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[ARCHIVED] - Evidence Vs Faith
#21
RE: Evidence Vs Faith
So you'd have to preach at me in order to explain, why belief without evidence can ever be rational in any way? Because that's what I've been asking all along!

EvF
#22
RE: Evidence Vs Faith
That isn't a subject for public debate Evie.
#23
RE: Evidence Vs Faith
How are you deciding what is or isn't and what can or cannot be discussed?

This debate was set up so we could settle our differences on matters of evidence and faith. And my main quibble with you is the fact that you believe things without evidence and claim that this is 'rational' or there is 'logic' or 'reasoning' in it....how can you claim such a thing is rational? It has no evidence.

And also, you say that arguments such as the TAG (or other arguments) that Jon Paul and Arcanus have proposed somehow...prove God...which completely contradicts your view of there being no evidence for God. Proof is as strong evidence as you can get.

EvF
#24
RE: Evidence Vs Faith
You know very well that the proof I talk about in relation to JP's & A's arguments are, as they say, 'assuming God'. You're being very petty trying to make a point out of that like I'm saying something contradictory when I'm plainly not.

I have told you until I am blue in the face that my belief is entirely rational, and given every reason why that is so.

Without you actually believing this yourself you are saying you won't accept it.. which is saying that without holding the belief you will not accept it - which is totally acceptable to me, and there's nothing more to be said on that.

To conclude: Yes you won't get it because if you did you would adopt my conclusion.
#25
RE: Evidence Vs Faith
I'm not being petty at all. If it's proof in any way then it's extremely strong evidence. And if all it is is an assumption, then that's like the opposite of proof almost - an assumption does nothing on it's own, and if the arguments are all followed from the assumption, then the arguments do nothing if the assumption has no basis.

Yes, you have told me that your belief is rational. I'm yet to see you explain how it can be though - because you haven't explained why the fact there can't be evidence in your view, means that it's rational to believe without it, despite the fact there's a shitload of things without evidence, that you clearly - just as I do - don't believe in because they have no support, they're without evidence.

You say it's rational to believe in God when there's no evidence, but there are many things without evidence....not just God. So what's up there?

Is it because God is unprovable according to you? Because how can that be the case, if there's other unprovable things too (such as other Gods!) that you don't believe in? How are you rationalizing that?

You say I won't understand it because if I did I'd adopt your conclusion, I could just as easily say the same to you though.

EvF
#26
RE: Evidence Vs Faith
No I can fully understand your reasoning, and have said so many times. I just don't accept it. I know better in my own mind.

You are different to me - you won't begin to let yourself understand (a self imposed restriction) with your proviso that you must have reason to accept the whole thing first.

As we've been over many times, there can be no corroboratable evidence of God. That is the nature of God as we (Christians) can know it, assuming God. It is an entirely rational exercise, unlike most other subjects that can be evidenced, and therefore do not require rational cognition.

So: The assumption can have no basis in corroborated evidence.

God is not just unprovable according to me. It is according to Christianity... a 2000 year old belief that has always held this view. The idea is common across many other beliefs too. Not that that is of any significance, other than to counter your attempt to make me sound like I am unique in holding this POV.

Other gods (as in the definition of other gods) fail to rationally satisfy serious inquiry. Believers in those gods would disagree with me, much the same as you disagree given your standpoint. As I started, I can understand all these POV, even though I don't accept them.
#27
RE: Evidence Vs Faith
(September 6, 2009 at 2:25 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: No I can fully understand your reasoning, and have said so many times. I just don't accept it. I know better in my own mind.

My point was that you say that I can't understand your reasoning because if I did then I would accept it. I'm saying that I could just as easily say the same to you. You say that you understand it 'fully' but don't accept it, but I'm then saying that if you really understood it fully then you would accept it! Just as you say to me.


Quote:You are different to me - you won't begin to let yourself understand (a self imposed restriction) with your proviso that you must have reason to accept the whole thing first.

This has been your own claim. As I have said time and time again, I'm totally willing to consider your views, that's the point of this debate. I just don't accept them as truth because I see no evidence, just as you don't accept mine.

The point has been me asking you why you believe belief without evidence is ever rational, why God is a special case, and why evidence not being possible for him - makes it any more rational to believe in him without it! Why believe at all?

