Where do you stand on the existence of God?

[Excited Penguin]

Lol. Well, for what it's worth, there has been no history of any mental problems with me or in my immediate family. I've never had anyone suggest that I might be insane, or tell me that I exhibit signs/behavior of an insane person or a person with any sort of mental illness. It's never been an issue in any way. So do with that what you will I suppose. 

One does not have to be considered insane or have a diagnosed mental illness to have a delusion or hallucination.  For example, I am not insane (to my knowledge) and have no diagnosed mental illnesses but I experienced what could very well have been an extremely vivid hallucination in the bathroom at work a couple months ago.  (That makes it sound more interesting than it was. )  And there's no way for me to verify whether the event was real or took place entirely in my head so all I can say now was "that was weird..."

I've also had experiences with other people where, initially, our stories were really different and then, over time, get more and more similar, as well as the opposite, where our initially memories are really similar but after a while drift further and further apart.  Exchanging memories of a shared event with another person affects how everyone remembers the event (you start to create a group narrative that may or may not reflect what actually happened), which is why cops interview witnesses separately: so there's less likely to be cross-contamination of memories.  So having had an experience with someone who corroborates your memory of the event doesn't always mean a lot.

I'd have to actually explain what happened, which I would rather not do. But it was pretty clear.

That's like telling me you had this amazing experience with Big Foot and you totally have evidence he's real... but you can't tell me what it is.

Clear to whom? Only you? You shouldn't completely trust what you saw without verification from others first of all.

She mentioned that someone else had the exact same experiences so I suppose she uses that as her external validation.

On a non-related note, that explains why I oftentimes seem to be the only sane person in a conversation with many people at once. It's frightening how contagious stupidity seems to be, especially if you offend someone from within the group for doing the same to you - it doesn't matter who started what. From their perspective, you're the Devil simply because you dared touch one of them.

[Excited Penguin]

I sense that good old CL blocked me. How cute.

I know you'll hate me for saying this, but you guys can be really blind to circumstances sometimes, when you talk to religious folks. She's not some skeptic scientist who's lost her ways so she's isn't very likely to be convinced by cold rhetoric.

[Catholic_Lady]

I sense that good old CL blocked me. How cute.

I know you'll hate me for saying this, but you guys can be really blind to circumstances sometimes, when you talk to religious folks. She's not some skeptic scientist who's lost her ways so she's isn't very likely to be convinced by cold rhetoric.

nope! 

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

I take it you mean the Abrahamic God?
The one that made the earth out of nowhere and made humans from mud. The one who supposedly loves us so much that he allows us to die and then go to "heaven"?

Yeah, no.

[robvalue]

The problem with personal experiences (this is a general comment and not aimed at CL in particular) is the wild scope for interpretation.

I'm not saying any particular experience wasn't what the person says it was. I can't possibly know exactly what happened if I have no evidence to examine. What I do know about though is the fallibility of the human brain, our psychology, and the unreliability of our own memories.

Something nuts and paranormal happens. I've heard many such stories, and some of them don't even have any specific leanings towards even an intelligence, let alone a particular one. Just some flash of light or something. Now, if you've been soaked in a certain mythology since birth, and now you've had this "unexplainable experience" you can finally take it as proof. But what the hell did that thing have to do with your religion?

Let's say it's more specific. Let's say a figure actually appears and talks to you. Unless it actually says, "I am the God of the bible" or something, how are you identifying it? It "looks like" what you imagine the God of the bible looks like? Of course you're going to interpret it as being your own personal favourite God, especially if you already believe it is real. You "just know" it is your God.

Other times, all I hear is a coincidence. "Such and such happened, and it couldn't be a coincidence. Therefor God, and not just God but the God of my religion, and not just my religion but the particular sect of my religion that I was raised in." See the problem there?

And if your mind does glitch, or misinterpret what is actually happening, which is an incredibly common thing, then of course it's going to draw on what is already in your head. Your brain uses what you know and think about to gap-fill, or to even provide semi-hallucinatory experiences. So again, you're going to experience the mythology that has been jammed into your head since birth. It's no surprise then that people are highly likely to just accept the local religion, regardless of what it is. At some point, all that latent mythology that our brains have been soaking up is going to "manifest" in some form, to a lesser or greater degree, because our brains aren't reliable. Dreams are another popular one, and an easy way for this stuff to leak into your "reality".

