How do you convince people god exists?

smacl

kelly1 wrote: »

I could be wrong but it seems to me our knowledge is growing rapidly in technology rather than science. e.g. when was the last great leap forward in physics? Was it not with General Relativity? I wouldn't call the discovery of the predicted Higgs Boson a great leap.

Likewise in life sciences, how much progress have we really made? From what I've read, the problems are becoming more difficult as our knowledge of cell structure and mechanisms increases.

In the life sciences there have been huge leaps. CRISPR is one that comes to mind not to mention documenting the human genome. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are also progressing at a staggering rate. A device like Alexa would have been pure sci-fi twenty years ago. While you might consider the discovery of the Higgs-Boson particularly big the work at CERN and the LHC are phenomenal.

nozzferrahhtoo

kelly1 wrote: »

Sorry, not a very good analogy because 5200 cards in random order is nothing special and has no useful purpose.

But that IS the point of the analogy. You are faulting it on the very point you are missing. The fallacy you are employing, or at least the video that was lying to you is employing, is to assume there is only one "useful" result. We simply do not know that to be true.

If you laid out the 5200 cards randomly in other words.... and then declared that result to be THE meaningful one... it would seem amazing when it is not. That is what you are doing with DNA. You are looking at the result, declaring it based on no evidence to be the only one that could be meaningful, and saying "wow" at your own assertion.

If you want to create evidence for the idea that only one solution and sequence is functional and meaningful then go for it! But such evidence has never been mentioned to me yet in the past.

kelly1 wrote: »

You really think somethings more complex than the cell existed and then it later simplified? How plausible is that??

Well no, that is not what i mean. That is the opposite of what I mean. What I mean is that complexity can be obtained from earlier SIMPLER structures. That is the point of the arch bridge analogy. You can build something quite simple, then remove no longer required elements of it, and the result will look a lot more complex than it otherwise might.

kelly1 wrote: »

We're talking about abiogenesis, not evolution. Evolution assumes existing life, doesn't it?

No. Evolution does not assume "life" at all. It assumes only what I told you it assumes in another part of my post. That is: The existence of SOMETHING That replicates itself, near but not perfect fidelity in that replication, and differential survival success in the generations of results of that replication. "Life" is just one place evolution can occur. But it is not required or assumed for it. Memes can evolve for example. They are not alive.

kelly1 wrote: »

If evolution is false, biological science comes to a dead-end because there is no scientific alternative to evolution.

Again not the point. The point is tat EVEN if it was false, it being false would not be evidence of a god. Because lack of evidence for proposition A is not itself evidence for proposition B. The entire Creationist movement is based on pretence of the opposite.

kelly1 wrote: »

If it can be shown that an intelligent agent is required to create life, then I think we have a good argument for God.

EXACTLY! IF you could show that THEN you would have evidence for a god. But bad, or even good, attempts to debunk evolution is not evidence of that. That is my point, you are almost getting it now!

kelly1 wrote: »

The "aliens did it" argument doesn't work.

Take that up with someone who presented that argument. Since I did not, no point in mentioning it here.

kelly1 wrote: »

Do you know of anything less than a cell that would be considered "life"?

It was your claim/assertion. Do not ask me to substantiate it for you. You claimed it, you evidence it.

kelly1 wrote: »

But now long can RNA survive? Genuine question, I don't know the answer, but I'm assuming it can't last long without some form or protection and something that would repair any damage done to it.

A pre-life substrate would have only to survive long enough to replicate. From what would it require protection? Certainly not the things that would eat it today, given they did not exist yet.

kelly1 wrote: »

Again I go back to the probability problem

Which is again not a problem until you drop the conclusion fallacy from it.

Even then however you have to then contend with the Anthropic principle that even if the rise of life is unlikely, the sheer number of planets and galaxies also mediate partially for that. Winning the Lotto might seem unlikely in other words, but if you enter it 5 million times in one week, that changes the probabilities somewhat drastically.

kelly1 wrote: »

I don't believe science will ever

I tune out at this point. If you want to talk about the science that exists NOW we can do that together. If you want to imagine what it will, or will not, discover in your crystal ball of the future then you are on your own. You are struggling enough with understanding the evidence, arguments and science we do and do not have NOW. Let us not complicate your issues further by a rabbit hole of imaginary evidence and failures too, shall we?

