Atheists: Would you like to believe in God if there was good evidence for God?

[ChristineM]

Yet, those are the accurate meanings of the words. Besides, I don't know of any majority of Christianity that believe God creates or can sin.

I know know christian sect that understands that creating everything means the bad stuff too

 

[Polymath257]

If you have studied quantum mechanics then you should clearly understand that consciousness dictates how matter responds and thus consciousness is creating matter is the clear conclusion.

You would do well to read the book biocenterism by Robert Lanza.

I don't usually read popular books on technical subjects. They tend to be wrong in too many details. if you want *good* books on QM, I can recommend some. But you need to know how to solve differential equations.

In the case of QM, consciousness is irrelevant to how matter responds. And no, consciousness is NOT creating matter. Matter existed LONG before consciousness did.

It turns out that all that is required for wave function collapse is a sufficiently complicated environment that interacts with the quantum system. This is actually why quantum computers are so difficult to create: they have to be shielded from almost all interaction to keep their entangled state.

 

[Peter Sawrie]

So? Originally I was ignorant. Now I am less so. I don't need to observe my parent having sex to know that this is how new people are formed. And, for the most part, there is no good reason to doubt the statements that they were the ones involved. Clearly *someone* was.

You seem to be missing the point: what you see, or that is to say what you are aware of, is not provable as factual any more in the succession of the 30,000 days you call your life than they are in the dream you had last night. 30,000 consecutive apparitions does not prove anything within those apparitions as real any more than 1 can disprove the apparition. The only factual thing you can be certain of is your your conscious existence and of that you absolutely cannot deny.

Should not a theory of whether God exists be based upon what one can actually know as fact? Otherwise to hypothesize about something that has not one shred of evidence outside of anything that can be factually established is an absolute waste of time.

 

[Polymath257]

You seem to be missing the point: what you see, or that is to say what you are aware of, is not provable as factual any more in the succession of the 30,000 days you call your life than they are in the dream you had last night. 30,000 consecutive apparitions does not prove anything within those apparitions as real any more than 1 can disprove the apparition. The only factual thing you can be certain of is your your conscious existence and of that you absolutely cannot deny.

OK, so you are starting with radical Cartesian skepticism. Fine.

Should not a theory of whether God exists be based upon what one can actually know as fact? Otherwise to hypothesize about something that has not one shred of evidence outside of anything that can be factually established is an absolute waste of time.

And from my consciousness, there is NOTHING else that can be said. I cannot *know* anything else, so there is no 'theory of whether God exists or not'.

But, I *can* realize that I can be surprised. That tells me there is a world not inside of myself. I can then start the process of using the scientific method to understand the sensory information that I get. And what I find is that the 'God hypothesis' is absolutely useless for the construction of any predictive, testable theory that is based on observations.

 

[columbus]

I guess you must have a lot of invisible fairies in your garden.

My grandpa did. Not just in the garden, they were all over the place.

He didn't talk about them much, because they don't like it. But as long as you're nice to them, they'll stay out of your way or even do little things for you. Anger them and they'll mess with you, like spoiling the milk or hiding your good pocket knife.

He knew that they exist the same way you know God exists. Not much evidence, but a firm confidence.
Tom

 

[Peter Sawrie]

I don't usually read popular books on technical subjects. They tend to be wrong in too many details. if you want *good* books on QM, I can recommend some. But you need to know how to solve differential equations.

In the case of QM, consciousness is irrelevant to how matter responds. And no, consciousness is NOT creating matter. Matter existed LONG before consciousness did.

It turns out that all that is required for wave function collapse is a sufficiently complicated environment that interacts with the quantum system. This is actually why quantum computers are so difficult to create: they have to be shielded from almost all interaction to keep their entangled state.

Quantum mechanics is based upon quantum physics and if you have studied quantum physics then you should absolutely know your statement that "consciousness is irrelevant to how matter responds" is absolutely false; an experiment done recently (2 years ago) clearly points to what the earlier



Quantum experiment in space confirms that reality is what you make it

Or the fact that I actually understand quantum mechanics. And unless you have actually dealt with self-adjoint operators on a Hilbert space, you don't.

