There is no evidence for God, so why do you believe?

[Polymath257]

My claims verified the Bible was in fact true.
Also, the council of Nicaea purpose was because of the false teaching and heresies that infiltrated the Church so they wouldn’t have introduced fictional names even if you believe what you’re saying.

Actually, the council of Nicaea was gathered because of *disputes* among Christians concerning issues of the divinity of Jesus. The Arian Christians had a different selection of 'sacred writings' than those at Nicaea (and had separate councils that supported their views). The supporters of Athanasius won and got to select the texts that would become the Bible.

Also the council didn’t even include the Jewish believers which was also a mistake of the council.

It also didn't include other *Christian* believers, like the Arians and the Nestorians.

 

[InChrist]

You have been presented with one piece of evidence for it. But you denied it. Here it is again:

The Miller-Urey Experiment - Chemical Evolution | BioTechSquad.

By the way, simply denying it does not do any good. To do so would only demonstrate that you do not understand the concept of evidence. If you want to know why this qualifies as scientific evidence we can go over that. You now have two options. You can either refute it, I doubt if you can do that, or you can accept it as evidence for abiogenesis.

I thought the Miller-Urey experiment was debunked because scientists once thought originally the earth’s atmosphere lacked oxygen. So the researchers used a reducing atmosphere condition composed of hydrogen, methane, ammonia, and water vapor; free of oxygen. This was
done because an atmosphere with oxygen would result in the breaking down of organic molecules, which would not be conducive to the goal of forming living amino acids from non-living chemicals. Besides, from what I have read the experiment also produced toxic chemicals which were destructive to the amino acids they were attempting to form. So a trap in their apparatus was created to collect the formed amino acids to prevent their destruction. But such a trap didn’t exist in the primordial earth.
Several scientists have since questioned, performed other experiments, and disproved the conclusions of the Miller-Urey experiment and false assumptions about the earth’s early atmospheric conditions.

 

[Polymath257]

You need to be more specific. Every time I go outside in the rain I am walking on water.

It is also possible to walk on ice, which is solid water.l

Did he? How do you know?
Because a book written with the purpose of promoting his magical abilities says so?
How do you know the book is accurate?

Even more, given the other writings from the same time that are known and give different stories, how can we be certain the books chosen for the Bible were, indeed, the most authoritative?

Remember that because humans cannot walk on water (as you rightly pointed out), you need some pretty conclusive, independent evidence to support the claim. Simply saying "But the Bible says..." is not evidence of any kind.

Exactly. To claim a miracle happened takes *much* more than even eyewitness evidence to support. But what we have instead is late writings by unknown authors attributed to apostles and telling stories that would not be believed from any other sources.

 

[Polymath257]

I thought the Miller-Urey experiment was debunked because scientists once thought originally the earth’s atmosphere lacked oxygen. So the researchers used a reducing atmosphere condition composed of hydrogen, methane, ammonia, and water vapor; free of oxygen. This was
done because an atmosphere with oxygen would result in the breaking down of organic molecules, which would not be conducive to the goal of forming living amino acids from non-living chemicals. Besides, from what I have read the experiment also produced toxic chemicals which were destructive to the amino acids they were attempting to form. So a trap in their apparatus was created to collect the formed amino acids to prevent their destruction. But such a trap didn’t exist in the primordial earth.
Several scientists have since questioned, performed other experiments, and disproved the conclusions of the Miller-Urey experiment and false assumptions about the earth’s early atmospheric conditions.

Actually, the subsequent experiments have *verified* the Urey-Miller results over a large range of initial conditions. The amount of oxygen in the early atmosphere is known to be very low (the levels didn't rise for almost 2 billion years after the first life). So the atmosphere *was* primarily reducing. But even with that amount of oxygen, amino acids are produced and even polymerize.

 

[Polymath257]

I put a lot more credence in other scholars instead of a 50 year old activist. You don’t just throw out all the previous scholarship for thousands of years and all of the sudden he has some new finding.

Actually, most of the 'scholarship' until about 200 years ago *assumed* the Bible was accurate without actually investigating the matter. To do otherwise would have risked legal and other penalties.

