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Proof of God

NWO_Spook said:
Exactly, if this god was serious about letting us know about his magnificence, then why did he limit his exposure to a single nation thousands of years ago? He's been awfully quiet lately.
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Shyness?
 
Quag said:
You frealize you just disagreed with your previous comments
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Believers just don't get it. I do not assume that gods do not exist, I merely point to the total lack of evidence for their existence. I do the same thing for leprechauns and goblins too.
 
zyzygy said:
Believers just don't get it. I do not assume that gods do not exist, I merely point to the total lack of evidence for their existence. I do the same thing for leprechauns and goblins too.
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If they can't misrepresent our position, then they have nothing in their arsenal.
 
zyzygy said:
Believers just don't get it. I do not assume that gods do not exist, I merely point to the total lack of evidence for their existence. I do the same thing for leprechauns and goblins too.
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Perhaps not you specifically, but many atheists certainly behave as if they "know" that god doesn't exist, and I think that is more indicative of what you actually believe than what you say.
 
zyzygy said:
Believers just don't get it. I do not assume that gods do not exist, I merely point to the total lack of evidence for their existence. I do the same thing for leprechauns and goblins too.
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I dont really care if believers believe but I will challenge someone who claims their belief is based on logic or reason rather than pure faith, so far no one has been able to show this to be true
 
Triton said:
Perhaps not you specifically, but many atheists certainly behave as if they "know" that god doesn't exist, and I think that is more indicative of what you actually believe than what you say.
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Depends what we mean by 'know', right? If we mean 'absolute certainty', then I don't claim to 'know' much. If we mean a 'moral certainty' - to borrow a legal term for being certain enough to take action based on a conclusion - then sure, that might be accurate. But 'knowing', the way I see it, is just a high confidence level ascribed to a belief. People 'know' things that are wrong all the time. So the only interesting question is 'why do you think that?' - whether or not someone claims to 'know' is largely irrelevant.

Sent from my LM-V405 using Tapatalk
 
zyzygy said:
Why doesn't god manifest himself all over the place as he did in the Old Testament? That would be convincing.
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2000 years ago, superstitious goat herders thought they saw a lot of things. That we would buy today any of there BS boggles my mind.
 
NWO_Spook said:
Exactly, if this god was serious about letting us know about his magnificence, then why did he limit his exposure to a single nation thousands of years ago? He's been awfully quiet lately.
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Yea, I wonder why.
 
watsup said:
That is always an unfair and even nonsensical question no matter how often it is asked. A person obviously cannot perceive the reliability of any evidence u til it is offered. Imagine a lawyer intimating that the jury must first establish criteria before he can present evidence. He would be laughed out of the courtroom.
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I disagree, I could provide evidence all day and see that each time the response is "Nah, that's not evidence for God" and "Nah, that's not evidence for God" having some idea beforehand about the kinds of characteristics that might support the claim for a God is entirely reasonable.
 
NWO_Spook said:
One would have that their god should know what evidence to present. Funnily enough, this abstract is rather conspicuous by its absence.
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Before I can present evidence to you I need to have some confidence that you will not robotically reject item, after item, after item and thus waste my valuable time.

To put this another way I need some degree of assurance that you really would accept some evidence and that your are honest in your desire to seriously consider that evidence.

If I said I needed evidence before I'd believe that the Thylacine is not extinct then it would be reasonable for an explorer to ask "So what kind of evidence would you need?" and I could say any number of things, that list might be a factor in whether to forge ahead with the mission to gather the evidence or not.

I might say "A DNA sample" or I might say "Video footage that shows the tail and stripes and is timestamped" or I might say "Look if at least two of you see enough to convince you, I'm on board" etc.

If this question about the kind of evidence was never asked the team might go to the trouble of pursuing and taking very good pictures only for me to say "Nah, that's not evidence".

Your refusal to answer this question implies - to me - that you are not serious and have no criteria whatsoever because you are committed to the view there is no God and absolutely nothing I could present would every change that view, presenting evidence to such individuals is clearly fruitless, are you one of those?
 
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Quote Originally Posted by gboisjo
Finally we agree, however, if the universe was created you don't know what the creator is or isn't. Some religions of which thousands have existed pretend to know and call it god, I have no use for them, to many to pick from. For all we know our creator is an alien and we exist in a Petri dish, an experiment conducted by beings a thousand times more intelligent than you or me. A creator as understood through any of thousands of religions rings hollow in my ears. If a creator is ever discovered it will be the work of science not voodoo religion or the philosophical rants of some nut lost in his thoughts
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Sherlock Holmes said:
Do you agree then that this "creator" to which the universe's existence is attributed (by me anyway) cannot (by definition) be material? operate according to laws? the reason being that these are the very things who's origin we seek?
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No, right away you start assigning attributes like you know, that's your arrogance and self righteousness. No one knows if a creator of some sort exist or what its attributes are. Only in some religions and with a few classic philosophers do we find those dreamers who would pretend to know what a "creator" is and isn't.
 
zyzygy said:
Why doesn't god manifest himself all over the place as he did in the Old Testament? That would be convincing.
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Very well, this is a fair response.

But you must now explain to me how you handle the case where God does actually exist yet is not prepared to do as you ask, how do you deal with this problem?

God might well actually exist and your criteria cannot be met, this isn't good because the process you are following is not revealing the truth and that's surely not good.
 
