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You know God exists. Now thats either true or its not. Your opinion matters.

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Comments

  • #242
    Apiarist
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,803 ✭✭✭Apiarist


    God exists, and this can be proven mathematically. Our Universe is infinite and everything is possible somewhere, sometime. Now, if we are talking about the God of Moses -- that is just a superstitious rubbish.


  • #243
    Apiarist
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,803 ✭✭✭Apiarist


    mickuhaha wrote: »
    If gods created everything did gods also create themselves? Why did everything need a god to create it? If Gods always existed why can't everything always have existed without god? Does a mind need to exist before something or can something exist before a mind?

    Ah, this one is easy! God exists outside of our Universe, therefore It is not bound by the Universe's laws. God is incomprehensible by our minds limited by the time-space constraints of our existence.


  • #244
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,550 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    mickuhaha wrote: »
    "Whilst I can't exclude there being a god above God, God has dealt with gods (i.e. makey uppey gods) to my satisfaction by explaining what they are and why they were made up. When you look at them you find out that they fit the overall bill."


    So you could be open to there being a god above God and other god's but not the gods made up by humans?

    I am open to us all being brains in jars, supposing what we suppose because some sort of Frankenstein scientist/alien form sticks probes in various places. And so I must suppose there could be a God above God. Or, if a number of beings involved, God's above God

    But since such musings are pointless(solipsitic, to give it a formal title) I don't bother with such musings. I take it as I find it and suppose how I find it real.

    I, like you, are the ultimate determinator in what we hold to be the case. And occupying that position, we rightfully reap what we sow. If ultimately a brain in jar then so be it.

    The gods (zeus, diana, science-ism, etc), all human inventions, all fulfill a common function when they are inputted into a larger-than-them algorothm.

    (If there is an even larger algorithm, which encloses God also, then I am all ears.)

    That common function is to support, allow and enable human-individual self sufficency. That's the bottom line. Human desire for self sufficiency was, it must be noted, the point of split between God and man, starting at the start with Adam. Whether you take Adam as real or an allegory for something else that brought about a rupture isn't relevant to the point.

    Rupture is the point.

    Self sufficiency is the common feature in all the above mentioned gods. They allow, support and enable self sufficiency. They have been at it forever and in our day work through science-ism and philosophy.

    For what do science-ism and philosophy tell us, but precisely the same as Zeus, Diana .. and Satan. "You don't need God. You can do without God. Heck! You can be god!"

    The planet and our resources-a-dwindling are, not unpredictably, informing us to the contrary. The gods never fulfill their promises. And we most certainly have denonstrated our inability to be God. Coffin nailed shut on that one.

    For what do we really, really prize? Well, relationship, love, joy, peace, tranquility, safety and security, courage, happiness, understanding, compassion, generosity, loyalty, friendship, health....

    What have we, as gods, actually managed.

    Well, ersatz just about everything at this stage. And the hollowing out has gone exponential, now that science and big business have combined to form the perfect storm: analysing the real desire and synthesizing the fake to fill it. With just enough flavour of the real left to extract from you.

    Square tomatos and straight bananas and big tits? How we laughed at the idea once. Well, the ludicrous has become real beyond our wildest nightmares.

    Older viewers might agree.

    -

    A new paradigm, which includes all these gods AND God would need some similarly harmonising feature in order to be coherent. To me at least.

    Don't bother espousing the wonders of science/progress/ever onward and upward to me though. That recent god has sailed and unless you are blind upon blind, with the world falling into rack and ruin around us, you ought see it too.


  • #245
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,550 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Fourier wrote: »
    We have to have some assumptions to be capable of concluding things yes.

    Of course you do. Now, what do you reckon as to the objectivity, independence and purity of those assumptions. Are they not suspended from air ultimately?

    You will recognise that a bad tree bears bad fruit. And if the starting point is skewed (these assumptions of yours) so too is all downstream?

    Your critique is basically that you have an additional sense completely inaccessible to those without it.

    Well okay, why would anybody take that seriously?

