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

[TagliatelliMonster]

The more evidence for claims the better but in the absence of more evidence people have believed the claims that were reported in the Quran, the witness evidence.

So? People believing claim X doesn't equal evidence for claim X.
There are people who believe bigfoot is real. That is not a proper substitute for evidence that bigfoot is actually real.
It is only evidence that there are people with unjustified beliefs that bigfoot is real.

It looks as if you are now saying that the Ghost the Never Lies actually does lie.

No. Just pointing out that you have don't seem to understand the difference between the words "claim" and "evidence".

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I already have a faith that is the truth.

And round and round the merry goes.

Different skeptics go to different lengths in their making up of stuff.

I asked you to point out specifically what stuff I am supposedly making up. I didn't ask you to repeat your claim.

Some go as far as to say that Jesus did not exist and Moses and Abraham did not exist and the Exodus was made up after the Exile and the story of Jesus was made up and the gospels written by people who did not know Jesus or what anything about Him.
Then others don't go that far but stop somewhere between "The Bible is true" and there. But in the end it is all stuff that is made up (or gleaned from people who have made it up) and believed by skeptics instead of believing what is written in the Bible and the evidence for it.
It sort of boils down to "So much for being sceptical".

You don't know what my stance is on these things because I never told you.
All I'm saying is that there is no evidence for any of these extra-ordinary claims. That results in me having zero reasons to believe them.
Going further, when presented with certain fundamentalist / creationist / literal readings of it, we have literally evidence against it, disproving it.
Like a literal reading of adam and eve - that demonstrably never happened.
Like a reading of a literal global flood - that demonstrably never happened.
Etc

I don't believe claims of magic because magic seems impossible and there is no evidence that it is possible. So I reject claims of magic.
By extension, I reject every story that includes magic.

What am I "making up"?

Do you feel like you are "making stuff up" when you reject claims of your inner Thetan or that Thor exists and slayed the Ice Giants?

You have no reason to deny Biblical prophecies except scepticism that they are true. Sounds like a fallacy of logic. Incredulity.

I have no reason to believe them because there is no evidence.
I don't believe biblical prophecy for the same reason I don't believe fortune tellers, Nostradamus, alchemy, quranic "prophecies", etc.

See, I actually require reasons to believe something.

I define it in a general sense and in a subjective sense.

You think claims and beliefs are evidence. That makes the entire concept of evidence worthless.

Intelligent falling, I like that. Designed so that we fall and don't float off into space.
Believing something else is a choice. It might be arbitrary, I don't know.

The way you are describing it, I can't call it anything but arbitrary.
It certainly isn't based on reason.

When you are asked why you reject scientology, your answer is "because I already believe something else".
If you think that is a good reason to reject something, then I don't know what else to tell you.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You are talking about verifiable evidence, I'm just talking about evidence in general, things which bring people to believe something.

Unverifiable evidence is indistinguishable from mere claims.
It is utterly worthless.

No it's my claim that God has revealed Himself to me.

Which is indistinguishable from what Tom Cruise says about his inner thetan.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Exactly. That's the way it works in universities and sometimes religion.

That is absolutely NOT how it works in universities. Not in proper academic universities at least.
Conversly, that is ALWAYS how it works in religion.

 

[Maninthemiddle]

each person's belief in God is unique to their own experiences and perspectives. Belief in God is a deeply personal matter, influenced by a combination of factors including upbringing, personal experiences, philosophical reasoning, and the search for meaning and purpose in life.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

each person's belief in God is unique to their own experiences and perspectives. Belief in God is a deeply personal matter, influenced by a combination of factors including upbringing, personal experiences, philosophical reasoning, and the search for meaning and purpose in life.

Yes.

None of which yield verifiable accurate answers to questions.

 

[Maninthemiddle]

Yes.

None of which yield verifiable accurate answers to questions.

Obviously.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Yes.

None of which yield verifiable accurate answers to questions.

How is your search for verifiable accurate answers serving you in life?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

How is your search for verifiable accurate answers serving you in life?

Very well.

Saved my dad's life earlier this year, as a matter of fact.

He woke up with a slight fever. We didn't make anything of it. At night he had a swollen foot and could barely stand on it, eventhough he didn't hurt himself in anyway.
Went to the emergency room, they took pics and didn't see anything on it. They gave him a cast anyway and just assumed he had to have misstepped at some point in the day. I didn't buy it and went to another hospital. Turned out he had a flesh eating bacteria in his foot which gave him sepsis, which explained the fever. Went into a coma for 3 weeks and his foot got amputated but he survived and now walks around with a prostetic foot.

If we would have just gone home and took the first doctor's word for it (his assumptions with no evidence), he would have been dead within 24 hours.


Searching for verifiable answers whenever possible, always pays off.

 

[Audie]

So? People believing claim X doesn't equal evidence for claim X.
There are people who believe bigfoot is real. That is not a proper substitute for evidence that bigfoot is actually real.
It is only evidence that there are people with unjustified beliefs that bigfoot is real.


No. Just pointing out that you have don't seem to understand the difference between the words "claim" and "evidence".

Thats because its two words for the same thing
in theoland.

 

[Audie]

Very well.

