Quote from: Beliathon on July 09, 2015, 05:17:41 PM

Quote from: the joint on July 09, 2015, 04:00:15 PM

Other than coming to the conclusion that Intelligent Design is the mechanism by which reality self-creates, I'm not even religious.

Frankly I'm impressed that you even acknowledged your chosen set of beliefs was superstition at all, that level of intellectual self-awareness and self-honesty puts you miles ahead of the average theist!

Edit: Nevermind, false alarm. You're religious and dishonest (with us and likely yourself), like so many other theist cowards are when confronted about their faith on the internet. How boring.

Quote from: the joint on July 09, 2015, 04:25:26 PM

Quote from: Buffer Overflow on July 09, 2015, 04:14:04 PM

@the joint: You say you believe in God as the intelligent designer. Do you believe God exists now or simply did exist but not anymore?

Yes, He exists, and His existence is dual in nature.

If you believe in God, you're religious. Sorry, but you can't sneak your way into the Cool Kidz' Rationality Club without at least a basic understanding of burden of proof.

Let me ask you a serious question: does it really sound like I'm just pulling all of this out of my you-know-what?

1) How do you confuse "superstitious" with a belief in something due to logical necessity?

2a) I acknowledge I'm religious to the extent that I believe ID is the mechanism by which realty self-creates (because it is logically necessary). I make exact zero assumptions in formulating my belief. Yes, I know what assumptions are.

2b) I already explained you how the burden of proof differs between an empirical claim and a logical claim, and also provided differences between respective falsification methods. If you can logically falsify my claim, go for it. Contrarily, I have absolute, tautological proof. If something is logically necessary, what sane person wouldn't believe in it (assuming they are aware of the proof, e.g. if someone has spent ~13 years and committed multiple thousands of hours intensely exploring the subject matter)?

2c) The burden of proof for a belief in God is the same standard as a burden of proof for belief in the validity of Empirical exploration, i.e. it is a logical one. There is exactly zero empirical evidence which validates empirical science; it is entirely validated through sound philosophical reasoning. Whereas you seem unable to recognize that you must defer to purely abstract reasoning to validate its use, I do, and furthermore I recognize that the same type of philosophical reasoning can soundly be applied to rationalize about truth in general. You can scream and shout all you want and think that a lack of empirical evidence is a good reason to not believe in ID; it isn't, provably. This isn't even novel information. See Hume.

I remind you again that I used to be an atheist. It's a logically untenable position, and most atheists get stuck at the invalid assumption, "...But there's no physical evidence!" Yeah, I was stuck there for years...until I understood why it's invalid. Now, further regarding 'burden of proof,' if you want to make the argument that my burden is that I must present something physical and that logical proof doesn't count, then I'm going to call you simply uneducated on the subject, encourage you to learn more about the relationship between Philosophy and Empiricism, and come back when you concede logical proof is the highest standard for knowledge. That point isn't up for debate.