Mark Hamill

kelly1 wrote: »

When they say "Peptides can form", what they actually mean is that peptides *can be formed/synthesized* (in a lab under the agency of intelligent chemists). Correct?

What they actually mean is what the article says, did you even read it?

Peptides, one of the fundamental building blocks of life, can be formed from the primitive precursors of amino acids under conditions similar to those expected on the primordial Earth, finds a new study.

The team identified a sequence of simple reactions, combining hydrogen sulfide with aminonitriles and another chemical substrate ferricyanide, to yield peptides.

The molecules that served as substrates to help the formation of the amide bonds in the experiments are outgassed during volcanism and are all likely to have been present on the early Earth.

"This is the first time that peptides have been convincingly shown to form without using amino acids in water, using relatively gentle conditions likely to be available on the primitive Earth," said co-author Dr Saidul Islam (UCL Chemistry).

If you are going to keep up the pretense that ID is science, don't you think you should actually read the scientific articles presented to you? It's not even an argument from ignorance at this stage, it is just fingers-in-ears denial.

Mark Hamill

kelly1 wrote: »

If it can be shown that an intelligent agent is required to create life, then I think we have a good argument for God.

So you accept that ID is creationism then? Good, lets stop calling it by its cynical rebrand then and just keep using its real name.

So, do we really need to explain to you what is unscientific about creationism?

Mark Hamill

kelly1 wrote: »

I wouldn't call the discovery of the predicted Higgs Boson a great leap.

Why not?

Hotblack Desiato

kelly1 wrote: »

SIf it can be shown that an intelligent agent is required to create life, then I think we have a good argument for God.

(a) How do you propose that anyone will be able to show that (i.e. using actual evidence not theistic conjecture) ?
(b) Even if (a) can be shown to be true, what has any of that got to do with the thousands of completely unevidenced gods invented by humans?

Do you know of anything less than a cell that would be considered "life"? Afaik, viruses don't meet all the criteria of a living organism.

Neither does a foetus but we had plenty of people last year claiming that they were living organisms.

kelly1

Mark Hamill wrote: »

So you accept that ID is creationism then? Good, lets stop calling it by its cynical rebrand then and just keep using its real name.

I just see it as an honest assessment of what the evidence points to. I don't see any good reason to rule out the supernatural option even if it is "unscientific". It could very well be the truth and I would argue that naturalism is a very shaky position to hold.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Why not?

Because it's only the confirmation of the standard model of particle physics, not a breakthrough (like general relativity or quantum mechanics).

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

(a) How do you propose that anyone will be able to show that (i.e. using actual evidence not theistic conjecture)?

We have no way of scientifically detecting the intelligent agent being proposed by ID adherents. Like I said earlier, this would be a dead end for science. My own view is that the random/natural option must be ruled out because of the extreme improbabilities involved.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

(b) Even if (a) can be shown to be true, what has any of that got to do with the thousands of completely unevidenced gods invented by humans?

IMO, the only proposition that makes logical sense, intuitively speaking, is a single, monotheistic God. If you have multiple gods, this raises all sorts of problems like who created each of these gods and why and which came first. The simplest, most logical proposition is a single God. i.e. a Being which has existed eternally (outside of time) and was never created (the uncreated Creator, the uncaused Cause of all).

smacl

kelly1 wrote: »

IMO, the only proposition that makes logical sense, intuitively speaking, is a single, monotheistic God. If you have multiple gods, this raises all sorts of problems like who created each of these gods and why and which came first. The simplest, most logical proposition is a single God. i.e. a Being which has existed eternally (outside of time) and was never created (the uncreated Creator, the uncaused Cause of all).

