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What we mean by "there is no evidence for theism"

rational experiences

Veteran Member
We observe as a conscious human anything and everything.

We choose the subject of a discussion.

We think.

We say in our aware status a human I did not invent by thinking any natural body that exists.

We determine that conscious review as the truth.

Then there is the destroyer theist.

I want invention. Theories to have natural removed from its owned form.

We named that status as a human lying.

One purpose self survival in our natural position.

The intent God owned it taught as a common agreement One. Taught only by humans was so that self destructive human personality disorders were not given permission to achieve their thesis.

Nothing first instead of everything was first. As first. As self theist human presence was first.

Pretty basic human wisdom if your intent is to invent by claiming nothing was first. The outcome was to invent nothing as the result. Cause it.

As everything existed the higher review the natural human non theist review says it means to be destroyed of natural presence.

How just some basic theist descriptions told a confession as the self destructive personality itself.
 

Nimos

Well-Known Member
Could be wrongly formulated but definitely not intended to by construed as a strawman (although I still don't see one). Was simply trying to formulate a way of saying it.

Perhaps you have added a third option... "unknown"?

Maybe the word "random" wasn't a good word. Open to a better word... "chance"?
I was careful not blaming you for making a strawman, so if that weren't your intention that is fine.

What I was trying to explain is that a person, might say that, God is the creator, another one that we live in a simulation, a third that it were aliens, fourth that it was multiverses... etc.

All these falls in the category of unconfirmed theories and all of them could potential be correct or they could be wrong. We have absolutely no good reason or evidence to support any of these. But there is a difference between saying that "it was random" and "that God did it" compared to saying that it is unknown. Because that is what best explain what we currently know, until someone provide good evidence for a theory.

"Chance" is equally as bad, we have absolutely no clue what caused it. It might as well have be inevitable and no chance was involved at all or it could be something we haven't even thought of yet.

The reason being that if we go with the word chance, then the obvious question would be, "How big a chance were it? 10%? 50%?" and how would one answer that, its drawing a conclusion for which there is no basis for. Which is why "Unknown" is the only correct answer at the moment.
 

ppp

Well-Known Member
So a Messenger arrives gives a Message, what testable proof would you ask for?

Regards Tony
No, he is merely a guy claiming to be a messenger. No different than Jesus, Joseph Smith, Jim Jones, Paul, Sun Yung Moon, Mohammed, Marshal Applewhite, or people who have stopped me on the corner downtown. Merely a guy saying stuff.

Adequate proof? How about the alleged being speaking for itself rather than sending messengers.
 

DNB

Christian
At its core, this topic boils down what is meant by "evidence."

I define evidence as "Anything that lets us reliably differentiate between ideas that are merely imaginary, and ideas that accurately describe reality."

So, if you propose some method, framework, or argument as evidence, but that same framework can equally support a contradictory conclusion by replacing some nouns in your argument, then this wouldn't count as evidence. For example, you can propose an eternal necessary god as the ultimate foundation of reality, but I can propose with no more or less evidence an eternal necessary aspect of nature instead, with brute-fact mindless properties that cause it to create the world exactly as we see it.

The best framework for creating reliable evidence that humans have identified is the scientific method. In particular, novel testable predictions that are tested and confirmed. If you think a different method also works, just demonstrate that and it will become part of science.

The scientific method outputs evidence that can support one predictive model while excluding that model's explanatory competitors. A "model" is a conceptual framework about how some aspect of reality works. Evidence is provided when a new prediction made by a model, that no one has tested before, is subsequently tested and confirmed to be accurate. A supported model is more likely to be objectively true than the unsupported models, but note that there is no "proof" or "truth" or metaphysical certainty. It simply has demonstrated that it reflects a deeper understanding of some part of reality.

In science, a very very supported model, which has made many new and accurate predictions, becomes a "theory." While every model is imperfect and has explanatory boundaries, the fact that they can predict things we don't know yet about reality is the hallmark of science and the method guiding its discoveries about the facts of reality. This is why we have airplanes, computers, and medicine today.