Or the fact that I actually understand quantum mechanics. And unless you have actually dealt with self-adjoint operators on a Hilbert space, you don't.

Or the fact that I actually understand quantum mechanics. And unless you have actually dealt with self-adjoint operators on a Hilbert space, you don't.

Quantum mechanics is based upon quantum physics and if you have studied quantum physics then you should absolutely know your statement that "consciousness is irrelevant to how matter responds" is absolutely false; an experiment done recently (2 years ago) clearly points to what the earlier experiments had clearly pointed to: in that consciousness is actually forming the reality one observes. See the following links with the video in link one for clear references to my statements above:

Quantum Physics Explains How Your Thoughts Create Reality
“Consciousness Creates Reality” – Physicists Admit The Universe Is Immaterial, Mental, & Spiritual
Quantum experiment in space confirms that reality is what you make it

 

[columbus]

I have finally come to the conclusion that the reason nonbelievers do not like the *idea* of Messengers of God is because they need to be in control so they do not like the *idea* of someone else being in control.

In my 60 years I've drawn the opposite conclusion.

Some people recognize human limitations when it comes to answering big questions. They are ok with the reality that oftentimes the only honest answer is "Nobody knows", or "Nobody is in control of that". Those are the nonbelievers.

Most people prefer the illusion of greater understanding and control than they actually have. The belief that they better understand The Creator and Creation than most people is a serious ego booster. It's very comforting to believe that they are in control of their afterlife, and that the people that they don't like will get their comeuppance. Those are the believers.

I am not able to join the second group. I'm just not capable of being so egotistical that I would believe that I know anything important about God, nor do I fear death enough to worry about it. That's why I'm not a believer.

And frankly, your consistent misrepresentation of non-theist world views is solid evidence(to me) that you don't know any more on the subjects than I do.
Tom

 

[Polymath257]

Quantum mechanics is based upon quantum physics and if you have studied quantum physics then you should absolutely know your statement that "consciousness is irrelevant to how matter responds" is absolutely false; an experiment done recently (2 years ago) clearly points to what the earlier experiments had clearly pointed to: in that consciousness is actually forming the reality one observes.

No, the experiment shows that *measurement* affects what is measured. This is well-known and nothing new.

See the following links with the video in link one for clear references to my statements above:

Quantum Physics Explains How Your Thoughts Create Reality
“Consciousness Creates Reality” – Physicists Admit The Universe Is Immaterial, Mental, & Spiritual

https://www.collective-evolution.co...-the-universe-is-immaterial-mental-spiritual/

Sorry, but I don't take popular articles on QM seriously. This holds double when they get the facts wrong.

Quantum experiment in space confirms that reality is what you make it

And once again, this shows that *measurment* affects the thing measured. Itsays NOTHING about consciousness being the relevant factor.

Yes, I have studied quantum physics and have passed the PhD level qualifying exams in it. I can say definitively that there is a LOT of very bad misinformation out there concerning quantum mechanics. Pretty much anything connecting it to consciousness is wrong.

It is true that performing a measurement affects the thing being measured. That means you will get different results if you perform a measurement on some variable in a system than if you do not. And those differences are well described by quantum mechanics and do NOT have anything to do with whether someone around is conscious. The measurement can equally well be done with any detector available.

 

[Trailblazer]

The way the question is framed is just bizar...

It's not asking me if I would believe god exists... it's asking me if I would LIKE to believe that.
How does one "like" the act of holding a belief? It makes no sense to me.

Now....
Given sufficient evidence, yes I would accept that a god exists.
I don't think it's relevant if I would "like holding that belief" or not.
And frankly, I don't even know what that means exactly.

Sorry that was confusing. What I was asking is that if you had good evidence would you like to have a God belief.
So I was asking if you would like to believe in God if you had good evidence.