    Your critique is the opposite, that I and a not insignificant number like me don't have this sense (or if we do then so what? if it doesn't pass muster re: these air assumptions). Why should I take you seriously when its as plain as the nose on our faces?

    Stalemate follows of course.

    Yet I have no trouble in making my points and hearing counters to those points, despite the overarching stalemate.

    I know what my agenda is - it's no secret. But I am not so sure what yours is, knowing, as you know it must, end in stalemate.


  • #246
    Fourier
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,558 ✭✭✭✭Fourier


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    Of course you do. Now, what do you reckon as to the objectivity, independence and purity of those assumptions. Are they not suspended from air ultimately?

    You will recognise that a bad tree bears bad fruit. And if the starting point is skewed (these assumptions of yours) so too is all downstream?
    They're the same assumptions that lead me to think that when I see a tree that there actually is a tree. Do you think those assumptions are in serious doubt?


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  • #247
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,550 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Fourier wrote: »
    They're the same assumptions that lead me to think that when I see a tree that there actually is a tree. Do you think those assumptions are in serious doubt?

    And when I see God? Do you seriously think that the kind of faculties, soft and hard, that lets us suppose trees real are somehow thrown overboard when it comes to supposing God?

    Seriously?

    Two points.

    Man is a spiritual animal. You can go the path of crass regarding that reality (a.k.a. evasion) or you can take note of it. Man as spiritual might be messy but so are crime scenes.

    Note antagonsism against the idea of a God over you. Whether the antagonsim in you or others. Man rails violently against the idea - even when he doesn't believe in God! Clue.


  • #248
    Fourier
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,558 ✭✭✭✭Fourier


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    And when I see God?
    Like see as in visually see him? What does God look like if so?
    Do you seriously think that the kind of faculties, soft and hard, that lets us suppose trees real are somehow thrown overboard when it comes to supposing God?
    No, I didn't say that.


  • #249
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,550 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Fourier wrote: »
    Like see as in visually see him? What does God look like if so?

    To be honest, I'm somewhat reticent about the prospect of face to face seeing Him ("we see now, as if through a glass darkly" - says Paul of living believers - "but then we shall see Him face to face").

    For he knows every inch of me. He knows all my thoughts and motivations. Every hidden thing I wouldn't tell a soul. Tell me anyone who wouldn't be a bit hesitant at the prospect.


    On the other hand, he is the very source and essence of all the things I mentioned a post or two above - the things we most desire and which have been ersatzed and copied and faked in our world.

    Its hard to describe what seeing him through a glass darkly is like. Often it is a reframing: you look at a father smile into the eyes of his child in the playground and you feel your fathers eyes smile into your eyes (of your soul). Him rejoicing in you as that father is rejoicing in his child. You are known, you are loved, you are safe (even if you might be crippled in a car crash on the way home). You feel as that child in the playground feels .. as you worry whether your own kid is dressed warmly enough.

    Not empirically demonstrable but nevertheless.

    Or he can speak a word of admonishment or encouragement or give you an idea to run with as a father would. Search antiskeptic + balloon and you'll get an example of what the breathe of God is like - someone reminded me of the story today.

    [It can be taken as something to run the probability figures over: wind direction, number of like ballons released in the vicinity, etc. .. with a bent on concluding it naturalistically possible. Or it can be taken as a thing of tender beauty. Your salvation doesn't depend on getting the right answer btw. We are all antagonistic, often moreso as we near salvation, if I'm anything to go by]

    Or you can be reading what he says and its as dull as ditchwater then in an instant, something that speaks into your life and situation right now. A wisdom, encapsulation and direction you'd pay the very nest therapists '000's to bring you to .. if you had the money.


    Hard to capture in words, but when you see the whole world and everything that has happened, is happening and will happen gel to make harmonious, congruent sense, it really becomes hard to take man sized theories of everything as other than faintly comical.

    Indeed, that might be the best grasp I can give you. You are educated, so you know how your field works. You know the various branches of it and how each branch has developed. You also know the effort to harmonize branches, to find unity amongst divergent branches. And the further out each branch goes the harder it is to maintain coherency.

