Atheism, Evidence and the God-of-the-Gaps

[Tonus]

Not for people who do know and understand him - to the degree that they are able in this life.

That degree appears to be some combination of the Bible, the claims of others, and possibly some ambiguous "personal testimony from the spirit" which I've yet to see quantified.  It leaves for a very loose and open interpretation that leaves us with the situation where a person is certain that the claims that support his belief are divine intervention, whereas those of others must be demonic in nature.  I find that troubling.

Why not? He did it at Fatima in 1917. There are photographs of the event online.

Is there one in particular that strikes you as clear evidence of the hand of god in action?

Isolated incidents like this are also confusing.  Why does god cause the sky to go a bit nuts on one afternoon so many years ago and then go back to even more obscure stuff like scuff marks on appliances or clouds shaped like angels or miracles that are indistinguishable from coincidence?

It is not what He wants, I agree. But the fact that many may be lost does not prove that He has not implemented the best solution. All that we're really hearing here is YOUR preference that none be lost and your assignment of guilt to God for the fact that many might be.

Yes, but don't you find that dissatisfying?  God's plans don't seem very well thought-out, but maybe he's got some aces up his sleeve?  And he thinks the best option is to see how many of us can stumble into the truth, instead of laying everything out clearly for us?

If literally true, then all we can say about that is that they desired to be like God. And after they gained the knowledge of good and evil they were "impressed" by God enough to hide from him in fear because they knew they had done wrong.

But god did not make enough of an impression on them to make them even think twice about breaking the one rule he'd given them.  Did the devil really understand god's nature if he thought that he could be "like" god without repercussion?  Or did he know and prefer death to continuing to be a minion?  How did such a simple challenge ("god's a liar, the fruit is good") get Eve to go against god's command?  Was she somehow unable to differentiate between the creator of all things and a talking serpent?

With perfect knowledge, the angels chose freely to reject God's plan for the salvation of men through Jesus Christ. That rejection is simply an act of the will. Why does this suggest that God is not impressive? There are many examples in our own day of rulers of countries who have great wealth and power...but some men (rightly) refuse to serve them. With the might of the English monarchy behind him, Henry VIII could not convince Thomas More to betray his own beliefs. etc, etc.

See above.  We aren't referring to a human king with limited technology and culture.  This is the almighty god and creator of the universe.  Do you feel that if you were able to spend your life in his presence, you would reject him freely as an act of will?  Imagine it, being an angel in heaven and able to directly witness the magnificence of god and his great wisdom and power.  How long would it take for you to decide "meh, I'll take my chances with an earth woman"?

A duel which God won handily, I might add.

I'm wondering why he had to take part it in at all, much less be forced to turn the dial up just to get a few misguided humans to grudgingly acknowledge him.

Or me might accept that "the unparalleled intellect in all of reality and a designer without equal" knows just how much we can handle without being coerced into acknowledging his existence.

I don't get why people believe that it's somehow a bad thing for god to show us unambiguously that he is there.  I have seen no reasoning that makes sense.  Given his history as recounted in the Bible and given what's at stake, it seems utterly indefensible to think that this is a good idea, much less the best option available.

[abaris]

Why not? He did it at Fatima in 1917. There are photographs of the event online.

Is there one in particular that strikes you as clear evidence of the hand of god in action?

Isolated incidents like this are also confusing.  Why does god cause the sky to go a bit nuts on one afternoon so many years ago and then go back to even more obscure stuff like scuff marks on appliances or clouds shaped like angels or miracles that are indistinguishable from coincidence?

Here's one of the photographs. I've looked through all that I could find, but they're all similar in nature



Now, what's the fuzz about that? What am I supposed to look at to get the presence of god? Not to mention that there was something going on at the same time, just a stretch to the Northeast, that would have made divine intervention a little more credible.

It's the year 1917 after all and the middle of a peaceful nowhere seems like a curious choice to make an appearance. But I guess, HE works in mysterious ways, isn't it?

[Mister Agenda]

If you stare at the sun too long, it will appear to 'zig-zag'. This is caused by involuntary eye movements as your 'lizard-brain' is trying to save you from going blind from staring at the sun too long. When you have involuntary eye movements like that, the perception is that it's the object you're looking at that is moving, rather than your eyes.

The pretty colors right after clouds parting sounds like an atmospheric effect. The rest sounds like crowd-effect religious hysteria.

[Jenny A]

If god's qualities include the ability to suspend or defy physics, then sure, he could part the sea with a stiff wind that somehow doesn't blast the humans passing through the dry portion into dust particles.  Or he can make the sun appear to stand still in the sky without wiping out all life on the planet when it suddenly stops rotating.  Or choose to have life evolve and not have anyone know about it until we discovered it on our own.  But that may be the biggest gap of all: what if god's primary attribute is that we can't rule out any of his attributes?  I can apply that to lots of gods, but that doesn't get me any closer to one that might actually be real.