Why is his age (50 years) relevant? Are you saying he isn't old enough to have developed a reasoned viewpoint?

Why is he an activist? Was he one before he started his research? Or did he become one because of his research?

Have you looked at the other research over the last 200 years that treats the Bible like any other collection of writings? Have you looked at the language used, the references given, the motivations of the writers, whether the actual writers are the same as those attributed by tradition, why certain books were selected to be copied (copying texts by hand was expensive), what the different traditions were in the copying, what other historical events were happening at the time, what other writings were not included in the collections, what other beliefs/traditions there were at the time, the motivations of those that selected the writings that were included in collections, whether alternative sources were destroyed for political or other reasons, etc?

ALL of these questions are important to ask *first* before you really start to evaluate the reliability of *any* text. And when those questions are asked about the Bible, the answers are often not what believers would like them to be.

 

[Polymath257]

The same could be said about God.

Except that the theory including God has not been tested. At best, it is speculation with no form of testing even suggested.

 

[Polymath257]

Well if there's actually evidence of abiogenesis happening, it should be easy enough to present. If not, then it's just a theory someone came up with, and we have no reason to take it seriously.

Here is a list of articles from PubMed on the origin of life. Just from this source, there are over 1700 scientific articles, including evidence from several different lines of investigation and addressing a number of concerns.

"Origin of Life"[MAJR] - Search Results - PubMed

That looks like scientific investigation to me.

 

[PearlSeeker]

No, but skepticism about the limits of rational claims do.

I don't doubt the limits of human reason.
But you seem to doubt even what's in the limits.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I don't doubt the limits of human reason.
But you seem to doubt even what's in the limits.

No, poor phrasing.

 

[InChrist]

Why do I keep running into people who think that only their questions and comments deserve an answer? You're the third in a week. I made one point and asked two questions in that comment, which was part of a larger post, all ignored by you. Instead, you asked a question of interest to you, but of no interest to me - why I used the word "it" to refer to the Christian deity.

But let me address what interests you anyway. I used to refer to the Christian deity as He when I thought it was a real thing (there's that word that concerns you again), but this is now, not then. As an atheist, it seems awkward to me to write that sentence with a He. Consider: "I used to refer to the Christian deity as He when I thought He was a real thing, but this is now, not then." It doesn't work for me. I like how I wrote it the first time better, but If you prefer, substitute He for "it" in my posting.

There was no intent to be disrespectful. It's natural for me, as with ghosts, the Loch Ness Monster, and Bigfoot, which I also do not believe exist and would also refer to as "it" even if others used gender pronouns.

Look at the effort I made to address what was of concern to you. Wouldn't you call that an expression of respect, that I thought that what was on your mind deserved my attention and sincere effort to give you a good answer? To give you an equivalent answer, I'd have to have written something that blew off your comment like, "Why are you asking me about pronouns"

Now how about going back to that post and try give me what I have given you in every response to you I've made including this one: There is no evidence for God, so why do you believe? Also, please address the new comments and questions in this post as well.



Not if you know how to properly interpret evidence and can form a valid argument (no logical fallacies) leading to a sound conclusion from it. There is no other rational conclusion possible but agnostic atheism. Reality is not evidence of god. It is evidence that there is something rather than nothing, but not why.

Here's a nice illustration of the idea that the proper evaluation of evidence requires some skill. This is a diagram of all the places where bullet holes were found in WWII bombers returning from battle. It was decided by military commanders that these areas should be reinforced. A statistician named Wald corrected their error. Can you find it?

View attachment 63057

Spoiler: answer

These are the places where a bomber can be hit and return to base. It's the white areas that might benefit from reinforcement, the places where no airplane that had been hit there returned home.

I apologize for not answering your questions. I initially read your original post too hastily and responded too quickly to the part that caught my attention...without giving adequate attention to your questions. Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. It was the answer I expected, but appreciate the details. I will try answering your original questions and then try getting back to others later, as my time is limited this weekend.

You asked...

