Evidence for Believing

[Simon Moon]

Could you please define and describe the god you believe exists?

I.E., do any ancient texts/holy books accurately depict it? If so, which ones? Does it interact with the physical universe and/or the sentient beings within the universe in any detectable, verifiable and repeatable way? Or whatever other pertinent information you might think would add to your description.

You might have done it in the past, but I don't see it in any of your latest threads.

Thanks!

Since he is indescrible in human terms, I can only give attributes.  I use "he" for lack of another pronoun.  He always existed and will always exist.  He was not created, but he is the creator of the physical universe - omnipotent, omniscient, loving, personal, without gender, no form, etc.  He exists in and apart from the universe and sustains it every second.  I'm not of the Sikh religion, but my image of God is pretty much the same.  The holy book of Sikhism is the "Sri Guru Granth Sahib".

Man!

If that thing exists, I really, sincerely want to know about it.

As I've stated many times, one of my main motivations in having these types of conversations, is to have as many true beliefs as possible, and eliminate as many false beliefs. I care deeply whether my beliefs are true or not. I want my internal model of the universe to map, as closely as possible, to the actual universe.

When I am told by physicists, astronomers, chemists, biologists, etc, that things like: quarks, muons, black holes, molecules, DNA, etc exist, and behave in specific ways, I understand that it is possible (although very highly improbable) that I could study these things, and demonstrate their existence to a very high degree of certainty, as these other scientists have.

They are able to point to their data, their methods, their experiments, their math, their observations, etc, and very importantly, they are able to propose the type of data and observations that would falsify their claims.

In other words, there is a very specific set of steps to get me to an understanding of them, i.e., many years of school, study of advanced math, working with advanced experimental equipment, direct observation, etc, etc.

Please let me know the specific steps I could take, that would get me to the same understanding of this god you claim exists, and has the attributes you claim it has.

[Anomalocaris]

Could you please define and describe the god you believe exists?

I.E., do any ancient texts/holy books accurately depict it? If so, which ones? Does it interact with the physical universe and/or the sentient beings within the universe in any detectable, verifiable and repeatable way? Or whatever other pertinent information you might think would add to your description.

You might have done it in the past, but I don't see it in any of your latest threads.

Thanks!

Since he is indescrible in human terms, I can only give attributes.  I use "he" for lack of another pronoun.  He always existed and will always exist.  He was not created, but he is the creator of the physical universe - omnipotent, omniscient, loving, personal, without gender, no form, etc.  He exists in and apart from the universe and sustains it every second.  I'm not of the Sikh religion, but my image of God is pretty much the same.  The holy book of Sikhism is the "Sri Guru Granth Sahib".

He never existed until some goat herd grew too bored and dissatisfied with using sheep.   He will stop existing when other forms of masturbation becomes better at fulfilling the same pathological emotional need.

[Ricardo]

What to tell a theist when he argues that I cannot prove that God does not exist?

[Anomalocaris]

 
What to tell a theist when he argues that I cannot prove that God does not exist?

Tell him he could not prove Jesus wasn't eaten the celestial bear and turned into divine bear shit.

[Inqwizitor]

My disbelief in gods has nothing to do with the Bible being a book of mythology, that, in any important ways, does not reflect reality.

I never claimed, with absolute certainty, that a god do not exist. My position is, that the case for the existence of a god has never met its burden of proof, therefore I have no warrant of justification to believe a god exists. My atheism is a product of correctly applied skepticism and critical thinking, and is a provisional position, not a dogmatic one.

I will stop being an atheist, as soon as the case for the existence of a god has met its burden of proof, with demonstrable, verifiable and falsifiable evidence, and reasoned argument.

Can you illustrate how it's possible for something that is not within the limits of our natural epistemology to meet this standard of proof?

Maybe there isn't anything that caused things to be. Maybe it is a brute force fact, that existence has always existed. Even before our local presentation of the universe expanded.

Please describe the state of nothing, as in nothing being. How can absolute nothing even "be"?

That's just it, though, there must be something that must exist, always, and the argument is that anything that could conceivably not exist, cannot be that something. So any particular being or collection of entities that can be otherwise arranged, such as our natural universe, are not necessary in and of themselves. The brute fact that anything exists without reason or explanation is arbitrary and irrational, and not consistent with how we investigate reality. We can admit that something is beyond our epistemology, but that gives us no reasonable grounds for saying our epistemology is the limit of everything that exists.

[Lek]

Since he is indescrible in human terms, I can only give attributes.  I use "he" for lack of another pronoun.  He always existed and will always exist.  He was not created, but he is the creator of the physical universe - omnipotent, omniscient, loving, personal, without gender, no form, etc.  He exists in and apart from the universe and sustains it every second.  I'm not of the Sikh religion, but my image of God is pretty much the same.  The holy book of Sikhism is the "Sri Guru Granth Sahib".

Your god seems pretty weak, vague an inseparable from nothingness. I, however, can describe my God (and let's be honest the real one) in full robust language and can even give you illustrations of Its glory from artists who've seen it around the world and through time.

RAmen.

You'll never win me as a convert, but if the FSM is what connects you to God then I say go for it. It all boils down to you and God.

