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

[Audie]

How can anyone know if these "Messengers" are authentic if we have no proof or even scant evidence?

As Joseph Smith noted before introducing
his "message" via translating " golden books"
and thus the LDS Church...

All the other messages and churches just say
" lo here, and lo there'

 

[Audie]

I believe it, so it is evidence for me.
People do see reasons not to believe the Bible however, but that does not turn it into "not evidence" for me.

The bible is full of evidence.
Evidence that it's not what it pretends to be.
Flood, 6 day poof, talking animals, tower of babel...

You can find no reason, no reason at all,
not to believe those?

People believing it is evidence of something.

Guess what that's evidence of?

 

[PureX]

I believe it, so it is evidence for me.
People do see reasons not to believe the Bible however, but that does not turn it into "not evidence" for me.

Or anyone. It is evidence whether we are convinced by it or not.

People that claim there is no evidence are falsely defining evidence in a way that makes them the deciders of what is and isn't evidence, so they can define any evidence that they don't like out of existence. These are the folks you see claiming there is "no evidence".

 

[Subduction Zone]

Morals don't always go to a better place imo.

Then you are demonstrably wrong. The Bible supported slavery. Slavery is universally seen to be immoral today and yet the Old Testament has not problems with chattel slavery. Have you even studied the Bible at all?

 

[Subduction Zone]

I believe it, so it is evidence for me.
People do see reasons not to believe the Bible however, but that does not turn it into "not evidence" for me.

Thank you for telling everyone that you do not understand the concept of evidence without saying that you do not understand the concept of evidence. What you are describing is confirmation bias. Evidence needs to be objective not subjective.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I remember that discussion about Tyre and how you refused to acknowledge what was written in the Bible. Sigh.
What other do you think have failed?

LOL, no, that would have been you. In fact you never read the whole prophecy. That was what was rather amazing about the discussion. The Tyre prophecy is a test for believers. It shows if they can be honest with their beliefs or not.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Believers in the Bible are also as rational as others but their faith, and their God, helps them to see through the presumptions and silly arguments that people life Richard Carrier use is trying to show that the Bible was a result of a type of plagiarism from other cultures.

No, they clearly are not. When one tries to get them to reason consistently they rarely can do so. Some believers can reason rationally, many can't. You are forgetting how poorly you fared in the Tyre prophecy again. And though I may not agree with him, I know that you cannot show that any of Richard Carrier's arguments are "silly".

I did by claiming that out internal life is as real as out physical existence.

What do you mean by "internal life"? If you meant "eternal life" then you just short yourself in the foot. If you mean that we have thoughts, no, that does not help you. Either way, that is not an example of rational thought.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Or anyone. It is evidence whether we are convinced by it or not.

People that claim there is no evidence are falsely defining evidence in a way that makes them the deciders of what is and isn't evidence, so they can define any evidence that they don't like out of existence. These are the folks you see claiming there is "no evidence".

No, it probably means that they understand the concept of evidence. Confirmation bias is not evidence.

 

[Audie]

Or anyone. It is evidence whether we are convinced by it or not.

People that claim there is no evidence are falsely defining evidence in a way that makes them the refiners of what is and isn't evidence, so they can define any evidence that they don't like out of existence. These are the folks that claim there is no evidence.

Right. Flood believers see pictures of the
grand canyon and that's evidence, nay, proof
of world wide flood.
Speaking of defining evidence!

Once you ( including you) have started down
that path, committed yourself to intellectual
dishonesty, any kind of phony evidence and
nonsense conclusion is possible.


Concocting "scientism" everywhere
( projecting your godism ).
and accusing others of intellectual dishinesty
( define away what " they" dont like)
may work to bolster your sense of being right.

Of course you can never give any examples so
even you may notice a lil prob no matter how hard
you try to hide it.

But you can never erase the fact that starting with the
conclusion that there is a god intellectually dishonest.
No matter how much " philosophy" you spin around it.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Exactly. Scepticism is what everybody does, most of the time, with everything. If I told you I had an invisible dragon in my garage, you'd be right to be sceptical. But it's not just confined to fantastical ideas, it goes, for example, for scientific hypotheses too. The first things we ask of a new hypothesis is: why should I take this seriously, how can we test it, and how can it potentially be falsified?