Why not? He did it at Fatima in 1917. There are photographs of the event online.

Fatima and other sun miracles are a great example of why eyewitness testimony of miracles is insufficient.  Let's take a critical look at the "miracle."

The people had gathered because three young shepherd children had predicted that at high noon the lady who had appeared to them several times would perform a great miracle in a field near Fátima called Cova da Iria. According to many witnesses, after a period of rain, the dark clouds broke and "the sun" appeared as an opaque, spinning disc in the sky.[4] It was said to be significantly duller than normal, and to cast multicolored lights across the landscape, the people, and the surrounding clouds. The sun was then reported to have careened towards the earth in a zigzag pattern,[4] frightening those who thought it a sign of the end of the world.[5] Witnesses reported that their previously wet clothes became "suddenly and completely dry, as well as the wet and muddy ground that had been previously soaked because of the rain that had been falling".[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun

Sounds pretty damned impressive don't it?

Pio Scatizzi, Society of Jesus, described the events of that day on Fátima, and he concluded:

   The ... solar phenomena were not observed in any observatory. Impossible that they should escape notice of so many astronomers and indeed the other inhabitants of the hemisphere... there is no question of an astronomical or meteorological event phenomenon... Either all the observers in Fátima were collectively deceived and erred in their testimony, or we must suppose an extra-natural intervention.[30]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun

But actually, that's not true.  Not all the witnesses saw any such thing:

Despite these assertions, not all witnesses reported seeing the sun "dance". Some people only saw the radiant colors. Others, including some believers, saw nothing at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun[emphasis added]

Hmm, why would it be that some people saw this miracle and others did not?  

Auguste Meessen, following the work done before him by the Belgian skeptic Marc Hallet,[24] has stated sun miracles cannot be taken at face value and that the reported observations were optical effects caused by prolonged staring at the sun. Meessen contends that retinal after-images produced after brief periods of sun gazing are a likely cause of the observed dancing effects. Similarly Meessen states that the color changes witnessed were most likely caused by the bleaching of photosensitive retinal cells.[25] Meessen observes that Sun Miracles have been witnessed in many places where religiously charged pilgrims have been encouraged to stare at the sun. He cites the apparitions at Heroldsbach, Germany (1949) as an example, where many people within a crowd of over 10,000 testified to witnessing similar observations as at Fátima.[25]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun

Similar "miracles" has happened elsewhere under similar conditions.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, sun miracles have been reported at other Marian sites—at Lubbock, Texas, in 1989; Mother Cabrini Shrine near Denver, Colorado, in 1992; Conyers, Georgia, in the early to mid-1990s; and elsewhere, including Thiruvananthapuram, India, in 2008. Tragically, at the Colorado and India sites, many people suffered eye damage (solar retinopathy)—in some instances, possibly permanent damage (Nickell 1993, 196—200; Sebastian 2008).

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/real_secrets_of_fatima/  [emphasis added]

Protect your eyes from retinal damage and the miracle goes away:

At the Conyers site, the Georgia Skeptics group set up a telescope outfitted with a vision-protecting Mylar solar filter, and on one occasion I participated in the experiment. Becky Long, president of the organization, stated that more than two hundred people had viewed the sun through one of the solar filters and not a single person saw anything unusual (Long 1992, 3; see figure 1).

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/real_secrets_of_fatima/

So, what you have is thousands of people telling the truth about what they experienced, and yet being just as wrong as they can be about what it is they actually saw.

[pocaracas]

I'm late... I didn't read the whole 19 pages... In fact, I read the OP and saw the photo above.

Fátima... that's about 100km away from here... nice place... turned a commercial hub for religious paraphernalia...

Oh, well, here's the original report of the event, published a few days after the fact (I'm hiding, because the pics are huge):

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That's old style portuguese, but comprehensible... not sure about google, though!

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At most, you get people witnessing some strange event with the sun. The trick is... a few km away, people reported that the sun stayed exactly where it should... so whatever happened at Fátima, was only for the eyes of those at Fátima. Or, to put it a bit more bluntly, the Sun didn't move! The people in there saw it "moving". And not all saw the same thing... according to the report, most people there didn't see anything.

Back to the god-of-the-gaps OP...
well, not really the OP...

So, can atheism be falsified? An atheist might say, “Of course atheism can be falsified—just prove that God exists!”