So far, theism as a model, as a conceptual framework about reality, has no evidence to support its accurate correspondence to reality. It also has no supporting evidence produced by the scientific method, and so it can't be meaningfully distinguished from the infinite array of other false imaginary models that don't accurately describe or correspond to reality. It could still be true, just like any of the other imaginary models have a tiny chance to be true, but that is a useless possibility because it is functionally zero. Theism in general isn't even a predictive model, just a post hoc sufficient explanation of the things we already knew; its various forms don't typically rise to the level of a testable hypothesis.

From everything I've ever seen, forms of evidence that theists propose are unreliable and/or fallacious. A fallacy is a way of reasoning, identified by logicians, that reliably leads to false conclusions. Another way to say this is that the arguments are not valid in logical structure, or the premises are not sound because they cannot be demonstrated. Here are some common argument forms proposed as evidence by theists, which are in fact not evidence:

1. "I believe that the book is true because the book says it contains perfect truth, and says it cannot be wrong." This is circular reasoning, a fallacy. It is not evidence because any other contradictory book making similar claims is equally supported.

2. "I define morality as coming from a god. We have morality. Therefore god exists," or "I define god as existing necessarily, therefore god exists." Definitions are not evidence. They describe our thoughts about abstract ideas in our heads. This is imagination. Nothing tethers it to the actual facts of reality.

3. "We don't have an explanation for X. I can imagine a thing G that, if it existed, would sufficiently explain X. Therefore this is evidence for G." This is not evidence, but a fallacy called the Argument from Ignorance. For any phenomenon, there are an infinite number of explanations we could propose that would sufficiently explain the phenomenon. The proposal by itself, of any one of these infinite explanations, is not evidence.

4. "I just can't imagine how life could arise without a guiding intelligence. A supernatural creator feels like the most probable explanation." This is an Argument from Incredulity, a fallacy. Your failure of imagination is not evidence, nor is your imagination evidence for reality. If you have an idea for an explanation, you need to show that it corresponds to reality with specific supporting evidence.

5. "I intuitively feel that god exists," or "I don't know how I would get out bed each morning if I didn't believe in god," or "I'm afraid of dying and god gives me hope for eternal life." Emotional appeal is not evidence that something is true. Subjective feelings are not evidence. Different people have wildly different and often contradictory emotional needs, intuitions, and hopes, depending on their culture and personality.

6. "Look at how influential religion X has been throughout history," or "look at how many people believe religion X." This is called a bandwagon fallacy. Different popular beliefs hold sway at different times, many of which are contradictory or have been proven factually wrong.

7. "I had an emotional experience at summer camp that one year, that I can't explain, and I know it was god filling me with love." Again, this is an argument from ignorance. Religious indoctrination primes people to interpret emotional feelings a certain way, but this is not evidence because nothing specifically supports this explanation over any other.

8. "We prayed and someone's cancer disappeared" or "I converted and my drug addiction went away." Anecdotes are not evidence. The plural of anecdote is not data. There is a known rate of spontaneous remission for cancer, which occurs regardless of praying or not praying, or the religion of the patient. It occurs at similar rates in animals that have cancer. Likewise, people overcome drug addition through hobbies, marriage, divorce, and many other routes. There is no data that shows religiosity affects these ailments at a higher rather than anything else.

9. "I found a published paper that says light cures cancer, or consciousness is immaterial, or the earth is flat." Every group of experts includes a fringe minority with ideas that are not accepted by the majority consensus of experts in their field. A fringe view is not evidence. Publication of a finding does not make it evidence by itself; rather, the ability of the published finding to persuade the majority consensus of experts in the field is what transforms this finding into scientific evidence. This distinction, and this appeal to the scientific consensus, is often falsely labeled as a fallacious appeal to authority. However, this is only a fallacy when the proposed authority is not an actual authority (e.g. 90% of dentists agree that the Vikings are the best football team).

10. "I just have faith." Any idea can be believed on faith, therefore faith is not a reliable tool to distinguish false ideas from true ideas. Faith in the face of good evidence to the contrary is irrational.

Ok, that's enough for now! Sorry for the long post, but I hope this can be helpful for people. There are a lot of common arguments I didn't include, but they are also fallacious, unreliable methods for distinguishing imagination from reality.
What you fail to realize is that God is spirit, and in order to discern the evidence for Him we must use spiritual mechanisms. You, on the other hand, cannot seem to transcend your secular and pedantic view of all that is around you. Man's innate desire to comprehend and revere the divine has been evidenced from the beginning of human history, by every single culture and race of people throughout the globe. Stardust and protoplasm cannot produce such an abstract and immaterial dimension in man. Man's desire for regulations and justice, compassion and mercy, love and respect, even when he has no direct vested interest in seeing its fruition (lamenting the plight of victims on the other side of the earth, and sending relief funds).

