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

[We Never Know]

Nope.

Nope?

Was this you when you were younger?

 

[ppp]

Nope?

Was this you when you were younger?

 

[We Never Know]

Oh! So that was you. Sorry I confused it.

 

[ppp]

 

[joelr]

When push comes to shove all we have in this world is our personal experience

That is not all we have, we have evidence. All of the modern inventions, cars, computers, medical technology are from the scientific method which involves evidence.
Personal experience is actually very misleading, humans are very susceptible to all types of confirmation bias when it comes to belief, so that isn't reliable.
Personal experience is used to show Christianity is true for many Christians. It's also used to show Mormonism is true as well as Islam which says the NT is corrupt and is a revelation from an OT angel. Muslims claim their personal experience with prayer to Allah has confirmed they are in the true religion. Same with Krishna and Hinduism.

. Depending on how many people agree to a "truth" makes it true.

So Islam is true then? And Hinduism is also true? And Christianity? Which is weird because Islam says Christians are telling lies and the NT is a bunch of pagan mythology. So everything is true?

Millions of people have experienced being out of their body called NDEs.

No they had an experience inside their body and have never been able to demonstrate they were actually out of their body. No one ever has read the paper high up on cabinets in the surgery room for NDE people to float up and read.

There are hundreds of Savants that show us we have lived before this life.

Not one gives definitive evidence. a claim is not evidence.

It just depends on what you want to believe about those things that are very real because of personal experience.

Something being very real in your belief system does not make it true. There are millions having a personal relationship with Lord Krishna, he speaks through feelings. Still not real.

I will continue to believe what I experience. It does not matter to me if those without the experience believe or not.

I don't care what you believe, I don't care what matters to you. What you experience is not always what is true. Billions experience love and feelings from Krishna, doesn't make him real. Billions feel Allah confirming the Quran is the true word of God, doesn't make the Quran true.
However you choose to use confirmation bias to use your experiences to believe something does not make it true. You need evidence to know if something is true.

 

[Brian2]

@ppp said: But I will ask you straight out. Name a piece of evidence that does not require a pre-existing belief that a god exists, and also exclusively supports your claim that a god exists.

Brian 2 says: I found someone who became a believer in God because of the genetic code. I did not say anything about it also exclusively supporting my claim that a god exists because I was not sure if it did or not.
But now that I have time to think about genetic code, I would say that it exclusively supports my claim that a god exists and supports no other hypothesis.

 

[Audie]

I think that's a common way of defining faith, but isn't faith more than that? Meaning, I would offer that faith includes belief, but requires a dependable certainty before it can really be called "faith," as opposed to just "belief."

There is certainty, sure, but dependable?
Not in religious faith.

 

[Audie]

@ppp said: But I will ask you straight out. Name a piece of evidence that does not require a pre-existing belief that a god exists, and also exclusively supports your claim that a god exists.

Brian 2 says: I found someone who became a believer in God because of the genetic code. I did not say anything about it also exclusively supporting my claim that a god exists because I was not sure if it did or not.
But now that I have time to think about genetic code, I would say that it exclusively supports my claim that a god exists and supports no other hypothesis.

Why specify DNA? Everythung that exists is
similarly support. For a support - believer.

 

[Brian2]

Why specify DNA? Everythung that exists is
similarly support. For a support - believer.

But we are talking about the genetic code. It supports the idea of a designer. Does it support anything else?

 

[joelr]

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

No I don't have a method the IS A METHOD and it's our best method for knowing what is true. The scientific method, rational, skeptical, empirical based epistemology is the best way to know true things.
Fiath and personal experience are TERRIBLE and fool billions. That is a demonstrable fact, from a Christian point of view because you don't believe Mormonism, Islam, Hinduism and many other religious beliefs but billions do believe it.
Never mind using it for race superiority and gender war issues.

Demonstrations don't equal truth. That's just your particular bias talking."Seeing is believing" but neither seeing nor believing is proof of truth.

Strawman. Demonstrations are not just "seeing", it involves evidence and rational reasons to hold a belief in something.
The same reason you don't believe the Heavens Gate story where your soul goes to a ufo near Saturn after you drink poison.
It's a ridiculous story with no evidence.

