There is no evidence for God, so why do you believe?

[Sheldon]

You don’t know but we believers do know,

You have no knowledge about the gospel claims, that is axiomatic, your subjective beliefs are just that. The gospel authorship is unknown, and the claim unsubstantiated, they are pure hearsay. You didn't even seem to be aware that the names Mathew Mark Luke and John were fictional, and weren't even created until the 2nd century, and were then assigned arbitrarily by the 1st council of Nicaea, in 325 AD, so more than three centuries after the alleged events. That is a startling revelation for someone to be entirely ignorant of such an important fact. It hardly implies you have done due diligence, and your posts suggest someone so biased they have no interest in challenging the claims or submitting them to any kind of objective scrutiny.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

You are really reaching.
This is about whether something happened that we can not test... not basic mechanics .

Expand more on that which we can test, please.

 

[Sheldon]

This story reminds me of a lot of people in this thread:
“As he was passing by, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus answered. “This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him. We must do the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” After he said these things he spit on the ground, made some mud from the saliva, and spread the mud on his eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So he left, washed, and came back seeing. His neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar said, “Isn’t this the one who used to sit begging?” Some said, “He’s the one.” Others were saying, “No, but he looks like him.” He kept saying, “I’m the one.” So they asked him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So when I went and washed I received my sight.” “Where is he?” they asked. “I don’t know,” he said. They brought the man who used to be blind to the Pharisees. The day that Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes was a Sabbath. Then the Pharisees asked him again how he received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” he told them. “I washed and I can see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he doesn’t keep the Sabbath.” But others were saying, “How can a sinful man perform such signs?” And there was a division among them. Again they asked the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he opened your eyes?” “He’s a prophet,” he said. The Jews did not believe this about him — that he was blind and received sight — until they summoned the parents of the one who had received his sight. They asked them, “Is this your son, the one you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” “We know this is our son and that he was born blind,” his parents answered. “But we don’t know how he now sees, and we don’t know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he’s of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said these things because they were afraid of the Jews, since the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed him as the Messiah, he would be banned from the synagogue. So a second time they summoned the man who had been blind and told him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “Whether or not he’s a sinner, I don’t know. One thing I do know: I was blind, and now I can see!” Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” “I already told you,” he said, “and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? You don’t want to become his disciples too, do you?” They ridiculed him: “You’re that man’s disciple, but we’re Moses’s disciples. We know that God has spoken to Moses. But this man — we don’t know where he’s from.” “This is an amazing thing!” the man told them. “You don’t know where he is from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is God-fearing and does his will, he listens to him. Throughout history no one has ever heard of someone opening the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.” “You were born entirely in sin,” they replied, “and are you trying to teach us?” Then they threw him out. Jesus heard that they had thrown the man out, and when he found him, he asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” “Who is he, Sir, that I may believe in him?” he asked. Jesus answered, “You have seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” “I believe, Lord!” he said, and he worshiped him. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, in order that those who do not see will see and those who do see will become blind.” Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things and asked him, “We aren’t blind too, are we?” “If you were blind,” Jesus told them, “you wouldn’t have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”
‭‭John‬ ‭9:1-22, 24-41‬ ‭CSB‬‬

Quoting unevidenced hearsay claims, from unknown authors is pretty meaningless. We get that you believe this, but it is not objective evidence nor is it compelling argument.

If faith was an accurate way to assess the validity of belief, then it would not produce wildly different beliefs in very different deities and religions. Faith is about as much use a chocolate teapot for determining the truth of a belief. Bias in favour of a belief, is bound to end validating it.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The sound is still there even without an ear. So you do believe that sound does not exist without someone to hear it.

Addressed below. Short answer: it depends on how sound is defined.

So is ultrasound sound? No human ear can hear it, but it is pressure waves through air (or other things).

Isn't this a semantic argument? Can we agree that there is a physical phenomenon that can be converted into and experienced as a psychological phenomenon given the correct neurosensory apparatus? IN the case of sound, if somebody wants to call both of these sound, then there will be ambiguity, as with the tree falling in the forest problem. It goes away at once if one makes the distinction between the physical phenomenon of sound energy, and the psychological experience of hearing sound.

Consider smell. Does a flower have a smell if there is nothing that can smell it? The answer depends on whether one is making a distinction between the molecules smelled and the psychological experience of smelling them, which is why I call it a semantic argument. There is no confusion over what's what, just what to call it. Conflating two distinct ideas by using the same word for each invites the ambiguity of equivocation.

