Faith?

[solarwave]

Thanks!

[Eilonnwy]

So you believe Yahweh is no different from the pink unicorn?

Totally the same, honestly?

The comparison to the Pink Unicorn is to show similarities in logic to arrive at their existence. You can define anything into existence, give it attributes outside science, and claim it's real and you can't prove it's not.

Essentially, there's a dragon in my garage. You can't see it, but it's there. You can't throw flour on the ground and detect it's footprints because it's floating. You can't throw a blanket on it because it's transcendent. (Thank you Carl Sagan for the Dragon analogy)

As you can see, you can claim anything exists and insulate it's characteristics from scientific inquiry. And you would be justified in saying there really isn't a dragon in my garage because you can't verify for yourself and you know I could also be lying or delusional. People like Arcanus and Fr0d0 would have you believe God is transcendent and above scientific inquiry. I don't accept it. They make very specific claims about what their god does, claims that are available to scientific inquiry and every time we look there's nothing, absolutely nothing. Even if there is a transcendent first cause god beyond our understanding and ability to study, it wouldn't be a god worth worshiping because that god would be useless and not the Christian God.

Do I think the Pink Unicorn is totally the same as god? No, because fortunately nobody kills in the name of the Pink Unicorn and never has.

Rather, God, the Abrahamic God (Jewish, Christian, Muslim) is completely synonymous with with Zeus, or Thor, only one still has followers.


(Think I've fulfilled my obligations on Blasphemy Day?)

[fr0d0]

They make very specific claims about what their god does, claims that are available to scientific inquiry and every time we look there's nothing, absolutely nothing.

Show me these claims we made that would be verifiable under scientific inquiry Eilonnwy. Or are you "blowing smoke" again?

[solarwave]

Eilonnwy:

But Im not trying to say the deist god is real which seems to be the one your describing. Im talking about the Christian God who act in time. I don't need you to disprove the deist god, if you can is disprove the Christian God then I give up. Such as prove the claims to be illogical, contradicing, etc. I know you will claim that has been done, but I have never seen anything that can't be explained.

[Rhizomorph13]

Solarwave,

No, I don't believe in the IPU(BBHH) it is just a thought experiment as Eilonnwy described it. We know you are talking about the Christian God and we also agree with the definition that he, according to the bible, acts in the physical realm. Many of us are atheists because there is no evidence that he has done anything and that is what causes our doubt.

I've learned that people will need to work out their own belief systems, so whatever proofs we can come up with will most likely be waved away much like any proof that you can come up with. I try to keep an open mind and read what is put in front of me about God. I was a Christian, in some form, for years, a deist for a few years, and now I am an atheist.

No amount of raw assertions are going to convince me, but it sounds like you have that sorted out already.

Cheers,
Rhizo

[Edwardo Piet]

Faith is not without reasons, basically everyone has their reasons. I do believe it's without evidence though, I go with Dawkins' definition because...when a Believer says they "have faith", and that God is not something that can be proved - it tends to be because they don't have evidence, because if they actually had evidence, then they wouldn't need faith. You don't have to have faith in any other belief, if those beliefs actually have evidence. So why would it be any different for God?

From one of the definitions of Faith at Merriam-Webster.com:

"firm belief in something for which there is no proof"

There is also the definition that means trust of course, and being 'faithful to someone' is not the same as lacking evidence of course.

But in the context of whether it's rational or not to believe in God (or anything else for that matter), it is the definition of "Faith" being without evidence that I myself refer to. Because when it comes to belief in God, it's not just proof that is lacking when believers "have faith", but it seems that it's also lacking any evidence altogether. They may have their own reasons for believing - basically everyone has their reasons for believing (valid or invalid) - but so far, in my experience, none of these 'reasons' are evidence for God's actual existence.

Doesn't it prove that chair you have sat on before dont fall, not that everything that looks like a chair wont.

