Belief and Knowledge

[The Grand Nudger]

If the question of Gods existence and required subsequent propositions necessary to evaluate such a question do not interest you.....why are you here?

Why are you here? The existence of gods isn't even a question to you, eh? Are you also suffering under the belief that people come here to see gods proven or disproven? Meh, I like the stories - I dislike their effect on a certain subset. There aren't too many places that you can have both conversations, in the same thread even. Plus..... there are nudey pics on this website brah......

[Jenny A]

Well, in all truthfulness I think that the propositions Yahweh is god and Jesus was the son of god are fiction. I have committed due to lack of evidence where evidence ought to exist. But, I really have not committed on the subject of whether any god at all exists. There simply isn't enough evidence to commit. I see no evidence that one does, but it's far from an impossibility, just not a very likely possibility.

Its impossible for me to know what goes on in your mind. I simply have no knowledge of it. However I have committed to a belief that people who are members of and regularly participate in discourse on an atheist internet forum would not view the following propositions indifferently

God or gods exist.
God or gods do not exist.

They would not view them indifferently like they would these propositions.

Heywood has brown hair.
Heywood has red hair.
Heywood has hair of some other color.
Heywood has no hair.

Maybe my belief is wrong.

Having an interest in the outcome of a question does not imply the need to commit to one side of a question or the other. I'll give you an example. Lockheed recently announced a breakthrough in nuclear fusion. If Lockheed succeeds it could mean almost infinite clean power. The outcome is of grave importance. Will it really happen in the next ten years? I don't know. I certainly don't see a need to choose sides.

Now consider the question of a god not interested in the human race or indeed of interfering with much of anything that we notice, does it's existence or lack there of matter as much as harnessing nuclear fusion? Not to me.

[Heywood]

Yet.

And nobody claims that's supernatural.

If Benny Hinn prayed and miraculously an amputees limb was restored...nobody would say that was supernatural either....except perhaps Benny Hinn and his followers. The atheists would claim there is a natural explanation but science just hasn't found it yet.

[FatAndFaithless]

Atheists would claim that there's no reason at all to suspect a supernatural reason, as one has never been proven to exist, let alone been proven possible. Saying "we don't know yet" does not give anyone else license to crowbar in "supernatural" as an explanation.

[The Grand Nudger]

LOL, I think that Ben would be a very busy man for the rest of his life. After all the amputees have been restored we can start to wonder, we can investigate. I wouldn't want to take any time out of what would become a very important day from a very important person just to twiddle over some tired old "does god exist" question before all the amputees had had their 15 seconds with Mr. Hinn.

The truly astonishing thing in your example is that amputees are having their limbs returned to them. God is a sideshow in this example - unimportant. The healing of amputees wouldn't, for example, turn me into a christian - I'd simply be tickled that it were possible -by any means-.

[Heywood]

Atheists would claim that there's no reason at all to suspect a supernatural reason, as one has never been proven to exist, let alone been proven possible. Saying "we don't know yet" does not give anyone else license to crowbar in "supernatural" as an explanation.

Supernatural is really a meaningless word in my opinion. Anything that exists including God if He exists, is part of nature. However if God exists we should see non local causes for some events. Quantum randomness is one of those things which Bell's theorem tells us cannot be explained by any theory of local hidden variables. Does it prove God? No but is suggest that there is more to reality than what can be observed locally. It suggests there is a hidden reality beyond our observation and ability to explain.

[The Grand Nudger]

That doesn't change the fact that nothing suggests that any "god" is in that "hidden reality". The rest of our natural world (and our body of knowledge about it) would have to be ignored - so any pretense that we've been convinced of god, or that we have some reason to believe in god -through that body of knowledge- is fairly transparent.

[FatAndFaithless]

Atheists would claim that there's no reason at all to suspect a supernatural reason, as one has never been proven to exist, let alone been proven possible. Saying "we don't know yet" does not give anyone else license to crowbar in "supernatural" as an explanation.

Supernatural is really a meaningless word in my opinion. Anything that exists including God if He exists, is part of nature. However if God exists we should see non local causes for some events. Quantum randomness is one of those things which Bell's theorem tells us cannot be explained by any theory of local hidden variables. Does it prove God? No but is suggest that there is more to reality than what can be observed locally. It suggests there is a hidden reality beyond our observation and ability to explain.

However if God exists we should see non local causes for some events.

I can work with that, yes that is what we would expect. The issue is, at what point in time are you justified in asserting that it is a non local cause? Throughout the history of science the purported 'unexplainable' phenomena of the world have been able to be more well understood and explained and defined using very naturalistic and "local" explanations. When it comes to quantum randomness, how are you any more qualified to use that as a data point in your favor than the person claiming that lightning suggests a hidden reality beyond our observation back when we were unable to observe the causes of lightning?

[Heywood]

=
I can work with that, yes that is what we would expect. The issue is, at what point in time are you justified in asserting that it is a non local cause? Throughout the history of science the purported 'unexplainable' phenomena of the world have been able to be more well understoof and explained and defined using very naturalistic and "local" explanations. When it comes to quantum randomness, how are you any more qualified to use that as a data point in your favor than the person claiming that lightning suggests a hidden reality beyond our observation?

In the case of quantum randomness you have a theorem which is accepted to be true which states quantum randomness cannot be explained by any theory of local hidden variables. You have no such theorem for lightning.

In effect science has concluded that there are events which happen, which cannot have local causes. Isn't that something atheists claim we should observe if God exists?

[FatAndFaithless]

=
I can work with that, yes that is what we would expect. The issue is, at what point in time are you justified in asserting that it is a non local cause? Throughout the history of science the purported 'unexplainable' phenomena of the world have been able to be more well understoof and explained and defined using very naturalistic and "local" explanations. When it comes to quantum randomness, how are you any more qualified to use that as a data point in your favor than the person claiming that lightning suggests a hidden reality beyond our observation?

In the case of quantum randomness you have a theorem which is accepted to be true which states quantum randomness cannot be explained by any theory of local hidden variables. You have no such theorem for lightning.

In effect science has concluded that there are events which happen, which cannot have local causes. Isn't that something atheists claim we should observe if God exists?

I don't know what atheists are claiming that, I simply said I could work with your defintion, although you didn't really define what "local causes" are. And I'd be reluctant to make summarizations "in effect" of theorems on the most complex and uncertain area of science. At this point I don't know, you don't know, and scientists don't know or claim to know. There is absolutely nothing about not knowing that suggests a God in any way shape or form.

And I don't know why you're claiming that Bell's theorem is some sort of universally accepted law in science, opinions on it have very wide ranges including many criticisms of the theorem. Especially notable because according to wikipedia (not the font of knowledge but about as deep as you or I can get with our lack of specific expertise)

Bell test experiments to date overwhelmingly violate Bell's inequality.