[The Grand Nudger]

We've moved on to the apologetic phase of whining that their god can't meet basic standards.

Omni-impotent.

Meanwhile, there's nothing arbitrary or irrational about a brute fact. If that were so, no argument to irreducibility (so important to god and all things non-natural) could be accepted.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

 
What to tell a theist when he argues that I cannot prove that God does not exist?

Admit that you can't.  Then explain that you don't have to.

Boru

[Inqwizitor]

I agree with you that faith is not knowledge. I disagree that there isn't value, sometimes tremendous value, in strong convictions about what we cannot definitively prove, though. There is danger there too, but I'd rather not throw the baby out with the bathwater (and I do believe in a divine baby, after all).

I don't think that the concept of God in itself is necessarily an object of faith. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit is (and I guess so is the FSM if there is an ounce of sincerity in it) but not the metaphysical concept of actus purus; but igtheism makes a good point that the word "God" in itself, at least semantically, might be meaningless.

There can always be the appearance of tremendous value or tremendous harm in any wishful self-deception.   There can also be the similar potential for tremendous apparent value and harm in revelation of demonstrable facts.   The overall value of the contingent effects of both wishful self-deception and  demonstrable facts, may on a first approximation be said to be similar,  and both are a wash.


The difference is what remains when the up and down swings of contingent value that sums up to nothing is removed.   In the case of faith nothing remains.   In the case of facts there will always remain the actionable understanding of what really is there.

But faith by nature does not give way to facts, and instead seem to propagate and aggrandize itself at the expense of facts and truth.

So the "tremendous" value in faith of which you speak are at best a random fluctuation that may seem to tick up today, but could just as easily crash down tomorrow.    But embracing faith likely comes at the opportunity cost of sacrificing the lasting value derivable from understanding of demonstrable facts.

You might have to clarify this further for me to be sure that I understand what you mean. This calculation assumes that faith is merely wishful self-deception that is blind or opposed to facts. To my mind, that's superstition. I don't agree that all faith is superstition. Faith must be consistent with facts, and likewise its proper object is understanding objective reality; the difference is that it cannot be demonstrated with direct empirical evidence or logical proof (as in mathematics). The opportunity cost cuts both ways, by rejecting faith there is potentially a loss of beneficial truth.

---

We've moved on to the apologetic phase of whining that their god can't meet basic standards.  

Omni-impotent.

Meanwhile, there's nothing arbitrary or irrational about a brute fact.  If that were so, no argument to irreducibility (so important to god and all things non-natural) could be accepted.

A brute fact is reducible, logically, and that's the problem with it. We can logically reason that something is reducible, but then there is an assertion that, no, actually, that's all there is. The rational explanations simply stop there, because we can't physically observe or measure more than that.

[Anomalocaris]

There can always be the appearance of tremendous value or tremendous harm in any wishful self-deception.   There can also be the similar potential for tremendous apparent value and harm in revelation of demonstrable facts.   The overall value of the contingent effects of both wishful self-deception and  demonstrable facts, may on a first approximation be said to be similar,  and both are a wash.


The difference is what remains when the up and down swings of contingent value that sums up to nothing is removed.   In the case of faith nothing remains.   In the case of facts there will always remain the actionable understanding of what really is there.

But faith by nature does not give way to facts, and instead seem to propagate and aggrandize itself at the expense of facts and truth.

So the "tremendous" value in faith of which you speak are at best a random fluctuation that may seem to tick up today, but could just as easily crash down tomorrow.    But embracing faith likely comes at the opportunity cost of sacrificing the lasting value derivable from understanding of demonstrable facts.

You might have to clarify this further for me to be sure that I understand what you mean. This calculation assumes that faith is merely wishful self-deception that is blind or opposed to facts. To my mind, that's superstition. I don't agree that all faith is superstition. Faith must be consistent with facts, and likewise its proper object is understanding objective reality; the difference is that it cannot be demonstrated with direct empirical evidence or logical proof (as in mathematics). The opportunity cost cuts both ways, by rejecting faith there is potentially a loss of beneficial truth.

---

We've moved on to the apologetic phase of whining that their god can't meet basic standards.  

Omni-impotent.

Meanwhile, there's nothing arbitrary or irrational about a brute fact.  If that were so, no argument to irreducibility (so important to god and all things non-natural) could be accepted.

A brute fact is reducible, logically, and that's the problem with it. We can logically reason that something is reducible, but then there is an assertion that, no, actually, that's all there is. The rational explanations simply stop there, because we can't physically observe or measure more than that.

If faith be limited to known demonstrable facts, it wouldn't be faith, it would be facts.   For faith to limit itself to  hypothesis and assumption about the unknown that does not contract what is known and demonstrable, it would be called assumptions or hypotheses and not faith.   For faith to be faith it must either Contradict known facts or treat what could be no more than hypotheses and assumptions as if they were more than hypotheses and assumptions.

So how is this in principle different from superstition?

The difference between faith and superstition appears to be entirely observer centric.    Faith is the superstition of those who loath to be called superstitious.     Superstition is the faith of other people whose superstition does not agree with one's own.