“Did you ask yourself why a deity that is said to love you and who wants you to know it if you'll just try didn't appear in the first two tries? Why didn't Jesus save you in those other churches?”

My answer is...

Jesus likely did not save me in the Catholic or Mormon churches because He was waiting and leading me to Himself, not a religion or a church. I was looking for truth. I thought I had to find “the true church”. Instead of religion, I found a living relationship with Jesus Christ, the only Savior and Creator of heaven and earth.

 

[InChrist]

You claimed that you had plenty of evidence. Can't you post any?

But here is the website I mentioned:

BioLogos - God's Word. God's World.

Maybe I can continue the conversation concerning the evidence I see for God’s existence later, as my time is limited this weekend.

In the meantime, are my thoughts on the website BioLogos, which espouses evolutionary syncretism, articulated in the linked article which I agree with in its entirety...

Evolutionary Syncretism: A Critique of BioLogos

 

[InChrist]

Ah, you are a serial converter.
Presumably you will claim that while a Catholic and a Mormon, you didn't actually believe them to be true. I wonder what you will think of your current religion when you have moved on again.

I did believe them to be true at the time. The difference is that I have now come to understand that religion does not save, There is only one Savior-Jesus Christ. He is a Personal God, the Creator of heaven and earth...not a religion.

 

[InChrist]

So a person who passes an exam without prayer got lucky or worked hard, but a person who passes after praying got help from god.

Another point here, that is basically cheating. Why should god give some people an advantage but not others? How is that fair or just?

How do you know what is fair or not from God’s perspective? I don’t think life is meant to be about fairness from a temporary worldly perspective. God cares about and works in each person’s life for their eternal benefit and destiny.

 

[KWED]

I did believe them to be true at the time. The difference is that I have now come to understand that religion does not save, There is only one Savior-Jesus Christ. He is a Personal God, the Creator of heaven and earth...not a religion.

So you believed them to be true at the time, but then found something different you preferred, and that became the truth, and so on...
So if another belief takes your fancy, your current one would no longer be true.
It must be quite worrying, knowing that there is a good chance that the belief you currently invest yourself in could be false and you are wasting your time, even endangering your very soul.

 

[KWED]

How do you know what is fair or not from God’s perspective? I don’t think life is meant to be about fairness from a temporary worldly perspective. God cares about and works in each person’s life for their eternal benefit and destiny.

I wasn't talking about god's perspective (although his does seem somewhat warped). It is unfair from our perspective.
Imagine an exam where some students were given help by the examiner if they asked for it, but others had their request rejected. No one in their right mind would consider that fair, even if the examiner thought it was.

 

[ElishaElijah]

ALL of these questions are important to ask *first* before you really start to evaluate the reliability of *any* text. And when those questions are asked about the Bible, the answers are often not what believers would like them to be.

You mean the previous scholars that walked with Jesus and wrote the Bible or scholars closer to the events weren’t the answers they wanted to hear so they got answers from their own bias.
It really doesn’t mean much to me what unbelievers say other than I can spot the lies easy enough. It’s easy to spot a fraud who doesn’t know and never has met the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

[Wildswanderer]

1. Abiogenesis. The origin of life on earth. At one point there was no life, then there was life.
or
2. God creating life from no life. At one point there was no life, then there was life.

Whether you favour natural processes or divine creation, life came from no life at some point.

Actually no ..if life comes from God it comes from another life. And since you have no evidence that abiogenesis ever happens, it's no more viable than a God creating life.

 

[ElishaElijah]

Actually, the council of Nicaea was gathered because of *disputes* among Christians concerning issues of the divinity of Jesus. The Arian Christians had a different selection of 'sacred writings' than those at Nicaea (and had separate councils that supported their views). The supporters of Athanasius won and got to select the texts that would become the Bible.



It also didn't include other *Christian* believers, like the Arians and the Nestorians.

