A lot Of People Talk About Needing Evidence To Believe There’s A God

[McBell]

Please stop preaching, A.S. You're just making statements, but backing them up with nothing.
Anyone can make claims. I could claim there was an elephant in my bathroom, but you wouldn't believe me without evidence, would you?
Where is the evidence for your claims?

I stopped replying to them because they only using my posts as launch pads for more sermons.

 

[Alien826]

I agree with you, George. Personally, I value science and believe that it is essential and beneficial for learning about the physical world. However, I doubt that it will ever be able to explain anything metaphysical (deities, earthbound spirits, or anything else supernatural), just as I doubt that scientific research will ever be able to rationally explain or debunk the supernatural phenomena that I strongly believe occur in the physical world. Maybe science will catch on someday, but I doubt it. I say this because I believe that there are genuine supernatural phenomena that defy both scientific and religious explanations.

My opinion is based on my lifetime of experience, which began when I was six years old. That is 45 years of experience. However, I have some vague memories of seeing spirits when I was four and five years old. They would wave at me, and I would wave back, prompting my parents or another relative to ask me who I was waving at. So I've seen enough of this phenomenon to know for certain that it is real. I've also had multiple eyewitnesses confirm my first-hand experiences with it. In addition, I've been evaluated by two therapists and three psychologists in an attempt to determine if there is a natural explanation for what I've been experiencing since I was a child, but there is none. I've also undergone a psychiatric evaluation and two cranial CT scans in a more focused effort to find a natural explanation for what I experience, but yet again, there is none. As a result of these attempts, I'm confident that what I'm experiencing is real, and modern science has yet to conclusively explain it. These are the reasons why I believe that there are supernatural phenomena occurring in the physical world, something that neither science nor the Bible nor any religious dogma can rationally explain or refute. Of course, these are simply my beliefs, and I don't expect others to accept them. Finally, I'm including the following post, which further explains my viewpoint on this subject.

What is Evidence?

I never spoke for others. I simply list simple facts. Which part of my speech made you think that I speak for others, please point it out. Thanks. Who knows how many pages back. Post the whole thing if you're curious.

www.religiousforums.com

Hi @Sgt. Pepper, haven't seen you for a while, good to know you are OK.

Years ago, I had an interest in what you describe and did an admittedly personal investigation into it. I attended a Spiritualist church for a while, and had a few sessions with self-described "psychics". What I found was a lot of very unhappy (bereaved) people try to get evidence that their loved ones had survived death, and some "mediums" that tried to satisfy those needs. The psychics were all quite unable to tell me anything true about myself (apart from the totally obvious) if I didn't feed them with information. I can't be sure about the mediums, as I wasn't party to their sessions with the bereaved people. I will say that the mediums (who didn't charge for their services) did seem to be sincere at least.

What occurs to me when reading your story is that some at least of this can be tested. For example, if a "ghost" told you something that you didn't previously know and was unlikely that you could guess and it proved to be correct, that would serve as strong evidence (to me) that something real was happening. Has anything like that happened to you?

 

[Watchmen]

If life itself, a miracle beyond words, isn’t enough evidence then I don’t know what to tell you.

Science as we know it is a better explanation of “life itself” than a book written by ancient goat herders thousands of years ago.

 

[Jimmy]

Science as we know it is a better explanation of “life itself” than a book written by ancient goat herders thousands of years ago.

I’m not Christian

 

[osgart]

If life itself, a miracle beyond words, isn’t enough evidence then I don’t know what to tell you.

Life is definitely evidence of the qualitative aspect of reality that cannot be explained with physical mechanisms. Things such as memory, reasoning ability, and understanding among many other qualities are qualities of life that have an aboutness that you cannot find just looking at physical phenomena. But to posit an all powerful God is a blind reach for somehow life happened.

I don't know how life came to be. Logically the first person perspective of consciousness through introspective objective self analysis gives strong clues to the intelligence that is within existence that spawns life. But to take it all the way to the house of perfection, supreme, ideal Godhood has no evident basis; first or third person observation do not take you there.

Life being a miracle doesn't take people reliably all the way to Godhood. What seems like a miracle may be a fundamental part of existence.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Science as we know it is a better explanation of “life itself” than a book written by ancient goat herders thousands of years ago.

Depends what you mean by “life itself”. Personally I think Ecclesiastes can tell us things about the experience of being human, which science couldn’t even begin to address.

 

[Watchmen]

I’m not Christian

Congratulations

 

[Watchmen]

Depends what you mean by “life itself”. Personally I think Ecclesiastes can tell us things about the experience of being human, which science couldn’t even begin to address.

I appreciate your sense of humor.

 

[Valjean]

Miraculous as in astonishingly improbable, invoking awe, wonder, and humility.

Seen from this perspective, that there are laws and constants of nature, may be regarded as a miracle in itself.

OK, now we're getting somewhere. I'm cool with awesome and wondrous, but a lot of awesome things are well understood, so I wouldn't call them miraculous, and probability's pretty much guesswork, with a sample size of just one.
Save origins, we've learned a lot about how the universe works in the last century, and more is known every day. It appears to follow predictable laws and known mechanisms.