I've had "weird experiences" which involve the biblical style of mythology. Things I could very easily take as "proof", if that's what I wanted them to be. But I recognise them as what they are: my brain responding to its surroundings. Even as a lifelong atheist, I've been soaked in the mythology of Christianity. It's everywhere.

[Redbeard The Pink]

CL, evidence can be shown by definition. If you can't show it to someone else, it really doesn't count as meaningful evidence.

Also, you and I have conversed before about the inescapable fact that Gaud' s omniscience and omnipotence would combine to rule out both personal responsibility and free will. Good to see that sunk in so well

[robvalue]

It seems many theists can hold the contradictory beliefs that an omniscient being knows the future, and the idea that we have some control over that future.

If it's even possible to know the future before it happens, then it's deterministic. In other words, there are no alternatives to what is going to happen. Even if you replayed it a million times, the same thing would happen. If there is a genuine choice, then it's impossible the knowledge of the outcome can exist beforehand.

To demonstrate this: God knows what I will do for the next ten minutes. He appears to me, and tells me what I will do. Can I ignore him and behave otherwise?

So to be consistent, theists have to pick just one of these: free will, or God knowing the future. But since neither of them have any effect in reality (no free will, if it's the case, still seems like free will), neither get challenged so both can be held even though they are mutually exclusive. Just like I could say my pet dragon has both 30HP and 60HP. Since he doesn't exist and never gets hit, neither of those gets challenged so I can "believe" them both.

Whether or not things are deterministic remains to be seen. Maybe, maybe not. I lean towards determinism myself. Whatever is the case, I think the amount of choice we have is significantly less than what we think it is. It is known that the time we think we make decisions is not the time we actually make them, that alone shows we have some sort of self delusion about our choices.

[Catholic_Lady]

CL, evidence can be shown by definition. If you can't show it to someone else, it really doesn't count as meaningful evidence.

Also, you and I have conversed before about the inescapable fact that Gaud' s omniscience and omnipotence would combine to rule out both personal responsibility and free will. Good to see that sunk in so well

If you witnessed Johnny kill Billy, would YOU know that Johnny killed Billy? Unless some other form of evidence comes in, you can't prove to other people that Johnny is guilty unless they chose to take your word for it. But you personally would still have enough information to know he did, for yourself.

We did have that conversation, but that doesn't mean I agreed with you.

[robvalue]

From a scientific or legal point of view, it doesn't matter what you know, it matters what you can demonstrate.

But informally, no one has any requirement to demonstrate anything, unless they want to influence someone else's beliefs. And I know CL doesn't aim to do so

[Redbeard The Pink]

CL, evidence can be shown by definition. If you can't show it to someone else, it really doesn't count as meaningful evidence.

Also, you and I have conversed before about the inescapable fact that Gaud' s omniscience and omnipotence would combine to rule out both personal responsibility and free will. Good to see that sunk in so well

If you witnessed Johnny kill Billy, would YOU know that Johnny killed Billy? Unless some other form of evidence comes in, you can't prove to other people that Johnny is guilty unless they chose to take your word for it. But you personally would still have enough information to know he did, for yourself.

We did have that conversation, but that doesn't mean I agreed with you.

That would depend entirely on what I witnessed, but even if I did undoubtedly see Johnny murder Billy, Johnny still shouldn't be convicted on the evidence of my testimony because personal testimony is a terrible standard of evidence.

There's also the problem of how sure I can be of what I saw. Human perception is woefully incomplete, and human memory is worse. Even if I'm REALLY sure I saw Johnny kill Billy, I could still be wrong about what I think I saw. Without further corroborating evidence (a body, ballistics reports, gunshot residue, etc.), I couldn't accurately claim to KNOW that Johnny killed Billy; I could only claim to believe he did because that's what I saw.

You can disagree about the free will thing, but to do so you have to be either ignorant or dishonest. The lack of free will and personal responsibility is a logical and inevitable circumstance of an omniscient and omnipotent god. It is paradoxical, logically inconsistent, and idiotic to simultaneously hold the belief that free will exists and that the Universe was created by an omnipotent, omniscient god.