You've just taken a direct hit!

Earlier you agreed that it is rational to believe that the Loch Ness monster does not exist if there is an absence of strong evidence or argument that it does. No strong evidence or argument was required to show that the monster does not exist - absence of evidence or argument was enough. But now you claim that the atheist needs to be able to provide strong arguments or evidence if their belief in the non-existence of God is to be rational rather than a matter of faith.

The contradiction is that on the first ocassion (Loch Ness monster) you agreed that the absence of evidence or argument is enough to rationally justify belief in the non-existence of the Loch Ness monster, but on this occasion (God), you do not.

This is the only one I got wrong, and it's easily refuted:




Methinks this isn't exactly the same thing...

True, but in principle, it's got you.

The principle is: We've explored Loch Ness to death, but we hardly know anything about outer space. Therefore discounting the Loch Ness monster based on lack of evidence is not comparable to discounting God for the same reason.

Take that, inanimate object.

Did you see the story saying the origional photo(s) might have been circus elephants washing in there? Funny...

Hehe, I didn't know that. I wish Nessie existed though... that would be so awesome.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4779248.stm

Oh, and what happened to Boris or whatever his name was? Your avatar-zombie?

Bub is still there... :?

I got the same as Jürgen... but I didn't think the contradiction they said I made was really true..

You have been awarded the TPM medal of distinction! This is our second highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.

You stated earlier that evolutionary theory is essentially true. However, you have now claimed that it is foolish to believe in God without certain, irrevocable proof that she exists. The problem is that there is no certain proof that evolutionary theory is true - even though there is overwhelming evidence that it is true. So it seems that you require certain, irrevocable proof for God's existence, but accept evolutionary theory without certain proof.

You're under fire! You don't think that it is justifiable to base one's beliefs about the external world on a firm, inner conviction, paying no regard to the external evidence, or lack of it, for the truth or falsity of this conviction. But in the previous question you rejected evolutionary theory when the vast majority of scientists think both that the evidence points to its truth and that there is no evidence which falsifies it. Of course, many creationists claim that the evidential case for evolution is by no means conclusive. But in doing so, they go against scientific orthodoxy.

You have been awarded the TPM medal of honour! This is our highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.

The fact that you progressed through this activity neither being hit nor biting a bullet suggests that your beliefs about God are internally consistent and very well thought out.

You have been awarded the TPM medal of distinction! This is our second highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.

The fact that you progressed through this activity being hit only once and biting very few bullets suggests that your beliefs about God are well thought out and almost entirely internally consistent.

The direct hit you suffered occurred because one set of your answers implied a logical contradiction. The bitten bullets occurred because you responded in ways that required that you held views that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. At the bottom of this page, we have reproduced the analyses of your direct hit and bitten bullets.

Because you only suffered one direct hit and bit very few bullets, you qualify for our second highest award. A good achievement!