(June 19, 2009 at 4:33 am)Giff Wrote:

(June 19, 2009 at 4:22 am)fr0d0 Wrote: The whole point of faith is that you can have no evidence.

Sounds like a way of protecting religion. If you don't need any type of evidence, then how do you know that it's real?

You can't know. That's the point.

(June 19, 2009 at 4:33 am)Giff Wrote: How do you even know that faith doesn't need evidence? Because you say so, or becuase it really is so? And how can it be so?

How can faith be so? Well that's how faith is defined. If there could be evidence, then you wouldn't need faith. It's quite simple.

(also @ you Evie)

Yes. If there's evidence in the belief then it's not faith. The point is how can belief in something that there is no evidence of whatsoever ( and IOW no indication of the truth of believing that such a thing actually exists, in this case "God") be rational and/or have any objective bearing on the matter at all? So in other words how is "faith" rational..ever? And why have faith on one God in particular if it's just as irrational to believe in any of them because there's no indication of their existence in any of them? (No evidence of any of them).

If there is no indication whatsoever of the actual existence of a God then that's the same thing as no evidence. Because that's what evidence is for. It's what it means. In the broadest sense it doesn't have to be scientific - it just has to give some indication that the thing you believe in actually exists! Science has thus far been the way it's done...but if you in any way can have objective reasons that indicate God to actually exists in some sense in reality - then that would IOW be evidence of some form. Because it would be giving credence to the truth of the belief.

EvF

Fair enough Dagda but, how far can you go taking that to any extreme before nobody can get anywhere? Ever seen a bee discover a new way to do something? they can't, they're just mindless bees.

I do share your stance more than you might think though. Everyone should try to contribute their best skills to the whole and progress society. an obsessed individualist or nonconformist is useless to society but, equally so it someone who has no individuality. They simply have nothing of use to provide and no actual means to obtain such a thing.

However, by encouraging people to think for themselves and fostering Espirit De Corps (team spirit) you stand to create the great minds of Shakesphere, Socrates, Neuton, Einstein and Darwin. All of which went against the grain and did something they wanted to do.

It's not perfect, no one thing is but, a society that allows individuals to be who they want to be, to develop the skills they are interested in (and therefore most likely good at) gets to have these people leading their fields and developing them further. Even if a small percentage decides to simply leech off sociey, such a theives.

Of course crime comes from other sources as well.

Have any bearing on what matter Evie? The matter of scientific proof = none. The matter of theological logic = everything. For theology involving faith there has to be no evidence.

You're stuck in a confusing limbo trying to apply a method of reasoning to a subject in which that reasoning fails.

Empirical evidence of God is in everything around us. The entire universe/ multiverse. There's just no way of connecting the evidence to God or not.

Belief is dependent on faith. Belief is the step into accepting an alternative take on life. It's the attraction of that alternative lifestyle that is the main reason people believe on faith. God's actual existence being not provable is integral to all that. Your scientific interest in proofs one way or the other are entirely irrelevant to theology. To science, as everyone and their cat keeps saying, it's a nonsense. These things we know.

Now tell me infinite more times that there's no evidence and why anyway choose one over the other. You never actually say why you have problems with my answers, you only repeat blindly the questions, insisting on evidence. That's got to be the definition of stupidity.

(June 20, 2009 at 3:02 am)Demonaura Wrote: Fair enough Dagda but, how far can you go taking that to any extreme before nobody can get anywhere? Ever seen a bee discover a new way to do something? they can't, they're just mindless bees.

I laughed at this. I rather think it was a metaphor, not a biological comment about hive dynamics.

As was my comment dagda lol. I answer metaphors with metaphors.

Fr0d0, I have already made it clear many times (and as clear as I could all in that last post of mine) that I am not talking about only scientific evidence, or empirical evidence...I am talking about anything that actually indicates the truth of whatever you believe in actually existing (in this case your "God" that you believe in) - any evidence of your God actually existing...any indication of the truth of it.

My point is that it doesn't matter whether there can be evidence or not as I keep saying. The point is that whether there can be or not - it's still irrational to believe 'On Faith' in both cases. If there is no evidence it's not rational to just go ahead and believe anyway in the name of "faith". Presumably there can be no more or less evidence for God than for the FSM but do you think that if there can't be evidence for the FSM either then that supports the FSM, that gives credibility to it?

So to bold some points form my post where I already explained all this and you just repeat the "Science has no bearing" and "You need faith" stuff again...

On the matter of Evidence:

EvF Wrote:[...]if you in any way can have objective reasons that indicate God to actually exist in some sense in reality - then that would IOW be evidence of some form. Because it would be giving credence to the truth of the belief.

Which is what evidence is in its most broadest sense right? - Eomething that gives credence to the truth of a belief?

And the point I keep trying to make is; if evidence is IOW indication of the truth of such a thing you believe in actually existing, then how is it rational to believe without evidence? How is believing on faith ever rational?

