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

[Polymath257]

And to think it has all the answers and the ancients were stupid is extremely arrogant.

Nobody claims that science has all the answers OR that the ancients were stupid.

We *know* that we don't have many answers. That is why we are trying to *figure them out* by observation and testing.

And we *know* that the ancients were often incredibly smart, even though they were working without many pieces of information we have discovered since them.

But being smart and being right are not the same thing. Aristotle was incredibly smart and initiated many areas of study. But he was almost uniformly wrong about his conclusions. Those who came after him took his views on faith and so didn't question where and how he could have been wrong. Later, mixed with religious faith, his ideas became orthodoxy and thereby a hindrance to progress.

The ancients were frequently very smart, but also very ill-informed. They didn't have the telescopes to learn about astronomy, so they didn't know what the planets were or that the sun is a star. They didn't have microscopes, so they didn't know about bacteria and how diseases are spread. They didn't have accurate time pieces, so they couldn't do precision study of motion.

They had traditional ideas about how the Earth was made (from their religions) and how it was located (at the center, where God placed it), what our places was in it (at the center, so we could learn the best) and how the motions of the heavens affected us on Earth (astrology was an outgrowth of this). They believed the universe to be MUCH smaller than it is (the usual conception would fit into what we now know is the orbit of Saturn) and they thought the stars were pinpoints of light on a screen surrounding the Earth (above which was heaven).

These people were incredibly smart, but they were also working at a huge disadvantage because they did not know how to gain further information that was accurate.

They were smart but ill informed.

 

[Sheldon]

And other archeologists validate the story.

The archaeological evidence is not open to subjective interpretation, and if any archaeologist could falsify the data they would have done so, that is how science works, so I'm inclined to believe that you simply made up a lie there.

Will see at the end at the final exam. This is all just preparation for that Day.

The archaeological evidence supports a conclusion already, Exodus simply is not supported by it. The last sentence is just yet another meaningless subjective assertion.

 

[Polymath257]

Or how you read the accounts yourself. What facts are different? An epileptic seizure changes Paul’s life and even gives Him a new name. Seizure enables Paul to work miracles, write letters of authority and power in Jesus Name. Well is that your view?

Yes. He also discovered a path to fame. Notice how he took over even though he never actually saw Jesus in person, but those around did. many of Paul's teachings are directly opposed to what Jesus taught in the Gospels (who was the mission to?).

 

[Sheldon]

You are alive in one sense but dead in another because you have no spiritual awareness.

I am alive in the sense the claim matches reality and the objective evidence, the rest is an unevidenced subjective believe you cannot support.

 

[Polymath257]

Seizures and hallucinations don’t change a person the same way that Paul’s life was changed so people should rule that out.

They certainly can. I have known people to took LSD and then changed their lives for the better because of the hallucinations they experienced.

 

[ElishaElijah]

Here is a d

The archaeological evidence is not open to subjective interpretation, and if any archaeologist could falsify the data they would have done so, that is how science works, so I'm inclined to believe that you simply made up a lie there.



The archaeological evidence supports a conclusion already, Exodus simply is not supported by it. The last sentence is just yet another meaningless subjective assertion.

I never had any reason or need to look at archeological or scientific reasons for or against my relationship or basis for that because God showed Himself to me and changed me.
Since then other people I’ve shared with have gone that route so I started looking into what they were saying and found that unbelievers saw the same evidence on way and believers another. Here is an example:
Evidence for a Global Flood and Its Importance for Our Times – Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation

 

[Sheldon]

I never had any reason or need to look at archeological or scientific reasons

I could care less what you have use for, as I said the objective archaeological evidence falsifies the Exodus myth. The fact you choose to ignore this has no bearing on the validity of science.

God showed Himself to me and changed me.

Another subjective unevidenced claim, ad I have explained innumerable times that others make this identical claim for their religions and other deities, thus it is not just unevidenced anecdote, but has to be wrong for someone, and since no theists can offer any objective difference I disbelieve all such claims.

Since then other people I’ve shared with have gone that route so I started looking into what they were saying and found that unbelievers saw the same evidence on way and believers another.

This is just a repetition of the previous subjective unevidenced claim, coupled with an argumentum ad populum fallacy.

Here is an example:
Evidence for a Global Flood and Its Importance for Our Times – Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation

That is not a scientific website, it is a creationist website peddling falsehoods and pseudoscience. I'm going to stick with actual science, since creationist propaganda is demonstrably even hilariously false. It's all been widely debunked, much of it on the talkorigns website I linked several times for you, and that you of course ignored. I get that you heavily emotionally invested in your beliefs, but this is blinding you to objective facts, in favour of hokum superstition.

