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You played your hand and I'm no longer engaging with you. Google Bertrand Russell if you find yourself ignorant of his philosophy. For those following along - this is a particularly tricky game of shifting the burden of proof - e.g. 1: "Some people believe in bigfoot, I personally don't" 2:"Please provide evidence that bigfoot doesn't exist" 1: "You're asking for me to prove a negative, that's a logical fallacy" 2: "You made the positive claim bigfoot doesn't exist. The burden of proof is on you to prove bigfoot doesn't exist." That's not how the burden of proof works. 1 is claiming a null state. 2 is then demanding proof of the null. If this were a hypothesis test, 1 demonstrates a result not supporting the test hypothesis. 2 is then demanding statistical proof of the null. That's not how a hypothesis test works - one tests the test state and either supports it or does not (refracting to the null). Nothing about this preposition provides support for the test state, nor that retaining the null state demands a burden of proof. E.g. Say I dropped a pencil and it fell to the ground. Demanding proof it didn't fly into the Sun is not a logically valid premise. If someone demands that it is, they are intellectually dishonest, and not worth engaging. As demonstrated.

Did you just come here to fight?

That's probably the most elegant shifting the burden of proof I've ever seen. Well done. I can't prove that every belief system is developed by humans any more than I can prove that none of the pigeons in New York City are robots, or that none of the "humans" in West Virginia are bigfoot. We've done a big circular dance to the logical fallacy where you demand that atheists prove God isn't real. To illustrate; Could you prove that there isn't a single mushroom in the world that a fairy doesn't sleep under? Does that mean the only logical premise is to accept the existence of fairies? Why or why not?

As far as I can see, we're already doing the second half of that, and have been for thousands of years, if not hundreds of thousands - or millions. For all I know, rats dream their way to solving the locked cage problem. It seems to me that bringing the unconscious into the light and bending it to our waking will is a bad idea. Something like amputating your left arm and regrafting it to the right side of your body.

Great typo. Yes, the Maidan uprising, or Euromaidan, was an outstanding movement against corruption and for democracy. I watched a couple episodes of the Ukraine political satire, Servant of the People, that made Zelenskii famous, in which he plays the history teacher who runs for president on an anti-corruption platform. Funny stuff. Putin is trying to break the will of Ukrainian people by destroying their power plants now. I do not think Ukrainians are easily broken.

There are intermolecular forces acting between the molecules in the liquid, which have to be overcome in order for molecules to slide past one another. At higher temperatures, a greater proportion of the molecules have enough kinetic energy to overcome at least some of these forces, reducing the resistance to them moving relative to one another.

I said good day to you, sealion.

This is a quite riveting showing of the Euromaiden protests in 2013-2014. It's quite hard to watch at times but it really gives a feeling of the determination of the people there. You need 90 minutes to watch it through.

Even Lego knows. This is very public knowledge. The initial ladder descent was filmed by a flip out camera. After that, well, there were two people in the lander. (Per the mod post, I don't mean this to become a topic, but this is a specific technical engineering detail you should know.)

I don't see how that follows at all. What logic? I didn't dismiss anything. I simply stated that any system of belief is flawed. If I had to apply a "model" I'd point to two specific points: 1) All human belief systems are implemented by human minds, which are flawed, in the sense that cognition evolved for survival, not precision and there are well defined ways in which recollection and sensory processing by the human brain differ from reality. Any belief system held by a human is one derived from a sensory perception and recollection of reality that that deviates from objective measurement of reality. 2) Stochastic probability and chance. No belief system can accurately account for all possibilities in past, future and present reality. Therefore any belief system necessitates a degree of filling in the blanks. Projection and extrapolation of existing principles generally generates higher rates of error than interpolative deduction. Again, I didn't dismiss anything. Flawed belief systems (like models themselves) are still valuable, especially if one is aware of their limitations.

It could also be just this way, but with orcs. It could also be just this way, but with unicorns. It could also be just this way, but with Puff the Magic Dragon. There’s no functional difference here since none of them have any evidence of existence, none whatsoever in their favor. All you’ve done is add a useless, made up, fictional variable with zero explanatory power. Simplified: Us: “2+2=4” You: “Yeah, but what if 2+2+God=4?” Us: “That’s fucking stupid. Go away, Dumbass.”

