Let's Present Some Evidence ...

[themadhair]

I'm not going around this circle again. Please read the quote you posted from me CAREFULLY.

Unless you mean predictive in a completely difference context than in science i fail to see how I am misconstruing it here.

 

[Commoner]

But we have already established that these things will not apply to "God". And we have established that these things do apply to the use of the concept of "God" and the practice of religion.
How do you propose one go about using these methods to determine the reality of "God"?

That's how we go about determining the reality of anything. The question is, why should god be any different? If you want to use a different method, first demonstrate that it is reliable and then we can use it.

That other god would not likely be more credible to me. But if it were, then yes. But by "credible", I mean that it works in a positive way in my life.

How does an idea being popular make it work in a positive way for you? See what I've done here?

They can't be expected to understand what they have not experienced. Also, most atheists are young. When the sh*t of their life hits the fan of their atheism, many of them will seek out a 'higher power' for help, just as so many of the rest of us have.

But besides all that. If people don't need "God", then they don't need God. That's OK by me.

I don't know about that - you have to experience something to understand it?

There are atheists in foxholes. I don't understand how someone desperate for help "converting" helps your argument. We do a lot of things when we're desperate, many of them irrational - if anything, it's an argument against religion that preys on the weak and helpless and exploits them.

 

[Commoner]

Value trumps truth when truth is not available. And sometimes even when it is available.

We're not here determining the value of god.

I don't know. We're mixing apples and and wing nuts.

How so? Do you think ESP is credible? Why (not)? It certainly seems to be popular.

 

[Commoner]

I acknowledge an objective reality, but I see no special relevance in it. What's more "real", love or a chair?

What's more real, Santa or a chair? We certainly can distinguish from "real" and "not real" in any way that matters practically.

And to answer your question, it's the chair. The chair is real, love is a concept - and it has more than one meaning. But if you mean the emotion of love, that's real as well, and pretty much completely explicable.

But if you mean love as in "love is all around us" - this thing that floats around, then no, it's not real.

 

[nonbeliever_92]

Still no evidence

 

[PureX]

That's how we go about determining the reality of anything. The question is, why should god be any different? If you want to use a different method, first demonstrate that it is reliable and then we can use it.

Well, I can't even define God for you, so I don't see how any of this applies.

How does an idea being popular make it work in a positive way for you? See what I've done here?

It's popular because it works for lots of people. That gives an idea more credibility and I would be more inclined, then, to consider it for myself.

I don't know about that - you have to experience something to understand it?

Sure. Think of love, for example.

There are atheists in foxholes. I don't understand how someone desperate for help "converting" helps your argument. We do a lot of things when we're desperate, many of them irrational - if anything, it's an argument against religion that preys on the weak and helpless and exploits them.

One of the things that the idea of "God" works especially well for is at helping us to continue on when we think we're at the end of our rope. We can somehow find strength in "God" when we can find no more in ourselves. Sooner or later everyone encounters such a moment.

 

[Storm]

That's how we go about determining the reality of anything. The question is, why should god be any different?

Them's just the breaks. Most concepts of God, science can't touch. Whether that's an advantage or the opposite is a judgment call.

Anyway, that's how the pursuit of knowledge works. We realize we don't have a method for exploration, then develop one. Atoms were also conceived of long before we had the tools for confirmation.

If you want to use a different method, first demonstrate that it is reliable and then we can use it.

We're working on it.

 

[dogsgod]

Science disregards God because science is only concerned with facts. God is a belief, and science can and does study beliefs and how they are formulated.

 

[nonbeliever_92]

souls and god and the supernatural are just beliefs, not facts

 

[nonbeliever_92]

(still no evidence)

 

[PureX]

What's more real, Santa or a chair? We certainly can distinguish from "real" and "not real" in any way that matters practically.

And to answer your question, it's the chair. The chair is real, love is a concept - and it has more than one meaning. But if you mean the emotion of love, that's real as well, and pretty much completely explicable.