 

[ElishaElijah]

They certainly can. I have known people to took LSD and then changed their lives for the better because of the hallucinations they experienced.

When they saw French fries bleeding?

 

[Polymath257]

When they saw French fries bleeding?

They saw God.....funny about that, huh?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

If you’re saying that the Bible is a myth, Noah’s Ark and the Flood never happened, Genesis is myth, Jesus didn’t rise from the dead then you have misinterpreted the Bible which is the Word of God.

My take is that if you DON'T believe that the biblical writers didn't mean those myths literally, you are taking unjustified liberties. If you don't believe that it was taught that a man named Noah was instructed to build a large boat which saved the lives not drowned by a global flood that submerged all dry land because God was unhappy with his work and intended to correct it, then it is you misinterpreting what the words meant.

I interpret scripture for myself. Why would I or anybody else defer to anybody else's interpretations? Where the scripture is clear, such as it rained for forty days and forty nights, there is only one meaning possible. If one claims that that means anything other than what it says, he has no claim to being correct. Where scripture is vague or ambiguous, and it can legitimately be said that the author may have intended any of two or more ways that those words could be understood, since the author isn't able to speak for himself, the words have no clear meaning. Picking one possibility and calling that the meaning of the scripture is to commit a non sequitur fallacy and generate an unsound conclusion

We do have communion with God and that is available to everyone through Jesus Christ, why continue to live a life of spiritual death when you could be really alive?

I've tried that already. After ten years of Christianity, I left it and found secular humanism. That's when I had my spiritual awakening and realized that I had been living an inauthentic life in Christianity, right after I recognized what an error it had been to have believed by faith, and that this religion had been steering me in the wrong direction. I have been content with that choice for nearly four decades now. And I know from experience that the claims people made for this religion never materialized for them or me.

We can have "communion" with reason and empiricism instead of gods, and it is available to everyone just by eliminating belief by faith. Why continue to live an inauthentic life of spiritual ennui when you can reconnect to the earth and enjoy authentic spirituality?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

A. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

B. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”
‭‭Galatians‬ ‭5:16-23‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

I ask again why one should to go to this resource for guidance? What does one need a belief in "the Spirit" or a holy book for to decide how to live, to determine what brings lasting satisfaction (peace and joy), and what brings unhappiness (hatred and contention)? These are problems one solves empirically, through experience, through trial-and-error, if he seeks the knowledge about how life works. Why would one believe that the bible writers had any valuable insights into achieving that goal?

The Bible continually advises man to think small, to see himself as as inherently sinful and dependent upon a god for salvation, be humble, stand down, turn the other cheek, blessed are the meek, pray for forgiveness, your reward will come later if you'll just accept your lot now without resistance. These are not my values. I'm a humanist. Answers if any will come from man, not gods. Man is potentially noble and able to do amazing things. Whatever answers one can glean will come from applying reason to the evidence of the senses and the imperatives of the conscience and testing these ideas as I described above. Unlike Christianity, this is an enabling doctrine, one which generates a different kind of person, one fit to take his place among men as an autonomous, self-actualized, citizen rather than the powerless subject that this philosophy promotes. It's only the former that offers a path to authentic living, to seizing the day, to self-efficacy. The latter teaches a type of learned helplessness. 'You can't do this without Jesus.'

If I say I’m a believer and my life is full of the activities listed in A. Even you would say no way.

Not I. I don't have a behavior test for Christianity (or any other religion). If you call yourself Christian, then you are one. This is the definition of Christian used by the non-Christian world - anybody who calls himself a Christian is a Christian. It's the definition used to decide how many Christians are in the world. They just ask people if they are. They don't do a survey of their beliefs or deeds like a Christian might do before claiming that a self-professed Christian isn't a "true" Christian.

So, in answer to your comment, I find no inconsistency in saying that a failed person can also be a Christian.

 

[Wildswanderer]

No

The archaeologists who have disproved the biblical myth of Exodus

One has disproven the Exodus... they just haven't found solid evidence. In an area where a jeep can be buried 40 feet deep in 40 years, that's no surprise.

 

[Wildswanderer]

My take is that if you DON'T believe that the biblical writers didn't mean those myths literally

Total nonsense. They would have written them as myths if that's what they were. They didn't. They named real places and things.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Nobody claims that science has all the answers OR that the ancients were stupid.