The stories you did buy into also are far-fetched and have no evidence.

So saith who ... you? Why should anyone listen to you? You don't know any more about 'what is' than anyone else does. And the truth, after all, is 'what is'.

Uh, no, not me. How about 1.8 billion Muslims who swear by personal experience that Allah speaks to their heart and tells them the Quran is the word of God. Which also says Christians lie and Jesus stories are pagan nonsense and you all will face a terrible doom unless you go to the true religion.
How about the Mormons who all have a personal relationship with Jesus and have confirmed the updated Mormon Bible is the true updates on Jesus, that you missed and will be punished for.

Strengthening My Relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ​

10 Ways to Strengthen Relationships​

As I was pondering ways to come closer to Heavenly Father and the Savior, I researched 10 basic relationship tips that are often given by professionals and combined them with prophetic counsel to give them a spiritual focus.

Here are the 10 tips:

1. Communicate honestly, out loud, and with real intent through prayer.2
2. Be a good listener.3
3. Show Them appreciation.4
4. Make sacrifices for Them.5
5. Learn about Them.6
6. Spend quality time with Them.7
7. Serve together.8
8. Show Them trust and commitment.9
9. Admit when you’re wrong.10
10. Learn how They show you love.11

To start out, I chose to learn about my Heavenly Father and the Savior (#5), to spend quality time with Them (#6), and to learn how They offered me love (#10).
They are with us. They are in the details. They stand ready to shower us with strength, comfort, wisdom, guidance, and peace, especially when we make time and room for Them in our lives.

Try out your own methods to grow closer to Them and see what happens! I can testify that as we prioritize these vital relationships and follow Them, we will be able to access the Savior’s healing influence, move forward with faith (see Philippians 4:13), and find greater confidence and joy.

I know I have.

Strengthening My Relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ

Applying these practical ideas helped me see my relationship with Heavenly Father and the Savior as real, powerful, and precious.

www.churchofjesuschrist.org

The same methods one sect uses to "know they are truly in a relationship with Jesus" is used by all of them. Yet Mormonism says Jesus came to America and all sorts of new material. But it's confirmed to be true once you establish a relationship.
why don't you try it? Oh, you already do????? And it confirms the beliefs you and your church hold?? WOW, what a coincidence??

It's almost like it doesn't matter what supernatural deity you act as if you are speaking with and getting to know, you brain accepts it and creates feelings as if you are in a relationship.
Which means until evidence is produced, this method is simple psychology and in your mind. Oh, it's also NOT EVIDENCE.

Yes, that is clearly your chosen bias. And you believe it is the superior way. But other people have their own chosen biases. And they believe they have found the superior way, at least for them. You say; "but my way logically defeats their way!". Yet their way doesn't care very much about your logic. It relies on other things, like their own direct experience. You say; "but subjective experience is notoriously unreliable!" And yet it's clearly been shown to be reliable enough for them.

Well that was easy.
"at least for them" and "shown to be reliable enough for them"
Yes, it was reliable enough for Heavens Gate. So they drank the poison and their souls went on the ufo. It's reliable enough for the KKK to continue believing whites are superior. Who needs evidence?
Yeah, we know, people believe weird things that are not supported by evidence. It's good enough. Well I'm not writing about what's "good enough", I'm interested in knowing what is actually true and the reliable methods to find that.

These people are willing to forego evidence and rational thought to continue to hold onto a belief they want to be real. This isn't the discussion?

Again, direct experience is used in every religion, equally as much. My Muslim and Hindu friends all have the same level of knowing through personal experience they are in the only correct religion.

I believe evidence and rational thought is the superior way because the evidence demonstrates this. If I'm bias then it's to what evidence presents. I'm bias to an unbias version of truth.

The interesting thing about the 'reality of truth' is that is isn't one coherent truth. It's a whole plethora of contradictory truths rolled together. Because the truth is both the inside and outside, the here and the there, the is and the isn't, and everything else, too. The truth is both objective AND subjective. Logical AND illogical. Fact AND fiction. Which is very, very difficult for the human brain to comprehend. Impossible, really.

