Evidence God Exists

[The Grand Nudger]

Oh? Idols to Dionysus are littered all over the Americas arent they? They didn't believe the same things, it's the narratives that have similar structures. Comparative mythology never ignores the significant differences between the beliefs of isolated cultures while making observations as to their similarities. Sometimes the narratives are similar but the underlaying motives or explanations can be night and day. In any myth about reality you're going to find similarities. The sun shines on the Americas and Europe, rain falls on both continents, rivers flow, the seasons pass, people die etc etc etc. The greatest similarity amongst all religions is just how "human" the characters described are. Now what on earth would explain that? I just can't think of anything at all......

This line of reasoning is exactly akin to digging through a ten pound bag of pennies and then going into complete shock when you find two that were minted in the same year. Well no shit, you had a ten pound bag of pennies. Spiritual buffet.

[tackattack]

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If intelligence is proof of God's existence (and I am a believer) then churches are the most Godless places in our Solar System, filled with feckless individuals who sup spoonfed nonsense that they don't understand because a man in neat clothes is saying it really loudly at the front.

That kind of argument is crazy. It states it is evidence despite presenting no evidence. It states your opinion and even then, it has no authority because you obviously haven't studied animal behaviour.

That's why so many kids get confused in science classes. That's why so many adults can't be assed to think for themselves. Intelligence should be used by the churches to say go out and think. Use it. And if you come back, great.

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I'm not sure where anyone stated intelligence is a proof for God's existence, was this a comment towards my post?

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Weapon malfunctioning? SPORTS!

Slap, Pull, Observe, Release, Tap and Shoot

After seeing your response here. I feel the need to suggest someting to you. When you pray and "expect a result", could it be that this expectation has influenced your desire to pray? You're expecting something to happen (and perhaps you have good reason to expect this something, regardless of god) then you pray, and voila it happens. From your explanation this very much appears to be whats going on.

Honestly though, if you're arguing for the efficacy of prayer (a subject that has been tested thoroughly countless times) you are a kook or a liar. That's not bias speaking, that's demonstrable falsification by rigorous testing.

A) You’re correct in that it was improper for me to state “quite often people” as that’s a generality and means nothing when speaking from a subjective perspective. It is also argumentum ad populum. From my perspective I know of no prayer I expected a result from that hasn’t gotten an affirmative result. Let me give an example:

Most people when you’re in a shooting range and hand them a gun and tell them to shoot the target will aim and pull the trigger. Skeptics will check to see if there’s ammo in the clip. If you pull the trigger (with ammo) and nothing happens what do you assume? Do you assume that the ammo is faulty, that they were dummy rounds? Do you know if the firing pin is installed?

B) Excluding negative results would be an unfair comparison. I have never felt the inner need to pray, prayed, expected a result, and trusted in that knowledge with something that was used to glorify God without out a positive result. I have prayed when asked to, expecting a result, trusted in that knowledge and gotten mixed results (almost entirely negative). I have also felt the inner need to pray, prayed without expectation, trusted that it was taken care of, at a time when I was doing something “in God’s will” for my life and also gotten mostly positive results. I have also felt the inner need to pray, prayed, expected a result, and trusted in that knowledge with something that wasn’t used to glorify God and got affirmative results that were temporary or negative results.
C) If you’re going to use phrases like “ridiculous stories”, you might as well just call me a liar or a cook because it’s just as much an emotion appeal to discredit my position rather than address the point unemotionally. It also shows your bias in this case. It’ll be a short conversation if this is just going through the motions.
D) And what are the exact probabilities of those exact events happening in that timeframe? I’m not a mathematician so I can’t answer that. I believe they exceed reasonable probability, unless you can show otherwise.
E) As to your alternatives for the first instance; without acknowledging you have a problem, or a problem existing, there would be no testament to God, reliance on a higher power, testament to God’s plan. Basically, without a need existing, there’s no possibility to be genuine in a request for saving from God.
F) “So does God ignore the pleas of children in pain, so it's only adults he listens to? Or have you personally got a hotline to him not afforded to your son and others?” Most of the time, not all of them, a predominant amount of the time. I believe that prayer have to be asked by one who knows and understands God to a minimum of accepting Jesus as their savior. Children can’t do that, nor can unbelievers. Now some children it’s supposed can see angels or something like that, so I don’t discount that children could know God more on a natural instinctual level and thus have their prayers answered, but I have no personal support for that stance.

