• ADTJ@feddit.uk
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    11 months ago

    Agree with most of what you said except the “over 99% likely to be false”.

    Like you mentioned it’s not possible to prove either way so it isn’t meaningful to describe it as likely or unlikely. We have no way of knowing (at least currently) so the likelihood is simply undefined

    • stonedemoman@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Eh, we can prove that human DNA is 99% primate and that there was no great flood. Seems unlikely to me.

      • ADTJ@feddit.uk
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        11 months ago

        It sounds like you’re referring specifically to Christian theology but the comment was just about whether a god or gods exist in general

          • ADTJ@feddit.uk
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            11 months ago

            We’re not talking about creationism or any particular brand of theism

              • ADTJ@feddit.uk
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                11 months ago

                I understand your point and I feel like maybe I’m sounding a little argumentative. Sorry let me try to be more clear.

                I understand your argument is that genetic evidence disproves existing religious beliefs that people have but that’s a different argument to the point I was making.

                Even if all global religions are incorrect, that doesn’t mean that a god or gods couldn’t hypothetically exist and my point is that there is no demonstrative proof of that either way.

                If you check the original comment again, the question was about whether “a god(s) exist” and up until they mentioned the 99% that I was disputing, religion didn’t even come into it.

                You could disprove every creationist claim, every anti-evolution argument, and you’d be right, but you can’t settle the question of “whether a supernatural being exists” because there simply isn’t a way to do that within the natural realm that we know of.

                It isn’t just about God either. The simulation and Boltzmann brain hypotheses are similarly immeasurable

                • stonedemoman@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  They aren’t immeasurable. The reason you think I’m making a different argument to your point is that you’re asking for every negative proof. This is never going to provide an answer, as it would be a competition to dispel the imagination.

                  Hypotheses and positive proofs are slowly answering the question of why we’re here. We know that evolution is likely, DNA is irrefutable evidence. We know that it’s likely our known universe began with a singularity because of the background microwave radiation accelerating away from a point of origin. We know the field and corresponding particle that gave matter its properties from the particle acceleration tests by CERN.

                  It becomes a much different question when one is not only seeking answers that fit their beliefs.

                  • ADTJ@feddit.uk
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                    11 months ago

                    No

                    You say it’s not immeasurable but then all of the things you go on to describe are within the known universe, we can’t possibly know or measure what’s outside of it, because it is not known by definition.

                    I’m not asking for negative proofs in fact I haven’t asked for proof of anything, I’m not sure where you got that from. I’ve simply stated that we can’t draw statistics about things for which we have no evidence - which you now seem to be agreeing with.

                    I said you were making a different argument because you originally talked about existing religions which isn’t what my comment or the original comment was about, I stand by that - nothing of what you had said was relevant to my response.

                    You can’t possibly know that it’s over 99% unlikely that the universe isn’t a simulation or that it wasn’t created by some entity since we don’t yet have evidence pertaining to any hypothesis for how it was created. The statistic was pulled out of the air and has no scientific basis.

                    Do I think the universe is a giant Boltzmann brain or was created by an omniscient God? No, I don’t, but it’s still pointless to pretend it’s something we can have any certainty about.

                    Not to be rude but this conversation isn’t going anywhere, whether you don’t understand or just don’t agree, whatever I guess…