That is a bunch of B. Difficult for the brain because it's nonsense. Quick question, is Islam true? Says Christians are wrong and lie and they will have a painful doom. An angel came down and gave updates because Christians messed it up so bad. So Islam set it all straight. That true? No? Thought so.

Why? What ever made you presume that religious claims had anything to do with logic and evidence? It's like saying, "I'm going to assess that painting of the Mona Lisa MATHEMATICALLY! Then, by golly, we'll all know the truth of it!"

Strawman. Mona Lisa is not a supernatural claim.
You are trying to be ambiguous with your beliefs. Quick question, how do you assess the truth of the Quran? Or the new guy who claims to be Jesus preaching in AU who has a following. Something tells me you are going with logic and such and not believing that at all.

Everything you say sounds like a bad apologetic that you apply to only a religion you happen to believe in. The others are flat out wrong. For them you suddenly see it my way I'm betting.

Religions are about living by faith.

Faith is the worst method for truth. All religions use them. Race supremeacy advocates use it, race superiority people use it. You need a method to demonstrate why your beliefs are actually true. Not that you hope they are true by faith.
Hindu live by faith. Islam lives by faith. Christianity says they go to hell.
If you care about truth faith is not usefull.

For tricking people into believing something without good evidence faith is great.

Not living by logic or evidence or probability. If people found logic and evidence sufficient by itself for living life, they wouldn't have developed and engaged in religion. But we do engage in it. And we always have. So clearly logic and evidence we not good enough.

And you are Christian. Christian belief constitutes 1/3 of all religious belief. So by your beliefs 2/3 of all religious believers are holding faith in the wrong religion.
Christianity is vastly split up, you have faith in things many other Christians do not.
Clearly logic and evidence ARE good enough if you care about what is true.
If not then pick a random belief system out of 10,000 and have faith.

If you want to buy into some random belief system and just hold "faith" in it, according to you, they better have your beliefs or it's wrong. Meanwhile everyone else says you better have their beliefs or else, a painful doom.
Yeah, that's called inconsistent, random and a desperate attempt to make a false claim true by a lot of people.

That's a very dubious claim given the fact that as a limited (non-omniscient) human, you can't ever actually know what is and isn't true. All any of us can do is guess at it.

No we can show evidence, use logic and so on. Is the conservation of energy a guess? Is all modern technology a guess? Even psychology is based on trials and experience with real people.

All this is introducing these ambiguous concepts about how we never know what is true and it's leading to "so my religion is no different".

Well it is. You are not consistent. You won't say this about Zeus, Osirus, Inana, Krishna, "who knows what is true, Zeus is real because people had faith he was real and I pray to him"

 

[joelr]

Fiction is one of the most common and effective ways of presenting and sharing perceived truths among we humans. It's a universal form of communication called "artifice". It operates along side verbal language, and the quantized language of mathematics. We use them all to help us understand our experience of existing, and share it with others.

I never said the fictive metaphors in the Bible do not represent something true. Genesis Eden, for example is a fable (talking animals), with a message. Original sin is not the message. But it has meaning. Jesus ascending after death is a metaphor.

Yeah, no one cares about any of this, though, because it's artifice. It's fiction. It's representation, and metaphor. It's how we convey the deeply profound, complex, and mysterious in life to each other. That you're trying to apply logic and evidence to it is just ... weird.

You do know what a fundamentalist is right?

It's good for us to share and debate (to better understand) each other's thoughts on the "truth of existence". But not if we're doing it to "defeat the opposing person's views". Not if we only seek to 'teach', but not to learn. And not if we are foolish enough to think WE have the truth, so THEY must be lying (or deceiving themselves and others).

Your ambiguity is muddying the waters here. You started out arguing religion and now seem to be suggesting it's all a metaphor. You will have to state which one it is or it's creating confusion.

Nor is it Leonardo da Vinci's fault that the Mona Lisa painting didn't stand up to your mathematical assessment of it. But then, really, why should anyone care? Why, even, do you?

Mona Lisa is not a supernatural religious claim. I already said why I care.

Lots of people have found value and truth in lots of things that I have not. But then I have found value and truth is a few things that very few other people have, or that they even understand. Such is the nature of truth. ... And the limits of mankind.