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I'll just answer your questions since you're obviously not up for addressing mine.
"could it be that this expectation has influenced your desire to pray?" Yes it could be.
" if you're arguing for the efficacy of prayer (a subject that has been tested thoroughly countless times) you are a kook or a liar. " That's your choice not mine. I established several potential subtopics stated my reasons, and expect plenty of ridicule, just preferred someone who actually wanted to discuss it. I'll leave you from this wiki quote
"Some studies have reported benefit, some have reported harm, and some have found no benefit from the act of praying. Others suggest that the topic is outside the realm of science altogether." If you decide you actually want to discuss it, PM me I'm unsubscribing.

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If intelligence is proof of God's existence (and I am a believer) then churches are the most Godless places in our Solar System, filled with feckless individuals who sup spoonfed nonsense that they don't understand because a man in neat clothes is saying it really loudly at the front.

That kind of argument is crazy. It states it is evidence despite presenting no evidence. It states your opinion and even then, it has no authority because you obviously haven't studied animal behaviour.

That's why so many kids get confused in science classes. That's why so many adults can't be assed to think for themselves. Intelligence should be used by the churches to say go out and think. Use it. And if you come back, great.

---

I'm not sure where anyone stated intelligence is a proof for God's existence, was this a comment towards my post?

---

Weapon malfunctioning? SPORTS!

Slap, Pull, Observe, Release, Tap and Shoot

After seeing your response here. I feel the need to suggest someting to you. When you pray and "expect a result", could it be that this expectation has influenced your desire to pray? You're expecting something to happen (and perhaps you have good reason to expect this something, regardless of god) then you pray, and voila it happens. From your explanation this very much appears to be whats going on.

Honestly though, if you're arguing for the efficacy of prayer (a subject that has been tested thoroughly countless times) you are a kook or a liar. That's not bias speaking, that's demonstrable falsification by rigorous testing.

A) You’re correct in that it was improper for me to state “quite often people” as that’s a generality and means nothing when speaking from a subjective perspective. It is also argumentum ad populum. From my perspective I know of no prayer I expected a result from that hasn’t gotten an affirmative result. Let me give an example:

Most people when you’re in a shooting range and hand them a gun and tell them to shoot the target will aim and pull the trigger. Skeptics will check to see if there’s ammo in the clip. If you pull the trigger (with ammo) and nothing happens what do you assume? Do you assume that the ammo is faulty, that they were dummy rounds? Do you know if the firing pin is installed?

B) Excluding negative results would be an unfair comparison. I have never felt the inner need to pray, prayed, expected a result, and trusted in that knowledge with something that was used to glorify God without out a positive result. I have prayed when asked to, expecting a result, trusted in that knowledge and gotten mixed results (almost entirely negative). I have also felt the inner need to pray, prayed without expectation, trusted that it was taken care of, at a time when I was doing something “in God’s will” for my life and also gotten mostly positive results. I have also felt the inner need to pray, prayed, expected a result, and trusted in that knowledge with something that wasn’t used to glorify God and got affirmative results that were temporary or negative results.
C) If you’re going to use phrases like “ridiculous stories”, you might as well just call me a liar or a cook because it’s just as much an emotion appeal to discredit my position rather than address the point unemotionally. It also shows your bias in this case. It’ll be a short conversation if this is just going through the motions.
D) And what are the exact probabilities of those exact events happening in that timeframe? I’m not a mathematician so I can’t answer that. I believe they exceed reasonable probability, unless you can show otherwise.
E) As to your alternatives for the first instance; without acknowledging you have a problem, or a problem existing, there would be no testament to God, reliance on a higher power, testament to God’s plan. Basically, without a need existing, there’s no possibility to be genuine in a request for saving from God.
F) “So does God ignore the pleas of children in pain, so it's only adults he listens to? Or have you personally got a hotline to him not afforded to your son and others?” Most of the time, not all of them, a predominant amount of the time. I believe that prayer have to be asked by one who knows and understands God to a minimum of accepting Jesus as their savior. Children can’t do that, nor can unbelievers. Now some children it’s supposed can see angels or something like that, so I don’t discount that children could know God more on a natural instinctual level and thus have their prayers answered, but I have no personal support for that stance.

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I'll just answer your questions since you're obviously not up for addressing mine.
"could it be that this expectation has influenced your desire to pray?" Yes it could be.
" if you're arguing for the efficacy of prayer (a subject that has been tested thoroughly countless times) you are a kook or a liar. " That's your choice not mine. I established several potential subtopics stated my reasons, and expect plenty of ridicule, just preferred someone who actually wanted to discuss it. I'll leave you from this wiki quote
"Some studies have reported benefit, some have reported harm, and some have found no benefit from the act of praying. Others suggest that the topic is outside the realm of science altogether." If you decide you actually want to discuss it, PM me I'm unsubscribing.


