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

[Audie]

If you are not addressing the post to which you are replying then it doesn't matter what you said.

Is that "if" , or, "because"?

 

[Brian2]

Faith in evidence for any of the countless "gods" has all the symproms of actually being faith in one's self.

As in unwarranted trust in ones capacity to detect
and evaluate data.

I haven't seen evidence for other Gods except that people used to believe in them.
It is nice to have more data but the evaluation is always going to be a personal evaluation because the faith is going to be a personal faith.
Maybe you think that there should be one world data evaluation centre for all the gods ever believed in, and we could all agree to go by the decision of those "experts".

 

[Brian2]

Come now.

Raised as a Christian, rebels and proclaims "atheist", then,
reverts. Common as dirt.

A philosopher. Not an organic chemist. No
expertise. Maybe he had opinions about
atomic submarines too.

Mr Flew's belief shows that you don't have to already have faith or belief to view the genetic code as evidence for God.

 

[Brian2]

I looked up about genetic code. Here is the question after I looked to see what scientists say about its origin: are humans smarter than the genetic code?

I don't think scientists have any idea how it could have evolved except as one of those chance thing.
And there are certainly a lot of those.

 

[ppp]

Mr Flew's belief shows that you don't have to already have faith or belief to view the genetic code as evidence for God.

Nobody disputes that, @Brian2 . It's a non-point. The problem is that you are still merely citing the existence of people whom you think agree with you. You are not citing any evidence that you or they are correct.

 

[Brian2]

So to be clear....
is it the genetic code itself you claim as evidence or that Antony Flew believes it?

The genetic code is evidence and Antony Flew's belief because of the genetic code, which it seems he thought too complex to have happened by chance, shows that you do not have to have a pre existing belief in God to see the genetic code as evidence for God.

 

[Brian2]

You try to make false claims about others having faith. That is why you use an argument from ignorance.

Surely you aren't saying that you do not believe anything about God.
Maybe you just think that those with a religious faith have no evidence and that lack of evidence is a prerequisite for faith.

 

[Brian2]

Really? Then why have you never posted any?

I have.

 

[Brian2]

I read enough of the context. You could never justify your claim of "faith".

@joelr claims that it is 100% proven that God does not heal those who pray.
That is a claim of faith since it is not proven.
@joelr does that in many areas where "experts" have come up with their opinion on the Bible and joel takes their opinions as 100% fact even if other experts have differing opinions.

 

[Brian2]

Those 5 words are not evidence of anything at all.

BTW, you are now appealing to ignorance, and appealing to insufficient authority.

I could have said any number of things where science has an idea of how it came to be through natural causes. It makes no difference to me, those things are still evidence for God.
So no I am not appealing to ignorance.
And what is this "appealing to insufficient authority"?
I'm not appealing to any authority. Antony Flew is not meant to be an authority. He is just someone who believed in God because of the genetic code.
It is not evidence that science can use, and science does not even know what points to the existence of God and what does not.
It is evidence that a normal human can look at and realise see as evidence for a creator God.

 

[Brian2]

No, and no. Anthony Flew turned to a deistic God. And he did so when he was becoming senile. Not the best example to use.

How is the genetic code evidence for a God? Oh, and by the way, even when he was senile he knew your God was not the right one. You definitely should not refer to him.

He was senile, that is why he only went to a deistic god, but at least he had the nouse to realise that the genetic code needed a designer.

 

[Subduction Zone]

What really amazes me is the complexity of the DNA strand. You can actually use it for storage of data like a flash drive. IMV a mystery of how it actually came to being. IMV, maybe not so much a mystery with a God factor.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1878778921000508

That is not evidence for a God. That is just an argument from ignorance

 

[Subduction Zone]

Nobody disputes that, @Brian2 . It's a non-point. The problem is that you are still merely citing the existence of people whom you think agree with you. You are not citing any evidence that you or they are correct.

Actually I do dispute that:

Antony Flew - did he really change his mind? • Skeptical Science

Antony Flew, was a rather famous British philosopher who was also a strong advocate for atheism. His arguments included these ideas … One should presuppose atheism until empirical evidence of a God surfaces He also criticised the idea of life after death and also criticised the free will defence...

www.skeptical-science.com

 

[Subduction Zone]

He was senile, that is why he only went to a deistic god, but at least he had the nouse to realise that the genetic code needed a designer.

Anthony Flew was not an expert in genetics. Now you are using an appeal to false authority fallacy argument.

 

[Brian2]

Unfortunately, God could hover in the air right in front of me in a blinding blaze of glory, right now, and I still would have no possible way of verifying that what I am witnessing is God as opposed to some clever magician's trick. Or some advanced space alien's form of visitation, or even a trick of my own mind, or perhaps even a demon. So all the messengers God could send me still could never be verified. And lacking that verification, we are lying to ourselves and others if we claim we can "know" whatever they say is a message from God. Or that they even are messengers from God. I don't even see how THEY could know.

I suppose it is a good thing that God showed Himself to simpler folk without all the built in doubts of today's people.
But in the Bible the appearing and speaking was not all that happened. Evidence in the form of prophecies and promises were given and they happened eventually.
As a young man I was awestruck about these things and wondered why people did not believe them. I have since heard all the doubts and reasons.
People want to say they know and don't like the idea of faith, even if faith has evidence and reasoning behind it.

