(May 10, 2025 at 9:11 am)Sheldon Wrote:

(May 10, 2025 at 8:53 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Evidence for God is everywhere, and that's the problem with requesting it. 

On the contrary, if you think it is ubiquitous it should be easy to offer. 

Quote:For example, scripture introduces God as the entity that made all things, and life in particular. Therefore, the planet itself and every living cell on it is evidence consistent with the thesis. 

That's a circular reasoning fallacy, and why would I lend any credence to the creation myth in the bible? It is demonstrably at odds with objective facts, and not itself supported by any remotely objective evidence. 

Quote:To use your template: God ---> Life on Earth. And we observe life on Earth.

Again, that's just begging the question, to create a circular reasoning fallacy?

Quote:But you don't actually care about whether there’s evidence, you care about which interpretive framework fits it best and to be persuaded of one over the other.

Now before we have @Belacqua getting all self righteous again, and accusing me of being too confrontational, take a fucking look at that no true Scotsman fallacy, and ask yourself how one is to respond to such an obvious piece of sophistry? 

Given that John earlier claimed that evidence doesn't exist, only interpretation, on what grounds one wonders, is he now making this accusation, as if we ought to care about evidence when he has claimed not to, and to want to extirpate the word? Even were it to be true, which it is quite obviously not.

I wouldn't need evidence for a deity, if I already believed a deity had created everything, now would I? You can't rationally evidence claims with other unevidenced claims. What evidence can you offer that a deity created anything?

When did bel ever stop being self-righteous?  I must have missed it.

(May 10, 2025 at 3:02 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(May 10, 2025 at 2:17 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Wrong. It may be that after the rain the sun came out again and dried it up (I live in Texas, sunshowers are a regular event), or it may mean that you saw rain falling but that the Earth's radiant heat evaporated the water quickly.

So what appears to be straightforward objective evidence (dry grass = no rain) in fact depends on a great deal of prior knowledge if we are to interpret it correctly.

Not really. It depends more on what other evidences we have aside from the state of the grass. Clouds? Humidity? Soil moisture? And so on.

There's no need to imply that a priori knowledge is needed for evidence to be evidence. What is needed is a hypothesis in order to frame this evidence and place it in a context that makes it meaningful.

(May 10, 2025 at 8:53 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(May 9, 2025 at 10:48 pm)Paleophyte Wrote: And thus for any definition of god that is distinguishable from nothing we have:

God ---> evidence
Not evidence

Evidence for God is ubiquitous, and that's the problem with requesting it. Scripture introduces God as the entity that made all things, and life in particular. Therefore, the existence of the planet and every living cell on it is evidence consistent with the thesis. To use your template: God ---> Life on Earth. And we observe life on Earth.

But you don't actually care about whether there’s evidence, you care about which interpretive framework fits it best and to be persuaded of one over the other.

Since it is "evidence" for both the thesis and the antithesis, it is evidence for neither. That's what we call "equivocal".

A ---> B
Not A ---> B

If B is true it tells us nothing about A. If B is false it tells us nothing about A. Your "evidence" is useless regardless of which framework either of us prefers. Since it appears that I need to spell it out for John PhD in Philosophy of Science, Honestly what you need is:

God ---> X
Not(Not God ---> X)
X

ETA: Isn't "God ---> Life on Earth. And we observe life on Earth" affirming the consequent? Asking for a fellow doctoral student.

(May 10, 2025 at 10:13 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(May 10, 2025 at 3:02 am)Belacqua Wrote: So what appears to be straightforward objective evidence (dry grass = no rain) in fact depends on a great deal of prior knowledge if we are to interpret it correctly.

Not really. It depends more on what other evidences we have aside from the state of the grass. Clouds? Humidity? Soil moisture? And so on.

There's no need to imply that a priori knowledge is needed for evidence to be evidence. What is needed is a hypothesis in order to frame this evidence and place it in a context that makes it meaningful.

Are philosophers too dumb to come in out of the rain? Discuss.

(May 10, 2025 at 3:02 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(May 10, 2025 at 2:17 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Wrong. It may be that after the rain the sun came out again and dried it up (I live in Texas, sunshowers are a regular event), or it may mean that you saw rain falling but that the Earth's radiant heat evaporated the water quickly.

So what appears to be straightforward objective evidence (dry grass = no rain) in fact depends on a great deal of prior knowledge if we are to interpret it correctly.

And thus any claim for evidence of the infinite and ineffable is a joke.

(May 10, 2025 at 2:16 pm)Paleophyte Wrote: Since it is "evidence" for both the thesis and the antithesis, it is evidence for neither. That's what we call "equivocal".

...

ETA: Isn't "God ---> Life on Earth. And we observe life on Earth" affirming the consequent? Asking for a fellow doctoral student.

Yes, it's affirming the consequent, that's been my entire argument against evidence. And all you've done is restate the problem of underdetermination. In other words, you've reinforced my case against evidence.

(That said, I do reject your exclusivity argument, that X only be possible under Y, or else X doesn't corroborate Y. I don't think such exclusivity exists anywhere in the universe.)

Well this thread is gonna be weird now that it was recently discovered Jesus didn't exist and on top of that a scroll showing the bible was made up.

Feelsbadman.jpg

From what I have read, there is no successful a priori argument for God. You can't merely define him into existence. Philosophy alone can't get you there.

So you have to offer some variety of evidence supporting God's existence. If naturalistic explanations of the available evidence are more persuasive, then there are fewer and smaller gaps in our knowledge to plug any God into. Beyond a point, there is no longer enough room for an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly-good God to operate.

In other words, he should be much more obvious if he existed.

(May 10, 2025 at 4:25 pm)Alan V Wrote: he should be

Here's a good example of what we were saying earlier about evidence. 

Objective evidence, as we pointed out, is never some sort of pure and direct perception, but always facts that are interpreted in light of prior beliefs. Observations of the world are "theory laden."

So apparently you have an image or conception of what an omnipotent God would be like, and then you look for indications in the world of whether that God exists. And of course you find none. 

Then a question you could ask would be: is my conception of God the same as the one that intelligent Christians hold? When I look at the world and interpret it as lacking signs of God, am I looking for the right kind of thing? 

Here is where reading the right books can help. Dawkins and Hitchens, for example, conceived of God in the simplest, most childish way possible, and then (no surprise) decided that the God they had imagined didn't exist. But there are better books.

(May 10, 2025 at 4:05 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(May 10, 2025 at 3:50 am)Sheldon Wrote: evidence
noun

1. the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.

Note the word "indicating." 

A fact can only indicate something if it has been interpreted in the light of previous knowledge.

What previous subjective claim is that assertion based on?