Replies

Depends on what you call substantiation.

So it depends on my definition of a word? I've heard that kind of justification before, but I cannot recall where.

I consider myself a responsible, objective observer of human behavior, and that is my observation.

But you offered no citations, not even to your own documented research. You are offering nothing more than your own interpretation of obsrevations without even providing details on the scope of your observations. That is known as "anecdotal" and I could just as easily point out that I have encountered few if any atheists who argue that evolution somehow disproves the existence of deities to counter your claim.

Or, one might say, "All experience hath shewn" that many if not most atheists do that.

If this is the case then you could surely at least point to online discussions where this has occured.

Since you don't seem to have been watching over the past twenty years, why don't you start now? The data will soon pile up.

Now you are telling me to do your research for you. I have never encountered anyone telling me to do this who was making a sustainable claim. Because of this, and based upon your own standard of evidence, I can safely conclude that no one who tells me to do my own research rather than substantiate their claims has a sustainable claim.

If you were to ask me whether I prefer to trust my lying eyes or some study by birkenstock-wearing, tofu-chomping, limp-wristed, one-worlder gun-fearing pansy-assed chicken chocking globalist metrosexual twinkie-addled Subaru driving Starbucks-sipping Dixie Chicks-admiring godless unpatriotic pierced-nose France-loving left-wing Communist latte-sucking holistic-wacko neurotic vegan weenie pervert college professors, well, that's an easy one to answer.

Nothing that you have offered amounts to evidence that any significant number of atheists have claimed that the theory of evolution disproves theism. If you are going to dance around the subject to this extent when pressed for evidence, to the point of conjuring some wild fantasy about the authors of some study that I never referenced after telling me to do your homework for you, why should I trust anything that you say?

"So it depends on my definition of a word?"

No, it depends on your definition of not of the word, but of the thing itself. In addition, there is a significant difference between the word "is" and the word "substantiation." To quibble over the definition of the word "is" is obviously meretricious, but reasonable people can reasonably disagree over the definition of "substantiation."

Besides, you answered the question below: you insist on the sort of "study" that academia endorses.

"But you offered no citations, not even to your own documented research."

People who insist on "citations" and "documented research" in all cases, rather than only where appropriate, think they are applying intellectual rigor. In actuality, they are only engaging in willful ignorance. This is especially humourous in light of the recent study showing that most studies are bunk.

WRT the present subject, any valid experimental design would require the researchers to engage in illegal activities, and would in the end rely on the judgment of human beings as to whether conduct amounted to implying or communicating that the fossil record disproves the existence of God.

If the referees were liberals, they'd deny it even if they saw it. And since all studies (outside of narrowly circumscribed areas in the hard sciences) are selected by liberals for funding, conducted by liberals, and designed by liberals to support liberal dogma, you're demanding that which is as a practical matter impossible.

"You are offering nothing more than your own interpretation of obsrevations"

Yes, that's right. And that is far and away more reliable than most "studies" coming out of academia.

"I could just as easily point out that I have encountered few if any atheists who argue that evolution somehow disproves the existence of deities to counter your claim."

Certainly you could. And one might say that, a priori, your impressions are as valid as mine. From that starting point, however, one must ask a few questions. For instance, have you been looking for such data in the right places; is your experience as wide as mine; do you have an axe to grind that influences your perceptions; have you been watching for as many decades as I; do you have the historical perspective lent by personal experience and observation both before and after the great melt-down; and, perhaps most important, have you spent most of your academic career over in the hard sciences enclave, or do you have the background in the humanities (theology, philosophy, psychology, literature, history, political science, etc.) to correctly interpret such data as you have collected?

"If this is the case then you could surely at least point to online discussions where this has occured."

Soitenly I could, if (a) I had been collecting links, or (b) I were willing to invest the time in searches. Saw one right here on FR last night. Quick search…ah…there are some instances here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1522991/posts

And that’s about all the time I have for searching just now.

"Now you are telling me to do your research for you."

Nope. Telling you to do your own research.

"I have never encountered anyone telling me to do this who was making a sustainable claim."

Or rather, every time someone has told you to "do your own research" you have refused, instead deciding arbitrarily that the evidence you have not looked for doesn't exist. Tsk, tsk, hardly scientific.

"Nothing that you have offered amounts to evidence"

You arrive at that conclusion only by arbitrarily discounting my observations and interpretation thereof. What are your "scientific" grounds for that?

"why should I trust anything that you say?"

You can never know whether you should trust anything I say until you do your own research.