A person can have good evidence and accept that God exists but it does not necessarily follow that they would LIKE to (want to) believe in God. I think I have good evidence but I do not always LIKE believing in God because it can be a tough road to travel.

 

[Trailblazer]

My grandpa did. Not just in the garden, they were all over the place.

He didn't talk about them much, because they don't like it. But as long as you're nice to them, they'll stay out of your way or even do little things for you. Anger them and they'll mess with you, like spoiling the milk or hiding your good pocket knife.

He knew that they exist the same way you know God exists. Not much evidence, but a firm confidence.
Tom

I have evidence and that is why I have a firm confidence.

 

[columbus]

I have evidence and that is why I have a firm confidence.

So did he.
You might find it weak. I find the same about yours.
Tom

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Sorry that was confusing. What I was asking is that if you had good evidence would you like to have a God belief.

How is that different from you previous phrasing?
You're still not asking me if I would simply accept/believe that a god exists.
You are asking me if I would "like" to accept/believe that.

This notion simply does not make sense to me... as to me, accepting / believing claims are a matter of compulsion; being convinced. Not a matter of "liking" it.

So I was asking if you would like to believe in God if you had good evidence.

Again, this makes no sense to me. To me, it sounds like asking "what does purple taste like?". Purple is a matter of visible light, not a matter of taste.

In the same kind of way, accepting claims as true is a matter of being convinced of certain things, not a matter of "liking the outcome".

A person can have good evidence and accept that God exists but it does not necessarily follow that they would LIKE to (want to) believe in God. I think I have good evidence but I do not always LIKE believing in God because it can be a tough road to travel.

Sounds like what you are really asking, is if I would worship god and follow that god's religion, given that I have come to believe that that god exists, one way or the other.
Because it's off course possible to both believe that a god exists AND to be of the opinion that he's an evil douche.
If that's what you are saking, then honestly, I don't know. I guess it would heavily depend on which god it is. I'ld probably fall in line to one extent or another because of not really having a choice. It's like living in a dictatorship. You can hate the form of rule all you want, but in the end - either you play along and obbey or you are sent to some prison where you won't have the most pleasant time or much much worse.
No, I wouldn't exactly be pleased to realising that I was forced to bow to some immoral murderous jealous genocidal homophobic psychotic heavenly dictator....

 

[ToGodorNottoGod]

But Messengers do not have control over us, not if we freely choose to believe in them.

They do not have control over us when we freely choose to ignore them either and have our own knowledge and access to God. They are truly superfluous...... they are just not needed in order to have knowledge of God. They are an extra on the set. It is a clumsy adaptation of humans to invent the idea in the first place. It's why Zen and Taoism makes so much more sense to me actually. There is a direct pipeline to God, and everyone is it. Tat Tvam Asi, we already are the Ground of Being, hence no need to intermediate messengers. That is merely a human invention that is not necessary in order to come to recognize who we really are.

 

[paarsurrey]

As an infant, your brain is pretty much hardwired to receive input in "overdrive". A chinese child can learn chinese in 2 years. It takes an adult 10+ years.

The learning you do in that stage in life, comes from all kinds of sources. Sound, touch, smell,... Pretty much everything you do, you are learning about the world.
A baby that's banging 2 objects together and throwing them around, is learning about tear, sound, gravity, hard and soft materials, ...

No, the "initial source" is not just "hearing" and certainly not listening to explanations. Since you need to learn how to speak and how to interprete language. Nobody is born speaking english.

Your first source are your primal senses. Touch, smell, sight and yes, hearing.

Once you master language, you're hardwired to pretty much swallow up everything your perceived authorities tell you. In most cases, these consist of your parents and teachers primarily, and other adults to some extent.

This is the "indoctrination stage" of religion. This is the same period that children are told about Santa Claus (and they are completely on board with the story!). After a while, they figure out that things aren't right about it. And since the parents don't believe it themselves, and are getting pretty tired of having to sneak around with christmass gifts, they don't put up much of a fight and acknowledge / admit very fast that it's idd just a story.