Life?
1. life appeared almost as soon as the planet's climate could support it.
2. Organic compounds have been found in meteorites from other worlds.
3. The biochemistry life is pretty well understood to be ordinary chemistry.
4. Many, if not most of the microstructures or components of life can be observed forming themselves
by ordinary chemical interactions.

Life is remarkable, even awesome, but there's no reason to call it miraculous -- ie: magical and unknowable.
There's been a great deal done since Urey-Miller, that creationists seem unaware of.
Unknown ≠ magical, divine, or intentional.

How the laws and constants of physics and maths came to be, and their underlying mechanisms, is not yet understood, but they are what they are, and their workings are predictable enough for them to be laws. There's no rational reason to assume a conscious, intentional, invisible entity manipulating anything.

 

[Valjean]

I'm all for science going as far as it can go, but I can also make the judgment that it is clearly an incomplete understanding at this time. Being incomplete, it begs for new hypotheses, such as intelligent agencies that willed things to occur for life.

But hypotheses are observation and evidence based, and unless they're testable -- ie: falsifiable -- they can go nowhere; they're just speculation.
What actual observations evidence a conscious, invisible manipulator? What unnatural mechanism is proposed and evidenced?
The God "hypothesis" strikes me as based on personal incredulity and an extrapolation of one's personal experience of human technology and planning.

Science of the future can even come to understand that there are realms of reality with things like higher beings and nature guides/spirits as suggested by many claiming sensing beyond the physical senses and instruments of today. And these things may produce a more complete understanding of what some call 'the miracle of life'.

And when such observations and discoveries are made I'll incorporate them into my understanding. Till then, though, given that their confidence level equals that of any other unevidenced claim, I have to consider them in the same category as pixies, orcs, or unicorns.

So, the 'goddidit' perspective can also contain more detail than just ending there.

And the perspective must logically comport with the actual evidence. Folklore, popularity and speculation are not objective evidence.

 

[Valjean]

You keep using the word "logic".
I am pretty sure you do not know what the word means.

The whole post borders on gobbledygook.

 

[George-ananda]

That is invoking the 'God of gaps'. Science has gone to certain stage, it will go farther in times to come. You want your answer here and now, insert whatever you want because you are not giving any evidence. If there is evidence for that, science will accept it. In absence of evidence, whatever understanding you come up with is fiction.

I consider the evidence of those of Vedic and other sources alleging clairvoyant insight into to things beyond the physical.

I’m fine with science moving cautiously. However, I am not doing science but addressing the question ‘all things considered, what is most reasonable to believe. To be concerned only with science is what I call Scientism. I appreciate science but not Scientism.

 

[Valjean]

Miraculous as in astonishingly improbable, invoking awe, wonder, and humility.

Seen from this perspective, that there are laws and constants of nature, may be regarded as a miracle in itself.

And the implication of these miraculous laws is what? God?

 

[George-ananda]

But hypotheses are observation and evidence based, and unless they're testable -- ie: falsifiable -- they can go nowhere; they're just speculation.
What actual observations evidence a conscious, invisible manipulator? What unnatural mechanism is proposed and evidenced?
The God "hypothesis" strikes me as based on personal incredulity and an extrapolation of one's personal experience of human technology and planning.

And when such observations and discoveries are made I'll incorporate them into my understanding. Till then, though, given that their confidence level equals that of any other unevidenced claim, I have to consider them in the same category as pixies, orcs, or unicorns.

And the perspective must logically comport with the actual evidence. Folklore, popularity and speculation are not objective evidence.

Right there you are making the argument for Scientism. And that is not necessarily meant as a pejorative.

Myself, not being a follower of Scientism, will consider also the implications of much paranormal phenomena and those claiming clairvoyant insight into the beyond 8the physical when forming my personal worldview. And that includes things like nature spirits involving themselves with the progress of nature in the creation and development of physical plane life. Science should be neutral to this.

 

[Valjean]

Peace to all,

Thanks, McBell,

I see what you are saying.

Jesus logically was born immortal and incorruptible, Baptized by His Cousin John in the River Jordan from death to life Jesus in the Will of The Creator God for The Father descended and emptied the chasm of the Bosom of Abraham and crossed over in the flesh and physically closed the Chasm of Death and resurrected in the flesh, body, blood, soul and divinity all life and all holiness becoming glorified and transfigured, the firstborn back to heaven reborn from the cross where the blood and water flowed in the rebirth of The Christ, the firstborn of Creation for all mankind, right?

What meaning would be lost if you deleted "logically" from your first sentence? I'm still not clear what you mean by the word.
The rest of the post is just reïterating biblical mythology. You're preaching again, and giving no more evidence or reason to believe your Bible quotation than we'd have if you were quoting The Chronicles of Narnia.
What's the point of posting these unexplained and unevidenced readings?

Science can never prove the becomings in the finite understanding using technology or chemistry, mathmatics, ect, but the becomings are clear in logic.