I don't see why claims about various versions of God or gods should be treated any differently? Do you think they should be? If so, why?

Well, yes, all claims should be evaluated for being objective as independent of brains, formal abstract thinking, intersubjective, subjective or existienstial in the end.
But that means in effect in part this:

Science has limits: A few things that science does not do - Understanding Science

undsci.berkeley.edu

So skepticism is about all claims and not just relgious one.

 

[blü 2]

People that claim there is no evidence are falsely defining evidence in a way that makes them the deciders of what is and isn't evidence, so they can define any evidence that they don't like out of existence. These are the folks you see claiming there is "no evidence".

No evidence of what, exactly? What is this entity that you're saying is real? How will we identify a real one if we find it?

What distinct real quality will it have that will show it's a god and not a superscientist?

 

[SkepticThinker]

I was brought up a Catholic and maybe that had something to do with it.

Most likely.

I could not see that any of the hundreds of attacks on the veracity of the Bible were true.

How did you determine that?

The more I found out about history and archaeology the more it seemed true. The flood of attacks on the Bible which seemed all BS to me, just verified the existence of Satan to me.

How did they do that? Do you think having a skeptical attitude towards claims is the work of satan?

I also believe it was God verifying His word to me and leading me to believe in Jesus.

So you believe the Bible is the word of God?

 

[SkepticThinker]

You seem to have a shallow interpretation of the Bible and of the events and laws described there and of the God of the Bible. Something from the skeptic classroom I suppose.

Wait so you are saying the Bible doesn't contain all those things?

You speak of skepticism as though it's a bad thing. Why do you see it that way?

That seems to be your problem. I give you things that are real and contrary to your definition of real and you ignore them.
Nothing wrong with defining God as invisible and non material

But you can't demonstrate that they're real. You just claim it.

 

[ppp]

Or anyone. It is evidence whether we are convinced by it or not.

People that claim there is no evidence are falsely defining evidence in a way that makes them the deciders of what is and isn't evidence, so they can define any evidence that they don't like out of existence. These are the folks you see claiming there is "no evidence".

There is no evidence of any of that.

 

[Audie]

There is no evidence of any of that.

If there is he is awful coy about trotting out
even one example.
And of course its just yet another of those
(yawn, so tiresome to even repeat the name)
Ad Homs.

An actual "philosopher" would of course at
least be aware of such fallacies.

 

[SkepticThinker]

No cop out, just that science has limitations and cannot find an invisible spirit. Science deals with the physical universe. If you think science should be able to or can determine whether God exists or not that is a faith called scientism, which I suppose you don't want to have anything to do with. It certainly goes past what science says exists and does not exist. iow science does not say God does not exist.

You're just repeating yourself here again, instead of considering my points.
And no, asking for evidence of the god(s) people assert the existence of, is not "scientism."

How do you know there is an "invisible spirit" at all???

Insight, faith, intuition, revelation, I don't know. Not science however.

All types of thinking that are prone to cognitive and logical errors and thus not a good methodology for discerning fact from fiction.

I am not making a God hypothesis that can be studied by science.
What baggage are you talking about?

That's for sure. You haven't even defined "god" or "invisible spirits."

The baggage I am talking about are all the extra assumptions you sneak in when you declare that some specific god did it. You think you just get to say "God did it" and now you're all done explaining everything when you haven't even yet begun explaining anything. And never mind that adding a god to the equation doesn't actually add any explanatory power whatsoever (which we've been over before many times). What god exists? How? Where did that god come from? What mechanisms does this god use?

Faith, it is obvious to me, etc.

So obvious that you have to rely on faith?

Science seems to be showing that plenty of intervention would be needed in the environment for things to happen as science suggests.

It does? Where and how? What kind of "intervention?"

God designed everything and also the end products and it seems made the building blocks to reach a certain end point which God knew before hand and worked towards from the beginning.
Am I supposed to know how it was set in motion?

This was in response to, "Which building blocks did this god design and how did he/she/it set it all into motion?"

Which building blocks? What "certain end point?" What "end products?"

