Atheists: What would be evidence of God’s existence?

[Spirit of Light]

But that's not really verification then, is it? If it's personal to you, then it's just a subjective opinion. Things that are objectively true aren't personal to a few people, they are objectively true for EVERYONE.

You have to seek within yourself to find the truth you seeking. Spiritual seeking is not a 100% same answer for all. I do not believe the socalled physical world holds the truth.

 

[Trailblazer]

But it doesn't matter how many there are. If they are all built on subjective interpretations, then the result is still going to be a subjective interpretation.

All interpretations are subjective/objective interpretations because nobody can ever be totally objective.

 

[Trailblazer]

Trailblazer said: That is correct, but how do you know what the deity has foreseen? You do not know, only the deity knows.

Tiberius said: Doesn't matter if I know. The deity knows. And if the deity can't be wrong, I have no choice but to do what it has foreseen.

You have no choice but to do what the deity has foreseen but you do not know what the deity has foreseen.
That's the problem.

Tiberius said: I'm afraid not.

If God knew what you were going to do since the day you were born, you could not have chosen to do something different the day before.

You do not know what God knew you were going to choose since the day you were born. You can choose to do anything you want to do on any day and whatever you choose it will be what God always knew you would choose. God’ s knowledge puts no constraints on what you can choose, none at all.

Simply put, if the outcome is known, there is no free choice.

Simply put, the outcome is known by God because God is all-knowing but the outcome is determined by what humans choose to do.

God gave humans free will to use.

 

[Tiberius]

But your method hasn’t worked though, has it? You have not found God.

Maybe that's because he isn't there. You can't start with the assumption that God is there and then try a whole bunch of different things to find him, and then say that only the things which show he is there are true.

I mean, I was a believer for the first twenty years of my life, y'know. I was raised to be a believer. At one point in my life, if you'd asked me, I would have said that I HAD found God. But when I realised that the method I had used was unreliable and I abandoned it. I discovered that what I had thought was God was nothing more than indoctrination.

 

[Tiberius]

You have to seek within yourself to find the truth you seeking. Spiritual seeking is not a 100% same answer for all. I do not believe the socalled physical world holds the truth.

If it comes from within me, then it's subjective and therefore can't possibly be objective truth.

 

[Tiberius]

All interpretations are subjective/objective interpretations because nobody can ever be totally objective.

That's why we get others to check our working, so that if we did happen to let some subjective opinion influence us (even in a subconscious way), other people will be able to spot it and then we can take steps to remove its influence. And the more people check it, the better the chance that such influences will be found and removed.

And that's exactly how science works.

 

[Tiberius]

You have no choice but to do what the deity has foreseen but you do not know what the deity has foreseen.
That's the problem.

Well, we're getting somewhere, finally. At least you are agreeing that I do not have a choice.

Now, if you'll remember that hypothetical question I asked earlier, I did specifically say that God told you what he had foreseen that I will do.

Your current argument seems to be that God must keep his mouth shut because... reasons.

You do not know what God knew you were going to choose since the day you were born. You can choose to do anything you want to do on any day and whatever you choose it will be what God always knew you would choose. God’ s knowledge puts no constraints on what you can choose, none at all.

Simply put, the outcome is known by God because God is all-knowing but the outcome is determined by what humans choose to do.

God gave humans free will to use.

Hold on, you just agreed with me that I had no choice but to do what God had foreseen, now you say I DO have a choice? Once again, you flip flop.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Maybe that's because he isn't there. You can't start with the assumption that God is there and then try a whole bunch of different things to find him, and then say that only the things which show he is there are true.

I mean, I was a believer for the first twenty years of my life, y'know. I was raised to be a believer. At one point in my life, if you'd asked me, I would have said that I HAD found God. But when I realised that the method I had used was unreliable and I abandoned it. I discovered that what I had thought was God was nothing more than indoctrination.

Well if that’s your experience, then fair enough. So you were indoctrinated, as many people are. It often seems that there is nothing like a good dose of religion early in life, to drive people away from God when they are old enough to think for themselves.

But I would say that there is religion, there is religious indoctrination, and there is God. These things are related, but they are not the same. Sometimes religion can fail in it’s purpose, and drive us away from God. Then it’s up to us to decide how to proceed, if we want to find a way back to the latter.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Not at all. In fact, I agree with you. If God knows that I will choose A, then how could I possibly choose anything else?

And if I can't possibly choose anything else, then I don't have a choice, do I?

What do you mean by "I don't have a choice, do I?"
Of COURSE you have a choice !
You have chosen A.

The only reason that you can't choose B is because you have already said that G-d knows you will choose A.
If you choose B, it contradicts what you have already said

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Not if you don't want it to be and you are willing to believe otherwise by faith. Then you can have both, and nobody can tell you otherwise. You just keep repeating that the world is predictable, and that free choice occurs as well, and nobody can get you to say otherwise.

Why would one do this? My guess is that it's the same reason as with the Christians, who need both an omniscient God and for damnation to be just, which requires free will. I don't know what the Baha'i and Muslim beliefs are to know why they so tenaciously cling to this contradiction, but you'll have about as much luck taking it away from them as you would a pork chop from a coyote.

False consensus, a relatively new term for me meaning the mistaken assumption that others are basically like oneself apart from superficial differences, and that this idea, which seems so simple and clear, can be understood by anybody if just the right words are found. Let's see, I said it in post xxx, but I guess it wasn't simple enough. Let's add an an example. Hmm, still not understood. Let me try again. Surely, if I find the right world,. they will unlock this mind like a key.