Finding value has nothing to do with the truth of a supernatural claim. You are moving the goalpost into a different topic. Value is subjective also. A friend may call you and say they found value in following the new Jesus in AU and want to give him all their money and follow him. Doesn't make any of what he is saying true.


It's not in question that religious sermons touch on real world wisdom, the question is are the supernatural stories real? Is a soul real, Heaven? Redeeming a soul through a savior deity. Those are claims. Saying "don't judge" is just basic wisdom, taken from Rabbi Hilell who was preaching before Jesus.

 

[Subduction Zone]

But we are talking about the genetic code. It supports the idea of a designer. Does it support anything else?

How so? You keep making this claim but have never supported it.

You seem to have forgotten, you need to support that claim without using an argument from ignorance.

 

[joelr]

How is it judgemental to see that you have faith, belief. Whether it is based on evidence or not, it is still faith/belief.
Do you think that faith is believing something without evidence? If you do, you are wrong.

If you have evidence you don't need faith. Stop trying to put faith on the same field as evidence, it's never going to work because you also don't believe supernatural stories on faith beyond the one you bought into.

I don't know why you don't know what faith is in contect?
Hebrews 11:1 – “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Everything else we believe has evidence.

Are you saying that anti deism arguments are conclusive?

Right below that I said "deism arguments are not conclusive, ....."? blah blah, meaning they are often pointless.

I would say that they are just arguments that some people believe.

Some people believe them but they have been debunked to a reasonable degree.

I would also say there is evidence for a designer and some people see it and believe it.

There is no evidence at all.

28:22
Sean Carroll debunks Kalam Cosmological argument and fine tuning argument (after WLC misunderstands it)


1:00:52

Sean Caroll shows WLC has misunderstanding of science (Carroll is a physicist) and continues debunking

 

[Audie]

But we are talking about the genetic code. It supports the idea of a designer. Does it support anything else?

I know the topic.

But "support"? You mean supporting. evidence
for something?

For clarity, would you say a waterfall
supports something?

A waterfall is way more complex than DNA.

 

[joelr]

All I said is that you show your faith. So case proven imo.

You are showing you are doing something weird, either:

1) not being truthful

2) actually don't know what faith is

3) this example has probabilities, people meeting the expectations of the probabilities, demonstrating our world and universe is governed by probabilities and everything shows this is true. Which is evidence. I don't need faith because I have evidence.
The faith is when people say "Jesus healed me".
Did you go to the hospital?

"yes, I had operations and lots of medication and specialists and x-rays and medications...."

was Jesus part of the staff?

"no I felt him in my heart and he healed me"

your body has healing capabilities, and the hospital staff did a lot, and the drugs, so....

"Jesus gets credit, from magic"

well only 40% of cases at your age succumb to the illness so maybe you are just one of the 60%?

"Jesus, I have faith"



You haven't demonstrated I have faith, especially when providing an example with probabilities? If you are going to call probabilities working as expected "faith" you are wrong because I don't need faith. I have another method, evidence. Anything you would call faith is actually based on empirical evidence that probabilities are part of reality and play out as expected.

Your need to twist evidence into faith just demonstrates a need to rectify your use of blind religious faith and anecdotal personal experience.
It's not going to work and waving your magic wand like you did above ("case proven") isn't going to actually do magic.

Methods that have been shown to be reliable over and over are superior than a blind guess which is exactly what faith is in religion. Whatever beliefs you fall into and become attached to become truth. Not reliable.

 

[Audie]

How so? You keep making this claim but have never supported it.

You seem to have forgotten, you need to support that claim without using an argument from ignorance.

It's the creationist custom of
just saying things.

 

[Lekatt]

I don't care what you believe, I don't care what matters to you. What you experience is not always what is true. Billions experience love and feelings from Krishna, doesn't make him real. Billions feel Allah confirming the Quran is the true word of God, doesn't make the Quran true.
However you choose to use confirmation bias to use your experiences to believe something does not make it true. You need evidence to know if something is true.

