Follow up to yesterday's question about the existence of God?

Question

Here's the original queston:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AguQENvHIyjtwvJRh6JfTLzty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071218000233AA16zqI

No need to paw through the answers unless you're interested.

If you have never seen, heard, felt or touched HYDROGEN, how do you know that it doesn't exist?

This question yesterday was implied for atheists, and judging from the answers, atheists are incapable of believing in hydrogen because they're waiting for someone else to prove it exists (and they usually disqualify evidence beforehand). Christians, on the other hand, seem to be open to the evidence.

If I had asked about hydrogen, how would an atheist answer?
Consistently or with prior bias?

What I'm doing is researching the delusion of atheism. It interests me.

Christians claim that God is tangible, yet atheists reject this claim on the grounds that they can't touch him or be touched. So the argument fails.

We actually do have documented evidence of God's existence from people claiming to have seen miracles, yet Christians aren't allowed to use the Bible as evidence. Again, I reject this argument because atheists don't have sufficient authority to reject the claims of others.

ibushido

You claim that God can't stand on his own. So why is he the only deity in the last 6000 years who survived, while all others were forgotten? (The story of Babel preserves a memory of God that took place 500 years before the invention of writing in 3500 BC.)

Michelle

I claim that my fish tank exists. Is that automatically hubris?

Rather it's arrogant for an atheist to attempt to subvert 30 years of my life and call them imaginary.

So far all the arguments in favor of hydrogen can be made of God.

Answer 1

Lack of proof isn't a weakness. On the contrary, claiming infallibility for one's conclusion that God does not exist is a sign of hubris. Nothing in the real world has ever been rigorously proved, or ever will be. Proof, in the mathematical sense, is possible only if you have the luxury of defining the universe you're operating in. In the real world, we must deal with levels of certainty based on observed evidence. The more and better evidence we have for something, the more certainty we assign to it; when there is enough evidence, we label the something a fact, even though it still isn't 100% certain.

If enough people have personally experienced a relationship with someone called 'President Bush', doesn't that constitute real evidence for his existence? So if enough people have personally experienced a relationship with someone called 'God', that should constitute real evidence for His existence, too. If a Book includes prophecies which come to pass, and did so in front of witnesses who had nothing to do with the one who made the prophecy, that also constitutes real evidence for His existence. If the universe itself allows for books to successfully predict the future using 'Bible Code' type encoding and decoding techniques, this indicates a universe which includes intentionally planted information, and so also constitutes real evidence for His existence. If the universe itself had a beginning, it NEEDS a Prime Mover, whether that consists of colliding branes (which came from where?) or the powerful Word of an Eternal Being. This in itself constitutes real evidence that we MUST eventually acknowledge, that God does indeed exist. And no amount of ignorant protest can change these facts.

Answer 2

More gross generalization about atheism based on the opinions of few. Along with the obvious issues with your hydrogen argument, every question you've asked thus far on this topic has been filled with what on the surface appears to be intolerance.

Not very Christian, if you ask me. That said, my offer is still on the table. Unlike some, I encourage you to try to prove my beliefs wrong. My e-mail address is neeitchkuh@g m a i l.com (sans spaces, of course).

If you've had enough of pandering to the masses on Yahoo, I'd love to discuss this further.

Answer 3

Hydrogen is a physical substance. We know physical substances exist, so another flavour of what we're familiar with might or might not exist, and it wouldn't make a dramatic difference to our perception of reality. The idea of something supernatural, however, implies a whole new inevident realm of existence, which would constitute a dramatic change of worldview, and we would need some extraordinary argument or evidence to take such a thing seriously.

Answer 4

Wow what a moronic and hate full statement! Why do you care what an anthiest thinks or beleives? You don't have the ability or the mindfulness to be able to consider alternatives. I have news for you. It is much harder to beleive in science and facts than it is to beleive a religion that has been altered and corrupted by mans hands the last 1400 years. And christians are the most closed minded of all religions! Even more so then muslims so how do you justify saying there open?

Answer 5

Hydrogen reacts in a a variety of chemical reaction I have performed.

Hydrogen emits light at a variety of specific frequencies. I have a H-alpha filter on my telescope for solar observation.

In other words, I have seen hydrogen.

Answer 6

There's a difference between not being visible to
the eye under normal conditions and imaginary.
One can be made visible or at least testable the
other can not. Hydrogen is one of those gasses
that can be made VERY visible and present with
little more than a set of matches....and good
running skills.

Answer 7

The evidence for hydrogen is ample. And, in any case, who would invent an element as a myth?

Answer 8

Why can your imaginary supernatural deity not stand on its own? Why must religious cultists always try to validate the existence of their imaginary friend by comparing it to something else? Is your supernatural diety, hydrogen? If not, then your comparison is invalid and ignorant. Try again little one.

Answer 9

because hydrogen is tangible, measurable.

if i had never seen, heard of it. if it was intangible, i would have no reason to believe it existed.

if there was documented finding of this "new" element, and it had enough evidence supporting its existence, i would be more inclined to believe it existed.

Answer 10

I've seen hydrogen seperated from water. It is twice as volumnious as the oxygen (H2O,) and burns as expected.