(February 13, 2015 at 9:11 pm)Lek Wrote:

(February 13, 2015 at 8:55 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: And maybe - just maybe - you are suffering from a delusion that allows you to detect things that aren't there.

Boru

I don't discount scientific theories. I'm open to learning from science everything I can. I just don't rely on science for what it is inadequate to show or prove to me.

Lek its a good thing you open to science ill start you off there is a good series call what genesis got wrong look it up pm me if you want a direct link to all of it. It pretty much goes into detail on everything you would want to know.

(February 13, 2015 at 9:11 pm)Lek Wrote: I don't discount scientific theories. I'm open to learning from science everything I can. I just don't rely on science for what it is inadequate to show or prove to me.

Yup. Science can't show or prove things that are made up, no matter how very, very much we'd like them to be true... One of the drawbacks of being, you know - grounded in reality, as opposed to magical thinking.

(February 13, 2015 at 8:26 pm)Lek Wrote:

(February 12, 2015 at 11:18 pm)Jenny A Wrote: That was me. You see babies do have some indication of a mother, which is not surprising since there is one. But we have no indication of god, probably because there isn't one.

You're right we do believe that have babies have an indication that there is a mother because they can hear her. People have always had an indication there is a god because they can recognize him in nature.

Really, what is it about nature that suggests a god? The red in tooth and claw part? Disease? The vast amount of empty space in the universe? Beauty. Complexity. What? Because none of them indicate a god to me.

Frankly, it is not nature exactly, but man's lack of control over nature that seems to have caused man to invent gods, as a way of influencing nature. Unlike Christianity, earlier religions were not so much about morality or creation as about how do we: win this battle; make it rain; save this man from dying; safely sail across this water; survive the winter; get a deer; have a child. The idea was quid pro quo, we do this for x god and he gives us y. As a method, worshiping the gods didn't work very well. Having tested that hypothesis and found it wanting, perhaps we could move on? ----- Oh yeah, we have moved on. And while we are still not really in control, we have a lot more control and predictive power than we used to. But that came of discarding the god hypothesis.

(February 13, 2015 at 9:58 pm)Jenny A Wrote: Really, what is it about nature that suggests a god? The red in tooth and claw part? Disease? The vast amount of empty space in the universe? Beauty. Complexity. What? Because none of them indicate a god to me.

Frankly, it is not nature exactly, but man's lack of control over nature that seems to have caused man to invent gods, as a way of influencing nature. Unlike Christianity, earlier religions were not so much about morality or creation as about how do we: win this battle; make it rain; save this man from dying; safely sail across this water; survive the winter; get a deer; have a child. The idea was quid pro quo, we do this for x god and he gives us y. As a method, worshiping the gods didn't work very well. Having tested that hypothesis and found it wanting, perhaps we could move on? ----- Oh yeah, we have moved on. And while we are still not really in control, we have a lot more control and predictive power than we used to. But that came of discarding the god hypothesis.

I didn't come as a result of discarding the God hypothesis. It came from studying nature and learning to apply the knowledge we found to make our lives easier. I'm sure that as early people were praying to their gods, they were busy searching for food, constructing shelters, making clothes, etc. - just as theists do today.

(February 13, 2015 at 10:10 pm)Lek Wrote: I didn't come as a result of discarding the God hypothesis. It came from studying nature and learning to apply the knowledge we found to make our lives easier. I'm sure that as early people were praying to their gods, they were busy searching for food, constructing shelters, making clothes, etc. - just as theists do today.

Exactly. What useful has come of the god hypothesis. Everything we do on our own is evidence against it. Anything for it?

(February 13, 2015 at 8:30 pm)Lek Wrote: We still lack the means to gain information about the world we live in. We still have no idea where it came from.

Which is why so many modern people, uncomfortable with just admitting they don't know, make up an answer and pretend it's true, only now they have the grand old traditions of their forefathers in ignorance to lend fallacious credence to those old claims. Haven't you been paying attention?

Quote: So why are we so different from ancient people. People still believe in God, but we are smart enough to know that God is not the sun.

You ask why we're so different, and then answer that question in the very next sentence: we're better at gaining information about the world than they were. We have established methods for doing so that were unavailable to them, and none of those methods have borne out any god claims.