Isn’t that what I said “ heresy and false teaching”?
Gentile believers were represented at the Council but then you mention more Gentiles, why? Has nothing to do with the Jewish believers that weren’t represented. This is a problem and if they were then maybe the pagan festival names wouldn’t be used now but the Feasts of the Lord instead and how Jesus fulfilled those instead.
The Jews were entrusted with the Scriptures from the beginning, so to exclude them was wrong and as you can see a problem with current understanding of the OT and the fulfillment of the Feasts now in the Church even to the point where people somehow think it’s weird when a Jewish person receives Christ when the Gospel is to the Jew first and then to the Gentile.

 

[Wildswanderer]

[

If something is extremely unlikely, it is therefore possible.
Did you know that a person won the lottery twice, with the same numbers, at odds of something like 4 trillion to one?

“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Sherlock Holmes

The stats I've seen say that the single-celled organism has the smallest known genome of any free-living organism still has 1,308,759 base pairs of DNA. It's not unlikely, it's impossible.

 

[nPeace]

...
This is what s known as evidence. And it is why we have a high degree of confidence that there is extra matter, which we call Dark Matter.

Notice that *nderstanding* the evidence in detail requires knowing the specific mathematical description of gravity and how to appply it in various situations.

I'll just zero in on your statement... This is what s known as evidence
Evidence of what?
What are you describing?

What Is Dark Matter?
Dark matter possibly could be brown dwarfs, "failed" stars that never ignited because they lacked the mass needed to start burning. Dark matter could be white dwarfs, the remnants of cores of dead small- to medium-size stars. Or dark matter could be neutron stars or black holes, the remnants of large stars after they explode.

Dark matter may not be made up of the matter we are familiar with at all. The matter that makes up dark matter could different. It may be filled with particles predicted by theory but that scientists have yet to observe.

Feel free to read the short article.
However, the article makes the point that since scientists can't see dark matter directly, they have found other ways to investigate it.
The article also says that scientists at NASA think they have a direct way to detect dark matter, but these scientists do not have enough data to form conclusions.
Dark matter they say, is still one of the great mysteries of science.

So when you say 'understanding the evidence', what do you mean by that?
According to this, Dark Matter may not exist, and that is quite likely.
What is the identity of dark matter? Is it a particle? If so, is it a WIMP, axion, the lightest superpartner (LSP), or some other particle? Or, do the phenomena attributed to dark matter point not to some form of matter but actually to an extension of gravity?

The observed phenomenon may be gravity, or debris, or...
You just don't know. ...but alas it must be Dark Matter, because of all that "evidence" you presented, right?

What problem do you have with evidence for God, again?

That is what you have stated, but you have actually supplied nothing even close to the detail seen above.

Oh yes I have.

Exactly which observations have given the detection?

Sigh One last time. I will not do this again, for you. Okay?

1. The marvelous design in creation. The testify to an intelligent designer whose qualities are clearly seen in his works.
2. The truthfulness, and reliability of the Bible, seen in its overall harmony, historical accuracy, scientific accuracy, prophetic accuracy, timeless practical value, and candor of those who penned it.

What alternatives were tested? How were the observations verified by other lines of evidence?

The silly idea that designed objects of far more intricacy than the greatest human design, requires no intelligent designer, but undirected processes are capable of purposeful design of these intricate systems.
In other words, ludicrous ideas were tested, and they do not stand up.

The other lines of evidence supports what we observe, including the power of God's word and his spirit, to effect lives, and activities of those of God's people.

The fact that different matter has different properties is why there are natural laws: the properties explain why matter interacts the ways it does. The natural laws are what describe the patterns of those interactions.

So you think this matter, and their properties always existed? What scientific evidence supports that idea?
Could these properties have been designed? Do you think the 'information' to direct processes, and create and manage systems could not possibly have been created?

That claim was made in the source *you* gave. I was debunking it.

Let's take a look...
Scientists have discovered a great deal about earth’s position in our solar system as well as the perfect orbit, size, and mass of our large moon. The arrangement and interrelationship of these heavenly bodies makes possible the beautiful and regular change of seasons. Also, much has been learned about the fine-tuning of natural forces in the universe. Thus, in an article entitled “The Designed ‘Just So’ Universe,” a professor of mechanical engineering observed: “It is quite easy to understand why so many scientists have changed their minds in the past 30 years, agreeing that it takes a great deal of faith to believe the universe can be explained as nothing more than a fortuitous cosmic accident. Evidence for an intelligent designer becomes more compelling the more we understand about our carefully crafted habitat.”

