RE: No verifiable evidence is the Christian position
August 13, 2013 at 8:37 am
(This post was last modified: August 13, 2013 at 8:39 am by The Reality Salesman01.)
(August 13, 2013 at 1:41 am)whateverist Wrote: Most likely, yes (to the things I listed). The experiment in the case of God would most likely correlate with belief in God going in.
I guess a better phenomenon to put up as on the same level as God would be one's self. How do you know you are who you think you are? It isn't exactly falsifiable in any objective way and neither consciousness nor 'self-hood' are well understood scientifically. Heck, many on this site argue forcefully against free will which correlates with something about self-hood, maybe agency.
I am one of those proponents of determinism. There are just certain aspects of our idea of self which seem incompatible with free will. That being said, it sounds like what you are talking about is self in a more subjective sense, and in that sense, does anyone really know exactly who they are? It's certainly not anything that could be put into a jar. However, a third party could verify your existance in an objective sense. Being able to verify some version of you is more than what can be said for verifying the existance of a God.
A version of the you, that you identify as being part of your self, can be objectively validated as it correlates with reality.
An individual making claims of Gods is making a claim about something that extends beyond their self. A claim of something in addition to one's self.
There is no version of a God that could be objectively verified by an impartial 3rd party as there is no evidence to support that any version of a God correlates with reality of any kind. If fact, a God, shares the same characteristics as a figment. When you say that God exists in the mind of the believer, I agree, but only in a subjective sense. As you said, it is as real as your subjective sense of self.
However, nobody is out running around trying to convince people of who they are, or that their sense of self is what they think it is. You are the subject matter expert there, I have no place to contend such a belief.
But, an objective claim about God, is a horse of a different color.
Belief in God is not the same as belief in self-ness.
One's idea of their relationship with God, seems to be more fitting to such a comparison.
I am interested in hearing your opinion. Please tell me if there's an aspect of these concepts that I'm not giving proper attention to, especially with regards to how I am comparing them. I tend to do that.
