Hi there,

One objection nonreligious people usually raise is why a deity would communicate through prophets altogether, or just leave signs. And at face value the objection looks serious, a supposed deity knows epistemology and, a fortiori, what would convince each and every individual to follow some doctrine. But further thought reveals that this is exactly what we have. People are generally more convinced and emotionally moved by models, idols, celebrities, than by dry, heavy readings. A human model is more appealing to human beings than, say, the most impressive fossil finding supporting the occurence of some miracle. And this is exactly what we have, human models throughout history guiding human beings on the right path.

When an atheist asks about evidence, his question entails that all what surrounds him and all what he heard about, like the existence of claims of prophecy throughout history, are not evidence. And when he asks about a logical proof, he ignores the fact that logical proofs in this context only make sense to talk about in some universally valid system of axioms, which doesn't exist. To clarify that, an impressive result in Euclidian geometry, say, for example, the Pythagorean theorem, entails less truths than the five postulates of Euclid. Namely, you can't reach Euclid's postulates based on the Pythagorean theorem.

Therefore, it's not a problem that there is no watertight, universally valid deductive proof for God. The underlying intuition is that God is "too much" to be deduced from a fixed set of axioms chosen by human brains. The only possible evidence for God is of inferential value. Inference by definition seeks the bigger scheme of things based on a small sample, while deduction starts by an already complete list of axioms, choices, hypotheses, etc.

And it's clear that one cannot prepare an exhaustive, universally agreed-upon list of independent axioms, the coherence of which is verifiable, to deduce the most complete being conceivable.

On a side note I would like to hear someone's thoughts on the equivalence between the existence of other minds and the existence of God. A result established recently by Plantinga and others. If one has enough "belief" to think there is an outside world and creatures like himself, this exact inference from a sample of the size of a singleton (only himself) to the entire human population is what he should apply to the orderly things around him to reach a supreme being.

And if one is stubborn enough to reject any inferential value from what we see, then he must accept the unbearable cost: either deny the existence of other minds altogether, i.e. endorse hard solipsism just to deny the existence of God. Or hypocritically acknowledge other minds while rejecting the existence of God.

Condensed version: ‘God is real because I think so.’

Boru

(November 22, 2020 at 2:04 pm)Klorophyll Wrote: Or hypocritically acknowledge other minds while rejecting the existence of God.

But you forgot to say what God. Am I to presume that you believe in all gods? Probably not. So just like you need evidence that Medusa, Krishna, Jesus, or Juju are gods, I need an evidence that Allah is God.

What makes evidence for your God better than those of Mercury?

An all powerful deity shouldn't need a spokesperson, or spokespersons, or books that contain riddles.

The absurd reason(s) for the belief in wish granting magic sky pixies.

Fear, delusion, arrogance, ignorance.

(November 22, 2020 at 2:14 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: But you forgot to say what God. Am I to presume that you believe in all gods? Probably not. So just like you need evidence that Medusa, Krishna, Jesus, or Juju are gods, I need an evidence that Allah is God.

What makes evidence for your God better than those of Mercury?

Well, the term Allah is simply the Arabic equivalent of the word God. It's not like Muslims believe in a deity with radically different attributes than the one christians or jews believe in. There is only one exception and that is the trinitarian God of mainstream christianity. The two other Abrahamic religions believe in the same God. It's the details of how to worship the deity and what prophets to follow that separates religions and sects. Hinduism, on the other hand, doesn't have a clear definition of God to begin with.

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(November 22, 2020 at 2:18 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: An all powerful deity shouldn't need a spokesperson, or spokespersons, or books that contain riddles.

Why not ? People need counseling on much more mundane things, like on how to fix their sleep patterns or eating habits... let alone the most important question of all

(November 22, 2020 at 3:15 pm)Klorophyll Wrote: Well, the term Allah is simply the Arabic equivalent of the word God. It's not like Muslims believe in a deity with radically different attributes than the one christians or jews believe in. There is only one exception and that is the trinitarian God of mainstream christianity. The two other Abrahamic religions believe in the same God. It's the details of how to worship the deity and what prophets to follow that separates religions and sects. Hinduism, on the other hand, doesn't have a clear definition of God to begin with.

Yeah, you are fooling yourself. Neither do you have a definition of God when you say that Islam, christianity and Judaism are the same except minor details which is belief in Trinity. Quran claims that Jesus was not son of God and did not resurrect which is not a minor detail for Christians, but utter blasphemy. And Christians don't think that Mohammed was a prophet, but a liar which probably isn't so negligible for Muslims.

(November 22, 2020 at 3:21 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: Quran claims that Jesus was not son of God and did not resurrect

That's because the concept of a son of God is a ridiculous and logically impossible one. The most famous apologist W.L. Craig tried to defend trinity by mentioning the mythological three headed dog. He says that since the three-headed dog is still considered a dog despite having three heads, the same can be said about the Father, the Son and the HS. But we all know where the laughable dishonesty lies : the dog's head is a damn head, not a complete dog.