Sherlock Holmes said:
I disagree, I could provide evidence all day and see that each time the response is "Nah, that's not evidence for God" and "Nah, that's not evidence for God" having some idea beforehand about the kinds of characteristics that might support the claim for a God is entirely reasonable.
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Where would you gather this proof, might it be ancient philosophical abstractions that angel loved to post. Or perhaps 2000 year old scriptures might light the way for the stubborn atheist.
 
NWO_Spook said:
Exactly, if this god was serious about letting us know about his magnificence, then why did he limit his exposure to a single nation thousands of years ago? He's been awfully quiet lately.
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This is illogical Spook. God refusing to act as you expect cannot be used as a means to deduce his non-existence. If you are treating God as if it were some physical force like gravitation for example, then how can that ever hope to work for you if God does have a free will and can act as he sees fit?

If gravitation had a will and could sometimes of its own volition choose not to act, then would we have a theory for gravitation? I think not.

You and every other atheist here is insisting on God acting like the material world, you therefore apply the same methods you use for the material world and you're actually surprised you see no evidence for God?

God does exist but your efforts to establish this are abysmal, a huge intellectual failure on your part.
 
NWO_Spook said:
If they can't misrepresent our position, then they have nothing in their arsenal.
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"arsenal"? see, already your true nature can be seen, no real desire to discover truths only a combative stance determined at all costs to reinforce your preexisting conviction that God does not exist.

Why ask for evidence when you do not even know what might characterize that evidence?
 
gboisjo said:
Where would you gather this proof, might it be ancient philosophical abstractions that angel loved to post. Or perhaps 2000 year old scriptures might light the way for the stubborn atheist.
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So this is the lofty intellectual reasoning here? If God does not behave as I predict God should behave then God does not exist?
 
Sherlock Holmes said:
I disagree, I could provide evidence all day and see that each time the response is "Nah, that's not evidence for God" and "Nah, that's not evidence for God" having some idea beforehand about the kinds of characteristics that might support the claim for a God is entirely reasonable.
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Actually, this dodge is not new with you. I have seen it multiple times over the years from other pop theologians. All it really says is that the person does not have any objective reality-based evidence to present for their “God”, so they turn the table upside down in response so that they don’t have to continue a REASONED discussion ,
The very word evidence implies that it must be presented first before a judgment can be made.
Any lawyer who first asked the judge what sort of evidence he would accept would be upbraided by the judge who would tell him to offer his or her evidence at which point the judge would make his or her decision as to its applicability. That’s what evidence is all about, no matter how many word games you play with it.
 
watsup said:
Actually, this dodge is not new with you. I have seen it multiple times over the years from other pop theologians.
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I do not understand you. Are you saying it is unethical for me to seek details of what the skeptic would consider as evidence?

watsup said:
All it really says is that the person does not have any objective reality-based evidence to present for their “God”, so they turn the table upside down in response so that they don’t have to continue a REASONED discussion.
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You really think that's what my question means? that's literally what you see going on here?

watsup said:
The very word evidence implies that it must be presented first before a judgment can be made.
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I disagree, the definition carries no such implication and I fully expect any evidence I present to be evaluated, but different people require different evidence - this is what you have not understood.

watsup said:
Any lawyer who first asked the judge what sort of evidence he would accept would be upbraided by the judge who would tell him to offer his or her evidence at which point the judge would make his or her decision as to its applicability. That’s what evidence is all about, no matter how many word games you play with it.
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This is not true. A prosecution will often never begin because the prosecution team know that despite having some evidence it likely won't be enough to convict so they never go to trial, their evidence never gets presented because they know that the law and the jury have some basic expectation for what is sufficient evidence to convict.

It strikes me that an honest seeker after truth would not hesitate to elaborate in their expectations for evidence, if they were honest they'd be keen to supply as much detail as possible, they'd be keen to state that objectively, they'd be keen to remove their subjective feelings and biases from the process by honestly stating some basic criteria.
 
Sherlock Holmes said:
I do not understand you. Are you saying it is unethical for me to seek details of what the skeptic would consider as evidence?



You really think that's what my question means? that's literally what you see going on here?



I disagree, the definition carries no such implication and I fully expect any evidence I present to be evaluated, but different people require different evidence - this is what you have not understood.



This is not true. A prosecution will often never begin because the prosecution team know that despite having some evidence it likely won't be enough to convict so they never go to trial, their evidence never gets presented because they know that the law and the jury have some basic expectation for what is sufficient evidence to convict.

It strikes me that an honest seeker after truth would not hesitate to elaborate in their expectations for evidence, if they were honest they'd be keen to supply as much detail as possible, they'd be keen to state that objectively, they'd be keen to remove their subjective feelings and biases from the process by honestly stating some basic criteria.
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Like I said—dodges.
Point proven.
 
watsup said:
Like I said—dodges.
Point proven.
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That's it I'm afraid, I am done with responding to you. If this is the way you react to a post that honestly reflects my position, that I took the trouble to compose and phrase in order to explain my point and it's relevance in the discussion then I have wasted my time with you.
 
Sherlock Holmes said:
That's it I'm afraid, I am done with responding to you. If this is the way you react to a post that honestly reflects my position, that I took the trouble to compose and phrase in order to explain my point and it's relevance in the discussion then I have wasted my time with you.
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Backatcha!
 
zyzygy said:
Don't you know that theists are always right? How could they be wrong? They believe!
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I cannot understand why you spend time in a discussion forum when you have nothing but contempt for anyone who doesn't share your views.
 
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