1robin
Christian/Baptist
I do not debate posters used as place holders for where actual claims or counter claims should go.
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What proof do you have of God?
- Thread starter Ashir
- Start date
You rather set yourself up for all the trite replies by demanding debating skills. Hence you got debate rather than meaningful argument. The 'proof of God' question is inherently weak because it asks us to frame the God question in a scientific context and, as religion, it is inherently not scientifically provable.
I approach the question from another perspective. Science is itself a system of beliefs. Scientists claim otherwise, insisting that they are merely open-mindedly testing hypotheses, which they will discard as soon as disproven. The history of science says otherwise. Because scientists are human like the rest of us, they are just as prone to 'believing' (eg: most reputable 'scientists' once believed the earth was flat and, more recently, there have been repeated examples of the scientific community clinging to knowledge which turned out to be baseless). So what... if we recognise that, as rats in the maze, we can never know the true nature of the maze then we can only choose what we will believe. The scientists have an edifice of causality and reproducibility upon which their beliefs sit, and using scientific tools has aided humankind greatly in material areas. The religious community has an edifice of revelation which they rely on and which has brought great spiritual benefits. So I say, embrace both science and religion to the extent they are credible and useful (not provable). Belief in God has been systemised a lot more thoroughly over the last millennia than has science, so it naturally has a much longer history of infiltrated hypocrisy, corruption, and emotional superstition which tends to undermine its credibility. The search for belief, or otherwise, in the existence of God comes down therefore to recognising the context of that search which is 1) We are biased against seeing God as credible because our 'belief' in science is to the exclusion of anything being beyond science (we are conditioned to accept scientific method as the only validated path to truth), and 2) Any thinking person will be repelled by the excesses committed in the name of religion, and will find it difficult to discover a God among the heavily publicised Jihads, sodomite Priests, and so on.
Therefore, I accept that my bias is to disbelieve in a God, then look at the alternatives:
1. Believe in nothing. My brother claims to be following this nihilistic path. I think it is illusional because, when I press him, he has deep beliefs. For example: He believes quite passionately that when he dies his existence stops. He is profoundly unhappy, and leads a life of low involvement, as he sees no point to effort, but he has a smug satisfaction in his certainty that he is right, and the 'believers' are fooling themselves.
2. Believe in esoteric higher social values. This beehive approach says that even though my life has no future, the human species will continue to develop through my contribution. That attempt to create meaning is all very well but it abrogates the individual as thoroughly as does nihilism, and the long term payoff is still nothingness (eg: Taken to its logical end, the solar system will still explode in a few Billion years, and all the effort will have been wasted).
3. Believe in continuity of personal existence. I see this as the only useful assumption to live by. If I start with this assumption, I must assume that I am some sort of eternal soul passing through or even creating my world or I was created by some other being which had the power to make me as an ongoing being. For many reasons beyond this short posting, I find the latter explanation both more credible and more useful (though less appealing... nominating myself as God would be so much easier!).
So, I make no claim to prove 'scientifically' that God exists... in fact I claim it can't be done. But I find God the most credible and useful explanation for my existence.
I approach the question from another perspective. Science is itself a system of beliefs. Scientists claim otherwise, insisting that they are merely open-mindedly testing hypotheses, which they will discard as soon as disproven. The history of science says otherwise. Because scientists are human like the rest of us, they are just as prone to 'believing' (eg: most reputable 'scientists' once believed the earth was flat and, more recently, there have been repeated examples of the scientific community clinging to knowledge which turned out to be baseless). So what... if we recognise that, as rats in the maze, we can never know the true nature of the maze then we can only choose what we will believe. The scientists have an edifice of causality and reproducibility upon which their beliefs sit, and using scientific tools has aided humankind greatly in material areas. The religious community has an edifice of revelation which they rely on and which has brought great spiritual benefits. So I say, embrace both science and religion to the extent they are credible and useful (not provable). Belief in God has been systemised a lot more thoroughly over the last millennia than has science, so it naturally has a much longer history of infiltrated hypocrisy, corruption, and emotional superstition which tends to undermine its credibility. The search for belief, or otherwise, in the existence of God comes down therefore to recognising the context of that search which is 1) We are biased against seeing God as credible because our 'belief' in science is to the exclusion of anything being beyond science (we are conditioned to accept scientific method as the only validated path to truth), and 2) Any thinking person will be repelled by the excesses committed in the name of religion, and will find it difficult to discover a God among the heavily publicised Jihads, sodomite Priests, and so on.