    Your insights into your field let you know its the same in every field: engineering, medicine, psychology, sociology, politics, law. And you know that the unity between all of these fields is far less than the unity in your own field.

    The whole is very messy.

    Now imagine insight into a whole that is unified. Where you can see how the world is and why the world is as it is. And why it doesn't work and why it never will

    Seeing God enables that. Seeing clearly now the disunity. And by direct contrast, with how it is now and can't but be, the unity that is to.come.

    For that is His intent. To unify and make right all that has gone wrong.

    For what its worth, the route to God involves a recognition that there is something gone wrong that will never be put right. Not just with the world. Not primarily with the world. But with yourself.


  • #250
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37,983 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    To be honest, I'm somewhat reticent about the prospect of face to face seeing Him ("we see now, as if through a glass darkly" - says Paul of living believers - "but then we shall see Him face to face").

    For he knows every inch of me. He knows all my thoughts and motivations. Every hidden thing I wouldn't tell a soul. Tell me anyone who wouldn't be a bit hesitant at the prospect.


    On the other hand, he is the very source and essence of all the things I mentioned a post or two above - the things we most desire and which have been ersatzed and copied and faked in our world.

    Its hard to describe what seeing him through a glass darkly is like. Often it is a reframing: you look at a father smile into the eyes of his child in the playground and you feel your fathers eyes smile into your eyes (of your soul). Him rejoicing in you as that father is rejoicing in his child. You are known, you are loved, you are safe (even if you might be crippled in a car crash on the way home). You feel as that child in the playground feels .. as you worry whether your own kid is dressed warmly enough.

    Not empirically demonstrable but nevertheless.

    Or he can speak a word of admonishment or encouragement or give you an idea to run with as a father would. Search antiskeptic + balloon and you'll get an example of what the breathe of God is like - someone reminded me of the story today.

    [It can be taken as something to run the probability figures over: wind direction, number of like ballons released in the vicinity, etc. .. with a bent on concluding it naturalistically possible. Or it can be taken as a thing of tender beauty. Your salvation doesn't depend on getting the right answer btw. We are all antagonistic, often moreso as we near salvation, if I'm anything to go by]

    Or you can be reading what he says and its as dull as ditchwater then in an instant, something that speaks into your life and situation right now. A wisdom, encapsulation and direction you'd pay the very nest therapists '000's to bring you to .. if you had the money.


    Hard to capture in words, but when you see the whole world and everything that has happened, is happening and will happen gel to make harmonious, congruent sense, it really becomes hard to take man sized theories of everything as other than faintly comical.

    Indeed, that might be the best grasp I can give you. You are educated, so you know how your field works. You know the various branches of it and how each branch has developed. You also know the effort to harmonize branches, to find unity amongst divergent branches. And the further out each branch goes the harder it is to maintain coherency.

    Your insights into your field let you know its the same in every field: engineering, medicine, psychology, sociology, politics, law. And you know that the unity between all of these fields is far less than the unity in your own field.

    The whole is very messy.

    Now imagine insight into a whole that is unified. Where you can see how the world is and why the world is as it is. And why it doesn't work and why it never will

    Seeing God enables that. Seeing clearly now the disunity. And by direct contrast, with how it is now and can't but be, the unity that is to.come.

    For that is His intent. To unify and make right all that has gone wrong.

    For what its worth, the route to God involves a recognition that there is something gone wrong that will never be put right. Not just with the world. Not primarily with the world. But with yourself.

    Is that "as nutshell as you can" ?

    I'm partial to your abracadabra,

    I'm raptured by the joy of it all.



  • #251
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,367 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    - exposed to evidence.

    Great. Any time you're ready.
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    - Nozz would be on here saying the same things I'm saying

    You do like inventing straw men positions for me and now straw men actions. As flattering as it is you have a post all about me, mentioning me by name no less than 13 times, you have not represented me well at all.

