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What would you consider to be evidence for God?
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
(March 31, 2016 at 7:22 pm)robvalue Wrote: That's an argument. Arguments are not evidence. What you believe to be true has no effect on what is actually true.
Completely wrong. These are common observations about reality. Which of those listed do you consider an inaccurate description?
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RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
(March 31, 2016 at 1:52 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: The following evidence only counts if one already believes in both an intelligibly ordered universe and the efficacy of human reason. Someone that doubts either of these will not accept the evidence offered. However if both are accepted then the existence of God logically follows from the following observations:

Some causal sequences are essentially ordered.
Effects follow regularly from specific causes.
Some beings better exemplify their kind than other beings of the same kind.
There is something rather than nothing.
Some things gain their existence, preserve it, then cease to exist.


Great!

Then universe creating pixies do exist! I always suspected...


On a serious note, could you please define "intelligibly ordered universe" as you are using it?

Without reading too much into that phrase, I am detecting some possible flaws.

You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
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Brick 
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
(March 31, 2016 at 1:16 pm)snowtracks Wrote: A better explanation would be a 'god-like being' (who this being is at this point is not being considered) since the 'vicious infinite regress' would cease; theories that make an appeal to infinity breakdown into oblivion.

Wrong! It is the existence of your god that mandates infinite regress, ergo, it cannot exist.
You make people miserable and there's nothing they can do about it, just like god.
-- Homer Simpson

God has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.
-- Superintendent Chalmers

Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. There are some things we don't want to know. Important things.
-- Ned Flanders

Once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral.
-- The Rev Lovejoy
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RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
(March 31, 2016 at 8:30 pm)IATIA Wrote:
(March 31, 2016 at 1:16 pm)snowtracks Wrote: A better explanation would be a 'god-like being' (who this being is at this point is not being considered) since the 'vicious infinite regress' would cease; theories that make an appeal to infinity breakdown into oblivion.

Wrong!  It is the existence of your god that mandates infinite regress, ergo, it cannot exist.
Regress ceases since the natural effects trace back to the universe's beginning.  The cosmic timeline began 13.77 billions ago along with matter, space and energy. The beginning must start with a non-physical entity. If there's no god, there would be the absence of anything (the word 'nothing' has many meanings; like "What are you up to"?...nothing). Categorical fallacy to superimpose the natural realm's requirement for beginning's to the supernatural that wouldn't require a beginning; aka, the biblical God is transcendental to time, not control nor confined by it. That's why it was written 'a thousands years is like one day and one day is like a thousand years'. You should of known this by now...but now you do, so that's okay.
Atheist Credo: A universe by chance that also just happened to admit the observer by chance.
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RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
Still wrong. Still just making shit up.
You make people miserable and there's nothing they can do about it, just like god.
-- Homer Simpson

God has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.
-- Superintendent Chalmers

Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. There are some things we don't want to know. Important things.
-- Ned Flanders

Once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral.
-- The Rev Lovejoy
Reply
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
(March 31, 2016 at 8:27 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:
(March 31, 2016 at 7:22 pm)robvalue Wrote: That's an argument. Arguments are not evidence. What you believe to be true has no effect on what is actually true.
Completely wrong. These are common observations about reality. Which of those listed do you consider an inaccurate description?

Did you watch my video?

You're creating an extremely simple model of reality based on some very broad observations, and just hoping there's nothing you're missing that will affect the reliability of your model. You're then applying these observations wholesale not just to all of reality but to reality itself. Even if the observations are consistent with our local area, and even within all of reality, it's a fallacy of composition to apply those to reality itself.

