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

[Audie]

It just amuses me that people come to a forum specifically labeled as a debate forum, then start making declarations without expecting to be treated as though they are debating. You can do whatever you want to do. Obviously.

Including the "so above it all" pose.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

But although understanding physical functionality is useful to us all, it's not the defining factor for truth

It is for me, but as I noted, we probably mean different things when using that word. You seem to include things that you don't know are correct. I don't. Of course, maybe you have a different definition for knowing than I do. Mine is closely allied with words like truth and fact, and all of it is tied to empiricism. Likewise with words like existence and reality, which are also anchored in the evidence of the senses. Lose that connection and one's thoughts about these matters become useless.

The following is from an anonymous Internet persona who calls himself AnticitizenX, and summarizes the empiricist position nicely:

"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin. No matter what answer you give, literally nothing changes. No decision you will ever make in your entire lifetime can ever be influenced by the answer to this question. If nothing changes even in principle with respect to some proposition being true or false, then the distinction between them just vanishes.

"Truth has no meaning divorced from any eventual decision making process. The whole point of belief itself is to inform decisions and drive actions. Actions then influence events in the external world, and those effects lead to objective consequences. Take away any of these elements and truth immediately loses all relevance.

"We should expect similar decisions made under similar circumstances to lead to similar outcomes. Pragmatism says that the ultimate measure of a true or false proposition lies in its capacity to produce expected results. If an idea is true, it can be used in the real world to generate predictable consequences, and different ones if that idea turned out to be false. In other words, the ultimate measure of a true proposition is the capacity to inform decisions under the expectation of desirable consequences.

"All we need to know is that we have desires and preferences, we make decisions, and we experience sensory perceptions of outcomes. If a man has belief B that some action A will produce desired result D, if B is true, then doing A will achieve D. If A fails to achieve D, then B is false. Either you agree that truth should be measured by its capacity to inform decisions and produce results or you don't. If you agree, then we can have a conversation. And if we disagree about some belief, we have a means to decide the issue.

"If this is not how your epistemology works - how you define truth - then we can't have a discussion, and I literally don't care what you think, since it has no effect on anything."

Nor does it provide us with a meaningful understanding of existence.

It did for me. I used no other method but empiricism to discover what was meaningful to me and how best to configure my world to live a satisfying life. Many understand that to mean that I recommend reason as the only mode of thought. I don't. Here's a post to another poster in response to his comment that we are all irrational at times that explains my position more fully:

"Agreed, and that is a good thing - except when we're trying to decide what's true about the world. Then, only rational, empirical thinking is desirable. But at other times, modes of thought based in intuitions such as moral intuitions or what is beautiful are preferable, neither depending on reason or empiricism.

I find the example of improvising on a musical instrument like an electric guitar instructive. The first part is rational - learning how the instrument is tuned, where the chords and scales are on the neck, learning music theory, etc.. One is in a focused mode then. But later, when the skills have been learned, and one is playing music, the mental state is very different, attention is not concentrated but diffuse, and one is thinking about what is beautiful, not what is true. The latter is an irrational mode of thought, but since the word is insulting for many, maybe better called nonrational thought.

But that's where the money is in life - the passions, not the reasoning. Reasoning is just a means for arranging the passions, for facilitating more of the enjoyable experiences and fewer of the dysphoric ones. I like the metaphors of the horse and rider or the brush and the pigment to represent this relation of affective experience being managed by cognitive thought. They're both necessary for a good life. Either alone is disastrous. Passionless reason is dull, and in the extreme, the anhedonism of major depression - the inability to experience pleasure - leads to suicide or suicidal ideation. And passion without reason is eventually self-destructive.

So reason deserves to be exalted, but only as a means to an end. Absent the passions, it has little value except to prolong a colorless life."

That is what I have learned about life, I learned it empirically (trial and error), and that understanding has served me well. I offer it to you for your consideration and to take from it whatever you can.

