Faith: the evidence of things not seen

nozzferrahhtoo

Antiskeptic,

Again you are missing the point. Sight is a real sense. We can show its existence and show that a person lacks it. Its existence is showable AND falsifiable.

This is not so with your “Sense” of god. Given that you have provided no evidence for this entity or this sense, it seems both are entirely made up and one made up thing is being used to support the existence of the other made up thing. The argument is entirely circular.

Until you can show the existence of one, you can not use it to show the existence of the other. Both appear to entirely assumed. Not only is this circular but suffers from infinite regress. Why can I not see evidence for god? Because I lack the sense required to see it? Why can I not see the evidence for this sense? I guess because I also lack the sense to see it? Why can I not see evidence for THAT sense..... ad infinitum. It appears I am not lacking 1 sense, but an infinite number of them huh?

The other presumption you hold is that the God sense should be convertible into one of the empirical senses.

Errr false. How can I have a presumption about something that I have been shown no reason to think exists at all? The only presumption I hold is that this “sense” is entirely invented by you and that you have provided no evidence that such a thing exists.

*I make this small because it is off topic and I include it only for your interest. And yet you could very easily show the existence scientifically of “red” to a blind person using some very simple physics experiments involving the splitting and dispersion of white light and registering the differences between the results of each wavelength.

You could then show biologically the difference in how elements in the body register and perceive each of the wavelengths differently. This would conclusively show that light comes in different wavelengths which are differently perceived by the brain and hence the brain can distinguish between different wavelengths.

That is all you need to do. Proving that the brain discerns between wavelengths and perceives those differernces is all that is necessary.

“Color” is, after all, not a THING, it is just a word we put on to describe the human subjective interpretation of an objective difference between types of light. Color is not something that actually exists. It is not a thing, it can not be measured or found. We can for example be 100% sure that when I see red and you see red that we are both seeing light and we both are receiving it at the same wavelength. What you can not show is that what I experience when I see “red” is what you experience when you see it. Maybe you see what I would think of as green.

Your error in thinking you can not “show” redness to a blind person is bourne of the mistaken notion that “redness” is an actual thing that exists. It is not. It is a concept in the brain used to describe different perceptions and such perceptions are entirely achievable without direct observation. You would do well to read more about the concept of Synesthesia where people hear colors and see sounds. Their perception is no less valid than ours, they just have a subjective interpretation of an objective range of differences in light and sound. They just arrive at this perception by a different avenue.

However this is entirely off topic which is, as I said, why I include it as a footnote only.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

Most of us, in our daily lives, test things by simple personal experimentation.

And some of us realise that personal experimentation is a deeply flawed process and thus don't base entire belief systems around the "evidence" gathered from such experimentation.

To conclude that a hang over cure might be doing something is a world away from concluding God exists and should be worshiped, or that homeopathy can cure disease or that ghosts exist and talk to us or all the other supernatural or paranormal conclusions people reach after accepting conclusions based on personal experimentation.

To lump everyone together equally and say we all do this in an attempt to validate what theists do is frankly ridiculous and mildly insulting.

PDN wrote: »

It would be very difficult to conduct a study under laboratory conditions to prove whether prayer in general works or not. But it is certainly possible for me to experiment as to whether a particular method of prayer works for me or not.

No it isn't, not to any proper standard of epistemology. That is the point.

You will get an answer but you have no idea if that answer is accurate or not because personal assessment is a deeply flawed process that you cannot trust to give you accurate results.

Yet you accept the result anyway, and thus operate on blind faith, since you are blindly accepting the results from your personal experiment despite reason telling us you don't know if they are accurate at all.

antiskeptic

Wicknight wrote: »

And some of us realise that personal experimentation is a deeply flawed process and thus don't base entire belief systems around the "evidence" gathered from such experimentation.

I dunno Wickknight. Everytime I drive my bike I utilise the evidence of my own eyes to tell me where it is I should point it. So far (26 years and a quarter million miles or so and I'm still alive and unbroken), personal, subjective evaluation regarding the reality I occupy seems to be hitting the mark consistantly.

What is it with the empiricists? Seems nothing can be taken as being the case unless it appears in a peer reviewed journal. Life, as PDN seems to be pointing out, just doesn't operate that way.

Fanny Cradock

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Yes because this is a conversation ABOUT faith. What I mean by conversation stopper however is when it is USED in other conversations.

For example here are two imaginary conversations:

Conversation 1 – Good

Person 1: Homosexuality is bad because of Result X of Study Y.
Person 2: Can you show me this study, its methodology and conclusions?
Person 1: Yes here it is, let us now discuss its data, methodology and conclusions further…..

Conversation 2 – Bad

Person 1: Homosexuality is bad because it is against the will of god and his created order.
Person 2: Ah can you show me evidence for this god and that this is in fact its will?
Person 1: I have no such evidence, but I have faith it is true.
Person 2: Ah….

You obviously don't understand science if you think it can be used to determine if X is morally good or morally bad. Whether it is deliberate or not, you are conflating the role (and output) of science with the role (and output) of philosophy and theology. Simply put: science can build bombs but it can't tell us if it is good or bad to use them. For this we need some sort of moral and ethical framework. Christianity happens to be one such moral framework.

Also the question as to whether homosexuality is good or bad isn't confined to religious people, it presses down on the secular world also. I have known some thoroughly irreligious people (possibly these are the type of people who are as far removed from a religion like Christianity as they are from something like humanism) who are homophobic.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

What I have always wondered is why it is not valid for Person 2 to invent his own god, which is the polar opposite in EVERY way to Person 1s god on issues such as this, thus negating Person 1s god and forcing everyone back to Conversation 1 by default. I guess this is because people of faith only lend credence to their own faith and dismiss it entirely in others.

If you want to start praising the SFM then knock yourself out. I would think that any fair-minded Christian would be happy to debate the merits of your beliefs in comparison to theirs. Indeed, you can visit this website (among many) to see your usual atheist v theist debates and some ecumenical debates between people of different religions. Closer to home debating the merits of one faith over another (and I'll include atheism in this for the purposes of this post) is exactly what we do here every day. But in an ironic twist you seem to assume the worst of religious people - that religious people always dismiss X and never at the expense of their own beliefs. Quite frankly, that is pompous nonsense. And I dare suggest that you are actually very close to describing your own stance when you make such generalisations.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Why, for example, anyone with "faith" in Christ and Christianity is any more valid than someone with "faith" in Mohammad and Islam is entirely beyond me. They each have offered the same amount of evidence and data for their claims (none to my knowledge) and yet they both are entirely convinced the other is wrong and that the others "faith" is not good enough. If you accept faith for one, why is it not accepted for all?

I would suggest that you are wrong. Both Christianity and Islam do provide evidence for their claims. To state otherwise means you either haven't bothered to look - thus assuming what I see to be a default position amongst certain types of posters - or you aren't being objective in your analysis. It doesn't matter if you personally decided that the bible, philosophical arguments for God, personal testimonies or whatever are about as trustworthy as an OJ Simpson testimony. They remain as types of evidence all the same, albeit untrustworthy evidence from your perspective. Also that there are competing claims between religions doesn't mean that all are necessarily wrong and there is no truth.

Sam Vimes

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I would suggest that you are wrong. Both Christianity and Islam do provide evidence for their claims. To state otherwise means you either haven't bothered to look - thus assuming what I see to be a default position amongst certain types of posters - or you aren't being objective in your analysis. It doesn't matter if you personally decided that the bible, philosophical arguments for God, personal testimonies or whatever are about as trustworthy as an OJ Simpson testimony. They remain as types of evidence all the same, albeit untrustworthy evidence from your perspective. Also that there are competing claims between religions doesn't mean that all are necessarily wrong and there is no truth.

That there are competing claims doesn't mean that all are necessarily wrong, that is true, but every religion has its share of personal testimonies, every religion has its sacred texts or stories, many just as independently verifiable as those of christianity if not more so and the philosophical arguments pretty much all argue for a generic creator type being and can be applied to any religion. The existence of so many other religions does not necessarily make them all wrong but it does make it all but impossible to make an objective decision as to which one is true.

