The nature of evidence

[ignoramus]

Rob, is that another trick question? Everyone knows there's no goblin in your water tank.
Your invisible pink dragons in your basement would have killed them long ago!

[robvalue]

Exactly! Reasonable conclusions through evidence

[robvalue]

Another point:

The evidence needs to be convincing to your audience, if you have any intention of trying to change anyone's opinions. If you don't have any such intention, and you couldn't care less whether people believe you or not, then just don't bother trying to produce evidence in the first place.

But if you do care, then it's no good just telling people whatever you present "is convincing" is "is evidence to you". It's irrelevant to me what happens to convince you. So if you're dealing with sceptics, as many of the forum members are here, you need something substantial, which we can actually check out ourselves. At the very least, that means no anecdotes and no arguments in lieu of evidence.

And a friendly warning: please don't try the tu quoque game by trying to make out all scientific evidence is somehow just anecdotes.

[Wryetui]

Thank you all for answering. Now, I see some problems. Let's say evidence is "that which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof. "

I still have the question about which kind of evidence would be conclusive for you to believe the christian God is real. The main "problem" we have is the doctrine ex-nihilo, and the main question we have, how do we know God with our reason? (evidence affects reason), “what is the object of our reason?”, in other words, what is it that we are trying to know? In my opinion, the evidence we need is highly influenced by what we need to know, right?

Let’s start out with four objects: a rock, a man, an idea, and, finally, God. The second question is: “What do we mean by reason?” The Fathers, for example, distinguish between the discursive reason, or the theoria, and a more intuitive inelection which they called nous.
Let’s start with the first question and then we will combine it with the second. Obviously, there are significant differences between a rock, a man, an idea, and God.

A rock is a physical object. It takes up space and has certain properties that can be analyzed using scientific equipment. All of which is to say that a rock can be experienced empirically, using the physical senses, and that the experience can be quantified. (I assume the majority find this troubling since they want God to be known exactly as this rock is known).

A man is also a physical object in as much as he is also a physical body. The ancient Greeks disagreed, however, about whether there was anything more to man than his body. The Atomists and the Epicureans insisted that the soul was made out of matter, just like the body. The Platonists, on the other hand, believed that the soul was an immaterial and immortal form imprisoned in the body. The difference of opinion has persisted down to our own day, with the majority now firmly in the materialist camp. Many forms of psychology and all of the so-called social sciences presume that human life can be studied empirically and quantified.

Now to continue. An idea—let’s say the idea of beauty, for example—is quite different from a rock or a man in that it is not a physical thing. It is a mental concept. Plato, of course, believed that ideas are more real than physical things. Nominalists, on the other hand, believed that ideas are merely names, and that the only things that exist are particular things. Many ancient Greeks believed that beauty could be quantified—the Golden Ratio, for example. But this is because they also believed that numbers were real and that the cosmos was a fundamentally rational place.
Some modern psychologists have also argued that beauty can be quantified, but for different reasons. They argue that certain quantifiable, physical features—facial symmetry, for example—register in the brain as being more pleasing than others. There is, however, a disjunction here between all of these theories about what makes something appear beautiful to us and the phenomenal experience of beauty. Understanding the geometry of a beautiful painting or the mathematical complexity of something like Mozart’s Recordare might enhance my intellectual appreciation for the piece. But I seriously doubt that it adds much of anything to the actual experience. To dissect art is to lose the forest for the trees.
Modern man, by and large, believes that he can study and understand man and beauty the same way he studies a rock. That is, the scientific age is predicated upon one, fundamental assumption—that absolutely everything is quantifiable and therefore subject to the discursive reason.

This, of course, brings us to the problem of knowing God. The Orthodox tradition holds and has always held that God is not like a rock. Just as importantly, however, we also believe that God is not a human being at large, a sort of super-celestial ego. Mormons, by the way, believe that God used to be a human being and has a physical body. On the contrary, we believe that God is radically unlike anything else that exists. That is the point behind the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. This also means, however, that God is not an idea or like an idea. For Plato, the Good (that’s “good” with a capital “G”) was to the intelligible world what the sun is to our world—the source of all light and knowledge. For him, God is essentially the form of all forms.
But our God revealed himself to Moses, not as an idea, but as the great “I AM”, the God who delivered Israel from the bondage of Egypt and who was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. If this is the case, then how do we know God? Outside of Orthodoxy, there are four fundamental approaches.
-The first is that of the secular materialist who rejects the existence of an independent creator and, instead, interprets religion through psychology or the social sciences. Feuerbach argued that when we talk about God we are really just talking about ourselves, and most materialists would agree with that appraisal.
-The second approach is that of the pagan materialist who believes in a Higher Power, but one who is, nonetheless, very much a part of the physical cosmos. Mormonism would be an obvious example.
-The third is that of the religious Platonist who believes that, while God is not knowable through the physical senses, he is knowable through the use of human reason. This view is popular among some Catholics and Reformed thinkers.
-The fourth is that of the Pietist who believes that God can only be approached via some sort of personal experience which is usually emotionally charged. God is not so much known as felt. Most Charismatics would fall in this category.

