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

[It Aint Necessarily So]

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

Based on existing evidence, we don't know how much of the story of Jesus corresponds to an actual and specific person. Certainly, much of it is fiction and possibly all of it. The names Moses and Abraham only appear in stories about them and nobody can say whether these characters had any basis in reality. Regarding the Exodus, absence of expected evidence such as Hebrew encampment in the Sinai corresponding to forty years of wandering is evidence of absence.

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.

Why would a critical thinker believe scripture that is unsupported or contradicted by the available evidence? Critical thinking rejects such claims.

You have no reason to deny Biblical prophecies except scepticism that they are true.

Scientism? Biblical prophecy is unimpressive. It is mundane. It fails in its effort to convince that it represents superhuman prescience. I don't need science to tell me that.

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.

Humanism has had a significant impact on Christian dogma over the centuries, and this is evidence of it. Your beliefs are merging with mine. The Tower is no longer the explanation for why the world contains so many mutually unintelligible languages, but has shrunken to become a local phenomenon. Likewise with the flood. It's become the kind of flood that we know happens rather than one science can disconfirm. Dogma moves to conform with the scientific understanding, albeit with a considerable lag.

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

You've underscored the difference between what the critical thinker considers evidence in support of a belief - namely, the evidence of the senses that can be connected to that belief through valid reasoning - and what you will accept, which seems to be any belief one chooses arrived at by any path.

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

It can't. Nor can such a book be evidence for gods.

I cannot find out if my religious beliefs are right through my senses, but I am convinced by what the Bible tells me and so that is evidence for my beliefs.

You are using a private definition of evidence that includes calling faith-based beliefs evidence. You can keep calling it evidence, but others translate it to what they call such beliefs - faith - and disagree that your faith makes what you believe more correct, which is what evidence properly understood does.

So you use empiricism but cannot say that that is the only way to find the truth unless your world view includes something believed by faith.

There is no faith involved in empiricism. No unjustified belief is necessary to be an empiricist. Empiricism is the only known path to knowledge, and nothing deserves to be called knowledge or correct or true that wasn't determined and confirmed empirically. If you could rebut that, you would, but you can't for obvious reasons. There is nothing you can demonstrate and no sound argument you could make that falsifies that (falsifiable) statement.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

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

It is very relevant to the question you asked me.

If you were looking for something else, perhaps you should ask a better question.
You are free to reformulate and I will be happy to answer it.

 

[Brian2]

I see that I misread that post. The problem with a local flood is that it cannot do what the Bible said that the flood was supposed to do.

I think a large local flood does what the Bible said that the flood was supposed to do. If the translations have "land" instead of "earth" then it does what the Bible said the flood was supposed to do.

 

[Brian2]

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.

What I said it "The nature of the faith might be the same however, a sincerely held belief."

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.

Your faith is that faith is not a pathway to truth.

What way?

Falsifiable evidence as the only path to truth.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I think a large local flood does what the Bible said that the flood was supposed to do. If the translations have "land" instead of "earth" then it does what the Bible said the flood was supposed to do.

People were all over the globe at that time. You could not get rid of all of the evil people with a local flood.

 

[Trailblazer]

People were all over the globe at that time. You could not get rid of all of the evil people with a local flood.

Yeah, but only if all the evil people were in one locality.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yeah, but only if all the evil people were in one locality.

Aah, the ACME cartoon version of evil.

 

[Brian2]

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.

The evidence is not that people believe the claims, but the people believing the claims shows it is evidence, even if not very good evidence.

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

I know what a claim is and know that witness claims are evidence in a law court.
Why do you think skeptics fight so hard about when the gospel was written? Probably so they can say that it is not witness evidence. BUT of course the evidence that they use to try to show that the gospels were made up late in the first century or even in the 2nd century is really bad evidence and in fact is no more than the presumption that the supernatural is not true.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The evidence is not that people believe the claims, but the people believing the claims shows it is evidence, even if not very good evidence.

True it is not reliable or rational evidence. Calling it "evidence" is a bit of an abuse.

I know what a claim is and know that witness claims are evidence in a law court.
Why do you think skeptics fight so hard about when the gospel was written? Probably so they can say that it is not witness evidence. BUT of course the evidence that they use to try to show that the gospels were made up late in the first century or even in the 2nd century is really bad evidence and in fact is no more than the presumption that the supernatural is not true.

Because the evidence is out there for who wrote them and when they were written. m Part of it is the language that they used. You could probably tell the difference in a news article in the 1960's from one written today by the English that is used, The slang. The unconscious references to current events. Those enter into writing.

 

[Brian2]

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

I didn't say that YOU made anything up. But I guess that means you do use Occam's Razor and so should know what you make up after using that. But the original quote about making stuff up does give an example, Biblical prophecy. #6,275
Occam's Razor means that in relation to Biblical Prophecy instead of believing the prophecy was written before event, skeptics believe the prophecy must have been written after the event. That's called making stuff up.

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?