 

[Audie]

It is for me, but as I noted, we probably mean different things when using that word. You seem to include things that you don't know are correct. I don't. Of course, maybe you have a different definition for knowing than I do. Mine is closely allied with words like truth and fact, and all of it is tied to empiricism. Likewise with words like existence and reality, which are also anchored in the evidence of the senses. Lose that connection and one's thoughts about these matters become useless.

The following is from an anonymous Internet persona who calls himself AnticitizenX, and summarizes the empiricist position nicely:

"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin. No matter what answer you give, literally nothing changes. No decision you will ever make in your entire lifetime can ever be influenced by the answer to this question. If nothing changes even in principle with respect to some proposition being true or false, then the distinction between them just vanishes.

"Truth has no meaning divorced from any eventual decision making process. The whole point of belief itself is to inform decisions and drive actions. Actions then influence events in the external world, and those effects lead to objective consequences. Take away any of these elements and truth immediately loses all relevance.

"We should expect similar decisions made under similar circumstances to lead to similar outcomes. Pragmatism says that the ultimate measure of a true or false proposition lies in its capacity to produce expected results. If an idea is true, it can be used in the real world to generate predictable consequences, and different ones if that idea turned out to be false. In other words, the ultimate measure of a true proposition is the capacity to inform decisions under the expectation of desirable consequences.

"All we need to know is that we have desires and preferences, we make decisions, and we experience sensory perceptions of outcomes. If a man has belief B that some action A will produce desired result D, if B is true, then doing A will achieve D. If A fails to achieve D, then B is false. Either you agree that truth should be measured by its capacity to inform decisions and produce results or you don't. If you agree, then we can have a conversation. And if we disagree about some belief, we have a means to decide the issue.

"If this is not how your epistemology works - how you define truth - then we can't have a discussion, and I literally don't care what you think, since it has no effect on anything."


It did for me. I used no other method but empiricism to discover what was meaningful to me and how best to configure my world to live a satisfying life. Many understand that to mean that I recommend reason as the only mode of thought. I don't. Here's a post to another poster in response to his comment that we are all irrational at times that explains my position more fully:

"Agreed, and that is a good thing - except when we're trying to decide what's true about the world. Then, only rational, empirical thinking is desirable. But at other times, modes of thought based in intuitions such as moral intuitions or what is beautiful are preferable, neither depending on reason or empiricism.

I find the example of improvising on a musical instrument like an electric guitar instructive. The first part is rational - learning how the instrument is tuned, where the chords and scales are on the neck, learning music theory, etc.. One is in a focused mode then. But later, when the skills have been learned, and one is playing music, the mental state is very different, attention is not concentrated but diffuse, and one is thinking about what is beautiful, not what is true. The latter is an irrational mode of thought, but since the word is insulting for many, maybe better called nonrational thought.

But that's where the money is in life - the passions, not the reasoning. Reasoning is just a means for arranging the passions, for facilitating more of the enjoyable experiences and fewer of the dysphoric ones. I like the metaphors of the horse and rider or the brush and the pigment to represent this relation of affective experience being managed by cognitive thought. They're both necessary for a good life. Either alone is disastrous. Passionless reason is dull, and in the extreme, the anhedonism of major depression - the inability to experience pleasure - leads to suicide or suicidal ideation. And passion without reason is eventually self-destructive.

So reason deserves to be exalted, but only as a means to an end. Absent the passions, it has little value except to prolong a colorless life."

That is what I have learned about life, I learned it empirically (trial and error), and that understanding has served me well. I offer it to you for your consideration and to take from it whatever you can.

Reason sure beats just making things up.

Unless one is presching.

 

[SkepticThinker]

We were talking about a counter example to your claim that Jesus doesn't answer prayers for healing based on a single case that you had knowledge of.

And I'm still waiting for a counter example. All you threw at me was some vague claims that you absolutely refuse to provide any details for, despite my repeatedly asking for them. I have no idea what you are talking about. All I know is there is an intubation tube involved somewhere.