But if you mean love as in "love is all around us" - this thing that floats around, then no, it's not real.

This is why I turn to value over reality.

 

[Commoner]

Well, I can't even define God for you, so I don't see how any of this applies.

Well, that's going to be a problem if you're going to be presenting evidence. But the method should be demonstrated to work first on other things, things that have already been demonstrated using currently accepted methods - then you can apply it to god (whatever that is).

It's popular because it works for lots of people. That gives an idea more credibility and I would be more inclined, then, to consider it for myself.

Now, now, that's not the same, is it? You're not going to be trying a new flavour of popsicle.

Things aren't popular because they "work" for people. Things are popular because people think they "work" for them - more often than not, we're mistaken. Roulette systems "work" for people - because they can't seem to realize that it's a game you can't win (play with positive EV). All scams exploit this fact - that we can't intuitively realize some concepts, especially where there are patterns to be found and coincidence to be mistaken for causality. If you want examples, I can give you numerous.

I'm sure there is a correlation between the value of an idea or a behaviour and it's validity in general, but this fact can in no way be used to consider a specific idea valid.

Sure. Think of love, for example.

Love (emotion) can be understood and explained in a very detailed manner - even to someone who has never experienced it. It's probably not the same - as it is with any theory that lacks practice, but one can learn to recognize it, and the associated behaviours, states of mind, etc.

Love's great, but there's nothing really magical about it - it might seem so, especially to someone experiencing it, but that's the same with any emotion.

One of the things that the idea of "God" works especially well for is at helping us to continue on when we think we're at the end of our rope. We can somehow find strength in "God" when we can find no more in ourselves. Sooner or later everyone encounters such a moment.

Yes, it's a coping mechanism, but "god" is just one such concept that we use. It's true that we all hit "rock-bottom", but it's not true that we all "turn to god". We don't find strenght in god, we find strenght in ourselves - and sometimes project it as god.

 

[Commoner]

This is why I turn to value over reality.

You think that by recognizing something as not actually real, it loses its value?

Or that when we explain how feelings and emotions really work we somehow "feel" them less?

I don't like to generalize, but:

I find that theists often fear that without god, the world would be different, that without mystery, things would change, be ugly, dead, uninteresting. This is in part an irrational fear and in part a bit egotistical. The world certainly will not change if you aknowledge something (true or false) and your perception of things will not all of the sudden change dramatically either. I guess the second might differ a bit from person to person, but it has never been my observation that by understanding the "cold" facts, the workings of our universe - my perception would somehow change to a gloomy and depressive world. Quite the opposite. The mystery might give you a bit of a rush, but reality never ceases to amaze.

I can realize that the phrase "love is all around us" is not factual, yet I still fell the same way I did before. Nothing changes, it loses no value. The way it does lose value is when someone tries to present it as factual.

 

[Commoner]

Them's just the breaks. Most concepts of God, science can't touch. Whether that's an advantage or the opposite is a judgment call.

You have a very rigid interpretation of science. If a new method is shown to be reliable it simply becomes part of science. The "rigidness" comes only in the application of that method.

If god can be "touched" in any meaningful way, it can be touched by science. If it can't be, then it's irrelevant - from a purely practical standpoint. If god does not affect us in any real way (even if it just affects our thoughts - the electo chemical processes in our brain), then it's as good as non existant. If it does: "hello science!".

Anyway, that's how the pursuit of knowledge works. We realize we don't have a method for exploration, then develop one. Atoms were also conceived of long before we had the tools for confirmation.

We're working on it.

A lot of thing were concieved before conformation was possible. Some turned out to be true, some did not. Unfortunatelly, we can't predict which one will turn out on which side.

 

[Atheologian]

Them's just the breaks. Most concepts of God, science can't touch. Whether that's an advantage or the opposite is a judgment call.

Anyway, that's how the pursuit of knowledge works. We realize we don't have a method for exploration, then develop one. Atoms were also conceived of long before we had the tools for confirmation.


