It seems like God likes cockroaches more than humans — Harry Hindu

That'd be one of the best conclusions in this thread, were you not stating it sarcastically.

That is not evolution. Evolution is not progressive, it is not designed, it is a random process. You are talking about something entirely different. — Jeremiah

Throwing dice is random. The result is not designed. The dice and the system of throwing them are.

It is only when we took a more objective look at ourselves — Harry Hindu

The good old "religion contradicts science and objectivity and is therefore false" straw man.

-0=0. You don't want the opposite of that, you want to add something.

I agree with all that but I'm arguing from the POV of the alternative against your arguments because they have some issues.

So, from the POV of God, there's no reason to not compare us to animals.

Yes?

We don't understand why that is for reasons that we don't understand, but can infer are the same reasons for which squirrels don't understand those things.

Are facts necessarily about things? What if things are defined by the facts about them?

Why would a god create beings incapable of understanding it and not being able to prove its existence — Harry Hindu

Well he did create squirrels.

What would have happened is irrelevant. The idea was still triggered by something else than a mailbox.

I am NOT making random substitutions as you are in your example. — SnoringKitten

I have reasoned my redefenitions out. — SnoringKitten

Both false. You missed the central step of showing the redefinitions match the existing ones.

What?

Let me explain again: We cannot ourselves prove that God exists or not therefore God / Atheism are unfalsifiable beliefs. That is taken for granted in all of my arguments in the OP.

Atheists claim God does not exist. Therefore Atheism is unscientific. — SnoringKitten

See, this is the problem with changing the meaning of the words: that is agnostic atheism, so when you said that's incompatible with atheism I drew the conclusion you meant atheism must be scientific.

Again reductio ad absurdum. I have also already explained the folly in agnosticism, in a post directed to you, you have yet to counter that. You are not reading my replies. — SnoringKitten

I read your replies and countered your point, literally in the thing you quoted. Reductio ad absurdum is not a fallacy, it's a valid form of proof by contradiction. Believing arguments to be invalid is not apathy, and neither is apathy a valid basis for being ruled not agnostic.

Think of when two arguments are perfectly matched, there yet remains one's feelings on the matter. Also, as l've said, either God exists or not, there is no actual middle ground, the middle ground is only when the two camps are perfectly balanced, regarding which, l've already explained: where are a person's feelings on the matter? — SnoringKitten

Excuse me, which one of us were you just accusing of not reading the replies and repeating their points? Literally answered this as well in the point you're referring to. The feelings remain, and are not a basis for an opinion. Stating that the feelings remain is "not even wrong".

As you are causing repetition of my arguments directly given to you — SnoringKitten

Not my fault you repeat irrelevant points instead of expanding your arguments.

re-stating your own — SnoringKitten

Hypocrisy.

l shall therefore not answer your further posts. — SnoringKitten

If you wish to end the discussion, do so. Replying to me to have the last word is childish and rude.

Then it won't die, unless proven false.

What's your problem with free will anyway?

When l say Atheists know that they cannot scientifically dismiss God, l mean in the context of falsifiability, they cannot dismiss God. The scientific method is based on theorising & falsifiability, no? — SnoringKitten

Ok, within that context what's the problem with objectively aknowledging the difference between one's beliefs and knowledge?

So i'm judging with regard to my own redefinitions? Yes, hence l made this thread. — SnoringKitten

Does not follow. When you redefine terms it's like creating a new language: you have to translate the terms. Example:

I define "your" as "the smell of" and "opinion" as "the smell of purple". Therefore, your opinions are incoherent and their existence paradoxal.

That does not mean your opinions are incoherent, because those words don't refer to your opinion. Similarly, you did not prove anything about agnostic atheism, only about what those terms mean with your definitions. That meaning is not what one refers to when they say they identify as an agnostic atheist.

Rejecting every argument of both sides is apathy not agnosticism. — SnoringKitten

Not if it's the logical conclusion.

Do I have a beard? I say I do because 2+2=5 AND that's false, although also true, and you can derive the conclusion from contradiction. Is your rejection of this reasoning apathy?

Therefore the backend stuff is free to be aesthetic preferences or whatever. — SnoringKitten

It's also free to be the voice of rationality telling you to recognize and disregard irrationality when making objective claims.

what moves you? — SnoringKitten

Eh?

Where's that aesthetic feeling, the highest expression of the rational mind? — SnoringKitten

That's the highest expression of mind, if anything, and I'd debate that even further. The highest expressions of rational mind are rationality, questioning and logic.

Then it'd have died already and a lot earlier.

I can not simultaneously be subject and object in an analysis of my own behavior and thoughts — Bitter Crank

I can't see why not. It seems clear to me I can observe myself and my observations of myself. It doesn't seem to give any answers though.

The material universe which would allegedly determine everything is infinitely more complicated than we can grasp. We can't obtain enough information, even if we could process it all, to show how the long history of the physical universe has determined that I will write these words. — Bitter Crank

We don't need to. Determinism would be proven by observing the space of just one human brain for a second and documenting the causal relationships between each state.

it will have a date of death. — StreetlightX

Not if it doesn't get disproven, in which case it'd be false. That statement could be done about any belief and is thus meaningless.

Agnostic Atheism = intellectual dishonesty. Atheists know that they cannot scientifically dismiss God, as God / Atheism are unfalsifiable. — SnoringKitten

Atheism =/= scientism. What agnostic atheism basically means is aknowledging their beliefs as beliefs, and as such subjective and not knowledge - if that's not an option, one can only be a theist.

which totally contradicts the entire point of Agnosticism in my scheme. — SnoringKitten

So you're judging what the term agnostic atheism means with your definitions instead of the concept that the term refers to?