You seem to confusing logic with desire there. The logic that allows one uncreated god to have always existed is exactly the same as to have many uncreated gods that always existed, or to have them pop into being or emerge from the chaos or the void or wherever else. The probability of any creation myth, or any random fantasy for that matter, being true rests entirely on the supporting evidence and the contradictory evidence. Really wanting it to be true doesn't have any bearing on the matter.

magicbastarder

kelly1 wrote: »

If you have multiple gods, this raises all sorts of problems like who created each of these gods and why and which came first. The simplest, most logical proposition is a single God

if your rationale is to suggest that a single god is more sensible than multiple gods, i will take that reasoning (that fewer gods is more logical) and posit that 'no gods' is more logical than 'a single god'.

nozzferrahhtoo

kelly1 wrote: »

I just see it as an honest assessment of what the evidence points to

Which evidence exactly? You have not actually presented any evidence of any sort. Least of all evidence that our universe and/or life within it was created by a non-human intelligent and intentional agent.

Why is it you people talk and talk about "the evidence" without ever actually showing a shred of it?

kelly1 wrote: »

I don't see any good reason to rule out the supernatural option

Nor do I. But saying "There is no arguments, evidence, data or reasoning on offer from you that the supernatural option is credible at this time" is not ruling it out. Pointing out that you have failed, utterly and spectacularly, to support a hypothesis is NOT the same thing as ruling out the hypothesis.

It could very well be a valid and entirely correct hypothesis for all we know. You just have, to date, offered not a single shred of a reason to think so.

kelly1 wrote: »

My own view is that the random/natural option must be ruled out because of the extreme improbabilities involved.

Yet you have not shown it to be all that improbable at all, let alone "extremely". What you have done is fall prey to a number of fallacies and assumptions, which I have pointed out and described and highlighted in some detail, which have led you to think the probability argument is MUCH more applicable than it actually is. Alas your chosen response was to dig down on, and cling to, those fallacies and false assumptions.

kelly1 wrote: »

IMO, the only proposition that makes logical sense, intuitively speaking

You have not shown any logic to it though. As for intuition that is even worse. Our intuition is very flawed and very limited as humans. So things that appeal greatly to our intuition turn out to be very false. Some things that break our intuitions entirely turn out to be quite true. Your reliance on intuition is not one I would advise.

Hell intuition fails most humans on even the most basic things. For example I have often had fun asking people down the pub what would happen if I could half a piece of paper and lay the halves on top of one another. Then half the two and place the 4 pieces on top of each other.

I ask them how tall the stack would get if I repeated that operation a mere 100 times. The highest answer I ever got was "probably taller than this pub". That is what human intuition gives us.

The actual answer? Well the stack would quickly become so high, well before you even got to 100, that it would take light itself millennia to traverse it's length. Human intuition can not even encompass that most of the time. So your appeals to it are but the bleating of a sheep in the face of a storm in comparison.

pauldla

kelly1 wrote: »

.......


IMO, the only proposition that makes logical sense, intuitively speaking, is a single, monotheistic God. If you have multiple gods, this raises all sorts of problems like who created each of these gods and why and which came first. The simplest, most logical proposition is a single God. i.e. a Being which has existed eternally (outside of time) and was never created (the uncreated Creator, the uncaused Cause of all).

I am interested in hearing more about this logic that can be utilized without use of reason. :pac:

(Although, reading further, if it leads one to positing 'uncreated creators' or 'uncaused causes', perhaps I don't need to hear more about it).

smacl

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

The actual answer?

201,123,823,008 light years by my reckoning assuming your paper was 1.5mm thick and you started with a rather large sheet in a rather large pub and were pretty nifty with the old scissors

nozzferrahhtoo

Clearly you are not one of the people I normally go to the pub with then

magicbastarder

how thick did you estimate one sheet of paper to be?
please give the answer in units of light years.

Mark Hamill

kelly1 wrote: »

I just see it as an honest assessment of what the evidence points to. I don't see any good reason to rule out the supernatural option even if it is "unscientific". It could very well be the truth and I would argue that naturalism is a very shaky position to hold.

You can believe in what you like, but what you cannot do it pretend that a supernatural belief like creationism is scientific, which is what you were doing before.

kelly1 wrote: »

Because it's only the confirmation of the standard model of particle physics, not a breakthrough (like general relativity or quantum mechanics).

Why isn't the confirmation of something so fundamental a big leap? How many things were disproven by the confirmation of the likes of general relativity or quantum mechanics? Without proof, an hypothesis is just a statement, no more likely than any other. With proof, the hypothesis is confirm and leaps can be made from that knowledge.

kelly1 wrote: »

We have no way of scientifically detecting the intelligent agent being proposed by ID adherents. Like I said earlier, this would be a dead end for science. My own view is that the random/natural option must be ruled out because of the extreme improbabilities involved.

