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RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
April 15, 2016 at 1:56 am
(This post was last modified: April 15, 2016 at 1:59 am by Fake Messiah.)
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
April 15, 2016 at 1:07 pm
There can be no evidence for God
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RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
April 15, 2016 at 1:57 pm
Well, no credible evidence, at least not so far. Anything can be offered up as evidence, it's just that everything usually presented doesn't actually evidence what the submitter wishes it does.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
April 15, 2016 at 6:14 pm
(April 14, 2016 at 9:35 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: Math may just be a concept of the mind.
It's a bit more complicated than that. To say something is simply a concept in the mind does not account for its objectivity. How is it that various people can come to complete agreement with respect to some concepts like the nature of mathematical objects. I think most people would say that mathematics is objective. But in what way is it objective?
Something is objective if it exists and could be known independently of who knows about it or even if no one learns anything about it at all. People can know about physical things because they are objects. For example, when different people see various apples, those apples serve as the basis for what anyone could learn about apples: rounded, nutritious, grows on trees, etc. That’s real knowledge about a type of actual objects, in this case apples. The meaning of objective is obvious when talking about physical things. The objectivity of other types of things is less clear, but philosophically justifiable; things like forms are objects of knowledge.
People also know about mathematical objects. Just like apples, everyone can agree that triangular form share common features. It does not matter that the triangular form never exists apart from something shaped like a triangle. If it has a triangular form, it has three sides, encloses an area, and the sum of its angles is 180 degrees.
Some things are better examples of the triangular form than others. Those examples are objectively better or worse to the extent that they conform to the triangular form, despite what other accidental features they may have. For example a glass prism is a better triangle than a yield sign, but being made of clear glass versus painted metal, has no bearing on the fact that both, objectively speaking, are triangular. The principle here is that most everything is also a kind of thing something. Every particular apple is still a kind of apple. Every expression of the triangular form is a kind of triangle.
The only way I could continue would be to explain the difference between conception and imagination, but it probably wouldn't actually interest you anyway. I have never met an intellectually inclined atheist than wasn't also a nominalist, even if they didn't realize it. The two seem to go hand in hand. I suspect that there is an unconscious recognition by atheists that allowing for any kind of actual objectivity could undermine the fundamental assumptions of atheism.
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RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
April 15, 2016 at 11:57 pm
In response to the OP title, for a start, much better arguments for God's existence. In other words, arguments that emphasize stuff no "non-God" explanation could plausibly account for. I have never seen such an argument.
But nothing beats spectacular empirical evidence witnessed by independent groups of sane and rational beings.
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RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
April 16, 2016 at 1:04 pm
(This post was last modified: April 16, 2016 at 1:06 pm by Angrboda.)
(April 15, 2016 at 6:14 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: (April 14, 2016 at 9:35 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: Math may just be a concept of the mind.
It's a bit more complicated than that. To say something is simply a concept in the mind does not account for its objectivity. How is it that various people can come to complete agreement with respect to some concepts like the nature of mathematical objects. I think most people would say that mathematics is objective. But in what way is it objective?
Something is objective if it exists and could be known independently of who knows about it or even if no one learns anything about it at all.
The problem with this is that there's no way to demonstrate that what is known is independent of the nature of the knowers. We're all human and so we may share certain cognitive realities that are universal within the species, but yet are not truly universal. We can't be sure that mathematics is independent of the nature of the knower, so we can't simply conclude that it is objective. This is a systematic flaw with your definition of objective when applied to concepts.
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RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
April 16, 2016 at 1:54 pm
Atheist Credo: A universe by chance that also just happened to admit the observer by chance.
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RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
April 16, 2016 at 2:20 pm
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.
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RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
April 16, 2016 at 2:48 pm
God reminds me of those TV psychics who refuse to provide proof "because it would be an abuse of their powers".
Why doesn't he just burn next week's lottery numbers onto one of his many altars somewhere? Or maybe a few lines on how to cure cancer? Just once.
It would be a piece of piss for an omnipotent being.
As it is, god's behaviour is completely indistinguishable from the behaviour of someone who isn't there at all.
I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty.
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RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
April 16, 2016 at 2:54 pm
(This post was last modified: April 16, 2016 at 2:57 pm by TheRocketSurgeon.)
Um, unless Leonard Susskind has changed his mind drastically in the past three years, I just read his book, and another which declares that Dr. Susskind is (quote) "a card-carrying atheist".
In his book, he discusses the anthropic principle (aka the "fine tuning" argument, that the universe was made for us), before dismantling it with the latest discoveries in physics (mainly the multiverse concept, explaining why it is more likely the case).
PS - That video is a horrible cut-and-paste job, grabbing only little quotes and then adding commentary! The person who made it should be ashamed.
A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
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