Quote:As we've been over many times, there can be no corroboratable evidence of God. That is the nature of God as we (Christians) can know it, assuming God. It is an entirely rational exercise, unlike most other subjects that can be evidenced, and therefore do not require rational cognition.

So: The assumption can have no basis in corroborated evidence.

Once again, not relevant to my question. As I said, whether there can be evidence or not what I'm asking. I'm asking why you should ever believe without any. If you don't have corroborated evidence, then what evidence do you have? Whether there can be evidence or not is not what I'm asking, what I'm asking is why you believe it's rational to believe in God without evidence.

If you have evidence of any form, what is it?

Quote:God is not just unprovable according to me. It is according to Christianity... a 2000 year old belief that has always held this view. The idea is common across many other beliefs too. Not that that is of any significance, other than to counter your attempt to make me sound like I am unique in holding this POV.

I'm not questioning whether there can be evidence for God, I'm not questioning the provability/unprovability of God - I'm questioning why you think it's rational to believe in God without evidence, when in other cases you believe on evidence. Now you are saying you do have evidence, it's just not corroborated evidence, right? So I'd like to know of this evidence then. If it's not evidence that can be known of, in any way, shape or form, then what are you talking about here exactly, and how is it evidence? It has to just give credence to the God belief in some way otherwise it's not evidence...and if it's not evidence then why are you believing in God without evidence, when you don't with at least many other things? Why believe at all, without evidence?

Quote:Other gods (as in the definition of other gods) fail to rationally satisfy serious inquiry. Believers in those gods would disagree with me, much the same as you disagree given your standpoint. As I started, I can understand all these POV, even though I don't accept them.

One thing all these Gods share in common, is that their believers believe in them, and they believe that they have evidence, or - like you - they don't believe in their God with evidence (or they believe in some 'other' evidence that they have so far, failed to give), but then they at least seem to always fail to explain why it's rational to believe without any, when in at least many other matters they would expect evidence first before believing. They just treat God as an exception.

EvF
#28
RE: Evidence Vs Faith
(September 7, 2009 at 9:02 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: My point was that you say that I can't understand your reasoning because if I did then I would accept it. I'm saying that I could just as easily say the same to you. You say that you understand it 'fully' but don't accept it, but I'm then saying that if you really understood it fully then you would accept it! Just as you say to me.
No I take this from your own words. You actually say you will not accept it until you believe it.

(September 7, 2009 at 9:02 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote:
Quote:You are different to me - you won't begin to let yourself understand (a self imposed restriction) with your proviso that you must have reason to accept the whole thing first.

This has been your own claim. As I have said time and time again, I'm totally willing to consider your views, that's the point of this debate. I just don't accept them as truth because I see no evidence, just as you don't accept mine.
Good then let's move on.

(September 7, 2009 at 9:02 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: The point has been me asking you why you believe belief without evidence is ever rational, why God is a special case, and why evidence not being possible for him - makes it any more rational to believe in him without it! Why believe at all?
Well I've already explained why it is more rational. To explain why my belief in God is rational despite falling outside of the realm of empirical proofs sorta takes me outside of my belief. To ask me to explain something my faith is not takes the question outside of my reasoned stance. This question is your question to answer in regard to my belief. I can try to help you with it and I have many times. To me, as I've said, it is entirely illogical and a ridiculous premise on which to build anything. As a basis for atheism, as I've said, I find it clings to fanciful and marginal assumptions.

When we talk about evidence, we are talking purely the subject of scientific understanding. You have to hold that science describes everything in the universe, known and unknown. And we already know it doesn't describe everything in the known universe, so your base for discussion is completely unsound.
#29
RE: Evidence Vs Faith
(September 8, 2009 at 2:55 am)fr0d0 Wrote: No I take this from your own words. You actually say you will not accept it until you believe it.

What do you mean by "accept" here? Do you mean I won't believe it until I believe it? Are you stating a vacuously obvious tautology?

I am saying I won't accept God without evidence. But this has got nothing to do with my question as to why you believe it's rational to believe in God without evidence. Why believe in anything without evidence? Whether evidence is possible or not.

You said that if I truly understood Christianity then I'd accept it, that's the point. I never said such a thing - you just asserted it, and I could assert the same thing to you, the other way around. I could say if you truly understood these matters then you'd disbelieve because there's no real reason to.

Quote:Good then let's move on.

Good. Lets.