Equally, science cannot also explain how man, the most intellectual creature on the planet, can act in a manner that defies his intelligence, making him appear as though he is possessed by an irrational spirit - drinking himself to death, racism, gluttony and obesity, war and genocides, etc... For, even the most unsophisticated creatures do not act in such an impractical, unstructured, undisciplined and inexplicable manner that man indicatively does.

There is clearly a spiritual warfare taking place on earth, presupposing the existence of a spiritual dimension in man, and a spiritual realm in the universe..
 

TransmutingSoul

One Planet, One People, Please!
Premium Member
No, he is merely a guy claiming to be a messenger. No different than Jesus, Joseph Smith, Jim Jones, Paul, Sun Yung Moon, Mohammed, Marshal Applewhite, or people who have stopped me on the corner downtown. Merely a guy saying stuff.

Adequate proof? How about the alleged being speaking for itself rather than sending messengers.

Thus why an Atheist offers there is no proof.

Regards Tony
 

RestlessSoul

Well-Known Member
Right. I was describing the scientific method as the best way of producing evidence that we humans seem to have. But notice, my definition of what evidence can be is much more broad. I'm saying theism fails even under the broader definition. Also, I don't think we can choose what we're convinced by. We either are or are not convinced, although we can choose what we want to believe is true.

Producing evidence is one thing, interpreting it another. Experiments often produce outcomes on which all observers agree, whilst lending themselves to a variety of competing interpretations; this is why we have the Copenhagenist, Many Worlds, QBist, super determinist, transactional, relational etc interpretations of quantum mechanics, all extrapolated from the same experiments.

As for each seeing what we want to see, I agree; our past experiences, our values, our prejudices, each help to frame our perspective, the unique paradigm through which we view and interpret the world. To precisely the extent that we are able to leave these at the door of the laboratory, the library, or the temple, are we able to achieve even the modicum of objective judgement of which we humans may be capable. Can you honestly say that you have been more successful than the average religious believer, when it comes to leaving your prejudice at the door?
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Alfred Tarski
At its core, this topic boils down what is meant by "evidence."

I define evidence as "Anything that lets us reliably differentiate between ideas that are merely imaginary, and ideas that accurately describe reality."

So, if you propose some method, framework, or argument as evidence, but that same framework can equally support a contradictory conclusion by replacing some nouns in your argument, then this wouldn't count as evidence. For example, you can propose an eternal necessary god as the ultimate foundation of reality, but I can propose with no more or less evidence an eternal necessary aspect of nature instead, with brute-fact mindless properties that cause it to create the world exactly as we see it.

...

Oh, and please note that I'm not a logical positivist, empiricist, philosophical naturalist, or a proponent of scientism. I'm open to any reliable forms of evidence, and open to being persuaded by any claim if it is supported by good evidence. I also realize that certain forms of conceptual knowledge like semantic definitions, math, and logic, don't require empirical evidence. I don't make any ontological claims about anything. This whole topic is about what counts as evidence, which is epistemology and not ontology.

Well, your 2 posts are too simple, because you run into the following problem. As for the bold sentence itself is it a part of reality or merely imaginary?

Now if you want to tackle that and describe reality, you have to consider all the following problems in philosophy as they relate to the problems of knowledge, because that is what is going on.
So here are the challenges in chronological order more or less.

