Isn't it bizarre humans still believe in God? (follower, create, existence)
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Not really. Sure, a god could have done the Big bang, but until we can rule out that there might have been another cause, Goddunnit is not the default option. especially as the universe thereafter shows no real sign of the hand and foot of an intelligent designer and a few compelling clues that there isn't one.
Scientist say that the universe is so big and so old that if there are a trillion earths, that one out of those trillion would have people on it, and there are so many earth and so much time that they estimate that 4 billions earths have already come and gone where they lived so long on an earth, that it has already come and gone.
It would seem like a logical conclusion that there is life everywhere in the universe, and if this is true, whose to say that the God of the Bible wasn't just a very evolved society from a different earth?
The more we learn of the universe, the more chances it seems that God could have been an alien who came down to set man on a path.
It's not about convenience. It's pretty much a fact. Those who demand an evidence of God, do not find one.
Try giving me a few examples otherwise.
Show me a few people, who demanded an evidence of God, they were then presented with the evidence, or they found the evidence on their own, and then they became believers.
Do you know of any one like this? No, you don't.
Of course not but that's the whole point isn't it? The fact that no verifiable evidence for the existence of ANY god has EVER been forthcoming in the whole history of mankind, means that the logical, reasonable and common sense conclusion is that gods do not exist - just like it is reasonable, logical and common sense to conclude that, seeing no verifiable evidence that there is a lion living under your bed, you conclude that there is no lion living under your bed! The question is why you, seeing no evidence for a lion, conclude there is no lion but whilst seeing there is no evidence for your god, you conclude that it's there.
The answer to the that question is obvious to anyone with even half a working brain cell and it is that, in the case of the lion, you wouldn't really care to have a lion under your bed and so you see no lion but in the case of your god you desperately want him to be under your bed, you have invested too much time and effort in your life to have it all shattered by accepting that he isn't there under your bed and so, every night, you desperately look under your bed and you convince yourself that he's there waving back at you. You have convinced yourself he's there and you even talk to him.
You have convinced yourself that he's there to such an extent that you really don't understand people who look under your bed tell you that there is nothing there. You think there is something wrong with them because they can't see him. And yet, if one of those non-believers insisted that THEY had a lion under their bed and took you home to show you but you found nothing, zilch, nada evidence that the lion was there, you would no doubt think him crazy.
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And obviously, you will come back and say, an evidence for someone is not an evidence for me.
Not so.You see my dear old fruit-bat; the absolutely wonderful thing about verifiable evidence is that it is the same for all. It doesn't change. A bloody knife protruding from someone's back is verifiable evidence to everyone that knives exist, not just to those people that believe in knives..
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haha.I thought you were a man of verifiable evidences, no?
Let's say, whatever you are asking for, is done. Tell me how are you going to verify and validate that it was actually done by God? You can't.
I've already told you. Your omnimax deity would have ways that would leave us in no doubt...but even just the thing I described would be enough for probably 99% of the non-believers on the planet.
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Guess what you are asking for instead of an evidence? You are asking for a miracle.
No. I'm asking for verifiable evidence...and that proves itself.
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1 - If you are able to scientifically explain it then you don't need God. And it's not a miracle either. Because you can then do it on your own. You will have the know-how and verifiable scientific knowledge to remove all misery from earth in a heart beat, and you will be able to stamp every door with the message of your liking. Why would you need God?
2 - Since you can't scientifically explain the scenario of how all misery was removed and how all doors got stamped, you should not believe in it either. Remember, you were a man of verifiable evidences and proves?
The verifiable evidence is the action and the stamp.It wouldn't have to be scientifically verified. We don't need scientific verification that, if one holds ones head under water for an hour one will drown. The action itself is verifiable evidence of it's truth.
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Incidentally not.You might wanna check the dictionary to find the meaning of faith.
We are talking of faith in the religious sense but I'll play. Please give me say, three things that you do in your everyday life where you rely solely on 'faith' to conclude that they are utterly true?