Therefore, I accept that my bias is to disbelieve in a God, then look at the alternatives:
1. Believe in nothing. My brother claims to be following this nihilistic path. I think it is illusional because, when I press him, he has deep beliefs. For example: He believes quite passionately that when he dies his existence stops. He is profoundly unhappy, and leads a life of low involvement, as he sees no point to effort, but he has a smug satisfaction in his certainty that he is right, and the 'believers' are fooling themselves.
2. Believe in esoteric higher social values. This beehive approach says that even though my life has no future, the human species will continue to develop through my contribution. That attempt to create meaning is all very well but it abrogates the individual as thoroughly as does nihilism, and the long term payoff is still nothingness (eg: Taken to its logical end, the solar system will still explode in a few Billion years, and all the effort will have been wasted).
3. Believe in continuity of personal existence. I see this as the only useful assumption to live by. If I start with this assumption, I must assume that I am some sort of eternal soul passing through or even creating my world or I was created by some other being which had the power to make me as an ongoing being. For many reasons beyond this short posting, I find the latter explanation both more credible and more useful (though less appealing... nominating myself as God would be so much easier!).
So, I make no claim to prove 'scientifically' that God exists... in fact I claim it can't be done. But I find God the most credible and useful explanation for my existence.
waitasec
Veteran Member
and to claim you know god exists is a positive claim to knowledge and requires proof..
so what?
prove it. you can't, at least not to me..which is all that matters...to me.
Lynix
Member
ancient egypt culture. But God means who is highly advanced in both mind and soul. All knowing. And that is E.T. ofcourse,god isn't god's name,but Anu is his name. The annunaki,nephilims,nordics,greys,reptilians,etc are all E.Ts species names which refer to word "God" That is the exact meaning of GOD. A word for one's self.
Barrackubus
Residential Occultist
There is no substantial definitive proof of any god. But we can prove somethings and the exsistence.of god outside of faith cannot be substaintiated. This has caused a reoccuring problem for generations of humanity. Our generations will be better served to allow individuals to decide for themselves as to whether a god does or does not exsist. When it comes to matters of things of having faith in the things you are not able to see, let alone prove, doesn't make you a more potent person of religion, no matter what your religion is, but the matter of believing in something that could very well be a figment of your imagination is delusional, they have people locked in psych wards for that. I'm not trying to be disrespectful but matters of divinity lies within each of us, because we can be proven to exsist.
In my perception it's just like Santa Claus, people have an inherent need to believe in something what they percieve as better than themselves, and thus you have the gods of the world.
They need a crutch to depend upon when they do.those things that they feel guilty about, it becomes a way of forgiving themselves for the harm they do, that they know isn't wise to do. People use these perceptions to forge a reality that cannot ever be realized, simply because the more they try to clean up after themselves, there comes along another mess they get themselves into, people.don't need god, they need to be.cured of.their.insanity.
In my perception it's just like Santa Claus, people have an inherent need to believe in something what they percieve as better than themselves, and thus you have the gods of the world.
They need a crutch to depend upon when they do.those things that they feel guilty about, it becomes a way of forgiving themselves for the harm they do, that they know isn't wise to do. People use these perceptions to forge a reality that cannot ever be realized, simply because the more they try to clean up after themselves, there comes along another mess they get themselves into, people.don't need god, they need to be.cured of.their.insanity.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
So from this I gather .....you don't believe in God?
And you declare, believing as such to be ...insane?
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Thief
Rogue Theologian
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jasonwill2
Well-Known Member
As for if spirit or substance came first, I'm not a matter-spirit dualist, so I would say neither.
My beliefs say that the differences between such things is an illusion - between creation and uncreation, it's just two different states of the same thing.
He's arguing from a rather narrow definition of the term, so no.
Adam and Eve, Noah's flood, Tower of Babel and the origin of different languages, wars with Israel, saying Herod was alive when Jesus did X when Herod was actually not King and or dead at the time.
Those are just a few examples of things that do not match up with reality that are in The Christian Bible.
edit: here are a few starts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_criticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_criticism
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html
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1robin
Christian/Baptist
The concept of God in many religions is of such a nature that no mere ET could possibly fill the role. As a side note and to test your reliability, who do you think built the pyramids?
