Do you believe in the metaphysical idea of love, Zumby? Whether you experience it or not, is the burden of proof on you to explain it?

I'm a little cautious about your use of "metaphysical" but yes, if I say in a debate that love exists then I have the burden of proof.

So how would you prove the existence of love? or justify your belief in love?

Through interpretative dance.

and on a serious note?

Well the biochemistry of love is pretty well understod so I'd point to those peer-reviewed papers.

How do you prove anything? How do you prove you exist. Sience is theories wich needs beliving the same way as religion. Theory is only relevant as long as someone gives another theory. Whithout religion there would not be sience. Sience and religion work together. Bible is unnacurate if we belive in explanations and theories of sience but it could just simply mean that evolution,mutations and random picking might be done by a god. Bible is writen by humans and we are imperfect so we make mistakes.

Oh ok, so you yourself have no solid understanding of the proof, yet you believe in it? based on peer reviewed papers? Have you read them?

Firstly, yes I have read and understood the papers. But even if I hadn't...what would that have to do with my post about the burden of proof?

What it has to do with your post is that im trying to show you that you believe in something with no substantial scientific evidence in favor of it ("love"). You know it exists, even if you hadn't read the papers, it would not change your mind on the fact that you know it exists. You are unfairly putting the burden of proof on theism, knowing damn well that they will not be able to offer you this evidence, and also escaping the possibility that the burden may be placed on you. You have been incapable of proving love exists, even though you believe it, so how could someone prove God exists even though they believed it? Again, love and God are one in my book.

OK, so here I'm going to remind you that you've already been called out for this sort of rhetorical chicanery once in the last week:

I make a point about the nature of the burden of proof.

You then ask me if I have the burden of proof in the event that I claim the love exists.

If I answer "no" then you can rightly point out that I am inconsistent.

If I answer "yes" then you throw out a load of irrelevant points on a different topic so as to avoid conceding the point, and repeat ad nauseum. I'm not interested in dishonest tactics like this.

Suffice to say that at no point have I claimed that one must have scientific evidence for one's claims. Therefore your post here is irrelevant, even if it held up to scrutiny.

Zumby, everytime i ask you a question, you have a masterful and fascinating way of completely being able to use something or other to avoid directly and truthfully answering my questions. The reasons you do this are quite clear to me. So stop with the smokescreen that you, Original, and many other atheists on this board use, and address my points directly. Believe in what you say and stop sidestepping.

You told me the burden of proof is on people who make claims and now your shifting your position to...one does not have to have scientific evidence for one's claims. A glaring discrepancy in your reasoning.

If anyone else thinks I've shifted my position ITT I'll respond, until then I don't feel the need to let you dodge conceding that my post stands.

What is the question that you want answered? (You've got one chance to convince me that Zumby shifted his position and has evaded your questions.)

Seriously?
Why u doubt god? Don't u know that's a sin? Burn in hell!
Black people is a curse, devil did it.
Dinosaurs? Have u ever seen one? They were planted. Obv fake and invented by artist with big imagination. Come on just look at the TREX lil arms so funny. God is a better creator, those silly lizards were man made and designed.
Incest? What?
Eve was not a sister to Adam! She was just a rib and some dirt and a bit of awesome from god. Get your facts straight before making post that make you look silly.
Read the bible all the answer are there

This is incoherent. Love is really just a subjective feeling, so if people report they are feeling such an emotion and behave as though this were so, unless one has reason to believe they are lying, one should conclude that love exists. As a materialist, I believe that anything people talk about as "love" ultimately has a physical basis, but it isn't required that we understand what love is or how it works to confirm that it exists. People who talk about experiencing love generally are not making any metaphysical claim about the nature of the universe. The claim is limited to their own subjective experience.

This is not the case for claims about God. Sam Harris put it like this in a debate with Andrew Sullivan:

It's when claims like this are made that we require evidence. That many people believe that God exists, that they are in communion with him and that he loves them is not in question. What is in question is whether those beliefs have any basis in objective reality.

Love is an emotion and there is plenty of 'scientific' evidence on that subject. If you were to try to prove that Love didn't exist, you'd have a difficult job on your hands, it's not a very good analogy.

This sounds a bit like the conversation between boosh/lemon awhile back where lemon was attempting to describe faith, and knowing that God existed, but with a <1 probability.

In no way am I claiming that yall are exercising faith, or anything that might be misconstrued as an "a ha" moment. Just thought it was interesting.

I think either you or I are mis-remembering that thread. I definitely know that I was defending Lemonzest's position. But I don't think LZ was defining faith as "knowledge with <1 probability". As I remember it, MB was declaring that all religious people are close-minded because MB could see no way that one could believe a proposition with <1 probability.

However, if you (montecarlo) want to define faith in such a way, then I unreservedly agree that I am exercising faith. Though I'm not sure how this definition fits with the way the Bible talks about faith:

If there's ever a question of who mis-remembers, I can guarantee (p<0.05) that it's me. (Complete tangent: I think this works really well in marriage, as I tend to forget/forgive pretty easily.) Sorry for the screw-up of belief/knowledge, especially in light of previous discussion ITT.

Hah, great point. The scientist side of me totally understands what you mean when you say "exercising faith" (more like a confidence, as with p-values). The Christian side of me, as you have already touched on, defines faith in a much different light (I tend to run with Hebrews 11:1, as it reads exactly like a definition.)

But let's forget about definitions of faith in this spot. I really appreciate Dawkins's descriptions. Sure, we differ on the existence of God, but we can enjoy each other's De Facto nature.

When I was a believer, I believed that god is the creator of the universe and that he created good and bad. I never believed god interferes with the world just that he created the world. Deists also don't believe in the devil. If god would exist this doesn't mean the devil exists. If god would exist this doesn't necessarily mean there's a life after death. And if life after death would exist this doesn't mean god exists. Even if god exists and life after death exists this doesn't mean he will reward people who did good things and punish people who did bad things.

For realsies. I also think the Hebrews definition seems the most plausible in terms of congruence with the rest of the Bible, and makes sense of the idea that faith may be difficult and therefore virtuous. Not that I agree that is actually IS virtuous, but it is at least arguable.

Wait a sec - while it could have been worded better, isn't this a decent question to ask a YEC? Assuming they would use a "micro-evolution" explanation, how many generations would it take to see a diversity of skin colour, bone structure, etc that is seen today? More bluntly: is it even possible?

(Or was your "What?" more a reaction that we shouldn't even expect any explanation from a YEC?)