RE: What would it take for you to believe in God?
May 8, 2014 at 11:42 am
(This post was last modified: May 8, 2014 at 12:41 pm by Mister Agenda.)
(April 29, 2014 at 9:05 pm)te1148 Wrote: Do you only believe in things that have testable evidence?
The evidence should be proportionate to the extraordinariness of the claim. It's Bayesian analysis: if you claim you tied your own shoes this morning, it's a trivial claim, I have prior knowledge that the claim is plausible, so I am likely to take your word for it. That doesn't mean you're not lying or deluded, only that I have no good reason to assume it. If you claim you tied your own shoes this morning using the power of psychokinesis, I have no prior knowledge that such a thing is possible, and you would need thorough scientific support before I would accept your claim.
This is really common sense stuff. Is there a reason the obvious answers to your questions aren't occurring to you?
(April 29, 2014 at 9:10 pm)te1148 Wrote: Do you believe in hope, joy, love, courage? If so, what is the testable evidence of these things?
Those are emotions of which we all have direct experience. Again, this is an obvious answer to your question. We believe in these feelings because we have them.
(April 29, 2014 at 9:16 pm)te1148 Wrote: How would you know if you are rightly judging the evidence if you saw it?
How would YOU?
(April 29, 2014 at 9:27 pm)te1148 Wrote: There is more physical and testable evidence for many of the truths of Christianity, than many things that are almost universally believed. The resurrection of Christ, example was seen by hundreds of people. What keeps you from believing that?
Someone said it happened and was seen by hundreds of people. That's not physical and testable evidence, it's hearsay. Can you name 20 of those hundreds of people? Can you point to 10 contemporary accounts of the event in question? Do you believe in nonChristian messianic resurrection claims (Jesus was not the first purported Jewish messiah to come to a bad end only to have his followers claim he was resurrected)?
It's not even adequately-documented hearsay. A few unknown authors recorded that they were told that hundreds of people saw a resurrected Jesus. No one who was supposed to have been there at the time actually wrote it down. We don't know how many retellings it went through before the Gospel authors heard of it. Even if we accept that people saw Jesus walking around after the crucifixion, the most parsimonious explanation is that the crucifixion didn't actually kill him...people have survived crucifixion when taken down early, as Jesus was. Ancient people often had a difficult time distinguishing between 'dead' and 'looks dead'.
If you heard the same story about Krishna, would you believe it? If not, on what basis do expect we would believe it about Jesus?
(April 29, 2014 at 9:37 pm)te1148 Wrote:(April 29, 2014 at 9:30 pm)Esquilax Wrote: Where's your evidence that hundreds of people saw Christ do anything?
Oh, it's the book that wants you to believe that Christ was god? Sounds like circular reasoning to me.
It is circular reasoning, and I'm okay with that. I believe the Bible to be true, because I believe God to be true. I think we all believe in a lot of things without testable evidence. I believe that Plato existed even though the only evidence I have is secondary and isn't testable at all. We all believe and have faith in certain things that can't be tested.
It's one thing to accept that a Greek philosopher named Plato existed. It's another thing to accept the existence of Atlantis because Plato wrote about it and he was really smart.
And I don't think you believe in Plato the same way you believe in Jesus. If strong evidence that all the works attributed to Plato were written by other people who used 'Plato' as a collective nom de plume, I, and probably you, would have no problem giving up the notion that Plato was a real individual. I slightly lean towards Jesus having actually existed (sans miracles), but if strong evidence turned up that he was fictitious, I wouldn't have a problem changing my mind about Jesus existing. Can you say the same?
(April 29, 2014 at 9:53 pm)te1148 Wrote:(April 29, 2014 at 9:47 pm)Esquilax Wrote: I certainly don't think that every view is created equal. I think I'm right. You think you're right. But clearly one of us is wrong.
If only there was a method by which one could sift out false claims.
(April 29, 2014 at 9:53 pm)te1148 Wrote: One thing I want to establish is that we all believe certain things by faith or without testable evidence.
There's a difference between believing a plausible claim that there's no particular reason to doubt and BELIEVING an implausible claim no matter what. In other words, 'believe' is a word with multiple senses, and arguing with no recognition of that fact is engaging in the fallacy of equivocation. To clarify the conversation, let's start using the term 'accept' instead of 'believe' for belief in the sense of 'a provisionally held opinion that something is actually the case' and 'faith' instead of 'believe' in the sense of 'commited to the truth of a claim or proposition regardless of evidence'.
(April 29, 2014 at 9:53 pm)te1148 Wrote: So saying that you only believe in what can be scientifically tested is a little disingenuous.
But saying we don't have faith in what can't be scientifically tested is not disengenuous.
(April 29, 2014 at 10:08 pm)te1148 Wrote: [quote='Kitanetos' pid='660584' dateline='1398823620']
Because he is an atheist.hock:
That doesn't at all answer the question. There are a lot of atheists who have never heard of this site and if they did wouldn't come.
Maybe he comes here to enjoy conversations with atheists. It's not a particular mystery why an atheist would frequent an atheist discussion board. A more cogent question would be why are YOU here, asking questions for which the answers are obvious?
(April 29, 2014 at 10:35 pm)te1148 Wrote: I care if you believe, but God cares even more. I agree that the argument that states God's reason for not revealing Himself is to keep our free will intact is ridiculous. Have you ever tried asking God to reveal Himself to you?
I can't speak for Darkstar, but God is more than welcome to reveal himself. By defintion, he would know the most elegant way to accomplish the revelation.
(April 29, 2014 at 10:56 pm)te1148 Wrote: I depend on faith, because I think faith is superior to reason. Reason rests in what my own mental faculties can comprehend. Also, I see a huge problem with what "facts". Facts are always interpreted and therefore subject to error.
Western civilization pretty much agreed with you up to about 400 years ago. Look at what not thinking faith is superior to reason has accomplished in that time.
(April 29, 2014 at 9:53 pm)te1148 Wrote: I don't think there are any ways to prove 100% that God exists. God never seeks to prove that He exists. He just exists.
As a general rule, people that really exist have no need to prove they really exist.
(April 29, 2014 at 9:53 pm)te1148 Wrote: Reason, intellect, and evidences are not enough.
And for rational skeptics, anything that requires more than those three things to believe is probably not true. You can believe anything on faith and presupposition. If your method of determining truth works just as well to support the opposite of your belief, it's not much of a method.
(April 30, 2014 at 1:01 pm)te1148 Wrote: Those who have asked me for observable evidence for God, could you give observable evidence for evolution/Darwinism?
There are whole threads currently on that topic. No need to go off on that tangent with this one. I recommend you go visit a thread with 'Darwin' or 'evolution' in the title.
(April 30, 2014 at 3:16 pm)kılıç_mehmet Wrote: For these people to believe in God, all it takes is a storm in the open sea.
Mere assholish assertion, and dismissed as such. You think none of us have faced danger before?
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.