Huh?

 

[Valjean]

Right there you are making the argument for Scientism. And that is not necessarily meant as a pejorative.

Myself, not being a follower of Scientism, will consider also the implications of much paranormal phenomena and those claiming clairvoyant insight into the beyond 8the physical when forming my personal worldview. And that includes things like nature spirits involving themselves with the progress of nature in the creation and development of physical plane life. Science should be neutral to this.

Inasmuch as these things are, as yet, unevidenced, science has no choice but to be neutral. What cannot be detected cannot be examined or studied.

Define "scientism," SVP

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

Hi @Sgt. Pepper, haven't seen you for a while, good to know you are OK.

Years ago, I had an interest in what you describe and did an admittedly personal investigation into it. I attended a Spiritualist church for a while, and had a few sessions with self-described "psychics". What I found was a lot of very unhappy (bereaved) people try to get evidence that their loved ones had survived death, and some "mediums" that tried to satisfy those needs. The psychics were all quite unable to tell me anything true about myself (apart from the totally obvious) if I didn't feed them with information. I can't be sure about the mediums, as I wasn't party to their sessions with the bereaved people. I will say that the mediums (who didn't charge for their services) did seem to be sincere at least.

What occurs to me when reading your story is that some at least of this can be tested. For example, if a "ghost" told you something that you didn't previously know and was unlikely that you could guess and it proved to be correct, that would serve as strong evidence (to me) that something real was happening. Has anything like that happened to you?

To be honest, I don't like it when genuine spirit mediums charge for a reading. I completely disagree with that. I'm also saddened and angered to learn about people who aren't genuine and deliberately exploit the bereaved for financial gain. To answer your question, yes, it has happened to me. I'm not sure how acquainted you are with my posts on this subject, so I'll provide a link to one, which also has several additional links to more related posts.

What’s after death?

Nothing imo. The only death where something happens is when the man that god chose as his incarnate dies imo. Then of course all the dead, since this man’s inception, rise with him once again along with a new earth. What’s your view beyond death? I have no opinion, since I have never died.

www.religiousforums.com

 

[Valjean]

I consider the evidence of those of Vedic and other sources alleging clairvoyant insight into to things beyond the physical.

OK, but it's subjective evidence. Subjective evidence yields notoriously inconsistent claims. Altered consciousness is revelatory only to the individual experiencing it.

I’m fine with science moving cautiously. However, I am not doing science but addressing the question ‘all things considered, what is most reasonable to believe. To be concerned only with science is what I call Scientism. I appreciate science but not Scientism.

But I'm not concerned only with science. Science is a tool, which has proven very useful in certain applications. It is not useful in investigating meaning, purpose, value, &c, and it cannot investigate what cannot be detected or measured.
I apply science when investigating objective, physical reality; things that can be examined and tested. My skepticism regarding unevidenced spirits, the paranormal, clairvoyance, &c is not science based, it's logic based. Perhaps I'm a logicist/logician?

 

[George-ananda]

OK, but it's subjective evidence. Subjective evidence yields notoriously inconsistent claims. Altered consciousness is revelatory only to the individual experiencing it.

But I'm not concerned only with science. Science is a tool, which has proven very useful in certain applications. It is not useful in investigating meaning, purpose, value, &c, and it cannot investigate what cannot be detected or measured.
I apply science when investigating objective, physical reality; things that can be examined and tested. My skepticism regarding unevidenced spirits, the paranormal, clairvoyance, &c is not science based, it's logic based. Perhaps I'm a logicist/logician?

And I consider myself a logician too. And I find the cumulative weight of the paranormal/spiritual evidence overwhelmingly convincing.

Who is not employing logic properly then? Or is one of us under-informed about the quantity, quality and consistency of the data? Or does one have an unacknowledged prejudice against things the current science can’t directly detect and that smacks of the religious?

Each to judge.

 

[Valjean]

And I consider myself a logician too. And I find the cumulative weight of the paranormal/spiritual evidence overwhelmingly convincing.

But that's the point. The "evidence" is evident only to you. Discussing it's qualities, mechanisms, or intent with anyone else imparts no knowledge or understanding if the phenomenon under discussion is imperceptible to your interlocutors. How are they to fact-check it? Why would they accept it if they couldn't fact-check it?

Who is not employing logic properly then? Or is one of us under-informed about the quantity, quality and consistency of the data?

What data? I haven't seen any objective, perceptible data thus far.
If it can't be examined and tested by anyone interested, is it actually data?

Or does one have an unacknowledged prejudice against things the current science can’t directly detect and that smacks of the religious?

Only when the things claimed fall within the magisterium of science, with no empirical evidence adduced.
I use the tool of science in its appropriate place; the tool of reason in its appropriate place, and so on. When you make claims about physical reality; of observations or mechanisms, , you're in science's bailiwick, and your claims demand empirical evidence. Science is the appropriate investigative tool.

Things that cannot be detected, or even generally experienced, are outside the research capacity of science. It's pointless to try to apply science to abstractions for which no perceptible, objective evidence exists.