So you don’t and beliefs about the history of dinosaurs are more demonstrable than your belief in God - which was your point, and which is now refuted.
H.A.N.D.
No. The reality of the situation is that the theist has to show that the supposed actus purus has any connection whatsoever with their God.
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I would say you are correct in that the brute metaphysical fact of God existence, along with several classical attributes does not establish any specific religion. I would argue it rules out most of them, however.
But what I also said is true. Asking for material evidence for God is nonsense. The opposite is the case. The non-theist should be called to demonstrate how actualized potentials (examples of change) can exist at any given instant and without a prime mover, they cannot.
Vinnie
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My mind is starting to bounce between various fallacies like ipse dixit, shifting the burden of proof, argument from ignorance, etc. However, I don’t think any of these are called for. What I do think is worth mentioning is that there is a difference between an argument and a belief.
For example, there is a difference between these two statements:
I believe Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected 3 days later.
The evidence is clear that Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected 3 days later, and non-believers are without excuse for not believing this.
Describing your beliefs to others isn’t an argument, at least not in my book. However, when someone suggests others should change their beliefs, that’s when we move into argument territory. I think this is an important distinction we should all be aware of.
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Not when some-one claims their belief in god is as demonstrable as belief in something else. In those circumstances, asking for a demonstration (not necessarily evidence) is appropriate.
Non-theists do not necessarily dispute the past existence of some ‘prime mover’.
They dispute the existence of your god.
Until and unless you show that your god and the ‘prime mover’ are one and the same, no such demonstration is necessary.
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Have A Nice Day.
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The prime mover is not about tracing causes back into the past. There can only be one prime mover/God as has been established here recently in another thread. It’s about any hierarchal series of actualized potentials existing at any point in the here and now. A linear series of past causes and effects and even whether or not there was an infinite number of such causes and effects going into the past is superfluous to the prime mover argument. This is abundantly clear when we actually dialogue with the modern advocates of cosmological arguments and not just assume we know what the arguments say based on what we’ve heard in our echo-chambers. The prime mover upholds everything at every instant including the here and now. Prime mover is not synonymous with first cause in a series of linear causes tracing backwards in time.
Vinnie
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I agree but I think minds should be changed about asking for material evidence for God. At best it’s a category error like trying to bite your own teeth. If we define God in classical terms, then it would become quite clear that such a request is nonsense. Furthermore, if we were to include ourselves in 2400 hundred years of philosophical tradition, we would be keenly aware of all the cosmological arguments that have been advanced by some of the greatest thinkers who ever lived. None of us exists in a vacuum.
There is no shift. The burden of proof is always generally on everyone in my mind. Careful metaphysical arguments lead to this conclusion that the material world depends on God. As does a proper understanding/definition of God. Requiring or requesting material evidence for God puts things backwards. For some people it is okay to envision a cake baking itself. For me it is not.
Big difference. I have never argued the latter. What I would argue and think people should believe is this based strictly on historical argumentation:
*Jesus Claimed to be God
*Jesus was widely regarded by the public and those who knew him as a miracle worker
*The early Church thought Jesus was God/Creator
*Jesus was executed on a Roman cross
*Jesus was most likely buried in a tomb of some form
*Jesus was believed to have risen from the dead very shortly after he died by many who knew him.
*Jesus was believed to have appeared to many who originally knew him after his death in the early church.
*Many in the early Church faced hardship and persecution (even martyrdom) for their beliefs.
*A crucified messiah was scandalous to many yet the church grew.
I would say everyone, who sits down and looks at the evidence, should believe all of that. None of it means Jesus actually did supernatural miracles or that he even Rose from the dead. But the only real reason to reject the resurrection on historical grounds is simply on account of it being a supernatural miracle.
Vinnie
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Would there be a burden of proof on people who say they don’t know how the universe came about?
The difficult part would be differentiating between assertions and evidence.
Why couldn’t we include the possibility that the gospel accounts were invented?
Because belief in the resurrection preceded the gospel accounts by decades if we accept consensus dating of them just for the sake of the current discussion. That would make that claim —even if true—irrelevant to a great deal of what I wrote in bullet points above— not to mention the wholesale fabrication of the gospels is not sustainable on historical grounds. Facts are facts. Inferences must follow the facts, right?
