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

[SkepticThinker]

No, the evidence is the existence of mechanisms to fix broken DNA.

And that is evidence for god ... how? Which god?
Connect the dots for us.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I have looked at it since I studied the Bible with more precision than when I was in school (and not bragging, but I was a scholarship winner so was not slow to follow and learn the teachings, and at the time had no reason to challenge the theory as taught, even whether it was right or wrong). I have since come to an understanding that (1) it is a theory (2) theoreticians as well as scientists will often stand up for the idea that the theory is true and substantiated by so-called evidence verifying the theory. Many ascertain the theory is true without question as to the general thesis of the theory. Yes they will say science uncovers different things so it's not static, but that doesn't mean the theory basically is true as the main rule. I do not accept the evidence as backup up the theory any longer, one reason is that there is nothing in realtime from the past, or at present to demonstrate that fish, for example, moved on by evolution, to eventually become humans. I understand the reasoning. No longer accept the theory as the general rule as to how various forms of animals came to be.

You can brag all you want. You've made it painfully obvious in this thread and others that you absolutely do not understand evolution and how it works.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I do see things that confirm my belief in God.
I also see things which point away from a belief in God.
In both cases the evidence is subjective and I chose the belief in God side.
Do you see both sides also and choose the non belief in God side?
Are we similar in that respect?

Cherry picking AND confirmation bias.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The logic I hear is, "We cannot see God so God was not involved so God does not exist"

That is what you think you hear (or read), but not what is said to you.

I'm saying that you presume God was not needed when you do not know that.

And that is your error. You convert "no known need" to "known to have not been needed." This discussion has been like, "There's no evidence Bob was here." "You don't know that Bob wasn't here." "Agreed. Still, there's no evidence he was here, including on the security video. This is what we expect to find if Bob hadn't been here." "You don't know that Bob wasn't here and edited the video evidence." "That is correct. Still, though it's not impossible that Bob was here, I have no reason to believe he was." "But you can't prove he wasn't here. That's an act of faith."

If you don't say that God is not needed and I don't say that objectively God is needed then there is no debate.

But she doesn't say that. Nor does anybody else in this discussion but you when you change what people say into what you prefer to hear them saying, something you can disagree with, but you're only disagreeing with your strawman, with whom nobody present agrees.

even if the chemicals came together and did as you say, that would not show that there was no need for God at one or more than one stage.

Elsewhere, you wrote, "Of course there are natural ways to get DNA repairs, I never said that God is sitting around repairing DNA in His spare time." So, when you say that God is needed, you don't mean here and now to run the universe, but just to set it up and let it proceed according to its nature. If so, that's the deist god. Most Christians believe that God is interventionalist and has an active hand in daily life, which is why they pray.

in science it just complicates things to have elements that are unnecessary to the explanation.

When you say unnecessary, do you mean "not known to be necessary although later we might discover otherwise" or do you mean "known to be not needed"? This is an important distinction, and I'm not sure you make it. Do you know the difference between those two ideas? If so, which one do you intend with your comment above?

I do know what objective evidence is and I know that it does not show that there is no God.

So does everybody else here, assuming you mean a generic god. We do have evidence that rules out at least one specific, described, named god, but not gods in general.

"Look science has filled another gap, almost out of gaps, looks like God is needed for nothing". This is as bad an argument as the God of the Gaps argument.

You got it right this time. You wrote, "looks like." That's the fundamental difference between not appearing to be necessary and known to be unnecessary. Was that an accident?

God of the gaps doesn't refer to an argument, but rather, to the steady progression of science in elucidating rules that predict nature, none of which require a conscious agent. Early science showed us how the universe operates without intelligent oversight like a clockwork, and then, how it constructed itself without intelligent oversight. I mentioned the deist god, whose day was between those two movements, when the ruler god had been dismissed, but the builder god was still needed, and so a builder god that then later disappeared from the world was created and deism became the rage in mid to late eighteenth century intellectual circles. But with the great cosmological and biological theories of the mid-nineteenth century and beyond, the builder god is no longer needed, either, making naturalism and atheism (and with it, humanism) tenable positions that have gained traction in intellectual circles since.

And science is not always how imo, it is just educated guesses based on the assumption that it all happened naturally.