When you get right down to it you have to pick one religion and apply a lower standard of evidence than you would to anything else in order to accept it. Usually the perceived benefits that the religion brings to a person's life allows them to do this but of course religions are designed to fulfil certain needs in people and provide these perceived benefits so if they'd started off looking deeply into a different religion they would most likely have had the same needs fulfilled* and would now believe in that religion just as strongly as christianity

*assuming the social aspect could be fulfilled which would be difficult if there was no community of that religion in the area

Zombrex

antiskeptic wrote: »

I dunno Wickknight. Everytime I drive my bike I utilise the evidence of my own eyes to tell me where it is I should point it. So far (26 years and a quarter million miles or so and I'm still alive and unbroken), personal, subjective evaluation regarding the reality I occupy seems to be hitting the mark consistantly.

In 26 years and a quarter million miles or so you have never read a map, or a street sign, or got lost, or taken a wrong turn, or got disorientated, or lost your way?

That is impressive, you must be a robot sent from the future to destroy us all :rolleyes:

antiskeptic wrote: »

What is it with the empiricists? Seems nothing can be taken as being the case unless it appears in a peer reviewed journal.

Again you guys only accept what you conclude because you want it to be true, not because you have actually determined it is. Blind faith in your abilities to determine things based purely on wishful thinking. It is possibly that initially people could simply be ignorant at the flaws in accepting personal evaluation, but in this day and age when such flaws are pointed out all the time that excuse no longer holds.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Life, as PDN seems to be pointing out, just doesn't operate that way.

Well actually it does, as demonstrated by the huge amount of different supernatural and paranormal things people believe in, from UFOs to homeopathy.

People are wrong far more than they are right. Far far far far more. Personal evaluation of phenomena (ie a person observing a phenomena and working out on his own what has happened) is ridiculously flawed, even before we get to the supernatural.

It is the "I was able to ride my bike to work so I should also be able to work out God exists/ghosts are real/astrology works/ufo abductions happen etc etc" type of logic that gets people into trouble.

But again, you guys don't care. Thus blind faith.

antiskeptic

Wicknight wrote: »

In 26 years and a quarter million miles or so you have never read a map, or a street sign, or got lost, or taken a wrong turn, or got disorientated, or lost your way?

That is impressive, you must be a robot sent from the future to destroy us all :rolleyes:

That I have erred form relative trifles considering the billions of correct perceptions required to ensure my current status of "living being"

Again you guys only accept what you conclude because you want it to be true, not because you have actually determined it is. Blind faith in your abilities to determine things based purely on wishful thinking. It is possibly that initially people could simply be ignorant at the flaws in accepting personal evaluation, but in this day and age when such flaws are pointed out all the time that excuse no longer holds.

As ever, the point of objection focuses on the wrong target. It has been pointed out in this thread, the basis on which a believers faith is estabished & sustained. It would be by act of God in revealing himself to a person. The person believes in Gods existance because God has demonstrated his existance - in other words. You should agree in principle that:

a) God (assuming he exists for the sake of arguement) can reveal himself to a person.

b) God doing so ensures the person knows it's him and not a delusion.

c) God so revealed is objective, real, known.

Note that there is no reliance on the person correctly evaluating anything in this process - meaning that all your objections that focus on the unreliability of the persons perceptions reduce to nought. You're barking up the wrong tree. Rather, since all relies on God, you need to point your objections at Him and His abilities.

Since there is no profit in you ploughing that particular furrow, the best I can suggest you do is accept that such discussions terminate at stalemate. I assert God exists and you have little choice but to remain agnostic on the subject of whether my faith is evidenced or whether it is blind. Unless you've a mechanism (such as listed in a), b), c) above) that is, which permits you to assert "blind".

Zombrex

antiskeptic wrote: »

That I have erred form relative trifles considering the billions of correct perceptions required to ensure my current status of "living being"

Not really, because I imagine you didn't do any of what you are claiming based solely on your own perception. You didn't map out Dublin (or where ever you live), or leave markers on the route to find our way around (street signs) or determine your own directions.

What you have done all these years is rely on the empirical work of others. Others have empirically measured and mapped and posted and signed so you didn't have to because left to our own devices people are actually pretty bad with directions and perceiving where they are and where they are going.

And I've no problem if you want to do that with God as well but of course no one has empirical work in relation to God. Which is the whole point.

antiskeptic wrote: »

a) God (assuming he exists for the sake of arguement) can reveal himself to a person.

b) God doing so ensures the person knows it's him and not a delusion.

c) God so revealed is objective, real, known.

You cannot determine B is true or even accurate.

If you accept it is true that is an act of blind faith since almost by definition you cannot determine it is true or even likely or accurate.

You cannot determine the difference between you merely thinking God has revealed himself to you and God actually revealing himself to you as there is no test for this external to your own perception and personal conclusion.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Note that there is no reliance on the person correctly evaluating anything in this process

Of course there is, B requires that a person correct evaluate that God has revealed himself to them and that this is not a delusion as there exists no test for this external to one's own personal evaluation.

antiskeptic

Wicknight wrote: »

Not really, because I imagine you didn't do any of what you are claiming based solely on your own perception. You didn't map out Dublin (or where ever you live), or leave markers on the route to find our way around (street signs) or determine your own directions.

I was thinking more of the countless observations and calculations based on same that must have been performed to stop me falling over, turning right when I should have turned left, accelerating when I should be braking, continuing when I should have been avoiding.

You cannot determine B is true or even accurate.

I wasn't really asking you to respond to what I'm able to do. I was asking you to respond to what God is able to do (assuming he exists for the sake of argument). And so I'll repeat B in the form of a question

Is God able to reveal himself to a person in such a way that they know he isn't a delusion? I mean, what is "knowledge" but the arrangment of neural networks in your brain into a particular pattern? Whether God arranges my neural network "directly" so that I know God exists or whether he writes "God exists" in by-natural-means-impossibly-large letters in the sky so that I know he exists isn't particularily relevant.

Beware of suggesting that the God who created this Universe wouldn't be able to accomplish the relatively paltry task of making himself known to someone, in your answer.

Fanny Cradock

Wicknight wrote: »

Not really, because I imagine you didn't do any of what you are claiming based solely on your own perception. You didn't map out Dublin (or where ever you live), or leave markers on the route to find our way around (street signs) or determine your own directions.

What you have done all these years is rely on the empirical work of others. Others have empirically measured and mapped and posted and signed so you didn't have to because left to our own devices people are actually pretty bad with directions and perceiving where they are and where they are going.

And I've no problem if you want to do that with God as well but of course no one has empirical work in relation to God. Which is the whole point.

In all fairness, WK, I think you are looking a little too selectively at the analogy. As far as I can tell the word map has only ever used by you. Interestingly, when you think about it a map is in itself an analogy of reality.

Zombrex

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

In all fairness, WK, I think you are looking a little too selectively at the analogy. As far as I can tell the word map has only ever used by you. Interestingly, when you think about it a map is in itself an analogy of reality.

I'm merely pointing out the flaw in the thinking that because antiskeptic thinks he uses is personal assessment and judgement all the time to say get around a city or drive from Dublin to Limerick that means his personal assessment works pretty well and can be trusted when he assesses that his feelings towards God are also accurate.

In reality if you dropped antiskeptic (or anyone else for that matter) into say a foreign country a million years ago before any form of human civilization he would actually have a very hard time using his personal assessment to get from A to B accurately. Even as something as simply as knowing that the sun rises in the East is based on work others have done, empirical work at that.

So the whole analogy is flawed to begin with because he is already not comparing like with like.

The whole point about the objections to theistic belief and assumptions is that there is absolutely no test to apply to it. It is purely and completely at the whim of the judgement of the theist themselves.

So to say that personal assessment and judgement works well in other areas so why not assume it works well when assessing God is a fallacy because personal assessment doesn't work well in other areas.

Our personal assessment only works well when we have material and empirical data to compare it against, even if that is as simple as reading a map, looking at a street sign or even knowing the sun rises in the East.

And that is precisely what we do not have with supernatural claims including the claims of religion.

Zombrex

antiskeptic wrote: »

I was thinking more of the countless observations and calculations based on same that must have been performed to stop me falling over, turning right when I should have turned left, accelerating when I should be braking, continuing when I should have been avoiding.

All of which are based on material, empirical, assessment and testing.

I imagine you did not simply figure out in your mind how to ride a bike and then just jump on and go.

This is precisely what you do not have when trying to determine if God exists or not.

There is no empirical feedback, the only feedback is your own assessment of what you think has just happened.

A very good example is that you prayed and then work up the next morning feeling different. Ok, so were you different or did you just feel different. How did you test that?

antiskeptic wrote: »

Is God able to reveal himself to a person in such a way that they know he isn't a delusion?

Not if the revelation is in a manner that can also be produced by delusion, which in the case of human religion is always the case. In which case you cannot tell the difference.