So, in answer to your question, ultrasound is acoustic energy not typically audible to human beings, but perhaps it is to other kinds of life. Now define sound, and you will have your answer, which will be different according to the definition of sound chosen. As I suggested, there is no confusion or disagreement except between people using different definitions. To those who consider the physical phenomenon sound whether heard or not, the answer is an easy yes to both the ultrasound and falling tree problems. To those who prefer to name the two differently, sound being only the psychological experience, the answer is an easy no for both. When one of each meet and don't learn to use language like the other for the purpose of that discussion, only then is there a problem.

Faith can be reasonable.

If having faith produces a positive benefit for one, then it may be reasonable to hold that belief. It certainly seems t be the case for ElishaElijah. But the belief itself is not reasonable unless it the sound conclusion of a reasoning process. It's really a very simple dichotomy: a belief either is supported by sufficient evidence to justify belief by virtue of a chain of valid reasoning connecting that evidence to a sound conclusion, or it is believed with less. The former beliefs are reasonable, the latter faith, which is another way of saying that one path leads to justified belief and the other to faith. All basic beliefs fit into one of these categories or another, although compound beliefs merging elements of each are possible, which when teased apart, yield a justified belief and an unjustified belief. Thus simple beliefs are all either justified or not, and none are both or neither (MECE = mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive). Reasonable faith in the second sense is an oxymoron.

If your focus was upon a charismatic pastor and experiencing a euphoric state, then you did not meet God because you were looking elsewhere.

I say it's because there is no such god. But since you don't believe that - you believe that such a god exists and is waiting for people like me - that somehow, I failed, because the god never fails. That to me is a problem with faith-based thought. Where I see my ability to recognize that my experience of a god was purely psychological the valuable result of considering the evidence of that experience being irreproducible in so many other congregations and a triumph for the reasoning faculty, the believer views it as weakness and failure. That is the price the unbeliever pays living in a society where millions of people have been to taught to think of him as defective by a church that props itself up on the backs of such people by demeaning them simply for being unbelievers and claiming the higher moral ground for itself even as it treats such people immorally (in violation of the Golden Rule).

Well, you did say the great way I was delivered from my addictions and for the last 35 years has been a complete change was due to a trick of psychology. So if your view was I could think really hard and some trick this miraculous change could happen then an Eternal God who is all powerful could speak His Word and things happen just like He said, words have power even our words, wouldn’t you say?

The argument is NOT that a god doesn't exist or that a god couldn't do such a thing if it did, but that there is insufficient evidence for the strict empiricist to believe that one exists or is involved, that many have made similar transitions without religious beliefs, and there are naturalistic explanations for how that can occur. I quit cigarettes and Christianity. Each was a difficult transition

 

[ElishaElijah]

I am one. But before we start, what is your professional qualification in doing such tests?

My qualifications come from God, He told me to test the spirits, inspect the fruit, expose the darkness, speak the Truth.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

My qualifications come from God, He told me to test the spirits, inspect the fruit, expose the darkness, speak the Truth.

Well, then you don't test me, because I prefer a professional.

 

[KWED]

That has been my claim all along, all of that and still haven’t heard from anyone yet of the things you are saying about other people and their changed lives and direction.

Are you seriously claiming that no one changes the course of their life in the face of adversity without the help of god and Jesus?

I would have to test those, but you’re just talking and hypothetical people right now.

And I will test your claim that god and Jesus changed your life rather than you doing it yourself.
So, first up - demonstrate that your god exists.
When you have done that we can move on to the nest stage...

 

[KWED]

This story reminds me of a lot of people in this thread:
“As he was passing by, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus answered. “This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him. We must do the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” After he said these things he spit on the ground, made some mud from the saliva, and spread the mud on his eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So he left, washed, and came back seeing. His neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar said, “Isn’t this the one who used to sit begging?” Some said, “He’s the one.” Others were saying, “No, but he looks like him.” He kept saying, “I’m the one.” So they asked him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So when I went and washed I received my sight.” “Where is he?” they asked. “I don’t know,” he said. They brought the man who used to be blind to the Pharisees. The day that Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes was a Sabbath. Then the Pharisees asked him again how he received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” he told them. “I washed and I can see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he doesn’t keep the Sabbath.” But others were saying, “How can a sinful man perform such signs?” And there was a division among them. Again they asked the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he opened your eyes?” “He’s a prophet,” he said. The Jews did not believe this about him — that he was blind and received sight — until they summoned the parents of the one who had received his sight. They asked them, “Is this your son, the one you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” “We know this is our son and that he was born blind,” his parents answered. “But we don’t know how he now sees, and we don’t know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he’s of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said these things because they were afraid of the Jews, since the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed him as the Messiah, he would be banned from the synagogue. So a second time they summoned the man who had been blind and told him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “Whether or not he’s a sinner, I don’t know. One thing I do know: I was blind, and now I can see!” Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” “I already told you,” he said, “and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? You don’t want to become his disciples too, do you?” They ridiculed him: “You’re that man’s disciple, but we’re Moses’s disciples. We know that God has spoken to Moses. But this man — we don’t know where he’s from.” “This is an amazing thing!” the man told them. “You don’t know where he is from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is God-fearing and does his will, he listens to him. Throughout history no one has ever heard of someone opening the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.” “You were born entirely in sin,” they replied, “and are you trying to teach us?” Then they threw him out. Jesus heard that they had thrown the man out, and when he found him, he asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” “Who is he, Sir, that I may believe in him?” he asked. Jesus answered, “You have seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” “I believe, Lord!” he said, and he worshiped him. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, in order that those who do not see will see and those who do see will become blind.” Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things and asked him, “We aren’t blind too, are we?” “If you were blind,” Jesus told them, “you wouldn’t have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”
‭‭John‬ ‭9:1-22, 24-41‬ ‭CSB‬‬