It's a dead end for everyone. If nothing can be proven about a proposed intelligent agent, then nothing can be disproven.
And it has been shown in this thread that the probabilities involved are not extreme. The videos you linked to are lying, misrepresenting the events involved in abiogenisis.

Cabaal

kelly1 wrote: »

IMO, the only proposition that makes logical sense, intuitively speaking, is a single, monotheistic God. If you have multiple gods, this raises all sorts of problems like who created each of these gods and why and which came first. The simplest, most logical proposition is a single God. i.e. a Being which has existed eternally (outside of time) and was never created (the uncreated Creator, the uncaused Cause of all).

Multiple gods is simple to explain, using your massively flawed one god "logic" the multiple gods have always existed (outside of time). Oh look, that was easy!
:rolleyes:

Multiple gods also better explains the good and bad things that happen rather then a monotheistic view.

After all with a monotheistic view it means you have a psychotic god who has massive mental and anger issues who loves people one moment and murders millions the next for no reason.
With a god like that, who the hell needs enemy's in your life.

Anyone who claims this one god is loving is like a person in an abusive relationship, they are so abused that they ignore the abuse and they blame themselves for all the abusive rather then the abuser.

Multiple also better explains extinction events, very clearly one god creates the life and then the next decides to start over and wipe out that life ...because, well it's their turn to play god :pac:

Of course some gods do a better job then others, for example the god that caused the extinction event at the end of the Permian period did a far far better job of wiping out life (approx 90% of life went bye bye) then the god that caused the Cretaceous extinction event (approx 75% of life went bye bye). I guess like people, some gods are better are doing a proper job :pac:

Bannasidhe

magicbastarder wrote: »

how thick did you estimate one sheet of paper to be?
please give the answer in units of light years.

Never mind that, the real question is how many angels can dance along the edge of a piece of paper?

LineOfBeauty

A healthy serving of indoctrination and fear of mortality will do it for you.

Cabaal

LineOfBeauty wrote: »

A healthy serving of indoctrination and fear of mortality will do it for you.

I got the first half, it made shag all difference to me :pac:

But I don't fear death, its the way the universe is. Everything dies and the atoms move onto something else.

LineOfBeauty

Cabaal wrote: »

I got the first half, it made shag all difference to me :pac:

But I don't fear death, its the way the universe is. Everything dies and the atoms move onto something else.

I went to a Christian brothers school and you've not experienced indoctrination until you've had a "born-again virgin" telling 5th and 6th year boys not to use condoms when they have sex as it is an offence to God and it doesn't protect you from all STD's anyway!

igCorcaigh

I'm just posting here rather than the funeral thread.

I have mixed feelings about religion to an extent.

I hate the way the organisations have become, and I am an atheist.

I have also had a curiosity and intuition about the world since I was very young. The problem of consciousness has been a matter i have been obsessed about.

I have had experiences on psychedelics that make me think that there is something that needs to be looked at.

These experiences are not some jumbled up things that may happen in dreams, they are a witness to some intelligence that I don't understand.

I'm not here taking about drugs, man, but I think we should have a space to talk about people's experiences with the, divine?, outside the prison of traditional religion.

smacl

igCorcaigh wrote: »

I'm not here taking about drugs, man, but I think we should have a space to talk about people's experiences with the, divine?, outside the prison of traditional religion.

Kind of falls into the remit of spiritualism which in my experience has just as many snake oil salesmen as organised religion, albeit with slightly trendier clothes.

Probably worth investigating other traditions as well. I was quite into taoism when I was a bit younger and still find some great benefits to the philosophical aspect. At its simplest you can think of it as a kind of pantheism without any sentient deity involved. Basically we're all part of the same universe that will always be incomprehensible yet we can strive to make sense of subjectively. This led me in the direction of contextualism which deals with the limits of what we can comprehend reasonably well. e.g. the universe may well be deterministic but not withing the bounds of human comprehension.

All good naval gazing stuff over a couple of pints or shrooms if that's your thing.

nozzferrahhtoo

igCorcaigh wrote: »

I have had experiences on psychedelics that make me think that there is something that needs to be looked at.

