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by me_me_me 2481 days ago
>> Meanwhile, what's your best atheist argument?

Maybe rephrasing this whole think will help you see this whole argument from different side.

Say you have a friend that claims they have and invisible imaginary friend.

They have to prove that this imaginary friend exist. Its crazy to think I would have to disprove that existence of imaginary friend.

1 comments

You mean you suppose it to be imaginary.

The example isn't the same as religious claims. Firstly because all religious people claim that the 'invisible' friend will talk back if you make the effort to make contact (with few exceptions, but some are: the arrogant, the idly curious, those who wouldn't change their lives even if they knew).

And unlike fairies at the bottom of the garden, a supreme being has by definition the power to prove its own existence to the individual. Nothing else does. Think about it, you can't even prove your own sanity to yourself, or that anything around you exists. Even science can't deal with that one.

So sure, I can't prove a god's existence to you but I could witness to my own contact with one. Depending on your evaluation of me as a person of integrity and sensibleness, you may be encouraged to make contact. But to dismiss a person as not sensible because of such a claim is clearly fallacy. First you would need to prove it can't be true.

>> You mean you suppose it to be imaginary. ... if you'd talk to schizophrenic, you also refer to their imaginations as 'supposed imaginations'?

All you are trying to do is bend reality to fit your view. By shifting my word and redefining stuff. There is no difference between imaginary friend of you child and god.

>> So sure, I can't prove a god's existence

Thank you, end of conversation. Anything else added after 'but' is superfluous fluff.

Please don't do religious flamewar on HN, and please especially don't cross into personal attack, because we ban accounts that do that. It doesn't matter how wrong or annoying another commenter is being.

If you'd review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN in its intended spirit, we'd be grateful.