    This of all your fantasies about me is the most false however. I have become convinced of things in my life by evidence I have seen but can not reproduce. Guess what? I do NOT talk about them as you have claimed, attempt to convince others of them, or in fact do anything but keep them to myself.

    If I make a claim of any kind on a forum like this it is because I feel I can, if asked or challenged, offer SOME arguments substantiation for my position. You might try it sometimes, this is where you and I differ it seems given you have offered not just paltry, not just little, but NO evidence for yours.
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    Speaking of strawmen.

    Nice of you to be honest about it and pre-label it this time because....
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    I say that is not the way it is. That your objection barks up the incorrect tree.

    .... you can say this all you want but you do not know me. I know me. And all I did was tell you something about ME. If you do not believe someones subjective description of their own subjective experience solely in the context of how it applies to themselves..... as I said this is not my problem and I do not intend to make it my problem.


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  • #252
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,367 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    Huntergonzo wrote: »
    I'm all for people having imaginary friends, but I'm not such a big fan of people trying to introduce me to their imaginary friends.

    Imaginary Friends seem to be healthy developmental processes. In Children. Not so sure of their utility in adults though.

    However SHARED imaginary friends I am not sure has ever been useful in adults or children either. Certainly I have never seen anything supporting or recommending it in any literature.

    Anecdotally in school I saw a great relationship, with a mutual affection expressed through a shared imaginary friend, being destroyed by it when they disagreed over a single barely relevant attribute oft hat imaginary friend. Of course the friend being imaginary, they had no way to rectify the disagreement. So a schism and eventually violence and hatred formed.

    The parallels between that and religions, like Christianity with its over 33,000 branches and sects, hardly needs to be made explicit.


  • #253
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,367 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    victor8600 wrote: »
    God exists, and this can be proven mathematically.

    Then, as my old maths teacher used to say daily, "Please show your workings".
    victor8600 wrote: »
    Our Universe is infinite and everything is possible somewhere, sometime.

    Please explain in clear terms, preferably with citations of relevant science, what you mean by the claim "Our Universe is infinite".
    victor8600 wrote: »
    Now, if we are talking about the God of Moses -- that is just a superstitious rubbish.

    Indeed. And as Dan Barker showed in a debate on You Tube against the unfortunately named Kyle Butt.... the god of those fables is like a "Married Bachelor" and can not by definition exist. Because the defining characteristics of it are often mutually exclusive and hence CAN NOT exist, like a married bachelor can not by definition exist.
    victor8600 wrote: »
    God is incomprehensible by our minds limited by the time-space constraints of our existence.

    Then it would seem that "god" is nothing more than a placeholder term for our ignorance. While I have intellectually no problem with that, linguistically I would merely question the utility of using a loaded term like "god" as such a placeholder when many terms exist that do not carry extraneous metaphysical garbage as baggage.

    I would just say that we find ourselves in this universe and we would love to have a complete explanation for this.

    Many Hypotheses have been put forward for it. Specifically however the hypothesis that the explanation lies in the machinations of a non-human intelligent intentional agent.... is not just slightly but ENTIRELY devoid of substantiation at this time.

    Some may be forthcoming. Just not, it seems, from this OP who is intent on making long long long posts, often with sentences that match no known English syntax, that basically say "I refuse to offer any, and anyone sceptical of my claims is to be derided and demeaned because I am fundamentally against scepticism, particularly or maybe even exclusively of any claim I deem worthy to make personally."


  • #254
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,550 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »
    Great. Any time you're ready.



    You do like inventing straw men positions for me and now straw men actions. As flattering as it is you have a post all about me, mentioning me by name no less than 13 times, you have not represented me well at all.

    This of all your fantasies about me is the most false however. I have become convinced of things in my life by evidence I have seen but can not reproduce. Guess what? I do NOT talk about them as you have claimed, attempt to convince others of them, or in fact do anything but keep them to myself.

    If I make a claim of any kind on a forum like this it is because I feel I can, if asked or challenged, offer SOME arguments substantiation for my position. You might try it sometimes, this is where you and I differ it seems given you have offered not just paltry, not just little, but NO evidence for yours.