  • Protagoras for subjectivism/solipsism/relativism as that is what measure is about here: Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not". Remember that one because that one is still with us.
  • Agrippa's Trilemma: Münchhausen trilemma - Wikipedia The justification of anything runs into the following problem of grounding the justification, i.e. how do you justify the justification is correct? Well, apparently it can't done, because it will either be dogmatic/axiomatic, circular or run into infinite regress.
  • The evil Demon as per Rene Descartes: How do you in the fundamental sense know, that you can trust objective reality to be epistemologically fair?
  • The problem of "Das Ding an sich" as per Immanuel Kant: The only property you know of objective reality is that it is independent of your mind.
  • The Is-Ought problem as per David Hume: Relevant to your posts the problem is the following: It is a fact in your system that some people don't have evidence for some of their claims. What ought we do about that?
  • Alfred Tarski and the problem that language is self-referral as per your bold one.
  • The problem that the axiomatic assumptions in methodological naturalism is not the only possible set of axioms or the only way to understand knowledge: Philosophy of science - Wikipedia
  • And finally we circle back to Protagoras and end the same place: Cognitive Relativism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Or if you want it in practice for teaching high-school students: https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12
And now I am not going to be nice. If you are of Western culture, you have in effect ignored over close to 2500+ years of history about what the limitations of the idea of knowledge are. And that is what is the problem with your "tribe/subculture" of non-religious people. You all more less believe that you have solved something, that has never been solved in recorded history.
The difference between you and I are apparently that you think you have solved it, where everybody else has failed and I know that so far nobody has solved it and that includes you and I.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Ok, that's enough for now! Sorry for the long post, but I hope this can be helpful for people. There are a lot of common arguments I didn't include, but they are also fallacious, unreliable methods for distinguishing imagination from reality.
The problem with all of these objections that you listed is the assumption that logic has no limits. And that is far from true.

On the question of 'God', the content is essentially a mystery. 'God' generally referring to the unknown source, sustenance, and purpose of all that is. And this god-phenomenon is therefor essentially a mystery. A mystery that logic cannot penetrate.

If you read all your listed objections carefully, what you will see is that none of them declare the impossibility of these claims being true or accurate, but only the inability of logic to validate or invalidate them as such. And then you are assuming that because you cannot validate or invalidate them using logic, that they must then be invalid. Which is an assumption that is, itself, illogical, and therefor by your own bias; invalid.
 
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mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Not "who". Instead: "what". And the answer is evidence, ironically.


:rolleyes:

And the meta-irony is that the axiomatic assumptions in your system are without evidence. Rather they are your beliefs that allows to claim evidence. I just have different axiomatic assumptions and I know they are not rational, justified, true, with evidence and all that jazz just as yours. The irony is that we get the irony differently, yet the irony is still there.
 

viole

Ontological Naturalist
Premium Member
At its core, this topic boils down what is meant by "evidence."

I define evidence as "Anything that lets us reliably differentiate between ideas that are merely imaginary, and ideas that accurately describe reality."

So, if you propose some method, framework, or argument as evidence, but that same framework can equally support a contradictory conclusion by replacing some nouns in your argument, then this wouldn't count as evidence. For example, you can propose an eternal necessary god as the ultimate foundation of reality, but I can propose with no more or less evidence an eternal necessary aspect of nature instead, with brute-fact mindless properties that cause it to create the world exactly as we see it.

The best framework for creating reliable evidence that humans have identified is the scientific method. In particular, novel testable predictions that are tested and confirmed. If you think a different method also works, just demonstrate that and it will become part of science.

The scientific method outputs evidence that can support one predictive model while excluding that model's explanatory competitors. A "model" is a conceptual framework about how some aspect of reality works. Evidence is provided when a new prediction made by a model, that no one has tested before, is subsequently tested and confirmed to be accurate. A supported model is more likely to be objectively true than the unsupported models, but note that there is no "proof" or "truth" or metaphysical certainty. It simply has demonstrated that it reflects a deeper understanding of some part of reality.

In science, a very very supported model, which has made many new and accurate predictions, becomes a "theory." While every model is imperfect and has explanatory boundaries, the fact that they can predict things we don't know yet about reality is the hallmark of science and the method guiding its discoveries about the facts of reality. This is why we have airplanes, computers, and medicine today.

So far, theism as a model, as a conceptual framework about reality, has no evidence to support its accurate correspondence to reality. It also has no supporting evidence produced by the scientific method, and so it can't be meaningfully distinguished from the infinite array of other false imaginary models that don't accurately describe or correspond to reality. It could still be true, just like any of the other imaginary models have a tiny chance to be true, but that is a useless possibility because it is functionally zero. Theism in general isn't even a predictive model, just a post hoc sufficient explanation of the things we already knew; its various forms don't typically rise to the level of a testable hypothesis.