We *know* that we don't have many answers. That is why we are trying to *figure them out* by observation and testing.

And we *know* that the ancients were often incredibly smart, even though they were working without many pieces of information we have discovered since them.

But being smart and being right are not the same thing. Aristotle was incredibly smart and initiated many areas of study. But he was almost uniformly wrong about his conclusions. Those who came after him took his views on faith and so didn't question where and how he could have been wrong. Later, mixed with religious faith, his ideas became orthodoxy and thereby a hindrance to progress.

The ancients were frequently very smart, but also very ill-informed. They didn't have the telescopes to learn about astronomy, so they didn't know what the planets were or that the sun is a star. They didn't have microscopes, so they didn't know about bacteria and how diseases are spread. They didn't have accurate time pieces, so they couldn't do precision study of motion.

They had traditional ideas about how the Earth was made (from their religions) and how it was located (at the center, where God placed it), what our places was in it (at the center, so we could learn the best) and how the motions of the heavens affected us on Earth (astrology was an outgrowth of this). They believed the universe to be MUCH smaller than it is (the usual conception would fit into what we now know is the orbit of Saturn) and they thought the stars were pinpoints of light on a screen surrounding the Earth (above which was heaven).

These people were incredibly smart, but they were also working at a huge disadvantage because they did not know how to gain further information that was accurate.

They were smart but ill informed.

What you are missing is that the modern science method doesn't answer anything but a few " how" questions, if indeed those are accurate. Faith was needed and still is, to answer the " Why?" questions.
In fact, since science can only calculate from the material universe it makes it impossible to know if it's accurate. Because our minds are part of that universe. If that's all they are, we have no reason to trust our intellects. They would be completely controlled by an unbroken chain of blind causation. We, then, are just fizz in the bottle of the universe and our thoughts are no more under our control than the solar system is. Only if something exists outside of the material can we objectively view the workings of the universe. In fact, it seems that perhaps we can alter reality with only our minds. This is where religion has always informed us... outside the physical sphere there must be another, greater reality that answers the " Why"? questions.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

What you are missing is that the modern science method doesn't answer anything but a few " how" questions, if indeed those are accurate. Faith was needed and still is, to answer the " Why?" questions.
In fact, since science can only calculate from the material universe it makes it impossible to know if it's accurate. Because our minds are part of that universe. If that's all they are, we have no reason to trust our intellects. They would be completely controlled by an unbroken chain of blind causation. We, then, are just fizz in the bottle of the universe and our thoughts are no more under our control than the solar system is. Only if something exists outside of the material can we objectively view the workings of the universe. In fact, it seems that perhaps we can alter reality with only our minds. This is where religion has always informed us... outside the physical sphere there must be another, greater reality that answers the " Why"? questions.

And those "why" questions we answer by making things up.

Not what I consider exactly "good" answers.

 

[Muffled]

I believe I am evidence of God.

 

[Muffled]

I’ve been reading through a couple of threads, and I see that it is said that there is no evidence for a god, it’s an unfalsifiable idea. We all agree on this? If you don’t, care to explain the evidence there is for god?
I’m in agreement. I used to believe my personal experiences to be subjective evidence for god, but I know now that’s not the case. I am not a theist anymore because I recognize I was a Christian thanks almost completely to my environment. That’s why I believed. I was brought up in it. Wasn’t because of any proof or anything,
So, theists, why do you believe? Is it mainly because of your environment and geographical location? There is no proof for god (right?), so what logically keeps you believing? Or is logic not supposed to be a factor when it comes to faith? Is it too jarring, the idea of leaving the comfort that religion and belief in a god brings?
I am curious about personal evaluations on why you believe. It can’t be because of logic, as there is no proof of god, right?

I believe I am curious about what kind of evidence you no longer consider evidence. I wouldn't consider attending church evidence of God.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I would say that Harry Potter is a satanic seminar

Now that is not nice. Harry Potter is far less satanic than your personal beliefs.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I believe I am curious about what kind of evidence you no longer consider evidence. I wouldn't consider attending church evidence of God.

It appears that you do not understand the concept of evidence..

 

[Muffled]

I don't know. It would be up to the believers to find proper evidence for their claims since they are highly unlikely to accept evidence against it. Most do not know seem to understand what counts as reliable evidence.

I believe you are correct. Evidence of God is not scientific evidence and never will be.