RE: the case against the case against god
December 4, 2014 at 6:44 am
(This post was last modified: December 4, 2014 at 6:47 am by ManMachine.)
(December 4, 2014 at 5:07 am)chris(tnt)rhol Wrote: Hello all. First time on this forum, would love to discuss atheism.
Has anyone on this forum given any thought as to the kind of evidence which would convince you that god exists?
What a start... Excellent question! A Socratic approach to atheism, I like your style.
For me (and I mentioned this in other posts) this cuts to the heart of systems of belief, what level of evidence does it take to convince us that a presented fact is a truth. This is, of course, an idiosyncratic issue, each of us demand different levels of proof according to our own internal values.
For me, there is never enough proof to provide certainty in anything, in a sense everything we experience is a system of belief in some way. I may believe in gravity as a force as I watch the hammer fall to the ground but Einstein tells me that this is only my relative perception of distortions in spacetime, and that gravity is no more a force than centrifugal force is - because it is actually an artefact cause by conservation of momentum (inertia) and direction.
What tends to be real to me and offers sufficient evidence to be a 'truth' is that which I can reason. I cannot reason a god, it makes no sense to me. I also hold scientific theory to be a system of belief, but it is a system of belief I can reason with.
Scientific theory is only prediction, it's truth is always historical, we predict - it happens - we claim the truth of the prediction. It's a retroaction. And as the cliché goes (and it's a cliché for a reason), we all have 20/20 hindsight, it's a mistake many, many people make and take as absolute proof of the 'truth' of science,
Letting go of the belief in the absolute 'truth' of scientific theory in favour of accepting it as a system of belief will be, IMO, the next great human breakthrough. Not just because of my opinion on the matter but because science itself is beginning to question if we have run into the limits of what we can understand.
To directly answer your question ... enough evidence to enable me to reason there was a god on my own terms, which so far, has not happened.
MM
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions" - Leonardo da Vinci
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
