'Burden of proof is on the one making the positive claim. Lack of belief is not a claim. There is no compelling, falsifiable evidence for the existence of any god of religion. That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. It's why I can say "there is no god" without having to prove there is no god, because such a statement is not making a positive claim. Until you can prove there is a god of religion, I do not need to prove there is no god. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It's why unearthed diaries of ordinary people doing ordinary things is valid evidence of the ordinary. But an ordinary book telling of extraordinary deeds is not valid evidence of said deeds, because a book written by men is not extraordinary evidence.'
The top reply to the post above has remained my own, as follows:
Thank you for getting this community started, we might get to continue our prior conversation in the archives of Christianity.
I'm not going long on it right now, but I'll keep it in mind and might get back to you on an occasional basis.
For now I'd say let's back away from the concept "god of religion", as that entails assuming certain attributes to this concept that you don't want to define.
There is compelling, falsifiable evidence for the existence of things; for measurable differences in magnitude between these things; and for one such thing to be necessarily the greatest of all of them (for instance, the spacetime cosmos is greater than any thing it contains).
Therefore I assert it proven that some greatest thing exists, even if it is not a "god of religion".
(There's also a side line: you effectively define "there is no god" as "I have no evidence of god". If both god and evidence of god existed, but you just hadn't been given that evidence yet, it would be false to believe there were no god even though you had no evidence of god. Therefore the two statements are not the same and you're defining your atheism effectively as agnosticism. A true atheist makes a positive assertion that a god as he defines it is a contradiction, so your finesse against that necessity makes you an agnostic because you assert having "no knowledge". But that might not be the important point.)
Add: With thanks to the community and moderator, the following summary of the assertions in salient threads is presented.
https://scored.co/c/Atheist/p/141reluACp/-burden-of-proof-is-on-the-one-m/c/4OUfR2Rkd1Q
- If nothing exists, nothing can be proven (Provine).
- Things exist (Descartes).
- Things are measurable (Democritus).
- A greatest thing can be detected, defined according to its measurability (Adler).
- Things have causes (Aristotle).
- An infinite past sequence of causes is impossible (some cause is primal and/or final) (Plato).
- An immeasurable first cause can be inferred that leads to the causing of all things (al-Ghazali).
- All that is or ever can be, by definition, includes the combination of first cause and greatest thing; call this entity "Cosmos" (Sagan).
- The Cosmos contains meaning (defined as complex specified information) (Meyer).
- Earlier states of the spacetime universe must contain, in seed form, all the meaning present in later states; call this relationship "Determinism" (telling what to do or think) (Edis).
- The first cause must contain meaning that leads to the meaning of all things (Dembski).
- The Cosmos contains life (defined loosely as meaningful self-replicating structures) (Watson-Crick).
- By conservation of information, life can only arise from previous meaningful self-replicating structures, even if these structures are not recognized.
- The Cosmos contains consciousness (defined loosely as living neuronal patterns measurably associated with given things).
- Consciousness changes (call this process "Thought").
- The Cosmos contains morality (defined as consciousness associated with self-helping or self-harming events).
- The first cause must contain life, consciousness and thought, and morality, that lead to these attributes of all things.
- The probability of these attributes arising from their absence is mathematically absurd, such that every origin theory instead describes some attribute container as a first cause (Tipler et al.).
https://scored.co/c/Atheist/p/141reluR7d/science-methodology-vs-faith-met/c/4OUfR2U0ayw
https://scored.co/c/Atheist/p/141reluR7d/science-methodology-vs-faith-met/c/4OUfRBqFAUS
- The origin of conscious, moral humanity has been measured as being less than about 1 million years ago.
- The Hubble age of the flat universe is about 9 billion years (NASA).
- The oldest star cluster age by brightness measurement is 11-18 billion years (also NASA), or by another source 12-14 billion.
- Since these two measurements contradict, neither can be accepted as settled; resolutions disagree.