That hypothesis has led to the stellar success of science in changing the world and improving the human condition. This is how we know that those assumptions are valid. They work. And that's more than assumption. That's evidence that belief is correct. Did the polio vaccine prevent polio? If so, whatever assumptions went into designing it have been confirmed correct by its success. Did men go to the moon and return alive? If so, whatever assumptions went into making that happen have been confirmed empirically.

Good, you have not said that God is not needed. "Universe vomiting tortoises are not needed, but maybe God is", is that what you are saying?

You did it again. You inadvertently indicated the actual, tentative response you get ("maybe") without changing it into a claim of fact.

But you did with the tortoises. We don't know that universe-vomiting tortoises weren't necessary. We just go on as if they weren't, ready to be convinced otherwise if it can be shown that they were.

If you show me a clear example of confirmation bias on my part I hope I can see it and agree with you.

The nature of confirmation biases is that they are invisible to their wearers. One of my favorite resources on the topic comes from a young earth creationist (YEC) and geologist, Glenn Morton, who became an old earth creationist as he studied geology at university. He describes his confirmation bias as a YEC using the device of a demon who sat at the portal of his awareness screening ideas and throwing those that disagreed with his faith-based belief out to protect him from contradictory evidence. The Talk.Origins Archive Post of the Month: February 2002

Confirmation bias isn't hard to spot in the faithful. It's evident whenever you read somebody writing things like there is no contradiction in the Bible or biblical prophecy is evidence of divine prescience. You look at what they look at and go, "Huh? How do you not see that?" And though it's tied to faith-based thinking, confirmation bias isn't lmited to religious thought. You see it in the election hoax believers and the antivaxxers.

They simply don't see evidence, and Morton's Demon, aka a faith-based confirmation bias, is why.

In both cases the evidence is subjective and I chose the belief in God side.

This is confirmation bias. All evidence is evidence for god to you before you see it. That's Morton's demon at work, and if Morton is correct - and I find him to be sincere and credible - I question how much choice you have in the matter.

I also have little choice in my rejecting of god claims once I decided that skepticism and empiricism were the only paths to knowledge and committed myself to holding no unjustified beliefs. You might call that a confirmation-bias, but learning empirically is a different kind of cognitive mechanism than a faith-based confirmation bias and generates different kinds of results, only those coming from and confirmed by experience being useful, which is what makes them knowledge rather than falsehoods or unfalsifiable claims.

I do see things that confirm my belief in God.
I also see things which point away from a belief in God.

I don't believe the second sentence. I don't think that's possible for you. You've explained how you decide these things, and evidence isn't involved.

 

[Yerda]

I can't agree because where is the evidence supporting common descent? By evolution as per "natural selection" and/or "survival of the fittest," please? Remember, we're talking about evidence supporting the idea of common descent. Thanks.

No problem, here are some resources discussing the evidence for common descent. If you want you could pick a particular example and we could look at it. There are people on here who know much more about biology and evolution than I do, but I took a lot of biosciences at uni when I was a youngster so I'm familiar with a fair amount of the background, if you want to ask questions.


Wiki page: Evidence of common descent - Wikipedia


talkorigins: 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent


Short SciAm article: The Proof Is in the Proteins: Test Supports Universal Common Ancestor for All Life

To an extent, but what about flooding, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc., forming layers and shifting soil from one place to another? That is not to say lava overcoming the surface coming from within a volcano. Then possibly moving again.

I don't think they obscure the geological record too much, but I don't know much about geology.

@Brian2

Yes, in science it just complicates things to have elements that are unnecessary to the explanation.

If it adds nothing, why keep it? I think that's a good principle in general.

Yes and no. Probably the caring aspect of it for life forms and what seems to be the unnecessary nature of it. It does not matter to nature that any particular life form exists but what I see is nature taking life forms in a particular pre ordained direction and not letting them stray far from the ordained end product. The direction is for life forms to fill the ecological gaps and possibilities, and the survival of those forms.It is not a random, haphazard process but has an end point in mind and a protection of that end point.

My impression is that it involves a lot of randomness. By that I mean if we were given the same starting point for life 100 times, I would expect the overall outcome after x amount of time had passed to look something like a random walk. I suppose this difference in perspective is why I'm an atheist and you're a theist.

