(January 25, 2017 at 3:38 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: The skeptics are misusing the word evidence. That misuse becomes immediately clear when you look at how the word is used in contexts outside of theology.

EXAMPLE 1:

Harry: The Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series.
Yogi: What’s your evidence?
Harry: They just did.

In this example, Harry isn’t presenting any facts at all. He merely restates the original claim in a different form. This would be a case of a claim being made without evidence.

EXAMPLE 2:

Harry: The Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series.
Yogi: What’s your evidence?
Harry: I heard people celebrating the night of the game.

Here, Harry is presenting evidence from which he inferred the Cub’s win. Since Harry lives next to Wrigley Field, he considers the party in the street sufficient justification for his claim. Yogi could object by saying that the hoopla on the street might have been from Cleveland fans or some random drunks or that people party in that neighborhood all the time. What Yogi cannot say is that Harry gave no evidence.

EXAMPLE 3:

Harry: The Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series.
Yogi: What’s your evidence?
Harry: I was at the game and here’s the sport’s section of the Chicago Tribune from the day after the game.

Yogi really cannot say that Harry’s claim is unjustified although he could still make some weak objections. Yogi might say that Harry’s experience is just personal testimony. Yogi might also call the Tribune article is an Argument from Authority. “Why should I believe that rag?” he asks.

The tooth fairy comparison is saying that all claims about the existence of god are like Example 1. That’s simply not true. Cosmological arguments and design arguments are like Example 2. The evidences presented are general observations based on common everyday experience, such as the orderly and incredibly precise nature of the physical universe. From what is evident, theists apply reason and infer the existence of God. Historical arguments are like Example 3. The evidence presented is documentation from the past in which theists have confidence. Skeptics may think that age and apparent inconsistencies make that evidence unreliable, but it’s still evidence. It’s dishonest for the skeptics to say we are making bald assertions like in Example 1. We have presented evidence. They just don’t believe it justifies our belief that God exists. And it’s okay if they think that. We should have those debates. But the “no evidence” slogan is an attempt to hand-wave away the evidence and the tooth fairy comparison is just a dick move.

Cosmological arguments and design arguments are not like any of those three. They're more like example 4.

EXAMPLE 4:

Harry: The Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series.
Yogi: What’s your evidence?
Harry: I started with the belief that they won. I then looked up quotes from Aristotle which supported my belief and from that I was able to adapt a logical proof showing that they won based on common observations which could be interpreted to support my belief. Based on my own biased interpretation of these observations, combined with an outright rejection of any opposing interpretation, I was able to definitively prove that the Cubs won the World Series.

Most "historical arguments" use a variation of example 4 in which they, also, rely heavily on biased interpretations of events and outright rejection of any alternative interpretation.

(January 25, 2017 at 5:59 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: I must be missing the discrepancies you see btwn Godschild and me. Anyway...how does that work, you ask?

The concept of evil as "the lack of the good that ought to be there" is actually pre-Christian. Plato hints at is, but Aristotle developed it in his Nichomachean Ethics, Augustine popularized it. Today we call it virtue ethics. In order for it to work though you need to accept the notions of formal and final cause.* Formal cause is the notion that it means something to be human, more specifically, things that are essentially normative. Final cause is the notion that some things have desired ends, i.e. a purpose. An analogy might help. A dull, bent and rusty nail is a bad nail. It lacks all the essential features a nail ought to have: sharp, straight and fresh. A nail needs to have those features so it can do the job it is supposed to do. Nails have a right and proper use, fastening wood pieces together, not cleaning your ears. It should be obvious how these notions cannot be reconciled with modern atheistic naturalism. The atheist can list all kinds of facts about human beings, but that says nothing about the right and proper way to live, i.e. values. If there is no ultimate purpose to human life then there isn't anything we are supposed to do. If humans don't have essential natures then there are no general virtues for which they should strive.

*I'm not going to defend those right now since that would be a distraction and beyond the scope.

Oh dear God! There's an ancient, convoluted "logical proof" that you're right! How did I not see this coming???