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No sir, it's YOUR call whether you want to believe in A or B or C or Odin or Cow. Your call, your choice and you will be responsible for it. If you want to believe in leprechauns or in vedas or in whatever, that's YOUR call, you are responsible for it. Everyone is on its own.
No my old wart. It has nothing to do with 'choice'. It has to do with what is and what isn't TRUE.. Clearly I can believe what ever I like, as can you but if we are going to walk the planet claiming that what we believe is true, then we are going to have to support the claim of 'TRUTH'.
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And I am not an Atheist because my logic tells me that the entire universe and everything in it, could have come along on its own.
Thank you. You make my point most admirably. You say that your reason and logic tell you that the universe can not have come about without a 'creator' and yet, if I say to you,...'If your logic and reason tells you that the universe can not have come about without a creator; why doesn't that same logic and reason tell you that the creator can not have come about without a creator?'...you will simply claim that your god is special and the rules don't apply to him...right?
So you see my old cream-puff. Although you claim to use logic and reason to come to conclusions, in reality, you don't; because, as we see, if logic, reason and common sense tell you something that you don't want to be true, you take that very same logic, reason and common sense that you have used to conclude that there is no lion living under your bed, open the window and throw it out...preferring instead to rely on a totally irrational, unreasonable and illogical thing that you call faith!!
I am always intrigued by people who relish the opportunity to poke at the deeply held beliefs of others. I always wonder exactly what kind of narcissistic joy it brings them since it surely does. Is it simply the feeling of superiority it brings, or is there more to it than that ?
I love my son very much, but I could never prove it to you. I guess I don't really love him after all.
I am always intrigued by people who relish the opportunity to poke at the deeply held beliefs of others.
Why shouldn't we poke? If an idea has merit it should be applauded. If it is illogical, irrational and unsupportable then it should be ridiculed and 'poked'. Wilful ignorance and superstition should not be supported and 'respected' no matter how deeply that wilful ignorance and superstition is held.
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I always wonder exactly what kind of narcissistic joy it brings them since it surely does. Is it simply the feeling of superiority it brings, or is there more to it than that ?
It is nothing more than not wanting to see the propagation of wilful ignorance and superstition in 2017.
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I love my son very much, but I could never prove it to you. I guess I don't really love him after all
There are many way in which you can prove that but to be frank with you, I really couldn't give a toss whether or not you love your son. What I do give a toss about if you, without actually proving to me that you even have a son, insist that I too have to love your son and that the love of your should be worshipped and applauded in our places of education, government buildings, public places and sports venues.
Scientist say that the universe is so big and so old that if there are a trillion earths, that one out of those trillion would have people on it, and there are so many earth and so much time that they estimate that 4 billions earths have already come and gone where they lived so long on an earth, that it has already come and gone.
It would seem like a logical conclusion that there is life everywhere in the universe, and if this is true, whose to say that the God of the Bible wasn't just a very evolved society from a different earth?
The more we learn of the universe, the more chances it seems that God could have been an alien who came down to set man on a path.
Correct. In fact a pen-pal of mine is reading a book on the Fermi paradox right now and we have been chatting about it. Broadly this deals with possible alien races in other galaxies if not stars in our galaxy.
And your point here is the important one given that the universe is not fine -tuned for life (we are like mould that has formed on a bit of old gravy you dropped on the table, and could vanish the next time you have a clean -up) but that -given that the biochemical building blocks, water and and carbon/hydrogen elements are so ubiquitous and that all that is needed for 'life' is a chemical replication-method, it is statistically probable that not many of the stars out there will have planets where life developed, but given the staggering number of stars, statistically it is almost absurd to suggest that nowhere is there life other than here. And some of those would have made it to a reasoning life -form.
This was behind the remark (Sagan's I believe) "absence of evidence" (we have no evidence of alien life out there) is not necessarily" (we need that caveat-which is often left out ) "evidence of absence". Because so much is unknown, and because of the parameters of probability, life probably does exist, even though there is no shred of direct evidence.