 

[Brian2]

It's a rather substantial lack of evidence. It means there's no objective reason to believe in God, for a start.

And it offers no substantial answer to the question "Why do you believe in God?" God, by that test, is simply a matter of personal taste, no different ─ except for the tithing, of course ─ to liking vanilla more than strawberry.

I have subjective reasons and skeptics have no more than subjective reasons.

Psalm 34:8 Taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
To me the LORD is good even if you prefer the taste of freedom from the LORD which is for a short time only imo.

 

[blü 2]

I have subjective reasons and skeptics have no more than subjective reasons.

I'd be happy to argue that learning about reality using reasoned enquiry (including scientific method) is reasonable.

Moreover, if God is real, has objective existence, then the followers of reasoned enquiry are the only people actually looking for a real God, Certainly the churches aren't ─ to take one example, they profess to believe in miracles but show not the slightest inclination to study how miracles are done. They don't think miracles are an aspect of objective reality.

To me the LORD is good even if you prefer the taste of freedom from the LORD which is for a short time only imo.

You're free to believe as pleases you, but on the debate boards at RF it seems fair to ask you to justify your position and not merely assert it.

 

[Brian2]

Then you just admitted that DNA is not evidence for God. You are trying to use scientific evidence and that is well defined and has clear standards. Merely observing a fact and waving your hands does not make that observation evidence for your beliefs.

Are you saying that I cannot use any scientific fact or observation about nature?
Are you saying that evidence for God has to comply with scientific thinking?
Observing a fact and waving my hands does in fact make that observation evidence for God for me.
It's hard to get skeptics to even admit that my evidence is evidence. @Audie seems to think I have confirmation bias and skeptics even admit that they have confirmation bias and she cannot see that.
If you can point to any evidence that God does not exist that is objective and I cannot see it, I guess I have confirmation bias, but we all know there is not, it is just a personal taste that skeptics have that there is no God, and a denial of any subjective evidence that I might have for my own beliefs and a lack of that sort of subjective evidence for God for themselves.
I suppose skeptics think that science has or is pushing God into being a relic of the past when in fact science has not and cannot do that, it is just in the imagination of skeptics.

 

[Brian2]

No.
I'm not into self indulgence.
Or false equivalences.

Why false equivalence?

 

[Brian2]

Exactly. It's about how you
happen to feel.
Emotion uber alles.
Self indulgence.

Duh, that it is how I feel or see it, is what I have been saying.
But isn't your seeing evidence against God a matter or how you feel also?
Oh that's right, there is no evidence against God, it is just that any evidence for God is not good enough for self indulgent skeptics and is not even evidence, and us believers have to come up with something better for you or you won't believe.
And if we can't find somthing better it must mean that us believers have it wrong in believing and need to come back to what you claim is the default position of non belief because you believe that only objective evidence that is falsifiable is good enough.

 

[Brian2]

And that is, precisely, confirmation bias.

You and others seem to have strange definitions.
If I do not look at my confirming evidence for God scientifically that does not mean that I do not see that it does not confirm belief in God scientifically. I see that.
I see that and I see it confirms my belief in God. Confirmation bias is not being able to see the other side.
You don't see my side. That I guess is not confirmation bias, it is just that my side does not confirm or convince you and all you can see is anything science might say about it. (and science says that it has no opinion).

 

[Brian2]

Well, this can be tested: are the changes random or directed? And, guess what? Those observations have been made. The changes in genetics are random and the 'natural selection' is not. This is precisely what the science says and it directly contradicts your idea of a directed process.

What you claim is random, may not be,,,,,,,,,,,,, but really what I was saying is that the building blocks were made to build in certain directions and that positive mutations would survive and be protected by DNA correction mechanisms.

 

[Brian2]

And that is exactly what it means to have confirmation bias.

But it is precisely what you said. That is the issue. You don't see your deity as an extra assumption for which there is no actual evidence (only gut feelings, which you call subjective evidence).

