Heyo
Veteran Member
So, the conclusion is: revealed Truth™, as in all kind of scripture, is not trustworthy and can't be called evidence.
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Evidence for God
- Thread starter Trailblazer
- Start date
You're doing it backward. What you're describing is motivated reasoning, and a good example of what that can do to thought is in the bottom of this post - the last comment. Conclusions should follow from evidence impartially evaluated. You begin with belief. In clinical trials of therapeutics, pains are taken to eliminate the kind of bias you recommend. Patient and clinicians are kept unaware of which patients got the therapy being tested and which got placebo. What you suggest is the equivalent of the clinician giving an untested remedy and instructing the patient that he must believe that it will work first before it will.
Fortunately, we have you as the metric for reasoning.
I don't recall seeing that argument made before now, but yes, your argument is flawed.
It's not fallacy. It's a fact that if faith is required at any point in an evaluation, the conclusion is faith-based. You want to claim otherwise because you also looked at some flowery, hortative prose and decided that a god must have written it because you were told so and believed that.
Which god? I don't expect any evidence for Zeus even if he exists.
And you have a problem with comparing apples and oranges? One can profitably compare them.
We don't have to know any more about any god than what the believer claims for it. Theists have so many. We evaluate the evidence each one offers. And I don't think you understand what the skeptic is saying about evidence for gods. He's not asking you for any, because he doesn't expect any believer to provide a reason to believe in any god. He's telling you what he requires for belief, and that he has given up waiting for any believer to meet his criteria. Is this where you roll out hasty generalization? If so, don't bother.
You say that you occasionally laugh out loud at my posts. I understand how you feel. And you're still stuck in "proven for a fact" mode, which by now can only be understood as bad faith argumentation. It's a ruse to deflect from not having sufficient evidence to believe which is the critical thinker's criterion for belief, not proof. He wants evidence and you keep saying that you don't have proof. He knows that. He also knows that you don't have the evidence required to support belief.
What a terrible thing to say. I really dislike what religion does to many people. I can't imagine anybody who is not an Abrahamic theist calling a rejection of gratuitous suffering cowardice. It's unthinkable that a humanist would think or say such a thing, but that's another of the benefits of humanism:
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. For good people to do evil things, it takes religion." - Nobelist Steven Weinberg
Here's what takes courage: Try standing up like the bipedal ape you were born to be, and look out into the universe, which may be almost empty, and which may contain no gods at all. Then face and accept the very real possibility that we may be all there is for light years. Accept that you may be vulnerable and not watched over. Accept the likelihood of your own mortality and finitude. Accept the reality of your insignificance everywhere but earth, and that you might be unloved except by those who know you - people, and maybe a few animals. Because as far as we know, that's how it is.
Then God can't really blame folks for a lack of belief.
Life has taught me not to believe the words of others without some physical evidence that backs them up.
You have your reasons for believe in Baháʼu'lláh. Others have their reasons for believing in L Ron Hubbard. None of those reasons have anything to do with physical evidence. Believing in one spiritual leader over another seems a random choice. Other than whatever charisma draws a person to their words.
I'm willing to accept there are "true messengers" of a God but the rest of us are left with no way of physically verifying their claims. So there is no way to verify who is a true messenger. Many of these messengers claim to be supported by the Bible or at least not at odds with it. Most claim to be providing clarification to the Bible. There are several of these messengers alive today all making similar claims.
As an atheist, I am simply saying I do not possess the wherewithall to separate the true messengers from the false ones.
False. Your analogy was that natives wouldn't understand what a plane is and I explained that planes are real, unlike gods, and that planes can be shown to exist to people who had no awareness of them existing, unlike theists and their many diferent gods.
You don't get other believers agreeing with your claims and belief. They might stay quiet, or they might agree in a general sense, but they don;t agree with you.
You want to make atheists the bad guy, but the fact is that Baha'i can't convince Christians, or Muslims, or Hindus. or other fringe believers that your view of God is true , and thus their view of their god must be wrong be default. Other theists reject your specific claims about God just as atheists do. I suspect your motive is trying to whip up a common enemy so other believers will join you in the condemnation.
If you actually had evidence you would feel motivated to write these absurd posts. These are the gods of diverse theists. Atheists don't see any evidentiary basis to believe is any of the many gods talked about by believers. That is not the problem for atheists, it's the problem for believers who make their religious claims in an open forum. You aksing atheists to describe what God or evidence for God looks like is as absurd as asking you about some imaginary character you've never heard of before. These are the gods of believers, you all think these gods exist in one way or another, it's on you to demonstarte any of these many gods exist outside of human imagination. You can't. You are frustrated that you aren't trusted, and you lash out against those who show the best skill at thinking.
