Evidence that God exists

[fr0d0]

So you're saying absolutely that this is not what you think?

So does evidence of philosophical truth exist? Or are you talking about factual truth? How are you defining truth?

[Tiberius]

I'm saying everything in science requires evidence for it to be considered as scientific truth (which is different to absolute truth). Philosophical or absolute truth exists, logically it must if we are to even begin to understand the universe (as we have through science). Absolute truth can only be determined once it has happened, it cannot be predicted (indeterminism says this). That said, science can never know if scientific truth is the same as absolute truth, since it cannot predict what absolute truth might do in the future. All scientific truth can do is expand as more evidence comes in, and eventually get to a level which says "this is pretty accurate".

As for truth, I am defining it as what is correct, what is "true", what happens, what has happened, and what will happen. Every single particle (and whatever goes beyond particles) has truth values, defining the position, speed, every attribute it has. They may differ over time, but at one point in time they must all have some kind of value, and that value can be estimated through science.

[Mark]

What's this sudden attraction to the word 'truth'?

You brought it up by claiming that I said that everything required evidence to be true, which I didn't. I said that everything required evidence to be held as "truth" in the scientific sense of the word.

Truth is a good philosophical term. Evidence is scientific. Don't confuse the two.

I'm not, I just spent the last post explaining how they were different. Whilst scientific truth might be close to absolute truth (or even spot on) it can never know for certain.

Adrian, have you read David Hume? I suppose you may have, but if not, you should, since he is the touchstone of modern Anglo-American philosophy. So should your colleagues on this site, whom I take to be intelligent young Englishmen like yourself.

In any case, Hume argued that there were exactly two kinds of statement that can have meaning, statements of fact and statements expressing conventional truths. The later explain how terms are manipulated within a conventional system such as Logic or Mathematics, and an example would be the statement, "2+2=4." Such a statement is true or false depending on whether or not it is consistent with the conventional system that it explicates, and usually, with a specified set of assumptions. "2+2=5" is false for example. Conventional statements could be said to be "exempt from evidence," a term fr0d0 likes to use, in the sense that they simply are not about facts; there is no evidence that is relevant to their truth. Statements of fact, such as "That bird over there is a crow" are statements that make an assertion about the state of the world, and so are capable of being confirmed or disconfirmed. We can kill or capture that bird, and see if it really is a crow.

You can't always tell into which class any statement falls, for example, "All crows are black" could be a statement of fact, or an explication of the linguistic convention that if a bird is not black, it is not appropriately referred to as a crow. If it's a statement of fact, you could disconfirm it by finding, say, an albino crow. If it's a statement of convention, the question merely is whether it is in fact the case that, within some specified set of usages, nonblack birds are never referred to as crows.

Obviously there are many statements that express neither conventional truths nor allegations of fact. Hume and his followers argued that all statments in this class are without meaning. Poetry, for example, is emotionally suggestive by not meaningful. In most interpretations, nonmeaningful statements would include both "God exists" and "God does not exist," on the basis that neither is this capable of being checked against evidence, nor does it exhibit a convention of any kind.

Necessarily Hume was wrong in at least one regard. If you consider the statement, "There are exactly two kinds of statement that can have meaning, statements of fact and statements expressing conventional truth," which kind of statement is this? There must be a third meaningful class of statements that embraces statements concerning the meaning of statements. Some people have referred to this class as "meta-statements."

I have my own answer to Hume that I may articulate at some later time. But as a sometime follower of Hume, I recoil when I see fr0d0 comparing religion and mathematics so freely. Mathematics is a conventional system of quantitative analysis; religion is not a conventional system of any kind. The propositions of mathematics are capable of being checked for formal consistency with a given set of assumptions; religious statements have no such possibility of disconfirmation (Spinoza, for one, suffered under the delusion that religion can be expressed as a purely deductive system, but his proofs of God's existence were false).

[Tiberius]

Do you have any recommendations for stuff written by Hume?

[lukec]

Yes, what can you recommend? What you've said there is pretty interesting, as well as easy to understand. If hume's writing is the same, I'd like to read some.

[halhelmboldt]

Hi Adrian,

I just came across this post from Mark to you. Did he ever suggest to you anything from Hume? I have not been able to find any suggestions from him to you, if he did recommend anything.

I wasn't aware of Hume and based on what Mark wrote, I am interested in reading more that is directly written by Hume. It appears to me that Hume is a master at dialectic discourse. There is no doubt that I will benefit greatly from reading Humes work.

Thanks!

........... Hal.

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I found a link that offers volumes of works from Hume. I hope this is useful for those interested in reading his works.

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/david_hume/

[Sam]

[quote='fr0d0' pid='11154' dateline='1236279880']

At the time people had far far greater understanding of faith and God. In this society we are like babies in our understanding in comparison. Maybe you and I can only aspire to a greatly watered down experience. This is a direct result of our ignorance, I'd suggest.

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So people had a far greater understanding of faith ... Would it not be fair to assume that the rise of scientific knowledge and understanding is directly related to this "far greater understanding of faith in God"

Maybe at this time in history God was the only explanation ... Not really the case anymore?

Sam

[fr0d0]

At the time people had far far greater understanding of faith and God. In this society we are like babies in our understanding in comparison. Maybe you and I can only aspire to a greatly watered down experience. This is a direct result of our ignorance, I'd suggest.

So people had a far greater understanding of faith ... Would it not be fair to assume that the rise of scientific knowledge and understanding is directly related to this "far greater understanding of faith in God"

Maybe at this time in history God was the only explanation ... Not really the case anymore?

Sam

Personally I think science has helped dispel the rot that is superstitious belief, such as the notion that angels were playing bowls as a factual explanation for thunder.

So I agree, and am very happy that nonsensical superstitious belief like this trashed. In my mind though that doesn't cover at all the real thing when talking about God.

@ Mark - I only compare maths with religion on the one narrow definition and of course this is an extremely limited comparison. And then only because it was pointed out by Kyu.

[Tiberius]

So what science do you think proves (or supports) the supernatural notion of God then? You say evidence is useless when concerning God, and that it takes fatih alone, yet faith alone is all the angel-thunder believers had. You must have a reason based in science to say that God exists, otherwise why don't you believe in thunder-angels?

[Edwardo Piet]

Yep. And if faith has bearing on God and you also say fr0d0, like I do, that faith=belief without evidence: then are you suggesting that merely belief without evidence has some bearing on the existence of God?

What is special about the ABSENCE of evidence that means it somehow homes in on God, and the one you believe in in particular - and supports him? And if this gives more reason to believe he exists, then wouldn't that count as evidence? But it couldn't do that because then it wouldn't be faith.

EvF