- A third measurement of light age by lightspeed decay is less than 1 billion years; this too cannot be accepted as settled (Magueijo et al.).
- Since the primary origin theory (BBT) assumes lightspeed invariance, lightspeed decay is not an unscientific theory.
- Dark matter is a hypothetical substance that has no observable effects other than to allow the Hubble age to agree with the brightness age.
- The existence of dark matter cannot be accepted as settled given that lightspeed decay is another theory accounting for the same effect but with greater explanatory power.
- Review of evidence of each potential age, including under 1 billion in the younger theory, is warranted to seek a more settled resolution.
- Gen. 1:1 is consistent with measurable conclusions about the first cause and with the younger age (Morris).
- Gen. 1:3 is consistent with the 1-second mark in BBT where sound and light photons come into being.
- Gen. 1:1-5 is consistent with the first 24 hours of BBT.
- Gen. 1:1-2:4a as a whole is a theory consistent with the younger age theory.
- Any conclusion about universal age must reject some current theory (BBT, Hubble constant, cosmological constant, etc.) and so no theory is final and all theories are tentative until this happens.
https://scored.co/c/Christianity/p/15HbknaXa9/x/c/4OXGESifXDG
- The Universal Pantheist Society is a 501(c)(3) recognized "religion" defining its god as having existence, eternality, omnipresence, divinity, sacredness, and immanence.
- The Cosmos has all the attributes of the pantheist god, and is thus a god of religion.
- Christian panentheism is a Christian religion defining its god via the Apostles' Creed as having existence, immanence, omniefficiency, anointing (defined as unique purpose), and spirituality (defined as meaning).
- Historical documents preserve mundane events with sufficient accuracy to be admitted by historians as evidence for generalized claims such as the existence of Jesus of Nazareth.
- Historical evidence shows the Cosmos contains Jesus of Nazareth and that his existence is uniquely purposeful in history.
- The Cosmos has the attributes of existence, immanence, omniefficiency, purpose (via its containment of Jesus), and meaning, and is thus a god of a Christian (Apostles' Creed) religion.
https://scored.co/c/Atheist/p/15HbpWW1qq/compelling-falsifiable-evidence-/c/4OXGXWGEga3
- Manuscript evidence indicates that by the 50s AD there were several broadly circulating, widely agreeing full testimonies about Jesus.
- Historical document accuracy is tested by fit, independence, embarrassability, dissimilarity, idiom, and coherence.
- By these criteria, these and other documents about Jesus have a high measurable accuracy.
- Primary sources include Syriac Matthew, Mark, Greek Matthew, Luke-Acts (a 2-volume work), Tacitus, John, Josephus, and the Talmud.
- Secondary sources include Thallus, Mara, Phlegon, Philopon, Lucian, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, Celsus, and Tertullian quoting Tiberius (not counting 22 other NT documents and other patristics).
- The preponderance of historical documents indicates the historical Jesus is a person who had a unique self-conception and character.
- Jesus's self-concept, each detail attested by multiple independent sources, included being Christ, unique Son of God, unique Son of Man, king of God's kingdom, unique teacher of Israel, unique forgiver of sins against God, and a wonder worker.
- The evidence Jesus claimed these things is fully comparable to the generally accepted historical evidence that others like Julius Caesar claimed these or similar things.
- The same evidence shows Jesus had high personal morality, sanity, and character with no signs of deception or lunacy.
- Theories that Jesus's self-concept was inaccurate do not account for the historical fact that that self-concept was attested and therefore conceived by someone at least as unique as the self-concept itself was.
- The accuracy of Jesus's self-concept, in which he had access to powers of the Cosmos, is the theory with best explanatory power.
- CFE has now been demonstrated that the Cosmos (first cause and greatest thing), containing Jesus, constitutes the God of robust Biblical religion.
Is Self with Other, All?
If nature forces spirit out, what forces spirit in? (Ignoring suggestion.)
Nature implies the spiritual force moving in (inception) and out (death) of being (life).