But they don't do that with god. God is talked about as if it's a real member of the family. When youngsters come with questions (just like they come with questions about santa), those questions are quickly crushed and very oftenly demotivated / frowned upon. You might have to start going to sunday school, where the indorctrination will be kicked up a notch. Etc.


As you grow up, your brain grows out of this "spunge" stage. After that, learning becomes slower and more difficult as you grow older. If throughout that "spunge" state, and thoughout your rebellious teen years, you were constantly submerged in a religious environment, it will prove very hard psychologically to let that go. Even if in college you learn things that clearly are incompatible.

"As an infant, your brain is pretty much hardwired to receive input in "overdrive". A chinese child can learn chinese in 2 years. It takes an adult 10+ years.

The learning you do in that stage in life, comes from all kinds of sources. Sound, touch, smell,... Pretty much everything you do, you are learning about the world.
A baby that's banging 2 objects together and throwing them around, is learning about tear, sound, gravity, hard and soft materials, ...

No, the "initial source" is not just "hearing" and certainly not listening to explanations. Since you need to learn how to speak and how to interprete language. Nobody is born speaking english.

Your first source are your primal senses. Touch, smell, sight and yes, hearing.
Once you master language, you're hardwired to pretty much swallow up everything your perceived authorities tell you. In most cases, these consist of your parents and teachers primarily, and other adults to some extent." Unquote

So, one/you agree that up to this stage one's teachers are the people around you and hearing from them is an important faculty rather the most important one at this stage. Right, please?

Regards

 

[QuestioningMind]

That is true. Verifiable evidence is proof, and there will never be any proof of God.

There is no verifiable evidence for God but there is evidence. There is no evidence at all for magical fairies. That is the salient difference.

Magical fairies would not have any *real bearing* on our lives, but if God exists, He would have a lot of bearing on our lives.


As Jesus said, some people have eyes to see and ears to hear and others don’t. He was referring to spiritual eyes and ears.

You can claim anything you want to about magical fairies and Hercules but you have no evidence they did anything at all. By contrast, the Holy Bible is evidence that Jesus did a whole heck of a lot. Nobody denies that except atheists. Even people of other religions acknowledge Jesus.

“But in the day of the Manifestation the people with insight see that all the conditions of the Manifestation are miracles, for They are superior to all others, and this alone is an absolute miracle. Recollect that Christ, solitary and alone, without a helper or protector, without armies and legions, and under the greatest oppression, uplifted the standard of God before all the people of the world, and withstood them, and finally conquered all, although outwardly He was crucified. Now this is a veritable miracle which can never be denied. There is no need of any other proof of the truth of Christ.” Some Answered Questions, p. 101

There is no verifiable evidence for God but there is evidence. There is no evidence at all for magical fairies. That is the salient difference.

Sorry but any 'other evidence' that is not verifiable is worthless evidence. And how can you claim that there is none of this 'other evidence' for magical pixies, when I can guarantee that you've never taken the time or made the effort to search for any 'other evidence' that there might be. That's because like a rational individual when you realized that there is no verifiable evidence for magical pixies you decided it would be a waste of time to search for any 'other evidence'.

The problem with 'other evidence' is that people seem to be able to find it, regardless of how false their claim might be. The terrorist idiots on 9/11 had no verifiable evidence that god wanted them to fly airplanes into buildings filled with people, but the fact that they were willing to sacrifice their lives for their belief certainly suggests that they thought they all sorts of 'other evidence' that backed up their belief. Yet, I HOPE you'll agree that they were simply deluding themselves with this 'other evidence'.

The problem is that human beings who set out to search for this 'other evidence' for claims that can't be verified more often than not end up finding what they THINK is 'other evidence'. Sadly it appears that human beings are naturally susceptible to being able to easily delude themselves. I have an older brother who, despite a lack of any verifiable evidence, claims to have TONS of 'other evidence' that space aliens from another solar system are coming to save humanity sometime during his lifetime. For HIM a song on the radio can be 'evidence' for his fantastical claim, but since it isn't evidence that can be verified, it's absolutely worthless.