But how exactly is the theist supposed to do this? Usually atheists demand some kind of over-the-top display of power to confirm God's existence. The late N.R. Hanson gave one such piece of evidence that would convince him:

Suppose...that on next Tuesday morning, just after breakfast, all of us in this one world are knocked to our knees by a percussive and ear-shattering thunderclap...the heavens open—the clouds pull apart—revealing an unbelievably immense and Zeus-like figure, towering above us like a hundred Everests. He frowns darkly as lightning plays across the features of his Michaelangeloid face. He then points down—at me!—and exclaims, for every man, woman and child to hear "I have had quite enough of your too-clever logic-chopping and word-watching in matters of theology. Be assured, N.R. Hanson, that I do most certainly exist. (N.R. Hanson. What I Do Not Believe and Other Essays. Springer, 1971)

If God did this, then surely we would know he existed, right? Well, why wouldn’t this kind of evidence also be subject to the “God-of-the-gaps” objection? Just because we don’t know how a giant man can appear in the sky doesn’t mean there is no natural explanation for him. Maybe aliens or time-travelers are at work, deceiving us?

Aye, it would be possible...
But what religious people fear is that, would a god actually show himself to exist, religions would become obsolete. Everyone would be atheist.
Belief would be unnecessary.
Everyone would know that god exists, obviously, look at him telling us all the time that he's there taking care of things for us.
No more shepherding, no more priestly fathers, no more theocracies, no more morality from books and interpretations of books. No more theology, no more belief systems, no more faith.

Could that big guy just be caused by some aliens, or could he be an alien himself?... maybe... but I'm sure he would have some ways of showing us his control over time and information... could still be aliens...
Well, isn't god the ultimate alien, huh?
Not exactly a terrestrial being is he? Then, extra-terrestrial seems appropriate.


Of course, were that guy to present himself now, the question would arise:
- What have you been doing all this time, you piece of crap god?!
You let all these people die in stupid holy wars and they're still at it! WTF!?!
Go fix that shit, right now!

[Randy Carson]

Adults don't have blind faith. They have an informed faith.

You should, too.

Okay, when I read this I hear, adults don't just believe in Jesus, they study exactly the Jesus story is first.  That's information regarding the claim, not proof of the claim.  Without proof of the claim it's still blind faith.

Or is there real evidence?

That's what former atheists who convert to Christianity typically do...they study the story first...and come to believe that it is reasonable to believe.

So, yes, of course there's "real" evidence, Jenny. I can give you a dozen reasons to believe that the NT is historically reliable. Tim O'Neill gave the forum reasons why Jesus is not a myth. There are solid reasons to think that the resurrection really happened.

The problem is that none of this is "real" in your opinion. Other folks, equally skeptical at first (and equally intelligent), have arrived at a different conclusion.

[Randy Carson]

Hitler visited the Weimar Nietzsche because he had read Nietzsche and admired him. The Aryan race was a twisted version of Nietzsche's "superman".

Are you, perhaps, aware of the guilt by association fallacy?

Hitler understood with chilling clarity the moral implications of a Nietzschean world without God. Once he had attained power, he created the concentration camps to implement the Darwinian law of nature that would bring about the elimination of the unfit and the creation of a civilization that was fit for the master race.

Okay, so, you've had it explained to you what "Darwinian" laws of nature actually mean and imply for human beings, what "fittest" means for our particular niche, so continuing with this blatant strawman now is completely dishonest, and since you reference the "why be good?" thread here you can't just pin it on a slip of memory either.

And I have explained to you on more than one occasion why it is reasonable to believe that God exists.

Gee, you've BEEN TOLD. Why do you continue with your dishonest claims that God does not exist when you already know the truth?

See my point? Yeah, you've TOLD me what Darwinism means...I just don't believe your interpretation is applicable in a social situation.

So, I'll argue for what I believe based on what I believe, and you, of course, will continue to do the same.

[The Grand Nudger]

I can give you a dozen reasons to believe that the NT is historically reliable. 

LOL, and here I'd have settled for just one...........so, if you can do that...then why haven't you been doing that?

[Randy Carson]

Alternatively, maybe they were holy enough to send on the voyage. Weren't they the priests who were hearing confessions as the ship went down? Probably saved a lot of souls that.

There were three priests aboard, btw.

Here's a good article: http://the-american-catholic.com/2012/04...e-titanic/

They still drowned with all the others who weren't priests.

Yes, they did.

But not before giving absolution to many who might have lost more than their lives if they had died without it.

[Randy Carson]

What is a definition of God that you would accept?

What is your definition of "God", Randy? You're the one who believes in it, so you're the one who needs to define it.

Well, the glossary in the back of the Catechism of the Catholic Church sez:

GOD: The infinite divine being, one in being yet three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God has revealed Himself as the "One who is," as truth and love, as creator of all that is, as the author of divine revelation, and as the source of salvation.

How's that for starters?