Evidence

[frg001]

To me the "evidence" is obvious. I pick up a stone and its very existence is evidence of Creation. It is a token of God. I am a token of God. The tree in my front yard is a token of God. The dirt under my feet is evidence as is the gravity which presses me to that dirt.

The stars in the night sky and the course and track they follow through the firmament is evidence of God.

That such is NOT evidence to others is immaterial to my perception.

Regards,
Scott

You may regard it as 'evidence' , but it is no more valid than the lit candles in my house being 'evidence' for me being able to summon fire from my thumb.

 

[Popeyesays]

You may regard it as 'evidence' , but it is no more valid than the lit candles in my house being 'evidence' for me being able to summon fire from my thumb.

Your candles testify to a maker. They are irrelevant to your thumb.

Regards,
Scott

 

[frg001]

Your candles testify to a maker. They are irrelevant to your thumb.

Regards,
Scott

The candles were certainly made, and in fact my thumb had a major role in their lit status.

 

[Popeyesays]

Your thumb did not make the light the candle exhibits, the candlemaker provides the candle and the potential for light. By itself your thumb can't make much light.

Regards,
Scott

 

[Rolling_Stone]

The topic is the role of "evidence" in religion.

Conditioned deference for “evidence” at the expense of input from the inner life can only inhibit one’s awakening. The habit of looking for “evidence” for experiential truth does not reinforce one’s autonomy as a self-realized being. Rather, it reflects and fosters dependency.

I am invested in an ongoing process of self-realization that has a distinct sense of direction. I don’t need the logical mind to steer the ship. The process is not one of assimilating and reorganizing facts, but in the form of a vantage point.

 

[Somkid]

After everyone confuses you as a child if your lucky and capable of any independent thought at all you start with the premise "I don't know" and work forward from there to find the truth if you have any interest in it at all. After exploring religion for many years I found what I believe to be accurate (notice I didn't say true).

What you have proposed is 14th century philosophy some of it survived into the 18th century but it is more of a novelty today and taught more as historical philosophy than practical philosophy.

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."
--Buddha

I'm someone that asserts that I makes my life’s decisions based on evidence provided above.

 

[Rolling_Stone]

After everyone confuses you as a child if your lucky and capable of any independent thought at all you start with the premise "I don't know" and work forward from there to find the truth if you have any interest in it at all. After exploring religion for many years I found what I believe to be accurate (notice I didn't say true).

What you have proposed is 14th century philosophy some of it survived into the 18th century but it is more of a novelty today and taught more as historical philosophy than practical philosophy.

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."
--Buddha

I'm someone that asserts that I makes my life’s decisions based on evidence provided above.

You do well to do as you do. "Consensus evidence," external evidence, has its place in the material world, but it should not be allowed to pilot the ship alone--if at all.

I am not proposing a philosophy at all, but saying there is a level of awareness for which there is no evidence that manifests as a way of life.

Welcome to RF

 

[Autodidact]

No matter what form it takes, religion is the intuitive discernment of the Infinite. It seems to me the incessant demand for “evidence” for something that, by definition, is infinite, shows an inability to intuit the presence of something which, by virtue of it being infinite, more than a “thing.”

Some years ago biorhythms were all the rage: you could go to any store and buy a book that charted good and bad days. I was interested, but basically thought it was a bunch of hooey. Now, years later, I’ve monitored the inner workings of my life to know that while the charts and graphs were a great way for people to make money, life does move to a rhythm that no clock can accommodate. There is absolutely no way to provide evidence that I am aware of non-physical forces at work. A light touch on the skin is more subtle than a punch in the face, but that doesn’t mean the former is “supernatural.” A black eye is evidence that someone punched me in the face, but how can I show that I was lightly touched?

I know that many religionists believe in God in a way that makes their religion vulnerable to criticism, and most of those believe as they do because it was something passed down to them rather than something experienced. Nevertheless, there are those that, while operating from obsolete ideas, genuinely intuit the presence of something working through them. Their concept of God may be underdeveloped and critics have every right to question the concept of God they employed, but there is no reason to ask for evidence because no evidence is possible other than the life of the religionist.

I think what you're referring to is a believer's internal, subjective experience, correct? And spiritual intuition? I think there are a few problems with these though.

One is that, by coincidence, people just happen to have spiritual intuitions that match their cultural upbringing. Catholics have visions of the Virgin Mary, animists experience connections with vital spirits, and Evangelists talk to Jesus. Another is that doctors can literally induce vivid religious visions by stimulating a person's brain. In fact, there is a kind of epilepsy that causes these visions. But more important to me is the basic idea that our brains just work a certain way, and we're getting where we're starting to know what that way is. One is that we think in terms of actors and agency, of intentions and stories, even when there isn't one. That's just how we evolved. We are pattern seeking creatures, and we will see patterns when there isn't one. We can't help it. So, due to our normal brain functioning, we are prone to erroneous spiritual intuitions.

That doesn't mean there isn't such a thing as a real one, but more that there would be no way of knowing a true one from a false one.