I have read it several times, and it seems evident to me that in your haste to disagree, you failed to read the article properly.
"The arrangement and interrelationship of these heavenly bodies" does not refer to the moon, but the arrangement and interrelationship of the heavenly bodies in our solar system... taking into consideration "earth’s position in our solar system".

You erred in your understanding.
Maybe you interpreted it according to your thought processes, at that time. As you admitted, you were out to debunk.
That explains it.

Well, for example, the claims of fine tuning in the Earth are dispelled when we actually look at the Earth and solar system and what is required for life to exist here. I have seen it claimed that if the Earth were any closer or farther away from the sun, that life would be impossible. As a matter of fact, there is a fairly wide 'habitable zone' extending tens of millions of miles on either side of the Earth's orbit for which life as we know it would be possible.

So this information as well as this, is false?

I have seen it claimed that a certain resonce between carbon nuclei and helium nuclei needs to be finely tuned in order for carbon to be formed, allowing life as we know it. Again, the actual degree of fine tuning was overstated and differences of up to 20% would actually be allowed.

So things like this, are not really necessary for the life to exist on earth? What would have happened if things were different?
What about the rate of expansion of the universe... That didn't matter?

I can go for other specific claims I have seen made, but they *all* amount to a form of the sharpshooter falacy: they see what life is like under the conditions we have and assume those are the only conditions that could lead to life.

That's not accurate, as far as I know.
If there was no evidence of God, or a creator, people would not just assume that. I think we would be like you, and other Atheist - believing whatsoever they tell us... even if it doesn't make sense.

Maybe that is because you haven't studied science to any degree. Some explanations actually require study to understand.

Or maybe you don't know how to make what you say clear enough to be understood by any layman.
However, it has nothing to do with studying and understanding science. It has to do with coherency.
You said... "Which is why we have confidence in the dark matter explanation." in responce to a statement about people just concluding there is no God without investigating.
I don't understand how your statement relates to what I said. I need to study science in order to know when something isn't coherent? Why?

Funny that is doesn't convince people of other faiths.

Sounds exactly like scientists.
Dark matter is the elusive, invisible substance that appears to make up more than 80 percent of the total mass in the universe — far more than accounted for by the "regular" matter that makes up things like stars, planets and everything astronomers can directly observe. A new study makes the bold claim, however, that perhaps dark matter doesn't exist at all.
But scientists aren't convinced that the study holds water.

Dark matter IS real despite recent discovery of galaxies that appear to exist without it, scientists argue in new study they claim 'removes doubts on the existence' of the elusive material

I hope nobody loses their life over that... or even a button.
I can find more on almost every subject believed by scientists.

No, that is a vague claim where the words are interpreted in the best light instead of in the context of the time they were written. So, the Earth does NOT 'hang' on nothing. Hanging implies being at rest or at most swinging back and forth. That is NOT what happens to the Earth. But it *does* match the views of the time that had the Earth *at rest* at the center of the universe.

Interestingly, you think your interpretation count, while you insist others interpret the Bible to make it say what they believe.
Your interpretation is not important here. I said what I had to say on that before.... to you.

Because the details need to be explained as well. In fact, many seemingly wonderful ideas crash on the shore of details. vague generalities are easy. But having enough detail to be able to test and then passing the tests is much harder.

Which is fine, again, if all you want is glittering generalities. But if you want to get into the specifics of how the similarities are distributed among species, this general statement falls flat.

Like I said before, you are not qualified to understand spiritual things - the things of God.
I have given details in my first post of this thread, as well as in many threads previous.

I am not obligated to see that everyone accepts the evidence, or truth.
I'm obligated only to share, and declare.

If a person is able to ignore miracles, because he is not convinced, and he believes he has the natural explanation for any phenomenon, why would I be interested in trying to sway his position.