Evidence for Believing

[Lek]

Well,  if it was just me it would seem pretty weird,  but  in the company of billions of sane, educated people,  I  would be more prone to check it out.

Yet you and all those billions of people have “revelations” about gods that are entirely mutually exclusive. I just listened to a Christian describe a revelation by god who told him he was not omniscient, or omnipotent, so how do we figure out who’s right? Also, appealing to the number of people who believe something is a fallacy, which has been pointed out to you several times by several people.

You can't dismiss it as a fallacy. Testimony of large numbers of people is evidence. According to the Me Too movement, it's enough to destroy people's lives.

As I stated before, people having different descriptions of an indescribable entity isn't strange. Our various ideas and images of God are vehicles that help us go to him. And no, God doesn't have to give us all the same image of him, since any image we have could not describe him.

[GrandizerII]

Yet you and all those billions of people have “revelations” about gods that are entirely mutually exclusive. I just listened to a Christian describe a revelation by god who told him he was not omniscient, or omnipotent, so how do we figure out who’s right? Also, appealing to the number of people who believe something is a fallacy, which has been pointed out to you several times by several people.

You can't dismiss it as a fallacy. Testimony of large numbers of people is evidence. According to the Me Too movement, it's enough to destroy people's lives.

As I stated before, people having different descriptions of an indescribable entity isn't strange. Our various ideas and images of God are vehicles that help us go to him. And no, God doesn't have to give us all the same image of him, since any image we have could not describe him.

What testimonies? You yourself implicitly admitted that you didn't really witness God. So perhaps all these other billions of people don't either.

[mordant]

Yet you and all those billions of people have “revelations” about gods that are entirely mutually exclusive. I just listened to a Christian describe a revelation by god who told him he was not omniscient, or omnipotent, so how do we figure out who’s right? Also, appealing to the number of people who believe something is a fallacy, which has been pointed out to you several times by several people.

You can't dismiss it as a fallacy.  Testimony of large numbers of people is evidence.

Yes it is a fallacy and no it is not evidence.

Large numbers of people on board with an idea creates a certain ... momentum if you will. Because we're hyper-social creatures, who want to belong, and fear not belonging, it is a powerful incentive to share the belief. But that in no way makes the belief substantiated or correct.

As I stated before,  people having different descriptions of an indescribable entity isn't strange.  Our various ideas and images of God are vehicles that help us go to him. And no, God doesn't have to give us all the same image of him, since any image we have could not describe him.

That is an incoherent argument. If a thing isn't describable then ANY description is meaningless AND pointless. If god's ways are "past finding out" then that isn't coherent with the notion that he desires some sort of "relationship" with people. If god is ineffable then nothing can be said about him. At a minimum, if ideas or images of god are 100% unique to an individual then they should never be discussed with others. Really what you're saying is that your ideas about god need have no correspondence to anything not in between your own ears. You can just make it up as you go and call it revelation.

[Gwaithmir]

You can't dismiss it as a fallacy.  Testimony of large numbers of people is evidence.  

"If 10,000 people believe a stupid idea, it is still a stupid idea." (Bertrand Russell)

[Anomalocaris]

Yet you and all those billions of people have “revelations” about gods that are entirely mutually exclusive. I just listened to a Christian describe a revelation by god who told him he was not omniscient, or omnipotent, so how do we figure out who’s right? Also, appealing to the number of people who believe something is a fallacy, which has been pointed out to you several times by several people.

You can't dismiss it as a fallacy.  Testimony of large numbers of people is evidence.  According to the Me Too movement, it's enough to destroy people's lives.

As I stated before,  people having different descriptions of an indescribable entity isn't strange.  Our various ideas and images of God are vehicles that help us go to him. And no, God doesn't have to give us all the same image of him, since any image we have could not describe him.

Or god didn't give us any of the images,  billions of us saw some image because our genes are essentially the same, and similar emotional, perceptive and cognitive defects are very widespread,  similar to widespread susceptibility to variation of the similar common diseases.

The fact that most people are susceptible to the same diseases might in some very weak way be taken as evidence this disease is good for us.    But it is not a very strong evidence, and evidence for the alternative explanation for its prevalence is vastly stronger.

So the fact that most people believe in some god might be evidence that there indeed is some god.   But it is extremely low quality evidence of negligible reliability and trivial falsifiability.   Vastly stronger evidence for other alternatives makes it essentially unworthy of consideration.

---

Yet you and all those billions of people have “revelations” about gods that are entirely mutually exclusive. I just listened to a Christian describe a revelation by god who told him he was not omniscient, or omnipotent, so how do we figure out who’s right? Also, appealing to the number of people who believe something is a fallacy, which has been pointed out to you several times by several people.