I start with a belief in God and it is confirmed in a multitude of ways, including looking at nature.
And I don't see my God as an extra assumption but do see that science works that way. (I see it, no confirmation bias)
I am like the scientists of the past and present who do not see scientific method as the only way to view things, and who do not say that just because science cannot find God, that God does not exist.
So you want to attack me for being like those scientists and think that I should see things the way you see them, through the eyes of science only. But even science does not say there is no God, so you want me to go beyond what science says and have your religious belief that there is no God.

 

[Brian2]

It kind of does, though. Any time we reach a scientific conclusion that X caused something, the implication is that other things did not cause the thing.

When it comes to life that decision has not been reached. And really all it can find is what chemicals can build, and and conclusion that says chemicals cause consciousness and life is assumption because nothing else can be found.
I can see a possibility of science making that implication, that there is no spirit that causes life,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, because that assumption has already been made to beging with. If spirit cannot be found then spirit does not have to be included in conclusions.
In this way science is prone to go past what science can actually know because of it's presumptions,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and imo it would not be science if science did that.
And really I don't think that science makes the implication that God did not cause anything, that is just something that skeptics assume that science has done.

Do you even have a God hypothesis? Hypotheses are testable and expressed clearly and rationally.

Are you even capable of clearly expressing what you mean by "God" with enough detail for someone to look and see if what you describe is really there?

God is spirit however and science is not able to detect spirit afaik. So science cannot see if a spirit is there.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Are you saying that I cannot use any scientific fact or observation about nature?
Are you saying that evidence for God has to comply with scientific thinking?
Observing a fact and waving my hands does in fact make that observation evidence for God for me.
It's hard to get skeptics to even admit that my evidence is evidence. @Audie seems to think I have confirmation bias and skeptics even admit that they have confirmation bias and she cannot see that.
If you can point to any evidence that God does not exist that is objective and I cannot see it, I guess I have confirmation bias, but we all know there is not, it is just a personal taste that skeptics have that there is no God, and a denial of any subjective evidence that I might have for my own beliefs and a lack of that sort of subjective evidence for God for themselves.
I suppose skeptics think that science has or is pushing God into being a relic of the past when in fact science has not and cannot do that, it is just in the imagination of skeptics.

For it to be evidence one must use facts properly. The reason that no one that understands the concept of evidence knows that you do not have any. And yes, all you have is confirmation bias. To have evidence in the world of science one must first have a testable hypothesis. Otherwise all you have is the aforementioned confirmation bias and an ad hoc argument.

As to evidence of the nonexistence of God that is you trying to shift the burden of proof. I do not need to prove the nonexistence of God any more than you need to prove the nonexistence of God eating fairies. The burden of proof lies upon the person claiming that something exists. If one can't do that then the rational act is to withhold belief.

 

[Polymath257]

I start with a belief in God and it is confirmed in a multitude of ways, including looking at nature.

And that is, precisely, confirmation bias.

And I don't see my God as an extra assumption but do see that science works that way. (I see it, no confirmation bias)

Wrong. That is almost a classic example of confirmation bias.

I am like the scientists of the past and present who do not see scientific method as the only way to view things, and who do not say that just because science cannot find God, that God does not exist.

I am more than willing to listen to other ways of finding truth. But please tell me how falsehoods are avoided. How, if two people disagree, can the dispute be resolved?

So you want to attack me for being like those scientists and think that I should see things the way you see them, through the eyes of science only. But even science does not say there is no God, so you want me to go beyond what science says and have your religious belief that there is no God.

Math uses proof from accepted axioms as its basis for truth. There is a way to challenge any proposed proof that will have a clear answer in each case.

Science uses hypothesis formation and testing as its basis for truth. If two people disagree, they propose a test that distinguishes between them and conduct the test. If no such test is possible, their beliefs are considered to be equivalent.

What process do you propose as a basis for religious truth?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I am like the scientists of the past and present who do not see scientific method as the only way to view things, and who do not say that just because science cannot find God, that God does not exist.

I think it's time for the Novella quote again:

"What do you think science is? There's nothing magical about science. It is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. Which part of that exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree with being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic?"

- Dr. Steven Novella

Remember what "science" means: rigorous observation and inference. That's it.

When you talk about ways of seeing things "other than the scientific method," you're talking about methods with low standards of rigor. That's it.

