of god; I am not religious at all (I am, however, quite faithful; that if I am a good person and do my best with the tools I have, good things will result from my efforts) that said, I believe that contemplation of the universal mysteries is much more rewarding than finding a definitive answer to these cosmological questions.

Some things are just worth not knowing for sure.

[Tarantulas]

Some things are just worth not knowing for sure.

Like what's inside 7/11 hot dogs?

[msmpls]

Some things are just worth not knowing for sure.

Like what's inside 7/11 hot dogs?

7/11 hot dogs = newspaper, bootheel, corn, retriever

[Quicksilver]

It's not science's job to disprove anything.

oh but it is!
That's the whole point of the scientific method. There is no way for you to prove a hypothesis is true, but you can, however, prove that it is not true.
I'm in no way saying that it should be the responsibility of science to disprove the existence of god; I am not religious at all (I am, however, quite faithful; that if I am a good person and do my best with the tools I have, good things will result from my efforts) that said, I believe that contemplation of the universal mysteries is much more rewarding than finding a definitive answer to these cosmological questions.

Some things are just worth not knowing for sure.

gonna have to disagree here, does anyone know how science works, nothing is a fact, not even the sky being blue. They are theories, they might be solid theories but they are not facts. Scientific method dictates, that the experiment must be repeatable, this is what makes something a valid theory, but not a fact. You can make a theory that the sky isnt purple but you cannot prove it isnt. In this way science is a bit like faith but it's observable unlike god related stuff. Now some people might say, well that shows scientists dont actually KNOW anything... no no no, it means they recognize that mankind doesnt know everything and things can be merely attempted to be proven/dis proven. proving god doesnt exist would be the most self centered thing mankind could do. How can you prove god doesnt exist ever. You can only try to prove he exists. Basically if you never meet god, how do you know he doesnt exist? EVER, in a million years when were far advanced traveling the universe mastering everything, one still could not attempt to prove god does not exist. 

edit; btw it kind of sounds like youre on the same page, but wanted to clear it up a bit

[torgosPizza]

It's not science's job to disprove anything.

oh but it is!
That's the whole point of the scientific method. There is no way for you to prove a hypothesis is true, but you can, however, prove that it is not true.
I'm in no way saying that it should be the responsibility of science to disprove the existence of god; I am not religious at all (I am, however, quite faithful; that if I am a good person and do my best with the tools I have, good things will result from my efforts) that said, I believe that contemplation of the universal mysteries is much more rewarding than finding a definitive answer to these cosmological questions.

Some things are just worth not knowing for sure.

Perhaps you're right, but I still don't think science's job is to disprove anything. I think it's more in line with "this is why we think the world works this way" as opposed to "it DOESN'T behave like this, and here's why." These things are of course a valid part of the process, but I hope I've clarified my point.

They are theories, they might be solid theories but they are not facts. Scientific method dictates, that the experiment must be repeatable, this is what makes something a valid theory, but not a fact.

Quicksilver, just because something is labeled a "theory" doesn't make it any less valid than what we might call a "fact." You have to use the term carefully, especially when talking about things such as this. Gravity is only a theory, yet we take it as fact because we have observed what happens if we're drunk and try to lean on a bar that isn't there. (Not speaking from experience..) The truth is, in all the scientific research I've encountered, books and papers I've read - "Theory" and "Fact" are interchangeable.

The idea that the earth revolves around the sun is also a theory - but we know it's true, because we have observed it, and can test and verify the truth to it.

The word theory, in the context of science, does not imply uncertainty. It means "a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena" (Barnhart 1948). In the case of the theory of evolution, the following are some of the phenomena involved. All are facts:

    * Life appeared on earth more than two billion years ago;
    * Life forms have changed and diversified over life's history;
    * Species are related via common descent from one or a few common ancestors;
    * Natural selection is a significant factor affecting how species change.

Many other facts are explained by the theory of evolution as well.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dont_use.asp

http://www.nature.com/nature/view/030731.html

[J-Proof]

just cuz science explains something doesn't mean God didn't make that science happen

[Quicksilver]

I mean it in the context of proving god exists/ doesnt exist. What I mean is, god existing is already a theory, which many people will say is supported, but unless you meet the guy your not going to prove it. On the flip side proving there is no god is impossible. I'll leave it at that. I used it just as conveniently as what's his name using the banana evidence for creation theory. There's no way to dis prove creationism either, only how it happened.

These debates always end the same, the moderates always pretty much agree and the pro-god camp and the anti-god camp feel theyre still right. At this point I think weve got a few moderates debating one person stuck in their ways. I dont care to each their own, whatever gets you through your life. However, at this point I dont know what can be accomplished.

For example my mother used to be a liberal democrat, that was pro-choice, believed in evolution and that god hopefully existed but wasnt a big deal. One day she snapped after her father died and hasnt been the same since. She became evangelical, conservative and republican(politics dont matter just trying to show the rapid change). I cannot hardly even talk to her anymore, the only person that's going to prove to her that the rapture isnt going to happen and that gays arent demons is her self. I used to be her favorite, but now my liberal, moderate, atheist, marrying a jew self is probably going straight to hell in her book.  I dont care, she can believe what she wants and I can believe what I want but stop sending me pamphlets about jesus. Sorry had to get that out.

[msmpls]

It's not science's job to disprove anything.

oh but it is!
That's the whole point of the scientific method. There is no way for you to prove a hypothesis is true, but you can, however, prove that it is not true.
I'm in no way saying that it should be the responsibility of science to disprove the existence of god; I am not religious at all (I am, however, quite faithful; that if I am a good person and do my best with the tools I have, good things will result from my efforts) that said, I believe that contemplation of the universal mysteries is much more rewarding than finding a definitive answer to these cosmological questions.

Some things are just worth not knowing for sure.

gonna have to disagree here, does anyone know how science works, nothing is a fact, not even the sky being blue. They are theories, they might be solid theories but they are not facts. Scientific method dictates, that the experiment must be repeatable, this is what makes something a valid theory, but not a fact. You can make a theory that the sky isnt purple but you cannot prove it isnt. In this way science is a bit like faith but it's observable unlike god related stuff. Now some people might say, well that shows scientists dont actually KNOW anything... no no no, it means they recognize that mankind doesnt know everything and things can be merely attempted to be proven/dis proven. proving god doesnt exist would be the most self centered thing mankind could do. How can you prove god doesnt exist ever. You can only try to prove he exists. Basically if you never meet god, how do you know he doesnt exist? EVER, in a million years when were far advanced traveling the universe mastering everything, one still could not attempt to prove god does not exist. 

edit; btw it kind of sounds like youre on the same page, but wanted to clear it up a bit

yeah you pretty much said the same thing I did.

[Tarantulas]

just cuz science explains something doesn't mean God didn't make that science happen

That's the cop out of creation.

It's funny that god only creates things when science explains away how it was possible.

Why is the sky blue?

Science: Because light from the sun hits out atmosphere in such a way that our eyes interpret it as the color blue.

Religious Answer: What the science guy said plus god made it that way.

[J-Proof]

just cuz science explains something doesn't mean God didn't make that science happen

That's the cop out of creation.

It's funny that god only creates things when science explains away how it was possible.

I reference my earlier "why Jimmy died/lived" statement.

Why is the sky blue?

Science: Because light from the sun hits out atmophere in such a way that our eyes interpret it as the color blue.

Religious Answer: What the science guy said plus god made it that way.

bro - i'm not saying God rules out science or that he takes science's place. Just that science is a branch off of God's wonders =)
There is no cop out, just an understanding