    Nice of you to be honest about it and pre-label it this time because....



    .... you can say this all you want but you do not know me. I know me. And all I did was tell you something about ME. If you do not believe someones subjective description of their own subjective experience solely in the context of how it applies to themselves..... as I said this is not my problem and I do not intend to make it my problem.

    I think you've missed the point of the post.

    I have presented a path indicating a sequence: evidence A leading to belief A. Belief A leading to being given evidence B. Evidence B leading to belief B.

    I'm not saying the path will work for you personally. It can be cut by you between evidence A and belief A .. meaning you won't arrive at belief B. Another won't cut and so they will arrive at belief B

    The path was intended as an alternative to the view that sees belief without evidence required before evidence is produced.

    You can maintain your objection to the latter view using all the rational you have for that objection. I would agree with you - 'first believe without evidence then evidence provided' doesn't make sense. How can you believe something without evidence.

    But that objection won't work for the path I've described. Evidence leading to belief makes sense. As you yourself appear to agree.

    The point is not to provide you with evidence A. The point is to deal with your "belief > evidence is impossible" objection

    By showing you a route that is possible.

    Is that clearer?


  • #255
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,550 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    nozzferraahtoo wrote:
    Indeed. And as Dan Barker showed in a debate on You Tube against the unfortunately named Kyle Butt.... the god of those fables is like a "Married Bachelor" and can not by definition exist. Because the defining characteristics of it are often mutually exclusive and hence CAN NOT exist, like a married bachelor can not by definition exist.

    Have you an example of these mutually exclusive defining characteristics?


  • #256
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,550 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Hotblack Desiato wrote: »
    Is that "as nutshell as you can" ?

    Given the question?


  • #257
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,550 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Fourier wrote: »
    They're the same assumptions that lead me to think that when I see a tree that there actually is a tree. Do you think those assumptions are in serious doubt?

    Coming back to this bit since you say didn't say (and you didn't say) what I supposed you were saying.

    This is a fair assumption. It seems like a necessary assumption. Now what?


  • #258
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,840 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    victor8600 wrote: »
    God exists, and this can be proven mathematically. Our Universe is infinite and everything is possible somewhere, sometime.

    If everything is possible, then it must be equally possible that god doesn't exist?
    victor8600 wrote: »
    Ah, this one is easy! God exists outside of our Universe, therefore It is not bound by the Universe's laws. God is incomprehensible by our minds limited by the time-space constraints of our existence.

    But the word "God" has a meaning, maybe different to different people but quite specific to each of them. If this thing, outside of our universe, is incomprehensible by our minds then we cannot give it a label pre-created and defined in detail by our minds.


  • #259
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,367 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    I think you've missed the point of the post.

    Nope, the point of your post was to A) Not present any evidence AGAIN and B) to continue to make excuses for not doing so. Simple as. Is that clearer?

    IF you want to present evidence there is a god however, I am here for you still waiting agog. Is that clearer?

    You can go on about "Evidence A" and "Evidence B" all you like, but until you actually start presenting any then the practice is not matching the theory. Is that clearer?
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    The point is to deal with your "belief > evidence is impossible" objection

    I never said it is impossible. I said it is impossible FOR ME.

    Is that clearer?
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    Have you an example of these mutually exclusive defining characteristics?

    I provided the source reference. If you require a direct link it is here.

    Is that clearer?


  • #260
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,840 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    I have presented a path indicating a sequence: evidence A leading to belief A. Belief A leading to being given evidence B. Evidence B leading to belief B.

    What is belief A and belief B?
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    The point is not to provide you with evidence A. The point is to deal with your "belief > evidence is impossible" objection

    By showing you a route that is possible.

    Is that clearer?

    But if you don't provide evidence A then you haven't shown such a route is actually possible. At best all you have said is that such a route would be possible if some such evidence A exists. But that is moot.
    If there was some some such evidence C that could put you on the route to becoming a e.g. hindu then you would be a hindu. Without presenting even the nature of the evidence C, what exactly have I demonstrated?