If God actually wanted us to know that he existed it would make little sense for him to do it in a manner where we can't determine if he does or not.

So I'm sure he can reveal himself to us but for some reason he never does. Which is a bit odd if he actually does exist.

antiskeptic wrote: »

I mean, what is "knowledge" but the arrangment of neural networks in your brain into a particular pattern? Whether God arranges my neural network "directly" so that I know God exists or whether he writes "God exists" in by-natural-means-impossibly-large letters in the sky so that I know he exists isn't particularily relevant.

Well yes it is because God arranging your neural network directly so that you "know" God exists produces an end result that can also be produced if God doesn't exist at all but is merely a delusion in your mind produced by wayward evolutionary instincts to view agency in nature.

Where as the planets all suddenly arranging themselves into the English sentence "God is real and exists" is not something that can be easily explained by other means (of course you if you accept the existence of supernatural deities you have to allow for the possibility that one supernatural being may be pretending to be another, but that is a different issue)

Getting back to the subject at hand, the blind faith bit comes from the some what foolish belief that because you "know" God exists in your own mind that this some how means something significant in the real world

antiskeptic wrote: »

Beware of suggesting that the God who created this Universe wouldn't be able to accomplish the relatively paltry task of making himself known to someone, in your answer.

Whether he can do it or not is irrelevant. The question is has he and how can you determine he has.

antiskeptic

Wicknight wrote: »

All of which are based on material, empirical, assessment and testing.

Which is besides the point - which was my non-agreement with your suggestion that we are as prone to error as you're making out. What matters isn't that a team of scientists can establish that I indeed turned right rather than left and so avoided an accident. What matters is that I accurately perceived that which was nececessary to tend me to turn in that direction.

And that these countless decisions - made over a quarter of a million of biking miles - indicate my subjective ability to percieve is a darn sight more capable than your "empiricists philosophical defence" is prepared to cope with.

There is no empirical feedback, the only feedback is your own assessment of what you think has just happened.

Which has proven remarkably and consistantly accurate in the case of my motorcycle riding (and most other areas of my life)

A very good example is that you prayed and then work up the next morning feeling different. Ok, so were you different or did you just feel different. How did you test that?

The feeling, I'm sure you'll agree, doesn't need testing. If you feel peaceful then you are peaceful. That that feeling came to be recognised as the result of my now being born again isn't something you test for as such. What occurred was that I began to read this thing called The Bible and what it described as the process whereby I arrived at this peaceful feeling was the process I'd gone through (along global lines).

My basis for believing what it said arose out of God making himself known as being the author (as it were) of this writing. So you might say that the test was God's say so. Which, you'd agree, is about as good an imprimateur as one could hope to achieve.

Is God able to reveal himself to a person in such a way that they know he isn't a delusion?

Not if the revelation is in a manner that can also be produced by delusion, which in the case of human religion is always the case. In which case you cannot tell the difference.

Again, the question doesn't involve my telling the difference. The question revolves around what God is capable of doing (assuming for the sake of argument he exists).

Now, a true knowledge that God exists (provided by God to the receipient of that knowledge) must be expected to be different to a delusion that God exists (given that God isn't the one who has generated that 'knowledge'). Meaning a person who knows God exists can be in receipt of true knowledge.

And so we reach a position where you are faced with someone who says that they know God exists: but you can't tell whether I'm delusional or not. And me? Well all I know is what I know. If God put that knowledge there then it's God who exists. If it's delusion then there's no way to tell in any absolute sense. Just as there's no way to tell, in any absolute sense, if there actually is a computer screen sat in front of me. Or you.

Which brings me again to the point of this discussion with you. To suggest that agnosticism is the only position you can occupy on the matter of my knowledge.

If God actually wanted us to know that he existed it would make little sense for him to do it in a manner where we can't determine if he does or not.

His purpose is to remain veiled from those who are lost. And to be revealed to those who are found. He isn't dealing with a global, homogenous "us". Given that part of that purpose involves providing choice to us in the matter of spending eternity with him or not, you might appreciate his not making himself manifest to all. Like, how on earth could choice be sustained if you knew for certain that God, heaven and hell existed?

You shouldn't have a problem with his being able to manage a situation whereby some (the currently lost) are kept blind (and in a position of being able to choose) whilst others (the found) are enabled to see (having made their choice).

You'd agree it'd be a doddle to achieve such a thing in practice. You've only to enable a God-detection sense previously disabled. A flick of a switch would do it.

Well yes it is because God arranging your neural network directly so that you "know" God exists produces an end result that can also be produced if God doesn't exist at all but is merely a delusion in your mind produced by wayward evolutionary instincts to view agency in nature.

We're all aware that a brain in a jar can be provided with the same sense of reality we assume really exists all around us. Such musings (am I deluded about the reality of reality? Am I deluded about the reality of God?) appear to me to be pointless musings.

Where as the planets all suddenly arranging themselves into the English sentence "God is real and exists" is not something that can be easily explained by other means (of course you if you accept the existence of supernatural deities you have to allow for the possibility that one supernatural being may be pretending to be another, but that is a different issue)

Insert whatever empirically satisfying method you like whereby God would demonstrate his existance to you then. The point was that it will result in an arrangement of your neural network so there's no difference whether this is done via the short route (directly) or the long route (empirically).

Getting back to the subject at hand, the blind faith bit comes from the some what foolish belief that because you "know" God exists in your own mind that this some how means something significant in the real world

Where else do we know anything?

Whether he can do it or not is irrelevant. The question is has he and how can you determine he has.

It's interesting that you put man on the throne here. Man the ultimate decider in these things. Yet (still assuming that God exists for a moment) the reason you know anything is sustained in you by his sustaining you and the reality about which you know.

The question is always whether he can. God would be the one sitting on the throne. He is the ultimate decider in these things.

And I know it

nozzferrahhtoo

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

You obviously don't understand science if you think it can be used to determine if X is morally good or morally bad.

Can you point to where I said science shows it to be morally good or morally bad, or are you engaged in replying to something I never actually said? In fact the part of my text that you quoted and then did not actually reply to, never once mentioned the word morals at all. On this whole page so far every instance of the word was in this one post from you.

However this is also a complete change of subject. I was making a point about faith and using two imaginary conversations to highlight what I mean in how the use of faith can end a conversation. I think you were so keen to play your own record here that you managed to reply to nothing I actually said and have gone off talking about homosexuality and science instead.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Both Christianity and Islam do provide evidence for their claims.

Just not to me or anyone I know it seems. However if you are aware of some you think I have missed, I would be agog to hear it. Quite simply agog. So far in 20 years of reading, asking and searching I have not been presented with any other than what falls under the category of what started this thread off in the first place: Evidence that is only evidence if you pre-suppose the conclusion beforehand. 95ish% of everything I have been shown for this god entity on which Christianity and Islam are based falls under this category.

Fanny Cradock

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Can you point to where I said science shows it to be morally good or morally bad, or are you engaged in replying to something I never actually said? In fact the part of my text that you quoted and then did not actually reply to, never once mentioned the word morals at all. On this whole page so far every instance of the word was in this one post from you.

Then I misunderstood you. Apologies.

However, my misunderstanding was understandable, I believe, given your imprecise use of the word bad. In conversation A you used the word bad when you really should have used the something like detrimental (as in detrimental to X). You again used bad in Conversation B but this time in a moral context (as in homosexuality is morally bad - something, btw, I don't think many (any?) Christians here would actually argue). Therefore, your two imaginary conversations (or parodies) are still dealing with two different realms, and thus you are comparing apples with oranges.

In shot, you admit that your two conversations are not talking about the same thing. Yes? One is a scientific conversation, the other is an ethical one. Therefore we shouldn't waste time drawing false parallels between your imaginary conversations. It would be rather pointless to do so.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Just not to me or anyone I know it seems. However if you are aware of some you think I have missed, I would be agog to hear it. Quite simply agog. So far in 20 years of reading, asking and searching I have not been presented with any other than what falls under the category of what started this thread off in the first place: Evidence that is only evidence if you pre-suppose the conclusion beforehand. 95ish% of everything I have been shown for this god entity on which Christianity and Islam are based falls under this category.

Ah! So we are dealing with the weight of numbers or personal experience? You better do a quick recount. (P.S. it's actually the God of the Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam).

With regards to the evidence, perhaps you need to go back to the basics and steer clear of specific religious arguments or claims for now. If you haven't already encountered it you might find The Mind of God by Paul Davies to be an interesting read.