I think I would clarify and say burden of proof applies to arguments people make against one another. Kind of similar to your categories above where there is a difference in someone just believing something and someone expecting someone else to adopt their position. Asking someone for material proof of God akin to fossil evidence fits into that later category in this context.
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And why couldn’t we include the possibility this belief was invented? I see no reason why we must consider all beliefs as facts.
Are you ever going to demonstrate any connection between a ‘prime mover’ and your god?
Where did I say beliefs are facts?
I didn’t state the original followers of Jesus believed this because he rose from the dead. I stated that they legitimately thought he rose from the dead. Full stop. You are going beyond what I wrote. And I think imagined would be a better word than invented here for one who denies Jesus rose from the dead on the basis of a supernatural miracle.
The God of classical Christian theism is the prime mover. Attributes are the same.
I cannot provide you with the material evidence you are apparently seeking for the spiritual claims at the center of Christian belief. We can’t prove the resurrection and even if we could, historical evidence could be easily ignored since it’s much more flimsy to many than strict scientific evidence.
I don’t do historical apologetics aside from showing how the evidence is overwhelmingly consistent with what Christians believe about Jesus. Beyond that you are free to listen to the teachings of Jesus or reject them.
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”
If the voice of Jesus doesn’t draw you in, the babble that I think I mean stands no chance.
Vinnie
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Speaking of bad arguments–yike.
Autism and Vaccines | Vaccine Safety | CDC *
RFK Jr. says he personally directed CDC’s new guidance on vaccines and autism
Revised CDC Website About Autism and Vaccines Is Not Evidence-Based - FactCheck.org
“This is absolute insanity and a bizarre moving of the goalposts,” David S. Mandell, a psychiatry professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and director of the Penn Center for Mental Health, told us via email. “As any scientist knows, you can’t ‘prove’ the lack of association. You conduct related studies, over and over, until the bulk of evidence finds no association.”
“He added: The “CDC page is the equivalent of ‘you haven’t proven that ghosts don’t exist’ or perhaps more to the point, ‘you haven’t proven that driving during pregnancy doesn’t cause autism, so pregnant women should stop driving.’
CDC 1946-2025: R.I.P. - by Paul Offit - Beyond the Noise
You can’t prove that I have never been to Juneau, Alaska. (I have never been to Juneau, Alaska.) You can only show a series of pictures of buildings in Juneau with me not standing next to them. RFK Jr. uses a technicality in the scientific method to assure that no one can “prove” that he’s wrong. But he is wrong. Vaccines, probably the best studied of all environmental influences, have never been shown to cause autism. It is now fair to say that vaccines don’t cause autism. And that I can’t fly.
If RFK Jr. wanted to be honest with the American public, he would make it clear on the CDC’s website that chicken nuggets also might cause autism, which has never been and will never be disproven.
CDC Vaccine Website Promotes Antiscience Claims of Autism Ties | Scientific American
*Edit: last Thursday, 11/20/2025, RFK and others changed CDC website to cast doubt, using specious arguments, on the safety of MMR and other life saving vaccines. This can be an opportunity to educate the public on how to interpret data correctly, but it likely will cause many to stop vaccines and endanger us all from disease that have been in retreat till recently.
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That should be expanded into a 4-credit college course and be required for graduation!
And used in high school, too.
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Nope, sorry. If I’d done my graduate paper that way I would have flunked. My advisor insisted I track down as many disagreeing viewpoints as my thesis size limits would accommodate, and he had no hesitation in pointing me to others if he thought I was slacking (regardless of language – he had me read in French, German, Italian, Latin, and of course the ancient languages. A major focus was to not take a position until I’d read three dozen or so sources on each of several sides to the issue.
It drilled the point home enough that I find myself feeling guilty when I agree with something I’m reading.
My first hurdle writing my thesis was coming up with a hypothesis – I really had no position; the topic I took just intrigued me.
Of course it’s about data – without data there’s nothing to talk about. That remains true whether your data is historical or linguistic or literary or whatever.
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A tough idea to get across to college freshmen taking philosophy because they have to.
Kind of like demanding a picture of an atom showing little ball-shaped electrons circling a nucleus.
Because culturally and sociologically that’s ridiculous.
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