This saying is misused by theist apologists (as they seem to misuse anything so long as it helps their argument) to argue that absence of evidence for a god does not mean there isn't one.
But it does - given the parameters of that particular case. Sure "Have you looked everywhere in the Universe?" (one of the more common and more stupid misuses of this argument) effectively makes 'God' an alien being on a distant galaxy. Even if it had started life here and done all the OT stuff (1) and retreated to a different planet, that merely makes it Deist -god and of course debunks the Bible from Kings onwards (2).
The only god that is relevant to discussion is a god here with us and indeed interacting with us, because if it doesn't, it might as well be on a distant plant for all the evidence for its' existence goes.
And that is where the evidence of absence, in that case where we have limited and generally understood parameters, IS indeed and most definitely evidence of absence.
(1) Dainiken had some nice spin-offs where God was a visiting alien spaceman and all the stuff in Ezekiel was lazer ray -guns and nuclear bombs- Interpretation allows you to make Anything look workable)
(2) or maybe not. Destroying the Assyrian army, taking out Nicanor (telescopic sights or even a smart bullet) infecting both Herods with disease (biological weapons) and of course, the UFO star could all have a UFO pilot explanation.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 06-25-2017 at 05:06 AM..
Of course not but that's the whole point isn't it? The fact that no verifiable evidence for the existence of ANY god has EVER been forthcoming in the whole history of mankind, means that the logical, reasonable and common sense conclusion is that gods do not exist - just like it is reasonable, logical and common sense to conclude that, seeing no verifiable evidence that there is a lion living under your bed, you conclude that there is no lion living under your bed! The question is why you, seeing no evidence for a lion, conclude there is no lion but whilst seeing there is no evidence for your god, you conclude that it's there.
The answer to the that question is obvious to anyone with even half a working brain cell and it is that, in the case of the lion, you wouldn't really care to have a lion under your bed and so you see no lion but in the case of your god you desperately want him to be under your bed, you have invested too much time and effort in your life to have it all shattered by accepting that he isn't there under your bed and so, every night, you desperately look under your bed and you convince yourself that he's there waving back at you. You have convinced yourself he's there and you even talk to him.
You have convinced yourself that he's there to such an extent that you really don't understand people who look under your bed tell you that there is nothing there. You think there is something wrong with them because they can't see him. And yet, if one of those non-believers insisted that THEY had a lion under their bed and took you home to show you but you found nothing, zilch, nada evidence that the lion was there, you would no doubt think him crazy.
Not so.You see my dear old fruit-bat; the absolutely wonderful thing about verifiable evidence is that it is the same for all. It doesn't change. A bloody knife protruding from someone's back is verifiable evidence to everyone that knives exist, not just to those people that believe in knives..
I've already told you. Your omnimax deity would have ways that would leave us in no doubt...but even just the thing I described would be enough for probably 99% of the non-believers on the planet.
No. I'm asking for verifiable evidence...and that proves itself.
The verifiable evidence is the action and the stamp.It wouldn't have to be scientifically verified. We don't need scientific verification that, if one holds ones head under water for an hour one will drown. The action itself is verifiable evidence of it's truth.
We are talking of faith in the religious sense but I'll play. Please give me say, three things that you do in your everyday life where you rely solely on 'faith' to conclude that they are utterly true?
No my old wart. It has nothing to do with 'choice'. It has to do with what is and what isn't TRUE.. Clearly I can believe what ever I like, as can you but if we are going to walk the planet claiming that what we believe is true, then we are going to have to support the claim of 'TRUTH'.
Thank you. You make my point most admirably. You say that your reason and logic tell you that the universe can not have come about without a 'creator' and yet, if I say to you,...'If your logic and reason tells you that the universe can not have come about without a creator; why doesn't that same logic and reason tell you that the creator can not have come about without a creator?'...you will simply claim that your god is special and the rules don't apply to him...right?