All (motion) > spirit (momentum) > one (matter)...motion animates matter through momentum, while matter looses momentum within motion aka temporary living within ongoing process of dying.
It still suggs/sucks...even if ignored, which is what matter needs to resist motion.
All was. Self implies all moving through each one within aka same moving through each difference, hence one being able to see self within another (parent>child for example).
Suggesting what self "is" implies taking possession over what nature processes. Male seed going through female soil into off-spring implies self-perpetuation of each one through one another.
Self implies "same" aka same nature moving through each different being or same sound moving through each different word or same inspiration moving through each different information.
A jew suggests "likeness" to distract difference (perception) from sameness (perceivable)...consensus among gentiles represents the likeness a jew shapes. Mixing differences together to make them alike implies tikkun olam (repairing the world by bringing together).
Will all be again?
"Nature implies the spiritual force moving in ... and out." "Nature forces spirit out", and in.
Does self imply all moving through one with all moving through others? One within all, others within all, no "others than others"?
Is "repair" suggestion or inspiration?
Per aka through, petu- aka pter- to wing, -ation aka action, implies action winging through. Sun's wings are rays aka past line and future line.
You already answered yourself in the question, yet lacking self discernment... "will be again" aka "a gain of being will".
Only one within all can be again and again and again...all implies ongoing; one implies temporal.
Replace all with "cause" and each one with "effect", then ask yourself what could prevent cause from moving through each internal effect?
"Other" implies ones measurement of one another. All doesn't require to be measured by anyone within, since all implies one for each one within aka the internal division of singularity (cause) into each single unit (effect).
What if holding onto others "affects" an effect to ignore cause? Notice then that an "off-spring" cannot be held onto, which is why the perpetuation of self requires letting go.
Re (to respond) perre (to produce) implies all producing each responding one within...others suggest that repair means putting together what's broken aka tikkun olam (repairing the world by bringing together).
Inspiration implies analysis; suggestion tempts synthesis...it's ones free will of choice to resist latter for former. Without ones consent to the suggestion of another there would be no synthesis. Me writing about this implies analysis; your consent to my analysis implies synthesis...unless you choose to resist.
Through what? Reaction! Wing (inception towards death) moving through bird (life) aka action (motion) winging through (momentum) reaction (matter).
Past and future are measurements taken by a ray, while ignoring light given. Light generates a spectrum within which each ray divides from one another...the spectrum represents the singular wing.
Inception moving through life towards death are not "two wings", but one momentum for each medium (middle) of matter in-between.
Others suggest left-wing vs right-wing conflicts to turn two sides against one another...an inversion of nature. Notice that ones SIGHT (life) cannot see ones SIDES (inception/death), because inception towards death implies a singular line of progress; not two conflicting sides.
Balance generates choice not to hold onto either side, but to balance at center aka temporary adapting to ongoing change, not holding onto this, while fight that to protect this.
Good can never destroy bad, nor could bad ever destroy good...one can destroy both sides by choosing to hold onto neither, but only for oneself.
Choosing to let go of past and future changes suggested PRESENT into perceiving PRESENCE.
All was (perceived); all implies ongoing. Cause moves through one effect, cause moves through other effects. What prevents cause? Nothing aka not a thing aka vacuum aka nihil, suggesting resistance.
Does one require measuring another? If one does not measure another, does one perceive one? Does letting go of measuring let go of perceiving?
If one and another analyze and resist synthesis, how can that re-pair (reproduce)? What is reproduction without synthesis?
Action winging through reaction implies re-perpetuation (re-flex perpetuation). Synthesis?
Singular wing? Spectrum implies infrared/ultraviolet (implying past/future). Light (E-M aka I AM) is and re-flects all, past is future, distinguished by their medium between. Balanced wings cooperate like inhale/exhale. Suggestion tempts imbalancing wings.
Implying dualism aka ignorance of all? If good is existence and bad is nonexistence aka nihil, holding neither implies letting go of existence (implying kenosis) with letting go of nonexistence (implying reflection).