You seemed to be saying above that science has shown that god needs to intervene or something ... ? Now you seem to be saying this god just set everything up from the get-go, knowing how it would all turn out and didn't intervene along the way? Which is it and how can you show that?

No, to say that you don't know seems to not require faith.

Cool, so you don't think it requires faith to lack belief in something. So now you can stop claiming that I'm using faith when I say I don't believe god(s) exist.

To say that science can tell us what exists and what does not, is going beyond saying "I don't know imo"

I don't know what you mean by this.

It is logical or at least reasonable to look at all the ways that the universe and solar system and earth exist in a range where carbon based life can exist and to think that therefore a designer did it. It is at least as reasonable as to say chance did it.

Please explain how your position on that is logical and reasonable.

It is logical and reasonable to look at Genes and genetic code and wonder how information came to be stored in code in the genes without a creator.

Sure, it's reasonable to wonder about stuff. But surely you see that claiming "God did it" doesn't provide any actual explanatory power, not to mention the fact that you cannot demonstrate that God exist and did anything at all.

It is reasonable to look at the gene repair mechanisms we have and to say that a designer had to have done that

Except that when questioned you couldn't articulate or demonstrate that a god would be required for that mechanism to exist.

Faith is no problem for me.

It's a problem for me. I've asked you for a better methodology than the scientific method and it seems all you have to offer is faith. As I've said and as I think you've helped demonstrate, anything can be believed on faith and therefore it's not a reliable pathway to truth. So, not a reliable methodology.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Really?

Yes, really. Should I take your lack of response to my points to mean you don't disagree?

How to show it's true to someone who has learned the skeptic handbook and brings up silly excuses at every turn.

I'm sorry, but it's you bringing up the excuses. I'm just asking you questions about how you justify your beliefs.

I guess prophecy is just one of those subjective evidences I have and cannot prove them to people, just show them.

Apparently.

Israel was a nation thousands of years before 1948.

And?

Interestingly it seems that Churchill was against setting up the State of Israel.

And?

So the Israel was set up and the land divided as prophesied and so the prophecy was fulfilled, but skeptics take to way out of believing that it was a fulfilled prophecy because of imagining how it happened and not what was prophesied and what happened.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, carried out by humans, as explained. And demonstrably so.
You haven't rebutted any of the points I've made about it except to say "nuh uh skeptic" which I'm sorry to say, just doesn't cut it. I would suggest that you aren't skeptical enough, on these matters.

 

[SkepticThinker]

What I gave is nothing like " The Bible is true because it says it is true". That would be circular reasoning.
The Bible is a collection of documents written hundreds of years apart and by different authors and they confirm each other to an extent.
Certainly prophecy confirms the Bible as from a supernatural source that knows the future.

This is what you said:

Books of mythology do not give evidence for their own truth. The Bible does through a history that happened and prophecies that come true.

That sounds to me, pretty much like, "the Bible is true because the Bible says it's true."

 

[SkepticThinker]

That history includes the Bible God and prophecies from that God which have happened.

This was in response to, "How would humans somewhat accurately recording what was going on around them, demonstrate the existence of the Biblical god? And how exactly do you define that god, by the way?"

Not if other floods at the time in other parts of the world destroyed those parts and people. But saying people is no problem for a God who felt like getting rid of us all but decided against it with Noah and family and why not others also in other areas.

This was in response to, "We've been over this one before. Using mental gymnastics in some attempt to turn what is obviously described in the Bible as a global flood into a small local flood, renders the point of the story completely moot."

 

[SkepticThinker]

I'm not saying that it proves anything, just that faith is a good way forward when everything else has reached the end of the road. So no logical fallacy there.
BUT once done, once faith is received, you might find confirmation of it as you go forward.

This was in response to, "No, it isn't. That's the point. It's a logical fallacy. Not a trustworthy methodology."

But you've just shown, and seem to have admitted that faith is not a good way forward. I mean, if your beliefs rest upon logical fallacies and you even acknowledge that, you can't really claim that you're being rational.

Of course "once faith is received you might find confirmation of it as you go forward." I'd even be so bold as to say you will definitely find confirmation for faith, if faith is your starting point. Which as you know by now, is called confirmation bias.