Evidence God Exists

[Watson]

So you're saying they may have had a sense of how things operated, they just didn't have the science and technology to explain the specific processes at work? I have no doubt that they understood the natural world in their own way, but we've gained an incredible amount of knowledge since then, and our current understanding has evolved accordingly.

Yes, our amount of scientific information has increased a thousandfold since the times of the Bible and its stories, I will agree with you there. Have we gained any real knowledge, though? Ever heard the old phrase 'the more I see the less I know'? Because there is a lot of truth to that. And it basically sums up what I'm saying about science. Just because we've beheld the processes of life and the universe does not mean we know what they are or why. We don't know that they will always work the way they do, or even why it is that they work the way they work. The more about the universe we uncover, the more questions we will have.

Contrarily, I would definitely agree that our amount of understanding of this world has increased since then. We understand the way things work and how. We understand the place of certain phenomena in the scheme of things, and the relation of that place to other phenomena in our world. Science has pushed us to look at relationships between natural occurrences, and to seek answers as to how those occurrences actually, well...occur!

In what ways do you believe God reveals himself, other than private revelation?

In short? The world itself. All of it is revealed to us in 'private revelation' because we are merely subjective entities. Only by acknowledging the objective world around us as truly objective, and recognizing our place within it, do we draw closer to God and the way in which he works. We see his creation and we understand what part of it that we are.

I sincerely doubt that things were ‘more fantastical’ in the past. Why would the laws of nature be suspended back then, but not today?

It was just a speculative suggestion, not meant to be taken seriously. Sorry about that. But really, if things were far more fantastical back then, how are we to know? We don't. So to say that it probably never happened is a broad dismissal of a very possible occurrence.

What perceptive abilities did our ancestors possess, but that we have now lost?

You know, I hadn't though of it that way, to be honest with you. This gives me something interesting to think about and I thank you for that. Perhaps the people back then were more perceptive of magic, God, and the existence of both in the world around them for some reason. Or maybe, back then, life was just plain simple enough to behold these things without too much else getting in the way. We'll never really know, I suppose.

In that different time period, I suspect that people gave a great deal more weight to supernatural explanations, particularly because of the lack of other kinds of knowledge and evidence.

Perhaps people back then simply had a clearer view of the mystical aspects of life, and their impact on the world, than we do now bogged as we are with such complicated lives.

However, I realize that humans have long had a need to find meaning and purpose and feel connected to something beyond the natural world. A yearning for the spiritual, I guess you could say.

Why do we have that yearning, do you think?

This doesn't mean that there actually is another dimension or Great Spirit or anything, but I think it says a lot about the meaning-making and symbolizing powers of the human brain.

We have an amazing ability to link things together in life. We also have an amazing ability to ignore or blind ourselves to connections, as well.

*snickers* 'Great Spirit...hehe...it's a reference...without you meaning it to be...hehe...

If there is a god, it's really not something we could ever understand.

Agreed.

I don’t know how some religious people can insist that they know the mind of God, or they know what God wants of us

I've not heard many religious people claim to 'know' the mind of God before. Please, if you can cite specific instances, that would be grand.

or what being in the presence of God (in the afterlife) would be like.

Well I believe it's possible to have an understanding of what the presence of God feels like, but not what the afterlife is like at all. Does that still count?

The only way our ancestors could make this god entity comprehensible was to believe that it thought, felt and behaved at least somewhat like a human, because human motivations were the only kind they knew.

Or to compare God's actions and processes to human motivations. There is a difference between comparing something to something else, and saying that something is something else; i.e.- Lightning is God's voice is a comparison rather than an outright literal statement.

Does it need to have a reason? And if it does, why must the reason involve an intelligent supernatural being?

I don't know. Does it need to have a reason? Ask yourself as much and think about what it is to have a reason in the first place.

We’re all searching for meaning and direction in our lives. We automatically look for patterns and tend to capitalize on coincidence.

There is no such thing as coincidence. Do you believe there truly is no meaning to life?

If you believe a certain path is the right one, and you hope that things will work out, they often do.

A friend of mine once summed it up nicely for me when he said 'When you have a goal, the universe conspires to help you achieve it.' And I truly believe that.

I’ve had experiences just like you’re describing here, without attributing any of my intuitions to an outside force.

