Evidence for a god. Do you have any ?

[GrandizerII]

But if you check the work, he refers to first-hand testimonies surrounding Alexander the Great's birth.

Exactly how the authors of the Gospels referred to others' testimonies of Jesus' birth.

LOL. So he refers to 400 year old documents we have never seen from people he never met. You got me!! Exactly the same as the NT.

Documents not seen by people not met by the author? OMG, you're this close to rejecting the Gospels ...

Keep thinking, Steve. You'll get there.

The answer I gave was 'reasons' why Plutach's writing was different than the NT docs. I rounded.

In other words, each year does not count as a 'reason' and you would never accept that line of thought as a valid reason to discredit a writing you accept. You were going for a funny.

Yes! It is part of the joy of talking to Grand. He get's kudos just for telling me I'm wrong and I get to amuse myself with comments I am sure are going over his head. A win-win.

What win? If anything, you come off as someone who's pretty insecure that this not-so-bright Grandizer is getting lots of kudos compared to you. If you want lots of kudos, and RR isn't good enough to keep you satisfied, maybe you should make a lot more reasonable and valid points instead of all the special pleading and the appeals to popularity and authority and all that. People here are brighter and fairer than you make them out to be. Also, some of them have degrees that you and I could only dream of having, so perhaps you shouldn't be debating them on topics they are experts on. I've done that before, only to realize that I was getting it wrong.

[Amarok]

LOL. So he refers to 400 year old documents we have never seen from people he never met. You got me!! Exactly the same as the NT.

Documents not seen by people not met by the author? OMG, you're this close to rejecting the Gospels ...

Keep thinking, Steve. You'll get there.

Yes! It is part of the joy of talking to Grand. He get's kudos just for telling me I'm wrong and I get to amuse myself with comments I am sure are going over his head. A win-win.

What win? If anything, you come off as someone who's pretty insecure that this not-so-bright Grandizer is getting lots of kudos compared to you. If you want lots of kudos, and RR isn't good enough to keep you satisfied, maybe you should make a lot more reasonable and valid points instead of all the special pleading and the appeals to popularity and authority and all that. People here are brighter and fairer than you make them out to be. Also, some of them have degrees that you and I could only dream of having, so perhaps you shouldn't be debating them on topics they are experts on. I've done that before, only to realize that I was getting it wrong.

As i have said Steve's too arrogant to think anyone knows better then him 

[LadyForCamus]

I said "might be a miracle". I can't have used the fallacy unless I was making an argument. I was explaining the the probability that if anything is a miracle--context can be a clue--not proof.

You know as well as I do that one does not have to posit a formal, logical argument in order to engage in fallacious reasoning, Steve.  I asked you to describe the method you use to distinguish a supernatural cause from an ‘as of yet unexplained’ natural cause. Your answer included a real life example; that if people first prayed for a child with cancer, and then the cancer disappeared, that could be a good reason to think the cause of the healing was supernatural. You and I both know that, “because the second event followed the first” is a faulty reason to think the second event was caused by the first. Your methodology, at least in this one particular instance, is invalid by way of fallacious reasoning. I don’t see that there is much to dispute here.

You may have missed the point of the three examples. Each of them is defined by what they are not--entirely. You can't flip it around. If you ask what is 'light', darkness is not part of the definition. What positive descriptors do you have for darkness, evil or cold?

Italics mine for positive, informatory descriptors:

Dark:

1. With little or no light. “it's too dark to see much"
synonyms: pitch-black, jet-black, inky.

2. (of a color or object) not reflecting much light; approaching black in shade. Ex: dark green

Cold:

1. Of or at a low or relatively low temperature, especially when compared with the human body.

2. a low temperature, especially in the atmosphere; cold weather; a cold environment.

So, what do you have for the supernatural, besides...”not natural”?

That is not to say we can't know more about what is supernatural. If you believe in the supernatural, you probably believe in entities like God, angels, human souls, demons and places like heaven and hell. Descriptions of what is supernatural help firm up the concept. Here's a good example: if we have a soul, then by definition it is more than the sum of our electro-chemical processes and is considered supernatural right?