(June 20, 2009 at 5:24 am)fr0d0 Wrote: Have any bearing on what matter Evie?

EvF Wrote:The point is how can belief in something that there is no evidence of whatsoever ( and IOW no indication of the truth of believing that such a thing actually exists, in this case "God") be rational and/or have any objective bearing on the matter at all?

fr0d0 Wrote:Now tell me infinite more times that there's no evidence and why anyway choose one over the other. You never actually say why you have problems with my answers, you only repeat blindly the questions, insisting on evidence. That's got to be the definition of stupidity.

I do have a problem; and my problem is the fact that how is it not entirely irrational to believe in the existence of something without any evidence of any form whatsoever, if that in other words means that there's no indication whatsoever of any form, of the thing you believe in actually existing? How is that not rational? It's completely blind because all the 'reasons' you have don't actually indicate the existence of God--and yet you believe in him anyway--because if they did it would be evidence of some form (and this be valid)...and you of course say there is no evidence. So, how is that not irrational?

So: My argument is that "Faith", being belief without evidence is entirely irrational in and of itself.

I do not see how you see me persistently trying to get an actual explanation for how that's not irrational, or to get an admittance that it is irrational--and is not just as invalid as anything else without evidence whatsoever (the FSM for example)--is 'the definition of stupidity'? Because I think the "faith" you have is a pretty damn good definition of irrationality.
Please do explain to me how you can believe in the existence of something without any indication of the truth of that thing actually existing (in other words without any evidence) without you being irrational in doing so...and - how to choose one thing without evidence over another, is, therefore, not simply cherry-picking? Because these 'reasons' you speak of are not valid to the actual existence (otherwise they'd be evidence, and you say they're not evidence and can't be evidence), so they're not at all rational, right? And it's simply cherry-picking to choose one belief without evidence over another, then, if they're all entirely without support, is it not?

EvF

Okay, everyone pray for Frodo's death. If he posts again that would be proof there is no God.

(June 18, 2009 at 6:37 pm)fr0d0 Wrote:

(June 18, 2009 at 6:05 pm)Kyuuketsuki Wrote: Or any other it seems.

That's an extreme case of blinkered thought.

Only if you're a theist who believes in fantasies as truth.

(June 18, 2009 at 6:37 pm)fr0d0 Wrote:

(June 18, 2009 at 6:05 pm)Kyuuketsuki Wrote: Science is built on accumulated data, it's rationale is inductive not deductive, it makes no absolute claims ... on the other hand religion is NOT built on accumulated date or inductive reasoning yet it's claims ARE absolute. The strength of science is that it is honest in its limitations, religion by definition is not.

The point is that scientific explanations (allowing for human frailties) are flexible, they change with new evidence, they are non-teleological ... religious explanations are inflexible, they change only with bludgeoned evidence (in other words when a scientific explanation becomes so convincing that religions have no choice but to recognise them or end up looking like a bunch of fucking prats), they are entirely teleological.

So no, "science of the gaps" is an incredibly naïve concept.

Religion has (here, as I have pointed it out) stated that God is timeless. This interpretation isn't 'absolute' and it is at the same time consistent with current scientific understanding of the universe.

And I could state that god is cream cake ... just because I state it does that give it worth? NO. If a hundred people state that does that give it worth? No. A thousand? No ... that people state something DOES NOT confer upon it any inherent value.

Belief in ANYTHING without evidence, without logical reason is utterly at odds with scientific thought so the question becomes how logical the belief in a given god is and since you can't or won't provide any validatable supporting evidence I believe it is fair to say that it IS inconsistent with what we currently understand about the universe.

(June 18, 2009 at 6:37 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: You're dreaming thinking that religion ever changed it's mind bludgeoned by facts. Show me one tenet of Christianity that has changed at all. How come the bible isn't constantly being re-written if it had ever realistically been proved to be wrong? I get the feeling that being slapped with a wet kipper you'd still insist everyone else was imagining it.

EVERY mainstream religion has hard to accept evolution ... they had no fucking choice! I rest my case!

(June 18, 2009 at 6:37 pm)fr0d0 Wrote:

(June 18, 2009 at 6:05 pm)Kyuuketsuki Wrote: Of course I know it would be absurd but not, I suspect, for the reasons I think you would think I think it absurd ... I think it absurd because I am well aware that you have no bloody evidence and never will do, that you are FORCED to wax philosophical/metaphysical and to claim that we would expect no evidence for deity precisely because you know you CANNOT supply it.

Well I told you first that there was no evidence nor would there ever be. It's not me that's insisting on evidence. I've explained many times why it isn't relevant. Scientific philosophy apparently requires a certain amount of blind repetition

IOW your god does not exist ... simples!

Kyu

(June 20, 2009 at 4:37 pm)LEDO Wrote: Okay, everyone pray for Frodo's death. If he posts again that would be proof there is no God.

Or proof that prayers don't work