So you want to attack me for being like those scientists and think that I should see things the way you see them, through the eyes of science only. But even science does not say there is no God, so you want me to go beyond what science says and have your religious belief that there is no God.

Here's the thing about this argument, though: anything that's measurable or detectable in any way is within the scope of science.

If you want to tell us that your God is so irrelevant that it isn't measurable or detectable in any way, well, that's quite the self-own, but you do you, I suppose.

That being said: yes, science has no way of differentiating between a thing that doesn't exist at all and a useless, invisible, undetectable version of the thing that may as well not exist... but does this distinction really matter for any practical purpose?

 

[Audie]

Are you saying that I cannot use any scientific fact or observation about nature?
Are you saying that evidence for God has to comply with scientific thinking?
Observing a fact and waving my hands does in fact make that observation evidence for God for me.
It's hard to get skeptics to even admit that my evidence is evidence. @Audie seems to think I have confirmation bias and skeptics even admit that they have confirmation bias and she cannot see that.
If you can point to any evidence that God does not exist that is objective and I cannot see it, I guess I have confirmation bias, but we all know there is not, it is just a personal taste that skeptics have that there is no God, and a denial of any subjective evidence that I might have for my own beliefs and a lack of that sort of subjective evidence for God for themselves.
I suppose skeptics think that science has or is pushing God into being a relic of the past when in fact science has not and cannot do that, it is just in the imagination of skeptics.

Your incapacity to understand what is said to
you reveals more than you may think.

I don't " admit" confirmation bias. Neither
does any soohisticsted person. I very openly
acknowledge EVERYONE has that tendency.

Acknowledging it is step one to keeping it
from crippling ones thought process.

I might say things about the next steps but so far
you refuse to see step one, and In common with so many
others of the fundy sort, seem to think its a great virtue.
Thinking things like hat " truth' about "god" is revealed in such as a pretty leaf falling at your feet.

 

[Audie]

Why false equivalence?

You see omproblems with falsity else where so
sure. Why not use false equivalence.

You did another, " believers" and " skeptics" are the same,
Just " subjective evidence".

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Are you saying that evidence for God has to comply with scientific thinking?

Evidence for anything has to be evident to the senses. After that, mind interprets the bare apprehension - first, what does it signify is true about reality, and then, how we feel about that. That's true not just for scientists, but for all sentient creatures of sufficient intelligence. Are you claiming to sense a deity? Are you saying that your nervous system apprehends a god?

If so, you are saying that you have an apprehension that your mind tells you means that a god exists and is present. Thats empiricism (science). If you can do it, so can scientists. If they can't do it, neither can you. Believers have no special senses or neural circuits that allow them but not scientists to apprehend God. The difference has to be elsewhere. It's in the second step - the signification (interpretation) of the apprehension, as when one observer says that such-and-such is evidence for a god for him and another says that it is not. Same apprehension, different signification.

There is no special way of knowing available to the faithful not also available to scientists and the rest of us.

God is spirit however and science is not able to detect spirit

Then what you call spirit is undetectable even to you, which means that either it doesn't exist or doesn't change nature if it does exist. You can't have it both ways. There is nothing detectable by you that is undetectable to scientists.

If you can point to any evidence that God does not exist

I'm changing "God" as in Yahweh to gods because the Abrahamic god can be ruled out, but that's not relevant to my larger point, which is that it's not possible to rule gods out at this time - maybe never - and there would be no value in doing so, just as there is no value in ruling out the Abrahamic god for either of us. I would still not believe in it without the disproof, and you will continue to believe in it anyway.

Observing a fact and waving my hands does in fact make that observation evidence for God for me.

"Waving your hands" in this context means claiming that the evidence you cite supports to your conclusion about it without providing the valid reasoning that connects that evidence to that conclusion. We see that here a lot: "It's subjective evidence." No it's not. What's subjective is the "reasoning." "It's evidence for me." Then the way you interpret evidence is of little value to those collecting new knowledge.

Confirmation bias is not being able to see the other side.

Sort of. Confirmation bias is seeing what you expect to see when it is not the case. It's a cognitive bias created by holding a faith-based belief in defense of that belief in the face of contradictory evidence.