Perhaps you should take a second look at those experiences and examine their place in the larger scheme of things. How did they impact you, as well as those around you? To what end did you achieve your goals? Did you get the result you planned for, or did you get something else? And if you did get something else...why?

You make a very good point. How can we ever know that anything really exists, if we’re all seeing the world from within our own subjective minds?

I still think there’s something to be said for science, however. Science is the accumulation of knowledge over hundreds and even thousands of years, and evidence is tested by many different minds working together, collaborating and confirming their findings. If a theory is found to be inconsistent or to lack observable evidence, it is not held onto because of any strong intuition that it might be true.

I wasn't discrediting science in the least, as I find it to be a very fascinating subject overall. But I also understand and accept the fact that there are places science can't go, limitations it has within its foundation. Science can do many amazing things and explain to us a lot about the universe. But there are questions it can't answer from a purely subjective view-point, whether that view-point is collectively held by many or not.

Religious experiences, on the other hand, can never be tested or confirmed to represent anything in the real world. There is no accumulated knowledge or evidence, only the persistent feelings and intuitions of people who are all too ready to give credit to God.

First of all, I was not 'all too ready to give credit to God' in the slightest at the time of many of my own experiences. As I stated before, I was an atheist at the time. So I was actually resistant to the idea of giving God credit for anything. But the more I sought answers for my questions, the less I had without some considerance of the possibility of God. Only when I fit that piece into the puzzle did the picture begin to make sense.

Secondly, subjective experience only has value if there is an objective, right...? Then what is this objective? How can it be tapped into? And why does religious testimony hold less weight than scientific testimony, if both are based on subjective experience en masse?

And God, as a theory, can never be disproved; and as we know, an unfalsifiable argument is no argument at all.

You can't 'disprove' anything entirely beyond a shadow-of-a-doubt. Therefore, all arguments are 'unfalsifiable', rendering all arguments invalid.

[theVOID]

Yes, our amount of scientific information has increased a thousandfold since the times of the Bible and its stories, I will agree with you there. Have we gained any real knowledge, though?

Depends how you define knowledge which is somewhat more dificult than it seems. Sticking with the usually sufficient definition of a true justified belief absolutely we have real knowledge, we have determined the truth or falsity of tens of thousands of propositions using a methodology that is more than sufficient for epistemic justification.

Ever heard the old phrase 'the more I see the less I know'? Because there is a lot of truth to that.

For what reason? It seems completely bunk to me, it's either a bad comparison as science is not a method that lets any proposition contrubute to the overall picture of reality, it takes great effort not to take in everything that we can suppose to be true. It's also a bunk statement for another reason, that being the ammount of knowledge we accumulate by definition increases the amount of knowledge we have - that should be painfully obvious. We might in the process realise we knew less about the universe than beforehand, but the amount of confirmed propositions we have is still higer than it was before.

And it basically sums up what I'm saying about science. Just because we've beheld the processes of life and the universe does not mean we know what they are or why. We don't know that they will always work the way they do, or even why it is that they work the way they work. The more about the universe we uncover, the more questions we will have.

And you have nothing better, so either you follow the methodology that is by far the most effective and pramatic way we have of determining the truth of claims about reality or you don't - Just because we have limited understanding of the phenomenon in question at this point in time does not mean either 1) We will not know at some point in time, or 2) You are raitonal for believing completely unjustified claims in the mean time.

Contrarily, I would definitely agree that our amount of understanding of this world has increased since then. We understand the way things work and how. We understand the place of certain phenomena in the scheme of things, and the relation of that place to other phenomena in our world. Science has pushed us to look at relationships between natural occurrences, and to seek answers as to how those occurrences actually, well...occur!

Which is more than your religion ever achieved - It's kept us basking in ignorance for a few thousand years and wasted hundreds of generations of great thinkers on the waste of time that is theology, especially in the early days of the church that explicitly promoted theology as a better use of one's time than science of philosophy, and even though it didn't explicitly condemn the two in priniciple, it cut them down whenever conclusions were reached that were contrary to the silly doctrines.

In short? The world itself. All of it is revealed to us in 'private revelation' because we are merely subjective entities.

This is a stark contradiction to your posts in the other thread that dismissed subjective value and humor in favor of objective experience and now you're going wholy subjectivist on us when it's conventient for covering up the fact that your 'experiences' demand you keep them in the subjective realm.

