Proof that God exists

[The Grand Nudger]

I think you have only partially quoted me there. I do go on to qualify that remark in my post. I'm clearly not talking about individual internal realities but the common reality that is religion. The point you raised with reference to the devil is really only an issue of a particular kind of dualist religion and not relevant to religion in general. We don't want to get into wheter or nor all reality is subjective, we'll be here all night.

Yeah, I chunk it up for clarity most of the time.  There is no such thing as a "common reality of religion", as all of the warring sects and every apologist who comes here with a different story about the same magic book makes perfectly clear.  Every religion has it's fair share of devils, the rituals never work.  

Fair point on the issue of proof verses evidence, so I'll rephrase. Science offers 'a crushing mound of evidence' that the sun has risen in the past, not that it will rise tomorrow. It's a subtle distinction but important.

Theres a crushing mound of evidence the sun will rise tomorrow as well.  It's a fun little chestnut we call orbital mechanics.  

I have to ask again, progress against what? It's actually a fine example that demonstrates my point. You believe that increased life expectancy is human progress, but what are you measuring that against?

It doesn't matter what I believe.  All that matters is that by referencing examples we are setting metrics.  If a person mentions progress..you ask them what they mean..and they say x, y, and z....there you go.  We could only insists that we haven't made progress or that it's some murky non-thing -before- a person lists off what they're using as metrics.  After that - it's just an issue of checking the numbers.  

Humanity has no universal goals against which to measure it.

Why would humanity have to have some universal goal for there to be progress?  Most of the time that's not how progress is made...though I'm sure it would help if we all came together to do something.  Just an interesting thing that stuck out, sidebar. 

We might desire more life but that is not an objective measure.  If you are suggesting how we feel about things is enough to create a measure against which we can show progress then you cannot exclude religion. There are more Christians today than 1000 years ago, they are (mostly) all happier because of it, therefore religion shows real progress, if we use your measure.

Progress doesn't always bring the happy feels, ask the luddites.  Does how you feel about something change the fact that we've raised the global life expectancy?  If you felt differently about it..would it go down, or up?  

No, no...and no.   

Here's a fun one, why isn't the desire for life an "objective measure"?  You either do or don't want to live.  You either are or are not alive.  Objectively desiring something objective seems like a hell of alot of objectivity for something that isn't an "objective measure".  

My point is science provides change, I accept that. Some of the change I like, I have a positive emotional response to because I'm more comfortable and I believe I can have a longer healthier life, but this is all based on how I feel and not some independent universal measure.

IDK, 365 days...12 months, 1 year.  Seems like an independent universal measure.  Either you can expect more of them or you can't, and it doesn't seem to matter how you or anyone else feels about it. 

I can reject the notion that this is progress, in the same way I reject that religion drives progress. In this respect, science and religion are the same, you cannot reject one without contradicting yourself with the other, so I reject both.

You reject science or human progress?  You can reject the latter if you like...but not because there's no such thing, or because it's a victorian word that has no place in science, or because there's no "universal goal", or because there's no objective or independent standard.  There is such a thing and here we are (and all that we are) as a testament to it.  Lots of words and concepts are putatively victorian.  We haven't had to band together into a universal goal to effect it as of yet, and it abounds with needling detail on the specific and objective metrics we use to assess it.  

Imagine everything else is shit.  We're doing no better anywhere else......but we live longer.  Isolate that one metric from all the noise.  Can you tell me, without irrelevance and rationalization...why a level headed person might hesitate to call that progress?  Just that alone?  Of course that's not the only metric being referred to when a person discusses human progress, is it?  If we listed every category we're doing better in it would take us eons.

You could -only- be insisting that the things we call progress...while they objectively do exist and have occurred and are an improvement over old metrics..aren't all that we make it out to be. They just aren't so awesome, lol. Well...the luddites didn't think so either...and yet the very things they destroyed, and the very force they attempted to resist....was a component of human progress all the same. You won't find me smashing up any cotton mills.



@Vulcan.
"Provisional certitude".