Evidence for Believing

[Lek]

Please let me know the specific steps I could take, that would get me to the same understanding of this god you claim exists, and has the attributes you claim it has.

I've told you a number of times already. Read my lips! There is no scientific method that I know of to finding God. The way I see it is to have a true desire to know God and be willing accept what he gives to you. Go to him in prayer and ask for him to reveal himself to you. While being open to God's guidance, study religions and spiritual philosophies and continue to ask for God's guidance. I didn't particularly want to be connected to the spiritual philosophy I now have, so I tried to make myself believe something else. Invariably, I came back to it though. This seems to be where God wants me to be now. It may not happen immediately, but slowly over time. Don't expect some tremendous experience to happen.

I may come to accept certain beliefs based on my images of God, which are often cultural, to try to explain a being who is indescribable. These are different than most others' images, but I don't think God cares about that as long as we know him. All these images and ideas are not him.

[Anomalocaris]

Please let me know the specific steps I could take, that would get me to the same understanding of this god you claim exists, and has the attributes you claim it has.

I've told you a number of times already.  Read my lips!  There is no scientific method that I know of to finding God.  The way I see it is to have a true desire to know God and be willing accept what he gives to you.  Go to him in prayer and ask for him to reveal himself to you.  While being open to God's guidance, study religions and spiritual philosophies and continue to ask for God's guidance.  I didn't particularly want to be connected to the spiritual philosophy I now have, so I tried to make myself believe something else.  Invariably, I came back to it though.  This seems to be where God wants me to be now.  It may not happen immediately, but slowly over time.  Don't expect some tremendous experience to happen.

I may come to accept certain beliefs based on my images of God, which are often cultural, to try to explain a being who is indescribable.  These are different than most others' images, but I don't think God cares about that as long as we know him.  All these images and ideas are not him.

I repeat it to you, read my lips.   TRUE DESIRE DOES NOT TRANSLATE TO FACTS.    In fact the truer your desire for something, the more objectively probable it becomes for you to end up believing it when it is not true.   So the truer your desire for something, the more your belief in that thing  can be dismissed out of hand as worthless self deceptions of a enthusiastic self-deceiver.    

This is why belief is no evidence at all.

[Simon Moon]

My disbelief in gods has nothing to do with the Bible being a book of mythology, that, in any important ways, does not reflect reality.

I never claimed, with absolute certainty, that a god do not exist. My position is, that the case for the existence of a god has never met its burden of proof, therefore I have no warrant of justification to believe a god exists. My atheism is a product of correctly applied skepticism and critical thinking, and is a provisional position, not a dogmatic one.

I will stop being an atheist, as soon as the case for the existence of a god has met its burden of proof, with demonstrable, verifiable and falsifiable evidence, and reasoned argument.

Can you illustrate how it's possible for something that is not within the limits of our natural epistemology to meet this standard of proof?

I never said it could.

But then, if a god exists, that is outside of our natural epistemology, then I aren't I still justified in disbelieving it exists?

If said god exists, but cannot be demonstrated to exist, how is such a god distinguishable from a god that does not exist?

Maybe there isn't anything that caused things to be. Maybe it is a brute force fact, that existence has always existed. Even before our local presentation of the universe expanded.

Please describe the state of nothing, as in nothing being. How can absolute nothing even "be"?

That's just it, though, there must be something that must exist, always, and the argument is that anything that could conceivably not exist, cannot be that something. So any particular being or collection of entities that can be otherwise arranged, such as our natural universe, are not necessary in and of themselves. The brute fact that anything exists without reason or explanation is arbitrary and irrational, and not consistent with how we investigate reality. We can admit that something is beyond our epistemology, but that gives us no reasonable grounds for saying our epistemology is the limit of everything that exists.

Please explain, why the possibility that something may exist without reason or explanation, is arbitrary and irrational. Besides your discomfort with that possibility, of course. Or the necessity for a god.

And just to clarify, I am not claiming, that it is a brute fact that anything exists without reason or explanation. I am just trying to figure out how you eliminated the possibility? Besides your discomfort with that possibility, of course.

[Inqwizitor]

If faith be limited to known demonstrable facts, it wouldn't be faith, it would be facts.   For faith to limit itself to  hypothesis and assumption about the unknown that does not contract what is known and demonstrable, it would be called assumptions or hypotheses and not faith.   For faith to be faith it must either Contradict known facts or treat what could be no more than hypotheses and assumptions as if they were more than hypotheses and assumptions.

So how is this in principle different from superstition?

The difference between faith and superstition appears to be entirely observer centric.    Faith is the superstition of those who loath to be called superstitious.     Superstition is the faith of other people whose superstition does not agree with one's own.

Superstition contradicts known facts, so it should not be difficult to show what is superstition, and therefore it's not relative to the observer (heresy is). Faith is assent to superrational truth. Superrational is relative to human capability. A hypothesis is arrived at through abductive reasoning and proposed for empirical demonstration. Faith might be a kind of assumption depending on semantics. Superstition is an assumption too though, and so are hypotheses.

[The Grand Nudger]

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A brute fact is reducible, logically, and that's the problem with it.

Hardly, the problem is that a brute fact is irreducible by definition.  That's your problem.  Not a problem for any brute fact.

We can logically reason that something is reducible, but then there is an assertion that, no, actually, that's all there is. The rational explanations simply stop there, because we can't physically observe or measure more than that.

Unfiltered stream of consciousness?  