Zombrex

antiskeptic wrote: »

Which is besides the point - which was my non-agreement with your suggestion that we are as prone to error as you're making out. What matters isn't that a team of scientists can establish that I indeed turned right rather than left and so avoided an accident. What matters is that I accurately perceived that which was nececessary to tend me to turn in that direction.

Which is based on accurately testing the world around you in a systematic fashion to determine that you are actually turning in the correct direction.

Try turning left blindfolded. Removing the empirical feedback from your actions robs you of the ability to accurately assess what you think is happening.

This little experiment can be used to highlight the point pretty well. Place a person in an open space with a target. Blind fold them and tell them to turn around a few times and then ask them to point towards the target. The vast majority will fail to find the target, often pointing off in completely the wrong direction.

Why? Because our ability to assess how far we have turned in any particular direction is pretty bad. We use visual tests to accurately turn. Remove these and we end up lost and confused as to where we are.

Now I'm not suggesting that this is the same exact issue with God (the problem above is that our inner ear that measures turning and acceleration is not accurate enough), but it highlights that even when we think we are doing things purely on our own assessment we aren't.

Even in the most basic activities we require testing and verification to align what we think it happing to what is actually happening.

And again this is exactly what you do not have when attempting to assess that God exists. There is no empirical feedback telling you that what you think is happening is actually happening.

It is like being blindfolded in the open space wandering around and simply assuming that you are good at internal mapping and assuming that every time you point you are pointing towards the target when in fact you have no idea if you actually are or not.

antiskeptic wrote: »

So you might say that the test was God's say so.

No you wouldn't because that isn't a test. You have no way of determining the difference between "God's say so" and a delusional state brought on by how our mind works and you really wanting something to be true.

Which is the whole point, if you cannot tell the difference between a delusional state and a non-delusional state and possess no test external to your own opinion to determine this, you have nothing. You have no idea if any of what you think may be happening is actually happening.

Using the analog above it is like blind folding yourself and spinning around in the room and then pointing in one direction because you "just know" that that is the direction to point.

If you never take off the blind fold and test the direction you are heading in you will never know if it is the correct direction or not. Of course you can continue to believe you are pointing in the right direction, but that becomes a some what meaningless belief without any method to confirm you are.

It becomes blind faith in your own ability to accurately assess that you are correct, just like with God.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Again, the question doesn't involve my telling the difference. The question revolves around what God is capable of doing (assuming for the sake of argument he exists).

It does involve you telling the difference because if you can't tell the difference then God hasn't revealed himself to you.

It is like asking can God reveal himself to you without you knowing he has. That becomes an illogical oxymoron, if you don't know he has then he hasn't revealed himself.

For God to reveal himself to you you must possess the ability to determine accurately that God has just revealed himself to you. Otherwise you cannot know that God has just done that, and thus he hasn't revealed himself to you.

antiskeptic wrote: »

If God put that knowledge there then it's God who exists. If it's delusion then there's no way to tell in any absolute sense.

Absolute sense is an irrelevant straw man. We never know anything absolutely but that does not mean that all assumptions become equally valid.

There is strong empirical evidence that humans imagine agents in nature that act of benevolent forces in their lives particularly when they are feeling depressed or view the world as out of their control (which describes your situation).

There is no empirical evidence that such beings actually exist.

It comes down to building up possible explanations of the phenomena that you think God exists and looking at which we can test and verify and which we can't.

There is no logical reason to assume that simply because you think God exists he actually does, particularly since we know that humans may think something is real when it is not and do so all the time.

To ignore this is to act in blind faith.

antiskeptic wrote: »

You've only to enable a God-detection sense previously disabled. A flick of a switch would do it.

Which, again, is a some what illogical way for God to reveal himself to us as it is dintisguisable from a naturally occurring delusion.

It's like saying God will reveal himself by making it rain on Friday, then when it rains on Friday declaring that God has revealed himself, as if that is the only thing that could explain the rain.

A revelation is only meaningful if it has little or no other explanation than the one presented. In the case of theistic claims there are not only other explanations but explanations that can be properly studied and examined.

antiskeptic wrote: »

We're all aware that a brain in a jar can be provided with the same sense of reality we assume really exists all around us. Such musings (am I deluded about the reality of reality? Am I deluded about the reality of God?) appear to me to be pointless musings.

That is because you are pulling the age old theist card trick of we can't know anything absolutely so everything becomes equally valid.

Which is obviously nonsense. We cannot determine absolutely truth but we can build models of varying degrees of accuracy.

The idea that if I drop a rock off a building it will fall down is more accurate a model than the one that if I drop a rock off a building it will fall up, despite me lacking the ability to determine absolutely if either of these models are true or that either of them will hold a minute or an hour from now.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Insert whatever empirically satisfying method you like whereby God would demonstrate his existance to you then. The point was that it will result in an arrangement of your neural network so there's no difference whether this is done via the short route (directly) or the long route (empirically).

Of course there is because the "arrangement of your neural network" where you believe God exists can equally be explained purely in naturalistic terms by a process we already are quite far along in understanding.

antiskeptic wrote: »

It's interesting that you put man on the throne here. Man the ultimate decider in these things. Yet (still assuming that God exists for a moment) the reason you know anything is sustained in you by his sustaining you and the reality about which you know.

It is interesting you put it like that because what you are doing in fact is putting yourself on the throne. You are putting absolute faith in your own judgement and assessment.

Yes you rationalist this by saying that God has altered you so you know the truth now, but that is simply circular reasoning, a way of side stepping the problem that you cannot verify what you belief externally to your own assessment.

Theists like to go on about the arrogance of science because it will not make the jump to the stage of accepting supernatural explanations, but it is real the arrogance of theists to believe that they themselves possess this ability to determine things when they really ought to know better.

As soon as you figure out a way of demonstrating what you believe to a proper standard I'm happy to take man down off "the throne"

Until then I'm offered the choice of thinking that what you believe you experienced is a result of an evolutionary tendency to view agents in nature in times of depression or stress, a theory that is back by scientific research, or the choice of thinking that you have actually some how been touched by one of the thousands of these agents that humans have asserted exists over the years, a theory that you cannot present any verifiable evidenence for beyond claiming that you simply know it is true.

If I were to simply accept what you said that would be as much blind faith as the blind faith you have in yourself.

antiskeptic

Dealing with this point out of turn as I can build the basis for my rebuttal from here:

That is because you are pulling the age old theist card trick of we can't know anything absolutely so everything becomes equally valid.

Which is obviously nonsense. We cannot determine absolutely truth but we can build models of varying degrees of accuracy.

When pointing out that "This is God" writ large in the sky might be the result of another supernatural entity (or alien perhaps - given that you'd probably plump for a more naturalistic explanation ) you pulled the very same trick. Not even God can demonstrate he is God - in your thinking. Which shows us the limitations (or maybe arrogance) of the methodology of knowledge in which you place all your faith.

Leaving that philosophical dead end aside for the moment .. and assuming you accept that God could demonstrate himself to you empirically by turning up and doing supernatural cartwheels to amaze you and your friends.

You realise of course that even if all of the reality you model your models in were removed - yourself included - God would still be there (assuming for the sake of argument that God exists). How do you figure to place more trust in one way that God uses to provide you with knowledge of him (the empirical way) over and above another way (a more direct way) also provided by him?

I mean, God would be the one who has enabled your ability to trust he exists via the empirical method. For example: he is the one who would have installed the sense of trust that arises because 10,000 people make the same observation as you. But why should that preclude him simply installing trust directly? Isn't it the case (by both means: whether empirical/direct) that you would need to trust in his ability to enable the trust you have to be correctly assigned. You could not be trusting in your own ability at any point.

Whilst the faith would necessarily be blind (in the ultimate, albeit useless, sense demanded by your philosophy), it is blind whether you've arrived empirically or directly.

I think it's worth remembering too that God isn't "just another thing" in reality. God is (we are supposing) the Creator of reality and can shape reality (which includes the means whereby we trust) anyway he likes. You're effectively saying he can't. There's a verse that springs to mind about this.

Romans 1:25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Assuming God still exists for the sake of discussion: you'd be trying to use something the Creator created to establish whether there is or isn't a Creator. Aside from the problem outlined, you're also presuming the Creator intended to make possible that he be demonstrated empirically. And assuming that because the Creator isn't found so, there must be no Creator.

Wicknight wrote: »

Which is based on accurately testing the world around you in a systematic fashion to determine that you are actually turning in the correct direction.