Sure. Those are all the things that it’s not. Or, more to your taste, the “soul” is all of that other stuff we know about, plus some mysterious thing we don’t. What is it then?

Further, we believe we have free will and can act with intentionality. We (our soul) effect the physical world by deciding to direct our bodies to do something. There--supernatural causation. Even if you don't believe it, it is coherent.

Hmm? You believe in free will.  That’s a claim in and of itself, and I’m not sure how it’s at all related to the concept of a soul, whatever that is.  Plenty of people believe in free will but not a soul.  Simply put, you haven’t explained what this soul-thing is at all, or how it is technically responsible for the free will you think you have.

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Sorry it took me forever to fix the formatting on that, guys. Hope noone’s eyes are bleeding! 😝

[vulcanlogician]

To conclude.
Evidence for a god. Do you have any ?

Here's a start...

P1. Miraculous effects have been specifically attributed to God (a supernatural being). Example, the paralytic healed by Jesus: "Mark 2:10...but I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, 11 “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 12 He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all...". There are a hundred such examples in the NT where supernatural causation was declared or unmistakably inferred from the context.
P2. The resurrected Jesus was seen by as many as 500 people. Recently crucified people do not walk around and declare that they have conquered death and provided a way for man's redemption and as such, this is an obvious, rather big, supernatural claim.
     In support of P1 and P2, we have the following:
     a. Jesus most certainly was born, baptized, and died in the time period claimed. (other sources)
     b. Pete, James and John were known eyewitnesses to both the public and private events of Jesus' three year ministry (every other NT writer)
     c. They presided over the early church (Paul, Acts, first/second century docs)
     d. This early church instructed Paul (Paul, Acts)
     e. As evidenced by Paul's letters, this early church believed the claims later outlined in the gospels (long before they where written). We can infer from this the source of these beliefs were a critical mass of people who believed these events really happened which actually prompted immediate and significant action on their part--to evangelize the Roman world.  
     f. Peter, James and John eventually wrote letters emphasizing the themes found in the gospels
     g. Luke wrote Luke and Acts with the purpose of outlining the events from the birth of Christ through his present day
     h. The editors of Matthew, Mark, and John were all alive during the lifetimes of these people above (it is unknown if the actual people with the pen were eyewitnesses)
     i. The editors would have been know to the recipients of the gospels. The books were name by which apostle influenced that particular book
     j. The early church, who we know believed the claims of Jesus already, accepted the gospels. There is nothing in the early church writings that questioned them.
     k. The gospels dovetail nicely with Paul's writings based on his training directly from all the eyewitnesses (completing a loop)
     l. Alternate theories of the NT and early church provenance lack explanatory power of the evidence on all sorts of levels
P3. The main promise of the NT is a series of specific supernatural effects on a person
P4. An untold number of people have reported such effects
P5. An untold number of people have reported minor miracles (defined as person-oriented miracles for which the goal is very narrow -- as opposed to the NT miracles which had broad application and goals). Ranges from healing, bringing about events/experiences/encounters/open doors, extraordinary strength/peace/perseverance, evangelistic success, etc.
P6. The question why anything at all exists has no naturalistic explanation (and most likely none forthcoming).
P7. The question of why the universe exists has no metaphysically sound naturalistic explanation. There is no reason to think one will be forthcoming.
P8. The question of why our universe has the narrow range of physical constants which seem necessary to form matter and conserve energy but under naturalism has no other explanation than fantastically amazing chance that would not be accepted in any other case.
P9. The question of why our minds seem non-physical but have causal powers over the physical undercuts hard naturalism and seems to have parallels to the concept of the supernatural (not that they are necessarily supernatural).
P10. The question of why there seems to exist a knowledge of basic morality in most people and most people believe it to be based on an objective set of principles (moral Platonism) not derived from any evolutionary process.
P11. There is physical evidence for the supernatural (from P1, P2)
P12. There is a persistent, growing, unbroken chain of personal reports of the supernatural (from P4, P5)
P13. There are reason to think that naturalism is an insufficient worldview and the existence of the supernatural has better explanatory powers in a variety of these gaps. (from P6, P7, P8, P9, P10)