I just don't believe in the inner Thetan or Thor. It gets darker when it is not just a case of not believing it but when the logical fallacy of incredulity is then turned into what is claimed as evidence that the Bible is not true, as in what I wrote about the gospels and the skeptical presumption that prophecy is rubbish gets turned around and made into evidence that the gospels were written too late to have been written by witnesses.

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.

Me too.

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

Witness reports are evidence. Then you can have other evidence for or against what they say. It's easy to understand. Why can't skeptics understand what evidence means?

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.

I have not checked out all the possible beliefs, so that I know of an extended intellectual argument on the benefits and down side of each belief and why I would reject everything else. Initially I reject other things because I already have a belief. That is a good reason to not believe scientology imo. Do you think that I should have said that I also believe scientology or that I should have had an intellectual rebuttal of scientology on hand to tell you?

 

[Brian2]

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

It is worthless in your opinion but most of the world believe unverifiable claims and one of those unverifiable claims might be true.
You say that unverifiable claims are not a path to truth, but that is no more than an unverifiable claim.

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

OK, so?

 

[Brian2]

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.

I think we all say that verifiable answers are good. We don't all say that only verifiable answers can lead to the truth about spiritual things however.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

What I said it "The nature of the faith might be the same however, a sincerely held belief."

Right, so what's the difference?

Your faith is that faith is not a pathway to truth.

No, I can demonstrate that and I already have.
And you in fact agreed to it.

Faith demonstrably is not a pathway to truth.
You don't need "faith" when you have demonstrability.

Falsifiable evidence as the only path to truth.

When have I said that?

What I would say is that falsifiable evidence certainy is demonstrably a way towards accurate answers to questions.
Perhaps there are others, but I don't know about any.

Do you?


I think it's curious how the only way you seem to be able to defend your "faith", is by arguing strawmen.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

The evidence is not that people believe the claims, but the people believing the claims shows it is evidence, even if not very good evidence.

That makes no sense to me.
Sounds like you are saying, like that infamous meme, "I'm not saying it's evidence.... but it's evidence"

Since you say "people believeing claims is not evidence", but in the next breath you say "claims being believed is evidence".
You make no sense.

Either you think it's evidence or it isn't. Which is it?

I know what a claim is and know that witness claims are evidence in a law court.

And it's a horrible thing. As the innocense project shows. Just about ALL falsely convicted people where convicted based on mere claims / testimony.
Your very own example shows just how unreliable it is.

Why do you think skeptics fight so hard about when the gospel was written?

I don't. I couldn't give a hoot about when they were written. I don't think it's relevant.
Although I do agree that the later it was, the lesser reliable it is right out the gates.
But it doesn't actually matter to me at all.

If it mattered, then I would consider the claims of alien abductees reliable. But I don't.
These are people that are still alive and you can go and talk with them and interview them. Many of them will even pass lie detector tests, so we know that a lot of them are actually very sincere and honest about their experiences.

But that doesn't make their experiences real or the claims accurate at all.
So to me, this is only a very small variable with very little significance.

Probably so they can say that it is not witness evidence.

Well, we do know that it's not witness evidence. Any bible scholar worth his salt will confirm that.
But as I said, it's not really relevant to me. Bigfoot spotters are first person "witnesses". Yet that doesn't convince me at all. And likely it doesn't convince you either.
So really, you're just confirming your double standard again.

If "first person witness" is so important to you, you'ld believe a whole load of nonsense like alien abduction, bigfoot, reptilian shape shifters, inner thetans, etc.
But you don't, do you?

BUT of course the evidence that they use to try to show that the gospels were made up late in the first century or even in the 2nd century is really bad evidence and in fact is no more than the presumption that the supernatural is not true.

The presumption is entirely on your end, that it IS real.
This is why you have no problem believing any claim that you feel fits your a priori beliefs, while you will reject at face value any claim about things like alien abductees, inner thetans, bigfoot,... etc

And really, following your very own logic, such claims should actually be deemed as more reliable then those that you DO believe, since they are more recent and the people that made these claims are actually still alive and you can go and talk to them. You don't have to rely on copies of copies of translations of translations of copies of copies of.... translations of copies. You can go straight to the source of the claim and speak with the person making the claim.

Imagine if Paul were alive today, available for answering questions. Instead, you have to rely on the reliability of accurate transmission of his claims over millenia.
But somehow, you think that is more reliable then claims from people that are alive TODAY.


Do you understand how that looks to me?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I didn't say that YOU made anything up.

But you are talking to me, right?
So what was the point of your comment then, if you weren't talking about me?
Maybe you should be addressing the things that *I* am saying instead of what others (supposedly) are saying.

But I guess that means you do use Occam's Razor

When I feel it's appropriate, sure. You do that to, even if you don't realise it.
Occam's Razor is actually a common sense principle. Everybody applies it pretty much by default.