Magical fairies would not have any *real bearing* on our lives, but if God exists, He would have a lot of bearing on our lives.

Didn't you listen to my claims about the magical pixies? IF you genuinely believe in them they will GRANT YOUR EVERY WISH! I can't imagine how that wouldn't have any 'real bearing' on your life.

As Jesus said, some people have eyes to see and ears to hear and others don’t. He was referring to spiritual eyes and ears.

Again, if those 'spiritual eyes and ears' can hear god tell people to fly airplanes into buildings or convince my brother that the mother ship is on it's way to save humanity then they are useless when it comes to determining actual reality.

You can claim anything you want to about magical fairies and Hercules but you have no evidence they did anything at all. By contrast, the Holy Bible is evidence that Jesus did a whole heck of a lot. Nobody denies that except atheists. Even people of other religions acknowledge Jesus.

Sorry, but the bible is merely a bunch of CLAIMS that can't be verified by actual evidence. And unverifiable claims do NOT constitute evidence. There is also a book that talks about Hercules and people agree that there was at least one ancient Greek named Hercules. In ancient times followers of other religions believed in the half-God Hercules as well, but today no one actually believes that the mythological Hercules performed the supernatural feats that the old books claim he did. I also just found several books on Amazon that talk about magical pixies, the kinds that there are and the attributes that they have. People can claim that such books are 'other evidence' that magical pixies are real, but there 'other evidence' is just as valid as the 'other evidence' provided by the bible.

 

[Trailblazer]

In my 60 years I've drawn the opposite conclusion.

Some people recognize human limitations when it comes to answering big questions. They are ok with the reality that oftentimes the only honest answer is "Nobody knows", or "Nobody is in control of that". Those are the nonbelievers.

Most people prefer the illusion of greater understanding and control than they actually have. The belief that they better understand The Creator and Creation than most people is a serious ego booster. It's very comforting to believe that they are in control of their afterlife, and that the people that they don't like will get their comeuppance. Those are the believers.

I am not able to join the second group. I'm just not capable of being so egotistical that I would believe that I know anything important about God, nor do I fear death enough to worry about it. That's why I'm not a believer.

And frankly, your consistent misrepresentation of non-theist world views is solid evidence(to me) that you don't know any more on the subjects than I do.
Tom

It is the fallacy of hasty generalization and the fallacy of jumping to conclusions to lump all believers and all nonbelievers together as if they are all the same. It is also a bit presumptuous to psychoanalyze believers as if you understand why they believe they know something important about God and why they believe they know something about an afterlife, implying that they are egotistical. Some of us simply believe we can know these things because we have evidence for them.

 

[Trailblazer]

Sounds like what you are really asking, is if I would worship god and follow that god's religion, given that I have come to believe that that god exists, one way or the other.
Because it's off course possible to both believe that a god exists AND to be of the opinion that he's an evil douche.
If that's what you are saking, then honestly, I don't know. I guess it would heavily depend on which god it is. I'ld probably fall in line to one extent or another because of not really having a choice. It's like living in a dictatorship. You can hate the form of rule all you want, but in the end - either you play along and obbey or you are sent to some prison where you won't have the most pleasant time or much much worse.
No, I wouldn't exactly be pleased to realising that I was forced to bow to some immoral murderous jealous genocidal homophobic psychotic heavenly dictator....

Yes, that is what I was asking, if you had enough good evidence that God exists in order to believe in God, would you like/want to believe in God. What you are saying is that would depend upon what kind of God He turned out to be. Some people would like to believe in God regardless of how He turned out to be because they realize that if there is an All-Knowing God, believing in that God would be in our best interest.

 

[Trailblazer]

They do not have control over us when we freely choose to ignore them either and have our own knowledge and access to God. They are truly superfluous...... they are just not needed in order to have knowledge of God. They are an extra on the set.

Please explain how you think you have your own personal knowledge and access to God.

