100% lack of evidence to God

[YoursTrue]

Yes, some evidence is personal. But that personal experience is not good evidence for anyone else even if it is true.

Certainly the apostle Paul found that out. Same with Jesus.

 

[YoursTrue]

If you really believe that, then I welcome your participation in another thread:

Monotheists: why only one god?

... but here's the thing about this sort of argument: there are only four possibilities:

1. God exists and you had justification for belief in him.
2. God doesn't exist despite you having justification for him.
3. God exists and you didn't have justification for belief in him.
4. God doesn't exist and you didn't have justification for belief in him.

You're describing God as "something unseen," which I take to mean you're ruling out the first two possibilities.

... but think about what's left: either way, your beliefs are based on nothing. Either way, major tenets of your religion are false. Even if you get a coincidental hit on God, your opinion isn't reliable; we would have no reason to think that any other belief you hold about God is going to be correct.

So would you really comsider possibility #3 a "win"? From my perspective, it would be a major loss. Not only that, but the God in possibility #3 is irrelevant - he has affected humanity in no perceivable way. He is indistinguishable from #4: a God that doesn't exist.

Personally, I don't care about splitting hairs between #3 and #4. I am perfectly fine with treating a God that's indistinguishable from a God that doesn't exist as a God that doesn't exist.

Not sure if you're aiming this at me since you did not quote anyone, but -- frankly, it's a bit too complicated for me to understand your reasoning here. I'd have to dissect each and every thought of yours, kind of like a good scientist would try to comprehend what he is trying to comprehend.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Not sure if you're aiming this at me since you did not quote anyone,

I did quote someone.

Sounds like you have @muhammad_isa on ignore.

 

[YoursTrue]

Indeed. Wishful thinking is another strong motivator in religious belief. What better way to convince the poor and oppressed to put up with their lot than to promise them reward being their wildest dreams, as well as assure them that their oppressors will be made to pay. But not just yet.

Also, millions find it reasonable to believe that the 2020 US election was stolen. However, we know that their belief is complete nonsense.

Interesting you should say that about wishful thinking. I was thinking that it would be very, very hard for me to believe that someone is transferred into an insect, cow, snake, or whatever in the "next life." Not saying that I wouldn't be born into a religion of that kind, but Jesus did say that the good news of God's kingdom would be preached in all the inhabited earth, so this leads me to believe that many would have the opportunity to see and possibly understand.

 

[YoursTrue]

I did quote someone.

Sounds like you have @muhammad_isa on ignore.

oh sorry, I'll check, thanks.

 

[blü 2]

You cannot reliably conclude that something unseen does not exist, because it can't be seen. That is circular reasoning.

What if it can't be detected, has no association with any objective phenomenon, and (as I said above) is far better explained as an evolved aspect of human psychology?

It is still an assumption .. based on the principle that physical reality [ this universe ] is all that exists.

All that exists outside of the individual mind, at least.

And it seems very well founded. The Abrahamic God, for example, has no description appropriate to a real being, such that if we found a real candidate, we could determine whether it was God or not. Instead the Abrahamic God is usually described in terms of imaginary qualities ─ omnipotent, omniscient, perfect and the like.

That is false. There is reason to believe it to be true, otherwise nobody would believe it.

But again, this is best explained as an evolved trait of humans, to devise reasons for things otherwise hard to explain, and to get a sense of controlling them by appeasing or appealing to the relevant god.

After all, if God were real, the great majority of human versions of God would have the same features of God (or gods) in common, like a hundred different people looking at the moon or a particular mountain or a giraffe ─ their accounts mightn't be exactly the same, but they'd have the essentials in common. And the thousands of gods that humans have devised over time and place have nothing even vaguely resembling that consistency.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

No .. it is not hard to see that many people find it reasonable to believe in the concept of a creator, divine justice and life after death.

Many people can be wrong it. History is paved with the corpses of bad and false ideas that were once universally accepted.
Clearly it matters not how many people "believe" whatever.

'belief in cultural gods' is not the only factor.

It seems to be the factor in the extreme overwhelming majority of cases, as the extreme vast majority grows up believing the religion of their parents / the culture in which they were raised.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I suppose it depends on what you believe and why.

One could suggest the same thing for not believing in God.
i.e. it's wishful thinking that there is no hell, that is a consequence of our deeds

The consequences of our deeds are found in the real world.

For example: take a baseball bat, go out of your house and start smashing random people's faces in. See what happens... how long it lasts before cops surround you with drawn weapons. Then, when you're released (unless you threaten the officers as well - then it won't end well), go back to your neighborhood and witness the "social cost" of your baseball actions also.

Having said that, one requires reason to believe gods exist.
I as an atheist don't believe that claim, because I have no reason to.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Many people can be wrong..

They can also be right.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Having said that, one requires reason to believe gods exist.
I as an atheist don't believe that claim, because I have no reason to.

Clearly, I as a believer do have reason to.
My experiences in life lead me to believe that there is more to life than what is apparent.
i.e. this worldly life

I believe in the significance of existence itself, and do not turn my back on that, just because it can't be scientifically proved.

 

[Polymath257]

You cannot reliably conclude that something unseen does not exist, because it can't be seen. That is circular reasoning.

It is still an assumption .. based on the principle that physical reality [ this universe ] is all that exists.

As an example, you are saying I cannot determine that an invisible elephant doesn't exist in my room? And the reason I can't say that is because it is invisible?

That is false. There is reason to believe it to be true, otherwise nobody would believe it.

And *that* is false. Many (even most) people believe very unreasonable things.