  • #261
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,840 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    Given the question?

    The question was can you visually see god. You answer should be no.
    Because your response was that you can:
    1) Feel emotions
    2) Feel emotions
    3) See the weather
    4) Feel emotions
    5) Appeal to a fallacious simplicity (science is messy, god is simpler).
    None of which amounts to visually seeing god.


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  • #262
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,550 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    What is belief A and belief B?

    See post yesterday for both 16.08hrs. The evidence driving both.

    But if you don't provide evidence A then you haven't shown such a route is actually possible.

    I don't need to provide evidence A to show belief A possible. Evidence A can be taken as being whatever is necessary to produce belief A. Where belief A has the end result per the example referenced above: end if self.






    [Qukote]At best all you have said is that such a route would be possible if some such evidence A exists. But that is moot.
    If there was some some such evidence C that could put you on the route to becoming a e.g. hindu then you would be a hindu. Without presenting even the nature of the evidence C, what exactly have I demonstrated?[/quote]

    You are mistaking aim. The aim isn't to prove. The aim is to counter an objection which says Christianity requires belief before evidence will be provided.

    I say it doesn't require that. I don't have to prove the process works in order to describe what it requires.

    Nozz can say it doesn't work. But he can't say it demands belief before evidence when it doesn't demand that.


  • #263
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,367 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    I don't need to provide evidence A to show belief A possible.

    So you are establishing a claim that no one actually denied, rebutted, or took a shred of issue with. Because not one person I have seen here, least of all me, has suggested the belief is not possible. Quite the opposite. We said the belief IS possible if you provide Evidence A. You just are not presenting Evidence A. Or B, C, D, or any other letter either. You have offered NOTHING.

    Again you are more interested in talking ABOUT evidence to cover up the fact you are not offering ANY evidence. A common theist move alas, to use as many words as possible to say absolutely nothing.
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    Nozz can say it doesn't work.

    I neither seek nor require your permission, thanks all the same, but the fact is ONCE AGAIN I never said it does not work. I said it does not work FOR ME. I keep talking about me, and you keep.... despite me pulling your words out of my mouth about 5 times now... extrapolating that into stuff I simply never once said.
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    But he can't say it demands belief before evidence when it doesn't demand that.

    I never said that, so your attempt to deny me permission for something you are incapable of denying me permission, is not relevant. What I DID say was that I once came up with a workable definition of the word "faith" which when I applied it.... it was congruent with the behaviour of many theists in many cases that I observed. Not all of course. But many. Bordering on most.

    And that definition was basically that theists VERY often offer "evidence" that only works as "evidence" if and only if you assume the conclusion to be true. And you validated this yourself by offering a line of "reasoning" that perfectly matched that description. Thank you, in retrospect, for making my point for me so well.

    As I said 23ists do this too. They assume first 23 controls everything. Then suddenly the evidence for this is everywhere. They fail to notice that it would have worked for any other number they were likely to have picked too.


  • #264
    Zubeneschamali
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,644 ✭✭✭✭Zubeneschamali


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    But if you don't provide evidence A then you haven't shown such a route is actually possible.

    For me (not speaking for others) it is absolutely trivial to say that there is Evidence A, B, C etc. which would lead me to believe in a god, since I used to believe in a God and it was the absolute and utter lack of A, B C which caused me to stop believing in said god. If the evidence had been there, I would probably never have stopped.

    Why did I believe in God in the absence of evidence? Because at a young age, most of our beliefs are not based on evidence, they are based on what we are told by the people we have reason to trust.

    The fact that most religious people believe the same religion their parents taught them (even though most must obviously be wrong) tells you than many people never grow out of at least some of those beliefs. A bit like some families have voted FF, FG or Labour for generations since the foundation of the state.

    Also why you sometimes hear people (like, say, C.S. Lewis) describe a phase in growing up where they rebelled against childhood beliefs before settling on some mature version of their religion.


  • #265
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,367 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    Zubeneschamali wrote: »
    Why did I believe in God in the absence of evidence? Because at a young age, most of our beliefs are not based on evidence, they are based on what we are told by the people we have reason to trust.