Which is again besides the point. The (quite narrow, original) point was that my perceptions are immensely more reliable that you're permitting. You're citing the possibility of delusion (misperception) as if it's extremely likely when in fact it is extremely unlikely.

And again this is exactly what you do not have when attempting to assess that God exists. There is no empirical feedback telling you that what you think is happening is actually happening.

Not to dismiss all you have written but my point up top should circumvent your reliance on empiricism.

No you wouldn't because that isn't a test. You have no way of determining the difference between "God's say so" and a delusional state brought on by how our mind works and you really wanting something to be true.

The points made up top address this. I'd add the general comment that we test down and aroundstream in reality. Not upstream. We assume the reality real on blind faith and examine the nature of it based on that assumption.

We both consider delusion to be a bubble-space within that which we call reality. The deluded person is considered blind to the true reality that surrounds them. I consider your God-blind state to be a bubble-space within a reality which includes God. The question isn't so much how do I know the God-containing reality is real (we both agree we can't be absolute in our knowing the reality we assume is there is actually there) the question is, how do I show a deluded man he's deluded (or at least stalemate his deluded position)

Which is the whole point, if you cannot tell the difference between a delusional state and a non-delusional state and possess no test external to your own opinion to determine this, you have nothing. You have no idea if any of what you think may be happening is actually happening.

Quite!

It does involve you telling the difference because if you can't tell the difference then God hasn't revealed himself to you.

Which is the atheists version of the same card-trick you accused me of pulling.

To sum up the points made so far. We need to agree that:

- if God then we are subject to him and any trust we place in anything (his existance included) derives from him and his methods ultimately. We cannot isolate something he created to be the decider on whether he does or doesn't exist. Not without pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. And one means provided by him cannot be deemed better than another. Less direct perhaps - in the case of empiricism. But not better.

- whilst it is philosphically impossible for God to prove it is he by any means (and not an alien) such brain-in-jar scenarios are ultimately meaningless.

- my intention here isn't to prove God. It's to demonstrate that there is no reponse to the assertion "I know God exists" other than agnosticism.

There is strong empirical evidence that humans imagine agents in nature that act of benevolent forces in their lives particularly when they are feeling depressed or view the world as out of their control (which describes your situation).

Curiously, the Bible points to the source of these idols. And indicates that the mechanism of salvation involves a certain "impoverishment of spirit". When a 'theory' is capable of accomodating the empirical observations then it is a good theory.

---

I'll leave it at that for the moment Wicknight. Your position rests on the supposed supremacy of empiricism in determining knowledge and there is sufficient challenge to the viewpoint to be getting along with.

Cheers.

Sam Vimes

antiskeptic wrote: »

you're also presuming the Creator intended to make possible that he be demonstrated empirically. And assuming that because the Creator isn't found so, there must be no Creator.

I could say that there's a pink unicorn hiding behind my couch but it doesn't want to be demonstrated to be there so whenever someone goes to look it teleports itself to Guam. Couldn't the logic that X exists but has made it so that it cannot demonstrated to exist be used to justify believing absolutely anything?

Zombrex

antiskeptic wrote: »

When pointing out that "This is God" writ large in the sky might be the result of another supernatural entity (or alien perhaps - given that you'd probably plump for a more naturalistic explanation ) you pulled the very same trick. Not even God can demonstrate he is God - in your thinking. Which shows us the limitations (or maybe arrogance) of the methodology of knowledge in which you place all your faith.

It certainly does, but the idea that because that is unsatisfying to us we should just ignore it is quite silly.

There is no requirement on the part of the universe to provide to you a way to determine that your god actually exists. Just because you would like to know that God exists and loves you doesn't mean you should be able to.

That isn't the atheists issue, it is the theists issue, to justify why they claim to know things they really can't.

There is certainly an argument to be made from a theist that they are happier if this were true than if it wasn't, but that isn't a reason to assert something is likely to be true.

antiskeptic wrote: »

You realise of course that even if all of the reality you model your models in were removed - yourself included - God would still be there (assuming for the sake of argument that God exists). How do you figure to place more trust in one way that God uses to provide you with knowledge of him (the empirical way) over and above another way (a more direct way) also provided by him?

Because, as I've said, one way (you "just knowing") is indisguisable from a naturally occurring delusion.

So you have to ask what I'm I being expected to trust here? It isn't God because it hasn't even been established yet that God is actually doing anything at all.

What I'm actually being expected to trust is you, trust that you actually can determine the difference between God communicating with you and simply imagining he is.

Which you haven't demonstrated you can, so why exactly would I trust your own judgement?

antiskeptic wrote: »

Isn't it the case (by both means: whether empirical/direct) that you would need to trust in his ability to enable the trust you have to be correctly assigned. You could not be trusting in your own ability at any point.

God's ability is has never been the issue. If we assume God exists and is what you guys think he is then he is omnipotent. He can do anything logically possible.

So saying would I trust God to be able to do something is irrelevant. By definition he could do anything.

The issue is can I tell that God has actually done something or not, can I verify to some satisfactory degree that what I think has happened has happened.

This is the part you are ignoring. It is all very well to say that God may have arranged your neurons so you think he exists. But such supposition is pointless without any way of determining, even to the slightest degree, if he has or not.

Saying assume God exists, now can he rearrange my neurons is pointless to the question of whether I believe he exists and has rearranged my neurons.

You could say assume Zeus' exists and has rearranged my neurons, or Loki. Neither assumptions increase my knowledge of the universe.

antiskeptic wrote: »

I think it's worth remembering too that God isn't "just another thing" in reality. God is (we are supposing) the Creator of reality and can shape reality (which includes the means whereby we trust) anyway he likes. You're effectively saying he can't.

No I'm not, because whether God has or has not arranged my neuron's in such a way is actually irrelevant to the issue at hand.

The issue at hand is not can God do these things (he can if he exists), the issue at hand is can we determine he exists by him doing these things, ie can he reveal himself to us through these actions.

And the answer is no, we can't determine he exists through these actions because we cannot determine if God exists and did them or if God doesn't exist and they just occurred naturally since they look the same.

Religious faith is a naturally occurring phenomena, whether you believe that Christianity or Islam or Hinduism or Scientology is an exception to that rule or not.

God cannot "reveal" himself to us through a process that is indistingiousable from a naturally occurring phenomena. That is independent to whether or not God can actually carry out the action itself or not.

For example God cannot reveal himself to us by making himself into a tree in the Phoenix park, since that would not reveal anything to us as we would not notice any difference between God as a tree and just a tree.

That doesn't mean God can't make himself into a tree in the Phoenix park. Of course he can. But it won't reveal anything to us about his existence because he will look just like every other naturally occurring tree.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Assuming God still exists for the sake of discussion: you'd be trying to use something the Creator created to establish whether there is or isn't a Creator. Aside from the problem outlined, you're also presuming the Creator intended to make possible that he be demonstrated empirically. And assuming that because the Creator isn't found so, there must be no Creator.

No that is not what I'm assuming. I've no idea if there is or is not a creator. There may very well be. But that again has never been the issue. I'm an atheist not because I believer there is no creator deity but because I reject your assertion that you know there is.

The issue is have you (or any other theist) determined that there is a creator and that you communicate with him?

And the answer is no you haven't, or at least not to any standard I would consider to be a requirement for accepting such an assertion as an accurate representation of reality.

So given that why do you believe you have? Blind faith. Blind faith in your own abilities and in your own judgements.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Which is again besides the point. The (quite narrow, original) point was that my perceptions are immensely more reliable that you're permitting. You're citing the possibility of delusion (misperception) as if it's extremely likely when in fact it is extremely unlikely.

It is not extremely unlikely it is extremely likely.

We know humans, all humans, are hugely prone to these forms of delusions. It is part of how our brains work and you do it all the time.

All humans do it, atheists do it all the time.

Religion survives this under the exception excuse. Yes all humans are prone to delusions of imagining agents in nature that don't actually exist but that doesn't mean my particular religious belief X is not actually true. I'm the exception.

Not particularly convincing.

antiskeptic wrote: »

And one means provided by him cannot be deemed better than another.

Of course it can, as I've explained.

God cannot reveal himself to man kind by making himself into a tree in the phoenix park. God cannot reveal himself to mankind by making it rain. God cannot reveal himself to you by curing a headache just after you have taken an Aspirin. God cannot reveal himself to you by arranging your neurons in a way that is indistigusable from a known naturally accruing delusion.