In the first quote from you in this reply your argument relies heavily on what is "evident". In this argument you want to throw out what is "evident". In both cases you have some logical proof to show why, first, nothing is important except what is evident and, second, nothing which is evident is important. In this case what is evident is that I know people who I could not say one "good" thing about. As far as I can see, there is nothing "good" about them. But they do not compare to Hitler or Stalin. Maybe they're not "good", but neither are they "evil".

And I actually have ancient writings which support me on this. THE BIBLE! The Bible talks about sin as a "stain". Using the "lack of" example, how do I stain my shirt by applying a "lack of" wine? And the Bible clearly states that we need to be forgiven for sin. The narrative clearly lays out "sin" is an impurity which must be expunged through forgiveness. How do you expunge nothing? And using the impurity or imperfection narrative you can actually make a pretty damned compelling logical argument that "good" is actually the absence of "evil". Something which is pure, after all, is that to which no contaminants have been added. Something which is perfect is that which has no imperfections in it. And the Bible REPEATEDLY talks in this narrative, evil and sin being expressed, not as absences of good, but real, separate things.

As for your logical proofs, do you really think the further you go back in time, the smarter and wiser people get? You do realize the collective human race has had an intelligent thought or two since Aristotle and Plato, right? If you put Aristotle, Plato and Einstein in a room together, Einstein could understand everything the other two said, but they wouldn't have a clue what he was talking about most of the time. All of these logical proofs you're digging up from hundreds of years ago, these people were not more learned, more intelligent or more wise than the great minds of the 20th century or today. In fact, in every case, they are less learned, less intelligent and less wise, without exception. You simply are not going to be able to dig up some great wisdom from the past which in any way trumps the wisdom of today. If you have to go 800 years into the past to find your "evidence", to a time when superstition reigned supreme, to a time more than 400 years BEFORE even the superstitious beliefs in Salem allowed people to be horribly murdered on ridiculous claims we wouldn't even consider today then you are going to come up with shit. You just are. I'll take what Hawking knows over what Plato knew any time. Hawking knows everything Plato knew PLUS another 2,400 years of accumulated human knowledge. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but scientists today know a shitload more than philosophers from a millennium or two ago.

---

(January 26, 2017 at 3:21 am)Godschild Wrote: We could play this silly game for many posts but, I don't want to nor do I think it's helpful. So I'll explain, I've said it many times before I have a personal relationship with God, I've seen His work in my life and other lives. He speaks to me through the Bible and on occasion directly. He has never lied to me and He has shown me things that can in no way be coincidental, so I have no reason to doubt who He is.

One question, how do you know he's never lied to you? It's easy to lie to yourself. If "he" is really "you" then "he" is lying to you right now.

(January 26, 2017 at 3:21 am)Godschild Wrote:

(January 26, 2017 at 2:09 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: No answer then.  Sad.  So much for you "know" God exists.

We could play this silly game for many posts but, I don't want to nor do I think it's helpful. So I'll explain, I've said it many times before I have a personal relationship with God, I've seen His work in my life and other lives. He speaks to me through the Bible and on occasion directly. He has never lied to me and He has shown me things that can in no way be coincidental, so I have no reason to doubt who He is.

Wrong! You have plenty of reason to doubt, you just choose to remain deluded into believing. It's not a game, and you're deflecting the question shows that you indeed do have reason to doubt, you just won't admit it. You believe what you believe and that's the end of that for you. Just don't fool yourself. You don't have adequate justification for believing you're in contact with "God." You're all bluff and no substance.

(January 26, 2017 at 9:10 am)Stimbo Wrote:

(January 26, 2017 at 1:44 am)Godschild Wrote: How do you know dinosaurs turned into birds, were you there.

GC

I was.

And I know Stimbo was there because some people I've never met but who claim to have known him a long time ago wrote it down.

Besides, when I'm alone and talking to myself, sometimes Stimbo talks to me and . . . shows me things!

(January 26, 2017 at 4:53 am)Wyrd of Gawd Wrote:

(January 26, 2017 at 3:21 am)Godschild Wrote: We could play this silly game for many posts but, I don't want to nor do I think it's helpful. So I'll explain, I've said it many times before I have a personal relationship with God, I've seen His work in my life and other lives. He speaks to me through the Bible and on occasion directly. He has never lied to me and He has shown me things that can in no way be coincidental, so I have no reason to doubt who He is.

