(March 5, 2014 at 4:55 am)enrico Wrote:There isn't much to elaborate. Many theists here have admitted that god cannot be detected by any means that are external to us. They only ever verify god by internal means. Which is why gods often reflect the individual's culture and beliefs and why there are so many different interpretations of what god is and who god is and what he wants from any of us. Since god only exists within, people can and do shape and re-shape him all the time.(March 3, 2014 at 10:41 am)Tonus Wrote: On the contrary, most atheists understand this point very clearly.That is interesting.
Can you please elaborate?
Remember, you're not only explaining the existence and qualities of god with people who do not believe that he exists. You are also doing so with people who believe he exists in vastly different forms from what you have experienced, and who claim to have received the same internal verification that you claim. But from a different god, or from the same god yet differently.
When dozens of theists come here and present to us dozens of versions of god (with each version being the only possible version), what do you think we're going to conclude?
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