(November 22, 2020 at 3:21 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: And Christians don't think that Mohammed was a prophet,  but a liar which probably isn't so negligible for Muslims.

Many christian apologists today actually acknoweldge that Muhammad was sincere. Their main response currently, together with arab atheists, is actually to accuse him of delusion, or some mental disorder like temporal lobe epilepsy. i.e. that all the Qur'an is spells generated by his subconsciousness after decades of contemplating polytheism in Arabia.

Many religions offer up prophets, holy texts, personal testimony, etc. as evidence sufficient for belief. If two different people can believe in mutually exclusive religions based on the same type of evidence, then how reliable is that type of evidence?

(November 22, 2020 at 2:04 pm)Klorophyll Wrote: Hi there,

One objection nonreligious people usually raise is why a deity would communicate through prophets altogether, or just leave signs. And at face value the objection looks serious, a supposed deity knows epistemology and, a fortiori, what would convince each and every individual to follow some doctrine. But further thought reveals that this is exactly what we have. People are generally more convinced and emotionally moved by models, idols, celebrities, than by dry, heavy readings. A human model is more appealing to human beings than, say, the most impressive fossil finding supporting the occurence of some miracle. And this is exactly what we have, human models throughout history guiding human beings on the right path.

That sure is a poor justification for your specific mythology. Or, it is you admitting that you are unable to demonstrate the existence of a god.

Sorry to inform you, but actual demonstrable, falsifiable, repeatable evidence for the existence of gods would be a world changing event. A claim coming from someone that claims to be a prophet, is just that, a claim.

Prophets, of all religions, have come and gone all throughout history. They all seem to be very appealing, charismatic, convincing (to those who don't understand good standards of evidence), yet, while you believe Joseph Smith was a charlatan, all the Mormons believe the same about Mohamed, and we think they were both full of shit. And the interesting thing is, you  and the Mormons give pretty much the same reasons for dismissing the other's prophet, that we give for dismissing both.

Quote:When an atheist asks about evidence, his question entails that all what surrounds him and all what he heard about, like the existence of claims of prophecy throughout history, are not evidence.

Everything that surrounds me is not evidence for a god. It is evidence that those things exist. Now, it is up to those making the claim that gods are responsible for their existence, to provide EVIDENCE. The fact that you are unable to explain them without evoking a deity (which you admit can't be demonstrated), is not our problem, it is a problem of your claim.

Claims of prophets, are just that, claims. The fact that ancient text exist that claim that these people were prophets, barely rises to the level of hearsay evidence.  

Quote:And when he asks about a logical proof, he ignores the fact that logical proofs in this context only make sense to talk about in some universally valid system of axioms, which doesn't exist. To clarify that, an impressive result in Euclidian geometry, say, for example, the Pythagorean theorem, entails less truths than the five postulates of Euclid. Namely, you can't reach Euclid's postulates based on the Pythagorean theorem.


Therefore, it's not a problem that there is no watertight, universally valid deductive proof for God. The underlying intuition is that God is "too much" to be deduced from a fixed set of axioms chosen by human brains. The only possible evidence for God is of inferential value. Inference by definition seeks the bigger scheme of things based on a small sample, while deduction starts by an already complete list of axioms, choices, hypotheses, etc.


And it's clear that one cannot prepare an exhaustive, universally agreed-upon list of independent axioms, the coherence of which is verifiable, to deduce the most complete being conceivable.

On a side note I would like to hear someone's thoughts on the equivalence between the existence of other minds and the existence of God. A result established recently by Plantinga and others. If one has enough "belief" to think there is an outside world and creatures like himself, this exact inference from a sample of the size of a singleton (only himself) to the entire human population is what he should apply to the orderly things around him to reach a supreme being.

All this sure seems like a long winded way of saying, that you are unable to demonstrate the existence of a god.

Yes, we agree.

Then the next question is, without demonstrable, falsifiable evidence, and valid and sound logic to support the claim that a god exists, what should our justification be to accept the claim?

Quote:And if one is stubborn enough to reject any inferential value from what we see, then he must accept the unbearable cost: either deny the existence of other minds altogether, i.e. endorse hard solipsism just to deny the existence of God. Or hypocritically acknowledge other minds while rejecting the existence of God.

There is not inferential value from what we see. There is, however, plenty of argument from personal incredulity from theists.

And no, one is not forced to accept hard solipsism.

Please help us out, and create a logical syllogism, that ends with the conclusion, "therefore one must accept hard solipsism". Because I sure am having a hard time going from your word salad, to "therefore one must accept hard solipsism".