It's possible that by insisting on evidence, we are missing out on some important truths. However, by letting go of evidence, you are at risk of believing things that are false. Evidence = risk of false negative. No evidence = risk of false positive.

So I'll take my chances with the evidence.

btw, I really think we all go the evidence route in our everyday lives, and let it go only when it comes to spirituality, religion and the supernatural. Or at least, most of us. I don't think many people say, "My doctor told me to take anti-biotics, but I'm disregarding the evidence and going with my spiritual intuition and throwing them away." Or even, "My brakes are squealing, but my heart tells me not to take them into the mechanic."

 

[Rolling_Stone]

You've misconstrued just about everything I said, Autodidact. I no more dismiss "facts" and "evidence" any more than quantum physicists dismiss Newtonian physics. I do, however, recognize their limitations.

I've said many times that reality does not end where the skin begins. What I have not said until now is its corollary: life does not end with the skin. I'm saying there "is a level of awareness for which there is no evidence that manifests as a way of life" and the obsessive demand for objective evidence is an expression of dependance on the external at the expense of the internal.

 

[Autodidact]

You've misconstrued just about everything I said, Autodidact. I no more dismiss "facts" and "evidence" any more than quantum physicists dismiss Newtonian physics. I do, however, recognize their limitations.

I've said many times that reality does not end where the skin begins. What I have not said until now is its corollary: life does not end with the skin. I'm saying there "is a level of awareness for which there is no evidence that manifests as a way of life" and the obsessive demand for objective evidence is an expression of dependance on the external at the expense of the internal.

O.K., I've got that you're positing the existence of something internal, but apparently haven't grasped anything else you're saying. Would you try again in simpler terms? Thanks you.

 

[Rolling_Stone]

O.K., I've got that you're positing the existence of something internal, but apparently haven't grasped anything else you're saying. Would you try again in simpler terms? Thanks you.

I'm positing no boundaries apart from those we make ourselves.

 

[Sunstone]

Show me someone who asserts that they make their life’s decisions based on evidence, or whose every discounting, cynical and intellectualizing argument includes “show me the evidence,” and I’ll show you someone who has never really considered what kind of “evidence” they are looking for: consensus. Truth-seeking is not an undertaking for cowards: it requires courage to invade new levels of experience and to attempt the exploration of unknown realms of intellectual and living. By limiting their life’s decisions to the “evidence” at hand, people build a cage around themselves that prevents them from exploring new avenues of thought.

Rationalism has gone bankrupt when it persists, in the face of each recurring phenomenon, in making its objections by referring what is admittedly higher back into that which is admittedly lower because the “evidence” for a purposeful Creator is scant. Consistency requires that it not discount religious experience on grounds of credulity while it persists in the assumption that man’s intellectual and philosophic endowments emerged from something that is utterly devoid of all thinking and feeling. “Intelligent men should cease to reason like children and should attempt to use the consistent logic of adulthood, logic which tolerates the concept of truth alongside the observation of fact.” They should be mature enough to acknowledge that not everything in life is reasonable, logical or empirical. The incessant demand for “evidence” at the expense of the inner life is also a demand to be an outcast in the universe, for reality doesn’t end where the skin begins.

What basis is there for distinquishing between someone who does not require evidence for their beliefs and someone who is delussional?

 

[Autodidact]

I'm positing no boundaries apart from those we make ourselves.

Could you please be a little more vague?

 

[Rolling_Stone]

What basis is there for distinquishing between someone who does not require evidence for their beliefs and someone who is delussional?

Why don't you pay attention to what I write? The answer is right there in another post.

 

[Sunstone]

Why don't you pay attention to what I write? The answer is right there.

Not that I can see.

 

[Rolling_Stone]

Not that I can see.

See post #47. If you can't see the answer there, I can't help you any more than I can help a blindman see colors.

 

[Autodidact]

See post #47. If you can't see the answer there, I can't help you any more than I can help a blindman see colors.

Your answer to the question of how to distinguish between individual spiritual intution and delusion is:

You do well to do as you do. "Consensus evidence," external evidence, has its place in the material world, but it should not be allowed to pilot the ship alone--if at all.

I am not proposing a philosophy at all, but saying there is a level of awareness for which there is no evidence that manifests as a way of life.

?

Apparently I have that same color blindness, because I don't see how that post addressed the question at all.

But then, I love it when "atheists" anthropomorphize God, don't you?

 

[Rolling_Stone]

Apparently I have that same color blindness, because I don't see how that post addressed the question at all.

Yup. You do.

 

[Autodidact]

Alright, Rolling, the problem isn't with you, it's me and Sunstone and everyone who's reading your posts and not understanding them. Is that what the evidence suggests to you?

 

[Rioku]

Alright, Rolling, the problem isn't with you, it's me and Sunstone and everyone who's reading your posts and not understanding them. Is that what the evidence suggests to you?

Add me to that list! But I am kind of getting the fact that he thinks he can control things with his mind. I hope he will teach us all how to do that it could be fun.