You didn't know what you were talking about when we started this exchange, so nothing has changed, really.

Which could very easily be remedied by you filling in the missing information.


What are you so afraid of?

 

[Audie]

And I'm still waiting for a counter example. All you threw at me was some vague claims that you absolutely refuse to provide any details for, despite my repeatedly asking for them. I have no idea what you are talking about. All I know is there is an intubation tube involved somewhere.

Which could very easily be remedied by you filling in the missing information.


What are you so afraid of?

Maybe of the rolling epiphanies that
would come from facing the fact that
there is nothing to the miracle claim
except empty words.

 

[SkepticThinker]

No but I can and did show you why your so called scientific study of prayer is not good methodologically.

No, you didn't.
I'm the one who showed to you that your methodology of counting the hits and ignoring the misses is not proper methodology.

True and life somewhere else isn't even a falsifiable proposition, but that does not stop science from looking for it.

How so?

If you think that God does sometimes answer prayer by giving us what we ask for, what is the problem then?

Obviously I do not think that.

But you do, right? So how are you determining how and when God answers prayers or ignores them? That's the point of this entire discussion.

Yes I believe God answers prayer because of faith.

Rather than evidence.

Thank you for finally admitting that faith is unjustified belief, and not a reliable pathway to truth. The very thing I've been saying all along.

So the presumptions of the study have to be correct and the findings also because it is science?
It's a bit like saying that science, finding results for how things work, without having to insert a god, shows that gods don't exist.
But maybe you actually have an unjustified belief that is true.

This was in response to, "I make no presumptions that scientific studies "have to be correct." I know how the scientific method works, I've studied it, and I know that it was designed to remove as much human error and bias as possible. I know that scientists have to show their work and demonstrate their claims and publish their work to be scrutinized, criticized, tested, replicated, etc. by other scientists. You have nothing like this for your claims, and at this point it appears that all you have are logical fallacies."

I don't see how your response addresses what I said here.

 

[ppp]

It does not need to be.
Finding out how something works is just not support for or against pixies or God,,,,,,,,,,,,,, even if people in the past have attributed it to Gods or pixies.

Then why do you keep complaining about things that have no bearing on the existence or non-existence of pixies? Or gods.

 

[Audie]

No, you didn't.
I'm the one who showed to you that your methodology of counting the hits and ignoring the misses is not proper methodology.

How so?

Obviously I do not think that.

But you do, right? So how are you determining how and when God answers prayers or ignores them? That's the point of this entire discussion.

Rather than evidence.

Thank you for finally admitting that faith is unjustified belief, and not a reliable pathway to truth. The very thing I've been saying all along.

This was in response to, "I make no presumptions that scientific studies "have to be correct." I know how the scientific method works, I've studied it, and I know that it was designed to remove as much human error and bias as possible. I know that scientists have to show their work and demonstrate their claims and publish their work to be scrutinized, criticized, tested, replicated, etc. by other scientists. You have nothing like this for your claims, and at this point it appears that all you have are logical fallacies."

I don't see how your response addresses what I said here.

I think its done by just reiterating the
same nonsensical ideas regardless.

Which is among the reasons I've come
to see "faith" of the sort practiced of rf,
as being quite toxic.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Yes. Things work according to the laws of physics.
However it does not tell us that God/s are not required.

You're still not getting it.
You need to show that Gods are required. Nobody needs to show that gods aren't required.

Yes, and finding out how it works tells us nothing about how it came to be and who made it.

It can tell us how it came to be.
But you are assuming there is a "who" involved.
And you ignored the point which is that your "explanation" doesn't provide any actual explanatory power.

Yes I mentioned prophesies and promises in my last post I think.

Supposed prophecies that took thousands of years to come true and only after tweaking the "original" stories to make them fit?
That's not all that convincing to me. Are the prophecies of say, Nostradamus convincing to you? Why or why not?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Pulling hair out.
No I did not. You are putting words in my mouth. I did call an idea that you mentioned "the principle of complex design" or something, but I did not say "there is a principal of complexity of design needing a designer".

