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

[Trailblazer]

So god knows what I will do, but only after I've done it, you're describing an ordinary human.

God has always known what you would do, from the beginning of your life until the end and God also knows what you will do in the afterlife.
That is because God is all-knowing.

 

[muhammad_isa]

I claim that God has infallible foreknowledge of what choice we will make, but I do not claim that we will make choices different from the choices God knows we will make.

We will make the choices that God knows we will make, but only because the choices we will make are identical with the choices that God knows we will make.

That is correct, but many people say that the 2 are mutually exclusive .. which they are not.

The argument goes like this..

1. An agent is responsible for an action only if said agent could have done otherwise.
2. An agent could have done otherwise only if causal determinism is false.
3. Therefore, an agent is responsible for an action only if causal determinism is false.

Causal determinism is akin to the future being a fixed series of events.
..so the above is why people say that it is impossible for free-will and omniscience to both exist at the same time.

HOWEVER, the argument is incorrect. Premise 2 is misleading.
The following is clearer.

1. An agent is responsible for an action only if said agent could have done otherwise.
2. An agent is free to do otherwise when he would have done otherwise had he WANTED to do otherwise

This means that an agent being responsible for an action, is not dependent on causal determinism. It is an incorrect assumption.

 

[Trailblazer]

Preposterous nonsense sorry...if which choice I am going to make is known before hand, then I am not making a choice.

That is completely illogical.
Please explain why - if which choice you are going to make is known before hand, then you are not making a choice.

 

[Sheldon]

The Big Bang theory jumps in time from nothing to a high dense state .

That's not even remotely true, the existence of time as we understand it is contingent on the existence of a material physical universe, and the big bang theory makes no claims about what could have existed prior to Planck time. You are simply making up nonsense.

The psychology of this is placing some thing in an otherwise empty reference frame . They do not explain how this something came to be so why should anyone try to or need to explain how God came to be ? Top of my head , I will make something up right now , the universe began with a void that was absent of all matter , then formed throughout this void was a low dense state of electrostatic energy which eventually began the epoch of time .

Meaningless gibberish again sorry.

How is what I just made up any less credible than the Big Bang theory ?

It is made up nonsense, it is unsupported by any evidence, is has no explanatory powers whatsoever, it has not been verified by the scientific method, makes no predictions that can be tested and observed, like background radiation for the big bang theory, etc etc etc...

How is God any less credible than either speculation ?

It doesn't need to be compared, the fact is unevidenced and has explanatory powers is sufficient to disbelieve it.

The point is for some thing to form from no thing would require a real physical miracle .

A straw man fallacy you created since the big bang theory does not claimed the universe came from nothing.

Let us say you are correct and the big bang created the universe , physics still does not explain ourselves .

Wow, we are part of biology. not physics, and the theory of evolution explains our existence, and contains the overwhelming evidence for species evolution and natural selection.

Your all around ignorance of science, even its most basic methodology and facts is breathtaking.

 

[Trailblazer]

So it could stop paedophiles abusing children, if it wanted to, yet it does nothing to prevent this unimaginable suffering.

God is not obligated to DO everything He can DO just because He is omnipotent. God is not responsible for what pedophiles do, they are responsible for their own actions because they have free will to choose.

Tell me why God should do what humans can do for themselves?

 

[Sheldon]

That is completely illogical.

Which principle of logic did it violate, or not adhere to?

 

[TheBrokenSoul]

Science is evidence based, there is no scientific evidence for any deity, that's a given, and unfalsifiable claims are unscientific and rejected as such, did you not know this?



It neither evidences or requires any deity, in fact adding a deity violates Occam's razor, and adds nothing to the explanatory powers of the theory.



That's meaningless gibberish sorry.



It's an unevidenced belief, is answers nothing, and the number of people who believe something tells us nothing about the validity of the belief, that is an argumentum ad populum fallacy. There is not scientific theory of any deity either, you are using the word theory here in it's commonly understood context, which is very different for its scientific context, did you not know they are different, I explained it in my post, reread it.



Nonsense, that's an argumentum ad ingorantiam fallacy, a god of the gaps polemic. Science is a method for examining and understanding reality, nothing it currently understands evidences or requires any deity, and all unfalsifiable claims are unscientific, again you seem not to know this, perhaps that is why you ignored it.

Falsifiability is an essential basic requirement for all scientific ideas.

Ok , let me show you something , if science is so correct then why on earth do they think there is time dilation ?

The falsity of science is self evident in some areas .

 

[Sheldon]

Please explain why - if which choice you are going to make is known before hand, then you are not making a choice.

Seriously? It would rule out me making any other choice obviously.

 

[Trailblazer]

I don't see it as any different to any other man made religion.

You cannot see what you don't look at.

 

[TheBrokenSoul]

You cannot see what you don't look at.

You can always see your journey ahead of you if you're looking at something .

 

[Trailblazer]

We are judged even though we can't know what is moral and what not, and even though a deity exists that does know, and knows what we will do anyway?

We can know what is moral and what is not moral. That is what all the Holy Books are for.