How can we, as creatures of refined aesthetic, be so perfectly on the fence between two rival beliefs? — SnoringKitten

How not? An easy example is rejecting every argument of both sides.

Have we no aesthetic inclination either way, at the very least? — SnoringKitten

A rational being would recognize such as not a valid argument and try to disregard it.

We religious people only work with them because we believe in the test — AwonderingSoul

Don't generalize, especially by projecting yourself unto others. As a religious person, that definitely does not apply to me.

This is because, the only way for him/her to trigger the idea of the mailbox, is by encountering one. — SicklerTroy

Not true; they could also encounter something they mistook for a mailbox, including a picture, a hallucination, an artificial electric signal sent into their brain, a real physical object that might in appearance be similar to a mailbox, etc etc.

just as the evil demon, brain in a vat, and dreaming butterfly thought experiments can be brushed off. — Sapientia

Hol' up.

Let's keep it real. — Sapientia

Why? The discussion has a bearded sky fairy judging your masturbation as a premise (not my phrasing btw).

My point is we're talking of evil and/or suffering having a meaning and being a tool for greater good on a metaphysical level, so I don't think completely valid thought experiments can be brushed off merely for not being realistic from the viewpoint of our everyday lives.

I guess what I'm saying is that you're arguing that those actions are unjustifiable but simultaneously assume that they can't have good consequences, which is circular reasoning.

If you give people examples of evil acts, like rape, murder, child abuse, and genocide, they'll respond in their droves that these acts are unjustifiable. — Sapientia

The co-existence of multiple unjustifiable moral actions is incoherent in utilitarianism, which is a fairly wide-spread philosophy especially amongst those without deep knowledge of philosophy. If the answers were as homogeneous as you claimed it'd be because an average person doesn't understand the word unjustifiable. Would rape be unjustified even if it prevented a genocide (or vice versa)?

No amount of harm, betrayal, exploitation, defamation or disenfranchisement can damn you. Nothing can do that, only sin, only God. — All sight

By your own choice. Damnation is a positive thing from the perspective of those that want it.

Oh, right yeah.

We do not typically ask for consent for other activities - I do not ask for consent to sit across from you, for example. — darthbarracuda

You definitely should, though. Maybe it's just my weird obsession with personal space - for example, I think manspreading is completely acceptable because no one in public transport has an inherent right to sit next to me.

However, as Michael pointed out, communicating consent is not always verbal. Cashiers consent to doing their job by being employed, which includes interactions with customers. Similarly, me not placing a bag on the seat opposite to me on bus signals that the seat is free, while on other contexts a verbal consent might be very much in place, such as on private property or in a restaurant.

think about what infinity means....and also think about what time is. — xxxdutchiexxx

Your reasoning assumes the existence of time. How about block-time theory? In it time does not exist prior to physical reality, the existence of which you also assume, so there can be no random chance for anything to be made before there is something. Neither can anything be designed however before there is something to design anything.

A falling rock does not understand how to fall or why it is falling, yet it does that. Similarly a cell can replicate itself to form a complex being without understanding how that happens.

How surprising @Agustino left this thread.

The Right To Free Speech is the Right To Lie — Agustino

Only when taken to the extreme.

The Right To Bear Arms is the Right To Kill — Agustino

That's just completely false.

The Right To Freedom is the Right To Oppress Others — Agustino

What?

The Right To Property is the Right To Theft — Agustino

The exact opposite.

Throwing a random die can result in 6. Can God create a random die that will result in 6? No, because that'd not be random so although the existence of such a die is a logical possibility, its creation is not.

if one cannot disprove fairy magic then we can't really know if gravity is a force that attracts objects with mass. — Jeremiah

But that's true.

Books aren't art, literature is. The form in which it is delivered doesn't matter. Calling story-based games literature isn't unreasonable to me.

In such a situation is it right to be unhappy with losing your entire self in the process? — SherlockH

Is it right to be happy? I think a person has a moral responsibility for themselves so selling one's soul is just wrong.

No point in wasting my time with a bigot. — Maw

That's an oxymoron. Being the one to quit the debate out of intolerance towards bigotry makes you yourself a bigot.

Every amount has a 50% chance of winning for a 2:1 payout. — Michael

That's not how it works in the paradox. You need to end up even. Otherwise you're implying the amount of money combined in the envelopes doesn't equal the amount of money combined in the envelopes.

The envelopes are identical. Learning the amount of money in one of them is not relevant information, as can be seen in the table example, and in what happens when there're two people, each checking one envelope.

There's a 50% chance of winning and the payout is 2:1. — Michael

Only if you're the person betting £20. And that's fine as a thought experiment of its own but it doesn't relate to the envelope paradox. You don't know whether the amount of money in your envelope is the amount of money that has 50% chance of winning with 2:1 payout.

You can't balance your books with £20 bets with 50% chance of 2:1 payout and £10 bets with certain wins so clarify the system in your example.

It's just that if you pick the loser then I will offer someone else who picks the winner a £10 bet. — Michael

And if I pick the winner you lose £40, so I assume you also offer someone who picks the loser a £40 bet, right?

For the participants it’s still just a 50% chance with a 2:1 payout. — Michael

True, but notice that you can't make profit out of betting in this system. Taking part in it still isn't profitable.

Can the participant be certain they're the person getting the fair chance? The person betting £10 will always win and the person betting £40 will always lose.

Let's say you put the two envelopes on a table, and randomly choose to put one on the left side and the other on the right side. You can each time open the one on the left and then switch to the right one. If this is beneficial, you can just choose the right one each time without checking the amount on the left envelope.

If that's not absurd enough, you can do the same reasoning for the left envelope.

As you've stated it, it's not an advantageous bet if you have to bet twice as much when you lose.