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circumstantial evidence to Gods existence

Thumper

Thank the gods I'm an atheist
"No they don't" Dave Smith 2017 :) All any claim requires is the willingness to accept it. if you believe that something comes from nothing and life starts from lifelessness despite all physical evidence to the contrary then all that was required to validate that hypothesis was your willingness to accept it. Have you ever seen something, anything, just a grain of sand, come from nothing (let alone a whole universe) Have you ever seen a rock or a mix of chemicals come to life, just a single cell would do - No! but you are willing to believe that it could and did happen, why, because you refuse to believe that it could happen any other way and that is the only other option. "Two miracles and time - Allow me two miracles and time which brings all things to fruition and I'll give you the answers to the universe and everything" - Athiests everywhere
Ah yes, Atheism is the "arrogant" belief that the universe was not created just for us.

You believe the universe was "poofed" into existence by magic and that Adam was created from dirt.

I'm willing to say I don't know rather than just make stuff up.
 

Thumper

Thank the gods I'm an atheist
So if you work in the fraud dept at this casino, and this guy sits down at 4 tables and plays a royal flush at each one, you tell your boss it's probably just luck?!
Not what I said, not even close.

Show me the mathematical foundation for your statement "less improbable"? Are you using permutations or standard deviation or something else ... magic perhaps?
 

Guy Threepwood

Mighty Pirate
Not what I said, not even close.

Show me the mathematical foundation for your statement "less improbable"? Are you using permutations or standard deviation or something else ... magic perhaps?

Simple question Thumpy

which do you think is more likely in this scenario, that he was dealt 4 royal flushes by chance, or that cheating, intelligent agency was behind this result?
 

Sapiens

Polymathematician
Of course there is evidence for God:

Tangible/material: Biological, Cosmological, History, Prophecy, Biblical Accuracy

Intangible/immaterial: Logic, Teleology, Ontology, Love, Justice, Absolutes
No evidence so far.
What is also clear IMHO is that propensities/biases lean BOTH ways--a person open to God (most people) says, "God's existence is self-evident to me" and skeptics say, "I have no evidence for God--oh, wow, look how 15B Light Years of Universe formed inside a stretched void!"

This is akin to twin fetuses in a uterus saying to each other, "Mom, what mom? I've never had evidence of a mom?"
Bad analogy as usual, Now ... twins don't talk, but if they did ... there's all sorts of evidence for Mom: Nutrition, oxygenation, heart beat, clearly there's something outside I can hear the sounds, feel the rub and the touch, etc.
 

Thumper

Thank the gods I'm an atheist
Simple question Thumpy

which do you think is more likely in this scenario, that he was dealt 4 royal flushes by chance, or that cheating, intelligent agency was behind this result?
Name's not "Thumpy" and there is no reason for that kind of disrespect ... unless that's how you want to be treated.

And, as has been pointed out, we have mathematical abilities to calculate card sets. That has nothing to do with your leap of unreason to attempt to use probability to calculate that which has no foundation. You're still just making stuff up.
 

Sapiens

Polymathematician
So if you work in the fraud dept at this casino, and this guy sits down at 4 tables and plays a royal flush at each one, you tell your boss it's probably just luck?!
Bad analogies seem to be the order of the day.

I'd be suspicious if if were as you describe ... 4 hands in a row, however, if he played for 4 billion year I'd not find 4 royal flushes out of line.
 

rrosskopf

LDS High Priest
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” ~ Carl Sagan
Unfortunately, the universe is full of extraordinary facts, and people are not very good at judging what is extraordinary. Obviously, some people don't believe that a belief in God is extraordinary at all.
 

Guy Threepwood

Mighty Pirate
Name's not "Thumpy" and there is no reason for that kind of disrespect ... unless that's how you want to be treated.

And, as has been pointed out, we have mathematical abilities to calculate card sets. That has nothing to do with your leap of unreason to attempt to use probability to calculate that which has no foundation. You're still just making stuff up.

It was intended in a friendly manner!

Which would you suspect is most likely in this analogy, Mr Thumper, luck or cheating? and why?
 

Thumper

Thank the gods I'm an atheist
Unfortunately, the universe is full of extraordinary facts, and people are not very good at judging what is extraordinary. Obviously, some people don't believe that a belief in God is extraordinary at all.
Which is fine. They are entitled to their belief. But if they want me to consider it, they need to provide evidence.
 

Thumper

Thank the gods I'm an atheist
It was intended in a friendly manner!

Which would you suspect is most likely in this analogy, Mr Thumper, luck or cheating? and why?
It's just "Thumper", but I get that you're trying to be cute.

Please tell me how this question relates to this thread concerning "circumstantial evidence to Gods existence."

In fact, maybe we should start out talking about why "God" is even capitalized here? Have we already ruled out the equally circumstantial existence of Shiva, Vishnu, etc as being valid?
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
As many times the strongest argument for theism is:

Don't expect to measure God as it is immeasurable.
Of course that would be reasonable. Can anyone measure infinity? How would you go about that without stepping outside infinity? And if you could do that, then whatever you would be measuring could not any longer be infinite, because you're outside of it. :)

This is why arguments to prove God as something outside ourselves, will never succeed. You can't exclude the subject. God cannot be an object and still be God.