You can't dismiss it as a fallacy.  Testimony of large numbers of people is evidence.  According to the Me Too movement, it's enough to destroy people's lives.

As I stated before,  people having different descriptions of an indescribable entity isn't strange.  Our various ideas and images of God are vehicles that help us go to him. And no, God doesn't have to give us all the same image of him, since any image we have could not describe him.

Why not?   Most fallacies are committed by large number of people.    Fallacies are most often defects in reasoning that dovetails with common defects in reasoning ability.     So the fact that large number of people believe in something is very weak evidence by itself for it being factually true.

[Lek]

You can't dismiss it as a fallacy. Testimony of large numbers of people is evidence. According to the Me Too movement, it's enough to destroy people's lives.

As I stated before, people having different descriptions of an indescribable entity isn't strange. Our various ideas and images of God are vehicles that help us go to him. And no, God doesn't have to give us all the same image of him, since any image we have could not describe him.

What testimonies? You yourself implicitly admitted that you didn't really witness God. So perhaps all these other billions of people don't either.

Will you stop that? Show me a quote from where I said that.

It's good supporting evidence for me, but like I said before, it needs to come from God himself to you. That's the only way.

[Silver]

@Lek

Some people do not like to say it, some people do not like to hear it, but fuck them all.

The truth of the matter is that when individuals personally witness that which has no support to prove to others of its existence except to be taken upon by fallible religious faith, then that thing exists purely as a concept in the mind of the individual experiencing it. Yes, I am referring to a form of delusion. Religious people no more hear god than schizophrenics hear whatever they hear or people prone to hallucinations see what they see.

[GrandizerII]

@Lek

Some people do not like to say it, some people do not like to hear it, but fuck them all.

The truth of the matter is that when individuals personally witness that which has no support to prove to others of its existence except to be taken upon by fallible religious faith, then that thing exists purely as a concept in the mind of the individual experiencing it. Yes, I am referring to a form of delusion. Religious people no more hear god than schizophrenics hear whatever they hear or people prone to hallucinations see what they see.

But they're not hearing anything. That's the point. So it's not even hallucinations.

Delusions, yes. They feel things and think that must be God.

ETA: By "they", I am referring to the typical theist who does not have schizophrenia or anything of that sort, and who is sure God exists and "speaks" to them in some way.

[mordant]

@Lek

Some people do not like to say it, some people do not like to hear it, but fuck them all.

The truth of the matter is that when individuals personally witness that which has no support to prove to others of its existence except to be taken upon by fallible religious faith, then that thing exists purely as a concept in the mind of the individual experiencing it. Yes, I am referring to a form of delusion. Religious people no more hear god than schizophrenics hear whatever they hear or people prone to hallucinations see what they see.

But they're not hearing anything. That's the point. So it's not even hallucinations.

Delusions, yes. They feel things and think that must be God.

ETA: By "they", I am referring to the typical theist who does not have schizophrenia or anything of that sort, and who is sure God exists and "speaks" to them in some way.

In the long-ago when I was an evangelical Christian I used the same vocabulary. It's correct that I was not hallucinating or hearing things. I had simply been taught to reassign mundane things like intuition or internal rumination or imagination to be manifestations of god's influence on my thinking.

I have no doubt that a minority of people DO hallucinate, due to mental illness or to some propensity to certain unusual mental connections like synesthesia. But it is rare. Time and again I would be having a conversation with Christian friends and they would be thinking about some decision they had to make and rather than just say what they think or feel or intuit they would just say that god had "impressed upon them" that some course or other was the best way forward.

As a child I was taught the story of Samuel, a young boy who was in the care of an elderly priest at the temple. He kept getting awakened by a "still, small voice" calling his name. He thought it was the old dude who had called him, and the third time he awakened the priest asking him what he wanted, the old man said, look, if this happens again, you are to say, "here i am".

So in other words from the cradle we were immersed in the notion that god speaks to us in these subtle ways that are easily mistaken for something mundane, so we were being taught to see the divine in ... well, basically in whatever we wanted to see it in.

[Lek]

@Lek

Some people do not like to say it, some people do not like to hear it, but fuck them all.

The truth of the matter is that when individuals personally witness that which has no support to prove to others of its existence except to be taken upon by fallible religious faith, then that thing exists purely as a concept in the mind of the individual experiencing it. Yes, I am referring to a form of delusion. Religious people no more hear god than schizophrenics hear whatever they hear or people prone to hallucinations see what they see.

Thanks, Dr Fierce.