They disagree because there are many, many religious traditions and people settle into the tradition they like for their reasons. It isn't that they believe due to an intellectual process. The fact is there are many gods, many disagreements, and a lack of fact to help resolve the confusion.
And why are religious traditions so inconsistent and confused? Use facts in your answer, not your belief.
Nope. I never said that messengers of God do not exist. So you are claiming I conclude things that I never concluded.
You asked for a logical discussion, but I am not really sure that is what you really want, because it is not very difficult to show that there is no evidence of any God, if we just use logic.
I am just claiming that they provide no evidence to be messengers of of something that actually exists. I cannot even exclude that there are messengers of Superman with 100% certainty, but for sure I would not consider evidence of Superman, the existence of any self declared messenger of Superman.
All you have is what some people claim. But claiming, is not evidence. I could make up a definition of God, and then claim that I know God and behave exactly like the definition I gave. It wold be embarrassingly easy. And even more embarrassing to buy it.
Is that evidence that God exist and I am His messenger? Of course not; So why should you messengers prove anything? Or even provide evidence that goes above the zero evidence God already enjoys?
Ciao
- viole
And who says we need to know that? I just claim that any argument for the existence of God cannot possibly obtain, if there are other arguments, with the same evidence at least, that explain the same without any God.
So, if someone make up Gods to explain X, I am equally entitled to make up naturalistic arguments that explain X equally well. Therefore, any argument that X can only be explained by God, does not obtain.
Again, that does not mean God does not exist. It just means that there is no known convincing argument for Her existence. I actually think it is very easy to take them all down.
Ciao
- viole
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Koldo
Outstanding Member
There is a certain implied duality here in that either one knows what an "airplane" is or one doesn't. But quite in fact, the actual situation is more like a pluralism since theists don't even, necessarily, agree among themselves over what constitutes an "airplane". And more importantly, being an atheist doesn't make me a person that doesn't know what an "airplane" is. Believing in the existence of "airplane" is not necessary to have a definition of what constitutes an "airplane". If your definition is different from mine, just present it.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
No convincing argument FOR YOU.
Others evaluate the evidence differently .. they are convinced.
Your opinion of my sincerity is irrelevant to my validity. I just added your comment (at the bottom now) to my growing list of the many ways that apologists attempt to disqualify opinions they don't like. Yours is no more meaningful than the others. Here are several from the bottom of the list (most recent):
[54] You want to convince me you have knowledge of the Bible. 1) Provide 5 examples of slave liberation in the Old Testament. 2) King Saul was merciful to the merciless and subsequently merciless to the merciful. Explain.
[55] You are a heretic with little if any understanding of Scripture. If you did study the Bible it was in a Laurel and Hardy College in Tijuana
[56] Like I say there are no errors in the bible only skeptics that can't read and comprehend.
[57] You're a Biblical ignoramus.
[58] You need Jehovah’s approval to understand His word.
[59] Please don't say, 'how can I trust it? The Bible contradicts itself'. That will only be evidence to me that you don't understand what it's ancient writers meant, and don't want to.
[60] I guess the issue here is, one of us has studied the original languages of the Bible, and has a degree in biblical studies and religion.
[61] You dont understand transliteration, its an everyday haters haven to find.
[62] You need a spiritual susceptibility to recognize Him through His verses, if not, you're out of luck.
[63] The words are the proof, even by themselves, but you need a certain spiritual susceptibility to them.
[64] You lack the basic knowledge needed for a debate
[65] If you do not believe in God, His things will be beyond your comprehension.
[66] Your interpretation is invalid, as your intention appears to be insincere.
That's not an endorsement of their thinking. Au contraire. There is a tried-and-true method for connecting true premises and evidence to sound conclusions, and deviation from it leads to error. Reason is reason. There is only one set of rules of addition (pure reason) that generates correct sums from addends. One doesn't have to learn those. He may choose to add differently by faith, but he has almost no chance of getting a correct sum. Reason isn't subjective. If you have your own rules, it isn't reason. And what it takes to convince such a person that he is correct is of little interest.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
Fine .. you are right, and I am wrong .. along with all the other inferior human beings who believe in the unseen.
..and so Jesus was wrong. .. Muhammad was wrong, and Moses was wrong, IN YOUR OPINION.
My version of critical thinking comes up with different results.
