[Ralath]

Lam has some really good points. Sounds like you guys haven't read them.

Or is proving a negative saying that you can’t prove God doesn’t exist or it is impossible to prove He doesn’t exist so therefore you don’t have to prove it. Seems like a cop out to me. Because once they thought the world was flat, no proof for or against it. They proved it was round so didn’t they prove the negative. Or am I missing your point all together. Cause it looks like they proved the negative.

I don't think this is correct.

This is basically statistical hypothesis testing. Statistics themselves are complete bull but the method of thinking in statistics is highly valuable.

For my musings on hypotheses tests, see the ninja text below. Or, just skip to Lam's simpler explanation.

Let's assume the null hypothesis is denoted by H0 and alternative hypothesis by Ha.

H0: The world is flat.
Ha: The world is not flat.

Contrary to what you believe, this isn't what they proved. Here's what they proved.

H0: The world is flat.
Ha: The world is round.

Unlike the God debate, it's not a Yes-No question in the same sense. Using the first set of hypotheses, if we had proved the world is NOT flat, then we still wouldn't have known what shape the world is.

H0: God does exist.
Ha: God doesn't exist

vs.

H0: God does exist.
Ha: Zeus does exist.
(in which case God doesn't exist since no where in Greek mythology is there a mention of the Christian god).

The two scenarios between the world is flat and whether God exists or not are postulated differently.

(hmm... yeah. Sorry for that long digression. Hope I've thought through that clearly. Feel free to correct me.)


Or more simply put, Lam's explanation:

Therefore, asking a person to prove "God doesn't exist" does not really make sense. It's like asking "When didn't you say that?" rather than "When did you say that?"

HMMM people who believe in the big bang ran the tests compiled the information and then said it supports their theory. HMMM using your logic they shouldn’t be believed either and therefore no one should believe in the big bang. That is what your saying right. Since the ones who believe in the theory wrote the papers and did the gathering of information are one in the same they can not be trusted and therefore their findings should be labeled as worthless.

Yep, can't argue that there is human error in experiments or tests. But unlike God and the Bible, people aren't using the Big Bang to prove the Big Bang or using the Big Bang to prove physics. Rather, the Big Bang came about as the result of physics, other sciences, etc. Can you say that God came about because of the Bible?

Manzacar has a point. How could Moses free all the isrealites by himself unless some of the things that happened in the Bible were true?

I meet your story about Moses and raise you the story of Lot's wife.

If we take every story in the Bible to be literal, there's plenty of stories for both sides.

I do think the Bible makes a good historical and literary text in the same way that the Iliad might.