THEREFORE: There are multiple lines of evidence/reasoning that infer the supernatural. Bayes showed us that that more data points that you have that infer a conclusion, the higher the probability the conclusion is true. Additionally, you can apply the math the other direction and examine the probability of these events all happening/reasoning given that the supernatural does not exist. I think there has also been sufficient connections made between cause and effect to understand the framework.

Okay, Steve, I'm going to table P1-P5 because unless you profess that the Bhagavad Gita proves the existence of Vishnu, you cannot say that what is written in the Bible is any sort of proof for God.

P6. The question why anything at all exists has no naturalistic explanation (and most likely none forthcoming).
P7. The question of why the universe exists has no metaphysically sound naturalistic explanation. There is no reason to think one will be forthcoming.
P8. The question of why our universe has the narrow range of physical constants which seem necessary to form matter and conserve energy but under naturalism has no other explanation than fantastically amazing chance that would not be accepted in any other case.
P9. The question of why our minds seem non-physical but have causal powers over the physical undercuts hard naturalism and seems to have parallels to the concept of the supernatural (not that they are necessarily supernatural).

In the year 200 B.C. the average Jew thought that it rained because God made it rain. The average Greek thought it rained because Zeus made it rain. What made water fall from the sky periodically must've been quite the mystery (ie. most likely no naturalistic explanation forthcoming). None of them could have predicted that centuries later scientists would work out the water cycle. Why anything (including our universe) exists at all IS rather puzzling and interesting to ponder. But this is god of the gaps reasoning--aka argument from ignorance. --next.

P10. The question of why there seems to exist a knowledge of basic morality in most people and most people believe it to be based on an objective set of principles (moral Platonism) not derived from any evolutionary process.

Funny how Plato didn't invoke God to explain morality though, right? In fact, he said that using such an approach to understand morality is wrongheaded from the start (see Euthyphro). If moral Platonism is evidence for theism how come myself (and many others) are moral Platonists, yet don't believe in God? Furthermore, math is an objective set of principles, yet is not derived from any evolutionary process. What of it? How is it evidence for God?

P11. There is physical evidence for the supernatural (from P1, P2)

Next.

P12. There is a persistent, growing, unbroken chain of personal reports of the supernatural (from P4, P5)

There is a persistent, growing, unbroken chain of UFO reports. Does this prove that they are among us? I fail to see what this proposition is trying to say.

P13. There are reason to think that naturalism is an insufficient worldview and the existence of the supernatural has better explanatory powers in a variety of these gaps. (from P6, P7, P8, P9, P10)

This one is kind of interesting. I reject that the supernatural has better explanatory powers... I mean... the proposition started strong and then drifted into god of the gaps again. Think of people in the middle ages who attributed milk curdling prematurely to a "hag's curse." Without a proper background of knowledge concerning bacterial cultures, the hag's curse has a great deal of explanatory power. But that doesn't make it the correct explanation. The first part of the prop is quite interesting, though. "Naturalism is insufficient." I might even agree with you here, if I were allowed a broad interpretation of the statement. And it's one of the reasons I hold theism to be logically tenable.

So first part of P13 has a point. The rest not so much. If you think I've missed something, feel free to point out my error.

[Minimalist]

Fuck all gods.... except Odin.  He had the right idea.

Meanwhile, the angry desert god fuckup end up with "free will."

http://www.debunking-christianity.com/20...xcuse.html

When Christians are asked why their all-powerful, loving god does not intervene when people are carrying out acts of horrendous cruelty and violence, they have an answer.  Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they have an emergency exit.  This mental escape hatch allows them to stop wrestling with the implications of a god who stands idly by and allows psychopaths to carry out their cruelties, unopposed.

