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

[Soandso]

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

Enough evidence to believe that all of existence is carved up from the remains of Ymir the frost giant? Sure. Seems good enough to me

 

[Valjean]

You can believe that all of his existence has always been here and always will be.

All of whose existence?

 

[Jimmy]

All of whose existence?

Is there more than one?

 

[Valjean]

I'm not claiming anything, I'm expressing the experiential and emotional root that leads to theistic worldviews. If anything, those are deeper truths than those that are merely talked about - they are lived and known through direct personal experience. Which, at the end of the day, is the only measure of ontological reality any human has.

Subjective feelings or experience doesn't strike me as valid epistemology. They don't lead to consistent conclusions. They don't lead to any agreed-on ontological claims.

It all has to go through our lived experiences and personal filters; truth becomes personal and whatever story it is we want to tell about it based on how our lives have gone. Hence, you can do what you want in regards to the tales you wish to tell - follow what inspires and makes sense for your life experiences. Everybody does that.

Yes, truth is often regarded as personal, but since the advent of scientific and logical thought, personal filters have been discarded by the intellectual crowd as valid tools to assess physical reality.
Physics does not rely on life experiences.

 

[Valjean]

Is there more than one?

More than one what?

 

[Jimmy]

More than one what?

All of existence.

 

[Valjean]

All of existence.

OK.
You wrote "...all of his existence, and I was confused as to whom the "his" was.
...and now I've lost track of the discussion.

 

[Jimmy]

OK.
You wrote "...all of his existence, and I was confused as to whom the "his" was.
...and now I've lost track of the discussion.

My bad. I meant to write,

You can believe that all of existence has always been here and always will be.

 

[Valjean]

My bad. I meant to write,

You can believe that all of existence has always been here and always will be.

Yes, I can believe that, but, in fact, I don't know.

Q: is "all of existence" the universe, or the cosmos? Is it just our universe, or does it include others?
"Always" implies time. Doesn't the Copenhagen interpretation generally posit a beginning of time?
Perhaps there's a foam of billions of different universe bubbles. Perhaps Everett's Manyworlds hypothesis is correct.
Until there's more evidence I'm comfortable with not knowing.

 

[Jimmy]

Yes, I can believe that, but, in fact, I don't know.

Q: is "all of existence" the universe, or the cosmos? Is it just our universe, or does it include others?
"Always" implies time. Doesn't the Copenhagen interpretation generally posit a beginning of time?
Perhaps there's a foam of billions of different universe bubbles. Perhaps Everett's Manyworlds hypothesis is correct.
Until there's more evidence I'm comfortable with not knowing.

You’re entitled to not know.

 

[Quintessence]

Subjective feelings or experience doesn't strike me as valid epistemology. They don't lead to consistent conclusions. They don't lead to any agreed-on ontological claims.

I'm not sure why you would desire or expect any agreed-upon ontology. That's... weird. It won't ever happen for the human species, ever. Probably because humans have very different feelings and life experiences through which we filter any and all ontological perspectives and those differences inevitably produce diversity of perspective. No, it goes deeper than that - the diversity of perspective and life experience defines and dictates human ontological perspectives outright. One cannot escape one's own thoughts and feelings and nature; humans cannot transcend themselves. Chasing some universal agreement fantasy just strikes me as weird given it is absolutely unachievable.

Yes, truth is often regarded as personal, but since the advent of scientific and logical thought, personal filters have been discarded by the intellectual crowd as valid tools to assess physical reality.
Physics does not rely on life experiences.

Um... yes, it does. Literally all human endeavors - sciences or otherwise - rely on human life experiences. When I was working as a career scientist, I, you know, went out there in the world and had experiences of it, which I then recorded as data for analysis. It's all life experience. The entire foundation of the sciences is empiricism - reliance on sensory observation which is life experience. As opposed to, say, logical reasoning whereby experiential observations are not as strictly necessary since it is more about making an argument that logically follows in a more abstract way.

 

[Stevicus]

I know what it is. It’s a living miracle.

Okay.

 

[Heyo]

LOL!
No! You're confusing them with færies. Everyone knows pixies don't have wings.

Pixies do have wings. Source: Pixies in DnD 5E – A Guide to Pixie Adventurers for Players and DMs

 

[RestlessSoul]

The premise of miraculous is unsupported.
Miraculous = magical.
The conclusion that a power far greater than us must have initiated the universe's primordial inflation, by magic, doesn't follow.

Kalam cosmological argument - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And right there is the gulf in perception the OP points to. To some of us, everything in existence is miraculous. To others, nothing is. These appear to be non commensurate paradigms.

Not sure why you have provided a link to the Kalam argument?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Life itself is evidence. It’s more than just atoms like some people think. Life is a miracle. A literal miracle.

You are piling on claims.

How is it evidence for a god? Be specific

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I agree myself, but a physicalist-atheist would argue that it all could have evolved through matter just observing the physical laws.

First of all, there's plenty of scientists who are also theists who would argue such as well. To present this as some kind of exclusively "atheist position" or argument is thus demonstrably false.

Secondly, such a line of reasoning would also be supported with loads and loads of independently verifiable evidence.

So far, all we have gotten from the OP is the mere bare claim "life is a miracle, mmkay, therefor god, mmkay"
And whenever questions are being asked about those bare claims, all we get is repeats of the claims.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Well if there's a plan, I'd imagine we're all part of it, believer and non believer alike. But who knows the mind of God? Certainly not me.

Did God know, upon creating the universe, that I would end up a non-believer? Would that be part of "the plan"?
Could God have created the universe such that everybody, including me, would be believers?

 

[Andrew Stephen]

Peace to all,

To me in logic, the plan is to get the intelligence of Creation becoming infallible certainty becoming again the fulfilled eternal flesh and spirit of created mankind.

In Logic and through faith, Adam and Eve created choice from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The logic is in the creation on the greatest gift of Love itself. Eve gave up her mortal life to bring spirit and life to Adam. Adam and Eve knew the conditions and Adam's only choice now was to live alone forever or die with the gifts of spirit and life brought to him. He can choose to live alone without the love of Eve of to die with the Love of Eve. Love Created. To me in logic and through faith, the New Adam, the Person of the Holy Spirit is the Will of Creation conceived in the Person of Jesus, The Christ who resurrects eternal fulfilled Divine Love through the Power of The Holy Spirit. Eternity in Love fulfilled.

The logic of the Kingdom of The Divine Will is choice through Love Created by Adam and Eve and Love Fulfilled through the Body of the sanctified immortal and incorruptible Christ. We become again in union with all mankind united as one in being together with the Father and The Son glorified and transfigured into the image of the Creator God for The Father in One God.

Peace always,
Stephen Andrew

 

[QuestioningMind]

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

Actually, it's not evidence at all. It's simply you saying that you think life is REALLY cool and for some reason you think that means there MUST be a god being involved. Personally I think life is REALLY cool too... it's just that there's absolutely no verifiable evidence to suggest that any kind of a god being had anything to do with it.

 

[George-ananda]

First of all, there's plenty of scientists who are also theists who would argue such as well. To present this as some kind of exclusively "atheist position" or argument is thus demonstrably false.

If you want to get nitpicky, where did I ever say the position was only held by atheist-materialists?

So far, all we have gotten from the OP is the mere bare claim "life is a miracle, mmkay, therefor god, mmkay"
And whenever questions are being asked about those bare claims, all we get is repeats of the claims.

Right, the OP wasn't the most logically sound. But all things considered, I have come to believe life cannot be fully understood from a physicalist perspective. The existence of consciousness and much so-called paranormal phenomena argue against the physicalist understanding.