“God hath in that Book, and by His behest, decreed as lawful whatsoever He hath pleased to decree, and hath, through the power of His sovereign might, forbidden whatsoever He elected to forbid. To this testifieth the text of that Book. Will ye not bear witness? Men, however, have wittingly broken His law. Is such a behavior to be attributed to God, or to their proper selves? Be fair in your judgment. Every good thing is of God, and every evil thing is from yourselves. Will ye not comprehend? This same truth hath been revealed in all the Scriptures, if ye be of them that understand.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 149-150

 

[Sheldon]

Ok , let me show you something , if science is so correct then why on earth do they think there is time dilation ?

The falsity of science is self evident in some areas .

View attachment 57643 View attachment 57643

You don't have even the most basic understanding of the scientific method, and you keep creating these straw man fallacies about it. Your computer works, as does the electricity that powers it, and the internet that just shared your claim with others, and all of it is based on technology derived from scientific facts.

Tell you what turn off your computer and pray I'll see your message, dear oh dear.

Species evolution is a scientific fact, the evidence that supports and explains it is contained within the scientific theory, and it is testable, falsifiable, and makes real world predictions that have been demonstrated as true. I already explained this...and offered a citation..

"The strength of a scientific theory is related to the diversity of phenomena it can explain and its simplicity. As additional scientific evidence is gathered, a scientific theory may be modified and ultimately rejected if it cannot be made to fit the new findings; in such circumstances, a more accurate theory is then required. Some theories are so well-established that they are unlikely ever to be fundamentally changed (for example, scientific theories such as evolution, heliocentric theory, cell theory, theory of plate tectonics, germ theory of disease, etc.)"

 

[Sheldon]

You cannot see what you don't look at.

What's your point, I did look at it, and you have not addressed my objection at all. What is the objective difference?

 

[Sheldon]

We can know what is moral and what is not moral. That is what all the Holy Books are for.

That's not knowledge, that's blindly accepting claims in a book, as I said.

 

[TheBrokenSoul]

Wow, we are part of biology. not physics,

If physics created the heavens and the Earth then what law of the universe says the universe created us ?

As you admit we are not physics .

 

[Trailblazer]

Preposterous nonsense sorry...if which choice I am going to make is known before hand, then I am not making a choice.

That sounds like a claim. Now explain WHY if which choice you are going to make is known before hand, you are not making a choice.

 

[ratiocinator]

The Big Bang theory jumps in time from nothing to a high dense state .

No, it doesn't. That's a fundamental misunderstanding. We can extrapolate backwards to the hot dense state and then we run out of theories, so we have a "don't know". However, you seem to also be stuck in a Newtonian view of time. General relativity gives us the picture of the space-time manifold, with time being a direction though it. Even if it's finite in the past direction, that doesn't mean that that is the place to look for why it exists. There was no time, and there can be no place at which nothing existed because time and space are not nothing.

Top of my head , I will make something up right now , the universe began with a void that was absent of all matter , then formed throughout this void was a low dense state of electrostatic energy which eventually began the epoch of time .

How is what I just made up any less credible than the Big Bang theory ?

Of course it is less credible, you just made it up and it doesn't even make sense.

How is God any less credible than either speculation ?

It's all but meaningless.

The point is for some thing to form from no thing would require a real physical miracle .

Which is why no science suggests such a thing (at least not in the literal sense of nothing).

Let us say you are correct and the big bang created the universe...

Not my claim, nor is it a scientific theory. The big bang theory is about how things developed from the hot dense state.

...physics still does not explain ourselves .

Argument from incredulity?

And you completely ignored the main point. Even if you make up a "god" to "explain" everything else, then you're still left with something for which there is absolutly no explanation. "God" explains nothing at all, except in a rather childish "just-so story" kind of way.

 

[Trailblazer]

It is an obvious logical contradiction to claim my choice is "known" beforehand, and that I still have a choice.

You made the claim. Now explain why if a choice was known it is not a choice.

 

[TheBrokenSoul]

No, it doesn't. That's a fundamental misunderstanding. We can extrapolate backwards to the hot dense state and then we run out of theories, so we have a "don't know". However, you seem to also be stuck in a Newtonian view of time. General relativity gives us the picture of the space-time manifold, with time being a direction though it. Even if it's finite in the past direction, that doesn't mean that that is the place to look for why it exists. There was no time, and there can be no place at which nothing existed because time and space are not nothing.


Of course it is less credible, you just made it up and it doesn't even make sense.


It's all but meaningless.


Which is why no science suggests such a thing (at least not in the literal sense of nothing).


Not my claim, nor is it a scientific theory.


Argument from incredulity?

And you completely ignored the main point. Even if you make up a "god" to "explain" everything else, then you're still left with something for which there is absolutly no explanation. "God" explains nothing at all, except in a rather childish "just-so story" kind of way.

You are incorrect , according to the big bang , nothing existed before the big bang ,not even space which is an impossibility .

The theory s : ''The model describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature'',

please provide prequel physics and evidence of how this high dense state was formed ?

Please don't make false claim on a religious forum .

 

[Trailblazer]

Which principle of logic did it violate, or not adhere to?

Please explain why - if which choice you are going to make is known before hand, then you are not making a choice.

 

[Trailblazer]

Seriously? It would rule out me making any other choice obviously.

Why would it rule out you making any other choice?