There is. We need to examine the experience of such drugs more and better than we have been. Laws related to those drugs make proper randomised controlled trials hard to do.

There really is a "there" there I think when it comes to drugs and the insight and transformative experiences they can bring us.

But the "there" there just is that. The experience of drugs. If someone thinks there is anything more than that "to be looked at" then the ball for substantiation is certainly in their court. But they would have to start by explaining exactly what they mean. Such as this....

igCorcaigh wrote: »

These experiences are not some jumbled up things that may happen in dreams, they are a witness to some intelligence that I don't understand.

.... I would need to be absolutely clear as to what this even means before I engage with it. Especially as I risk dismissing it out of hand given the pile of absolute unsubstantiated horse poo most people who have said such things have turned out to be talking about. And I would hate to dismiss someone reasonable solely because of what someone else unreasonable had vomitted out.

igCorcaigh wrote: »

I'm not here taking about drugs, man, but I think we should have a space to talk about people's experiences with the, divine?, outside the prison of traditional religion.

Sure but as Christopher Hitchens used to say, such a conversation would need to start with a speration of the numinous and the divine. Many mistake the two as being the same thing. Which unfortunately results in a lot of the aforementioned horse poo.

igCorcaigh

igCorcaigh wrote: »

I have had experiences on psychedelics that make me think that there is something that needs to be looked at.

These experiences are not some jumbled up things that may happen in dreams, they are a witness to some intelligence that I don't understand.

I have had some amazing experiences on psys and through meditation too when I had time to go deep enough. And there is absolutely something there.

On both I tend to get a feeling of an over arching benign presence - or the walls drop between my experience of personal well being and the idea of all personal well being of all sentience around me. Similar to - but different from - the experience of ecstasy - where well being and the idea of any well being anywhere - loses all differentiation. There is only well being and love.

And on the best occasions the sensation of a wall dropping between the idea of my thoughts - and my being the thinker of those thoughts - drops and I can access the feeling that there is literally (in all senses of the word literally) no difference between the two.

I have seen the universe in the petals of a flower. And seen nothing but a flower when I looked at the universe.

And I very often get the sense of an intelligence that is outside myself observing me. With this horrific sensation that if only I could skew my perception a little bit - If only I just knew how - I could enter into commune with it and be "free" - but somehow I always fail to and it is denied me - and then a monkey with a 7 dimensional banana rapes me aurally. (no not a misspelling of anally or orally).

But somehow I have never lost the sensation that all of the above - comes from and is of just me. As boring as that sounds for such amazing experiences.

But I can absolutely see how people of a certain mindset might think they were in commune with the universe or a god or both - or even some answer that is even greater than both.

It certainly feels like that sometimes. But as amazing and transcendent as the experiences get - and feck me they really do - there is no actual reason to think that it is anything but your brain being perturbed in ways it was never evolved to deal with.

And the best part of all that? Such a mundane conclusion takes _nothing_ away from the experience. When you really get an experience like that - you do not need to invent gods to make it sound great. It is great in and of itself. And that is enough for me.

“Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

YMMV

iceman700

It is , in my humble opinion not possible to prove to anyone that God exists.
It is however possible for everyone to seek proof for themselves, having said that, someone in the company of another further down the path, can have their vibration increased and experience spiritual happenings.
I guess that is what lies behind people seeking out genuine Gurus, in their presence their vibration is raised.

lazygal

I thought I was vibrating but I just had my phone on the wrong setting.

corks finest

I can every day I look in the mirror

corks finest

You don't have to convince anyone end of
If youve faith ( I have) that's all you need, I see God in my family, and all around me, constantly

lazygal

I see my dna in my family.

smacl

corks finest wrote: »

You don't have to convince anyone end of
If youve faith ( I have) that's all you need, I see God in my family, and all around me, constantly

I've no problem with that, just so long as the various faithful of all the many religions out there don't try to push their beliefs on me or my family. Unfortunately that's not the case in this country with religious instruction in schools largely inescapable for most of the population. Could be the question being asked here is wrong, rather than asking "How do you convince people god exists?" perhaps it should be "Why do you try to convince people god exists?"