Life is either an emergent property of matter or a something unrelated to and injected into matter once it is properly arranged, like the wetness of water and the whiteness of snow. Do you think those are properties inherent in collections of H2O molecules, or do you think a wetness or whiteness spirit enters puddles and snowbanks when the molecules collect?
If the spirit is described as undetectable except by its ability to make water wet and snow white, here's no way to tell, is there? So which do you believe is the case and why? Does the wetness spirit descend from heaven to inhabit collections of snow and then return there when it melts and becomes transparent so that the wetness spirit can replace it?
Yes, and that is what appears to be the case. What do you offer as contradictory evidence? That man reasons and uses language? That would be insufficient to support the claim that a god must therefore exist.
That's not support, at least not in the academic sense that a scientist or an attorney mean when he calls a belief justified.
All psychological phenomena are physical, as is everything else ever detected. They exist in particular minds at a particular time and place and both affect and are themselves affected by other aspects of reality. Consciousness, which meets that description, is physical
I think you're using two definitions of not needed here - not known to be needed and known to not be needed. The critical thinker takes the first position, but you keep transforming it into the second however many times this is pointed out to you, perhaps because the straw man is a logically flawed position and easily defeated. If you do this deliberately - and I don't think you do - it's deflection and intellectually dishonest. If you are unaware that you do this and can't see it even when shown, then you're not prepared for discussions such as these and unable to benefit from them even if you gave up belief by faith and embraced open-mindedness, which requires dispassionate evaluation of claims, which in turn requires that one be able to grasp what they say and hold on to that idea without it being corrupted into a different one.
How about addressing what most actually DO say rather than these easily defeated logical errors? None of the atheists here now are making that claim, so whoever you disapprove of isn't present to read it. Yet you keep returning to comments like these.
And we're back to what is evidence. EVERYTHING EVIDENT is evidence of something. Everything. Look around you. That table. It's evidence. That wall. It's evidence. That feeling of nausea was evidence. Sunlight is evidence. Air is evidence. Water is evidence. EVERYTHING EVIDENT is evidence. The important question is not whether this thing or that is evidence, because if you're sensing it, IT IS! The important question is what it is EVIDENCE OF. What does it signify. What things also must be true because this evidence exists. The table? It's evidence that somebody built a table and that you came to have it in your home. Sunlight is evidence that the sun exist, shines, and that it's presently daytime.
And yes, the claim is evidence. This is not in dispute, so why post it? But ask the IMPORTANT question - what is it EVIDENCE OF. The Bible contains the claim that Jesus wept. Is that evidence? I hope that that was an easy one by now. If you could sense the claim - hear it, read it, whatever - and recognize it as a claim, then it is evidence that somebody made a claim. What else do we know? Do we know it happened? No. Do we know that the person who wrote it believed it? No.
What is life evidence of? It's evidence that life is possible and that it exists. Is it evidence for a life ghost that animates matter? Not good enough to support such a belief. Is that possible? Yes. Does that matter? No more than an analogous statement about anything else. Maybe two life ghosts need to enter a body to animate it. Maybe seven. Maybe a sight ghost is needed for us to be able to see. Maybe. It's POSSIBLE. Do we have evidence for any of that? Sure, about a pico-nanogram's worth, just like the evidence for a life force - also not enough to justify belief.
What fraction of things not known to be impossible are actual? Do you think its a few percent? It's not. I'd guess that the mathematical symbol best representing that quantity is dx. Is it possible my name is zxthryib? It's not impossible. It's at least dx% (please forgive me, @Polymath257 ). Is that enough to investigate or believe the possibility? After all, it's possible. Or maybe you agree by now that that makes something only slightly more likely to be the case than something that's impossible.
Now here's one for you. What is the Bible evidence of (multiple choices acceptable)?
1 - somebody or several somebodies wrote it
2 - it was printed in a human language
3 - somebody believes it
4- the writers believed it
5 - the things it describes happened
6 - Jesus wept
I think you're ready to answer that one yourself now.
Why is it so difficult for you to read "there is insufficient reason to believe that there is a creator" and hold that idea intact without it morphing into what you wrote was claimed instead? Maybe you don't see a distinction between the two. Maybe you do, but it only lasts about a quarter second before one idea changes to the other with you unaware that that has happened. The only other logical possibility is that you know you are doing this and are trolling, but I don't believe that. I believe it's one of the first two. And here's the beauty - you can say which. But here's the ugly I learned from experience - you almost certainly never will. Make me wrong, please.
Here it is again. NOBODY AT ALL has said that here. NOBODY. But there you go off on your own, converting what actually was written to that above, and attacking another straw man. How much confidence should I have in the judgments of a person who does that? How much should I trust a computer that randomly changes bit from on to off while it's processing data?
Faith is unjustified belief, so the answer to your question is, nobody's faith is justified. Although others do and are supported by dictionaries, I don't use the word to refer to justified belief to avoid ambiguity. In fact, if a word is more than just its spelling and pronunciation, they're not even the same word.
Nothing that exists isn't physical. To exist means to occupy a place at a time and to affect and be affected by the other things that exist, the collection of such things being reality, and things that can do that being physical. To believe otherwise is to lose your grounding in reality and to begin to include fictions and imaginings in that landscape that drifts further and further from reality with each imagined element added. Yours includes what you call non-physical "reality," but there is no such thing in reality. It's all matter, energy, force, space, and time, all of which are physical reality.
Gods and universe-vomiting pixies have the same ontological status. Neither should be believed in, but if one justifies belief in either, he justifies belief in both. If that offends you, you might want to look at your beliefs closer until either both gods and pixies appear offensive or neither.
And notice that this is you choosing to be offended. No offense is intended. I hope you believe by now that I am not trying to offend you. Why would I? You're a nice guy who I find likeable. But I can't be responsible for how you choose to feel about my opinions and what motivates them.