As human beings, we have no way of "knowing" (verifying) God, or anything about God. The best we can do in that regard is either choose to believe whatever we're told, or whatever we want about God by ignoring the fact that we can't actually know any of it to be so. Or we can choose to trust in the idea of God that makes the most sense to us, and that provides us with the best life results, and hope that our faith is not misplaced, even though we know that it might be. Or we can go the route of the atheists and just assume that if we can't know God to be so, then God must probably not exist.

Personally, I see choosing faith to be the only honest and reasonably effective option. But that means I have to determine my OWN concept of God. Not follow the minds of other humans about it. And if I then determine that there are no gods, or that Jesus is God, or whatever, so be it. It's my god-concept, and my life's choice. No one else's.

Yes it is our own choice because it is our own faith.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I could have said any number of things where science has an idea of how it came to be through natural causes. It makes no difference to me, those things are still evidence for God.
So no I am not appealing to ignorance.
And what is this "appealing to insufficient authority"?
I'm not appealing to any authority. Antony Flew is not meant to be an authority. He is just someone who believed in God because of the genetic code.
It is not evidence that science can use, and science does not even know what points to the existence of God and what does not.
It is evidence that a normal human can look at and realise see as evidence for a creator God.

Then you do not understand the concept of evidence.

 

[Brian2]

Nobody disputes that, @Brian2 . It's a non-point. The problem is that you are still merely citing the existence of people whom you think agree with you. You are not citing any evidence that you or they are correct.

Flew merely showed what I was asked. I was asked to give evidence that only a believer could see as evidence.
The evidence IS the genetic code. It's a system that stores and uses data through something that is so much like a computer code that the language from computers was used to describe it.
As far as I know, anything like it needed intelligence to design.
I can almost hear you thinking, "But science will find the answer one day and if not then so be it, but it is not evidence for a God."
For me however, even if science one day finds a naturalistic answer to the origins of data storage and use system that can adapt to surroundings for our survival etc it will still point to an intelligence behind it for me.
Knowing how a mechanism works does not eliminate God.
Knowing how a mechanism might have originated naturally does not eliminate God.

 

[Brian2]

Then you do not understand the concept of evidence.

OK so someone in your science education background has told you that evidence needs to be verifiable or it is not evidence. And he/she was speaking about science but you have extrapolated it to cover all areas of life.

 

[ppp]

Actually I do dispute that:

Antony Flew - did he really change his mind? • Skeptical Science

Antony Flew, was a rather famous British philosopher who was also a strong advocate for atheism. His arguments included these ideas … One should presuppose atheism until empirical evidence of a God surfaces He also criticised the idea of life after death and also criticised the free will defence...

www.skeptical-science.com

I just didn't care about his spurious citations enough to correct him. The part that I didn't dispute is, "you don't have to already have faith or belief to view the genetic code as evidence for God." Because it's a meaningless statement. You dont already have to have faith or belief to view toast as evidence for a god.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

What really amazes me is the complexity of the DNA strand. You can actually use it for storage of data like a flash drive.

That's why it exists and how it achieved the degree of complexity we find in modern living forms. That ability to store instructions conferred a selective advantage during both chemical (abiogenesis) and biological evolution.

IMV a mystery of how it actually came to being. IMV, maybe not so much a mystery with a God factor.

Adding gods to scientific theories introduces an incredible amount of complexity that gives them no additional explanatory or predictive power.

And you believe you have a method for finding the truth. So you are no different from anyone else here: believing in things that you can't know to be so

Actually, if one used critical thought, he can know things and know that they are correct. The basis of Dunning-Kruger syndrome is the unawareness that this can happen, and thus the mistaken belief that all ideas are arrived at through faith, the only other path to belief than valid reason applied to evidence, and thus all opinions including his are equal. They confuse their faith with knowledge and call their unfalsifiable faith-based beliefs truth and knowledge, unaware that they are neither.

And it's not limited to the religious. This also describes the anti-vaxxers, the climate deniers, and the election integrity deniers. They believe by faith and consider their opinions, which they call truth and knowledge, equal to those of the experts who disagree with them.

but using your beliefs to try and discredit those who believe differently.

Critical thinkers reject their claims of having truth or knowledge through faith. Of course, they use a different definition for both of those than the faith-based thinker.

Demonstrations don't equal truth. That's just your particular bias talking.

Interesting how you only see bias in others. Yes, demonstration does equal truth. An idea doesn't deserve to be called truth, knowledge, correct, or fact if it can't be demonstrated to accurately describe and predict some aspect of reality.

Existence is clearly the expression of design. If it weren't, science would not be possible.

Science is possible because nature is evident to the senses and exhibits regular patterns which are discernable, and knowledge of which can be used navigate life more successfully by accurately anticipating outcomes under various circumstances.

Most people won't be bothered to consider in any depth the difference between faith, belief, and knowledge.

Easy peasy. Faith is insufficiently justified belief, a belief is any idea considered true by the believer, and knowledge is the collection of demonstrably correct ideas.

I find that theists and atheists alike are doggedly determined to confuse and conflate faith with religious belief.

And for good reason. I don't call an idea religious unless it's unfalsifiable. There are other beliefs in religion, such as that one should tithe, but they're not religious beliefs, just beliefs about what's good for the religion. And the religions have discovered the value of discouraging theft, murder and lying, but that's known empirically, and why atheists know that as well.