Post #5660:

"Don't you think the principle of complexity of design needing a designer and the reasonableness of "any codes we have, needed a designer, here is another code, it probably needed a designer", should be established before we move on to where the designer came from IF all that is reasonable."

This is an assertion that there is a "principle of complexity of design needing a designer."

Post #5686:

I just made up that name "principle of complexity of design needing a designer" for what you were saying, trying to make complexity of design into a principle that should also be applied to God and that He might also need a designer. So you are turning it around onto me.
I did say that Antony Flew said that the genetic code was too complex to have been a product of chance. That is all.

OTOH you have plainly said that simplicity shows good design.

Yep.

If I'm getting internet installed in my house and the guy comes and installs a cord that starts outside, wraps around my chimney, then the house, then comes down inside a window and weaves throughout my house up to my computer. That's probably going to be a pretty bad design, right? Because the cord is too long and goes outside the house so is exposed to the elements of nature so it will wear out more quickly and and cause all kinds of problems for me in the future.

Or, the guy comes to my house, installs a couple of feed of cable right beside my computer.

Which one sounds more efficient to you?

This might be the case for human ideas of design but why should it be the case for God design.

Why not?

Human design is the only design we actually have experience with.

No

So do you care if your beliefs are true, or not?

OK so your view that you don't believe gods exist sounds like an argument from incredulity.

How so?

My argument is that I've never seen good convincing evidence for the existence of god(s), so I don't believe in god(s). I could be convinced that god(s) exist, with good evidence for god(s).

Which is just how logic works.

Please explain how that is an argument from incredulity.

We could also say - and I think this one would apply to you as well - I've never seen good convincing evidence for the existence of Thor, so I don't believe in Thor. I could be convinced that Thor exists with good evidence of Thor existing.

Do you think that is also an argument from increduilty?

I am describing the transmission of information via chemistry. The information is coded into the chemistry.

You are not addressing the storing of information in chemistry and the transfer of information via chemistry.

A code is a symbol that stands in place of a symbol.
The letters CAGT are symbols we created to represent the major components of DNA. Cytosine, adenine, guanine and thymine aren't codes, rather they are primary symbols that stand for real things and not for symbols.

I presume that if the genetic code does not reasonably suggest a intelligent designer to you then it must by more reasonable for you that the genetic code suggests chance as the origin. Is that true?

I don't know what the origin of DNA is, but it appears to be natural.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I think its done by just reiterating the
same nonsensical ideas regardless.

Which is among the reasons I've come
to see "faith" of the sort practiced of rf,
as being quite toxic.

Can't disagree with that.

 

[Ostronomos]

We have many more than just five senses.

Show me evidence for this supernatural realm instead of analogies.

We do not select the evidence, the evidence selects us.

 

[Ostronomos]

The atheistic argument lacks any true foundation. This is because it is based on surface level reality. Surface level Physics has already been refuted as the only exclusive theory.

Consider an authority on the matter, string theory.

String theory says that there are 10 dimensions to the universe. But the six extra dimensions are curled up so tight that we cannot interact with them.

Atheism relies on surface level physics to make its point. It completely dismisses the hidden reality of God.

 

[Ostronomos]

A code is a symbol that stands in place of a symbol.
The letters CAGT are symbols we created to represent the major components of DNA. Guanine, adenine, thymine and cytosine aren't codes, rather they are primary symbols that stand for real things and not for symbols.

I don't know what the origin of DNA is, but it appears to be natural.

Appealing to nature or metaphysical naturalism is a very weak proposal.

DNA, the heart of life, demonstrates that information exchange is required for evolution. You are simply too dense to see that evolution is teleological. It is intelligently directed.

To make the false claim that "God does not exist because we live in a random chaotic universe and evolution is random" is to confuse reality with illusion.

You then throw your hands up in the air and declare your argument won.

There is evidence to suggest that we live in a giant quantum computer called the universe or, on a grander scale, reality, the multiverse.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Appealing to nature or metaphysical naturalism is a very weak proposal.