1robin
Christian/Baptist
There is more textual evidence for the figure of Jesus than any other figure of antiquity. The bible is a more reliable text in every category by miles than any other text of ancient history. It has witness testimony concerning God, miracles, and Christ that the greatest expert on evidence in human history (Simon Greenleaf) says meets every standard of modern law and the historical method. What ever arbitrary methods you use to dismiss God would apply more so to every other historical character in ancient history and that would be far more "insane".
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
What evidence is that?
In what ways is it reliable? How can we test it's reliability?
Actually, no it doesn't since, for a start, we don't even know who wrote any of the gospels nor do we have any original copies - so it fails at the first hurdle, really. Also, we already know that many of it's claims about historical figures and events (Herod and the slaying of the firstborn of Egypt, for example) have no contemporary evidence and are, evidentally, based on hearsay rather than actual historical facts - which is compounded by the fact that evidence suggests the Bible was written/compiled at least 70 years after most of the events it describes.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
I am an amateur historian and know very well that anything before writing is guess work and faith. We can not even agree on many events in the cival war. I am a member of the cival war round table and we spend most of our time argueing over every battle and debating every general. They still don't know what the titles are for many of Shakespear's sonnets, or if he actually existed at all. They debate whether Homer was one person, many, or existed at all. Did Troy ever happen, who knows. Did xerxes have 1,500,000 troops or just 50,000, who knows. If you think historians have any idea what happened 6000 years ago your fooling yourself. If the bible is as flawed as you seem to think then pick something that can be realiably verifiable to illustate it. The bible has been proving scholars wrong for thousands of years, good luck. Prophecy might be a good place to start.
waitasec
Veteran Member
1robin
Christian/Baptist
The eyewitness testimony in the bible. Of which, Simon Greenleaf the greatest expert on evidence and testimony in human historyamong many others said meets every standard of modern law. Credentials don't get any higher.
Many ways like the historical method, archaeological corroberation, philisophic consistency, internal consistency, explanitory power and scope, etc.... How do you think they evaluate any historical text?
You apparently are not suffeciently aware of the methods used in textual criticism. It is not necessary to have the originals in order to reliably know what they contained. This can be done if and only if you have widely dispersed and copious amounts of manuscript copies very early in reference to teh originals, all of which the bible has in spades. Even if that were not enough 95% of the new testament can be reconstructed from the writings of the early church fathers. Having a name for an author does not make anything more reliable, scholars support the fact they were reliable eye witnesses to Christ who ever they were. In fact there are very good reasons to believe the traditional authors are the correct ones.
The most respected internet bible study site has plenty of info on the subject.
Blue Letter Bible - Help, Tutorials, and FAQs
Absence of proof is not proof of absence. Ancient history is very old, it is hard to corroberate many claims in many respected books. The bible however does have 25,000 verified historical corroberations and not a single provable false claim. The dates between the events and their recording varies widely depending on book and event. Paul's writings for instance are within 30 years of Christ's death and some Gospels are not far behind. There are very good reasons to believe all of them are very early. For instance none mention the destruction of the temple which occured in 70AD. The bible also records an advantage that if true overcomes any obsticle. It says that the Holy Spirit was sent to bring to rememberance all of the events that were recorded. I can't expect you to just believe that out right but if you rule out the supernatural before hand you are wasting your time discussing the bible. It should be allowed as possible until it is dissproven in order for a debate like this to function.
waitasec
Veteran Member
:spit:
there are none.
what we have are copies of copies of copies of copies based on 30 plus yrs of hearsay...
otokage007
Well-Known Member
Man be reasonable. It's just a book, don't call it "evidence" as if it were something obvious like Newton's theories.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
If the greatest expert on evidence in human history says it is evidence, I seriously doubt your credentials would deem your view more reliable than his. By the way even Newton believed in Christ. He wrote more on religion and with the same conviction than he did on physics.
InfidelRiot
Active Member
Again, yet it will be ignored, there is no evidence of god.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
If you just ignore what I post and repeat the mantra what point is there in my posting anything. There is more evidence for Christ than Ceaser, Plato, Socrates, etc... Yet you do not question them but reserve your judgement only for Christ. Why?
InfidelRiot
Active Member
I question everything. Do not assume to know my acceptance of knowledge. Unless there is absolute, unquestionable doubt of god's existence, then he does not exist. After all, if there was proof beyond a doubt, would it not be true that everyone would believe in his existence?