Cool story bro.

 

[KWED]

You are really reaching.
This is about whether something happened that we can not test... not basic mechanics .

You claimed that there will never be enough information for there to be a natural explanation of abiogenesis.
People have said the same about many things which are now everyday.
You are basically invoking the "god of the gaps" argument.

We already have many of the components that are necessary. We just don't have the assembly instructions or the full parts list yet.
Once we have those, we can test it.

Remember that we don't need to come up with the exact explanation of how it actually happened 3-4 billion years ago (that is impossible to know). We only need to show that it could have happened.

 

[KWED]

Addressed below. Short answer: it depends on how sound is defined.

Does light only exist when there is someone to see what it illuminates?

But essentially, I agree that it is a semantic argument. The physical phenomenon of sound exists regardless of the presence of someone to hear it, but some people define sound as only the experience in the brain rather than the physical phenomenon that causes that experience. They are wrong, of course .

 

[KWED]

My qualifications come from God, He told me to test the spirits, inspect the fruit, expose the darkness, speak the Truth.

Nope. Those voices are just psychotic episodes. Delusions.
I recommend not telling people irl that god tells you to do stuff.
Also, think carefully about what god is telling you to do. It might not all be in anyone's best interests.

 

[ElishaElijah]

I recommend not telling people irl that god tells you to do stuff.

What like work hard, help people, give money and groceries to people that are going through a tough time, pray for people, help widows, be a man of integrity, and give people the good news that God isn’t counting their sins against them, Jesus Christ paid it all?
What’s your message? One of hope and peace?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Does light only exist when there is someone to see what it illuminates?

But essentially, I agree that it is a semantic argument. The physical phenomenon of sound exists regardless of the presence of someone to hear it, but some people define sound as only the experience in the brain rather than the physical phenomenon that causes that experience. They are wrong, of course .

Yeah, I can live with your belief in wrong, which only works if you believe in it.
But to me, there are words who only have a human referent like wrong.
And referent is not semantics, btw so you are wrong.

 

[Wildswanderer]

But the belief itself is not reasonable unless it the sound conclusion of a reasoning process.

Reason isn't the be all and end all. We can reason ourselves into all kinds of false conclusions. Sometimes we need to be more than our minds. We have a soul that responds to a deeper calling. Deep calls to deep.

 

[Wildswanderer]

We only need to show that it could have happened.

That applies to any God of the gaps too. So?

 

[Wildswanderer]

Expand more on that which we can test, please.

We can test how a computer functions. We can't test abiogenesis because we can't observe it happening.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

We can test how a computer functions. We can't test abiogenesis because we can't observe it happening.

No, and therefore your God, because it makes sense to you and thus it is true. Is that it?

 

[exchemist]

We can test how a computer functions. We can't test abiogenesis because we can't observe it happening.

This is a faulty argument, actually. There are large numbers of theories in science for phenomena that we cannot observe in real time. That does not make those theories scientifically unsound. Examples range from plate tectonics to the features of glaciated landscapes or the processes of stellar evolution. All of these are testable by reference to what we see in nature, without the need to observe any of them happening before our eyes.

However in the the case of abiogenesis there is no theory of that process, yet, so the issue doesn't arise. All we have are bits of the jigsaw.

 

[PearlSeeker]

Well it was from the idea that me a drug addict all of the sudden had the power within myself to deliver myself from my addiction, completely change my character, succeed in life for these past 35 years, provide for 14 kids by a trick of psychology! That my friend surely would be a miraculous thing.

It worked but it could be a placebo effect.

 

[dybmh]

Indeed. I use the same principle in my studies. I skip any books by authors with multiple publications. They have nothing useful or interesting to say.

Apples and oranges. Posts on an internet forum are not the same as published authors.