GC

---

I've cleaned many chickens and seen directly what goes on in the egg making process. When a chicken is born how many eggs does it have and why? How do you eat the yoke without breaking the shell?

GC

So you don't know.

I told you I did but you haven't answered my questions.

GC

---

(January 26, 2017 at 12:34 pm)Asmodee Wrote:

(January 26, 2017 at 3:21 am)Godschild Wrote: We could play this silly game for many posts but, I don't want to nor do I think it's helpful. So I'll explain, I've said it many times before I have a personal relationship with God, I've seen His work in my life and other lives. He speaks to me through the Bible and on occasion directly. He has never lied to me and He has shown me things that can in no way be coincidental, so I have no reason to doubt who He is.

One question, how do you know he's never lied to you? It's easy to lie to yourself. If "he" is really "you" then "he" is lying to you right now.

God is not me, I'm me and I make furniture, God made the universe something I'm not able to do.
I know He hasn't because I see no evidence that He has, besides what reason would an omniscient being have to lie, to lie would undermine who He is.

GC

You have all the critical thinking skills of a dead squirrel, GC.

(January 22, 2017 at 1:16 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: I find it interesting that the same people who say atheism is simply a lack of belief in God balk at the idea that evil is the lack of a good that ought to be.

This is one of the worst analogies I have ever seen.

Furthermore: evil is no more the lack of good than good is the absence of evil.

(January 26, 2017 at 5:46 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:

(January 26, 2017 at 3:21 am)Godschild Wrote: We could play this silly game for many posts but, I don't want to nor do I think it's helpful. So I'll explain, I've said it many times before I have a personal relationship with God, I've seen His work in my life and other lives. He speaks to me through the Bible and on occasion directly. He has never lied to me and He has shown me things that can in no way be coincidental, so I have no reason to doubt who He is.

Wrong! You have plenty of reason to doubt, you just choose to remain deluded into believing. It's not a game, and you're deflecting the question shows that you indeed do have reason to doubt, you just won't admit it. You believe what you believe and that's the end of that for you. Just don't fool yourself. You don't have adequate justification for believing you're in contact with "God." You're all bluff and no substance.

First off the game I was referring to was she says he says.
Second you claim I have doubts where's your proof because I did not deflect the question, I gave you an answer you do not like and you tell me I'm bluffing. Why do you seem to be upset that I have an undeniable knowledge of God, I'm not upset that you have rejected Him that's the choice you have made and live with.
Third one thing I do not do is try and fool myself in anything, that would be a sad way to live, yes quite unreasonable in fact. So do not worry yourself about me I don't hear voices even though I hear God.

GC

---

(January 27, 2017 at 1:18 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: You have all the critical thinking skills of a dead squirrel, GC.

Just why do I need to be critical of something I know to be true, that's a waste of time.

GC

(January 27, 2017 at 12:51 am)Godschild Wrote:

(January 26, 2017 at 12:34 pm)Asmodee Wrote: One question, how do you know he's never lied to you?  It's easy to lie to yourself.  If "he" is really "you" then "he" is lying to you right now.

God is not me, I'm me and I make furniture, God made the universe something I'm not able to do.
I know He hasn't because I see no evidence that He has, besides what reason would an omniscient being have to lie, to lie would undermine who He is.

GC

Perfect!  That means I can know with certainty that he doesn't exist because I see no evidence that he does.  I assume you have no problem with me making the definitive claim now that God definitely does not exist and simply disagreeing with that assessment rather than arguing the point.

And aren't Christians fond of saying things like, "God works in mysterious ways" and "We cannot know the mind of God" and "Trying to understand how God thinks is like an ant trying to understand how we think"?  I don't what reason an omniscient being would have to lie.  I don't know that an omniscient being necessarily would or would not lie.  And if she thinks so much differently than we do, neither do you.

"I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things." - Isaiah 45:7 - New International Version

It should be simple... god is evil... name a few good things god did compare them to satan in the bible and the good satan did.

(January 26, 2017 at 6:07 pm)Crossless1 Wrote: Besides, when I'm alone and talking to myself, sometimes Stimbo talks to me and . . . shows me things!

That was meant to be our little secret. You know what I have to do now, don't you?