From everything I've ever seen, forms of evidence that theists propose are unreliable and/or fallacious. A fallacy is a way of reasoning, identified by logicians, that reliably leads to false conclusions. Another way to say this is that the arguments are not valid in logical structure, or the premises are not sound because they cannot be demonstrated. Here are some common argument forms proposed as evidence by theists, which are in fact not evidence:

1. "I believe that the book is true because the book says it contains perfect truth, and says it cannot be wrong." This is circular reasoning, a fallacy. It is not evidence because any other contradictory book making similar claims is equally supported.

2. "I define morality as coming from a god. We have morality. Therefore god exists," or "I define god as existing necessarily, therefore god exists." Definitions are not evidence. They describe our thoughts about abstract ideas in our heads. This is imagination. Nothing tethers it to the actual facts of reality.

3. "We don't have an explanation for X. I can imagine a thing G that, if it existed, would sufficiently explain X. Therefore this is evidence for G." This is not evidence, but a fallacy called the Argument from Ignorance. For any phenomenon, there are an infinite number of explanations we could propose that would sufficiently explain the phenomenon. The proposal by itself, of any one of these infinite explanations, is not evidence.

4. "I just can't imagine how life could arise without a guiding intelligence. A supernatural creator feels like the most probable explanation." This is an Argument from Incredulity, a fallacy. Your failure of imagination is not evidence, nor is your imagination evidence for reality. If you have an idea for an explanation, you need to show that it corresponds to reality with specific supporting evidence.

5. "I intuitively feel that god exists," or "I don't know how I would get out bed each morning if I didn't believe in god," or "I'm afraid of dying and god gives me hope for eternal life." Emotional appeal is not evidence that something is true. Subjective feelings are not evidence. Different people have wildly different and often contradictory emotional needs, intuitions, and hopes, depending on their culture and personality.

6. "Look at how influential religion X has been throughout history," or "look at how many people believe religion X." This is called a bandwagon fallacy. Different popular beliefs hold sway at different times, many of which are contradictory or have been proven factually wrong.

7. "I had an emotional experience at summer camp that one year, that I can't explain, and I know it was god filling me with love." Again, this is an argument from ignorance. Religious indoctrination primes people to interpret emotional feelings a certain way, but this is not evidence because nothing specifically supports this explanation over any other.

8. "We prayed and someone's cancer disappeared" or "I converted and my drug addiction went away." Anecdotes are not evidence. The plural of anecdote is not data. There is a known rate of spontaneous remission for cancer, which occurs regardless of praying or not praying, or the religion of the patient. It occurs at similar rates in animals that have cancer. Likewise, people overcome drug addition through hobbies, marriage, divorce, and many other routes. There is no data that shows religiosity affects these ailments at a higher rather than anything else.

9. "I found a published paper that says light cures cancer, or consciousness is immaterial, or the earth is flat." Every group of experts includes a fringe minority with ideas that are not accepted by the majority consensus of experts in their field. A fringe view is not evidence. Publication of a finding does not make it evidence by itself; rather, the ability of the published finding to persuade the majority consensus of experts in the field is what transforms this finding into scientific evidence. This distinction, and this appeal to the scientific consensus, is often falsely labeled as a fallacious appeal to authority. However, this is only a fallacy when the proposed authority is not an actual authority (e.g. 90% of dentists agree that the Vikings are the best football team).

10. "I just have faith." Any idea can be believed on faith, therefore faith is not a reliable tool to distinguish false ideas from true ideas. Faith in the face of good evidence to the contrary is irrational.

Ok, that's enough for now! Sorry for the long post, but I hope this can be helpful for people. There are a lot of common arguments I didn't include, but they are also fallacious, unreliable methods for distinguishing imagination from reality.
Well, I think there is plenty of decisive evidence for theism.

Ciao

- viole
 

HonestJoe

Well-Known Member
Leta try this example as to a proof of God.
You didn't present an example of proof, you asked a question of what proof would be asked for. Do you not have an answer to that question already?

The fundamental thing you're missing here is that you can't provide proof (or, more relevantly, even evidence) for "God" because that singular word isn't clearly defined - it means lots of different things to different people (even people who think they believe the same thing :cool: ).