I'm not sure but my post is only showing up as two lines.

[The Grand Nudger]

What's the deal here? You keep insinuating that I don't want to have a discussion? Why, because I don't accept your claims at face value? Why not simply talk to yourself (or someone who agrees with you in the first place)?

[chadster1976]

I'm a bit confused by your question. You ask for proof of something that seems a philosophical minefield! All I could seriously extrapolate is that people from across the globe seem to believe in a God or Gods (not everyone, I know!). Does that mean superstition is hard-wired or is there a shared experience of something bigger? How can you test either theory?

[The Grand Nudger]

You could test the hard-wired theory by reference to nueroscience or genetics. You could test the shared experience theory by reference to comparative mythology. As it just so happens, both angles have been tried. The comparative mythology angle shows us that the common experience described by religion is that of the experience of life in the natural world. The neuroscience and genetics angle I believe was recently written about by Richard Dawkins (though I haven't read the book and so you'd have to source the info from elsewhere).

[Minimalist]

Why is it that the American Indians who had no contact with the rest of the humanity for 14,000 years believed about gods what Europeans, Asians and Africans believed

I don't know where you got that number from, though. The Clovis-First paradigm has taken a few serious hits in recent years.

[The Grand Nudger]

Evidence for the boats? (Fucking with you Min...lol.)

135 and counting, surely evidence will materialize soon.

[dtango]

The comparative mythology angle shows us that the common experience described by religion is that of the experience of life in the natural world.

That is the easy way to explain things: no proof required!
As regards the common experience described by religion is that of the experience of life in the natural world, aka allegorical interpretation of the myths, that is a fruit offered to humanity by Theagenes of Rhegium in the 6th century BC. Before him nobody ever thought of the gods of the ancient Greeks as elements of the nature.
Plato, of course, did not believe Theagenes’ nonsense, he interpreted Homer literally and forbade the teaching of traditional mythology in his imaginary republic.

Apart from the stories about gods, the native Americans shared with the rest of the peoples some practices that you will find hard to explain: purification, sacrifice of humans and artificial cranial deformation of the infants (known from all continents without exception. It is rather rare in the sub-Saharan Africa and apparently absent from South India).

The shared experience theory is based upon the fact that we all (except the sub-Saharan Africans) come from the Near East.
Surely you know that you are, as I am, a hybrid: part Homo sapiens sapiens and part Neanderthal (1% to 4%) –unless you are an African in which case you are pure, uncontaminated by Neanderthal genes, Homo sapiens sapiens.

I assure you that it is not an easy subject. It takes a lot of reading in order to decide which theory is the correct one.

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I don't know where you got that number from, though. The Clovis-First paradigm has taken a few serious hits in recent years.

Lately I read this. What is your info?

[chadster1976]

Sorry. The point I was hoping you might deduce from this is that whether we are hard-wired or whether it is shared experiences (from my studies, I find both are clearly true), neither are evidence for or against the existence of God.

[The Grand Nudger]

That assumes that "god" is something other than a character in all of these myths. Honestly, I don't see why any evidence has to be offered against god. Evidence needs to be offered for god(as an actual entity), until then the only thing that can be demonstrated is that god is a character in fairy tales.

As for you Tango, no one thought of rain gods as elements of nature? Those gods were precisely how they defined those elements of nature and their explanation of why it seemed so capricious or beneficient (depending on what angle they were approaching it from). Agricultural societies painted agricultural gods as their benefactors, nomadic societies preferred "transportation gods"(be they horses, or sea gods, or what have you) warrior cultures opted in for warrior gods. Some societies that developed into what we call "civilizations" incorporated all of these into their pantheons as they engaged in each activity(though their pantheons were still heavily weighted in favour of whatever they were primarily engaged in). The shared experience I'm referring to is again the mundane experience of everyone living on the same rock. Rain gods where it rains, Sun gods where the sun shines, on and on and on. The world we all share became the backdrop for myth, as these myths were our attempt to explain this experience. I don't have to invoke some long forgotten communal myth handed down by man and interpreted differently as we traversed the globe. How would this explain things like Mormonism, Scientology, or Cargo Cults? We're clearly capable of inventing myths whole cloth. Furthermore, man had already spread himself across the globe before we even begin to see traces of organised religious observance or structured myth. Long before near eastern culture and myth emerges. And how would we explain migratory populations that do not seem to have halted in the near east? How did they carry myths over distance and time that they were never privy to in the first place? At best we could say that man carried animism and a belief in the afterlife everywhere he went and then branched off wildly from that point along lines that are obviously parallel with his local environment and societal structure.