So you see my old cream-puff. Although you claim to use logic and reason to come to conclusions, in reality, you don't; because, as we see, if logic, reason and common sense tell you something that you don't want to be true, you take that very same logic, reason and common sense that you have used to conclude that there is no lion living under your bed, open the window and throw it out...preferring instead to rely on a totally irrational, unreasonable and illogical thing that you call faith!!
So thanks for proving my point old bun!
Cracking post, old Shrub. Our mate cardinals is one of those good bad examples who show up how reason, logic, the parameters of evidence, burden of proof, meaning of faith, truth and evidence are fiddled to try to make no reason to believe look like a good reason to believe - but only as you hilariously depict him, a deity under his bed waving back at him and asking yet again when he's going to empty that damn' Po.
It only EVER works when you start with a godfaith and in the case of specific religions and gods, the extra illogic of NOT believing in any of the other god -claims.
We just disbelieve in one more than they do.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 06-25-2017 at 06:44 AM..
I am always intrigued by people who relish the opportunity to poke at the deeply held beliefs of others. I always wonder exactly what kind of narcissistic joy it brings them since it surely does. Is it simply the feeling of superiority it brings, or is there more to it than that ?
I love my son very much, but I could never prove it to you. I guess I don't really love him after all.
In a you tube on critical thinking (Qualiasoup (1) the point is made that everyday things we all know about do not need verification, even if a particular instance doesn't have particular verification.
If you say you love your son, I won't dispute that. I am aware that 'Love' might include locking him in his room until he leans another Bible chapter by heart. and having already kicked your daughter out of the house because she stopped believing. But I won't believe those horrible thoughts about your without some strong evidence they might be true.
It is a fiddle of correct reasoning to use things we all know about and accept in ourselves and thus in others even though we can't put it under the microscope as justification of some fanciful claim - and one out of a lot of others - which you simply disregard.
Let me use the "Love" analogy again. We all have the emotion in various ways and that a person may claim to love his wife (or whatever ) is not unbelievable even if we can't dissect it. But if he then claims that this is because a small fat baby with wings is shooting an invisible arrow into your heart every day - are you going to believe that? Even if he appeals to tradition and "Everybody know that cupid fires love -darts" won't persuade you.
If you employ reason and evidence to debunk him "Look we know now the heart isn't the seat of feelings- the brain is." You think that will stop him for a minute? "Oh I know that - it's just a metaphor for a more mysterious, but definitely sciencey process that "Cupid" does." Can't you hear him? I know you can, because you already heard God-believers arguing the same way.
And what will you say to the cupid believer who attacks you as some sort of malicious bastard who gets his pleasures from destroying "deeply held beliefs" of others? Jezziz - you'd say you were only trying to help by assisting him out of this mad delusion of his and showing him other and much better explanations of "Love". But if he doesn't want to listen - fine.
But the problem is, Cupidists make up 60% of the USA. They vote in one Cupid-believer after another. They want to pass legislation to force people to receive Cupid's arrow and not marrying would be a illegal. Those who don't believe in "Cupid" would be regarded as wicked people, unfit to hold public office, unfit to be citizens, unfit to raise kids. Their offspring should at least be filled up at school with teachings about Cupid to counter the lies about adrenaline and evolved mating instincts their parents have been feeding them. Wouldn't you want at least to roll back their influence to give you and your views a fair shake and some equal rights?
Are you getting it, Mike? Can you see what is the problem and the problem caused by the problem?
I am always intrigued by people who relish the opportunity to poke at the deeply held beliefs of others. I always wonder exactly what kind of narcissistic joy it brings them since it surely does. Is it simply the feeling of superiority it brings, or is there more to it than that ?
I love my son very much, but I could never prove it to you. I guess I don't really love him after all.
Have you read Christian apologist/philosopher Alvin Plantinga? Some of his work is heavy sledding, but some of it is not. In any event, he deals with whether Christian belief has what he calls "warrant" - basically whether faith is epistemologically justified or intellectually acceptable without the sort of "proof" that atheists pretend to insist upon (except when it comes to their own beliefs). To quote the Wikipedia entry, "According to [Plantinga], belief in God can be rational and justified even without arguments or evidence for the existence of God. More specifically, Plantinga argues that belief in God is properly basic, and due to a religious externalist epistemology, he claims belief in God could be justified independently of evidence." Three of his books that I would recommend (if you're interested) are Warranted Christian Belief (2000); Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (2011); and Knowledge and Christian Belief (2015).