For example... suppose you have an 8-year old son and chocolate cookies are missing from your kitchen. You can suspect your child of having taken the cookies, or you could go with some elaborate hypothesis about unevidenced raccoons or extra-dimensional cookie thieves.
You will go with the hypothesis that requires the least assumptions: your child took the cookies.

Right?

and so should know what you make up after using that. But the original quote about making stuff up does give an example, Biblical prophecy. #6,275
Occam's Razor means that in relation to Biblical Prophecy instead of believing the prophecy was written before event, skeptics believe the prophecy must have been written after the event. That's called making stuff up.

I have never heared such an argument. The usual arguments I encounter against "prophecies" in the bible concerns the vagueness, the self-fullfilling nature thereof, the hindsight interpretations, etc.

I just don't believe in the inner Thetan or Thor. It gets darker when it is not just a case of not believing it but when the logical fallacy of incredulity is then turned into what is claimed as evidence that the Bible is not true, as in what I wrote about the gospels and the skeptical presumption that prophecy is rubbish gets turned around and made into evidence that the gospels were written too late to have been written by witnesses.

But I never made any such argument, so why are you talking about it?
Can you maybe stick to the conversation WE are having instead of dragging in all kinds of things that I never said or claimed?
You are borderlining strawman arguments here because of that.

Me too.

Except when it comes to your religion, it seems.

Witness reports are evidence.

They are claims. Insofar as they are evidence, they are the worst kind of evidence and the least reliable. So much so that it is worthless to distinguish truth from fiction.

Then you can have other evidence for or against what they say. It's easy to understand. Why can't skeptics understand what evidence means?

I understand what it means. The problem is that you have double standards.

I have not checked out all the possible beliefs, so that I know of an extended intellectual argument on the benefits and down side of each belief and why I would reject everything else. Initially I reject other things because I already have a belief. That is a good reason to not believe scientology imo.

I consider that the worst reason. "I already believe something else" isn't a valid argument against anything.

Do you think that I should have said that I also believe scientology or that I should have had an intellectual rebuttal of scientology on hand to tell you?

You should not hold double standards.
If the "evidence" for your religion is good enough for you to believe it, then the exact same kind of "evidence" for something else should also be enough for you to believe those things.

If that leads to contradicting beliefs, then you should question the standard you apply to evidence.
If this type of evidence isn't enough for you to believe 99% of religions out there, then why is it good enough to believe that one religion you do follow?

Your choice of religion becomes arbitrary if you don't contemplate these things.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It is worthless in your opinion but most of the world believe unverifiable claims

Making an argument ad populum?

and one of those unverifiable claims might be true.

How would you know which are and which aren't?
Exactly. You wouldn't.

You say that unverifiable claims are not a path to truth, but that is no more than an unverifiable claim.

No, it is a very verifiable claim.
It is in fact true by definition.
"true" are those things that reflect actual reality. You require some sort of verifiability to see if something reflects reality.

OK, so?

The fact that you have to ask, says it all.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I think we all say that verifiable answers are good. We don't all say that only verifiable answers can lead to the truth about spiritual things however.

Spiritual things are by themselves already unverifiable. So you can't even establish if that by itself is an actual thing or not.

 

[Brian2]

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.

Yes I'm talking about faith. That is what I have been pointing out umpteen times now. BUT your definition of faith is belief that has no evidence and mine is that unless it is blind faith, there is evidence.
So what do skeptics do, decide to have their own definition of evidence and say that not verifiable evidence is not evidence.
Faith is when we have gone as far as evidence can take us and decide from there that something is true or not even though the evidence is not decisive.
It's like people saying that life came from just chemicals when the evidence is not decisive. That is faith.
And yes, that sort of faith is not a reliable pathway to truth,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, but at least it has a chance of being right when it comes to spiritual matters.
There is no verifiable evidence for spirits and God and so wanting to use verifiable evidence for spirits and God is never going to be right if there are spirits and God.
But this is known by skeptics, or should be, but of course it is ignored. Verifiable evidence is treated by them as something that is a legitimate way to find out whether there are spirits or gods.
But maybe skeptics, or some of them, really do think that verifiable evidence is a way to find out if there are spirits of gods.
However they are fooling themselves or have been fooled and have an unjustified faith in verifiable evidence for that purpose.
So if verifiable evidence is not good for finding out about spirits of gods, why do skeptics condemn evidence that is not verifiable for that purpose?

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.

God can reveal things to anyone who is willing to listen.
Yes it is faith.

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.

I'm sorry you don't believe me.

 

[Brian2]

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.

Well I suppose skeptic apologists have been busy for years trying to show that the Bible is a work of fiction, so if you have faith in what they say then the Bible is a work of fiction for you and spirits and God have not been experienced by people of the Bible in history.
But if you just don't know whether the Bible is a work of fiction or not, or whether people mentioned there actually experienced spirits of God then I suppose you are at least open to belief in spirits and God.

 

[Brian2]

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

I examined my beliefs a long time ago and keep doing it, but these days, after so long, I believe more than doubt and finding something I cannot fully explain does not give me the angst it used to years ago even if it is annoying.