Saved my dad's life earlier this year, as a matter of fact.

He woke up with a slight fever. We didn't make anything of it. At night he had a swollen foot and could barely stand on it, eventhough he didn't hurt himself in anyway.
Went to the emergency room, they took pics and didn't see anything on it. They gave him a cast anyway and just assumed he had to have misstepped at some point in the day. I didn't buy it and went to another hospital. Turned out he had a flesh eating bacteria in his foot which gave him sepsis, which explained the fever. Went into a coma for 3 weeks and his foot got amputated but he survived and now walks around with a prostetic foot.

If we would have just gone home and took the first doctor's word for it (his assumptions with no evidence), he would have been dead within 24 hours.


Searching for verifiable answers whenever possible, always pays off.

It's insane not to seek reliable sources,
cross check, verify,whenever possible.

Even creationists won't consult the garage man
on tax preparation or heart surgery.

 

[Audie]

each person's belief in God is unique to their own experiences and perspectives. Belief in God is a deeply personal matter, influenced by a combination of factors including upbringing, personal experiences, philosophical reasoning, and the search for meaning and purpose in life.

Not really.

 

[Maninthemiddle]

Not really

Do you have an opinion to share.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Yes that is my opinion

Yes it is. And it doesn't match with what we find in the Bible. You've just made it up. And it seems that is because you realize that there is no science demonstrating there was ever a global flood. The problem is, if we view the flood as a local one, the story doesn't make any sense.

Sorry, I meant that the story does not mention "angels".

No it doesn't. You brought up angels in some attempt to make the story make sense.

But yes the story does not reflect how science had determined the evolution of language and if that determination is correct then the Tower of Babel story is wrong.
But whether we see the Tower of Babel story as referring to all languages in the world or to just the languages in that local land after the local flood is determined by our view of the flood, which imo can be read to be a large local flood,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, something which is confirmed imo by the story of Gilgamesh.

It's a just-so story written by people who were trying to figure out the world around them. It is not based in reality.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Very well.

Saved my dad's life earlier this year, as a matter of fact.

He woke up with a slight fever. We didn't make anything of it. At night he had a swollen foot and could barely stand on it, eventhough he didn't hurt himself in anyway.
Went to the emergency room, they took pics and didn't see anything on it. They gave him a cast anyway and just assumed he had to have misstepped at some point in the day. I didn't buy it and went to another hospital. Turned out he had a flesh eating bacteria in his foot which gave him sepsis, which explained the fever. Went into a coma for 3 weeks and his foot got amputated but he survived and now walks around with a prostetic foot.

If we would have just gone home and took the first doctor's word for it (his assumptions with no evidence), he would have been dead within 24 hours.


Searching for verifiable answers whenever possible, always pays off.

Great outcome for your dad, but not particularly relevant to the subject of this thread.

 

[SkepticThinker]

You are talking about verifiable evidence, I'm just talking about evidence in general, things which bring people to believe something.

What good is evidence if it's not verifiable????

What you are talking about is not evidence. You are talking about faith. As I've pointed out umpteen times now. And also as demonstrated, that is not a reliable pathway to truth, because anything can be believed on faith.

No it's my claim that God has revealed Himself to me.

Yes. It's also your claim that such revelations are undetectable, but that you've managed to detect them. You just can't show anybody how and you can't even explain what it is.

Sorry.

No need for apologies. I just need you to realize how reason and logic work and that you don't get to shirk your burden of proof onto others because you can't show how you're detecting undetectable things.

 

[SkepticThinker]

How can a book that we know is a fiction, be evidence for wizards?

This is your post I was responding to:
"The Bible has always been evidence for the Bible God.
But it is not evidence for the Bible God if you say that there is no God and are not open to the stories of people in history."

We're just following your line of logic here. If the above is our methodology, then we could conclude that Harry Potter books are evidence for the existence of wizards.

We don't know that the Bible isn't a work of fiction. It's just your assumption that it's all true, as written. Because you have an a priori belief that it's all true.

I'm trying to point out that your methodology for determining what is true and what is false (when it comes to your religious beliefs) is severely lacking because it hangs too much on faith and not enough on evidence. You wave away my claim about wizards because you claim well, everybody knows that's a work of fiction, as though we've determined that the Bible isn't. When that is not the case at all.

 

[Audie]

I didn't ignore anything of relevance.



So you agree that "faith" is not a pathway to truth and that on "faith" you can literally believe anything?
Cool.

However, it doesn't bode well for your faith based claims.



Please support that statement. Tell me what my supposed "faith" is. If it turns out you are correct, I will thank you and instantly stop doing it.
However, I expect nothing but strawmen. Prove me wrong.


What way?

Welll... not "nothing" else.

The premise was the ever- idiotic and
super annoying equivocation game
the theos play with the word "faith".

 

[Audie]

It is certainly a good idea to examine our beliefs when we grow up to be an adult. I guess teenage rebellion can have a good effect of the teens examining things for themselves and should not be suppressed completely.

By "examine"- going by performance here-
you mean only to recognize they exist, and,
bitterly cling to them 100% no matter what.

 

[Audie]

Do you have an opinion to share.

No. It's not a opinion that
"each person" would include me .

Except it doesnt