God can do all these things sure, but it won't reveal him to us as we will have no idea God has actually done anything.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Curiously, the Bible points to the source of these idols.

Hardly curious, religions have always attempted to explain away flaws in their logic. The classic is the idea that all these other religions are shadows of the one true religion (which strangely always seems to be the religion of the person making this assertion), thus explaining why so many people believe in false religions yet that shouldn't mean anything to the particular religion you believe in.

Zombrex

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I could say that there's a pink unicorn hiding behind my couch but it doesn't want to be demonstrated to be there so whenever someone goes to look it teleports itself to Guam. Couldn't the logic that X exists but has made it so that it cannot demonstrated to exist be used to justify believing absolutely anything?

Nail on the head. There are certainly flaws with empirical evidence, but the point is theists don't have anything better.

Saying lets just assume he exists so now it stands to reason he could do X,Y and Z is fine but you can't then go from that to saying the logic is sound lets believe in him. Because as you say you can assume anything exists if you are jus t.

You can assume anything exists but if you cannot determine one assumption from the other you have not increased your knowledge.

Theists attempt to get around this by only considering their particular deity.

The classic example is the ressurection. The charge that the resurrection is implausible is often met by "Not if we assume God exists"

Which is true.

But why just assume God exists. Lets assume Zeus exists, which bring the resurrection back to being implausible (why would Zeus resurrect a Hebrew preacher). Or Loki, or Xenu.

What is the logic for asserting that one of these deities exists over any other one, and then using that as a axiom for further exploration?

There is no point in throwing out assumptions that one deity may exist over another deity if we do not have any way to determine if this is the case, just like there is no point in throwing out assumptions about how said deity is revealing himself to us if we do not have any way to determine he is over a naturally occurring event.

nozzferrahhtoo

I am not about to get into off topic linguistic tangents with you. I said X, you misunderstood X, I clarified X. We can continue with that without equivocating over where you feel I should use the word "bad". However suffice to say I said NOTHING in a moral context, regardless of you saying a 2nd time now that I did. I never used this word. I never intended this meaning. And I have told you that already.

All my conversations were intended to highlight is the point that as soon as faith is used IN an argument, it is a conversation stopper. I was contrasting that to you pointing out that a conversation ABOUT faith is continuing. The word "bad" is intentionally vague and nothing to do with morals for this reason. The actual content and subject of the conversation are irrelevant to the point I was trying to illustrate.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

So we are dealing with the weight of numbers or personal experience? You better do a quick recount.

Nothing of the sort. I am just telling you a simple statement of fact. I have been asking for evidence for 20 years and have not been shown any. 95% of what I have been shown however falls under the category of evidence that is only evidence if you presuppose what it is evidence for is true. God and religion aside, I am sure you agree that such things are not evidence. If you need to assume your conclusion in order for evidence to be valid, then the evidence is not evidence.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

With regards to the evidence, perhaps you need to go back to the basics and steer clear of specific religious arguments or claims for now.

Then inform me of what the basic evidence I have missed is, as I have not yet heard of it. I can not examine evidence that has not been presented to me. I have read the book you mention and maybe you can inform me what I missed in it.

antiskeptic

Wicknight wrote: »

It certainly does, but the idea that because that is unsatisfying to us we should just ignore it is quite silly...

Sorry for the delay in response Wicknight. Will try to get to this this evening.

St. antiskeptic

Fanny Cradock

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I am not about to get into off topic linguistic tangents with you. I said X, you misunderstood X, I clarified X. We can continue with that without equivocating over where you feel I should use the word "bad". However suffice to say I said NOTHING in a moral context, regardless of you saying a 2nd time now that I did. I never used this word. I never intended this meaning. And I have told you that already.

Nothing in a moral context? Perhaps you need to read your own imaginary conversation again Semantics aside, clearly people are willing to debate and argue contentious topics within the context of the Christian faith.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

All my conversations were intended to highlight is the point that as soon as faith is used IN an argument, it is a conversation stopper. I was contrasting that to you pointing out that a conversation ABOUT faith is continuing.

Yes, very good. But it seems to me that Harris operates under the blanket assumption that all of us are from the same immutable fingers-in-the-ears-la-la-la-I'm-not-listening stock. (Hence your conversation number 2 parody.) Again, with regards to matters of religious faith, people are willing to enter into in-depth discussions (or even outright arguments) about differing perspectives. Sometimes they even change their opinions accordingly. That, by way of example, was exactly what the Protestant Reformation was all about. It's precisely because of communication within the context of Christian faith about the Christian faith that such a raging argument and movement began. Even though some people might claim to have the inside track in matters relating to the Almighty the debate inevitably goes on. Aside from this Harris rather hones in on religious faith to make his point - as opposed to, say, personal faith in products, individuals or systems. So not only does he pigeon-hole people with religious faith and ignore history, he is also selective in his criticism by ignoring the wider meaning of the word faith.

I actually do agree with you that some people will say because "God says so" and end the discussion. However, I obviously object to the idea that faith in an argument (faith in what?) automatically shuts down any discussion.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Nothing of the sort. I am just telling you a simple statement of fact. I have been asking for evidence for 20 years and have not been shown any. 95% of what I have been shown however falls under the category of evidence that is only evidence if you presuppose what it is evidence for is true. God and religion aside, I am sure you agree that such things are not evidence. If you need to assume your conclusion in order for evidence to be valid, then the evidence is not evidence.

We obviously have very different understanding of what the word evidence means. But despite my scepticism of how you reached your percentages, at least you still have 5% to work off.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Then inform me of what the basic evidence I have missed is, as I have not yet heard of it. I can not examine evidence that has not been presented to me. I have read the book you mention and maybe you can inform me what I missed in it.

For that I would need to know what you know as well as how you approached the information. Perhaps you have exhausted the intellectual output of Christianity (I doubt it) and in an objective fashion found it wanting. Perhaps you have also tried the usual experimental route of attempting to engage this God at a personal level (Church, praying etc.) and you found yourself utterly unfulfilled. Or perhaps you operate under a bias when approaching the God question and have never really opened yourself to the possibility. I simply don't know. I was merely trying to be helpful and even-handed when I suggested that you contemplate the potential existence of the Divine from a perspective that is not specific to any one religion.

nozzferrahhtoo

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Nothing in a moral context? Perhaps you need to read your own imaginary conversation again

I could read it 100 times. The word „moral“ is not about to appear in it, nor is that meaning. Maybe this is the meaning you have DECIDED to attribute to the word “bad”, but if that is so then the error is yours, not mine. However maybe instead of telling ME to read it over and over, maybe YOU can read it again and tell me to which part you refer?

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Yes, very good. But it seems to me that Harris operates under the blanket assumption that all of us are from the same immutable fingers-in-the-ears-la-la-la-I'm-not-listening stock.

If you have an issue with Harris take it up with him. However I am not about to defend this position as it is not mine and I do not beleive it is his either. It certainly does not represent what I have been saying on this thread at all.

Maybe you can do me the justice of re-reading post number #55 and the paragraph starting “Do not get me wrong however” as it shows that this is not the position I hold at all.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

We obviously have very different understanding of what the word evidence means. But despite my scepticism of how you reached your percentages, at least you still have 5% to work off.

Not really. The 95% is just a rough estimate of my own personal experience and is not important. Suffice to say I have never been shown anything that qualifies as evidence as it mostly falls under the category of things that are only evidence if you first assume the conclusion.

The other 5ish%, since you mention it, is merely made up of arguments from personal experience or anecdote. People who say "I have experienced god" and so on.

Suffice to say however, personal anecdote is not evidence and neither is something where you first have to assume the conclusion in order to submit the evidence. Which leaves me, as I said, having looked for evidence for 20 odd years now and not having been shown a scrap of it.

PDN

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Suffice to say however, personal anecdote is not evidence and neither is something where you first have to assume the conclusion in order to submit the evidence. Which leaves me, as I said, having looked for evidence for 20 odd years now and not having been shown a scrap of it.

Personal testimony is evidence, and is treated as such in a court of law. For example, a rapist may be convicted solely on the testimony of those who ID him, without any DNA or forensic evidence. Of course the more such witnesses offer such testimony, and the character of those who testify, is also taken into account by the court. However, it would be inaccurate to say that a court who convicts a man solely on witness testimony is doing so 'in blind faith'.