We're talking about evidence here, not absolute proof. Indeed, it can't absolutely prove that everything that looks like a chair will hold your weight.

If you call that evidence than many Christians have evidence for God because of past experiences of Him, such as everytime they put their faith in Him God doesn't let them down. After how many times does that stop being a coinsidence and become evidence?

The belief itself is not evidence. If someone has an hallucination or is delusional, that's not evidence for the truth of that thing being real, only evidence for the illusion or the belief of such a thing. It has to be verifiable in order for it to be evidence for God. If you believe a certain experience is evidence for God, that doesn't make it so, if you believe you've experienced God, that doesn't make it so. This is not evidence.

Is personal experience ever evidence for anything? Why specifically the supernatural? Because you find it hard to believe? Arn't many things in science hard to believe before the evidence is fully looked at and understood?

Your personal experience itself is only evidence for your personal experience itself. Because it's only evident to you. For it to go any further than that, or be in any way objective, the evidence has to be able to be testable, so it is reliable by others.

However, if someone is known to never tell a lie, and be an extremely intelligent and logical person. If they say then that X is true, and X doesn't seem that hard to believe, then the logical guy who doesn't tell a lie's belief itself may be evidence for the truth of the belief. But that's only because what he is suggesting, is in a category of beliefs, which itself you know is a category that there is evidence for.

For example, if an evolutionary biologist tells you that a new fossil has been found. You're more inclined to believe him than just anyone. Because there is evidence for his field itself, and he's part of that field...unless he's known to be a compulsive liar or something.

However, if he was to say that something had been discovered called a "Swookor" and it has absolutely nothing to do with his field or evolution or biology at all, and that it is either a completely new field altogether that itself has no evidential support (at least yet), or is an old field (such as Theology) that so far has had absolutely no evidence, why would (or should?) you believe him?

So in the example of the evolutionary biologist, there would be at least indirect evidence, through the fact that's his field and his field itself has support, and he's not known to be a compulsive liar. However, in the latter example, there is no evidence of any form whatsoever for any such thing, or any field supporting it. It's not even a subject.

Personal experience itself is not evidence. Objectivity arrives through a consensus because otherwise it's just 1 person's belief with no support from anyone else, or any other testing, not even indirectly - so it's nothing but subjective belief.

EvF

[Eilonnwy]

They make very specific claims about what their god does, claims that are available to scientific inquiry and every time we look there's nothing, absolutely nothing.

Show me these claims we made that would be verifiable under scientific inquiry Eilonnwy. Or are you "blowing smoke" again?

Cute.

Prayer, faith healing, so called "miracles" just for starters.

[fr0d0]

Prayer, faith healing, so called "miracles" just for starters.

FAIL

None can ever be scientifically evidenced.

Try again.

[leo-rcc]

Prayer, faith healing, so called "miracles" just for starters.

FAIL

None can ever be scientifically evidenced.

Try again.

What are you talking about?

Science is the labeling and comprehension of the pre-existing. In short, it is detecting what is there, and figuring out how it works. If prayer or faith healing works at all, and miracles can be demonstrated, it is measurable by some objective method. Everything in this universe impacts something else in a measurable quantity, even if the scales of which may be beyond human comprehension, they are not beyond the scope of science.

[Godless]

Solarwave, I've just spotted this quote at the end of your replies....

“Humanism or atheism is a wonderful philosophy of life as long as you are big, strong, and between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five”

Let me tell you that from personal experience over many years that your line is nonesense.
As an Atheist who is not big (barely 10 stone), nor very strong and is well, well, well past your
age limits, I still find Atheism as attractive to me now as it ever was.

As I approach my end now I know that if I am wrong in my lack of belief then I will
eventually know.....stoking the fires maybe? :-)
The believer on the other hand will die in blissful ignorance if he is wrong.
I find the former condition far more intellectually satisfying to know one's errors than to remain in ignorance of them.
Albert.