    Indeed, and this is one of the reasons I became uncomfortable enough with the concept of Santa that I did not do it with my children (now 9 and 5). With great power comes responsibility, and I did not find abusing that level of trust with concepts like Santa was responsible.

    It was not a decision that sat 100% comfortably with me though. Mainly because of the argument that Santa Nonsense can act as a sort of inoculation and Vaccine against the memetic disease of religious belief. But in the end that requirement, or it's likelihood, seemed not enough to compel me to start lying to my own children.

    That for some people, like the church, have made lies to children essentially their business model.... is abhorrent to me.


  • #266
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,840 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    See post yesterday for both 16.08hrs. The evidence driving both.

    This post? I see belief B is "belief in god". What exactly is belief A?
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    Mark Hamill wrote:
    At best all you have said is that such a route would be possible if some such evidence A exists. But that is moot.
    If there was some some such evidence C that could put you on the route to becoming a e.g. hindu then you would be a hindu. Without presenting even the nature of the evidence C, what exactly have I demonstrated?

    You are mistaking aim. The aim isn't to prove. The aim is to counter an objection which says Christianity requires belief before evidence will be provided.

    I say it doesn't require that. I don't have to prove the process works in order to describe what it requires.

    Nozz can say it doesn't work. But he can't say it demands belief before evidence when it doesn't demand that.

    But without providing the evidence all you are doing is exactly what I said you were doing - saying evidence-based-belief would be possible if the evidence exists. You haven't countered the objection, you have only detailed what you need to counter it. You need the evidence.

    Nozzferrahhtoo said they wouldn't believe without evidence and christianity offers none.
    You replying that they would believe if they had evidence doesn't contradict the claim that they require evidence and that none is presented.


  • #267
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,971 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »
    Indeed, and this is one of the reasons I became uncomfortable enough with the concept of Santa that I did not do it with my children (now 9 and 5). With great power comes responsibility, and I did not find abusing that level of trust with concepts like Santa was responsible.

    It was not a decision that sat 100% comfortably with me though. Mainly because of the argument that Santa Nonsense can act as a sort of inoculation and Vaccine against the memetic disease of religious belief. But in the end that requirement, or it's likelihood, seemed not enough to compel me to start lying to my own children.

    That for some people, like the church, have made lies to children essentially their business model.... is abhorrent to me.

    At a much simpler level, Santa and The Tooth Fairy are useful examples for children that even trusted adults lie about supernatural stuff. So when teacher comes along with Jesus in tow, the 'truths' presented can be taken with a grain of salt. For kids, Santa, The Tooth Fairy and Jesus are all about bribery and threats to get them to share the lie. I suspect most kids realise this from quite a young age.


  • #268
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,367 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    ^ Yea thats exactly what I meant by an inoculation and vaccine. It was quite literally the ONLY argument that I ever found FOR doing the Santa thing. In the end it was not enough to convince me it was the right thing to do. For me. I certainly do not judge or look down on parents who DO decide to do it. Though sometimes their reasoning for doing so can be quite flawed.


  • #269
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,971 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    I don't need to provide evidence A to show belief A possible. Evidence A can be taken as being whatever is necessary to produce belief A.

    By that logic, really wanting something to be true is sufficient evidence to make it true, desire being the 'whatever' in this case. For most of us, that describes delusion.


  • #270
    Fourier
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,558 ✭✭✭✭Fourier


    Is "memetic virus" a literary term or a scientific one? i.e. is it for rhetorical effect or is there some kind of study showing certain ideas propagate a certain way?


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  • #271
    Zubeneschamali
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,644 ✭✭✭✭Zubeneschamali


    smacl wrote: »
    At a much simpler level, Santa and The Tooth Fairy are useful examples for children that even trusted adults lie about supernatural stuff.

    I never thought people were lying about Santy or God or Australia.

    I decided they were wrong about God, and just kidding about Santy and Australia. I mean, that beaver thing with the duck beak, come off it.


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