DNA, the heart of life, demonstrates that information exchange is required for evolution. You are simply too dense to see that evolution is teleological. It is intelligently directed.

To make the false claim that "God does not exist because we live in a random chaotic universe and evolution is random" is to confuse reality with illusion.

Ah, I'm too dense. I see.

I guess you're a super genius that didn't realize that my post contained an answer to your assertion about DNA demonstrating "information exchange."

Oopsy.

You then throw your hands up in the air and declare your argument won.

I did? Where?

There is evidence to suggest that we live in a giant quantum computer called the universe or, on a grander scale, reality, the multiverse.

Cool story, bro.

 

[Ebionite]

The human body is not fully understood. Patients of all religions or secular sometimes have miraculous recoveries that isn't understood. It's not believed to be supernatural but a process not yet known that the body can do.

The spontaneous remission theory doesn't explain how the tubes were removed. The simplest explanation is that the patient reported what actually happened.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

If I'm getting internet installed in my house and the guy comes and installs a cord that starts outside, wraps around my chimney, then the house, then comes down inside a window and weaves throughout my house up to my computer. That's probably going to be a pretty bad design, right? Because the cord is too long and goes outside the house so is exposed to the elements of nature so it will wear out more quickly and and cause all kinds of problems for me in the future.

Or, the guy comes to my house, installs a couple of feed of cable right beside my computer.

Which one sounds more efficient to you?

Were you thinking of the recurrent laryngeal nerve? Look at where the vagus arises in the brainstem and where the branch that enervates the larynx travels into the thorax and under the aortic arch before returning to the neck.

14 Of The Greatest Human Body Flaws
The Human Body's Greatest Flaws In Evolution, From Sweat Glands To Eyelids

The atheistic argument lacks any true foundation.

The atheistic argument? Is that when the theist tells me about his gods and I tell him that I don't believe him?

Atheism relies on surface level physics

Atheism doesn't rely on physics at all.

DNA, the heart of life, demonstrates that information exchange is required for evolution. You are simply too dense to see that evolution is teleological. It is intelligently directed.

There is zero evidence for that claim.

Also, DNA is not the "heart of life." Viruses contain nucleic acids, but aren't alive. Life is metabolism - chemistry producing a slow, flameless burn through the oxidation of calories (from the Latin calor meaning heat).

Nor is DNA properly called information. It's form. Information exists in conscious minds, not outside of them consciousness, and as the word implies, represents the apprehension of form which becomes information for a mind. Form becomes information when the form is transformed into conscious content.

To make the false claim that "God does not exist because we live in a random chaotic universe and evolution is random" is to confuse reality with illusion.

The agnostic atheist doesn't make that claim, and neither should you or anybody else. He just doesn't need gods either to understand his world or to feel comfortable in it.

You then throw your hands up in the air and declare your argument won.

Dialectic (debate) ends with the last plausible, unrefuted argument. If you can't falsify a scientific (falsifiable) claim, that's generally because the claim is correct. Correct ideas cannot be successfully rebutted, which is the basis of both courtroom trials and scientific peer review. The last argument standing prevails.

Another trait of correct ideas is successfully predicting outcomes as all scientific laws and theories do but no religious (unfalsifiable) claims ever do.

 

[ppp]

The spontaneous remission theory doesn't explain how the tubes were removed. The simplest explanation is that the patient reported what actually happened.

The simplest explanation is that it didn't happen.

 

[Ebionite]

Why does that matter? Are you suggesting that the patient should be believed (he shouldn't) or that a miracle is the best explanation for an inexplicable recovery (it's not)?

It matters because any plausible explanation is better than none. Witnesses should be believed unless there is a reason to disbelieve them.

 

[McBell]

It matters because any plausible explanation is better than none. Witnesses should be believed unless there is a reason to disbelieve them.

Fair enough.

Why is it you believe "GodDidIt" is a plausible explanation?