The brute fact that anything exists without reason or explanation is arbitrary and irrational, and not consistent with how we investigate reality.

heres wiki describing a brute fact

In contemporary philosophy, a brute fact is a fact that has no explanation. More narrowly, brute facts may instead be defined as those facts which cannot be explained (as opposed to simply having no explanation). To reject the existence of brute facts is to think that everything can be explained.

Do you now think that everything can be explained, as you reject the fundamental criteria of a brute fact above?  That's going to be hard to fit into your gap manufacturing. You don't know what a brute fact is, and you can't cogently describe any rational problem with a brute fact. Further, any issue you raise with brute facts will be disastrous for your god concept. God is, after all, the ultimate brute fact.

Is god arbitrary, irrational, and not consistent with how we investigate reality? Is god reducible?

[Inqwizitor]

I never said it could.

But then, if a god exists, that is outside of our natural epistemology, then I aren't I still justified in disbelieving it exists?

If said god exists, but cannot be demonstrated to exist, how is such a god distinguishable from a god that does not exist?

The possibility of supernatural causes. Miracles. This might be essentially what divides the theist from the atheist: belief that nature is absolutely uniform or relatively uniform.

Please explain, why the possibility that something may exist without reason or explanation, is arbitrary and irrational. Besides your discomfort with that possibility, of course. Or the necessity for a god.

And just to clarify, I am not claiming, that it is a brute fact that anything exists without reason or explanation. I am just trying to figure out how you eliminated the possibility? Besides your discomfort with that possibility, of course.

Sometimes I see the critique of cosmological arguments as a fallacy of special pleading: God just is, but everything else can be explained. I agree with the critique. The existence of something that "just is" is an exception that must be justified. I don't accept that God is an "ultimate brute fact" either, although some philosophers do (Richard Swinburne). There must be something that is not logically reducible to anything simpler. If we say that the universe "just is" then we're also committing the fallacy of special pleading. We're saying that rational explanations stop at some point, because... just because.

[The Grand Nudger]

No one said anything even remotely close to "the universe just is". It's been posited that existence is a brute fact. That we need no demiurge to explain existence. Frankly, even a demiurge would have to exist, to be demiurge.

You accept a reducible god, that can be explained by it's underlying cause, or even, presumably....it's own creator?

[Simon Moon]

I never said it could.

But then, if a god exists, that is outside of our natural epistemology, then I aren't I still justified in disbelieving it exists?

If said god exists, but cannot be demonstrated to exist, how is such a god distinguishable from a god that does not exist?

The possibility of supernatural causes. Miracles. This might be essentially what divides the theist from the atheist: belief that nature is absolutely uniform or relatively uniform.

But once again, with the data provided to me by theists, and the lack of confirmed, verifiable miracles or supernatural causes to examine, isn't my disbelief in a god rationally based?

Even if, and that's a big if, miracles and supernatural causes could be confirmed. That still would not mean a god is responsible. You can't get to 'therefore god exists', from, 'something supernatural occured.

[Inqwizitor]

Unfiltered stream of consciousness?  

I'm not sure what you mean.

Do you now think that everything can be explained, as you reject the fundamental criteria of a brute fact above?  That's going to be hard to fit into your gap manufacturing.  You don't know what a brute fact is, and you can't cogently describe any rational problem with a brute fact.  Further, any issue you raise with brute facts will be disastrous for your god concept.  God is, after all, the ultimate brute fact.

Is god arbitrary, irrational, and not consistent with how we investigate reality?  Is god reducible?

We can define 'God' in many different ways. I don't think God is an "ultimate brute fact" or the natural universe might as well be God. If we accept that everything has an explanation then there must be something absolutely simple. It makes the most sense that that is the end of explanations, so why stop the reasoning process before we reach it? The argument is that if we can't observe it somehow, it doesn't matter.

[Anomalocaris]

If faith be limited to known demonstrable facts, it wouldn't be faith, it would be facts.   For faith to limit itself to  hypothesis and assumption about the unknown that does not contract what is known and demonstrable, it would be called assumptions or hypotheses and not faith.   For faith to be faith it must either Contradict known facts or treat what could be no more than hypotheses and assumptions as if they were more than hypotheses and assumptions.

So how is this in principle different from superstition?

The difference between faith and superstition appears to be entirely observer centric.    Faith is the superstition of those who loath to be called superstitious.     Superstition is the faith of other people whose superstition does not agree with one's own.

Superstition contradicts known facts, so it should not be difficult to show what is superstition, and therefore it's not relative to the observer (heresy is). Faith is assent to superrational truth. Superrational is relative to human capability. A hypothesis is arrived at through abductive reasoning and proposed for empirical demonstration. Faith might be a kind of assumption depending on semantics. Superstition is an assumption too though, and so are hypotheses.

You should be careful what exactly is a fact and what contradicting fact means.    For example, belief in ghosts might legitimately be called superstition, but exactly how do ghosts contradict known facts?

Also, how is heresay relative to the observer anymore than an observation of a fact is relative to the observer?

How is "superrational truth" not dependent upon the holder of the faith of superrational truth being you?   If you were me, I would dispense with that faith and dismiss superrational truth as overbearing flimflam - a superstitious worship of ego and intuition.


What exactly is "superrational truth"?


How it is different, exactly, from assumptions and hypothesis about what might be true, but might also be false, because they not directly deducible from known facts?    Does really wishing an assumption to be true and seeing all sorts of flowers and rainbows when you think of those assumptions being true makes it "truth"?


If they are essentially nothing more than assumptions, than is the fact you chose to enloften them with the word "truth" a an act of delibrate contradiction against the fact that they are no more certain to be true than any assumption which does not contradict facts that are known today, but may yet turn out to contradict facts that would be found tomorrow?