They can believe because of tradition, or because it is what they were told as a child, or because they are afraid, or because a belief makes them feel special. Those are NOT reasons to believe in the sense that the belief is reasonable.

 

[muhammad_isa]

And *that* is false. Many (even most) people believe very unreasonable things..

..so you claim that people are being "unreasonable" if they believe in God .. just because it can't be empirically demonstrated?

You are entitled to your opinion.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

..so you claim that people are being "unreasonable" if they believe in God .. just because it can't be empirically demonstrated?

You are entitled to your opinion.

So you agree that God can't be empirically demonstrated?

 

[BilliardsBall]

Because the particular deities that people believe is correlated with where they grew up and the beliefs of their parents. Since there are many different sets of such beliefs, they cannot all be correct. But they *can* all be wrong.

Or they can all be right, so please back up your faith-based claim here.

 

[BilliardsBall]

No. Everyone is born without any notion of any religion or gods.

Correct.

Not really. Many people make many decisions based on emotion rather than reason.

Plenty of people find meaning without resorting to extraordinary claims.

Ghosts, alien abduction, fake moon landing, 9/11 inside job, The Big Steal, etc, etc.

2 & 3.1 explain pretty well why most people are religionists.

Why does something being in people's consciousness/zeitgeist necessarily mean it is real? 2 & 3 explain it perfectly well.

Most people do not believe in "Ghosts, alien abduction, fake moon landing, 9/11 inside job, The Big Steal, etc, etc." Nearly everyone believes in God. Can you name anything other than God in the known universe where there is universal belief "despite the evidence"? You cannot.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Technically yes. I don't see how it could be any other way.

A baby that doesn't even have the awareness to recognize its own limbs as its own certainly doesn't have the mental capacity to hold the concept of a god in its mind, to say nothing of actually accepting that concept as true.

That being said, we seem to have innate characteristics that, while they serve us well in lots of ways, lead us astray on things like gods:

- a tendency to favour type 1 errors (false positives) over type 2 errors (false negatives).
- an overactive tendency toward attribution of agency (i.e. when you hear the leaves of a bush rustle, you'll sometimes think it's an animal when it was only the wind).

Take those two factors and throw in some post hoc ergo propter hoc and counting the hits/ignoring the misses (e.g. "I prayed for rain and then it rained, so my prayer must have worked... and all those times I prayed and it didn't come true, I must have just been doing it wrong") and I think rhat gets you 90% of the way to the organized religion landscape we see today.


No, not all religion is false.

Some religions - e.g. the UUs and some Quakers - tend not to have factual claims in their doctrines that can be evaluated as "true" or "false."

I'd say that it's only revealed religion that tends to be false, and even then not on every point: I mean, if a religion says its god told humanity "don't eat rotten meat," I'm not going to say that doing this is a good idea.


Ha! Heck, no.

I gave an example in my last post of how people are irrational that has nothing to do with religion: we're really bad at estimating risk and expected benefit for rare events. This is how lotteries stay in business, for instance.

We are irrational a lot of the time. It's just that on most things, when our understanding is wrong, reality occasionally slaps us in the face to drill that point home.

When it comes to most religious beliefs, though, the belief system is set up in a way that it includes nothing falsifiable - no opportunity for reality to slap you in the face and say "no, your understanding is wrong; look!" ... so there's nothing keeping our normal tendency toward irrationality in check.


My corrected version, combined with millenia of social pressure up to and including executing non-conformists and yes: this explains the prevalence of theism.



I'm not sure what you mean. It seems like you're saying something like "we believe God exists because we believe God exists."

... but it seems like you're arguing that belief in God comes from God. A few thoughts on that:

- this sounds like a claim that, if true, could be demonstrated. Good luck.

- I would hope we can both agree on all the ways that humanity tends to be irrational. I think it's pretty clear that this irrationality (along with other social trends that we probably both agree exist) is sufficient to explain theism, so I'm not sure why we would need to look for other explanations.

Regarding your conclusion, there is fulfilled Bible prophecy, visible to us (Israel since 1948) and testimony.

- I assume you aren't arguing that belief in Thor comes from Thor, or belief in Quetzalcoatl from Quetzalcoatl, so it seems like you're still conceding that false belief in gods can arise on its own; you just see your god as an exception. Personally, I see no reason to see your god or your beliefs as special.

 

[BilliardsBall]

According to the story of Jesus that's told in the Bible, please explain why the majority of the world's population didn't accept who he claims to be and/or his teachings?

Hint: ad populum

You've not read in the Bible that many are called but few chosen?

 

[BilliardsBall]

Everyone is born ignorant basically - so not believer or non-believer. And perhaps if we didn't educate/indoctrinate children as to religious beliefs we might find an answer to this second one - as to where religious beliefs come from. One would hardly expect all to suddenly be without such beliefs though, given that many are drawn to such and the effects of cultural pressures. They might even be right but at least one has given them a fair chance rather than the stacked deck that often exists.

So everyone is born atheist but when they grow older, teach myths to their children, because . . . Adam and Eve had a source to discuss the issues with.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Or they can all be right, so please back up your faith-based claim here.

You think that all these religious beliefs can be right at the same time?

- Jesus is a projection by God and only appears to be a man
- Jesus is fully God and fully man
- Jesus is not God, but is the son of God
- Jesus is not the son of God, but is a prophet
- Jesus is not a prophet

(As just one example)

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Regarding your conclusion, there is fulfilled Bible prophecy, visible to us (Israel since 1948) and testimony.

Not this nonsense again, please.