As for assuming the conclusion - I think we need to be careful not to confuse this with a test where you must assume certain conditions (in other words a test). For example, if the claim is made that trusting the Lord with all your heart will result in many of your prayers being answered. The only way you can test that is to trust in the Lord with all your heart - that is experimentation, and then you find out whether there is a significant increase in answered prayer or not.

antiskeptic

antiskeptic wrote:

When pointing out that "This is God" writ large in the sky might be the result of another supernatural entity (or alien perhaps - given that you'd probably plump for a more naturalistic explanation ) you pulled the very same trick. Not even God can demonstrate he is God - in your thinking. Which shows us the limitations (or maybe arrogance) of the methodology of knowledge in which you place all your faith.

Wicknight wrote: »

It certainly does, but the idea that because that is unsatisfying to us we should just ignore it is quite silly. There is no requirement on the part of the universe to provide to you a way to determine that your god actually exists. Just because you would like to know that God exists and loves you doesn't mean you should be able to.

The point I was trying to make was that you seem to be figuring that God (if he exists) can enable that you know certain things - but just not that he exists. That is a limitation/arrogance that is not so much unsatisfying as it is irrational.

That isn't the atheists issue, it is the theists issue, to justify why they claim to know things they really can't.

My position isn't that you be satisfied that I know what I know. It's that I be. If I can be satisfied then you're left in the agnostic position. And so the question becomes: can God enable a person to know he exists? If he can - then you're an agnostic when faced with a claimant like me.

Because, as I've said, one way (you "just knowing") is indisguisable from a naturally occurring delusion.

So you have to ask what I'm I being expected to trust here? It isn't God because it hasn't even been established yet that God is actually doing anything at all.

What I'm actually being expected to trust is you, trust that you actually can determine the difference between God communicating with you and simply imagining he is.

Which you haven't demonstrated you can, so why exactly would I trust your own judgement?

Let me again point you away from the notion that you must be convinced that I know God exists. All that you need be convinced of is that God is able to demonstrate his existance to someone - in order that you be rendered agnostic on the matter of claimants like me. The focus isn't on my abilities - it's on his abilities

I was asking you how it was that you figured that one means whereby God enabled you to know things (empirical investigation) should be given more time of day than any other way whereby God enables you to know things. Ultimately it would be God who provides all these ways. That the one way provides a means to falsify that which is not knowledge doesn't mean that every way requires that same provision. I mean, if God decides to let you know directly that he exists then there is no need for him to provide a way by which you can falsify that knowledge given that him letting you know can't be false knowledge.

I mean, how do you know that you thought what you thought a second ago. There is no empirical way of knowing - yet you do.

God's ability is has never been the issue. If we assume God exists and is what you guys think he is then he is omnipotent. He can do anything logically possible.

So saying would I trust God to be able to do something is irrelevant. By definition he could do anything.

The issue is can I tell that God has actually done something or not, can I verify to some satisfactory degree that what I think has happened has happened.

This is the part you are ignoring. It is all very well to say that God may have arranged your neurons so you think he exists. But such supposition is pointless without any way of determining, even to the slightest degree, if he has or not.

Saying assume God exists, now can he rearrange my neurons is pointless to the question of whether I believe he exists and has rearranged my neurons.

You could say assume Zeus' exists and has rearranged my neurons, or Loki. Neither assumptions increase my knowledge of the universe.

But if assuming God exists for the sake of argument then you'd acknowledge your having to trust a verification method provided to you by him to determine that he exists! This roundabout reliance on his provision (to provide you with sure knowledge of him) can, I am suggesting, be furnished directly without all this empiricial in-betweenism.

There is nothing in God-provided empirically verified knowledge of God that can be trusted more than any other God-provided knowledge of God, in other words. You seem to value the one over the other for some reason.

I agree that we can't pull ourselves up by our bootstraps so as to know what we know is absolutely the case. We could all be brains in jars.

I'll skip past those parts of your post that appear to elevate empiricism over other forms of what would be God-provided knowing (assuming God exists for the sake of argument)

God cannot "reveal" himself to us through a process that is indistinguishable from a naturally occurring phenomena. That is independent to whether or not God can actually carry out the action itself or not.

I don't think you can use the assumption that religious experience is a naturalistic delusion to suggest that religious experience is indistinguishable from naturalistic delusion. If you can find some other category of very commonly occurring delusion that is known to be naturalistic/as extensive in nature as religious experience then by all means support the point.

No that is not what I'm assuming. I've no idea if there is or is not a creator. There may very well be. But that again has never been the issue. I'm an atheist not because I believer there is no creator deity but because I reject your assertion that you know there is.

You need to be assuming for the sake of argument in order that your own position can be examined from the perspective that he does. This given that you don't know if God exists or not. If he does, then what your position is attempting to do, ;

"..use something the Creator created to establish (or verify) whether there is or isn't a Creator".

Clearly, any failure to arrive at the conclusion a Creator exists via such apparatus means the apparatus is being mis-applied (in the case a Creator exists). Aren't you presuming both the non-existance of God and/or the suitability of the measuring apparatus for detecting God at this point?

The issue is have you (or any other theist) determined that there is a creator and that you communicate with him?

And the answer is no you haven't, or at least not to any standard I would consider to be a requirement for accepting such an assertion as an accurate representation of reality.

The issue isn't my determining anything - one doesn't need to determine something to know something (as the example of our knowing what we think demonstrates. Nor is it your accepting my assertion that God exists.
The issue is your agnosticism in the face of my claiming what I claim.

(delusion) It is not extremely unlikely it is extremely likely.

Then why am I alive after 26 odd years of motorcycle riding (much of it through town traffic)?

Religion survives this under the exception excuse. Yes all humans are prone to delusions of imagining agents in nature that don't actually exist but that doesn't mean my particular religious belief X is not actually true. I'm the exception.

Not particularly convincing.

The aim isn't to convince you that Christianity is true.

And one means provided by him cannot be deemed better than another.

Of course it can, as I've explained.

God cannot reveal himself to man kind by making himself into a tree in the phoenix park. God cannot reveal himself to mankind by making it rain. God cannot reveal himself to you by curing a headache just after you have taken an Aspirin. God cannot reveal himself to you by arranging your neurons in a way that is indistigusable from a known naturally accruing delusion.

God can do all these things sure, but it won't reveal him to us as we will have no idea God has actually done anything.

In which case, none of these are ways which could be said to be ways in which God provides knowledge of himself. I was dealing with ways in which God provides knowledge of himself, not ways which wouldn't provide knowledge of himself - amongst which, your examples.

nozzferrahhtoo

PDN wrote: »

Personal testimony is evidence, and is treated as such in a court of law.

No it is not, not really. If you went into a court with nothing but personal testimony… no body, no weapon, no motive, you would be laughed out. Personal testimony is merely a brick in the wall you have to build. The personal testimony is not in itself evidence, but it must be borne out with the facts and evidence put with it.

In essence, personal testimony is merely an indication of what you need to look for, and no more.

In terms of god therefore, the reason I give it the time of day and ASK for the evidence is because of the personal testimony. There is enough of it for me to believe that the subject of the existence of god warrants further investigation. So I ask for and seek the evidence to back it up.

As I said, to date, I have not been shown a shred of a scrap of evidence to back it up.

Remember the world is full of personal testimony. Most of it on a base stronger than belief in god. Am I to grant credence to it all? Some people testify they are napoleon reincarnated. Some people testify to having met a still living Elvis. Some people testify to having been abducted by, or having witnessed abduction by, alien life forms in space vessels.

However Aliens, gods, Elvis and reincarnation all have one thing in common. They are all entirely devoid of any evidence to back up the testimonies. Therefore I grant them an identical amount of credence each, which is to say: None.

However, I would be interested to know if you can give me an example of a court case where someone was convicted of rape on nothing, literally nothing, but the testimony of the victim? I would be interested to read the case files. Not that, I hasten to point out, how we operate in a court of law has anything to do with how we establish truths about the universe.

PDN wrote: »

For example, if the claim is made that trusting the Lord with all your heart will result in many of your prayers being answered. The only way you can test that is to trust in the Lord with all your heart - that is experimentation, and then you find out whether there is a significant increase in answered prayer or not.

Exactly. Good example. The problem here is there is no control. You are just assuming that the result is due to the cause you postulated. You have no way to suggest that the same series of events would not have occurred anyway. Not to mention your entire test is based on the assumption there is a god, an assumption which you have as yet provided not a shred of a scrap of evidence for.

You have not even given examples of the events and lead ups either. Take for example someone who prayers for a successful job interview and it happens. Maybe this person was putting off the interview over and over. The prayer was not the cause of them getting the job therefore… it was the fact they got up off their rear and tried at all in the end.