It's up to you to demonstrate your extremely simple model, your abstract version of reality, is in any way similar to the one we live in. You do this via evidence. You have made no predictions, and so have nothing to test. You have collected no data. You're exploring an imaginary reality in your head. Expecting me to prove that this isn't the same as our reality is the argument from ignorance, since you've got no evidence that it is. You're expecting me to prove you haven't missed any possible detail that could render the results invalid. "It sounds like it" or "It's consistent so far" is not enough when you expect to apply it as your only method of getting a result. Your conclusions are packed inside your premises; even if this is all logically sound, which it is not. Where on earth did God come from? At best you have "a cause" which you've defined into existence as having special properties which defeat your own rules that you're relying on.

You're even claiming to be able to out-do all scientific study ever done by creating this incredibly simple model and just waltzing past the plank time with your everyday intuitive logic. The chances of your imaginary reality in your head bearing any resemblance to what our reality is like at this point becomes near to zero. And past this point, even going external to our reality, you're simply making it up. The only way to check the reliability of the model is to test it via predictions, and you have no access to what happens external/previous to our reality.

You're not doing science at all. And this is why your conclusions are vague, suspect, unverifiable and entirely useless. If you resort to current scientific methods to show the validity of your models, then you can't simply ignore them when you regress towards the Big Bang and announce you've found a way to go through it.
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RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
This is why we have the scientific method, to check the accuracy of our results. Evidence is collected at the end of the process, not at the beginning.

We start with observations, then we form a hypothesis, then we find a way to test the hypothesis in a falsifiable way, then we carry out the test.

Just using logical arguments misses out all these latter vital steps.

It's basically trying to use the tools of science, but in a magical way scientists never thought of to achieve astonishing new results. But the results apply only to the world you're exploring in your head, until you can demonstrate otherwise.

These things almost always amount to:

1) Make observations

2) Announce binding rules based on these observations

3) Notice an apparent paradox caused by the rules

4) Define a special thing that violates the rules, to plug the apparent paradox
Feel free to send me a private message.
Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.

Index of useful threads and discussions
Index of my best videos
Quickstart guide to the forum
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RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
(March 31, 2016 at 10:43 pm)snowtracks Wrote:
(March 31, 2016 at 8:30 pm)IATIA Wrote: Wrong!  It is the existence of your god that mandates infinite regress, ergo, it cannot exist.
Regress ceases since the natural effects trace back to the universe's beginning.  The cosmic timeline began 13.77 billions ago along with matter, space and energy. The beginning must start with a non-physical entity. If there's no god, there would be the absence of anything (the word 'nothing' has many meanings; like "What are you up to"?...nothing). Categorical fallacy to superimpose the natural realm's requirement for beginning's to the supernatural that wouldn't require a beginning; aka, the biblical God is transcendental to time, not control nor confined by it. That's why it was written 'a thousands years is like one day and one day is like a thousand years'. You should of known this by now...but now you do, so that's okay.

After you prove god's existence go on to prove that without god there would be the absence of everything first, you're just making an assumption right now. Even though I doubt that you will, I suggest checking up on quantum mechanics. I'm not an expert on it but I'm sure that it actually has supported explanations to how the universe could have started. I even read an article that suggested the universe is eternal. 

But do you see the difference between science and faith? In science one doesn't claim that something is correct if it makes sense, they test it, do experiments, when you make an assumption or hypothesis you go try to prove it. If it turns out to be wrong, you try something else. You don't believe in what you want to be true. 
Faith is simply just assumptions supported by nothing.

 God is like a "super" variable that you put as the answer of every equation even if it's wrong, just because you can't solve the equation. And once you solve that equation, unsurprisingly you see that god wasn't the answer.
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RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
(March 31, 2016 at 10:43 pm)snowtracks Wrote: The beginning must start with a non-physical entity.

Must it?  Why, and how did you come to this knowledge, whatever it is?

Quote:If there's no god, there would be the absence of anything

 -Regardless- of whether or not there's a god....there's clearly a bunch of something here.  We can agree on that, surely?
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
Oh yes... The proof of God by defining it to be necessary. How quaint.
Feel free to send me a private message.
Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.

Index of useful threads and discussions
Index of my best videos
Quickstart guide to the forum
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