Personal experience is not without "evidence." It can happen more than once and to different people. The spiritual side of life is very real. I have a Spirit Guide that helps and advises me in my journey through life. I once asked him to stand in front of my couch and let me take a Polaroid camera photo of him. The photo came out all white as taking a photo of light. Then I took a photo without him in front of my couch and got a photo of my couch. The fact that millions of Near Death Experiencers find themselves out of their body and in spiritual settings is evidence. I know Science says they are all hysterical and hallucinating. But there are scientists who have the experience and become believers. Lots of other stuff also. Within each individual is a place of spiritual love and understanding that transcends this physical world. It can be discovered by anyone that honestly wants to experience it. I don't want to knock science, it is an important part of human progress here. But spiritual progress is very important also. It would be nice if science and spirit would work together.

 

[Audie]

Personal experience is not without "evidence." It can happen more than once and to different people. The spiritual side of life is very real. I have a Spirit Guide that helps and advises me in my journey through life. I once asked him to stand in front of my couch and let me take a Polaroid camera photo of him. The photo came out all white as taking a photo of light. Then I took a photo without him in front of my couch and got a photo of my couch. The fact that millions of Near Death Experiencers find themselves out of their body and in spiritual settings is evidence. I know Science says they are all hysterical and hallucinating. But there are scientists who have the experience and become believers. Lots of other stuff also. Within each individual is a place of spiritual love and understanding that transcends this physical world. It can be discovered by anyone that honestly wants to experience it. I don't want to knock science, it is an important part of human progress here. But spiritual progress is very important also. It would be nice if science and spirit would work together.

I don't think I want that kind of progress

 

[joelr]

@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.

AGAIN. Then please explain why the mortality rates from diseases only improve when medical tech gets better?
"Patients with metastatic (stage 4) non-small cell lung cancer that's spread to distant organs or regions of the body have a five-year relative survival rate of 8 percent, according to ACS. "

On average, 8 percent of those patients survive. As predicted. Every year.
So who exactly is your God healing here?
Just a few as to not sway the mortality rates as they are the same across ALL religions and secular people?
That would be ridiculous.
Uhh....what other choice do you have? How about NONE.

Or does God only heal those without mortality stats, like with the common cold?
Again, ridiculous.

10,000 children die every day from starvation, I gave you a report from the U.N.
Today, 10,000, tomorrow, 10,000. You don't think people, parents, relatives, the world is praying for them?
Still 10,000 every day.

So you now say it ISN'T 100% and God might be healing people? So what he's healing people with colds and leaving starving children alone??? Somehow in this awful mess of suffering religion has twisted your mind so you cannot even admit these people are not being saved at all?
There you go. That is what religion does to minds. When you start denying statistics there is a problem.

Actually it's "more than 10,000 children die every day"

Is that not enough?? Do you need MORE SUFFERING to realize no deity is helping out here? What exactly is it? would 20,000 children be enough?? What the heck are you talking about?

@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.

AND EVERY TIME I SAY it's the consensus.
There are no other scholars who disagree because the evidence is so conclusive and vast.


So now God is not definitely not healing people and you cannot allow information to go into your brain that ALL historical scholars believe the vast evidence of some issues I bring up.

You cannot seem to accept this and make up a fiction about scholars all having their own theories. Of course one theory must be some historians who say Jesus died and rose and ascended to heaven?
Yeah, no. The gospels are anon, non-eyewitnesses, written 40 years later as historical fiction and Mark is the only original story but uses the OT, Romulus and other fiction.

Even believing Christian scholars know this. All historical scholars agree on this and many other things.
The differing opinions are was Jesus a real Rabbi or totally made up? Stuff like that.

Christianity is a Jewish version of Greek Hellenism. I'll post the Britannica article on Hellenism, it's clearly all Greek and what happened with Christianity happened with all the older Mesopotamian influenced religions when the Greeks invaded. They all updated their national God to supreme, got a savior for personal salvation. It was salvation for the nation before (like in the OT, Yahweh saves Israel) and Hellenism introduced personal salvation which got souls into an afterlife. Fallen souls that required redemption.
Greek myth.

This article was by

Jonathan Zittell Smith, who was a Harvard Dr in religious history, Greek and Christian. This is consensus information.

 

[joelr]

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.

Not true. It evolved from simple RNA and isn't miraculous at all.