It is a clumsy adaptation of humans to invent the idea in the first place. It's why Zen and Taoism makes so much more sense to me actually. There is a direct pipeline to God, and everyone is it. Tat Tvam Asi, we already are the Ground of Being, hence no need to intermediate messengers. That is merely a human invention that is not necessary in order to come to recognize who we really are.

That is absurd. People only believe that because they want to believe it. There is no direct access to the unknowable ineffable transcendent God. Some people just believe there is. Whatever they are accessing is not God, it is a figment of their imagination.

 

[Trailblazer]

There is no verifiable evidence for God but there is evidence. There is no evidence at all for magical fairies. That is the salient difference.

Sorry but any 'other evidence' that is not verifiable is worthless evidence.

Worthless to YOU.

And how can you claim that there is none of this 'other evidence' for magical pixies, when I can guarantee that you've never taken the time or made the effort to search for any 'other evidence' that there might be. That's because like a rational individual when you realized that there is no verifiable evidence for magical pixies you decided it would be a waste of time to search for any 'other evidence'.

If you have any ‘other evidence’ for magical pixies let me know. I cannot even do a search for evidence because nothing comes up on the internet... hmmm.

By contrast, I can search for Baha’u’llah and find all kinds of information.

The problem with 'other evidence' is that people seem to be able to find it, regardless of how false their claim might be.

However, logically speaking that does not mean that the ‘other evidence’ for their claim is false. It could be either true or false.

Didn't you listen to my claims about the magical pixies? IF you genuinely believe in them they will GRANT YOUR EVERY WISH! I can't imagine how that wouldn't have any 'real bearing' on your life.

Comparing God to magical fairies is something only certain atheists would do. It only makes them look ridiculous, all in the interest of making a point. But *instead* of making a point they wind up looking ridiculous.

Again, if those 'spiritual eyes and ears' can hear god tell people to fly airplanes into buildings or convince my brother that the mother ship is on it's way to save humanity then they are useless when it comes to determining actual reality.

And again, those spiritual eyes and ears could lead them to truth or falsehood, logically speaking.

Sorry, but the bible is merely a bunch of CLAIMS that can't be verified by actual evidence. And unverifiable claims do NOT constitute evidence.

Some of what is in the Bible is verifiable.

I also just found several books on Amazon that talk about magical pixies, the kinds that there are and the attributes that they have. People can claim that such books are 'other evidence' that magical pixies are real, but there 'other evidence' is just as valid as the 'other evidence' provided by the bible.

Comparing magical pixies to the Holy Bible only makes you look foolish. There is no comparison. I cannot think of any scholar who would agree with you, even if they were an atheist. Religious scholars almost universally agree that Jesus existed, even though everything that is attributed to Jesus in the Bible cannot be verified.

The verifiable proof that Jesus was a Prophet of God is the effect He had upon humanity. No ordinary man has ever had that kind of effect upon humanity that has lasted over 2000 years.

“What then is the mission of the divine prophets? Their mission is the education and advancement of the world of humanity. They are the real teachers and educators, the universal instructors of mankind. If we wish to discover whether any one of these great souls or messengers was in reality a prophet of God we must investigate the facts surrounding His life and history; and the first point of our investigation will be the education He bestowed upon mankind. If He has been an educator, if He has really trained a nation or people, causing it to rise from the lowest depths of ignorance to the highest station of knowledge, then we are sure that He was a prophet. This is a plain and clear method of procedure, proof that is irrefutable. We do not need to seek after other proofs.” Bahá’í World Faith, p. 273

 

[ToGodorNottoGod]

Please explain how you think you have your own personal knowledge and access to God.

When I finally become what I already am I will have that. For now I am a seeking agnostic as I have already said.

There is no direct access to the unknowable ineffable transcendent God

Even with messengers? Then why pay attention to what they say about God when they also cannot possibly know... if we can't have access, then neither can anyone else, including messengers, hence they are completely irrelevant, as I have said. I think your statement helps make my point.