Quote from Zed

That's a nice example. My response is that we probably shouldn't be talking about "dark energy" at all. Contemporary physicists are terrible for overstepping their boundaries. Although the fact that it has mass may constitute enough of a description to work with; I haven't really thought enough about this example to give you a clear answer on it. From the looks of Wikipedia, however, people are at least trying pretty hard to describe the stuff. It's not like they've said "the definition of 'dark energy' is 'whatever causes the expansion of the universe'" - they've said "something is causing the expansion of the universe and we really don't know what it is, but when we find it we'll call it 'dark energy'". And anyone who made any statement about dark energy beyond that would be talking nonsense.



You got so close to my point and then veered off at the last minute.

A few people at the start answered the question by giving God a physical form, but the trouble comes when people still think "God" is a thing even after that physical form is gone. The real point of the question is to make people think about what exactly their concept of "God" is and whether or not it's consistent. All the definitions of God [which people would accept as describing the whole thing, ie. "omnipotent," "creator," etc.] centre on capability, but if you don't give physical form to x then saying "x did this and that" is empty.

"We'll never know if we're right or not" is precisely why you're talking gibberish. I want to make this clear: I am not saying you are wrong. I am not saying "God doesn't exist". I am saying you don't even get to that point. Unicorns don't exist, but at least we have the concept of what a unicorn would be. Unicorns are closer to existing than God, because "God" is not even a word. There is no question about "who is right" here because there isn't even an argument. Neither atheists nor theists are even stating an intelligible position.



(Although saying "if you're bad you'll go to hell when you die" is fine. It's objectively false - people have watched dead bodies and they don't go anywhere - but at least it means something.)

now you're missing my point with that. I do get what you're trying to achieve, that was just a ridiculous example I gave because I'm stupid. What I meant was that it's stupid to start a debate about anything that involves god because believers gonna believe, n' atheist gonna deny. so this makes it pointless.

to answer your main doubt, there IS a phisycal form for god. it is said on the bible that god created us at his image. therefore, god have a human's form (legs, arms, and other sh!t). and on certain parts of the bible, gos is described as an old man with white hair and beard, with white light that surrounds him. this is reflected on many famous paints by famous artists like miguellangello. now as you see, people does have things to see how god is but they haven't paid enough attention. now that I described god, I can say (although I know that's not the point) god CAN jump.

Quote from Kodoku

now you're missing my point with that. I do get what you're trying to achieve, that was just a ridiculous example I gave because I'm stupid. What I meant was that it's stupid to start a debate about anything that involves god because believers gonna believe, n' atheist gonna deny. so this makes it pointless.

I guess all anyone can ever hope to achieve in any debate is to convince people who were undecided beforehand.

to answer your main doubt, there IS a phisycal form for god. it is said on the bible that god created us at his image. therefore, god have a human's form (legs, arms, and other sh!t). and on certain parts of the bible, gos is described as an old man with white hair and beard, with white light that surrounds him. this is reflected on many famous paints by famous artists like miguellangello. now as you see, people does have things to see how god is but they haven't paid enough attention. now that I described god, I can say (although I know that's not the point) god CAN jump.

I am absolutely fine with that. I'd ask you to think very carefully about whether that's all you think God is, and whether you would accept that God did not exist if science could prove that there was no such person anywhere in the universe (which would of course be extraordinarily difficult). If your answer to both of those questions is yes, then the argument in this thread does not apply to your beliefs. But I think the majority of people would want to say that God was more than that.

Quote from Exilement

in that sentence you're still talking about god as if it's a meaningful concept with a clear definition. if "god" is just the sum of whatever actions are attributed to him and those actions are collectively "the things that god did" then you're not saying anything at all.

Well I think its a weird question to begin with. I mean anyone with half a brain can say that its impossible to prove whether God exists, so to try to define what he is and does is equally as impossible without any grounds to begin with. With that in mind, I was just indicating why religious people could care less if someone comes along and says that God is nothing more than a figment of our imagination.

Quote from Zed

I guess all anyone can ever hope to achieve in any debate is to convince people who were undecided beforehand.



I am absolutely fine with that. I'd ask you to think very carefully about whether that's all you think God is, and whether you would accept that God did not exist if science could prove that there was no such person anywhere in the universe (which would of course be extraordinarily difficult). If your answer to both of those questions is yes, then the argument in this thread does not apply to your beliefs. But I think the majority of people would want to say that God was more than that.

people would like to say that god is also who created the sky and the land, but you don't want them to say it. what we do defines who we are. if someone asks you who's terkoiz, you wouldn't say "he's a human with black hair yaddayadda bla". you would start mentioning what he did in life, like "he's an famous animator that did this and that". and if there's any possible way to prove if god DOESN'T exist, with objetive facts and evidence that proves he doesn't exists (instead of evidence about the universe's origin or a bunch of atheists yelling how stupid theists are) then I'd take it. because not doing it would be being a stupid closed mind.

I'm getting the feeling this isn't the discussion zed was hoping for. I don't know why we can't have a debate about religion without someone going "no one is going to change their mind so what's the point". the point is some people enjoy discussing topics and challenging their world views with people who disagree with them. if you're incapable of doing that then I don't know why you're even here.

Quote from Exilement

I'm getting the feeling this isn't the discussion zed was hoping for. I don't know why we can't have a debate about religion without someone going "no one is going to change their mind so what's the point". the point is some people enjoy discussing topics and challenging their world views with people who disagree with them. if you're incapable of doing that then I don't know why you're even here.

