(May 4, 2025 at 4:18 pm)Sheldon Wrote: It was your claim you had "many good reasons" for your faith a deity exists.

You imagined that I made such a claim, btw. I was just too lazy to correct you the previous 99 times you've said it. But feel free to find the exact quote, since you hate imaginary scenarios so much. Our whole conversation has been built off your imagination, unfortunately.

May as well continue along with a discussion. Personally, like in ye olden times many pages ago, I think the antonine plagues had the most pronounced and profound effect on how christianity formed and that can still be seen in the character of christian belief and reasons for belief to this day. The short version of a long story is that the roman world was sick, probably hemorrhagic smallpox. Roman authorities blamed the christians, their failure to worship the gods was contended by superstitious mobs to be the cause of the illness. The christians responded both to the plague and to their persecution with acts of charity. Caring for the unwell while promising salvation and the defeat of death.

Today, where a christian church is focused on charity, caring, the promise of salvation and the defeat of death, you find an active and thriving religious community. Absent those things, it's sick and dying. It's not a crisis of reason. It's a crisis of character.

(May 4, 2025 at 4:06 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(May 4, 2025 at 4:00 pm)Sheldon Wrote: We will not be moving forward with your scenario, as it is pointless, and has no relevance to this thread or your claim, that have now admitted you can't offer any objective evidence to support.

Okay then come up with your own scenario bro. As long as you illustrate what you mean by objective evidence of possibility. Surely, you know what you're asking and can give an example?

How about this one...

Some of my neighbors claim there is at least one wild boar living in the forest just above my house. I have never seen it. 

I have good reasons to believe it is possible.

~ My neighbors have no reason to lie. They might be mistaken, so I take their word as evidence, not as proof.

~ Wild boars are native to my prefecture, although they are usually farther up in the mountains. 

~ Quite near my house I have seen evidence of some large animal digging up grubs. 

So I would say that this constitutes objective evidence of the strong possibility that there is a wild boar around here. 

Is this the kind of thing you're thinking of? I'm curious about what you mean.

Oh Great Wild Boar...

Yep - Wild Boars exist...we have seen them.

Jebus/God...not so much.

(May 4, 2025 at 4:28 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(May 4, 2025 at 4:18 pm)Sheldon Wrote: It was your claim you had "many good reasons" for your faith a deity exists.

You imagined that I made such a claim, btw. I was just too lazy to correct you the previous 99 times you've said it. But feel free to find the exact quote, 

Quote:John 6IX Breezy


faith isn't blind belief, it is trust. And trust requires a context where you have good reasons to trust,

A few posts later I first asked you to present the best reason. You ignored the request for a long time, then made your excuses, and now you're trying to accuse me of lying, I would guess the next tactic will be sophistry using semantics about the wording. 

Unless of course you're now asserting that you don't have any good reasons, for your faith a deity exists, if so then just say so, no need to dishonestly imply I lied.

(May 4, 2025 at 3:09 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(May 4, 2025 at 3:04 pm)Sheldon Wrote: ...so you're asking me, someone who does not believe any deity or deities are possible, to offer you some as an example? 

Yes. Prove the possibility of elephants, with objective evidence, in a world in which they no longer exist.

The fact that they once existed is strong evidence that they may still be possible, using DNA from the bone marrow.

(May 4, 2025 at 4:38 pm)Belacqua Wrote:

(May 4, 2025 at 4:06 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Okay then come up with your own scenario bro. As long as you illustrate what you mean by objective evidence of possibility. Surely, you know what you're asking and can give an example?

How about this one...

Some of my neighbors claim there is at least one wild boar living in the forest just above my house. I have never seen it. 

I have good reasons to believe it is possible.

~ My neighbors have no reason to lie. They might be mistaken, so I take their word as evidence, not as proof.

~ Wild boars are native to my prefecture, although they are usually farther up in the mountains. 

~ Quite near my house I have seen evidence of some large animal digging up grubs. 

So I would say that this constitutes objective evidence of the strong possibility that there is a wild boar around here. 

Is this the kind of thing you're thinking of? I'm curious about what you mean.

Well again, we already know wild boars are possible, it is an objective fact. So the claims are not really the same. I have no problem with people speculating about what kind of evidence they'd consider sufficient,  or sufficiently objective for a deity. However given how many deities humans imagine to be real, and how many versions of ostensibly the same deity, I am not sure what I would achieve, surely better to ask the person who seeks out people who don't share the belief, to make claims about their beliefs, to offer their reasons. 

No one is obliged to share anyone else's threshold for personal credulity after all, we can only ask why they believe, what their best reasons are, and then decide if we think we find them at all compelling, and why.

(May 4, 2025 at 4:38 pm)Belacqua Wrote: Is this the kind of thing you're thinking of? I'm curious about what you mean.

Hmm to summarize the conversation: I think that openness to evidence requires openness to possibility. Meaning, the very act of seeking evidence for X implies that X is treated as possible. But of course, many here do not think the existence of God is even possible, and therefore I think them asking for evidence is illogical.

My threshold for possibility is simple: If a proposition is at least conceivable and coherent, and not contradictory, then I'm open to its possibility. But people want me to give objective evidence for possibility itself. And I think that's a weird request. So, with your boar example, I would say the possibility is already there, and the evidence you showed simply makes the case for its actuality. I don't think there is such a thing as objective evidence of possibility itself, because possibility is abstract, it is rational rather than empirical.

Edit: For context, I'm imagining a scale that roughly progresses thus: Conceivable, Possible, Probable, Actual. Most here concede to the first, but we've been stuck on the second for the last 20 pages.

The whole bit is lunatic framing on it's face. While we're over here babbling about the possibility of evidence and What Word Do? the formation of religious beliefs (such as a belief in christ..though there's no reason to limit ourselves) proceeds unfazed.

We don't argue ourselves into them, we don't argue ourselves out of them. Theists and atheists alike rationalize that change in circumstances well after the fact of the change..or, in the most usual case, well after the initial formation of such beliefs which occurs in early childhood before the age of reason itself. That's why the strongest predictor of a persons religious beliefs (or absence thereof)..is the belief of their parents, right behind that the belief of their peers. Religion is a social phenomena regardless of whether or not gods exist, and there is no necessary or demonstrable genetic or causal relationship between the two. Christ being both imaginary and impossible has not, for example, prevented the dissemination and assumption of christian belief.

(May 4, 2025 at 4:28 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(May 4, 2025 at 4:18 pm)Sheldon Wrote: It was your claim you had "many good reasons" for your faith a deity exists.

You imagined that I made such a claim, btw. I was just too lazy to correct you the previous 99 times you've said it. But feel free to find the exact quote, since you hate imaginary scenarios so much. Our whole conversation has been built off your imagination, unfortunately.

Actually, in one of your replies to me, you wrote:

(May 2, 2025 at 10:03 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: And trust requires a context where you have good reasons to trust, but not enough to achieve certainty.

In the context you're using "faith", this quote strongly implies you believe there are good reasons to trust in your god to the point of having faith going forward, because otherwise you would not hold the faith you do. Since you do hold your faith, you're being asked to provide your reasons -- which you claim are required -- that provide the bedrock for your faith.