The game atheists play is to pretend that they occupy some intellectual higher ground, one where they make the rules, they decide what constitutes evidence, and they decide what quantum of evidence is sufficient. The atheist position is always the "default" position, the only one a "rational" and "critical" thinker could hold. Religion - oh, that's strictly for credulous magical thinkers. The beauty of Plantinga (and William Lane Craig) is that he exposes this silliness for what it is. And he does so from the perspective of one of the leading philosophers of our time, one whose academic and professional credentials are impeccable and whose work receives the attention it deserves even in secular circles. (Nevertheless, I actually had some anonymous character on this very forum several years ago assure me that he had "read Plantinga," "was not impressed," and "considered him a lightweight." Oh, well, there you go, that settles it then.)
Just by way of example, atheists inevitably present "unquided" evolution as though it were the default position. As Plantinga points out, "unguidedness" is not part of evolutionary theory at all. It is a metaphysical add-on that is inserted solely in furtherance of a materialistic/naturalistic/atheistic paradigm. It is no more the default position than God or space aliens is the default position. The Intelligent Design movement has produced a solid body of evidence pointing toward a designer - certainly enough to establish what the law calls a prima facie case - yet atheists simply pretend none of this evidence exists or, if it does, it is not "real" evidence because, well, because if it were real evidence it would impugn the atheistic paradigm.
It's all just a silly game, as you realize. People on all sides strut their stuff and talk past one another. Groupies mindlessly boo, hiss and wave their pom-poms. No views are changed. No real communication takes place. I always find the dynamics and psychology of these forums far more interesting than the actual "discussions." Even when I attempt to post substantively, I try to maintain the perspective of an observer because the "thread dynamics" are more interesting than the responses themselves. I've been accused several times just today of being "deceptive" because I have consciously adopted as my forum persona that of an aggressively in-your-face Christian who is not the real me - but, my God, what difference does it make when the entire forum is one big Monty Python skit anyway?
I am always intrigued by people who relish the opportunity to poke at the deeply held beliefs of others. I always wonder exactly what kind of narcissistic joy it brings them since it surely does. Is it simply the feeling of superiority it brings, or is there more to it than that ?
I love my son very much, but I could never prove it to you. I guess I don't really love him after all.
I don't demand proof, just credible evidence.
What is there to prove about the love of one's child? Most people have children and understand the intense emotional bond between parent and offspring. Even those that don't can comprehend it through observation, to say nothing of understanding the evolutionary aspects of it. A child-less sociopath who has never taken a biology course might be mystified by love, but that excludes 99% of all people.
It's like this:
If you tell me that you went to the Grand Canyon last week, I'll believe that. I won't demand proof. If you tell me you once crossed the Outback on a camel, I'll buy that. Odd, but the Outback and camels are well documented, and those animals are sometimes used in that place. So, no proof necessary. Ditto if you backpacked through Europe, or saw Cats on Broadway, or went skydiving. These things are all well documented. I can go to Europe, I can see a video of Cats, I've seen aircraft and I've even seen people jumping out of them.
But if you tell me that you went to Mars, then I'll need some sort of substantiation. If you tell me you've crossed the Mirkwood en your way to Mordor, I'm not going to grant you the same benefit of the doubt as I did when you talked about your Grand Canyon visit. If you tell me that your time machine works really well and you just got back from the Cretaceous, then I'll need to see this technological wonder in action.
Loving your child is akin to skydiving. Mordor-by-way-of-Mirkwood is akin to God. The threshold for believing the latter is far, far higher than the former.
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) "evidence of absence". Because so much is unknown, and because of the parameters of probability, life probably does exist, even though there is no shred of direct evidence.