What you first need is a formally defined hypothesis. You need to say exactly what you're saying this "God" is, does and causes. That hypothesis should naturally lead on to evidence which could (theoretically at least) be tested for.
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
If the evidence is consistent with both views, then to figure it out conclusively, you'd need something more to choose one view over the other.

As a tentative conclusion in the meantime, Occam's Razor applies: if you have a hypothesis consistent with the evidence that doesn't require an "author," then it wouldn't be reasonable to assume an "author" must exist.
I think you are misusing OR.

You can justify reaching for a "tentative conclusion" if it will possibly lead to the truth. For example, the mundane explanation for a crop circle is that it is a creative, manmade, hoax which can be investigated, so OR is useful applied to crop circles.

But, when there's no practical use for it, OR isn't properly used as an excuse to jump to a conclusion lacking evidence.
 

rational experiences

Veteran Member
Who seeks God?

Science does.

Their theism I want all power known as everything and a non stop resource.

Pretty basic known human answer.

So they want God to remove god.

Another basic answer.

Yet God is a thought only.

Science knows science by all human being thoughts thought using human consciousness. We know ourselves.

Science says science is wrong.

So you look at theism.

Men said I want what I cannot define.

In conscious observation it is dark clear space fathomless.

Yet they are living consciousness.

God to them is the immaculate cold clear dark space.

They say I want to time travel back in time to want it. To obtain it knowing once the immaculate earth clear gas was not burning.

So they quote back in time consciously is the highest state.

Fathomless space. The thought of it.

Which to consciousness was the immaculate heavens before the sun burning.

Yet back in time cold alight gases now cooled were burning gases first. Not the immaculate study it is day light first. Also cold now. Why theism does not exist.

Then before burning it was just the immaculate. What the research thesis is.

Is what the theist in consciousness is seeking. As consciousness. As you cannot theory anywhere else.

Back to the burn is first. Just on earth in our heavens.

To earth as man's god back to the burn is a sin nothing hole. Another thesis notified consciously.

All concluded thought thesis is self evident by just a living human consciousness only where it lived. On earth the God named by men only.

Is who science says wants to burn us to death by lying in conscious theism.
 

sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
At its core, this topic boils down what is meant by "evidence."

I define evidence as "Anything that lets us reliably differentiate between ideas that are merely imaginary, and ideas that accurately describe reality."

So, if you propose some method, framework, or argument as evidence, but that same framework can equally support a contradictory conclusion by replacing some nouns in your argument, then this wouldn't count as evidence. For example, you can propose an eternal necessary god as the ultimate foundation of reality, but I can propose with no more or less evidence an eternal necessary aspect of nature instead, with brute-fact mindless properties that cause it to create the world exactly as we see it.

The best framework for creating reliable evidence that humans have identified is the scientific method. In particular, novel testable predictions that are tested and confirmed. If you think a different method also works, just demonstrate that and it will become part of science.

The scientific method outputs evidence that can support one predictive model while excluding that model's explanatory competitors. A "model" is a conceptual framework about how some aspect of reality works. Evidence is provided when a new prediction made by a model, that no one has tested before, is subsequently tested and confirmed to be accurate. A supported model is more likely to be objectively true than the unsupported models, but note that there is no "proof" or "truth" or metaphysical certainty. It simply has demonstrated that it reflects a deeper understanding of some part of reality.

In science, a very very supported model, which has made many new and accurate predictions, becomes a "theory." While every model is imperfect and has explanatory boundaries, the fact that they can predict things we don't know yet about reality is the hallmark of science and the method guiding its discoveries about the facts of reality. This is why we have airplanes, computers, and medicine today.

So far, theism as a model, as a conceptual framework about reality, has no evidence to support its accurate correspondence to reality. It also has no supporting evidence produced by the scientific method, and so it can't be meaningfully distinguished from the infinite array of other false imaginary models that don't accurately describe or correspond to reality. It could still be true, just like any of the other imaginary models have a tiny chance to be true, but that is a useless possibility because it is functionally zero. Theism in general isn't even a predictive model, just a post hoc sufficient explanation of the things we already knew; its various forms don't typically rise to the level of a testable hypothesis.