Quote:To explain why my belief in God is rational despite falling outside of the realm of empirical proofs sorta takes me outside of my belief.
Well if your belief is unexplainable, how can you understand it - because how do you explain it, how do you justify it, to yourself?

Quote:To ask me to explain something my faith is not takes the question outside of my reasoned stance.
I'm asking you to explain why belief in your God is rational, why believing on faith, in your faith - is rational, and how it can be if there's no evidence. I'm not asking you to change the definitions, and if you need to change them in order to explain - then how are you justifying it to yourself if it's so completely unexplainable? If you can't explain it to anyone else, how do you truly understand it yourself? How do you justify it as a rational belief?

Quote:This question is your question to answer in regard to my belief. I can try to help you with it and I have many times.
And I appreciate your best efforts.

Quote: To me, as I've said, it is entirely illogical and a ridiculous premise on which to build anything. As a basis for atheism, as I've said, I find it clings to fanciful and marginal assumptions.
If it's a ridiculous premise to require a belief, whether it's this belief or any other, to be justified, to require an explanation, to require support - to have credence given to it: Evidence - then I don't understand how you're justifying that. How is this ridiculous considering this is the only way to rationally justify a belief by definition? That's what explanation is for, that's what justification is for, that's why beliefs need support, credence - and more specifically, that's exactly what evidence is for.

Quote:When we talk about evidence, we are talking purely the subject of scientific understanding. You have to hold that science describes everything in the universe, known and unknown. And we already know it doesn't describe everything in the known universe, so your base for discussion is completely unsound.

No I'm talking about anything that gives valid credence to a belief. If science was somehow proved to be wrong by some other form of evidence, if that happened - then evidence is evidence and it would still be valid. By whatever means, known or unknown, if a belief has valid credence for it, then that's evidence by definition.

By evidence I just mean credence to a belief, I mean valid support to it. And my question is how you can justify a belief without evidence, "on faith", if then by definition the belief has no valid support, so is unsupported, there's no valid reason to believe.

Evidence is the only valid reason to believe by definition, unless you're playing into some kind of Pascal's Wager and you think it's worthwhile somehow. By definition, evidence deals with the truth of the matter. It is what gives beliefs validity. And if you speak of proof, as you have done - then that's simply evidence at its strongest. So however you like to mean it, if you speak of proof it by definition is really strong evidence, and with evidence you can't have faith. So what's up there?

EvF
#30
RE: Evidence Vs Faith
A small request - would you mind putting a carriage return after quoting me/ before your line of text please.

(September 8, 2009 at 6:35 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote:
(September 8, 2009 at 2:55 am)fr0d0 Wrote: No I take this from your own words. You actually say you will not accept it until you believe it.

What do you mean by "accept" here? Do you mean I won't believe it until I believe it? Are you stating a vacuously obvious tautology?
Yeah sorry - I really meant you won't entertain the idea without being able to accept it ...seemingly.


(September 8, 2009 at 6:35 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote:
Quote:To ask me to explain something my faith is not takes the question outside of my reasoned stance.
I'm asking you to explain why belief in your God is rational, why believing on faith, in your faith - is rational, and how it can be if there's no evidence. I'm not asking you to change the definitions, and if you need to change them in order to explain - then how are you justifying it to yourself if it's so completely unexplainable? If you can't explain it to anyone else, how do you truly understand it yourself? How do you justify it as a rational belief?
It's perfectly explainable but every time I explain it you bounce back at me over the evidence issue, which has nothing to do with it. So you see you're asking me to describe what I don't ever address.

(September 8, 2009 at 6:35 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote:
Quote:This question is your question to answer in regard to my belief. I can try to help you with it and I have many times.
And I appreciate your best efforts.
Thankyou


(September 8, 2009 at 6:35 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: By evidence I just mean credence to a belief, I mean valid support to it. And my question is how you can justify a belief without evidence, "on faith", if then by definition the belief has no valid support, so is unsupported, there's no valid reason to believe.
By definition to me, faith is entirely the reason I believe. To arrive at that point, reasoning on a wealth of ideas comes into play. Still the point of faith has to be a leap. Why the leap?

I believe that Jesus is fully God and fully man. How is this possible with reason? The reason lies on the other side of the belief. Believing as much gives you access to God (I'll assume you understand that and the benefits).



(September 8, 2009 at 6:35 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: So what's up there?
The sky



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