Therefore quite often I think prayer is not some tool to achieve an end, but merely a motivator to get people to try in the first place and as we all know, if you do not try you can not succeed. Not that it is helpful in all cases. We are all aware, are we not, of the study on prayer done? Those not prayed for did as well as those prayed for who did not know they were being prayed for. Those who were prayed for AND knew it actually fared worse, possibly due to the stress of fulfilling expectations. Prayer therefore appears to be entirely useless in and of itself and sometimes damaging in the correct scenarios. However not a scrap of a shred of evidence prayer itself has achieved, or influenced, anything but the minds of those engaged in it.

Fanny Cradock

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I could read it 100 times. The word „moral“ is not about to appear in it, nor is that meaning. Maybe this is the meaning you have DECIDED to attribute to the word “bad”, but if that is so then the error is yours, not mine. However maybe instead of telling ME to read it over and over, maybe YOU can read it again and tell me to which part you refer?

Oh dear! I said that your second scenario was couched in a moral context. That the word moral isn't used doesn't alter the framework you hang your point on.

In conversation 2 you imagined the religious person uttering from the following line: "homosexuality is bad because it is against the will of god and his created order". Anything that is against the will of God is called sin. Therefore your very first line sets up a scenario as understood by person 1 to be a moral transgression against the moral law and the law giver.

Btw, unlike the person in your conversation, I don't believe that being gay is a sin in and of itself. Nor do I demand that non-Christians adhere to my morality and my understanding of this thing called sin.

OK, I'm out of this particular debate.



P.S. As for the effectiveness of prayer, perhaps you might be interested in turning back to page 3 and 4 for some alternative views.

Zombrex

antiskeptic wrote: »

The point I was trying to make was that you seem to be figuring that God (if he exists) can enable that you know certain things - but just not that he exists. That is a limitation/arrogance that is not so much unsatisfying as it is irrational.

It is nothing to do with what information God is trying to show you, it is to do with how you goes about doing it.

God cannot demonstrate to you his existence, or that Fraiser is the best sitcom of all time, through a process that is indistinguishable from a naturally occurring phenomena.

Think of it this way. A Parrot is well know to repeat vocal sounds humans make with no awareness of what he is saying.

Say your parrot watched an episode of some disaster movie and for weeks ways saying "Fire, fire, get out of the building"

Now, weeks after he was doing this you actually have a fire in your house. God decides he will intervene in this tragedy to save the people in the house and he decides to do this by appearing as the parrot and saying "Fire, fire, get out of the building"

Do you think that would work? Probably not, because God has appeared as something that is happening anyway, and as such you don't actually know it is God who made the parrot say that this specific time.

You roll over, say Damn parrot, and die of smoke inhalation in your sleep. You get to heaven and God says What the foobar, didn't I send you a warning, didn't I reveal myself to you through a parrot, and you say you may have done all that supernatural magic but it served no purpose because when you did appear before me I could not tell it was you

The point is that it doesn't matter what God is trying to communicate with you. If he does it in a way where you cannot tell the difference between him doing something and a natural phenomena it is pointless. He cannot reveal himself to you that way because you won't know it is him.

The same holds with what you claim to have experienced. We know what you have experienced does occur naturally. So you cannot say that what has happened to you is actually God doing anything, even if it actually is.

antiskeptic wrote: »

My position isn't that you be satisfied that I know what I know. It's that I be.

And the only thing I'm trying to do is make you aware of the higher logical standards you should be applying to your own conclusions.

antiskeptic wrote: »

But if assuming God exists for the sake of argument then you'd acknowledge your having to trust a verification method provided to you by him to determine that he exists! This roundabout reliance on his provision (to provide you with sure knowledge of him) can, I am suggesting, be furnished directly without all this empiricial in-betweenism.

But that implies that knowing there was an empiricial in-between is unnecessary. It isn't

For example, if I knew the parrot was dead a day before God decided to talk through him then that would put the parrot appearing and saying get out in an entirely different context.

I've gone from a naturally occurring phenomena to one that I've no explanation for at all and which brakes most biological models. That doesn't demonstrate for certain that God is doing something (there is a fundamental limit to how far we can actually explore supernatural explanations)

But it certain shifts the experience into a whole new ball game. It has gone from something that can be easily explained to something that cannot be explained at all and thus you certain would not just roll over in the bed.

The in between bit as you call it is actually really important because we should be thinking not only what we believe, but also why do we believe it.

In my experience a lot of theists seem to not really realise this. It is all about what they believe, with little consideration as to why they believe what they believe, or considering the possibilities that they believe what they believe based on false reasoning or delusion.

antiskeptic wrote: »

In which case, none of these are ways which could be said to be ways in which God provides knowledge of himself. I was dealing with ways in which God provides knowledge of himself, not ways which wouldn't provide knowledge of himself - amongst which, your examples.

Well that is the thing, I find it very difficult to see how an all knowing God wouldn't see all the issues I see with presenting himself in such a manner.

You can almost guarantee that God will not reveal himself in the way you think he has revealed himself to you because 5 minutes thinking about it throws up so many flaws that it would be pointless.

In the same way that if God actually wanted to save you from the burning building he wouldn't present himself in the form of a talking parrot repeating a phrase he has been saying for the last 4 weeks.

antiskeptic

Wicknight wrote: »

It is nothing to do with what information God is trying to show you, it is to do with how you goes about doing it.

...

The point is that it doesn't matter what God is trying to communicate with you. If he does it in a way where you cannot tell the difference between him doing something and a natural phenomena it is pointless. He cannot reveal himself to you that way because you won't know it is him.

But I've already pointed out the difficulty in this empirical-uber-alles position of yours. In this particular re-iteration we'll suppose God raised your dead parrot to life and shouted a "fire" warning to you through it - and you believed in God as a result of this sufficiently non-natural phenomenon.


Why would you have believed?

Well, it seems you'd have been designed by God to be able to believe in his existance via a device of belief/disbelief installed in you by him, to whit:~ your response to the conclusions arrived at by the mechanism of empiricism. To put it another way: the supposedly neutral moorings (empiricism) from which you launch your evaluation and subsequent belief/disbelief in God turn out to be founded/designed/enabled/installed in you by God himself (in the case of your believing).

You'd be trusting in God (at root) to have provided you with the knowledge of God.

And the only thing I'm trying to do is make you aware of the higher logical standards you should be applying to your own conclusions.

Hopefully the above conundrum will demonstrate the logical irrelevance of God having to meander the long way around to you.

The in between bit as you call it is actually really important because we should be thinking not only what we believe, but also why do we believe it.

In my experience a lot of theists seem to not really realise this. It is all about what they believe, with little consideration as to why they believe what they believe, or considering the possibilities that they believe what they believe based on false reasoning or delusion.

As it appears to me, the 'why' of I know God exists has the same flavour as my knowing the reality around me actually exists (as opposed to my being a brain in a jar). You don't 'why' yourself to that point - it's a starting position from which you shove off on a subsequent journey of discovery. Fittingly, the Bible describes becoming as I am: re-birth. For it is precisely that: life restarted from a different vantage point. One that happens to include God.

Suppose me born sighted in a land of blind men. You're a man patently blind (from my perspective) asking me why I think I can see. Or why I don't consider the possibility of my being deluded when I say I have this ability to perceive things you cannot. Supposing yourself in the same position as me for a moment, you'd recognise the questioners blindness being the motivation for his line of questioning. Wouldn't you?

This atheist line of enquiry (how do you know you aren't deluded/reasoning wrongly) assumes the higher ground of supposing they aren't the blind ones.

Well that is the thing, I find it very difficult to see how an all knowing God wouldn't see all the issues I see with presenting himself in such a manner.

You can almost guarantee that God will not reveal himself in the way you think he has revealed himself to you because 5 minutes thinking about it throws up so many flaws that it would be pointless.

To summarize. The discussion hinges on two points:

1) The assumption that you accept, in principle, that God (if he exists) can reveal his existance to somone (the how being the matter under discussion). And that He can do so in such a way that they are as sure of his existance as they are of anything else.

2) The superiority of one method employed by God over another. And how that notion (superiority when it comes to Gods varying methods of self-revelation) isn't an oxymoron. You are suggesting a God-installed empirical method would be better than another method. The question being asked is "why do you think that?"

Positing methods which wouldn't demonstrate Gods existance isn't dealing with the issue of 2) above

You're adherence to empiricism is abundantly clear. As an aside, could you tell me how it is you know what you're thinking?