From everything I've ever seen, forms of evidence that theists propose are unreliable and/or fallacious. A fallacy is a way of reasoning, identified by logicians, that reliably leads to false conclusions. Another way to say this is that the arguments are not valid in logical structure, or the premises are not sound because they cannot be demonstrated. Here are some common argument forms proposed as evidence by theists, which are in fact not evidence:

1. "I believe that the book is true because the book says it contains perfect truth, and says it cannot be wrong." This is circular reasoning, a fallacy. It is not evidence because any other contradictory book making similar claims is equally supported.

2. "I define morality as coming from a god. We have morality. Therefore god exists," or "I define god as existing necessarily, therefore god exists." Definitions are not evidence. They describe our thoughts about abstract ideas in our heads. This is imagination. Nothing tethers it to the actual facts of reality.

3. "We don't have an explanation for X. I can imagine a thing G that, if it existed, would sufficiently explain X. Therefore this is evidence for G." This is not evidence, but a fallacy called the Argument from Ignorance. For any phenomenon, there are an infinite number of explanations we could propose that would sufficiently explain the phenomenon. The proposal by itself, of any one of these infinite explanations, is not evidence.

4. "I just can't imagine how life could arise without a guiding intelligence. A supernatural creator feels like the most probable explanation." This is an Argument from Incredulity, a fallacy. Your failure of imagination is not evidence, nor is your imagination evidence for reality. If you have an idea for an explanation, you need to show that it corresponds to reality with specific supporting evidence.

5. "I intuitively feel that god exists," or "I don't know how I would get out bed each morning if I didn't believe in god," or "I'm afraid of dying and god gives me hope for eternal life." Emotional appeal is not evidence that something is true. Subjective feelings are not evidence. Different people have wildly different and often contradictory emotional needs, intuitions, and hopes, depending on their culture and personality.

6. "Look at how influential religion X has been throughout history," or "look at how many people believe religion X." This is called a bandwagon fallacy. Different popular beliefs hold sway at different times, many of which are contradictory or have been proven factually wrong.

7. "I had an emotional experience at summer camp that one year, that I can't explain, and I know it was god filling me with love." Again, this is an argument from ignorance. Religious indoctrination primes people to interpret emotional feelings a certain way, but this is not evidence because nothing specifically supports this explanation over any other.

8. "We prayed and someone's cancer disappeared" or "I converted and my drug addiction went away." Anecdotes are not evidence. The plural of anecdote is not data. There is a known rate of spontaneous remission for cancer, which occurs regardless of praying or not praying, or the religion of the patient. It occurs at similar rates in animals that have cancer. Likewise, people overcome drug addition through hobbies, marriage, divorce, and many other routes. There is no data that shows religiosity affects these ailments at a higher rather than anything else.

9. "I found a published paper that says light cures cancer, or consciousness is immaterial, or the earth is flat." Every group of experts includes a fringe minority with ideas that are not accepted by the majority consensus of experts in their field. A fringe view is not evidence. Publication of a finding does not make it evidence by itself; rather, the ability of the published finding to persuade the majority consensus of experts in the field is what transforms this finding into scientific evidence. This distinction, and this appeal to the scientific consensus, is often falsely labeled as a fallacious appeal to authority. However, this is only a fallacy when the proposed authority is not an actual authority (e.g. 90% of dentists agree that the Vikings are the best football team).

10. "I just have faith." Any idea can be believed on faith, therefore faith is not a reliable tool to distinguish false ideas from true ideas. Faith in the face of good evidence to the contrary is irrational.

Ok, that's enough for now! Sorry for the long post, but I hope this can be helpful for people. There are a lot of common arguments I didn't include, but they are also fallacious, unreliable methods for distinguishing imagination from reality.
Is there evidence out there that conscious experiences exist according to your definition?
 

rational experiences

Veteran Member
If men did not use machines by their owned constant thought control all ideas are voided.

The human mind was attacked by all machine used designed. The man human caused. Known as mind effects.

As biology lives only inside a heavens science says to a scientist you do realise it is only the living human having the experience. Without the presence living human all effects are voided.

Defined as information.

None of what you believe is experienced by a deceased human.

All status today believed as a scientists experience he says is by a machine.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
What evidence would you even look for?

Here is the problem with the OP and the word reality. It is illogical but that is even build into the standard definition of reality:
-the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.

So the question that follows is, what state of being is an idealistic or notional idea and how does it exist? ;) :D

So the world is a meta-reality of reality and non-reality. o_O
 
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