Yes, indeed I have.

In classical vacuum, you have at a minimum two fields defined at each point - the metric tensor field (gravity), and the electromagnetic field. Both of these are rank-2 tensors, so there’s lots more going on than a single number. Note that even at points where the EM field strength is zero, you can still have physical effects resulting from the presence of its underlying potentials (eg Aharanov-Bohm effect). In quantum vacuum, in addition to the above, you’ll also have the full menagerie of all the various quantum fields associated with the standard model, even in the absence of any particles. This matters, because, unlike in the classical case, the energy of the vacuum ground state of these fields is not zero, and you can get various physical effects resulting from this. This is true only for fermions, but not for bosons. No. What matters are the physical effects a field has; again, the Aharanov-Bohm effect is a good example. The laws of physics do not depend on the choice of reference frame. You can change your coordinate system at any time without affecting any laws (general covariance). Note that this also does not change the number of coordinates required to uniquely identify a point.

Let's try a rephrasing without the term "atheist/atheism" to capture the original point: "Most people don't believe in most versions of God. A Christian doesn't believe in Brahma, and a Hindu doesn't believe in Yahweh. An non-believer doesn't believe in either. Many of the demands, predominately made by Christians at least in Western countries for non-believers to justify their non-belief in Christianity might be answered by introspection by the Christians on why they don't believe other faiths." I recently went through this with a relative at a wedding who was (after many tequilas) pressing me on my lack of belief. When I asked why he wasn't Buddhist he was actually reasonably taken aback, but then fell into the circular logic that Buddhism wasn't in the Bible, and the Bible was the word of God, so that was why. (circular because the bible is the proof of the Christian God, and the reason it is proof is be cause it is the word of God, etc.). But at least it did get him to think, and maybe a bit more tolerant of other systems of belief, including atheism.

Real music!

That's not evidence. I take it that you don't have any study to show or any empirical evidence to your claim which you just came up with because others have done so. Thanks for the response. Edit: Now I realised that you are just replying to every comment without anything to contribute.

What usual weapons can destroy missiles in silos in the middle of South Dakota, or on submarines? The whole point is that since you cannot destroy them all, some will end up successfully used. What do you mean by "scientifically backward"?

Can you answer my question first? What do you mean by "scientifically backward" and "scientifically senseless"?

Wanting to live with difficulty rather than being dead is vain? Glad you are not in charge of the medical system.

Not necessarily. This using the same logic you and many others have used in this thread. Not at all. Now you are making an absolute statement. To make that kind of statement you have to have a model to dismiss all of them. So what's your model?

It's not a red herring. I don't know who this Doctor Derp is but I am asking you directly. If you don't have the exact workings of a perfect human being, how could you say humans are flawed? If there is no measurement standard, what are you measuring against? Now this one is a red herring. Why do you think God if existing cannot have or should not have such amazing patience? Is that based on a "could have"? Your personal "could have"? What's your thesis on why it "could not" be as it is? And you assumed that I was assuming theists discussed evolution long ago and I told you "no, they actually did". So what do you have to say about that? Nice. Thanks.

You changed your statement with an edit. Now it's completely different. So could you point out where I made a "positive claim"? Thanks.

None of this is relevant to me. This is all a strawman effort. I questioned you on your claim and your claim only. The burden of proof lies on the claimant, not on the questioner. It's absolutely simple. Have a great day.

What position of mine did Bertrand Russell "deal with"? Which one have I stated here that Bertrand Russell "dealt with"? If it's on skepticism, that's absolutely not generalisation and burden of proof. Or is it on the mind, matter, or philosophisation? Please do give the specifics I asked for. Thanks.

No. It was your claim that I asked questions about. I did not make a claim. So that's not a burden of proof fallacy. The burden of proof is on you Arete. Very good. So you agree that you can't prove it. In that case, why would you make a claim you cannot prove? Or is your claim misunderstood? Not at all. It depends on who made the claim. This is just a red herring. If you claim this thing about fairies, it is only fair to ask for some form evidence. The burden of proof is on the claimant.