The Orthodox approach to this issue is quite different, however, and this is because we not only insist on the absolute difference between creature and Creator, but also because we differentiate between different types of human intellection. The Greek word nous is usually translated as either “mind” or “intellect”. During the Patristic Period, however, the Fathers began to use the term in a specialized way, and they distinguished it from another word—theonia. They used theonia to refer specifically to what we would call the discursive reason. This is pretty much what we mean when we use the word “reason” or the verb “to think”. To put it as simply as possible, whenever we think in language, i.e., sentences, we are using the discursive reason or theonia.
Now some modern philosophers have argued that we cannot think at all except in some kind of language. In other words, all reason is discursive reason. Most of the ancients would not have agreed with that, however, and certainly the Fathers would not agree. They used the word nous to refer to the faculty of intuitive apperception.
In one sense, nous can be thought of as the faculty of attention. But when you are writing a check or reading a book, you are not simply doing the activity, you are aware of yourself doing the activity. Now sometimes we get so wrapped up in what we are doing, so focused, that we tune out everything around us.
In those rare cases, our nous is focused completely on the task at hand. At other times we find ourselves distracted. I have, for example, went miles at car while thinking about something else. And I’m sure you have driven somewhere only to arrive and not remember a thing about your journey. This scattering of attention is a product of the Fall. Not only is the nous scattered, however, it is also disjoined from the core of our very self which the Fathers call “the heart”.
I must stress at this point that in biblical anthropology the “heart” is not the seat of the emotions. Those are located in the “bowels”. The “heart”, rather, is the psychosomatic center of man. When moderns talk about heart and head, they usually mean the emotions and the intellect. But when the Fathers talk about the separation of the heart from the mind, they mean that the nous has somehow become stuck in the discursive reason, i.e., the brain.
This is why the Fathers talk about the nous descending into the heart. They do not mean that we need to get in touch with our emotions. They mean that our attention needs to be drawn back inward to the core of our being where Christ dwells through the Holy Spirit.

God is not a rock. We cannot put him in a test tube. Nor is God an idea like an isosceles triangle. We cannot figure him out. God is not like a human being either, and yet God created us in his own image that we might know him. More to the point, he has revealed himself to us most fully as a man, the God-man Jesus Christ. The discursive reason is all very fine. God gave it to us after all. But it has its limits. The road to Zion is in our hearts, and if we are to find that road, we must cultivate the nous and direct it inward. That is what the ascetical life of the Church is all about. In this regard, by the way, I highly recommend the works of Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos.

Moderator Notice
Robvalue, 5th May 2016: This post has been heavily plagiarized from here.

[robvalue]

We need to know what god is, not what he is not.

If you don't know what he is, how do you expect to convince us it's anything real? It doesn't matter what other people say it is, what do you say it is?

If you're saying he's "untestable" then you are done. It's an unfalsifiable proposition and therefor of no practical use. If we cannot figure him out, that includes you.

Everything you've written above looks much like a generic deistic God, what does it have to do with a storybook character?

[Wryetui]

We need to know what god is, not what he is not.

If you don't know what he is, how do you expect to convince us it's anything real? It doesn't matter what other people say it is, what do you say it is?

If you're saying he's "untestable" then you are done. It's an unfalsifiable proposition and therefor of no practical use. If we cannot figure him out, that includes you.

Everything you've written above looks much like a generic deistic God, what does it have to do with a storybook character?

What do you mean I don't know Who God is? God is the Creator of the universe. God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, three hypostases sharing the same ousia.

[Alex K]

Hello.

I have listened and witnessed that, when debating about God, the main questions that is present within the atheist party is that they do not believe in God because there is no evidence for Him. I am interested but also confused, because I need to understand what "evidence" really means, certainly what for some people is enough "evidence" for others is not even close to that, so, my questions are:

1. What does the word "evidence" mean?
2. What kind of said evidence would be necessary for you to actually believe there is a God?

That really depends. What, precisely, is this "God" you keep talking about?

[Mudhammam]

Why has "evidence" for God only become an ambiguous concept since people began realizing that the claims made in the Judeo-Christian literature lack credibility and contradict everything we know about Nature?

[Alex K]

Why has "evidence" for God only become an ambiguous concept since people began realizing that the claims made in the Judeo-Christian literature lack credibility and contradict everything we know about Nature?

That's such a great point.

In other news, I'm going to open a used car dealership next month. You won't see any cars in my lot, but the prices are great. You won't see any evidence that I actually have the car I'm selling you, but if people raise doubts, I'll just say: "Well, you know... evidence as a ontological concept is on such a shaky ground philosophically. Now, when you say 'I don't see any f**ing cars in your lot', what precisely do you mean by "in" anyway. Also, did you know that what you think you "see" is actually just the reality your brain constructs for you? Now give me your money, do you want to buy a car or get a degree in philosophy?".

[downbeatplumb]

We need to know what god is, not what he is not.

If you don't know what he is, how do you expect to convince us it's anything real? It doesn't matter what other people say it is, what do you say it is?

If you're saying he's "untestable" then you are done. It's an unfalsifiable proposition and therefor of no practical use. If we cannot figure him out, that includes you.

Everything you've written above looks much like a generic deistic God, what does it have to do with a storybook character?

What do you mean I don't know Who God is? God is the Creator of the universe. God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, three hypostases sharing the same ousia.

I do not know what god is and those things you just wrote are no help. Creator of the universe: How? what technique did it use? where did it get the stuff etc etc? what made it suddenly want to create a universe,? what is this god thing made of and what does it look like? none of these basic things are in anyway mentioned in your extremely vague "explanation". I have no idea what you mean by the other stuff you said. you may as well as written the flibble, the snort and bibbidy flimp, they are not explanations of anything.