RE: In Defense of God.
June 22, 2017 at 7:37 pm
(This post was last modified: June 22, 2017 at 7:43 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
A good point as far as it goes, but there's no requirement of proof, and proof is not the same thing as evidence..what you seem to be looking for with the qualifiers of "straight up proof".
Consider this, when a person stands on trial and offers the "god told me too" ense, even though the jury is almost certain to contain a majority believing demographic, they don't believe that defendant. His personal testimony is not enough for -them- to believe, and I think here that you and I and a believer are all in agreement. However, their own personal experience (if they had one) is more difficult for them to personally deny, and here again..I think that you and I and they would all agree.
Their experience might not meet your standards of evidence, it may even be poor evidence by their own standards, or no evidence at all, but it still forms a compelling basis for their personal beliefs. Maybe they are wrong and believe because of a bad party in their brains, but that would be wrong for the right reasons. They may possess no proof. There may be no proof of any god at all. Faith and proof are not synonymous, and neither requires the other - nor does faith require a personal experience or to be based on the testimony of others personal experience. A faithful person can acknowledge all of this without any issues, but, ultimately, none of that tells us anything about whether or not there is a god.
Presumably, if there is a god, a great many people will have had non-factual experiences attributed to a god all the same.
Consider this, when a person stands on trial and offers the "god told me too" ense, even though the jury is almost certain to contain a majority believing demographic, they don't believe that defendant. His personal testimony is not enough for -them- to believe, and I think here that you and I and a believer are all in agreement. However, their own personal experience (if they had one) is more difficult for them to personally deny, and here again..I think that you and I and they would all agree.
Their experience might not meet your standards of evidence, it may even be poor evidence by their own standards, or no evidence at all, but it still forms a compelling basis for their personal beliefs. Maybe they are wrong and believe because of a bad party in their brains, but that would be wrong for the right reasons. They may possess no proof. There may be no proof of any god at all. Faith and proof are not synonymous, and neither requires the other - nor does faith require a personal experience or to be based on the testimony of others personal experience. A faithful person can acknowledge all of this without any issues, but, ultimately, none of that tells us anything about whether or not there is a god.
Presumably, if there is a god, a great many people will have had non-factual experiences attributed to a god all the same.
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