Quote: In fact more believe in God than don't. Could that mean that we do have an indication that there is a God? Maybe you are just lacking what most people possess and are at a disadvantage because you are unable to detect God.

Unless you can demonstrate that god sense, I'm more likely to just peg it on the fallacious logic that we can actually demonstrate to exist.

More importantly, your god sense isn't universal, in that all over the world, it's a different god. People do not believe in the same god everywhere, and somehow, the god they believe in is usually the one they were brought up to believe in.

It's almost like there is no god sense, and you're just manufacturing an excuse to keep believing out of nothing...

(February 13, 2015 at 10:13 pm)Jenny A Wrote:

(February 13, 2015 at 10:10 pm)Lek Wrote: I didn't come as a result of discarding the God hypothesis. It came from studying nature and learning to apply the knowledge we found to make our lives easier. I'm sure that as early people were praying to their gods, they were busy searching for food, constructing shelters, making clothes, etc. - just as theists do today.

Exactly. What useful has come of the god hypothesis. Everything we do on our own is evidence against it. Anything for it?

How does doing stuff on our own, as we are designed to do, in any way speak against the existence of God? God didn't design us to just sit around and wait for him to do everything for us. The fact that that we haven't found out how to create matter out of nothing or understand the concept of infinity is support for a non-material creator.

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(February 13, 2015 at 10:19 pm)Esquilax Wrote: You ask why we're so different, and then answer that question in the very next sentence: we're better at gaining information about the world than they were. We have established methods for doing so that were unavailable to them, and none of those methods have borne out any god claims.

In relationship to knowing everything about the universe, I'd say if the ancients knew 1%, we know 1.1%.

Quote:More importantly, your god sense isn't universal, in that all over the world, it's a different god. People do not believe in the same god everywhere, and somehow, the god they believe in is usually the one they were brought up to believe in.

The fact that people don't believe the same thing about God is evidence that there really is a "god sense". If we all believed the same thing, you could reason that we were all indoctrinated to believe in a god.

(February 13, 2015 at 10:44 pm)Lek Wrote: How does doing stuff on our own, as we are designed to do, in any way speak against the existence of God? God didn't design us to just sit around and wait for him to do everything for us. The fact that that we haven't found out how to create matter out of nothing or understand the concept of infinity is support for a non-material creator.

What do you mean as we are designed to do? Where is this evidence a a designer? I have no difficulty distinguishing from designed (i.e. man-made) from nature. I'm sure you don't either. What's different about nature is the endless waste and lack of purpose and inexplicable detours. In other words that it isn't designed.

Worshiping gods leads to nothing. Show one positive result from it---yes a demonstrable one. Assuming we must do it ourselves leads to many positive results. God who?

(February 13, 2015 at 11:14 pm)Jenny A Wrote: What do you mean as we are designed to do? Where is this evidence a a designer? I have no difficulty distinguishing from designed (i.e. man-made) from nature. I'm sure you don't either. What's different about nature is the endless waste and lack of purpose and inexplicable detours. In other words that it isn't designed.

Worshiping gods leads to nothing. Show one positive result from it---yes a demonstrable one. Assuming we must do it ourselves leads to many positive results. God who?

How do know that there is "endless waste" in nature? We don't know the purpose of everything in nature. We haven't discovered everything about nature. Positive, visible to the eye results of worshiping God, an be seen in the numerous daily amount of charitable activities motivated by a belief in God and our resulting service to our fellow men and women. We have free hospitals and clinics, homes for the needy and shelters for the homeless, soup kitchens and food banks, etc. Harvard, Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge universities as well as most of the early American universities were founded as christian institutions.

(February 13, 2015 at 8:30 pm)Lek Wrote:

(February 13, 2015 at 6:45 pm)Esquilax Wrote: Yeah, people have lacked the means to gain information about the world they live in, and been uncomfortable with admitting that ignorance for a long time. Not coincidentally, they've also lived among people willing to exploit that disquiet with not knowing for personal gain for just as long.

So what?

We still lack the means to gain information about the world we live in. We still have no idea where it came from. So why are we so different from ancient people. People still believe in God, but we are smart enough to know that God is not the sun. In fact more believe in God than don't. Could that mean that we do have an indication that there is a God? Maybe you are just lacking what most people possess and are at a disadvantage because you are unable to detect God.

I literally just explained what the argument from popularity fallacy is, and you repeat it right away?