Which is what, again? Oh, you mean the original question that's been answered multiple, multiple times?

But you do see that the existence of those other beliefs means that at least 999/1000 (or whatever) of these beliefs are false.* That's all OP is really saying. Now he's correctly asking how you go about differentiating between those 999 false beliefs and the 1 right belief. I'm assuming most of you will respond with personal revelation of some nature, but OP may or may not accept that as valid.

*This is assuming you don't give to the premise that it's possible all religions are telling the same story, just differently.

It hasn't really been answered multiple times. All I've got are "I don't knows" from people that believe God exists and people trying to weasel out of the question by changing the subject to chemistry.

Bull. I answered your question. The electron comment was an analogy to help you understand my point. It is not my fault that you tried to talk about electrons in more depth and fouled it up.

Maybe. Using your analogy it becomes clear that just because people have different interpretations of the electron doesn't mean the electron doesn't exist. However, OP is asking how do you know that any single one of those interpretations is correct.

You tried to compare something that has been scientifically proven with something based on ancient scriptures written by people out in the desert. There is no comparison, one is a product of rational thinking and analysis while the other was mostly intended to keep dumb people in line during a time when law was not easily enforced.

Stop making claims you can't justify. It makes your job so much harder.

That may be what he means to say, but that's not what he's saying.

I haven't seen where he's correctly asking about this, but I might have missed it. Can you quote it?

So, not only are you completely ignorant of the subject of your own question, you are also completely oblivious of any of the answers you've been given.

This isn't going well for you.

The same idea, I think.

I wanted to address this in a different post because it's more subtle.

There's a lot here about what specifically one is claiming. I want to bring the electron back into view, but I know less about the subtleties of that, so instead I'll talk about gravity.

There are many interpretations (models) of gravity. We have a lot of modern ones which are distinct (gravity in GR is not the same as the inverse square law and neither of these are quantum theories of gravity), but we also have things like Aristotelian gravity.

Furthermore, even if we restrict attention to the modern models we know (or are at least quite certain that) none of these are exactly right. They're all approximations, and have different domains in which they are successful.

These do not all tell the same story, but even though we can label them as discrete theories, it's extremely difficult to say that only one can be right. So there's a different type of flaw in the "logic" of OP. Simple counting arguments are ineffective. If we wanted to take OP's position into the gravity example, we would probably conclude that they're ALL wrong.

Well, if we grant you the ability to quote him out of context...

Context suggests that he's really not going in that direction as his basic argument.

It's either that or this thread will hopelessly keep spinning its wheels.

The latter is far more entertaining.

The former would be better served in its own thread without the 50 posts of the Grog Show. Although the probability of that thread going nowhere is very high and is a likely repeat of other attempts at conversation in that direction.

The primary cause of getting stuck is the fact that atheists won't be able to get past "God" exists, making discussions of the distinctions between the various conceptions of God moot. It will simply be another thread about proving that God exists.

For such a smart fellow you sure do have a lot of trouble reading between the lines.

I don't. The point I was making is that the existence of God is a question which is independent of the question of whether any individual representation of God is exactly correct.

My response was;

If his point was about the belief in a representation of God rather than the belief in God itself, he had only to make that clear and the exchange was over.

But he didn't, did he? He skipped over this comment and proceeded to dwell on the electron (which did not go well). So drop the electron thing entirely. Just focus on this comment to exclusion of any reference to the electron.

IMO if you think that there is a kernel of wisdom in Groggy's comments, you should pull it out and restate it as your own and let an exchange begin around that. Trying to demonstrate something of value while simultaneously defending his remarks shows plenty of intestinal fortitude but may be untenable.

Experience indicates that it's best to read the lines themselves. Reading between the lines invites misinterpretations.

Also, if the author of a post is incapable of writing what he means, it's very probable that he himself doesn't even know what he means, and whatever it is I see "between the lines" is merely a reflection of what I already think.

By the way, since we're talking about thinking about things, do you think you're the first person to have come up with this particular line of reasoning?

That was not the point. The point was to separate the accuracy of a human representation of an entity from the existence of the entity itself.

Good Lord, you're just living in your own psychotic little world, aren't you? We can't read between "lines" that make no sense to any logical, rational person.

You're correct, I was perhaps giving more credit than warranted.

Just to make sure he gets this, Groggy, you do realize that even if the human species as a whole was completely wrong about all their interpretations of a God, it still wouldn't say anything about whether there is a God, right?

Neither would it say there isn't a magical unicorn living on Venus. Both are equally plausible according to that logic. The difference is that science actually proves things.

It depends on the characteristics of the magical unicorn.

Well this magical unicorn is believed in by millions of people. If you don't believe in the magical unicorn you are destined for an eternity of suffering. You can't disprove the existence of this magical unicorn can you? Even if everyone gets the interpretation of the magical unicorn wrong, it does not mean he does not exist.

Wow, you still don't understand the argument (and this is coming from an atheist).

Maybe this will help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativ...sitive_atheism