'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.
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).
a) The question itself implies something other than cause aka a contradiction.
b) Prevent aka pre (before) venire (to come)...not a suggested hindrance, but coming into being within forwarding motion.
Nothing implies effect denying cause for affection aka one thing denying everything for one another. Resistance implies each ones responding stance within all and among the temptation of one another.
Resistance isn't about preventing cause, but resisting one another's tempting affection. Matter within motion needs to resist the wanted temptation to hold onto other matter.
Mentally holding onto any measurement contradicts the distance measured during the process of separation.
Even simpler...measuring implies in-between two, which contradicts the one measuring.
One perceives one another as moving differences...holding onto measurements tempts one to ignore the "moving". The held onto measurements are then used to established artificial likeness among natural differences.
Perceivable cannot be held onto...only suggested. If life cannot perceive its inception and death, then any measurements taken are based on artificial beginning and end.
Example...a race from start to finish ignores that one had to be alive to start it, and continue to live to finish it. Now try to apply "racing to be the fastest" with life being moved from inception towards death while racing to be the fastest...
It's holding onto the synthetic which corrupts reproduction, not the existence of synthesis. The conflict (with vs without) represents the synthesis one ignores analytical reproduction for aka ones response to all nature produces.
One AND another implies the synthesis one didn't resisted. Analysis implies each ones perception within all perceivable.
Through implies a separation (analysis)...it's the separated partial which needs to resist the wanted temptation to hold onto information, while ignoring the passing through inspiration.
The flexing represents motion bending matter apart from one another, and perpetuation implies cause (inception towards death) to endure (life), hence the suffering.
Choice (bird) within balance (wing)...balance isn't two sides; but one process for each potential bird within.
Example...a fallen (inception towards death) angel (life) loosing ones wings (balance). Angle/angle/ang - "to bend".
Light 'em up...
Distinguished by each ones PRESENCE, while the measurements (past; present; future) are mediated by another. If one consents to suggested mediation, then one ignores to distinguish as medium.
What each different potential inhales/exhales implies the same process...others suggest likeness and cooperation to tempt possession.
Replace good and bad with ones choice within all to hold onto either side...it's ones choice of either side which establishes duality, and thereby ignorance of all singularity.
Existence implies ones choice within balance...others suggest imbalance (good vs bad) to tempt non-existence aka ones denial.
Balance was before choice came into being...what is good or bad is being suggested afterwards.
Nosis implies ones perception within all perceivable. Kenos (empty aka containing nothing) implies ones de-nial of perceivable for suggested nihil-ism.
Ones memory/mind holding onto suggested information becomes the container of nothing aka revolving information within ones mind, while denying the inspiration moves through.
So, nothing, implying effect denying cause, aka one thing denying everything.
Okay then.
Yet all was moving, perceivable, enabling forward grasping. All cannot be held onto.
So analytical reproduction implies any synthesis is unheld (any conflict is ignored). Passing through inspiration implies information unheld. Presence implies medium undistinguished. Singularity implies dualism disestablished.
(a) Existence implying balance, and imbalance tempting nonexistence aka denial aka nihil, imply choosing existence. Choosing nihil implies not chosing.
(b) Letting go implies emptying aka kenosis. If inhalation/exhalation imply same process, spirit moving in (reflection, bending apart, analysis) and letting spirit go (kenosis) imply same process; spirit moving in lets go of nonexistence, spirit let go lets go of existence.
This contradiction corrupts ones perception of moving differences.
Enabling ones free will of choice to grasp (want) or release (need).
Inspiration passes through no matter how much information one helds or unhelds, yet the more information held, the less inspiration perceived aka the more pass through ignored.
Ones responding perception within all perceivable produced implies reproduction...any synthesis held or unheld, and the resulting conflict of reason (held vs unheld) distracts perception from reproducing.
Reproducing implies adaption to process...not to product.
From the christian perspective...the seed within the soil, growing the tree into the fruit, which falls to the soil to spread the seed implies the process one needs to adapt to. Taking the fruit (of forbidden knowledge) into possession tempts one to ignore the process.
Presence given implies the opportunity to distinguish aka self discernment aka a growth potential...using the word "undistinguished" implies taking possession of loss aka defining self by what one isn't.
Medium/middle implies choice in-between...not what is being mediated as distinguished or undistinguished.
Singularity implies the entirety of implication from if to then for each one within...including established or disestablished dualism (aka holding onto one another).
Choosing nihil implies choosing not...."not choosing" implies the circular inversion of ones straight thinking.
Nothing didn't exist before choice. Everything was before each thing gains the choice to bring nothing (denial of everything) into existence.
Choosing was given by nature to being..."not choosing" is suggested by a being to another, hence tricking each other to put nothing before choice.
a) Letting go implies all going letting each one within choose how to respond.
b) Empty implies a measurement taken by one within all. Even if one "empties" suggested information out of ones mind/memory, all perceivable inspiration always fulfills mind (fulfillment)...it's just that the former tempts one to ignore already being fulfilled within all given.
Ones ex-stance implies expressing choice standing in-between impressing balance (spirit). Impression aka action (ion) pressing (press) into (im) reaction implies being "spirited away".