Only by acknowledging the objective world around us as truly objective, and recognizing our place within it, do we draw closer to God and the way in which he works. We see his creation and we understand what part of it that we are.

Flip-flopping again?

No, you project your fantasies on reality and call it objective.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Ever heard the old phrase 'the more I see the less I know'? Because there is a lot of truth to that.

Yes, I've used it myself.What I mean is that the more I learn about a subject, the more I realise just how much there is to learn.The statement is one of relative knowledge ,not a literal one meaning 'less informed.'

The statement is typical of the skeptic,who avoids dogmatism and absolutes,insisting that all questions remain open.

[OnlyNatural]

Ever heard the old phrase 'the more I see the less I know'? The more about the universe we uncover, the more questions we will have.

I agree, everything we discover leads to more questions, which can eventually lead us to new discoveries. We should never stop asking questions.

Only by acknowledging the objective world around us as truly objective, and recognizing our place within it, do we draw closer to God and the way in which he works. We see his creation and we understand what part of it that we are.

Can't we just recognize that there is an incredible objective world out there, and we are a natural part of it? That's pretty exciting enough by itself, I think. I feel privileged to have been born on this planet, and to be a part of the enormous extended family of life on Earth.

maybe, back then, life was just plain simple enough to behold these things without too much else getting in the way. We'll never really know, I suppose.

Perhaps people back then simply had a clearer view of the mystical aspects of life, and their impact on the world, than we do now bogged as we are with such complicated lives.

Interesting idea. This makes me think of how we often feel so much more 'at one' with the universe when we're out in the wilderness instead of in the big city. Life has definitely gotten more complicated and fast-paced, and we rarely have time to just experience that sense of peace and connectedness with the world. Perhaps in the past, our sense of connection with nature was more salient.

But re-cultivating reverence for nature in today's world is more like the ideas of Naturalistic Pantheism, however, and does not require belief in God.

However, I realize that humans have long had a need to find meaning and purpose and feel connected to something beyond the natural world. A yearning for the spiritual, I guess you could say.

Why do we have that yearning, do you think?

That's a tough question, but something I'd love to investigate. I think it can probably be traced back to the evolution of conscious self-awareness, and eventually the understanding of our own mortality. Once we could contemplate our selves and our finite lifespans, I think more and more we started asking questions like 'Who am I? Why am I here? What is my relation to the world around me? What happens when I die? Is there something else beyond my limited experience?' We humans always want answers and reasons for things, and we never stopped asking the big questions

*snickers* 'Great Spirit...hehe...it's a reference...without you meaning it to be...hehe...

What unintended reference did I make, pray tell?

I've not heard many religious people claim to 'know' the mind of God before. Please, if you can cite specific instances, that would be grand.

Perhaps religious leaders or prophets would be more likely to make this claim, especially if they're on the fanatical side, or are attempting to exert control over their followers. I can't cite anyone specifically though.

There is a difference between comparing something to something else, and saying that something is something else; i.e.- Lightning is God's voice is a comparison rather than an outright literal statement.

Well, people can come up with metaphors to make sense of the idea of God, but it doesn’t really explain anything about him in the end, or provide proof of his existence.

Does it need to have a reason? And if it does, why must the reason involve an intelligent supernatural being?

I don't know. Does it need to have a reason? Ask yourself as much and think about what it is to have a reason in the first place.

Effects have causes. Objects made by humans have purposes. I get that. Birds' wings also have a purpose, to fly, which makes survival more likely, but they weren't designed that way, they evolved that way. There's a difference between something designed for a purpose (like a telephone) and something that has evolved and is now being used for a certain purpose.

When it comes to the idea of intentional purpose, that’s something humans came up with; we assume a human-like mind in the sky also has a purpose or meaning for things, because when we design something, we have a purpose in mind.

Do you consider God to be the ‘first cause?’

There is no such thing as coincidence. Do you believe there truly is no meaning to life?

Of course coincidence exists. There is only coincidence. If two things happen together, one person may interpret the coincidence as meaningful, and another may not even notice.

I don’t believe in objective meaning. A ‘meaningful life’ will look different depending on the person whose life it is.

A friend of mine once summed it up nicely for me when he said 'When you have a goal, the universe conspires to help you achieve it.' And I truly believe that.

