(August 12, 2013 at 6:43 pm)whateverist Wrote:

(August 12, 2013 at 6:15 pm)Texas Sailor Wrote: I think that has to be the nicest way anyone has ever told a Christian that God is all in their head.

But lots of great stuff exists in ones' head. Morality, altruism, generosity, beauty, kindness, love, friendship and, yes, even humor. If "I" exist only in my head, at least I am in some pretty good company. I think it makes a perfectly fine place to posit God, though one might have to let go of a few omni's. What's left over might still be some pretty good company.

Can versions of the things you listed be verified by strangers, at random, to exist? Even if they don't agree with your take on those things, they could at least validate the concepts, right?

Would a God experiment, with strangers at random, reveal the same kind of results?

(August 12, 2013 at 5:34 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: Which one of the million points should I chose? Wait there I'll go decide...

Never mind. I tire of your bullshit.

(August 12, 2013 at 1:37 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: I produce the bible as evidence. So according to you, "I have reason to be convinced"

The Bible is not evidence, the Bible is the claim.

How are you not able to see this?

Don't go over there...ITS A TRAP!!!

It's a circular logic trap. Frodo knows this, and he'll continue all day long.

(August 12, 2013 at 7:16 pm)Texas Sailor Wrote:

(August 12, 2013 at 6:43 pm)whateverist Wrote: But lots of great stuff exists in ones' head. Morality, altruism, generosity, beauty, kindness, love, friendship and, yes, even humor. If "I" exist only in my head, at least I am in some pretty good company. I think it makes a perfectly fine place to posit God, though one might have to let go of a few omni's. What's left over might still be some pretty good company.

Can versions of the things you listed be verified by strangers, at random, to exist? Even if they don't agree with your take on those things, they could at least validate the concepts, right?

Would a God experiment, with strangers at random, reveal the same kind of results?

Most likely, yes (to the things I listed). The experiment in the case of God would most likely correlate with belief in God going in.

I guess a better phenomenon to put up as on the same level as God would be one's self. How do you know you are who you think you are? It isn't exactly falsifiable in any objective way and neither consciousness nor 'self-hood' are well understood scientifically. Heck, many on this site argue forcefully against free will which correlates with something about self-hood, maybe agency.

(August 12, 2013 at 7:55 pm)Simon Moon Wrote:

(August 12, 2013 at 1:37 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: I produce the bible as evidence. So according to you, "I have reason to be convinced"

The Bible is not evidence, the Bible is the claim.

How are you not able to see this?

The bible is evidence in the same way that a web page explaining gravity is evidence. Yeah it presents the evidence rather than being the evidence itself.

Direct source is about as good as you get on the web. You don't expect people to go conduct experiments and validate the experiment and it's results against every other similar experiment. You take it on trust that you have good information, hopefully checking the credentials of that source.

I deliberately took a short cut with my statement to make a point. I expected you to make the link.

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(August 12, 2013 at 7:18 pm)Faith No More Wrote:

(August 12, 2013 at 5:34 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: Which one of the million points should I chose? Wait there I'll go decide...

Never mind. I tire of your bullshit.

ugh! Hours of my time wasted!

Try years, not hours.

(August 13, 2013 at 1:41 am)whateverist Wrote: Most likely, yes (to the things I listed). The experiment in the case of God would most likely correlate with belief in God going in.

I guess a better phenomenon to put up as on the same level as God would be one's self. How do you know you are who you think you are? It isn't exactly falsifiable in any objective way and neither consciousness nor 'self-hood' are well understood scientifically. Heck, many on this site argue forcefully against free will which correlates with something about self-hood, maybe agency.

I am one of those proponents of determinism. There are just certain aspects of our idea of self which seem incompatible with free will. That being said, it sounds like what you are talking about is self in a more subjective sense, and in that sense, does anyone really know exactly who they are? It's certainly not anything that could be put into a jar. However, a third party could verify your existance in an objective sense. Being able to verify some version of you is more than what can be said for verifying the existance of a God.


A version of the you, that you identify as being part of your self, can be objectively validated as it correlates with reality.

An individual making claims of Gods is making a claim about something that extends beyond their self. A claim of something in addition to one's self.

There is no version of a God that could be objectively verified by an impartial 3rd party as there is no evidence to support that any version of a God correlates with reality of any kind. If fact, a God, shares the same characteristics as a figment. When you say that God exists in the mind of the believer, I agree, but only in a subjective sense. As you said, it is as real as your subjective sense of self.

However, nobody is out running around trying to convince people of who they are, or that their sense of self is what they think it is. You are the subject matter expert there, I have no place to contend such a belief.

But, an objective claim about God, is a horse of a different color.

Belief in God is not the same as belief in self-ness.

One's idea of their relationship with God, seems to be more fitting to such a comparison.

I am interested in hearing your opinion. Please tell me if there's an aspect of these concepts that I'm not giving proper attention to, especially with regards to how I am comparing them. I tend to do that.

(August 13, 2013 at 4:20 am)fr0d0 Wrote: The bible is evidence in the same way that a web page explaining gravity is evidence. Yeah it presents the evidence rather than being the evidence itself.

Yeah, and you know what that's called? A claim. And claims are demonstrated to be true, not merely asserted to be.

Quote:Direct source is about as good as you get on the web. You don't expect people to go conduct experiments and validate the experiment and it's results against every other similar experiment. You take it on trust that you have good information, hopefully checking the credentials of that source.

You're making a bit of an equivocation there: we trust those claims that are mundane or have those credentials present. Fantastic claims, like the ones you're asking us to believe in the bible, aren't given that level of trust; it's the same reason we don't immediately believe every claim of, say, chupacabras and such online.