That is because I know what you don't know. You have not lived my life, and I have not lived yours.
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Misunderstood
Active Member
Is that a bad thing; Motivated Reasoning? I think most reasoning is motivated by something. It might not be the best way to go about it and we try to eliminate bias. But all theory's are based on what we feel evidence says about something and our interpretation of it. We come up with a theory motivated by our knowledge and reasoning of a subject, put it out there for everyone to see, and see if it stands up.
I don't see the connection with your last comment with what is being said here. But I don't think it is important, if you feel it is maybe you could describe the connection.
I think here you make the point that clinical trials are Motivated Reasoning. You say 'You begin with a belief' and continue to say 'In clinical trials of therapeutics, pains are taken to eliminate the kind of bias you recommend.'
If Motivated Reasoning isn't a concern, why take pains to reduce their effects. But it is necessary to help motivate science to move forward.
I might not be understanding this correctly, because I don't think what I am understanding is what you wanted to say.
But I think that is exactly what a Doctor would do when testing a treatment. They divide a group of patents into at least two groups and tell them they are getting a treatment to treat their condition before a patent ever receives any treatment. That way if the results of the control group is similar to the group receiving treatment, they know the treatment did not work as it can be accounted to placebo effect. Their has to be a belief that a treatment will work in order to eliminate the placebo effect.
PearlSeeker
Well-Known Member
Another circular argument.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
It is NOT a circular argument.
It's simple .. G-d does not WANT to be known or understood by the insincere.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
If God can't do the illogical, then God is not all powerful, logic is thus greater than God and God hasn't created everything.
I wrote, "Conclusions should follow from evidence impartially evaluated. You begin with belief" and called that motivated reasoning
Yes. It can also be called tendentious reasoning. Its purpose is to try to attempt to justify a preferred conclusion, and it frequently appears where one has assumed something by faith in error and is then confronted with evidence to the contrary, as when somebody says that there are no contradictions in scripture, is shown what he would agree was a contradiction if it appeared in somebody else's scripture instead, but instead sets out to make an apparent contradiction appear to be concordance.
Yes, but you're using a more general definition of motivated here. The motivation here is specifically to reconcile a belief with contradictory evidence. "Motivated reasoning is a cognitive and social response, in which individuals actively, consciously or unconsciously, allow emotional and/or motivational biases to affect how new information is perceived."
The comment in question was, "Cowards don't like suffering so they think God should not allow it, but God allows what is good for people, not what they want." That's motivated reasoning. Gratuitous suffering is undesirable, and any compassionate soul that could relieve the suffering in others would. That would not be a controversial comment unless one believes by faith in a god that is good and allows such suffering. Now, he must begin the verbal gymnastics, which is the motivated reasoning. That poster assumes that that suffering is good, and goes further to call someone a coward for disagreeing. That's how belief by faith in what is obviously untrue can affect one.
Motivated reasoning is a concern in clinical trials.
That's just half of the blinding necessary. The patient reports symptoms - things that are felt - and the clinician reports signs - things that are observed, felt, and measured. We want both parties blinded to reduce their biases in reporting.
That's backwards. The greater the belief, the greater the placebo effect. Furthermore, we don't can't eliminate the placebo effect, so we must control for it a using a group receiving placebo only. It's also seen in animals: A Crucial Blind Spot in Veterinary Medicine
It is only logically impossible if God is not All-powerful in my view.
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
From my point of view, it's not that it's impossible, but a world without suffering would be an extremely strange place. I'm not sure that people would prefer it.
For example, without suffering what is preventing a person from lighting themself on fire? Or lighting someone else on fire? There is no suffering, so why not?
A person could choose not to eat, and starve themself, refuse clothing, shelter, and would have minimal physical warnings that they are about to die.
Even if minor suffering exists, and extreme suffering is eliminated the same problem occurs. Should there be the same penalty for verbal assault compared to physical torture? If the amount of suffering inflicted is no different between the two, why should there be a more severe punishment?
Without suffering, there's no harm, without harm, there is no basis for morality. Without morality, there is no justice, no righteousness. Everything becomes bland and strange. There's no incentive for anything.
So, it is illogical to create a world without any suffering.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
reliable: consistently good in quality or performance; able to be trusted.
I believe that God provides the evidence, nobody gathers it. God provided it and I present it. Then atheists say "that's not evidence."
God is not right by accident, God is right because God is inerrant, so whatever God provides as evidence is always right.
Why? Because He is God.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
All-powerful does not mean can do anything, it means has all power.
God is not subject to human-devised logic.