Again, assuming that the universe has a mind that cares about you and your personal goals. Maybe it’s comforting to think that. But what happens when the universe doesn’t ‘conspire to help you achieve’ your goals? Do you just say ‘Oh well, God’s will be done,’ and forget about it?

Perhaps you should take a second look at those experiences and examine their place in the larger scheme of things. How did they impact you, as well as those around you? To what end did you achieve your goals? Did you get the result you planned for, or did you get something else? And if you did get something else...why?

I’ve definitely looked at the bigger picture, and the consequences of my actions and experiences on other people. Sometimes I achieved my goals, through working hard at them. Sometimes I utterly failed. And sometimes, unexpected things just happened, and I adapted.

I was actually resistant to the idea of giving God credit for anything. But the more I sought answers for my questions, the less I had without some considerance of the possibility of God. Only when I fit that piece into the puzzle did the picture begin to make sense.

That’s interesting. I’ve heard from other religious people too that with God, everything made sense. Personally, it’s only when I took God out of the picture that everything started to make sense. I guess it depends on how you look at it, and what kinds of answers you’re looking for.

Secondly, subjective experience only has value if there is an objective, right...? Then what is this objective? How can it be tapped into? And why does religious testimony hold less weight than scientific testimony, if both are based on subjective experience en masse?

Subjective experience has value to the person who is having the experience. It doesn’t necessarily say anything about objective truth.

How to explain this in a better way… Scientific testimony is many people all pointing to something tangible in the real world, testing it thoroughly, and agreeing on its existence and significance. Religious testimony is many people all pointing to an experience in their own heads, and each assuming that it comes from God.

You can't 'disprove' anything entirely beyond a shadow-of-a-doubt. Therefore, all arguments are 'unfalsifiable', rendering all arguments invalid.

You can chuck a scientific theory into the trash bin for not being supported by evidence, or for being contradicted by other evidence. An unfalsifiable argument (like ‘God exists’) means that no experiment or piece of evidence could ever prove that it’s false. For a theory to be scientific, it must be capable of being falsified.

[reverendjeremiah]

Oh, this sounds fun..can I slide down this slippery slope and play with you guys?

Christian says: I see a watch, therefore there is a watch maker. I see the world, therefore there is a wordl maker, therefore god.

*and of course we are expected to assume God is Jesus who was nailed to a cros, yadda yadda yadda..no more questions...BASK in the glorius evidence that Jesus is savior..drop curtains, roll credits.

====

Now..I see a watch, I think of a watch maker, who has learned from other watch makers, who is using tools made by tool makers, who is using materials dug up by diggers, fabricated by fabricators, using physical theories from NUMEROUS other inventors and BLAM..you have a watch.

SO

I see a world, its complex, therefore we need a tree god, a grass god, a cow god, a horse god, etc etc etc..

So therefore, there are MILLIONS of gods and goddesses

====
I see a scientist clone a sheep. So therefore all sheep were created by human scientists. And since humans can make sheep, then they may have (millions of years ago) cloned all of the trees, animals, bugs and even made the land masses and oceans...therefore there is no god and humans are the creators of the universe!

====

Can I keep sliding down that slippery slope?

---

..Oh..in case you were wondering..Humans are the "uncaused cause".

(yeah, that uncaused cause thing is so stupid sounding..and easy...you can tag it to anything and say "HA..you cant touch me now!! I must be right because I said it first")

I know you are but what am I?

[Minimalist]

Now..I see a watch, I think of a watch maker,

Odd. If I see a watch I think "some poor schmuck lost his watch..." and I steal it.

[reverendjeremiah]

Now..I see a watch, I think of a watch maker,

Odd. If I see a watch I think "some poor schmuck lost his watch..." and I steal it.

I like your method minimalist..but I would have to honestly think "A watch? In this day of cellphones the size of a credit card with the power of a computer..why would someone carry a watch? Ah..I know..he threw it away when he got his cellphone, and thats why its here in this desert sand.....wait...why am I in a desert? And why is it that all I have to drink is this can of motor oil?"

[Minimalist]

I'm an old guy, Rev, I still have a watch ....and call me "Min."

Actually, "Min" was an Egyptian god of something or other. Can't quite tell from this picture.

[reverendjeremiah]

Well..there is definitely NOTHING minimal about that idol min.

[Minimalist]

...snicker.... He must have been very popular!