We're working on it.

Atoms are also NOTHING like what we used to imagine them as. We now know an atom is not a bunch of charged balls sticking together. It's mostly empty space, made from electrons and different combinations of up-quarks and down-quarks. What makes atoms fundementally different from "God", is that we had SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE of their existence long before they ever showed up in a science book or even a paper for peer-review. There has never been any evidence to suggest God. Every single shred of physical evidence, phenomenon or property of the universe that was once contributed as ""evidence" for God, we can now explain through scientific analysis. This means we can actually use the ATOM to describe many aspects of the physical world once thought to be "GOD". You are right, that we have theories of things before we can actually "prove" them, or present scientific evidence for them, but "God" is a theory that, as our level of knowledge increases, becomes incredibly harder to find evidence for. In fact, we still have NONE. Meanwhile, things like subatomic particles and photo-electric waves are taking his place. This is why God is being pushed further and further away from the realm of "reality", or physical certainty, and into one of sheer philosophical speculation.

 

[Storm]

You have a very rigid interpretation of science.

No, I really don't.

If a new method is shown to be reliable it simply becomes part of science. The "rigidness" comes only in the application of that method.

Science is one method. You know, the SCIENTIFIC one.

If god can be "touched" in any meaningful way, it can be touched by science.

No, the scientific method is not without limitations. It's concerned with the natural world, and has no means to explore beyond that, even if there is a "beyond" to explore.

If it can't be, then it's irrelevant - from a purely practical standpoint. If god does not affect us in any real way (even if it just affects our thoughts - the electo chemical processes in our brain), then it's as good as non existant. If it does: "hello science!".

Sure, but that's rather irrelevant to my point. Usefulness has no bearing on existence.

A lot of thing were concieved before conformation was possible. Some turned out to be true, some did not. Unfortunatelly, we can't predict which one will turn out on which side.

Precisely my point.

It just bugs the hell out of me when people act like the fact that science doesn't prove God somehow disproves it. (Not attributing that to you.)

 

[nonbeliever_92]

No, I really don't.


Science is one method. You know, the SCIENTIFIC one.


No, the scientific method is not without limitations. It's concerned with the natural world, and has no means to explore beyond that, even if there is a "beyond" to explore.


Sure, but that's rather irrelevant to my point. Usefulness has no bearing on existence.


Precisely my point.

It just bugs the hell out of me when people act like the fact that science doesn't prove God somehow disproves it. (Not attributing that to you.)

I thought you didn't believe in the supernatural? If god in any form is able to be verified, we will use science to do so by this extent he must be part of the natrual universe. If he is not able to be verified by science, therefore he is supernatural, in other words, unknowable.

The fact that science doesn't prove god doesn't disprove him, this is right, but it also makes him useless and most likely non-existant.

 

[OmarKhayyam]

Still no evidence

Not quite true. There is a lot of evidence. And it shows that our devout artist lives in his own world of fantasy and make-believe. He is so taken by his and others "artistry" that he mistakes the play for reality. I mentioned same pages back that he thinks he IS Prospero. He has posted nothing since to change that judgment and much to support it. The man thinks magic and magical thinking and works of art ARE real. That the "cloud capped places" are REAL because he thinks they are.

There is no reasoning with such a position. No logical argument or any set of objective facts will make any impression. Logic is only useful when it "works" to support his assumptions. Facts don't mean to him what they mean to the rest of us. He is the classic theist. "I believe what I believe because I WANT to believe. It works for me. That actual reality is different is of no matter."

 

[nonbeliever_92]

Question, PureX, if the act of believing something real makes it so, can't the opposite be true?
Believe gravity out of existance. Better yet, believe god out of existence and see how your world changes.

 

[nonbeliever_92]

still no evidence!
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! (DOING THIS FOR THREE REASONS 1: BORED, 2: IT'S TRUE, 3: WANNA SEE IF SOMEONE WOULD QUOTE THIS )