I was unsure how to approach the question, so I approached it in what appears to be a different way. It was mainly my way of interpreting it, and I don't see how its any different from someone else's view. You don't have to agree with my view, and that contributes to the discussion at hand. There weren't any limitations in this debate so I simply posted as if there were none.

sorry for the misunderstanding, I wasn't talking about you. you're good.

What use is there in debating the abilities of something that hasn't (and can't) even been clearly defined. After all, it's and idea that's been interpreted and presented differently by basically every culture on Earth.

It's like debating whether Santa Claus could butterfly kick and elephant.

People often claim that Jesus and God are part of the same entity (along with the Holy Spirit), despite one being the offspring of the other.

My point being: Jesus probably jumped at some point.

Quote from Myself

People often claim that Jesus and God are part of the same entity

I think this may be the closest we've come to a physical form which we associate with a living thing, rather than a prenatural being

Quote from Raptor

Well I think its a weird question to begin with. I mean anyone with half a brain can say that its impossible to prove whether God exists, so to try to define what he is and does is equally as impossible without any grounds to begin with. With that in mind, I was just indicating why religious people could care less if someone comes along and says that God is nothing more than a figment of our imagination.

I'm not saying God is a figment of their imagination. Quite the opposite. I'm saying their imaginations are failing them, and because of that they are talking nonsense. Not talking falsities. They are not wrong. They are just not saying anything in the first place.

Quote from Kodoku

people would like to say that god is also who created the sky and the land, but you don't want them to say it. what we do defines who we are. if someone asks you who's terkoiz, you wouldn't say "he's a human with black hair yaddayadda bla". you would start mentioning what he did in life, like "he's an famous animator that did this and that".

You can imagine a possible world in which terkoiz never learned to animate. You cannot imagine a possible world in which terkoiz was a dog. Saying what someone has done might help a person to pick out the reference of a name, but it doesn't tell them who they are per se. I don't want to go too far down this road because we're straying dangerously close to something called "two-dimensional semantics" which we could get bogged down in for hours. (If you'd like to read more about it I recommend http://consc.net/papers/twodim.pdf )

As an alternative point, it could go back to what I said to Exilement earlier about how "Frank is the guy standing up" only helps if I'm actually in the room.

and if there's any possible way to prove if god DOESN'T exist, with objetive facts and evidence that proves he doesn't exists (instead of evidence about the universe's origin or a bunch of atheists yelling how stupid theists are) then I'd take it. because not doing it would be being a stupid closed mind.

Except that, as it stands, there are no conceivable facts which would be relevant to determining the truth value of the statement "God exists". That is my complaint.

Quote from Cronos

What use is there in debating the abilities of something that hasn't (and can't) even been clearly defined. After all, it's and idea that's been interpreted and presented differently by basically every culture on Earth.

It's like debating whether Santa Claus could butterfly kick and elephant.

Because until you force people to define it properly you don't have anything to argue against. This argument is about showing people that if they don't provide a definition then they don't actually believe in anything.

Quote from Myself

People often claim that Jesus and God are part of the same entity (along with the Holy Spirit), despite one being the offspring of the other.

My point being: Jesus probably jumped at some point.

Sure, but they usually claim there's somehow more to God than just that Jesus bit.

Quote from Zed

Sure, but they usually claim there's somehow more to God than just that Jesus bit.

sounds like commie talk to me

Quote from Zed

I'm not saying God is a figment of their imagination. Quite the opposite. I'm saying their imaginations are failing them, and because of that they are talking nonsense. Not talking falsities. They are not wrong. They are just not saying anything in the first place.

Oh I didn't mean it that way. I meant to give an example of a challenge towards faith; it wasn't necessarily a mirror of what you said. I apologize for my badly written post lol

Zed. of course there are no evidence about god existence, that's why it's called "faith" and not "science". And no, you can imagine a world where terkoiz didn't learn how to animate but he wouldn't be "terkoiz". he would be "Philips Lacanlale". the same with "god". the fact is what we do defines what we are. To define someone, you can take what they done as part of theirs. If we take that out, then we wouldn't have an identity. If someone asks you "who is Kodoku?", you won't say "is a human being in some part of the world". YOu probably would say "he's a guy that animates stickfigures and also post on the stickpage's forum". if someone asks me "who is Zed?", I won't say "he's a human". I'd say "he's a guy/girl who is part of the stickpage's community". A name, a shape, or a gender can't define us completely. Things we do are an important part of our identities. God does have a physical form gave by different texts and paints that helps us to imagine how he/she/it looks, but there are A LOT of white bearded bald mans in the whole world. That's why we need actions to define who we are.

Also, there is no evidence about god's existence but did someone tried to prove it? and why when someone have a supernatural experience where they experienced "god existence" like coming back after being dead a couple minutes we automaticaly assume that person is crazy? or high? we don't take those experiences as some kind of signal, but we take them has bullshit. the same when someone gets "possesed by the devil" and that person is "cured" with an exorcism. Or when a house seems to be haunted, and it suddenly stops after blessing the house. Why we take those things as bullshit but when a guy with a white smoke says "theres was nothing, then BOOM!, everything exists", a lot of people decides to believe him? we should, at least, consider it has something imp(I'm saying it like that because a lot of atheists, saying that science is tha' sh*t and it rocks, because it proves the "real" origin of the universe, while they know sh*t about science and know sh*t about the big bang and only base their beliefs on what sheldon cooper says on "the big bang theory". I know the big bang is more than "BOOM, everything exists". and I don't know what's the real origin of the universe, I don't know if god created everything, but I also don't know if the big bang thingy is true, because I know sh*t about science).

do you know which excerpt from the bible describes god as a white haired guy with a long beard? because I seriously doubt that's actually in the bible and if it's not, your entire last point about atheists sounds extraordinarily hypocritical.