But of course, that's incorrect. That mind is radically different from yours, something false consensus says isn't the case, can't be the case. After all, it formed the same way mine did. But that's a mistake. There is no way to penetrate the shield of confirmation bias when a person is willing to believe by faith, disregard reason, and has a stake in denying the logical. The theist wants free will to be both free and predictable, so to him, it is - end of thinking. You can't penetrate that.

I think you probably know that already, but don't fully believe it. Surely this person wants to see reason if they don't already. But no, they don't.

Ironically, perhaps I suffer from the same species of stubbornness.
Yes, I know that already and no I don't want to believe it.
I like to believe that people can be persuaded by reason, eventhough I know better.

It's like Dr House famously said: You can't reason someone out of a position that they didn't reason themselves into in the first place.

I know........

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The deity wants us to prove our worthiness by searching for the only evidence that shows that it exists, the Messengers of the deity. A common measure of worthiness is the willingness to believe based upon the evidence the deity provides.

That's not my standard for worthiness. In fact, the willingness to believe by faith is pretty much the opposite of worthiness to me. It requires no thought and no discernment, just the mere will to believe. I don't consider that worthy or a virtue. It's a logical error.

I've already explained that I don't consider any words on earth to be from a nonhuman source, since none are not within the grasp of human minds. In fact, it's just another case of the deity doing what would be the case if it didn't exist - writing as humans would.

How do you know what a deity would choose to do if it existed? That is the hundred-million-dollar question.

For one thing, I've got you to tell me. You just told me what the deity wants. I guess this is a game where you give yourself permission to speak for a deity, then attempt to disqualify others from making comments such as the one I made, which was this god always seems to choose to do what would happen if there were no god: nothing. Why do you suppose that is? Why does this God choose to imitate its own nonexistence? This is a good question that deserves an answer (not really - it's a rhetorical question making a statement).

If a deity wanted to be found, it would have made itself findable, so since we can't find it, the only possible conclusion is that it doesn't want to be found.

That's if a deity exists. If the deity doesn't exist, it will also be unfindable. The hundred-million-dollar question is whether such a God exists or not.

I think one reason we don't make progress in these discussions is that you don't acknowledge that this God might not exist. All of your comments about gods are based on the existence of one, an unshared premise with me. Nothing that follows from an false premise can be sound, therefore all pronouncements that depend on a God existing are unsound. So, instead of using language that acknowledges this difference, such as why this elusive behavior is more consistent with a God existing than not, you just go on as if this God exists. As I said, those comments are rejected for being insufficiently supported to be believed. If you understood that, you might try an approach that takes that into account.

After all, my language doesn't exclude your belief. I don't assume that gods don't exist in my responses, and continually imply that this God's existence is possible. My words are occasionally of the form, "If this God existed," which you object to, since you don't like anybody (except yourself, apparently) speculating on what a god might be like if one existed. But those words acknowledge that I am speaking with a theist. You don't do that. You don't acknowledge that I simply don't believe this God exists as you keep telling me what it must be like, pointless words before you have established that existence.

 

[Sheldon]

You are replying to a post that is saying that it makes no difference whether a deity exists or not. Your reply is irrelevant to the points I raised.

That was just you shifting the goal posts, as the whole discussion had been predicated on the existence of an omniscient deity up to that point, and the thread predicated on what evidence an atheist might accept.

The block universe is not a superstition.

Oranges aren't square, since we are now just making up straw man non sequiturs.

Whatever you might think or understand about the concept of a block universe, it remains A FACT that the past is a known block, and the future is an unknown block. That unknown block becomes known as it becomes the past.

Claiming that the future block is constantly changing is meaningless, and is also not possible, as you would realise if you understood the implications of relativity.

I'm pretty sure Einstein understood it, and I'm pretty sure he never claimed it evidenced an omniscient deity.

Anyway I'll see your block universe theory and raise you, a "growing block universe theory".

"According to the growing block universe theory of time (or the growing block view), the past and present both exist, and the future as yet does not."

 

[SkepticThinker]

But your method hasn’t worked though, has it? You have not found God.

Perhaps that means it did work.

 

[Sheldon]

You can neither prove nor disprove God using reason or logic.

Well that would depend on the deity being premised, but if is unfalsifiable then no, and of course that would be true for any unfalsifiable concept even if it did not exist.

And logic is not built on irrefutable laws, only constructs which it must be possible to transcend.

We generally refer to "transcending" logic as being irrational, as that is what it means.

 

[Sheldon]

But your method hasn’t worked though, has it? You have not found God.

You seem to have just assumed a deity exists and can be found, given the human propensity to invent deities, I'm dubious.

 

[Sheldon]

All interpretations are subjective/objective interpretations because nobody can ever be totally objective.

Objective is a scale of course, but the more reliable claims are the ones that have the most objective evidence to support them. How likely is it that the world is flat and at the centre of the universe after all? The probability is so unlikely that the claim the world is not flat is an objective fact. The claim I personally experience a god, but can demonstrate no objective evidence to support the claim, would seem to be at the other end of that scale.

 

[Sheldon]

What do you mean by "I don't have a choice, do I?"
Of COURSE you have a choice !
You have chosen A.

Not if the choice of A was fixed beforehand and cannot change.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Not if the choice of A was fixed beforehand and cannot change.

How do you know that?

 

[Sheldon]

How do you know that?

How do I know what?

 

[RestlessSoul]

Well that would depend on the deity being premised, but if is unfalsifiable then no, and of course that would be true for any unfalsifiable concept even if it did not exist.



We generally refer to "transcending" logic as being irrational, as that is what it means.

Use the language anyway you like; It's your decision to limit yourself like that. Seems to me, a closed mind is destined to remain in darkness.

"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through the narrow chinks of his cavern."

- William Blake