So I find this advice very useful and would love to hear about a different kind of evidence.
Evidence of yourself. In other words in the words of one mystic I can't recall who at the moment said, "To know yourself is to know God. To know God is to know yourself." When we truly peel back the layers of the onion of who we imagine we are to find the one looking at the whole thing, then the question is answered. All that's left is finding ways to talk about it.

In this case, personal experience, or better put, personal Awareness is that evidence. You can't look outside to find God, while exclude yourself. It begins with self awareness down to the very Source itself. That's the evidence. God is the Subject of all being, the One looking out through your eyes. Think of it like trying to find your eyes while looking out through them imagining you'll find them somewhere "out there".

So, "Theism" then is simply one way to talk about the experience of that Infinite. So is atheism for that matter. Neither can define the Reality of it however, as both as putting an objective face on infinite Reality through excluding the subject, the one looking.
 

Sapiens

Polymathematician
"No they don't" Dave Smith 2017 :) All any claim requires is the willingness to accept it. if you believe that something comes from nothing and life starts from lifelessness despite all physical evidence to the contrary then all that was required to validate that hypothesis was your willingness to accept it. Have you ever seen something, anything, just a grain of sand, come from nothing (let alone a whole universe) Have you ever seen a rock or a mix of chemicals come to life, just a single cell would do - No! but you are willing to believe that it could and did happen, why, because yosnd time - Allow me two miracles and time which brings all things to fruition and I'll give you the answers to the universe and everything" - Athiests everywhere
That's what is known as a "strawman argument." You make something up, ascribe it to someone and then attempt to discredit them with what you have made up. That dog doesn't hunt.
 

Guy Threepwood

Mighty Pirate
It's just "Thumper", but I get that you're trying to be cute.

Please tell me how this question relates to this thread concerning "circumstantial evidence to Gods existence."

In fact, maybe we should start out talking about why "God" is even capitalized here? Have we already ruled out the equally circumstantial existence of Shiva, Vishnu, etc as being valid?

It is merely a proof of principle, that an unseen intelligent agency can trump a directly observable materialist mechanism, depending on the circumstantial evidence- even if we can't calculate exact numbers for probability on both sides- we both know that he probably cheated somehow.

The analogy is fallacious I concede- because it utterly grants you a materialistic mechanism capable of the result (we know of no such thing for making random universes)

And it also actively guards against intelligent agency, while we know of no such inter-cosmological security force, preventing any intelligent dabbling!
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Circumstantial evidence is good enough to send someone to prison (or not). In the law, in the face of no direct evidence, indirect or circumstantial evidence may be used to infer facts and if this circumstantial evidence is weighty enough then a jury may decide to convict based on it. So why do you deny the theist the same right to make a decision based on the same type of evidence that you allow your law to consider valid?


The judicial system is flawed in that respect. It allows for a percentage of irrationality and emotion to interfere with the actuality of events and the determination of facts thus leading to random and erroneous conclusions for a noticeable part.

Circumstantial convictions are void of the veracity that is required to determine the facts as it stands, and impacts any reliability by which conclusions are made.

I'm uncomfortable with any court system that convicts people on a margin of error and that goes for religions that employ the same things as well.

Circumstances can help out in providing direction and a place to look, so there is value, but without supporting facts to back up and confirm, it's simply not good enough on its own merits if determining the actual truth means anything.
 

sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
yes, 4 royal flushes in a row is about 1 in (the number of stars in the universe), we can nail that figure down,

We do not have the necessary information to calculate the probability of the gambler cheating, we only know, that unless we can utterly rule it out, intelligent agency is less improbable than the staggering odds against chance.

we just can't be this sure that no intelligent creator could possibly have been involved, to assume chance is more likely
Please provide your reasons for stating why you believe that of the 20 billion earth like planets in the habitable zones of our galaxy only earth harbors life?
Scientists Estimate 20 Billion Earth-Like Planets In Our Galaxy
 

Thumper

Thank the gods I'm an atheist
yes, 4 royal flushes in a row is about 1 in (the number of stars in the universe), we can nail that figure down,...
Well the odds are 649,739 : 1 for a royal flush, but it still happens. And each deal is a separate probability. Now, what are the "number of stars in the universe"?
 

Sapiens

Polymathematician
Unfortunately, the universe is full of extraordinary facts, and people are not very good at judging what is extraordinary. Obviously, some people don't believe that a belief in God is extraordinary at all.
Anyone who has trouble understanding that "supernatural" is fully contained with "extraordinary" needs remedial language training.
 
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rrosskopf

LDS High Priest
Which is fine. They are entitled to their belief. But if they want me to consider it, they need to provide evidence.
Which of course is fine as well. I would hope that compelling evidence would be given, and that you would be open to receiving it. In my experience, atheists tend to find excuses to ignore all evidence, such that you could give them a mountain of evidence, but none of it would meet their impossible standards. I hope that isn't you.
 

rrosskopf

LDS High Priest
Anyone who has trouble understanding that "supernatural" is fully contained with "extraordinary" needs remedial language training.
Gravity is a good case in point. Few would argue that gravity does not exist. Yet no one has proposed why two objects would be attracted to each other. There are no obvious strings, and no pressure in the empty space pulling things together. It is common, yet extraordinary at the same time. Many millions pray to God, and have a sense that someone is listening; that too is common, yet extraordinary.
 
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