[vulcanlogician]

Too bad Huggy disproved Odin a while back, eh?

[Minimalist]

WE have the exact same evidence for Odin that we have for fucking jesus.  Mentioned in an old book.

Most gods have the same problem.

[vulcanlogician]

WE have the exact same evidence for Odin that we have for fucking jesus.  Mentioned in an old book.

Most gods have the same problem.

Did you miss the thread, Min?

Huggy said: Yahweh real. Odin--not real. I think the matter is pretty much settled at this point.

[Pat Mustard]

su·per·nat·u·ral
ˌso͞opərˈnaCH(ə)rəl/
adjective

1. 1.
   (of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

Bolded the single most important word in your definition. What it means is that for something to be supernatural, somebody, somewhere just has to believe a god did or created it (even if that thing has been proven to be natural).

Under that definition thunder and lightning are supernatural events, despite it being known 100% the natural processes and events which cause them.

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That literraly happened. Someone was healed miraculously from something not even surgery can heal you of. I don't remember the exact name of what it is but also in the brain I believe. There's a movie about it called Miracles from Heaven. You can do some research on it. Blind restoring sight can also happen, I speak for myself here.

Yeah and the messiah hit me in the head once with his Holy Shoe. It's a sign, especially so as he denied that he's the messiah.

[SteveII]

I said "might be a miracle". I can't have used the fallacy unless I was making an argument. I was explaining the the probability that if anything is a miracle--context can be a clue--not proof.

You know as well as I do that one does not have to posit a formal, logical argument in order to engage in fallacious reasoning, Steve.  I asked you to describe the method you use to distinguish a supernatural cause from an ‘as of yet unexplained’ natural cause. Your answer included a real life example; that if people first prayed for a child with cancer, and then the cancer disappeared, that could be a good reason to think the cause of the healing was supernatural. You and I both know that, “because the second event followed the first” is a faulty reason to think the second event was caused by the first. Your methodology, at least in this one particular instance, is invalid by way of fallacious reasoning. I don’t see that there is much to dispute here.

Your mistake is the larger set of reasons/beliefs that form the context. It's inductive reasoning based on the fact that brain tumors do not generally disappear on their own, the belief that God exists, the belief that God can heal, and the belief that prayer is part of that process as outlined in the NT to effect that intervention. As in any inductive argument, the premises are probabilistic and the conclusions still may not be true. In fact, perhaps the prayers did nothing to change the outcome--that God would have healed him anyway for some other reason. I said before, we cannot know for sure, there is no way to prove it. 

That is not to say we can't know more about what is supernatural. If you believe in the supernatural, you probably believe in entities like God, angels, human souls, demons and places like heaven and hell. Descriptions of what is supernatural help firm up the concept. Here's a good example: if we have a soul, then by definition it is more than the sum of our electro-chemical processes and is considered supernatural right?

Sure. Those are all the things that it’s not. Or, more to your taste, the “soul” is all of that other stuff we know about, plus some mysterious thing we don’t. What is it then?

Entities that exist and are therefore part of a greater reality that are not bound by the laws of nature that govern the universe. Worldviews that belief it the existence of the supernatural have a particular framework that provide context to the interaction. 

Further, we believe we have free will and can act with intentionality. We (our soul) effect the physical world by deciding to direct our bodies to do something. There--supernatural causation. Even if you don't believe it, it is coherent.

Hmm? You believe in free will.  That’s a claim in and of itself, and I’m not sure how it’s at all related to the concept of a soul, whatever that is.  Plenty of people believe in free will but not a soul.  Simply put, you haven’t explained what this soul-thing is at all, or how it is technically responsible for the free will you think you have.

Of course I believe in free will. So do most people...because...that is what we experience every waking moment of the day. If you are dualist, you believe the mind is a separate thing  from the brain. My particular worldview holds that that mind is our soul and that it will continue to exist after we die.